By Brian Massie, A Watchman on the Wall
We thank Linda Goudsmit for providing her editorial opinion on the Bruce D. Price article K-12 Horror Stories.
Linda Goudsmit / September 9, 2026
Pundicity page: goudsmit.pundicity.com
and website: lindagoudsmit.com
My editorial opinion: Author BDP is a friend of mine. I have quoted him in my books, particularly on the experience of a child trying to learn to read with sight words. It is the most powerful explanation of the destructiveness of trying to teach children to read using sight words that I have ever seen anywhere. And even more alarming, it demonstrates that the continued use of sight word teaching is planned demolition on the part of the American education industry. I discuss this in The Collapsing American Family: From Bonding to Bondage:
CHAPTER 6
John Dewey:
The Father of Weaponized Education in America
Educators have known for over six decades that English is a phonetic language and sight words are a failed strategy, yet they continue to use it. In 2017, Bruce Deitrick Price published an extraordinary book titled Saving K-12: What Happened to Our Public Schools? How Do We Fix Them?15
On pages 22–23 he presents an incontestable argument for anyone who does not understand why teaching sight words is so devastating. Price guides the adult reader through the experience of a child trying to learn to read with sight words. It is the most compelling argument against sight words imaginable. It dramatizes how insidious the deliberate, politically driven insistence on teaching reading with sight words really is. Price begins:
Just for a moment, consider the silly theory that our top educators put forward. There should be no sounding out of letters and syllables; instead, children should memorize words as graphic designs or diagrams. Put yourself in the head of a kid showing up for first grade. The teacher points to a design like “xhyld” and instructs, “This means house. When you see this say house.” So, can you memorize “xhyld”?
Probably. But will you be able to pick it out from similar designs, of which there are dozens, such as: xhydd, xyhld, xhydl, xyyld, xhdyl, xyjkl, xkyht, xygld, etc. of course, you’ll need to be ready for variations such as XHYDD,XYHLD, XHYDL, XYYLD, XHDYL, XYJKL, XKYHT, XYGLD. Okay, maybe you have a photographic memory, so you might have a chance. But no ordinary person has even a tiny chance of being literate. You can probably feel the dyslexia creeping into your brain.
And you’ve just started on your first list of words. You’ll need 5,000 words to be barely literate. But guess what the guru of this madcap theory said? “Children can acquire sight vocabularies of 50,000 words.” Not without a chip implant. But it’s even worse. College students probably need 100,000 words. (Total English vocabulary is over 500,000 words.)
The idea that reading has something to do with memorizing word shapes is nuts. There’s no polite way to say it. English is a phonetic language, and you first need to learn the alphabet and then the sounds they represent.
Dewey’s influence on American education is unprecedented. His progressive educational reform movement remains the foundation of American education. Its anti-American political goals have been wildly successful in transforming American education from a source of American strength and prosperity to a weapon of mass American destruction.
History validates Dewey’s deception and its value as a weapon in the war on America. The coda16 to Price’s article reads:
John Dewey, the world-famous educator, was retained circa 1920 by the new Russian government to advise on the implementation of his progressive ideas throughout the USSR. Circa 1932, the communist government realized that Dewey’s progressive education had created a generation of ignorant delinquents. The communists in Russia banished Dewey’s ideas from their country. Meanwhile, the communists et al in the United States celebrated Dewey and his policies.
John Dewey continues to be lionized by the progressive left who are in charge of America’s failing education industry and its alarming and escalating illiteracy statistics. Progressive education is weaponized education and controlled demolition. And the foolish, low-information leftist parents still think John Dewey is a hero! I just shake my head.
Categories: Community Activism, Contributors, Uncategorized