Neither Congress nor the President has authority to legislate on education or medicine. Those items are not listed in the Constitution, which is the job description for the Legislative, Executive and Judicial branches of the federal government. The act described below will move us right into dictatorship. Goals 2000, STW and OBE are listed in the Education List, and are part of a gigantic puzzle of control. It is long past time that people stood up on their hind legs and told Congress to mind the Constitution. [I once had a very interesting article explaining the puzzle pieces, but don't see it. Will look later. ] Forest, Webmaster
EDUCATION REPORTER
The Newspaper of Education Rights ~ May 2000
[ Source: Phyllis Schaffly Report , Vol 33, No. 9, April 2000 ]
[ P.O. Box 618, Alton, Il 62002 ]
[ <http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/2000/apr00/psrapr2000.html> ]
ESEA Reauthorization Federalizes Public Schools WASHINGTON, DC - Congress is about to reauthorize the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) which some researchers say will federalize local school districts and spell the end of local and state control of America's public school classrooms. The process began with passage of two 1994 laws, the Goals 2000 Educate America Act and the School-to-Work Opportunities Act, and was further advanced with passage of the Workforce Investment Act of 1998. This massive new version of ESEA, H.R. 2/S.2, will complete the nationalization of the public schools by Congress and the White House.
A holdover from Lyndon Johnson's Great Society legislation, the ESEA has already cost U.S. taxpayers more than $116 billion. According to the Federal Government's five-year $29 million longitudinal study concluded in 1997, it has failed to achieve its objectives. (See Education Reporter, May 1997 and Education Week, April 2, 1997, p.1.)
H.R. 2/S.2 is the 8th successive five- year plan to increase academic achievement by providing "compensatory education" grants to schools with high concentrations of low-income children. Even with its current price tag in excess of $10 billion per year, the Clinton Administration is unable to make the argument that the law will raise the academic achievement of poor children. In fact, opponents say this "stealth" legislation was designed with very different objectives. Pretending to "educate to high standards," ESEA mandates that all 50 states agree to implement a one-size-fits-all education plan. The bill calls for mandated "statewide minimum competencies for all children," which is code language for the disastrous and discredited Outcome Based Education (OBE). Also called performance- based education, OBE is measured by "criterion referenced tests" that assess students against a low threshold of achievement (formerly associated with the letter grade "D"), rather than by "norm referenced tests" which measure how well students master a body of knowledge in comparison with other students (such as the ACT, SAT, GRE, Iowa Basic, and Stanford Achievement tests). ESEA's purpose is to tie schools to the floor of minimum achievement rather than raise them to the ceiling of educational excellence and possibilities. The oft-repeated phrase "all children will learn" really means that all children will be taught only the low level of learning that is actually reached by all children. The term "minimum competencies" doesn't sell well to parents and the taxpaying public, so a linguistic bait-and- switch occurs throughout the bill. "Standards" means minimum levels, "accountability" means accountability to the U.S. Departments of Education and Labor, "integrated curriculum" means integrating job training into the school day, and "local control" means control over implementing the nonacademic job-training system only, not control over standards, content or testing.
Not only does ESEA force OBE and criterion-referenced testing on every local school district in the nation, it cements into place the goals of nationalized curriculum, nationalized testing and national teacher certification, which were envisioned in the 1994 Goals 2000 Act. ESEA also continues the radical changes required by the School-to-Work Opportunities Act (STW) to guide schools away from a knowledge-based system and toward training for jobs selected by local workforce boards.
STW is the Clinton Administration's vision for controlling the economy. Students will be pigeonholed into jobs to serve the best interests of the local economy as decided by bureaucrats, not by the students or the free market.
Congress has proclaimed that "the Goals 2000 and School-to-Work laws are sunsetting!" While these laws are about to expire, all 50 states have adopted them, and ESEA requires that states certify they have adopted "challenging content standards and challenging student performance standards . . . with aligned assessments." That is bureaucratic jargon for continuing the 1994 mandates. ESEA has already moved far in the legislative process because Congress is only now beginning to understand that its "doublespeak" language includes Goals 2000 and STW. If ESEA passes in its current form, every public school district will be forced to continue implementation of the revolutionary restructuring required by the 1994 laws.
ESEA is not stand-alone legislation but works in tandem with other federal, state and local programs to mesh curriculum, graduation requirements and public funds into state-filed, federally-approved "Unified Plans" under the Workforce Investment Act. Under the guise of education "reform," all traditional public school curriculum, testing and teaching methods are being replaced with a job training system modeled after failed socialized economies in Europe. The Clinton Plan for Education & the Economy The Minnesota Department of Children, Families and Learning (DCFL) has distributed a graphic (right) explaining how STW is a government plan to interlock public school "reform" of curriculum with workforce preparation (job training) and economic development (national economic planning). This official state publication states that the STW mission is "to create a seamless system of education and workforce preparation for all learners, tied to the needs of a competitive economic marketplace."
School-to-Work means that the mission of the public schools is no longer to educate children to be all they can be, but instead to train students to take entry-level jobs as needed by the global economy. Critics point to the different motivations of several special interests that mesh perfectly in STW: the Clinton Administration economic gurus (Marc Tucker, Ira Magaziner and Robert Reich) who say they want America to imitate the German school-workforce system, the Clinton Administration education activists (particularly the teachers unions and Education Department bureaucrats) who want to control the school system, and the multinational corporations that seek a poorly-educated but well-trained labor force willing to work for low wages to compete with low-paid workers in the Third World. The master plan to federalize education and tie it into the workforce originated with the now infamous "Dear Hillary" letter dated Nov. 11, 1992 by Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE). It lays out a plan "to remold the entire American system" into "a seamless web that literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same system for everyone," coordinated by "labor market boards at the local, state and federal levels" where curriculum and "job matching" will be handled by counselors "accessing the integrated computer-based program." At right is a reproduction of the letterhead of Marc Tucker's organization. Members of his Board of Trustees include Hillary Rodham Clinton, Ira Magaziner (chief author of the 1994 Clinton health care plan), and David Rockefeller Jr.
Rep. Bob Schaffer (R-CO) correctly analyzed this letter as "a blueprint for a German model of education that would be forced upon the people of America." He said this "moves the country toward a government-managed, government-owned centralized education system from kindergarten past college." He placed Tucker's letter in the Congressional Record on Sept. 25, 1998. It is easily accessible on the Eagle Forum web-site: http://www.eagleforum.org/order/book/.
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HENRY HYDE PUTS APRIL P.S. REPORT IN CONGRESSIONAL RECORD.
A letter to Phyllis from the House Judiciary Committee chairman states: "Your article in the April Report on the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was so good I had it entered into the Congressional Record." The article appears in Vol. 146, No. 52 at pages E611-E612 (May 2, 2000). Hyde continued, "With your permission, I would also like to publish the article on my congressional website. The work you do is so important and greatly appreciated."
Go to the uhuh Opening Title Page
The President said he is reducing taxes.
uhuh.
Congress says they are balancing the budget.
uhuh. Sez who?
and Force Congress to
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Forest Glen Durland, CEO. 14675 1/2 Big Basin Way, Saratoga, CA 95070-6081
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