School-to-Work; The Cradle to Grave Agenda

School-to-Work The Cradle to Grave Agenda

By Eileen Spatz

After researching School-to-Work for over four years now, I have come to realize that this information will never make it onto the evening network news. Unfortunately, the general public is totally unaware of this vast restructuring of America's schools to the STW model, and the implications of it. I have decided to embark on an internet project to provide a crash course to interested parties. Because most folks are aware that our schools are in trouble, I am hoping that the interest will be there to read my pages on School-to-Work.

WHY THE URGENCY?

For several decades, the academic standards and requirements in our public schools have been spiraling downward. Simultaneously, the emphasis on the affective domain of the children (feelings, self-esteem, attitudes) has shifted the role of the public schools to one of social engineering. The combined effect has been disastrous, graduating students with no work ethic, barely adequate basic academic skills, and bloated egos. The results are seen every day in America, where colleges have to remediate 50% of the entering freshmen in basic math and English, and businesses that have to spend money to teach entry-level employees how to read, write and compute enough to function on the job! As the effects of our failed schools have been recognized by the public and the media, parental pressure to return the public schools to a back-to-basics approach has ensued.

Sadly, the opposite is what is actually being done in our public schools. Instead of returning to somewhat rigorous standards, the new "high standards" will have little to do with real academics. The new focus of education, via the STW/Goals 2000 legislation, will be vocational training and more social engineering, sold deceptively as preparation for the "high skills/high wage" jobs of the 21st century. Academics, although already woefully inadequate in our public schools, will be even further watered down in order to focus on job skills and "real life" education, even so far as having students leave campus during the school day to perform tasks at local businesses for class credit. Already, students in South Dakota are receiving class credit for bagging groceries and waiting tables. High standards? High skills?

Although there are many palpable threats to America's status as a free republic, there is none so pervasive and disturbing as the federal plans to restructure the public schools to resemble vocational training centers. The legislation called the School-to-Work Opportunities Act, passed in 1994, has resulted in all fifty states planning and implementing School-to-Work (STW) programs, which will lead to complete control of the labor force, and a planned, centrally controlled economy. Note that the system is not yet fully in place. Block scheduling and career academies, as well as career surveys administered in elementary school, are sure signs that STW is on its way.

HISTORY OF STW

Back in 1991, the Department of Labor produced a report called the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills, or SCANS. In it, the government defined the "skills and competencies" for the American worker geared toward a prediction of the needs of a global economy. What is unsettling about this document is the scale of the undertaking. It proposed that the schools be reinvented, that the workplace be reorganized, and that assessment be restructured to "fit" the SCANS vision. It is all encompassing, this plan to redefine the American student and the American marketplace.

These SCANS competencies are as follows:

Acquires and evaluates information

Allocates human resources

Allocates material and facility resources

Allocated time to improve performance

Applies technology to task

Approaches mathematical problems

Approaches thoughts and solutions in new ways

Budgets money

Communicates information in writing

Demonstrates responsibility

Develops decision-making plan

Exercises leadership

Exhibits ethics in decision making

Improves designs systems/organizations

Initiates problem-solving techniques

Interprets and communicates information

Knows how to learn

Listens and responds to verbal and non-verbal communications

Locates, understands, and interprets written information

Maintains and troubleshoots technology

Maintains positive view of self

Matches technology to task

Monitors and corrects performance

Negotiates to arrive at a decision

Organizes and maintains information

Organizes oral communications

Participates as a member of a team

Performs basic computations

Relates in familiar and unfamiliar social situations

Sees things in the mind's eye

Serves client/customers

Teaches others

Understands social, organizational, and technological systems

Understands systems

Uses computers to process information

Uses reasoning

Works with cultural diversity

Not only are the SCANS competencies to be woven into all subjects in all grades in the school setting, through the STW program, the Department of Labor goes so far as to state their goal that all businesses should re-train their existing workers to these competencies. Also, all federal and state agencies are to train new hires to the SCANS vision as well. SCANS is the nucleus of STW, the language of the SCANS documents is in every state's STW proposals and programs.

