Posted on 03/25/2009 11:27:00 AM PDT by This Just In
Prior to the 1960s, public schools and teachers clearly accepted their role in defining the culture of the youngsters under their supervision. The public schools, using a McGuffey-Reader-style curriculum, were the mechanism through which American kids learned not only the basics, but also values such as honesty and patriotism, and immigrant kids assimilated by learning our language, laws and customs.
For example, The American Citizens Handbook, published for teachers by the National Education Association in 1951, proclaimed: "It is important that people who are to live and work together shall have a common mind — a like heritage of purpose, religious ideals, love of country, beauty, and wisdom to guide and inspire them." This message was fortified in this Handbook by selections suitable for memorization, such as Old and New Testament passages, the Ten Commandments, the Lord's Prayer, the Golden Rule, the Boy Scout oath, and patriotic songs.
My, how public schools and teachers unions have changed since 1951!
The turning point in public schools came in the 1960s with the vast influence of the Humanist John Dewey and his Columbia Teachers College acolytes, who argued against objective truth, authoritative notions of good and evil, religion and tradition. Sidney Simon's 1972 book Values Clarification, which sold nearly a million copies, was widely used to teach students to "clarify" their values, i.e., cast off their parents' values and make their own moral (or immoral) choices.
Then the public schools welcomed the Kinsey-trained sexperts to change the sexual mores of our society from favoring sex-in-marriage to diversity. Concepts of right and wrong were banished, and children were taught about varieties of sex without reference to what is moral, good, or even legal.
Meanwhile, elementary and secondary school curricula suffered a vast dumbing down. Phonics and traditional arithmetic were censored out. Students were allowed to graduate without learning to read or calculate. While tolerating massive illiteracy, the public schools are now powerfully impacting our culture by inculcating the values of situation ethics, diversity, and the easy acceptance of sex outside of marriage. American history and literature courses now teach the doctrines of U.S. guilt and multiculturalism instead of the greatness of our heroes and successes.
By the 1980s, the public schools were rejecting the Meyer-Pierce doctrine that parents have the fundamental right to control the upbringing of their own children. The Meyer-Pierce doctrine is described in two U.S. Supreme Court decisions in the 1920s, which we thought was settled law.1
By the 1990s, public schools had adopted the attitude best described by Hillary Clinton: the "village" (i.e., the government) should raise the child. Public schools, backed by anti-parent resolutions adopted by the National Education Association at its annual conventions, have become fortresses in which the administrators exercise near-absolute power to determine the students' values, morals, attitudes and hopes, while parents are kept outside the barricades.
Using activist judges to shore up their monopoly power, the schools persuaded the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court to rule in 20052 that a public school can teach students "whatever information it wishes to provide, sexual or otherwise," and that parents' right to control the upbringing of their children "does not extend beyond the threshold of the school door." After heavy criticism in the U.S. House, the court tried to soften the "threshold" sentence but reaffirmed its decision.
The meaning of "whatever" is spelled out in anti-parent, pro-public-school decisions handed down in five circuits within the last two years. Federal courts upheld the right of public schools to indoctrinate students in Muslim religion and practices,3 to force students to watch a one-hour pro-homosexual video,4 to force students to attend a program advocating homosexual conduct that used minors in sexually suggestive skits,5 to censor any mention of Intelligent Design,6 to use classroom materials that parents consider pornography,7 to force students to answer nosy questionnaires with suggestive questions about sex, drugs and suicide,8 and to deny a divorced father's right to get his son's school records.9
1 Meyer v. Nebraska (1923) and Pierce v. Society of Sisters (1925).
2 Fields v. Palmdale School District (2005).
3 Eklund v. Byron Union School District (2005).
4 Boyd Gay-Straight v. Boyd Board of Education (2006).
5 Brown v. Hot, Sexy and Safer Productions (1995).
6 Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District (2005).
7 Evans-Marshall v. Board of Education (2005).
8 C.N. v. Ridgewood Board of Education (2005).
9 Crowley v. McKinney (2005).
Documention below
Congressional Record--Appendix, pp. A34-A35
January 10, 1963
Current Communist Goals
EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
Thursday, January 10, 1963
Mr. HERLONG. Mr. Speaker, Mrs. Patricia Nordman of De Land, Fla., is an ardent and articulate opponent of communism, and until recently published the De Land Courier, which she dedicated to the purpose of alerting the public to the dangers of communism in America.
At Mrs. Nordman's request, I include in the RECORD, under unanimous consent, the following "Current Communist Goals," which she identifies as an excerpt from "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen:
[From "The Naked Communist," by Cleon Skousen]
CURRENT COMMUNIST GOALS
1. U.S. acceptance of coexistence as the only alternative to atomic war.
2. U.S. willingness to capitulate in preference to engaging in atomic war.
3. Develop the illusion that total disarmament [by] the United States would be a demonstration of moral strength.
4. Permit free trade between all nations regardless of Communist affiliation and regardless of whether or not items could be used for war.
5. Extension of long-term loans to Russia and Soviet satellites.
6. Provide American aid to all nations regardless of Communist domination.
7. Grant recognition of Red China. Admission of Red China to the U.N.
8. Set up East and West Germany as separate states in spite of Khrushchev's promise in 1955 to settle the German question by free elections under supervision of the U.N.
9. Prolong the conferences to ban atomic tests because the United States has agreed to suspend tests as long as negotiations are in progress.
10. Allow all Soviet satellites individual representation in the U.N.
11. Promote the U.N. as the only hope for mankind. If its charter is rewritten, demand that it be set up as a one-world government with its own independent armed forces. (Some Communist leaders believe the world can be taken over as easily by the U.N. as by Moscow. Sometimes these two centers compete with each other as they are now doing in the Congo.)
