Foundations: Funding Dumb and Dumber

aldenchronicles ^ | June 22, 2001 | Diane Alden

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"The ultimate problem of all education is to coordinate the psychological and the social factors. ... The coordination demands that the child be capable of expressing himself, but in such a way as to realize social ends." – John Dewey

Foundations offer financial and institutional support for a few good causes. On the other hand, most of their efforts in eugenics, population control, education and environmentalism are elitist. Very often they are also counterproductive and do nothing for ordinary citizens – but they do a whole lot for elites and the expansion of the state.

It wouldn't be so bad if in practice these efforts offered workable solutions to American problems. However, foundation involvement has produced instead an educational system that has dumbed down several generations of American children. The above statement by John Dewey is the first commandment of the educational establishment that the foundations have promoted since the early 1900s.

Three books document the problem with foundation involvement in education: "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. There are other books written by scholars like Harold Bloom, Dinesh D'Souza and Gertrude Himmelfarb, but the three cited are thorough and revealing.

The fact is there is much information about how dumb we are becoming as a nation. It strains credulity that the powers that be have not dismantled the entire educational system by now and taken away the tax-free status and influence of these elite foundations.

Instead of excellence in education, government involvement and foundation meddling have produced mediocrity as well as a sinister destabilization of American society. Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie, Pew, Alton Jones, and a dozen more institutions are providing the fuel for that destabilization.

Additionally, as citizens demand or think they want centrally planned state education that is fully funded AND effective, they aren't getting that. They get lots of promises but little else. They can count on plenty of bad educational theories and programs like Goals 2000 or Outcome Based Education. The one thing they can't count on are educated kids. Instead, our leaders and government throw more money at the problem rather than doing the hard work of changing or tossing out the entire corrupt system – including the Department of Education.

But what is really sad is that government invariably turns a blind eye to what and how foundation funding corrupts education, a factor it could easily control. As that funding goes to support unworkable or failed ideas and policies, it is scandalous that little note is taken as we rush toward the next bad idea or policy. Failed theories and psychobabble like self-esteem and values clarification have been shown to be failures, but those failed theories are still part of the system. The bottom line is that the government-foundation connection is producing a new citizen, who falls easily into line with elite manipulation and control.

It is beyond me to understand why individuals and parents are not bringing lawsuits against these groups. It is difficult to understand why there have been no investigations of foundations since the 1950s. Not since the Reece Commission have we looked into the social engineering by American foundations. These institutions have been able to continue, unaccountable to anyone but their boards of directors. Yet they are pushing the children and citizens of our republic down a road to an unknown utopia.

That road, however, does not take us to utopia. The Garden of Eden our elite have in mind for us is basically the same one they are promoting on an international scale. In the end, Americans will be dumbed-down, docile and easily manipulated, like a herd of sheep, living in a nation that neither the founding fathers nor your grandma would recognize.

To illustrate the sentiments of one foundation, in 1913 Rockefeller Foundation's Fredrick 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 other children into philosophers or men of learning and science. ..."

Lest you think that this statement was written by a fossil of the Eastern Establishment way back when, consider this: The Rockefeller Foundation continues to promote and fund such educational black holes as Goals 2000, School to Work, multicultural and diversity projects, and Values Clarification. They have funded nearly every effort to change the curriculum and the way subjects are taught for decades. Because of the policies they fund and promote, phonics went the way of the dodo bird. The "experts," helped along by Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie, Alton Jones, Pew, etc., decided more "progressive" teaching methods should be applied. Thus began whole word and other abominations that have led to almost two generations of people who are barely literate.

They also began to concentrate on separating the child from the family as they build the new corporate citizen. By corporate I mean a malleable cog in a wheel of their design. That is what multiculturalism and diversity training are all about. That is why they would rather not have people in charge of their own intellectual growth. Because of the psychological and educational theories they promote, they do not or will not supply American kids the tools to facilitate that growth. Learning has become a minor function of the more important effort at "socialization." Kids are supposed to learn how to get along or gain self-esteem. Less important is to have mastery over a body of knowledge that no one can ever take away.

