Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

202 marks have been added around the words “effective” and “effectiveness” to alert the reader to the fact that this grant was another effort to implement “Effective Schools Research” based on Skinnerian psychology. Rowan’s remarks in the entry prior to this one cast an interesting light on this information.) At the time this grant was made, Chester Finn was professor of education and public policy at Vanderbilt University. Finn would shortly thereafter be named assistant secretary to the Office of Educational Research and Improvement under Secretary of Education William Bennett who, in 1985, provided over $4 million to implement Effective School Research nationwide. A L ETTER TO P RESIDENT R ONALD R EAGAN WAS WRITTEN BY W ILLARD W. G ARVEY , EXECU tive director of the National Center for Privatization, dated April 6, 1984. 12 An excerpt follows: Privatization is now an idea whose time has come.... The knowledge, communication and computer industry can make political representatives obsolete. Privatization might well be the theme for the 200th anniversary of the Constitution. Privatization is essential for national salvation.

The following notation was printed on the letterhead of the above-mentioned letter:

The National Center for Privatization is supported by the following groups and individuals: Heritage and Reason Foundations; Pacific and Manhattan Institutes; VOLUNTEER; National Center for Citizen Involvement; International Executive Service Corps; United Way with its Services Identification System; National Legal Center for the Public; churches; labor unions, Peter Drucker and Milton Friedman.

T HE S PRING 1984 ISSUE (V OL . 7, N O .4) OF E DUCATION U PDATE FROM THE A SSOCIATION FOR Su pervision and Curriculum Development carried the following statements: One comprehensive study concludes that counseling can have marked deleterious effects on problem students. Joan McCord, a Drexel University sociologist, undertook a 30-year fol low up study of a classic, highly respected study on juvenile delinquency—”The Cambridge Somerville Youth Study.” In the original study (first report in 1948) an experimental group of 253 high-risk problem boys were given extensive counseling. A control group matched as to behavior, history, and family background received no counseling. In 1975 Professor McCord contacted the original participants and compared the circumstances of the experimental and control subjects. The experimental subjects were, among other things, found more likely to commit criminal acts, be alcoholics, suffer from mental illness, die younger, and have less prestigious jobs than the control group. [Ed. Note: The results of this study match the negative results discussed in the May 1977 is sue of The School Counselor , American Personnel and Guidance Association’s Special Issue on Death, which said,“Death education will play as important a part in changing attitudes toward death as sex education played in changing attitudes toward sex information and wider acceptance of various sexual practices.” In other words, counseling, sex ed and death ed have negative effects, if , as one would hope and expect, the purpose of such programs is to help young people live happy and stable lives. This is particularly disturbing in light of increased