Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

254 T HE N ATIONAL G OVERNORS ’ A SSOCIATION (NGA) E DUCATION S UMMIT WAS CONVENED IN 1989 by President George Bush at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville, Virginia. The NGA un veiled America 2000 —now known as Goals 2000 —and its six national education goals (which have now been increased to eight). These goals have served to carve into stone controversial “education” practices thoroughly exposed in this book, and to lay the foundation for activating school-to-work initiatives. The goals are as follows: GOAL 1. By the year 2000, all children will start school ready to learn. GOAL 2. By the year 2000, the high school graduation rate will increase to at least 90 percent. GOAL 3. By the year 2000, all students will leave grades 4, 8, and 12 having demon strated competency over challenging subject matter including English, mathematics, science, foreign languages, civics and government, economics, arts, history, and ge ography, and every school in America will ensure that all students learn to use their minds well, so they may be prepared for responsible citizenship, further learning, and productive employment in our Nation’s modern economy. GOAL 4. By the year 2000, the Nation’s teaching force will have access to programs for the continued improvement of their professional skills and the opportunity to acquire the knowledge and skills needed to instruct and prepare all American stu dents for the next century. GOAL 5. By the year 2000, United States students will be first in the world in mathe matics and science achievement. GOAL 6. By the year 2000, every adult American will be literate and will possess the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in a global economy and exercise the rights and responsibilities of citizenship. GOAL 7. By the year 2000, every school in the United States will be free of drugs, violence and the unauthorized presence of firearms and alcohol and will offer a disciplined environment conducive to learning. GOAL 8. By the year 2000, every school will promote partnerships that will increase parental involvement and participation in promoting the social, emotional, and academic growth of children. [Ed. Note: In 1999, ten years later, the National Education Goals Panel recommended chang ing the name Goals 2000 to America’s Goals since the goals would not be reached by the year 2000—thanks to intense opposition to Goals 2000 from teachers and parents, who considered it a corporate/federal takeover of the nation’s schools.] T HE J ULY 5, 1989 ISSUE OF T HE N EW Y ORK T IMES CARRIED AN ARTICLE BY E DWARD B. Fiske entitled “Lessons—in the quiet world of schools, a time bomb is set for 1993 on certifying teachers.” An excerpt follows: The new national system will not replace those now in use. Rather, it will offer a new vol untary credential to experienced teachers willing to undergo classroom observations and a battery of sophisticated new tests of their pedagogical expertise. The system is modeled on professional specialty boards in, say, medicine, through which doctors who are already —Later Additions—