EDUCATION REFORM'S SECOND FIVE-YEAR PLAN, 1995-2000
(PART - II)
By Aldo S. Bernardo

THE WASHINGTON CONNECTION

By election day of 1992 Tucker could proclaim in a letter to Hillary Clinton, "We take the proposals Bill put before the country in the campaign to be utterly consistent with the ideas advanced in AMERICA'S CHOICE....Taken together, we think these ideas constitute a consistent vision for a new human resources development system for the U.S." The 18-page letter includes another Tucker proposal or "vision" on how best to organize this country's human resources. Before considering the proposal, it might be well to examine briefly the body of the letter to the First Lady.

Dated November 4, 1992, it opens exuberantly with two exclamations: "I still cannot believe you won. But utter delight that you did pervades all the circles in which I move." He then describes the delight experienced by such friends as David Rockefeller, John Sculley, David Barram and David Haselkorn at the Clinton victory. The group had been discussing "what you and Bill should do now about education, training and labor market policy." He subsequently held another meeting with other friends whose main purpose "was to propose concrete actions that the Clinton administration could take - between now and the inauguration in the first 100 days and beyond." At this point he makes a statement that is critical to our purpose: "We took a very large leap forward in terms of how to advance the agenda on which you and we have all been working - a practical plan for putting all the major components of the system in place within 4 years, by the time Bill has to run again." He hastens to point out that while each of Clinton's ideas in education and training could easily be translated into legislation, it would simply mean grafting them "onto the present system, not to a new system..." which should be the Administration's ultimate goal. He urges some speed, "because if you decide to go with it or something like it, it will greatly affect the nature of offers you make to prospective cabinet members."

The letter goes on to give the main outlines of the proposal or "Vision" which then follows for 16 single-spaced pages as though a continuation of the letter itself. It essentially repeats the ideas found in AMERICA'S CHOICE with some expansions and contractions. The final sections are devoted to "Organizing the Executive Branch for Human Resources Development," and "Getting Consensus on the Vision." OBE buzzwords and phrases dominate the opening of the final section: "Radical changes in attitudes, values and beliefs are required to move any combination of these agendas." To achieve national consensus the proposal downplays a summit of governors with the President and Congress. "Better to build on Bill's enormous success during the campaign with national talk shows, in school gymnasiums and the bus trips." Taking his message directly to the public for 6 months or so will cause people to warm to the ideas. Meanwhile the legislative packages will have been submitted to Congress and will be in the process of getting into hearings. This is the time to call some form of summit with governors, key members of Congress and others whose support and influence are important. "This way, Bill can be sure that the agenda is his and he can go into it with a groundswell of support behind him." Tucker feel certain that Hillary has thought long and hard about many of these things, and has probably gone beyond their own thinking. "But we hope that there is something here that you can use." The author is ready to "work with anyone you choose to make them (the ideas) fit the work that you have been doing." The letter concludes with the words "Very best wishes from all of us to you and Bill," and is signed "Marc."

Later that year Tucker converted the letter into a formal report or Plan entitled A HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT PLAN FOR THE U.S. In place of the letter we have a Preface that opens with the statement, "The advent of the Clinton administration creates a unique opportunity for the country to develop a truly national development of its human resources, second to none on the globe." It then points out that Tucker's Center and its predecessor "have been elaborating a national agenda in this arena over the last eight years." The Plan outlines "a set of recommendations to the incoming Clinton administration...," and proudly announces that "It builds directly on the proposals that the President-elect advanced during the campaign." There follow the same proposals included in the letter to Hillary, with some revisions and deletions. Perhaps a few salient features would be in order.

First, Tucker's "Vision" deals with the kind of national - not federal(he stresses) - human resources development system the nation should have. It will create "a seamless web of opportunities to develop one's skills that literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same system for everyone - young and old, poor and rich, worker and full-time student."

Secondly, it includes "a legislative agenda the new administration and the Congress can use to implement the vision." This consists of "four high priority packages that will enable the federal government to move quickly." These include an apprenticeship system, a rebuilt employment service, special programs for the inner cities, and, most importantly, ways of taking advantage of legislation on which Congress has already been working to advance the elementary and secondary reform agenda. In other words, the entire population will be trained to be "as skilled as any in the world." In fact, the first part of the Plan, entitled "The Vision," foresees "A seamless system of unending skill development that begins in the home with the very young and continues through school, post secondary education and the workplace." To a thoughtful person this seems a perfect prescription for the creation of higher level anthill or bee hive societies where individual characteristics and talents are suppressed in favor of the creation of obedient, skillful, fungible "world class" workers.

