Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

A–53 to set ambitious goals. They created interdisciplinary teams of teachers to improve instruction. They moved to cooperative learning and heterogeneous grouping. A rotating troika of teach ers assumed the role of principal. They started “measuring” [emphasis in original] learning through portfolios of the students’ work in math, English, social studies and science. They fought for time and money to get the training for themselves that allowed this transformation. The students responded. (p. 2) Now, imagine for the moment where we might be if states and districts routinely [empha sis in original] gave birth to schools like Otter Valley in Vermont. Imagine systems that provide assistance and encouragement to schools to “break the mold” instead of inflexible rules that only harden it. (p. 3) Our object is to make schools like Otter Valley… the norm everywhere. By 1995 we plan to have 243 schools in seven states—enrolling a student body representative of the American people—cast in molds they set themselves and performing as well as any in the world. These schools will be the vanguard of a far larger number in many more states that will meet the same standard in five years. Reaching this goal will require a transformation in virtually every important aspect of the American system of education, features that have remained essentially unchanged for nearly 70 years, from graduation standards to incentives that motivate students, from curriculum to budgeting, from assessment systems to teaching careers. (page 4) Promoting and—especially—sustaining these changes in the schools will require comple mentary and equally radical changes in the organization of school districts and the structure and administration of education policy at the state level. It will also require thoughtful and sustained communication with the citizens of these states to build the public consensus needed to support those revolutionary changes. Designing and implementing this kind of fundamental transformation not just in a few schools, but in schools, districts and states in many parts of the country at once is an unprecedented undertaking. Pulling it off will require the coordinated action of hundreds of the most talented, committed educators and specialists from many walks of American life beyond education. The National Alliance for Restructuring has assembled such a team and has devised a plan that will enable us to work together to get the job done. The states and districts that are our Partners are utterly committed to this transformation. (p. 4) Appendix XII “Breaking the mold” means breaking this system, root and branch. (p. 6) The first design task, then, is to define what outcomes are wanted and create quality measures of progress toward those outcomes. All the states and districts in our consortium are members of the New Standards Project, which is itself a Partner in our consortium. We are committed to developing standards and developing an examination system in all the content areas covered by Goals 3 and 4 of the National Education Goals as well as work skills at the 4th, 8th and 10th grade levels. It will set a world-class standard of performance for all students, though we plan to accommodate many different examinations. These exams will emphasize the ability to think well, demon strate an understanding of subjects studied and apply what one knows to the kind of complex problems encountered in real life. (pp. 8–9)

Under “America’s Schools and Systems: Cast in a 1920’s Mold,” the report says:

The New Standards Project is developing a mastery-based examination with known standards…. The New Standards Project’s examination system will employ advanced forms of