Public Education The Point of No Return: Are We There? by Samuel L. Blumenfeld

In April 1983 the National Commission on Excellence in Education issued its now historic report, A Nation at Risk, in which it said:

"The educational foundations of our society are presently being eroded by a rising tide of mediocrity that threatens our very future as a nation and as a people."

"If an unfriendly foreign power had attempted to impose on America the mediocre educational performance that exists today, we might well have viewed it as an act of war. As it stands, we have allowed this to happen to ourselves."

What has been the reaction of the NEA to all of this? They've culled one quotation from the Commission's report which they use quite frequently: "Excellence costs. But in the long run mediocrity costs far more." In other words, more money will give us the quality which has eluded us all these years. Or, as the NEA put it: "The nation can, and must, pay the bill."

As far as the NEA is concerned, the Commission's report is a license to plunder the American taxpayer. And if anyone thinks that more money in the hands of the present educational leadership will give us anything but more of what we now have, he is deluding himself. The record speaks for itself. In a booklet entitled Local, State and Federal Roles issued by the NEA in December 1983, we are told: "NEA is no newcomer to educational reform movements. Organized teachers have been involved in every reform effort in education in this country - in 1911, 1924, 1934, 1954, and 1974." What the booklet fails to add is that all of these "reforms" deliberately created the "tide of mediocrity" that now threatens our very future, and so the NEA is not about to rescind any one of them. On the contrary, everything the NEA says and does indicates that it intends to carry these reforms to their ultimate goal: a socialist-humanist society controlled by educators and behavioral scientists.

If money were the answer, our problems would have been solved long ago, for no nation in history has pumped more of its wealth into education than this one, and no people has been more generous to and trusting of its educators. But unfortunately that trust has been abused with a cynicism, arrogance, and greed that can only come out of a spirit of pure, unadulterated malevolence.

What are the facts? In 1960 the cost of public elementary and secondary education was $15.6 billion; by 1970 it had risen to $40.6 billion; and in 1983 it was $141 billion, an increase of 800 percent since 1960! In addition, since 1965 Congress has enacted over 100 federal programs aiding education. Title One alone of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 has pumped over $42 billion into the schools since its enactment, which is more money than the entire American school budget of 1970. Yet, since 1965, the reading scores have declined alarmingly. Several years ago it was thought that the decline had bottomed out. But on May 16, 1984, Education Week reported otherwise:

Student scores have dropped on standardized reading tests administered to two of the nation's largest public-school population - in California and in New York City, where scores had previously been climbing.

In New York, school officials announced this month that students' scores in reading had declined by 2.6 percent from last year....

In California, officials reported this month that the reading scores of 12th graders declined by the largest margin in seven years....

In Idaho, state officials reported a decline in the number of 9th grade students who passed the state-administered minimumcompetency tests in reading, mathematics, spelling and writing.

Typical of NEA leadership is Mary Hatwood Futrell, president of the NEA in 1983-84. Mrs. Futrell is a fast-talking lady with the reasoning power of a sledgehammer. In the April 1984 NEA Today, the association's tabloid written at the intellectual level of the National Enquirer, Mrs. Futrell tells the poignant story of how she got involved in political action. It all started twenty years ago when, as a young teacher, she entered her classroom and found a hole in the floor. She also found that she had more students than typewriters. She writes: "I had to accept the grim reality: the quest for educational excellence must of necessity be a political quest. If my students were to be served well, I needed to be able to influence the district budget - and that meant moving the school board and legislators and voters." From that time on, there was no stopping Mrs. Futrell.

There must have been an easier way to repair holes in the floor and get extra typewriters than by controlling Congress, fifty state legislatures, the federal budget, and the President of the United State - which is what the NEA is now trying to do. Mrs. Futrell could have gotten the school custodian to repair the floor, or a student in shop, or she could have gotten a piece of wood and nailed it down herself. Besides, what's a hole in the floor got to do with academic excellence? Abraham Lincoln probably went to a school with no floor at all! As for the typewriters, she could have divided the class into groups and rotated use of the machines.