Also disturbing is the reference to "behaviors and attitudes" to be acquired through SCANS, which can be found throughout the SCANS site.

Click here to visit the government sponsored website for SCANS — go to Publications and click around.

In 1992, after the election of Bill Clinton, a letter written by Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy, to Hillary Clinton describes a "seamless web of lifelong learning," envisioned by his organization for America, including a total restructuring of the schools and workplace. The actual enabling legislation (STWOA) was passed two years later.

Click here to read the "Dear Hillary" letter and the general plan of the NCEE.

FROM SCANS TO STW

As stated above, the SCANS document was published in 1991, the letter from Marc Tucker to Hillary penned in 1992, and STW legislation was passed in 1994. As the seed money for STW grants were planted across the nation, the process to restructure our schools began. There is no difference between the states STW programs, they all reflect the federal guidelines in the 1994 legislation and the SCANS competencies.

The states, and local districts, have been in the process of courting business to participate in STW, enticing them with free labor provided by the students who will be required to work in order to graduate. STW cannot take effect on the grand scale envisioned by the government without the participation of business. There will be tax credits and other incentives provided for businesses who participate, and who agree to hire CIM holders. If business is lured into the STW system, the fate of this country will be sealed. This will lead to a full-blown socialist system here in the U.S.

WHAT DOES STW ENTAIL AT THE SCHOOL LEVEL?

Public schools will be transformed, incrementally and methodically, toward the STW system in the following way:

1. The curriculum will be designed and/or selected in response to the Goals 2000 national standards. These eight goals are deceptively written to sound honorable. For instance, one of the goals is that all children will begin school ready to learn. How can the government achieve this without becoming deeply involved in the raising of your pre-school-aged children?

2. The curriculum and teaching methods will align themselves with the SCANS competencies (which include behavioral components), which will act as a blueprint for shaping the future American worker in response to the predictions of big business to the global economy of the 21st century. Schools will focus on vocational skills and gear school instruction toward learning job skills, utilizing work-related reading selections, unit studies and projects across the curriculum. Even in federally designed software (Computer Assisted Learning Systems, or CALS), the SCANS competencies will be delivered through computer-based learning.

3. Students will be required to select a career pathway in middle school. But each state will designate a "career menu" for its schools to offer, severely limiting choices of occupations. Their curriculum will then be responsive to the career track that they have selected. The idea of a liberal arts education (the core base of knowledge covering the major academic disciplines) is out the window. Instead, each student will receive a watered down version of math, language arts, social studies and science—all of which will be tailored to the Goals 2000 agenda, along with the vocational training which pertains to their chosen career pathway.

4. National standards, and eventually a national assessment test, will drive the restructured public schools. A government appointed board called the National Skills Standards Board will outline the national standards and direct implementation. Already, textbooks and standardized tests (like the Stanford Achievement Test) are aligning themselves to this national agenda, including environmentalism, multi-culturalism, globalism and social studies across all subjects. For instance, in the introduction to the new Stanford Achievement Test (SAT 9), they clearly state that they have aligned the test with Goals 2000 and the National Council for Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM—who has promoted the new new "fuzzy" math nationally).

5. A new diploma called the certificate of initial mastery (CIM) will be awarded to 16 year olds if they have demonstrated their competence in the SCANS behaviors, skills, and attitudes. A test called Work Keys, published by ACT, which is to assess workplace readiness, is already being administered in some states. Although the SCANS literature consistently refers to these workplace competencies as "high performance skills" for the "high wage/high skills" jobs of the future, the content of the Work Keys test reveals quite a different emphasis. The test is administered by video, with an array of workplace scenarios that the students (age 16) are to answer questions about. Interestingly, each workplace scenario contained in this test is "blue collar" in nature. One test scenario is about making a submarine sandwich, one is about loading a truck, one is inspecting buckets on an assembly line, one is taking a phone message, and one is about mopping a floor. Also telling within the SCANS documents, is the fact that the Dept. of Labor considers "high wage" jobs as those paying $25,000-$40,000. High?

