Why Is Reading Essential to Success?

Individuals are stronger when they are literate or able to read and write, and strong individuals can unite in creating strong families, communities, states, and nations.

In an article published at The Deseret News, the Center for the School of the Future (CSF) shared ideas that affect reading abilities in students. The Utah Legislature established the CSF at Utah State University “to collaborate with public education stakeholders to improve student academic outcomes.” 

Utah Gov. Spencer Cox is serious about improving the reading performance of students in Utah. One of the ways to do so is to understand how essential it is to protect truth. Part of protecting truth is to identify “persistent myths about early reading and replacing them with what research shows.

Research shows that less than 50% of third graders in Utah can read on grade level (proficient). Other states could have similar or lower percentages of students who can read at grade level. This should be of critical concern for Americans because students have difficulty catching up later and reading skills are essential for academic success as well as success in life.

CSF shared the following information to show the importance of reading at grade level by the third grade.

Research provides a clear answer: Third grade reading proficiency is one of the strongest predictors of long-term academic, economic and life success. It marks the transition from “learning to read” to “reading to learn.” When students are not reading proficiently by the end of third grade:

·         Catching up becomes significantly more difficult.

·         Academic struggles increase in middle and high school.

·         Disengagement and disruptive behavior become more likely.

·         Dropout risk increases by roughly four times.

·         Long-term educational and career prospects decline sharply.

These are well-established facts. Yet several myths continue to obscure them.

Here we address five such myths currently occurring in public discussion about early reading. Others will undoubtedly emerge and must also be confronted over time.

Myth 1: Learning to read is natural.

Fact: Learning to read is not natural.

The human brain is not biologically wired to read in the way it is wired to walk or talk. The brain is wired to learn spoken language (talking and listening) without formal instruction. Reading is fundamentally different. Neuroscience shows that:

·         Humans were never wired to read.

·         A reading brain is neurologically different from a nonreading brain.

·         Reading requires the brain to reorganize and repurpose existing neural structures.

·         If reading were biologically wired, dyslexia and students who struggle to learn to read would not exist.

·         While a few children learn to read “naturally” without any instructions, most do not.

·         With high-quality instructions, 90-95% of children can learn to read.

Myth 2: Children learn to read simply by being read to or by reading on their own.

Fact: Most children must be taught to read through formal instruction.

Reading aloud to children is valuable – it builds vocabulary and shows that print carries meaning. However, it does not teach children how to decode written language. Only a very small percentage of children – less than 5% -- learn to read independently without instruction. The vast majority require explicit, structured and systematic teaching to become skilled readers.

 

Myth 3: Because Utah students perform relatively well on the fourth grade National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP), students are doing well enough.

Fact: “Well enough” is not good enough.

Utah fourth graders outperform those in most other states on NAEP reading, but this is not cause for celebration. In 2024, only 36% of Utah fourth graders scored at the proficient or advanced level on NAEP. That means nearly two-thirds did not meet proficiency. If research shows that 90-95% of students can learn to read, then far better outcomes should be achievable. Indeed, some Utah school systems have already demonstrated trajectories that approach this goal.

Myth 4: Third graders who are not proficient readers are “illiterate.”

Fact: Illiteracy is a term for adults --  not children.

Labeling children as “illiterate” is inaccurate and counterproductive. Illiteracy refers to adults who cannot read or write. Children are learners. We do not label students who struggle with fractions as “mathematically illiterate” or those learning budgeting as “financially illiterate.” The accurate term is “nonproficient readers,” children who can read but are not yet meeting expectations.

Moreover, the word, “literacy” itself has become so broadly applied – financial literacy, health literacy, gardening literacy – that it has lost precision….

Myth 5: You don’t need strong reading skills to succeed today.

Fact: Proficient reading matters more than ever in the 21^st century.

Whether students attend college, pursue technical training or enter the workforce directly, strong reading skills are essential. They matter because:

·         Reading underpins all later learning.

·         Most jobs require interpreting complex texts and digital information.

·         Strong reading is linked to higher graduation rates, better health outcomes, lower incarceration rates and greater economic stability.

·         Civic life depends on citizens’ ability to read and understand complex documents – legal, medical, financial and governmental.

Early reading success matters profoundly. So does high-quality reading instruction and early identification of struggling readers. These arguments are not an indictment of teachers – nothing matters more to teachers than their students’ success….

What Is Happening with the Traditional Family?

My VIP for this week is the traditional family – a mother, a father, and children. The traditional family is declining, but it “has the most potential to bring Americans together,” according to Terence P. Jeffrey, investigative editor for the Daily Caller News Foundation. 

