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by Solveig Eggerz

HERITAGE PUBLISHING CO .

MILWAUKEE, WISCONSIN 53202

The Public Schools: Control them if You Can . Copyright1973 by Solveig Eggerz . Printed in the United Statesof America. For information, address Solveig Eggerz,P .O. Box 8827 SE, Washington, D .C. 20003 .

Articles in this book appeared originally in HumanEvents, Roll Call, the New Guard and the AnaheimBulletin .

Cover illustration by Charles M . RedwineCartoons by Bill RichIllustrations on pages 46 and 50 by Tom Curtis . .

PREFACE

When the public schools were established many years ago asa means for providing all children with a good basic education, therewere few who doubted that this institution would ever be anythingbut a benefit to the taxpayers .

Today this premise has become questionable . The failure maylie in the very nature of the public school system, which is supportedthrough compulsory taxation and makes no one, except increasinglypowerless school boards, accountable to the taxpayers. That such asystem should be open to abuse by special interest groups shouldcome as a surprise to nobody . We now have a situation where schoolboards respond not to local citizens but to pressure from state de-partments of education, local and state teacher unions or a combina-tion of all of these .

Erosion of local control has been brought about by (1) theincreasing power of teacher unions, who tend to view the tax sup-ported school system as an endless reservoir for higher teachersalaries and (2) federal aid to education, which has made state andlocal education agencies administering bodies for federal programs .As teacher salaries go up and federal funds roll into school dis-tricts, parents find they have little role to play aside from payingtaxes. The consumer who sees no improvement in the schools - andthere is certainly no improvement that is commensurate with thehigher costs-may find that his complaints fall on deaf ears . The earsof local administrators appear increasingly tuned to more distantsounds than those of the local taxpayer . Too often the decisions forlocal school districts are made in Washington, D .C .

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Given the degree to which local control of schools has beenlost, a radical solution may be the only answer . Economist MiltonFriedman has advanced a voucher system for financing the schools,whereby each parent receives a voucher for the amount it costs toeducate a child in that particular school district . The parent mayspend the voucher at the school of his choice, thus introducing aconsumer-product relationship into a stultified bureaucracy, whichpresently responds only to interest groups . By placing the schoolswithin a free enterprise framework it's hoped that the spirit of com-petition will be stimulated and the schools will become responsiveto the demands of the taxpayers .

If something is not done soon to remove control of the schoolsfrom interest groups and the state, we may actually find the schoolsbecoming manipulative tools of the state, capable of indoctrinatingchildren to accept whatever beliefs held by the administration inpower at the time . This is what the ultimate loss of local controlmeans .

As English writer Malcolm Muggeridge, looking back on hisown youth, states in his book Jesus Rediscovered :

"Even in those far-off days, most of the elementary andsecondary school teachers would have called themselvesfree-thinkers, and were already assiduously preparingthe way for the climate of prevailing agnosticism today .A future social historian is likely to decide that the mostpowerful instrument of all in bringing about the erosionof our civilization was none other than the public educa-tion system set up with such high hopes and at so greatexpense precisely to sustain it."

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Solveig EggerzWashington, D .C .

CONTENTS

1 . How the Government Would Raise Your Children

9(Human Events Nov. 4, 1972)

2. Education and HEW

17(Roll Call March 29, 1973)

3 . The Kibbutz and Collectivism

20(Human Events March 31, 1973)

4. Is this Academic Freedom?

25(Roll Call May 17, 1973)

5. Federal Regimentation of Local Agencies27(Roll Call May 25, 1973)

6. Corruption in the Office of Education

29(Anaheim Bulletin May 29, 1973)

7. Failure of Federal Aid to Education31(Human Events July 14, 1973)

8. Busing and the Supreme Court 39(Roll Call July 19, 1973)

9. Negative Incentive in Federal Programs

41(Roll Call July 26, 1973)

10. The Bureaucracy and Drug Abuse

43(Roll Call August 2, 1973)

11 . Schools' Assault on Individualism 45(New Guard October 1973)

12. NEA's Stranglehold on Education

51(Human Events Nov . 24, 1973)

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In the past education was a process oftransmitting to the young the culture oftheir forebears, of acquainting them withwhat Matthew Arnold called "the bestthat has been thought and said in theworld." With today's emphasis on "rele-vance" and with the pervasive philoso-phies of secular humanism and moralrelativism, coupled with the sensitivitytraining, role playing and group dynam-ics methods of the behavioral sciencesinvading the schools, there seems littletime or concern left for what the schoolswere established to do-teach the tradi-tional academic skills .

Today's emphasis is on "preventivemental health," "innovation," and "edu-cational change," all of which has led toa stepped-up involvement of the schoolin every aspect of the child's behavior,his innermost thoughts and beliefs. Thejournal of the National Education Asso-ciation (NEA) outlines a technique forthe "integration of attitudes," and com-pares its effectiveness to the methodsused by the Communist Chinese, "to in-culcate Communist attitudes into theiryouth ." (Five Issues in Human RelationsTraining, 1962) .

What does daddy wear when heshaves? Do you love your mother andfather? Do you like going to church?,are among the questions guidance coun-selors put to children in groups of twosor threes at "Talk Ins." These samesessions, sometimes called Self-Dis-covery, often employ techniques of groupcriticism and confession, traditionalcomponents of brainwashing .

How the Government Would Raise Your Children(Human Events Nov. 4, 1972)

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Recently a guidance counselor inMaryland was asked what her aim was inencouraging children to criticize oneanother in groups . Her answer : "If achild hears what the others don't likeabout him, he might be moved to changehis behavior because everyone wants tobe liked ."

Federal funds are turning hundreds ofschools into • experimental centers fortrying out the "innovative ideas of edu-cationists, many of which are based on acombi,nation of the conditioning conceptsof psychologist B .F. Skinner and the"self-actualization" guidelines of "ThirdForce" psychologist Abraham Maslow .Maslow's name and ideas crop up fre-quently in NEA booklets .

The idea of federally funded engi-neered social change in the schools arosewith the 1958 National Defense Educa-tion Act, which led to the expansive"planned change" and "behavior modifi-cation" programs organized by theOffice of Education today .

