Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

Appendix IV

Excerpts from A Plan for Evaluating the Quality of Educational Programs in Pennsylvania A Plan for Evaluating the Quality of Educational Programs in Pennsylvania: Highlights of a Report from Educational Testing Services (Princeton, NJ) to the State Board of Education of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, June 30, 1965. BACKGROUND The planning project reported in this document had its inception in a mandate from the General Assembly of Pennsylvania. The mandate is to be found in Section 290.1 of the Act of August 8, 1963, P.L. 564 (Act 299, The School District Reorganization Act of 1963 ). It reads as follows: Educational Performance Standards—To implement the purpose of this subdivision, the State Board of Education, as soon as possible and in any event no later than July 1, 1965, shall develop or cause to be developed an evaluation procedure designed to measure objectively the adequacy and efficiency of the educational programs offered by the public schools of the Commonwealth. The evaluation procedure to be developed shall include tests measuring the achievements and performance of students pursuing all of the various subjects and courses comprising the curricula. The evaluation procedure shall be so constructed and developed as to provide each school district with relevant comparative data to enable directors and administrators to more readily appraise the educational performance and effectuate without delay the strengthening of the district’s educational program. Tests developed under the authority of this section to be administered to pupils shall be used for the purpose of providing a uniform evaluation of each school district and the other purposes set forth in this subdivision. The State Board of Education shall devise performance standards upon completion of the evaluation procedure required by this section. This committee on Quality Education sought the advice of experts in the behavioral sciences. These experts constituted a Standing Advisory Committee for the project.… It [the Committee] concluded that an educational program is to be regarded as adequate only if it

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