Then
on October 17, 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed into law the Department of
Education Organization Act, the U.S. Department of Education began operating on
May 4, 1980, and things started to change.
People’s
patriotic behavior and protectiveness of their culture, of their language, of the
capitalist system in general that made them the most prosperous nation on
earth, began to erode more and more overtly. Among the culprits were teachers
who advanced personal socialist agendas to impressionable youth who believed
every word they said.
In
1979 the Office of Education had 3,000 employees and an annual budget of $12
billion. In 2013 the Department of Education (DOE), with a cabinet level
position, has 5,000 employees and a budget of $69.8 billion.
The
House of Representatives voted in 1979 210-206 in favor of the passage of the
Department of Education Organization Act. (http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=lGsjAAAAIBAJ&sjid=HO4DAAAAIBAJ&pg=7077,5962023&dq=department-of-education&hl=en) Republicans
opposed the elevation of the DOE to cabinet level status as unconstitutional,
an unnecessary intrusion into state and local governments by the feds (they
were right, see Common Core Standards and No Child Left Behind) and the
creation of another huge bureaucracy (they were also right). The American
Federation of Teachers opposed the law.
Liberals
and Democrats thought the DOE constitutional under the Commerce Clause and the
appropriation of funds legal under the Taxing and Spending Clause. The National
Education Association with 1.8 million members supported the law. Amendments
were proposed by those supporting the bill to curb school busing, to prohibit
use of racial and gender quotas for admission to college, and to encourage
school prayer.
Busing,
racial and gender quotas are firmly in place today. School prayer or references
to God are definitely gone in most schools and crosses are covered – we don’t
want to upset the atheists, Buddhists, Hindus, or Islam. Politically correct liberals who stifle free
speech like to explain, it is separation of church and state, yet they promote endless
accommodations for other religions and cultures. Asking students to step on the
word Jesus or to stomp on the American flag is an “enlightened” classroom
activity approved by progressive academia.
As
I wrote in my first book, “Echoes of Communism,” (http://www.amazon.com/Echoes-Communism-Lessons-American-Choice/dp/1456535080) I found
education, the curriculum, and its certification rules quite strange. I did not
understand how a person with a doctorate in Arts in Sciences could not teach at
any level in the public school system unless certified by the Department of Education
but could teach university students.
I
did not understand the stronghold the teacher’s union, NEA, had on employment
and how it created standards for the Department of Education, wrote textbooks,
and determined the curriculum, a curriculum that zealously promoted socialist/communist
ideas and ideals in Social Studies, Economics, Earth Sciences, English, and
Foreign Languages.
At
first I attributed my basic clash with other teachers’ educational views to my
assimilation problems. Teachers would tell me, this is how we do things in this
country and, if you don’t like it, you can go back where you came from. That I
did not want to do because that is exactly why I left – education, how people
thought, lived, behaved, and what they learned was dictated and entirely regulated
by the Communist Party in the classroom.
I
began to realize quickly that most of these teachers were hard-core liberals
who were acting and behaving just like our former communist apparatchiks. When
I became a teacher, as a conservative, I was one of the “rara avis” (rare bird) in education, having completed most of my
schooling in an Arts and Science environment, save for a few College of
Education classes which did not help me at all to become a better teacher.
I
did not fully comprehend how brainwashed my college students were by previous
teachers until I tried to tell them what life and education were like under
communism and none of them believed me, they were laughing! I stopped telling
any stories about communism, it was an exercise in futility. The damage to
these young people’s minds was so profound, not even direct contact with
someone who actually lived under communism persuaded them. Why not?
Children
were very impressionable and looked up to their elementary, middle, and high
school teachers so much that once they got to college, they were already
exposed to a heavy dose of “socialism, social justice, equity are grand”
indoctrination. Most parents had no idea what their teachers inculcated into
their children’s sponge-like brains. They were too busy making a living to care,
some of them were ignorant themselves, even those with college degrees, or the
teachers cleverly disguised what they were doing in the classroom.
The
most glaring example is the CSCOPE curriculum in Texas, designed by a private
corporation as “instructional material,” and not curriculum, thus escaping any
scrutiny. Lessons are written by CSCOPE staff and former teachers and are not
disseminated or accessed to parents. CSCOPE Review, an independent vigilant group,
discovered a lesson plan which compared the Boston Tea Party to “an act of
terrorism.” In another example, students were asked “to design the flag for a
new socialist nation.” Glenn Beck interviewed teachers, David Barton, Pat Gray,
Mary Bowen, Stan Hartzler, and Texas Senator Dan Patrick about CSCOPE. http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/07/cscope-exposing-the-nations-most-controversial-public-school-curriculum-system/
On
February 27, 2012 I wrote an article, “Common Core and Universal Design for
Learning,” http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/44875 that received
little attention. As usual, Americans were preoccupied with the latest
manufactured crisis, and the American media purposefully ignored the
implications of such federal cookie cutter education. I did not think it was a
good idea. Emphasizing “collective” work, Arne Duncan described Common Core
Standards as a one-size fits all curriculum in which all children can learn to
“high achievement standards,” ignoring the facts that we are born with
different IQs, different talents, and different interests that cannot be molded
by government fiat.
Apparently, standardized tests “fail to produce a valid and reliable measurement of what significant minorities of students actually know, especially students with disabilities, English language learners or those from varied cultural backgrounds. Without accurate measurement, accountability systems are not only ineffective, they are unethical.”(Core Standards)
Education must be “collective” (code word for communism). If students are not equal, self-esteem is hurt. Grades and diplomas should be equal for unequal work in order to achieve social justice in education. Individualism is discouraged yet it is rugged individualism that has made this country great.
Common
Core is much worse than I had envisioned. The American Principles Project (conservative
think-tank) found that Common Core is one variable in the larger plan to track
children from birth to work. (http://truthinamericaneducation.com/tag/american-principles-project/)
Michelle
Malkin discovered that the 2009 stimulus package contained a “State Fiscal
Stabilization Fund” offered to states for a “longitudinal data system (LDS) to
collect data on public-school students” such as health, family income,
religion, and homework. (http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/343040/common-core-trojan-horse-michelle-malkin)
Glenn
Beck’s The Blaze described a 44-page DOE report which indicated the possibility
of implementing through Common Core monitoring techniques such as “functional
MRIs” (scanning and mapping a child’s brain function), “using cameras to judge
facial expressions, electronic seats that determine posture, pressure-sensitive
computer mouse, and a biometric wrist wrap.”
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/27/indoctrination-and-data-mining-in-common-core-heres-why-americas-schools-may-be-in-more-trouble-than-you-think/It will be a fascistic world if every person will be forced into a government-dictated and enforced, dumbed-down mold, where everybody is equally intelligent, equally capable, equally trained, equally able, and equally educated with a diploma on the wall that is not worth the paper with the fancy intaglio printing on it.
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