IAP Political Forum

A recent article in the NYtimes about the failure of many high schools not meeting No Child Left Behind standards causing speculation that they need to be closed or chartered. 


I feel very strongly about the No Child Left Behind Act and how it fails our education system.  Education reform is a hot topic these days because of its failures and it is obvious some restructuring will need to be done.

I am kind of up-in-the-air with what I think needs to be done.  I was wondering if anyone had seriously seasoned interests in what needs to be done in re-structuring our Education system.

Currently, I favour charter schools and vouchers, and the reliquishment of a large amount of control by the American Federation of Teachers. (AFT)  Can anyone change my mind?

I don't want to change your mind because you are correct :P

 :)

It still requires some exploration.  ;D

More charter schools run by actualy teachers instead of politicians, as well as vouchers and performance based reviews of teachers would all help but they are only band aids.

The real problem is the entire APPROUCH to education in the US. We want to educate everyone in exactly the same manner which is insane becuase EVERYONE is different. One child may be very able to learn from guided study while another may need a more real world aplication to grasp concepts.

One child may have a predispostition to be manually skilled and will need an entirely different skill set from one who is hopeless with tools but can work out complicated stratigies in his head.

Why much a child take the same basic english or math class every year in high school? Is that efficient use of tax dollars? I say no. If he or she has not gotten it by then they are not GOING to get it.

Further, we need to hold the parents of underachieving kids responcible for that performance. It is a proven fact that kids with parents who are active in the child education perform better.

Still further we need to open up federal funds for skills based training course such as trade schools and votech academies. There are many fields of manual skills like manufacturing that are begging for skilled workers and not able to find them that can also pass a drug/background check.

My 2cents

No Child Left Behind was put in place because the schools are failing.  In fact most schools did worse before NCLB was put in place.

By the way states had the option of accepting NCLB or not.  If they accepted it, their budgets almost doubled.  The states knew they would be held accountable by objective testing criteria (CST).  And the states also knew that three years of failures would be allowed before the state takes action.



Only the most extreme cases would this happen.  If you fail for four years, the government has the right to take over the school and spend money and improve the school as much as possible.  Union rules and contracts are suspended, so teachers who basically are not very good teachers could be fired without going through the laborious process (usually in LAUSD, they simply pay the teacher 70K to walk away from the school rather than go through the more expensive arbitration process).  I must say that LAUSD, the example they brought up is indeed the worst possible example they could find.  The teachers union is a mess, the school board is corrupt (people arrested for junkets, bribes and what not).  The school district should be taken over, and even the mayor of LA tried to do an end run on the school board in order to improve schools.  NCLB actually does what the local government was trying to do, that is how bad it was.

Should a school with a 60% drop out rate be taken over by the government or the students sent to charter schools?  Is what is in the best interest of the students the main thing?

Generally, but especially in the LAUSD, charter schools outperform regular schools.  Even though they have less resources and even pay their teachers less.

If anything the article lends support to such an action.

I think the NCLB might need to be modified, it is a start though and it shows how public education has become balkanized where well heeled schools create a disparate class system, not because they have more money, but because they expect more from their students.  I know, I teach kids in an inner city school, and when you place rigorous standards, they may complain, but they also perform.

NO child left behind infers that extra effort be made to bring slower learners "up to speed" but instead, in many areas, it has led to a dumbing down of ciriculum and testing.

In Kansas City (which is the WORST metro school distrcit) it was found by the Kansas City Star that alot of the so called improvement was from achange in testing made by the last School District Superintendant.

Oh and to those that say through money at it, the KCMO school district also speads far more per student than any other school district in the area.

So then where did the money go? It surely did not work for these schools.  Schools shouldn't even have been given the choice of being granted federal money based on these provisions.  It is just another example of "lets just throw money at the problem."  Schools had to know that the provisions by the NCLB were unrealistic yet they still took the money anyway.  This supports your assertion that the public education system in their need for the doubleling for their funding was simply for those who worked in the system's own benefit.


