In this interview, Dennis Prager talks with author Andrew Bernstein about the perceived long‑term decline of U.S. education. Bernstein argues that American schooling was far superior in the early 20th century—an average 8th‑grader in 1920 had the reading and writing abilities of a modern college student, and Civil‑War soldiers wrote in a Shakespearean style. He attributes the decline to the rise of progressive education, led by John Dewey and his disciple William Heard Kilpatrick, whose ideas were disseminated through Columbia’s Teachers College. Their model introduced IQ‑based tracking, reduced academic curricula for the majority, and promoted vocational training, allegedly to produce obedient citizens. Bernstein links Dewey’s philosophy to Soviet‑style collectivism, noting Dewey’s and Kilpatrick’s visits to the USSR. The conversation moves to modern consequences: reading standards have been dramatically lowered (e.g., 9th‑grade texts now read at a 6th‑grade level), phonics instruction is suppressed by bureaucratic forces, and teachers’ unions resist reforms. Bernstein suggests that schools in conservative states that reject progressive ideas—Florida, Texas, and especially homeschooling communities—tend to achieve better outcomes. The interview ends with a promotion of Bernstein’s book, Why Johnny Still Can’t Read, and a call for parents to consider homeschooling.
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So I have on the line a man who's written a really important book, and the, the book is Why Johnny Still Can't Read or Write or Understand Math and What We Can Do About It. Andrew Bernstein is the author, and I'm telling you, I'm looking through— I've been looking through your book, Andrew Bernstein. It is really important. Why don't you tell people, let's go a little in the background if we can.
Yes.
How well educated was an 8th grader in 1920 versus 2020?
Well, the school system certainly prior to the early 20th century, the school system was vastly superior to what it is today. Originally there were no reading problems. There were no remedial reading problems until early to mid-20th century in the United States. Rudolph Flesch in his 1955 book, "Why Johnny Can't Read," a famous book, pointed that out. Prior to the advent of progressive education, which should be called regressive education, the average 8th grader in the United States 120 years ago probably had the equivalent of a college today.
No question. I only vaguely know this, I don't expect you to know this, but if you do, comment on it, if not, obviously we'll move on. But to the best of my recollection, the soldiers on either side in the Civil War, their letters are Shakespearean. Compared to what a high schooler could write today.
Yeah, I've read that too, Dennis, and I don't doubt it. The education in the United States prior to the imposition of government schools or your public school system roughly in the mid-19th century, and certainly prior to the regressives or so-called progressives in the early 20th century, education in the United States was outstanding. In the revolutionary period, in the colonial period before that, in the early 19th century, we have a lot of proxy data data, you know, supporting that. But my favorite point, Dennis, was that the essays of the Federalists, which are very sophisticated political reasoning, written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, John Jay, in support of the Constitution for the fledgling republic, those Federalist papers were written largely as newspaper editorials to be read by, you know, every man and every woman. And unfortunately today, my college students would struggle with those.
Your college students don't know the difference between it and it.
Yeah, unfortunately, unfortunately. And they're good kids. You know, I want to, I want to point out, these are good, the college kids that I teach at various New York, New York area colleges, they're good kids. They're good American kids. They're willing to work hard, you know, and they want to, they want to be having such a successful career. They want romantic love. They want to be happy. But the school system has just failed them abysmally, and they don't know the first thing about American history.
[Speaker:DENNIS PRAGER] All right, so now tell my listeners about John Dewey and whether it is fair to isolate one person as the big culprit. I'll come back to you again. The book is Why Johnny Still Can't Read, Andrew Bernstein. It is up at DennisPrager.com. Who was John Dewey and what damage did he do to American education?
