Escape from Uncle Sam's Plantation
ZENITH
5.0 out of 5 stars
Championing the Family over Government Control
Reviewed in the United States on May 24, 2020
Why should you read “Escape from Uncle Sam’s Plantation”, a book by EJ “Ed” Temple about the ongoing battle between the forces of slavery represented by public-sector labor unions and the forces for good represented by millions of parents who wish their children to be free from government-enforced notions of collectivism, borderless societies and replacing the family with a godless rigor of obedience to the state?
The reasons are many but in sum, there is an ongoing battle between two forces that are fighting for the minds of your children. You as a parent, or person concerned with the future of the United States, have to make a decision: do you fight for your children’s’ freedom or do you succumb to the tragic forces of collectivism?
The author, EJ “Ed” temple is a very experienced teacher who is passionate about his role affecting children and has experienced the big city schools as well as the small rural school districts.
Escape from Uncle Sam’s Plantation Takes you through Mr. Temple’s personal experiences as well as His analysis of the research of which he has abundance.
The book starts off explaining how public schools fail to fix the problems they helped create. Mr. Temple states, “Spending money is not the answer, otherwise American would lead the world in international benchmarks.” The author points out that America outspends all but two countries per capita on education.
Mr. Temple then dives into how government schools are constantly lowering the bar. “Routinely individually or as a staff, teachers were told to find ways to get students to pass. Of course there is more documentation and ways to get a poor evaluation for every kid you fail,” the author points out. This chapter is hard to read if you are a parent of school-aged kids.
Next the author explains how unions help destroy the government schools. Mr. Temple describes the union and its far left positions of censorship for alternate views and indoctrination for the far left perspective. At one point Mr. Temple describes the union, “The teacher union, except for a few Christian unions that represent a small number of teachers, are extremely far left in their views.”
The next two chapters are more personal to the author as he explains what he observed in his experiences and what he believes where much of the behaviors are rooted. Temple explains what Darwinism is and the historical issues tied to the concept as well as its specific impact on government school students. Quoting the passionate, referring to the negative consequences of crushing references of Biblical morality with exclusive Darwinian thought, the passionate teacher explains, “… consequently, we go from [being] fully created in God’s image to the view that humans are just a random evolutionary action that has tiers of one group being supposedly more advanced than another.”
Temple makes to case that government meddling is taking its toll on schools. Temple cites as an example of government meddling, “The Common Core State Standards Initiative" is a perfect example of destroying schools and forcing schools to toe the line. Pushed by the Obama administration and Bill Gates, the Common Core has been a disaster from the start. It is not hard to find a parent or student not baffled by the nonsensical math technique being forced on teachers to teach students or the politically charged English literature class topics and recommended lessons.”
And then Mr. Temple hits a very sensitive area of bias that does not get much press, but this teacher is brave enough to discuss with the reader. One good example of the bias mentioned was when Mr. Temple stated,”Accommodations are made for every religion except Christians. During my nearly two decades at particular school, Muslim students in our school were allowed out of class to pray as a school policy. If the Muslim students had a holiday, they got out of school as an excused absence.” Temple also added how teachers are made to feel like racists,”... training several times a year how the teachers must learn to relate to students of color, and part of the problem getting students to learn is because of the unintended and subconscious racism white teachers have.”
The next two chapters tackle the dumbing-down of students and the immorality in schools. “Only one in four (26 percent) can name all three branches of the government. In 2011, 38 percent could name all three branches. One in three (33 percent) can’t name any branch of government,” Temple explains. Mr. Temple powerfully quotes, “...the result of non-Christian education is anti-Christian education. Government schools must be anti-Christian. They can be nothing else.”
The rest of the book deals with arguments for and against school choice, where the author does a superb job of dealing with the most common arguments against school choice and thoroughly dismantles these arguments. These chapters are researched and mixed with some very unique and refreshing perspective. At one point the author dismantles the argument that a Christian education is inferior by citing the research, “Protestant Christian schools are already among the top 10 percent of schools when judged by average student performance on the NAEP test. For the past thirty-seven years, since ACSI and its predecessors started tracking Stanford Achievement Test scores in 1974, ACSI schools have scored significantly higher than the national norm in every grade level every year.”
Clearly Ed Temple is a passionate teacher who gives unique incentives to the reader in his book Escape from Uncle Sam’s Plantation. It is hard to disagree with a teacher with his experience and the research presented along with Mr. Temple’s ability to tie this in with the clear research included in this book. This book is easy to read, but very interesting, personal, and insightful.
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