Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

248 posed to believe that this is higher order learning—that it is learning to learn.... This is learning to have your conscious mind sedated and using only your unconscious mind which processes everything indiscriminately.... There isn’t much going on here besides a form of self-hypnosis.” In conclusion, the opponents of Tactics for Thinking asked Joan Gubbins, former Indiana state senator and presidentially appointed member of the National Council for Educational Research, to read the following:

If we turn to Marzano’s conclusions at the end of his evaluation, he states, and I quote: “These findings can not be considered stable.” Do you understand what all of this says? Marzano himself says his evaluation of this experimental program is unreliable.... Noth ing is said about improvement of performance on standardized achievement tests by the students used in this field testing. However, in a program Marzano reported on in 1984 [he admitted that] “a decrease in math and reading achievement was indicated on stan dardized tests.”

T HE A UGUST 1988 ISSUE OF E DUCATION U PDATE , PUBLISHED BY THE A SSOCIATION FOR Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), carried an article entitled “Tactics for Thinking Attacked in Washington, Indiana” which said, in part: Tactics for Thinking , a framework for teaching thinking developed at the Midcontinent Re gional Educational Laboratory (McREL) and published by ASCD in 1986, has recently been the target of critics who argue that it “brainwashes” children and advances a “New Age” agenda of one-world government. The problems first occurred in Battle Ground, Washington, and have surfaced in at least one other Washington community and in two Indiana towns. Tactics , according to ASCD Executive Editor Ron Brandt, “gives teachers a practical way to teach their students to think well.” The program teaches 22 skills divided into three categories: Learning-to-Learn Skills, Content Skills, and Reasoning Skills.... For example, a unit of the program on “attention control” describes how adult learners are able to disregard distractions and concentrate on a particular subject, which helps their performance. The Tactics Trainer’s Manual suggests an exercise in which participants can be voluntarily con trolled. Although the strategy may seem ordinary, critics of Tactics in East Gibson, Indiana, said it “is the same technique used by hypnotists, used in mind control, and in New Age meditation.” ...Marzano denied that Tactics is controversial or contains sensitive material, asking, “How can teaching kids to control their attention in class so they can learn more be con troversial?” Paul Drotz, an assistant superintendent in the South Kitsap, Washington school district where Tactics was challenged, said that “the vocabulary used in the program left us pretty open to attacks. I could change 12 words and local critics would have a difficult time attacking it.” Judy Olson, a consultant hired by the Washington ASCD to train teachers in Tactics , said she advised trainees to call one unit “pay attention” rather than “attention control.” Because of the controversy, however, the Washington ASCD will no longer provide Tactics training, although it will still build awareness of it, members of the group’s governing board said. ...Marzano said that development and field testing of Tactics was “typical,” and that the screening process, which included review by eight nationally recognized experts in critical thinking, was more thorough than normal.... ASCD has sold more than 17,000 teacher’s manuals, 3,600 trainer’s guides and 550 videotapes since it began publishing the program. Marzano estimates that 20,000 teachers have been trained in the program.