Caution, caution.  The last time we let the Federal government take over in education we ended up with this mess: creating incentives to cheat and bribe.  The last thing I want is the Federal Governemnt to institue the actual re-structuring process.

 

Which proves why throwing money at the problem doesn't work.


I completely disagree.  Inner city schools in Philadelphia have almost turned their back on the public education of children.  Not many of them get funding.  But none of them get to perform either.  It's a viscious cycle.  Many of my friends who are now teachers are being begged to work in inner city schools in NY, yet the rates of funding and performance are unbelievably terrible.   

Yet in poor neighborhoods outside of Philly like Chester, charter-schools have been implemented and have had some outstanding results.

Such confusion over what makes schools actually perform in conjunction with money is what keeps me on the fence about what needs to be done.  I find that there are other variables that need to be taken into account.  I don't think money is the determining factor and is actually the cause of the problem.  This is what I hope to explore in this thread.

NCLB was a throw money at it program, it literally doubled many school budgets.

And the tests that schools recieve, the CST, are standardized national tests, so the superintendent that dumbed down the assessment tests for his students, in effect cheated his school district when the national standardized tests were issues.

Yes but by that time he had gotten a fat severence and retired.

NCLB doubled the school's budgets? Really?

It seems to me that NCLB was passed and then never fully funded, actually making things worse in some places.

Many of the critics of NCLB stated originally that they don't have the funding for extra teachers, tutors, materials and what not... the government stated, that they would provide the income necessary for success.  But that the schools would be given a fixed number of years to raise the standards of their student.  You have to give everyone a chance to improve.  So that is where the money went, at first.


Local governments are failing to meet the needs.  Federal government steps in.  Local government in the case presented is actually worse than the fed on every level.


I can't speak to Philadelphia.  I do know that PA accepted the funding, so I don't know why the Philly schools aren't getting any.  Nor am I sure what you mean by turning heir back on public education, you will need to be more specific.

I think charter schools and private schools are an excellent alternative since they tend to outperform public schools.  The trouble is there aren't enough to absorb everyone, though the demand will, I think, eventually increase the supply.  They should still be held accountable to objective testing, and I think a national basis at that.

I can tell you about Philadelphia public schools, and how it has doomed and saved. Initially public schools in the region where divided by neighborhood and magnet schools.  The magnet schools being ones that are of higher standards, and the neighborhood schools are where everyone else goes.  However the obvious failures of inner city public schools is the budget deficit, due to the fact that the state cut funding by 20% over 20 years and in short lack of property tax.  As in the case of Philadelphia's failed schools is that it is actually semi-private, bought out by Edison in 2002.  Edison is a company that claims to reform schools and "supposedly" creates profit to its shareholders.  Edison too has its flaws, but have known to increase quality of education and scores.



PtC's 3 step process:
- Partially sell the public schools to companies like Edison

- Create an obvious tax incentive, because everyone loves incentives

- Hope for the best

The problem with NCLB is manifold.

A. It's a paper tiger. It sets standards, but doesn't really enforce them adequately with resources. Many sources do not get the appropriate resources to reach the standards.

B. Many of the standards are unreasonable. For instance, NCLB requires 100% maths and reading competency by, I believe 2010 or 17. This is unrealistic, as you will never have 100% proficiency. This effectively makes NCLB goals unattainable in the long run. A second problem arises insofar as the AYP (annual yearly progress). This is tied to school funds. However, there is a tier system. If you fail to meet the required AYP every year until you get to the final "ultimate goal," you will eventually be considered "failing." In consequence, a school that has 95% proficiency, but doesn't increase to the 100% goal, it will eventually be "failing." Meanwhile, a school that has 45% proficiency, yet meets the AYP quota, will be "successful." This is clearly a retarded system designed to fail and created by incompetent bureaucrats probably so it will destroy the rest of education so they can pave the way for privatization. Not only that, if you fail for so many years in a row you get knocked down tiers, have funds taken away...exactly when you  need them.