The Elementary and Secondary Edu-cation Act of 1965 (ESEA), Title III, hasbecome the major source of funds -for"innovation." In 1965 $100 millionwas appropriated through ESEA to setup PACE (Programs to Advance Cre-ativity in Education) centers to develop"exemplary" school programs as modelsfor exportation to other school districts .In 1970-1971 Congress appropriated$146 million for Title III school projects .The figure fluctuates slightly every year .

Many Title III projects last as long asthree years and cost up to $2 million .The school district outlines its needsfor a particular project . This often in-cludes the hiring of psychologists, socialworkers and/or the services of a psy-chological firm. This is in keeping withthe schools' current emphasis on themental health of children .

According to the same HEW spokes-man, about 90 per cent of ESEA projectsare geared to the deprived while thegifted are notably neglected . During1970-1971 only $1 .9 million of the $146'million allotted was used to promotelearning of the gifted child .

While some Title III projectsseem valid, others would make shock,ing reading material for parents . AnOffice of Education publication,"Pacesetters in Innovation," listsprojects replete with sensitivitytraining, role playing and othermeans for bringing about behavioralchange.One project, begun in South Bruns-

wick, N .J ., is a "Training ProgramDesigned to Change Teacher Perceptionand Behavior ." The abstract states that,"a sensitivity training program will beconducted for teachers and administra-tors to develop significant change inteacher perception of the learner andlearning process . . . . Emphasis will beplaced on (1) developing a trust amongstaff members; (2) increasing sensitivityto the effects of teacher behavior onothers; and (3) increasing sensitivity tothe needs of children ."

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Leafing through "Pacesetters" thereader becomes aware that the focus ofeducation has shifted from cognitivelearning to a strong emphasis on emo-tional adjustment and mental health . Aglance through the' subject index tells thestory .

Examples of headings: "Behavior De-velopment, Behavior Problems, Chang-ing Attitudes, Child Development, Clini-cal Diagnosis [the list of projects underthis heading is long], Human Relations,Mental Health Programs, Psychoeduca-tional Clinics, Psychological Needs . . . ."

A sub-project of "Family Life Educa-tion Curriculum" is called "Construc-tive Control of Aggressive Behavior."This one includes moral relativism as itpromises to teach the student "the majormethods that philosophy and the be-havioral sciences have proposed for de-termining right and wrong . V This in-cludes learning "social responsibilityand human values as they are involved inthe constructive • control pf aggressivebehavior."

In the past few years the use of sen-sitivity training has increased mostmarkedly in the area of race relations •,and, despite cases which illustrate thedetrimental sides of sensltiviti training,has been extended to the schools . Whenwhite teachers in Washington, D .C .,were transferred to all-black ghettoschools, they were put through a TitleIII group dynamics project to "sensi-tize" them to the feelings of black stu-dents .

"Toward Acceptance" is designed to"expose students and teachers of thearea to the moods and culture of theirlocal minority group ." Among pro-posed activities : "In-service training[a common euphemism for sensitivitytraining] for teachers to help them be-come more sensitive to the needs ofminority children . . . ."

Among the Pacesetter projectsare numerous child development pro-grams, some of which experimentwith children as young as four yearsof age, a most interesting pheno-menon in view of the recent emphasison child development by Congress.

Introduced at Brainerd IndependentSchool, District 181, Minnesota, was a"highly structured, 16-week pre-kinder-garten program for selected four-year-olds." The project promises to develop"reliable, pre-kindergarten, psycho-educational evaluation procedures ."Many taxpayers are not aware of

what's involved when a group sits downfor a sensitivity session . Aside from theslow wearing down of defenses andthe large amount of emotionalism andpersonal revelation, there's the all-im-portant process of abolishing one's in-dividual standards in favor of a groupstandard, which to a behavioral scientistmarks the transition to "group-cen-tered behavior," but to the critic looksmore like brainwashing .

The NEA defines sensitivity trainingas something "which fits into a contextof institutional influence procedures,

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which includes coercive persuasion in theform of thought . reform or brainwashingas well as a multitude of less coerciveand informal patterns." (Five Issues inTraining, page 47 . Emphasis added.)

In Schools of the 60s, an NEA journal,it's stated that "education is a processof changing behavior" and to assist thisprocess the NEA lists the three types oftraining it deems necessary : "(1) per-sonal and interpersonal sensitivity train-ing, using appropriate variations of T-group training; (2) conceptualizationtraining ; and (3) skill training ."

Indicative of how widespread the useof sensitivity training has become in theschools is thee proliferation in the educa-tion departments of universities of suchcourses as "group dynamics," "humanrelations," or "human communicationsand development." Attendance at onlyone such course usually qualifies ateacher to practice the same on her stu-dents. Teachers can also attend sensi-tivity sessions at nine-week sessionswithin the school or at summer sessionsoffered by the National Training Labora-tories .

For a vulnerable, easily manip-ulated -school child, the group pres-sure involved in a sensitivity sessionoften results in a shifting of allegi-ances from the family and the churchto the group .

Parents resent what they feel is a usur-pation of their rights and object stronglyto the invasion of privacy through theasking of highly personal questions,

(some parents say that discussing whichparents "fight" has become commongossip among the children as a result) .A mother in Wheaton, Md ., com-

plained recently that her fourth-graderwas asked in a social studies class thefollowing questions : "How is yourmother? How is your father? Do youlike having lots of boys in the family? Doyou like your bothers like you do yourboyfriends? Do you have fights at home?Do you wish you were the only child? Doyour mommy and daddy fight? Do yourparents love each other? How can youtell? How much does your father makeat his job?"

In a Maryland school an instructor leda small group discussion called "Con-tact" (some schools refer to the samething as "Man Comprovelates") . Heprobed into students' feelings aboutthemselves, their families and friends inan aggressive manner . He reportedlypointed to one girl and addressed an-other asking, "what don't you like abouther?" The first girl remained silentthroughout the denunciation that fol-lowed. A parent who listened in was as-sured that "all personal things will re-main confidential ."

On the agenda in many classroomsacross the country is an NEA-encour-aged phenomenon, "Say What YouThink Day," which is really a free-for-all of criticism, a device that ostensiblymeasures the mental health of schoolchildren .

A parent's group in the state of Wash-ington reports that a boy who refused toopenly criticize his classmates on thegrounds that it wasn't "nice" becausethey were his friends was persecuted bythe teacher through long talks and beingkept after school that he finally com-plied .

