John Dewey’s Plan to Dumb-Down America
As It Appeared in the FORUM,
Vol. XXV, May 1898, Pages 315 to 328
(Reformatted by Bob Montgomery Thomas, April 30, 2013)
The Primary-Education Fetich
It is some years since the educational world was more or less agitated by an attack upon
the place occupied by Greek in the educational scheme. If, however, Greek occupies the place of
a fetich, its worshippers are comparatively few in number, and its influence is relatively slight.
There is, however, a false educational god whose idolaters are legion, and whose cult influences
the entire educational system. This is language-study––the study not of foreign language, but of
English; not in higher, but in primary education. It is almost an unquestioned assumption, of
educational theory and practice both, that the first three years of a child’s school life shall be
mainly taken up with learning to read and write his own language. If we add to this the learning
or a certain amount of numerical combinations, we have the pivot about which primary
education swings. Other subjects may be taught; but they are introduced in strict subordination.
The very fact that this procedure, as part of the natural and established course of
education, is assumed as inevitable,––opposition being regarded as captious and revolutionary,––
indicates that, historically, there are good reasons for the position assigned to these studies. It
does not follow, however, that because this course was once wise it is so any longer. On the
contrary, the fact, that this mode of education was adapted to past conditions, is in itself a reason
why it should no longer hold supreme sway. The present has its claims. It is in education, if
anywhere, that the claims of the present should be controlling. To educate on the basis of past
surroundings is like adapting an organism to an environment which no longer exists. The
individual is stultified, if not disintegrated; and the course of progress is blocked. My
proposition is, that conditions––social, industrial, and intellectual––have undergone such a
radical change, that the time has come for a thoroughgoing examination of the emphasis put
upon linguistic work in elementary instruction.
The existing status was developed in a period when ability to read was practically the
sole avenue to knowledge, when it was the only tool which insured control over the accumulated
spiritual resources of civilization. Scientific methods of observation, experimentation, and
testing were either unknown or confined to a few specialists at the upper end of the educational
ladder. Because these methods were not free, were not capable of anything like general use, it
was not possible to permit the pupil to begin his school career in direct contact with the materials
of nature and of life. The only guarantee, the only criterion of values, was found in the ways in
which the great minds of the past had assimilated and interpreted such materials. To avoid
intellectual chaos and confusion, it was necessary reverently to retrace the steps of the fathers.
The régime of intellectual authority and tradition, in matters of politics, morals, and culture, was
a necessity, where methods of scientific investigation and verification had not been developed, or
were in the hands of the few. We often fail to see that the dominant position occupied by book learning in school education is simply a corollary and relic of this epoch of intellectual development.
Ordinary social conditions were congruent with this intellectual status. While it cannot
be said that, in the formative period of our educational system in America, authority and tradition
were the ultimate sources of knowledge and belief, it must be remembered that the immediate
surroundings of our ancestors were crude and undeveloped. Newspapers, magazines, libraries,
art-galleries, and all the daily play of intellectual intercourse and reaction which is effective today were non-existent. If any escape existed from the poverty of the intellectual environment, or
any road to richer and wider mental life, the exit was through the gateway of books. In
presenting the attainments of the past, these maintained the bonds of spiritual continuity, and
kept our forefathers from falling to the crude level of their material surroundings.
When ability to read and write marked the distinction between the educated and the
uneducated man, not simply in the scholastic sense, but in the sense of one who is enslaved by
his environment and one who is able to take advantage of and rise above it, corresponding
importance attached to acquiring these capacities. Reading and writing were obviously what they
are still so often called––the open doors to learning and to success in life. All the meaning that
belongs to these ends naturally transferred itself to the means through which alone they could be
realized. The intensity and ardor with which our forefathers set themselves to master reading
and writing, the difficulties overcome, the interest attached in the ordinary routine of school-life
to what now seems barren,––the curriculum of the three R’s,––all testify to the motive-power
these studies possessed. To learn to read and write was an interesting, even exciting, thing: it
made such a difference in life.
It is hardly necessary to say that the conditions, intellectual as well as social, have
changed. There are undoubtedly rural regions where the old state of things still persists. With
reference to these, what I am saying has no particular meaning. But, upon the whole, the advent
of quick and cheap mails, of easy and continuous travel and transportation, of the telegraph and
telephone, the establishment of libraries, art-galleries, literary clubs, the universal diffusion of
cheap reading-matter, newspapers and magazines of all kinds and grades,––all these have
worked a tremendous change in the immediate intellectual environment. The values of life and of
civilization, instead of being far away and correspondingly inaccessible, press upon the
individual––at least in cities––with only too much urgency and stimulating force. We are more
likely to be surfeited than starved: there is more congestion than lack of intellectual nutriment.
The capital handed down from past generations, and upon whose transmission the
integrity of civilization depends, is no longer amassed in those banks termed books, but is in
active and general circulation, at an extremely low rate of interest. It is futile to try to conceal
from ourselves the fact that this great change in the intellectual atmosphere––this great change in
the relation of the individual to accumulated knowledge––demands a corresponding educational
readjustment. The significance attaching to reading and writing, as primary and fundamental
instruments of culture, has shrunk proportionately as the immanent intellectual life of society has
quickened and multiplied. The result is that these studies lose their motive and motor force.
They have become mechanical and formal, and out of relation––when made dominant––to the
rest of life.
They are regarded as more or less arbitrary tasks which must be submitted to because one
is going to that mysterious thing called a school, or else are covered up and sugar-coated with all
manner of pretty devices and tricks in order that the child may absorb them unawares. The
complaint made by some, that the school curriculum of today does not have the disciplinary
value of the old-fashioned three R’s, has a certain validity. But this is not because the old ideal
has been abandoned. It is because it has been retained in spite of the change of conditions.
Instead of frankly facing the situation, and asking ourselves what studies can be organized which
shall do for to-day what language-study did for former generations, we have retained that as the
centre and core of our course of study, and dressed it out with a variety of pretty pictures,
objects, and games, and a smattering of science.
Along with this change in the relation of intellectual material and stimulus to the
individual there has been an equally great change in the method and make-up of knowledge
itself. Science and art have become free. The simplest processes and methods of knowing and
doing have been worked out to such a point that they are no longer the monopolistic possessions
of any class or guild. They are, in idea, and should be in deed, part of the social commonwealth.
It is possible to initiate the child from the first in a direct, not abstract or symbolical, way, into
the operations by which society maintains its existence, material and spiritual.
