Next General Club Meeting: What’s happening to America’s schools
and what we can do about it – April 1, 2021 at 7:30 pm

Rebuilding America’s Public Educational System

By Nicholas Giordano and Jerry Matacotta

Do you as parents, grandparents, other caregivers, or even concerned citizens realize that you have the legal right to sit in on a classroom lesson being given to your youngster? Do you realize the powerful platform this gives you in reporting back the incorrect, non-factual, even nonsensical information and disinformation being fed to these young minds, by some teachers, in order to socially engineer society?  

Today, many of us feel helpless that if we “complain” both the child and parents will be ostracized and stigmatized. However, we as individuals, deciding together to sit in on these classroom lessons can become a real force. While our politicians chew their fingernails, cowering in fear of the woke mobs, we can foster the change so desperately needed.

There are many who do not realize that as parents and caregivers, we have the power and the control. It is time we utilize that power and take the public education system back from the fringe voices controlling what our children are learning. We can no longer sit on the sidelines wrongly outsourcing our children’s education. It is time to get engaged and play an active role in what is happening in the classroom and foster change to restore sanity and a sense of civic purpose.

Parents need to go through the homework and the textbooks to understand the radical message our children are being brainwashed with. The strongest advocates to change the public education system are the parents, yet many parents are absent. Sure, we may complain to family or friends. We may put out a social media post, but that is not going to change the system. It is time we organize and coordinate with other parents. It is time we become active in the PTA. It is time we force the school boards to change, and if the school board does not listen, then it is time for the parents to become the school board.

The Founding Fathers understood the importance of an educated populace. That a public education system is the true guardian of liberty. They were cognizant of demagogues and ideologies which could undermine the democratic system that they established.

For 150 years of public education, schools taught the underlying principles: freedom, liberty, rights and responsibilities of citizens and the understanding that wherever someone came from and who they were, they had the opportunity to better themselves in a nation which shared these core values. As John Adams stated, “Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.” 

Teachers of the past understood this concept. They may have discussed politics in the teachers’ lounge; but in the classroom, they were trained not to give their opinions. They understood the importance of having students think critically and discovering for themselves what the conclusions are. Teachers would have command over the material through the vast knowledge they acquired in their subject field.

Unfortunately, this changed amongst a new generation of teachers who were not properly trained on core educational concepts. Many wrongly believe their opinions should be imposed on the student body. Even worse are the teacher’s overreliance on far-left textbooks and materials provided by the textbook manufacturers, rather than using primary source material and allowing students to draw their own conclusions. We have created a system where students depend on secondhand sources, therefore relying on someone else’s opinions, and unbeknownst to students, the author’s biases.

Often, these teachers see only the negatives of American history, and not the greatness of our founding documents and our shared history, which has made the United States the last great hope of the world.

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Nicholas Giordano is Professor of Political Science at Suffolk Community College and host of The P.A.S. Report Podcast. Historian, Jerry Matacotta, is the founder of the History Seminar Series at Queensborough Community College and worked 32 years for New York City Public Schools primarily teaching High School American History.