Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

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and educational leaders in California.

[Ed. Note: Mastery learning/direct instruction fits into PPBS systems management, Manage ment by Objectives (MBO) and computer-assisted instruction as a hand fits into a glove. OBE in 1999 is Operation PEP in 1968. California’s teachers’ union was adamantly opposed to its enabling legislation and to Operation PEP in general.]

1969

P ACESETTERS IN I NNOVATION : C UMULATIVE I SSUE OF A LL P ROJECTS IN O PERATION AS OF February 1969 under Title III, Supplementary Centers and Services Program, Elementary and Second ary Education Act of 1965 (U.S. Department of Health, Education and Welfare: Washington, D.C.,1969) was published. This incredible 584-page catalog of education programs gives abstracts of innovative programs dealing with humanistic education; i.e., values clarification, self-esteem programs, individualized education, open classroom, etc. Shirley Correll, Ph.D., president of Florida’s Pro-Family Forum, wrote “An Evaluation of HEW’s Publication Pacesetters in Innovation ” which said in part: A thorough evaluation of HEW’s 584-page publication, Pacesetters in Innovation , is alarming, even to one accustomed to the thrust of today’s public schools, and even more interesting when placed in its proper perspective of total HEW funding. It is described as a program “to support supplementary education centers and services, guidance counseling and testing” on state and local levels. These PACE programs (Projects to Advance Creativity in Education) describe “Psychotherapy,” “Behavior Modification,” “Psychoeducation Clin ics,” “Changed Parent-Student Relationships,” “Total Environmental Control,” “Humanistic Curriculum,” “Sensitivity Training,” and attitudinal measuring devices, ad nauseam. One program discusses “Experimental Buses featuring multichannel programming, individual receivers and active response opportunities (allowing audio presentations of cognitive and/or affective [emotional] instructional materials.” Could it be that there’s more to this busing than integration? I found that PACE’s direction was to “organize the process of change to restructure and reorganize the school system.” Many different methods were used to accomplish this. Teach ers are subjected to “Sensitivity Training” and “Change Agentry” training (an educational term used to describe the role of group leader as that of changing the attitude of students and others), not only to condition the teachers to new philosophies, but to “spread their influence to others in their own district and throughout the state via various visitation programs.” Through the influences of these and various other programs, “structured or graded classes are systematically phased out and replaced by ungraded individualized instruction” (which ultimately becomes the opposite of individualized instruction as all children eventu ally are fit to a pre-conceived mold or norm by computerized assessment).

T HE R OLE OF THE S CHOOL IN THE C OMMUNITY WAS PUBLISHED (P ENDELL P UBLISHING C O .: Midland, Michigan, 1969). This slim 136-page book, edited by Dr. Howard W. Hickey, Dr. Curtis Van Voorhees, and associates, was “written to serve as a much-needed textbook for teachers and