4. Economics isn't always the problem insofar as school funding goes. Educational achievement isn't merely the product of the school microsystem. You have to look at it from a general ecological systems approach. There are various interrelated ecological factors that contribute to school success: the school environment, the community environment, the home environment. Each has a mesosystem connection, and the strength of those connections as well as the integrity of each individual system coalesces to increase or detract from achievement. Poor educational achievement often occurs in high school. It's no coincidence that parental involvement in education drops off precipitously during this period. The lack of parental involvement with schools and at home hurts education.

Educational achievement also highly correlates with socio-economic status of the family. Parental income, education, etc influence the achievement of the student. Parents from lower income homes or homes that have less education tend to produce children who do worse, prima facie. Students from these homes often have inferior verbal and linguistic skills, are read to less, and experience less vocabulary immersion in the home. Their environments are also less print-rich and the parents do not help them as much, partly as a factor of their poorer education.

Throwing money at the school won't fix this problem, as it's beyond it's control. The community can also influence the student by swaying him to or from education. In the inner urban culture of the "ghetto gansta" there is a distinct anti-intellectual, anti-education culture. This combines with poverty to detract from success. The over-focus on sports-culture also contributes to this problem. If students choose not to learn, cannot learn, or are drawn away, schools can do little about it.

But Philadelphia also has that stupid Teach For America bullshit!

I also tend to lean toward vouchers and charter schools for the solution to this problem.

haha, just save the kids that look like they have some sort of potential. 

I think it would be beneficial to a large majority of students. As it is now, parents who can't afford a private school or to move somewhere with better schools are SOL if their children's schools aren't performing.

Vouchers would give more options to more families. I don't think giving people the funds to be able to decide where there child is educated is an elitist idea at all.

Better than placing them with teachers who don't give a shit.  Oh, sorry.  We need to consider fairness.  We'll just let the rich kids get the better education and perpetuate our nation of the privileged elite.

Ecological systems? OK, I understand what your saying.


OK, so here's how we fix that.  We give tax breaks to families who have students that make a high grade.  That'll make the parents start getting involved.   ::)

The teachers who "don't give a shit" may be blamed on the lack of teachers the nation is producing.  The incentives are in the wrong places; the teacher shortage causes the state to make stupid programs like Teach For America which crank out uninspired and unqualified teachers that are initially placed in inner city public schools to "gain experience" then transfered. 


WORD, to getting the parents involved. 

Blame the AFT.  Forcing wages to be higher is a great way to cause shortages. 

Wait.  What?  How does that work?  Higher wages leads to teacher shortages?  And here i thought teachers were in it because it's "rewarding."

Who sets education policy at the Federal level?

Local education policy has been influenced from the Federal Level

Yes, it has.

Now, who sets federal education policy.

Hint, it's not the DOE.

Here, let me help you out to see how education has become what it is today......

1896-1920: "A small group of industrialists and financiers, together with their private charitable foundations, subsidized university chairs, university researchers, and school administrators, and spent more money on forced schooling than the government itself did…In this laissez-faire fashion a system of modern schooling was constructed without public participation." (Gatto).

1905: The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (CFAT) was founded to define and expand the standard of professional education. Eakman said that CFAT "is the most influential Carnegie entity for education" and "is the key to a long-standing partnership with the federal government."

1913: Rockefeller Foundation set up the predecessor to General Education Board. This was to further the Foundation's stated goal of "social control". Director of Charity Frederick Gates wrote, "…In our dream, we have limitless resources, and the people yield themselves with perfect docility to our molding hand. The present educational conventions fade from our minds; and, unhampered by tradition, we work our own good will upon a grateful and responsive folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or science…"

1917: By this year, Gatto said, "the major administrative jobs in American schooling were under the control of "the Education Trust": representatives of Rockefeller, Carnegie, Harvard, Stanford, University of Chicago, and the National Education Association. The chief end, wrote Benjamin Kidd, was to "impose on the young the ideal of subordination." Gatto called Andrew Carnegie, J.P. Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, and Henry Ford "The Four Architects of Modern Forced Schooling" who thought that modern industry needed "workers who know nothing".

