Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

427 contemporary ones like Soviet science.... And we got lucky. We came across another “ology”: Sophrology, “the science of harmonious consciousness,” a cornucopia of routes to excellence still almost unknown in America, developed by Alfonso Caycedo, a Spanish M.D. every bit as innovative as Lozanov. [Ed. Note: These last sentences remind this writer of the early work of Roberto Assagioli, au thor of Psychosynthesis . The reader should also be made aware that Henry Levin of Stanford’s Institute for Accelerated Learning does indeed advocate the Superlearning (SALT, SEAL) method for its member schools.] The Noxious Nineties : c. 1998 “C OMING S OON TO A S CHOOL N EAR Y OU : F ORCED L ABOR ” BY P AUL M ULSHINE , COLUMNIST , was published in the November 29, 1998 issue of the Newark, New Jersey Star-Ledger . Excerpts from Mulshine’s article follow: Imagine a state that uses its school system not to produce independent-minded, broadly educated citizens, but compliant workers trained to behave. A state where, in their early teens, children are forced to make a lifelong decision from 14 government-sanctioned career possibilities with such depressing titles as “waste management,” “administrative services” and “manufacturing, installation and repair.” A state where students in the government schools are forced to spend one day a week toiling in menial labor. The old Soviet Union? China? Nope. New Jersey. I wish I were making this up. But I’m not. This is a fair summation—minus the jar gon—of the School-to-Work program that the state is planning to impose on us next year. You can veiw it on the Internet at http://www.state.nj.us/njded/proposed/standards/stass2.htm. See for yourself. N INA S HIKRAII R EES OF THE H ERITAGE F OUNDATION , W ASHINGTON , D.C., WROTE AN AR ticle entitled “Time to Overhaul the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 ” which recommended a major shift in the traditional philosophy of education from an emphasis on inputs to an emphasis on outputs. An abstract of her article which was published in a Heritage Foundation Press Release dated December 2, 1998, follows: During the reauthorization process of the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act , the 106th Congress has a historic opportunity to change the course of K–12 education. Congress needs to shift the goals of the ESEA from one confined to inputs to one focused on achieve ment. Congress can make this happen by sending more federal dollars to the classroom in stead of to education bureaucracies; empower parents, teachers and principals; boosting the quality of teachers; and allowing flexibility and demanding accountability. Sending money to the same old federal education programs will waste precious education tax dollars and allow American students to fall even further behind their counterparts in the developed world. [Ed. Note: If what Ms. Rees recommends is authorized by the 106th Congress, the course of K–12 education will be more than changed. It will be eliminated, to be replaced by K–12 school-to-work training, required by NAFTA and GATT, both of which are supported by Ms. Rees’s employer, the Heritage Foundation. As sensible as the above recommendations may appear at first sight, as one moves carefully through the text one can identify key words which