Mrs. Futrell's logic is typical of today's NEA leadership. If there's a hole in your classroom floor, get Congress to enact a federal program to repair it. If you're short of typewriters, get the lawmakers to cut the defense budget in half and use the money to buy typewriters.

That is the abysmal level of thinking at which today's educators crawl. No wonder the NEA is dead set against testing the cognitive skills of teachers. Where they have been tested, as in Dallas and Houston in 1978, the results have been miserable. Only one state, Arkansas, has dared mandate testing its 24,000 teachers to see how well they can read, write and do math. Teachers who fail will have to improve their skills or face loss of certification. Naturally, Mrs. Futrell is furious at Arkansas' courageous Governor Clinton. "NEA will not stand idly by," she told a news conference, "while the teachers of Arkansas are made the scapegoats in efforts to improve the quality of public education." Obviously Governor Clinton put his political career in jeopardy by opposing NEA policy.

But what better way is there to improve the quality of teaching than by first finding out if your teachers have the skills they are supposed to be imparting to their students? What have the teachers to fear if they know what they're doing? And if they don't, why should taxpayers and parents keep such teachers in the classroom? Is certification a license to engage in educational malpractice with impunity? After all, what can a student do once his life is ruined by such malpractice? In 1977 a student in New York state brought suit against his school district for graduating him despite his being functionally illiterate. In 1979 the Court of Appeals dismissed the case saying:

To entertain a cause of action for "educational malpractice" would require the courts not merely to make judgments as to the validity of broad educational policies - a course we have unalteringly eschewed in the past - but, more importantly, to , sit in review of the day-to-day implementation of these policies.

Recognition in the courts of this cause of action would constitute blatant interference with the responsibility for the administration of the public-school system lodged by Constitution and statute in school administrative agencies.

Not to be overlooked in today's holding is the right of students presently enrolled in public schools, and their parents, to take advantage of the administrative processes provided by statute to enlist the aid of the Commissioner of Education in insuring that they receive a proper education.

In Arkansas, the state NEA affiliate was mortified by the idea that teachers would be tested. Its reaction was typical:

"The governor's unending crusade to test all Arkansas teachers has sent morale plummeting, and as a result some very fine, experienced teachers are leaving the profession. [Of course, no mention of those fine, experienced teachers forced out in California and Michigan by the NEA's agency shop!] We recognize that an opportunity to improve education has been mangled. Arkansas teachers, however, will not give up. We will continue to press for real - not superficial - answers to education's problems."

One local teacher with 12 years experience, in an attempt to gain public sympathy, wrote to the Arkansas Gazette: "I would suggest the Communications Skills section of the test include multiple-choice items dealing with how to respond to a 14year-old who confides in me that she is pregnant, how to help another who wants to commit suicide, and what to say when told, 'I'm sorry but we're having a revenue shortfall and have to cut your pay on your last check.'"

Apparently this teacher's talent is in the "affective domain." She's probably very good at teaching sex education which no doubt led to the pregnancy of the 14-year-old and values clarification which probably contributed to the despair of the youngster who wanted to commit suicide. Perhaps had she concentrated on imparting cognitive - intellectual and academic - skills, she would not have had to play amateur psychiatrist. But, alas, that poor teacher is a product of her training.

All of which brings us to an interesting article which appeared in the Dallis Morning News of August 26, 1971. Written by David Hawkins and entitled "Young People Are Getting Dumber," it told of an interview with the director of Human Engineering Laboratory, a vocational research outfit that specializes in aptitude testing;

"Do you know," the director told Hawkins, "that the present generation knows less than its parents? All of our laboratories around the country are recording a drop in vocabulary of 1 percent a year. In all our 50 years of testing it's never happened before. Can you imagine what a drop in knowledge of 1 percent a year for 30 years could do to our civilization?"

that American teachers are not trained to develop the intellect of their students.

There is only one way out for the American people. A massive exodus from the public schools into private ones where the freedom still exists to create a curriculum with a strong academic foundation. The public educators know this and that is why the NEA is pressing for the regulation of private schools. Such regulations are already on the books of many states.

However, one very large escape route remains open: the religious school, which is protected from state regulation by Article I of the Bill of Rights: "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof."