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A popular means for gauging the ad-justment of individual pupils is the "so-ciogram," a procedure for discoveringinterpersonal relationships within agroup, through a diagram where pupilsare indicated by circles and their pref-erences by arrows . In order to create asociogram, a teacher asks the children tolist the other classmates in order of theirdislike or liking for them . Based on dia=gram findings the teacher will then ap-proach children with questions such as"Why don't you like her since she likesyou? Its it because of . . . or . . .?"

Psychodrama or role playing is atechnique originally intended to help thementally ill work out their problems bydramatizing them in such a way thatspectator catharsis occurs and insightand behavior change may result . Intro-duced to this country by Dr . Jacob Mor-eno, role playing is frequently used inthe schools to help solve behavioralproblems or home problems .

Role playing is often considered aform of sensitivity training . Ronald B .Levy of Roosevelt College in Chicagosays of it: "While the therapeutic psy-chodrama is concerned with pathologicalbehavior and maladjustment, the educa-tional psychodrama is concerned withthe control and direction of normalbehavior towards desired goals ."

Parents tend to view role playing as yetanother invasion of personal and familyprivacy. During Free Form EducationWeek, Montgomery County, Maryland,schools had a week of psychodrama in acourse called Comprovelates, where stu-dents enacted home incidents, particu-larly disagreement within the family .

A Potomac, Md., mother, who hassince transferred her three children toprivate school, spent a day watchingpsychodramas and observed, "To me itseemed like a series of lessons in how toquarrel with all forms of authority,whether with parents or police whom thechildren called `pigs' without correctionfrom the teacher. This certainly won'timprove home life. Many issues thatshould have remained private were madepublic."

The teachers neither corrected Englishmistakes or foul language, she said . In-stead, one teacher accelerated emo-tionalism by shouting," Act it out till youfeel a little sick, till you feel it down tothe pit of your stomach!" The subjects ofthe skits were such situations as "inter-racial dating," ".parents finding `grass' :nchild's room," and "parents quarrellingwith children over children's friends ."

The Rev. Louis DiPlacido, a FaithBaptist minister in Wheaton, Md ., tellsof a class discussion on stealing . Whenhe asked the young teacher if she hadmentioned that stealing was both im=moral and illegal she responded, "I'mnot permitted to impose moral standardson my pupils . We're not talking aboutrobbing banks, and a little stealing nowand then isn't so bad ."

A father at a recent parents' groupmeeting in . Maryland told how hisdaughter had been introduced to thetechniques of shoplifting and that she'dproudly demonstrated to her parentshow you shoplift-"You just put a skirtover your skirt and walk out ."

A child attending an East Coast schoolreturned home bearing physical signs of,harassment by other children. Upon in-

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vestigation parents found out that thelittle girl's class has been assigned towrite an essay entitled "Whom do youdislike most in the class? Tell why ."Many children chose the "new girl" inthe class. The teacher than read some30 essays on "Hate" and on the wayhome the emotionally tense children hadvented their built-up animosity on their"hate object."

According to educators an impor-tant phase of behavior change iscollection of personal data, whichserves as a guide to where change isneeded. To this end the keeping ofdiaries on the most personal homeincidents and conversations is beingassigned children in schools all overthe country-often in English damas an alternative to writing a bookreview.

Today's curriculum guides c ften rec-ommend sensitivity training an,l variousother controversial ideas and r tethods .An example of this is "Life Sci : ice andHuman Development," a socia studiescurriculum for kindergarten throughsixth grade, which claims to "en phasizethe interrelationships betweer plants,animals and people."

Among the suggested activities 1 -)r firstgraders are-"discuss family size, ; . -~ ;nt-ing out advantages of both large a ., ,'small families . Role play the family atdinner. Role play other meaningfulfamily situations ." Under the heading,"Development of self in the total en-vironment." students are asked ques-tions such as, "Why do you want to helpmembers of your family? How do youfeel when you help? What kinds of thingsmake you angry?"

Second-graders are asked, "Whodoes your family entertain at your house?(friends, grandparents, aunts, uncles,etc.)" or they're told to list "Whichfamily members seem to accomplish themost? the least?" Under the rubric"Dealing with Fear" children are en-couraged to discuss "fear-producingsituations" or to "talk about situationswith adults which frighten them ." Roleplaying is recommended for dealing withdisappointment .

Love, anger and other feelings aredealt with in all grades through roleplaying . Open-ended statements are as-signed such as, "I am important be-cause . . .I know people love me be-cause . . . I show I love others by . . . . "Home economics courses today are

focusing less on sewing and cooking andmore on students' psyches with fundsoften coming through 1968 Amendmentsto the Vocational Act, although any con-nection between most of the course con-tent and a student's future vocationseems coincidental .A home economics curriculum,

"Human Development in the Family,"taught in Montgomery County schools,is a "growth-producing experience,"which includes among suggested re-source materials : Sexology magazine, agame called "Generation Gap," andbooks such as Dynamics of Group Ac-tion, by D.M. Hall and How to Use RolePlaying Effectively by Alan Klein .

Included are many How do I feel?type questions, which invade the child'sinner person, an area previously con-sidered off limits to school officials .Games such as "It" and "Who Am I?"also invade family privacy .

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In. "It" one student sits aside whilethe others speculate "How many broth-ers and sisters does `it' have?, What sortof home? Which parent does `it' feelcloser to?" At the end of this "game"the "It" in question reveals the cor-rect answers to these and other personalquestions .

The rules for "Who Am I?" call foreach student writing an essay describinghimself. The class then exchanges papersand each student guesses whose study inself-revelation he has in his hands .

Unit III of this curriculum is entitled"Individual and Self-Development,"which includes such open-ended sen-tences as "Self is . . . ." Among the as-signments is "Do group research onhumanistic psychologists ." On the listof those to be researched is encountergroup expert Carl Rogers and above-mentioned Abraham Maslow .Other open-ended sentences for stu-

dents to complete are : "I get angrywhen---- ; When I take a test in English,I feel-- ; Fear is ---- ; Anxiety is---- ; Idaydream when---- ."

Presumably also geared to "self-devel-opment" is the following assignment :"Read I Never Promised You a RoseGarden . React to book in a non-verbalmeans such as a collage, poster, paint-ing, dance, pantomime ."

