The Deliberate Dumbing Down Of America

By Samuel L. Blumenfeld

) 1999 WorldNetDaily.com http://www.worldnetdaily.com/ 12-16-99

Charlotte Thomson Iserbyt's new book, "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America," is without doubt one of the most important publishing events in the annals of American education in the last hundred years. John Dewey's "School and Society," published in 1899, set American education on its course to socialism. Rudolf Flesch's "Why Johnny Can't Read," published in 1955, informed American parents that there was something terribly wrong with the way the schools were teaching children to read, and my own book, "NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education," published in 1984, explained in great detail how and why the decline in public education was taking place.

But Iserbyt has done what no one else wanted or could do. She has put together the most formidable and practical compilation of documentation describing the well-planned "deliberate dumbing down" of American children by their education system. Anyone who has had any lingering hope that what the educators have been doing is a result of error, accident, or stupidity will be shocked by the way American social engineers have systematically gone about destroying the intellect of millions of American children for the purpose of leading the American people into a socialist world government controlled by behavioral and social scientists.

This mammoth book is the size of a large city phone book: 462 pages of documentation, 205 pages of appendices, and a 48-page Index. The documentation is "A Chronological Paper Trail" which starts with the Sowing of the Seeds in the late 18th and 19th centuries, proceeds to The Turning of the Tides, then to The Troubling Thirties, The Fomentation of the Forties and Fifties, The Sick Sixties, The Serious Seventies, The "Effective" Eighties, and finally, the Noxious Nineties. The educators and social engineers indict themselves with their own words.

Iserbyt decided to compile this book because, as a "resister" to what is going on in American education, she was being constantly told that she was taking things out of context. The book, she writes, "was put together primarily to satisfy my own need to see the various components which led to the dumbing down of the United States of America assembled in chronological order -- in writing. Even I, who had observed these weird activities taking place at all levels of government, was reluctant to accept a malicious intent behind each individual, chronological activity or innovation, unless I could connect it with other, similar activities taking place at other times."

And that is what this book does. It connects educators, social engineers, planners, government grants, federal and state agencies, billion-dollar foundations, think tanks, universities, research projects, policy organizations, etc., showing how they have worked together to advance an agenda that will change America from a free republic to a socialist state.

What is so mind boggling is that all of this is being financed by the American people themselves through their own taxes. In other words, the American people are underwriting the destruction of their own freedom and way of life by lavishly financing through federal and state grants the very social scientists who are undermining our national sovereignty and preparing our children to become the dumbed-down vassals of the new world order.

One of the interesting insights revealed by these documents is how the social engineers use a deliberately created education "crisis" to move their agenda forward by offering radical reforms that are sold to the public as fixing the crisis -- which they never do. The new reforms simply set the stage for the next crisis, which provides the pretext for the next move forward. This is the dialectical process at work, a process our behavioral engineers have learned to use very effectively. Its success depends on the ability of the "change agents" to continually deceive the public, which tends to believe any lie the experts tell them.

Iserbyt's long journey to becoming a "resister," started in 1973 when her son, a fourth grader, brought home from school a purple ditto sheet, embellished with a smiley face, entitled, "All About Me." She writes, "The questions were highly personal; so much so that they encouraged my son to lie, since he didn't want to 'spill the beans' about his mother, father and brother. The purpose of such a questionnaire was to find out the student's state of mind, how he felt, what he liked and disliked, and what his values were. With this knowledge it would be easier for the government school to modify his values and behavior at will -- without, of course, the student's knowledge or his parents' consent."

From that time on, Iserbyt became an activist in education. She became a member of a philosophy committee for a school, was elected as a school board member, co-founded Guardians of Education for Maine (GEM), and finally became senior policy advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI) of the U.S. Department of Education during President Reagan's first term of office.

As a school board member she learned that in American education, the end justifies the means. "Our change agent superintendent," she writes, "was more at home with a lie than he was with the truth." Whatever good she accomplished while on the school board was tossed out two weeks after she left office.

