What does the federal
No Child Left Behind Act
hold schools accountable for?
The answer—and more—is found in Back To Basics
Reform, Or...OBE *Skinnerian International Curricu-
lum? (50,000 copies sold since publication in 1985).
The careful documentation in this book by Charlotte
T. Iserbyt—a former school board member and
former official in the U.S. Department of Education—
exposes the federally-funded activities behind the na-
tionwide dumbing down of education.
In Back to Basics Reform... you will discover academ- ics are incidental in the federally-driven systemic school restructuring. You will find federal/interna- tional/world-class [education] standards are steeped in non-academic objectives. (Note: Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) holds public schools account- able for a child’s acquisition of attitude, value, and behavior outcomes that are nestled in state standards and integrated with academic curriculum! NCLB also demands accountability for having highly qualified educators—of which national certification is based in part on an educator’s ability to collect and assess a child’s personal information, use behavior psychol- ogy-based practices on kids, and more.)
Iserbyt’s Back to Basics Reform also cites the U.S. De- partment of Education’s distribution of public money for research that uses school children
as lab rats. Does the public know that experimentation—especially in low
income, high minority areas—is tak- ing place? Is it any surprise that kids from Mastery Learning/Direction In- struction sites have difficulty reading and writing after 12 years of feder- ally controlled experimental school- ing? Proof of such rat lab experimen- tation responsible for declining test scores follows:
In Back to Basics Reform... you will discover academ- ics are incidental in the federally-driven systemic school restructuring. You will find federal/interna- tional/world-class [education] standards are steeped in non-academic objectives. (Note: Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) holds public schools account- able for a child’s acquisition of attitude, value, and behavior outcomes that are nestled in state standards and integrated with academic curriculum! NCLB also demands accountability for having highly qualified educators—of which national certification is based in part on an educator’s ability to collect and assess a child’s personal information, use behavior psychol- ogy-based practices on kids, and more.)
Iserbyt’s Back to Basics Reform also cites the U.S. De- partment of Education’s distribution of public money for research that uses school children
as lab rats. Does the public know that experimentation—especially in low
income, high minority areas—is tak- ing place? Is it any surprise that kids from Mastery Learning/Direction In- struction sites have difficulty reading and writing after 12 years of feder- ally controlled experimental school- ing? Proof of such rat lab experimen- tation responsible for declining test scores follows:
University of California Professor James Block, one
of the fathers of mastery learning/direct instruction
said in 1985: "I don't know of any major urban school
system in the United States that has not adopted some
kind of mastery learning program."
Bruce Joyce in his Models of Teaching, 1985, reveals that Direct Instruction, the scientific research-based method to teach reading called for in the No Child Left Behind Act, is the same as Skinnerian Mastery Learning when he associates Direct Instruction with the work of James Block, Benjamin Bloom, the late Madeline Hunter, and Ethna Reid.
And, most shocking of all, is an admission made by Brian Rowan who was involved with William Spady in the infamous 1984 Utah Outcomes-based Educa- tion grant which called for "putting Outcomes-based Education (OBE) in all school of the nation." Rowan, in a federally-funded paper titled "Shamanistic Ritu- als in Effective Schools", 1984, said in regard to Effec- tive Schools (which calls for ML/DI):
"The ritual is particularly suited to application in ur- ban or low performing school systems where success- ful instructional outcomes among disadvantaged stu-
dents are highly uncertain but where mobilized publics demand immedi- ate demonstrations of success. The uncertainties faced by practitioners in this situation can easily be allevi- ated by what scholars have begun to call 'curriculum alignment.' [teach to the test—Ed.] "Student variability in performance can be reduced, and relative performance increased, not by changing instructional objectives or practices, but simply by changing tests and testing procedures."
Bruce Joyce in his Models of Teaching, 1985, reveals that Direct Instruction, the scientific research-based method to teach reading called for in the No Child Left Behind Act, is the same as Skinnerian Mastery Learning when he associates Direct Instruction with the work of James Block, Benjamin Bloom, the late Madeline Hunter, and Ethna Reid.
And, most shocking of all, is an admission made by Brian Rowan who was involved with William Spady in the infamous 1984 Utah Outcomes-based Educa- tion grant which called for "putting Outcomes-based Education (OBE) in all school of the nation." Rowan, in a federally-funded paper titled "Shamanistic Ritu- als in Effective Schools", 1984, said in regard to Effec- tive Schools (which calls for ML/DI):
"The ritual is particularly suited to application in ur- ban or low performing school systems where success- ful instructional outcomes among disadvantaged stu-
dents are highly uncertain but where mobilized publics demand immedi- ate demonstrations of success. The uncertainties faced by practitioners in this situation can easily be allevi- ated by what scholars have begun to call 'curriculum alignment.' [teach to the test—Ed.] "Student variability in performance can be reduced, and relative performance increased, not by changing instructional objectives or practices, but simply by changing tests and testing procedures."
|
BY CHARLOTTE T. ISERBYT
|
|
BACK TO
BASICS
REFORM
OR...OBE *SKINNERIAN
INTERNATIONAL CURRICULUM?
*Necessary for United States’ participation in a socialist one-world government scheduled for the early years of the twenty-first century |
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
Send this information to local school board members, state legislators, U.S. Congressmen and Senators. Elected officials MUST be informed about the damaging, dumbing down activities that state/federal educa- tion reform policies and public tax dollars have supported and continue to support, all in the name of "accountability to the corporate/federal government partnership", NOT to the parent or local school district.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
PDF of Back to Basics Reform available at: www.deliberatedumbingdown.com February 2004
Send this information to local school board members, state legislators, U.S. Congressmen and Senators. Elected officials MUST be informed about the damaging, dumbing down activities that state/federal educa- tion reform policies and public tax dollars have supported and continue to support, all in the name of "accountability to the corporate/federal government partnership", NOT to the parent or local school district.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————
PDF of Back to Basics Reform available at: www.deliberatedumbingdown.com February 2004
BY CHARLOTTE T. ISERBYT
BACKTOBASICSREFORM
OR...OBE *SKINNERIAN INTERNATIONAL CURRICULUM?
*Necessary for United States’ participation in a socialist one-world government scheduled for the early years of the twenty-first century
———————————————————————————————————————————————————
2004 NOTE FROM AUTHOR : Predictions made in this book, written in 1985 , have come true. The book— which spells out clearly how OBE, Goals 2000, No Child Left Behind, and School-to- Work would be implemented—was boycotted by major conservative organizations. Read it and ask yourself "Why?" The book has, however, sold well (50,000 copies) to grassroots organizations.
This 2004 reproduction is for public distribution.
*Necessary for United States’ participation in a socialist one-world government scheduled for the early years of the twenty-first century
———————————————————————————————————————————————————
2004 NOTE FROM AUTHOR : Predictions made in this book, written in 1985 , have come true. The book— which spells out clearly how OBE, Goals 2000, No Child Left Behind, and School-to- Work would be implemented—was boycotted by major conservative organizations. Read it and ask yourself "Why?" The book has, however, sold well (50,000 copies) to grassroots organizations.
This 2004 reproduction is for public distribution.
“In fact, a large part of what we call
‘good teaching’ is the teacher’s ability
to attain affective objectives [attitudes,
values, belief–Ed.] through challenging the
students’ fixed beliefs and getting them
to discuss issues.”
—Professor Benjamin Bloom, et al 29
As our nation moves into the Twenty- first Century, Americans should ask themselves what EXACTLY are the goals the internationalist education elite has set for American education, and how achievement of these goals will affect not only our children and grandchildren, but the future of our nation itself?
This book deals with the social engi- neers’ continuing efforts, paid for with international, federal, state, and tax-ex- empt foundation funding, to manipulate and control Americans from birth to death using the educational system as the primary vehicle for bringing about planned social, political, and economic change. (The major change in our eco- nomic system will be the determination by industry and government of who will be selected to perform the necessary tasks in our society—quotas for engi- neers, doctors, service workers, etc., to bring about the socialist concept of full employment.)
As you read on, you will recognize the key roles played by the behavioral psy-
—Professor Benjamin Bloom, et al 29
As our nation moves into the Twenty- first Century, Americans should ask themselves what EXACTLY are the goals the internationalist education elite has set for American education, and how achievement of these goals will affect not only our children and grandchildren, but the future of our nation itself?
This book deals with the social engi- neers’ continuing efforts, paid for with international, federal, state, and tax-ex- empt foundation funding, to manipulate and control Americans from birth to death using the educational system as the primary vehicle for bringing about planned social, political, and economic change. (The major change in our eco- nomic system will be the determination by industry and government of who will be selected to perform the necessary tasks in our society—quotas for engi- neers, doctors, service workers, etc., to bring about the socialist concept of full employment.)
As you read on, you will recognize the key roles played by the behavioral psy-
chologists, sociologists, educationists,
and others in bring about this planned
change—through the radical transfor-
mation of America’s classrooms from
places of traditional cognitive/academic
learning, where intellectual and aca-
demic freedom flourish, into experimen-
tal laboratories for psychological (atti-
tude and value) change, using modern
technology (the computer for individu-
alized instruction and for administrative
management systems) in conjunction
with the totalitarian theories of Profes-
sor B.F. Skinner and other less well-
known social engineers.
The following statements by Professor Skinner are self-explanatory. They should be kept in mind as one reads on. Skinner clearly defines what is happen- ing in many schools of America today— not only to students and parents, but to teachers and administrators as well—
———————— ▼ ————————
“Coexistence on this tightly knit earth should be viewed as an existence not only without wars... but also without telling us how to live, what to say, what to think, what to know, and what not to know.” —Aleksander Solzhenitsyn
———————— ▼ ————————
1
The following statements by Professor Skinner are self-explanatory. They should be kept in mind as one reads on. Skinner clearly defines what is happen- ing in many schools of America today— not only to students and parents, but to teachers and administrators as well—
———————— ▼ ————————
“Coexistence on this tightly knit earth should be viewed as an existence not only without wars... but also without telling us how to live, what to say, what to think, what to know, and what not to know.” —Aleksander Solzhenitsyn
———————— ▼ ————————
1
and what will happen in ALL schools of
the nation AND of the world unless citi-
zens like you, the reader, take immedi-
ate action to reverse the dangerous cycle.
In SCIENCE AND HUMAN BEHAVIOR, Skinner says,
“Operant conditioning shapes behavior as a sculptor shapes a lump of clay.”1
In the book, B.F. SKINNER, THE MAN AND HIS IDEAS, the author, Richard Evans, quotes Skinner as saying “I could make a pigeon a high achiever by rein- forcing it on a proper schedule.”2 Evans adds,
“His (Skinner’s) concern for what he believes to be the inadequacy of our formal education system led to applying the principles of operant conditioning to a learning system which he called the teaching machine, but Skinner’s approach is concerned with more than merely methods and techniques. He challenges the very foundation by which man in our society is shaped and controlled.”3
Dean Corrigan, in a 1969 speech to teach- ers, predicted that Skinner’s ‘teaching machines will pace a student’s progress, diagnose his weakness and make certain that he understand a fundamental con- cept before allowing him to advance to the next lesson.”4
In SCIENCE AND HUMAN BEHAVIOR, Skinner says,
“Operant conditioning shapes behavior as a sculptor shapes a lump of clay.”1
In the book, B.F. SKINNER, THE MAN AND HIS IDEAS, the author, Richard Evans, quotes Skinner as saying “I could make a pigeon a high achiever by rein- forcing it on a proper schedule.”2 Evans adds,
“His (Skinner’s) concern for what he believes to be the inadequacy of our formal education system led to applying the principles of operant conditioning to a learning system which he called the teaching machine, but Skinner’s approach is concerned with more than merely methods and techniques. He challenges the very foundation by which man in our society is shaped and controlled.”3
Dean Corrigan, in a 1969 speech to teach- ers, predicted that Skinner’s ‘teaching machines will pace a student’s progress, diagnose his weakness and make certain that he understand a fundamental con- cept before allowing him to advance to the next lesson.”4
Back To Basics Reform, Or...OBE *Skinnerian International Curriculum? | by Charlotte T. Iserbyt
————— ▼ —————
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
FUNDING SKINNERIAN MASTERY LEARNING PROGRAMS
The accuracy of Corrigan’s predictions is evidenced by the U.S. Department of Education’s financial support over a 20- year period for research, development, dissemination, and implementation of Skinnerian Outcome-based Mastery Learning systems which “pace a student’s progress, diagnose his weak- nesses and make certain that he under- stands a fundamental concept before al- lowing him to advance to the next les- son.” (Meaning: sequential learning in which each individual student is evalu- ated only in terms of his achievement of predetermined learning objectives and criteria test items, and in which there are no group norms and consequently NO competition.)
The Exemplary Center for Reading In- struction (ECRI), a federally-funded and disseminated, $848,536 Mastery Learning Outcome-based Skinnerian learning sys- tem developed by Dr. Ethna Reid of Utah in 1966, still receives federal financial support and is in use in at least 3,000 schools across the nation, although ac- cording to doctors, teachers and parents, it causes sickness and stress for students and turns teachers into robots.
Dr. Jeanette Veatch, internationally known in the field of reading, called the ECRI program “a more modern version of breaking children to the heel of thought control.” She added, “it is so fla- grantly dangerous, damaging and de- structive I am appalled at its existence.”5
————— ▼ ————— ARIZONA EDUCATORS
DENOUNCE FEDERALLY-FUNDED OPERANT CONDITIONING PROGRAMS
On May 5, 1984, the officers of the Ari- zona Federation of Teachers unani- mously passed a resolution, excerpts of which state they “oppose such programs as ECRI, Project INSTRUCT and/or any other programs that use operant condi-
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION
FUNDING SKINNERIAN MASTERY LEARNING PROGRAMS
The accuracy of Corrigan’s predictions is evidenced by the U.S. Department of Education’s financial support over a 20- year period for research, development, dissemination, and implementation of Skinnerian Outcome-based Mastery Learning systems which “pace a student’s progress, diagnose his weak- nesses and make certain that he under- stands a fundamental concept before al- lowing him to advance to the next les- son.” (Meaning: sequential learning in which each individual student is evalu- ated only in terms of his achievement of predetermined learning objectives and criteria test items, and in which there are no group norms and consequently NO competition.)
The Exemplary Center for Reading In- struction (ECRI), a federally-funded and disseminated, $848,536 Mastery Learning Outcome-based Skinnerian learning sys- tem developed by Dr. Ethna Reid of Utah in 1966, still receives federal financial support and is in use in at least 3,000 schools across the nation, although ac- cording to doctors, teachers and parents, it causes sickness and stress for students and turns teachers into robots.
Dr. Jeanette Veatch, internationally known in the field of reading, called the ECRI program “a more modern version of breaking children to the heel of thought control.” She added, “it is so fla- grantly dangerous, damaging and de- structive I am appalled at its existence.”5
————— ▼ ————— ARIZONA EDUCATORS
DENOUNCE FEDERALLY-FUNDED OPERANT CONDITIONING PROGRAMS
On May 5, 1984, the officers of the Ari- zona Federation of Teachers unani- mously passed a resolution, excerpts of which state they “oppose such programs as ECRI, Project INSTRUCT and/or any other programs that use operant condi-
tioning under the guise of Mastery
Learning, Classroom Management, Pre-
cision Teaching, Structured Learning
and Discipline, and petition the U.S.
Congress for protection against the use
of such methods on teachers and stu-
dents without their prior consent.”6
Unfortunately, the national American Federation of Teachers (AFT) declined to adopt its Arizona affiliate’s resolution (above) at its August 1984 national con- vention in Washington, D.C.
————— ▼ ————— NEA PROMOTES
MASTERY LEARNING
Not unexpected is the fact that the AFT’s competitor, the National Education As- sociation (NEA), is actively promoting Mastery Learning and its use of critical thinking skills. Mary Futrell, President of the NEA, is presently using paid ad- vertisements proclaiming that “the schools must move away from the stuffed ‘sausage’ approach—that is, learning facts—to the mastery learning project.”7
The real “meat and potatoes” of the NEA’s substitute for “learning facts” was unveiled at the 123rd Annual Meet- ing of the NEA held in Washington, D.C., June 28-July 3, 1985. A press release dis- tributed at the meeting explained that the NEA’s “Mastery in Learning Project” is to be piloted in six schools in the fall of 1985 at five initial sites: Conejo El- ementary School in Thousand Oaks, CA; Hillside Jr. High in Simi Valley, CA; Mt. Vernon Elementary School in Alexan- dria, VA; Westwood Primary School in Dalton, GA; Greasewood School (K-12) on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona.
Also revealed is the fact that nine re- gional laboratories, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, are support- ing the NEA project. “...this is the first time all these labs have come together to support a comprehensive national ef- fort. ...” said project director Robert McClure. [Emphasis added]
Furthermore, four research centers, funded by the U.S. Department of Edu-
2
Unfortunately, the national American Federation of Teachers (AFT) declined to adopt its Arizona affiliate’s resolution (above) at its August 1984 national con- vention in Washington, D.C.
