Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

218 and academic leaders either (a) to get and hold jobs, (b) to advance to higher education, and/or (c) to be self-sufficient following graduation. [Ed. Note: How much clearer could the Corrigans be in describing the need for Skinnerian mas tery learning/direct instruction in order to implement school-to-work? (See Appendix VI.)] D R . T HEODORE S IZER ’ S C OALITION OF E SSENTIAL S CHOOLS (CES) WAS FOUNDED IN 1984 . Major Coalition principles are: • Focus on helping adolescents to learn to use their minds well.... • Less is more: Each student should master a limited number of essential skills areas of knowledge.... • School goals should apply to all students.... • Teaching and learning should be personalized; each teacher should have no more than 80 students.... • Scrap the time-honored feature of the American education system: graduation re quirements based on the so-called Carnegie Units, or the “seat time” students spend in various subject areas.... The Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) was established at Brown University. From twelve “charter” schools in four states, CES by 1993 grew to include more than 130 member schools in nearly thirty states. Along with the Education Commission of the States, the CES sponsors Re:Learning, a partnership with participating states to build support for essential school change at the state and district levels. Ten years later evaluation studies have found that gains weren’t measurable. Even so, philanthropist Walter H. Annenberg pledged to donate $50 million to the Annenberg Institute for School Reform, run by Sizer and based at Brown University. It is important to mention that the majority, if not all, of the major education reform projects have failed to improve students’s academic test scores. Notable examples are: Johnson City, New York—the Outcomes-Driven Development Model (ODDM) by John Champlin; Wil liam Spady’s Far West Laboratory Utah Grant, “Excellence in Instructional Delivery Systems: Research and Dissemination of Exemplary Outcomes-Based Programs”; and Marc Tucker’s National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), which moved from Washington, D.C. to Rochester, New York in 1988 to “help” that city’s much-heralded reform movement. The Rochester Democrat and Chronicle of March 14, 1993 in an article entitled “A City’s Dream Unfulfilled”—after five years of Tucker’s “help”—reported the following: Since Rochester’s schools started reform, fewer graduates have received the more stringent Regents diploma. In 1986–87, 23.1% of graduates had Regents diplomas, and 17.5% grad uated with them last year [1993]. • Students should be active workers [student-as-worker philosophy]…. • Students should be able to demonstrate mastery of skills and knowledge.

J OHN I. G OODLAD CLEARLY STATED THAT HOW A STUDENT FEELS ABOUT SCHOOL IS MORE important