Shocked and appalled. That’s how my husband and I reacted last week when my 7th grade daughter’s school principal informed us that they no longer teach spelling in school. We were preparing to re-enroll her in classes, after homeschooling her for four months. She’s anxious to go back, and is a bit lonely and depressed at home. It was a difficult decision to send her back, but one we found was in her best interest only because she has been in the public educational system all her life and is quite happy there. We found that if we had pulled her out for the purpose of homeschool three, two or even just one year ago, her thoughts about it would have been completely different and sending her back to public school would not have been necessary.

Last week, we began the process of enrollment and had some surprising conversations with the administration of the local school. In response to my concerns that my daughter needed additional spelling assistance, and asking what the school could do to help her catch up, the principal replied with the following: “We feel there is no need to continue teaching spelling into middle and  high school because computer’s do all the work for them now.” he said. “If they did not learn enough spelling in elementary school, we really don’t worry about it.”

That’s right…they don’t teach spelling any longer in middle and high school. If your child turns a paper in that has spelling errors on it, they don’t even get marked off! The teachers just excuse any spelling errors, because they figure that spell check can handle the problem. It’s no longer their job.

Our American educators have been doing such a good job,
that they feel they can take a break from teaching basic written communication!

In fact, our local principal told us that in order to help her with spelling we should seek methods at home, because they couldn’t provide any assistance at the school. I was just putting my 7th grade daughter BACK IN school, after homeschooling her for four months. The local school (the only one available to us so late in the school year - all others will not accept out-of-district students until next year) is also behind in mathematics by at least six months, compared to the national average for her grade. Why am I sending her back, when homeschooling is sounding more and more like real education?!

If they aren’t teaching spelling and mathematics, what are they teaching?

Recently I found a free download PDF of the book The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America. I haven’t finished reading it yet, but it promises to be a chronological record of events that have occurred in the United States to bring about a specific downward momentum of our educational system, and to what purpose. What I have read so far is compelling and enlightening, and I would encourage all mothers and fathers to read it, even if just for kicks. In the book, Charlotte Iserbyt shares her experiences working in the American educational beauacracy in Washington, and how decisions made at The Office of Educational Research and Improvement impact what our children learn in school, and the sinister plan behind many of those changes. A portion of the text details different educational programs that have been sneakily introduced to our schools since the 70’s. Some of these programs are sexual education, drug education and death education. These programs aren’t academics, aren’t necessary for our children to become educated and most of the information that they are “educating” our children in these programs are things that are controversial because most parents would prefer that THEY are the ones that discuss these subjects with their children, or not at all. See the above PDF link for more information.

Schools are making all kinds of changes they feel are better for our children’s education. These past five years, we’ve seen our local schools go from focusing on academics, to spending the majority of the year planning for the CSAP tests. Our children, instead of learning about Aristotle, the civil war, Mt. Vesuvius, etc., are learning how to properly color in the circles on the test sheet they’re given for the CSAP, how to choose the best possible multiple-choice answer, and how not to talk while the instructor reads the test instructions. The school is so obsessed with test scores, that they spend months out of the year planning, preparing and readying the students for the tests. The government and subsequently the school administration is putting a lot of pressure on individual schools to test well, so that has become their focus, ABOVE actual academic education.

Money of course, is the great motivator, both at home and at school it seems. Although our state gives parents the right to take their children to whatever school district that they feel is the best choice for their child, most school districts will not allow new students (students from outside their local district) after mid-October because that is when the financial “count days” are held to award the schools with their government money for the year. Whatever public school your child attends during October is the school that gets paid for his or her attendance for that year. Because October is the deadline for this payment, schools are unmotivated to accept new students after that month. Any new students, the school would be educating without getting payment, thus they usually make rules that prohibit new students, or give the governing body of the school board the option to close open enrollment. This payment system not only discourages schools from taking in new students during the later half of the school year, but also discourages parents from changing schools even if their child doesn’t fit within their local school system, is regularly bullied, or even if they find their local school isn’t providing an adequate education to their child (our situation).

Back to spelling. The culprit, according to our local principal, is the computer (or more specifically, spell check on the computer). However, if spell check is sufficient for no longer teaching our children spelling in school, how could it be so ineffective at correcting spelling? Read about something called The Cupertino Effect or see an example of spell check gone wrong. Also, if the computer spell check is taking over our need to correct spelling ourselves, does that mean that the new Amazon Kindle will take over our need to know  how to read? People complain regularly about how computers are changing our communication, and not for the better.

Jeff Herring and I entered into a conversation on Twitter recently about how Twitter killed spelling:

You can find a wealth of information on and offline about how technology has changed our lives. See how some people are complaining that the art of the pen pal has been lost here. To combat this, join Letter Writer’s Alliance from here.

Homeschooling parents have the advantage of choosing the education of their children, and seeing their progress daily. We don’t have to rely on the public school system to properly educate our children, nor do we have to be concerned that our children learn something sinister, clandestine or controversial. When our children attend public school, it is our duty as parents to maintain a watchful eye on the education that our children are receiving, and to know where the public school is failing our children so that we can step up to the plate and fill in the gaps in education our children are receiving, and change schools if necessary.

Technology isn’t to blame for the changes in our society, we are. If we allow computers to think for us, they will. If we remove the obligation of young minds to learn to use our language properly to communicate, then they won’t be able to properly convey themselves. Remember Robert Frost and choose the road less traveled in our technological times - learn to communicate as best you can, and teach your children to do so as well, regardless of what the masses decide around you. Impact your children’s future positively by choosing to help them to be excellent communicators. Anything else is just spell check.

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