The Census Bureau recently released a report about the living arrangements American mothers have when they give birth to their first child. It did not paint a pretty picture.

“There have been sweeping changes to marriage and family structures in the United States over the last several decades,” said the report. “Fertility rates dropped to historically low levels. Marriage rates declined while cohabitation became more common. Childbirth increasingly occurred outside of marriage as legal and cultural norms shifted.”

The Census Bureau’s analysis indicated that since the early 1990s there has been a fairly consistent percentage of mothers who were married when they gave birth to their first child. But this percentage was always above 60%, leaving nearly 40% of first-born children in a household that was not a traditional family.

In the period from 1990 through 1994, according to the Census Bureau, only 62.2% of first-born babies were born to a married couple. Another 20.4% of the babies born in that period were born to a mother who was neither married nor “cohabiting” with a partner. Then there were 17.4% who were born to a mother who was cohabiting with a partner with whom she was not married.

In the period from 1995 through 1999, the percentage of first-born babies who were born to mothers who were married increased modestly to 63.8%. In the period from 2000 through 2004, it increased again to 66.3%.

But then it declined again.

From 2005 through 2009, it was 62.9%. From 2010 through 2014, it was 60.0%; from 2015 through 2019, it was 60.7%; and from 2020 through 2024, it was 60.8%.

While the percentage of first-born babies born to married mothers declined between 1990-94 and 2020-24, the percentage born to unmarried but cohabiting mothers increased, climbing from 17.4% to 23.9%.

And there were still 15.3% of first-born babies in the 2020-2024 period who were born to mothers who were neither married nor cohabitating.

The Census Bureau’s report also noted a distinction in the trends among women who had a college education and those who did not.

“Marriage became a more common living arrangement among first-time mothers with at least a bachelor’s degree, increasing from 74.4 percent in 1990-1994 to 84.5 percent in 2020-2024,” said the bureau’s report.

“In contrast, the prevalence of marital first births among mothers with less than a bachelor’s degree declined from 58.6 percent in 1990-1994 to 40.6 percent in 2020-2024, and the share of women cohabiting at first birth rose from 19.2 percent to 34.8 percent,” it said.

In other words, in the period from 2020-24, a significant majority (59.4%) of the first-born babies born to mothers without a college degree were not born in a traditional married-couple household.

The Census Bureau’s report concedes that babies born outside a traditional family structure also tend to be born in a less prosperous environment. “Children born to married parents on average have access to more economic resources,” says its report.

The Census Bureau’s household income data for 2024 shows two factors that, as this column has noted before, clearly have an impact on that income: family structure and education….

It makes sense that a married couple will give their children a stronger family structure. It also makes sense that a married couple, each with a college degree, will have more skills and knowledge than with individuals without a college degree or appropriate trades training.

My long-time readers know that I have encouraged education since the beginning of this blog. My children would tell you that I pushed education since they were in the lower grades of elementary school. As a result, all of them have a college degree and most of them have graduate degrees. They are all doing well, rearing strong families, and strengthening their communities. All of us should be involved in life-long learning.

How Should Families Be Supported?

Families are stronger when churches, governmental leaders, and ordinary individuals support them, and strong families strengthen communities, states, and nations. Dr. Ben Carson and his wife, Candy, will be honored tomorrow (Friday) by the Sutherland Institute at its 30^th anniversary awards dinner. Carson is a retired neurosurgeon, former GOP presidential candidate, and former U.S. Housing and Urban Development secretary.

According to numerous sources, Carson and his wife work as a team, and they will be honored as a team. In their article published at the Deseret News, Jennifer Graham and Jason Swensen quoted Rick Larsen, the institute’s president and CEO: 

And it is their own strong union that compelled the Sutherland Institute to present its Family Values Award to both of the Carsons together.

“We find it remarkable that in public life, there are so few people of (Dr. Carson’s) standing and profile who will unapologetically defend the family as a core institution and make the connection with families of faith,” Larsen said, Thursday, explaining why Sutherland initially considered Ben Carson alone as a recipient.

But then, looking closer at “The Perilous Fight” and other books, the Sutherland team realized how important Candy Carson is to the work.

“When you read their book, and when you read Candy’s book, ‘A Doctor in the House,’ you realize they’re inseparable, they’re in this together.” And so we adjusted the award to recognize both of them,” Larsen said.

According the Carsons, the fight for families is “perilous” – a word taken from a line in “The Star-Spangled Banner,” written by Francis Scott Key about the bombardment of Fort McHenry by the British Navy during the War of 1812.