12. Resist any attempt to outlaw the Communist Party.
13. Do away with all loyalty oaths.
14. Continue giving Russia access to the U.S. Patent Office.
15. Capture one or both of the political parties in the United States.
16. Use technical decisions of the courts to weaken basic American institutions by claiming their activities violate civil rights.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers' associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
18. Gain control of all student newspapers.
19. Use student riots to foment public protests against programs or organizations which are under Communist attack.
20. Infiltrate the press. Get control of book-review assignments, editorial writing, policymaking positions.
21. Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.
22. Continue discrediting American culture by degrading all forms of artistic expression. An American Communist cell was told to "eliminate all good sculpture from parks and buildings, substitute shapeless, awkward and meaningless forms."
23. Control art critics and directors of art museums. "Our plan is to promote ugliness, repulsive, meaningless art."
24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them "censorship" and a violation of free speech and free press.
25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with "social" religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity which does not need a "religious crutch."
28. Eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
29. Discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the "common man."
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the "big picture." Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
32. Support any socialist movement to give centralized control over any part of the culture--education, social agencies, welfare programs, mental health clinics, etc.
33. Eliminate all laws or procedures which interfere with the operation of the Communist apparatus.
34. Eliminate the House Committee on Un-American Activities.
35. Discredit and eventually dismantle the FBI.
36. Infiltrate and gain control of more unions.
37. Infiltrate and gain control of big business.
38. Transfer some of the powers of arrest from the police to social agencies. Treat all behavioral problems as psychiatric disorders which no one but psychiatrists can understand [or treat].
39. Dominate the psychiatric profession and use mental health laws as a means of gaining coercive control over those who oppose Communist goals.
40. Discredit the family as an institution. Encourage promiscuity and easy divorce.
41. Emphasize the need to raise children away from the negative influence of parents. Attribute prejudices, mental blocks and retarding of children to suppressive influence of parents.
42. Create the impression that violence and insurrection are legitimate aspects of the American tradition; that students and special-interest groups should rise up and use ["]united force["] to solve economic, political or social problems.
43. Overthrow all colonial governments before native populations are ready for self-government.
44. Internationalize the Panama Canal.
45. Repeal the Connally reservation so the United States cannot prevent the World Court from seizing jurisdiction [over domestic problems. Give the World Court jurisdiction] over nations and individuals alike.
Bump! For later reading. Thanks
It hasn’t changed, and it will never change. That is why I would never send any offspring of mine to public school.
anybody else remember these? I once owned and read my own copt the one pictured here, as I did every week from 3rd grade thru the 6th.....I loved them:
http://cgi.ebay.com/My-Weekly-Reader-News-Parade-Wk-Of-Jan-31-Feb-4,’55_W0QQitemZ200316403251QQcmdZViewItemQQimsxZ20090304?IMSfp=TL090304124001r14493#ebayphotohosting
Another key group was The Frankfurt School (of Marxist-socialism), which infiltrated Columbia U., which enjoined the NEA in a long-term plan to indoctrinate school children, to eventually pull the proper lever en-masse, which was done 11/04/08. Consensus-building and sensitivity training came from them.
Also, where did all the American-communists go after Joe McCarthy's work? Where have they been doing their thing?
I read #35 a bit too quickly. Thought it said, “Discredit and eventually dismantle FR.” Now THAT would be something worth getting up in arms against.
Add in the mandatory “volunteerism” the fascists are pushing, I see a huge exodus from our public schools.
If they win, they will push to outlaw or relentlessly harass home schooling.
Eventually it will get ugly. Really, really ugly.
You seem very knowledgeable. I have always been curious as to when and how the NEA began. Just a guess—the 1920’s?
From Wiki: NEA originated as NTA in 1857, became NEA in 1870, operating as a professional organization until it became a labor union in the 1960’s. Ah, the continuing legacies of the 1960’s.
“...where did all the American-communists go...?”
Hollywood, politics, ACLU, unions, academia.
mmmm...combine that with June 25, 1962.
I will have to look at how the time frame coincides of the labor union formation with the formation of the DOEd. I do know that the NEA did influence the start of that department. I believe that was during the LBJ adm.
That’s why this writer and others who want to “reform” the system are just doomed to disappointment. It is not a system that should be reformed because the best we’ll get is a little model-citizen factory cranking our Good Little Patriots. Whether the values are ours or Obama’s, that’s not right.
Metmom, ping for your list.
“None of that has changed”
Bulls!#@!!
Carbon copies my eye.
Despite a diverse society, there was a common sense of respect, loyalty, and civility. Narcissism was probably thought to be some kind of a medical specialist.
“That’s why this writer and others who want to “reform” the system...”
Good thing our Founding Fathers weren’t so weak minded and held a defeatist attitude such as yours.
America was built on the back so strong minded individuals such as Phyllis Schafly and the like, and not by armchair quarterbacks and naysayers whom reap the rewards of those with solid conviction and character.
Have you ever read John Tyler Gatto’s work? It’s available free online.
The American education system is not an organic descendant of the Laura Ingalls Wilder one-room schoolhouse. It is an entirely foreign construct, mostly Prussian with some English influences, imposed upon us in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, intended to produce compliant factory works, who are not truly educated, merely equipped for their drudgelike duties.
I will not waste my time and resources trying to reform a system that is so entirely contrary in design and purpose from what I believe is right. Doing so is like re-siding a house that has been infested with termites and mold. It might look good for a little while, but the true problems are still there, and will be back before you know it.
I would agree that the education system cannot be reformed.
Education should be left to the private sector.
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