Are GPTs the way to AGI, probably not
In an opinion piece for the NY Times Gary Marcus indicates why he has reservations on the future of LLM GPT AI systems.
Silicon Valley Is Investing in the Wrong A.I.
“Buoyed by the initial progress of chatbots, many thought that A.G.I. was imminent.
But these systems have always been prone to hallucinations and errors. Those obstacles may be one reason generative A.I. hasn’t led to the skyrocketing profits and productivity that many in the tech industry predicted. A recent study run by M.I.T.’s NANDA initiative found that 95 percent of companies that did A.I. pilot studies found little or no return on their investment. A recent financial analysis projects an estimated shortfall of $800 billion in revenue for A.I. companies by the end of 2030.
If the strengths of A.I. are truly to be harnessed, the tech industry should stop focusing so heavily on these one-size-fits-all tools and instead concentrate on narrow, specialized A.I. tools engineered for particular problems. Because, frankly, they’re often more effective.”
Points I’ve also been making here several times over the past few months, along with others about the perilous state of the current US economy and how the “Current AI Hype Bubble” could be a disaster for it.
But the question of what is “Artificial General Intelligence”(AGI) is something that has at best had an elusive answer akin to “Shoulder shrug handwaving” and impossible “What ever you want it to be” type statements. It’s something that a group of 33 specialists from 28 institutions have got together to try and address more reasonably,
They come up with,
Definition : AGI is an AI that can match or exceed the cognitive versatility and proficiency of a well-educated adult.”
Which although it sounds profound is actually not that useful.
Because the use of,
“match … Well-educated adult.”
Is not actually a useful measure.
It’s been pointed out that the “use of aids” “dumbs us down” in that it causes us to “loose skills”. I first heard this when I was in school. With first electronic calculators and whilst still in school computers.
Whilst many would argue that it’s not important or even irrelevant, it is true that certain skills are not developed because of the use of aids.
What most do not realise is that those traditional skills that are seen as nolonger worth teaching due to the ubiquitous use of aids, are actually important. Not for what they directly teach, but indirectly teach. That is they give new viewpoints that are force-multiplier tools that enable us to reason in either new ways or to levels we otherwise might not.
At the end of the day the two things that have moved humans forwards over many thousands of years are,
- Stored Knowledge.
- Use knowledge to reason.
They were and still should be the foundations of becoming “Well-educated”.
Sadly as gets often observed these days, producing “Well-educated adults” appears to be nolonger a goal of the education system in a number of Western Nations.
This would encourage more traditional, less politicized instruction in military-run public schools and boost recruitment from the most pro-America demographics. //
The current Senate version of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) moving through Congress would require DODEA schools to offer 11th-grade students the college admissions test of their parents’ choice. This would allow students to take the Classic Learning Test, a Great Books competitor to the SAT and ACT college entrance exams. NDAA is a must-pass annual military spending bill. Sen. Jim Banks, R-Ind., successfully added that amendment during markup in July. //
The CLT arose 10 years ago as a market response to the increased politicization of the College Board. //
Classical education is an elite form of education for the common man. Classical schools teach the Western great books by using age-appropriate primary source documents instead of textbooks as much as possible.
Classically educated children devote core instruction time to grammar, logic, and writing, as well as traditional math and science. They memorize great poetry, hymns, folk songs, and language rules. Classical schools deliberately cultivate the virtues and habits necessary for republican self-government, such as faith in the Triune God, honesty, respect for God’s creation, hard work, attentiveness, charity towards others, and perseverance.
Arkansas, Florida, Oklahoma, Texas, and Wyoming have passed laws making CLT’s college entrance and annual K-12 tests an option in their states, from school choice programs to entrance and scholarships at state higher education institutions. //
Banks has also introduced a standalone bill, the Promoting Classical Learning Act, that would require the military academies to accept CLT. That bill would also require all federally administered K-12 schools to offer CLT to all 11th-graders. The federal government directly runs both DODEA schools and Bureau of Indian Education schools.
Let's teach kids a thing or two!
SmartBox® solves 6 challenges faced by schools in developing countries:
- Lack of Internet - The SmartBox® provides students a vast collection of content sent wirelessly to the Chromebooks.