The processes of production, transportation, consumption, etc., by which society keeps up
its material continuity, are conducted on such a large and public scale that they are obvious and
objective. Their reproduction in embryonic form through a variety of modes of industrial
training is entirely within the bounds of possibility. Moreover, methods of the discovery and
communication of truth––upon which the spiritual unity of society depends––have become direct
and independent, instead of remote and tied to the intervention of teacher or book. It is not
simply that children can acquire a certain amount of scientific information about things organic
and inorganic: if that were all, the plea for the study of the history and literature of the past, as
more humanistic, would be unanswerable. No; the significant thing is that it is possible for the
child at an early day to become acquainted with, and to use, in a personal and yet relatively
controlled fashion, the methods by which truth is discovered and communicated, and to make his
own speech a channel for the expression and communication of truth; thus putting the linguistic
side where it belongs––subordinate to the appropriation and conveyance of what is genuinely
and personally experienced.
A similar modification, almost revolution, has taken place in the relation which the
intellectual activities bear to the ordinary practical occupations of life. While the child of bygone
days was getting an intellectual discipline whose significance he appreciated in the school, in his
home life he was securing acquaintance in a direct fashion with the chief lines of social and
industrial activity. Life was the main rural. The child came into contact with the scenes of
nature, and was familiarized with the care of domestic animals, the cultivation of the soil, and the
raising of crops. The factory system being undeveloped, the home was the centre of industry.
Spinning, weaving, the making of clothes, etc., were all carried on there. As there was little
accumulation of wealth, the child had to take part in these, as well as to participate in the usual
rounds of household occupations.
Only those who have passed through such training, and, later
on, have seen children reared in city environments, can adequately realize the amount of training,
mental and moral, involved in this extra-school life. That our successful men have come so
largely from the country, is an indication of the educational value bound up with such
participation in this practical life. It was not only an adequate substitute for what we now term
manual training, in the development of the hand and eye, in the acquisition skill and deftness; but
it was initiation into self-reliance, independence of judgment and action, and was the best
stimulus to habits of regular and continuous work.
In the urban and suburban life of a child to-day this is simply a memory. The invention
of machinery; the institution of the factory system; the division of labor; have changed the home
from a workshop into a simple dwelling-place. The crowding into cities and the increase in
servants have deprived the child of an opportunity to take part in those occupations which still
remain. Just at the time when a child is subjected to a great increase in stimulus and pressure
from his environment, he loses the practical and motor training necessary to balance his
intellectual development. Facility in acquiring information is gained: the power of using it is
lost. While need of the more formal intellectual training in the school has decreased, there arises
an urgent demand for the introduction of methods of manual and industrial discipline which shall
give the child what he formerly obtained in his home and social life.
Here we have at least a prima facie case for reconsideration of the whole question of the
relative importance of learning to read and write in primary education. Hence the necessity of
meeting the question at closer quarters. What can be said against giving up the greater portion of
the first two years of school life to the mastery of linguistic form? In the first place,
physiologists are coming to believe that the sense organs and connected nerve and motor
apparatus of the child are not at this period best adapted to the confining and analytic work of
learning to read and write. There is an order in which sensory and motor centres develop,––an
order expressed, in a general way, by saying that the line of progress is from the larger, coarser
adjustments having to do with the bodily system as a whole (those nearest the trunk of the body)
to the finer and accurate adjustments having to do with the periphery and extremities of the
organism.
The oculist tells us that the vision of the child is essentially that of the savage; being
adapted to seeing large and somewhat remote objects in the mass––not near-by objects in detail.
To violate this law means undue nervous strain: it means putting the greatest tension upon the
centres least able to do the work. At the same time, the lines of activity which are hungering and
thirsting for action are left, unused, to atrophy. The act of writing–– especially in the barbarous
fashion, long current in the school, of compelling the child to write on ruled lines in a small hand
and with the utmost attainable degree of accuracy––involves a nicety and complexity of
adjustments of muscular activity which can only be appreciated by the specialist. As the
principal of a Chicago school has wittily remarked in this connection, “The pen is literally
mightier than the sword.”
Forcing children at a premature age to devote their entire attention to
theses refined and cramped adjustments has left behind a sad record of injured nervous systems
and of muscular disorders and distortions. While there are undoubted exceptions, present
physiological knowledge points to the age of about eight years as early enough for anything
more than an incidental attention to visual and written language-form.
We must not forget that these forms are symbols. I am far from depreciating the value of
symbols in our intellectual life. It is hardly too much to say that all progress in civilization upon
the intellectual side has depended upon increasing invention and control of symbols of one sort
or another. Nor do I join in the undiscriminating cry of those who condemn the study of language
as having to do with mere words, not with realities. Such a position is one-sided, and is as crude
as the view against which it is a reaction.
But there is an important question here: Is the child of
six or seven years ready for symbols to such an extent that the stress of educational life can be
thrown upon them? If we were to look at the question independently of the existing school
system, in the light of the child’s natural needs and interests at this period, I doubt if there could
be found anyone who would say that the urgent call of the child of six and seven is for this sort
of nutriment, instead of for more direct introduction into the wealth of natural and social forms
that surrounds him. No doubt the skilful teacher often succeeds in awakening an interest in these
matters; but the interest has to be excited in a more or less artificial way, and, when excited, is
somewhat factitious, and independent of other-interests of child-life. At this point the wedge is
introduced and driven in, which marks the growing divorce between school and outside interests
and occupations.
We cannot recur too often in educational matters to the conception of John Fiske, that
advance in civilization is an accompaniment of the prolongation of infancy. Anything which, at
this period, develops to a high degree any set of organs and centres at the expense of others
means premature specialization, and the arrest of an equable and all-around development. Many
educators are already convinced that premature facility and glibness in the matter of numerical
combinations tend toward an arrested development of certain higher spiritual capacities. The
same thing is true in the matter of verbal symbols. Only the trained psychologist is aware of the
amount of analysis and abstraction demanded by the visual recognition of a verbal form. Many
suppose that abstraction is found only where more or less complex reasoning exists. But as a
matter of fact the essence of abstraction is found in compelling attention to rest upon elements
which are more or less cut off from direct channels of interest and action. To require a child to
turn away from the rich material which is all about him, to which he spontaneously attends, and
which is his natural, unconscious food, is to compel the premature use of analytic and abstract
powers.
It is willfully to deprive the child of that synthetic life, that unconscious union with his
environment, which is his birthright and privilege. There is every reason to suppose that a
premature demand upon the abstract intellectual capacity stands in its own way. It cripples
rather than furthers later intellectual development. We are not yet in a position to know how
much of the inertia and seeming paralysis of mental powers in later periods is the direct outcome
of excessive and too early to appeal to isolated intellectual capacity. We must trust to the
development of physiology and psychology to make these matters so clear that school authorities
and the public opinion which controls them shall have no option. Only then can we hope to
escape that deadening of the childish activities which led Jowett to call education “the grave of
the mind.”