The NEA, the ACLU and the fifty states are quite familiar with this article because they have used it time and again not only to keep religion out of the public schools but to deny parochial schools any public funding. The very reason why the Catholics were forced to create their own parochial system is because of this strong Constitutional prohibition against government regulation of religion, which has been interpreted by the courts as calling for the separation of church and state.

But with the growth of the church-school movement and the increasing dissatisfaction with public schools, the educators are concerned. They are afraid that a massive exodus from the public schools is in the offing if and when Americans become convinced that public school reform is a hopeless cause.

The NEA and the states are using the compulsory attendance laws as the rationale for regulating private schools. All states recognize the right of private schools to exist. That issue was settled in 1925 in a Supreme Court case called Pierce v. Society of Sisters. It was the overriding principle of the separation of church and state that decided the case in favor of the private school, in this case a parochial school. Since public schools cannot engage in religious instruction, private schools are indispensable to the free exercise of religion. Therefore religious freedom is closely tied to educational freedom. Abridge one and by necessity you abridge the other.

Thus, although many states have laws regulating private schools, few have been willing to impose them on church schools. But the NEA, the humanists, and their allies in state departments of education are not about to let the Constitution stand in the way of their drive for total control of American education. John Dewey had said that a time would come when force would have to be used, and apparently that time has come.

Which, of course, brings us to the Nebraska case. The NEA affiliate in Nebraska, the Nebraska State Education Association (NSEA), is undoubtedly the most powerful lobby in that state. Its PAC has contributed substantial sums to the campaigns of key state senators. Since Nebraska has a unicameral (one house) legislature with only 49 senators, it can be easily controlled by a lobby as well organized as the NSEA.

In August 1977 the Faith Baptist Church of Louisville, some 15 miles south of Omaha, opened the Faith Christian School with 17 students under the direction of Pastor Everett Sileven. The school, using a curriculum provided by Christian Accelerated Education, had been created at the request of parents who did not want their children to be exposed to the secular humanist curriculum of the local public schools.

Shortly after the opening of the school, two men from the Nebraska State Department of Education visited Rev. Sileven, bringing to his attention Rules 14 and 21 of the Nebraska regulations requiring all private schools to be "approved" by the state and all their teachers to be state-certified. In addition, the school was required to submit reports listing the names and addresses of all its students so that the state could check parents' compliance with the compulsory attendance laws.

Pastor Sileven knew of these regulations. "We tried to get the law changed in 1976 before we opened the school," he told a reporter in May 1984, "but at that time there had already been at least five years of attempts by people in the state to change the law without any success. Our efforts just confirmed the legislature's and the department of education's unwillingness to cooperate."

To Sileven and his church members, the regulations were a clear violation of the Constitutional prohibition against government regulation of religion. They interfered with the free exercise of religion, and they exceeded the competence of the state. On what basis could the state "approve" the school, and how could state-certified teachers, indoctrinated in secular humanism, teach in a Christian school? Also, reporting the names and addresses of the students was tantamount to reporting the names of the church's members. It was none of the state's business. Obviously, if the children were in school, they were in compliance with the compulsory attendance laws.

"At that point we had no choice but to go ahead with the school," says Sileven. "It was not a matter of us trying to challenge the law as much as it was just us having to do what we knew we had to do in the area of training our children."

In March 1978, criminal charges were filed against Sileven and the principal for illegally operating a private school. However, the charges were later dropped when county authorities decided to seek a court injunction to close the school. The injunction was granted, but the school continued to operate pending an appeal. In March 1981 the Nebraska Supreme Court upheld the injunction, but the school remained open pending an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court.

In September 1981, county authorities decided not to wait for the Supreme Court ruling and the doors of Faith Baptist Church were padlocked to prevent classes from being held. The padlock was removed on Sundays and Wednesday nights for church services. Apparently the state authorities thought they were respecting freedom of religion by merely closing the church school but not the church. But since the school was conducted in the church as part of the church's ministry, and padlocking the church denied its parishoners free access to their place of worship, the state was clearly interfering with the free exercise of religion.