1921: Carnegie founded The Psychological Corporation, with J.McKeen Cattell as president. Cattell wrote, "… whatever else people have thought over the years that the various Carnegie organizations were contributing to education, their mission, as stated, has been "to promote the extension of applied psychology." (Eakman).

1925: Rockefeller Foundation set up The International Bureau of Education, formerly known as The Institute Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which later became part of UNESCO.

1933: Rockefeller Foundation began a comprehensive national program to allow "the control of human behavior". Schooling would figure prominently in the design.

1933-1941: Carnegie Corporation funded the Eight-Year Study that laid the groundwork for many of the education "reforms" and innovations we are now encountering. This study was foundational to the outcome-based education of today.

1934: Carnegie Corporation funded "Conclusions and Recommendations for the Social Studies". Professor Harold Laski said: "At bottom and stripped of its carefully neutral phrases, the report is an educational program for a Socialist America." The report concluded that the educational system "must adjust its objectives, its curriculum, its methods of instruction, and its administrative procedures to the requirements of the emerging integrated order."

1944: Carnegie Corporation funded with $250,000 a study of problems of southern black Americans. A Carnegie committee reviewed applicants to perform the research, and selected Swedish socialist economist Dr. Gunnar Myrdal. He wrote "An American Dilemma", which became very influential in subsequent racial integration actions. Wormser wrote, "In "An American Dilemma", Dr. Myrdal libeled and insulted the American people unmercifully." Myrdal said Americans had a "nearly fetishistic cult of the Constitution."

1946: Carnegie Corporation funded the Educational Testing Service of Princeton, New Jersey.

1947: Rockefeller Foundation funded the creation of the Tavistock Institute for Human Relations, which joined with Kurt Lewin's Research Center for Group Dynamics at the University of Michigan. They created techniques now used in educational and other social settings (see E-File Number Six re: Dialectical Education).

1950s: "By the mid-1950s, the term "child-centered (or student-centered) curriculum" had worked its way into American educational lexicon, thanks to one of the Carnegie Foundation's presidents, testing mogul Ralph Tyler." (Eakman) Tyler was closely associated with Louis Raths, later to team up with Sidney Simon to create "Values Clarification" in the 1970s, used to free students to form opinions about controversial or sensitive subjects independent of their parents or other authority.

1953: The Reece Committee began to investigate tax-exempt foundations. It found that Carnegie Endowment trustees had decided they should get control of education and the social sciences in the U.S. to prevent a return to the way of U.S. life before the war (decentralized, individualistic, family-centered.)

1955: Rockefeller Foundation funded Marcuse's "Eros and Civilization", which "became the founding document of the sixties counterculture. It was pressed into the hands of student anti-war activists, bringing the Frankfurt School's messianic revolutionary mission to all the American colleges and universities, beginning with Columbia's Teachers' College…Although the Frankfurt School/Institute for Social Research started with Comintern support, over the next 30 years it obtained funding from, among others, the Rockefeller Foundation." (Eakman) (see E-File Number Six re: Frankfurt School).

1958: Wormser wrote his book about his findings as general counsel to the Reece Committee. He said that foundation grants had become so important that college and university presidents couldn't "afford to ignore the opinions and wishes of the executives who distribute foundation largess." Much research depended on the support by grants. Foundations could control what research was done through the selection of grantees and the rejection or approval of suggested subjects and methods of research. Wormser found the foundation/government "interlock" made it impossible to criticize the foundations without being distorted, slanted, discredited and ridiculed by the media.

1964: Carnegie Corporation appointed Ralph Tyler chair of the Committee on Assessing the Progress of Education, which became in 1969 the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP). Now funded by the federal government, NAEP, which "tracks conformity to government-generated goals" (Iserbyt), is widely used in the U.S.

1965: Carnegie Corporation and Ford Foundation awarded a grant to Terry Sanford, ex-governor of N. Carolina, to create a new venture in "cooperative federalism". This became the Education Commission of the States (ECS). The purpose was to bring "some degree of order out of this chaos" (referring to education policy-making in the states).