WHY SCHOOL-TO-WORK IS NOT VOLUNTARY

Although the government claims that STW will be voluntary, this is not possible due to the pervasiveness of the systemic change. Because the SCANS competencies will dictate textbook selections, curriculum, and state standards—and will be integrated across all subjects and into all grade levels—STW cannot possibly be voluntary. A voluntary vocational program is a program like ROP (Regional Occupation Program), where a student voluntarily signs up to participate in a vocational ed program which is separate from his academic subjects. STW, on the other hand, will not offer this choice. If the child attends a public school (and soon private institutions, too) he/she will be participating in STW.

Because, nationwide, schools' curricula are gradually moving from a knowledge-based liberal arts emphasis to a "real world" hands-on style of learning, children will be forced to sacrifice time-honored academic substance in favor of "performance-based" assignments. For example, instead of a student being asked to write a composition based on classic literature, the assignment would be to write a memo, a phone message, or craft a resume. All subjects will conform to a work-related focus, in all grades K-12.

Click here to visit the government sponsored STW site (legislation is online here, as well as links to all state's STW programs and lots of pro-STW PR).

HOW WILL THIS NEW 'LEARNING' BE ASSESSED?

Because the states accept federal dollars for their STW programs, certain mandates are placed on their schools. One of the mandates is that a skills certificate (CIM) be awarded at age 16, when the SCANS competencies will be assessed in the child. There are different methods for this assessment:

Tests such as Work Keys (from ACT): Described above.

Performance-based portfolios: These will contain an ongoing collections of examples of the students work. Cumbersome and costly to evaluate, this mode of assessment is tailored to measure attitudes and behaviors through career surveys and questionnaires, resume writing examples, work-related assignments and projects.

Computer database which contains progress reports toward achieving "mastery" of the pre-determined SCANS "outcomes." All children will be tracked in a central data system, including their grades, survey/questionnaire results, assessment test results, work-based training, health information, psychological information and personal family information. This data will then become available to prospective employers via an electronic resume.

State exit exams: Until a national test is approved (to date, Clinton has not been able to get one passed), states will begin to develop exit exams which will measure the Goals 2000 outcomes, and the SCANS competencies, along with basic academic skills.

Note: Because the assessment of SCANS will lead to the awarding of a skills certificate (Certificate of Initial Mastery or CIM), and this certificate will be required upon entering the job market, all schools, including private and home schools, will eventually be forced to conform to some degree.

WHY PRIVATE SCHOOLS ARE VULNERABLE

Because the accreditation agencies for private schools are beginning to adopt the federal agenda, private schools, including Christian schools, will be incorporating the SCANS competencies and STW programs into their curriculum. Evidence of this is ACSI (Association of Christian School International), which has been pushing the federal Goals 2000/STW agenda at their annual conventions since '97.

Also, many of the private school administrators are simply uninformed (or naive) about the threat of these federal education programs. They are easy targets to whom WASC (Western Association of Schools and Colleges), ACSI and other accreditation agencies can sell the lofty sounding "high skills/high wages" rhetoric. Without thorough research into the actual legislation or understanding the implications of the STW plan, these administrators are unknowingly buying into the "seamless web."

Private schools need to develop a strategy to bypass the federal agenda and the certificate of mastery, even if that means being an unaccredited institution. They need to hold tight to traditional curriculum and continue to emphasize academic excellence and the development of a strong work ethic, two ingredients that will all but guarantee success in college or the work world.

WHY HASN'T THE MEDIA REPORTED ON THIS ISSUE?

Because the media is not responsive to the conservative segment of the population, they will not touch this story. Unbeknownst to the media moguls, STW will adversely affect all people—conservatives, liberals, libertarians and everything in between!

Very few mainstream publications have reported on STW. Investors Business Daily should be commended for its continuing reporting of not only STW, but all the underlying issues in education today (and they all seem to connect). Also, some newspapers have reported within their editorial pages about STW—notably editorial director Robert Holland of the Richmond-Times Dispatch (Click here to read his terrific articles), Debra Saunders of the San Francisco Chronicle, and Carol Innerst of the Washington Times. There has been zero reporting on STW or SCANS in the television media.

