Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

416 The National Academy of Sciences is a private, non-profit organization which was granted a Charter by Congress in 1963. The Academy advises the government on scientific and technical matters. (p. iv) The following three groups are named on the title page for the above book: (1) Committee on the Prevention of Reading Difficulties in Young Children; (2) Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education and (3) National Research Council. Apparently the first committee mentioned was responsible for the report (the book) and members were “Chosen for their special competencies and with regard for appropriate balance.” (p. ii) The Acknowledgments read like a Who’s Who of Government Change Agents and Behav ioral Scientists . Reid Lyon (National Institute of Health—NIH) with whom I spoke regarding The Reading Excellence Act, is listed, as are members connected with NIH’s labs, several members from the U.S. Department of Education, the Carnegie Corp., etc, etc., etc. During the information-gathering phase, a number of people are mentioned who made presentations to the committee on programs that focused on prevention of reading difficulties. They did not say who selected the presenters. I am familiar with two names: Ethna Reid ( Keyboarding, Reading and Spelling ) and John Nunnary ( Success for All ). I will never forget Reid’s government-sponsored (NDN) program, the Exemplary Center for Reading Instruction (ECRI). The 1978 week-long ECRI workshop I attended started my investigation into the Skinnerian Mastery Learning/Direct Instruction programs. Success for All is one of the New American Schools Development Corporation programs, selected and approved by Presidents Bush and Clinton for restructuring education, which also uses Skinnerian Direct Instruction. Several professional associations were mentioned along with groups, including Save the Children International. Some members of the Committee are worth mentioning: Marilyn Jager Adams who wrote Beginning to Read: Thinking and Learning about Print (a real Pavlovian bell-ringer disguised under phonics) and Edward J. Kame’enui, special education, University of Or egon and associate director of the federally funded National Center to Improve the Tools of Educators (NCITE)—the same center with which Douglas Carnine (who was involved with the failed Follow Through federal program and the government-sponsored Skinnerian S-R-S program DISTAR—(Direct Instruction System for Teaching and Remediation) is connected. DISTAR is now being touted by the government change agents and the radical right Heritage Foundation as a Direct Instruction “scientific” program for teaching phonics (of all things) to pre-K–3rd grade students. Members and their qualifications are mentioned as follows: Catherine Snow, M.A. and Ph.D in psychology from McGill University (Canada); Marilyn Jager Adams, visiting professor at Harvard University School of Education and a previous research scientist at Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc.; Barbara T. Bowman, co-founder and president, the Erickson Institute in Chicago, Illinois, recent appointee to the Great Books Foundation and the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards; M. Susan Burns, formerly on the faculty at the University of Pittsburgh; Barbara Foorman, University of Texas, Houston Health Science Center and also principal investigator of the Early Intervention Program of the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development, consulting editor for the Journal of Learning Disabilities and a member of the New Standards Project; Claude N. Goldenberg, a research psychologist in the Department of Psychiatry, Biobehavioral Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles; William Labor of the University of Pennsylvania, currently engaged in several re search programs funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities; Richard K. Olson, associate director of the Center for the Study of Learning Disabilities funded by the National Institutes of Health; Charles A. Perfetti, a senior scientist