Geoff Metcalf interviews former U.S. education adviser
Charlotte Iserbyt.
Editors Note: Most parents want their children to receive a quality
education. Yet, low test scores, drugs and violence on campus are increasingly
prevalent in public schools and the disconnect between parents, educators and
administrators is widening. Why is this situation occurring when so much time,
money and attention is being directed toward improving education in the United
States?
Today, WorldNetDaily staff writer and talk-show host Geoff Metcalf
interviews someone who has some shocking answers, Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt.
During the '80s, Iserbyt was a senior policy adviser in the U.S. Department of
Education and has also written "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America,"
a chronological history of the past 100 years of education reform. In this
interview with Metcalf, she discusses the impact of the federal government, the
United Nations and influential corporations on the American educational system
and a little-known program called "School-To-Work."
By Geoff Metcalf. WorldNetDaily.com.
Sunday May 13 2001.
Question: The first thing I have to ask you -- Im still not sure if
this is a blessing or a curse -- but ever since I returned to talk radio ten
years ago, I promised myself I wouldnt interview any author until I read
their book. I was intimidated when yours arrived in the mail.
Answer: I dont blame you.
Q: It is a big puppy. 714 pages worth.
A: It is a big baby.
Q: What led you to this project? You were with the Department of Education
in the '80s -- why the book?
A: I actually started collecting research in the early '70s. I was on a
local school board after living outside the country for 18 years for the United
States Department of State. When I came back, I was very upset with the changes
I had seen in our school district -- which had happened to be a pilot-school
district for change. The kids were rolling around on the floor -- they didnt
have to learn grammar or anything -- and I was shocked. I started asking
questions and, as the only parent who ever complained, I would go to school
board meetings and ask very legitimate questions like, why dont they teach
grammar?
Q: How dare you ask such a silly question?
A: And, finally, a retired teacher came to me and she said, "You are
right on! I want you to go for some training to become a 'change agent.' Were
going to find out what is going on." So, she paid for me to go to this
training. The training came out of the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and
was funded by what was to become my office in the U.S. Department of Education.
It was funded earlier in the '70s -- and it was still funded under Ronald
Reagan, by the way. This particular project was called "Innovations in
Education/Change Agents Guide."
Q: So what did you learn in the training?
A: I was taught how to identify the resisters in my community. Those people
who -- good people -- good Americans who have seen and know clearly these
programs in the schools were not there to help our children academically.
Q: Hold on. This sounds as if instead of any modification in curriculum, the
objective was to go after the people who were complaining about changes in
curriculum?
A: Complaining about "values clarification" and complaining about "sex
ed" and complaining about all of these subjects that have education hanging
off the end of them. You know, we didnt used to have "math education"
and "reading education" -- thats not really education. When you
have "education" hanging off of it, you know that they have another
agenda (except for "Drivers Ed"). Anyway, these were the people in our
communities in the '70s who were saying, "I dont like that sex
education. I dont think it is up to schools to teach my children theres
no right or wrong." And saying, "I dont like that drug education
and whats that critical-thinking education?"
I was trained because they didnt know who I was.
Q: Who were you?
A: I was a resister. I was actually being trained to identify myself. And I
didnt like it. The other part of it was, I was trained to go to the
highly-respected people in our community ...
Q: Wait a minute. So, once you identified these so-called resisters, these
people who were critical of people who defend the indefensible, then what do you
do?
A: Thats a very good question. No other talk-show host has ever asked
me that. Its a good question. What do you do? You identify them and then
the superintendent will try to get them onto a task force and make them have "ownership"
and ...
Q: Ahhh -- a re-education program?
A: Yeah -- you got it! Thats a very good question -- really, truly --
Ive never had a talk-show guy ask me that question.
Q: It seems like an obvious question.
A: It is a very obvious one, and thats why it took me a while to come
up with an answer. But thats exactly what the reason was. And, then, the
other thing I was going to do was to identify the important people in the
community -- good people, good Americans who have really been used with the
Rotary, Chamber of Commerce, Garden Club -- go to them and convince them that
these programs are vital to the survival of this country, of the world: The
world is changing we have to have these programs.
