Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

223 our secular schools have consistently taught these presuppositions (evolutionary theory) and unhappily many of our Christian lower schools and colleges have taught the crucial subjects no differently than the secular schools.”] The "Effective" Eighties : c. 1985 E DUCATION D AILY OF A PRIL 5, 1985 PUBLISHED AN ITEM ENTITLED “T EACHERS I NFLUENCE Students’ Values through Writing Assignments” which stated in part: Researchers attending the annual meeting of the American Educational Research Association here said writing can be used to clarify students’ values and even alter their views on con troversial subjects. But teachers can also use writing to manipulate a student’s viewpoint and attitude on controversial issues, said a researcher who has studied how writing changes attitudes. “You can generate attitude change by writing,” said John Daly of the University of Texas. Daly said his research showed that writing an essay about an issue helps students clarify their own views. But when asked to write an essay arguing a position opposing their values, the students are lead to change their minds.... …And the greater the effort a student puts into a writing assignment, the greater the change in attitude, Daly concluded. Daly’s finding disturbed some educators, who said they were concerned that teachers have the power to alter students’ values. “It can be dangerous when we know that educa tors have the power to influence kids’ minds,” said Barbara Mitchell of the University of Pennsylvania. T HE M AY 1985 E DUCATION U PDATE FROM THE A SSOCIATION FOR S UPERVISION AND C UR riculum Development contained a revealing article “Promising Theories Die Young” about the late Madeline Hunter, University of California at Los Angeles education professor and the nation’s best known Mastery Teaching teacher trainer. Dr. Hunter was a psychologist who served more than twenty years as principal of the Experimental Laboratory Elementary School at UCLA. (John Goodlad also served at UCLA’s lab school.) Hunter’s views on Instructional Theory Into Practice (ITIP) and on dialectical thinking follow: Madeline Hunter, UCLA education professor and research interpreter, told a huge, doting audience that educational theorists and practitioners “badly need each other” and that it is high time to tap each other’s strengths rather than zap each other’s perceived flaws. Hunter said that she is particularly conscious of this schism because “I’m part of both but not re ally one or the other.” Hunter has been a school psychologist, principal, researcher, and, in ASCD immediate Past President Phil Robinson’s words, “one of the most able... teachers of teachers.” Hunter delivered three mandates for the next decade: 1. Unite educational theory and practice; 2. Recognize, integrate, and use all three kinds of knowledge; and 3. Move toward dialectical thinking. Under the article’s subtitle, “Three Kinds of Knowledge,” Hunter’s presentation to the audience was covered as follows:

When she was a school psychologist, Hunter said, she had an exchange with a teacher who had rebuked a student for making a silly remark: