Why Johnny Still Can’t Read

or Write

or Understand Math

And What We Can Do About It

The current school system churns out millions of illiterates and mental zombies—but here’s how we’re going to fix it, starting today.

Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, parents across the nation grapple with a new and horrifying understanding of just how bad our educational system has become.

Absurdly complicated and illogical mathematical instruction? Check.

Dumbed-down reading and writing assignments? Check.

Lazy and uneducated teachers? Check.

Radical political indoctrination? Check.

It all adds up to a system that seems hopelessly, terribly, and irrevocably broken.

But as an educator and author, Andrew Bernstein reminds us that American education in the nineteenth through the early twentieth century was superb. This nation once knew how to turn out the brightest, most resourceful, and independent-thinking people the world had ever seen. We can do it again.

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Contents

Introduction

Part One: The Current Crisis of American Schooling and How We Go t There

Chapter One:   The Terrible State of U.S. Schooling

Chapter Two: Superb Education in America’s Past

Chapter Three: The American War Against Reading and Learning Begins

Chapter Four: The Curse of the CRSE

Chapter Five: John Dewey—the Arch-Villain of U.S. Schooling

Chapter Six: Educational Supporters of Literacy and Learning

Chapter Seven: The Enemies of Intellectual Training Attack

Chapter Eight: The Great Reading Wars

Chapter Nine: Dumbing Down the Rest of the Curriculum

Part Two: How We Can Fix the Educational Disaster  

Chapter Ten: Teacher Training—The Mess That It Is And How We Can Fix it

Chapter Eleven: The Impregnable Fortress

Chapter Twelve: Parents in Charge—the Past

Chapter Thirteen: Parents in Charge—Overseas

Chapter Fourteen: Parents in Charge—At Home  

Chapter Fifteen: The Educational Bonanza of Privatizing Government Schools 

Chapter Sixteen: What Schooling Could and Should be Like

Chapter Seventeen: Curricula and the Order of Presentation

Afterword