Can the Computer Brainwash? You betcha.

Click on following video link from Bosnia, formerly part of Communist Yugoslavia.

The time spent viewing this video may be the best time you ever put into studying what is really going on in your child's classroom now that books have been removed, and each child will have his/her own computer, connected with the central offices' data base. Be sure to check back to this blog for Anita Hoge's excellent submissions related to assessment, data collection, and the use of your child's and your family's most private information: to whom it is being  given, and for what purposes.

Click HERE to view video

DOSITEJ project - empowering education

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5T-rq06Xe0

There were concerns in United States academia, back in 1972, regarding the wholesale use of computer technology in education. Were these concerns put aside due to global corporate and political pressure?  Don't forget the late Professor B.F. Skinner, the U.S. father of operant conditioning, referred to the computer as "his box." Quotes from leading American education change agents are below.

First, read this from my book the deliberate dumbing down of america, page 213:

IN 1984 SCHOOLING AND TECHNOLOGY, VOL. 3, PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE: A COLLABORAtive Model, An Interpretive Report on Creative Partnerships in Technology—An Open Forum by Dustin H. Heuston, World Institute for Computer-Assisted Teaching (WICAT) was published (Southeastern Regional Council for Educational Improvement: Research Triangle Park, North Carolina, 1984) under a grant from the U.S. Office of Education, HEW, National Institute of Education. An excerpt from “Discussion: Developing the Potential of an Amazing Tool” in Schooling and Technology follows:

We’ve been absolutely staggered by realizing that the computer has the capability to act as if it were ten of the top psychologists working with one student.... You’ve seen the tip of the iceberg. Won’t it be wonderful when the child in the smallest county in the most distant area or in the most confused urban setting can have the equivalent of the finest school in the world on that terminal and no one can get between that child and the curriculum? We have great moments coming in the history of education.

[Ed. Note: The comment regarding the computer’s role as a “top psychologist” is as disturbing as is the idea of “no one getting between the child and the curriculum.” These ideas lay to rest the publicly stated purpose of the words “parent-school partnerships” which represent a superb example of semantic deception.]

Let's step back in time to 1972 and 1981 when plans were being made by leading computer technologists/scientists for the implementation of computers in the schools. I, Charlotte, while working in the U.S. Department of Education  in 1981-1983, examined a request for federal funding of Project BEST: Basic Educational Skills through Technology, the federal grant that I leaked to Human Events, for which I was subsequently fired. 

In doing so I located, deep in the education archives of the Department, in a separate building, a document (scroll down to end of article) which was referred to in the Request for Funding of Project BEST. This 1972 document, edited by Donald Ely, who subsequently became involved in the 1981 Project BEST which I leaked to the press, is of extreme importance since it reveals the concerns of leading computer experts  related to the power of the computer to change one's values, attitudes, and beliefs.

The National Education Association also expressed  some of  the same concerns outlined in the 1972 paper. Here is the NEA's report, dated 1981, taken from my book, page 174:

THE NATIONAL EDUCATION ASSOCIATION PUBLISHED NEA SPECIAL COMMITTEE ON INSTRUCtional Technology Report which was presented to their 60th Representative Assembly, held July 4–7, 1981. An excerpt from the report related to the problems of programmed learning (computer assisted instruction) follows:

In its coming involvement with a technology of instruction, the profession will be faced again with the challenge of leadership—by example and by effective communication— the challenge of convincing the public that education is much more  than treating students like so many Pavlovian dogs, to be conditioned and  programmed into docile acceptance of a do-it-yourself blueprint of the Good Life.

The problems associated with technology, in its final analysis, are problems of freedom and control. Whose freedom? Whose control? As a result of its study, the committee urges the Association to view the problems and promises of instructional technology not as a single issue but rather as a broad continuum of issues affecting all aspects of education and teaching—from purposes to products, from political pragmatism to professional practice. Most problems produced by technology have to do with the human use of human beings. In his book, The Illusion of Technique: A Search for Meaning in a Technological Civilization (Doubleday: New York, 1978), William Barrette observes that—

Human creativity exceeds the mechanisms it invents, and is required even for their intelligent direction.... If we try to flee from our human condition into the computer we only meet ourselves there.

Evidently, in 2014, the use of computers has been accepted without examining the ethical questions posed in the 1981 NEA paper or the 1971 paper. One should also refer to Blog Post "Education, Technology, and Individual Privacy" by Larry Grayson, one of the leading computer technology experts in the  U.S. Department of Education.  Click on:

ABCs of DumbDown: HOW TO HELP PROTECT STUDENTS...

The following excerpted material from the 1972 document is taken from the deliberate dumbing down of america. The entire document is found in pages A-35-38. I have bolded the most relevant portions of the document.

“The Field of Educational Technology: A Statement of Definition,” by Donald P. Ely, Ed. Published in Audiovisual Instruction (Association of Educational Computing and Technology: Washington, D.C.), October 1972 (pp. 36 ff).

There is no single author of this statement since the definition process involved several hundred people over the period of one year. Kenneth Silber spent more time than any other person and provided continuity through several drafts. Other writers included Kenneth Norberg, Geoffrey Squires, and Gerald Torkelson. Significant contributions were made by Robert Heinich, Charles F. Hoban, Jr., Wesley Meierhenry, and Robert Wagner through discussion papers prepared early in the process. Reactions from related fields were helpful—Desmond Cook (Educational Psychology), Keith Mielke (Telecommunications), and Robert Taylor (Library and Information Science). Each reviewed an earlier draft of the manuscript and met to discuss it. Finally, credit should go to the more than 100 members of the Association of Educational Computing and Technology [AECT, spin-off of the NEA, ed.] who participated at the open hearings held during the Minneapolis convention. And now, the process must go on with each reader. May I have your reactions? Signed by Donald P. Ely, Editor, Chairman, Definition and Terminology Committee, AECT, Branch of the National Education Association.…

Individualized learning requires systematic planning because it may operate with little or no direct intervention by the teacher. If the benefits of individualized and personalized learning are to succeed, it will be necessary to make full use of appropriate technical resources, to shift money saved by this approach into the development of more effective resources, and to make consistent and expanded use of experimental study and evaluation techniques. All of these require the use of the systems approach to succeed....
 
Within the context of society, the purposes and means of the educational technologist create two value questions: are the means used by the educational technologist neutral, or do they have ends and values built in? Does a person concerned with the means of education also have to be concerned with the ends?… These questions and issues and their resolution by each person in the field is as much a part of the definition of the field as the functions the people in the field  perform.

