Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

457 There is no question that much careful and sensitive thought must go into planning for the urban schools, keeping in mind at all times that most of the problems facing these schools and communities have been a result of what you have read about in this book and the willingness of elected officials to accept the “carrot” along with the big stick (the money with all the federal and state controls on how it is to be used). It is never too late to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Nothing positive can be accomplished, regardless of how much money and good will exist, unless we Americans learn again to stand on our own two feet, as individuals, not as members of the “group” using Total Quality Management, but as individuals with God-given intellects; as individuals who accept their responsibility to be contributing participants in our constitutional republic instead of being observers in a so-called “participatory” democracy where only those who agree with the status quo will be allowed to have a voice. Our nation did not become great through group action. It became great in every way due to individual Americans thinking and acting independently, caring for one another and not expecting the government to care for them or their neighbors, and accepting responsibility for their actions without blaming the “environment” for all their misdeeds—from broken marriages, smoking and drinking to violent behavior. To repeat the theme of this book: We are human beings, not animals . We have free will. We can choose and build our futures, something animals are not capable of doing. Animals are justified in blaming their environment for their behavior! We, as human beings, with intellect, soul and conscience, do not have such justification. Very recent history, being made as this book is written, should serve as a wake-up call. We, as citizens, seem increasingly unable to make the important connections between individual personal behavior and its effect on the nation/world as a whole. There can be no stability in our world if common decency (morality) is shunted aside and considered a “personal matter” not affecting the entire body politic (personal behavior vs. public morals). Our children deserve more from those adults who bemoan the sorry state of this nation while making excuses for public officials’ immoral conduct, and who are poor examples of good behavior themselves. How can we expect our children to grow up and become responsible citizens and future leaders if we sanction immorality at all levels of personal life and government? How can our children accept our criticisms and correction when caught lying or stealing when they see us making excuses for such behavior at the highest levels of government and leadership? Truly, the “non-absolutist value vaccine” (extensively documented in this book) has taken and can be expected to further sicken our nation in the absence of a return to dependence on very clear and simple moral standards, such as the Ten Commandments which used to hang on the walls of every school and public building in this nation. Of utmost importance for all Americans at this critical juncture in American education is for us not to accept a solution that may in the long run turn out to be more harmful than the present unsatisfactory state of American public education. Some solutions being floated around sound good, such as the complete abandonment of public education in favor of a privately operated system in which parents ostensibly could choose the school to which they send their children. It is important to take a very hard look at such solutions. First, who is going to run those schools? Are parents aware that the New American School Development Corporation and its charter schools for workforce training were set up precisely for the purpose of replacing the deliberately “crashed” public schools? Where would children Afterword