Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

205 Should the elitist power brokers, for whatever reason, feel they need the expertise of the Hornbecks of this world, please spare those least able to protect themselves—the minorities and disadvantaged—from the change agents’ experimentation.] The "Effective" Eighties : c. 1984 A N ARTICLE ENTITLED “I NDUSTRIAL P OLICY U RGED FOR GOP” WAS PUBLISHED IN T HE Washington Post on May 14, 1984. Excerpts follow: SAN FRANCISCO (UPI) —A conservative study group founded by supporters of President Reagan is about to issue a report that advocates Republicans shed some of their deep-rooted antipathy to a planned economy. An industrial policy accepted by both political parties and by business and labor is essential to revitalize America’s dwindling clout in the world economy, according to the study’s editor, Professor Chalmers Johnson of the University of California. “The Industrial Policy Debate” is to be issued today by the Institute for Contemporary Studies, a think-tank founded by presidential counselor Edwin Meese, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger and other Reagan supporters. “What we are really trying to pose is a serious debate that has become stupidly politi cized by both parties,” Johnson said. “We are trying to get the question of an industrial policy for the United States to be taken seriously by people who don’t really believe in it—above all Republicans. “Americans must come to grips with economic policy or go the way of England. We have probably got a decade before it becomes irreversible.” In the United States, he said, “The whole topic we are trying to address is so caught up with politics and the particular positions of industries that it is very hard to disentangle what we mean by economic policy.” While the Democrats are “planning to throw money at the northern Midwest ‘rust’ belt” to get votes, Johnson said many Republicans “are painting themselves into a corner by attacking the very concept of industrial policy—arguing that it violates the sacred principles of private enterprise and free trade.” He cited as a valid and successful national economic policy “the kind of government business relationship” that has made Japan a leading economic force in the world. “A gov ernment-business relationship is needed in a competitive capitalist economy,” he said. “Reaganomics without an accompanying industrial policy to guide it, has been costly,” Johnson said.

U.S. D EPARTMENT OF E DUCATION P RESS R ELEASE FOR J UNE 14, 1984 FOLLOWS :

Secretary of Education T.H. Bell today announced planned missions and geographic regions for a nationwide network of educational research laboratories and centers in preparation for the largest discretionary grant competition ever conducted by the U.S. Department of Education. Centers will be selected to construct research on improving: writing; learning; teacher quality and effectiveness; teacher education; testing, evaluation and standards; effective elementary schools; effective secondary schools; education and employment; postsecondary education management and governance; postsecondary teaching and learning; and state and local policy development and leadership in education. For the first time in almost two decades, all parts of the United States will receive full services from the research laboratories.