I was really shocked. I was absolutely appalled. You have to remember: I had
been out of the country 18 years and I had left a country that was red, white
and blue, mom and apple pie, and all that.
Q: You were a dinosaur.
A: Well, yeah! I was a dinosaur. I had lived in socialist countries and I
had traveled in communist countries and I had seen a lot. And, I thought to
myself: "What the [blank] is going on in my own country?"
Q: Charlotte, what about teachers? There are some good teachers who are
genuinely dedicated ...
A: Many. Many, many more than most people think -- and they have to keep
quiet.
Q: Yeah but what is their reaction when they are presented with these
controversial, non-academic methodologies that dont have anything to do
with teaching anyone anything?
A: They are very unhappy, and they try to continue to do something that does
have something to do with teaching and learning. I just recently heard the state
of Oregon has passed legislation to get rid of tenure. I was always opposed to
tenure. Now Im in favor of tenure because what they are going to do now
...
Q: ... now, see, Im opposed to tenure. Why do you support it now?
A: Because of the way they are going to use it. Now, they can get rid of the
good teachers without any problem. It used to be getting rid of the bad ones
right? Now, they are going to get rid of the academic teachers. The teachers who
do not agree with George Bushs education agenda -- you know the
outcome-based, direct education, teach-to-the-test. These poor teachers -- these
poor children -- and they do not agree in the changing of the definition of
quality teaching.
Q: Charlotte, Id like you to explain to our readers at what point did
it become more important to manufacture this concept of self esteem -- and the
fact that if you can "feel good" about the process, it doesnt
matter what the results are. When did that happen?
A: Well, you know, it all started in 1934 when the Carnegie Foundation set
the agenda for the next hundred years and that was to change our country from a
free, individualistic economy to a planned economy -- and to do it through the
schools. And the way they would do it, would be to change the social studies so
nobody would know what our form of government is -- and how precious it is --
and to not teach the Constitution. This is the Carnegie Corporation plan -- to
implement a planned economy through the schools. And it is going in right now.
Q: OK, thats the background and foundation. But at what point,
recently, did they effect the significant change in direction, content and
product?
A: At what point did all the touchy-feeling stuff happen? Carnegie happened
in 1934, the United Nations in 1945 ...
Q: The only touchy-feeling stuff I encountered in school was if you didnt
do what you were supposed to do -- when you were supposed to do it, the way you
were instructed to do it -- Brother Benilde would smack you up side the head
with a book.
A: Well, thats right, but they dont want people to be educated,
and this is a very important point. I know there are people out there who think:
"Goodness, I thought the whole purpose of the corporations forming
partnerships with the public sector (which actually is corporate fascism) was so
that the schools would give our children better academic skills?" Thats
not true. According to David Hornbeck -- Mr. Carnegie and the big honcho for "School
To Work," he said in his book, "Human Capital," which he wrote
with Lester Solomon, that the corporations do not want educated people.
Q: Why?
A: Because educated people are very difficult -- they ask too many
questions, they quit their jobs, etc.
Q: Actually, the way it has developed now, (and I think the primary reason
they want to maintain the Department of Education) the corporations will
identify what vacancies and needs they have and "train" workers.
Charlotte, I want you to explain "School To Work" because I get so
angry and seething when I think about it -- and try to talk about it -- that I
sometimes butcher it.
A: So do I. I think the best way -- and I really recommend Congress do this,
because it would be cheaper than going to Europe -- I would like all of them to
go down and spend six months in Cuba. Is that a good answer?
Q: If they dont come back, it would be great.
A: Well, go down to Cuba and you will see the same system implemented there
that they are implementing in Oregon, in California and in Maine and everywhere.
Where the children are identified at a very early age, psychologically profiled
-- fourth grade in some cases. In fact, the whole idea of work is started in
kindergarten.
Q: Hold on a moment, Charlotte, because we have to stress something here.
A: What?
Q: This is not fiction. This is not something out of a Stanley Kubrick
movie. This is something that is going on right now!
