Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

372 lives of those most in need. If the reader feels that the writer of this book is going overboard with her use of the word “elite,” hold onto your seat while we make an ascent into the rooftop conference room of a Washington, D.C. club where one of the meetings held by the Com mission took place. Hear ye! Hear ye! Theda Skocpol, professor of government and sociology at Harvard University, is about to give testimony before the Commission: My research on the past and present of U.S. civic engagement suggests that this Commission should look upward, not downward. [all emphases in original] Too much money in politics, too great a reliance on staff-led groups, too much top-down manipulation—and far too few incentives for leaders to organize or engage in dialogue with actual groups of fellow citizens across the nation —these are Americans’ sense of disconnection from shared civic life. You won’t find the answers you seek in purely local groups, or among the less privileged. You must look to America’s powerful and best-educated elites—to folks like all of us sitting in this room. What is [it] that we [businesspeople], professors, foundation heads, think tank impresarios, and religious and political leaders are doing that we should not be doing? Equally pertinent, what new things should we elites do? America’s best educated, wealthiest, and most powerful leaders are the ones who are failing our fellow citizens—because we have withdrawn from the group settings in which we would have daily chances to work with, and discuss the nation’s concerns, with most of our fellow citizens. The writer has an answer for Ms. Skocpol: stop trying to social engineer “the locals” into accepting solutions which “the locals” never asked for and probably would not want if they were informed of the real purpose of the so-called “solutions.” Skocpol refers to the activities of “tax-exempt foundation heads and think tank impresarios.” She would be wise to remain silent on that score, considering the severe damage done by those very entities to the preser vation of freedom in our nation. The Commission seems to have made a big mistake publishing Skocpol’s paper. Its condescending, elitist tone surely will not help to get their project off the ground—perhaps that is best for all of us. Excerpts from The Final Report of the National Commission on Civic Renewal: A Nation of Spectators—How Civic Disengagement Weakens America and What We Can Do about It (1998) follow: Defining the Challenge of Civic Renewal. In America we do not depend on kings, clerics, or aristocrats, or (for that matter) on tech nocratic elites or self-appointed leaders to serve as the “vanguard” for the rest of us. [This is a strange comment in light of the makeup and conclusions of the Commission and its expert consultants, ed.]… We believe that the capacity for democratic citizenship must be nurtured in institu tions such as families, neighborhoods, schools, faith communities, local governments, and political movements—and therefore, that our democracy must attend carefully to the health of these institutions…. We believe that building democracy means individuals, voluntary associations, private markets, and the public sector working together—not locked in battle. [Ed. Note: First, the writer thought that the United States was a constitutional republic, not a democracy. Secondly, again we find the reference to the public sector and the private having to join together; i.e., partnerships, which the reader should recognize as corporate fascism/ socialism. This is the first time the writer has been informed that the above-mentioned groups