Then Came Federal Aid
Date: Friday, August 15 @ 16:40:43
Topic Letters to Editor
by Margaret Brogley
For over one hundred years the educrats have used the Hegelian method of creating a problem, then offering a solution that is worse than the original problem. Actually, the problem began in the early nineteenth century when public schools were first formed, but the more visible part came around the end of that century when John Dewey gained control.
John Dewey was a dedicated socialist and a humanist. Read the three Humanist Manifestos to understand our problems and why we are demoralized. He was a signer of the first Manifesto in the mid-thirties.
Note the consolidation chart included. The downward trend parallels consolidation. If parents truly know what goes on in the classroom there would be a mass exit.
The people today have no way to compare education with that of the past.
I began teaching in high school in a tiny village east of Prescott in 1940. The pupils had no problem understanding the printed page; the look-say method began in the mid-thirties had not yet affected them. By the mid-fifties we learned Why Johnnie Can't Read. In 1959, New Math was introduced in Fort Smith, causing untold confusion. In the early sixties prayer was eliminated, removing the pupil's moral anchor.
Then came federal aid.
This intrusion in state schools is unconstitutional for there is no provision made for it in the U.S. Constitution. However, the federal government has been able to do so through federal aid which offers a carrot yet carries a big stick. With money comes control. The educational strategies come from the U.N. through UNESCO to the U.S. Department of Education and then to the various states. Also, legislators attend regional meetings where they are presented educational bills to take home.
Federal aid has brought:
I. Dumbing down by - continuation of look-say, watered-down history, New New Math and Fuzzy Math, cooperative learning, self-esteem, grade inflation, Mastery Learning/OBE, Goals 2000 and School-to-Work.
II. Moral destruction - situation ethics, sensitivity training, sex education, death education, drug education, Keynesian economics, etc. Results spill over into society causing high crime rates and higher court and prison costs.
III. Higher costs - longer school years, retraining of teachers. Federal money used as seed money to start a program and later withdrawn or partially so leaving the local school to pick up the tab. More taxes are required for the mandated programs. Yet the private schools educate much more cheaply with better results while those parents continue to pay for public schools.
Politicians' talk of improving education is only rhetoric. The education of today is un-American. Goals 2000 and School-to-Work are patterned after the Soviet system. Get a copy of the legislation and compare it with Vladimir Turchenko's work.
In 1997, citizens across the state told Governor Huckabee and the education committees that Goals 2000 and School-to-Work would lead to removal of local control. Huckabee and others denied it. Now with "No Child Left Behind" legislation, he is admitting it.
The dumbing down, demoralization, and consolidation are not by accident. The purpose has been to bring this nation into a one world government with total control of each and every member -- the opposite of our Founding Fathers' plans.
Meredith Oakley stated in her column (1/27/03) that we must change. Indeed we must but not in the direction we are headed. It will require major surgery. We must dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, downsize or eliminate our state Department of Education, get rid of the State School Board, and give up federal aid. Then education can be returned to the people where it rightfully belongs. It may call for a constitutional amendment. Are you up to the task? My prayers go with you as you try to work through this mess.
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Margaret Brogley PING!