- Limited Electricity - Runs on battery power for 12-16 hours; recharges in 5 hours with generator or solar system.
- Textbook Shortage - Students have access to a myriad of books, videos and learning resources.
- Teacher Shortage - Students can learn in the absence of a qualified teacher, and teachers can also learn!
- Messy Wiring Runs - Gone are the days of the traditional computer lab with its tangle of cords.
- Security - Can be securely locked and stored each evening.
Case Study: Liberia
In three years the SmartBox® helped take Sinoe County from #11 to #1 on the West African Examination Council (WAEC) exam. In 2014, Sinoe 12th graders had a 23% passing rate. In 2017, they jumped to 88% to top all 15 counties in Liberia. The SmartBox® is currently being used in 30 Liberian schools and orphanages in nine counties. Thousands of students have learned to use the computer, and have gained proficiency in math, the sciences, and other subject areas.
Secretary of Education Linda McMahon released a video highlighting the huge win given to parents by the Supreme Court when they ruled in favor of the parents of children attending the Montgomery County school system, in the landmark case of Mahmoud v. Taylor.
Parents sued Montgomery County School Board Superintendent Thomas Taylor for introducing illustrated LGBT books into the children's curriculum without notifying parents. The school decided it didn't need to ask permission, resulting in the lawsuit that went all the way up to the highest court in the land, where it backed the parents and upheld their First Amendment right to freedom of religion.
Now the school must notify the parents before introducing these things, and parents have the option to opt their child out of the lesson.
McMahon said this "is not only a win for religious liberty, but parental rights." //
Moreover, it should be pointed out that Mahmoud v. Taylor was a 6-3 decision that was divided along ideological lines. That we'll have a Supreme Court that isn't ideologically tilted to the left is not guaranteed for the future, so what was decided today effectively needs to be codified into law.
Parental Oversight and Educational Transparency Act (H.R. 1416) is important for just this very reason. //
Too many school districts and even teachers with personal socio-political itches to scratch believe that your child is their sculpting clay and that their authority outweighs the parents when it comes to education. They are wrong about this.
But this is why H.R. 1416 is necessary.
I think too many public school educators and staff forgot that public schools are public institutions, not sovereign kingdoms where students — and even parents to a degree — are their subjects to be ruled over.
From the time I started my adventure in homeschooling over a decade ago, I have wanted to collect some of the most inspiring words spoken by American leaders since our founding — eloquent and soaring words, rooted in the wisdom of the ages. The desire emerged from reading those great words of American history aloud with my daughter, contrasting them with the words we heard daily all around us, and realizing that something priceless had been lost.
American education, not long ago the envy of the world, has become a corrupt, bloated, and failed institution. This has been happening for over a century and there is no sign of recovery. The loss can be summed up in one sentence: We have lost our words. We no longer read the greatest spoken and written words of all time in the fields of history, literature, poetry, philosophy, and politics, and so we have lost the understanding of words that our ancestors lived by. More critically, however, we have lost what those words have represented. //
Third, when we read extraordinary works, we encounter words which we might be able to understand in context but not define. To build our vocabulary, we need not to dread the “hard” words but look forward with hope to acquainting ourselves with them.
For this subject, the English word “vocabulary” is lackluster. I prefer the German word for vocabulary: Wortschatz. Wort means “word” and Schatz means “treasure”… word-treasure.
The pen is mightier than the sword, and words are a greater treasure than diamonds and pearls. Do not leave your treasure scattered among the pages. Gather your words as you go and store them in your treasure chest. //
Including the entire sentence has done more than just help us to remember the word; it has shown the word at the pinnacle of its career. It is exasperating and essentially a waste of time to use pre-made vocabulary card sets that usually cast strong and noble vocabulary words into the dungeon of absurd, illogical, and demeaning sentences. Adorn your own word-treasure cards with sentences from the greatest works of all time. //
Fourth, elocution was once a standard part of school curricula. It has not been so for the last hundred years or more, and we hear the results all around us. Finding Our Words is not an elocution course, but a few tips can get us started. When having children read aloud, encourage them to incorporate a manner of expression appropriate to the text. Encourage them to project their voices. A favorite word we have used in reading the speeches in this book is “stentorian.” In the days before microphones and speakers, a stentorian voice was required if one wished to be heard.
