I don't like to read things that make me feel angry, frustrated, or helpless. I also find it hard to recommend a book that gave me no joy in its reading. I've done the former, however, and I am about to do the latter. Please know that I'm not enjoying this.

Dumbing Down Our Kids, by Charles J. Sykes, is a scary book. It's not scary in the Stephen King or Robin Cook style of scary, unfortunately, it's scary from the viewpoint of the parent of school-aged children. It's scary from the viewpoint of a person who believes in the value of education, who cares about the future of this country and the future of society. It's scary because some of the author's claims seem so foolish, so blatantly stupid, that accepting that professional educators are capable of promoting them is enough to make even the most liberal of parents abandon public education in favor of home-schooling. Unless, of course, the claims are examined.

What are the author's claims? Let me introduce you to a few phrases you may or may not have heard before:

Outcome Based Education
Whole Language Learning
Invented spelling
Affective learning
Alternative assessments
Grade inflation
Co-operative learning
Ability grouping

I could go on, as does the author, but I want to keep this short enough to do the book justice while giving you enough information to know that if you have children, or grand-children, siblings, nephews or nieces, if you're a teacher or school administrator, if you're a school board member or a voter, if you care one little bit about the future of education and the children of this country, you should read this book.

Let Me Explain Some Concepts and Terms

Outcome Based Education (OBE) is controversial methodology, often misunderstood and frequently embraced or rejected without a clear understanding of the ramifications. In the most simple of terms, OBE says that success is based on determining the desired outcome, then identifying and implementing the processes to achieve it.

That sounds simple and innocent enough, but it's not that clear-cut. OBE outcomes are often as immeasurable and imprecise as "children will learn." Shouldn't we also ask, suggests the author, "learn what?" As a parent, I certainly think we should.

The process of OBE rewards efforts taken, even if nothing is learned. If a child does an assignment, for example, even without understanding the material, he is deemed to have succeeded. I'm not sure I'd want to ride in a car at 55 miles per hour where all that could be said of the safety design and implementation was that the assembly steps were taken. I'd like to be assured that they were taken properly, with the desired end result of a safe vehicle.

Whole Language Learning (WLL) is easier to understand and has been embraced at one time or another by most American public school systems. WLL, also referred to as "look-say" or "sight reading," is based on the way adults read. We adults don't often "sound out" words while reading, examining each letter and syllable, rather we recognize words on sight.

That's fine if we don't encounter a word we've never seen before, but what happens if I throw out the word "tegramophinalogical" in this paragraph? You've never seen it before (I know because I just made it up), so how do you know what it is? You sound it out! If you understand the construction of words in the English language you can decipher a likely meaning based on prefix, suffix, and root word. (Or at least you could if it were a real word.)

Whole language is how experienced readers read, but it's not necessarily how we effectively learn how to read. There's a big difference between learning and doing.

Invented spelling is an offshoot of WLL, a method of encouraging a child to write without having to "worry" about proper spelling. It encourages free flowing creativity without the "risk" of criticism or correction. While no student, child or adult, is happy to have an assignment returned with words circled in red, knowing what has been done incorrectly helps us to know what we are lacking and need to improve upon, leading us to do better the next time. Invented spelling stops short of promoting improvement.

I'd like to share my own experience with Whole Language Learning and invented spelling.

Son One is a bright kid - not the brightest in his class, most likely, but well up in the top quarter. For his kindergarten through second grade years, WLL and invented spelling were used. He'd bring home papers with sentences like this:

I likt th buk alt beecz the boy end hs dog wer fune

Translation: I liked the book a lot because the boy and his dog were funny. The teacher might have marked it "great sentence!" or "Wow!" (That was from second grade, by the way, not kindergarten.)

In third grade invented spelling was no longer acceptable. While I gave a huge sigh of relief, filled with hope that I'd finally be able to read his compositions without pain, strain and translation, Son One shriveled up into an emotional fetal position and began hating writing. He's about to complete fourth grade now and writing, particularly spelling, is his only academic weakness. His approach to writing - and he does write some incredibly complex and creative stories - is to let it flow, with no attempts to spell correctly, then to go back and correct it later. The only problem is that later even he can't always figure out what he was trying to say.

I resent the effort it is taking on my part to help him learn how to spell at this stage in his education, and he resents the time he must spend unlearning what he was told for three years was the "right" thing.

Son Two, on the other hand, has been taught with phonics since kindergarten. Now completing second grade, he's a strong speller and an effective written communicator. His neatness is a problem, as I'm sure it is with many children (like his own mother), but it's rare to have to ask him what something is.

One argument for Whole Language Learning is that it teaches children to love literature. There may be validity to this, based on our experiences, although a test case of two children is hardly valid. Son One does love to read, taking on the Harry Potter books in third grade and preferring a good book to an evening of television; Son Two hates to read, although he reads well. It could be WLL's influence or it could be differences in their personalities.