Sileven moved the students to a Christian school in Millard. On October 5, 1981, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear the case, citing lack of "a substantial federal question." Apparently, routine violations of the Constitution by state departments of education no longer represent "a substantial federal question," although these state departments are the recipients of billions of federal dollars!

On October 4, 1981, the authorities removed the padlock from the church door on the condition that the school would not be conducted. In January 1982, however, Pastor Sileven decided to resume classes. He could not, in all good conscience, let the state dictate whether or not his church could conduct a school. Religious freedom was at stake. "We had a choice," he said, "obey God and disobey the government or obey the government and disobey God. We chose to obey God."

On February 18, 1982 Rev. Sileven was jailed to serve a four-month sentence for contempt of court. On March 3, 1982 Rev. Sileven was released from jail after church members voted to close the school. When Rev. Sileven decided once more to exercise his God-given, Constitutionally protected freedom of religion by conducting a church school, the county judge ordered Sileven to return to jail beginning September 1, 1982. On that date, Sileven retreated inside the church with about 100 of his supporters and told authorities that if they wanted to take him to jail they'd have to break down the doors and "trample on the flag." Two days later Sileven told the County Sheriff that he would not resist arrest. Sileven was then put in jail. After a brief recess, however, the school continued to operate.

On October 18, 1982, on orders from the judge, 18 law officers and state troopers entered the Faith Baptist Church and physically removed 85 supporters who refused to leave voluntarily. The Sheriff had wanted to use tear gas to force the worshippers out. But cooler heads prevailed. Padlocks were again put on the doors, to be removed only on Sundays and Wednesday nights for church services. Again the state was dictating when religious worship could take place.

Undaunted, members of the church resumed the school in a bus parked outside the padlocked church. By then, news of what had happened at Louisville had spread, and hundreds of visiting preachers came to the town to show their support of the school. On October 20, 1982, about 450 fundamentalist preachers entered the church after the padlocks were removed for church services and vowed not to come out willingly. The judge decided to rescind the padlocking order. Two days later Rev. Sileven was released from jail after promising to close the school until the end of November or the end of a special session of the state legislature.

On November 13, 1982, the legislative session ended with no resolution of the church school issue. On November 30, 1982, Sileven was again arrested, then released from jail on December 3, then rearrested on December 7. On January 31, 1983 Rev. Sileven was finally released after completing his four-month jail term for contempt.

On February 28, 1983, the church reopened its school with 11 students in attendance. Contempt-of-court charges were then filed against 12 parents for operating the school. Rev. Sileven was not in Nebraska at the time, having taken a leave-of-absence. On May 3, 1983 the 12 parents were found guilty of contempt charges by the county judge, but sentencing was postponed until the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled.

With Sileven back at the church, the school reopened on August 30, 1983. Contempt charges were brought in October against Sileven, his daughter, and 16 parents of students. On November 23, 1983, Thanksgiving Eve, seven fathers of Faith Baptist students were jailed for refusing to answer questions at a court hearing. Neither Sileven, his daughter, nor the seven men's wives had shown up for the hearing, and warrants were issued for their arrest. But they had left the state. The seven fathers would remain in jail until they agreed to testify.

On January 6, 1984, after 44 days of imprisonment, one of the fathers decided to answer questions about the school and was released with the understanding that he would take his child out of the school. On February 23, 1984, after 93 days in jail, the remaining six were released on the condition that they would not send their children to the Faith Baptist School until it conformed with state regulations. Their immediate ordeal was over. But the battle to regain full religious freedom in America had really only begun.

In April 1984 Rev. Sileven was again arrested and put in jail to serve an eight-month sentence for refusing to testify about the operation of the school. At about the same time, Gov. Robert Kerrey of Nebraska signed into law a bill that was to supposed to "settle" the issue. According to Education Week of April 18, 1984:

Under the former law, the state could take legal action against schools that failed to comply with rules on teacher certification, attendance reporting, and other standards for state accreditation.

The new law focuses, however, on parents rather than schools themselves. It permits parents who contend that the state's requirements violate "sincerely held religious beliefs" to enroll their children in schools that are not sanctioned by the state education department.