The section on "Dates, Courtshipand Mate Selection" suggests read-ing a newspaper article entitled"Abortion: One Girl's Experience ."The guidebook suggests role playingthe situation as follows : "A boy withseveral years of schooling ahead of .him is confronted by a girl he hasbeen dating . . . . "

Among the listed resource materials :Why Wait til Marriage? by Evelyn Du-vall and Everything You Always Wantedto Know About Sex by David Reuben.

This home economics curriculum con-tains enough sex education material tomake any course on sex education seemsuperfluous, the observer might note .Yet in many schools sex education mightexist in addition to a course which in-cludes such projects as : Invite a preg-nant woman to discuss with the class``what it feels like to be pregnant" (re-source material : pregnant woman) .Another suggestion is to invite to classa newlywed couple to discuss "recreationin early marriage." Resource material?A newlywed couple, of course .

Another area into which the schoolsare moving is one previously viewed asdominated by parents ; i .e., the teachingof values to school children. "Valueschange as the individual matures," theguidebook tells us. Students are told towrite short essays entitled "My valuesare . . . ." Values are discussed with agroup, role playing is performed, filmsare shown, games are played . At the endof the course the student writes anotheressay on his values to see how they'vechanged as a result of the course.

Among the means towards "realizingindividual values" is a discussion called"Whom will you choose?", which the un-charitable bystander might call a studyin euthanasia . A story is told about11 persons in a fall-out shelter withonly sufficient food for six persons fora month. Students are handed biogra-phies of these persons, upon which theyare to base their choice of which five peo-ple to "sacrifice."

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The instruction sheet warns: . . . "Ac-cept the situation as fact, concern your-self with choosing your companions . . . .Remember you. are one of the six . . . .You must weigh values . The `right'choice reflects your values correctly ."

In another version of this game aKensington, Md ., teacher told her stu-dents to envision a population crisis andto pick out the classmates they wouldeliminate to ease the situation. Theidea was less than a success, however,because tenth-graders in question re-portedly refused to cooperate and sug-gested the teacher be the first one sac-rificed .

Learning is an activity that's increas-ingly taking a back seat in the schools infavor of improving Johnny's mentalhealth .HEW head Elliot L. Richardson was

quoted in the Anaheim Bulletin of Aug-ust 1971 as calling teachers "poten-tially our largest cadre of mental healthpersonnel ." Asked about the concept ofcompetition, he added, "How absurdthat we've fostered this rigorouss toilettraining of the mind . . . . It has been thetype of competition that destroys ratherthan builds self-esteem ."

Judging from educators' writings theschools are undergoing perpetual revolu-tion. Yesterday's progressive educationhas been replaced by today's "innova-tion," a word which covers everythingfrom sensitivity training to the "class-room without walls" or the non-gradedschool .

Evans Clinchy writes in The Revolu-tion in the Schools that children "will notbe attempting to arrive at the `right'answer . . . .Nor will they be asking theteacher to answer questions of substance .That is not what the teacher is there for .

He is there to assist the children in theprocess of finding th~ own ansv s."

In Humanizing ucation: a Per-son in the Process (an NEA publication)Carl Rogers writes: "I have said that itis most unfortunate that educators andthe public think about, and focus on,teaching . It leads them into a host ofquestions which are either irrelevant orabsurd so far as real education is con-cerned."

Instead the teacher should "facilitatelearning" and this can best be achievedthrough a very special interpersonalrelationship between "facilitator" andlearner .The attitudes which best promote

learning, says Rogers are : "a transpar-ent realness in the facilitator, a willing-ness to be a person, to be and to live thefeelings and thoughts of the moment."Rogers compares this "intensive rela-tionship" with that between therapistand client .

While the National Education Asso-ciation continues to fill its manualswith the writings of sensitivity trainersand psychologists, expounding upon theimportance of mental health aboveteaching in the schools, there is littleconcern for the sinking academic stan-dards in the nation's public schools .

While teachers are learning groupdynamics in their education courses,"functional illiteracy" remains a per-vasive problem . Dr . Roger Freemanwrites in the University Bookman (sum-mer 1971) about the widespread "inabili-ty to read and write sufficiently well formaximum functioning in today's society ."

Says Dr. Freeman: "The Office ofEducation estimated that 24 million per-sons, 18 and over, are `functionally il-literate'-they cannot read, write orcount at a fifth-grade level . Yet there

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were at last count only 6 .4 million Amer-icans, 14 years and over, who have atten-ded school for fewer than five years."

Parents have reacted to present trendsin the schools by suing boards of educa-tion, pressuring state legislatures and bywithdrawing children from publicschools to place them in private schoolsor to teach them at home . Parents acrossthe nation have banded together to formso-called Independent schools in orderto escape sensitivity training andinvasions of privacy .

These are admirable measures andbenefit the individual child in-volved, but as far as the over-all prob-lem of the public schools is con-cerned, they are defensive tactics,Band-aid measures, against a schoolsystem that's slipped out of the pub-lic's control .

If more concerted, effective measuresare not taken, U.S. education may endup rivaling that of Sweden, where thecombination of total government controlof the schools and a view of the schoolsas tools for "social engineering" haveturned centers of education into meansfor social change . As Roland Huntfordin his book, The New Totalitarians, saysin describing the Swedish school system,"The ultimate aim is to create the newman for the new society and, among theagents of its achievement, education isobviously of crucial importance ."

In view of the worship of the rigidlycontrolled Swedish system among be-haviorial scientists in the U. S .and in view of the large roleplayed by behaviorial scientists ineducation today chances appear dimthat American public schools can bechanged from their present goal of so-cial change back to traditional education .

"There's a time for all things,"is a view expressed in the Bible.But controversial subjects, liketornadoes, have a schedule alltheir own. Such is the case withthe storm that's brewing overthe Elementary and SecondaryEducation Act (ESEA) .President Nixon's proposed

10% cut in funds to educationmeans eliminating more thanhalf a billion dollars' worth offederal aid. In fiscal 1972 Con-gress authorized almost $5 bil-lion for ESEA but appropriatedjust under $2 billion. The Presi-dent proposes to replace ESEAand other funding with an edu-cation revenue-sharing plan of$2.8 billion to be used withinfive broad education areas .Saddest of all at the prospect

Is House Education and LaborCommittee Chairman Bep. CarlD. Perkins (D-Icy.) . "The ad-ministration is cutting back andcutting back . . .," he laments.Perkins Is proposing a bill, HR99, calling for an extension ofESEA for five more years.A remnant of President John-

son's 1965 Great Society pro-grams, ESEA includes Title Ifor disadvantaged children-andTitle III for experimental pro-grams. As with many of today'seducational programs, followinghard on the heels of the ESEAbandwagon are disgruntled par-ents and community leaderswhose cries can't be heard overthe enthusiastic din of educa-tors.