A: Thats right. It is in. It is not vocational either -- which is
something I have always supported. Id like to share with your readers the
story I sent you about the 12-year-old youngster in Minnesota. He understood
what I was talking about and he said to his mom, "I want to choose my own
future!" And he went to a big rally they held in Minneapolis at 12-years
old. Isnt it interesting that this 12-year-old understands what "School
To Work" is.
Q: And, beyond that, what about the people who dont "find"
themselves until they are 40?
A: Youre not kidding. I'm a bit older than that and sometimes I wonder
if Ive found myself ... Im still looking for myself.
Q: I often joke when people ask, "What are you going to do when you
grow up?" Duh? It presupposes I will grow up and that I will know. Im
still working at it.
A: We all have a lot of talents we dont know about until later on when
something happens. You are absolutely correct. The thing is that is the German
dual-track system of education and work-force training. It is the Soviet system
-- people dont like to use that word. It is the Cuban system.
Q: What people need to recognize is they are trying to identify kids at an
early age for what their aptitudes are. Not based on what the kids talents and
abilities are, but what the corporation need is.
A: Thats right. Actually everything is focused on the good of the
state now. It is the state that is important -- not the individuals upward
mobility, the individuals future life. Thats the way education used
to be. You asked me earlier when the change took place.
Q: Are you going to answer it now?
A: Yes. It really took place in 1965 under Lyndon Johnson. And that followed
the agreements that Eisenhower signed with the Soviet Union in 1958. I feel they
very strongly influenced our agenda in education.
Q: I just dodged the bullet. I graduated in 1966.
A: You were lucky. In 1965, they couldnt get American educators to
implement this agenda that the Carnegie Corporation wanted. Also, an incredible
psychologist -- Brock Chisholm -- at the United Nations recommended getting rid
of the conscience to the World Health Organization. And he recommended doing
that through the schools by training the teachers to be little psychiatrists.
None of this was accepted by any American educator until 1965. I dont
think even at that time they really accepted it but it did pass. The Elementary
and Secondary Education Act was a major, major shift. It moved our marvelous
system of education -- which, up until 1960, was the best in the world -- from
academics, what you know in your head, to a performance-based system which were
screaming about: outcome-based education, mastery learning and Skinner (who said
"I can make a pigeon a high achiever by reinforcing it on a proper schedule").
I think your readers can understand the difference between knowledge based in
your head and performance based. Performance is how you perform on the job --
that is not the role of the public school system or any education system that I
can see.
Q: And it changed in 1965?
A: That changed in '65. From that time on, all these incredibly horrible
values-destroying programs were developed: values clarification, survival games,
critical thinking. Geoff, I have a manual published in 1967 that is three inches
thick of values-destroying programs. And people say, "Why Columbine?"
Q: Let me ask you this -- because Ive spent a fair amount of time
talking and writing about it -- the connection between the epidemic prescribing
of psychotropic drugs to kids as a means of controlling them?
A: Absolutely. Theres a very interesting appendix in my book about a
Hawaii Master Plan in 1968. A pilot project for the whole country that was
carried out in Hawaii and federally funded and it included just about everything
that is taking place right now. But there was a recommendation in there to use
these psychiatric drugs on our children. This has been planned for a long time.
They dont want independent little active monsters running around in the
classroom.
Q: There is an interesting sidebar to this. There is a woman in the San
Francisco Bay area who has home schooled all her kids. Her daughter just went in
the Army. The recruiters were surprised and elated that she scored remarkably
high in just about every test. They gave her something like an $18,000 bonus for
enlisting. They couldnt understand why she was so far superior to all the
other recruits. Obviously the key reason is she was shielded and protected from
public education.
A: There is no question if a parent is able to do that (and not all are -- Im
not sure I could have) they certainly should be home schooling. Or, if you cant
home school, try to find a private school.
Q: But that shouldnt be necessary if the public schools had not been
so corrupted.
A: It shouldnt be necessary, but we need to note that there are good
public schools. Although there wont be for long because of the
redefinition of academics -- and that good teaching is no longer what it used to
be -- so we wont have really much of a public school system. Therell
be nothing left in a few years because of the legislation that is going through
Washington, D.C., right now and the way they have been crashing the public
school system ever since I left my office in the Department of Education.
However, right now, you have to look carefully at private schools. In many
cases, they may well be worse than the public schools at the moment.