————— ▼ ————— NEA PROMOTES
MASTERY LEARNING
Not unexpected is the fact that the AFT’s competitor, the National Education As- sociation (NEA), is actively promoting Mastery Learning and its use of critical thinking skills. Mary Futrell, President of the NEA, is presently using paid ad- vertisements proclaiming that “the schools must move away from the stuffed ‘sausage’ approach—that is, learning facts—to the mastery learning project.”7
The real “meat and potatoes” of the NEA’s substitute for “learning facts” was unveiled at the 123rd Annual Meet- ing of the NEA held in Washington, D.C., June 28-July 3, 1985. A press release dis- tributed at the meeting explained that the NEA’s “Mastery in Learning Project” is to be piloted in six schools in the fall of 1985 at five initial sites: Conejo El- ementary School in Thousand Oaks, CA; Hillside Jr. High in Simi Valley, CA; Mt. Vernon Elementary School in Alexan- dria, VA; Westwood Primary School in Dalton, GA; Greasewood School (K-12) on the Navajo Reservation in Arizona.
Also revealed is the fact that nine re- gional laboratories, funded by the U.S. Department of Education, are support- ing the NEA project. “...this is the first time all these labs have come together to support a comprehensive national ef- fort. ...” said project director Robert McClure. [Emphasis added]
Furthermore, four research centers, funded by the U.S. Department of Edu-
2
cation, will be “backing” the Mastery in
Learning Project, including centers at
UCLA, Johns Hopkins, and U. of Texas
at Austin—all very active in change
agent activities. The project will also re-
ceive funding assistance from the Ten-
nessee Valley Authority and the Bureau
of Indian Affairs.
As startling as this information is, it is nothing compared to the information found in a booklet distributed at the NEA meeting which describes in consid- erable detail what the Mastery in Learn- ing Project encompasses.
For example, it is explained that Mas- tery Learning is a “concept first pro- posed a generation ago by Harvard psy- chologist Jerome Bruner...A growing body of research and educational reform proposals from such respected educa- tional analysts as Mortimer Adler (devel- oper of the Paideia Proposal and long-time advocate of a One World Government—Ed.], John Goodlad, Theodore Sizer, and Ernest Boyer have all sought to translate Bruner’s work into classroom reality.”
How shocking! This certainly validates what parents and concerned educators have been saying for years! Every one of the above-mentioned people are key change agents: major architects of the horrendous education mess and declin- ing test scores we are now experiencing. That the above named change agents (and others) have been “translating” the work of Jerome Bruner into classroom practice speaks volumes. That those re- sponsible for the destruction of Ameri- can education are being called on to par- ticipate in its “reconstruction” boggles the mind!
Many who are reading this book will recall several years ago the battle raging in school districts around the country, and even around the world (in Austra- lia, for example) over an elementary So- cial Studies program called Man: A Course of Study (MACOS). In the Con- gressional Record, April 9, 1975, page H2585, Arizona Congressman John Conlan said this about MACOS:
As startling as this information is, it is nothing compared to the information found in a booklet distributed at the NEA meeting which describes in consid- erable detail what the Mastery in Learn- ing Project encompasses.
For example, it is explained that Mas- tery Learning is a “concept first pro- posed a generation ago by Harvard psy- chologist Jerome Bruner...A growing body of research and educational reform proposals from such respected educa- tional analysts as Mortimer Adler (devel- oper of the Paideia Proposal and long-time advocate of a One World Government—Ed.], John Goodlad, Theodore Sizer, and Ernest Boyer have all sought to translate Bruner’s work into classroom reality.”
How shocking! This certainly validates what parents and concerned educators have been saying for years! Every one of the above-mentioned people are key change agents: major architects of the horrendous education mess and declin- ing test scores we are now experiencing. That the above named change agents (and others) have been “translating” the work of Jerome Bruner into classroom practice speaks volumes. That those re- sponsible for the destruction of Ameri- can education are being called on to par- ticipate in its “reconstruction” boggles the mind!
Many who are reading this book will recall several years ago the battle raging in school districts around the country, and even around the world (in Austra- lia, for example) over an elementary So- cial Studies program called Man: A Course of Study (MACOS). In the Con- gressional Record, April 9, 1975, page H2585, Arizona Congressman John Conlan said this about MACOS:
Back To Basics Reform, Or...OBE *Skinnerian International Curriculum? | by Charlotte T. Iserbyt
“ The course was designed by a
team of experimental psychologists
under Jerome S. Bruner and B.F.
Skinner to mold children’s social
attitudes and beliefs along lines that
set them apart and alienate them
from the beliefs and moral values of
their parents and local community.”
For those who may not know, MACOS was suppose to help children under- stand what made them human by ex- ploring in depth the lifestyle of an ob- scure Eskimo tribe. In reality, the pur- pose of MACOS (which is still being used) is, as Congressman Conlan indi- cated, to “mold the children’s social at- titudes and beliefs...”
For example, parents were outraged that their fifth grade children were required to read ugly stories which promoted in- fanticide, cannibalism, incest and senilicide—the deliberate shoving of aged relatives out on the ice to die alone.
And here we are, many years later, and nothing has changed for the better. The latest “innovation” i.e., Mastery Learn- ing, will be used as a vehicle to “trans- late” anti-life, sub-human, values-chang- ing, behavior modification techniques that characterized the MACOS program. But with an important difference: before, parents could examine their children’s textbooks; now, thanks to technology, nothing or nobody will be able to get be- tween the child and his computer. Ex- cept, of course, the internationalist change agents.
Also revealed in the NEA booklet, is the fact that “Mastery Learning is one of many instructional models. Others in- clude Active Teaching, Direct Instruc- tion, Student Team Learning, Socratic questioning, coaching, creative problem solving, Bruner’s Concept Attainment Strategy, and Madeline Hunter’s Target Teaching Approach. These models incor- porate research on effective teaching, and all may be explored by the schools asso- ciated with the project.”
For more information on this project, write to Mastery in Learning Project,
For those who may not know, MACOS was suppose to help children under- stand what made them human by ex- ploring in depth the lifestyle of an ob- scure Eskimo tribe. In reality, the pur- pose of MACOS (which is still being used) is, as Congressman Conlan indi- cated, to “mold the children’s social at- titudes and beliefs...”
For example, parents were outraged that their fifth grade children were required to read ugly stories which promoted in- fanticide, cannibalism, incest and senilicide—the deliberate shoving of aged relatives out on the ice to die alone.
And here we are, many years later, and nothing has changed for the better. The latest “innovation” i.e., Mastery Learn- ing, will be used as a vehicle to “trans- late” anti-life, sub-human, values-chang- ing, behavior modification techniques that characterized the MACOS program. But with an important difference: before, parents could examine their children’s textbooks; now, thanks to technology, nothing or nobody will be able to get be- tween the child and his computer. Ex- cept, of course, the internationalist change agents.
Also revealed in the NEA booklet, is the fact that “Mastery Learning is one of many instructional models. Others in- clude Active Teaching, Direct Instruc- tion, Student Team Learning, Socratic questioning, coaching, creative problem solving, Bruner’s Concept Attainment Strategy, and Madeline Hunter’s Target Teaching Approach. These models incor- porate research on effective teaching, and all may be explored by the schools asso- ciated with the project.”
For more information on this project, write to Mastery in Learning Project,
NEA, 1201 16th Street N.W., Washing-
ton, D.C. 20036.
————— ▼ —————
NATIONAL DIFFUSION NETWORK PUSHES SKINNERIAN PROGRAMS FOR DISADVANTAGED
The activities of the NEA and the U.S. Department of Education and its labo- ratories and centers in 1985 shed light on why the U.S. Department of Educa- tion refused in 1981 to conduct an inde- pendent reevaluation of the model Mas- tery Learning program, the Exemplary Center for Reading Instruction (ECRI).
The following deception by the U.S. De- partment of Education, in order to keep ECRI alive as a model for development of future Mastery Learning programs, should serve as an important warning for Americans who still trust the major- ity of educators who have been trained in “end justifies the means” moral rela- tivism instead of the traditional code of ethics in existence since the founding of this nation. A letter from Assistant Sec- retary James Rutherford to Congress- man Eldon Rudd dated January 19, 1981, says “The ECRI program...is not an ‘op- erant conditioning” program.”8
The Department of Education has ada- mantly refused to conduct an indepen- dent re-evaluation of ECRI, denying that the program uses stopwatches to time children or that it uses Skinnerian tech- niques, even though the entire 100-page teacher pre-service training manual is devoted to the training of teachers in stimulus-response-stimulus operant conditioning techniques, and materials on the ADAPTATION OF BIRDS, MONITORING FORMS BEFORE AND AFTER INSTRUCTION (observation data sheet records), HOW TO TEACH ANIMALS by Skinner, HOW TO TEACH ANIMALS: A RAT, A PIGEON, A DOG, by Kathleen and Shauna Reid, etc., are listed as teacher and source ma- terials by ECRI.
In addition to the above documentation, the July 1984 issue of The Effective School
3
————— ▼ —————
NATIONAL DIFFUSION NETWORK PUSHES SKINNERIAN PROGRAMS FOR DISADVANTAGED
The activities of the NEA and the U.S. Department of Education and its labo- ratories and centers in 1985 shed light on why the U.S. Department of Educa- tion refused in 1981 to conduct an inde- pendent reevaluation of the model Mas- tery Learning program, the Exemplary Center for Reading Instruction (ECRI).
The following deception by the U.S. De- partment of Education, in order to keep ECRI alive as a model for development of future Mastery Learning programs, should serve as an important warning for Americans who still trust the major- ity of educators who have been trained in “end justifies the means” moral rela- tivism instead of the traditional code of ethics in existence since the founding of this nation. A letter from Assistant Sec- retary James Rutherford to Congress- man Eldon Rudd dated January 19, 1981, says “The ECRI program...is not an ‘op- erant conditioning” program.”8
The Department of Education has ada- mantly refused to conduct an indepen- dent re-evaluation of ECRI, denying that the program uses stopwatches to time children or that it uses Skinnerian tech- niques, even though the entire 100-page teacher pre-service training manual is devoted to the training of teachers in stimulus-response-stimulus operant conditioning techniques, and materials on the ADAPTATION OF BIRDS, MONITORING FORMS BEFORE AND AFTER INSTRUCTION (observation data sheet records), HOW TO TEACH ANIMALS by Skinner, HOW TO TEACH ANIMALS: A RAT, A PIGEON, A DOG, by Kathleen and Shauna Reid, etc., are listed as teacher and source ma- terials by ECRI.
In addition to the above documentation, the July 1984 issue of The Effective School
3
Report says in very small print, “The fol-
lowing professionals and groups have
initiated successful educational pro-
grams which can work together as a
common system to deliver PREDICT-
ABLE SUCCESS (emphasis in original)
for each learner—the ultimate criterion
of an effective school program: B.F. Skin-
ner, Norman Crowder, Robert E. and
Betty O. Corrigan; 1950-1984; Mastery
Learning Practices.”9 [Emphasis added]
Utah’s Terrel Bell, former Secretary of Education in the Reagan Administra- tion, has recently joined the Board of Di- rectors of Kelwynn, Inc., the effective schools training company which pub- lishes The Effective School Report. The presence of a former Cabinet member and Secretary of Education on its Board of Directors elevates Kelwynn, Inc. and its Effective School Report to a new level of importance in national education policy.
The Department of Education cannot afford to permit an independent re-evaluation of ECRI, according to a March 30, 1980 memorandum to Secretary of Education Shirley Hufstedler from Acting Assistant Secretary Dick W. Hays, which says,
“conducting the review has the advantages of terminating the controversy concerning ECRI and of limiting the controversy to ECRI. This response could be precedent setting, however, and open up the possibility of having to respond to similar requests in the future in the same manner. Not conducting the review removes the precedent- setting possibility but it is likely to prolong the controversy about ECRI and could result in an enlargement of the controversy to include other or all programs developed or oper- ated with federal education funds.”10
The Department was rightfully con- cerned that a re-evaluation would open a Pandora’s Box, thwarting its ultimate goal of implementing Mastery Learning nationwide (1984 Far West Laboratory grant discussed later and 1985 NEA
Utah’s Terrel Bell, former Secretary of Education in the Reagan Administra- tion, has recently joined the Board of Di- rectors of Kelwynn, Inc., the effective schools training company which pub- lishes The Effective School Report. The presence of a former Cabinet member and Secretary of Education on its Board of Directors elevates Kelwynn, Inc. and its Effective School Report to a new level of importance in national education policy.
The Department of Education cannot afford to permit an independent re-evaluation of ECRI, according to a March 30, 1980 memorandum to Secretary of Education Shirley Hufstedler from Acting Assistant Secretary Dick W. Hays, which says,
“conducting the review has the advantages of terminating the controversy concerning ECRI and of limiting the controversy to ECRI. This response could be precedent setting, however, and open up the possibility of having to respond to similar requests in the future in the same manner. Not conducting the review removes the precedent- setting possibility but it is likely to prolong the controversy about ECRI and could result in an enlargement of the controversy to include other or all programs developed or oper- ated with federal education funds.”10
The Department was rightfully con- cerned that a re-evaluation would open a Pandora’s Box, thwarting its ultimate goal of implementing Mastery Learning nationwide (1984 Far West Laboratory grant discussed later and 1985 NEA
Back To Basics Reform, Or...OBE *Skinnerian International Curriculum? | by Charlotte T. Iserbyt
Mastery in Learning Project) and allow-
ing parents (of all people!) a glimpse into
its multitude of National Diffusion Net-
work (NDN) programs that use Skinne-
rian operant conditioning on their chil-
dren, twenty-five or more of which are
the highly controversial Follow Through
programs for economically disadvan-
taged kindergarten through third grade
students. (The social engineers always
experiment on the helpless and disad-
vantaged, using them as guinea pigs
with pre and post testing, before they
target “all” our children for “treatment.”)
The Summary of the National Evalua- tion Follow Through Findings, 1970- 1976 says,
“Gary McDaniels who designed the final Follow Through evaluation plan for the U.S. Office of Education, characterized Follow Through, which involves 180 cooperating communities, as ‘the largest and most expensive social experiment ever launched’.”
————— ▼ —————
WELL-KNOWN EDUCATOR DENOUNCES SKINNERIAN PROGRAMS IN LETTER TO PRESIDENT CARTER
Professor Kenneth Goodman, former President of the International Reading Association, in a letter to President Carter dated March 10, 1978, refers to the $100,000,000 evaluation of the Follow through program as a “fiasco” and says,
“There is a know-nothing view that combines the outward vestiges of technology-machines, management systems, arbitrary controlled atomistic skills sequences, and constant testing—with a philosophy of behavior management. In behavior management, outcomes are assumed or arbitrarily determined and the behavior of human learners is shaped, conditioned, reinforced, extinguished, rewarded or punished until the learners achieve the target behavior.”12
One would have expected the outrage
The Summary of the National Evalua- tion Follow Through Findings, 1970- 1976 says,
“Gary McDaniels who designed the final Follow Through evaluation plan for the U.S. Office of Education, characterized Follow Through, which involves 180 cooperating communities, as ‘the largest and most expensive social experiment ever launched’.”
————— ▼ —————
WELL-KNOWN EDUCATOR DENOUNCES SKINNERIAN PROGRAMS IN LETTER TO PRESIDENT CARTER
Professor Kenneth Goodman, former President of the International Reading Association, in a letter to President Carter dated March 10, 1978, refers to the $100,000,000 evaluation of the Follow through program as a “fiasco” and says,
“There is a know-nothing view that combines the outward vestiges of technology-machines, management systems, arbitrary controlled atomistic skills sequences, and constant testing—with a philosophy of behavior management. In behavior management, outcomes are assumed or arbitrarily determined and the behavior of human learners is shaped, conditioned, reinforced, extinguished, rewarded or punished until the learners achieve the target behavior.”12
One would have expected the outrage
over ECRI (in the form of letters to Con-
gressmen, the former U.S. Office of Edu-
cation and the present U.S. Department
of Education, and to high officials in the
White House) to have resulted in a re-
evaluation of ECRI, Project INSTRUCT
and other similar totalitarian Mastery
Learning programs, especially since
BOTH parents and respected educators
have protested their continued develop-
ment and use. Not so. In fact, a U.S. De-
partment of Education, memorandum to
Secretary Bell dated October 5, 1982,
states,
“President Reagan is scheduled to visit P.S. 48, an elementary school in the Bronx, New York City. During his visit the President will meet Dr. Ethna Reid, Director of the Exemplary Center for Reading Instruction, a program in the National Diffusion Network. Dr. Reid will be at P.S. 48 to train staff members in the use of ECRI.”
Whether the president, a very busy man, met with Dr. Reid or not, is insignificant. What IS highly significant, however, is WHY this extraordinary effort was made to introduce the President of the United States to Dr. Ethna Reid of Utah.
————— ▼ —————
GOAL IS TO PUT SKINNERIAN MASTERY LEARNING IN “ALL SCHOOLS OF THE NATION”
Although fifteen years of research on American miseducation has left me vir- tually shockproof, a copy of a $152,530 Grant Application No. 84:122B, submit- ted by the Far West Laboratory for Edu- cational Research and Development to the U.S. Department of Education, which was subsequently approved for funding, pulled the rug out from under any slim hopes I held for intellectual freedom in America.
This grant application entitled “Excel- lence in Instructional Delivery Systems: Research and Dissemination of Exemplary Outcome-based Programs,” and its equally important slick “Appendix A” entitled “Excellence in Our Schools—Making It
4
“President Reagan is scheduled to visit P.S. 48, an elementary school in the Bronx, New York City. During his visit the President will meet Dr. Ethna Reid, Director of the Exemplary Center for Reading Instruction, a program in the National Diffusion Network. Dr. Reid will be at P.S. 48 to train staff members in the use of ECRI.”