Civil rights leaaers argue thatthe $1.6 billion allotted annu-ally under Title I is not reach-ing the children for whom itwas earmarked .

Education and HEW(Roll Call March 29, 1973)

Quarterly re-ports: "Numerous studies con-ducted since 1969 have foundthat Title I funds, intended tobe used for compensatory edu-cation, were being diverted intogeneral school aid benefiting allchildren or replacing localschool revenues. One report, pre-pared for the Office of Educa-tion by the American Institutesfor Research, found 37 statesguilty of misspending funds."'John F. Hughes, who worked

with the Office of Education'scompensatory program, has,with his wife, Anne, written abook entitled Equal Education.The Hughes cite the case

of Mississippi, where Title Ifunds were used to buy tele-vision sets and school bandequipment. To them New YorkCity appears a "hopeless mo-rass." Like any bad boy fritter-ing away forthcoming money,New York City was burning upits $65 million before the statereceived a formal applicationseeking approval of the expendi-ture.

Detroit, say the Hughes,"committed its $12 million thefirst year to a variety of im-proper projects and at one timeit used Title I funds to buy achurch ." Churches are notamong the cultural amenitiesthe Title I advocates have inmind for the disadvantaged.Washington, D.C., School Su-

perintendent Hugh Scott callsTitle I a "classic example of aprogram a mile wide and oneinch deep." Up to 80% of Title Ifunds in the capital city havereportedly gone toward salaries .

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Mark R. Arnold, reporterfor the Washington Observer,writes that under . HEW guide-lines, "teachers and principalsstigmatize the slowest learnersor, conversely, discriminateagainst the fastest." Non-Title Ichildren are not to reap thebenefits of Title I funds, whichoften means excluding up to15% of a class in a ghetto areafrom viewing a film or goingon a field trip funded by Title I .An example of this occurred

in a Washington, D.C., highschool where courses in dataprocessing and aviation wereeliminated because federal in-vestigators felt they served thebrightest children and not theneediest .

Arnold characterizes the Title ..I program as suffering from"poor planning, sloppy manage-ment, superficial evaluation and,until recently, precious littleconcern with results." Wherethe children of . "greatest need"have been funded while theslightly less poor who might beneglected, programs have oftenhad to be discarded for lack ofresults .

Opposing Rep Perkins' bill isRep. Albert H. Quie (R-Minn)who wants to replace the man-ner of allotting funds accordingto income level with the - useof children's test scores . UnderQuie's negative incentive planthose districts where the mostchildren receive the worst testscores would get Title I . funds .

While Title I has been a dis-appointment for, many Inner-city school disticts, Title IIIhas had an Incendiary effect onsuburbs& parents' groups allover the country.

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Title III emphasizes mentalhealth and emotional adjust-ment of schoolchildren, an as-pect which many parents con-sidered a usurpation of parentalrights. They particularly objectto the frequently recommendeduse of sensitivity training, roleplaying, sociograms, group dis-cussions and other psychologi-cal methods in the -classroom.

Title III projects listed in anOffice of Education publication,Pacesetters in Innovation, arebroken down into categoriessuch as "Behavior Development,Behavior Problems, ChangingAttitudes, Child Development,Clinical Diagnosis, Human Re-lations, Mental Health Problems,Psychoeducational Clinics, Psy-chological Needs . . ."

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Among those lobbying against'the extension of ESEA are "Citi-zens United for ResponsibleEducation" (CURE), a group ofparents in Montgomery County,Maryland, an impacted area, asfar- as educational innovationand- experimentation is con-concerned.Dr . Onalee S . McGraw,

CURE's Director of Curriculum,speaks of Title III's "bias forthe 'mental health' approach,"which, she says, "seeks thepsychosocial formation of thechild as opposed to the develop-ment of basic skills and intel-lect." She cites as evidence ofTitle III's "downgrading of in-tellectual development" thenumber of grants listen under"clinical diagnosis" (29) as op-posed to those for developing"literary composition skills"(3) .An Ohio parents' group is op-

posing a Title III drug educa-tion, program in Ohio schools onthe grounds that it is "primarilya behavioral program." Theteacher's manual for grade sixstates: "Because the abuse ofdrugs is a form of behavior, itfollows that the child shouldbegin to discover and learnabout the dynamics of his be-havior and that of others . . . ."The use of "All About Me"

folders is suggested to "giveeach child a confidential meansof writing down his ideas andfeelings and of communicatingto the teacher." Role playing isa suggested means of inducingchange .APEX English Is a Title III

program that's come under firefrom "Concerned Parents forEducation," a group iri Spring-field, Mass. They argue that"this curriculum subjects stu-

dents to social, economie, physi-cal, emotional and spiritualproblems which are straining totheir young minds." APEX Eng-lish includes group dynamicsand suggested readings such asThe LSD Story by John Cash-man and The Varieties of Psy-chedelic Experience by R . E.Masters, Ph .D., and Jean Hou-ston, Ph .D.Among the projects listed in

Pacesetters are :• "Training Program De-

signed to Change Teacher Per-ception and Behavior." The ab-stract states that "a sensitivitytraining program will be con-ducted for teachers and admin-istrators. . . .

• "Self-Concept Improvement-Students and Teachers." Itstates that "self-concept andself-expectancy will be devel-oped in elementary studentsthrough a program providingeach child with experienceswhich will aid i :. , enhancementof tis self-image ' Includes sen-sitivity trainingESEA is schc duled to expire

June 30 of this year, but an au-tomatic one-year extension hasbeen provided . The battle is be-tween local and federal controlof education or between Con-gress and the president, depend-ing on where you're, sitting.Should the President pushthrough his revenue-sharingplan, power will go to stateboards of education, while Con-gress watches a bit more of itspower slip away. Under revenuesharing, federal taxes are spentand Congress has. no say in thematter .

1 9

For' parents' groups the reve-nue-sharing plan is still severalsteps from local control, but thetentacles of the state board ofeduchti,on are perhaps easier tobeat back than the heavy armit the,federal bureaucracy .

