The NAEP Test

(NAEP = National Assessment of Educational Progress)

The NAEP test is commonly described as a national academic achievement test. It is actually far more, and far different, than that. It is a key tool for forcing the federal mandated value-system and political indoctrination into schools, under the guise of "measuring educational progress."

Following are examples from the language arts portion of the 1996 NAEP test. (This particular NAEP test was accidentally given to a student's mother. When she saw what the test actually measures, she was so outraged she refused to return it.) This NAEP test contains:

Four questions that are an exercise in diversity training where white settlers are described as being in pursuit of the "yellow metal that they worship and that makes them crazy," and who "show little respect for other people's needs," and who created a "barren land ... [where] you shall starve."

Three questions which measure the student's adoption of the values of radical environmentalism (in compliance with the unratified UN treaty known as Agenda 21). This set of questions culminate in a written composition question on environmentalism which instructs student to use "examples you have seen or studied," thereby monitoring how well the states and schools are indoctrinating our children with environmentalist precepts.

A written composition question which probes the political views of our students by instructing them to write a letter to their US senator in which they are required to identify which government programs they want their senator to support financially.

Four questions asking students to identify which birth-to-first-grade programs they have participated in, thereby monitoring whether a given school is implementing the federal programs for pre-schoolers.

Six questions measuring Life Work Planning, a central feature of School-to-Work, including a composition question requiring students to identify which job they would like to apply for and also requiring students to do a skills inventory and to write a resume which could be used with an application for the job they have selected.

Five questions on "the vocabulary of business," one question dealing with service learning, and one question requiring students to choose between two competing government projects and to write a letter defending the government project they have chosen.

The above examples show that under the guise of testing language arts, the NAEP test is primarily measuring the goals, attitudes, beliefs and values of our students. This particular NAEP test contains 204 questions. Only 38 of these questions (19%) involve any kind of measurement of academic ability or achievement. The other 81% measure only the demographics, attitudes, values, beliefs and behavior of the student, and personal matters about the student's family.

The NAEP test is totally consistent with the views of its creator, Ralph Tyler, who described his educational philosophy as follows:

"The real purpose of education is not to have the instructor perform certain activities but to bring about significant changes in the students' patterns of behavior."

In addition, the value-system measured by the NAEP is exactly the same as the value-system mandated in the Goals 2000/School-to-Work laws. The test monitors whether the various states and schools are successfully indoctrinating students with the federally-dictated value-system. In this way the NAEP 'closes the loop' of federal control over any specific state or school.

Because of the true nature of the NAEP test, we should not be surprised that neither teachers nor parents are allowed to see the test. This way the federal government can include any questions it wishes to, while, at the same time, it cannot be held accountable by its citizens. The national system of education is designed to hold the citizens accountable to government, not the other way around.

It should also be mentioned that in the UN World Declaration On Education For All, 1990, the United States agreed to adopt a national system of education which is aligned with a world education system. The world education curriculum contained in this international agreement includes all six items outlined above. In this Declaration, the US also agreed to "establish procedures for monitoring [its] progress" in meeting the goals of the Declaration. The NAEP test meets this stipulation of the agreement.

Background

Nationalizing education required three basic components:

The creation of a national curriculum. This was accomplished, in part, by the Goals 2000: Educate America Act in 1994, and the School-To-Work: Opportunities Act, also passed in 1994.
Legislation allowing the federal government to grant or withhold federal education dollars (to states or schools) dependent upon their compliance or noncompliance with the new federal mandates — in order to force states and schools to accept the national system. This feature was adopted as part of the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act also passed in 1994.
The administration of a national test — the NAEP — to measure whether states and schools are complying with the federal mandates.

This national curriculum consists of a cradle-to-grave education program which focuses on:

Minimum thresholds for performance - where educational "success" is to be measured by the performance of the worst students
Aggressive over-promotion of multiculturalism and diversity, thereby instilling the need for big government intervention in resolving multicultural conflicts
Advocacy of the basic precepts of radical (or earth-worship style) environmentalism (again this amplifies the need for big government.)
The vocationalizing of all education (to serve the needs of the state)
The indoctrination of specific attitudes, beliefs and values