Deliberate Dumbing Down of America Public Education

72 I N 1964 THE C ARNEGIE C ORPORATION APPOINTED R ALPH T YLER CHAIRMAN OF THE C OM mittee on Assessing the Progress of Education which continued the project begun in 1963 that would in 1969 become the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). [Ed. Note: In 1999 NAEP is funded by the federal government and widely used across the United States. Individual states are passing legislation to use NAEP as a state test and parents and legislators are mistakenly believing that these “tests” (assessments) will give them information about the performance of their children in academic subjects. This is a misconception; NAEP tracks conformity to government-generated goals.] T HE B EHAVIORAL S CIENCE T EACHER E DUCATION P ROGRAM (BSTEP), FUNDED BY THE U.S . Depart ment of Health, Education and Welfare, was initiated in 1965 at Michigan State University and carried out between the years 1965 and 1969. BSTEP’s purpose was to change the teacher from a transmitter of knowledge/content to a social change agent/facilitator/clinician. Traditional public school administrators were appalled at this new role for teachers. (For more extensive reading of the BSTEP proposal, see Appendix V.) E LEMENTARY AND S ECONDARY E DUCATION A CT (ESEA) OF 1965 WAS PASSED BY C ONGRESS . This marked the end of local control and the beginning of nationalization/internationalization of education in the United States. Use of goal-setting, Management by Objectives (MBO), Plan ning, Programming, Budgeting Systems (PPBS) and systems management for accountability purposes would be totally funded by and directed from the federal level. The table of contents for ESEA included: • Title I—Financial Assistance to local educational agencies for education of children from low-income families • Title II—School library resources, textbooks, and other instructional materials • Title III—Supplementary educational centers and services, guidance counseling, and testing • Title IV—Libraries, learning resources, educational innovation, and support • Title V—Grants to strengthen State Departments of Education • Title VI—Vacant • Title VII—Bilingual education programs • Title VIII—General provisions • Title IX—Ethnic heritage program ESEA targeted low income/minority students for experimentation with Skinnerian “basic skills” programs; i.e., Follow Through [mastery learning/direct instruction], Right-to-Read, Exemplary Center for Reading Instruction (ECRI), Project INSTRUCT, etc. By the end of the 1980s state departments of education would be receiving between 60–75% of their operating budget from the U.S. Department of Education—which was not even in existence at the time of passage of the ESEA ! 1965