Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

A–127 the Reading Excellence Act (the international Mastery Learning/Direct Instruction method). Professor S. Alan Cohen, Associate Director of the Center for Outcome-Based Education at the University of San Francisco, said (at a conference on Mastery Learning sponsored by the Maine Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, May 13, 1983, at Saco, Maine): “In 1976 Block and Burns published in AERA research around the world on mastery learning. UNESCO committed to ML all over the world…. [We] have evaluated data worldwide.” (Funding for all of the above is now in place due to the pounding of the last nails in the coffin: passage of the CAREERS Act and the Reading Excellence Act in late 1998.) (4) Skinnerian Method. Direct Instruction/Mastery Learning/OBE are necessary for global workforce training which is outcome, results, performance-based training—not education. Education has not been performance-based, traditionally—with the exception of the arts—since traditional education deals with the intellect, not just knee-jerk muscle movements based on Pavlov and B.F. Skinner’s stimulus-response (S-R-S). The computer has all the bells (rewards) and whistles (punishments) to achieve OBE’s standards in the academic, workforce, and value change areas. The new label for the old OBE is now “standards-based education.” Anyone out there who knows of an even newer label, please let me know. (Done when Senate approved Reading Excellence Act .) (5) Sequential Core Curriculum. The Texas Alternative Document(TAD) and E.D. Hirsch’s Core Knowledge Sequence, in conjunction with scripted curricula such as DISTAR, ECRI, or SUCCESS FOR ALL—which specify exactly what is to be taught, how it is to be taught, and when it is to be taught—are good examples of what could be used. The TAD could provide the framework for the national curriculum since it supports the method—Direct Instruction—and has the support of key players in restructuring, including E.D. Hirsch, Chester Finn, etc. If subject (content) is not specific and sequential, students’ performance is difficult to “measure.” One of Skinner’s criteria for learning is that results/outcomes be “measurable.” This type of core curriculum is ready-made for computer-assisted instruction/programmed learning. Curriculum must also be the same for all students; otherwise, international assessment using the computer will be virtually impossible. The main reason the educrats want to control private and home school education is that results from the computerized international education system will be skewed (unreliable and incomplete) if all the world’s children are not in the computer, thus denying the corporate trainers and educrats the necessary information for future planning and remediation on an international scale. Remember, we are looking at a global planned economy. (Choice of core curriculum/framework is pending, but law requires that it be “scientific” and “research-based”—which limits the choices to behaviorist programs.) A European Union Press Release (www.eurunion.org/news/home/htm) Feb. 3, 1998 (No. 7/98) stated: International Conference in Akron to Explore Issues of Workforce Development.... Representatives of industry, government and education from throughout the United States and the European Union (EU) will gather in Akron, Ohio from February 9-11 to discuss issues of workforce development and the increasing shortage of skilled workers available Appendix XXI