Q: So what do you suggest to concerned parents?
A: Well my recommendation is different from anybody elses because I
guess Im naïve and have stars in my eyes and wear rose-colored
glasses ...
Q: ... and you are sheltered in Maine.
A: Oh yeah ... sheltered in Maine ... well, Ill tell you when I moved
here I thought I had moved out of the country. People dont quite
understand "School To Work" here either and we are very important in "School
To Work." But the only solution to this problem -- and it is a big problem
because it doesnt just deal with education -- if we allow this so-called "education"
system to continue, this country hasnt got a chance to hold on to its
freedom.
They are taking our form of government -- Congress did this in the '90s with
this legislation where they effectively changed our free system of government to
a planned economy. A planned economy is not a free system at all. And if
Americans think it is, they ought to go down to Cuba and take a look. In my
opinion nothing short of abolishing the U.S. Department of Education will take
care of this problem. And that means not back to the state level but back to the
local level.
Q: Werent the Republicans going to do that?
A: Yes, Ronald Reagan promised to do that when I was there. And I think many
of us were really disappointed that this didnt happen. There is no way for
us to cure the problems in American education and for this country to stay free
as long as that building is allowed to exist there in partnership with the
Department of Labor. It gets all of its instructions ...
Q: Charlotte, I got a correspondence a couple of years back and the
letterhead had both departments at the top of it.
A: Thats right. They are in partnership. But, another thing is, they
do not put the United Nations on top -- that is where the whole thing actually
comes from. What were putting in now -- I dont think people realize
and this -- includes the school-choice proposals Im talking about. What is
going in now is international. You have the same school-choice proposals,
charter schools, et cetera going into Russia. You have the Outcome-Based
Education / Direct Instruction in Hong Kong. And for people to feel this is even
a national program -- it is not. It is international.
I think that Benjamin Bloom is probably the behavioral psychologist who came
up with the outcome-based ed and mastery learning -- he was a big U.N. guy. He
died a couple of years ago. The purpose of education, as far as the United
Nations is concerned, is to change the thoughts, actions and feelings of
students. Bloom went on to define "good teaching" ...
Q: What ever became of the concept of seeking out knowledge and information?
A: No, no -- people have to understand and it took me long time too -- when
we see all these failures, we put all the money into the system and then the
test scores go down, and we keep saying, "Why? Why? Get with it folks!"
I finally realized about 10 years ago when I finally started putting all the
stuff together, when we think its a disaster, to them, its a
success.
Q: They are accomplishing their objective.
A: Absolutely. Because they dont care whether our children can read,
write, count, et cetera -- they really dont. When they put these programs
in like Outcome-Based Ed -- and we have proof of that one -- because we have the
evaluation of the major outcome-based education program that went in under
Reagan ...
Q: What did it say?
A: The evaluation said that, no, it really didnt work, that success --
academically -- was not there. But it was successful because it turned the
system on its head from inputs that we used to have to outputs. Output is
performance, and its necessary for workforce training.
Q: If the government took all the money that is whizzed down that rat hole
of the U.S. Department of Education -- and didnt give it to the states --
but somehow distributed it through block grants or something to the local
schools, and put the local schools in competition ... I remember my wife used to
brag because she went to high school in Lexington, Massachusetts, and once upon
a time they had the best school system in the country ...
A: Yep ...
Q: Not any more ... but if you allowed the local schools to compete, the
quality of education would go up just through the benefits of competition.
A: I think its true, but you are always going to have the strings
attached as long as you have the federal money coming in. Thats why I
would like to see us just abolish the U.S. Department of Education -- in which
case, all the state departments of education are going to collapse because they
get up to 80% of their operating budget from my old office.
Q: Cool! That would be a good thing.
A: Wouldnt it be wonderful? And, then, we go back and restore the
finest system the world has ever known. Now that to me would be even more
devastating to the United Nations people -- the internationalists -- than
getting out of the U.N. Because if the biggest country, the most important
economic power in the world, the United States, all of a sudden decided to jump
off board of the "School To Work" agenda, which is an international
one, they are going to be in such trouble they will not know what to do.