Like Fort McHenry, the Carsons write, “the American family is under heavy bombardment and sustained attack. Our enemies have been chipping away at their target for decades, and they now believe the time is right for a full-scale assault.” …

The Carsons believe that the institution of the family is being deliberately undermined by modern-day Marxists, socialists and globalists whose values are at odds with those of America’s founders.

They cite the 1958 book “The Naked Communist,” written by former FBI agent and Latter-day Saint W. Cleon Skousen, who argued against communism and put forth the movement’s 45 strategies that some believed would result in “the ideological capture of America.”

Among them: “Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce” and “emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents.”

The assault on the family is ongoing through the entertainment media and through liberal forces in education, the Carsons believe, at the same time that religious faith – another component of strong families – is also experiencing erosion.

The Carsons are not 100% convinced this new “perilous fight” can be won, but they offer strategies that give families a fighting chance. Among them: They advocate for public policies that strengthen and grow families (such as streamlining the adoption process and making it more affordable), divorce laws that incentivize staying married and punish fathers who abandon their children….

Like his mother before him, Ben Carson believes that education can overcome a lot of the problems we face.

“Things like what happened in New York yesterday [election of  Zohran Mamdani as mayor of New York] would not happen if people were truly knowledgeable, but they’re not knowledgeable. You see that all the time. You see the man-on-the-street interviews, and they ask people just the simplest questions, and they have no idea what the answer is. You could ask them who wrote Mozart’s 40^th Symphony, and they wouldn’t know. That’s the level of ignorance that exists. We have to fight that,” he said.

The Carsons are doing their part to help educate America with the American Cornerstone Institute, the nonprofit they founded to promote conservative principles and policy solutions. Through their Young Patriots program, the couple want to make sure that American children are taught to value faith, liberty, community and life.

“We have a wonderful story to tell with this nation – the most prosperous nation that ever existed, and provided more opportunities for people than any other place ever has. It has a moral base, and as we allow all of that to recede, we’re suffering the consequences.”

Should Parents Be Involved with Teacher Contract Negotiations?

When parents are involved with the education of their children, families, communities, states, and nations are stronger. One way that parents can help their children is to pay attention to contract negotiations between school districts and teachers unions.

According to Paul Runko, the director of strategic initiatives in K-12 programming for Defending Education, parents across America are “reading the fine print” in proposed contracts “increasingly alarmed.” They have discovered that “many collective bargaining agreements – which should be focused on wages, working conditions, and student achievement – are instead being used to embed divisive ideology and sidestep parental rights.” 

As an example, Runko wrote in his article that concerned parents in Denver sent a letter to Denver Public Schools “urging the removal of politicized diversity, equity, and inclusion mandates from its upcoming union contract.” He added other concerns, such as race-based mentoring programs, mandatory ideological training for staff, and other initiatives that prioritize identity politics over academic outcomes.”

Runko explained that the above issues “are not minor provisions” because they “represent a broader trend of using labor contracts as vehicles to secure activist agendas in schools. He continued his explanation by stating that it is not enough to criticize. A better action is to “articulate what a better contract could look like.” Such a contract is “one that affirms educational excellence, respects parents, and upholds the law.” He suggested the following “three constructive priorities that should be included in future collective bargaining agreements.”

1. Affirm Federal Title IX Law as Originally Written

Title IX was passed to protect students and staff from sex-based discrimination in education. It is a civil rights landmark – designed to ensure that girls and boys alike have equal access to academic and scholastic athletic opportunities. But in recent years, this statute has been stretched far beyond its original meaning.

Teachers union contracts should affirm a clear and accurate interpretation of Title IX. That means protecting all students from harassment while also safeguarding the integrity of women’s sports and the rights of students to maintain sex-separated spaces like locker rooms and bathrooms.

The Biden administration’s attempted redefinition of sex to include gender identity…. Unions should do a complete 180 on this issue and assert Title IX as it was written and originally intended.

2. Respect the Right of Parents to Opt Out of Gender and Sexuality Content

In Mahmoud v. Taylor, parents challenged a school district over its refusal to let families op out of instruction related to gender identity and sexual orientation in elementary classrooms. The Supreme Court ruled in favor of religious parents’ right to opt their children out of such controversial instruction.

Future collective bargaining agreements should affirm this simple principle: Religious parents have the right to opt their children out of age-inappropriate or controversial instructional materials – especially those related to LGBTQ+ ideology in grades K-5.

That’s not discrimination. It’s respecting parental authority to direct the education and upbringing of their children….

3. Guarantee Parental Notification and Opt-Out Rights for Student Surveys

Too often, schools administer invasive surveys to students with questions on sexual activity, drug use, mental health, and religious beliefs – without ever informing parents. This violates federal law (namely the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment) and erodes trust between families and schools….