Is technology neutral?

Theoretically, technology in the “pure” state is neutral in its operation, simply the powerful and faithful servant of the society it serves but does not affect. But institutionalized technology in the real world is never that pure. Once embedded in socioeconomic systems, it tends to become self-justifying and self-perpetuating and does indeed affect the society it serves.

Technology neatly separates ends from means, and attempts to become neutral by divorcing itself from value-laden ends. However, if technology is independent of means, then its worth must be measured by the degree of success and the efficiency with which it achieves the goals set before it. Thus, the technological thrust in modern society is to continually refine and strengthen the means whatever the goal.

The net result, which has been pointed out by many scholars of technology, is that the means tend to become the ends. The means which sometimes serve as the end of technology are NOT neutral. As most critics of technology have pointed out, these means have effects—effects which are not neutral at all. Whether the effects are positive or negative is a question for debate, but neutrality is a choice which does not exist.

For example, it is clear that technology has effects on man, but what are they? One position is that technology exerts a subtle force to reduce human beings to standardized components which can readily be assimilated to whatever system is being served. It absorbs them into man-machine systems by robbing them of their humanity and making them human machines.

The opposing position states that technology makes humaneness and difference possible. It creates the options we need for true freedom, and creates a world which allows divergent value systems.

The opposite of the neutral technician is what we might call the concentrated professional. This person realizes that the means make the ends possible, and that cooperation or hindrance makes ends possible or impossible. The concerned professional has a point of view about the ends and then decides whether or not the work being done will make possible positive or negative ends.

If it is decided the work will bring about negative ends, the concerned professional refuses to perform it.

The scientist working on genetic selection and manipulation because “it can help eliminate disease from the human race” and those who have quit working on it because it will “lead to totalitarian domination by a master race” are examples of concerned professionals. Regardless of their position, they have considered the ends of their work and made a decision to work or not based on how they viewed those ends.

It should be clear that the concerned professional does not have to be a “liberal” or a “conservative.” The concerned professional must however, show moral sensitivity to the effect of what he or she does. [emphasis in original]

It does not matter what position an individual comes to as long as it is not “I’ll do it because it can be done.”

We believe that in the American society of the 1970s and beyond the educational technologist cannot afford to be a neutral technician. The field calls for concerned professionals. Some very hard questions must be raised about everything this person is called on to do. The concerned professional must ask how the resources produced or used affect all of society, as well as the scientist’s own life.

The concerned specialist must ask what to do if he/she disagrees with the messages of the resources.

It is less important how an educational technologist answers these questions than it is that they are asked, and that there is concern with the real end of the means.... The educational technologist is not the only person making decisions about the facilitation of learning through the identification, development, organization, and utilization of learning resources. The teacher, curriculum specialist, administrator, content specialist, librarian and the student are involved in the process, too.... It is, therefore, important for the field of educational technology to recognize the “other people” context in which it operates.

HOW TO HELP PROTECT STUDENTS...
...FROM EDUCATIONAL AND TECHNOLOGICAL INVASION OF PRIVACY
WHICH ARE MANIFEST IN SUCH EDUCATIONAL TOOLS
AS EXTREMELY INVASIVE “REFLECTIVE ESSAYS AND PAPERS,”
TESTS. ASSESSMENTS, AND COMPUTER SURVEYS, ETC.

http://abcsofdumbdown.blogspot.com/2014/05/how-to-help-protect-students.html

" trying to make skillful servants of society "

Much food for thought, dating back to 1909, related to the non-academic workforce training agenda being implemented today.  Such an agenda requires Marxist /collectivist/social justice Common Core, privacy-invading questionnaires, assessment and remediation of each individual child (future worker) in collectivist attitudes, values, and beliefs, and storage and distribution of such personal data to corporations, universities, just about any entity that has an interest in a certain kind of "worker" (your child?).


The Meaning of a Liberal Education
The following excerpt from a speech delivered by former President Woodrow Wilson to the the N.Y. City High School Teachers Association, 1/9/1909,  is important. If you have time to read this speech in its entirety, do so. President Wilson said:

Let us go back and distinguish between the two things that we want to do; for we want to do two things in modern society. We want one class of persons to have a liberal education, and we want another class of persons, a very much larger class, of necessity, in every society, to forego the privileges of a liberal education and fit themselves to perform specific difficult manual tasks. You cannot train them for both in the time that you have at your disposal. They must make a selection, and you must make a selection. I do not mean to say that in the manual training there must not be an element of liberal training; neither am I hostile to the idea that in the liberal education there should be an element of the manual training. But what I am intent upon is that we should not confuse ourselves with regard to what we are trying to make of the pupils under our instruction. We are either trying to make liberally-educated persons out of them, or we are trying to make skillful servants of society along mechanical lines, or else we do not know what we are trying to do. [source]

President Woodrow Wilson

Then recall this quotation from 1913:

JOHN D. ROCKEFELLER, JR.’S DIRECTOR OF CHARITY FOR THE ROCKEFELLER FOUNDATION, Frederick T. Gates, set up the Southern Education Board (SEB), which was later incorporated into the General Education Board (GEB) in 1913, setting in motion “the deliberate dumbing down of America.” The Country School of Tomorrow: Occasional Papers No. 1 (General Education Board: New York, 1913) written by Frederick T. Gates contained a section entitled “A Vision of the Remedy” in which he wrote the following:

Is there aught of remedy for this neglect of rural life? Let us, at least, yield ourselves to the gratifications of a beautiful dream that there is. 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 rural folk. We shall not try to make these people or any of their children into philosophers or men of learning or of science.We are not to raise up from among them authors, orators, poets, or men of letters. We shall not search for embryo great artists, painters, musicians. Nor will we cherish even the humbler ambition to raise up from among them lawyers, doctors, preachers, politicians, statesmen, of whom we now have ample supply.

Getting the "choice" camel's nose under the tent

What more proof do American parents need in order to motivate them to stop tax-funded school choice run by unelected boards (taxation without representation)? All tax-funded school "choice" proposals (charters, vouchers, etc.) will put private and religious education, as well as tax-funded public education (with its elected school boards) out of business. Note: Business corporations could not possibly get their agenda approved as long as there are elected boards representing taxpayers and parents.

School choice proposals are necessary for the global planned economy. Is it any wonder that the school choice agenda came out of the hard Left with its support of Socialism, i.e., a planned economy? See this earlier post HERE. 