It was during her tenure in the Department of Education in Washington, D.C., where she had access to the grant proposals from change agents, that she came to the conclusion that what was happening in American education was the result of a concerted effort on the part of numerous individuals and organizations -- a globalist elite -- to bring about permanent changes in America's body politic. She was relieved of her duties after leaking an important technology grant -- a computer-assisted instruction proposal -- to the press.

Another reason why Iserbyt decided to publish this book is because of the reluctance of Americans to face unpleasant truths about their government educators. She wants parents to have access to the kinds of documents that were only circulated among the change agent educators themselves. She wants parents to see for themselves what has been planned for their children and the kind of socialist-fascist world their children will have to live in if we do nothing to counter these plans.

Therefore, getting this book into the hands of thousands of Americans ought to be a major project for lovers of liberty in the year 2000. It will do more to defeat the change agents than anything else I can think of. _____

Samuel L. Blumenfeld is the author of eight books on education, including "Is Public Education Necessary?" and "The Whole Language/OBE Fraud," published by The Paradigm Company, 208-322-4440. His reading instruction program, "Alpha-Phonics," is available by writing The Tutoring Company, P.O. Box 540111, Waltham, MA 02454-0111. ======================================================================

The plan is working superbly.

That's why y2k is a non-event in the mind of the dumbed-down pass me a cheeseburger populace...

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), December 20, 1999

Answers

Andy, I swear we must think alike! I tried to post this two days ago and kept getting a "weird" separation of sentences and double spacing. The Rense site doesn't always "copy" well...then I tried to find it on Worldnet (the source you have here) and couldn't find it....Thanks for posting it! It is a GREAT post! And oooooooohhhhhhhh so true!!!

That's why there are so many homeschoolers.....and our ranks are growing all the time.

Thanks again!

-- Ynott (Ynott@incorruptible.com), December 20, 1999.

Hi Ynott,

as the acknowledged cut 'n paste expert on this forum this is what you have to do once you paste any text into the box, as i'm doing now...

before you hit submit, go back over the whole text and to make sure the paragraphs and headings seperate probably just put an extra space bewteen each one...

so between each paragraphy you would have two spaces

very quick - works (nearly) every time!

glad to hear you're home schooling, if I ever have any kids that's the way to go...

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), December 20, 1999.

Thanks Andy! Will do....Keep up the great posts! I love reading yours!

-- Ynott (Ynott@incorruptible.com), December 20, 1999.

Don't know what is happening, this is the third try, each time AOL boots me off, and I have to start over. Will make it short this time. I can state from personal experience that the above statement is completly true. Our system of learning is now garbage.

-- Notforlong (Fsur439@aol.com), December 20, 1999.

So, that was from WorldNetDaily, eh? And I thought the Daily Mail was bad enough in Britain...

-- Richard Dymond (rjdymond@hotmail.com), December 20, 1999.

Found it at Barnes and Noble, $ 12.95

http://shop.barnesandnoble.com/booksearch/results.asp?ATH=iserbyt&user id=4MNEWO64SJ&srefer=

-- Ken G. (None@this.time), December 20, 1999.

Here is the World Net Daily link... http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_excomm/19991202_xex_deliberately. shtml

Thank you for posting this.

-- i (i@i.i), December 20, 1999.

Presumably available also from

The Conscience Press PO Box 449 Ravenna, OH 44266-0449 Fax: (330) 297-6282

-- Tom Carey (tomcarey@mindspring.com), December 20, 1999.

I had trouble reading that book. They use such BIG words.

-- kritter (kritter@adelphia.net), December 20, 1999.

Yes, Kritter, that is what I'm afraid of; but, at least, does it have lots of pretty pictures?

-- Lurkess (Lurkess@Lurking.Net), December 20, 1999.

Fortunately a "bright" mind will usually find a way out.

Diane, former High School teacher, long, long ago

-- Diane J. Squire (sacredspaces@yahoo.com), December 20, 1999.

When Hitler overran Poland, he said that future generations of Poles would only be taught how to sign their names & read traffic signs.

Aspiring dictators don't need millions of well-educated folk. The tyrants would rather have millions of gullible ignoramuses.

-- Not Whistlin' Dixie (not_whistlin_dixie@yahoo.com), December 20, 1999.

