Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

182 the Follow Through’s Direct Instruction model developed by Siegfried Engelmann, which has also been embraced by “conservatives”!]

“L EARNING T O R EAD THE ECRI W AY ” BY D ENNIS B AILEY WAS PUBLISHED IN T HE M AINE Times on January 8, 1982. In the article Bailey points out that

Patrick Groff, an education professor, wrote in a 1974 issue of Today’s Education : “So far, mastery learning has not presented the empirical evidence necessary to convince reasonable minded teachers that all students have the same aptitude for learning every subject.” [Ed. Note: That Professor Groff, professor emeritus, San Diego State University, would make the above comment is interesting in light of recent events; namely, his co-founding with Robert Sweet of the Right to Read Foundation (RRF) which has taken a position in support of the Reading Excellence Act of 1998 . In supporting this legislation Groff’s organization has indicated support for the “scientific, research-based” reading method used in ECRI, the very technique which he says “has not presented the empirical evidence necessary to convince rea sonable-minded teachers that all students have the same aptitude for learning every subject.” ECRI is the mirror image of Siegfried Engelmann’s DISTAR direct instruction, the Skinnerian operant conditioning-based reading program promoted in Right to Read newsletters and on its website.] W ILLIAM (B ILL ) S PADY , “ THE F ATHER OF OBE,” MADE THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT DURING a conference held at the U.S. Department of Education in 1982 (attended by this writer). This writer wrote down verbatim in shorthand Spady’s following comment: Two of the four functions of Mastery Learning are: Extra: whole agenda of acculturation, social roles, social integration, get the kids to participate in social unit, affective; and Hid den: a system of supervision and control which restrains behavior of kids; the outcome of the hidden agenda should be the fostering of social responsibility or compliance. “S TATE OF P RECOLLEGE E DUCATION IN M ATHEMATICS AND S CIENCE ” WAS PREPARED BY Paul DeHart Hurd, professor emeritus, Stanford University, for the National Convocation on Pre-College Education in Math and Science, National Academy of Sciences and National Academy of En gineering in Washington, D.C. in 1982. In this paper Prof. Hurd asserts that: In the Communist countries there are comprehensive examinations at the end of the pri mary, middle, and secondary schools to assess a student’s actual progress. Test results are not interpreted in a competitive sense as to who has done well or poorly compared to other students or a norm, but rather whether a student has mastered the prescribed subject mat ter. If test results are below expectancy, the student is tutored by the teacher and students. The object is to avoid failures.

[Ed. Note: This definition is striking in its similarity to the definition of OBE/mastery learning/