June 1 marks the 100th anniversary of the U.S. Supreme Court’s landmark parental rights decision in Pierce v. Society of Sisters.
That historic opinion recognized “the liberty of parents and guardians to direct the upbringing and education of children under their control.” It also famously declared that “the child is not the mere creature of the State; those who nurture him and direct his destiny have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare him for additional obligations.”
Sadly, despite that—and even now—many federal programs continue to encroach on parental rights. //
....
These federal programs violate parents’ fundamental right to direct their children’s upbringing, education, and health care. The government should help—not hinder—loving parents in fulfilling their “high duty.” Including parents helps. Keeping secrets hinders. //
Fortunately, Congress has the authority—and the opportunity—to protect parental rights from federal government overreach by passing the Families’ Rights and Responsibilities Act.
This act recognizes that parents’ fundamental rights are entitled to the highest level of constitutional protection. It requires courts to apply the proper standard of judicial review—“strict scrutiny”—to federal violations of parental rights.
This is the same standard the Supreme Court has applied to safeguard other fundamental rights—like free speech and free exercise of religion. Congress is well within its constitutional authority to ensure that federal programs properly respect parental authority. ///
Therefore... School choice!?
Los Angeles Times
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Could phonics solve California's reading crisis? Inside the push for sweeping changes
latimes.com
Could phonics solve California's reading crisis? Inside the push for sweeping changes
8:31 AM · Jun 2, 2025. //
The bill is the capstone to decades of debate and controversy in California on how best to teach reading amid stubbornly low test scores. Gov. Gavin Newsom has pledged his support, setting aside $200 million to fund teacher training on the new approach in the May revise of his 2025-26 budget proposal. //
What is so infuriating about all this, aside from the obvious fact that generations of kids have been unnecessarily hampered in their education and hence their lifetime achievements, is that liberals are always given a pass for ruining things, and when they shift to proven methods, they somehow get credit for doing the obvious. //
SSGT Ranger Davis ConsistentConservative
2 hours ago
It took 100 years to rewire our brains to make us a society that thinks in written words. Giving up phonics was an attempt by the teacher’s union to disrupt the reading ability of our students and create another “crisis” that they could ask for more money. As a recently retired teacher (on my fourth day so far) I’m sure that was their intention, even though I haven’t been part of the union in twenty years.
Watt SSGT Ranger Davis
an hour ago
You may be right, but I think there were other factors as well:
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The desire to come up with something new and innovative for the sake of it, or to demonstrate that education, too, is a real science.
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The fact that, once we get the phonics down, we do tend to see whole words as units and no longer need to sound them out (kind of like reading Chinese characters). So the "innovators" thought they could skip the phonics step and jump to adult reading.
It is strongly within the national interest to help parents act on their preferences, because research shows secular schooling is the No. 1 factor causing Americans to lose their faith. People who love America cannot be neutral about that, because widespread Christianity is essential to keep what’s left of our constitutional way of life. The American Founders believed this fervently, and it is true.
The truth is, the secular indoctrination factories that judges forced all public schools to become are the prime engine of America’s decline. For one thing, the loss of faith is the entire cause of our fertility crisis, a key component of our entitlement spending crisis. Keep more Americans Christian, and entitlement programs become much better funded.
For another thing, identity politics is an anti-reason, anti-thought, anti-human, anti-God philosophy, and it controls public education today from top to bottom. So secular schooling is not just a top driver of America’s intellectual corruption — although it is that! — but also of our moral corruption.
That is the underlying cause of all of our nation’s many co-morbid existential crises, including the fact that Congress can’t cut insanely corrupt and existentially threatening spending. So it’s more important to address the underlying cause than its symptoms. Funding school choice does exactly that. //
A Free Society Requires Christian Education
In order for government not to micromanage people and thereby eventually become dictatorial and totalitarian, citizens must responsibly manage their lives. If people do not restrain and order their private lives, eventually government must do it for them. Everyone from James Madison to Alexis de Tocqueville knew and preached this. //
The top two places people learn the virtues, or the art of self-governance, are in church and at home. These two institutions do in a nuanced and non-coercive way what government does bluntly and coercively: instruct and encourage people in the art of making morally responsible choices each week, day, and hour.