Whether the president, a very busy man, met with Dr. Reid or not, is insignificant. What IS highly significant, however, is WHY this extraordinary effort was made to introduce the President of the United States to Dr. Ethna Reid of Utah.
————— ▼ —————
GOAL IS TO PUT SKINNERIAN MASTERY LEARNING IN “ALL SCHOOLS OF THE NATION”
Although fifteen years of research on American miseducation has left me vir- tually shockproof, a copy of a $152,530 Grant Application No. 84:122B, submit- ted by the Far West Laboratory for Edu- cational Research and Development to the U.S. Department of Education, which was subsequently approved for funding, pulled the rug out from under any slim hopes I held for intellectual freedom in America.
This grant application entitled “Excel- lence in Instructional Delivery Systems: Research and Dissemination of Exemplary Outcome-based Programs,” and its equally important slick “Appendix A” entitled “Excellence in Our Schools—Making It
4
Happen,” must be ordered through your
Congressman or directly from the
American Association of School Admin-
istrators at 1801 N. Moore St., Arlington,
VA 22209. ALL Americans must read this
for an understanding of ongoing efforts,
paid for by the taxpayers without their
knowledge, to implement Outcome-
based Mastery Learning nationwide and
to psychologically manipulate local
teachers and citizens in order to get the
educators’ core world government cur-
riculum adopted in each and every
school district in America.
In a letter to former Secretary of Educa- tion Terrel Bell, dated July 27, 1984, the Utah State Superintendent of Public In- struction, G. Leland Burningham says,
“I am forwarding this letter to accompany the proposal which you (Bell) recommend Bill Spady [the Director of the Far West Laboratory which received the grant—Ed.] and I prepare in connection with Out- come-based Education. This pro- posal centers around the detailed process by which we will work together to implement Outcome- based Education using research verified programs. This will make it possible to put Outcome-based Education in place, not only in Utah, but in all schools of the nation.”14 [Emphasis added] (The Far West Laboratory is also one of the nine labs working with the NEA on its Mastery In Learning Project.)
————— ▼ ————— SPADY ADMITS
MASTERY LEARNING IS “AFFECTIVE” EDUCATION AND BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION
Dr. Spady, who has held, among other important positions, that of Senior Re- search Sociologist with the National In- stitute of Education between 1973 and 1978, is dedicated to implementing Mas- tery Learning across the nation. Spady said at a conference I attended on April 21, 1982, that two of the four functions of Mastery Learning are:
In a letter to former Secretary of Educa- tion Terrel Bell, dated July 27, 1984, the Utah State Superintendent of Public In- struction, G. Leland Burningham says,
“I am forwarding this letter to accompany the proposal which you (Bell) recommend Bill Spady [the Director of the Far West Laboratory which received the grant—Ed.] and I prepare in connection with Out- come-based Education. This pro- posal centers around the detailed process by which we will work together to implement Outcome- based Education using research verified programs. This will make it possible to put Outcome-based Education in place, not only in Utah, but in all schools of the nation.”14 [Emphasis added] (The Far West Laboratory is also one of the nine labs working with the NEA on its Mastery In Learning Project.)
————— ▼ ————— SPADY ADMITS
MASTERY LEARNING IS “AFFECTIVE” EDUCATION AND BEHAVIOR MODIFICATION
Dr. Spady, who has held, among other important positions, that of Senior Re- search Sociologist with the National In- stitute of Education between 1973 and 1978, is dedicated to implementing Mas- tery Learning across the nation. Spady said at a conference I attended on April 21, 1982, that two of the four functions of Mastery Learning are:
Back To Basics Reform, Or...OBE *Skinnerian International Curriculum? | by Charlotte T. Iserbyt
“Extra: whole agenda of accultura-
tion, social roles, social integration,
get the kids to participate in the
social unit, affective” [inculcation of
attitudes, values, beliefs—Ed.]
And
“Hidden: a system of supervision and control which restrains behavior of kids; the outcome of the hidden agenda should be the fostering of social responsibility or compliance.”15
So if our Johnny or Mary do not fit in the internationalist social engineers’ definition of “socially responsible,” or do not have the “correct” pre-determined “character traits,” they will be forced to “comply” through the use of behavior modification techniques. Of course, to the educationists, social engineers, and behavioral scientists, this is perfectly ethical since your children are nothing but human animals with no free will, souls, intellects or consciences. To the social engineers, they are the property of society, not the responsibility of the family. They are to be conditioned and trained like Pavlov’s dogs, as was pointed out by Professor Allen Cohen, at a Mastery Learning conference he led in Maine, when he referred to our children at least four times as “human animals.”16
When is the U.S. Department of Educa- tion going to stop wasting our money on research, development, and dissemi- nation of projects which collectively hammer the last nails into the coffins of local control and intellectual and aca- demic freedom, and which promote a national/international Outcome-based Mastery Learning education system re- flecting the so-called “New Basics”?
————— ▼ ————— ARE THE “NEW BASICS”
WHAT YOU THINK THEY ARE?
Harold G. Shane, writing in the Septem- ber, 1976 Phi Delta Kappan, describes his version of the “new and additional basic skills,” which is accepted by leaders in the education/reform/effective school move- ment, when he says,
And
“Hidden: a system of supervision and control which restrains behavior of kids; the outcome of the hidden agenda should be the fostering of social responsibility or compliance.”15
So if our Johnny or Mary do not fit in the internationalist social engineers’ definition of “socially responsible,” or do not have the “correct” pre-determined “character traits,” they will be forced to “comply” through the use of behavior modification techniques. Of course, to the educationists, social engineers, and behavioral scientists, this is perfectly ethical since your children are nothing but human animals with no free will, souls, intellects or consciences. To the social engineers, they are the property of society, not the responsibility of the family. They are to be conditioned and trained like Pavlov’s dogs, as was pointed out by Professor Allen Cohen, at a Mastery Learning conference he led in Maine, when he referred to our children at least four times as “human animals.”16
When is the U.S. Department of Educa- tion going to stop wasting our money on research, development, and dissemi- nation of projects which collectively hammer the last nails into the coffins of local control and intellectual and aca- demic freedom, and which promote a national/international Outcome-based Mastery Learning education system re- flecting the so-called “New Basics”?
————— ▼ ————— ARE THE “NEW BASICS”
WHAT YOU THINK THEY ARE?
Harold G. Shane, writing in the Septem- ber, 1976 Phi Delta Kappan, describes his version of the “new and additional basic skills,” which is accepted by leaders in the education/reform/effective school move- ment, when he says,
“Certainly, cross-cultural under-
standing and empathy have become
fundamental skills, as have the skills
of human relations and intercultural
rapport...the arts of compromise
and reconciliation, of consensus
building, and of planning for
interdependence become basic...”
[Emphasis added]
Shane also said,
“As young people mature we must help them develop...a service ethic which is geared toward the real world...the global servant concept in which we will educate our young for planetary service and eventually for some form of world citizenship ... implicit within the ‘global servant’ concept are the moral insights” [through values clarification, i.e., higher order critical thinking skills, discussed later—Ed.] “that will help us live with the regulated freedom we must eventually impose upon ourselves.”17
————— ▼ —————
MARYLAND CALLS FOR MANDATORY COMMUNITY SERVICE
Perhaps this is what Ernest Boyer, Presi- dent of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and former U.S. Commissioner of Education, means when he recommends in his highly ac- claimed book HIGH SCHOOL, “volun- tary community service as a graduation requirement.”
Fellow member of the Carnegie Foun- dation Board, David Hornbeck, the State Superintendent of Maryland’s Public Schools, in testimony before the Mary- land State Board of Education attempt- ing to “mandate community service at state-approved places,” quoted Mr. Boyer as saying “in the end the goal of service in the schools is to teach values—to help all students understand that to be fully human, one must serve.”18 [Emphasis added]
5
Shane also said,
“As young people mature we must help them develop...a service ethic which is geared toward the real world...the global servant concept in which we will educate our young for planetary service and eventually for some form of world citizenship ... implicit within the ‘global servant’ concept are the moral insights” [through values clarification, i.e., higher order critical thinking skills, discussed later—Ed.] “that will help us live with the regulated freedom we must eventually impose upon ourselves.”17
————— ▼ —————
MARYLAND CALLS FOR MANDATORY COMMUNITY SERVICE
Perhaps this is what Ernest Boyer, Presi- dent of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching and former U.S. Commissioner of Education, means when he recommends in his highly ac- claimed book HIGH SCHOOL, “volun- tary community service as a graduation requirement.”
Fellow member of the Carnegie Foun- dation Board, David Hornbeck, the State Superintendent of Maryland’s Public Schools, in testimony before the Mary- land State Board of Education attempt- ing to “mandate community service at state-approved places,” quoted Mr. Boyer as saying “in the end the goal of service in the schools is to teach values—to help all students understand that to be fully human, one must serve.”18 [Emphasis added]
5
————— ▼ —————
EDUCATOR ADMITS
HIGHER ORDER SKILLS ARE VALUES CLARIFICATION
Robert G. Scanlon, former Pennsylvania Secretary of Education, in A CURRICU- LUM FOR PERSONALIZED EDUCA- TION, said in 1974, “The emphasis in schools in 1985 will be to free the indi- vidual from subject matter as bodies of knowledge and provide him or her with higher order skills...One type (is) values clarification.”19 [Emphasis added]
Education in 1985, although orches- trated by the education social change agents for the President, congress, state legislators, governors, school board members and grassroots’ consumption as “back to basics, excellence, account- ability, equity, and effective schools,” consists of exactly what Scanlon pre- dicted: more values clarification, but this time around cloaked in the innocent- sounding “reasoning and higher order criti- cal thinking skills” robe.
Who could possibly object to something which sounds so sensible, so necessary, so long overdue? The education change agents are such masters at semantic de- ception (using familiar words and phrases, which mean something accept- able or desirable to you, but which to them have an entirely different meaning or purpose) that even I, as a School Board member, was on occasion led down the garden path.
The Far West Laboratory grant proposal takes the words right out of Mr. Scanlon’s mouth when it states that “The ‘basics’ in our educational system must include higher-order reasoning skills and all aspects of the curriculum should deliberately enhance these capacities.”20 [Emphasis added]
————— ▼ ————— CRITICAL THINKING ON
EDUCATORS’ AGENDA SINCE 1941
Higher order reasoning skills is just an- other deceptive term for higher order critical thinking skills, a values-chang-
HIGHER ORDER SKILLS ARE VALUES CLARIFICATION
Robert G. Scanlon, former Pennsylvania Secretary of Education, in A CURRICU- LUM FOR PERSONALIZED EDUCA- TION, said in 1974, “The emphasis in schools in 1985 will be to free the indi- vidual from subject matter as bodies of knowledge and provide him or her with higher order skills...One type (is) values clarification.”19 [Emphasis added]
Education in 1985, although orches- trated by the education social change agents for the President, congress, state legislators, governors, school board members and grassroots’ consumption as “back to basics, excellence, account- ability, equity, and effective schools,” consists of exactly what Scanlon pre- dicted: more values clarification, but this time around cloaked in the innocent- sounding “reasoning and higher order criti- cal thinking skills” robe.
Who could possibly object to something which sounds so sensible, so necessary, so long overdue? The education change agents are such masters at semantic de- ception (using familiar words and phrases, which mean something accept- able or desirable to you, but which to them have an entirely different meaning or purpose) that even I, as a School Board member, was on occasion led down the garden path.
The Far West Laboratory grant proposal takes the words right out of Mr. Scanlon’s mouth when it states that “The ‘basics’ in our educational system must include higher-order reasoning skills and all aspects of the curriculum should deliberately enhance these capacities.”20 [Emphasis added]
————— ▼ ————— CRITICAL THINKING ON
EDUCATORS’ AGENDA SINCE 1941
Higher order reasoning skills is just an- other deceptive term for higher order critical thinking skills, a values-chang-
Back To Basics Reform, Or...OBE *Skinnerian International Curriculum? | by Charlotte T. Iserbyt
ing area in the curriculum which is re-
ceiving much attention in 1985, although
research on the subject dates back to Dr.
Edward Glaser’s classic study entitled
An Experiment in the Development of
Critical Thinking, 1941.
TEACHING PUBLIC ISSUES IN THE HIGH SCHOOL, 1966, says,
“Glaser administered a question- naire to assess the ‘happiness’ or emotional satisfaction of students who participated in a critical thinking experiment, and related their responses to gain in critical thinking. The questionnaire con- tained such items as these: Do you regard yourself as religious? Do you feel appreciated by your family? Do you feel satisfactory adjustment to the opposite sex? He found that students who made the greater gains in critical thinking more consistently answered ‘no’ to such questions than those who made smaller gains. Glaser comments: ‘This finding may perhaps be explained on the ground that the pupils, who gained the most in critical thinking scores were, as a group, also found to be intellectually superior to those who gained least’.”21
Glaser’s comment provides much food for thought, especially for parents with children in gifted and talented pro- grams!
————— ▼ —————
INTERNATIONALISTS WANT “NEW VALUES MODIFYING EXISTING BELIEFS”
According to the March/April 1981 is- sue of Human Intelligence International Newsletter, critical thinking skills re- search is taking place within the United Nations Educational Scientific Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Office of Economic Cooperation and Develop- ment (OECD), and the World Bank which plans on “increasing the Bank’s international lending for education and training to about $900 million a year.”22
TEACHING PUBLIC ISSUES IN THE HIGH SCHOOL, 1966, says,
“Glaser administered a question- naire to assess the ‘happiness’ or emotional satisfaction of students who participated in a critical thinking experiment, and related their responses to gain in critical thinking. The questionnaire con- tained such items as these: Do you regard yourself as religious? Do you feel appreciated by your family? Do you feel satisfactory adjustment to the opposite sex? He found that students who made the greater gains in critical thinking more consistently answered ‘no’ to such questions than those who made smaller gains. Glaser comments: ‘This finding may perhaps be explained on the ground that the pupils, who gained the most in critical thinking scores were, as a group, also found to be intellectually superior to those who gained least’.”21
Glaser’s comment provides much food for thought, especially for parents with children in gifted and talented pro- grams!
————— ▼ —————
INTERNATIONALISTS WANT “NEW VALUES MODIFYING EXISTING BELIEFS”
According to the March/April 1981 is- sue of Human Intelligence International Newsletter, critical thinking skills re- search is taking place within the United Nations Educational Scientific Cultural Organization (UNESCO), the Office of Economic Cooperation and Develop- ment (OECD), and the World Bank which plans on “increasing the Bank’s international lending for education and training to about $900 million a year.”22
The Department of Education’s National
Institute of Education, possibly in re-
sponse to a meeting Luis Alberto
Machado, the Venezuelan Minister for
Human Intelligence, had with former
Secretary of Education Terrel Bell and
various senators to update them on the
progress of his nation’s work in human
intelligence, “has awarded a three-year
contract totaling approximately $780,000
[of your tax money—Ed.] to Bolt, Beranek
and Newman, Inc. of Cambridge, Mas-
sachusetts to analyze current programs
of instruction on cognitive skills.”23
For an understanding of what research on human intelligence encompasses let me quote from the July/October 1981 issue of the Human Intelligence International Newsletter:
“The search for new referential systems and new values modifying existing beliefs should be based on modern microbiology. A scientific approach should be free from doctrinal bias, and its findings applicable to all mankind. Ideologi- cal confrontations between East and West, Marxism and Liberalism, Arabs and Jews do have economic, historical and political bases, but no biological basis. These antagonisms have been created by the human brain and could be solved by the wiser brains of future man...”24
————— ▼ —————
WASHINGTON STATE LEGISLATURE PUSHING FOR OFFICE OF HUMAN INTELLECT
For an understanding of what research on human intelligence encompasses let me quote from the July/October 1981 issue of the Human Intelligence International Newsletter:
“The search for new referential systems and new values modifying existing beliefs should be based on modern microbiology. A scientific approach should be free from doctrinal bias, and its findings applicable to all mankind. Ideologi- cal confrontations between East and West, Marxism and Liberalism, Arabs and Jews do have economic, historical and political bases, but no biological basis. These antagonisms have been created by the human brain and could be solved by the wiser brains of future man...”24
————— ▼ —————
WASHINGTON STATE LEGISLATURE PUSHING FOR OFFICE OF HUMAN INTELLECT
The bill says “The ability to reason, solve
problems, think critically, exercise inde-
pendent judgment, and perform other
intellectual functions at higher levels can
be enhanced in every person; ...The
community human intelligence project
and the applied thinking skills project
in Santa Barbara, California, and the na-
tionwide intelligence project in Venezu-
ela have shown good results with prom-
ising social and educational benefits.”25
I understand the substitute bill removed
reference to Venezuela!
————— ▼ —————
SAME SOCIAL ENGINEERS CALLED ON TO HELP DEVELOP THINKING SKILLS CURRICULUM
An article entitled “Improving Think Skills—Defining the Problem,” in the March 1984 issue of Phi Delta Kappan, also strips this “new” area of the curricu- lum of the “innocent” definition given interested citizens who attend school board meetings. It says “The work of such scholars as Hilda Taba, Louis Raths, and Benjamin Bloom could serve as a starting point for this task.” (specifying the cognitive components of many thinking skills.) 26
Taba, who came to the U.S. from Esto- nia, is well-known for her controversial 25-year-old federally-funded critical thinking program which includes pri- vacy-invading, values-changing jour- nals (personal diaries), wishing wells, open-ended sentences, role playing (psy- chodrama), etc.,. ALL “psychological treatments” used for political and social indoctrination, the use of which requires prior informed parental consent under the 1978 federal Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment. Raths, in his impor- tant book VALUESANDTEACHING, says that in some situations students “may have more freedom to be dishonest.”27
(In 1957 a California State Senate Inves- tigative Committee exposed the work of Taba, Jacob Moreno, etc.,. In spite of this exposure, these people continued to re- ceive tax dollars and access to schools nationwide.)
