Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

323 Of all the design teams funded by the New American Schools Development Corporation in 1992, the Modern Red Schoolhouse was the one with the closest ties to the Republican Administration then in power and its ideological heart.... …Its chief sponsor is the Hudson Institute, a public policy center based in Indianapolis that made its reputation analyzing national security issues. Hudson’s board of trustees includes former Gov. Pierre S. du Pont, IV, of Delaware and former Vice President Dan Quayle. William J. Bennett, a U.S. Secretary of Education under President Ronald Reagan, served as chairman of the design team. Bennett, an outspoken proponent of private school choice, left the project last year when he formed Empower America, a conservative think tank based in Washington. Bennett once described the Modern Red Schoolhouse to The Washington Times as a “conservative plan with the three C’s at its core: content, character, and choice.” Yet, in many ways, the Modern Red Schoolhouse defies political or ideological labels. Some of its instructional approaches, such as multi-age homerooms and self-paced learning, would be considered “radical” by observers on both sides of the political aisle. The Noxious Nineties : c. 1994

P RESIDENT C LINTON SIGNED G OALS 2000 A CT ON M ARCH 24, 1994. T HIS LEGISLATION LAID a large portion of the groundwork for radical restructuring of the nation’s schools from the teaching of academics to workforce training.

M ICHIGAN ’ S S TATE B OARD OF E DUCATION ADOPTED THE FINAL VERSION OF THE C OMMUNICA tion Arts Framework for the High School Proficiency Test in April of 1994. Extensive excerpts from the Framework , representative of standards adopted throughout the country intended to assist students in entering the workforce or in pursuing higher education, follow:

Assessment Framework for the Michigan High School Proficiency Test in Reading

INTRODUCTION One of the more widely used methods of control is legislatively mandated graduation stan dards that require students to pass state mandated tests (Berk, 1986).… The lesson seems to be that if tests remain inadequate, so will the curriculum they influence. The challenge for Michigan is to create a reading/communication arts framework for curriculum and assessment that does not narrow the curriculum. To prevent this from hap pening, the Model Core Curriculum Outcomes in Reading, the foundation upon which the proficiency test is based, must be incorporated into a framework that is consistent with the emerging trends in the field. The Model Core Curriculum Outcomes in Reading are derived from the Michigan Reading Association’s definition of reading (Wixson & Peters, 1984). The definition provided a theoretical foundation for changing reading instruction and assessment in the state. It is based on a constructivist view of reading that posits, “Reading is the process of constructing meaning through the dynamic interaction among the reader, the text, and the context of the reading situation.” (Wixson & Peters, p. 4)… While the constructivist perspective is a useful way to view the reading process, it must be expanded to include the social dimension of learning. This perspective is best illustrated by the work of Vygotsky (1978). He contended that higher cognitive learning is rooted in social connections; and as a result, knowledge is socially constructed as learners engage in holistic and authentic activities (Englert & Palincsar, 1991; Palincsar & Klenk, 1992).… A common feature of the constructivist and socioconstructivist views of reading is the importance placed on metacognition—purposeful, effortful, self-regulated, active, intentional