FEDERAL GOVERNMENT SHOULD NOT BE INVOLVED IN EDUCATION
Global goofs: U.S. youth can't find Iraq
WHERE IN THE WORLD
Among 18- to 24-year-old Americans given maps:
87 percent cannot find Iraq
83 percent cannot find Afghanistan
76 percent cannot find Saudi Arabia
70 percent cannot find New Jersey
49 percent cannot find New York
11 percent cannot find the United States
Global goofs: U.S. youth can't find Iraq
WASHINGTON (AP) -- Young Americans may soon have to fight a war in Iraq, but most of them can't even find that country on a map, the National Geographic Society said Wednesday.
The society survey found that only about one in seven -- 13 percent -- of Americans between the age of 18 and 24, the prime age for military warriors, could find Iraq. The score was the same for Iran, an Iraqi neighbor.
Although the majority, 58 percent, of the young Americans surveyed knew that the Taliban and al Qaeda were based in Afghanistan, only 17 percent could find that country on a world map.
A U.S.-led force attacked the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan in October 2001, and President Bush has said he is prepared to use force to rid Iraq of any chemical, nuclear or biological weapons programs.
The survey asked 56 geographic and current events questions of young people in nine countries and scored the results with traditional grades.
The surveyed Americans got a "D," with an average of 23 correct answers. Mexico ranked last with an average score of 21, just three points from a failing grade.
Topping the scoring was Sweden, with an average of 40, followed by Germany and Italy, each with 38. None of the countries got an "A," which required average scores of 42 correct answers or better on the 56 questions.
"Someone once said that war is God's way of teaching geography, but today, apparently war or even the threat of war cannot adequately teach geography," said John Fahey, president of the National Geographic Society.
"More American young people can tell you where an island that the 'Survivor' TV series came from is located than can identify Afghanistan or Iraq. Ironically a TV show seems more real or at least more meaningful interesting or relevant than reality."
National Geographic is convening an international panel of policy makers and business and media leaders to find ways to improve geographic education and to encourage interest in world affairs, the society said.
Other findings from the survey
• Thirty-four percent of the young Americans knew that the island used on last season's "Survivor" show was located in the South Pacific, but only 30 percent could locate the state of New Jersey on a map. The "Survivor" show's location was the Marquesas Islands in the eastern South Pacific.
• When asked to find 10 specific states on a map of the United States, only California and Texas could be located by a large majority of those surveyed. Both states were correctly located by 89 percent of the participants. Only 51 percent could find New York, the nation's third most populous state.
• On a world map, Americans could find on average only seven of 16 countries in the quiz. Only 89 percent of the Americans surveyed could find their own country on the map.
• In the world map test, Swedes could find an average of 13 of the 16 countries. Germans and Italians were next, with an average of 12 each.
• Only 71 percent of the surveyed Americans could locate on the map the Pacific Ocean, the world's largest body of water. Worldwide, three in 10 of those surveyed could not correctly locate the Pacific Ocean.
• Although 81 percent of the surveyed Americans knew that the Middle East is the Earth's largest oil exporter, only 24 percent could find Saudi Arabia on the map.
The international survey was conducted for the National Geographic by RoperASW. The results were based on face-to-face interviews with at least 300 men and women aged 18 to 24 in Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Mexico, Sweden, Britain and the United States.
The questionnaires were in the local language, but the content was universally the same.
http://archives.cnn.com/2002/EDUCATION/11/20/geography.quiz/index.html
John Stossel Special Report
These Average Americans Don't Have Basic Knowledge...
Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt, former Senior Policy Advisor in the U.S. Department of Education, blew the whistle in the ..80s on government activities withheld from the public. Her inside knowledge will help you protect your children from controversial methods and programs. In this book you will discover:
-how good teachers across America have been forced to use controversial, non-academic means
-how "school choice" is being used to further dangerous reform goals, and how home schooling and private education are especially vulnerable.
-how workforce training (school-to-work) is an essential part of an overall plan for a global economy, and how this plan will shortcircuit your child's future career plans and opportunities.
-how the international, national, regional, state and local agendas for education reform are all interconnected and have been for decades.