Educators and behavioral scientistshave a certain loge for collectivism basedon principles of egalitarianism thatseem to conflict with the now hackneyed"do your own thing" concept .

The German philosophers, FriedrichHegel and Johann Fichte, often viewedas the forefathers of Nazi philosophy,argued that man can only gain freedomthrough subordination to the group. Thegroup was the state . Today the exalta-tion of the group is accompanied by"group consensus" and "group values"and the group is arbitrary .

In the Soviet Union and Sweden daycare centers and education are organizedalong collectivist principles that areapparently increasingly appealing tosocial scientists in this country, whoadvocate child development centers forall children and "group dynamics" forevery classroom .

Another expression of collectivistideals is the collective life style or com-mune, represented by the coercive anddehumanizing Communist phenomenonon the one hand and the voluntary, dis-organized American experiment, on theother, such as Brook Farm in the 19thCentury and hippie communes today, allof which appear to be short-lived .

The Israeli kibbutz is often pointed toas the "realistic" route to collectivesocialization because it encompassesboth education and living arrangementsand because it's both voluntary and high-ly organized. Recently this writer visitedan Israeli kibbutz only to find the much-touted collectivist ideals very relaxedas individuals asserted . themselvesagainst the group .

The Kibbutz and Collectivism(Human Events March 31, 1973)

20

Organized to "normalize" the Jews byattaching them to the soil, the kibbutzhas turned its back on the intellectual,family-oriented Judaism of 19th CenturyEastern Europe . The predominant influ-ence of the loving,_ cooking "yiddischemamma" and of the authoritarian fatherwas replaced by collective child rearing .An "intense group experience" over-rode family ties . Public ownership dis-placed the traditional respect for privateproperty .

In the early kibbutzim marriage wasfrowned upon as "bourgeois" becausea bond between two individuals tended toloosen the individual's tie to the group .Until the 1940s some kibbutzim werestill maintaining common shower roomsfor men and women .

Located not far from Jerusalemis "Zora," a kibbutz with 220 mem-bers and 250 children . Here children nolonger live in "infants" or "children's"houses under the supervision of a meta-pelet but in their parents' apartments .

A former South African and a memberof Zora for 17 years explained, "This isnot a unique practice . Other kibbutzimhave it . We decided to have the childrenlive at home, not because we think thatthe other method is psychologically dis-turbing, but because the mothers wantedto have the children with them ."

According to Melford E . Spiro's book,Kibbutz: Venture in Utopia, the kibbutzhas succeeded in destroying the seat ofthe _father's authority and thereby weak-ening the family . The same, however, isnot true of the mother's role, which isbeing revived in its traditional form .Spiro attributes this to "female dis-satisfaction" with the woman's econom-

ic, maternal and sexual roles on thekibbutz and terms it "a constant threatto kibbutz cohesion ."

On the early kibbutzim parentswere motivated by necessity and bytheir "anti-bourgeois" ideology torelinquish children to the care ofothers. As children today in Russiaand Sweden are viewed as the respon-sibility of the state, in the kibbutzthey were the responsibility of thegroup .

Sue Herr was born in Leipzig, Ger-many, brought up in England and haslived for 20 years at Zora . She says,"Over the years most extreme lifestyles have fallen offin the kibbutz . Wenow believe it's better for children tolive at home with the parents." Shepoints out that each child has two dwell-ing places, one at home with the parentsand the other in the children's housewhere they spend the day .

Mrs . Herr says that women's libera-tion has come and gone at Zora. "Whenthe kibbutz first started the whole ideaof socialism, equality and manual laborwas so new to people from Eastern Eur-ope that the women wanted to provetheir equality by working in the fields,"she says ."The modern Israeli woman no longer

wants this. I was the last woman hereat Zora to work in the orchards . Itdoesn't make sense to have the womenin the fields and the men tending thechildren ." The women's withdrawalfrom hard_ labor in favor of the "service"jobs has led to a feeling of their de-creased economic importance among thewomen, a feeling that's being compen-sated by a renewed maternal emphasis .In some cases it was the irrepressibilityof the maternal instinct that led to thechange in women's roles, rather than theother way around .

2 1

Spiro, who did an anthropologicalstudy of the left-wing kibbutz on whichhe lived, found that "many mothers havenot reconciled themselves to the systemof collective education and the resultantseparation from their children ." He in-terviewed a feminist, activist woman,who spoke bitterly of her kibbutz role :

"Life in the kibbutz is difficult," shestated. "The showers and toilets we areforced to use aye enough to warrant sucha statement . But to that must be addedthe noisy and hurried dining room, thehard work day, the lack of real recrea-tion . . . . All we have left is our children,and we don't even have them, .for theyare in the children's house ."

Most of the living quarters at Zora aresmall houses, each containing livingspace for four families . There's astrong note of individualism expressed inthe attractive and varied flower gardensthat surround many of the houses . Mod-ern sculptures have been placed in thegrassy areas of the kibbutz .

Art Carlson is a fundamentalist Chris-tian who lives at Zora with his wife andfour children. He views the creation ofIsrael as a fulfillment of the biblicalprophecy and believes the second com-ing of Christ will occur in Israel .

"God wanted us in Israel," he states ."Of course our children live at homewith us. Being American, I wouldn'thave it any other way ."

In the early days of the kibbutz suchluxuries as radios and fans in a kibbutz-nik's room were frowned upon for eco-nomic reasons and because they might .entice an individual away from the col-lective hall to his private room in theevening. Now many kibbutzniks applytheir meager allowances to such appli-ances .

Spiro writes that at the Communist-motivated kibbutz he studied the desireof some kibbutzniks for privacy becameso great that some built private showers,a trend that was discouraged on thegrounds that they were "unsightly ." Hespeaks of the "deep-seated need" ofkibbutzniks for privacy . "It is allbut impossible for the average chaver[a member of a kibbutz] to enjoy morethan a few moments of solitude ; eventhe privacy which most people enjoy atmeals or in the shower is impossible ."According to Spiro, the kibbutz he

studied is in the midst of "a generaltrend from a completely community-cen-tered society to one in which there is amuch greater degree of privacy . This ismanifest in a number of ways," hestates . " In the first place, there is asignificant centrifugal movement fromthe dining room, as a center for theactivities of the chaverim, to privateliving rooms ."

Among the evidence of this trend hecites the attempts of many kibbutzniksto obtain their food in the dining roomand eat in their rooms alone or withtheir spouses .