Well, Dennis, John Dewey was a philosophy professor for many years at Columbia University, and he, and he had a major influence on Teachers College at Columbia, which was training— was, was the leading teacher training institute in the United States at that time. And his disciples William Heard Kilpatrick also has to get plenty of the blame here for spreading the ideas of progressivism through the teachers' colleges. But the main idea— and Dewey is largely— Dewey and Kilpatrick, I think, are the two main culprits here. The main idea was to severely cut down the academic program for most students. Remember, IQ testing had just come in at that time. So the idea is IQ test the kids, find the best and the brightest, they get the full academic program, you know, math, science, history, literature. And the rest of us, you know, we don't need that much academic training. We get vocational training so that we could work in the factories or work, you know, work as farmers. And the idea was that the few, the intellectual elite, would get academic training, go to college, and they would govern in the legislature and in the classroom, and the rest of us would be good at our jobs and obey the wise rules of the state. And so they deliberately dumbed down, severely dumbed down the educational program in the American schools, basically to push communism on us so that we could obey the, you know, we have an all-powerful state and that we would obey. Most of us would simply obey. And by the way, Dennis, Dewey Kilpatrick and these guys in the 1920s, where did they pilgrimage? They went to the Soviet Union.
I was just going to ask you about that. Go ahead. Yeah, that's Why doesn't that invalidate them at the outset?
I mean, yeah, it does for rational human beings. It does. I mean, I can't even say this with a straight face, although it's not funny. They went to the Soviet Union under Stalin and they praised the Soviet school system because, you know, the Soviet school system taught the kids that the state comes first. You live for the state, you obey the state, and you don't pursue your own personal happiness. You're not selfish, you know. Uh, and, and so yeah, that's They were supporters of the communist system, basically, and they wanted the schools to train us to be obedient to the state.
Wow. And this was John Dewey. By the way, you mentioned, I did not know that he was at Columbia Teachers College, or even, did he help start it? Is that what you said?
No, Dewey taught in the philosophy department.
I know that, but how did that come about? But he was at Columbia and Columbia's Teachers College, how does that connect to John Dewey?
William Heard Kilpatrick considered himself Dewey's leading disciple and he headed Columbia Teachers College.
Okay, fine, okay, so that's how, through his disciple, fair enough. So to this day it is probably the worst teachers college and most teachers colleges are destructive, but I would say Columbia remains The, probably the worst in the country. The book, folks, is Why Johnny Still Can't Read. In America today, I don't know if you'll know the answer, but I, I don't know who else to ask, but do you get a better education in public school in Florida than in Minnesota?
I don't know the answer to that, Dennis Prager.
So I'm only— this is what I'm asking. The people who reject progressive ideas teach kids better? That's what— that's really what I'm asking. I'm using Florida and Minnesota as paradigms.
I would think so. I would. But I think the real The real issue is the homeschoolers generally.
Oh yeah. Well, who tend to be conservative.
Yeah. Yeah. They generally reject the progressive ideas. They want their kids to learn math and science and literature and history. They have this funny idea. They want the kids to be strong readers, you know, and they use phonics to teach reading. It may be that in the conservative states like Florida or Texas, the government schools are less bad than in—
Yeah, I am. I am very curious about that. But anyway, I'm with you. I passionately advocate homeschooling. People are afraid to do it. The scores keep going down, don't they?
Yes.
So let me ask you another question. I don't know the answer to this. It doesn't make sense to me. Since the scores are going down and it's such a slap in the face of all the teachers unions that advocate all these progressive policies, Why don't they just lower the standards so that it doesn't look like the kids aren't reading at below 8th grade level?
Well, they have done that. The reading levels of the material taught in the English courses, you know, I had the one example in the book where from Texas high schools 100 years ago, the 9th grade reading list They were reading, I forget, Nathaniel Hawthorne, James Fenimore Cooper. They were, the reading went from, the reading levels went from 9th to 12th grade. Whereas today, the reading levels in the high schools in Texas, 9th grade is like 6th grade to 8th grade.
Oh yeah, that's right. So they have, even with the cheapened standards, they're falling below grade level.
Yeah, they don't use, they, look, there's still a lot of really good dedicated classroom teachers in the public school system. I want to stress that. But they have to fight against the stifling bureaucracy. And the bureaucracy, you know, the teachers' colleges, the state departments of education, and the federal departments of education, the real powers in the government school system, militate against the use of phonics. They don't want the kids to read.
Yeah, I don't understand that other than just to be a wrecking ball.
Readers will be thinkers and they may question the why.
Oh, I didn't thought of that. All right, my friend, you did a great job. Folks, the book is up at DennisPrager.com. Thank you. Why Johnny Still Can't Read. Yep.