Were the matter not so serious it would be ludicrous, when we reflect all this time and
effort to reach the end to which they are specially consecrated. It is a common saying among
intelligent educators that they can go into a schoolroom and select the children who picked up
reading at home: they read so much more naturally and intelligently. The stilted, mechanical,
droning, and sing-song ways of reading which prevail in many of our schools are simply the
reflex of the lack of motive. Reading is made an isolated accomplishment. There are no aims in
the child’s mind which he feels he can serve by reading; there is no mental hunger to be satisfied;
there are no conscious problems with reference to which he uses books. The book is a reading lesson. He learns to read not for the sake of what he reads, but for the mere sake of reading.
When the bare process of reading is thus made an end in itself, it is a psychological impossibility
for reading to be other than lifeless.
It is quite true that all better teachers now claim that the formal act of reading should be
made subordinate to the sense of what is read, that the child has first to grasp the idea, and then
to express his mental realization. But, under present conditions, this profession cannot be carried
out. The following paragraph from the report of the Committee of Fifteen on elementary
education states clearly enough the reason why; though, as it seems to me, without any
consciousness of the real inference which should be drawn from the facts set forth:-
“The first three years’ work of the child is occupied mainly with the mastery of the
printed and written forms of the words of his colloquial vocabulary,––words that he is already
familiar enough with as sounds addressed to the ear. He has to become familiar with the new
forms addressed to the eye; and it would be an unwise method to require him to learn many new
words at the same time that he is learning to recognize his old words· in their new shape. But as
soon as he has acquired (before three years) some facility in reading what is printed in the
colloquial style, he may go on to selections from standard authors.”
The material of the reading-lesson is thus found wholly in the region of familiar words
and ideas. It is out of the question for the child to find anything in the ideas themselves to arouse
and hold attention. His mind is fixed upon the mere recognition and utterance of the forms. Thus
begins that fatal divorce between the substance and the form of expression, which, fatal to
reading as an art, reduces it to a mechanical action. The utter triviality of the contents of our
school “Primers” and” First Readers,” shows the inevitable outcome of forcing the mastery of
external language-forms upon the child at a premature period. Take up the first half-dozen or
dozen such books you meet with, and ask yourself how much there is in the ideas presented
worthy of respect from any intelligent child of six years.
Methods for learning to read come and go across the educational arena, like the march of
supernumeraries upon the stage. Each is heralded as the final solution of the problem of learning
to read; but each in turn gives way to some later discovery. The simple fact is––that they all lack
the essential of any well-grounded method, namely, relevancy to the child’s mental needs. No
scheme for learning to read can supply this want. Only a new motive–putting the child into a
vital relation to the materials to be read––can be of service here. It is evident that this condition
cannot be met, unless learning to read be postponed to a period when the child’s intellectual
appetite is more consciously active, and when he is mature enough to deal more rapidly and
effectively with the formal and mechanical difficulties.
The endless drill, with its continual repetitions, is another instance of the same evil. Even
when the attempt is made to select material with some literary or historic worth of its own, the
practical outcome is much like making Paradise Lost the basis of parsing-lessons, or Caesar’s
Gallic Wars an introduction to Latin syntax. So much attention has to be given to the formal
side that the spiritual value evanesces. No one can estimate the benumbing and hardening effect
of this continued drill upon mere form. Another even more serious evil is the consequent
emptiness of mind induced. The mental room is swept and garnished–and that is all. The moral
result is even more deplorable than the intellectual. At this plastic period, when images which
take hold of the mind exercise such suggestive motor force, nothing but husks are provided.
Under the circumstances, our schools are doing great things for the moral education of children;
but all efforts in this direction must necessarily be hampered and discounted until the schoolteacher shall be perfectly free to find the bulk of the material of instruction for the early schoolyears in something which has intrinsic value,––something whose introduction into consciousness is so vital as to be personal and reconstructive.
It should be obvious that what I have in mind is not a Philistine attack upon books and
reading. The question is not how to get rid of them, but how to get their value,––how to use
them to their capacity as servants of the intellectual and moral life. The plea for the
predominance of learning to read in early school-life because of the great importance attaching to
literature seems to me a perversion. Just because literature is so important, it is desirable to
postpone the child’s introduction to printed speech until he is capable of appreciating and dealing
with its genuine meaning. Now, the child learns to read as a mechanical tool, and gets very little
conception of what is worth reading. The result is, that, after he has mastered the art and wishes
to use it; he has no standard by which to direct it. He is about as likely to use it in one way as in
another. It would be ungrateful not to recognize the faithfulness and relative success with which
teachers, for the last ten or fifteen years, have devoted themselves to raising the general tone of
reading with their pupils. But, after all, they are working against great odds. Our ideal should be
that the child should have a personal interest in what is read, a personal hunger for it, and a
personal power of satisfying this appetite. The adequate realization of this ideal is impossible
until the child comes to the reading-material with a certain background of experience which
makes him appreciate the difference between the trivial, the merely amusing and exciting, and
that which has permanent and serious meaning. This is impossible so long as the child has not
been trained in the habit of dealing with material outside of books, and has formed, through
contact with the realities of experience, habits of recognizing and dealing with problems in the
direct personal way. The isolation of material found in books from the material which the child
experiences in life itself––the forcing of the former upon the child before he has well-organized
powers of dealing with the latter––is an unnatural divorce which cannot have any other result
than defective standards of appreciation, and a tendency to elevate the sensational and transiently
interesting above the valuable and the permanent.
Two results of our wrong methods are so apparent in higher education that they are worth
special mention. They are exhibited in the paradox of the combination of slavish dependence
upon books with real inability to use them effectively. The famous complaint of Agassiz––that
students could not see for themselves––is still repeated by every teacher of science in our high
schools and colleges. How many teachers of science will tell you, for example, that, when their
students are instructed to find out something about an object, their first demand is for a book in
which they can read about it; their first reaction, one of helplessness, when they are told that they
must go to the object itself and let it tell its own story? It is not exaggerating to say that the book
habit is so firmly fixed that very many pupils, otherwise intelligent, have a positive aversion to
directing their attention to things themselves,––it seems so much simpler to occupy the mind
with what someone else has said about these things. While it is mere stupidity not to make
judicious use of the discoveries and attainments of others, the substitution of the seeing of others
for the use of one’s own eyes is such a self-contradictory principle as to require criticism. We
only need recognize the extent to which it actually obtains.