Why equate socialism with lack of education. The people of the former USSR are highly educated. The Cubans are extremely well educated. I don't know about other socialist countries, but those two disprove the concept. I think that what has happened to education is a shame, but I don't see it as a conspiracy.

-- Mara (MaraWayne@aol.com), December 20, 1999.

Rudolf Flesch's "Why Johnny Can't Read," published in 1955

That book is the best book-length argument I have ever read. Flesch wrote a sequel in the 1970s or 80s, "Why Johnny Still Can't Read", a devastating critique of all the responses (both argumentative and substantive) that the educational establishment had made in the meantime.

-- Lane Core Jr. (elcore@sgi.net), December 20, 1999.

.....Have to disagree on this one, Mara; those people were "educated" strictly with the party line. We call that indoctrination.

-- Patrick (pmchenry@gradall.com), December 20, 1999.

Being highly educated is not the same as being intelligent.

I know one or two Ph.Ds who are among the dumbest people I've met. They're experts in their fields (theology and literature). They know an immense amount. But they can't think. They can't create new ideas and they believe they know everything. They can talk fluently about their fields, but they can't apply their "expert" knowledge to related but external fields.

Being educated is NOT the same as being intelligent. The Cuban and Russian schools teach one, but not the other. The problem with the modern school system is that you don't learn how to think -in fact, you're told not to think.

Leo

-- Leo (lchampion@ozemail.com.au), December 20, 1999.

Being highly educated is not the same as being intelligent.

I know one or two Ph.Ds who are among the dumbest people I've met. They're experts in their fields (theology and literature). They know an immense amount. But they can't think. They can't create new ideas and they believe they know everything. They can talk fluently about their fields, but they can't apply their "expert" knowledge to related but external fields.

Being educated is NOT the same as being intelligent. The Cuban and Russian schools teach one, but not the other. The problem with the modern school system is that you don't learn how to think -in fact, you're taught not to think.

Leo

-- Leo (lchampion@ozemail.com.au), December 20, 1999.

Most of you have missed the point compltely.

The "dumbing down" is a planned programme by the Elite/Illuminati, whatever you want to call the secret Government, to continue their control.

I highly recommend you peruse any of the David Icke books to have your own mind "illuminated".

Diane,

Yes - some have the inner strength to overcaome the indoctrination. However the majority are trampled, as is the nature of the plan.

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), December 20, 1999.

Andy, as you probably know dumbing down is well-advanced over here, a it the saturation of PC in schools and all public sector organisations. Just take a look at the British Press, even mags like Punch etc, they're all designed for 5 year olds who can't read. The Sun and the Mirror (tabloids) are vying to see who can print the least number of words on the front page. Only 30% of the (London) Times is actually covered in news print.

-- Sir R (richard.dale@unum.co.uk), December 22, 1999.

Good points Sir R., yesy it's a worldwide phenomenon...

I enjoy the Stun and Mirror but they really are rags - as long as one knows that!

-- Andy (2000EOD@prodigy.net), December 22, 1999.

America is the most technologically advanced nation on Earth because it produces many of the brightest minds on earth. Many of these bright minds even drop out of the educational system and build successful techie businesses.

Every nation has a slave class. It is a form of corruption when the slave class is non-white, as genetic degradation is the basis of societal collapse throughout history.

The fact that many in America can't read or do math is more a comment on the race and indiscipline of the slave class to attempt to elevate themselves than anything else. How does a child, who is not a retard or something, grow up with parents who never even notice the kid can't read? They should teach them. Oh, and if they don't have parents - well that is part of the chaos promoted at the slave class to keep them down - in their station so to speak.

Public school very quickly separates those it feels it has the opportunity to relegate to slave. Once you fall off the wagon so to speak, if you don't get yourself back on or try another path, the system will run you into it's machine. It's a system. It's goal is not to dumb EVERYBODY down, just keep a steady stable of slaves for the masters to use. There are hundreds of millions of masters in this world, and hundreds of millions of slaves. Don't confuse targeted degradation with a 'nhilistic' world view. Masters aren't interested in suicide any more than slaves are, nor are they interested in sending the world backward technologically - but rather just to control it for themselves :)

-- ultragod (ultragod@hotmail.com), October 26, 2004.