Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

352 Roosevelt High School in the Bronx.”

In discussing the problems associated with character education, Rosenblatt asks what happens when two moral rights collide? A teacher might well begin complicating things, talking of exceptions and degrees, but a teacher also wants to avoid sliding into the moral relativism that created the mess that character educators are trying to fix. Rosenblatt then reveals the contradiction in Lickona’s argument regarding moral relativism when he says, “Deciding to do his [Lickona’s] dissertation on children’s moral thinking, he was drawn… to Lawrence Kohlberg of Harvard, a major figure in the late 1960s on the subject of moral reasoning.” The reader is urged to review this book’s 1975 entry which describes Kohlberg’s “Ethical Issues in Decision Making” for an understanding of the “moral relativism which created the mess that character educators,” including especially Lickona, are supposedly correcting. [Ed. Note: Curriculum is not the answer. The hiring of competent teachers whose lifestyles are exemplary and who exhibit civilized behavior (respectful, courteous, caring, loyal, etc.) is the best and safest way for schools to encourage morality in our children. Such an atmosphere, in combination with literature which helps students understand that moral behavior is some thing to emulate, not disdain, would do more than all the “character,” “civics,” “citizenship” and “values education” being discussed by the carefully selected task forces representing all degrees of political persuasion being set up to create the dialectic necessary to reach “common ground” on consensus values. A careful reading of Rosenblatt’s article is recommended as the first step towards an un derstanding of the pitfalls Americans face as they enthusiastically join forces to solve problems which clearly, short of violating the First Amendment, cannot be dealt with successfully in the classroom.] L OOKING B ACK , T HINKING A HEAD : A MERICAN S CHOOL R EFORM 1993–1995 WAS PUBLISHED by the Hudson Institute’s (Indianapolis, Ind.) Educational Excellence Network (Chester Finn, William Bennett, Lamar Alexander, Diane Ravitch) in 1995. An excerpt follows: The report decries the backlash against outcomes-based education.... Many state outcomes are inappropriate... but... unfortunately, an awfully important baby [mastery learning] could go down the drain with the OBE bath water, and the country could find itself returning to an era when inputs, services, and intentions are the main gauge of educational quality and performance. [Ed. Note: This quote exposes the hypocrisy of those “opposing OBE”; they oppose the out comes, but not the Skinnerian method . As explained elsewhere, the outcomes can be changed overnight, whereas once all teachers have been trained or retrained in Skinnerian mastery learning, there can be no return to academic freedom for teachers or students.] C OMMITTEE FOR E CONOMIC D EVELOPMENT (CED) 1995 YEARBOOK ENTITLED P UTTING L EARN ing First: Governing and Managing the Schools for High Achievement was published. This 60-page report called for school choice, charter schools, and social services delivered through schools or in collaboration with schools.