Put Parents Back Into Education! - Ronald S Toth - October 1984

Ronald S Toth

One vital element - if implemented - would revolutionize students' scholastic performance. High schools graduate functional illiterates? Young people scarcely able to read a daily newspaper or write an understandable letter? What is happening in our schools? One recent exam graphically illustrated the problem. Students placed the Sinai Desert in Vietnam. Others said former Canadian Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau was a hockey player from Montreal. Is it any wonder parents and educators are concerned about the standards and quality of the education of the young? Some of the findings of a U.S. study entitled A Nation At Risk: The Imperative for Education Reform are shocking: About 13 percent of all 17- year-olds, and perhaps 40 percent of minority youths are functionally illiterate. Matched against 21 other countries, U.S. students never ranked first in 19 academic tests and ranked last seven times among industrial nations. Average scores of high school students on standard achievement tests are lower today than before 1957- the year Sputnik set off a flurry of U.S. educational reforms. - Information Supplied By: Herbert W Armstrong Library