Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

338 Evidently there are still enough politically savvy (educated) Americans who reject such partnerships, having studied government intrusion in the home and family in countries such as Cuba, the former Soviet Union and Eastern bloc countries, and especially in Communist China, from which some of Don Davies’s community-education research apparently has emanated. The Community Learning and Information Network, Inc., or CLIN, incorporated in 1992 and supported by major corporations and education associations, will make Professor Davies’s dream come true. He “won’t have to worry about citizens who ‘resist’” Goals 2000 reform (don’t want to dance with the government). According to the CLIN fact sheet, “The CLIN concept is to implement a community-linked learning-technology and information-de livery system that uses… two-way interactive video, networked computer-assisted learning, video programming, multimedia, interactive cable, and electronic mail (including electronic video mail) based on an ‘open systems’ architectural approach. CLIN, Inc.’s goal is [to] link every public and private school in the United States, as well as every institution of higher education and corporate and industrial training sites.” An information packet from the Community Learning and Information Network states: “CLIN has also developed international projects, to include an approved project with the People’s Republic of China sponsored by the highest levels of the Chinese government.” Professor Davies’s concerns about lack of parental and taxpayer support for reform will also be dealt with when the National Goals Panel’s 235-page Community Action Tool Kit , the intent of which is to psychologically manipulate taxpayers into supporting Goals 2000 , hits our communities. The Tool Kit recommends, among other techniques, these: “Describe allies and opponents; identify change agents; get the president of Hewlett Packard to write the chairman of the school board a letter supporting the proposal.” It also provides a case study of how Christian ministers were manipulated into supporting Goals 2000 in Edmonds, Washington. Alexander Solzhenitsyn, the famous Soviet dissident, issued an important warning when he said, “Coexistence on this tightly knit earth should be viewed as an existence not only without wars... but also without [government] telling us how to live, what to say, what to think, what to know, and what not to know.” So-called “peace” is breaking out all over the world. How long this type of peace will last will depend on the patience freedom-loving citizens have with Global Big Brother’s intrusion into the privacy of their homes and families. C HALLENGERS FOR I NSIGHT IN ITS N OVEMBER 1994 NEWSLETTER PUBLISHED AN ARTICLE entitled “Susan Kovalik’s Integrated Thematic Instruction” which enables the average parent or teacher to understand a new teaching model based on “brain compatible learning” for outcome- /performance-based education. 41 This critique of Kovalik’s model was written by education researchers Marilyn Boyer and Barbara Volkman of Indiana. 42 Since this article describes a new and most controversial method which may well be used extensively throughout the nation, this writer has included it in its entirety so that the reader can use it for educational purposes:

SUSAN KOVALIK’S INTEGRATED THEMATIC INSTRUCTION By Barbara Volkman and Marilyn Boyer

Controversy continues to rage throughout Indiana over a state-supported teaching model for Outcome-/Performance-Based Education. Many traditional teaching methods are being eliminated as public school classrooms experiment with new teaching techniques