Why Johnny Still Can't Read or Write or Understand Math: And What We Can Do about It

The current school system churns out millions of illiterates and mental zombies—but here’s how we’re going to fix it, starting today.

“Stephen King? A piker: no horror story is as harrowing as Andrew Bernstein’s must-read Why Johnny Still Can’t Read or Write or Understand Math. Bernstein tears the genteel cover off the educational system and reveals the truly shocking extent of the destruction that has been wrought by fashionable Leftist educational theories, the con men, quacks and psychopaths who have gained control of American public education over the last few decades, and the public educational system’s addiction to taxpayer funding and the latest societal trends, no matter how damaging they are to children. But Bernstein doesn’t just leave us screaming: he also offers a practical, readily applicable program for taking back the educational system and saving our children from these lunatics. If you have children in school, this is essential reading. And even if you don’t, but care about the future of society, you must not miss this all-important book.”

—Robert Spencer, bestselling author of The History of Jihad, Did Muhammad Exist? and The Critical Qur'an

Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic, parents across the nation grapple with a new and horrifying understanding of just how bad our educational system has become. It all adds up to a system that seems hopelessly, terribly, and irrevocably broken. But as an educator and author, Andrew Bernstein reminds us that American education in the nineteenth through early-twentieth century was superb. This nation once knew how to turn out the brightest, most resourceful and independent-thinking people the world had ever seen. We can do it again.

Andrew Bernstein holds a PhD in philosophy from the City University of New York. He has taught philosophy for many years in several New York–area colleges and universities. He went through the public school system K–12 in Brooklyn, NY, and has taught thousands of public high school graduates in his career. He has witnessed firsthand the decline of the American school system. He has been named “teacher of the year” at the State University of New York at Purchase and at Marymount College. He lectures across the country and around the world on a variety of topics related to education. He spent a year teaching at the American University of Bulgaria and witnessed the shocking truth that Bulgarian students very often mastered written English better than most American students.