PART I – THE REAL PURPOSE OF AMERICAN EDUCATION
If you even talk about this stuff you’re considered a kook in the first degree. One of the most effective vehicles for societal transformation is the public education system. The Enemy is using it, and has been using it for some time now; – to transform not only the minds of our children, – but also the future of our society. This is a look at the American education system. It is a system in crisis. This should be a secret to no one. Yet the depth of that crisis, the implications it has for the future of this country and the sinister forces that have brought us to this point are all issues that need to be examined and understood by any who cling to the America that once was.
“The purpose of education and the schools is to change the thoughts, feelings and actions of students.” Dr. Benjamin Bloom (Father of Outcome Based Education) quoted from his 1981 work, All Our Children Learning.[i])
“In the struggle to establish an adequate world government, the teacher…can do much to prepare the hearts and minds of children.” National Education Association (NEA) editorial from 1946.[ii]
“Every child in America entering schools at the age of five is insane because he comes to school with certain allegiances toward our Founding Father’s, toward his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being, toward the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity.” Dr. Chester Pierce, Harvard Professor, in a 1970 address to the Association for Childhood Education International. [iii]
Thus is the agenda of the American education system; indicted by their own words! Education has changed since I was a child, and in fact, the changes have been going on for even longer than that. It is not that the system is failing on its own. One might say it is a planned failure. What finally grabbed my attention was a story about a long running feud between a parent and a Massachusetts School District. The Lexington, Massachusetts Superintendent of Schools had instructed his teachers to “give no notice to parents of scheduled ‘diversity lessons’ about “alternative lifestyles” – even in primary grades”. (“Diversity”, of course is the Left’s code word for spreading the radical homosexual agenda. The ‘agenda’ says that homosexuality is normal, is biologically determined, has no legitimate moral or religious component and therefore is just an alternative lifestyle. This is advanced despite the fact that even “pro-Gay” publications have abandoned the notion of a “gay gene” and that only about 1% to 1.5% of the population identifies themselves as gay. But I digress.) The superintendent explained that there was no obligation to notify parents because the lessons were about “tolerance and respect” not “human sexuality”. The ruling was issued in response to one father’s objection to a book titled Who’s in a Family, that seemed to normalize “…at least two households led by homosexual partners”. This material was presented to his 5-year-old son. The father contacted the school and attempted to extract a promise from them that he would be notified of similar lessons. For actions taken during the dispute, the dad faced possible jail time. Yet through it all, one thing became increasingly clear. The school was more interested in changing attitudes than in providing the basics of an education.[iv] The incident, I believe is symptomatic of the whole system.
What is the state of American Public Education System? Its present legacy is rather dismal indeed! By former standards, the education system is failing to educate. SAT scores have tumbled precipitously over the last half-century. So much so, in fact that in 2001 the University of California proposed eliminating SAT scores from the admission process. After all, 6% of their freshman class of the previous year had flunked out because they did not possess even the most basic math and English skills. Schools are not so much about educating as about social indoctrination and political change. Their own words tell us, that this is by the expressed design of the educational elite of the NEA. Sexual promiscuity is running rampant. Stories of oral sex in the classroom among pre-teens, and groups of teenage boys “keeping score” of sexual success have hit the major media. When compared with 50 years ago, teen pregnancy is way up resulting in a rash of kids parenting (or more often, failing to parent), kids of their own. There is an epidemic of depression, drug addiction and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Students are becoming addicted to pornography, – becoming involved in sexual perversion.