A better contract is not only possible – it’s necessary. Let’s start writing it.

Wise parents can no longer sit back and let other people determine the policies for their schools. These parents must be involved to ensure that their children are taught acceptable material and not have their freedoms infringed. By doing so, wise parents can strengthen their family, community, state, and nation.

Does God Want His Children to Be Learned and Educated?

My Come Follow Me Studies for this week took me to Doctrine and Covenants 88 in a lesson titled “Establish … a House of God.” The lesson was introduced by the following information.

Every so often, the Lord gives us a glimpse of His boundless “majesty and power” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:47) through stunning revelations. Doctrine and Covenants 88 is that kind of revelation—one about light and glory and kingdoms that can make our earthly cares seem small by comparison. Even if we can’t comprehend it all, we can at least sense that there’s far more to eternity than we ever realized. Of course, the Lord doesn’t share these grand truths to intimidate us or make us feel small. In fact, He promised, “The day shall come when you shall comprehend even God” (verse 49; emphasis added). Perhaps it was to that glorious end that the Lord commanded His Saints in Kirtland to form the School of the Prophets. “Organize yourselves,” He said. “Prepare every needful thing; and establish … a house of God” (verse 119). More than anywhere else, it is within God’s holy house—and in our homes—that He can lift our vision beyond the mortal world, “unveil his face unto [us],” and prepare us to “abide a celestial glory” (verses 68, 22). 

Doctrine and Covenants 88 teaches numerous principles, including (1) Jesus Christ offers me peace (Doctrine and Covenants 88), (2) Light and law come from Jesus Christ (Doctrine and Covenants 88:6-67), (3) “Draw near unto me” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:62-64), (4) I can become clean through the Atonement of Jesus Christ (Doctrine and Covenants 88:67-76), and (5) “Seek learning, even by study and also by faith” (Doctrine and Covenants 88:77-80, 118-26). This essay will discuss the last principle about education and will start by sharing the applicable verses (Doctrine and Covenants 88:77-80, 118-126).

77 And I give unto you a commandment that you shall teach one another the doctrine of the kingdom.

78 Teach ye diligently and my grace shall attend you, that you may be instructed more perfectly in theory, in principle, in doctrine, in the law of the gospel, in all things that pertain unto the kingdom of God, that are expedient for you to understand;

79 Of things both in heaven and in the earth, and under the earth; things which have been, things which are, things which must shortly come to pass; things which are at home, things which are abroad; the wars and the perplexities of the nations, and the judgments which are on the land; and a knowledge also of countries and of kingdoms— [Emphasis added.]

80 That ye may be prepared in all things when I shall send you again to magnify the calling whereunto I have called you, and the mission with which I have commissioned you.

118 And as all have not faith, seek ye diligently and teach one another words of wisdom; yea, seek ye out of the best books words of wisdom; seek learning, even by study and also by faith.

119 Organize yourselves; prepare every needful thing; and establish a house, even a house of prayer, a house of fasting, a house of faith, a house of learning, a house of glory, a house of order, a house of God;

120 That your incomings may be in the name of the Lord; that your outgoings may be in the name of the Lord; that all your salutations may be in the name of the Lord, with uplifted hands unto the Most High.

121 Therefore, cease from all your light speeches, from all laughter, from all your lustful desires, from all your pride and light-mindedness, and from all your wicked doings.

122 Appoint among yourselves a teacher, and let not all be spokesmen at once; but let one speak at a time and let all listen unto his sayings, that when all have spoken that all may be edified of all, and that every man may have an equal privilege.

123 See that ye love one another; cease to be covetous; learn to impart one to another as the gospel requires.

124 Cease to be idle; cease to be unclean; cease to find fault one with another; cease to sleep longer than is needful; retire to thy bed early, that ye may not be weary; arise early, that your bodies and your minds may be invigorated.

125 And above all things, clothe yourselves with the bond of charity, as with a mantle, which is the bond of perfectness and peace.

126 Pray always, that ye may not faint, until I come. Behold, and lo, I will come quickly, and receive you unto myself. Amen. [Emphasis added.]

In these verses, the Lord told the Saints to establish a “school of the prophets” in Kirtland (Doctrine and Covenants 88:137). He used most of section 88 to teach the Saints how to establish such a school. These verses can also help us to “establish … a house of learning” (verse 119) in our own lives.

President Russell M. Nelson said that verses 77-80 and 118-126 can be blueprints to “remodel your home [or your life] into a center of gospel learning” and “a sanctuary of faith” (“Becoming Exemplary Latter-day Saints,” Ensign or Liahona, Nov. 2018, 113). What might your personal “remodel” look like?

