The Blumenfeld education Letter January 1991

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The BlumenfeldEducation Letter

Vol. 6 , N o.1 (L etter# 53)

"My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge." HOSEA4:6

January 1991EDITOR : S am ue l L B lume nfe ldThe purpose of this newslettter is to provide knowledge for parents and educators who want to save the children of Americafrom the destructive forces that endanger them. Our children in the public schools are at grave risk In 4 ways. academically,

spiritually, morally, and physically - and only a well-Informed public Will be able to reduce these risks,Wifhout visron. the people perish."

Pub lic Education: The S ick Dinosaur.C an It S urv iv e theIrends Toward Decentralization and

Privatization?It is said that the dinosaur had a tiny

brain in a huge body, which undoubtedlycontributed to its extinction. This huge bodyalso required an enormous amount of foodfor its survival. The public education estab-lishment has the same characteristics: smallbrain, huge body, enormous appetite fortaxpayer money - its only means of sur-vival.

The government school is also obsolete,

a product of 19th century utopian reformerswho believed in the perfectibility ofman andeducation as the means to salvation. None oftheir ideas have panned out.

Indeed, the whole idea of centralized,government-monopoly education is totallyincompatible with the values of a free soci-ety. But these statist ideas, which swept overAmerica in the wake of the industrial revolu-tion and the socialist reaction to capitalism,are now beginning to recede. The computerage has heralded in the post-industrial infor-mation society inwhich decentralization andprivatization are now the imperatives for thefuture development of a dynamic marketeconomy.

The government school is an anachro-nism. Not only does it no longer serve thepurposes of education, and not only has itbecome a huge parasite on the national econ-omy, but it is blocking the development ofthe new private institutions which will beneeded in America's future. The establish-ment's preoccupation with politics is anindication that it knows its survival dependsnot on pleasing the consumer but on control-

ling legislatures. And the more incapable itbecomes of delivering academic excellence,the more it will rely on politics for its sur-vival.

Of course, the education establishmentis good at pretending to reform itself, butthese reforms cannot work because the col-lective brain that has produced them is notonly minuscule in power, but exhibits thesymptoms of disease and retardation. Inaddition, the establishment's body is so in-fected with moral corruption, that more andmore parents feel uneasy about putting theirchildren in the government schools.

In a sense, public education has AIDS:an inability to resist corrupting influences.

The Blumenfeld Education Letter is published monthly. Sources of products and services described are not necessari ly endorsedby this publicat ion. They are intended to provide our readers with information on a rapidly expanding field .ofeducational act ivi ty.Permission to quote isgranted provided proper credit isgiven. Original material iscopyrighted by The Blumenfeld Education Letter.Subscription Rate: 1 year $36.00_ Address: Post Office Box 45161, Boise,ldaho 83711-Phone (208) 322-4440.


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In fact, corrupt ideas seem to thrive in thebody of public education, and the more cor-rupt the idea, the more eagerly the systemaccepts it.

Mo r a l C o n fu s io nWho will deny that distributing con-

doms to high-school students is about ascorrupt an idea as has ever been promotedby so-called educators? Who can deny thatseparating education from Biblical moralvalues has simply delivered the schools tothe devil? And who can deny that the youngadults emerging from our high schools arenot only poorly educated but morally con-

fused and ill-equipped todeal with theprob-lems of our society?

One would think that after a hundredyears of compulsory school attendance, thisnation would have reached new heights ofliteracy and intelligence. But the very oppo-site is true. In fact, literacy is declining. In

1972, 2,817 students achieved the highestverbal score of 750 to 800 on the ScholasticAptitude Test (SAT). In 1987, that numberwas down to 1,363,and in 1990it was downto 1,226.Nothing in the educational reformsproposed to date promises to reverse thattrend.

A review of the reforms being advo-cated by the establishment should convinceany thinking citizen that public education isheaded toward oblivion: alonger school year,a longer school day, higher teacher pay,national certification, restructuring, moresocial services, preschool education, smaller

classes, etc.All of these reforms will cost thetaxpayer much more money, but not one ofthem promises academic improvement.