At Zora most meals are eaten in thecommunal dining hall . At noontime thehall becomes a sea of blue uniformswhile kibbutzniks gulp down their foodat a rapid pace. There seems to be littlephilosophizing over the plates . In ashort time all have returned to theturkeys, the crops or the children .Due to the increased emphasis on

privacy and family life at Zora, theshabbat (Saturday) meal can be cookedin one's room and thus become a familygathering .

Telephones do not exist in the rooms,except for that of the doctor or the vet-erinarian. Kibbutzniks do not own their

22

own cars, although many have the use ofa collectively owned vehicle .

In the early days the refutation of pri-vate property was so extreme that kib-butzniks were not assigned a set ofclothes but told to merely take what wason the top of the -pile returning from thelaundry . When it was found that prin-ciples of equality could not conven-iently be extended to people's physicalsize, this practice was abandoned .

The original kibbutzniks envisioneda "new man," a "synthetic man"emerging from the kibbutz environ-ment. According to psychologists,kibbutz children do differ from otherchildren.

Dr. Bruno Bettleheim in The Childrenof the Dream calls the kibbutz "an over-reaction to ghetto life," and a "societyof high consensus, where everyone seesthe central issues of life more or lessalike, and where everyo"e is under con-tinuous scrutiny ."

Kibbutz children excel in the Israeliarmy . They make up a large part of theofficers' corps and about 90 per cent ofIsrael's 'pilots come from the kibbutz .Yet, Bettleheim points out that thesechildren often lack imagination andflexibility, even in war-time situations .They are concerned with "group feel-ings" rather than "personal feelings ."He says: "According to kibbutz ideologyone is all the more a person, the moreone is truly part of the collective ."

Amos Elon in his book The Israelis :Founders and Sons points out the im-portant role kibbutzniks have played ingovernment, particularly at the peak oftheir power in the early 1950s . Then theproportion of kibbutzniks in power posi-tions was estimated at seven times theirproportion in the population as a whole .This proportion has declined to four orfive times their share of the population .

These kibbutzniks are "inspired gen-eralists," states Elon, and their relativeweight within the Establishment is stead-ily declining ."There are now fewer kib-butzniks than ever before in the top ech-elon of the army, in the state bureau-cracy; in the administration of Histrad-rut unions and Histradrut-owned enter-prises," says Elon .

Bettleheim traces the decline of kib-butzniks in important positions to the"levelling" effects of kibbutz educationand life . "An egalitarian system of edu-cation will lift up the bottom groupand lower the top group toward the mid-dle. And it will do so the more egalitar-ian the system," he states .

Kibbutz children are hard workers .They demonstrate patriotism and per-severance, but, thanks to the de-empha-sis on introspection and privacy in thekibbutz, few become genuinely creative .It seems unlikely that from this genera-tion of kibbutz children will come greatwriters, composers or artists .

Roland Huntford in his book, TheNew Totalitarians, compares the Swe-dish and Russian experience with that ofthe kibbutz . Speaking of the deliberatesuppression of originality, he states :

"The head of a chemical research in-stitution in Stockholm says that hisyounger workers seem devoid of per-sonal initiative . They are afraid ofrising above the level of the group . Ifsomebody produces a new result, he ap-pears unwilling to proceed on his own .He will ask his chief for directions asto what to do next. And the work is gen-erally poor and unimaginative .

"In other words, the same effectsnave appeared in Sweden as in Soviet

23

Russia and the kibbutzes of Israel . Itis perfectly feasible to mold child-ren into socially and well-adjustedcreatures, and good members of thecollective, but at the cost of original-ity and initiative."

Zora is among the kibbutzim thatserve as absorption centers for im-migrants . The center offers a five-month work and study program to im-migrants to teach them Hebrew and pre-pare them for life in Israel . Mrs . Herrheads the center at Zora .

She states: "We try to bring familieshere who are interested in remaining onthe kibbutz. We have three Russianfamilies . They are very diligent aboutlearning Hebrew because of their de-termination . But not many seem interes-ted in staying on the kibbutz. They thinkit's something like the collective farmsthey knew in Russia ."

Due to the kibbutz' aversion to privateproperty, leaving is more onerous than itappears. In addition to the guilt feel-ings that often accompany a kibbutz-nik's departure, he has little financesand no property, even after many yearsof hard labor . The kibbutz gives him asmall pension for each year he hasworked. This is paid out all at once andserves only to help the former kibbutz-nik become established in town .

Yet, immigrants keep coming to thekibbutz. Many believe less in collectiv-ism and socialism than they do in the"Jewish feeling of togetherness" theysuspect exists on the kibbutz . For themthe kibbutz is a last step in a searchfor identity . A young man- at Zorastated: "I'm a South African, a Jew andan atheist . Israel is my country, notSouth Africa ."

Some Israeli Jews, city dwellers, viewthe kibbutz with suspicion and a disdainfor its methods of education . Dr . IsraelShahak, a professor of organic chemis-try at Hebrew University, and head ofthe Israeli League of Human Rights,calls kibbutz education "chauvinistic .They educate for the army and parachut-ing."

He considers kibbutzniks "average,provincial and uninterested . Theyhave no concern for Jewish culture orany culture. To be clever or wise is aterm of contempt for them . "He feelsthat the kibbutz goes against "the basicJewish value of learning for the sakeof learning."

Amos Elon, on the other hand, speakshighly of kibbutz education . "Kibbutzchildren are now perhaps the bestbrought up children in the country . Theinvestment and current expenditure onkibbutz education is higher on a perpupil basis than anywhere in the coun-try, including the richest areas and fan-ciest suburbs," states Elon . This is an in-dication that even the early kibbutz'"high" principle of anti-intellectualismis being displaced by the more traditionalJewish attitudes towards education .

Statistics show that few choose volun-tarily to live collectively . Only 4 per centof all Israelis live on the kibbutz . Of the30,000-40,000 Russian immigrants whoarrive annually in Israel, few expressan interest in kibbutz life. Hippie com-munes in this country usually dissolveover problems of privacy or jealousy .Recently Svetlana Stalin refused toremain on an Arizona collective of ar-chitects . She told her new American hus-

24

band that she had left Russia to get awayfrom that sort of thing .

