Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

430 Christine Whitman once wrote that Republicans believe that “government should only do what individuals can’t do for themselves and that government decisions should be made as close to the people they affect as possible.” A wonderful philosophy. There’s a problem, though: By that standard, our governor is not a Republican.... …Her administration’s latest travesty, the School-to-Work proposal, is just the latest in a long line of thoroughly un-Republican concepts backed by Whitman. Since I wrote about the proposal last week, a couple of things have happened. Assemblyman Scott Garrett, a Republican from Sussex County, announced the introduction of a bill that will prohibit forced labor in schools. Also, the Homdel Board of Education held a meeting Wednesday night at which people came from all over the state to raise objections to the idea. It was a pivotal event. Never in my 22 years of journalism have I seen a proposal get knocked around by so many different people for so many different reasons. A freshman at Holmdel High School said that her friends were in a panic. The require ment that all juniors and seniors spend a day a week working would mean they’d have to miss classes. This would harm their chances of getting into college, the girl said. She asked that most Republican of questions, “How come we have no say in this?” A guy in a sweat suit from a nearby town raised another objection: “The school is not the state’s. The school is mine, and they tell me it’s not mine. I didn’t see them at the bake sale.” A school superintendent said that he’d fled Ohio because of a similar program there that was destroying the high-achieving schools by turning them into vocational centers. Several people objected to a requirement that students choose a career in the sophomore year of high school. One cited a study that showed that the typical college student changes majors three times before settling on a field.... …This is an amazing thing Whitman’s people have invented: A concept that offends practically everyone. Usually a political idea has a core constituency—bleeding heart liberals, tightwad conservatives, public employee unions, whatever. But this one riles people up across the board. It does make the bureaucrats happy, though.... …It would be wonderful, just once, to see Christie Whitman denounce a bad idea not because of poll results but because of principle. Close your eyes. Try to imagine Christie Whitman uttering the words, “This is wrong. Trenton should not impose ideas like this on the people of New Jersey.” You can’t imagine it? Me neither. O N D ECEMBER 23, 1998 M AINE ’ S C OMMISSIONER OF E DUCATION J. D UKE A LBANESE SENT a memo randum to all superintendents of schools related to the Maine Aspirations Benchmarking Ini tiativ e. Excerpts from this memorandum, which reveal the extent of Maine’s transformation of its schools from academics to workforce training and of its educational bureaucracy’s disregard for student privacy follow: Sponsored by Webber Energy Fuels, the $300,000 initiative is directed by the University of Maine/Maine Principals’ Association Research Partnership, in collaboration with the National Center for Student Aspirations and the Maine Department of Education. The Initiative has the potential of surveying the entire population of students in grades 6 through 12 in Maine public schools, providing an unparalleled database portraying the status of student aspirations in Maine and the conditions that nurture, delay or prevent their