Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

63 tradition of local control should no longer be permitted to inhibit Office of Education leader ship.” The Committee on Mission and Organization called for [An] Office of Educational Research that would administer a separate program of extra-mural contracts and grants for basic and experimental research in disciplines bearing upon the educational situation, and would serve the other parts of the Bureau with advice on research problems…. Since it is presumed that the Centers, oriented to education as it is organized and administered, will deal with educational problems directly confronting schools and colleges, it is believed desirable that extra-mural research be significantly attentive to basic problems of human development, training and teaching, regardless of whether or not they are acknowledged as immediately pressing problems by educators. In short, some research should be conducted precisely because it challenges the assumptions upon which practicing educators are proceeding. The above is obviously a reference to behavioral sciences research which, until that time, had not found a permanent home at the local school educator level nor was there the need to conduct such research in order to challenge the “assumptions upon which practicing educators are proceeding.” Attached to the Committee’s report were appendices from which the follow ing excerpts are taken: The schools of tomorrow must prepare their students for living in a world of continu ous and rapid change, presenting them with unprecedented social, economic, and political problems. We must, in fact, give to education a character that will initiate and support a process of lifelong learning if Americans are to keep abreast of the accelerating advent of new knowledge and of the increasing complexity of modern life. These prospective conditions are already suggested in part by the rapidly increasing demand for highly specialized and professional skills. During the coming decade, new means must be developed for identifying and releasing student potential; curriculums will have to undergo continual reshaping and upgrading; and new techniques and tools of instruction will have to be developed.… • Education is basic to effort to bring about an enduringly peaceful world. • Next decade will bring closer and multiple relationships with Ministries of Educa tion abroad and international organizations, such as UNESCO, the Organization of American States, International Bureau of Education. • Variations among States and school districts in standards of instruction, facilities, staff, and services expose serious inadequacies. Our progress toward the ideal of equality of educational opportunity is tragically uneven. • In the area of international educational cooperation, in particular, it must play the major role, since only the Federal Government can enter into agreements with other governments. Along with these responsibilities should be included that of stimulating and participating activity in the process of formulation, examination, and reformula tion of the goals of our national society in terms of educational objectives. • The development of uniform, consistent and compatible statistical data in all States and in all institutions of higher education will call for both technical and financial assistance to these sources from the Office of Education…. • Economists, sociologists, and other social scientists will be needed on the staff to assist in dealing with educational problems in their total context. The Sick Sixties : c. 1961 Appendix B The Mission of the Office of Education in the 1960s