Q: Therein is the problem -- selling it. What about George Bush continuing
with this?
A: He wanted it all along. Bill Clinton was certainly involved in "School
To Work" but it was George Bush the elder who initially put his big message
into the Congressional Record. The elder Bush was big on apprenticeships and "School
To Work." And, I hate to say it, but Ronald Reagan was the one who actually
contributed the most to "School To Work" by implementing the concept
of Public-Private Partnership. Thats in the Communist Manifesto --
Industry and Government.
Q: Dont be shy or reticent. I have been telling people as long as I
have had a forum, it is not a question of who is right or wrong but what is
right or wrong.
A: Youre right, but that is very sad. When Reagan went along with the
partnership concept -- which, like I said, is in the Communist Manifesto, merge
industry with the government -- then he signed the agreements with Gorbachev on
education, Then, the Carnegie Corporation got involved -- and what they are
giving us is the Soviet system.
Look, in my book, in 1932, you saw William Foster, chairman of the Communist
Party USA write a book "Toward a Soviet America" and what he called
for was a United States Department of Education, the Pavlovian method that is
going in under direct instruction. He called for the scientific method. He
called for the teaching of evolution. Get rid of patriotism. All of this has
gone in.
Now you cant tell me that George Bush doesnt know this. He was
the one who recommended keeping the U.S. Department of Education last July. When
the Republicans wanted to keep in the platform to get rid of it -- to abolish
the Department of Ed -- he took that out. He purposefully took that out. He
knows, although he talks local. He says were going to have local controls.
How can you have local control when you have the United States Department of
Education dictating every single thing to our schools right now? There is no way
we have any local control left.
Q: We have heard from some people about a Japanese concept of Kai Zin. It
but basically it deals with tearing down in order to build up something new.
A: That is absolutely correct. In order for them to implement the new system
they have to destroy the old one. David Hornbeck is the majordomo on that. Hes
been in I dont know how many states. Hes destroyed Kentucky, hes
destroyed Philadelphia. I dont know where he is now but you have to watch
him. It is so sad that parents do not see what we see because it has been so
gradual and now, when you have George Bush and Ted Kennedy agreeing on George
Bushs education agenda, that doesnt really leave any room for
anybody to be concerned.
Q: When the allegedly rabid left and right start agreeing without compromise
that in and of itself is cause for concern.
A: Thats right. But where do we go? George Bush is the controlled
right and Ted Kennedy is the controlled left. Control -- that is the point. And
they have met at the radical center. These are the people who are supporting the
communitarianism idea which if you look in the dictionary it says, "communistic
form of government." Who on earth would ever dream that the Republican
Party could end up with someone in the White House who is supporting a concept
-- communitarianism -- that is defined in any dictionary you want, as a
communistic form of government?
Q: But the dumbed-down American populous either doesnt believe you or
they marginalize you as just a conspiracy theorist. Despite these people being
in your face with it.
A: Youre right -- the most important documents with the proof, of
course, are the very old ones. Yeah, they are in your face but they are not in
the faces of the average good American who has really been manipulated. It has
been a very diabolical plan. They use the three-pronged fork. They use semantic
deception, which are words that sound so good like "basic skills."
Then they use gradualism like the frog in the cold water -- you heat it up over
50 years and the frog is dead. And then you have the dialectic where you
deliberately create a problem -- and you get people to scream and go out of
business -- and then you impose the solution and people are so upset at the
problem that they accept anything. Thats the three-pronged fork, without
which we never would have been taken. Plus, the dumbing down -- because if the
American people do not understand the Constitution, the Bill of Rights and that
we do have a special form of government here, we are not going to know when
those things are taken away from us.
Q: And those in our Congress were either intentional or manipulated
co-conspirators.
A: That is exactly what has happened with the Congress when they voted for
this change in our economic system to make it like Cuba -- they obviously didnt
know that we had a wonderful free-enterprise system that had brought people to
the shores of America for the past 150 years.
Charlotte Iserbyt's landmark book, "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of
America," is available at WND's online store.
© 2001 WorldNetDaily.com, Inc.
Metcalf's daily streaming radio show can be heard on TalkNetDaily
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