Samuel L. Blumenfeld has spent the last 30 years writing about American
education and seeking answers to such baffling questions as: Why is America
experiencing a decline in literacy? Why are so many American children afflicted
with learning disabilities? Why are the schools pushing sex ed, drug ed,
and Ritalin, but are dead-set against intensive phonics and rote memorization
of arithmetic facts?
His six previous books on education answer these and many more questions
puzzling the public. His best-selling expose of the national Educational
Association, N.E.A. Trojan Horse in American Education, has virtually
become a classic in critical educational literature. Peter Brimelow, in
Fortune magazine, called Is Public Education Necessary? brilliant
revisionist history, and How to Tutorand Alpha-Phonics are
being used by thousands of parents and homeschoolers to teach their children
the 3R's in the traditional manner.
Born, and educated in New York City, Dr. Bumenfeld graduated from The
City College of New York in 1950 and worked for ten years in the book publishing
industry. His articles have appeared in many publications, and he has lectured
and held seminars in all fifty states and Canada, England, Australia, and
New Zealand. He has also tutored and taught in private schools and as a
substitute in public schools. He is, no doubt, one of the world's leading
authorities on the teaching of reading. In 1986 he was awarded an honorary
Doctor of Laws degree by Bob Jones University.
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Dr. Samuel Blumenfeld's Books
Dr. Blumenfeld has authored the following books:
HOW TO TUTOR
Dr. Blumenfeld warns: "Most parents wait until their child
is having difficulty at school before they think of providing some remedial
or tutorial instruction. Sometimes the child is already so far behind,
so confused, so frustrated by the experience of not learning in the first
two grades, that the remedial program must be a long and difficult one.
However, proper tutoring at the preschool level or in the first and second
grades, as a preventive measure, can make sure that the child has the foundation
on which he can build his school achievement." In How To Tutor Blumenfeld provides parents and teachers
with a complete instructional program: step-by-step lesson plans in the
three R's. READING: The biggest problem today. The instruction program in these
pages restores order and common sense, show how to avoid the confusion
prevailing in our schools. 117 Lessons. WRITING: The skill most neglected in our schools today. 73 Lessons. ARITHMETIC: "In teaching the child arithmetic, it is important
to convey to him the genius of the system itself. Next to the alphabet,
it is the greatest mental tool ever devised by man. Therefore we should
approach the subject with the excitement and interest it deserves. Any
teacher who makes arithmetic dull does so because he or she does not understand
its beautiful simplicity, its logic, and its facility which permits use
to do so much with so little." 67 Lessons. Anyone can use these lesson plans: student tutors, parents, retired
teachers, housewives who would like to earn extra money by tutoring at
home. The plans work well even in tutoring adult illiterates. Dr. Blumenfeld
gives helpful advice on how to qualify as a tutor, and useful pointers
on an art that any intelligent person can master. Price: $29.95 + $5.00 P&H
2) Multiplication, Division and Fractions Workbook.... $24.95 +
$5.00 pstg.
If you have used Dr. Blumenfeld's How To Tutor book you will
be delighted with the new workbooks. If you have never used How To Tutor
book there is good reason to start. The workbooks make it easier than ever
to use.
All of the arithmetic exercises in the book are available in workbook form.
You no longer have to write out the exercises by hand. There are 3 pages
for each exercise. One page to explain to the student, the second page
to work with the student, prompting with answers, and the third page for
the student to work alone.
Now there is no reason to delay teaching your child, or anyone else, reading,
cursive handwriting and arithmetic with How To Tutor.
