Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

287 [Ed. Note: Targeting funding to the child according to the child’s Individual Education Plan (IEP) and meeting the state requirements fits in nicely with school-to-work. Won’t a child whose career path is that of a fireman receive less funding than a child whose career path is that of an engineer?] Under the Georgia Public Policy Foundation recommendations the local districts must divest themselves of operating control of the schools [site-based management and charter schools]. Each autonomous public school organizes as a non-profit corporation with a board selected by the teachers and other certified staff of the school. [Ed. Note: This proposes a complete change of government, resulting in loss of representation by publicly elected representatives. 14 This is the Carnegie Corporation’s plan spelled out in A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century 15 which proposed the total restructuring of the teaching profession and Luvern Cunningham’s disastrous Kentucky model.] The Noxious Nineties : c. 1991 “Company Schools,” schools that are sponsored at the work site for students who come to work with a parent but which are also open to local students [school-to-work]. The curriculum in most American schools is geared toward the lower rote skills and is far less challenging than curricula in many other countries. [The reference to “lower rote skills” is a reference to basic skills—reading, writing, and arithmetic—and the rote learning of those skills. In 1994 H.R. 6, the controversial legislation that had parents up in arms, referred to “lower rote skills” in this same derogatory manner. The funding in H.R. 6 was definitely geared toward OBE/mastery learning/direct instruction and multi-cultural programs, ed.] [Ed. Note: This report could have been written by UNESCO and the U.S. Department of Edu cation with assistance from the Carnegie Corporation and the teachers’ unions—American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and National Education Association (NEA). It incorporates most of the essential elements of OBE, America 2000 , Goals 2000 , the New American School Devel opment Corporation’s charter schools, and SCANS.] H UMAN C APITAL AND A MERICA ’ S F UTURE : A N E CONOMIC S TRATEGY FOR THE N INETIES (Hopkins Press: Baltimore, Md., 1991) edited by David W. Hornbeck and Lester M. Salamon, was pub lished. The following quotes confirm the worst fears of parents related to education reform and dumbed down outcomes which are referenced by the change agents as “world class.” Human Capital explains that: [E]mployer beliefs about the superior capabilities of educated people turned out NOT to be confirmed in practice [emphasis in original]; educated employees have higher turn-over rates, lower job satisfaction, and poorer promotion records than less educated employees. (p. 7) Education researcher Judith McLemore of Alabama excerpted and commented upon David Hornbeck’s statements in “New Paradigms for Action,” chapter 13 of Human Capital : Programs proposed to “cope with human capital problems” include “Initiatives to alleviate poverty” (p. 360) which include “income transfers.”... The gap between “the haves and the have-nots is growing.” Economic prosperity of the nation is “heavily dependent” upon stability. (p. 362)