Arizona Workforce Development System
To: Tucson
Unified School District Governing Board, candidates for Arizona Governor
Cc: Parents,
candidates for TUSD Governing Board
From: Debbie Niwa
Re: Federal
education reform in Arizona's Public School System
October 28, 2002
As a parent and citizen, I am concerned about leadership and
community awareness regarding the federal restructuring of the public school
system; and, the alignment of school district policies and state laws to
support the agenda.
Contrary to our children's best interests, education restructuring
is turning public schools into government-controlled workforce training
facilities—funded by taxpayers. The results: watered-down academic curriculum,
restricted local school governance, coerced spending, contention within school
communities, exclusion and harassment of educators who do not want to adopt a
herd-mentality, and much more.
Federal measures are at the heart of Arizona's education and financial
ills, as well as those of other states. To predict other approaching problems,
one needs only to follow the mounting troubles in states that are ahead of
Arizona's restructuring.
Questionable accountability measures are resulting in school
takeovers. At the extreme, entire
school staffs have been fired. And
at a higher cost to taxpayers, schools were turned over to "private
for-profit school management companies" who have done no better even
though they were allowed greater freedom than the previous administration.
A buildup of "underperforming schools"/takeovers has led
to the end of elected school governing boards, followed by the creation
of appointed boards controlled by city and/or state government.
Attitude and behavior "standards" water-down
academic course contents, thereby increasing academic remediation needs. In January 2000, Arizona adopted
"Functional Workplace Skills Standards" that "...are designed
to be integrated into the traditional curriculum taught in schools at all
levels..." [1] These attitudinal and
behavioral standards hail from the U.S. Department of Labor; in TUSD they are listed under the "Profile of the 21st
Century Graduate" (also integral to TUSD's 4th R
Partners-in-Education, but called the "21st Century Graduate
Profile").
Certain "standards" increase demands on teachers to
engage in social-engineering (which is also being done to educators
through professional development and mentoring). This includes personality, attitude and
behavior assessments, and invasive probing for personal and family
information—done under the guise of self-esteem and character building.
Other standards related issues: mandatory volunteerism and/or work
service during school hours—part of course work or graduation
requirements; reduction in teaching to encourage self-directed learning;
team projects to produce a collaborative worker, that discourages
individuality and encourages herd-mentality; suicide and death education (see
Columbine High School, Colorado); and promotion of alternative living styles
under the guise of diversity; and many others.
In 1994, School-to-Work (STW) and
Goals 2000 (G2000) legislation launched efforts for a nationwide conversion of
education into workforce training and human resource management. The outcome: in Arizona, a June 2001 report for the
Arizona Department of Commerce School-to-Work Division states: "For all grades: There is no reliable evidence that STW programs increased student achievement or reduced the
dropout rate." [2] Despite this finding, STW concepts and
workplace skills standards are still prominent in Arizona's public schools.
Connected to workforce preparation is sixteen industry/career
clusters—Arizona adopted six of the sixteen. Each state school system—including
charter/private and home schools, and higher
education—is expected to cater to state industry clusters. If this plan is not challenged, at some
point every Arizona 8th grader will be assigned or forced to pick one of
the six "career paths" that dictates and narrows his or her education
and job options. This is happening
to every Minneapolis (Minnesota) public school 8th grader—and it can
happen in Arizona. Through
federal/state measures—Career pathways, Workplace skills standards,
Electronic portfolios, Student Accountability Information System,
etc.—the groundwork is being laid for our children and grandchildren's
futures to be sealed before high school.
"Workforce preparation" is sold as the path to "high skill, high wage jobs." But a report by the
Arizona Department of Commerce and the Office of Workforce Development Policy
says: "...Arizonans would
probably agree that spending public training dollars to prepare people for
high-wage occupations provides a better return on their investment. The problem lies in the fact that there
are typically more opportunities for employment in low-wage than in high-wage
jobs." [3]
While STW and G2000 funding ended in
2001 and 2000 respectively, the workforce preparation framework remains. Taxpayers are now under greater pressure
to cover the full cost of federal mandates: ongoing assessments; data collections;
professional development to indoctrinate educators into the mindset of "workforce
preparation" and "planned economy"; and extraordinary
amounts of technology (needed by government to create and support a
national data collection infrastructure).
The cost to build and maintain a nationwide
preschool/kindergarten-12/16/20 vocational training (workforce preparation/STW) system is straining education budgets. How big is the strain? While state appropriations vary, a U.S.
Department of Education report based on Ohio's 95-96 school year lends some
insight: the per pupil expenditures
for vocational schools is "4.1 times as much as elementary
schools...and about 3.2 times as much as high schools" and "Administrative
expenditures are both absolutely and relatively higher in...vocational
schools than in regular schools." [4]
In 2002, as states accept tiny federal carrots through the No
Child Left Behind Act, other funding needs will be
added. And the national workforce
preparation system—where government dictates the availability of
careers, defines all job qualifications and controls certification—will
expand. This benefits
government-industry partnerships, not our children.
All these and more will continue until we take back our schools
and stop our children from being used as human capital to support a planned
economy. This concept has failed
to improve quality of life, employment options, and economic levels in other
countries where education is aligned to meet the needs of a government-controlled
society—yet this is being setup throughout the United States.
As long as federal laws dictate the function and contents
of our school system, genuine improvements cannot occur. And any parents, teachers,
administrators, business and elected leaders that participate in manipulated consensus
building to promote federal education restructuring, must become aware of
how their good intentions are being used in the demise of education.
Martin Luther King said, "Our lives begin to end the day
we become silent about things that matter." Please learn about the "social
restructuring" using the school system and do not be silent.
P.S. Enclosed: more
information, including facilitation tactics used to bring about group
consensus (to create the illusion of partnership/ownership for
participants). This information is
critical for those who want to uphold their principles during facilitated
consensus building.
Feel free to circulate this information, and go to www.EdAction.org if you want to learn
more.
Endnotes:
[1] Workplace Skills Standards Rational, Arizona
Department of Education. [back]
[2] "A School-to-Work System for
Arizona: Final Evaluation of the
State and Federal Initiative," Rebecca L. Gau,
Morrison Institute, June 2001, p.12. [back]
[3] "Arizona's Workforce Development
System—Comprehensive Plan, Jan. 1, 1998-Dec. 31, 2000," May 1999,
p.15. [back]
[4] "Measuring Resources in Education: From Accounting to the Resource Cost
Model Approach," Working Paper No. 1999-16, National Center for Education
Statistics, June 1999, p35-36. [back]
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