That’s why there is no such thing as a free society without widespread Christianity, as even professional atheists now acknowledge after spending their lives working to destroy it. And that’s why even people who aren’t Christians should support school choice if they want to live in a free society. Obviously, Christians should also support Christian education as a moral imperative, which is why historically churches have always operated schools. //
Everyone who isn’t insane wants to live in a society where children and adults learn not to steal, kill, cheat, and self-destruct. Christianity teaches this without needing any expenditure of taxpayer funds. There are lots of other reasons, too, for a purely rational vote for school choice, including that private schooling costs taxpayers far less while returning far better results than public schooling.
An America without Christianity is not America at all. That is why cultural Marxists treat Christianity as their No. 1 enemy — because it is. And as everyone in the age of woke should be aware, controlling schooling is one of their chief national destruction strategies.
So fighting the left’s destruction of education is a radically good and necessary action. School choice is the prime means of making America competent, solvent, and faithful again, and that’s why it may be the most important budget provision Congress can pass.
The Urban Institute, a centrist think tank focused on societal data, has noted that when inclusion of outside factors such as economic strata transpires, the state boasting of the highest test scores in 2024 for fourth graders in both math and reading is ... drum roll, please ...
... Mississippi. //
The Mississippi Department of Education seeks to create a world-class educational system that gives students the knowledge and skills to be successful in college and in the workforce, and to flourish as parents and citizens. To make this vision a reality, all students must be given multiple pathways to success, and teachers and administrators must continue to meet the challenges of this ever-changing landscape of public education. //
This demands self-discipline and the ability to understand that there are absolute, automatic answers to many life situations, which leads to math. The math-trained mind has the capacity to approach the complex, multi-layered factors inherent in functions required for successful adulthood, such as logically running a business. Balancing the need to control expenses while taking on the calculated risks needed for a company to expand requires a firm grasp of the absolutes learned through no other method than applying time-honored and time-tested mathematical principles. As the truism says, if your outgo exceeds your income, your upkeep will be your downfall.
Additionally (no pun intended), the math-trained mind understands that the colorblind, genderless world of numbers and calculations demonstrates true equality in a manner no puffed-up imagined realm of pseudo-intellectual superiority can evoke. The “progressive” mentality secretly abhors equality, as it shows that when provided equal resources and instruction in life’s mechanics, the artificial barriers of race and gender melt away. It also demonstrates the logical next step of uncovering the soft bigotry of low expectations combined with laying bare the thin veneer of deep racism held by those who, in their self-righteousness and desire to play God, act as though they are the living embodiment of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation by behaving as the betters of those they claim to uplift.
Ever since the pandemic forced schools to go virtual, the number of online classes offered by community colleges has exploded. That has been a welcome development for many students who value the flexibility online classes offer. But it has also given rise to the incredibly invasive and uniquely modern phenomenon of bot students now besieging community college professors like Smith.
The bots’ goal is to bilk state and federal financial aid money by enrolling in classes, and remaining enrolled in them, long enough for aid disbursements to go out. They often accomplish this by submitting AI-generated work. And because community colleges accept all applicants, they’ve been almost exclusively impacted by the fraud.
That has put teachers on the front lines of an ever-evolving war on fraud, muddied the teaching experience and thrown up significant barriers to students’ ability to access courses. What has made the situation at Southwestern all the more difficult, some teachers say, is the feeling that administrators haven’t done enough to curb the crisis.
‘We Didn’t Used to Have to Decide if our Students were Human’
Banned Books Week is coming to K-12 schools and city libraries across the nation September 18-24. This is a time for librarians to promote books that have been challenged for offensive content, such as sexually explicit writing and images, the promotion of so-called transgender lifestyles, and child sexual abuse.