Turning first to the schools, the Plan recommends most of the ideas, laced with OBE, found in earlier reports: national standards, CIM at 16, a national system of education tied to the national standards, abandonment of the traditional student tracking system in favor of one that allows students to apply knowledge to real world problems, life-long learning, and "a wholly restructured school system" capable of bringing all students to the national standard. There is even a true pie-in- the-sky promise: "Everyone who meets the general education standard will be able to go to some form of college, being able to borrow all the money they need to do so, beyond the first free year." The CIM, in other words, will be necessary for employment and for post-secondary education. What is more, the new professional and technical certificates and degrees, tied in with apprenticeship programs and won within 3 years of the CIM, will be linked to programs leading to the BA and higher degrees. This in turn "redefines college" and encourages proprietary schools, employers and other community organization, as well as community and 4-year colleges to participate in such programs. "Students entering the system are first introduced to 20 very broad occupational areas, narrowing over time to concentrate on acquiring the skills needed for a cluster of occupations [emphasis added]." The beauty of the system is that it can be accessed not only by students, but by employed adults who seek improvement, dislocated unemployed adults, and others who lack the skills to get out of poverty. In addition, states will be encouraged to combine the last 2 years of high school and the first 2 years of community college into 3-year programs leading to college degrees and certificates. Oregon has already developed a Certificate of Advanced Mastery (CAM) to accomplish this.

Turning specifically to the Elementary and Secondary Education Program, the Plan points out that most school districts have already accepted a new vision and structure (the OBE paradigm). Therefore, it should not be as difficult to interject work- related skills at this level. States will be lured by competitive grants to participate in the restructuring which will call for assessments based on national standards, providing curricular resources to school staffs, reorganizing staff development programs as well as the health and social service delivery systems, providing advanced technologies to support student learning, and adopting TQM techniques in organizing and managing schools.

THE NATIONAL AND STATE CONNECTION

We have examined only two of the documents establishing Marc Tucker and his Center as the primary source of the ideas involved in the movement I call "The Second Five-Year Plan." They constitute the primary documents. But there are several others that show how Marc Tucker has defined the entire restructuring (or reinventing) process from start to finish. The very titles of these define the extensiveness of Tucker's "Vision," which everywhere absorbs and integrates OBE principles into the total picture. His other proposals include: DESIGNING THE NEW AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL, 1994 (prepared for the National Alliance for Restructuring Education); THE CERTIFICATE OF INITIAL MASTERY: A PRIMER, 1994 (prepared for the Workforce Skills Program); STATES BEGIN DEVELOPING THE CERTIFICATE OF INITIAL MASTERY, 1994 (prepared for the Workforce Skills Program); and SCHOOLS - AND SYSTEMS - FOR THE 21ST CENTURY: A [confidential] Proposal To The New American Schools Development Corporation, 1994 (prepared for the National Alliance for Restructuring Education). Each proposal baldly and almost gleefully proclaims the need for the federal government to take the lead in guiding the American school to the challenging horizons of the New World Order dawning with the 21st century. And each shows signs of haste as Tucker tries to align them with the Clinton administration's time schedule in preparation for the 1996 elections.

The influence of Tucker's ideas may be seen not only in the several federal bills we have considered, but in the fact that New York state (along with many other states) is already in the process of implementing them. This emerges from two recent publications issued by the N.Y. State Department of Education. One, entitled BUILDING A SCHOOL-TO-WORK OPPORTUNITIES SYSTEM IN N.Y. STATE, is the state's formal application for an implementation grant under the Act of 1994. The other, entitled GUIDELINES AND APPLICATION MATERIALS FOR THE PLANNING AND IMPLEMENTATION OF A SCHOOL-TO-WORK OPPORTUNITIES SYSTEM, dated 1995, encourages local Partnerships to apply. But perhaps most revealing is the fact that the name of the new State Commissioner of Education, Richard Mills, appears prominently in the listings of the Board of Trustees and in the letterhead of Tucker's Center. Just as HR1617 provides needed funding at the federal level, so does A3889 provide N.Y. state funding.

