Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

397 art or as recreation, not as a cognitive process,” says Leilani Lattin Duke, director of the Getty Education Institute for the Arts. By studying the arts, students can develop capacities for critical thinking and problem solving, she explains. “The arts represent forms that humans have created to convey their feelings, their vi sions, their aspirations, and their values,” says Elliot Eisner, professor of education and art at Stanford University. “The presence of arts in the schools makes it possible for children and adolescents to learn how to read the images that arts provide.... Children need to be able to look at art and images and to recognize their historical and cultural significance in order to understand the message being conveyed.” Once children can interpret these sometimes confusing messages, they will need to learn how to manage them. “A lot of what is taught in school suggests that there are correct and incorrect answers to questions, as evidenced by the use of multiple-choice and true/false tests,” explains Lehman. “In the real world, questions aren’t posed that way.” For example, questions about how to achieve world peace or end world hunger don’t have any easy an swers. The arts naturally require people to seek multiple solutions. [Ed. Note: The writer understands and appreciates the artist’s legitimate role of creating a painting or writing music as an expression of his own feelings about life. That is what makes art so special. However, social engineers should not use art to promote their own agendas in the classroom. The reader is urged to turn to the 1970 entry which quotes from Leonard S. Kenworthy’s paper, “The International Dimension of Education: Background Paper II Prepared for the World Conference on Education,” which says in part: For example, the writer has found tremendously effective a 10-minute film on the United Na tions, entitled “Overture.” There is no narrative in this film; the pictures are shown against a background of music, with the Vienna Symphony Orchestra playing the Egmont Overture. It is a powerful learning device and moves its viewers in a way few other approaches touch them. Anyone familiar with Chairman Mao’s brainwashing in Red China understands the use of theatre, art, and music to indoctrinate citizens.] The Noxious Nineties : c. 1998 T HE B USINESS S ECTION OF THE M AY 27, 1998 ISSUE OF USA T ODAY CARRIED AN ARTICLE entitled “Schools Learn Lessons in Efficiency from Business.” Excerpts follow: The biggest experiment, however, involves the public school system itself. In one of the most ambitious attempts yet to take something that works in business and apply it to public education, the 19 schools here expect in six months to become the first school district in the world to be ISO 9000 certified. ISO 9000, a sort of Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval for businesses, is a way of enforcing excellence that has been embraced by businesses worldwide.... But because the Lancaster [Pennsylvania] schools have identified their customers to be students and parents, ISO 9000 by definition must also force improvements in curriculum, teaching methods and anything else that leads to the ultimate goal of higher academic achievement. There is growing optimism in education circles that this could be the landmark experi ment that finally marries education to a nuts-and-bolts business tool. ISO 9000 proponents say it will enforce discipline, not upon the students, but upon an unwieldy system. It will enforce consistency so that average teachers closely resemble the best. Will it work? Mixed signals abound. Interviews find Lancaster teachers and principals