Librarians get to tout their activism as a virtuous commitment to First Amendment freedoms for students and others and they label those who don’t like the banned books as censors. But many of these books actually fall under the legal definition of obscenity. Others discuss things like the steps of “transgender transitioning” and how children can hide their internet search history from their parents. Nevertheless, many school and classroom libraries still carry them.
Research by Judith Reisman and Mary McAlister in the Liberty University Law Review, “Materials Deemed Harmful to Minors Are Welcomed into Classrooms and Libraries via Educational ‘Obscenity Exemptions,’” relayed that the Supreme Court has already settled that obscene material is not protected by the Constitution but left the definition of what is obscene to individual states based on the characteristics of their communities. Most states and the District of Columbia have obscenity laws with prohibitions on disseminating material that is “harmful to minors.” //
For books like “Gender Queer,” I’m unable to replicate the pictures depicted in the book for this article, as I would be subject to legal penalties. Likewise, a father at a recent school board meeting had his microphone silenced for attempting to read from some of the objectionable books found in his child’s school because the school board was aware that allowing the words to air was illegal.
But, magically, once a child enters a school library, a librarian can provide “Gender Queer” and other challenged books to him or her without fear of prosecution. //
As an example of a state’s obscenity exemption, take a look at Texas Penal Code Section 43.24, which is the law that prohibits distribution of harmful material to children. The specific exemption is found at 43.24(c), and it provides “an affirmative defense to prosecution under this section that the sale, distribution, or exhibition was by a person having scientific, educational, governmental, or other similar justification.”
But Texas State Rep. Steve Toth is trying to change that.
Once again, we have a wonderful argument for taking the federal government, or indeed any level of government, out of the financing of education altogether. Our higher education systems have become far too casual about accepting federal largesse while working at cross purposes to the American public, and we are expected to pay for it.
For decades, the federal government has been backing long lines of dump trucks full of taxpayer cash up to the Ivy League universities and dumping them out, and those universities responded by looking the other way as antisemitic agitators took over their campuses, as the curricula swelled with idiotic Ethnic Underwater Dog-Polishing Studies courses and even degree programs, and the faculty spent more time inculcating young skulls full of mush with Marxist claptrap than with instilling in those skulls knowledge and marketable skills.
Cutting that cash-green string is the right idea - in fact, it's the right idea regardless of the university's DEI policies or lack thereof, regardless of the school's curricula, regardless of the political affiliations of their faculty. Let the parents pay for their kids' education, or let the kids get part-time jobs or find some other way to pay. If they need to borrow money, let them present themselves to a private lending institution and make their case based on their academic record to date and their prospects for employment. Do all this, and the ridiculous classes and programs would disappear in a trice - as would a lot of the Marxist professors.
Despite a state ban on sectarian charter schools, the Oklahoma Statewide Charter School Board approved St. Isidore’s request to participate in the state’s charter school program. The ban is rooted in the anti-Catholic Blaine Amendment added to Oklahoma's constitution in 1907.
This set up an interesting conflict where the governor, a Republican, and the Republican state superintendent of public instruction supported the applications, but the Republican attorney general brought the case that the Supreme Court heard Wednesday. He sued in 2023 to block the charter because it would violate state law and the US Constitution. In June 2024, the Oklahoma Supreme Court agreed with Attorney General Gentner Drummond that St. Isidore's Catholic character, despite being open to everyone and requiring attendance of no one, would violate the Constitution's establishment clause.
The crux of the questioning centered on religious neutrality versus hostility to religion. Justice Kavanaugh hit this theme hard. “You can’t treat religious people, and religious institutions, and religious speech as second-class in the United States,” Kavanaugh said to Gregory Garre, a former Bush administration solicitor general who represented Oklahoma's Attorney General Gentner Drummond. (As an aside, it is interesting to note how many prominent "conservatives" are lining up to oppose what I consider to be conservative positions once those positions have the high likelihood of becoming law. Funny, that.) “And when you have a program that’s open to all comers except religion...that seems like rank discrimination against religion,” Kavanaugh added. “They’re not asking for special treatment, they’re not asking for favoritism. They’re just saying, ‘Don’t treat us worse because we’re religious.’” //
If the Court rules the way it appears headed, it will shake up the charter school programs everywhere. First off, it will mean the thirty-eight Blaine Amendment states can no longer use that to block religious schools from applying for charter school status. The attorney for Oklahoma painted a picture of this, opening the door for the state to make personnel and curriculum decisions. "And if religious schools can qualify as public charter schools, it will raise questions about who can be admitted to such schools, whom the schools can hire as teachers, and what the curricula at those schools will be."