The ultimate goal of the overall plan is to instill vocational awareness into youngsters to assure a dependable labor force, easily managed and trained for world competition. By integrating academics and occupational learning, by welcoming partnerships with major businesses to help define skills needed in the 21st century and the kinds of jobs expected, by providing structured work experience, on-the-job training and apprenticeships, schools will assume still other responsibilities over and beyond those involved in providing for a child's personal and social growth and emotional development as called for in the federal programs. The concept of "applied academics" is used in an attempt to smooth the waters. But when one considers the requirements for the CIM and CAM, the many school districts that are letting businesses take classroom time to provide hands-on experience, and the fact that in Watervliet, near Albany, a manufacturing firm has allowed an elementary class to be held regularly in its plant so that children may see workers on the job, there is little question that the American school is truly undergoing a metamorphosis.

THE CORPORATE CONNECTION

The picture becomes even more chaotic when one considers a monograph by a former U.S. Department of Education researcher entitled SETTING THE "CORPORATE FAMILY" AGENDA IN THE U.S. In it the author documents how the National Academy of Sciences, through its Commission on Behavioral and Social Sciences and Education has been encouraging the development of a social policy based on the failed Swedish model of "viewing the family within an ecological system linking the home, school, community, and workplace." Such a policy would presumably ease the burden of child-rearing for working families by having the entire community, and especially corporations, share the burden. An example is a 1989 proposal by the Minneapolis school district to establish a "corporate schoolhouse" in which the district would educated workers' children from K-3 at the corporate site. Another example may be found in IBM's Annual Report for 1994 openly announcing, "Our greatest focus in '94 was a program known as Reinventing Education. Aimed at grades K-12, this program calls upon U.S. school districts to partner with IBM in a dramatic and deeply rooted restructuring of primary and secondary schools." It then proclaims the first partner to be a school district in the Charlotte, N.C. area where the district has agreed to build a unique, 4-school Education Village on a 200- acre campus adjacent to IBM's Charlotte facility. This Village "will function much as a teaching hospital does with doctors....Rather than use traditional age/grade classification, the Village will cultivate performance groups of students who will advance to new groups once they've mastered the material - without regard to age or grade...it will also connect schools to community centers and to students' homes....The Education Village is the first example of a school system committed to Reinventing Education. We hope it becomes a role model for the nation." Particularly noteworthy is the lack of any reference to parental wishes or input. Also, it simply neglects to mention that medical doctors, prior to entering a teaching hospital, must complete a medical school education deeply rooted in traditional cognitive learning.

We have seen that the traditional high school diplome is to be eventually replaced by the CIM and the CAM. Since the requirements for receiving these certificated have still not been clearly defined, it may be well to see how they are viewed by Marc Tucker, and how they are being implemented in the first school in the country to have officially adopted them: Cottage Grove High School in Cottage Grove, Oregon.

The CIM, according to Marc Tucker, ideally represents a nationally recognized certificate embodying "a high literary standard" based on "the benchmark standard for students of 16 in those countries whose students perform best in each of the core curriculum subjects." (Mr. Tucker conveniently avoids facing the fact that students worldwide perform best in countries with the strictest graded competitive assessments.) It is awarded when a student has passed in all the core subjects, including math, English/language arts, science, and, most importantly, "applied learning." For Tucker, "applied learning" means "the generic skills required to succeed in the high performance workplaces of the future, such as planning and organizing; working with others; solving problems; using technology; and understanding and designing systems." It is clear that the emphasis falls on "applied learning." As for assessing results, this would be "largely based on the quality of work contained in a portfolio of student work accumulated over the years." The CIM represents the standard for general education (as redefined) that everyone would be expected to meet. By age 16, or grade 11, a student awarded the CIM could either enter a college oriented program during grades 11-12 or continue sharpening his technical skills in anticipation of the CAM.