T he F ic t io n o f R e fo rm

That doesn't mean the educators aren'ttrying. They are good at holding conven-tions, conferences, seminars, and workshops

to discuss curriculum reform, curriculuminnovation, curricuIumrevision, curriculumenhancement.curriculuminfusion, Eachyearthousands ofhours arespent discussing everyaspect of public education, thousands ofarticles arewritten for countless educationaljournals, hundreds of books are publishedon school reform, and yet the system keepsgetting worse.

Recently, the Association for Supervi-sion and Curriculum Development (ASCD)held a conference on "Education's FutureAgenda." The ASCD Update of Dec. 1990reported:

Stanford University'S Elliot Eisner suggested

that many of the reforms aimed at raising academicachievement have the wrong purpose in mind. Thepurpose of school, he said, is not merely to helpstudents achieve academically in school, but to pre-pare them to lead fulfilling lives.

"We shouldn't be thinking about effectiveschools or abou t effective teaching simply in terms ofhigh-level achievement within the context of school-ing," Eisner said. "1don't think that the major aim ofschool is to help kids do well in school. ... Schoolsexist for the kind of life that kids are able to leadoutside of schools." .. .

Eisner observed that new approaches reflect an

emerging view that the context of teaching isenormously important - and that efforts to pushteachers toward one instructional approach are mis-guided. "There isincreasing recognition of the impor-tance of context-specificity." Eisner said. "Hardlyanyone now believes the idea that there is a 'best way'to teach something. and that we will eventually con-verge on that best way." Two implications of such ashift are that supervision can't consist of a checklist ofgeneric teacher behaviors, and that staff developmentmust be geared toward helping teachers with strate-gies applicable to their specific contexts, he added.

Are you a bit confused, not quite surewhat Professor Eisner is talking about? If so,welcome to the club. What you have justread is the kind of hot air that routinelyemanates from all of these conferences andseminars and fills the professional journalsmonth after month, year after year. It allsounds very profound and very thoughtful

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Education Letter, Pg. 3, January 1991

but it is as removed from reality as is thesystem of cash flow that finances this end-less inanity. And that is what public educa-tion primarily is: a system of cash flow thatsupports thousands of doctors and mastersof education in the manner to which they'vebecome accustomed. Their biggest job is totrain newcomers to plug into the system andto concoct theories and ideas for their end-less game of education reform. As long asthey can convince the legislators and taxpay-ers that reform is really possible, they will beable to keep the game going.

G e tt in g a D ip lo m a

Meanwhile, the children suffe:r. Theymust pass through these government proc-essing plants where the "educators,' betterknown as "facilitators," press and mold andtwist the young American so that his or herbrain can no longer function properly, buthis or her body is now open to every conceiv-able sexual experience. The aim of the stu-den t is to get a certificate of attendance calleda diploma. The latter is the reward for hav-ing survived this boring, humiliating andabusive twelve-year obstacle course.

Of course, there are some good teachersin the system trying to do a decent job. Butjudging from the large number of youngadults who emerge from the process with noemployable skills, morally corrupted, spiri-tually depraved, intellectually crippled, thesystem's overall influence is overwhelm-ingly perverse.

Academic failure alone should have

condemned the system to extinction, but theeducators have learned how to survive, howto maintain and even enlarge the cash flowthat comes their way.

But the government-monopoly educa-tion system may not be able to survive theworld-wide trends toward decentralizationand privatization. These trends are not only

the result of the technological revolutionwhich is changing the economic structure ofsociety but also of the renewed belief in free-market, capitalist ideas proven by the sordidfailure of socialism and the breathtakingvitality of free enterprise.

The world now realizes that the profitmotive is the engine of wealth creation andeconomic development and that individualenterprise is the source of new ideas, newinventions, and new products. An economycan only grow and prosper if it adopts thenew capabilities and opportunities providedby technology.

The Succes s ful F am ily

In America, the family is proving to bethe one social unit capable of taking fulladvantage of the new technology for its ownbetterment. The home-school movement isthe most dramatic manifestation of both theprivatization and decentralization trends. Butwhat gives the family its power to succeed isits commitment to Biblical standards andprecepts. Contrary to popular belief that thetraditional family is obsolete, it is the tradi-tional family returning to a God-centeredworld view which is emerging triumphantin a society racked by social disintegrationand rot.

Home-schooled youngs ters are learn-ing better and faster than their government-school counterparts. They are also, on thewhole, self-disciplined, peer independent,moral in behavior, enterprising, self-confi-dent, and respectful of elders. Books, com-

puters, modems, video and audio cassettes,fax machines, tape recorders, electronictypewriters, calculators, VCRs, camcorders,copiers and other wonders have turned thehome into a highly efficient place of learningand discovery. There are no limits to whatthe home-school family can do, and many ofthem are becoming entrepreneurs and creat-

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ing all sorts of family enterprises.The home-school family - private,

functional, religiously oriented - has be-come the safe haven, the most reliable sourceof security for its members, in an increas-

ingly unstable, dangerous, violent" crime-ridden and diseased society. In short, be-cause the home-school movement, which islargely Christian, represents the ultimate indecentralization and privatization, it is theleading indicator of a changing civilization.

The Dinosaur in Politics

The public school dinosaur cannotadapt. It is too big, too stupid ..too preoccu-pied with economic survival. Its energies aredevoted to politics because that is where thepower is. The power to tax is the power forthe dinosaur to stay alive. And that is why itwill fight tooth and nail to preserve thatpower. But it is hard to resist the future.Alvin Toffler writes in The Third Wave:

II A new civilization is emerging in ourlives, and blind men everywhere are tryingto suppress it. This new civilization brings

withitnew family styles; changed ways ofworking, loving ..and living; a new economy;

new political conflicts; and beyond all this analtered consciousness as well .... The dawnof this new civilization is the single mostexplosive fact of our lifetimes."

This new consciousness is being experi-enced by those home-school families thathave made a radical break with existing in-stitutional norms and created a new kind offamily and a new way of educating. Theyhave a new view of politics as they fight fortheir right to educate their children at home.

Crumbling Structures

Concerning decentralization, JohnNaisbitt wrote in Megatrends (p . 9 7):

"Centralized structures are crumblingall across America. But our society is not

falling apart. The people of this country arerebuilding America from the bottom up intoa stronger, more balanced r more diversesociety ....

"The growth of decentralization paral-

lels the decline of industry .... The mechani-cal blueprint of industrial society requiredenormous centralization - in labor, mate-rial, capital, and plant. ... But the decline ofAmerican industry and the rise of the newinformation economy neutralized the pres-sure to centralize and we began to decentral-ize."

Those industries that could not adapt tothese dynamic changes simply folded. Theydid not have the kind of political power theeducation dinosaur has to keep an obsolete,inefficient system in existence indefinitely.

But as more and more parents removetheir children from the government schools,the education establishment will find it moreand more difficult to postpone the inevi-table.

The privatization trend in industry ismaking dramatic changes everywhere -from Britain to Argentina, from Hungary toNew Zealand. In the United States the gov-ernment school system is the most socializedsector of the economy, and so far it hasresisted all attempts to weaken its monopolythrough voucher schemes and tuition taxcredits.

Liberals Back Privatization

However, even the liberals now havecome to the conclusion that privatization is

the only way to solve our education prob-lem. Recently, the Brookings Institution, aprestigious liberal think tank in Washing-ton r D.C., published a new book advocatingprivatization, Politics , Ma rk ets a nd America 'sSchoolsby John E. Chubb and Terry M. Moe.The book argues that lithe government hasnot solved the education problem becausegovernment is the problem."