Corporations and the government are unable to implement the full school-to-work (STW) agenda. This STW agenda eliminates the traditional academic focus of education.

Contact me for bumper stickers!

For a thoroughly researched paper on the history of school choice, see "Exposing the Global Road to Ruin through Education" where the 8-disc (one cd) set is a free download. It is also available at www.deliberatedumbingdown.com as a free download. Click on "Written Submissions" for  Billy Lyon's superb expose of the neoconservative wolves in sheep's clothing.

CONNECTIONS AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST (or, There Ought’a Be an Investigation!)
Private, for-profit, design team projects. Connections of those involved.
New information on vouchers (educational “choice”). Legislation, etc.
By Billy Lyon, October/November, 1992 

Excerpt from my book the deliberate dumbing down of america, pp 288-289:  

VIRGINIA BIRT BAKER’S PAPER, WRITTEN IN 1991,”EDUCATIONAL CHOICE—THE EDUCATION Voucher, Tax Credits, and the Nonpublic Schools” explains very clearly that educational “choice” is a Trojan Horse carrying government control of all schools and schooling. Excerpts follow:

“Education is an emotional issue,” he said. “We’re staying away from the word ‘voucher’ because ‘educational choice’ sounds a little more palatable to parents. Educational choice is giving students and their parents a voucher... and we want to mobilize a significant number of people... to get the camel’s nose under the tent.... We’ve got to prepare for the long term… so we can strengthen our position and that of our friends.”

So reported a leader of a covert “new right” Dallas think tank at a recent White House
Conference on Education. The pro-choice activists are vociferous proponents of tuition tax credits and the education voucher, and we wonder why they want to “improve the schools’ and parents’ attitudes” by confounding our intellectual inquiries with an emotional and illusory word change.

The Associated Press has reported that... President George Bush said, “Choice will be
a critical element in education reform for years to come.” This recent upsurge in support of “choice” and the voucher program is nothing new and deserves closer scrutiny by parents and especially by private and home school patrons....

The Private School Trap—
To parents who have been paying taxes to support government schools, it sounds wonderful to be able to choose the better school not necessarily in their neighborhood. To parents who have been paying taxes to government schools and paying the tuition costs to send their children to private schools, a tax break or a government-paid incentive would be a welcome relief from financial strain, seemingly encouraging a sort of free-market approach to education.

But stop and think: The state has its fangs into private and home schools now; what
will it be like when schools are recipients of “choice” money?

The truth of the matter is, once private education accepts tuition tax credits/vouchers
it can no longer remain “private,” because through government regulations, it will be forced to become one and the same with its public counterpart. [color added]

Common Core before Obama

AND WE THOUGHT COMMON CORE JUST HAPPENED UNDER OBAMA?

From my book the deliberate dumbing down of america, pages 173-174:

TWO IMPORTANT CONFERENCES FOR “SCHOOL IMPROVEMENT” WERE SPONSORED BY THE NORTHwest Regional Educational Laboratory (U.S. Department of Education) in 1981. They are described below:

MEETING THE FUTURE: Improving Secondary Schools with Goal-Based Approaches to Instruction. Marriott Hotel, Portland, Oregon. Major addresses: “Alternative Futures for Our Society and Implications for Education” by Dr. Harold Pluimer, Futurist and Educational Consultant, Minneapolis, Minnesota and “School Effectiveness and Implications for Secondary School Improvement” by Dr. Alan Cohen, Professor of Education, University of San Francisco.

Sessions on Innovative Practices:

• “Improving Goals, Objectives and Competencies; Making the Community a Resource for Learning” ;

• “Learning through Mastery Techniques; Organizing for Continuous Progress”;

• “Involving Teachers as Advisors to Students”;

• "Individualizing Programs for All Students”;

• "Managing Instruction with Computers”;

• “Developing Options for Student Assessment”;

• “Improving Record Keeping and Reporting Procedures”;

• “Increasing Staff Motivation through Group Planning and Decision-Making”;

• “Techniques for Managing School Improvement”;

• “Concerns-Based Adoption Model”;

• “Force Field Analysis”;

• “Curriculum Alignment Processes”;

• “Staff Development Models,” and

• “Wisconsin R&D Center Model for School Improvement.”[bullets added]

MICROCOMPUTERS IN TODAY’S SCHOOLS: A Conference for Educational Leaders. Benson Hotel and NWREL Headquarters, Portland, Oregon. Major addresses: “Why We Went for Micros and What Our Community Had to Say about It” by Dr. Billy Reagan, Superintendent, Houston, Texas Public Schools; “Tomorrow’s Technology in Today’s Schools” by Dr. Dexter Fletcher, World Institute for Computer-Assisted Teaching, and others.[underlining added]

The Global Computer is HUNGRY!

THE GLOBAL COMPUTER IS HUNGRY FOR  DETAILS REGARDING ALL OF US....

Excerpt from my book the deliberate dumbing down of america, pp. 138-139.

UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL, SCIENTIFIC, AND CULTURAL ORGANIZATION (UNESCO) IN Paris, France published The International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED–COM.75/WS/27) in 1976. This publication revealed efforts at the highest international level to set up a classification system which will be available for use by planners assigned to the management of the global economy. Some quotes from the introduction to this 396-page document follow:

The International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED) has been designed as an instrument suitable for assembling, compiling, and presenting statistics of education both within individual countries and internationally. It is expected to facilitate international compilation and comparison of education statistics as such, and also their use in conjunction with manpower and other economic statistics.... ISCED should facilitate the use of education statistics in manpower planning and encourage the use of manpower statistics in educational planning. For this purpose, the most closely associated classification system in the manpower field is the International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO), prepared by the International Labour Office.

Why Americans don't have a clue about much of anything!

DELIBERATE dumbing down? YOU BET!!

In my book the deliberate dumbing down of education, pages 108-109, can be found the following entry:

THE NEW YORK TIMES CARRIED A LENGTHY FRONT PAGE ARTICLE ON APRIL 30, 1972 BY William K. Stevens entitled “The Social Studies: A Revolution Is on—New Approach Is Questioning, Skeptical—Students Examine Various Cultures.” This article explained the early history of the twenty-six-year controversy which has raged across the United States between those desiring education for a global society versus those desiring education in American History and Western Civilization; i.e., the question of “social studies” versus traditional history, and “process” education versus fact-based education. Excerpts follow:

When C. Frederick Risinger started teaching American History at Lake Park High School near Chicago, he operated just about as teachers had for generations. He drilled students on names and dates. He talked a lot about kings and presidents. And he worked from a standard text whose patriotic theme held that the United States was “founded on the highest principles that men of good will and common sense have been able to put into practice.”

