It is this reporter's opinion that we Americans must now take a serious look at our educational system. Recently I interviewed Tom DeWeese, president of the American Policy Center and editor of the “The DeWeese Report.”
DeWeese is a virtual encyclopedia of information on the subject. He says 20 years ago we ranked first in the world in the number of young adults who earned high school diplomas and college degrees.
Today we rank ninth among industrialized nations in the number of young adults who graduate high school and seventh in the number that earn college degrees.
We rank 18 out of 24 industrialized nations when it comes to knowledge of history, geography, grammar, civics, and literature.
To solve the crisis, politicians, community leaders, and the education community all preach the same mantra. Students fail, they tell us, because expectations have not been set high enough. We need more “accountability.” But they all arrive at the same solution — more money is needed, better pay for teachers, and fewer students per classroom.
DeWeese tells us today’s education system is driven by money from the federal government and private foundations, both working hand in hand with the National Education Association.
He notes that the NEA is not a professional organization for teachers, but rather a labor union and its major job is to get more money into the education system and more pay for its members. It is all about money and a political agenda.
DeWeese says, “These forces have combined with psychologists, huge textbook publishers, teacher colleges, the healthcare profession, government bureaucrats, big corporations, pharmaceutical companies and social workers to invade local school boards, classrooms, and private homes in the name of "fixing" education.”
We are in the midst of restructuring a transformation of the education system. It all dates back to the early efforts of psychologists like John Dewey whose work began to change how teachers were taught to teach.
The entire history of our education restructuring effort is thoroughly documented in a book called “The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America.” The book is written by Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt, a former official at the Department of Education during the Reagan administration.
Iserbyt found education establishment plans for the restructuring of America’s classrooms hidden away. Not only did she find the plans for what they intended to do, but how they were going to do it, and most importantly, why.
The new proposed system was to use psychology-based curriculum to change the attitudes, values, and beliefs of the students.
Listen to what she found. NEA leader William Carr, secretary for the Educational Policies Commission stated the new agenda. He said the teaching profession bears the leaders of the future. The students are in school today, therefore the psychological foundations for wider loyalties must be laid.
Here's what Carr said: “We must teach those attitudes which will result ultimately in a creation of a world citizenship and a world government. We must teach those skills and attitudes in which world citizenship is possible.”
And listen to the words of professor Benjamin Bloom, “The purpose of education and the schools is to change the thoughts, feelings, and actions of students.”
Not to be outdone, B.F. Skinner determined that applied psychology in the class curriculum is the means to bring about changes in the students’ values and beliefs by relentlessly inputting specific programmed messages.
Skinner once bragged, “I could make a pigeon a high achiever by reinforcing it on a proper schedule.”
Psychological studies prove that individuals can be made to believe anything if they are given proper programming.
Is it any wonder that over the past 20 years America’s education system has been completely restructured to deliberately move away from teaching basic academics?
DeWeese explains, “The fact is, the restructured education system has been designed to deliberately dumb-down the children. [Note: the NEA hates that phrase].”
So we have the outline, the blueprint for today’s education system. It is designed to de-emphasize academic knowledge, establish a one-world agenda with the United Nations at its center and away from the belief of national sovereignty, replace individual achievement with collectivist group-think ideology and invade the family with an “it takes a village” mind-set.
Tragically, all of this is compounded by George W. Bush’s education policies and his policy set by the “No Child Left Behind” program.
The president, when he was governor of Texas, touted accountability as a measuring stick to determine how students were progressing. Why is it that Texas educated students still can’t read even after getting good grades on the president’s testing program?
Tom DeWeese has given us the essence of why our American education system is failing. The problem with education is not low paid teachers and crowded classrooms, but rather the result of a cynical and deliberate attempt to “dumb down” America and to promote a radical, political agenda.
It’s time to insist that our representatives in Congress conduct a thorough investigation in the Department of Education, its policies and waste, and the deception of the taxpayers, parents, and children of our nation.
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