Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

336 schools remind the reader of the November 1979 article in The Bangor (Maine) Daily News about radical changes proposed by a Vermont task force which included boarding schools, a center for educational research and teacher training, and elements of the school-to-work agenda for the 1990s? The above Chinese model, describing the school as the “hub” of the community, bears much resemblance to the community education programs of the past twenty-five years or so. While the Chinese still use the word “children” instead of this country’s substitute “human capital resources,” one must not lose sight of the environment—political, economic, and reli gious—in which the above extreme, communist and coercive “educational solutions” are sug gested and established. The reader should also bear in mind that this program was presented at Willard Daggett’s ICLE “Model Schools” conference.] “S CHOOLS : I NTO THE F UTURE ” IS THE TITLE OF AN ARTICLE WHICH RAN IN T HE O REGONIAN [Port land, Oregon] on September 8, 1994 and carried a subtitle as lead-in which read “Oregon’s school-reform plan is one of the country’s most ambitious—and this year it really kicks into gear.” Since Oregon was the first state to implement the Goals 2000 Act (signed by President Clinton on March 31, 1994) and The School-to-Work Opportunities Act (signed by Clinton May 4, 1994), before quoting from the article in The Oregonian , the writer wants to quote from the first paragraph of the radical Goals 2000 Act : To improve learning and teaching by providing a national framework for education reform; to promote the research, consensus building, and systemic changes needed to ensure equitable educational opportunities and high levels of educational achievement for all students; to provide a framework for reauthorization of all Federal education programs; to promote the development and adoption of a voluntary national system of skill standards and certification; and for other purposes. 39 Excerpts from the “Schools: Into the Future” article which enable the reader to comprehend the controversial nature of Goals 2000 : Efforts to make learning more relevant by breaking down walls between schools and the adult world are bringing the most visible changes. At Portland’s Roosevelt High, for example, students will choose career paths early in their high school years and actually will follow them into the workplace with real-world experiences such as internships and job-shadow ing programs. At Grant High, students will learn directly from Cellular One workers. And at Marshall High, business leaders will serve as mentors to individual students, guiding the choices that will affect their futures in the world of work. Oregon’s law, like President Clinton’s Goals 2000 reform legislation, aims to dramatically raise the education levels of students schools failed to reach in the past. This year, Portland Public Schools will embark on a plan to push all students into an academic regimen equal to that traditionally reserved for the college-bound, says Jack Bierwirth, Portland Public Schools Superintendent. It will do so by aggressively following Oregon’s school-reform blueprint. The state plan attempts to reach the forgotten half in two ways: 40 by requiring all students to meet PUBLIC LAW 103–227 March 31, 1994 103rd Congress