Link to entire book, available free on a PDF
http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/MomsPDFs/DDDoA.sml.pdf
Charlotte Iserbyt is to be greatly commended for having put together the most formidable and practical compilation of documentation describing the “deliberate dumbing down” of American children by their education system. Anyone interested in the truth will be shocked by the way American social engineers have systematically gone about destroying the intellect of millions of American children for the purpose of leading the American people into a socialist world government controlled by behavioral and social scientists.
INTERVIEW WITH CHARLOTTE CLICK LINK BELOW TO WATCH ON A BIG SCREEN:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2698894121099089160&ei=A0_gSdi8NZTO-gHgndWoAw&q=charlotte+iserbyt&hl=en
Home School Versus Public or Private Education: Which is Better?
Parents usually ask themselves if home schooling actually works, or if public schools are such a prob "); maybe working to afford private schools may be a better option for their children's education. Parents are reasonably cautious when considering something as important as their progeny's learning environment.
Parents can be assured that many, high quality studies and research that shows home schooling tends to produce superior students to those in public or private schools. However, part of the results of such research can be explained that concerned parents involved in their children's education will always produce better results regardless of the method they take.
Enough cases exist, however, to account for even genuinely interested parents; and the final answer remains that home schooling is the best choice a parent can make.
The U.S. Dept of Education sponsored a study that showed home schooled children's test scores were exceptionally high. Even the median scores for all grades were much bigger than those students of public, Catholic or private schools. For grades one through four, average home schooled students were generally one grade higher than their counterparts in public school. By the equivalent of eighth grade, those home schooled students were generally considered four years ahead of those in public school.
A big part of those results were a consequence of public schools doing very poorly, not just that home schooling performs better. Even then, home schooled students generally surpassed students even from private schools.
The cost of home schooling is generally lower, as well. On average, public schools spend about $6,500 per student per calendar year, and private schools about $3,500 per student while home schoolers spend about $550 per student per calendar year. This doesn't factor the time a parent spends without pay that a teacher would normally be paid for.
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/1178457/home_school_versus_public_or_private.html?cat=4
Psycho Feds Target Children
by Rep. Ron Paul, MD
by Rep. Ron Paul, MD
Every parent in America should be made aware of a presidential initiative called the “New Freedom Commission on Mental Health.” This commission issued a report last year calling for the mandatory mental health screening of American schoolchildren, meaning millions of kids will be forced to undergo psychiatric screening whether their parents consent or not. At issue is the fundamental right of parents to decide what medical treatment is appropriate for their children.
Forced mental health screening simply has no place in a free or decent society. The government does not own you or your kids, and it has no legitimate authority to interfere in your family’s intimate health matters. Psychiatric diagnoses are inherently subjective, and the drugs regularly prescribed produce serious side effects, especially in children’s developing brains. The bottom line is that mental health issues are a matter for parents, children, and their doctors, not government.
Unfortunately, however, the mental health screening initiative received funding from House and Senate appropriators in the 2005 federal budget. This funding allows states to create or expand mental health screening programs with your tax dollars. More importantly, the commission recommends a broader federal program in the near future.
Last fall I introduced an amendment to eliminate any funding for the proposal in a year-end spending bill. Although the amendment failed, the response to my office was overwhelming and highly supportive. The notion of federal bureaucrats ordering potentially millions of youngsters to take psychotropic drugs like Ritalin strikes an emotional chord with American parents, who are sick of relinquishing more and more parental control to government.
Accordingly, the first bill I introduced this year forbids federal funds from being used for any mental-health screening of students without the express, written, voluntary, informed consent of their parents. The bill is known as “The Parental Consent Act of 2005,” or HR 181. This legislation strikes a vital blow for parents who oppose government interference with their parental authority, and strengthens the fundamental right of parents to direct and control the upbringing and education of their children.
It is important to understand that powerful interests, namely federal bureaucrats and pharmaceutical lobbies, are behind the push for mental health screening in schools. There is no end to the bureaucratic appetite to run our lives, and the pharmaceutical industry is eager to sell psychotropic drugs to millions of new customers in American schools. Only tremendous public opposition will suffice to overcome the lobbying and bureaucratic power behind the president’s New Freedom Commission.
http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul232.html
ADHD drugs cause hallucinations in some kids, study says
9:00 AM, January 26, 2009 Doctors have known that some children and adolescents taking stimulant medications for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder experience psychiatric symptoms from the drugs, such as hallucinations, hearing voices, paranoia and mania. In 2007, the Food and Drug Administration ordered manufacturers of stimulant medications to add new warnings about psychiatric and cardiovascular side effects to package inserts. And patient medication guides are also required to explain the risks of ADHD drug treatments. At the time of the FDA order, experts estimated the risk of an adverse psychiatric event from medication use at about 1 in 1,000 children.
