- The following email was sent to Charlotte Iserbyt...
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- Dear Charlotte,
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- Thank you so much for all of your great efforts on behalf
of American children and families.
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- I have an experience to share with you and if you have
any contacts in my state of Illinois please alert them to what is going
on and if they are teachers they should be able to verify what I am writing
to you.
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- In October of 2007, I was at a park in a small town in
central Illinois and I overheard two sisters talking. They were very upset.
Both were teachers in two separate schools in a nearby bigger town.
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- I asked if it was all right if I joined them as I am
very interested in what they were talking about: education. They were very
agitated and frustrated about a new grading system that they were trained
in that they knew would hurt the students and help dumb them down. If I
recall correctly there would no longer be any letter grades at all, no
ABCD or F or even S for satisfactory or U for unsatisfactory. The new mandated
grading that they were told was ordered by the Governor was a number system
of 1, 2, 3, or 4. One being the lowest and four being the highest. However,
they were instructed that No one was to be given a 1 as that would 'hurt'
the child and those who got ones would have to be put in a special class
and the state did not want to pay for special ed teachers for those struggling
in school. And you will have to fill out lots of paperwork and we don't
like that, just give them a 2 no mater how badly that they do in class.
They were also told do not give a 4 either. Everyone was to get a 2 or
a 3. Even formerly straight A or B students would only be able to receive
a 3. All others who would have been a C or D or F student were to receive
a 2.
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- One of them asked the trainers what would a student have
to do to earn a 4. They were told the only way for that to happen was if
the child had gotten all of the questions or problems correct AND that
they then had to spontaneously, without one suggestion from the teacher,
turned their paper over and do extra credit on their own initiative.
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- Another Mom who joined us was there and said, I know
my little cousin just got 100% on her paper and yet did not get a 4 but
a 3 and she is really upset about it as she has been an A student since
she began school and does not understand why she was denied a 4 on her
paper.
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- The teachers hate this new system that has been forced
upon them by the State school board most likely by having the federal funds
held over their heads.
- This is disgraceful, it is discouraging the bright students
so that they may lose their desire to achieve and they are trying to 'averagize
downward' those who may just need a little extra attention to help them
advance. The grading system and those who put it in are attempting to make
all the students of the state of Illinois mediocre.
- I am very concerned. PLEASE can you do anything? My children
are grown; however, I have a lot of family in the state and what they are
doing to these precious children and their potential is criminal. This
is why the Department of Education must go, the local school boards need
to take back control and reestablish true education in our schools and
be accountable to the parents.
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- Thank you,
- Patricia
-
-
- From: Charlotte Iserbyt
- dumbdown00@yahoo.com>
- Date: February 23, 2008 8:01:29 AM PST
- To: Patricia
- Subject: Re: new dumb down grading system in Illinois
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- Patricia:
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- Thank you for your very interesting and important email.
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- It is always helpful to have information straight
from the poor teachers' mouths. They are the only ones who know exactly
what is going on, even if, often, they do not know why it is being done
to the children and to them.
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- The system is really a totally ungraded system, but "they"
wouldn't want us to know that, would they? Someone might compare it to
the Soviet system, and that would be a "no-no". In a socialist/collectivist
society all are equal. No one is allowed to excel. The basic
reason for education is not learning but training.
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- Do you have my book "the deliberate dumbing down
of america"? If not, you can either read it free at my website
or order it from me. My little book "Back to Basics Reform Or...OBE...Skinnerian
INternational Curriculum" written in 1985, which was boycotted by
the neoconservative movement, is also a pdf on my website. It
has some dynamite quotes related to your quandary, one of which. out of
the mouth of a very important change agent , Professor James Block,
follows:
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- Excerpt from Back to Basics:
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- "When you are told by educators that Outcomes Based
Education/Mastery Learning is not a Skinnerian Dumbdown System of Education,
focussing on behavioral change (collectivism vs. individualism), show them
the following statement by Jim Block, William Spady's co-worker, which
appeared in an article by him entitled: MASTERY LEARNING: THE
CURRENT STATE OF THE CRAFT, Educational Leadership, November, 1979:
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- "One of the striking personal features of mastery
learning, for example, is the degree to which it encourages cooperative
individualism in student learning as opposed to selfish competition. Just
how much room is there left in the world for individualists who are more
concerned with their own performance than the performance of others? One
of the striking societal features of mastery learning is the degree to
which it presses for a society based on the excellence of all participants
rather than one based on the excellence of a few. Can any society
afford universal excellence, or must all societies make most people incompetent
so that a few can be competent?"
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- And don't forget hat the new phonics reading method DIRECT
INSTRUCTION is based on Skinnerian mastery learning/outcomes based education
research. When the sheeple get upset they just change the labels.
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- I am forwarding your email to all my contacts.
-
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- Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt
- Former Senior Policy Advisor
- U.S. Department of Education
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- http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/
- http://www.americandeception.com/
-
-
- Former President of the Soviet Union Gorbachev said in
2000, in London: "The European Union is the New European Soviet. "
Since the North American Union is modelled on the European Union, what
would Gorbachev call the North American Union?
-
-
- From Deborah
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- To Charlotte Iserbyt
-
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- Greetings,
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- Having read your column on Rense.com about the dumbing-down
of US schools, I thought to send you a piece from our local paper
illustrating how this is also happening in Canada:
- http://www.thestar.com/printArticle/300037
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- I know Great Britain is having a similar experience.
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- Best,
-
- Deborah
-
-
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- From: Charlotte Iserbyt
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- Thanks so much for this Blockbuster article. Pathetic.
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- My book is a free download at
- http:www.deliberatedumbingdown.com
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- Best regards,
-
- Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt
- Former Senior Policy Advisor
- U.S. Department of Education
-
- http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/
- http://www.americandeception.com/
-
- Former President of the Soviet Union Gorbachev said in
2000, in London: "The European Union is the New European Soviet. " Since
the North American Union is modelled on the European Union, what would
Gorbachev call the North American Union?
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