Cory Heidelberger wonders if I am paranoid when I report research that discloses the true agenda of today’s education system. But instead of starting another blog war with Cory, I am instead going to say that I agree with the point he made on an earlier post regarding the hopeful death of No Child Left Behind. I say that we should dump it, but not stop there.
Before I explain further, let me remind you of a question that Pat Powers will not answer:
Since you have mentioned your wife’s job in education, what role should a conservative Republican advocate in regard to the federal Department of Education?
I think we can depend on Ronald Reagan for that answer:
Conservatives need to consider the ominous prospects of expanding federal power over education. Federal funds for character education may sound fine now, but imagine what that might mean under, say, a "Hillary" administration. Before trading a vast expansion of federal authority for a bipartisan photo-op, the new administration should take a lesson from President Reagan.
While politics prevented Reagan from delivering on his promise to abolish the Department of Education, he at least slowed the growth of the federal agency to 5 percent annually throughout his administration.
More important, Reagan understood the proper role of the federal government in education: "Education is the principal responsibility of local school systems, teachers, parents, citizen boards, and state governments." Adhering to this principle, Reagan sought policies that "insure that local needs and preferences, rather than the wishes of Washington, determine the education of our children."
And here is what the 1996 Republican Platform included:
Our formula is as simple as it is sweeping: the federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in school curricula or to control jobs in the work place. That is why we will abolish the Department of Education, end federal meddling in our schools, and promote family choice at all levels of learning. We therefore call for prompt repeal of the Goals 2000 program and the School-To-Work Act of 1994, which put new federal controls, as well as unfunded mandates, on the States. We further urge that federal attempts to impose outcome- or performance-based education on local schools be ended.
If Pat Powers was truly conservative, he should have had an easy time answering the question regarding the DOE, and instead of Republicans removing the Clinton Goals 2000 and School-To-Work...we added Ted Kennedy's NCLB. Jon Schaff points out how little Pat Powers understands about the current situation in education:
On the subject of the Board of Regents' budget and discussion about the future of higher ed in our state I think it best for us who are employees of the university system to keep a judicious silence. When the Board, the governor or a legislator asks my opinion, I will give it, but not a moment sooner. But I do want to correct one minor factual matter from Pat Powers' post on the subject. Strictly speaking, South Dakota does not have a liberal arts college or university. The focus of all our schools is to prepare people for the workforce.
Over that last few days, I have been some research and have placed more links in my "Public Education" section of my side bar (the ones that are above the "Pat Powers and sex education" link). Clearly the truth shows that Cory Heidelberger made a patently false accusation when he accused me of being paranoid regarding the Education Establishment push for a one-world governemnt.
The first piece of evidence is from Charlotte Iserbyt, who was a mole in the DOE during the Reagan administration:
One night, while looking for a typewriter ribbon, I noticed in the corner of a storage room a box entitled "The Goodlad Study". I just about had a heart attack since I had been following this world famous international change agent's subversive activities for many years, especially when I served as a local school board member prior to going into the Department of Education. Much of the values destroying curricula and school organizational restructuring could be laid at his feet. This particular box held a gold mine of information regarding the efforts of the tax-exempt foundations and the federal government to implement the United Nations agenda, to restructure American schools for global government. I couldn't believe what had landed in my lap! Four books, all published by McGraw Hill, were commissioned for this Study. They were: John Goodlad's "A Place Called School"; Don Davies' "Communities and their Schools" which laid out the socialist/communitarian agenda to be implemented in America through the schools, pointing to communist countries as models; Jerome Hausman's "Arts and the Schools" which dealt with how to use the arts to change students' perceptions and values; and the worst one of all, James Becker's "Schooling for a Global Age" which contained the Foreward by John Goodlad from which parents love to quote: "Parents and the general public must be reached also. Otherwise, children and youth enrolled in globally oriented programs may find themselves in conflict with values assumed in the home. And then the educational institution frequently comes under scrutiny and must pull back."
And remember the post where I had a problem with the civics contest held at Cedor Shore Resort? Here is a book review of FedED (I just finished reading it) involving those that were behind that contest that should be a wake up call for all freedom-loving Americans. This excerpt takes over from where Iserbyt leaves off:
FedEd is a slim volume packs a colossal wallop. If there were any remaining doubts how much of the decline of government schools can be explained in terms of stealth social engineering, Quist’s study should lay them to rest. In certain respects, FedEd picks up where Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt’s the deliberate dumbing down of america leaves off. Her account was historical, going back over a hundred years, and literally overwhelms you with original documentation. Quist’s book is a much shorter and more succinct account of where we are now. Unlike Iserbyt’s encyclopedic tome it can be read in one or two sittings. Quist lays out the reasons for the anti-academic and anti-cognitive biases in government schools that are producing graduates who cannot walk up to a map of the world and find the United States – much less grasp our founding principles. In a sense, given their aims, government schools have to be regarded as spectacular successes rather than dismal failures. The evidence all points in a single direction: their intent has been to dumb down the citizenry of this country and produce a "new serfdom" – a global workforce totally subservient to the needs of omnipotent world government and its internationalist corporate partners.