The new law does not require schools to provide any information directly to state officials, but parents ... must provide the state with certain information about the education their children are receiving.

First, individual parents, or a representative of all the parents at a particular school, must give the state commissioner of education a statement saying that the requirements for approval and accreditation "violate sincerely held religious beliefs."

Next, under reporting procedures to be established by the State Board of Education, the parents must provide education officials with a statement indicating that they are satisfied that teachers in their school are qualified to "monitor instruction in the basic skills."

In addition, the parents must support the statement with the teachers' test scores on "a nationally recognized teacher-competency examination designed [designated?] by the State Board of Education" or arrange an "informal" evaluation of the teachers. That evaluation also would be developed and conducted by the board.

According to the law, if state officials are not satisfied with the test scores or evaluation, the parents may be prosecuted for violating state laws that require children to attend school until they are 16 years old.

Equally unconstitutional and obnoxious is the requirement that church-school teachers be subjected to a teacher competency test to be evaluated by state authorities. While the NEA is fighting tooth and nail against teacher competency testing in Arkansas, does it now approve of such testing to "evaluate" teachers in church schools? If the teachers fail, the parent may go to jail! That's the state of religious freedom in Soviet Nebraska.

It is obvious that the new law is not only as bad as the old one but probably worse. But it has one virtue. It reveals how compulsory education is being used as the means to strip Americans of their fundamental rights and freedoms. According to Larry Scherer, legal counsel for the Nebraska legislature's Education Committee, "The whole intent of the legislation was to deregulate without giving up total control." If that's Nebraska's idea of "deregulation," God help the people there. There must be something terribly deficient in Nebraskan public education that it can turn out so many lawyers and legislators who know nothing about the U.S. Constitution except how to pervert it.

If the state of Nebraska can forbid the slightest hint of religion in its public schools on the grounds that it violates the separation of church and state, how can it then justify its massive intrusion into the life of a church school? And what difference does it make whether the regulation is through the parents or the teachers? The Constitution forbids the regulation of religion, and among virtually all religions the education of children is a fundamental part of religious practice.

Of course the NEA exacted a price for this so-called compromise legislation. According to Education Week of May 23, 1984:

Some legislators also said that they believed the Governor made an agreement with the Nebraska State Education Association to support an education reform proposal introduced in the legislature last session in exchange for a promise that the union would not lobby against compromise legislation, as senators said it has in previous years.

So why is the state making all this fuss over 200 children in a few insignificant church schools? Because the authorities want to set an example to keep everyone else in line. For when the Christians of America and others wake up to what is happening to them, they may decide to use the escape route of the church school. So now's the time to shut it.

But what is quite disheartening is that so many Christian schools were willing to surrender their religious freedom without a fight. Like the Jews in Europe who marched like sheep into Hitler's gas chambers, the Christians of Nebraska accepted the shackles of government regulation with hardly an murmur of protest. It took a Rev. Sileven to show them how much of their freedom they had lost, and what it will take in trials and tribulations to regain it. For apparently the majority of the people in Nebraska have been brainwashed to believe that religious freedom is not an inherent right but a privilege bestowed by the state.

It is now quite obvious that the humanists are using public education as the battering ram with which to destroy Christianity in the United States. On every front they are pressing their advantage in the courts and in state legislatures, and they are winning. The Nebraska case simply indicates that the enemies of religious and educational freedom exist in the very heart of America, among the people we generally consider to be freedom loving. Instead, they are willing to destroy every constitutional right to attain their goal. And the humanists are confident that they can succeed because they now control the education of 90 percent of American youth, and they who control the schools control the future. Nebraska State Senator Peter Hoagland inadvertently gave away the humanist strategy when he told a television audience on April 15, 1982:

"What we are most interested in, of course, are the children themselves. I don't think any of us in the Legislature have any quarrel with the right of the Reverend or members of his flock to practice their religion. But we don't think they should be entitled to impose decisions or religious philosophies on their children which could seriously undermine those childrqn's ability to deal in this complicated world when they grow up.

Pretty soon we can expect the ACLU to try to get the word "sin" removed from every textbook used in a public school because of its religious connotation. But who knows? Maybe it's already been done!

