Why Johnny Can't Read (Unless Homeschooled)

FOX NEWS
Wednesday, July 19, 2006
By Robert Roy Britt

Why Johnny Can't Read: Schools Favor Girls

Studies have long shown that boys in the United States and around the world do not read or write as well as girls. There are several reasons, according to the common wisdom:

— Girls mature more quickly.

— Boys are more likely to suffer dyslexia and other reading disorders.

— Race and poverty play a role.

But a new study finds that the problem cuts across socioeconomic lines and pins part of the blame on schools, whose techniques cater to the strengths of girls and leave boys utterly disinterested.

Can't read a newspaper

The research, by psychology professor Judith Kleinfeld at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks, finds that nearly one-quarter of high school seniors across the United States who are sons of white, college-educated parents have woeful reading skills, ranking "below basic" on a national standardized test.

"These boys cannot read a newspaper and get the main point," Kleinfeld told LiveScience. "These boys cannot read directions for how to use equipment and follow them."

And the problem is getting worse.

The federal government's 2002 National Assessment of Educational Progress reported that 26.3 percent of high school seniors scored below basic in reading skills.

In a finer analysis of that data, Kleinfeld found that 23 percent of white sons of college-educated parents scored below basic, up from 13 percent in 1992. (Among girls with white, college-educated parents, only about 6 percent fall into the below-basic category.)

Kleinfeld presented her results last month at the White House Conference on Helping America's Youth in Indianapolis. She has not yet submitted the findings to a journal for peer .

Lack of motivation

The problem is partly developmental, Kleinfeld said.

"Girls mature more quickly than boys," she said. "They enter school with bigger vocabularies and better fine motor skills, so it's easier for them to learn to write."

And as boys enter junior high and high school, their motivation wanes.

"Many boys are disengaging from school," Kleinfeld says. "The U.S. Department of Education’s surveys of student commitment show that boys are far less likely than girls to do homework or to come to school with the supplies they need."

In an interview, one boy summed up the problem for Kleinfeld.

He said: "Why would anyone want to read novels? They aren't even true!"

What schools should learn

In separate research that Kleinfeld is also preparing for publication, she has possibly gotten to the root of the problem.

"Here's a fascinating fact," she said. "There is no literacy gap in home-schooled boys and girls." [emphasis added]

"Why? In school, teachers emphasize reading literature and talking about character and feelings," she said. "This way of teaching reading does not turn boys on. Boys prefer reading nonfiction, such as history and adventure books. When they are taught at home, parents are more likely to let them follow their interests.

'Nuff said...

German Homeschooled Girl Returned Home

Posted: May 17, 2007
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com

A German appeals court has ordered legal custody of Melissa Busekros, the teenager who was taken from her home by a police squad and detained in a psychiatric hospital for being homeschooled, be returned to her family because she no longer is in danger...

The lower court's ruling had ordered police officers to take Melissa – then 15 – from her home, if necessary by force, and place her in a mental institution for a variety of evaluations. She was kept in custody from early February until April, when she turned 16 and under German law was subject to different laws.

At that point she simply walked away from the foster home where she had been required to stay and returned home, but she and her family had been living under the possibility that police would intervene again.
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May 17, 2007

Home School Legal Defense Association

German Appeals Court Returns Custody of Homeschooled Girl to Parents

Your prayers and support have helped make possible a rare victory for a homeschooling family in Germany. Yesterday, a German appeals court in Bavaria set aside a lower court ruling that had authorized the Youth Welfare Office in Erlangen Germany to retain custody of 16-year-old homeschooler Melissa Busekros.

In its opinion the Appeals Court stated that although the lower court ruling was justified based on the evidence at the time, later evidence shows that there is no danger to Melissa’s well-being at home.

In an email to Home School Legal Defense Association the Busekros had this to say:

“The decision by the family court was partially repealed. The important points (custody) were revoked! What remains are the court-appointed lawyer and the evaluation. The urgent appeal has thereby been completed, but now the main case continues in the family court. However, urgent decisions without a hearing may no longer be made. Thank you for all the help we received through phone-calls, emails, letters, parcels, newspaper articles, radio, TV and prayers!!”