1965: Eakman noted: "Francis Keppel, another Carnegie Foundation president, author of "The Necessary Revolution in American Education", documented the Carnegie Foundation's role in creating, writing and passing the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA), the mother of all boondoggles which was again reauthorized by Congress in 1994." (Eakman) The legislation was written primarily to be indefinitely expandable. ESEA brought in education labs, early childhood education, social workers and child psychiatrists in schools, data collection, community education, bilingual education, ethnic heritage programs, etc.

1966: McGeorge Bundy became president of the Ford Foundation, "determined to use Ford's $3.7 billion in assets to leverage change in America". He had $200 million a year to give to whomever he wished. Between '66 and '79, he spent much on long-established civil rights organizations such as NAACP and SLCC, but also funded groups promoting black nationalism. Bundy was inspired by the Carnegie-funded Gunnar Myrdal study. (Bird).

1968: Ford Foundation gave over $500,000 to the Southwest Council of La Raza, $2.2 million for the Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Fund (MALDEF), and a grant to the Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO). The president of MAYO, Jose Angel Gutierrez, gave speeches criticizing "gringos" and advocating eliminating their influence by killing them if necessary. Members of MAYO frequently went to Cuba, and disseminated pro-Castro propaganda to Mexican-Americans back home.

1968: Carnegie Corporation financed controversial textbooks in Project Read for culturally-deprived areas, produced by Behavioral Research Laboratories in Palo Alto, California. These inflammatory (excuse the pun) books contained phonics lessons in which a picture depicted a burning torch touching a porch. A student was to note how "torch" rhymed with "porch" (one example of several). Critics feared that children would be indoctrinated in anti-social ideas.

1968: Ford Foundation funded "Agenda For the Nation", which recommended replacing the high school diploma with a Certificate of Mastery, implementation of outcome-based education, etc. It was a forerunner of the later National Center of Education and the Economy and SCANS, the restructuring of the economy and education to the German and Soviet-style School-to-Work model (see E-File Number One.)

1969: By this year, Bird wrote, "Bundy was clearly putting Ford money into the pockets of people who described themselves as social activists, progressives and agents of radical change." Holcombe wrote: "The Ford Foundation also supported the National Student Association (NSA), which was not in fact an association of students at all but an interest group that confronted faculty and students in an attempt to change campus policies. Through the NSA, the Ford Foundation financed the campus rebellion that was a visible part of 1960s social activism." Jeffrey Hart, quoted by Holcombe, said that the Ford Foundation supported those "who spouted the most extreme rhetoric, who presented the most exotic appearance, who were foundations of anti-white racism…"

1969: NAEP was initiated. It collected background information from students, teachers and administrators. It called for the periodic assessment of students at ages 9, 11, 13 and 17, in the subject areas of reading, writing, math, science, citizenship, U.S. history, geography, social studies, art, music, literature, computers, and career/occupational development.

1976-1980: Rockefeller Foundation and others supported the "community schools" project, which laid out "still another plan for a vastly larger role in education on the part of the federal government, including regional and county health system working with local education agencies…replacing parents as primary caregivers and doling out expensive social services to entire families, including health clinic services, managed care, case management services for at risk, screening for medical, personality, mental counseling and treatment, rehabilitation services, home visitations to assess parenting skills, and expanded special education services for all kids." (Eakman)

1979: Rockefeller Foundation with others funded a series of four books written by John Goodlad in which he proposed a program in which all students take a core curriculum until age 16, then graduates, then enters a new 4th phase of education which would combine work, study and community service. The books were provided to all 50 state school superintendents. Iserbyt said, "This provides an accurate picture of the role played by the tax-exempt foundations and the federal government in the restructuring/social engineering of American society and schools to accommodate the perceived needs of the 21st century."

1981: The president of the Rockefeller Foundation and many church, business, university, media, union, NGO, and government leaders took part in The President's Task Force on Private Sector Initiatives. It was created to make partnerships between the public and private sector. Iserbyt writes, "This totally new and un-American concept of partnerships has been readily accepted by our elected officials who ignore its roots in socialism and its implications for the discontinuation of our representative form of government and accountability to the taxpayers. Under the "partnership" process determining responsibility when something goes wrong is like pinning Jello to the wall."

