Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

198 ter be different than B, C. and F because not everyone can get to Harvard. They can’t buy the fact that every kid can get an A.... Way we guarantee no discrimination is to teach and test.... Between 1969 and 1971 Omaha, Nebraska implemented mastery learning curriculum citywide. Has best curriculum management I’ve seen anywhere.... New kind of report card... listed competencies describing what kids can do and described standardized test scores vs. norm-referenced.... Key components of mastery learning are: a) careful control of cues (stimuli), what you bring to student; b) careful control of reinforcers; c) kids on task; and d) recycling (correctives). T HE C OMING R EVOLUTION IN E DUCATION : B ASIC E DUCATION AND THE N EW T HEORY OF S CHOOLING (University Press of America, Inc.: Baton Rouge, 1983) by the late Eugene Maxwell Boyce, for mer professor of educational administration, Bureau of Educational Studies and Field Services, College of Education at the University of Georgia, was published. An excerpt follows: In the communist ideology the function of universal education is clear, and easily under stood. Universal education fits neatly into the authoritarian state. Education is tied directly to jobs—control of the job being the critical control point in an authoritarian state. Level of education, and consequently the level of employment, is determined first by level of achieve ment in school. They do not educate people for jobs that do not exist.... No such controlled relationship between education and jobs exists in democratic countries. (p. 4) T HE M AINE F ACILITATOR R EPORT ON C URRENT N ATIONAL D IFFUSION N ETWORK A CTIVITIES reported in 1983 that “ECRI [Exemplary Center for Reading Instruction] Consortium Winds Down.” Excerpt follows: After five years of operation, the Maine Mastery Learning Consortium will conclude formal operation on August 1. The Consortium, which at times had a membership of as many as thirty school districts, was formed in 1978 to provide the services of an ECRI trainer to Maine teachers using that mastery learning program. Primary support for the Consortium came from Title IV–C, in 1978–1980. From 1980–1982 it operated with federal Title II (Basic Skills) funds, and in the past year with local school district funds. The Consortium is ending at a time when many schools are just beginning to explore the implications of recent teacher effectiveness research. The critical teacher behaviors found to correlate directly with high levels of achievement—specifying learning objectives, setting high standards for mastery, modeling, practicing, eliciting responses from all students, reinforcing correct responses, and time on task—are all key components of the ECRI program that are now being used in a routine way by hundreds of Maine teachers because of the Consortium’s services.

N ORTHWEST R EGIONAL E DUCATIONAL L ABORATORY (NWREL) PUBLISHED E FFECTIVE S CHOOL ing Practices: A Research Synthesis—Goal-Based Education Program in the mid-1980s. [Goal-based education = outcomes-based education] NWREL is a federally funded laboratory whose role has always been to develop goals for American education. An excerpt from Effective Schooling Practices follows: