On October 17th, 1979, President Jimmy Carter signed the Department of Education Organization Act, thus establishing the Federal Department of Education. Interestingly, there was no public demand for such a department. Even the framers of the U.S. Constitution wisely chose not to include education in their document, understanding that parents were quite capable of deciding what was best for their children at the local level. Ronald Reagan, in his presidential campaign, vowed to dissolve this new cabinet. Sadly, he was unsuccessful. The downward slide of American education was unleashed on an unsuspecting public.
Like previous presidents who had attempted education reforms such as The Truman Report and Kennedy’s Task Force on Education, Reagan’s commissioned task force gave the nation dire news: our nation was at risk because American schools were failing. The commission’s report sent shock waves through the country. Given the fact that many nations were sending their students to the United States for a world-class education, one wonders how the commission arrived at this conclusion! The commission reported that America’s educational system was failing to meet the need for a competitive workforce. This launched the radical reform of creating workers versus students with an educational emphasis on virtue and ethics, and were articulate and knowledgeable in many areas; in other words, out with liberal arts education, which teaches problem solving and critical thinking with a focus on how to think and not what to think versus workforce development, which emphasizes job skills with a one-size-fits-all training for employment. In fact, in 1984, UNESCO produced a document entitled “A Methodological Guide to the Application of the Notion of the Common Core in the Training of Categories of Various Educational Personnel”. This guide sought to steer education away from classical education which produces creative thinkers and entrepreneurial citizens in exchange for career readiness. The global cabal was already laying the framework for citizen slaves. We are in a war for the soul of our nation.
Our children have been brainwashed by teachers in the classroom who employ behavioral techniques from B.F. Skinner and Pavlov. These techniques are part of the teacher training in most universities and colleges and have molded the current learning generation to accept what those in control want! On a local level these techniques show up in ed reforms, such as the Outstanding Schools Act in Missouri in 1993. Local schools, who are hard pressed to be fully funded, must comply with these reforms in order to receive the federal monies. Some would call this extortion.
The list of reforms may sound familiar to you. This is NOT a comprehensive list, by the way.
Goals 2000 [1989, Bush Sr. administration] partners with the governors to set national education goals. The hope was to have educational reforms set by the year 2000.
Local control is eroded.
Outcome Based Education was a piece of Goals 2000 [1994, Clinton administration] and changed the role of the teacher to one of a facilitator/trainer. Across different instructors, desired outcomes would be different. This became hard to measure using a standardized assessment. Thus, scores began declining. Our kids were lab rats in an educational experiment. The government wanted to create a workforce, not classically educated citizens. Phonics were removed and replaced with ‘whole language’. The result was that millions of American kids never properly learned to decode words or acquire essential reading skills. The government then concluded that our education system was broken. Their plan was working. An aggressive push began in order to ramp up technology in every classroom across the nation.
Charter School Expansion Act [1998, Clinton administration] sought to remove local control by allowing schools to be chartered or in some cases owned by third parties, funded with tax dollars. It removed monies from the already struggling local schools.
No Child Left Behind [2001, Bush administration] expanded the role of the federal government by authorizing a nation-wide standardized assessment to all students. If the schools’ scores were repeatedly poor, measures were taken to take over the schools via charter school expansion, or firing of teachers, or state takeover, or even closing the school.
Common Core State Standards [2009, Obama administration] began as a district competition called “Race to the Top”. Once the feds were convinced that the schools would jump through any hoop to receive more funding, the Common Core Standards were introduced.
SEL or Social Emotional Learning [2009, Obama administration] requires schools to encourage students to embraces attitudes, values, dispositions and beliefs that may not be taught at home. Students must embrace new attitudes & values or face indoctrination training until compliance is met.
Critical Race Theory [ or postcolonialism] is an academic framework that erroneously explains how racism has shaped the U.S. legal system through the use of storytelling. The theory has been largely fueled by the writings of Howard Zinn, a leftist Marxist, who wrote ‘fake history’ to make the American people ashamed of their history, in his book “A People’s History of the United States: 1492-Present”, according to author, Mary Grabar, in her book “Debunking Howard Zinn”. Students in the U.S. are widely assigned this book, consequently, historical inaccuracies are now promulgated throughout the current learning generation. Considered as one of the founders of CRT, Richard Delgado teaches critical race theory and civil rights at the University of Alabama, and is notable for introducing ‘storytelling’ into legal scholarship. How ridiculous. Critical Race Theory is simply telling history the way that you want it to be told, regardless of the facts. Many states have passed legislation to block CRT from being taught in their schools but make no mistake, words such as ‘diversity, inclusion and equity’ are CRT language.
The educational system is just that: a system. It has been driven by a slow and steady stream of liberal, anti-American, anti-Christ agendas. We are right as parents and grandparents to push back on this agenda.
Jill Noble
