Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

366 “P ARENTS T URN TO T UTORS : R EBELLION AGAINST W HOLE L ANGUAGE ” BY R OSALIND R OSSI and Sha ron Cotliar was published in The Chicago Sun-Times on August 12, 1996. Excerpts follow: Jean Iovino, owner of eight Sylvan Learning Centers in the suburbs, said the number of beginning readers in her centers has skyrocketed in the last five years.... Many parents sug gest that the shift from phonics to the “whole language” philosophy of reading instruction is behind the drop in scores.... “Our business has increased 20 percent a year every year for the past four years,” said Vickie Glazar, spokeswoman for Maryland-based Sylvan Learning Systems. [Ed. Note: Sylvan Learning Centers use mastery learning/direct instruction. The Reading Excellence Act of 1998 (H.R. 2614) contains the legally questionable call for the use of Sylvan Learning Centers: “Tutorial service providers might include public agencies, non-profit private organizations, and profit-seeking private business firms (e.g., Sylvan Learning Centers).”] “A G UIDE TO C OMPETING T EACHING M ETHODS ” BY R OSALIND R OSSI WAS PUBLISHED IN T HE Chicago Sun-Times on August 12, 1996. A portion of “A Guide” follows: Direct Instruction: A method of instruction in which the teacher directs lessons in carefully sequenced steps. In one of its most conservative forms, developed by Siegfried Engelmann of the University of Oregon, teachers use textbooks with child-tested scripts to teach phonics in small steps, and children repeat back words, or give answers as a group in fast-paced, rhythmic, “choral chants.” Often includes heavy use of workbooks. Complaints about direct instruction: The Engelmann method, used alone, has been accused of turning teachers into robots, of robbing children of the joy of reading real books at an early age and of empha sizing sound over meaning. D R . S HIRLEY M C C UNE , PROJECT DIRECTOR FOR THE M ID -C ONTINENT R EGIONAL E DUCA tional Labo ratory (McREL) wrote The Light Shall Set You Free (Athena Publishing, Alpha Connections: Santa Fe, New Mexico, 1996), in which she revealed her theological connections with New Age guru Alice Bailey. Excerpts from McCune’s book underscore the fact that the U.S. taxpayer is pay ing the salaries of social engineers with bizarre beliefs who are wreaking havoc in curriculum development and organizational restructuring of the nation’s schools. Excerpts follow: Those who journey into the Light will move with us in the ethers to live in the Fifth Dimension and above. Those who choose to stay in the lower vibrations will be provided for accordingly also. The Earth will be cleansed in the next decade for the purification must be complete.... The way to the Light is to increase your vibratory frequency.... This point of Light stimulates each breath we take.... The Light is within.... This tremendous source of power can be accessed only by going within the mind’s eye and by listening to the silence.... This path requires a whole new curriculum and set of guidelines to describe our existence.... The Light is within us always, silently waiting to be discovered, to show us the way back to our divinity.... Each individual is actually a co-creator with the Divine.... The date for entry into the Fifth Dimension is scheduled for the year 2012, says Kuthum [An alleged “ascended master” who supposedly transmitted his ideas to Madame Blavatsky, founder of the Theo sophical Society and author of The Secret Doctrine and Isis Unveiled , ed.]....