The lesson suggested that we could explore the following questions while studying verses 77-80:

·         Why are learning and education important to the Lord?

·         What does He want me to study?

·         How does He want me to learn?

·         What do you think it means to learn “by study and also by faith”? (verse 118)

In a presentation titled “Seeking Knowledge by the Spirit,” Elder Mathias Held of the Seventy taught the following concepts.

·       “Dear brothers and sisters, the Lord has repeatedly told us to “seek learning even by study and also by faith.” We can receive light and understanding not only through the logical reasoning of our minds but also through the guidance and inspiration of the Holy Ghost.” …

·       “And second, we learned that, in addition to our rational minds, another dimension to gaining knowledge can give us guidance and understanding. It is the still and soft voice of His Holy Spirit speaking to our hearts and also to our minds.

"I like to compare this principle with our visual capacity. Our Father in Heaven has given us not only one but two physical eyes. We can see adequately with only one eye, but the second eye provides us with another perspective. When both perspectives are put together in our brains, they produce a three-dimensional image of our surroundings.

"Likewise, we have been given two sources of information, through our physical and spiritul capacities. Our mind produces one perception through our physical senses and through our reasoning. But through the gift of the Holy Ghost, the Father has also provided us with a second perspective, which is really the most important and true one because it comes directly from Him. But since the whisperings of the Spirit are oftenn so subtle, many people are not consciously aware of that additional source.

"When these two perspectives are the combined in our souls, one complete picture shows the reality of things as they truly are. In fact, through the dditional perspective of the Holy Ghost, certain “realities,” as pictured exclusively through our mental understanding, can be exposed as deceiving or plainly wrong. Remember the words of Moroni: “By the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things” (April 2019 General Conference). Seeking Knowledge by the Spirit

What Are Students Being Taught at School?

School is starting this week in numerous states, and many parents are questioning where their children should be educated. Increasing numbers of parents are home schooling their children, while other parents opt for private schools. Still, most children are being educated in public school systems. However, all parents much be vigilant about knowing what their children are learning at school.

According to an article by Bradley Devlin published at The Daily Signal, there is “a disease running rampant through our education system.” Devlin interviewed Dr. Matthew Spalding, Ph.D., who is working on a cure for that disease. Spalding is a dean of the Van Andel Graduate School of Government at Hillsdale College’s Washington, D.C., campus  and a Gov. Ron DeSantis appointee to the New College of Florida Board of Trustees. Hillsdale and its graduates are a large part of the conservative movement. 

“What we’re interested in is shaping minds and teaching people to think,” Spalding said when asked about Hillsdale’s recent momentum. That momentum, Spalding explained, is twofold.

“On the one hand, this city is a vacuum that we can fill,” he noted. “But, on the other hand, more and more people are realizing an emptiness in our politics but also a certain lack of depth. And so they’re looking for something more.”

The modern education system, from top to bottom, has turned its back on the Western tradition’s notion of education.

“Education should be about forming a human being, liberating them, training their mind, and you do that by perfecting and getting better at the things that human beings do by nature,” Spalding told The Daily Signal. “If you think through American history about how the normal person becomes a good citizen, a good human being, a good member of their community, it’s by learning those basic things.”

For Spalding, this view of education is rooted in Christianity.

“It’s no coincidence at all that higher education at large periods of our history is really carried over and protected by religion and Christian schools,” Spalding said. “There was something about Christian institutions and Christian thinking and theology that could see the Greek and Roman roots of reasoning in the nature of things, an there was something about that philosophical understanding of the nature of things that could see a certain coincidence with an idea of Christianity that held that all are equal before God and equal in their being. And I think that melding is a very important component of educational systems in the West.”

“What is the thing they attack most precisely? That link. You’ve got to sever reason from revelation,” Spalding claimed.

“Modern society has placed those things under attack to a large extent because it denies that man by nature can do these things,” he added. “You need science, you need mathematical expertise, and you need academic experts to tell you these things.

Essentially what the modern project does, whether you think of it from the point of view of reason in classical reason or revelation in biblical or Christian thinking and theology, if you destroy the notion that the human mind can know things … it’s all relativism and subjectivism, it’s whatever it’s subject to, whatever you think, whatever your will is.”

“Think about it in its more radical, skeptical sense,” Spalding suggested. “I don’t actually know you’re a human being. I don’t know that this is a table. I have no evidence of any of these things. I can’t prove any of this reality. I mean, it just becomes a nihilistic breakdown at a certain point.”

Spalding spoke of a disease in the education system that has infected too many students. On one level, there are too many students being taught that the United States is a wicked country that must be destroyed and remade. Wise parents will supplement the education of their children to include accurate American history as well as religion. By doing so, they will strengthen their family as well as their community, state, and nation.

