WASHINGTON – It's no surprise to hear that America's education system is in disarray, with Common Core dumbing down young students, faith absent from education and underpaid teachers increasingly unfit to serve as effective educators.

But all of that is by design, contends Alex Newman, an international journalist and co-author of "Crimes of the Educators: How Utopians are Using Government Schools to Destroy America's Children."

He recently appeared on the "Revealing the Truth with Rabbi Walker" Web TV show to discuss the issue.

Newman believes the government education system is not built to educate but to create obedient, unlearned drones who are subservient to authority.

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"It's really the education system that is at the foundation of what eventually emerges as culture, politics, government and all the rest of it," Newman began. "Education is where we went wrong, so if we're going to fix this, education is the place to be involved."

Newman was educated at an array of top private schools but realizes his academic upbringing was irregular.

"On the other end of the spectrum [from private schools], you have what's going on in the government schools. It's worse than a bad education: It's a system deliberately designed to handicap the individual."

See what American education has become, in “Crimes of the Educators: How Utopians Are Using Government Schools to Destroy America’s Children.”

According to Newman, government schools work to produce illiteracy, dumb down students and spread an atheistic worldview. Government education, he said, leads to "a hatred toward truth, objective reality and moral principles."

Newman believes this is no accident and that the entire system is set-up to fail students "by design."

While elites send their children to private schools for superior education, the vast majority of Americans are stuck in government schools. Average Americans are thus often left behind due to their educational upbringing and are unable to be as successful as the moneyed elites.

Furthermore, Christians and children of other faiths in government schools often find their beliefs under attack, especially those who are devout adherents.

A major cause of the dysfunction of government schools? A 19th century politician named Horace Mann.

"Horace Mann was actually opposed to Christianity; he was a Unitarian. He wanted to get Christ out of everything," Newman explained.

Mann was appointed secretary of the board of education of Massachusetts in 1837 and from then on introduced the "Prussian Model" of education to government schools.

The model focused on "constant obedience and loyalty to the state," according to Newman, and was in opposition to the original purpose of education in the United States, which focused on literacy to promote reading the Bible.

Mann spread his ideas across the country.

In the later 1800s, John Dewey solidified secular education in the United States.

Dewey, a socialist and atheist, Newman noted, was funded by a number of wealthy donors and spread his ideology to the colleges that educated teachers. Over 50 years, Dewey's philosophy gradually gained prominence across the United States.

Dewey believed that "schools should teach secularism" and that they should "not worry as much about teaching reading and math," Newman said.

Dewey's philosophy ultimately infected the Department of Education at its founding in 1979.

Americans have become "dumber and dumber" with each successive generation, according to Newman, a claim backed by statistical data.

"Fifty-five percent of Americans are either illiterate or functionally illiterate," Newman said. "This is essentially building a prison around children."

Newman stressed again that this is all "by design."

He believes the public education system threatens conservative values everywhere by creating voters that are unable to think for themselves.

"We can fight the political battles, but if we lose on the education front, this is all a moot point," he said.

"If we don't put the brakes on this, our society is not going to last."

Newman contends the nation must return to effective methods of teaching the skills of reading and writing, and to teaching proper morals and values in schools. He sees promise in many of the small, independent Christian schools around the country.

Newman thinks Trump appointee Betsy DeVos has been a mixed bag so far as secretary of education, and he was more impressed during Trump's campaign when he promised to abolish the Department of Education.

"Rather than focusing so much on charter schools," Newman said, "Betsy DeVos should be focused on abolishing her department."

That would lead to education being organized at the state or local level, allowing far greater freedom of ideas as well as superior teaching methods in the classroom.

If politicians can successfully abolish the Department of Education, "We will no longer have this top-down, centralized, one-size-fits-all model called 'Common Core.'"

While Newman is optimistic about the future of American education, he realizes it will not be easy.

"This is going to be a very long term process," Newman concluded.

Watch the full in interview:

See what American education has become, in “Crimes of the Educators: How Utopians Are Using Government Schools to Destroy America’s Children.”