That was ten years ago, but it might as well be 50. For the social studies curriculum at Lake Park has changed almost beyond recognition. The 32-year-old Mr. Risinger, now head of the department, has abandoned the traditional text and set his students to analyzing all revolutions, not just the American, and from all points of view, including the British one that George Washington was both a traitor and an inept general.

George Washington: A traitor?!

Stop Funding "Mind-Control" Curricula

Several of the nation's finest education researchers/activists, amongst whom were Anita Hoge and Jeannie Georges, and "yours  truly," paid $5000 to make presentations at The National Press Club in Washington, D.C. to expose the goings-on in the U.S. Dept. of Education and President Reagan's signing of education agreements with Soviet President Michael Gorbachev. Although the major media was not in attendance we got good coverage in education journals.


THE AUGUST 11, 1988 EDITION OF EDUCATION DAILY COVERED THE NATIONAL CITIZENS Alliance Press Conference held at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. Excerpts follow:

GROUP ASKS EDUCATION DEPARTMENT TO STOP FUNDING “MIND-CONTROL” CURRICULA,
END SOVIET EXCHANGES

A citizens group headed by a former Education Department official asked ED to stop promoting
curriculum the group says controls students’ minds.

The National Citizens Alliance (NCA), a group of parents and teachers, alleged at a Washington, D.C. news conference yesterday that ED is promoting “mind-control” curricula that use hypnosis-like techniques to foster concentration.

NCA wants to “get the federal government to stop pouring millions of dollars” into the “development of mind-control programs currently sweeping through American schools,” said Charlotte Iserbyt, who served as senior policy advisor in ED’s Office of Educational Research and Improvement from 1981 to 1982 and is NCA’s East Coast coordinator. Iserbyt called on Education Secretary William Bennett and other federal officials to:

End federal funding and promotion of programs such as Tactics for Thinking, which is used in Indiana schools.20 NCA says the curriculum “employs hypnotic-like processes and altered states of consciousness techniques on children”;

Cancel the education portion of the 1985 exchange agreement between the United States and the Soviet Union, which NCA says allows dissemination of “communist propaganda” through global teaching methods and the joint development of textbooks and computer software; and

Force Pennsylvania to ask parental consent before using its Educational Quality Assessment test, which NCA says uses “psychological and psychiatric testing” in violation of the federal Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment [Anita Hoge case against the Pennsylvania Department of Education].

NCA also criticized ED’s National Assessment of Educational Progress for tracking student attitudes and behavior, saying that obtaining such information violates privacy rights and could lead to behavior modification nationwide.

Secretary Bennett’s spokesman Loye Miller said he is not aware of the complaints to which NCA refers. An OERI spokesman declined to comment.—Christopher Grasso

Excerpted from pages 248-249 of my book the deliberate dumbing down of america. Note that all these gals are still activists. See their video presentations HERE.

Common Core 86 years old!

Eighty-six years ago the dumbed-down Common Core Math objectives were being planned in a secret meeting at which John Dewey, Edward Thorndike (leading behaviorist), and CFR members were in attendance. Is it any wonder 1 plus 1 equals 3 and our children can't make change?  


A DELIBERATE MATH “DUMB DOWN” WAS SERIOUSLY DISCUSSED IN 1928. A TEACHER NAMED O.A. Nelson, John Dewey, Edward Thorndike (who conducted early behavioral psychology
experiments with chickens), and other Council on Foreign Relations members attended a
Progressive Education Association meeting in 1928 at which O.A. Nelson was informed that
the purpose of “new math” was to dumb down students. Nelson revealed in a later interview
with Young Parents Alert that the Progressive Education Association was a communist front.
According to the National Educator (July, 1979):

Mr. O.A. Nelson, retired educator, has supplied the vitally important documentation needed to support the link-up between the textbooks and the Council on Foreign Relations. His letter was first printed in “Young Parents Alert” (Lake Elmo, Minnesota). His story is self-explanatory.

I know from personal experience what I am talking about. In December 1928, I was asked to talk to the American Association for the Advancement of Science. On December 27th, naïve and inexperienced, I agreed. I had done some special work in teaching functional physics in high school. That was to be my topic. The next day, the 28th, a Dr. Ziegler asked me if I would attend a special educational meeting in his room after the AAAS meeting. We met from 10 o’clock [p.m.] until after 2:30 a.m.

We were 13 at the meeting. Two things caused Dr. Ziegler, who was Chairman of
the Educational Committee of the Council on Foreign Relations, to ask me to attend... my talk on the teaching of functional physics in high school, and the fact that I was a member of a group known as the Progressive Educators of America, which was nothing but a Communist front. I thought the word “progressive” meant progress for better schools. Eleven of those attending the meeting were leaders in education. Drs. John Dewey and Edward Thorndike, from Columbia University, were there, and the others were of equal rank. I checked later and found that ALL were paid members of the Communist Party of Russia. I was classified as a member of the Party, but I did not know it at the time.

The sole work of the group was to destroy our schools! We spent one hour and forty-five minutes discussing the so-called “Modern Math.” At one point I objected because there was too much memory work, and math is reasoning; not memory. Dr. Ziegler turned to me and said, “Nelson, wake up! That is what we want... a math that the pupils cannot apply to life situations when they get out of school!” That math was not introduced until much later, as those present thought it was too radical a change. A milder course by Dr. Breckner was substituted but it was also worthless, as far as understanding math was concerned. The radical change was introduced in 1952. It was the one we are using now. So, if pupils come out of high school now, not knowing any math, don’t blame them. The results are supposed to be worthless.

[Ed. Note: Mr. Nelson was formerly assistant principal at Wilson High School, Minneapolis,
Minnesota, as well as Johnson High School in St. Paul. This writer was fortunate enough
to verify the above story by calling a teacher colleague of the late Mr. Nelson. Also,
members of the “Young Parents Alert” in Lake Elmo, Minnesota provided the writer with
an audiocasette of the speech he gave at a Young Parents Alert education conference
on April 28, 1979.]

Excerpted from my book the deliberate dumbing down of america, pages 14-15.