On the other hand, we have the relative incapacity of students to use easily and
economically these very tools––books––to which most of their energies have been directed. It is
a common experience with, I will not say only the teachers of undergraduate students, but of
graduate students,––candidates for advanced degrees,––to find that in every special subject a
large amount of time and energy has to be spent in learning how to use the books. To take a
book and present an adequate condensed synopsis of its points of view and course of argument is
an exercise, not merely in reading; but in thinking. To know how to turn quickly to a number of
books bearing upon a given topic, to choose what is needed, and to find what is characteristic of
the author and important in the subject, are matters which the majority of even graduate students
have to learn over again for themselves. If such be the case,––and yet attention to books has
been the dominant note of all previous education,––we are surely within bounds in asking if
there is not something radically wrong in the way in which books have been used. It is a truism
to say that the value of books consists in their relation to life, in the keenness and range which
they impart to powers of penetration and interpretation. It is no truism to say that the premature
and unrelated use of books stands in the way. Our means defeat the very end to which they are
used.
Just a word about the corresponding evils: We have to take into account not simply the
results produced by forcing language-work unduly, but also the defects in development due to
the crowding out of other objects. Every respectable authority insists that the period of
childhood, lying between the years of four and eight or nine, is the plastic period in sense and
emotional life. What are we doing to shape these capacities? What are we doing to feed this
hunger? If one compares the powers and needs of the child in these directions with what is
actually supplied in the regimen of the three R’s, the contrast is pitiful, tragic. This epoch is also
the budding-time for the formation of efficient and orderly habits on the motor side: it is pre-
eminently the time when the child wishes to do things, and when his interest in doing can be
turned to educative account. No one can clearly set before himself the vivacity and persistency
of the child’s motor instincts at this period, and then call to mind the continued grind of reading
and writing, without feeling that the justification of our present curriculum is psychologically
impossible. It is simply a superstition: it is a remnant of an outgrown period of history.
All this might be true, and yet there might be no subject-matter sufficiently organized for
introduction into the school curriculum, since this demands, above all things, a certain
definiteness of presentation and of development. But we are not in this unfortunate plight. There
are subjects which are as well fitted to meet the child’s dominant needs as they are to prepare him
for the civilization in which he has to play his part. There is art in a variety of modes—music,
drawing, painting, modeling, etc. These media not only afford a regulated outlet in which the
child may project his inner impulses and feelings in outward form, and come to consciousness of
himself, but are necessities in existing social life. The child must be protected against some of
the hard and over-utilitarian aspect of modem civilization: positively, they are needed, because
some degree of artistic and creative power is necessary to take the future worker out of the ranks
of unskilled labor, and to feed his consciousness in his hours of contact with purely mechanical
things.
Those modes of simple scientific observation and experiment which go under the name
of “nature-study” are calculated to appeal to and keep active the keenness of the child’s interest in
the world about him, and to introduce him gradually to those methods of discovery and
verification which are the essential characteristics of modern intellectual life. On the social side,
they give the child an acquaintance with his environment,––an acquaintance more and more
necessary, under existing conditions, for the maintenance of personal and social health, for
understanding and conducting business pursuits, and for the administration of civic affairs. What
is crudely termed manual training––the variety of constructive activities, which, begun in the
Kindergarten, ought never to be given up––is equally adapted to the characteristic needs of the
child and to the present demands of associated life. These activities afford discipline in
continuous and orderly application of powers, strengthen habits of attention and industry, and
beget self-reliant and ingenious judgment. As preparation for future social life, they furnish
insight into the mechanical and industrial occupations upon which our civilization depends, and
keep alive that sense of the dignity of work essential to democracy. History and literature, once
more, provide food for the eager imagination of the child. While giving it worthy material, they
may check its morbid and chaotic exercise. They present to the child typical conditions of social
life, they exhibit the struggles which have brought it into being, and picture the spiritual which it
has culminated. Due place cannot be given to and history until the teacher is free to select them
for their intrinsic value, and not from the standpoint of the child’s ability to recognize written and
printed verbal symbols.
Here we have the controlling factors in the primary curriculum of the future,––manual
training, science nature-study, art, and history. These keep alive the child’s positive and creative
impulses, and direct them in such ways as to discipline them into the habits of thought and action
required for effective participation in community life.
Were the attempt suddenly made to throw out, or reduce to a minimum, language-work in
the early grades, the last state of our schools would undoubtedly be worse than the first. Not
immediate substitution is what is required, but consideration of the whole situation, and
organization of the materials and methods of science, history, and the arts to make them adequate
educational agencies. Many of our present evils are due to compromise and inconsistency. We
have neither one thing nor the other,––neither the systematic, all-pervasive discipline of the three
R’s, nor a coherent training in constructive work, history, and nature-study. We have a mixture
of the two. The former is supposed to furnish the element of discipline and to constitute the
standard of success; while the latter supplies the factor of interest. What is needed is a
thoroughgoing reconciliation of the ideals of thoroughness, definiteness, and order, summed up
in the notion of discipline, with those of appeal to individual capacities and demands, summed
up in the word “interest.”
This is the Educational Problem, as it relates to the elementary school.
Change must come gradually. To force it unduly would compromise its final success by
favoring a violent reaction. What is needed in the first place is that there should be a full and
frank statement of conviction with regard to the matter from physiologists and psychologists and
from those school administrators who are conscious of the evils of the present régime. Educators
should also frankly face the fact that the New Education, as it exists to-day, is a compromise and
a transition: it employs new methods; but its controlling ideals are virtually those of the Old
Education. Wherever movements looking to a solution of the problem are intelligently
undertaken, they should receive encouragement, moral and financial, from the intellectual
leaders of the community. There are already in existence a considerable number of educational
“experiment stations,” which represent the outposts of educational progress. If these schools can
be adequately supported for a number of years they will perform a great vicarious service. After
such schools have worked out carefully and definitely the subject matter of a new curriculum,––
finding the right place for language-studies and placing them in their right perspective,––the
problem of the more general educational reform will be immensely simplified and facilitated.
There will be clear standards, well-arranged material, and coherent methods upon which to
proceed. To build up and equip such schools is, therefore, the wisest and most economic policy,
in avoiding the friction and waste consequent upon casual and spasmodic attempts at educational
reform.
All this amounts to saying that school reform is dependent upon a collateral wider change
in the public opinion which controls school board, superintendent, and teachers. There are
certain minor changes; reforms in detail, which can be effected directly within the school system
itself. But the school is not an isolated institution: it is one of an organism of social forces. To
secure more scientific principles of work in the school, means, accordingly, clearer vision and
wiser standards of thought and action in the community at large. The Educational Problem is
ultimately, that society shall see clearly its own conditions and needs, and set resolutely about
meeting them. If the recognition be once secured, we need have no doubts about the consequent
action. Let the community once realize that it is educating upon the basis of a life which it has
left behind, and it will turn, with adequate intellectual and material resources, to meet the needs
of the present hour.