————— ▼ —————
SAME SOCIAL ENGINEERS CALLED ON TO HELP DEVELOP THINKING SKILLS CURRICULUM
An article entitled “Improving Think Skills—Defining the Problem,” in the March 1984 issue of Phi Delta Kappan, also strips this “new” area of the curricu- lum of the “innocent” definition given interested citizens who attend school board meetings. It says “The work of such scholars as Hilda Taba, Louis Raths, and Benjamin Bloom could serve as a starting point for this task.” (specifying the cognitive components of many thinking skills.) 26
Taba, who came to the U.S. from Esto- nia, is well-known for her controversial 25-year-old federally-funded critical thinking program which includes pri- vacy-invading, values-changing jour- nals (personal diaries), wishing wells, open-ended sentences, role playing (psy- chodrama), etc.,. ALL “psychological treatments” used for political and social indoctrination, the use of which requires prior informed parental consent under the 1978 federal Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment. Raths, in his impor- tant book VALUESANDTEACHING, says that in some situations students “may have more freedom to be dishonest.”27
(In 1957 a California State Senate Inves- tigative Committee exposed the work of Taba, Jacob Moreno, etc.,. In spite of this exposure, these people continued to re- ceive tax dollars and access to schools nationwide.)
A
on the “thinking skills” bandwagon, not realizing that this old gimmick, dusted off for the eighties, does not teach stu- dents “how” to think, but “what to think, is Senate Bill 3421 before the State of Washington Legislature, the purpose of which is to “establish a state-wide office for the enhancement of human intellect which will work with the state board of education, the superintendent of public instruction, school districts...” etc.
6
on the “thinking skills” bandwagon, not realizing that this old gimmick, dusted off for the eighties, does not teach stu- dents “how” to think, but “what to think, is Senate Bill 3421 before the State of Washington Legislature, the purpose of which is to “establish a state-wide office for the enhancement of human intellect which will work with the state board of education, the superintendent of public instruction, school districts...” etc.
6
good example of Americans jumping
Back To Basics Reform, Or...OBE *Skinnerian International Curriculum? | by Charlotte T. Iserbyt
————— ▼ —————
BLOOM’S DEFINITIONS OF PURPOSE
OF EDUCATION AND TEACHING EXPLAIN DECLINE IN TEST SCORES
Professor Benjamin Bloom of the Univer- sity of Chicago, father of Skinnerian Out- come-based Mastery Learning (the sub- ject of the Far West Laboratory grant) says in his recent book ALL OUR CHIL- DREN LEARNING that “the purpose of education and the schools is to change the thoughts, feelings and actions of stu- dents.”28 and in his TAXONOMY OF EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES, upon which Mastery Learning and the goals and objectives used across the country are based, defines good teaching as “challenging the students’ fixed beliefs.”29
————— ▼ —————
K-12 CURRICULUM FOR CITIZENSHIP IN ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT
An interdisciplinary curriculum, reflect- ing the “New Basics” (nuclear, peace, global, multi-cultural, law-related, gifted and talented, career, suicide, sex, drug and alcohol, values, citizenship, charac- ter, community, comparative religions, computer literacy, music to be used for purposes of hypnosis to change values, art and critical thinking education), all of which will be infused throughout the curriculum (not necessarily found in a specific course), is necessary for “will- ing” or at least “passive” citizenship in a socialist one world government sched- uled by the internationalists in educa- tion, and in some multinational corpo- rations and tax-exempt foundations for the early 21st century. (Hence the big push in all states to get their K-12 Goals and Objectives in place.)
The federally-funded Council of Chief State School Officers, which restricts its membership to the 50 state Superinten- dents of Instruction, supports all of the above components of the “New Basics” and has recently come out in support of a national achievement test, which makes sense if national and international education policy is for ALL students to
OF EDUCATION AND TEACHING EXPLAIN DECLINE IN TEST SCORES
Professor Benjamin Bloom of the Univer- sity of Chicago, father of Skinnerian Out- come-based Mastery Learning (the sub- ject of the Far West Laboratory grant) says in his recent book ALL OUR CHIL- DREN LEARNING that “the purpose of education and the schools is to change the thoughts, feelings and actions of stu- dents.”28 and in his TAXONOMY OF EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES, upon which Mastery Learning and the goals and objectives used across the country are based, defines good teaching as “challenging the students’ fixed beliefs.”29
————— ▼ —————
K-12 CURRICULUM FOR CITIZENSHIP IN ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT
An interdisciplinary curriculum, reflect- ing the “New Basics” (nuclear, peace, global, multi-cultural, law-related, gifted and talented, career, suicide, sex, drug and alcohol, values, citizenship, charac- ter, community, comparative religions, computer literacy, music to be used for purposes of hypnosis to change values, art and critical thinking education), all of which will be infused throughout the curriculum (not necessarily found in a specific course), is necessary for “will- ing” or at least “passive” citizenship in a socialist one world government sched- uled by the internationalists in educa- tion, and in some multinational corpo- rations and tax-exempt foundations for the early 21st century. (Hence the big push in all states to get their K-12 Goals and Objectives in place.)
The federally-funded Council of Chief State School Officers, which restricts its membership to the 50 state Superinten- dents of Instruction, supports all of the above components of the “New Basics” and has recently come out in support of a national achievement test, which makes sense if national and international education policy is for ALL students to
master international, federal, and foun-
dation-funded pre-determined goals
and objectives in the “New Basics” be-
ing promoted by the Chief State School
Officers at state legislative hearings
across the nation.
————— ▼ —————
NORTH CAROLINA SUPERINTENDENT DENIES OFFICIALS
ACCESS TO COMPETENCIES
Unreported by the major media is the fact that the North Carolina Superinten- dent of Public Instruction, Craig Phillips, exhibiting understandable paranoia over the possibility of parents, members of the North Carolina State Board of Education, and legislators finding out which competencies (behavioral objec- tives) North Carolina’s children would have to master, initially refused to give copies of the 6,000 K-12 Basic Education Competencies to the above-mentioned individuals. It should not go unnoticed that this monstrosity would cost, at a minimum, three billion dollars over an eight year period.
Only the threat of a lawsuit by Bob Windsor, the gutsy editor of the North Carolina Landmark, and pressure from elected officials and parents, forced Phillips to cave in and provide copies to the public. The educators’ “end justifies the means” code of ethics prevails in North Carolina: Get the bill passed come hell or high water by denying the citi- zens and legislators access to the contro- versial competencies (objectives), some of which are:
Fifth grade: “Develop a flag, seal, symbol, pledge and/or national anthem for a new country; Design a postage stamp to be used world- wide. The stamp should denote what the world would need to make it a better place;”
Sixth grade: “Draw national symbol for an imaginary nation;”
Seventh grade: “Understand the need for interdependence;”
Ninth grade: “Write a constitution for a perfect society.”30
7
————— ▼ —————
NORTH CAROLINA SUPERINTENDENT DENIES OFFICIALS
ACCESS TO COMPETENCIES
Unreported by the major media is the fact that the North Carolina Superinten- dent of Public Instruction, Craig Phillips, exhibiting understandable paranoia over the possibility of parents, members of the North Carolina State Board of Education, and legislators finding out which competencies (behavioral objec- tives) North Carolina’s children would have to master, initially refused to give copies of the 6,000 K-12 Basic Education Competencies to the above-mentioned individuals. It should not go unnoticed that this monstrosity would cost, at a minimum, three billion dollars over an eight year period.
Only the threat of a lawsuit by Bob Windsor, the gutsy editor of the North Carolina Landmark, and pressure from elected officials and parents, forced Phillips to cave in and provide copies to the public. The educators’ “end justifies the means” code of ethics prevails in North Carolina: Get the bill passed come hell or high water by denying the citi- zens and legislators access to the contro- versial competencies (objectives), some of which are:
Fifth grade: “Develop a flag, seal, symbol, pledge and/or national anthem for a new country; Design a postage stamp to be used world- wide. The stamp should denote what the world would need to make it a better place;”
Sixth grade: “Draw national symbol for an imaginary nation;”
Seventh grade: “Understand the need for interdependence;”
Ninth grade: “Write a constitution for a perfect society.”30
7
The shocking tactics used in North Caro-
lina should alert citizens in other states
to the ends the educational establish-
ment will go to get its one world gov-
ernment competencies (objectives) ap-
proved by all 50 state legislatures under
the guise of “effective schools, basic
skills, accountability and excellence” re-
form. For information regarding the epi-
sode in North Carolina, contact Ann
Frazier, 220 Vincent Road, Roanoke Rap-
ids NC 27870 who has spearheaded the
North Carolina movement for parents’
rights in education.
————— ▼ —————
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION FUNDS USED TO CONTROL TEXTBOOK CONTENT
The content of local education must nec- essarily be designed to match the ques- tions on the forthcoming national achievement test. The U.S. Department of Education, in obvious anticipation of such a national achievement test, has recently awarded Grant No. 122BH in the amount of $143,366 of your tax money to the Council of Chief State School Officers to conduct a “Textbook and Instructional Materials Project.”31
The grant proposal makes very clear that the federal government intends to use the Council of Chief State School Offic- ers and its same old education association cronies, as it did with the controversial million dollar 1981 Project Best (Basic Education Skills Through Technology) grant to the Association of Educational Communication and Technology (for- merly closely associated with the NEA), to control the content of and selection process for instructional materials.32
————— ▼ ————— NATIONAL CURRICULUM
ALMOST IN PLACE
The match between content of curricu- lum and questions on the state assess- ments and proposed national achieve- ment test will constitute a national cur- riculum long in the making. A 1980 Na- tional Institute of Education briefing
————— ▼ —————
U.S. DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION FUNDS USED TO CONTROL TEXTBOOK CONTENT
The content of local education must nec- essarily be designed to match the ques- tions on the forthcoming national achievement test. The U.S. Department of Education, in obvious anticipation of such a national achievement test, has recently awarded Grant No. 122BH in the amount of $143,366 of your tax money to the Council of Chief State School Officers to conduct a “Textbook and Instructional Materials Project.”31
The grant proposal makes very clear that the federal government intends to use the Council of Chief State School Offic- ers and its same old education association cronies, as it did with the controversial million dollar 1981 Project Best (Basic Education Skills Through Technology) grant to the Association of Educational Communication and Technology (for- merly closely associated with the NEA), to control the content of and selection process for instructional materials.32
————— ▼ ————— NATIONAL CURRICULUM
ALMOST IN PLACE
The match between content of curricu- lum and questions on the state assess- ments and proposed national achieve- ment test will constitute a national cur- riculum long in the making. A 1980 Na- tional Institute of Education briefing
Back To Basics Reform, Or...OBE *Skinnerian International Curriculum? | by Charlotte T. Iserbyt
paper entitled “International and For-
eign Language Education: A Summary
of Existing and Past Activities at the
NIE,” states,
“The Northwest Regional Educa- tional Laboratory (NWREL) con- ducts research and policy studies and provides technical assistance, evaluation services, and in-service teacher training—all in the area of international education. NWREL also participates in cooperative international projects bearing on international education by perform- ing research, materials development, and dissemination through the Pacific Circle Consortium of the Office of Economic Cooperation and Development, the UNESCO Lifelong Learning Consortium and the Pacific Northwest International/Intercul- tural Education Consortium (consist- ing of colleges and community colleges, school districts, and education associations and authori- ties in Alaska, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia).”33
Obtain SCHOOLING FOR A GLOBAL AGE if you want to understand where the global educators are coming from. SCHOOLING FOR A GLOBAL AGE received funding from the National In- stitute of Education and tax-exempt foundations, so you helped pay for this book which is a most important resource on global education for administrators, curriculum coordinators, and classroom teachers.
The Department of Education’s Office of Educational Research and Improvement is deeply involved in the activities of the Center for Educational Research and In- novation (CERI) attached to the OECD in Paris, France. CERI’s International School Improvement Project (ISIP) held a conference in Palm Beach, Florida in 1982, at which many of the key compo- nents of the United States’ education re- form movement (effective schools move- ment) were discussed by delegates from member countries.34
“The Northwest Regional Educa- tional Laboratory (NWREL) con- ducts research and policy studies and provides technical assistance, evaluation services, and in-service teacher training—all in the area of international education. NWREL also participates in cooperative international projects bearing on international education by perform- ing research, materials development, and dissemination through the Pacific Circle Consortium of the Office of Economic Cooperation and Development, the UNESCO Lifelong Learning Consortium and the Pacific Northwest International/Intercul- tural Education Consortium (consist- ing of colleges and community colleges, school districts, and education associations and authori- ties in Alaska, Oregon, Washington, and British Columbia).”33
Obtain SCHOOLING FOR A GLOBAL AGE if you want to understand where the global educators are coming from. SCHOOLING FOR A GLOBAL AGE received funding from the National In- stitute of Education and tax-exempt foundations, so you helped pay for this book which is a most important resource on global education for administrators, curriculum coordinators, and classroom teachers.
The Department of Education’s Office of Educational Research and Improvement is deeply involved in the activities of the Center for Educational Research and In- novation (CERI) attached to the OECD in Paris, France. CERI’s International School Improvement Project (ISIP) held a conference in Palm Beach, Florida in 1982, at which many of the key compo- nents of the United States’ education re- form movement (effective schools move- ment) were discussed by delegates from member countries.34
————— ▼ —————
OECD STATES NEED TO
TRANSPORT SOFTWARE ACROSS NATIONAL BOUNDARIES
At an OECD Conference in Paris in July 1984, two hundred delegates, observers, and experts from 24 member countries, including the United States, “focused on the use of new information technology, especially the computer.” One of the working groups’ principal recommenda- tions was that the “OECD act to assist in the development and establishment of international standards for the ex- change of courseware authoring sys- tems ... There was wide spread interest among country delegates about the means...to reduce the legal and tech- nical barriers that inhibit the transport- ability of software products across na- tional boundaries.”35 [Emphasis added]
————— ▼ ————— MASTERY LEARNING
TO BE USED WORLD-WIDE
That Mastery Learning and Teaching, the system to facilitate indoctrination in the “New Basics,” is being implemented on an international scale, vital for the future international curriculum, is made crystal clear by Benjamin Bloom when he says in ALL OUR CHILDREN LEARNING, “In an attempt to maximize curriculum effectiveness...curriculum centers throughout the world have be- gun to incorporate learning-for-mastery instructional strategies into the redesign of curriculum.”36
Bloom’s close associate, Canadian-born Professor John Goodlad, enlarges on the subject of international curriculum in his book CURRICULUM INQUIRY. Goodlad, probably the most important change agent in the nation, served on the governing board of UNESCO’s Institute for Education, 1971—, and is best known for his complaint in 1970 that “most youth still hold the same values as their parents and if we don’t resocialize, our system will decay,”37 and more recently in the Preface to SCHOOLING FOR A
8
TRANSPORT SOFTWARE ACROSS NATIONAL BOUNDARIES
At an OECD Conference in Paris in July 1984, two hundred delegates, observers, and experts from 24 member countries, including the United States, “focused on the use of new information technology, especially the computer.” One of the working groups’ principal recommenda- tions was that the “OECD act to assist in the development and establishment of international standards for the ex- change of courseware authoring sys- tems ... There was wide spread interest among country delegates about the means...to reduce the legal and tech- nical barriers that inhibit the transport- ability of software products across na- tional boundaries.”35 [Emphasis added]
————— ▼ ————— MASTERY LEARNING
TO BE USED WORLD-WIDE
That Mastery Learning and Teaching, the system to facilitate indoctrination in the “New Basics,” is being implemented on an international scale, vital for the future international curriculum, is made crystal clear by Benjamin Bloom when he says in ALL OUR CHILDREN LEARNING, “In an attempt to maximize curriculum effectiveness...curriculum centers throughout the world have be- gun to incorporate learning-for-mastery instructional strategies into the redesign of curriculum.”36
Bloom’s close associate, Canadian-born Professor John Goodlad, enlarges on the subject of international curriculum in his book CURRICULUM INQUIRY. Goodlad, probably the most important change agent in the nation, served on the governing board of UNESCO’s Institute for Education, 1971—, and is best known for his complaint in 1970 that “most youth still hold the same values as their parents and if we don’t resocialize, our system will decay,”37 and more recently in the Preface to SCHOOLING FOR A
8
GLOBAL AGE, 1980, for his recommen-
dation that “Parents and the general
public must be reached also [taught a glo-
bal perspective—Ed.]. Otherwise, children
and youth enrolled in globally oriented
programs may find themselves in con-
flict with values assumed in the home.
And then the educational institution fre-
quently comes under scrutiny and must
pull back.” 38
This recommendation explains the cur- rent priority of the U.S. Department of Education and the community in part- nerships with government schools, ig- noring the fact that parents have prime responsibility for their children’s educa- tion. Goodlad was a keynote speaker at former Secretary Terrel Bell’s first meet- ing of the highly publicized National Commission on Excellence which pro- duced the publication “A Nation at Risk”—which ignored issues of most concern to parents—but nevertheless lulled the nation into a phony and ex- pensive “back to basics/local control” coma.