In reality, Oklahoma's lawyer is out of his tree. The Supreme Court has already ruled that the government has to stay out of the hiring and firing decisions of people filling "ministerial" functions in religious organizations (Supreme Court Tells Ninth Circuit to Stay Out of Personnel Decisions of Religious Organizations – RedState). And there is no controversy over admission (anyone who wishes to participate may), and St. Isidore agreed to follow the state educational standards when it applied for the charter.
Some online comments have warned that this opens the door to "Satanist" schools or Alphabet-people schools. News flash, we already have those. The real fear by the establishment, Democrat and Republican, is that religious charter schools will proliferate (they will) and that many parents will opt for them because they can be sure their kids will not be introduced to gay porn or secretly "transitioned" without their knowledge or consent. The same people invariably raise the question of Islamic madrassas as though I give a rip about how someone else educates their child. As the charter lays out specific testing and achievement goals, the fear of Middle East-style schools is simply a straw man argument designed to appeal to the worst sort of bigotry. //
The only real question is whether the Court will follow the direction of Alito, Gorsuch, and Kavanaugh and issue a full-throated defense of religion as a critical component of American history and society, or will it just nibble around the edges, causing decades of future controversy. //
Ready2Squeeze
3 hours ago
The real opposition to this is by the Teacher Unions ... if religious schools take off, union membership will likely drop off - and with it union dues payments. //
anon-tf71 Ready2Squeeze
3 hours ago
I'd say the States are even more opposed. When this happens they lose some control of education, maybe even all of it.
Not that this diminishes the (religious?) ferver with which teachers unions oppose it. //
eburke
3 hours ago edited
"it is interesting to note how many prominent "conservatives" are lining up to oppose what I consider to be conservative positions once those positions have the high likelihood of becoming law."
Of all the things Trump has accomplished (and the list is lengthy) his exposure of the faux conservative wing of the GOP is at the very top of the list. He has caused these UniParty hacks to expose themselves for whom they really are...and they hate him for it. //
PubliusCryptus
2 hours ago edited
How about the Federal and State governments stay out of schooling altogether? Make schools competitive, profit-driven organizations; that means antitrust actions against teachers(and other) unions. It also means shining a spot light on tax collections and requiring that those collections be justified by value delivered to the taxpayers. It has become very clear(Thank you DOGE) that government is, almost always, a terrible waste of resources. I would point to Medicare as corollary evidence of that claim. Governments should be the parties of last resort when solving problems.
The Qatari government is funding teacher salaries, curriculums, and programming in school districts large and small across the country, allowing the small country to pursue a scheme of indoctrinating America’s youth.
That is what the first batch of public records requests from OpenTheBooks, reviewed by The Federalist, shows. The “cradle-to-graduation propaganda pipeline” includes grooming teachers to advance Qatari influence and talking points, angling soft cultural changes through language and field trip opportunities, and ultimately, as OpenTheBooks points out, creating “the next generation of activists ready to sew chaos on college campuses.”
Rockefeller & education
Rockefeller & education
The case, Mahmoud v. Taylor, revolved around Muslim, Christian, and Jewish parents from Montgomery County, Maryland. The county school board would not allow these parents to remove their elementary school children from portions of class actively advocating for things like gay marriage, trans-identifying children, pride parades, and the idea that a child can change his “gender identity” at any given moment.
Attorneys for the county board are claiming the purpose of the instruction was to simply engender “inclusivity,” and that the children who were being exposed to the material, ranging from pre-kindergarten to sixth grade, were only being shown that gay “marriages” exist. But that narrative was swiftly cut down by questioning from Justice Samuel Alito to parents’ attorney Eric Baxter, senior counsel at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. //
The books and instruction materials themselves are incredibly controversial, particularly for the exclusively young and captive audience they are meant for in Montgomery County, and Justices Alito and Brett Kavanaugh were both perplexed as to how it became unfeasible for the schools to allow an opt-out choice for parents.
