Date sent: Sun, 21 Dec 1997 17:57:09 -0600 To: Education Consumers Clearinghouse From: Jeanne Donovan Subject: TECA/ECC: Ariadne's Thread in Goals 2000 Recently I revised a page of my web site, and in the process found some interesting links to add. I have excerpted some of the text below and added the hyperlinks, or you can go directly to the web page if you prefer. http://www.fastlane.net/~eca/donovan.html Jeanne Donovan Fort Worth =================================== Further research into education has revealed a Pandora's Box of problems most parents are totally unaware of--namely, the systemic changes taking place in education across the nation, all of which are being engineered by the U. S. Department of Education and its liberal allies. The name to remember is GOALS 2000 (http://inet.ed.gov/legislation/GOALS2000/TheAct/index.html). Kathy Finnegan, author of Goals 2000: The Wicked Web of The New World Order describes it thus: What we have finally gotten with GOALS 2000 is a national--soon to be international(http://unesco.uneb.edu/index.html)--school system, as dreamed of and patiently planned for by socialists(http://www.dsausa.org/index.html), one-worlders(http://www.nap.edu/readingroom/books/edstats/summary.html), and their fellow-traveler Utopians(http://csf.colorado.edu/psn/marx/Archive/1848-CM/cm.html). . . . GOALS 2000 is raw social engineering, intended to restructure all of American society and not just the schools. The schools, in fact, are just a medium (though a very important one) for the restructuring to occur. (This 1996 book, by the way, is available through Hearthstone Publishing.) GOALS 2000 is mired in so much fine print and obtuse jargon that it is a difficult subject to comprehend, but this is precisely why it is so dangerous to our way of life and our Constitution(http://lcweb2.loc.gov/const/constquery.html). I urge parents everywhere to study this subject at length. Finnegan's book is an eye-opening, easy to read resource, but for those who can't order it, you can visit the ECA's Hot-Button Issues page(http://www.fastlane.net/~eca/IssuesAnswers.html) for links to the topic. Parents should also read (but please avoid buying) Marc Tucker and Ray Marshall's book Thinking for a Living: Education and the Wealth of Nations(http://mercury.panola.cc.tx.us/library/ENG/r000013/r012511.htm). Marc Tucker is credited with setting these recent systemic education initiatives in motion. One key element of the systemic changes taking place in our schools, and ultimately the nation, is school-to-work(http://mercury.panola.cc.tx.us/library/ENG/r000013/r012511.htm) [ also see the 1994 Act(http://www.wstandy.com/rrweb/readroom/swoa94/act.htm)]. This initiative requires diminishing broad liberal arts training in academics to make room for votech training. Kids will be placed in narrow job tracks by the end of eighth grade(http://www.tppf.org/edu/texasw.htm), and their personal information will become part of a national database(http://www.soicc.capnet.state.tx.us/). STW is the vehicle social engineers are using to create a command economy, modeled on Germany(http://192.234.8.26/contracts/toolbox/Germany.html) and socialist/communist(Beck will go here when server can be linked again) countries. In the fullness of time, if it succeeds, our free-market system will be unrecognizable. Schools are also being used as back door routes for establishing socialized medicine(http://texaseagle.org/torch/03-97.html#medicaid). Texas has already taken Federal STW funds(http://www.stw.ed.gov/) and doled it out across the state [download the October newsletter(http://www.twc.state.tx.us/education/schooltowork/october.pdf)]. Every piece of education legislation is now linked to GOALS 2000. Allocations that were once automatic every five years (e.g., ESEA funds) will no longer be so, unless the schools accepting the funds meet GOALS 2000 mandates. Keep a close eye on labor legislation(http://www.stw.ed.gov/factsht/emplia.htm) as well, because labor and education have become inextricably intertwined. And speaking of labor, the AFL-CIO supports the STW initiative(http://www.fastlane.net/~eca/stwpart2b-contd.html#ltrs), but parents may be interested to learn that the AFL-CIO has also officially welcomed Communists into their ranks(http://www.hartford-hwp.com/cp-usa/archives97/97-10-04-1.html). Of course, for any of the Federal initiatives to work, attitudes must be shaped to accept the new paradigms(http://www.khouse.org/nwo_cuddy.html). This has been a slow process; in fact, one that has taken seventy years to develop before GOALS 2000 could be codified. First, of course, religious values had to be purged from the schools to make room for state-approved ideologies. Once upon a time, a teacher's role was to teach a child to know a sujbect or how to do something. Now teachers usurp the role of parent and church by wittingly, or unwittingly, serving as Federal change agents in the realm of attitude(http://www.gwbssw.wustl.edu/~csd/workingpapers/wp1.html) and values adjustments(http://www.indiana.edu/~eric_rec/bks/ag55.html) [also see Soul Indoctrination(http://www.startext.net/archives/12171997.arc/news/opinions/lette rs.htm)]. This is being taught through such practices as cooperative learning(http://www.fastlane.net/~eca/cl.html) to comply with business' request for SCANS Skills(http://www.stolaf.edu/stolaf/other/extend/Resources/scans.html) [i.e., compliant, unquestioning, moldable behavior]. The rights and independent thinking of the individual must be subsumed for the "common good"--a well-known socialist principle. Second, by dressing up socialist ideas with altruistic, nice-sounding words and ideas(http://www.ici.coled.umn.edu/all/), people unfamiliar with socialist tenets(http://csf.colorado.edu/psn/marx/Archive/1848-CM/cm.html) succumb to the appeals. Thus, incrementally, we are losing our individual freedoms by swooning to the siren's song of "a better world for all." Parents who relinquish their role as primary teacher of values and ideas, and who do not pay attention to classroom practices, also risk relinquishing our democracy. The most important education we do is that which we do first at the primary and secondary level - N. Donovan EDUCATION CONSUMERS CLEARINGHOUSE