Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

A–135 all jobs are reduced to a “Task Level.” For instance, the SCANS catalog lists the various tasks of a farmer: plowing, planting, harvesting, feeding, even menial tasks such as shoveling manure. These various tasks are given a rating showing the level of skill needed to accomplish each task. This skill rating is then matched with a School-to-Work student, linking the student with a vocational career training path that continues throughout the remaining years of the student’s education. The STWOA student is then placed in a vocational apprenticeship at the local Vo-Tech School where he can perfect the skills needed for his future. The STWOA student must have school and work-related experience with their apprenticeship program. Between the ages of 16 and 17 each student must work in a field of their training to gain on-the-job (OTJ) experience. When the student has completed both schooling and OTJ requirements, he is given a certificate that enables him to be placed in the workforce. Prior to and after STWOA training, the student may allow the state to make available his personal scores and records to potential employers. Potential employers will then search the STWOA computer database for students meeting job requirements and test scores necessary for employment. The dangers of the federal STWOA are frightening. Just think: the lifelong vocational destiny of a student is determined by a test, and at the most awkward stage of one’s life—adolescence. Time and perseverance have always been on the side of the American Dream. We are in a country where all citizens have had the same opportunity to pursue a vocation or goal of their choice at any stage of life if they so desired. STWOA removes these entrepreneurial elements and replaces them with social engineering and captivity. Appendix XXII

Endnotes: 1. Eberts, Ray and Cindelyn. The Myths of Japanese Quality (Prentice Hall: New York, 1995). 2. “Prosperity’s Base: ODA,” Japan Times (October 16, 1990), p.20. 3. Atkinson, Phillip E. Creating Cultural Change: The Key to Successful Total Quality Management (Pfeiffer & Co, 1990) . 4. Rogers, Carl. Carl Rogers on Encounter Groups (Harper: New York, 1970).