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Chubb and Moe write: "Governmentcontrol over schools burdens the schoolswith excessive bureaucracy, inhibits effec-ti ve organization, and stifles student achieve-ment." Their solution: a radical shift awayfrom government control to reliance on"markets and parental choice."

Roy A. Childs, reviewing the book inLaissez- Faire Books,writes: "For the think tankat the heart of the liberal establishment toreach such a conclusion is nothing short of arevolution. Put another way, if the supportof the liberal Brookings institution for ourcurrent system has disappeared, the:re is noplace for it to go but down the tubes."

W h a t Is to B e D on e ?

What can we do to hasten the demise ofthe dinosaur that is destroying the moralsand intelligence of our children while eatingus out of house and home? The simplest andmost effective way is to remove one's chil-dren from the dinosaur's care and then todeny it the sustenance it needs to survive byvoting against school-bond issues and ever-increasing school budgets.

Don't waste time trying to reform theunreformable.

Talk about the trends toward decen-tralization and privatization with friends,neighbors, relatives, educators, talk-showhosts.

Write letters to newspapers and peri-odicals, legislators and Congressmen.

Encourage educational entrepre-neurship, for as government schooling

wanes, opportunities for private enterprisein education will grow. Private education,which includes home-schooling, is the onlyroad to the kind of academic excellence thisnation needs if it is to regain its economiceminence, and the sooner we get there thebetter it will be for the children, the parents,and the taxpayers.

Teachers Form "Private P ractice"Association

A group of teachers in Milwaukee havedecided to offer their services as privatepractitioners, reflecting the trend away fromgovernment education. They have organ-ized the American Association of Educatorsin Private Practice and have about 50-oddmembers. These are bold, creative teacherswho were frustrated in the public schoolsand wanted to do something about themounting academic failure of Americanchildren. Stymied by the education estab-lishment, they have struck ou t on their own

to bring the spirit of private enterprise to theteaching profession.Although doctors and lawyers have the

option of working for themselves, teachershave never thought it possible to engage in asimilar kind of private practice. Their train-ing in teachers colleges prepared them forthe career-ladder in public education. Thus,many teachers are startled and puzzled whentold of this new career concept. In fact, theNational Education Association sees it as a

very real threat to union control of the pro-fession.

The private practice idea is simply afurther development of the growing practiceof contracting out for instruction. Across thecountry, some public schools are contractingwith private firms to deliver entire instruc-tional programs in such areas as foreignlanguages and remedial education.

Dialogos International Inc. in Raleigh,N .c.,teaches French, German, Spanish, Ital-ian, Chinese and Japanese in kindergartenthrough fifth grade in Wake County publicschools. The program began nine years ago,when a new superintendent arrived promis-ing parents foreign language instruction inthe elementary grades.

"School opened, they didn't have theteachers, they didn't have the program, and

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we pulled them out of a bind," says Dialogoschief executive Carey Stacy. "They signed acontract on a Friday night, and Ihad teachersin the classroom on Monday morning." Mostteachers are native speakers, she says, and

her firm works on an annual contract. 'Wework with the schools on what they want toaccomplish, and then we go in and do it.They hold me accountable for the product.And that's the way I think education shouldbe."

L e a rn in g E n te rp r is e

. Two years ago, Kathy Harrell-Patter-son, a former Milwaukee elementary schoolteacher, opened Learning Enterprise ofWisconsin Inc. after watching rising num-bers of poor children fail in public schools.Her school runs basic skills instruction foryoung mothers and provides day care fortheir children in the same building. She alsoruns a kindergarten under contract with thepublic schools.

Harrell-Patterson sees herself as an allyof the public schools. Noone school can meet

the needs of every child, she insists. Learn-ing Enterprise concentrates on disadvan-taged students. 'We're catching those kidswho have fallen between the cracks," shesays, "and unfortunately, there's quite a fewof them."