And this excerpt confirms Schaff’s point about the current situation at South Dakota Universities:
We should say a word about the view of business implicit in FedEd. Many so-called education reforms are promoted as "good for business," and this is often enough to gain the support of business and business organizations such as the local branch of the Chamber of Commerce. FedEd paints a rosy picture of "reformed" public schools turning out loyal, technology-savvy and business-savvy employees. Businesspeople cannot necessarily be faulted for failing to see through the smokescreen of deceptive language – although an inability to find employees who can read and understand instruction manuals should clue them in that something is wrong. A key is the phrase public-private partnership that has been seen more and more often during the past decade. This means close ties between government and business. What results is not capitalism but corporatism – in which corporations and government cooperate both to discourage the open competition characteristic of genuine capitalism in favor of policy that is established and administered jointly, with each side doing favors with the other (e.g., "tax incentives" for business; support going to certain candidates for political office from business). This method is clearly a species of central planning. It may be used to establish what kinds of vocations and jobs are desirable and available in a given region – to the point of laying out actual job descriptions (sometimes doing it badly – cf. pp 86-89). "Education" then sets out to train students for these specific vocations and jobs. On the surface, corporatism sounds very pro-business, and no doubt there are established business leaders who like it very much. But its overall view of society is statist and collectivist – and, of course, authoritarian. The New Federal Curriculum sets out to indoctrinate and train individuals to meet the needs of the state and its corporate partners. At one time, this kind of system was known as fascism. Both Nazis and Communists employed purely vocational models of education, so that students would learn what they needed to serve the state, and no more. Excessive intellectual curiosity was discouraged. It wasted time and resources (and might lead to students asking too many of the wrong kinds of questions). FedEd takes this model and modifies it for the new world order being quietly constructed, with each successive UN confab laying new girders onto the scaffolding.
Note the "public-private partnership" phrase from above as you read this:
South Dakota Governor Mike Rounds announced plans Monday for the High Speed Research, Education and Economic Development Network (High Speed REED). In a public-private partnership, SDN Communications of Sioux Falls will build the network connecting all six state universities plus the EROS Data Center and the Sanford Laboratory at Homestake.
And remember the "public-private partnership" regarding preschools during the last legislative session:
Ron Moquist's company, Raven Industries, makes everything from hot air balloons to army uniforms. His business is in downtown Sioux Falls and he knows what he looks for in employees.
"The strong back has been replaced by the educated mind," he says.
Moquist is a self-proclaimed conservative who finds himself taking a rather liberal stance when it comes to business. He says there are more and more kids coming out of high school unprepared to enter the work force.
…
For the past three years Moquist lead a Chamber of Commerce committee that researched preschool programs in Sioux Falls.
The result is a three-year pilot program set to begin this fall. Over three years it'll cost nearly a $1.5 million to reach 240 kids. Republican Gov. Mike Rounds offered half of the money from his economic development fund. The other half is split between the United Way and Sioux Falls businesses.
And here is what FedEd has to say about that:
Another means of enforcement is through gaining control of early childhood education, including infant education. It is interesting to compare such statements with one of the slogans thrown around back in the 1990s, associated with both Goals 2000 and STW: "All children will begin school ready to learn." Ready to learn how, by what means, and in what respect? What this statement is really promoting is not families’ beginning educating very small children but rather "arrangements involving families, communities, or institutional programmes, as appropriate…" (quoted on p. 107). A logical mind will want to know: what kinds of arrangements, what kinds of "programmes," and who decides what is "appropriate"? But if there is anything FedEd is not about, it is logic. The phrase again comes from the UN; it is part of the 1990 World Declaration on Education For All. It is more about attempting to instill affective loyalty to such ideas as multiculturalism and universal tolerance, including for homosexuality, into children before they can grasp them cognitively. It has long been known that a great deal of cognitive development occurs in the first few years of a child’s life; hence the enormous effort to gain control of early childhood education and even care of newborn infants. Groups of children so "educated" will be vulnerable to the rewriting of history already underway (pp. 115-21). FedEd takes a dim view of the teaching of history either as an ordered collection of events or facts but focuses on "perspectives and values." This kind of rewriting ultimately allows for the enormous oversimplification of events that make it possible to inculcate into students, e.g., the idea that the War Between the States was exclusively about slavery or that phrases such as states’ rights – although implied in the vanquished Tenth Amendment – are code words for racism and bigotry. Such students, educated this way practically from infancy, might even embrace the new world order, never having been exposed to anything else.
So clearly Governor Rounds is on board with this one-world government agenda. Don't know if he is doing it on purpose, or if he is just one of the far-left's useful idiots, as he thinks that economic development should be through bigger government on the backs of Higher Ed. That can be answered after he is confronted with the truth. A conservative Republican will agree with Ronald Reagan's idea that decisions regarding education and child policy should be local versus the far-left's plan to centralize that decision making in Washington D.C., let alone the United Nations. The Governor's proposed $3.5 billion budget, includes $1.4 billion in federal funding. And that is how the state government is allowing the federal government to gain control over all of us. Time for the South Dakota legislature to talk policy before thay argue over who gets the dough.
And I hope Cory Heidelberger will agree with that and understand that I am predictable because I am informed, not paranoid. And I also hope that Cory understands that I am not against education, but I am against indoctrination of the far-left's anti-American one-world socialism. I would hope that those in South Dakota promoting the far-left agenda will listen to the truth and then agree that America's sovereignty is more important than their special interests. Because the difference is freedom versus tyranny. And I am not too paranoid to send the same message to fellow Republicans.