John Dewey was an atheist and a signer of the Humanist Manifesto.
Bold added by the editor
The Pro-Life flag flying on public property outside the Waltham, MA thanks to the Massachusetts based Pro-Life Legal Defense Fund (PLLDF) and our 9-0 U.S. Supreme Court win “Shurtleff v Boston.” http://lc.org/flag
This is from Attorney Bob Joyce of the Pro-Life Legal Defense Fund:
From March 11th to March 12th, PLLDF’s newly created pro-life, pro-family flag flew fully and proudly on the Main Street flagpole outside the Waltham, MA City Hall. The combination of good weather and favorable wind velocity enabled the image and words (PRO-LIFE, PRO-MOTHER, PRO-FATHER, and PRO-CHILD) to stand out clearly in plain view.
The following was a letter to the editor of the Boston Globe in the wake of a vicious article that smeared a group of Patriots that attended an event that took place in Burlington in November of 1994. The smear piece was written by Chip Berlet, a far-leftist who worked for Political Research Associates. I was on hand at this meeting and addressed the group. After this article was published, a number of us wrote letters to the editor to the Boston Globe but none were published. Berlet tried to make the case that our “rhetoric” was responsible for the actions of John Salvi-a man who shot up two abortion mills. The Left is still at it.
Chip Berlet’s op-ed piece, “Armed and dangerous,” which appeared in the Globe
on January 6, is not only incredibly inept journalism but reminiscent of the kind of
unfounded “guilt by association” charges attributed to the late Senator Joseph
McCarthy.
Nothing that the deranged John Salvi has done, said or written indicates that he
was influenced by any of the well-known organizations mentioned by Berlet, such as
The John Birch Society, Concerned Women for America, or the National Right to Life
Committee. In fact, Salvi ‘s rambling letter, published in the Globe on January 6,
reveals a deplorable ignorance of the aims and precepts of these well established
organizations. I defy Mr Berlet to find one word in the publications of these
organizations that in any way encourages or condones the actions of those who would
kill the providers of abortion. Salvi has only added to the tragedy of abortion, not
alleviated it.
As for the meeting held at Burlington High School last November, I was invited to
speak on the subject of education, which I did. I was not told in advance that one of
the exhibitors would be Den’s Gun Shop. But considering the fact that the right to own
and bear arms, protected by the Second Amendment, has been under unrelenting
attack by the liberals, I could understand the rationale of having a gun shop exhibit at
the meeting. But to suggest by the craftiest of innuendos that people browsing at the
gun shop table while pro-life leader Dr. Mildred Jefferson was speaking in another
room indicates that she or the browsers or the exhibitor caused or condoned what
John Salvi did is just about the sleaziest and most reprehensible piece of writing I
have yet read by the promoters of hysteria on the left.
People on both the left and the right have had to deal with those deranged
individuals who feel compelled to perpetrate acts of terror and horror. One does not
blame liberal black leadership for the actions of the black man who shot up the
passengers in the Long Island commuter train. We all understand that there is no way
to control solo individuals bent on committing mayhem.
But the concern of those of us on the right is the government’s potential for
committing mayhem. Even Chip Berlet admitted to me that he deplored the way the
U.S. government handled the Waco atrocity. And it is that atrocity, not abortion, that
has galvanized gun owners into such defensive responses as the militia movement
But perhaps the worst of Berlet’s accusations is where he says that “There is a
growing right-wing social movement that uses theological arguments to encourage
direct confrontation of its targets and tolerates discussion of armed resistance.”
I have been involved in the so-called right-wing movement since 1965 and not once
have I heard of such theological arguments. In fact, I’ve heard just the opposite. Dr. R.
J. Rushdoony, leader of the Christian Reconstruction movement, has strongly
denounced demonstrations at abortion clinics let alone the murder of abortion
providers. He believes, as most Christians do, that only the moral regeneration of the
American people will put an end to legalized abortion.
For Berlet to needlessly alarm the readers of the Globe into believing that
conservative organizations have entered a new, sinister phase of armed confrontation
with the left is not only to grossly misinform this newspaper’s readers but to libel those
of us on the right who have spent the last 25 years writing, lecturing and educating
Americans about the vital issues our society faces.
I also question the judgment of the editor who decided to use such an obviously
provocative illustration and title for a smear article that strongly suggests that we on the
right are moving toward Salvi-type terrorism . I know that the Globe is a staunchly
liberal newspaper, but I never thought it would stoop to such unadulterated, Nazi-like
propaganda. Back in 1938, a young Jew assassinated the German ambassador in
Paris. The Nazi propaganda machine blamed the Jews of Germany for the act of one
deranged youth . The result was Kristallnacht during which Jewish synagogues and
stores were burned and destroyed throughout Germany. The irony is that Chip Berlet,
who thinks he’s defending liberalism, is unaware of how much like Goebbels he has
become. Tragically, those who forget history are condemned to repeat it.
Samuel L. Blumenfeld
January 6, 1995
Please visit and sign up for the Sam Blumenfeld Archives and have free, unlimited access to the works of Sam Blumenfeld: http://blumenfeld.campconstitution.net/main.htm
Camp Constitution Speaker’s Bureau is pleased to announce that it will sponsor a speaking tour of Vince Elison in the Greater Boston and Lakes Region of New Hampshire. On Friday May 3–7:00 PM, Vince will be speaking at One Cranberry Hill in Lexington, MA and on Saturday May4–7:00 PM at the Alton Senior Center 7 Pierson Rd. Alton, NH We are still waiting for confirmations for a Thursday evening May 2 and Saturday morning May 3. Admission is free. Donations are accepted. RSVPs are suggested since seating is limited.
Vince is the author of The Iron Triangle: Inside the Liberal Democrat Plan to Use Race to Divide Christians and America in Their Quest for Power and How We Can Defeat Them, 25 Lies, and Crime, INC. He has appeared numerous times on Hannity, The Laura Ingraham Show, Newsmax, Tucker Carlson, OAN, The Joe Pags Show, The Brian Kilmeade Show, and on many other radio and television programs.
Vince recently started a show which airs on YouTube. Please view, share and subscribe to his channel.
I recently received the news that John McManus passed away at the age of 89. Mr. McManus, known as Jack to many of us, was a long-time friend, former colleague, and mentor as well as an instructor at Camp Constitution.
