Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

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Beware of The One-Size-Fits-All Argument. Reassure your opposition that the National Education Goals, the framework for your commu nity’s education reform effort, are not trying to establish a national curriculum for all schools. [This is a bald-faced lie. According to Education Week , Jan. 25, 1989, “Chester E. Finn, Jr. former head of the Education Department’s research branch, told business leaders here last week that he favored the development of a ‘national curriculum.’”, ed.] Remember the equity issue. Every student will be expected to meet higher standards. No students will be denied the opportunity to learn [This is Spady’s et al terminology for outcome-based education, effective schools, mastery learning, ed.] Ask for Help. See Resource Directory… Case Study of Edmonds, Washington: Sylvia Soholt, who works in Edmonds’ planning and community relations division, says they deliberately chose a process involving multiple drafts of each phase because “it gives the message that you are open to change.” The text was not presented as a writ from the school district, but rather as “this is what your neighbors said students should learn and be able to do.” By sending the draft to everybody in the community, the school district was able to deflect charges of being exclusive. District officials carefully documented the originator of each idea to demonstrate that the plan was developed by the community, not by school officials. In a meeting to discuss the first draft, some raised religious doubts about the reform effort. They said they feared the schools would take charge of rearing children, teaching non Christian values instead of improving academic skills. Some suggested that computers would monitor and mold children into automatons. Faced with these objections, the superintendent, Brian L. Benzel, knew he could not just dismiss the criticisms as misguided. He felt that the school district needed to clarify the purpose behind the reform effort before releasing a second draft of the document. Benzel approached Edmonds’ ministers and invited them to a meeting on education reform efforts. At the meeting, the superintendent addressed the expressed fears and explained what the reform movement was really trying to do. He said he believed that they misunderstood the district’s intentions, but thought their concerns were important. He let the ministers talk about education. They all agreed that education needed to be improved and that it was important to define student skills. In the course of the conversation, it became clear that the religious community was not walking lock-step against reform. Reform meant something different to each minister. It appeared that the ministers simply wanted to be part of the debate. As a result of this positive meeting, they carried the message back to their congregations, that the school reformers were willing to listen and be inclusive. Following these meetings the school district made revisions that incorporated the objec tions and reflected the concerns of the whole community. The district removed confusing jargon from the draft. For example, people had objected to defining “critical thinking” as a skill—they believed it suggested that children should be taught to be critical of their parents. So the second draft defined “thinking and problem-solving” as the ability to “think creatively and develop innovative ideas and solutions” and to “think critically and make independent judgments.” To address the concern that the district was stressing some skills over others, it developed a poster depicting the skills and abilities a student needs as a “tapestry of learning,” where all the elements have equal importance and are woven together. The school district is now moving to the next step. They are creating assessment tools