1983: Educational Testing Service took over the contract of administering NAEP. This gave Carnegie Corporation and Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching control over the direction and content of American education as a whole, and individual state education policy making in particular.

1985: Carnegie Corporation negotiated education agreements with the Soviet Academy of Science. These produced an agreement to exchange computer specialists involved in the improvement of elementary and secondary education. This was a first step toward cooperation among educational reformers from a number of countries, including Britain and Japan. (More U.S./U.S.S.R. agreements were signed in 1989).

1985: Carnegie Corporation created the Carnegie Forum on Education and the Economy, a multi-million dollar initiative designed to help chart U.S. education policy during the next ten years. It became the NCEE, future promoter of School-to-Work (see E-File Number One).

1986: Carnegie Corporation awarded two major grants, totaling nearly $900,000 to forward the recommendations of the Carnegie Task Force on Teaching as a Profession. This solidified the methodology which teachers would be required to use in order to obtain board certification. It also developed assessments for use in the future. Task Force members included officials from business, unions, and government.

1988: A seminar on the federal role in education was held at the Aspen Institute. Sponsored by Carnegie Corporation, Ford Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Foundation, Hewlitt Foundation, and The Primerica Foundation, it reviewed research provided by the Carnegie-funded NCEE and the Office of Educational Research and Improvement of the USDOE. Participants discussed the transformation of the American economy, skill trends in employment by occupation, what students need to learn, who should learn, when they should learn, how the skills should be taught, the structure of industries, human capital supply and demand, and the federal role in education and the economy.

1989: Rockefeller Foundation, Sieman's Corporation, and Merrill Lynch funded The New American Schools Development Corporation, which presented a report to the Governors' Conference with the suggestion that big business should foot the bill to fund 6,000 new American schools. At this conference, governors put together task forces to make sure that the national Goals 2000 agenda would be promoted in their states.

1990: Carnegie Corporation, Control Data Corporation, John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, American Express Foundation, ARCO Foundation, and BellSouth Foundation funded the creation of a "Road Map" for restructuring state education systems. This was performed by the Carnegie-and Ford-funded Education Commission of the States (ECS) and the National Governors' Association, and included many STW features.

1990: Carnegie Corporation's David Hornbeck delivered a paper called "Technology and Students at Risk of School Failure." It promoted goals such as the use of technology, integration of knowledge, performance-based assessments, rewards and sanctions, and involvement of corporations in education. Hornbeck said The Business Roundtable has vital interest in American public education.

1991: Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander, under President Bush (Sr.), wrote America 2000 Plan", designed to implement Carnegie Corporation's restructuring agenda. This promoted the idea of a year round, 6 a.m. to 6 p.m. school, for children 3 months to 18 years.

1992: Rockefeller Foundation, Lauder Foundation, Exxon Education Foundation, Karen and Tucker Anderson, and Chase Manhattan Bank funded the Center for Educational Innovation, a project of the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. This developed ideas on choice in education, including vouchers.

http://www.e-files.org/archive/edition7.html

Who said the schools got "twice the funding"?

The DoE has recieved the same amount federal money since the inception of the NCLB in 2002. In fact, between 2002 and 2005 the value increased by a mere $6.5 billion and actually DROPPED in 2006 by $600 million (LINK (http://www.ed.gov/about/overview/budget/budget06/summary/edlite-section1.html)).

How do teachers and schools face increased responcibility but decreased budgets?

Someone called it a "paper tiger". That's an excellent metaphor.

Pond Scum,

First I need to know what the works cited was for the E-File.  It doesn't have any indication of primary source or evidence to support their assertions in any of the e-files.  I would like you to show me these so I feel that this E-File place is legit before I start taking this wealth of information seriously.  And I really do want to.  It sheds some light on the situation.

I do thank you for posting that.  It's like Marx revisted in the spawn of the 20th century.  I would like to know what you think it all means in a quick summary. 

