Decline of Education and Morals

Imposters in the Temple	Imposters in the Temple by Martin Anderson; From Kirkus Reviews: After 35 years in academia, Anderson (Senior Fellow/Hoover Institution) gives a cri de coeur about what's gone so dreadfully wrong with the American university: Academic intellectuals, he says, have ``betrayed their profession'' and, within the halls of academe, ``integrity is dead.'' Strong charges, but Anderson does nothing if not back them up with facts, figures, and plenty of common-sense observation.	Illiberal Education: The Politics of...	Illiberal Education: The Politics of Race and Sex on Campus by Dinesh D'Souza Ingram: As it "illuminates the crisis of liberal education and offers proposals for reform which deserve full debate" (Morton Halperin, American Civil Liberties Union), "Illiberal Education" "documents how the politics of race and gender in our universities are rapidly eating away traditions of scholarship and reward for individual achievement" (Robert H. Bork)
	Dumbing Down Our Kids: Why America's Children Feel Good About Themselves but Can't Read, Write, or Add by Charles J. Sykes; From Booklist: Sykes summarizes complaints about current U.S. elementary and secondary education so well that if you want to know what the fuss is all about, you could do no better than read his book. Each chapter takes up a particular educational malady, from "The Religion of Self-Esteem" and the simplification of texts and tests, through values education and the deleterious mainstreaming of "special needs" children, to the powerful teachers union that has been dubbed the "National Extortion Association" and...		The Conspiracy of Ignorance: The Failure of American Public Schools by Martin L. Gross; From Amazon: ... Gross rails against the declining performance of U.S. students. While his criticisms--which encompass everything from teachers' unions to "useless" education degrees, PTAs, psychological services in schools, even honor roll bumper stickers--are not new, they make an imposing indictment when presented all together. Gross poses a number of radical solutions, including the elimination of undergraduate schools of education ...
	Angry Parents, Failing Schools: What's Wrong With the Public Schools & What You Can Do About It by Elaine K. McEwan; Reviewer: A reader: As a parent who was having doubts about the curriculum and instructional methods in our schools, I read this book from cover to cover in one night. Elaine McEwan strips the candy coating off such methods as multiage classrooms, School-to-Work, whole language, and Every Day math and exposes them for what they are: viruses that are invading our schools and failing our children. This book not only helps parents identify the problems in their schools, it also gives great advice on how to work at making changes		The Schools We Need: And Why We Don't Have Them by E. D., Jr. Hirsch; Amazon: Everyone wonders why American schools have gone bad. E.D. Hirsch, author of Cultural Literacy, offers a compelling explanation. Schools do a lousy job of transmitting "core knowledge" to their students, he says. To improve, they must abandon all of their feel-good theories about "critical thinking" and work harder to endow kids with intellectual capital at an early age.
	What Your Kindergartner Needs to Know: Preparing Your Child for a Lifetime of Learning (Core Knowledge Series) by E. D. Hirsch; Reviewer: A reader: The book is full of a lot of information. I'm using "What Your Kindergartener Needs to Know" as the base book for homeschooling my daughter. Not only are there many recommendations but, there are complete stories and songs in the book to allow you to teach without having to purchase other books. There is more information in the book than I thought my daughter could comprehend. But, I offer some of the information to her and she understands and wants more.		The Montessori Method by Maria Montessori, J. McV Hunt; Book Description : This book is Montessori's own exposition of the theory behind her innovative educational techniques. She shows parents, teachers and administrators how to "free a child to learn through his own efforts".
The Absorbent Mind	The Absorbent Mind by Maria Montessori; Amazon Reviewer: This is Montessori's last book, and the most in-depth discussion of her theory based on decades of scientific observation of children. It discusses the special mind of the child, and how nurturing the special potentialities that only children have is the only way to change (and save) humanity. Montessori's theories are particularly interesting today in light of recent neurological discoveries, especially those related to critical periods and language.		The Secret of Childhood by Maria Montessori; Amazon Reviewer: Stephen Dressler: This as well as many books written by Dr. Montessori are enlightening, educational and serve as a model for all parents raising children today. Her vision of peace and all of her teachings need to be brought to responsible parents and care givers. Children are our future....peace was Maria Montessori's vision....teach it!
	The Educated Child: A Parents Guide From Preschool Through Eighth Grade by William J. Bennett, Chester E., Jr. Finn, John T. E., Jr. Cribb; From Booklist: Bennett, former education czar and author of The Book of Virtues (1993), collaborates with Chester Finn and John Cribb to provide a guide for what parents should expect their children to learn at each stage of grade school. The book is organized by age and grade level, with information on preparing young children for their first school experience to preparing adolescents for high school.		The Book of Virtues: A Treasury of Great Moral Stories by William J. Bennett; From Booklist: The principled former secretary of education has culled a selection of poems and stories to be read aloud in hopes of passing on specific virtues to the younger generation. The selected works appear under chapter titles such as "Compassion"; "Responsibility"; "Friendship"; "Courage"; "Perseverance"; and "Faith."
	Losing Ground: American Social Policy, 1950-1980 by Charles Murray; Amazon Reviewer: Todd Weiner: This is an important book that explains an incredible transformation in American social policy. Sometime around the mid-1960s, a new code of private values and government policies pushed their way into mainstream society. This vision and its consequences were a radical departure from our nation's past. ...		The Tragedy of American Compassion by Marvin Olasky; Amazon Reviewer: Fellow lefties and liberals , it is time to listen patiently to what Marvin Olasky has to say, at least to his main premise. If we are honest, welfare-by-government has not only helped a lot of people but also caused a lot of problems. If we are honest, we all feel there must be a better way. I was astonished to find myself agreeing with Olasky on one big point: he says that you may help the needy, but only if you are close enough to them to know who they are, and what their real needs are.
	Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline by Robert H. Bork; Commentary Magazine, April 1997, Joseph Adelson This book, which became a (perhaps) unexpected bestseller, is a catalogue raisonnie of the legacy of the 1960s, and in particular of that decade's sudden explosion of hatred toward this country on the part of some of its most privileged citizens, the children of the liberal middle class. To read Judge Bork's succinct account in the opening pages of the events he witnessed on the campus of Yale University, where he then taught in the law school, is to recall the surprise and confusion some of us... read more		Our Character, Our Future by Alan L. Keyes; From Booklist: Keyes, the first black Republican presidential candidate in living memory, stresses the social agenda--abortion, homosexuality, welfare reform, religion. He cites not the Bible for authority as much as the Declaration of Independence, especially its assertion that human rights are "endowed by our Creator," not by political or personal fiat. He wants to restore moral order in the republic and personal responsibility in the citizen. This collection of 4 speeches and 31 revised newspaper columns shows that he is not just a Jeremiah crying doom for America if it doesn't repent; he has cogent things to say about welfare, health care, campaign costs, and other practical public matters.