Missing Academics

Please do not dismiss the following  as the musings of an educator of minor importance.  Donald Thomas is an important American change agent whose policies are presently being implemented nationwide and internationally.  He has also been in close touch with Soviet educators in  the restructuring of education, and has on several occasions in public expressed his appreciation of the Soviet education system.

AN ARTICLE ENTITLED “THE DECADE OF THE NINETIES” BY DONALD THOMAS, EXECUTIVE director, Network for Effective Schools, was published in The Effective School Report for August 1989. Under the subtitle “Educational Implications” Thomas says:

Operate schools on a year-round basis; train citizens and students in skills and processes of effective participation in government; develop public policy toward private education....

Desirable future conditions: The economy will be more of an equilibrium economy with
less dependence upon money, and more dependence upon the production and exchange of goods and services. There will be an increased movement toward cooperation and responsibility for the well-being of others. The civil rights of all individuals will be respected and taught in homes and schools; a value system will emerge that will give basic human values—i.e., liberal arts, caring for others, etc.—their proper place. There will be fewer single family dwellings. Industry will take more responsibility for education, particularly for job training....

…[D]evelop curricula to involve students in anticipating and planning how to welcome
newcomers; use community education to help citizens anticipate and prepare for newcomers; design and implement statewide parent education and education for responsible parenthood; institute widespread, effective public education programs on family life; ensure that human caring will become the focus of curriculum at all levels; develop courses in futuring with future centers in high schools; involve schools with water commissions, air quality commissions, city councils, county commissions, legislatures and governmental agencies, focusing on economics, ecology, environment and culture as an integral part of the learning; teach and practice a win-win philosophy in schools [Deming’s TQM] in the place of the present win-lose philosophy....

CITIZENSHIP
Necessary Quality: Protecting each other from distractive forces.... These are qualities that can best be learned through practice and experience. Our schools must, therefore, give young people the opportunities for service to others, practice in public service, and adherence to personal responsibilities. The basic values of a good and free nation can be learned by young people when appropriate conditions exist as schools form partnerships with community agencies for public service projects to be a part of schooling; rewards are provided for encouraging young people to perform community service; community service is recognized asa necessary learning option....

The year 2000 is very near. The sooner we begin the task of improving student achievement and citizenship, the sooner we will achieve the national objective for adequately preparing our young people to live in the 21st century; to be broadly literate in a world community; to be highly skilled in an ever-changing work environment; to be human in a society of individuals striving for personal satisfaction and security. To achieve this goal we will need to think differently about schools, about children and about education. We, as a nation, must see education as a lifelong process, as occurring in the total community, and as being the responsibility of everyone.... Our national survival depends on it; the world expects it, and the children of the world require it.

[Ed. Note: Leaving aside the focus on political correctness, one should be concerned over the
total lack of emphasis on—or even mention of—academics. It would be a grave mistake to dismiss
this article as the totalitarian ravings of a lesser-known change agent spoken to his closest
change-agent associates. Dr. Thomas, a close friend of the late former Secretary of Education
T.H. Bell and present Secretary Richard Riley, is one of the most important change agents in the
world. He has been responsible for controversial restructuring in several states and has been
involved in exchanges with the former Soviet Union and Eastern European nations which are
implementing Effective School Research. Again, it was he who recommended a $50.00 fine for
parents who refused to volunteer in schools—both in South Carolina and in Utah.]

Excerpted from my book the deliberate dumbing down of america, pages 256-257. Check the Index to my 3D book for many entries for Donald Thomas and The Effective School Report.

Phony Parental Involvement

Activist parents from many states, those opposing public/private partnerships and controlled (dialectic) parent/citizen involvement in the schools, attended a U.S. Dept. of Education  conference  which took place in Indianapolis in the 1980s. We passed out a flyer with our documentation regarding "community education" and the change agents involved in Effective Schools, etc.  We succeeded in disrupting the conference to the extent that similar conferences scheduled for the remaining nine regions were cancelled by the U.S. Dept. of Education!

THE INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE FOR PARENT/CITIZEN INVOLVEMENT IN SCHOOLS WAS held July 22–25, 1982 at the Hilton Hotel, Salt Lake City, Utah. A letter to Secretary Bell dated February 25, 1982 requesting conference funding contained an impressive list of supporters on its letterhead, including: Scott Matheson, governor of Utah; Mrs. Barbara Bush, honorary chairperson, National School Volunteer Program; T.H. Bell, U.S. secretary of education; Dr. Don Davies, Institute for Responsive Education; Dr. Carl Marer, National Committee for Citizens
in Education; Dr. M. Donald Thomas, superintendent of schools, Salt Lake City, Utah, and
education representatives from Canada and Australia.

Dr. Donald Thomas, originally on the board of directors of The Effective School Report, and
executive director of the Network for Effective Schools, is a well-known change agent. Thomas
has traveled to Russia under the auspices of U.S. Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander
and Dale Mann of Columbia University, to work with Russia on implementing international
education restructuring.

The above-mentioned letter to Bell also stated:

The “think tank” session will be by invitation only to leaders in the movement. Its purpose will be to assess the current status of parent/citizen involvement in the schools; to identify trends and directions of the movement for the 80s; and finally to plan further positive action to support the continuation of the movement.

One of the attachments to this conference correspondence included many pages related
to Effective School Research and a listing of the components necessary for education restructuring.
The list included:

• mastery learning/direct instruction
• expectations
• climate
• motivation
• measurement diagnosis
• assessment
• class management
• discipline
• classroom organization
• pupil conditions/rewards
• praise
• parent involvement, etc.

Those connected with such research are listed as follows: Michael Rutter, England, Effective
School Study; the late Harvard Professor Ron Edmonds; professors Benjamin Bloom
and John Goodlad; Larry Lezotte; Donald Thomas; and others.

A second attachment on National Coalition for Parent Involvement in Education (NCPIE—
Alexandria, Virginia) letterhead stated that NCPIE was facilitated by the National School
Volunteer Program and funded by Union Carbide Corporation.

Excerpted from page 188-189 of my book the deliberate dumbing down of america.

Your Child as "Human Capital"?!

AND YOU THOUGHT YOUR TAXES WERE GOING TOWARDS ACADEMIC EDUCATION?