After skimming it and closley reading a few parts, this is what I got from it:

Basically, the top 1% of our nation (the Carnegies and Rockafellars) began to fund a public education system at the start of the 20th century simply to promote the American masses (those on the bottom) to become better basketweavers or, essentially become more productive members of society.  Not so much that they become the next President of the United States, but enough so that they understand how to live in an ever changing economy and society. 

These foundations have kept a keen eye on sociological characteristics and economic patterns of these students in the public education system to get a better idea of how the American masses are developing within a changing economy and society.  As top level universities face interesting new developments in social sciences, so are the studies (funded by the foundations) that are instilled to keep track of student learning behaviors and skill sets which are then used to determine the best methods for introducing new learning behaviors and skill sets.

What this means is that the public education system is more or less in the pocket of those who are on top, to merely serve those on top, and never challenge the power that they hold. 

Before I give you my thoughts...I was wondering to see what your take on this is, and what your opinions about it are before I raise mine.

Against thanks for the info!

Gojira

If you go to the link I provided it states.........

THE HISTORY OF FOUNDATIONS' INTERVENTION IN EDUCATION is well-documented in three books: "The Cloning of the American Mind" by Beverly Eakman, "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America" by Charlotte Iserbyt, and "The Underground History of American Education" by John Taylor Gatto. The information in this E-File comes mostly from these books. They show that the foundations from their start took control of or heavily influenced American education in teacher training and certification, student testing, the accreditation of educational institutions, funding of behavioral research, organization of universities, development of curricula, writing of textbooks, writing of standards, definition of educational goals, use of psychological techniques, drafting and passage of education legislation, funding of activist groups, promotion of centralization of education in Washington, and more. The foundations understand that by controlling education, they can control society.

Other sources for this E-File are "Writing Off Ideas" by Randall G. Holcombe, "Foundations: Their Power and Influence" by Rene Wormser, and "The Color of Truth" by Kai Bird (concerning the Ford Foundation.)

E.D. HIRSCH SUPERBLY DESCRIBED IN "THE SCHOOLS WE NEED" the educational fads that have resulted from decades of top-down, forced adoption of social engineering disguised as education (project method, cooperative learning, etc.) Hirsch's book is recommended for anyone who wants to understand the problems with modern curriculum and teaching methods. But, Hirsch does not discuss that it is the foundations who have and continue to promote this social engineering.

////////

We also have Norman Dodd, chief investigator for the Reece committee who said.....

While speaking of the foundations and education......

Griffin:  What was that effect, Sir?

 

Dodd:  That affect was to orient our educational system away from support of the principles embodied in the Declaration of Independence, and implemented in the Constitution;  and to educate them over to the idea that the task now was to effect an orientation of education away from these briefly stated principles and self-evident truths.

 

And, that’s what had been the effect of the wealth which constituted the endowments of those foundations -– foundations that had been in existence over the largest portion of the span of fifty years -- and holding them responsible for this change.  What we were able to bring forward was -- what we had uncovered was -- the determination of these large endowed foundations, through their trustees, actually to get control over the content of American education.

http://www.supremelaw.org/authors/dodd/interview.htm

Norman Dodd's testimony and his interview with Griffin are two of the most important keys to understanding the USA today.

I missed it,  but found it.  Usually when looking you miss the obvious because you expect something to be in a certain place.  But thanks though I will check those books out.

Isn't there a point where the dog bites the hand that feeds it? Or is that revolutionary jibber jabber...

Many people don't have the capacity to think for themselves so, IMO, we need social engineers to make society more productive.  It has certainly made us much more well-off than previously.  Ideas can be dangerous and only the brave decide to venture into understanding how the world works...

Many prefer just to be happy.  We should consider that although we have come a long way, we can still make sure that everyone is better off. 

Well it all comes down to making a choice. Do you want others to tell you what to think and how to think, or do you agree with Patrick Henry.........

"For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it. Is life so dear or peace so sweet as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery?"

The choice is yours.

I have chosen to think for my self.  My ideas are openly and willingly tested daily.  It is not an easy task.

But some just prefer to stay in la-la land.