IS PUBLIC EDUCATION NECESSARY? Price: This book is out of print
This book tells, for the first time, the story of how and why Americans
gave up educational freedom so early in their history for the imagined
benefits of state-controlled education. Samuel Blumenfeld, who has earned recognition in the field of education
breaks new ground in this important work. Is Public Education Necessary?
tells the full, fascinating story of how government-controlled education
emerged in the face of generally accepted and adequate facilities for private
schooling. The author delves into a wealth of original sources to reveal
how a comparative handful of secularists, who were more concerned with
destroying religion than with freeing man, spearheaded the drive toward
public education. Centered in Harvard, this nineteenth-century liberal
elite worked tirelessly - and successfully - to put America on the road
to educational statism. By exploring the very roots of the system,Is Public Education
Necessary? provides the missing link in our educational history, and
is essential reading for anyone who is dissatisfied with the status quo,
or committed to the restoration of intellectual freedom and moral sanity
in America today. Price: This book is out of print(NOTE: much of the information in this
book can be found in past Blumenfeld Education Newsletters)
Alpha-Phonics compared to
How To Tutor:
How To Tutor (HTT) was written first, in 1972.
Alpha-Phonics (Alpha) came in 1983.
The reading portion of HTT and Alpha are virtually identical as to
content (Do not be concerned that the number of lessons is different; HTT
actually has 9 more phonics lessons because some lessons are broken down
into part "a," part "b," part "c," etc.).
The MAIN difference between the reading portions
of the two books is in format.
Using HTT requires the teacher to copy material out of the book for
the student.
Alpha allows the child to read his lessons directly from the book.
Reason:
HTT is a 5 X 8 size page. The instructions for parent and material
for the student are interspersed and in standard size type.
Alpha is a large size page, 8 1/2 X 11. The instructions for parent
are separated and in the back half of the book in standard size book type.
The material for the student is separated, in the front half of the
book, and are in extra large size type.
There are some other slight differences between the reading portion
of HTT and Alpha, but they are not significant.
Some people who want the most convenient way of teaching phonics reading,
and be able to teach arithmetic and cursive handwriting, buy both books.
In 1967, the National Education Association declared war on the
American people. Its executive secretary proclaimed: "NEA will
become a political power second to no other special interest group... NEA
will organize this profession from top to bottom into logical operational
units that can move swiftly and effectively and with power unmatched by
any other organized group in the nation." Today, that prediction is a reality. The 1.7 million-member NEA
is the most politically powerful - and dangerous - organization in the
United States with plans not only to control the federal government but
also every state legislature in America. Under the guise of "improving
education" the teachers are on the march toward total political power
with the aim of converting America into a socialist society. Shocking? Incredible? You won't think so after reading this well-documented
book. Samuel Blumenfeld, veteran researcher, has trained his expert skills
on the NEA and pieced together a story of intellectual deceit and moral
subversion that is bound to cause shock waves across America. And because
one cannot understand the NEA without understanding the fuller context
in which it has grown, Blumenfeld provides a historical background that
permits the reader to know why our educators have deliberately transformed
America into "a nation at risk." If you read but one book on education in your lifetime, this is the
one to read, for you must know what the NEA has in store for America
if this nation is to survive in freedom. Price: As of Dec. 2004 this book is Out Of Print
The following is the text printed on the jacket of Dr. Blumenfeld's
newest book. For endorsements and ordering information see below.
In September 1993, Americans were stunned to learn that half the adult
population - some 90 million Americans - have such poor literacy skills
that they can scarcely cope with the demands of our high-tech economy.
That was the finding of the U.S. Department of Education's $14-million
survey of adult literacy in the U.S. The question is: How could so many
Americans - who had spent more time in school than any previous generation,
on whom more money had been spent than in any previous generation - emerge
from their education so poorly equipped in basic literacy skills?
Blumenfeld answers that question in his no-holds-barred examination
of the decline of literacy in America and the deliberate dumbing down of
its people. He puts the blame squarely on the shoulders of the educational
leaders who decided early in this century to change the purpose of education
from its traditional academic function to a radical social one. It was
John Dewey and his colleagues who decided that high literacy was an obstacle
to their progressive agenda and that, therefore, the teaching of reading
had to be changed to produce a more socially desirable result. The results
for the nation have been disastrous.
Whole Language is the latest manifestation of that progressive plan.
