Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

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The Noxious Nineties : c. 1995

good change agents are wont to do! For further information, see the 1964 discussion of the origins of the NAEP; 1988 Na tional Citizens Alliance press conference at the National Press Club; 1998 Ohio Supreme Court favorable decision in Steve Rea’s challenge to the Ohio Department of Education; and Appendix IV.] T HE B ISMARCK (N.D.) S UNDAY T RIBUNE CARRIED AN ARTICLE ENTITLED “T EST B OARD Tackles Secrecy Stigma” by Jeff Olson in the March 5, 1995 issue. Excerpts follow: A Bismarck legislator’s bill to let parents inspect a national student achievement test sent the exam’s governing board scrambling for a new public access policy. New policy directives give parents a look at old test questions and demographic back ground questions, but maintain high security for National Assessment of Educational Progress [NAEP] exam questions still in use. They were approved Friday in Washington. Should Sen. Robert Stenehjem’s bill become law, director of the NAEP, Archie LaPointe, said it would mean the end of the exam in North Dakota. National test results wouldn’t waver because North Dakota students are a sliver of the nation-wide test sample. But LaPointe feared copycat legislation could seriously disrupt NAEP operations in other Great Plains states. National Assessment personnel came from the Educational Testing Service at Princ eton, N.J., a private company under contract to the federal government which sponsors the NAEP. 45 ETS staff and governing board members from across the country said they were sur prised by Stenehjem’s bill. North Dakota children have dominated state-by-state comparisons in the NAEP. But the 25-year-old program has been peppered with accusations that it amounts to psychological testing, and is not the anonymous comparison of academic achievement as prescribed by law. Parents are also upset that they can’t have easy access to active test questions. “The NAEP just isn’t worth it,” said Stenehjem, a Republican who sponsored SB 2308. “There is too much secrecy and there are too many intrusive background questions.” Parents from Pennsylvania, Nebraska, Iowa and other states have complained bitterly about the NAEP for several years. But no one has scared the governing board with legis lation. Until now. “E DUCATORS , R ELIGIOUS G ROUPS C ALL S CHOOL T RUCE —T HEY A GREE TO D ISAGREE ON Hot Issues of ‘90s” by Sally Streff Buzbee was published in the March 22, 1995 issue of The Atlanta Con stitution . What the article actually said is that the left and the right will meet at the middle (common ground, or what Shirley McCune refers to as “the radical center”). This is an excel lent example of the Hegelian Dialectic at work. Some pertinent excerpts follow: A RLINGTON , V IRGINIA — Educators and religious parents fighting a bitter “culture war” over the future of America’s public schools signed a pledge Tuesday to tone down their rhetoric and cooperate for children’s good…. ...[T]he 17 groups, ranging from the conservative Christian Coalition to the liberal People for the American Way, pledged to work to solve disputes before they become lawsuits and to improve communication and respect each other’s positions.