Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

127 Washington, D.C. was prepared under the chairmanship of North Carolina’s late Senator Sam Ervin, who, unfortunately, was unable to continue his work on this important issue due to his being called to serve as a member of the Senate Judiciary Committee investigating the Watergate break-in. Ervin stated in the preface to the report: [T]echnology has begun to develop new methods of behavior control capable of altering not just an individual’s actions but his very personality and manner of thinking as well. Because it affects the ability of the individual to think for himself, the behavioral technology being developed in the United States today touches upon the most basic sources of individuality, and the very core of personal freedom. To my mind, the most serious threat posed by the technology of behavior modification is the power this technology gives one man to impose his views and values on another. In our democratic society, values such as political and reli gious preferences are expressly left to individual choice. If our society is to remain free, one man must not be empowered to change another man’s personality and dictate the values, thoughts and feelings of another. The Serious Seventies : c. 1974 I N 1974 A C URRICULUM FOR P ERSONALIZED E DUCATION BY R OBERT S CANLON , FORMER Pennsylvania Secretary of Education, was published by one of the U.S. Department of Education research laboratories, Research for Better Schools in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Predicting the future, Scanlon stated: The emphasis in schools in 1985 will be to free the individual from subject matter as bodies of knowledge and provide him or her with higher order skills.... One type is values clarifica tion.

I N A SPEECH GIVEN TO AND RECORDED BY THE A SSOCIATION FOR S UPERVISION AND C UR riculum Development in 1974, 10 Dr. Leon Lessinger, superintendent of schools in Beverly Hills, Cali fornia and former associate commissioner of education in the U.S. Office of Education, called for the implementation of Skinnerian behavior modification and discussed environmental influence when he said:

Would that we had such a system; a system of accountability. Do we have a hog cholera vaccine? Three ingredients of such a vaccine:

1. Target the experience in terms of outcomes; 2. Self-paced learning. We have the technology now. Modules. Small groups working on common learning targets. Free learner from having to be there always in front of teacher. If we know the target, we can do beautifully if we know the target. 3. Use of contingency rewards. May make you feel uncomfortable. Does me, but he who shirks this responsibility does a disservice to the children of the United States. Behavior Modification is here. Better for us to master and use wisely. Powerful ... powerful... powerful.

Carolina Inn exists right across from my school. In the restaurant, rug is red; in the bar, rug is orange. I know that because I happen to pass by!… Red in the restaurant—because