SCHOOLING FOR A GLOBAL AGE is one of three controversial books pub- lished as a result of Goodlad’s federally and foundation-funded A Study of Schooling. The Danforth Foundation, which helped fund SCHOOLING FOR A GLOBAL AGE, has just had its Vice President, John Ervin, elected Chairman of the National Council for Effective Schools (connected with Kelwynn, Inc. and The Effective School Report men- tioned earlier) which are pushing Out- come-based Mastery Learning and Teaching nationwide.
In CURRICULUM INQUIRY Goodlad implicates Bloom, Ralph Tyler (the father of educational evaluation) and himself in the promotion of Mastery Learning and Teaching on an international scale when he says that “Bloom was invited by UNESCO in 1968 to submit a proposal for a six to nine week training program which would partially fulfill recommen- dations made at UNESCO’s Moscow meeting dealing with the formation of
This recommendation explains the cur- rent priority of the U.S. Department of Education and the community in part- nerships with government schools, ig- noring the fact that parents have prime responsibility for their children’s educa- tion. Goodlad was a keynote speaker at former Secretary Terrel Bell’s first meet- ing of the highly publicized National Commission on Excellence which pro- duced the publication “A Nation at Risk”—which ignored issues of most concern to parents—but nevertheless lulled the nation into a phony and ex- pensive “back to basics/local control” coma.
SCHOOLING FOR A GLOBAL AGE is one of three controversial books pub- lished as a result of Goodlad’s federally and foundation-funded A Study of Schooling. The Danforth Foundation, which helped fund SCHOOLING FOR A GLOBAL AGE, has just had its Vice President, John Ervin, elected Chairman of the National Council for Effective Schools (connected with Kelwynn, Inc. and The Effective School Report men- tioned earlier) which are pushing Out- come-based Mastery Learning and Teaching nationwide.
In CURRICULUM INQUIRY Goodlad implicates Bloom, Ralph Tyler (the father of educational evaluation) and himself in the promotion of Mastery Learning and Teaching on an international scale when he says that “Bloom was invited by UNESCO in 1968 to submit a proposal for a six to nine week training program which would partially fulfill recommen- dations made at UNESCO’s Moscow meeting dealing with the formation of
Back To Basics Reform, Or...OBE *Skinnerian International Curriculum? | by Charlotte T. Iserbyt
national centers for curriculum develop-
ment and research” and that “his pro-
gram was ultimately approved by the
UNESCO General Council,” and “the In-
ternational Association for Evaluation of
Educational Achievement (IAEEA) was
invited to take full responsibility for de-
veloping and conducting programs in
1971 at Granna, Sweden.”39
————— ▼ ————— INTERNATIONAL CONSENSUS
ON WHAT IS WORTH LEARNING
The IAEEA, according to Bloom, “is an organization of 22 national research cen- ters which are engaged in the study of education ... This group has been con- cerned with the use of international tests, questionnaires, and other methods to relate student achievement and attitudes to instructional, social and economic fac- tors in each nation. The evaluation in- struments also represent an interna- tional consensus on the knowledge and objectives most worth learning.”40 [Em- phasis added]
The U.S. Department of Education, through its National institute of Educa- tion, contributes to the funding of these cross-national studies, so you, the tax- payer, are paying for an “international consensus on the knowledge and objec- tives most worth learning.”
Goodlad’s CURRICULUM INQUIRY, says “Several Americans, including Bloom, Goodlad, and Ralph Tyler served on the faculty ... We planned to identify the extent to which each nation’s curricu- lum center was involved in the kinds of curricular activities identified by Tyler,” and then it defines some of the impor- tant components of Mastery Learning: “formulating goals and objectives, plan- ning and selecting learning opportuni- ties, organizing learning activities, and evaluating students’ progress,”41 all of which sound innocent and desirable unless one is familiar with the curricu- lar activities related to the “New Basics” described in this book, and the use of Skinner’s teaching machine (Mastery Learning and Mastery Teaching assisted
————— ▼ ————— INTERNATIONAL CONSENSUS
ON WHAT IS WORTH LEARNING
The IAEEA, according to Bloom, “is an organization of 22 national research cen- ters which are engaged in the study of education ... This group has been con- cerned with the use of international tests, questionnaires, and other methods to relate student achievement and attitudes to instructional, social and economic fac- tors in each nation. The evaluation in- struments also represent an interna- tional consensus on the knowledge and objectives most worth learning.”40 [Em- phasis added]
The U.S. Department of Education, through its National institute of Educa- tion, contributes to the funding of these cross-national studies, so you, the tax- payer, are paying for an “international consensus on the knowledge and objec- tives most worth learning.”
Goodlad’s CURRICULUM INQUIRY, says “Several Americans, including Bloom, Goodlad, and Ralph Tyler served on the faculty ... We planned to identify the extent to which each nation’s curricu- lum center was involved in the kinds of curricular activities identified by Tyler,” and then it defines some of the impor- tant components of Mastery Learning: “formulating goals and objectives, plan- ning and selecting learning opportuni- ties, organizing learning activities, and evaluating students’ progress,”41 all of which sound innocent and desirable unless one is familiar with the curricu- lar activities related to the “New Basics” described in this book, and the use of Skinner’s teaching machine (Mastery Learning and Mastery Teaching assisted
by the computer) to indoctrinate stu-
dents in international, federal, state and
foundation funded predetermined be-
havioral objectives (correct answers).
————— ▼ —————
NO ONE WILL GET BETWEEN YOUR CHILD AND THAT CURRICULUM
Mastery Learning is based on the premise that virtually all students can learn if they are given the time and help they need. In other words, if your child doesn’t agree that the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe after World War II was “primarily a result of the Soviet Union’s desire for security along its borders” (the “correct” multiple choice answer to a question in Maine’s Assessment of Progress test item bank – most states now have similar partially federally- funded assessment programs and com- puterized test item banks), he will be recycled and remediated, using all the time, help, and resources necessary, un- til like a little robot, he spits out the “cor- rect” answer.
Even more shocking is a performance in- dicator taken from Missouri’s Educa- tional Objectives, Grade Twelve:
“Given a description of an individual with a debased character, such as a child murderer or a person who has set fire to an inhabited building, students should reject suggestions for punishment which would detract from the dignity of the prisoner ...”
Aside from the above totalitarian impli- cations of Mastery Learning, consider how your taxes will skyrocket in order to pay for an education system which, according to Bloom, is determined, no matter how long it takes, to successfully “challenge student’s fixed beliefs.” Such belief manipulation will be assisted by computer courseware as forecast by Dustin Heuston of Utah’s World Insti- tute for Computer-Assisted Teaching (WICAT) when he said,
“We’ve been absolutely staggered by realizing that the computer has the
9
————— ▼ —————
NO ONE WILL GET BETWEEN YOUR CHILD AND THAT CURRICULUM
Mastery Learning is based on the premise that virtually all students can learn if they are given the time and help they need. In other words, if your child doesn’t agree that the Soviet occupation of Eastern Europe after World War II was “primarily a result of the Soviet Union’s desire for security along its borders” (the “correct” multiple choice answer to a question in Maine’s Assessment of Progress test item bank – most states now have similar partially federally- funded assessment programs and com- puterized test item banks), he will be recycled and remediated, using all the time, help, and resources necessary, un- til like a little robot, he spits out the “cor- rect” answer.
Even more shocking is a performance in- dicator taken from Missouri’s Educa- tional Objectives, Grade Twelve:
“Given a description of an individual with a debased character, such as a child murderer or a person who has set fire to an inhabited building, students should reject suggestions for punishment which would detract from the dignity of the prisoner ...”
Aside from the above totalitarian impli- cations of Mastery Learning, consider how your taxes will skyrocket in order to pay for an education system which, according to Bloom, is determined, no matter how long it takes, to successfully “challenge student’s fixed beliefs.” Such belief manipulation will be assisted by computer courseware as forecast by Dustin Heuston of Utah’s World Insti- tute for Computer-Assisted Teaching (WICAT) when he said,
“We’ve been absolutely staggered by realizing that the computer has the
9
capability to act as if it were ten of
the top psychologists working with
one student ... You’ve seen the tip of
the iceberg. Won’t it be wonderful
when the child in the smallest
country in the most distant area or in
the most confused urban setting can
have the equivalent of the finest
school in the world on that terminal
and no one can get between that
child and that curriculum? We have
great moments coming in the history
of education.”42 [Emphasis added]
WICAT has joined with the multina- tional corporation Control Data to form PLATO/WICAT Systems Company. Ac- cording to its brochure,
“The merger brings together the most advanced, far-reaching educa- tional delivery system for the K-12 public and private markets. PLATO/ WICAT Systems Co. approach is the systematic application of computers to furnish individualized instruction and to manage the learning process for each student in the classroom. ...” [Emphasis added]
And,
“By addressing the individual needs of more students, PLATO/WICAT Systems Products help students to develop higher order thinking skills ...”
A paper by Cheryl Samuels of Control Data presented at the Conference on Educational Technology to Improve In- ternational Education, March 24-25, 1982, illustrates the importance Control Data places on Mastery Learning and Management by Objectives on an inter- national scale. It says,
“Concepts of mastery learning and management by objectives are likely to be very attractive to educators in developing countries. Once these educators have made the mental transition to learner centered educational planning, then they can be more receptive to procedures for specifying and analyzing objectives and then for organizing a teaching/
WICAT has joined with the multina- tional corporation Control Data to form PLATO/WICAT Systems Company. Ac- cording to its brochure,
“The merger brings together the most advanced, far-reaching educa- tional delivery system for the K-12 public and private markets. PLATO/ WICAT Systems Co. approach is the systematic application of computers to furnish individualized instruction and to manage the learning process for each student in the classroom. ...” [Emphasis added]
And,
“By addressing the individual needs of more students, PLATO/WICAT Systems Products help students to develop higher order thinking skills ...”
A paper by Cheryl Samuels of Control Data presented at the Conference on Educational Technology to Improve In- ternational Education, March 24-25, 1982, illustrates the importance Control Data places on Mastery Learning and Management by Objectives on an inter- national scale. It says,
“Concepts of mastery learning and management by objectives are likely to be very attractive to educators in developing countries. Once these educators have made the mental transition to learner centered educational planning, then they can be more receptive to procedures for specifying and analyzing objectives and then for organizing a teaching/
Back To Basics Reform, Or...OBE *Skinnerian International Curriculum? | by Charlotte T. Iserbyt
learning plan, providing for learner
assessment, and evaluation of the
instructional plan based on those
objectives.”43
————— ▼ —————
EDUCATORS COMPLAIN
THAT STUDENTS’ PRIOR CONCEPTIONS ARE OBSTACLES TO NEW LEARNING
That not only Bloom and Heuston, but others, intend to “challenge students’ fixed beliefs” is made clear in a U.S. De- partment of education publication en- titled “Computers in Education: Realiz- ing the Potential,” June, 1983. Under a subtitle “Expert and Novice Thinking” the authors say,
“Recent studies in science education have revealed that students approach learning with many prior conceptions based on their life experiences, which can be obstacles to learning. These conceptions are very resistant to change. We need to understand why students’ conceptions persevere so strongly and how they can best be modified.”44 [Emphasis added]
They probably mean conceptions (fixed beliefs such as not believing they are de- scended from apes upon which the be- haviorists’ education system is based). Wouldn’t it be more efficient and less costly for the taxpayers if we just turned our children over to the educators at birth so that their “conceptions” will not reflect our old-fashioned values, atti- tudes and beliefs?
————— ▼ —————
TEACHERS NEED TO BE RETRAINED TO FOCUS ON INDIVIDUAL NEEDS
The retraining of teachers to be learner- centered (training in how to arrange the environment and to manipulate indi- vidual students, using positive and negative reinforcement, etc., in order to elicit “correct” behaviors/responses, and “socially responsible and compliant behavior as promoted by Skinner, Spady, Corrigan, et al), is evidently a criteria of
————— ▼ —————
EDUCATORS COMPLAIN
THAT STUDENTS’ PRIOR CONCEPTIONS ARE OBSTACLES TO NEW LEARNING
That not only Bloom and Heuston, but others, intend to “challenge students’ fixed beliefs” is made clear in a U.S. De- partment of education publication en- titled “Computers in Education: Realiz- ing the Potential,” June, 1983. Under a subtitle “Expert and Novice Thinking” the authors say,
“Recent studies in science education have revealed that students approach learning with many prior conceptions based on their life experiences, which can be obstacles to learning. These conceptions are very resistant to change. We need to understand why students’ conceptions persevere so strongly and how they can best be modified.”44 [Emphasis added]
They probably mean conceptions (fixed beliefs such as not believing they are de- scended from apes upon which the be- haviorists’ education system is based). Wouldn’t it be more efficient and less costly for the taxpayers if we just turned our children over to the educators at birth so that their “conceptions” will not reflect our old-fashioned values, atti- tudes and beliefs?
————— ▼ —————
TEACHERS NEED TO BE RETRAINED TO FOCUS ON INDIVIDUAL NEEDS
The retraining of teachers to be learner- centered (training in how to arrange the environment and to manipulate indi- vidual students, using positive and negative reinforcement, etc., in order to elicit “correct” behaviors/responses, and “socially responsible and compliant behavior as promoted by Skinner, Spady, Corrigan, et al), is evidently a criteria of
the U.S. Department of Education’s Sec-
ondary School Recognition Program.
A government publication, Profiles in Ex- cellence, 1982-1983, Secondary School Rec- ognition Program, a Resource Guide, lists the Kennebunk, Maine High School as one which schools across the nation may wish to emulate. (The school itself states in another publication that the school’s program may become a national model.)
The Guide states “The major goal of the school’s curriculum is to individualize the learning process for the student. The district is in the process of developing a data bank for students and a testing pro- gram for determining expectancy in- structional levels for each student. Once this is in place, staff will develop an In- dividual Education Plan (IEP) for each student to meet individual needs. The major difficulty the school is encounter- ing in implementing this new process is the secondary staff who are trained as subject matter teachers.” (Meaning: those good teachers your children have who teach them grammar, math, and history!) “Teachers need to be retrained to focus on individual needs rather than on content areas.”45 [Emphasis added]
————— ▼ ————— SECRETARY BELL KNEW
ALL STUDENTS WOULD HAVE IEP’S
In Kennebunk, the special education staff (teachers of the handicapped) are training the regular classroom teachers (teachers of the non-handicapped) in how to develop individual education plans for regular classroom students. Since federal special education law re- quires parental consent in the develop- ment of IEPs and future plans seem to call for computerized IEPs and manage- ment systems for ALL students across the nation, it would be discriminatory not to include ALL students under the parental consent requirement.
Could former Secretary Bell’s efforts in 1981 to eliminate the parental consent re- quirement for special education students have had anything to do with his knowl- edge that in the future ALL students
10
A government publication, Profiles in Ex- cellence, 1982-1983, Secondary School Rec- ognition Program, a Resource Guide, lists the Kennebunk, Maine High School as one which schools across the nation may wish to emulate. (The school itself states in another publication that the school’s program may become a national model.)
The Guide states “The major goal of the school’s curriculum is to individualize the learning process for the student. The district is in the process of developing a data bank for students and a testing pro- gram for determining expectancy in- structional levels for each student. Once this is in place, staff will develop an In- dividual Education Plan (IEP) for each student to meet individual needs. The major difficulty the school is encounter- ing in implementing this new process is the secondary staff who are trained as subject matter teachers.” (Meaning: those good teachers your children have who teach them grammar, math, and history!) “Teachers need to be retrained to focus on individual needs rather than on content areas.”45 [Emphasis added]
————— ▼ ————— SECRETARY BELL KNEW
ALL STUDENTS WOULD HAVE IEP’S
In Kennebunk, the special education staff (teachers of the handicapped) are training the regular classroom teachers (teachers of the non-handicapped) in how to develop individual education plans for regular classroom students. Since federal special education law re- quires parental consent in the develop- ment of IEPs and future plans seem to call for computerized IEPs and manage- ment systems for ALL students across the nation, it would be discriminatory not to include ALL students under the parental consent requirement.
Could former Secretary Bell’s efforts in 1981 to eliminate the parental consent re- quirement for special education students have had anything to do with his knowl- edge that in the future ALL students
10
would be required to have individual
education plans; and his logical fear that
the parental consent provision for spe-
cial education students might be re-
quired for ALL students, thereby open-
ing up a can of worms far more threat-
ening to the education establishment
than the present Protection of Pupil
Rights Amendment: ALL parents hav-
ing the right to review ALL educational
materials and methods and to withhold
consent for subjection of their children
to computerized individual education
plans and objectionable methods and
programs?
————— ▼ —————
TEACHERS WHO RESIST RETRAINING WON’T RECEIVE MERIT PAY
Scanlon’s prediction in 1974 about “free- ing the individual from subject matter” has come true in Kennebunk where “teachers need to be retrained to focus on individual needs rather than on con- tent areas.” I hope my reader will study the Kennebunk quote since it reflects ac- curately what the schools are doing not only to our children, but also to our good teachers, in order for the schools to be “recognized” (rewarded) by the U.S. De- partment of Education. You can be sure that teachers who resist such re-training will not receive merit pay, nor will they rise on the much-touted career ladders, implementation of which are being funded by the U.S. Secretary of Education’s Discretionary Fund (multi-million dol- lar slush fund that focuses on implemen- tation of priority federal policies and programs affecting our local schools.)
————— ▼ —————
TEACHERS ARE WAKING UP!