It is my opinion that the only way that this information is going to get out to the public at large is through the internet. By providing the basic information and the referenced websites, readers across the country will be able to access this material and act accordingly.

NOW THAT I AM INFORMED, WHAT CAN I DO?

Copy and share general information and the suggested books (below) with your friends, relatives and neighbors. Seize opportunities at Little League games, soccer games, block parties, etc. Don't come off as an alarmist wacko, just as a concerned parent wanting to share what you've learned with them. Best to ease them into this huge issue by first discussing school site examples like strange surveys and assessments being administered, current teaching methods (child-centered, not teacher directed; discovery learning, etc), and questionable curriculum. Later you can explain why these things are happening and illustrate the big picture (STW and Goals 2000).
Hold small neighborhood meetings, or think bigger and organize a community meeting at a school auditorium or church. Invite a speaker to come to your meeting if you aren't well-versed or confident enough with the material yet to speak to a group.
Write, fax, call, or e-mail your legislators (found in the front of the phone book) to express your opposition to the STW and Goals 2000 programs, and ask them to push for their immediate repeal and defunding.
Write short letters to the editor in your local paper or major newspapers. Letters should first reference a current education article (about test scores, etc), not hard to find as they are quite common now. After the reference, begin to express concerns about the incoming School-to-Work system and how it could adversely affect children’s' freedom, choices, and quality of education. Letters to the editor are a good way to educate the public about STW.
Write, fax, or e-mail network news shows, newspaper education editors, and talk radio shows about the need for them to address this important issue. If they receive enough requests, they may consider doing an exposé. Be sure to include the STW website information so they can get the info from the horse's (gov't's) mouth. Do not mention religious or political feelings in these letters, as they are more responsive to the "main stream" middle.

WHAT PRECAUTIONS TO TAKE IF YOUR KIDS ATTEND PUBLIC SCHOOL

If you choose to stay the course and keep your children in the public school system, here are some things you can do to protect them:

Never sign a parent/school compact!!! This document will basically waive your rights as a parent to be informed when your child is involved in counseling, group therapy, certain health services etc. Upon signing a compact, you are agreeing to share the raising of your child with the state and exposing your family to state intrusion.
Request, at the beginning of the school year, to see any (intrusive, personal, feelings-oriented) surveys or assessments before they are administered. If your child is in elementary school, ask that he/she be placed in a more traditional classroom setting (versus an OBE-model like multi-age) with a teacher who uses more traditional teaching methods. There are still some very good teachers out there. The younger teachers tend to be the most indoctrinated toward the "progressive" OBE (outcome based education) techniques.
At the first parent/teacher conference, state your expectations (of the teacher and the grade level) clearly and unapologetically (although nicely). This is your child, and you are letting the teacher know that his/her academic education (vs self esteem training) should be the most important role of the school.
In K-2, ask what curriculum they are using for reading. This is crucial as so many children are hurt by poor reading instruction and end up labeled as learning disabled, and placed in the "at risk" category. If they are not using Open Court or SRA, they are using a whole language based program. They, of course, will not admit to this, so don't get into an argument over it. If they are using a whole language program, you must supplement your child at home with a systematic, explicit (decoding) phonics program. Even a game, such as The Phonics Game, would be advantageous.
Math is another area to be involved in. Most public schools are using constructivist math programs now (also referred to as fuzzy math). This method emphasizes process over computation, and creates a dependency on a crutch (calculator, fingers, manipulatives, etc), adversely affecting the child in later years when more advanced concepts are introduced. There is a current emphasis on writing about math and doing math in groups, all having disastrous results on standardized test scores. Parents need to supplement their child's math instruction with plenty of flashcard work and possibly tutoring (many parents like the Kumon program).
Many younger teachers do not know how to teach grammar (and some districts don't offer any until middle school), so it is up to you to get a grammar workbook (Daily Grams is a good one for early grades) and instruct them in syntax.
Be prepared to offset the political influences that you will find throughout the curriculum with some balance, so your children will get the complete picture. The history (now referred to as "social studies") books have been revised (look for the name, Nash, in the list of authors) to create a shameful view of American history, and major figures have been deleted (like Ben Franklin, Albert Einstein, et al) in the quest for political correctness.
There is also an excessive emphasis on environmentalism, even in the math books. Our children are being lead to believe that our world is about to implode from all the evil effects of capitalism and industry, stifling ambition with guilt and angst. Multi-culturalism is woven into the curriculum and assignments as well. Multi-culturalism is not the study of different cultures, as so many are lead to believe. It is the divisive notion that each of us should identify first with our ethnic roots, second as an American (ie African-American, Asian-American etc). It is the opposite of the "melting pot" theory, the theory that all people living (legally) in the USA are Americans, regardless of their place of origin, and that all races melt into the American society. Multi-culturalism has had a negative, racist effect on our society.
Be honest about your child's skill level and challenge inflated grades. This practice is prevalent in the public schools and can cause much damage to a child's psyche when he later learns that he isn't as smart as he's been lead to believe. Many parents enjoy seeing the high grades and don't stop to assess their child's actual skill level. A strong work ethic will only be developed through hard work and academic challenges (and the understanding that negative consequences, ie bad grades, will result from shoddy or incomplete work). Although tempting to look the other way and beam with pride at all those A's, in the long run inflated grades will come back to haunt your child.
If you decide to take any complaints to a school official, be prepared for the snow job. You will be told that you are the first parent to voice such a concern (in other words, you are somehow strange). You will be met when a lot of edu-speak (jargon) that sounds quite lofty, but is a smoke screen used to disarm parents. If you can't understand the terminology, it's difficult to argue, right? You will be either condescended to, or met with a blank stare, as if they are tuning you out. You will be told that you are old fashioned, since now there are spell checkers, calculators, and computers, right? Remember, school officials been instructed (via the unions and state educrats) that there are these wacko parents out there, extreme religious nuts, who want to destroy public education. They will immediately put you in that category. Stay calm and in control as you state your case for a strong academic emphasis in our schools.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Other sites: these websites discuss the negative implications of STW/Goals 2000.