	The Culture of Disbelief: How American Law and Politics Trivialize Religious Devotion by Stephen L. Carter; From Book News: In our (Americans) sensible zeal to keep religion from dominating our politics, argues Carter (law, Yale U.), we have constructed political and legal cultures that force the religiously devout to act as if their faith doesn't really matter. Carter goes on to explain how we can preserve the separation of church and state while embracing rather than trivializing the faith of millions of citizens.	A Nation of Victims: The Decay of the...	A Nation of Victims: The Decay of the American Character by Charles J. Sykes; From Kirkus: ...He traces the rise of ``victimism'' to several sources, including psychiatry, whose ``therapeutic culture,'' he says, has stigmatized bourgeois family values and encouraged fruitless searches for personal happiness, and the civil-rights movement, which, he contends, switched its agenda from equal opportunity to equal results and spawned a host of other aggrieved interest groups that did the same. Sykes particularly scores in criticizing Theodor Adorno's The Authoritarian Personality for labelling traditional conservative beliefs as psychologically diseased, and he discovers hilarious lawsuits that reveal claimants' astonishing chutzpah
	The Death of Common Sense: How Law Is Suffocating America by Philip K. Howard; Book Description: Distressing, disturbing, devastatingly detailed--this stunning examination of how modern laws are diminishing America exposes the drawbacks of rule-bound government, tells why nothing gets done, reveals the phony pretensions of law, and shows why well-intentioned laws have actually devalued rights. In short, The Death of Common Sense demonstrates how the buck never stops and how ell-meaning laws are creating a nation of enemies.		The Rule of Lawyers: How the New Litigation Elite Threatens America's Rule of Law by Walter Olson; From Publishers Weekly: Olson, a veteran legal commentator (The Litigation Explosion) and senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, profiles a sector of the American legal system that he contends is out of control, inflicting serious damage on the nation's economy. The target of Olson's polemic is the use of class actions by a coterie of private lawyers who extract enormous verdicts and settlements from lawsuits against producers of tobacco, asbestos, automobiles, pharmaceuticals and the like. ...
	The Lost Art of Drawing the Line: How Fairness Went Too Far by Philip K. Howard; From Publishers Weekly: He begins The Lost Art of Drawing the Line by noting the damage predatory litigation has done to the communal fabric of the United States: "Social relations in America, far from steadied by law's sure hand, are a tangle of frayed legal nerves." He tells how seesaws have started to vanish from playgrounds, how teachers are banned from touching students, and how emergency-room staff are blocked from attending to patients off hospital grounds--even if they can see them bleeding to death just 30 feet away.		Who Stole Feminism?: How Women Have Betrayed Women by Christina Hoff Sommers; From Booklist: Though several women have begun to speak out against the shrill and paranoic "backlash" feminism that has left many feeling slightly alienated from the term itself, it is hard to imagine a critique of that position more devastating than this from philosopher and "equity" feminist Sommers. In essence, it is a patient account of the heavy boots of propaganda crushing truth and stirring the young into a frenzy of anger. It rejects the dangerously totalitarian "gender" feminism of Susan Faludi, (early) Naomi Wolf, Gloria Steinem, Catherine MacKinnon, and the like, in favor of a more classic, "equity" feminism ...
	The War Against Boys: How Misguided Feminism Is Harming Our Young Men by Christina Hoff Sommers: "It's a bad time to be a boy in America," writes Christina Hoff Sommers. Boys are less likely than girls to go to college or do their homework. They're more likely to cheat on tests, wind up in detention, or drop out of school. Yet it's "the myth of the fragile girl," according to Sommers, that has received the lion's share of attention recently ...		The Politically Incorrect Guide to English and American Literature-11/30 Front Page, By Jamie Glazov-- FP: Dr. Kantor, welcome to Frontpage Interview. Kantor: Thanks so much for having me on Frontpage. FP: What motivated you to write this book? Kantor: The fact that the great works of literature in English are vanishing from college curricula, or else being distorted beyond recognition. English professors are teaching--no joke--comic books, foreign films, Marx, Freud, "deconstruction," popular music, even porn, instead of the classics. This stuff isn't in just a few oddball classes. It’s course after course, in colleges from the Ivy League to your local state school. And then, when politically correct English profs do turn their attention to the great works of English lit., they use them to forward their own political agendas--they dig through our literary classics looking for examples of the racism, colonialism, and "patriarchy," that are supposed to be the essence of Western culture. If English literature disappears, there are serious implications for Western civilization. I know it sounds grandiose, maybe even a little paranoid, to say English professors are a threat to our civilization. But think about it: our culture isn't in our genes; it's learned. And one important way that Western culture used to be learned was from the great literature in English. Shakespeare was an essential part of what made educated Americans and citizens of the West. The disappearance of English literature ought to concern those of us who are aware that Western civilization is a source of freedom, not oppression. ...