Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

369 embodied in the Oregon Education Act for the Twenty-first Century. The forty-two page complaint alleges that Oregon has adopted reforms that dispense with aspects of traditional education and, in their place, mandate “outcomes” that become the only absolutes tolerated by the statewide educational system. The Complaint further alleges that the Oregon reforms formally abandon any belief in absolutes or facts in a traditional sense, and, in their place, decree feelings, attitudes, and beliefs approved by the government. According to AFA Law Center Senior Trial Attorney Stephen M. Crampton, “The imposition of government-approved attitude and beliefs flies squarely in the face of the First Amendment. It was Thomas Jefferson who said that God created the mind free and it is, therefore, not subject to force or coercion by government. Apparently, the Oregon educational establishment is unfamiliar with Jefferson or the First Amendment. What is going on [in Oregon] is nothing short of slavery of the mind.” 51 [Ed. Note: Hats off to the concerned parents and citizens of Oregon! Although the Oregon lawsuit was not successful—the negative decision by the court is being appealed—it provided a case study of what could be done in all fifty states, since all states have the same problems due to Goals 2000 mandates. Many New Standards Project (NSP—Tucker’s National Center for Education and the Economy program which leads to Certificate of Initial Mastery) states must comply with NSP requirements which totally remove any local control or significant input. The Oregon lawsuit, in this writer’s opinion, would have been more significant and have had a better chance of succeeding had it included as its major concern the role of the federally funded Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory in developing the NWREL Goals Collection as the delivery system for the dehumanizing mastery learning/direct instruction method required by OBE and Goals 2000 .] A PAPER ENTITLED “A R EPORT ON THE W ORK TOWARD N ATIONAL S TANDARDS , A SSESS ments and Certificates” was prepared for the Ohio State Board of Education in 1996 by Diana M. Fessler, elected board member. This superb report was submitted under cover of a Letter of Transmittal, excerpts of which follow: The National Center on Education and the Economy is an organization dedicated to the development of a unified system of education and employment. The National Center’s vision is to create a national human resources development system, interwoven with a new approach to governing. This report is a summary of the National Center’s agenda that is, by design and intent, applicable to all states, and it is now being implemented in many of them. As you are well aware, the “Standards for Ohio Schools: Coming Together to Build a Future Where Every Child Counts” document is coming up for a vote in the near future. It is riddled with continuous improvement, professional development, diminished authority for local school boards, school performance standards, a call to “organize” programs according to labor market needs, a provision for worksite-based learning opportunities; all of which dovetail nicely with the NCEE agenda.... There is no doubt that H.R. 1617 (known as the Consolidated and Reformed Education, Employment, and Rehabilitation Systems Act or CAREERS), and the Senate version of the same bill, S. 143 ( The Workforce Development Act of 1995 ), are extensions of the 1994 School to-Work Act . They represent the culmination of the NCEE’s effort to get Congress to impose “The System” on all Americans. However, federal control is not needed to put “The System” in place in every state. The only thing that is needed is the federal money that will become The Noxious Nineties : c. 1996