Subject matter teachers do not want to become personal guidance counselors (unlicensed psychologists) or facilitators of political and social indoctrination. (Researchers at a recent conference of the American Education Research Associa- tion who said “Writing can be used to clarify students’ values and even alter
————— ▼ —————
TEACHERS WHO RESIST RETRAINING WON’T RECEIVE MERIT PAY
Scanlon’s prediction in 1974 about “free- ing the individual from subject matter” has come true in Kennebunk where “teachers need to be retrained to focus on individual needs rather than on con- tent areas.” I hope my reader will study the Kennebunk quote since it reflects ac- curately what the schools are doing not only to our children, but also to our good teachers, in order for the schools to be “recognized” (rewarded) by the U.S. De- partment of Education. You can be sure that teachers who resist such re-training will not receive merit pay, nor will they rise on the much-touted career ladders, implementation of which are being funded by the U.S. Secretary of Education’s Discretionary Fund (multi-million dol- lar slush fund that focuses on implemen- tation of priority federal policies and programs affecting our local schools.)
————— ▼ —————
TEACHERS ARE WAKING UP!
Subject matter teachers do not want to become personal guidance counselors (unlicensed psychologists) or facilitators of political and social indoctrination. (Researchers at a recent conference of the American Education Research Associa- tion who said “Writing can be used to clarify students’ values and even alter
Back To Basics Reform, Or...OBE *Skinnerian International Curriculum? | by Charlotte T. Iserbyt
their views on controversial subjects”
were challenged by other educators who
said “they were concerned that teachers
have the power to alter students’ values
and it can be dangerous when we know
that educators have the power to influ-
ence kids’ minds.”46 I say to those edu-
cators, RIGHT ON! Better late than
never!
————— ▼ —————
TOTAL ACCOUNTABILITY (CONTROL) NOT YET INSTITUTIONALIZED
The present absence of an Outcome- based Mastery Learning and Teaching system, “institutionalized in all schools of the nation” allows the “reform” com- ponents in the K-12 experience described in this book to remain disorganized and subject to teacher censorship and inde- pendence (not conforming to the school’s new objectives or methods) and students escape from mastery (indoctri- nation) in the “New Basics.”
Currently, the educationists’ goals are implemented on a “hit or miss” basis since the “total” accountability system, so necessary for international and na- tional planning, has not yet been insti- tutionalized. This hit or miss aspect, plus school boards who refuse to install com- puter terminals in individual school buildings and good subject matter-ori- ented teachers who resist implementing the reforms, are the only reasons why one still finds students who are essen- tially literate, who still believe in abso- lute values of right and wrong, and who still love the United States of America and will defend its sovereignty from the assaults of the globalist social engineers.
Good teachers will be the victims of op- erant conditioning, as is blatantly spelled out in an article in the May 1985 issue of The Effective School Report entitled “Principals’ Expectations as a Motivat- ing Factor in Effective Schools.” This ar- ticle states in part:
“The principal expects specific behaviors from particular teachers
————— ▼ —————
TOTAL ACCOUNTABILITY (CONTROL) NOT YET INSTITUTIONALIZED
The present absence of an Outcome- based Mastery Learning and Teaching system, “institutionalized in all schools of the nation” allows the “reform” com- ponents in the K-12 experience described in this book to remain disorganized and subject to teacher censorship and inde- pendence (not conforming to the school’s new objectives or methods) and students escape from mastery (indoctri- nation) in the “New Basics.”
Currently, the educationists’ goals are implemented on a “hit or miss” basis since the “total” accountability system, so necessary for international and na- tional planning, has not yet been insti- tutionalized. This hit or miss aspect, plus school boards who refuse to install com- puter terminals in individual school buildings and good subject matter-ori- ented teachers who resist implementing the reforms, are the only reasons why one still finds students who are essen- tially literate, who still believe in abso- lute values of right and wrong, and who still love the United States of America and will defend its sovereignty from the assaults of the globalist social engineers.
Good teachers will be the victims of op- erant conditioning, as is blatantly spelled out in an article in the May 1985 issue of The Effective School Report entitled “Principals’ Expectations as a Motivat- ing Factor in Effective Schools.” This ar- ticle states in part:
“The principal expects specific behaviors from particular teachers
which should then translate into
achievement by the students of these
teachers; because of these varied
expectations, the principal behaves
differently toward different teachers,
i.e., body language, verbal interac-
tions and resource allocations. This
treatment also influences the
attitudes of the teacher toward the
principal and their perception of the
future utility of any increased effort
toward student achievement. If this
treatment is consistent over time,
and if the teachers do not resist
change, it will shape their behavior
and through it the achievement of
their students... With time teachers’
behavior, self-concepts of ability,
perceptions of future utility, attitude
toward the principal, and students’
achievement will conform more and
more closely to the behavior
originally expected of them.”
[Emphasis added] 47 Note the repeated
use of the word “treatment” which is
classic Skinnerian behavior modifi-
cation/operant conditioning.
The Effective School Movement, with its emphasis on so-called “accountability, equity, excellence, and outcomes,” re- quires “new” criteria for teacher certifi- cation: new Skinnerian performance- based teacher evaluation instruments based to a large extent on teacher val- ues, attitudes, and beliefs (affective) cri- teria; constant retraining, i.e., Kennebunk, to focus on students’ indi- vidual (academic/personal/psychologi- cal) needs, and computer terminals in each school building to collect and store information on students and teachers for easy retrieval and constant monitoring and recycling until they exhibit the cor- rect behavior.
Elam Hertzler, Secretary Bell’s top assis- tant in the U.S. Department of Educa- tion, told State Superintendents of In- struction at the annual Washington, D.C. meeting of the Council of Chief State School Officers in 1982:
“One of the elements of an effective school was to monitor, assess, and
11
The Effective School Movement, with its emphasis on so-called “accountability, equity, excellence, and outcomes,” re- quires “new” criteria for teacher certifi- cation: new Skinnerian performance- based teacher evaluation instruments based to a large extent on teacher val- ues, attitudes, and beliefs (affective) cri- teria; constant retraining, i.e., Kennebunk, to focus on students’ indi- vidual (academic/personal/psychologi- cal) needs, and computer terminals in each school building to collect and store information on students and teachers for easy retrieval and constant monitoring and recycling until they exhibit the cor- rect behavior.
Elam Hertzler, Secretary Bell’s top assis- tant in the U.S. Department of Educa- tion, told State Superintendents of In- struction at the annual Washington, D.C. meeting of the Council of Chief State School Officers in 1982:
“One of the elements of an effective school was to monitor, assess, and
11
feedback ... As little as 5 percent
of a school budget K-12 would be needed over a period of 12 years to enable each student to have his own computer, and this is within our cost range.”
————— ▼ ————— NO ONE WILL ESCAPE
SYSTEM’S CONTROL
The movement lacks only the Skinnerian “national learning system” (the purpose of the Far West Laboratory grant and other Mastery Learning grants, includ- ing the NEA Mastery in Learning Project supported by the U.S. Department of Education’s labs and centers) to lock in the Mastery Learning and Teaching com- ponents for “New Basics” indoctrination which, in turn will “match” the feder- ally-funded questions on the current state and forthcoming national and in- ternational achievement tests. Once the system is in place, no one will escape its control, not even private schools, and Skinnerian rewards and awards (posi- tive reinforcement which former Secre- tary Bell prefers to call “incentives”) will be given to administrators, teachers, stu- dents, businessmen, school board and community members who go along with the objectives of the national/interna- tional curriculum. Those who resist such control (retain their individualism) will be isolated in their schools and commu- nities (negative reinforcement). Watch your local newspapers for news of school boards reducing staff (weeding out those administrators and teachers who don’t go along). Indications are that this is going on right now. Parents and school board members who don’t go along will continue to be labeled anti- education and negative.
————— ▼ —————
“VERY FEW OF THEM UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY’RE BUILDING...”
The educational accountability/man- agement systems such as Planning, Pro- gramming, Budgeting Systems (PPBS)
of a school budget K-12 would be needed over a period of 12 years to enable each student to have his own computer, and this is within our cost range.”
————— ▼ ————— NO ONE WILL ESCAPE
SYSTEM’S CONTROL
The movement lacks only the Skinnerian “national learning system” (the purpose of the Far West Laboratory grant and other Mastery Learning grants, includ- ing the NEA Mastery in Learning Project supported by the U.S. Department of Education’s labs and centers) to lock in the Mastery Learning and Teaching com- ponents for “New Basics” indoctrination which, in turn will “match” the feder- ally-funded questions on the current state and forthcoming national and in- ternational achievement tests. Once the system is in place, no one will escape its control, not even private schools, and Skinnerian rewards and awards (posi- tive reinforcement which former Secre- tary Bell prefers to call “incentives”) will be given to administrators, teachers, stu- dents, businessmen, school board and community members who go along with the objectives of the national/interna- tional curriculum. Those who resist such control (retain their individualism) will be isolated in their schools and commu- nities (negative reinforcement). Watch your local newspapers for news of school boards reducing staff (weeding out those administrators and teachers who don’t go along). Indications are that this is going on right now. Parents and school board members who don’t go along will continue to be labeled anti- education and negative.
————— ▼ —————
“VERY FEW OF THEM UNDERSTAND WHAT THEY’RE BUILDING...”
The educational accountability/man- agement systems such as Planning, Pro- gramming, Budgeting Systems (PPBS)
Back To Basics Reform, Or...OBE *Skinnerian International Curriculum? | by Charlotte T. Iserbyt
or Management by (behavioral) Objec-
tives (MBO), based on Bloom’s TAX-
ONOMY OF EDUCATIONAL OBJEC-
TIVES, have been rolling across the na-
tion since the early seventies with sup-
port in the hundreds of millions of dol-
lars from the former U.S. Office of Edu-
cation and present U.S. Department of
Education.
These systems, all of which serve the same purpose, have been devised to “force schools to discover what they are doing with their money.” In essence, they call for a school district to come to a conclusion about what educational goals it seeks, develop programs to reach those goals (including teacher training and evaluation programs), approve the spending needed, measure the results, readjust programs according to results obtained, and recycle students and teachers when necessary in order for them to exhibit “correct” behaviors. If any other system (family, political, eco- nomic, religious, etc.) is in conflict with Bloom’s purpose of education and the schools—“to change the thoughts, feel- ings and actions of students” or his defi- nition of good teaching—“challenging the students’ fixed beliefs,” that system becomes a problem which stands in the way of the education system’s goals and objectives. The systems are problem- solving tools which are used not only for measuring and evaluating the academic standards of students, but also for mea- suring and evaluating students’ and teachers’ behavior and attitudes.
Utilizing the system’s tools of MBO or PPBS and Bloom’s TAXONOMY, the planners are able to determine the attitudes of individual students and teachers on specific issues, as well as their broad outlook toward life. If their attitudes do not measure up to the pre-determined international, national and state goals and behavioral objectives, they will be recycled or reprogrammed, using Mas- tery Learning and Mastery Teaching operant conditioning, until their atti- tudes, feelings and behavior match the government’s goals and objectives.
These systems, all of which serve the same purpose, have been devised to “force schools to discover what they are doing with their money.” In essence, they call for a school district to come to a conclusion about what educational goals it seeks, develop programs to reach those goals (including teacher training and evaluation programs), approve the spending needed, measure the results, readjust programs according to results obtained, and recycle students and teachers when necessary in order for them to exhibit “correct” behaviors. If any other system (family, political, eco- nomic, religious, etc.) is in conflict with Bloom’s purpose of education and the schools—“to change the thoughts, feel- ings and actions of students” or his defi- nition of good teaching—“challenging the students’ fixed beliefs,” that system becomes a problem which stands in the way of the education system’s goals and objectives. The systems are problem- solving tools which are used not only for measuring and evaluating the academic standards of students, but also for mea- suring and evaluating students’ and teachers’ behavior and attitudes.
Utilizing the system’s tools of MBO or PPBS and Bloom’s TAXONOMY, the planners are able to determine the attitudes of individual students and teachers on specific issues, as well as their broad outlook toward life. If their attitudes do not measure up to the pre-determined international, national and state goals and behavioral objectives, they will be recycled or reprogrammed, using Mas- tery Learning and Mastery Teaching operant conditioning, until their atti- tudes, feelings and behavior match the government’s goals and objectives.
Dr. Robert Corrigan, a close associate of
Professor B.F. Skinner, has over the past
twenty-five years developed such a sys-
tem-wide educational engineering or in-
dustrial model called S.A.F.E. (System-
atic Approach for Effectiveness). It has
been endorsed by (among others) Pro-
fessor William Spady, the Director of the
Far West Laboratory Outcome-based
Education Project, and Professor Homer
Coker of the University of Georgia, who
developed, with National Institute of
Education funds, a controversial stan-
dardized teacher evaluation instrument
with 420 teacher characteristics (compe-
tencies)!
A 400 page how-to manual entitled EDU- CATION FOR RESULTS: IN RESPONSE TO A NATION AT RISK, describes Corrigan’s federally-funded S.A.F.E. model. On page 155, Corrigan states,
“The following successive phases were performed to test out the theoretical concepts of increased mastery learning effectiveness: Phase 1. To design and to extensively field-test a group instructional learning-centered program applying those programmed instructional principles postulated by Skinner and Crowder to be combined with the techniques of System Analysis for installing required system-wide managing-for-results processes including the accountable perfor- mance by teachers, principals and support personnel. This program would be ‘packaged’ for use by teachers to deliver predictable achievement of defined mastery- learning objectives...”48
Florida’s Associate Commissioner of Education, Cecil Golden, said in regard to these systems and those implement- ing them,
“...and, like those assembling an atom bomb, very few of them understand exactly what they’re building, and won’t until we put all the parts together.”49
12
A 400 page how-to manual entitled EDU- CATION FOR RESULTS: IN RESPONSE TO A NATION AT RISK, describes Corrigan’s federally-funded S.A.F.E. model. On page 155, Corrigan states,
“The following successive phases were performed to test out the theoretical concepts of increased mastery learning effectiveness: Phase 1. To design and to extensively field-test a group instructional learning-centered program applying those programmed instructional principles postulated by Skinner and Crowder to be combined with the techniques of System Analysis for installing required system-wide managing-for-results processes including the accountable perfor- mance by teachers, principals and support personnel. This program would be ‘packaged’ for use by teachers to deliver predictable achievement of defined mastery- learning objectives...”48
Florida’s Associate Commissioner of Education, Cecil Golden, said in regard to these systems and those implement- ing them,
“...and, like those assembling an atom bomb, very few of them understand exactly what they’re building, and won’t until we put all the parts together.”49
12
————— ▼ —————
MASTERY LEARNING
PLUGS INTO MBO LIKE A HAND SLIPS INTO A GLOVE
The Far West Laboratory grant to put Outcome-based (Results Based) Mastery Learning, which plugs into PPBS, MBO or SAFE like a hand slips into a glove, into “all schools of the nation,” was wait- ing in the wings until almost all states had implemented PPBS, MBO, SAFE or whatever else the educators call their management/accountability system, had their computer terminals on line, and had mandated their goals for edu- cation, specifying certain behavioral ob- jectives, skills, and attitudes necessary for promotion from level to level and for graduation.
————— ▼ —————
FEDERALLY-FUNDED GOALS COLLECTION BLATANTLY DECLARES WHAT WILL TAKE PLACE IN THE NEXT TWENTY YEARS
Although local citizens are assured THEIR goals and objectives were deter- mined LOCALLY, evidence proves oth- erwise. One important partially feder- ally-funded COURSE GOALS COL- LECTION has been disseminated to school districts across the nation over the past ten years by the U.S. Department of Education’s Northwest Regional Edu- cational Laboratory (one of the labs co- operating with the NEA on its Mastery in Learning Project.)
According to the price list for this col- lection, 70,000 copies are currently in use throughout the United States, a fact which is highly significant, since there are only 16,000 school districts in the nation. The collection consists of four- teen volumes with 15,000 goals cover- ing every major subject taught in the public schools from kindergarten through grade twelve.
This GOALS COLLECTION, which is based on “the theoretical work of Bloom, Tyler, Gagne, Piaget, Krathwohl, Walbesser, Mager, and others,” blatantly
PLUGS INTO MBO LIKE A HAND SLIPS INTO A GLOVE
The Far West Laboratory grant to put Outcome-based (Results Based) Mastery Learning, which plugs into PPBS, MBO or SAFE like a hand slips into a glove, into “all schools of the nation,” was wait- ing in the wings until almost all states had implemented PPBS, MBO, SAFE or whatever else the educators call their management/accountability system, had their computer terminals on line, and had mandated their goals for edu- cation, specifying certain behavioral ob- jectives, skills, and attitudes necessary for promotion from level to level and for graduation.
————— ▼ —————
FEDERALLY-FUNDED GOALS COLLECTION BLATANTLY DECLARES WHAT WILL TAKE PLACE IN THE NEXT TWENTY YEARS
Although local citizens are assured THEIR goals and objectives were deter- mined LOCALLY, evidence proves oth- erwise. One important partially feder- ally-funded COURSE GOALS COL- LECTION has been disseminated to school districts across the nation over the past ten years by the U.S. Department of Education’s Northwest Regional Edu- cational Laboratory (one of the labs co- operating with the NEA on its Mastery in Learning Project.)
According to the price list for this col- lection, 70,000 copies are currently in use throughout the United States, a fact which is highly significant, since there are only 16,000 school districts in the nation. The collection consists of four- teen volumes with 15,000 goals cover- ing every major subject taught in the public schools from kindergarten through grade twelve.
