Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

434 6. Parents must be enlisted in the work of the school and in the education of their children. Along with endorsing over to the school their child’s tuition grant, parents must be asked to assume certain elemental responsibilities, both for such mundane matters as discipline and attendance and for such specific ones as providing the child with a place to do his homework and checking each night to make sure it is done. Just as parents should have the right to evaluate—and choose among—schools, so too should teachers and princi pals have the right to appraise parents’ performance with respect to the education of their children. What about a section in the child’s report card where the school team can “grade” the parents’ performance? Really, Mr. Finn? This seems to be a bizarre approach to “school choice”—“endorsing over to the school their child’s tuition grant, parents must be asked to assume elemental re sponsibilities.” Ms. Avila’s concern about the liberal international influence in public schools seems to have found its way into the “conservative solution.”] A N E DUCATOR ’ S G UIDE TO S CHOOLWIDE R EFORM (E DUCATIONAL R ESEARCH S ERVICE : A R lington, Virginia, 1999) was prepared for publication by American Institutes for Research under the direction of Rebecca Herman as project director. The Guide was produced under contract to the American Association of School Administrators, the American Federation of Teachers, the National Association of Elementary School Principals, and the National Education Association. The “overview” of the Guide states in part: This guide was prepared for educators and others to use when investigating different ap proaches to school reform. It reviews the research on 24 “whole-school,” “comprehensive,” “schoolwide” approaches. THIS GUIDE IS NOT MEANT TO ENDORSE, FAVOR, OR DISCREDIT ANY OF THE AP PROACHES. Rather, it is designed to assist those who want to critically examine the most widely available schoolwide reform approaches. Schools can improve their performance in a variety of ways, not just by using a schoolwide approach. However, educators interested in these approaches should find the guide useful. This book has repeatedly dealt with the Skinnerian, scientific, research-based method of teaching and learning, therefore, the writer lists below only the four out of 24 programs recommended by the Guide which clearly use this method. They are: 1. Coalition of Essential Schools 2. Direct Instruction 3. Modern Red Schoolhouse 4. Success for All Since much already has been written about Siegfried Engelmann’s Direct Instruction in this book, the writer will focus on Robert Slavin’s “Success for All.” The following excerpts from “Ready, READ!” by Nicholas Lemann, which appeared in the November 1998 issue of The Atlantic Monthly , give the reader a clear picture of how a direct instruction/mastery learning classroom marketed as “Success for All” functions:

Success for All, Accelerated Schools, and the School Development Program, all designed by university professors—the first two have each been adopted by more than a thousand schools