Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

315

The Noxious Nineties : c. 1993

a broad cross-section of our citizens are involved in the important debate on the future of public education and, in turn, the future of our nation.

[Ed. Note: While this author thinks it is remarkable that Dr. Lezotte would admit to being at a disadvantage in combatting “resisters,” it is somewhat unfortunate that he should give credit to only one organization as being responsible for the opposition which restructuring has encountered. A broad cross-section of the country—including teachers and administrators in public schools—has been in the camp of the “resisters” when it comes to restructuring. The writer finds it hard to believe that the educational establishment—with the extraordinary resources at its disposal—was unable to obtain the support of the community, and found it necessary to use Ronald Havelock’s change agentry on the citizenry. In writing this letter Lezotte evidently fired the first shot of warning to the education com munity, for not six months after Lezotte’s letter was written, a researcher downloaded from the internet the National Education Goals Panel’s Community Action Toolkit , which contained instructions for combatting community resistance to restructuring. It provided recommendations for action by specific community entities—the press, civic organizations, religious entities, and business—and samples of letters to the editor, advertisements, supportive flyers, and public service announcements, for use in building support for local educational restructuring. One of the most distasteful results of this effort was the recommended manipulation of the religious community. (See Appendix XIV.)] T HE IMPACT ON EDUCATION OF THE U NITED S TATES SIGNING THE N ORTH A MERICAN F REE Trade Agreement was discussed in an article entitled “USIA’s Grants Go to Schools in NAFTA Na tions” published in the September 12, 1993 edition of The Washington Times . Some excerpts follow: United States Information Agency Director Joseph Duffey attending a four-day “imple mentation” conference at Vancouver, British Columbia, yesterday announced the first North American three-way university affiliation grants to involve exchanges of faculty and staff among Canadian, Mexican and U.S. universities for teaching, lecturing, research and cur riculum development. “We often have university affiliation grants,” Mr. Duffey said in an interview before he left for Vancouver. “This is the first time we’ve decided to start awarding three or four a year that involved three countries in North America.”… Each USIA award will carry about $100,000, plus travel and per diem expenses, for exchanges of faculty, administrators and educational materials. The agreement, part of the broadened dialogue that has come out of the North Amer ican Free Trade Agreement, will support an array of projects focused on history, economic development, international trade and the environment. “What we seek to do is, among other things, nothing less than dismantling barriers to academic mobility,” Mr. Duffey said in a speech at the conference. Mr. Duffey said he expects the North American countries to succeed in achieving a sense of regional community where the quest for a common community of nations in West ern Europe has foundered. “We’re trying to reverse the tradition of nationalism and people, who in looking to their identity, look backwards to the past,” he said. “Instead, we want them to look to the future.” (p. A–5)