Reading with our unphonetic alphabet is the biggest problem children have in school.  O-N-E is not pronounced wun.

Naturally, the second biggest problem children have in school is spelling with that alphabet.  T-W-O does not spell 2.

The next problem children have in school is reading what other people think is interesting.  Ninety percent of the stories in student reading books are fiction. Statistically, this means that children are reading stories that don't interest them. Research shows that when children read what they like, their interest in reading increases.

Fortunately, a library also has nonfiction books that contain all the knowledge known to man.  If children were allowed to select freely from this section of the library, they'd surely find something that would interest them.  Of course, to assist children in selecting their favorite topics, we will have to catalog fiction to match its non-fiction equivalent.

The fourth biggest problem children have in school is writing numbers.  If the number twenty really means two 10s.  And, thirty really mean three 10s, then wouldn't the name for 10 really be onety?  But, if sixty and seventy are properly named, then shouldn't twenty be twoty and thirty be threety and fifty be fivety? And, why call them sixty or seventy?  Why not give them names that make sense, like six ten(s) or seven ten(s).  After all, they almost did that when they named the teens, sixteen, seventeen.

Actually, the teens are very confusing numbers for children because their names are reversed, causing them to sound like other numbers.  For example, Thirteen sounds like thirty and sixteen sounds like sixty.  Tell me, when's the last time you wrote down seventeen and almost wrote the seven first.  If you had a problem with place value, can you imagine the anxiety a 5 or 6 year old has understanding fifteen and fifty?  And, truthfully now, isn't the real name for seventeen, onety-seven?

Now, if the names for 10, 20, 30, 50 are stupid, and 13 through 19 are even stupider.  Then, I'll give $20 to the first person who calls me at 5 a.m. on the first Sunday, after the full moon, of the vernal equinox and tells me why eleven and twelve are the stupidest of all names for numbers.

The next problem children have in school is idioms in problem solving.  For example, “If Mary had five apples and John took away three, how many apples did Mary have left?”  As you can see, "took away'' and “how many” are idioms, not mathematical terms.  The problem should read like this, “If John subtracted three apples from Mary's five, what would be the difference?”

The reason teachers and textbooks prefer idioms in problem solving is that our mathematical terms are outdated and meaningless.  For example, the term, quotient, really doesn't tell us that it means the answer.  And, to children, it's just a big, never used, alien word.

Aside from their technical defects, schools make a major mistake when they force children into a certain grade because of their age.  In other words, just because Johnny is 6 years old, does not mean that he belongs in First Grade. This is both irrational and insensitive.  All standardized tests absolutely refute this system. And, every teacher can tell you the tragic effect it has on some children.

You see, dear reader, when schools permit children to seek their own of level of competence, they destroy forever those political carpetbaggers who have squandered trillions of tax dollars trying to pound round pegs into square holes.

Therefore, if America's intelligent people really want their children to succeed in school, they can and must create a phonetic alphabet, permit children to read what they think is interesting, catalog fiction to match non-fiction, rename the numbers, update mathematical terms, and, finally, permit children to work at their own level of ability.