Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

422 away from the basics and “dumb down” public schools. Organizers estimated the crowd at 3,500. Ronald Anderson, age 61, a grandfather from St. Paul said, “Public schools are teach ing more touchy-feely education instead of history, math and sciences and all that stuff.” He waved a sign that read “Do not experiment with our children.” [Ed. Note: Why was the above-mentioned important news item ignored by out-of-state media? Is it because news coverage of successful opposition to restructuring in one state might serve to encourage activists in other states? Corporate and education journals indicate that those in charge of restructuring our schools are not happy at all with the sluggish pace of restructuring due to the effectiveness of parent and teacher opposition. If the reader puts all of this information together the obvious cannot be avoided: opponents across the country are doing far better than they realize—they have slowed down the restructuring of our nation from free enterprise to socialism far more than they know. How many more “Minnesota” stories are there out there about which we know nothing due to media censorship?] S ALT L AKE C ITY , U TAH — The Utah School Boards Association has asked a judge to declare the ’98 Charter Schools Act unconstitutional. Charter schools are funded with public education money, but are exempt from many of the restrictions on public schools. The lawsuit alleges local school boards have control over schools in their boundaries, and that by reaching within those boundaries, the state is creating a new school district without a public vote. [Ed. Note: Hats off to the Utah School Boards Association. When education activists/researchers in their many speeches across the nation referred to charter schools as “taxation without rep resentation” the silence in conservative audiences was “deafening.”] I N 1998 THE N ORTHWEST R EGIONAL E DUCATIONAL L ABORATORY , ONE OF THE TEN LABORA tories across the nation supported by contracts with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), provided the following information on its “Education & Community Services: Emerging Issues” website (http//www.nwrel.org/pscc/ emerging.html). For the reader who may, understandably, want to have an up-to-date report on the status of the restructuring of the nation’s schools, through school-to-work and the merging of education and workforce training with social services (systemic change), there is probably no better source than the Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory. “Emerging Issues” as of October 16, 1998 follow: Twelve major emerging issues have been identified from an analysis of recent policy reports and validated by a focus group of state leaders as having a significant impact on education in the Northwest: 1. Acknowledging fundamental shifts in teaching and learning. A view of students as active learners… emphasis on cooperative and applied learning. 2. Dealing with the rising threat of violence. High incidence of violence, substance abuse, and gang-related crime are causing schools to review discipline policies, im- T HE FOLLOWING NEWS ITEM WAS CARRIED BY USA T ODAY IN ITS O CTOBER 12, 1998 ISSUE :