Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

263

The "Effective" Eighties : c. 1989

the importance of child-nurturing skills. In the gym, homemakers are taking exercise classes. After work, more men and women will show up for their fitness workout. These are “community learning centers, not just schools.” “Schools are no longer in the schooling business” but rather in “human resource development,” she said. Dr. McCune was in South Kitsap to talk about something everyone’s hearing a lot about these days—”restructuring” schools. Her speech kicked off a full day of teacher training. Across the state, most teachers were taking part in local or state-sponsored training. In South Kitsap, workshop choices reflected the wave of the future Dr. McCune described. They dealt with topics such as celebrating differences in learning styles, using whole language approach, using cooperative learning, and integrating technology with curriculum. Endnotes: 1 Practitioner’s Implementation Handbook [series] : The Outcome-Based Curriculum, Second Ed., by Charlotte Danielson (Out comes Associates: Princeton, NJ, 1992). 2 See Appendix XXVI entitled “Shamanistic Rituals in Effective Schools” by Brian Rowan who says, among other eye-opening comments, “Thus, any experienced shaman can find ‘effective’ schools.” 3 Models of Instructional Organization: A Casebook of Mastery Learning and Outcome-Based Education, Robert Burns, Ed. (Far 5 The Mott Foundation was one of the early initiators and heavy financial supporters of un-American community education and the unelected advisory council concept. Mott still retains its role as leader of this movement, which is now international and borrows much of its organizational structure from communist China. 6 At the time he wrote the article, Glines was assistant to the director of the Office of Instructional Support and Bilingual Edu cation of the State of California Department of Education, Sacramento, California. This article was adapted with permission from an article published in The California Journal on Teacher Education (Spring, 1980). 7 Copies of the February issue of the Innisbrook Papers can be ordered from: Corporate Relations Department, Northern Telecom Limited, 33 City Centre Drive, Mississauga, Ontario L5A2A2. 8 The reader should not dismiss this last comment by Oettinger as a flippant remark. For more information on “the new flower ing of oral communication” read ComSpeak 2050, How Talking Computers Will Recreate an Oral Culture by Mid-21st Century by William Crossman, 404–524–7438, e-mail: WillCross@aol.com 9 Information taken from Charlotte T. Iserbyt’s Back to Basics Reform Or… OBE Skinnerian International Curriculum (Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt: Bath, Maine, 1985). 10 Center for Educational Research and Innovation: Rue Andre-Pascal, 75775, Paris, France. 11 K.M. Heaton’s article can be obtained by writing: Hart Publications, 1507 Lincoln Street, Bellingham, WA 98226. 12 Private collection of the writer. 13 Brainwashing (Capp Clark Publishing Co., Ltd.: Toronto, 1971) and Brainwashing in Red China: The Men Who Defied It (Vanguard Press, Inc.: New York, NY, 1973). 14 Private collection of the writer. 15 For more information on this project, write: Mastery in Learning Project, National Education Association, 1201 16th Street, NW, Washington, DC 20036. 16 Roberto Assagioli, Psychosynthesis: A Manual of Principles and Techniques (Viking Press: New York, 1965). 17 Like Paolo Friere, Kevin Ryan of Boston University was invited by and received a contract from the newly-established Portu guese government, after its communist revolution in 1974, to train teachers so that Portugal could meet the European Com munity admission requirements. Professor Ryan is prominent in the character and moral education movement in the U.S. in the 1990s. 18 For more information on the Rotterdam meetings and/or the International Congress for Effective Schools, write: A.A. Peters or Professor Dale Mann, or Professor Terry Astuto at Teachers College, Columbia University, New York, NY 10027, or call 212–678–3726. 19 For more information regarding the next few entries dealing with the Tactics for Thinking curriculum or for information on Higher Order Thinking Skills (HOTS), contact Jeannie Georges who gave testimony at The National Citizens Alliance press conference and who has written extensively on the subject. Her address is: Route 1, Box 215, Lynnville, Indiana 47619, tel. 812–922–3247. 20 Ibid. 21 Single copies of the report, The Forgotten Half: Pathways to Success for America’s Youth and Young Families , may be obtained free from: William T. Grant Foundation Commission on Work, Family and Citizenship, 100 Connecticut Avenue, NW, Suite 301, Washington, DC 20036–5541. 22 This conference is another example of an activity associated with the U.S.-Soviet education agreements signed in 1985. This particular conference very likely took place as a consequence of the Carnegie Corporation’s exchange agreement with the West Regional Laboratory for Educational Research and Development: San Francisco, April 1987). 4 Human Intelligence International Newsletter mailing address is: P.O. Box 1163, Birmingham, MI 48012.