A report published today in the journal Pediatrics, however, estimates the incidence of psychotic symptoms at 1.48 per 100 person-years. (Person-years is defined as total years of treatment with a drug. For example, 100 people taking a drug one year is 100 person-years.) The statistic was based on data from 49 randomized, controlled trials of ADHD medications. In those same studies, no psychotic symptoms were reported in children who did not receive medication. Moreover, an analysis of spontaneous adverse-event reports to the FDA showed more than 800 reports of psychosis or mania. Psychotic symptoms were found with every ADHD drug tested.
WHOLE ARTICLE:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/booster_shots/2009/01/adhd-drugs-caus.html
ADHD drugs can cause hallucinations in some kids
Mon Jan 26, 2009 12:39am EST
By Julie Steenhuysen
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Drugs for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder can cause children to have hallucinations even when taken as directed, U.S. government researchers said on Monday.
U.S. Food and Drug Administration researchers analyzed data from 49 clinical studies conducted by makers of the drugs and found they can cause psychosis and mania in some patients, including some with no obvious risk factors. In some cases, children hallucinated that worms, bugs or snakes were crawling on them.
"Patients and physicians should be aware of the possibility that psychiatric symptoms consistent with psychosis or mania" might arise in the course of treatment, Dr. Andrew Mosholder and colleagues wrote in the journal Pediatrics.
Continued...
Americans Drug Their Children with 300 Percent More Psychotropic Meds
Psychotropic drugs are prescribed to children in the United States at three times the rate of children in Europe, according to one of the first studies to rigorously compare such prescription patterns between different countries.
"There is significantly greater use of atypical antipsychotics and selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI)-type antidepressants for child mental health treatment in U.S. than in Western Europe," lead researcher Julie Zito said.
Zito and colleagues from the University of Maryland's School of Pharmacy examined the prescription of psychotropic drugs, including stimulants such as Ritalin and antidepressants such as Prozac, to more than 600,000 people under the age of 20 in the United States, Germany and the Netherlands between 1999 and 2000. They found that 6.7 percent of children in the United States, 2.9 percent of those in the Netherlands and 2 percent of those in Germany were taking at least one psychotropic drug at the time.
Among U.S. children between the ages of five and nine, the rate was more than 8 percent, or four times the European rate. The use of more than one drug at a time by U.S. children was also widespread. http://mytechnologyworld9.blogspot.com/2009/01/americans-drug-their-children-with-300.html
Children forced into cell-like school seclusion rooms
Story Highlights
Mentally disabled, autistic kids injured, traumatized in school seclusion rooms
13-year-old Georgia boy hanged himself in room with cord teacher gave him
Autistic Iowa girl confined in school storage closet where she pulled out her hair
MURRAYVILLE, Georgia (CNN) -- A few weeks before 13-year-old Jonathan King killed himself, he told his parents that his teachers had put him in "time-out."
"We thought that meant go sit in the corner and be quiet for a few minutes," Tina King said, tears washing her face as she remembered the child she called "our baby ... a good kid."
But time-out in the boy's north Georgia special education school was spent in something akin to a prison cell -- a concrete room latched from the outside, its tiny window obscured by a piece of paper.
Called a seclusion room, it's where in November 2004, Jonathan hanged himself with a cord a teacher gave him to hold up his pants.Watch Jonathan's parents on their son's death »
An attorney representing the school has denied any wrongdoing.
Seclusion rooms, sometimes called time-out rooms, are used across the nation, generally for special needs children. Critics say that along with the death of Jonathan, many mentally disabled and autistic children have been injured or traumatized.
http://edition.cnn.com/2008/US/12/17/seclusion.rooms/index.html
The Drugging of our Children (Gary Null) (SSRI drug dangers)(Columbine shooting)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-3609599239524875493