I first met Jack at his John Birch Society office in Belmont, MA back in 1988. I walked into his impressive book lined office with my oldest daughter Rachel in my arms. He looked at Rachel and then gave me a stern look and said, “Some world we are leaving her.” Jack and I spent many hours driving around the highways and byways of New England where he would give speeches on a number of topics-a number of them aired on C-SPAN. In the late 1990s, I helped to host John at the Nashua, NH Library. We had a full house. During his presentation, he started to cough. I got him some water and walked to the podium as discreetly as possible to leave of the water. He looked at me and said “Is this water?” “Yes,” I said “I am Irish”, he replied. “I know that is why I brought you water” was by comeback. It got a good laugh from the attendees and many thought that we rehearsed the exchange. As an “old school” speaker, he would always start a lecture or presentation with a few jokes, and the video linked below is no exception.
He gave a lecture at out 1st annual family camp in July of 2010 and would attend many more over the next twelve years. His last camp was in 2021. A link to his class at our 2021 camp:
He will be missed but his rich legacy of liberty will live on and influence millions of people.
His obituary:
His Funeral Mass will be celebrated in St. Adelaide Parish, 708 Lowell St., Peabody on Monday, March 11 at 10:30 AM. Visitation for relatives and friends will be held at the McDonald Funeral Home, 19 Yale Ave., Wakefield on Sunday March 10 from 1-4 PM.
Born in Brooklyn, NY on January 24, 1935 he was the son of the late V. Paul and Dorothea Frances (Devenport) McManus.
Jack was raised and educated in Brooklyn, New York, and graduated from Brooklyn Prep, where he played varsity basketball. He went on to further his education at The College of the Holy Cross, receiving a bachelor’s degree in physics. He was a member of the Naval ROTC program while at Holy Cross, and upon graduating was commissioned into the United States Marine Corps. He proudly served his country as a Marine for three years. Upon concluding his military time, he went to work as an electronics engineer before taking on a position at The John Birch Society, where he would spend the remainder of his working years. Jack wore many hats at the John Birch Society from 1966 to the present day. He considered himself a teacher, and was a prolific writer and speaker for the Birch Society, though his most recent titles were President from 1991-2015 and President Emeritus from 2015 on. He was an avid Boston sports fan and dabbled in golf. Throughout his life he loved to swim in the ocean and especially relished such opportunity in his later years. He also enjoyed crossword puzzles, books, and history, as well as spending time with his children and grandchildren by the pool.
He was the beloved husband of the late Mary O’Reilly McManus, with whom he shared 65 wonderful years of marriage. John is survived by his devoted and loving son Paul McManus and his wife Margaret of Holden, Massachusetts, loving and devoted daughters Margaret (Peggy) Strauss and her husband Glenn of Wakefield, Massachusetts and Mary Anne Power and her husband Jeffrey from Wakefield, Massachusetts. Also son John and his wife Linda of Wakefield, Massachusetts. He was the brother of Mary Jane Strackbein and her husband William of Vienna, Virginia and the late Thomas E. and Paul D. McManus; and the loving grandfather to seven grandchildren.
His Funeral Mass will be celebrated in St. Adelaide Parish, 708 Lowell St., Peabody on Monday, March 11 at 10:30 AM. Visitation for relatives and friends will be held at the McDonald Funeral Home, 19 Yale Ave., Wakefield on Sunday March 10 from 1-4 PM.
What the people of Argentina are going through is possible in any country that uses paper “money” as the basis of its economic activity. Today’s paper money has no backing and therefore is only worth what the government or central bank says it is worth. We call that kind of paper money “Legal Tender.” In other words, the government invests its faith and credit in the value stated on the paper note. Money is supposed to be a medium of exchange and a storage of wealth and we accept paper money because the government backs its stated value. But such a system can only work if the people have trust and confidence in their government and their government behaves responsibly. If we go back to the early days of economic activity, we fmd that barter was the earliest form of exchange. A person could exchange a cow for sausages. In other words, one gave value for value.
The medium of exchange was awkward and cumbersome, and the two individuals involved had to make value judgments about what they were getting for their commodity. But then it was found that gold would be accepted by many sellers in lieu of a perishable commodity as a medium of exchange, because of its scarcity and convenience. Gold also became an excellent storage for wealth. You could hold gold without its spoiling for as long as you wanted, and people would gladly exchange commodities for it. But then, as civilization ‘progressed, keeping gold became inconvenient. It could also be easily stolen. So people began putting their gold for safekeeping in banks, and the banks issued gold certificates or banknotes.
The banknotes were worth their weight in gold. But then the banks used the gold deposits as security for high-interest loans, which they made by issuing banknotes. But when the loans were not repaid, and the owners of gold cashed in their banknotes, the bank became insolvent, and their notes were no longer honored. This was the case in early America, where the Farmer’s Almanack up to 1863 actually listed “Worthless and Uncurrent Bank Notes in New England.” Thirteen banks in Boston alone were listed as having worthless bank notes. None of today’s currencies have any backing at all except the faith and credit of the government behind it. In Argentina, the faith and credit of the government no longer exists. And so its citizens hold paper money that has already lost half its value by government devaluation.
The Argentine peso cannot be said to be a storage of wealth. Only those individuals who were smart enough to buy gold or U.S. dollars will come out ahead of the game, because they didn’t trust their government to maintain the value of Argentine currency. So, what is money today? The money that becomes figures in a computer must still be earned the old-fashioned way, by working for it, or earning it through prudent investment. That is, for most people. The expansion of government has made it possible to pay the needy in welfare checks and food stamps. It is still possible to use gold as a storage of wealth. As long as paper money is susceptible to inflation, the dollar will continue to decrease in value. Thus, we have experienced exactly what the Argentines have experienced but over a much longer period of time.
Those people in Argentina who owned gold came out ahead of everyone else, because the price of gold is set on the world market in London, and it is now worth as much as holders of the Argentine peso have to pay for it. Also, those who owned valuable real estate did well. Once you understand the vulnerabilities of paper money, you have to invest your money and store it in ways that will maintain and hopefully increase its value. Putting it in the bank at today’s low interest will not increase its value. The stock market is still the best way to grow wealth. But you must buy stock in companies that you know will grow and prosper. Real estate is one of the best ways to store wealth, particularly in areas of increasing value. It makes sense to take advantage of today’s low mortgage rates to buy a house. Antiques and valuable works of art also make good investments. As for gold, it is a commodity. Its price is subject to periodic fluctuations caused by political and economic crises. There is no way of knowing for sure what the price of gold will be tomorrow. In other words, those who bought gold when it was $800 an ounce lost half its value as it declined to $350. It all depends at what price you buy it and at what price you sell it.
