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Goals
2000: Educate America Act
From their inception in the late
19th century, strong public schools were a cornerstone of our evolving
democracy. They enabled the successful assimilation of several generations of
immigrants, providing a portal to the American Dream for one and all.
Over the past 30 some years, the health of public education in America
has been deteriorating. The viruses attacking the system include tenure
policies that make it almost impossible to get rid of mediocre teachers;
bureaucracies that are administratively top-heavy; school boards constituted of
wannabe politicians who want to be reelected (and are therefore reluctant to
rock the boat); an increasing emphasis on social-engineering experiments at the
expense of academics, the introduction - and subsequent failure - of one
educational "reform" after another, thus transforming public schools into
laboratories and children into guinea pigs; the institutionalized pampering of
undisciplined students; and a pseudo-educations rhetoric created from the whole
cloth of "self-esteem."
Today, a godless education system that promotes
homosexuality, condom distribution, abortion rights and evolution - while
outlawing any mention of God - is taking charge of our children's "character
development."
The educational philosophy of Goals 2000 is one of
indoctrination, rather than education, and discourages the teaching of basic
skills. Beverly LaHaye, president of Concerned women for America, says that
Goals 2000 will allow for school sex clinics, including abortion related
services, mental health counselors for even young children, on-site nurseries
for children of teen parents and government-run, parent re-education programs,
and multicultural programs.
Goals 2000 is a national strategy to
"reinvent from scratch the American school" and will directly impact the
family. Goals 2000 - a $420 million education reform proposal - passed the
House in October 1993 and the Senate in February 1994. With the passage of
"Goals 2000" the federal government will now take a more active role in public
schools. "Goals 2000 will actually mean massive control over education that
will supersede state and local education requirements," says Brannon Howse,
president of the Traditional Family Institute and author of Cradle to College.
The bill will establish a national panel (National Education Standards and
Improvement Council) to oversee the adoption of academic standards by states
and will provide money for states to create and carry out plans for students to
meet those standards. NESIC will have a broad range of powers which may enable
it to implement national testing, national curriculum, uniform material
requirements for schools and uniform instruction. Although Education Secretary
Richard Riley says the standards will be "voluntary," you can be sure that the
federal government will yield a great deal of power over local public schools
to adopt the "voluntary" standards, punishing those that don't by withholding
federal funds. Federal money will be tied to compliance with federal regulation
through what it calls "opportunity-to-learn standards."
| Education
spending and SAT test scores |
School
Year |
|
Average per pupil
expenditure in
constant 1993 dollars |
SAT
verbal
score |
SAT
math
score |
SAT
composite
score |
| 1963-64 |
|
$2,031 |
478 |
502 |
980 |
| 1982-83 |
|
$4,077 |
426 |
467 |
893 |
| 1992-93 |
|
$5,296 |
423 |
476 |
899 |
| Sources:
General Accounting Office report and U.S. Statistical Abstract |
|
Since 1965, per-capita
expenditures by public schools have risen more than 200% (in 1993 dollars)
while student achievement has declined.
American public school students
score well behind those from other industrialized counties in science and math,
yet think their knowledge in these areas is more than adequate.
The
federalization of the nation's public schools is a giant step toward a managed
economy - socialism. |
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