Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

217 There are no longitudinal studies or long-term results indicating that the newly trumpeted “sci entific, research-based” criteria for program development is valid criteria. The lack of evidence should serve as a clear warning to parents and good educators to steer clear of any programs or program development based on any of the above-mentioned models, or on the Skinnerian method called for by Effective Schools Research. (See Appendix XXVI.)] D AVID H ORNBECK , SUPERINTENDENT OF M ARYLAND ’ S PUBLIC SCHOOLS , IN TESTIMONY BE fore the Maryland State Board of Education in 1984 attempted to “mandate community service at state-approved places.” During Hornbeck’s testimony he quoted the late Ernest Boyer, then president of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, as saying, “In the end the goal of service in the schools is to teach values—to help all students understand that to be fully human one must serve.” Over the past thirty years there have been three primary programs related to the de sign and implementation of effective schools and successful learning results. Each of these research efforts focused on different aspects or variables in the following areas: behavioral change and the application of learning theory to produce successful learning results; the identification of sociological factors operating in effective schools; teaching strategies to effect learning, and the combination of these variables and practices in a systematic approach to achieve learning and management results.... The following professionals and groups have initiated successful educational programs which can work together as a common system to deliver predictable success for every learner—the ultimate criterion of an effective school program: Wilbur Brookover and Ron Edmonds of the Effective Schools Research Movement; B.F. Skinner, Norman Crowder, Robert and Betty O. Corrigan, 1950–1984, Mastery Learning Practices; Madeline Hunter, 1962–1984, Mastery Teaching Practices; R.E. Corringan, B.O. Corrigan, Ward Corrigan and Roger A. Kaufman, 1960–1984, A Systematic Approach for Ef fectiveness (SAFE) for district-wide installation of Effective Schools.... Skinner proposed that it is feasible to deliver predictable learning mastery results when teachers performed the following programmed actions to design and implement lesson plans or curricula. These design and teaching steps describe the general process steps of learner centered mastery learning instruction. [Ed. Note: Included in step 3 of the above-mentioned learner-centered mastery learning in struction is: “Provide immediate feedback as to the correctness of learner responses, provide for immediate correction of errors, and control the progress of learning as students proceed in small steps along the tested learning path to master the learning objectives and criteria with predictable success.”] The "Effective" Eighties : c. 1984 T HE J ULY 1984 EDITION OF THE E FFECTIVE S CHOOL R EPORT CARRIED AN ARTICLE ENTITLED “Effective Schools for Results” by Dr. Robert E. Corrigan and Dr. George W. Bailey. Excerpts follow:

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The ultimate benefits to be derived through the installation of this mastery of skills delivery system will be the predictable success of all future graduates to master relevant skills to enter and succeed in society. Graduation skill standards would be continually evaluated and, where necessary, will be revised based on new skill requirements established by industrial, civic,