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How Misleading Changes in the 1970’s Affect the Educational System to This Day in a Negative Manner.

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In The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America, Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt illustrates how a group of Socialist-thinking people affect the educational system. 

She details a disturbing history of the American school system that goes all the way back to the late 1800’s. 

What follows are a few excerpts pointing out some of the influence the 1970’s had on today’s Americans who have been conditioned to accept a loss of sovereignty. 

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Changes Affect the Educational System

”Concerned with grave, important, or complex matters, problems” and ”givingcause for concern” are two out of five definitions given in Webster’s Dictionary for the word ”serious” which definitely apply to this chapter, ”The Serious Seventies.” 

Unfortunately, since the average American was purposely kept in the dark about what was taking place, being able ‘to be concerned’ was an impossibility. 

To the change agents roaming the education landscape, ”change” was the goal, and the end justified the means, even if it meant misleading through semantic deception the parentsand taxpayers who paid the bills and provided the resources-the children and teachers upon whomthe change agents would experiment.

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Ignoring Concerns Affect the Educational System

”… the 1972 Association for Educational Computing and Technology (AECT) report entitled The Field of Educational Technology: A Statement of Definition (October, 1972), has convinced this writer that significant resistance to goal setting, systems management, computer-assisted instruction, etc., which existed at the beginning of the 1970s was, unfortunately, overcome. 

”For instance, the above-referenced document contained the following most important warning regarding the use of technology in the classroom; a warning that, evidently, was not heeded in the years to come. The warning read in part: 

”It should be clear that the concerned professional does not have to be a ”liberal,” or a ”conservative”. 

”The concerned professional must, however, show moral sensitivity to theeffect of what he or she does [in the field of technology].

”It does not matter what positionan individual comes to as long as it is not ”’I’ll do it because it can be done”.

” The above recommendation relating to the ethical use of technology in the classroom was evidently ignored by the change agents who decided instead that ‘We’ll do it because it can be done.”

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Lowered Standards Affect the Educational System

”In 1971 Phi Delta Kappan published a paper entitled Performance-Based Teacher Education [PBTE]: What Is the State of the Art? 

”This paper spelled out the raison d’etre for the transition fromteacher education based on knowledge of subject matter to teacher education based on the abilityto ”perform” in the classroom. 

”Skinnerian methods adopted by Madeline Hunter and others wouldbecome the foundation for future teacher training and accreditation, and ultimately the method forworkforce training.

”This paper makes it all too clear that the purpose of PBTE was to ”lower standards” so that the teaching profession could be more ”inclusive” or so ”they” said.”

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