Children's academic deficits are widen-ing, she says. Adult students are entering herschool reading at the second-grade level."These are people who are 18, 19,20 yearsold. It's there. It's tragic," ITjobs were avail-

able for all the unemployed, many wouldlack the skills to fill them, she says. 1/ Andthat's a rude awakening."

Another educational entrepreneur isHector MacDonald, president ofMacDonaldResearch Group, Inc. and former dean ofscience and math at Brookfield Academy inMilwaukee. His firm offers high quality,high-tech science courses for schools that need

such courses without a huge investment incostly equipment.

MacDonald believes that private prac-tice offers teachers professional status andadvancement in the classroom. The option

might attract people from outside teaching,as well as current teachers frustrated withinthe system.

O n e -R o om P riv a te S c h oo ls

Another enterprising educator is JimBoyle, founder of Ombudsman EducationalServices Ltd. of Libertyville, T I , a chain of"electronic one-room schoolhouses." As apublic school teacher, principal and assis-tant superintendent, Boyle attempted to trynew ideas in the schools without success.The system, he says, is "just too locked-in,too confining. A lot of things get in the wayof trying to change things. So I figured if Icould do something outside the system, thenI could kind of run schools the way I thoughtthey ought to be."

In 1975, he opened Ombudsman. Henow has 800 students at 22 storefront schools

inlliinois, Minnesota and Arizona. Ombuds-man provides individualized instruction inbasic skills for students who are about todrop out. School districts pay the tuition.The student-teacher ratio is 5-to-1. Boylecharges about $3,000per student, well belowthe $6,000 to $10,000 that competing subur-ban public schools spend. He boasts an 85percent success rate - fully remediatingstudents who were close to a zero chance ofany academic achievement in school.

Obviously, the failure of the govern-ment system is providing unlimited oppor-tunities for enterprising educators to savethe lives of countless children otherwisecondemned to academic failure. It is no acci-dent that the government system must turnto private resources to get the real job done.(Insight, 12/24/90)

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P a re n ta l C h o ic e C a u s e sHeated Debate

In New Hamp shire Town

Ken Preve acted swiftly when select-men in Epsom, N.H., recently unveiled acontroversial program to grant $1,000 taxbreaks to property owners who educate theirhigh-school-age children anywhere but inthe local public school. He said the rebate,which he promptly claimed, strengthenedhis freedom to choose where to educate hischildren. His son attends Bishop Brady HighSchool, a parochial school in nearby Con-

cord.But Cyrene Wells, who qualifies with

her husband, James, for a $2,000 tax break forsending their son to Kimball Union Acad-emy in Meriden and their daughter to TheCambridge School in Weston, Mass., saidthe Epsom selectmen can keep the money.

Cu tting taxes for property owners whosend children to private or parochial schoolsunfairly threatens public education, Wellssaid. "Just because we chose to send our kidsto private schools doesn't take away fromour responsibility to support the publicschools," she said. "The $2,000 may soundgood. But the idea is wrong, plain wrong."Mrs. Wells is a former public school teacher.

It is also deeply divisive in this town of4,000, which leaders on both sides of thedebate expect to be a major battleground ina national struggle over the legal, moral andsocial merits of so-called "parental choice

programs" for education.Fighting the Epsom plan are NewHampshire's largest teachers union and thestate branch of the American Civil LibertiesUnion. Leaders of both groups say they maychallenge the policy in state and federal courtson the grounds that it violates the separationof church and sta te and discrimina.tes against

the children of residents who do not ownproperty.

. "It's an attempt to shift public funds toprivate and religious institutions," said FredPlace, president of the state affiliate of theNational Education Association. "And itcould end up leaving a lot of kids out in thecold." .

Ready to Do Battle

But poised for a counterattack are JohnKelleher, a former Epsom selectman whodevised the plan" and Landmark Legal Foun-dation ofWashington, D.C."whose director,Clint Bolick, praised the town for adopting"the nation's first property tax credit pro-gram for taxpayers who educate their chil-dren outside the public schools - a mile-stone in the movement to expand choice ineducation."