In short, our greatest security is not in paper money but in the ability to create an income for ourselves. In order to do that we must be able to create and provide value for others. America is blessed with a huge number of individual entrepreneurs and inventors who keep making things better and better. The genius of capitalism is that it can take a cartoon character of a mouse and create a billion-dollar entertainment conglomerate. It can take a simple hamburger and tum it into a worldwide fast-food phenomenon. And it can take a simple carbonated drink and make it universally recognized as the symbol of a nation.
The Bible tells us that the love of money is the root of all evil. But money now is not a shiny pile of gold, but figures in a computer. Our goal should be to use the gifts God has given us to create value through our efforts, our intelligence, our genius. That is the only way to make our economic pursuits pleasing in God’s eyes. So it is the behavior of government that determines the value of our currency. In the U.S. money is issued by the Federal Reserve Bank, a private institution that determines interest rates for the nation’s banks.
Gold is still a better storage of wealth than paper dollars, which are subject to inflation. Ancient Rome suffered from inflation when the emperor added other metals to the gold coins, thus decreasing the value of the coin. In America, where we used to have silver coins, we now have metallic coins that we use like paper money. You can buy a silver dollar from a coin dealer for much more than our present dollar. As our modern capitalist economy grew, the need for investment cash grew with it. Thus, gold had become an impediment to economic development. By liberating paper from gold and calling it legal tender, man had invented the greatest fuel for economic development in history. But paper money, like nuclear power, has its risks and is totally dependent on responsible government for its value.
Legal tender was invented to stimulate commercial enterprise. But politicians have used it to redistribute the wealth, throwing billions at such projects as the War on Poverty. And the only reason why the United States has not gone the way of Argentina is because we have a citizenry willing to pay the taxes to support such wasteful spending. Wherever you have paper money without any gold or silver backing, you can get runaway inflation. Germany in the 1920s is an example of paper money becoming worthless overnight. In the United States we’ve had slow inflation that is almost unnoticeable. However, those of us old enough to remember when a hotdog cost 5 cents can see the effects of inflation in the same hotdog costing $1.95 at the mall food court. Of course, technological advance has cheapened lots of goods and services not because of any government monetary policy, but because technology has lowered the cost of production. For example, despite inflation, long distance calls today are much cheaper than they were in the 1930s. And the price of chickens, once considered a luxury, has significantly declined. Competition and technology account for this favorable development. What keeps the American economy viable as opposed to Argentina is that in America we have a huge number of individual entrepreneurs and inventors who keep making things better and better. Unfortunately, nothing comes out of Argentina except beef and Tangos.
Back in 1968, Sam interviewed Paul V Healey. a young soldier from Holbrook, MA who did one of the most heroic feats of courage in the Vietnam War. It is too lengthy to publish as a blog, so we have a link to a PDF version from Sam’s archive:
The odious Cenk Uygur, founder of Wolf PAC, and his “conservative” allies at Convention of States and Term Limits USA were handed a defeat last week in New Hampshire when the New Hampshire House tabled HCR 8-a resolution calling for an application for an Article V Convention by a 247-99 vote, and today February 20, Maine’s Senate voted 12-18 against the Motion to Accept Majority Ought to pass report on SP 705 which was a joint collaboration between Wolf PAC and Term Limits USA, and its lobbyist Ken Quinn.
The well-funded pro-Article V Convention lobbyists have spent hundreds of thousands of dollars in both states over the past ten years to no avail. It appears that the more money they spend, the fewer votes they get. This is due to the hard work of local activists who take the time to educate their elected officials on this issue. However, we cannot rest on our laurels. We need to rescind all extant applications in both states. Thanks to all of those who helped make these victories for the U.S. Constitution possible.
Thanks to a friend in Maine who contacted me last night to let me know that lobbyist Ken Quinn was on a popular Maine radio show promoting an Article Convention, I immediately E-mailed the station and asked for some equal time. Within a few minutes Mr. Ric Tyler co-host of the George Hale-Ric Tyler Show on WVOM FM invited me to call in at 6:06 AM. Here is a link to the interview:
(A link to an audio version of the interview: https://www.podomatic.com/podcasts/shurtleffhal/episodes/2024-02-20T11_13_07-08_00
The following are a letter and a follow up letter to then Mayor of Newark Cory Booker offering to take the school with the worse scores and turn it around in a year using “Alpha-Phonics.” Sam had a solid plan with a team willing to relocate to Newark:
S A M U E L L. B L U M E N F E L D
161 Great Road Littleton, MA 01460 781-354-2040
January 7, 2011
Hon. Cory A. Booker
Mayor of Newark
City Hall
920 Broad Street
Newark, NJ 07102
Dear Mayor Booker:
I recently became aware of your efforts to improve education in the city of Newark and
of Mark Zuckerberg’s decision to help you in that endeavor. As a writer of over ten
books on education, I’ve been aware of the problems that beset American public schools
for over forty years and have worked strenuously to find ways to improve the
performance of our children. But the greatest obstacle I have found is the educational
establishment that refuses to make the necessary changes that would guarantee academic
success for all students.
I first became aware of the reading problem back in the 1960s when I was an editor at
Grosset & Dunlap in New York. I was invited to become a member of the Reading
Reform Foundation’s National Advisory Council. It was then that I became aware of the
war among educators between advocates of phonics and advocates of look-say, the
whole-world or sight method that teaches children to read English as if it were Chinese.
I did an investigation of the reading problem and came to the conclusion that the sight
method could cause reading disability and dyslexia among many children. I put all of
this in my book, The New Illiterates, published in 1973. The Establishment response to
my findings was zero.
Determined to provide parents with a way of saving their children from such educational
malpractice, I created a simple, inexpensive, easy-to-use intensive phonics reading
program–Alpha-Phonics–that any parent could use to teach their children to read at
home. It has now been used very successfully by thousands of homeschooling parents
for over twenty years and has produced wonderfully literate children.
In your press release about Newark’s Education Opportunity, it states that “In 2008-2009,
only 40 percent of students could read and write at grade level by the end of the third
grade, only 54 percent of high school students graduated and just 38 percent enrolled in
college.”
I can show you how to get all of the children in Newark’s schools to become proficient
readers, dramatically increase the rate of graduation, and increase the percentage of
students enrolling in college. I recently received a testimonial from a teacher in Florida who has been using
Alpha-Phonics for the last ten years, and he has literally performed miracles with some of
the worst readers in his classes. I can state without any equivocation, that I can produce
a miracle in Newark if permitted by you to do so. I am enclosing this teacher’s
remarkable testimony of the power of this program.