This GOALS COLLECTION, which is based on “the theoretical work of Bloom, Tyler, Gagne, Piaget, Krathwohl, Walbesser, Mager, and others,” blatantly
Back To Basics Reform, Or...OBE *Skinnerian International Curriculum? | by Charlotte T. Iserbyt
recommends the use of Mastery Learn-
ing when it says “The K-12 Goals Col-
lection provides a resource for develop-
ing diagnostic-prescriptive Mastery
Learning approaches, both programmed
and teacher managed;” the use of MBO/
PPBS when it says, “Perhaps the great-
est need addressed by the project is for
a sound basis for accountability in edu-
cation ... assistance such as Planning,
Program Budget, and Management sys-
tems or even general concepts such as
Management by Objectives;...” and the
use of Values Clarification when it says
“Value goals of two types are included:
Those related to processes of values clari-
fication; secondly, those representing
values, choices that might be fostered in
the context of the discipline.” It states
under “Content” there is to be none, as
predicted by Scanlon, since “established
facts change, causing many fact-bound
curricula to become obsolete during the
approximately five-year lag between
their inception and their wide spread
dissemination, and social mobility and
cultural pluralism make it increasingly
difficult to identify the ‘important
facts’.”50 So what do you teach? Nothing,
just clarify values also predicted by Mr.
Scanlon in 1974.
————— ▼ ————— THERAPY CONTINUES TO BE
NAME OF EDUCATION GAME
The Introduction to COURSE GOALS COLLECTION, from which I have quoted, documents this author’s conten- tion that education has not reversed gears, as Americans are being told at all levels and by a constant media barrage. The present reforms very simply deal with how to systematize the controver- sial non-academic “therapy” compo- nents of education which caused our nation to be “at risk” and which, inter- estingly enough, were not even men- tioned in “A Nation at Risk.” Proof of this is found in a recent grant applica- tion which was subsequently approved by the U.S. Department of Education, from the Indian Springs School district in Justice, Illinois to the U.S. Department
————— ▼ ————— THERAPY CONTINUES TO BE
NAME OF EDUCATION GAME
The Introduction to COURSE GOALS COLLECTION, from which I have quoted, documents this author’s conten- tion that education has not reversed gears, as Americans are being told at all levels and by a constant media barrage. The present reforms very simply deal with how to systematize the controver- sial non-academic “therapy” compo- nents of education which caused our nation to be “at risk” and which, inter- estingly enough, were not even men- tioned in “A Nation at Risk.” Proof of this is found in a recent grant applica- tion which was subsequently approved by the U.S. Department of Education, from the Indian Springs School district in Justice, Illinois to the U.S. Department
of Education for $80,000 to conduct a
project entitled Computer-Assisted Net-
work Systems (C.A.N.S.). The application
says, “With the implementation of this
proposal C.A.N.S. teachers and admin-
istrators will be afforded the opportunities
to expend much more time with students
in the affective domain of learning...” i.e.,
attitudes, values, and beliefs education.
————— ▼ —————
ENFORCEMENT OF PUPIL RIGHTS AMENDMENT THREATENS WORLD GOVERNMENT CURRICULUM
Since the use of many of the controver- sial “therapy” components requires in- formed parental consent under the 1978 Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, it is understandable that the mammoth education establishment is having hysterics over the recently approved regulations to enforce the amendment, and is lob- bying the Congress to overturn the law.
If the regulations are strictly enforced, the schools will have to do the unthink- able: let parents and taxpayers in on their well-kept federally-funded curriculum research, development, and dissemina- tion-across-the nation secrets. Such en- forcement would spell disaster for their plans to convert our children into advo- cates of the coming socialist one world government.
————— ▼ —————
GOVERNMENT TO OPERATE THROUGH SKINNERIAN TECHNIQUES?
Skinner says in TECHNOLOGY OF TEACHING, 1968:
“Absolute power in education is not a serious issue today because it seems out of reach. However, a technology of teaching will need to be much more powerful if the race with catastrophe is to be won, and it may then, like any powerful technol- ogy, need to be contained. An appropriate counter control will not be generated as a revolt against aversive measures but by a policy designed to maximize the contribu-
13
————— ▼ —————
ENFORCEMENT OF PUPIL RIGHTS AMENDMENT THREATENS WORLD GOVERNMENT CURRICULUM
Since the use of many of the controver- sial “therapy” components requires in- formed parental consent under the 1978 Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment, it is understandable that the mammoth education establishment is having hysterics over the recently approved regulations to enforce the amendment, and is lob- bying the Congress to overturn the law.
If the regulations are strictly enforced, the schools will have to do the unthink- able: let parents and taxpayers in on their well-kept federally-funded curriculum research, development, and dissemina- tion-across-the nation secrets. Such en- forcement would spell disaster for their plans to convert our children into advo- cates of the coming socialist one world government.
————— ▼ —————
GOVERNMENT TO OPERATE THROUGH SKINNERIAN TECHNIQUES?
Skinner says in TECHNOLOGY OF TEACHING, 1968:
“Absolute power in education is not a serious issue today because it seems out of reach. However, a technology of teaching will need to be much more powerful if the race with catastrophe is to be won, and it may then, like any powerful technol- ogy, need to be contained. An appropriate counter control will not be generated as a revolt against aversive measures but by a policy designed to maximize the contribu-
13
tion which education will make to
the strength of the culture. The issue
is important because the govern-
ment of the future will probably
operate mainly through educational
techniques.”51 [Emphasis added]
The views of Skinner, and others who authorize funding of curricula, must be challenged on all counts. Not only our children, but all the world’s children, for generations to come, must be allowed to live WITH freedom and dignity, not BEYOND FREEDOM AND DIGNITY, as spelled out by Skinner in his book of the same title.
————— ▼ —————
CONGRESS WILL ACT
IF ENOUGH AMERICANS DEMAND AN INVESTIGATION
Our government is still “the people’s government, made for the people, by the people and answerable to the people.”52 Only the people—each one individually —can turn education around through pressure on their elected representatives to conduct a congressional investigation of the subversive activities of the U.S. Department of Education AND certain corporations and tax-exempt foundations.
A 1981 report on the very important fed- erally-funded National Assessment of Educational Progress by Willard Wirtz (a promoter of MACOS) and Archie LaPointe, describes the influence wielded by three important foundations when it says:
“In a different sense, this report is designed to meet the responsibilities imposed at least implicitly by the three foundations which have initiated and have supported the project: The Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation.”53
————— ▼ —————
STATE DEPARTMENTS OF EDUCATION MUST ALSO BE ABOLISHED
Such an investigation is essential to jus-
The views of Skinner, and others who authorize funding of curricula, must be challenged on all counts. Not only our children, but all the world’s children, for generations to come, must be allowed to live WITH freedom and dignity, not BEYOND FREEDOM AND DIGNITY, as spelled out by Skinner in his book of the same title.
————— ▼ —————
CONGRESS WILL ACT
IF ENOUGH AMERICANS DEMAND AN INVESTIGATION
Our government is still “the people’s government, made for the people, by the people and answerable to the people.”52 Only the people—each one individually —can turn education around through pressure on their elected representatives to conduct a congressional investigation of the subversive activities of the U.S. Department of Education AND certain corporations and tax-exempt foundations.
A 1981 report on the very important fed- erally-funded National Assessment of Educational Progress by Willard Wirtz (a promoter of MACOS) and Archie LaPointe, describes the influence wielded by three important foundations when it says:
“In a different sense, this report is designed to meet the responsibilities imposed at least implicitly by the three foundations which have initiated and have supported the project: The Carnegie Corporation, the Ford Foundation, and the Spencer Foundation.”53
————— ▼ —————
STATE DEPARTMENTS OF EDUCATION MUST ALSO BE ABOLISHED
Such an investigation is essential to jus-
Back To Basics Reform, Or...OBE *Skinnerian International Curriculum? | by Charlotte T. Iserbyt
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt served as
Special Assistant in the Office of Edu-
cational Research and Improvement,
U.S. Department of Education, 1981-
1982, and as a school board member
in Camden, Maine, 1976-1979. She is
co-founder of and research analyst
for Guardians of Education for Main
(GEM). She has also served in the
Foreign Service (U.S. Department of
State) abroad 1956-1963 and with the
American Red Cross overseas dur-
ing the Korean War.
Mrs. Iserbyt is a freelance writer who has had articles published in Human Events, The Washington Times, the Bangor Daily News, and included in the record of Congressional hearings.
————— ▼ —————
Back To Basics Reform, Or...OBE *Skinnerian International Curricu- lum? ©1985 Charlotte T. Iserbyt. All rights reserved. Second printing 1993. Third publishing in 2004 (electronic format) by Charlotte T. Iserbyt, 1062 Washington St., Bath, Maine 04530, 207-442-7899; fax 207- 442-0551; email: dumbdown@blazenetme.net. PDF of Back To Basics Reform is available at website: www.deliberatedumbingdown.com
————— ▼ —————
Send this information to local school board members, state legislators, U.S. Congressmen and Senators.
Elected officials MUST be informed about the damaging, dumbing down activities that state/federal education reform policies and public tax dol- lars have supported and continue to support, all in the name of "account- ability to the corporate/federal gov- ernment partnership", NOT to the parent or local school district.
The unconstitutional U.S. Depart- ment of Education (in partnership with the U.S. Department of Labor) must be abolished by legislators.
Mrs. Iserbyt is a freelance writer who has had articles published in Human Events, The Washington Times, the Bangor Daily News, and included in the record of Congressional hearings.
————— ▼ —————
Back To Basics Reform, Or...OBE *Skinnerian International Curricu- lum? ©1985 Charlotte T. Iserbyt. All rights reserved. Second printing 1993. Third publishing in 2004 (electronic format) by Charlotte T. Iserbyt, 1062 Washington St., Bath, Maine 04530, 207-442-7899; fax 207- 442-0551; email: dumbdown@blazenetme.net. PDF of Back To Basics Reform is available at website: www.deliberatedumbingdown.com
————— ▼ —————
Send this information to local school board members, state legislators, U.S. Congressmen and Senators.
Elected officials MUST be informed about the damaging, dumbing down activities that state/federal education reform policies and public tax dol- lars have supported and continue to support, all in the name of "account- ability to the corporate/federal gov- ernment partnership", NOT to the parent or local school district.
The unconstitutional U.S. Depart- ment of Education (in partnership with the U.S. Department of Labor) must be abolished by legislators.
tify the abolition of the U.S. Department
of Education, its experimental laborato-
ries and centers, and eventually, through
state legislative action, ALL fifty state
departments of education which are
nothing but powerful, federally-funded
clones of the U.S. Department of Educa-
tion, clicking their heels in unison at ev-
ery federal policy initiative in order to
keep the bucks rolling into their state
education coffers.
(The former U.S. Office of Education and present U.S. Department of Education have over the years provided hundreds of millions of dollars to the state depart- ments of education through their State Capacity Building grants, the purpose of which is to increase federal control over the local schools. Even top educators now admit in their learned journals that the state departments of education have total control over the local schools.)
————— ▼ —————
ONLY YOU CAN SINK THE TREACHEROUS ICEBERG CALLED EDUCATION FOR WORLD CITIZENSHIP
For those few who, after reading this book, may question the need for such drastic action, let me remind them that the goings-on described herein consti- tute just the tip of a gigantic and treach- erous international, federal, and founda- tion-funded iceberg labeled Education for World Citizenship, as outlined in the National Education Association’s 1976 Bicentennial Program, “Declaration of Interdependence: Education for a Global Community” with community defined as “the equitable sharing of like values.”
Whether or not the United States of America, through citizen preoccupation with fashion, TV, sports, gourmet cook- ing, jogging, making a living, etc., all of which are perfectly legitimate and worthwhile activities in a “free” society, and lack of understanding of the inter- nationalists’ use of Gradualism and Hegelian Philosophy to attain their goals, slides into the totalitarian Black Hole of a socialist one world government, with
(The former U.S. Office of Education and present U.S. Department of Education have over the years provided hundreds of millions of dollars to the state depart- ments of education through their State Capacity Building grants, the purpose of which is to increase federal control over the local schools. Even top educators now admit in their learned journals that the state departments of education have total control over the local schools.)
————— ▼ —————
ONLY YOU CAN SINK THE TREACHEROUS ICEBERG CALLED EDUCATION FOR WORLD CITIZENSHIP
For those few who, after reading this book, may question the need for such drastic action, let me remind them that the goings-on described herein consti- tute just the tip of a gigantic and treach- erous international, federal, and founda- tion-funded iceberg labeled Education for World Citizenship, as outlined in the National Education Association’s 1976 Bicentennial Program, “Declaration of Interdependence: Education for a Global Community” with community defined as “the equitable sharing of like values.”
Whether or not the United States of America, through citizen preoccupation with fashion, TV, sports, gourmet cook- ing, jogging, making a living, etc., all of which are perfectly legitimate and worthwhile activities in a “free” society, and lack of understanding of the inter- nationalists’ use of Gradualism and Hegelian Philosophy to attain their goals, slides into the totalitarian Black Hole of a socialist one world government, with
the resulting loss of freedoms our ances-
tors fought and died for, depends on
whether YOU, the reader, are convinced
the problems described in this book are
serious enough for you to spend a few
minutes writing to your elected officials.
You should send them a copy of this book and request from them
(1) the materials related to the grants and programs described herein;
(2) a Congressional investigation (with balance in the selection of witnesses) of the U.S. Department of Education and its labs and centers, and of cer- tain corporations and tax-exempt foundations which control American education; and
(3) abolition of the U.S. Department of Education and its labs and centers.
Should such an effort prove successful, the next step is to convince your state legislators to abolish the powerful state departments of education since they are nothing but surrogates of the federal Department of Education and through heavy federal funding in the past could very likely stand on their own, even if the U.S. Department of Education were abolished.
Also, persuade at least ten friends to take the same action. Copies of correspon- dence with your elected officials and of this book should be sent to President Ronald Reagan under cover of a letter requesting that he honor his 1980 pledge to the American people to abolish the U.S. Department of Education and that HE reply to your letter and not send it to the Department of Education for reply.
If the present situation continues un- checked, by the year 1998 children now in kindergarten will have been through thirteen years of Skinnerian world gov- ernment brainwash, under the deceptive guise of the “New Basics,” you and I may well no longer be around to vote, and the 18-year-olds may well be on their way to vote what historians refer to as the greatest experiment in human freedom – straight down the tubes.
14
You should send them a copy of this book and request from them
(1) the materials related to the grants and programs described herein;
(2) a Congressional investigation (with balance in the selection of witnesses) of the U.S. Department of Education and its labs and centers, and of cer- tain corporations and tax-exempt foundations which control American education; and
(3) abolition of the U.S. Department of Education and its labs and centers.
Should such an effort prove successful, the next step is to convince your state legislators to abolish the powerful state departments of education since they are nothing but surrogates of the federal Department of Education and through heavy federal funding in the past could very likely stand on their own, even if the U.S. Department of Education were abolished.
Also, persuade at least ten friends to take the same action. Copies of correspon- dence with your elected officials and of this book should be sent to President Ronald Reagan under cover of a letter requesting that he honor his 1980 pledge to the American people to abolish the U.S. Department of Education and that HE reply to your letter and not send it to the Department of Education for reply.
If the present situation continues un- checked, by the year 1998 children now in kindergarten will have been through thirteen years of Skinnerian world gov- ernment brainwash, under the deceptive guise of the “New Basics,” you and I may well no longer be around to vote, and the 18-year-olds may well be on their way to vote what historians refer to as the greatest experiment in human freedom – straight down the tubes.
14
Back To Basics Reform, Or...OBE *Skinnerian International Curriculum? | by Charlotte T. Iserbyt
————— ▼ —————
REFERENCES
-
Skinner, B.F., Science and Human Behavior (NY:
Macmillan & Co., 1953.)
-
Evans, Richard I., B.F. Skinner: The Man and His Ideas,
(NY: E.P. Dutton & Co., 1968.)
-
Ibid, Preface.
-
Corrigan, Dean, 1969, Speech before 22nd Annual
Teachers Education Conference, University of Geor-
gia.
-
Veatch, Jeanette, Professor, letter to Ann Herzer, July
1980.
-
Arizona Federation of Teachers’ Resolution, passed
at meeting of officers, May 5, 1984.
-
Futrell, Mary, President of National Education As-
sociation, signed advertisement carried in Education
Week and other journals, Spring 1985.
-
Rutherford, James, Assistant Secretary, U.S. Depart-
ment of Education, letter to Congressman Eldon
Rudd dated January 19, 1981 (enclosure) p. 6.
-
Corrigan, Dr. Robert E., and Bailey, Dr. George W.,
“Effective Schools for Results—Applying Proven
Practices for Effective Schooling Results.” In The Ef-
fective School Report, July 1984.
-
Hays, Dick, Acting Assistant Secretary, U.S. Depart-
ment of Education, memorandum to Secretary of
Education Shirley Hufstedler dated March 30, 1980,
“Subject: Briefing Memorandum Concerning a Con-
troversy with Arizona Congressman Eldon Rudd:
Summary.”
-
Carmine, Doug and Becker, Wes, Summary of the
National Evaluation Follow Through Findings, 1970-
1976, University of Oregon Direct Instruction Fol-
low Through Program, p. 1.
-
Goodman, Kenneth, Professor, Support for Learning
and Teaching of English (SLATE) newsletter, March
1978, Vol. 3, No. 2 entitled “The President’s Educa-
tion Program: A Response.”