Capitol Resource Institute (CA)

Parents Raising Education Standards in Schools (WI)

Diana Fessler, Member, Ohio State Board of Education

Texas Education Consumers Association

Washington State Education Site (this site)

Utah Education Site (go to education pages)

Oregon Education Site (go to education pages)

Education Excellence Network

Education Consumers Warehouse

Book recommendations: All available at amazon.com

Government Nannies by Cathy Duffy ('95)

None Dare Call It Education by John Stormer ('98)

Angry Parents, Failing Schools by Elaine McEwan ('98)

The Schools We Need and Why We Don't Have Them by E.D. Hirsch ('97)

Outcome Based Education by Peg Luksik ('94)

Dumbing Down Our Kids by Charles Sykes ('95)

For an excellent analysis on Goals 2000/STW from the Claremont Institute, contact me, Eileen Spatz, and I'll mail it to you free of charge.

END NOTES:

Children should be free to select the career of their choice when they are ready, not when forced. If they are not ready until after having graduated from high school, then so be it. In addition, the purpose of schools should be to prepare students with knowledge and academic skills. By challenging them to a high standard, the development of a strong work ethic will result.

It is not for a lack of work training and preparation that our graduates are a disappointment in the colleges and workplace! It is because they have not been educated to a sufficient level that they are unprepared to contribute at a job or in an environment of higher learning.

Copy and share this information with friends, neighbors, relatives and internet acquaintances

Eileen Spatz is the mother of three children whom she home schools in San Clemente, CA. After becoming alarmed at the weak academic content used at the local public school, along with her abhorrance of the social agenda being infused throughout the textbooks and curricula, she pulled her children out and enrolled them in a private Christian school.

That same year (1994), she became aware of the new federal education programs just signed into law, School-to-Work and Goals 2000, and became an instant activist against them. Eileen began writing op-ed columns on education issues in 1996 that have been published in the Washington Post, Investors' Business Daily, The Orange County Register, the LA Times, and the Washington Times.

Financial strains caused the family to move from private schooling to home schooling in 1997, which was the best thing that ever happened to them.

╪