The “miracle” that Alpha-Phonics performs is really no miracle at all. It is simply the
sensible and proper use of a primary program that puts the emphasis on the development
of the right side of the brain, the language faculty. Today’s schools force children to use
their right brains to perform the functions of the left brain, thereby actually deforming the
children’s brains. This phenomenon can be seen by extensive brain scans conducted by
neuroscientist Stanislas Dehaene, author of Reading in the Brain. In other words,
common teaching practices in our schools are actually deforming the brains of our
children. And that is why the children act out, knowing that something harmful, which
they can’t understand, is being done to them.
All children are born with a dominant language faculty in their left brains. When the
continued natural development of this faculty is thwarted by faulty teaching methods, you
get educational problems. You get ADD and ADHD. I would like to show you how it is
possible to reverse this process and get kids back into a positive learning mode. I propose
a pilot project whereby I am given the worst elementary school in Newark and allowed to
demonstrate how it can become the best school in the city in about eight months.
Although I have lived in New England since 1965, I know Newark well. My sister lived
there with her husband and children, and as a teenager I spent many pleasant summer
weeks on leafy Elwood Place. I know that Newark today is not what it once was: the
safest, most pleasant place to live in America. But I am more than willing to do
whatever I can to assist you in making Newark’s schools the best in the nation.
I hope you will take me up on my offer. This is an opportunity that Newark can’t afford
to miss.
Sincerely yours,
Samuel L. Blumenfeld
Cc: Governor Chris Christie, Mark Zuckerberg: Startup Education
S A M U E L L. B L U M E N F E L D
161 Great Road Littleton, MA 01460
February 12, 2011
Hon. Cory A. Booker
Mayor of Newark
City Hall
920 Broad Street
Newark, NJ 07102
Dear Mayor Booker:
I hope you have had a chance to consider my proposal of January 7th to take the worst
elementary school in Newark and transform it into the best school in the city. Here is an
outline of the plan to accomplish that academic miracle..
But first, I want to convince you why it should be done. Each year over a million black
children enter our public education system eager to learn, yet at the end of the process at
least half are functionally illiterate. You and your administration can stop that process of
failure, provided the will is there to do so.
Second, this country will not be able to compete with the Koreans, Chinese, Japanese,
and Indians who are all learning to read and speak English by methods greatly superior to
the ones being used in our schools to teach American children to read, write, and speak
their own language.
Forty years of experience as a writer and educator have gone into the plan I am
proposing. I hope you will be willing to give the “Newark Experiment,” as I call it, the
backing it will need from the Mayor’s office, the highest level of Newark’s government.
This is how the plan will be implemented:
1. Preliminary Conference: As Plan Designer I would like to confer with you and Dr.
Clifford B. Janey, the Superintendent of Schools, and others in your administration on the
need to implement the Newark Experiment. Agreement is needed so that the plan can be
implemented willingly by all concerned.
2. Selection of School: The selection of the elementary school for this pilot project
should be made on the basis of test scores. This should not be difficult to do since each
school has published its test scores. Let us select that school with the lowest test scores.
3. School Visit: I would like to visit that school and become acquainted with the
Principal and faculty, as well as the students. I would want to examine the materials
presently being used to teach the children their basics. It would be essential to bring on
board the faculty of the school and for me to explain why they should be willing to take
part in this historic experiment which will have its ramifications throughout the country.
Their enthusiastic cooperation would guarantee success.
4. Teacher Training: The summer would be used to train the faculty in the essentials of
the plan. A team of trainers would be brought to Newark to share their experiences and
practices in using Alpha-Phonics. Obviously, the faculty will have many questions
which the training team will be able to answer.
5. Budget Authorization: The Superintendent of Schools should authorize the purchase
of the necessary books for the experiment: Alpha-Phonics, the Little Readers, Flash
Cards, lined notebooks, pencils, pens, erasers, etc. A budget can be provided outlining
the necessary expenditures. Compensation for Dr. Blumenfeld and the trainers, who will
be coming from Texas and Florida, should be included in the budget.
6. Parental Input: In September 2011, parents will be informed of the experiment in
their children’s school. Their cooperation is needed to make sure that their children do
their homework, which will help their children succeed.
7. School Testing: At the beginning of the school year, all third- to sixth-grade
students in the school should be tested with the Oral Reading Assessment Test in order to
create a Literacy Profile of the school. In that way, those students in need of strong
remedial programs will be identified. For example, in the third grade you will find some
students reading at a sixth grade level and others reading at a first grade level. In the
sixth grade you will find students reading at a second grade level and others reading
above their grade level. Testing the students will give the faculty the information they
need about each student’s reading level.
8. The Curriculum: All first and second graders will be taught to read and write with
Alpha-Phonics. We expect 100% success. Everyone in the rest of the school will be
brought up to grade level in reading and writing. Basic arithmetic will also be taught to
all students. We expect 100% success, with extra tutoring for those who are having a
more difficult time reaching the desired goal. Other subjects should include Local
Geography and History, Elementary Science, English Grammar, and other subjects
determined by the Superintendent of Schools. These students will be able to thrive in
high school and go on to college.
9. Final Testing: By June 2012, the entire school should be tested to see the results of
the experiment. By then the school will be the best in the city and able to celebrate its
achievement. Care should be taken to make sure that the school does not revert to its
past practices that made it the worst school in the city. The new curriculum should
become a permanent part of the school.
10, Final Report: The success of the program should be made public by way of a press
release and a news conference and the issuance of a Final Report. The city of Newark
should proudly proclaim its success in transforming its worst school into its best school
through a unique program that can be duplicated in any city in the country. The Report
should be sent to the nation’s leading media and the Mayor and Superintendent should be
available for interviews.
As you can see, Mayor Booker, this is an exciting plan that will bring credit to Newark
and your administration. Your willingness to try something that has not been tried
anywhere before will be seen as proof that the public schools can be reformed to do what
they were created to do: produce a literate, intelligent population. The plan is eminently
doable. All it requires is the will to carry it out. The Newark Experiment can become a
model for the entire country to emulate. It will prove that educational success is possible
in core-city environments.
But what it really requires is thinking out of the box. That is the real key to success.
I look forward to your response.
Sincerely yours,
Samuel L. Blumenfeld
Cc: Governor Chris Christie, Mark Zuckerberg
Sam would write letters to numerous mayors, and school supernatants with this proposal. He seldom got a reply and when he did, it was a politely worded “Thank you but no thank you.” Sam never got a reply from Mayor Booker who is now a member of the U.S. Senate.
Mark Zuckerberg and Chris Christie were sent copies and never responded to Sam. In 2010, Zuckerberg donated $100 million to the Newark School Department.