What Effect Does Family Size Have on Child Bearing?

Size of parental and ancestral families influences the size of current families. Children who were reared with siblings tend to want their children to be reared with siblings, according to Stephanie H. Murray. Larger families can strengthen communities, states, and nations. 

I grew up in what, by modern standards, is a pretty big family. I have four siblings, including two sisters – one older and one younger. At the moment, my older sister has four children. My younger sister and I are each in the process of welcoming our thirds….

Given that we’re all millennials with graduate degrees, the childbearing trajectory my sisters and I have followed is already a bit unusual. These days, an American woman with a master’s degree has an average of 1.4 kids, and won’t have her first child until she is 30. At that age, my sisters and I already had two each….

But in another sense, the earlier-and-more approach to parenthood my sisters and I have taken is entirely in step with a pattern demographers have observed in many countries: the “intergenerational transmission of fertility.” That’s just a big way of saying that people tend to mirror the older generations in their family tree when starting a family. Kids without a sibling are more likely than others to stay childless in adulthood. Those who grow up with a bunch of siblings are more likely to go on to have a lot of kids themselves. The more children that your aunts, uncles, grandparents and in-laws have, the more you’re likely to have. Bigger families beget bigger families.

My experience testifies that bigger families have bigger families although the size of families has grown smaller. My parents have twelve children, most of whom have larger families:  Brother #1 (3 children), Brother #2 (9 children), Sister #1 (8 children), Sister #2 (5 children), Brother #3 (3 children), Sister #3 (4 children), (Sister #4 (1 child by adoption), Me (6 children), Brother #4 (9 children), Sister #5 (7 children), Sister #6 (10 children), and Sister #7 (5 children) for a total of 70 grandchildren for my parents and an average of nearly 6 grandchildren per child.

My husband’s parents have three children: Son #1 (6 children), Son #2 (infertile), and Daughter #1 (2 children) for a total of 8 grandchildren and an average of almost 3 grandchildren per child.

I have six children, half the number that my parents have, but twice the number that my husband’s parents have. However, my six children follow the same pattern: Daughter #1 (infertile), Daughter #2 (4 children), Son #1 (4 children), Daughter #3 (4 children), Son #2  (1 child – wife has brain cancer), and Daughter #4 (6 children) for a total of 19 grandchildren and an average of more than three grandchildren per child.

Murray discussed how children in larger families have fewer temporal/physical blessings than children in smaller families. Children in larger families tend share bedrooms, wear hand-me-downs, and get “a smaller slice of your parents’ resources, be that money or time.” I know that this is true because I come from a family of twelve children. I did not miss the “things” as a child, but I understood as an adult that there were other blessings that made up for the material things that we did not have.

Having seven sisters necessitated that we shared beds – three to a double bed with the baby sleeping with parents. The boys slept two to a bed. I grew close to my siblings because we did so much together. During the daytime, we worked together to haul hay, herd cattle or sheep, and milk cows. At night, we had “pillow talk” until sleep took us. We were never alone and always had someone with whom to play.

Murray stated that statisticians have studied for more than 120 years the way that “family sizes correlate across generations” to determine how and why. They found three prominent theories [that] “fall into three broad – and not entirely distinct – categories.”

The first is genetics: We all have the same genes as our parents. “Those genes may influence several aspects of a woman’s life that, in turn, impact the number of kids she has.”

But arguably the best-evidenced explanation for the intergenerational transmission of fertility is what Bernardi refers to as status inheritance. “We are born in families that have a given educational level, a given social status, a given residential outlook,” she says. As such, we share quite a few sociodemographic characteristics with our parents that are “proven to be very much related to fertility levels, fertility timing and preferences.”

Factors like these explain a good chunk of the link between siblings and fertility in the U.S., but not all of it, Vogl says. Tinkering with data from the General Social Survey, he couldn’t get the association to disappear by accounting for such attributes, “so there’s a lot left that I don’t know how to explain.”

[Second] The children of college-educated Americans tend to go to college themselves, for example, and women with a college education tend to have fewer kids than their less-educated counterparts. [This is not true for my daughters by blood and marriage: Five of the six women have master’s degrees with one having a doctorate; the sixth daughter has a five-year nursing degree. All fathers have master’s degrees or doctorates.] Likewise, religion tends to be passed from parent to child, and religious folks tend to have more kids than nonreligious ones…. [My family is also religious, so we are influenced by genetics, education, and religion.]