HUMAN CAPITAL AND AMERICA’S FUTURE: AN ECONOMIC STRATEGY FOR THE NINETIES (Hopkins Press: Baltimore, Md., 1991) edited by David W. Hornbeck and Lester M. Salamon, was published. The following quotes confirm the worst fears of parents related to education reform and dumbed down outcomes which are referenced by the change agents as “world class.” Human Capital explains that:

[E]mployer beliefs about the superior capabilities of educated people turned out NOT to be confirmed in practice [emphasis in original]; educated employees have higher turn-over rates, lower job satisfaction, and poorer promotion records than less educated employees. (p. 7)

Education researcher Judith McLemore of Alabama excerpted and commented upon David Hornbeck’s statements in “New Paradigms for Action,” chapter 13 of Human Capital:

Programs proposed to “cope with human capital problems” include “Initiatives to alleviate poverty” (p. 360) which include “income transfers.”... The gap between “the haves and the have-nots is growing.” Economic prosperity of the nation is “heavily dependent” upon stability. (p. 362)

Fastest growing “segment of the work force” is “women, blacks and hispanics, whom we have historically served poorly,” and not “white males” whom we have historically served relatively well.... At present, “schools and other human capital related institutions contribute to the growing gap between the rich and the poor.” (p. 363)

The alteration of our human capital development institutions must be as fundamental as the changes in our economic institutions and other parts of our social fabric.... It is imperative to “improve the school success of young people with whom we have failed historically.” (p. 364) “What are the basic tools we have available to initiate and sustain real change?” ...1.Demonstration projects... 2. Charismatic leaders... 3. Money (p. 365)... 4. Lawsuits (p. 366)... 5. Labor contracts... 6. Legislation. (p. 367)

“It is not possible to achieve the kind of outcomes we envision without being specific as to what those outcomes are. Moreover, it is necessary to define the quality and scope of the desired outcomes. Using the Job Training Partnership Act as an example... one of the frequent criticisms of its outcome definition is that it encourages ‘creaming.’ If, however, the outcome sought and rewarded was not just job placement, but job placement for the most difficult to serve and job placements of a certain quality in terms of pay and future prospects, one would quickly eliminate that charge.... Crafting outcomes can be a very tricky process ... to achieve the high graduation rates reflecting higher achievement levels will require success with the same young people with whom we have failed even with lower standards.” (pp. 369–370)

“What we teach should basically be the same for ALL students.” (p. 375) [all emphases in original]

“New Paradigms for Action” makes it clear that in the future the “system” (not the student) will be responsible for student success… and the students will be followed (data collection system from birth until death?). The “system” will be rewarded or penalized for the success/failure of those “difficult to serve” including whether or not they get high paying jobs after schooling ends. [bold added]

In order to drive home her point that our children, as human capital, are nothing but
pawns in the hands of the state/business community, McLemore refers to the foreword to Alexander Frazier’s book Adventuring, Mastering, Associating: New Strategies for Teaching Children (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development: Washington, D.C., 1976), written by Delmo Della-Dora, president of ASCD (1975–1976), which said, “This work represents Alexander Frazier’s attempt to describe what he calls an equal rights curriculum for all children.” On page 83 Frazier said, “Our goal is the removal of inequality among children who have been undertaught, overtaught, mistaught, or not taught some things at all.” On page 15 he said, “Jefferson saw the public school as an agency for finding talent to serve the state. In the same way, the school could recruit for the business and industrial establishment.”

 Excerpt from my book the deliberate dumbing down of america, pages 287-288:

Progressive Education vs. Traditional Education

Berit Kjos, highly respected researcher and author of many articles related to the transformation of our society from  Christian-oriented to occult/New Age/UN Agenda 21- oriented, has in this fascinating report (below) on the roots of socialist education, provided the reader with a fascinating and comprehensive explanation of the who, what, how, why, where and when related to such transformation, perpetrated mainly through the tax-supported public schools.  She rightly lays the blame at the feet of the National Education Association, and in doing so exposes the involvement of some very well known individuals and tax-exempt foundations.

As one travels down the road of our nation's destruction, using the schools and universities to serve as major bulldozers, be sure to remember that  major hard-Left education change agents and tax-exempt foundations support tax-funded private education and school choice with  their unelected school boards. This may come as somewhat of a surprise to those Americans supporting tax-funded school choice, who believe the tax-funded school choice agenda comes from the conservative wing of the Republican Party.  It doesn't.

In this regard, please listen to the following interview:

Start listening at 33.03
PETE SANTILLI EPISODE #711

This radio interview is also archived HERE.

There is important research in this interview regarding school choice/charters coming from the Left.   I obtained the original 1981 proposal for funding from  the U.S. Dept. of Education when it came across my desk at the time, on John Dewey Society letterhead listing leading leftist American education change agents John Goodlad, the late Ralph Tyler, [considered to be "father of the National Assessment of Educational Progress" (NAEP), upon which the Common Core is modeled,  etc., promoting tax-funded school choice and charters. This promotion came from the hard Left which knew "it" couldn't get the average homeschool Mom or average public school Dad to accept it from "them." So the Left got the neoconservatives to promote it. Disgusting? You bet! Surprise? No!

Marjorie Ledell, a leading change agent educator, close to William Spady and others, said in an article in the Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development’s (NEA spinoff) Educational Leadership, January 1994 entitled ‘To OBE or Not to OBE’ the following: ‘Finally, raise the real issue and depend on democracy. Don't let ‘to OBE or Not to OBE’ or ‘to implement or not implement efforts to improve student learning’ cloud the overdue national debate about whether public education should exist or be replaced with publicly funded private education.’Ledell is obviously looking forward to federally-funded charter schools with no accountability to the taxpayers (taxation without representation.)

Subject: Progressive Education vs. Traditional Education
EXCERPT FROM Berit Kjos's report:                                            

Chronology of the NEA

(National Education Association)
The Socialist Vision and Global Connections of the NEA

"...the 18th century socialists saw statism as the means to moral progress. "Man as sinful and depraved, was replaced by Man who was rational, benevolent and innately good. But the American form of limited government with its elaborate checks and balances had been created on the basis of the Calvinist distrust of human nature. The Calvinist didn't believe that power corrupts man, but that man corrupts power....
      "To explain why man does the evil things he does, they turned from theology to psychology....
       "The primary promoter of the "myth of moral progress" -- the evolution of a moral humanity -- was Georg Friedrich Hegel (1770-1831). His dialectical process would liberate humanity from Biblical boundaries and replace our personal God with a humanist form of impersonal pantheism."[2] Sam Blumenfeld, page 14-15.
 