Education Week of May 16, 1984 reported that in Oregon, the ACLU won a suit to prevent an invocation, benediction, or religious hymn from being included in a high school commencement exercise. The judge ruled that the inclusion of a prayer at graduation is "a violation of the Constitutional prohibition of official sanction of religious beliefs." In other words, the government does not have the right to compose a prayer for use in its own schools, but in Nebraska and elsewhere it claims the right to regulate the curriculum of a church school that doesn't even want government support and would be denied it even if it wanted it on the grounds that such support would violate the establishment clause. Notice how the establishment clause is invoked only when it enhances the government's control of religion. How ridiculous can the courts get. They say that government support of a church school violates the establishment clause, but government regulation of the same school doesn't!

In Michigan, the attorney general ruled in May 1984 that a voluntary Bible-study class, held once a week for 30 minutes for the last 25 years in several public schools in western Michigan, was unconstitutional. According to the school district superintendent: "Until this spring, we never had a complaint about meeting in the school building. However, two parents filed a complaint and sought assistance from the American Civil Liberties Union in late March."

In March 1984, the attorney general of Texas issued an opinion that the State Board of Education's mandate that
evolution be taught as only one of several explanations of the origin of man is unconstitutional. This was another humanist victory over creationism. Teaching children that the world might have been created by a sovereign, intelligent force called God instead of by a spontaneous explosion of gas from nowhere is considered an establishment of religion! But it clearly takes more faith to believe that the world arose spontaneously out of nothing than it does to believe in a Creator of superhuman intelligence and powers.

Education Week of March 7, 1984 reported that the Norwin School Board of North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania, decided to prohibit a religious organization from holding its voluntary meetings in a high school auditorium before the start of classes. The school-board members said they feared that the ACLU would sue the district if it allowed the club to meet. Apparently the ACLU now has more power in a school district than the school board! The states are also beginning to bear down on home-schooling. In West Virginia (Education Week, December 21, 1981) the state Supreme Court ruled that "sincerely held religious convictions are never a defense to total noncompliance with the compulsory school-attendance law." The case involved parents who withdrew their children from public schools and a private Christian school for religious reasons. The court admitted that the children were probably doing better academically at home than they might have done at school, but the court based its ruling on that section of the law that requires county superintendents to approve home-education proposals not only on academic grounds, but also on the basis of other functions performed by schools such as health, screening and "social development."

In other words, the children are required to attend school so as not to be deprived of the benefits of social contact with delinquents, drug pushers, and the sexually active. Since the state is incapable of protecting children from unwanted pregnancy, venereal disease, drug and alcohol addiction, assault, extortion and other social goodies that thousands of youngsters fall prey to each year in public schools, it ought not to be in the business of fostering "social development."

Yet the judges, completely blind to the social chaos prevalent in American schools, wrote: "We find it inconceivable that in the 20th century the free-exercise clause of the First Amendment implies that children can lawfully be sequestered on a rural homestead during all their formative years to be released upon the world only after their opportunities to acquire basic skills have been foreclosed and their capacity to cope with modern society has been so undermined as to prohibit useful, happy, or productive lives."

So, now, being brought up on a farm and taught at home by one's own loving parents is tantamount to being held in prison during one's formative years, after which one is "released upon the world." The trouble is that many public schools actually deprive their students of the ability to acquire basic skills by turning them into functional illiterates and condemning them to a life on welfare. But the courts and the superintendents blindly operate in a dream world where public schools actually know how to teach and their social environment is safe and healthy. The fact is that the schools are just the opposite, and that is why so many parents want to get their children out!

One can cite case after case of parents being harrassed, imprisoned, and fined for exercising their right to provide their children with a good education and not the sham that passes for education in the public schools. It is obvious that the time has come for the American people to make some hard basic decisions about their educational system. We know where the NEA and their allies want to take us. Do the American people want to go there?

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Suggested Reading List - the Demise of the Educational System - OBE (Outcome-Based Education), NEA (National Education Association), educational psychology, German psychology & influences, demise of public education, educational sabotage, Wundt, Pavlov, Dewey, Skinner, Watson.

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