The last, and perhaps murkiest, of the possible causes of the big family to big family link is what Bernardi calls “socialization.” This would include all the ways that growing up in a particular family shape one’s attitudes toward family formation. As our first reference, our families offer a model for what a family ought to look like. Likewise, parents may hold certain values that they impress upon their kids….

And despite its persistence, the intergenerational transmission of fertility has not been enough to counteract the massive decline in fertility that has occurred across the world over the past couple of centuries….

If that’s the case, the tendency for people from big families to have more kids will not be enough to reverse our country’s ongoing baby bust. But I suspect that America may still have something to learn from big families. America would be a more family-friendly place if its culture more closely resembled that of a large family. If the effort of raising children was more broadly valued, if parenthood was more relaxed, if kids weren’t tucked away in gated playgrounds and schools, but were an ever-present aspect of daily life. Maybe then, even those who didn’t grow up in big families might not hesitate so much to raise a family, small or big, themselves.

Larger families that are bound together in love and commitment are stronger, and strong families strengthen communities, states, and nations.

Do Parents Have the Right to Know What Their Children Are Being Taught?

Families, communities, and nations are stronger when parents are involved in the education of their children. However, many school districts seek to keep parents unaware of the school curriculum, budgets, and other materials used in teaching the children.

The U.S. House of Representatives is attempting to give more rights to parents. On Friday, the House passed the Parents Bill of Rights Act. The bill will most likely go no where in the Senate or being signed by President Joe Biden. However, it does show that Republicans want to help parents and children. The bill was approved in the House by a vote of 213 to 208 after several amendment votes and floor debate from both Democrats and Republicans.

Before the November 2022 mid-term election, current Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy (R-California) and other House members made the commitment to support the rights of parents in education, and the House vote showed that they were serious. Joshua Lee explained why the Republicans passed the bill and what would happen if the bill became law. 

Republicans engaged on the issue of parental involvement in schools after controversies erupted over the past few years across the country over what children are taught in school. Democrats have criticized the GOP over the issue, saying that they are turning classrooms into political battlefields.

If the Parents Bill of Rights Act becomes law, it would require schools to publicly post their curriculum, and would also require a list of all books and other supplementary reading material in school libraries to be made public.

School boards would be required to listen to parents’ concerns and schools would need to facilitate a minimum of two parent-teacher meetings a year. Additionally, schools would need to disclose their expenses and revenues as well as alert parents to any violence at school events, among other mandates.

A few Republicans did not vote for the bill, claiming that they supported the goal of the bill but not the means of bringing it about. They support giving parents more control over the education of their children, but they support the constitutional principle of separation of powers between the federal government and state governments.

Even though parents have a “God-given right to be involved in their children’s education” as Representative Burgess Owens (R-Utah) said, giving more power to the federal government is not according to the Constitution. In fact, anyone who knows the Constitution knows that education is not mentioned in it. They also know that the Constitution gives a limited list of powers to the federal government and leaves everything else to the states or to the people themselves.

Education decisions should be made in the local school districts rather than by the federal government. It is in the local area that parents can have the most influence in the debate about education. If the local school boards are not listening to the parents, then parents should band together to elect someone who will listen to them. Parents should be involved in the education of their children, and they can strengthen their family, community, and nation by doing so.

How Can We Help Students Catch Up on Their Delayed Education?

Families, communities, and nations are stronger when children are properly educated. The nation and the world have been through a pandemic that shut down businesses and schools. Children were expected to learn remotely, but they fell behind in their studies. Some people say that children lost up to a year’s worth of education in addition to being denied social contacts.

Children and families will most likely struggle for years due to the shutdowns, but one man has a plan to help the children. Representative Burgess Owens (R-Utah) has a plan that could help children catch up in their schooling. He recently sponsored a bill that would offer scholarships for children to pay for private school tuition or private tutoring – on a temporary basis. Owens recently said the following in an interview with the Deseret News. “Education should be looked at as a civil right. Every child, no matter what their background, race, creed, or ZIP code has great potential when given the same opportunities.”

Owens is not interested in allocating more money for schools, but he does want to compel school districts the choices to use federal money that has already been allocated to education. Owen’s plan – the Raising Expectations with Child Opportunity Vouchers for Educational Recovery (RECOVER) Act – would allow parents and school districts to use money allocated to education in the $1.7 trillion American Rescue Plan Act. Joshua Lee gave the following explanation in the Deseret News article. 

Under the American Rescue Plan legislation, the U.S. Department of Education distributed $122 billion in March 2021 to states and school districts to help open classrooms and address the impacts the pandemic had on students’ learning.

Two years later, approximately 77% of the allocated money still hasn’t been spent across the country, according to Owens. The state of Utah and its school districts received a total of $615 million in education funds.