"Beginning at the turn of the century (1900 AD), a new and sinister influence, slowly and insidiously at first but nonetheless unmistakably and with gradually increasing force, altered this basic concept most radically. The one individual most responsible for this change was the brilliant philosopher, Dr. John Dewey, who taught at the University of Chicago and later at Columbia University. The basic tenets of his credo were and are those upon which progressive education was founded and is continuing full blast today. A quotation from “My Pedagogic Creed,” written by John Dewey in 1897, would indicate that, even at that early date, his ideas on education were radically opposed to those then current in the field of education:

• “The only true education comes through the stimulation of the child’s powers by the demands of the social situation in which he finds himself. Through these demands, he is stimulated to act as a member of a unity, to emerge from his original narrowness of action and feeling, and to conceive of himself from the standpoint of the welfare of the group to which he belongs....
• “We violate the child’s nature and render difficult the best ethical results by introducing the child too abruptly to a number of special studies, of reading, writing, geography, etc., out of relation to this social life.
• “The true center of correlation on the school subjects is not science, nor literature, nor history, nor geography, but the child’s own social activities....

"Thus, even at this early period in his teaching experience, John Dewey emphasized the predominance of the group over the individual. To be sure, Professor Dewey may have borrowed from some of the muddled naturalism of Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778); and he may have been influenced a bit by the teachings and practice of the Swiss pedagogue Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827); but the particular brand he placed upon philosophy was his own...."[4] Lewis A. Alesen, M,D., Mental Robots, page 59.
 
"John Dewey believed and taught ... that all of man’s experiences, in an attempt to understand and to alter his environment, are continuing and variable, and therefore not subject to interpretation by any fixed or basic principles. John Dewey rejected the concept of God and denied the existence of immutable truth in any field. He contended that what seems to be truth today may, by altering circumstances, be entirely wrong tomorrow. He instead that truth or “warranted assertability” is always relative, because time and circumstance may change its value.
      "As a philosophy, these concepts are not particularly new in the world’s history. The Greeks debated them long before Christ, but as the fundamental structure upon which to erect vast changes in our entire educational system, they are indeed unique. Since, in terms of this philosophy, the chief end in life is the achievement of happiness by adjusting oneself to it... and, since there are no fixed rules or basic truths of any value whatsoever, the growing child is taught, day by day, that it is more important to get along with his fellows, that is, the group, and to adjust himself to his environment, than it is to develop himself in any particular skills.
"Thus he is encouraged to deny and reject responsibility for himself from the very day he enters kindergarten all through his academic course, and to transfer that responsibility to the group. ...
       "Since, in this view, there is no such entity as absolute truth, no possibility of immutable physical, mathematics, or moral law, the progressive educator sees no use in wasting the students time in studying history, because, of course, what other men have done and thought in the past is not of any particular value, as the circumstances under which they lived were entirely different from those facing the student and citizen today. Likewise, there is no point to the study of mathematics under this philosophy, which denies the existence of basic truths....
       "Discipline has been thrown out of the window lest it do something horrendous to the psyche of the growing child. Competition is rejected and , for the same reason, 'controversial subjects' are avoided."[4] Alesen, Mental Robots, page 60.
"Dewey rejected the old American concepts that there are fixed moral laws and eternal truths. He rejected God, holding that man has no soul: that man is merely a biological organism subject to the changes and adaptations required by his environment. ... The kind of education Dewey recommended was conceived to develop men and women into faceless factors in a controlled and leveled-down mass of humanity....
       "Deweyism is a combination of socialist political theory and a modern psychology. The nearest that Dewey himself ever came to express, in direct terms, his philosophy of education can be found in his book, My Pedagogic Creed (published in 1897)."[5] The Dan Smoot Report.

Standardized Curriculum

This Skinnerian Mastery Learning/ Direct Instruction/ Outcomes-Based program was experimented with in all inner city schools of the nation from 1968 to the present. Its the model for the restructuring of traditional academic education to workforce "training."

The Washington Post ran an article entitled "Competency Tests Set in 26 Schools - New Curriculum Shifts Teaching Methods in the District," 8/1/1979, which stated in part:

"Nobody will be able to close the door and do their own thing anymore said Asst. Supt. James T. Guines... "The curriculum will be standardized; the lessons will be standardized," Guines said. "We're taking the play out. We're taking the guesswork out. We're putting in, a precise predicted
treatment that leads to a predicted response." Guines said the new curriculum is based on the work in behavioral psychology of Harvard University's B.F. Skinner who developed teaching machines and even trained pigeons during World War II to pilot and detonate bombs and torpedoes."

But the system also has detractors who criticize it as rigid and mechanistic.

"We must be very careful," said  Lawrence G . Derthick, a former U.S. Commissioner of Education, "about adopting any mechanical system of producing children like objects. There are so many complicating factors in each child-emotional, psychological, the home background, the sensitivity of teachers.... There is a danger in trying to turn out children like nuts and bolts or steel pins. Human beings are more complex."

Setting the Stage for Common Core

And the comprehensive HISTORY behind this agenda

Measuring the Quality of Education:  Conclusions and Summary, 1981, provides those opposed to Common Core with important history related to the development of a national curriculum, history providing evidence of tax-exempt foundation involvement in an area of education (testing/assessment) which traditionally had been reserved for determination at the local and state levels.

The following quote should disabuse those who believe they have any say in the setting of standards at either the local, state, federal or international level. Such decision making is a thing of the past.   Much time is being lost dissecting the Common Core standards; time better spent opposing tax-funded school choice, The Trojan Horse of taxation without representation.

Why? Once the public school system, with its present elected school board governance, has been dismantled, having gradually been replaced by tax-funded charter schools and tax-funded private and religious education,  with no elected boards,  parents will find the very controversial Common Core they thought they had killed in their charter or private school. However,  this time around their objections will fall on deaf ears since there will be no elected board to which they can go to complain.

In a different sense, this report is designed to meet the responsibilities imposed at least implicitly by the three foundations which initiated and have supported the project; the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation have become critical and constructive forces in American education.

Note also inclusion of an educator from England? 