Find a problem in education and I can almost guarantee that some foundation funded it. The media salute such foundation darlings as Head Start and Big Bird. But a new study just revealed that Head Start kids are no better off in learning skills than kids who have had no early intervention. That of course varies from place to place, but on the whole these "progressive" programs are a wash. That is not because teachers are rotten or kids dumber. It is because the methods and psychological techniques being used are counterproductive. Kids don't do well in the new trend of whatever is au courant.

As recent studies show, a high school graduate in 2001 is not as well educated as someone who had an eighth-grade education or less in the first half of the 20th century. Kids are illiterate and barely able to read, write and do math, let alone have an understanding of history, geography and science.

John Gatto stated in his book, "The Underground History of American Education": "... by 1917 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."

The abuse of power by large foundations has been charted through the years. In the 1950s a congressional committee formed by Rep. Brazillia Carroll Reece, R-Tenn., discovered that tax-exempt foundations posed "a clear danger of social engineering" because of their strategic selection of grantees to promote their private agendas.

Beverly Eakman noted in her book, "The Cloning of the American Mind": "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. 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. But none of this has produced a better educated person."

According to many critics, reforming education is too daunting a task. The system is beyond fixing. Sort of like having a car run over by a train, it is better to scrap it and start over again or buy a new one than try and put the mess back into some workable form.

Former Department of Education insider Charlotte Iserbyt wrote in "The Dumbing Down of America" that "It is the deliberate dumbing down of American children. … [B]ecause all the massive school 'reforms' like School-to-Work emanate from Washington, it is imperative to eliminate the U.S. Department of Education." She says if we don't do this, we might as well kiss our children's and grandchildren's freedom good-bye.

In increasing numbers, parents are telling the establishment educrats, the foundations and the government to take a hike. They are yanking their kids from the public schools' sausage grinder and teaching them at home. Home-schooling has grown from a few thousand in the 70s to over 1.5 million children today. Tests show that 25 percent of home-schoolers are one or more grades ahead of their peers and score much higher than even private school students on the college board exams.

Yet foundation-funded groups like the American Federation of Teachers and the National Education Association continue the disastrous policies of the past.

"I think part of the reason is that home-schoolers emphasize rote memorization," said Jamie Horrowitz, a spokesman for the American Federation of Teachers. "Certainly, it's important for all of us to memorize dates and spelling. But in general, education has moved beyond that. Most experts find it's important for students to think critically."

It is not happening. Children are not thinking critically; they are only bored and being suffocated by the system. Thus, we have children who do not have the solid foundation they once received by learning phonics, rote memorization and old-school math skills. Nor do we have children who can sort out fact from fiction, hype from truth – critical thinking skills. How can they possibly become individuals able to cope with the challenges of the 21st century? Educrats promoting critical thinking skills is simply more "eduspeak" to hide education establishment failures.

I would add that besides deep-sixing our current educational system, we must de-fang the foundations by yanking their tax-free status. At the very least Congress needs to stop sticking its head in the sand and do what the Reece and Patman investigations started in the '50s.

These elite moneybag groups wield an enormous amount of influence and clout. But for all that money, theory, and promotion of Dewey and Rogers and Maslow educational theories and psychobabble, we are not a better-educated society, nor are we a stronger nation. Foundation and government together are leading us toward a bad brave new world with Orwellian overtones. We are becoming a nation of willing and DUMB American sheeple.

I would rather have the capitalists and the foundations keep their money than have them contribute to the downfall of the republic. I would rather have the citizens take back the education and training of their children than have them become slaves to the state. Our elite institutions are helping to create sad, illiterate and uneducated drones geared more for serfdom in a feudal system than life in a free republic.

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Emphasis is mine

Regards

J.R.

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Bump for home schoolers and others fed up with state run indoctrination/education.

Regards

J.R.