-
Senese,Donald,AssistantSecretary,U.S.Department
of Education, memorandum to Secretary of Educa-
tion Terrel Bell, subject: “Report, October 30-Novem-
ber 5, 1982.”
-
Burningham,G.Leland,UtahStateSuperintendent
of Instruction, letter to Secretary of Education Terrell
Bell dated July 27, 1984, supporting Far West Labo-
ratory Outcome-based Education grant proposal.
-
Spady, William, Professor, Speech, Mastery Learn-
ing conference, U.S. Department of Education, Wash-
ington D.C., April 21, 1982.
-
Cohen, Allen, Professor, speech to Maine Associa-
tion for Supervision and Curriculum Development
Conference, Saco, Maine, 1983; Subject: Mastery
Learning. Tape available.
-
Shane,Harold,“America’sNextTwenty-fiveYears:
Some Implications for Education,” in Phi Delta
Kappan, September 1976.
-
Hornbeck,David,StateSuperintendentofMaryland
Public Schools, testimony before Maryland State
Board of Education supporting mandated commu-
nity service, January 25, 1984.
-
Scanlon, Robert G., former Pennsylvania Secretary
of Education and Executive Director, Research for
Better Schools, Philadelphia, PA (NIE laboratory: A
Curriculum for Personalized Education (Research for
Better Schools, 1974.)
-
Far West Laboratory for Educational Research and
Development, Grant Application to Department of
Education, Application control Center, ATTN: 84-
122B, Washington, D.C. 20202 entitled “Excellence
in Instructional Delivery Systems: Research and Dis-
semination of Exemplary Outcome-based Pro-
grams,” August 1, 1984, p. 1.
-
Shaver, James P., and Oliver, Donald W., Teaching
Public Issues in the High School (Boston: Houghton
Mifflin Co., 1966) pp. 305, 306
-
Human Intelligence International Newsletter, P.O. Box
1163, Birmingham, Michigan 48012, March/April
1981, p. 1.
-
Ibid, p. 1.
-
Delgado, Jose M.R., M.D., Departmento de
Investigacion, Centro “Ramono y Cahal”/Ctra. De
Colmenar km 9/Madrid 34, Spain, “Biological Basis
of Intelligence and Freedom,” Human Intelligence
International Newsletter, P.O. Box 1163, Birmingham,
Michigan 48012, July/October 1981, p. 2.
-
Senate Bill 3421, State of Washington, 49th Legisla-
ture, 1985 Regular Session.
-
Beyer, Barry K., “Improving Thinking skills, —De-
fining the Problem,” in Phi Delta Kappan, March 1984.
-
Raths,HarminandSimon,ValuesandTeaching,p.138.
-
Bloom Benjamin, All Our Children Learning (NY:
McGraw Hill Paperbacks, 1981) p. 180.
-
Krathwohl, David, Bloom, Benjamin, and Massia,
Bertram, Taxonomy of Educational Objectives, The Clas-
sification of Educational Goals, Handbook II: Affective
Domain, p. 55.
-
North Carolina Competency-based Curriculum,
Basic Education Program, 1985.
-
Council of Chief State School Officers, Grant Appli-
cation No. 122BH40183 Department of Education,
entitled “Textbook and Instructional Materials
Project.”
-
“Secretary’s Technology Initiative—Bell’s Education
Department Betrays Reagan Policies,” Human Events,
May 22, 1982.
-
National Institute of Education briefing paper en-
titled “International and Foreign Language Educa-
tion: A Summary of Existing and Past Activities at
the National Institute of Education.” No date (ap-
proximately 1980) p. 1.
-
Gass, J.R., Organization for Economic Cooperation
and Development, Center for Educational Research
and Innovation, 2 Rue Andre-Pascal, 75775 Paris,
letter to Donald J. Senese, Assistant Secretary of Edu-
cational Research and Improvement, U.S. Depart-
ment of Education, dated July 9, 1982.
-
Senese, Donald J., “International Conference Exam-
ines Technology in Education,” T.H.E. Journal, Janu-
ary 1985, pp. 96-97.
-
Bloom Benjamin, All Our Children Learning (NY:
McGraw Hill Paperbacks, 1981) p. 123.
15
37. Goodlad, John I., “Report of President’s Commission
on School Finance,” Department of Health, Educa-
tion and Welfare, 1970.
Back To Basics Reform, Or...OBE *Skinnerian International Curriculum? | by Charlotte T. Iserbyt
38.
39.
40. 41.
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47. 48.
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40. 41.
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49.
Goodlad, John I., Preface to Schooling for a Global Age
edited by James Becker (NY: McGraw Hill Book Co.,
1979.)
Goodland, John & Associates, Curriculum Inquiry – The Study of Curriculum Practice (NY: McGraw Hill, 1979.)
Bloom Benjamin, All Our Children Learning (NY: McGraw Hill Paperbacks, 1981) pp. 33, 35.
Goodland, John & Associates, Curriculum Inquiry – The Study of Curriculum Practice (NY: McGraw Hill, 1979.)
Hueston, Dustin H., “Discussion — Developing the Potential of An Amazing Tool,” Schooling and Tech- nology, Vol. 3, Planning for the Future: A Collaborative Model, An Interpretive Report on Creative Partnerships in Technology—An Open Forum published by South- eastern Regional Council for Educational Improve- ment, P.O. Box 12746, 200 Park, Suite 111, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, Ph. 919/549-8216. Grant from National Institute of Education, p. 8.
Samuels, Cheryl, Control Data, “Dissemination of Systematic Procedures in Developing Countries,” Conference on Educational Technology to Improve Inter- national Education and Training, March 24, 25, 1982, Arlington, VA, published by the Institute for Applied Learning Technology, Warrenton, VA, p. 33.
Lesgold, Alan M., and Reif, Frederick, Computers in Education—Realizing the Potential; Chairmen’s Report of a Research Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, November 20-24, 1982, sponsored by U.S. Department of Edu- cation, T.H. Bell, Secretary and Office of Educational Research and Improvement, Donald J. Senese, As- sistant Secretary. Published in 1983, for sale by Supt. Of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402. No. 1983-381-054:134. Sum- mary, p. 5.
Profile in Excellence 1982—1983 Secondary School Rec- ognition Program—A Resource Guide, sponsored by U.S. Department of Education, T.H. Bell, Secretary of Education, published by Northeast Regional Ex- change, 160 Turnpike Road, Chelmsford, MA, 1984.
“Teachers Influence Students’ Values Through Writ- ing Assignments,” Education Daily, April 5, 1985.
The Effective School Report, May 1985.
Education for Results: In Response to a Nation at Risk, Vol. I, pp 155-156. SAFE Learning Systems Inc., P.O. Box 5089, Anaheim, CA 92804.
Golden, Cecil, Florida Associate Commissioner of Education, The Ledger, Tallahassee, Florida, July 27, 1972.
Goodland, John & Associates, Curriculum Inquiry – The Study of Curriculum Practice (NY: McGraw Hill, 1979.)
Bloom Benjamin, All Our Children Learning (NY: McGraw Hill Paperbacks, 1981) pp. 33, 35.
Goodland, John & Associates, Curriculum Inquiry – The Study of Curriculum Practice (NY: McGraw Hill, 1979.)
Hueston, Dustin H., “Discussion — Developing the Potential of An Amazing Tool,” Schooling and Tech- nology, Vol. 3, Planning for the Future: A Collaborative Model, An Interpretive Report on Creative Partnerships in Technology—An Open Forum published by South- eastern Regional Council for Educational Improve- ment, P.O. Box 12746, 200 Park, Suite 111, Research Triangle Park, NC 27709, Ph. 919/549-8216. Grant from National Institute of Education, p. 8.
Samuels, Cheryl, Control Data, “Dissemination of Systematic Procedures in Developing Countries,” Conference on Educational Technology to Improve Inter- national Education and Training, March 24, 25, 1982, Arlington, VA, published by the Institute for Applied Learning Technology, Warrenton, VA, p. 33.
Lesgold, Alan M., and Reif, Frederick, Computers in Education—Realizing the Potential; Chairmen’s Report of a Research Conference, Pittsburgh, PA, November 20-24, 1982, sponsored by U.S. Department of Edu- cation, T.H. Bell, Secretary and Office of Educational Research and Improvement, Donald J. Senese, As- sistant Secretary. Published in 1983, for sale by Supt. Of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office, Washington, D.C. 20402. No. 1983-381-054:134. Sum- mary, p. 5.
Profile in Excellence 1982—1983 Secondary School Rec- ognition Program—A Resource Guide, sponsored by U.S. Department of Education, T.H. Bell, Secretary of Education, published by Northeast Regional Ex- change, 160 Turnpike Road, Chelmsford, MA, 1984.
“Teachers Influence Students’ Values Through Writ- ing Assignments,” Education Daily, April 5, 1985.
The Effective School Report, May 1985.
Education for Results: In Response to a Nation at Risk, Vol. I, pp 155-156. SAFE Learning Systems Inc., P.O. Box 5089, Anaheim, CA 92804.
Golden, Cecil, Florida Associate Commissioner of Education, The Ledger, Tallahassee, Florida, July 27, 1972.
50. Introduction to K-12 Course Goals Collection, Northwest
Regional Educational Laboratory, 710 S.W. Second
Ave., Portland, OR 97294.
51. Skinner, B.F., The Technology of Teaching, 1968, p. 260. 52. Webster, Daniel, Second Speech on Foote’s Resolution,
January 26, 1830.
53. Wirtz, Willard and LaPointe, Archie, Foreward, Gal-
leys for Measuring the Quality of Education, Copyright 1981.
51. Skinner, B.F., The Technology of Teaching, 1968, p. 260. 52. Webster, Daniel, Second Speech on Foote’s Resolution,
January 26, 1830.
53. Wirtz, Willard and LaPointe, Archie, Foreward, Gal-
leys for Measuring the Quality of Education, Copyright 1981.
————— ▼ —————
1993 UPDATE
The computerized, values-changing Skinnerian (outcome-based) interna- tional curriculum predicted in this book written in 1985 is former President [George H.W.] Bush’s American 2000, referred to by President Clinton as Goals 2000. The majority of outcomes on state tests (assessments) now deal with politi- cally-correct attitudes. Critical Thinking, Cooperative Learning and Individual Education Plans (No competition, dumb-down, outcome-based/Mastery Learning), testing and retesting (recy- cling) will assure “mastery of politically- correct values and workforce skills re- quired for participation in the global community, economy, and government. Education will be LIFELONG.
ALL GOALS, OBJECTIVES, OUTCOMES, ETC., EMANATE FROM THE UNITED NATIONS’ AGENCIES, ESPECIALLY THE UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL. SCI- ENTIFIC, AND CULTURAL ORGANIZA- TIONS (UNESCO).
1993 UPDATE
The computerized, values-changing Skinnerian (outcome-based) interna- tional curriculum predicted in this book written in 1985 is former President [George H.W.] Bush’s American 2000, referred to by President Clinton as Goals 2000. The majority of outcomes on state tests (assessments) now deal with politi- cally-correct attitudes. Critical Thinking, Cooperative Learning and Individual Education Plans (No competition, dumb-down, outcome-based/Mastery Learning), testing and retesting (recy- cling) will assure “mastery of politically- correct values and workforce skills re- quired for participation in the global community, economy, and government. Education will be LIFELONG.
ALL GOALS, OBJECTIVES, OUTCOMES, ETC., EMANATE FROM THE UNITED NATIONS’ AGENCIES, ESPECIALLY THE UNITED NATIONS EDUCATIONAL. SCI- ENTIFIC, AND CULTURAL ORGANIZA- TIONS (UNESCO).
IMPORTANT OBE/ML QUOTES
When you are told by educators that
Outcome-based Education (OBE) and
Direct Instruction is not Skinnerian
Mastery Learning/Direct Instruction
(ML/DI), show them the following
statement by William Spady, sociolo-
gist and international leader in the
OBE/ML movement, which appeared
in an article entitled “On Outcome-
based Education: A Conversation with
Bill Spady,” Educational Leadership, De-
cember 1992/January 1993.
“In January of 1980 we convened a meeting of 42 people to form the Network for Outcome-Based Schools. Most of the people who were there—Jim Block, John Champlin—had a strong back- ground in mastery learning, since it was what OBE was called at that time. But I pleaded with the group not to use the name “Mastery Learning” in the Network’s new name because the word “mastery” had already been destroyed through poor implementation...” (Classic case of semantic deception at work which rears its ugly head again in 1993 with denials that OBE is ML.)
“In January of 1980 we convened a meeting of 42 people to form the Network for Outcome-Based Schools. Most of the people who were there—Jim Block, John Champlin—had a strong back- ground in mastery learning, since it was what OBE was called at that time. But I pleaded with the group not to use the name “Mastery Learning” in the Network’s new name because the word “mastery” had already been destroyed through poor implementation...” (Classic case of semantic deception at work which rears its ugly head again in 1993 with denials that OBE is ML.)
When you are told by educators that
OBE/ML is not a Skinnerian Dumb-
down System of Education, focusing
on behavioral change (collectivism
vs. individualism), show them the fol-
lowing statement by Jim Block,
Spady’s co-worker, which appeared
in an article by him entitled: “Mas-
tery Learning: The Current State of
the Craft,” Educational Leadership,
November 1979.
“One of the striking personal features of mastery learning, for example, is the degree to which it encourages cooperative individu- alism in student learning as opposed to selfish competition. Just how much room is there left in the world for individualists who are more concerned with their own performance than the performance of others. One of the striking societal features of mastery learning is the degree to which it presses for a society based on the excellence of all participants rather than one based on the excellence of a few. Can any society afford universal excellence, or must all societies make most people incompe- tent so that a few can be competent?”
“One of the striking personal features of mastery learning, for example, is the degree to which it encourages cooperative individu- alism in student learning as opposed to selfish competition. Just how much room is there left in the world for individualists who are more concerned with their own performance than the performance of others. One of the striking societal features of mastery learning is the degree to which it presses for a society based on the excellence of all participants rather than one based on the excellence of a few. Can any society afford universal excellence, or must all societies make most people incompe- tent so that a few can be competent?”
FIND OUT MORE
ABOUT THE DUMBING DOWN
OF EDUCATION
the deliberate dumbing down of america ...A Chronological Paper Trail (1999; First printing 1999, Second printing 2000, third printing 2001) by Charlotte T. Iserbyt (700 pages, paperback, $47.00 including S/H).
To order, call
1-207-442-7899/0543
or go to website:
www.deliberatedumbingdown.com
the deliberate dumbing down of america ...A Chronological Paper Trail is into its third printing in four years. Barnes & Noble rated "the deliberate dumbing down of america ...A Chronological Paper Trail " No. 1 in sales out of 29 titles related to education history, USA.
the deliberate dumbing down of america ...A Chronological Paper Trail (1999; First printing 1999, Second printing 2000, third printing 2001) by Charlotte T. Iserbyt (700 pages, paperback, $47.00 including S/H).
To order, call
1-207-442-7899/0543
or go to website:
www.deliberatedumbingdown.com
the deliberate dumbing down of america ...A Chronological Paper Trail is into its third printing in four years. Barnes & Noble rated "the deliberate dumbing down of america ...A Chronological Paper Trail " No. 1 in sales out of 29 titles related to education history, USA.
THE SECOND PRINTING OF THIS BOOK WAS DEDICATED TO
TWO REMARKABLE AND COURAGEOUS AMERICANS:
ANN HERZER, parent and public school teacher/college professor, whose impec- cable research on Mastery Learning/Outcome-Based Education provided the au- thor and many other concerned Americans with an understanding of the totalitar- ian method by which the “politically correct” brainwash is taking place in the tax- supported government schools of America; And
ANITA HOGE, parent and former teacher, whose intelligence and persistence re- sulted in exposure of the U.S. Department of Education’s long-standing unconsti- tutional/illegal program to mold American students’ values and attitudes—through programming (curriculum development) and assessment (testing)—to conform to those values and attitudes deemed necessary for world citizenship.
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Unfortunately, everything predicted in this book has happened to one degree or another, “OUR BRAINS ARE EMPTY” OBE, OUT- COME-BASED EDUCATION/MASTERY LEARNING has gone international with William Spady (see p. 4) named Director of the International Center on Outcome- Based Restructuring, P.O. Box 1630, Eagle, CO 81631.
16
ANN HERZER, parent and public school teacher/college professor, whose impec- cable research on Mastery Learning/Outcome-Based Education provided the au- thor and many other concerned Americans with an understanding of the totalitar- ian method by which the “politically correct” brainwash is taking place in the tax- supported government schools of America; And
ANITA HOGE, parent and former teacher, whose intelligence and persistence re- sulted in exposure of the U.S. Department of Education’s long-standing unconsti- tutional/illegal program to mold American students’ values and attitudes—through programming (curriculum development) and assessment (testing)—to conform to those values and attitudes deemed necessary for world citizenship.
A NOTE FROM THE AUTHOR: Unfortunately, everything predicted in this book has happened to one degree or another, “OUR BRAINS ARE EMPTY” OBE, OUT- COME-BASED EDUCATION/MASTERY LEARNING has gone international with William Spady (see p. 4) named Director of the International Center on Outcome- Based Restructuring, P.O. Box 1630, Eagle, CO 81631.
16
Back To Basics Reform, Or...OBE *Skinnerian International Curriculum? | by Charlotte T. Iserbyt
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