Clare Burstall, Deputy Director of the National Foundation for Educational Research in England and Wales; 

A VERY IMPORTANT NATIONAL ASSESSMENT OF EDUCATIONAL PROGRESS (NAEP) REPORT, in galley stage, entitled Measuring the Quality of Education: Conclusions and Summary, was provided to this writer in 1981, shedding light not only on the responsibility of major tax-exempt foundations in the development of a national curriculum, but also on the role of the federal government in setting standards/goals for American education. Excerpts follow from (1) a cover letter signed by Willard Wirtz, former secretary of labor, and Archie Lapointe, executive director of the NAEP, and (2) the report itself:

 (1)

In a different sense, this report is designed to meet the responsibilities imposed at least implicitly by the three foundations which initiated and have supported the project; the Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation have become critical and constructive forces in American education.

(2)

Conclusions... Instead of determining “what is being taught” and basing the objectives on this present practice, the controlling question is “what ought to be taught.”... It is specifically recommended that caution be exercised against putting the Assessment results in a form that could be misconstrued as constituting national—or “federal”—standards....

Summary... The report reflects most significantly the carefully considered conclusions of the Council of Seven which was established at the beginning of the project. Selected primarily for their recognized responsibility and good sense, they also reflect a variety of experiences and institutional interests: Gregory Anrig, then Massachusetts Commissioner of Education and now President of the Educational Testing Service; Stephen K. Bailey, who is the Francis Keppel Professor of Educational Policy and Administration of Harvard Graduate School of Education; Charles Bowen, Director of Plans and Program Administration for University Relations of the IBM Corporation; Clare Burstall, Deputy Director of the National Foundation for Educational Research in England and Wales; Elton Jolly, Executive Director for Opportunities Industrialization Centers; Lauren Resnick, Co-Director of the Learning Research and Development Center of the University of Pittsburgh; and Dorothy Shields, Director of Education for the AFL-CIO....

...It was the Council’s suggestion and eventually its decision to shape the entire report in terms of the Assessment’s potential role in developing higher and more effective educational standards. Where we had been timid about this the Council moved boldly. They were right....

...Measuring student achievement is an entirely different business from measuring other aspects of the national condition.... They get to their answers without having to make value judgments. Not so of the measurers of “educational achievement.” The key term isn’t defined except as they develop its meaning. The rest of this is that once that definition is worked out, the measuring process depends at critical points on what are in significant part value judgments. Whether an educational standard is “better” or “higher” depends on how it consists with ultimate educational purposes...

...Those in charge of the Assessment are in a position to guide their policies entirely by a determination of whatever “quality” means. They face no competition and are subject to no political pressures. Innovation and experimentation are part of the Assessment’s authentic tradition. It can provide not only competence but conscience and courage in the implementation of the new national purpose to improve educational standards.

...A statement in the NAEP DESIGN AND DEVELOPMENT DOCUMENT covering the 1979–1980 Reading/Literature Assessment is succinctly descriptive:

The first step in any assessment cycle is objectives development. The objectives identify the important knowledge, skills, and attitudes within an assessment area which are generally being taught or should be taught in schools. These objectives then become the framework for developing assessment exercises which measure the objectives.

Although there is little public awareness of these steps in the process of setting educational standards, they affect that process vitally and give any standard its determinative character....

...This new emphasis will mean that teaching will be increasingly oriented toward these objectives, which is good or bad depending on their quality. If these standards are to determine accountability, it is critical that their measurement reflect ultimate educational purposes rather than what might be dangerous expediencies.... The 1979–1980 Reading/Literature Assessment, reported this year, appears to reflect a critical change in NAEP emphasis. It embodies elements of objectives-setting that are essential to a quality concept of
educational standards....

...Two phrases in the design and development passage quoted above are critical. Objectives are to “identify the important knowledge, skills and attitudes.” This is to include those “which are generally being taught or should be taught in the schools.” The emphasis is added, but is consistent with the original context. This statement contrasts with the 1970 NAEP description of the objectives set for the first Reading assessment. These were described as involving no “distinctly ‘new’ objectives,” but as “restatements and summarizations of objectives which (have) appeared over the last quarter century.”...

...The 1969–1970 Citizenship Assessment included a group task exercise designed to determine, by observing students’ group interaction, their ability to “apply democratic procedures on a practical level.”... This capacity for innovation and experimentation has been lost, largely as a consequence of budgetary constraints.

Service Facility... In 1977–78, when the Texas legislature was considering the enactment of a minimum competency testing program, the Texas Education Agency made extensive use of NAEP materials in conducting a statewide survey (Texas Assessment Project—TAP) of student achievement in Reading, Writing, Mathematics, and Citizenship. The sampling plan was patterned after the National Assessment. Both the Writing and the Citizenship assessments were based largely on items and exercises selected by a Texas Education Agency staff panel from among those provided by NAEP offices. After the Texas assessment had been completed, extensive comparisons were made between the Texas results and available NAEP data, and reported to the legislative committee for consideration in connection with the adoption of the “Texas Assessment of Basic Skills.” The circumstances under which the legislation was adopted preclude any clear identification of the effect of the comparisons. There is more evidence of substantial influence of the TAP initiative on the FRAMEWORK FOR THE SOCIAL STUDIES and LANGUAGE ARTS FRAMEWORK which have been developed and on the STATE BOARD GOALS which have been set for 1983.

Larger potential for National Assessment usefulness is suggested by the ten years or so of cooperation between NAEP offices and the Connecticut State Board of Education, in connection with the administration of the Connecticut Assessment of Educational Progress (CAEP). A 1980 State Board report notes that “The CAEP program is modeled after the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) in its basic goals, design and implementation.”

This is clearly reflected in the pattern of the twelve Connecticut assessments in seven subjects also covered by NAEP surveys. The CAEP sampling design is like NAEP’s, except that students are assessed at grade rather than age levels. Goals and objectives used for the Connecticut assessments parallel clearly the objectives and subobjectives identified for the National Assessment. Many CAEP items are NAEP items; this was true of all itemsin the 1979–1980 Connecticut Science Assessment....

…Comparable uses of National Assessment materials have been made in a number of other states. A recent NAEP staff summary lists twelve States as having closely replicated the National Assessment model, and twelve others as having drawn on NAEP offices for technical and consultative advice. There is clear confirmation in this record of not only a substantial service potential, but also of a significant prospect for integrating state andnationwide assessment programs.

[Ed. Note: As one reads the excerpts in part two of this report, it is important to bear in mind the denials of complicity emanating from the U.S. Department of Education and the respective state departments of education when confronted with charges that the state assessments use test items from the NAEP Test Item Bank. The resistance to such use results from the public’s traditional aversion to national tests and national curriculum—with which all of the above entities have denied involvement. Clearly, denial is in vain in light of the evidence contained in this document.]