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November 7, 2001

Battles over Federal Education Bill

Battles continue over the federal education legislation stuck in conference committee. The "No Child Left Behind" (HR1) reauthorizes federal spending for education. This process is required every five years for what is called the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), first passed in 1965 as part of then-President Lyndon Johnson's "War on Poverty." The last time the ESEA was reauthorized was in 1994 (HR6) when it was passed as part of the Goals 2000/School-to-Work package.

The present proposal does nothing to untangle that package. In fact, it tightens the Goals 2000 education "framework," while repealing the name "Goals 2000," a transparent attempt to mislead the public and gullible public officials. (See our update.)

An overview of the ESEA is documented by Charlotte Iserbyt, a Senior Policy Advisor in the U.S. Department of Education during the Reagan Administration. She states that the 1965 passage of the ESEA was the beginning of the nationalization/internationalization of education in the United States:

Use of goal-setting, Management by Objectives (MBO), Planning, Programming, Budgeting Systems (PPBS) and systems management for accountability purposes would be totally funded by and directed from the federal level... By the end of the 1980s state departments of education would be receiving between 60-75% of their operating budget from the U.S. Department of Education -- which was not even in existence at the time of the passage of the ESEA. ("The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America," p. 72)

The following three amendments to the current ESEA reauthorization (HR1) are still hotly contested:

• One is Graham-Tiahrt, language that would guarantee parental access to the curriculum, prohibit personal surveys without parental consent and prohibit medical, psychological, or psychiatric exams, testing or treatment at schools without parental consent. (See our update.)
• Another is language by Rep. Todd Akin requiring that tests must test objective knowledge rather than personal opinions, attitudes or beliefs. (See our update.) That could raise trouble for the sacred National Assessment of Educational Progress federal test (NAEP). (See our update on the NAEP)
• The role of the federal education test (the NAEP) has also yet to be determined. (See our update.) Nor has resolution been reached regarding the definition of "Adequate Yearly Progress," a fundamental defining term for how states and schools must comply.

In other words, most contentious issues remain and doubts persist about whether HR1 can pass this year. The conference committee reconvenes next Tuesday, November 13th.

Your calls continue to be important regarding these matters.

HR1 is headed in exactly the wrong direction. It destroys local control of education and substitutes lowest common denominator academics, job training/career tracking, and a mandated worldview that is hostile to our way of life and institutions of freedom. If we are blessed with "no passage" this year, conferees will pick it up again next year in its identical form. (See our update.) Who knows but that public and Congressional revulsion to HR1 could mushroom in the interim. Each of us has a duty to provide every individual we know with the facts and the truth of the destruction of our free education in America.

Senator Ted Kennedy holding up Parental Rights Amendment

By John Rossomando
CNSNews.com Staff Writer

(CNSNews.com) - An amendment to the education bill, aimed at giving parents the right to inspect their child's educational materials and shield the child from invasive questions and medical examinations at school, faces a powerful foe - Massachusetts Sen. Edward M. Kennedy.

Kennedy, who chairs the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, is one of four members of Congress currently trying to hammer out a compromise version of the education bill that would be acceptable to both the House and Senate.

The parental rights amendment, sponsored by Rep. Todd Tiahrt (R-Kan.), originally passed the House of Representatives without objection, but hit a dead end once Kennedy got involved, according to Tiahrt's press secretary.

[See CNSNews.com for the remainder of the article]

All original CNSNews.com material, copyright 1998-2001 Cybercast News Service.

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