Bolick said the Landmark Foundation,which President Bush has supported in other"parental choice" campaigns, recently agreed.to pick up the tab to defend the Epsom planagainst all court challenges.

Epsom entered the "parental choice"debate partly because of its Yankee frugal-ity. Ten years ago it rejected Kelleher's ideaby a 7-to-1 ratio. But as the town's tax raterose in the late 1980s 1 due largely to in-creased school costs, the voters changed theirminds.

In New Hampshire, communities relyon property taxes to meet more than 90 per-cent of their school costs. The state contrib-utes less than 10percent to public education,

the smallest share in the nation. Recently, agroup of communities proposed a lawsuit toforce the state to increase its aid to publiceducation. But Epsom shunned that strat-egy. "It looked to me like a back door moveto adopt a sales or income tax," said Kelle-her" who is an active Libertarian.

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Education Letter, Pg, 8, January 1991

Tow n s pe op le A p p ro ve d

So he pressed his idea, which towns-people approved by a vote of 95-67 in anonbinding referendum in 1988. Wary of a

costly legal struggle, selectmen waited untilLandmark Foundation agreed to foot the billbefore approving the rebate program.

Under the Epsom Educational TaxAbatement Plan, anyone who owns realestate in town may receive an abatement ofup to $1,000 of the amount he or she spendsto send an Epsom resident to a nonpublichigh school. Epsom, which has no highschool, currently pays $4,600 in tuition foreach of its 180students enrolled at PembrokeAcademy, the regional public high school.Thus, the taxpayers would save $3,600 oneach student sent to a nonpublic high school.

Paul DeMinico, superintendent ofschools for Epsom, Pembroke and threeneighboring towns, disputes the contentionthat Epsom would save money by luring asmall number of students away from Pem-broke Academy. He also argued that theplan "creates a separate category of citizens

whoin

effect have less responsibility towardpublic education."The result, said Gary Benner, head of

the Epsom School Board, could be that"people who send their children to privateschools find it very easy to vote for cuttingthe school district budget. And that wouldhurt the kids who can't afford to go to privateschool."

P ro g ram A cc e s s ib le to A ll

Under the abatement plan, studentswhose families own no property in Epsommay be sponsored by other property own-ers. These owners could be a relative or abusiness. For instance, a business couldsponsor a child of parents who do not ownproperty by claiming the $1,000 rebate to

help pay the sponsored child's tuition."Everyone has access to the program;' saysKelleher.

But according to Claire Ebel, executivedirector of the state chapter of the ACLU,

lithe potential for abuse is enormous. Theyare encouraging poor people to go about hatin hand begging from those who have nochildren. It could prove to be an enormousdisservice to an entire class of people."

Kelleher said the Epsom plan was partlymodeled after a Minnesota program thatgrants income tax deductions to parents whosend their children to nonpublic schools. In1983, the USSupreme Court upheld the policyin a 5-4 decision.

ButTed Comstock ..staff attomeyfor theNew Hampshire School Boards Association,said the Epsom plan "appears to be the firststep in the dismantlement of the publicschools." And Ebel said Epsom's policy dif-fers enough from the Minnesota programthat it may be ripe for a court challenge.(Boston Globe, 12/23/90)

Comment: Mr. Comstock .. and all theother public officials who oppose the pro-gram, are right to believe that the Epsomplan is "the first step in the dismantlement ofthe public schools." And if that is what thepublic wants, why aren't the public servantsacceding to the public's wishes? Someday,every child in America will be getting a goodprivate education. Besides, all the indicatorsof cost effectiveness and efficiency point inthat direction. But, as Alvin Toffler says,blind men everywhere are trying to stop thefuture.

Vital Quote"The generation graduating from high

school today is the first generation in Ameri-can history to graduate less skilled than itsparents."

Megatrends, (p. 31)

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The Blumenfeld education Letter January 1991