Affective learning deals with how a child feels about learning, the child's attitudes and beliefs; what they learn is far less important. Pardon me while I say "Huh?" I'm more concerned with my child's knowledge of mathematics than his feelings about multiplication!

Alternative assessments are methods of building self esteem by measuring effort and participation rather than mastery of the subject matter. As a key principle of OBE, alternative assessment rewards class participation, for example, even if no measurable or verifiable learning of the material has taken place. This enables those students who are struggling academically to experience success, bolstering their self esteem. It also leads to grade inflation.

Grade inflation is essentially the lowering of requirements and expectations while raising the grades given for less success. But common sense says that an "A" doesn't mean much if everyone in a class earns one - and it certainly doesn't motivate higher achieving students to continue to strive for excellence. Supporters of OBE might argue that grade inflation helps lower-achieving students to feel better about themselves, to feel more positive toward the learning experience; I personally doubt they'll feel very positive about either when their school years are behind them and the real world expects them to do a job and do it correctly.

Co-operative learning consists of having students work together, in groups, to accomplish a task. The focus is not on the results, or finding the right answers; instead the emphasis is on working well together, on teamwork.

I witnessed a complete failure of this concept in my son's fourth grade class recently, where four children worked together on a project. The kids divided the work into what we adults would consider logical activity groupings - research, writing, illustrations and presentation. Each of the four children was very strong in at least one of those particular areas, so it seemed like a perfect solution to have each child take on that part of the project in which he or she was particularly strong. The teacher rejected this approach, insisting instead that each child participate in each aspect of the project.

While I can appreciate the benefits in tackling something that isn't a personal strength, rejecting the expertise of each individual frustrated the group. The talented illustrator was embarrassed by the final illustrations; the strong writer was ashamed of the final text; and so on. None of the four children were pleased with the result. Teamwork was mastered but learning and feeling good about the accomplishment was not.

Teamwork is certainly a skill to be learned, academic teamwork in elementary school is perhaps not the best forum for it.

Ability grouping, also called "tracking," has been rejected in recent years, sometimes criticized as racist or elitist. It has had negative implications for children incorrectly grouped. Ability grouping is simply the grouping of students based on similar abilities and achievement levels, which allows teachers to teach according to the abilities of the group instead of teaching over the heads of some and below the abilities of others. OBE rejects this grouping, focusing instead of the sociological benefits of diversity.

Wrapping It Up

This book is jam-packed full of terminology, definitions and real-world examples that will, quite honestly, shock the average parent. The author provides extensive references to research, legislation, and test results. A tremendous amount of research went into this book.

The goals of public education have changed, the methods have changed, and the net result very well could be that our children are learning less and less. Certainly we do not compare favorably to children in other developed nations. Is this because eductionists are dumbing down our kids? Are texts being dumbed down? Are we spending more time teaching political correctness than fundamental skills? The author answers these questions and many more with a resounding yes.

What's Wrong With This Book?

Although I do recommend this book, my recommendation is not without caveats. The author has definite ideas of what are the right methods and what are not. He is very harsh in his criticisms, and very inflexible, unable to see any value in methods or theories to which he objects. Anyone involved in promoting the theories to which he does not subscribe is labeled an "educationist," a specialist in the theory of education, while those with whom he is in agreement are labeled educators. It's not a subtle distinction, although it may be accurate in some cases, but the judgmental misuse of the terms is troubling to me.

The author is also quite verbose, frequently repeating a theme using different terminology rather than pointing out that whether one calls it a "mouse" or "one of the mice" it's still the same rodent. He favors the vocabulary of the highly educated, making no attempt to write for the intended audience of parents and educators. This book is not an easy or a pleasant read.

My Final Thoughts

America's children need good teachers and there are a lot of them. Sadly, good teachers are leaving classrooms at alarming rates in many parts of the country, often, in part, because they are growing frustrated with administrative decisions on what and how they must teach. I know teachers in our own schools who complain that they are forced to short-change basic subjects to make time for "character education" and "life skills." As a parent, I'd prefer the schools leave my children's character education and life skills training to me and focus on the social studies and science that I can't possibly teach them.

This book has some eye-opening, startling information, topics that I believe parents and educators should examine. Yet I would suggest this examination be done with an open yet critical mind. It would be too easy to accept each argument at face value. Accepting these opinions as fact could be as damaging to the future of our children and public education as are the methods under attack.

There are profound arguments on both sides of the fence; Dumbing Down Our Kids quite powerfully represents one of those sides.
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This review is written in honor of my mother, who instilled in me a love for reading and a thirst for knowledge. It is part of a Mother's Day Write-Off sponsored by naphtalia.

Please take time to read the contributions of the other epinions participants: AshleyA, brookeca77, Debbie26, diverpam, fallyn96, jo.com, leafsbabe01, lynnzop, masonp, MelissaSRN, mellkinwa, mtbat, naphtalia, Social14, straight_up, Trevsmom, willthing, and wovengold.




Recommended: Yes