Owen’s bill would establish “child opportunity scholarships” to pay for other types of education – private school tuition, tutoring services or education therapy for children with learning disabilities. The amount of the scholarships would be determined by the individual school districts, but parents and local school administrators and teachers would carry the most responsibility in determining how best to help each child.

The scholarships would last until each school district exhausted their American Rescue Plan funds. The purpose of the scholarships would be to help students to catch up on their learning that was delayed due to the pandemic. Owens does not intend to make such scholarships permanent.

Critics of Owens’ bill claim that this attempt to help children will only “punish schools” for following the rules. They note that school districts have until 2024 to spend the money. One critic said that it is a way to take public school funds and “send them to private schools.” Critics also say that the allocated funds are already marked to help children catch up.

Owens believes that his bill would pass the Republican-controlled House but may not pass the divided Senate or ever be signed into law by Joe Biden. However, he believes that it will let parents know that there are people in Congress who are aware of the problems and parents and students face and are trying to help them.

What Is the Role of Religious Universities in American Education?

             Deseret Magazine has collected a series of essays on the fate of the religious university. The essays are written by presidents and scholars from Baylor University, Brigham Young University, Catholic University, George Fox University, Wheaton College, and Yeshiva University, and others. You can real all the essays here. 

            This post will review an essay written by Clarke G. Gilbert is the commissioner of education for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This educational system includes Brigham Young University (BYU), BYU-Idaho, BYU-Hawaii, Ensign College, and BYU-Pathway Worldwide, a global online offering. 

            Most of the Ivy League universities of our day began as religious schools. Harvard was started by Puritans. Yale and Dartmouth have Congregationalist origins. Princeton was Presbyterian. Brown was Baptist, and Columbia was Anglican.

            Gilbert indicated that he often considers the pull between “the temple of faith” and “the hall of reason.” As a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, Gilbert learned as a student at BYU that both faith and reason are essential to find truth. He recognizes that “religious schools across the country enjoy a huge strategic advantage, but only if they dare to continue with and strengthen their religious identity – only if they dare to be different from their peers.”

            Gilbert acknowledged that some people think that BYU should push to follow the path of Harvard. He also acknowledged that “it is not irrational for BYU to consider that path.” BYU “recruits superb students and faculty,” and this is” evidenced by its number of national merit scholars and Fulbright scholars.” As an example, the “incoming freshman GPA averages nearly 3.9 and its admissions yield rate is among the highest in the nation.” In addition, “BYU is also a top five producer of students who go on to earn doctoral degrees.” Even the “National media regularly identify BYU as a leader in quality and value, [and] Forbes named BYU No. 1 in value based on its cost and quality ratio.”

            Gilbert wonders if the world would accept BYU on its secular standing, or even if BYU’s sponsoring religious institution would expand its investment in the university. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints already invests more than $500 million in the annual operating funds. Gilbert believes that an attempt to “replicate Harvard or any secular model is not a strategy for long-term success.” His reason: “Religious schools must differentiate on their unique spiritual purposes, even as they strive to tie into the broader academic community.”

            Dan Sarewitz, former editor of Issues in Science and Technology (the journal published by the National Academy of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine), supports Gilbert’s position. He recently told Gilbert: “The academy needs BYU. But we need BYU to be BYU, and not a watered-down version of every other secular university.”

            Gilbert wrote of three broad categories of the distinct strengths found at religious universities: 1) research and scholarly inquiry, 2) character development and 3) innovative institutional design.

For Sarewitz, research and inquiry at religious universities have direct implications for research policy. Without religious engagement, a whole category of distinctive research questions might be excluded or minimized from the academy….

Second, many of my colleagues have articulated the unique ways religious schools teach moral character… Where religion wanes we also see declines in social engagement, philanthropy and family stability. Thus, religious schools play a critical role in preserving civil society.

Third, religious schools often facilitate innovative institutional design. Distinctive religious purpose can provide the identity and confidence needed to transform traditional universities….

            Even with these important contributions for society and academics, there is secular pressure to limit the role of religious universities. According to Gilbert, “Standing by religious identity can risk loss of funding, exclusion from federal contracts or loss of student.” However, “Presidents of religiously affiliated universities who also serve on regional accrediting boards, including Robin Baker (George Fox University) and Kevin Worthen (BYU), repeatedly remind religious schools that their religious missions are not only protected but even encouraged by accreditation.”

Nevertheless, legal and accreditation pressures are not the only problems faced by religious universities. There are also “deeper cultural and social pressures on religious schools.” The following truth deserves to be broadcast: “The more aligned a university is with the mission of its sponsoring religious institution, the greater the justification for ongoing financial support from that supporting institution.”