The county offers opt-outs for “virtually everything else under the sun,” said Principal Deputy Solicitor General Sarah Harris, who is representing the Trump administration on the side of the parents. But when it comes to force-feeding children gay and trans propaganda, the opt-out is “not administrable,” according to Schoenfeld. //
Justice Amy Coney Barrett took a different route, noting how Montgomery County’s policy is not one that simply exposes children to a concept, but rather relays a point of view as an unquestionable fact.
“It’s saying: ‘This is the right view of the world,’” Barrett said. “This is how we think about things. This is how you should think about things. This is like, 2+2 is 4.”
The school board also claims that there is no religious hostility in the requirement, but Justice Neil Gorsuch pointed to instances where board members said students were repeating their parents’ religious “dogma,” and expressing anger that the issue has some Muslim parents joining forces with others who they described as white supremacists and xenophobes.
America’s education system wasn’t designed to unlock the genius in every child. It was designed to produce compliance. Efficiency. Predictability. In short—factory workers, not thinkers.
This isn’t a conspiracy theory. It’s a matter of historical record.
The Industrial Blueprint
In the late 1800s and early 1900s, as the U.S. surged into the Industrial Revolution, it looked a lot like today’s China—a manufacturing behemoth. Industrialists like Andrew Carnegie and John D. Rockefeller understood that in order to fuel mass production, they didn’t need philosophers or inventors. They needed disciplined laborers who could follow instructions, show up on time, and never question authority.
So the school system was modeled on the factory floor:
- Rows of desks like assembly lines
- Bells to simulate shift changes
- Subjects taught in isolation, with minimal cross-disciplinary thought
- One-size-fits-all learning geared toward standardization, not inspiration
Horace Mann and John Dewey—often celebrated as pioneers—helped usher in this system. Dewey even said: “The teacher is not in the school to impose certain ideas or to form certain habits in the child, but is there as a member of the community to select the influences which shall affect the child and assist him in properly responding to these influences.” In other words, social conditioning, not personal discovery. //
It’s time to unplug the conveyor belt.
Let’s stop pretending our schools are sacred. Let’s start building a system that grows free minds, not gray-suited cogs.
Because our children aren’t factory products.
They’re image-bearers of God—capable of wonder, wisdom, and greatness. If we don’t fight for their minds, someone else will program them.
What we have to always do, regardless of who we voted for — you still gotta pay your rent, you still gotta take care of your kids, you still gotta take care of your business — and maybe some of what's happening, like they're trying to take apart the Department of Education, maybe that is a good thing.
Maybe it will force us to make sure that out kids actually get what they need. Maybe it'll force us to go to our state and say 'Listen, I want to make sure, since you've taken all this money from my taxes, I want to make sure that my kids get exactly what they need.' I don't have to wait for the government to do it. We can do it.
This is now in our hands. And it's gonna be tough. Nobody wants to do it, because it's a b****. But you know what? If it comes down to your survival, this is what you gotta do. You gotta take care of what you gotta take care of.
Goldberg then looked off-set, and abruptly said: "And they're telling me that we're gonna be right back."
Needless to say, you could have heard a pin drop while Whoopi told the truth about the state of public education in America. And the dour look on Sunny Hostin's face? Laugh-out-loud hilarious.
Just as good, ABC cutting off the segment with a commercial break. Why that decision was made, we'll likely never know. But do know that based on the reaction of the others on the panel and studio audience, the shocking reaction to Whoopi's comments was palpable. //
stickdude90 an hour ago
Talk about a blind squirrel wearing a broken watch... //
Avatar
TheAmerican1 an hour ago
It's almost as if she's advocating that parents have -- what's that word? It's on the tip of my tongue -- a, um, gosh, what is it?
Oh, I know! A choice in their child's education. //
Curmudgeon99 TheAmerican1 27 minutes ago
She made the argument that things being handled as close to the voters as possible is best. I don't think her big govt. loving friends are going to be forgiving toward her for this.