It has not only replaced intensive phonics in the classroom but also the
old Dick-and Jane Look-say reading programs. It adds a whole new dimension
to the reading process: subjectivism and deconstructionism. In addition,
it has become an integral part of Outcome-Based Education. Thus, it is
a far more lethal form of pedagogy than anything that has proceeded it.
Blumenfeld writes:
Whole Language educators are perpetrating a fraud. They are telling parents
that whole language is a new and better way of teaching children to read
when, in reality, it is nothing of the sort. For all intents and purposes,
whole language is a way of preventing children from becoming fluent, accurate
phonetic readers. It is a new way of creating reading disability, academic
confusion and learning frustration, a new way of crippling a child's linguistic
development."
And Blumenfeld proves everything he says with thorough, eye-opening
documentation. He says: "There is no instance in history that I know
of where a nation's education system functioned perversely as a brain-deforming
instrument used to dumb-down an entire people.. Only the genius of American
behavioral psychology could produce such a diabolical phenomenon."
This is a book that parents, concerned with the education of their
children, must read if they are to avoid putting their children at risk
in an education system that has completely lost its moral and academic
bearings.
Blumenfeld writes:
"The sad truth is that public education has destroyed the American
dream for countless numbers of young people by preventing them from acquiring
those academic skills needed to achieve success."
Once you read this book, you'll never be fooled by the educators again.
Table of Contents
Introduction
1. A Bit of Important History
2. Whole Language. Linguistics and the Wittgenstein Connection
3. What is Whole Language
4. The Alphabetic Method
5. The Origin of Look-Say
6. The Role of John Dewey
7. Who Was Huey?
8. Did They Know It Didn't Work?
9. The Making of Whole-Language Ideology
10.Psychology's Best Kept Secrets
11.The Political Agenda in Whole Language
12.The Hypocrisy of Whole Language
13.Miscue Analysis: Training Normal Children to Read Like Defective Children
14.Whole Language: Deconstruction in the Primary School
15.Debunking Whole-Language Myths About New Zealand and Australia
16.The Great American Literacy Disaster
17.Functional Illiteracy and Delinquency: The Violent Consequences of Educational
Malpractice
18.The Whole Language catalog" or the Fetish of the Whole
19.Dr. Seuss, Edward Miller and Artificially Induced Dyslexia
20.Outcome-Based Education or How to Turn a Dinosaur into an Octopus
21.OBE and Mastery Learning or Educational Revolution by Stealth
22.Benjamin Bloom: OBE's Godfather. His Writings Tell All
23.Kentucky's OBE Experiment: Conflict, Confusion, and Lower Test Scores
24.Goals 2000 Federalizes Public Education
25.OBE and Big Brother
26.Who Controls American Education?
Postscript
Notes
Index
The self-destruct behavior of American educators during the lifetime
of average Americans today is one of the most demonic phenomena of recent
history. Like the standards of morality, discipline, homework, and conduct,
we have watched also the deliberate assault on phonics and its disastrous
effect on reading. Blumenfeld pulls no punches in this scathing exposure
of outcome-based "education."
Dr.
D. J. Kennedy, Coral Ridge Ministries, Ft. Lauderdale
American continues to find more maps and completely ignore the territory.
Another map for our children is hardly a need. We need to admit that whole
language is simply another "map" that will only further decimate
the lives of more children. "Whole" language is just another
reason why our "whole" nation continues to be in a flux of academic
decline.
Marva N. Collins, Westside Preparatory
School, Chicago
Blumenfeld superbly documents the government education establishment's
seemingly deliberate effort to corrupt and sabotage educational excellence
in our country. Americans gad better heed his warnings and wise up to what
is being done in the name of education, or the nation is going to reap
more social decay as we rush headlong down the road to barbarism.
Walter Williams, Chairman, George Mason University,
Department of Economics
Price: This book is out of print
the
American people. Its executive secretary proclaimed: "NEA will
become a political power second to no other special interest group... NEA
will organize this profession from top to bottom into logical operational
units that can move swiftly and effectively and with power unmatched by
any other organized group in the nation."
Price: This book is out of print (NOTE: much of the
information in this
book can be 