Your support of HSLDA and our Home School Foundation’s Germany Fund has allowed us to help fund Melissa's attorney who appealed the lower courts decision achieving this important victory.

HSLDA acknowledges the efforts of other organizations including the International Human Rights Group, and two German Homeschooling Organizations, Schuzh and Netzwerk Bildungsfreiheit. The work of these groups, along with HSLDA and HSLDA members who made phone calls, sent letters and emails, helped maintain constant pressure on this issue and doubtless helped to create the groundwork for this decision.

In spite of this positive development for the Busekros family, the plight of German homeschoolers continues with constant harassment, fines and worse by German authorities. HSLDA’s new strategy to help create change in Germany will involve funding academic studies, political lobbying, and legal defense for families in need, like the Busekros family. This strategy supports the work being done by German homeschoolers to change the laws so that Homeschooling in Germany becomes free and legal.

Thank you for all you do on behalf of Homeschooling freedom here in the United States and in Germany.

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We had better take note of this state of affairs in Germany, because it is not a stretch at all to see that happening here in America. In fact it would be instructive to look into the state of affairs in that country, just to see how they arrived at the level of government/ judicial intervention which can forcibly take a home-schooled child away from her parents, because she showed "too great a devotion to her family". And the fight in good old Deutschland isn't over by a long shot. They backed off because of negative pressure from human rights groups such as the Home School Legal Defense Association, but the homeschoolers are very much still under the gun, both figuratively and literally.

And here in the USA, it is the game-plan to subvert the money vouchers, and use their influence to set the federal, permissible guidelines in which private schools are held to the same dumbing-down curricula being fostered on public schools. Three days ago, Secretary of Education, Margaret Spellings, made this pronouncement in a key-note address to the NAACP:

"I believe it [No Child Left Behind] is not just an education law, it's a civil rights law, designed to make America's promise a reality for all its citizens".

Better pay attention when they start talking about "civil rights" for children. That's Newspeak for putting parental rights on the side, which you may have noticed, they are already doing.


Homeschoolers, you are next on their agenda. Get ready for a fight.

And you had better believe Shrillary (it takes a village) Clinton has designs on our children. The modus operandi these days for the One World Government gang, of which she is a paid-up member, is to follow the Communist's "two steps forward, one step back" method, always with the goal of creating the most powerful federal public education system possible. They do this by linking the money for education to their NWO global agenda. "Guidelines" set by the Trilateral Commission founded by Bilderberger David Rockefeller, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), and the NEA, will continue to dominate unless and until enough sovereign Americans say, enough - STOP.

Hillary proposes preschool for all in federal-state effort

By Amy Fagan
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
May 22, 2007

Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton yesterday proposed that the federal government provide states with up to $10 billion to ensure all 4-year-olds have pre-kindergarten education.

"Every child not just children whose parents can afford it should have the same chance to succeed," said Mrs. Clinton, New York Democrat. "As president, I will establish universal pre-kindergarten education through a federal-state partnership."

In the first major education initiative of her campaign, Mrs. Clinton proposed a voluntary program yesterday that would start with a $5 billion federal commitment for interested states to create universal pre-K programs or bolster their existing ones, including Head Start. States would match the investment dollar for dollar, and the federal contribution would increase to $10 billion over five years, as state investment did.

Mrs. Clinton said she'd pay for the hefty price tag by getting rid of tax loopholes and some Bush administration programs, according to the Associated Press. She said ending the Iraq war would free up some money as well, the AP reported.

Critics said her pre-K plan would be major expansion of the federal role in education, when preschool programs haven't truly been proven effective.

"Senator Clinton is really proposing to pressure states into implementing universal preschool. That's really a remarkable new role for federal government," said Dan Lips of the Heritage Foundation. Thirty-eight states had preschool programs in 2006, according to the National Institute for Early Education Research. The Clinton camp stressed their program would be voluntary, but Mr. Lips said the draw of money would lure states into what would become a web of new federal rules.

And no, it doesn't stop. There is a madness engulfing the world, and it is beginning to look doubtful that a sane political solution will prevail. But that is all the more reason to fight the forces of darkness as if our very existence depends on it - because in fact, it does.