The CAM, again according to Marc Tucker, is an occupation- oriented certificate that is as yet not officially defined. Its standards would be based upon "the needs of high performance workplaces in firms that expect their front-line employees to be flexible, capable of making important decisions, and able to contribute substantially to the improvement of the firm's products and the process by which they are produced." In the Oregon program a CAM student chooses from 6 career "strands." These include Arts and Communication, Business and Marketing, Health Services, Natural Resources, Human Resources, and Industrial Technology. The student will spend 10-20 hours a week working in cooperating local firms, and receiving practical training in his chosen "strand." By the end of grade 12 most such students would either find employment in a chosen "strand," or go on to other skills certificates, working with local community colleges that will provide instruction more narrowly focused on job skills rather than broad knowledge.

Cottage Grove High has now awarded its first such certificates. In June of 1994 a young man by the name of Jay Tennison received his CIM which listed on the left side what he had become, on the right what he could do. He had apparently learned to be the following: Involved Citizen, Quality Producer, Self-Directed Learner, Constructive Thinker, Effective Communicator, and a Collaborative Contributor. At the same time he had learned to do the following: Quantify, Apply Math/Science, Understand Diversity, Deliberate on Public Issues, Interpret Human Experience, Understand Positive Health Habits. All this by the end of the tenth grade! His mother, however, disagreed and posted the following commentary on an Internet loop:

<[My son] has received his CIM, for which he has met the following standards: [As listed above, on the the face of the Certificate]. Of course he cannot diagram a sentence, conjugate a verb, construct proper sentences or spell. (English is NOT taught at Cottage Grove High School) He has not been taught Algebra I or II, Geometry or Trigonometry. He can, however, work story problems from his Alice in Wonderland story books and tell his teacher how he "feels" about his story problems. (This is College Prep, Interactive Math) He is in his 12th year of school and has not studied Biology, Geography, Civics, English etc. He spent an entire year in a World of Work class, based on the Dept. of Labor's SCANS report. He has written a resume, can read a phone bill, speak publicly, has been taught how to receive merchandise on a loading dock, work well in groups for group grades (no individual achievement is recognized), has studied Death, Dying and Suicide, gone to a mortuary to see how a dead body is processed, and role played when to have sex and discussed what kind of protection to use....Folks, this program is NOT about academic reform. It is about getting these kids jobs, changing their values and teaching them NOT to rely on an outside authority to tell them right from wrong, and IT IS coming to your school soon. Remember, WE are your "pilot" school."

CONCLUSION

If we now combine the two five-year plans, we are indeed confronted with a stunning "reivention of American education," one in which academics as we have known them have all but disappeared. Unfortunately, there are already clear signs that colleges and universities, sensing the availability of crucial funding and desirous to adopt "innovative and creative" changes, are already starting to anticipate the new reforms by adjusting admission requirements and by creating appropriate new courses and programs. With the movement undoubtedly gathering strength, we can only ask a series of fundamental questions:

1. Since the current weakening of the educational discipline has already produced students who are increasingly unable to read, write or compute, will these "reinvention" programs make things better or worse?
2. Isn't 16 too young for career decisions in this climate of constant technological changes?
3. Aren't skills proposed by any one industry or business too narrow educationally?
4. Do we really want to view students as human resources?
5. How can home schoolers and private schools cope with the proposed programs?
6. Do we want big business intruding in our educational system as well as the federal government?
7. Will the new systems produce future leaders and Nobel winners as has the system being replaced?
8. How much more can schools do when we consider what they have already taken on (clinics, social services, community partnerships, special interest groups, total restructuring, complex committee systems, etc)?
9. Aren't our public schools too valuable an asset to have them submit to federal experiments based on unproven theories?
10. Won't such radical restructuring at the public school level impose a similar restructuring at the university level?

It appears clear that all parties involved in education, from parents and taxpayers to serious educators, teachers and government officials, had better speak out now before the changes become irreversible. As Peg Luksik and Pamela Hoffecker have written about the reform movement in their recent book OUTCOME- BASED EDUCATION: THE STATE'S ASSAULT ON OUR CHILDREN'S VALUES, "It's a collaboration of Big Labor, Big Government, Big Education, Big Business. Their goal? To produce students who will know, do, and be like what government/business wants."

The Big Brother of George Orwell's 1984 is somewhat late but has nevertheless arrived at our door and is knocking.

[Aldo Bernardo is Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus of Italian and Comparative Literature at Binghamton University, and Chairman of the grass roots New York State group, ESTEEM]

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