Besides being a social / moral cesspool, only feeding the dysfunction, schools are no longer accomplishing what should be their main goal; – providing an education. John Taylor Gatto is a former New York State Teacher of the Year, who has denounced government schools and is the author of the seminal expose on public education, Dumbing Us Down. In a speech to Vermont homeschoolers, Gatt pointed out some evidence of the great slide in education we have experienced as a nation. Using US Army statistics from the WWII era, he found the 1940’s to be a watershed decade for educational decline. What he reports is astounding. In 1940-41, 84% of the black population was literate. By 1950, that figure had dropped to 38%. By 1960 it was 28%. The White population fared no better. In 1940, Whites had a 99% literacy rate. Unheard of in history! In the early 2000s, New York State reported that only about 50% of adults overall could read bus instructions or fill out simple income tax forms.[v]
The basic problem is that American schools have abandoned the basic rules that characterized its earlier successes. In the January / February issue of The American Enterprise, Karl Zinsmeister points out certain common traits shared by all successful schools. The formula includes: “high demands on students, strict discipline,…unapologetic moral component,” and an emphasis on the basics; All characteristics severely lacking in today’s public schools. But this you see, is all according to the design of the system’s caretakers. Catherine Barrett, then President of the NEA, revealed much of the philosophy behind the agenda in a speech given in 1976. “We will need to recognize that so-called basic skills, which currently represent nearly the total effort in elementary schools, will be taught in one quarter of the present school day.” I want you to stop and digest that last sentence for a moment. This was blatant admission that a system, already showing signs of failure of communicating basic skills at that time, would further erode the emphasis put on them for some other purpose. What’s that purpose? We return to Ms. Barrett’s speech for the answer. “The remaining time will be devoted to what is truly fundamental and basic….dialogue between students and teachers…the teacher will be a conveyor of values, a philosopher. Students will learn to write love letters.” “A conveyor of values, a philosopher?!” [vi] The basics of reading and writing and arithmetic were to be shoved to the side. Surely this must be an aberration! Unfortunately it’s not. It is part of a plan that dates back to at least the dawn of the 20th century.
Its philosophical antecedents could be found in the writings of Hegel, the German philosopher who was attempting to free mankind from the constraints of Biblical thought. But it really took its practical expression in the lifelong work of Dr. John Dewey, the “Father of Progressive Education”, and the present educational system in America. Dewey’s ideas certainly were at odds with the way American education was operating in his day, – the late 19th century. He believed that school curriculum should be centered not around any core subjects, “…but the child’s own social activities”. To Dewey, there were no fixed rules. There was no absolute truth, no moral law. God was non-existent. Man was a soulless being, a biological organism wholly subject to his environment.
Dewey’s educational philosophy reflected these core beliefs. He was adamantly opposed to the notion of American individualism. Dewey spied a great danger in personal independence, which would “…decrease the social capacity of an individual”. He was a socialist at heart, a firm supporter of the Soviet System, and not shy about promoting that view. In 1933, he was a co-author of the Humanist Manifesto, advocating a “synthesizing of all religions” and a world-wide socialist economy. [Think of just what that means! To Dewey and those that hold to that same philosophical system, there is no Truth, important enough to retain in its purest form.] To Dewey and his followers, this was the real work: The establishment of a new society, a New World Order. [vii] The schools are the vehicle to get us there. Next we need look at Dewey’s disciples as they carried forward his ideas in the American education movement.
[i] Benjamin Bloom, All Our Children Learning (NY Mcgraw Hill Paperbacks 1981)
[ii] The Teacher and World Government, J. Elmer Morgan, NEA Journal, January 1946
[iii] Dr. Chester Pierce to the Association for Childhood Education International as quoted in Dennis Laurence Cuddy, Chronology of Education (Highland City FL, Pro-Family Forum, 1993)
[iv] World Net Daily , September 26, 2005 – ARTICLE_ID=46514
[v] John Taylor Gatto, Speech to the Vermont Homeschooling Conference,
reported in http://4brevard.com/choice/Public_Education.htm
[vi] The Subversion of Education in America Source: National Anxiety Center URL Source: http://www.anxietycenter.com/subversion.htm Published: Dec 4, 2001 Author: Alan Caruba
[vii]Dennis Laurence Cuddy, Chronology of Education (Highland City FL, Pro-Family Forum, 1993)
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