Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

408 published in the Tallahassee, Florida The Ledger for the Cecil Golden comment which likened PPBS/MBO—of which the above article is the fulfillment—to an atom bomb: “[L]ike those assembling the atom bomb, very few of them understand exactly what they are building, and won’t until we put all the parts together.”] “V OCATIONAL P ROJECT L AUDED ” WAS PUBLISHED IN THE S ALEM , O REGON T HE S TATESMAN Journal on July 7, 1998. This article discussed a program in which students repair donated computers for use in schools (Students Recycling Used Technology or STRUT). Some excerpts follow: Gov. John Kitzhaber, addressing a national conference of educators Monday, praised a vo cational education program as an example of school reform that emphasizes results instead of class time. Students repair donated computers for use in schools through the program known as Students Recycling Used Technology, or STRUT. The program is a model for the next generation of vocational education in the United States, Kitzhaber told the Education Commission of the States, an educational policy group that includes governors and state legislators. “The new model,” said Kitzhaber, “provides standards and the basics but then requires students to demonstrate that they can actually apply the knowledge that they’ve learned.” “Conceived in 1995, STRUT has placed 10,000 refurbished computers in schools and has more than 800 students repairing computers statewide. “The program’s results have inspired educators in Washington, California, Arizona, New Mexico and Texas to copy it. STRUT is a modern version of traditional vocational edu cation because it combines two objectives,” said Frank Newman, Commission President.... “In Indiana, new programs similar to STRUT rely on professional technicians, not students, to repair donated computers.... One downside is that a lot of what is donated is low qual ity,” said Carolyn Breedlove, a telecommunications lobbyist for the National Education As sociation in Washington, D.C. “Companies get tax write-offs often not commensurate with the quality of the donations.” T HE J ULY 9, 1998 ISSUE OF THE S OUTH B RISTOL , M AINE L INCOLN C OUNTY W EEKLY PUB lished an article entitled “Darling Center Hosts UNESCO Conference” which illustrates the extent to which even the smallest towns in our nation are being affected by international education policies. The article states in part: While the majority of residents and visitors in the area celebrate Damariscotta’s past 150 years, a fledgling group of international visitors gather at the Ira C. Darling Marine Center to plan for the future. Participants in the third International Working Conference on Information Technology in Education Management (ITEM) have come from 18 countries, including Australia, Japan, New Zealand, China and the Netherlands, to share their research on integrating information for education management.... …“One very important aspect of this work is how integrated information influences or informs the decisions of school administrators and policy makers,” said Ray Taylor, the conference coordinator and a former superintendent of the Augusta school district…. While the Darling Center hosted the meeting, School Union 74, UNESCO (United Na tions Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization), and a North Carolina company,