Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

A–131 conditioning programs for use on teachers and children. The late Al Shanker, President of the AFT, who was Carnegie Corporation’s stooge for many years and who supported global workforce training, tabled her resolution at the AFT national convention in 1984. He knew the Skinner method was necessary for workforce training and admitted to Herzer that he was a member of the Trilateral Commission. It should come as no surprise that Shanker’s successor, Sandra Feldman, also supports the method, this time under the label of Direct Instruction, the fraternal twin of ECRI. Sometimes one becomes so convinced of the rightness of a message, due to one’s respect for the carrier of the message, that one can get off track. I’m afraid that this is what is happening with anti-reform researchers and parents across the nation—in the tunnel and off the track. Those opposing the mandating of the Direct Instruction method have been vilified by those formerly considered allies in opposition to education restructuring. Those who oppose the method do so not to be contrary. The position they are taking is not primarily related to whether one method works better than another method. Our position is primarily a moral position. It is wrong to use an animal training method on human beings. Did the great intellects and thinkers of this world—scientists, historians, writers, theologians—learn this way? Your children should not have their potentials limited by such a method. Why should your children be used in this experiment to robotize the world, to train human beings to be people-pleasing, cookie-cutter citizens? From the above examples one can see that everything is in place. The only missing component was mandating the method. Republican support for the Reading Excellence Act has handed the method to the internationalist change agents on a silver platter. The Arizona legislature jumped the gun on U.S. Senate passage of the Act by considering legislation which would implement the Reading Excellence Act in Arizona. We can now expect the same type of legislation to surface in all states, and, tragically, to be supported by conservatives, unless this warning is heeded. The fact that national testing has been put on hold is meaningless since the National Assessment for Educational Progress has received heavy funding since 1965 and has been used in all states. All that has to be done is to align the NAEP with whatever core curriculum and School-to-Work skills are selected for use, and to implement the Certificate of Initial Mastery nationwide. What Should We Do? Call for repeal of the Reading Excellence Act passed by Congress. Lobby against similar non-traditional ML/DI phonics legislation in your state. If possible, put your children in “good” private schools which receive no tax support or exemptions whatsoever, or, best of all, home school your children. Oppose passage of legislation supporting tuition tax credits or exemptions, vouchers, charter schools, etc. Make sure whatever education you choose is not based on Skinnerian Mastery Learning/Direct Instruction by a teacher or using the computer. Teach your children to read using traditional phonics reading instruction; e.g. programs by Eller, Blumenfeld, Schlafly, Sister Monica, etc. Appendix XXI