Even those who choose voluntarily tolive collectively on kibbutz are ex-periencing strong conflicts between in-dividual and group. Such human charac-teristics as maternal feelings, a longingfor privacy and property have proven ir-repressible to the point of defying col-lectivist ideals and forcing revision ofmany kibbutz policies .

Individualism and human dignity canbe taken more easily into account onthe kibbutz than in a coercive com-mune. Social scientists, who view indi-vidual liberty in terms of the group, andhappiness in terms of the collective,should consider first the damage donethe human psyche in Russian and Swedishday care centers and schools and second-ly the kibbutz, where the "group" hasfallen short of its voluntarily establishedcollective ideals .

COLLEGE TUITION goes upagain this fall, making it

about $150-200 more than lastyear . The average tuition at apublic college will be about$1,492 and that of Harvard orColumbia averages close to$5,500 .

To help defray costs Congresslast month passed' an $872 mil-llan appropriation for collegestudent aid. The money is di-vided between basic grants,work-study programs, supple-mental grants and direct, low-interest loans .By emphasizing aid to stu-

dents over aid to institutions,it's hoped that students willbenefit more and the institutionwill be less affected by Federalaid. Since need rather than aca-demic qualifications is the cri-terion for receiving this aid,it's feared that universitiesmight lower standards to ac-commodate the new influx ofgrant holders.

Meanwhile, those students whoare neither poor nor wealthywill have to work all the harderto meet rising tuition costs . Itsounds like a perpetuation ofwhat black economics professorand writer Thomas Sowell calls"guilty" whites" attempt "notto cultivate the most fertilesoil but to make the desertbloom."He cites the case of a black

student with an excellent record(College Board scores in the700's) who was opposed for ad-mission to a good school becauseof his "middle class" record. Asa results of such policies, Sowellpoints out, the best black stu-

Is this Academic Freedom?(Roll Call May 17, 1973)

dents often attend the worstschools for financial reasons,while the top schools recruit andpay for the worst students.Academic freedom too has

been threatened by Federalfunds as in the case of facultyhiring quotas. Another factor isthat funds are more readilyavailable for behavioral scienceresearch than for the more tra-ditional subjects . Academic free-dom, however, is also seriouslythreatened from within the uni-versity . as a recent incident atKansas. University - illustrates.Lawrence, Kansas is a lush,

green oasis of culture, which at-tracts and educates bright stu-dents from the farms and tinytowns of the Kansas plains. Al-though a mass university, KUhas its peaceful spots beneath

25

old trees . Courses in HumanDevelopment and the classics ex-isted side by side .Last year three professors

with excellent credentials intheir respective fields of litera-ture established a two year pro-gram in the classics for fresh-men and sophomores and calledit the Pearson Integrated Hu-manities Program .Several hundred students en-

rolled, electing to replace creditsin English, speech_ western civ-ilization and the humanitieswith Pearson credits, and weresoon immersed in the works ofPlato, Herodotus, St . Augustineand Thomas of Aquinas. Theyfelt they were experiencing anexcitement not conveyed by thediluted grabbag of materialknown as the western civiliza-

tion course .Pearson students studied the

art of rhetoric and memorizedpoems by Shakespeare and Mil-ton in order to "enjoy poetry asone enjoys a song ."In a fit of zealous jealousy

the College Assembly abolishedthe Pearson program. Whatmakes a university pluck out apopular program in the classics?Part of the reason seemed to bethe non too low profile cast bythe professors, two of whom areCatholic and one Episcopalian .They were called "arrogant" and"authoritarian." One publicly de-nounced abortion. All were non-radiclib and decidedly "medievalin outlook" as the critics said.Pearson students, though, felt

the course content valuableenough to make an occasionaldose of "14th century Cathol-icism" palatable. "The profes-sors do state their opinions,"said one student. "But ratherthan ramming them down yourthroat, they make you work outyour own convictions and phil-osophy ."Student outcry was to no

avail . "Advocacy teaching"shouted a group of professors ."The market place must be afree market place of ideas," theycried. In the name of "plural-ism" they abolished a popularalternative to the mass univer-sity.

Freedom is never lost withouta good reason. Academic free-dom lost out at Kansas Univer-sity in the name of pluralismand relevance. After all-theysay-St. Augustine must be bal-anced by some modern day

26

saints. Take your pick--JaneFonda? George Leonard? Mar-shall McLuhan?

Voltaire thought little of Rous-seau's ideas but stated never-theless, "I disagree with every-thing you say, but will defendto the death your right to sayit." No such tolerance was ac-corded the Pearson program .Kansas City newspapers

pointed a finger at "VirginiaWoolfish jealousies" and "de-partmentalitis" as the cause.Students wrote the College As-sembly 100's of letters in pro-test. With Inquisition-like self-righteousness the hatchets flewtil Pearson was gone.Today's threat to academic

freedom is what Will Herberg,professor of culture and phil.osophy at Drew University, calls"the clamorous pressure" ofthose who "want to force theprofessor to teach this"and notthat, to teach it this way andnot that way ." He calls this "thepoliticization of the universityinto an agency of social and po-litical change ."Among those tolerated at the

the university are professors ofsuch non-academic courses asadvertising ; history professorswho teach via newspaper clip-pings instead of books ; politicalscience professors who can'tteach an hour long class withoutspeaking the name of their fav-orite presidential candidate .

So what's wrong with a littlemedievalism at a mass univer-sity? If there's no room for an-other shade of "advocacy teach-ing" then pluralism is indeed anarrow concept .

PROOF OF THE runaway na-ture of the Federal bureauc-

racy is the pervasiveness ofFederally funded child develop-ment programs, despite Presi-dent Nixon's veto of the ChildDevelopment bill in December1971 .The Departments of Labor,

HEW and OEO are implement-ing child development programsby an interlocking systemwhereby the Federal govern-ment penetrates and subordi-nates local and state agencies .

Under Federal regulations anyFederal program which comesunder the government's broaddefinition of "day care" pro-gram must comply with theFederal Interagency Day CareStandards . These entail re-quirements and "recommenda-tions," which parallel the childdevelopment concepts of such"experts" as Dr . Urie Bonfen-brenner and Jules Sugarman,chief of the Office of Child De-velopment, who told a HouseEducation and Labor Subcom-mittee in 1969 that "society isthe third parent of every . . .child."A Federal day care program

brings to a local district com-prehensive child developmentcenters, complete with mentalhealth personnel, health andnutrition programs and a hostof "services" which taxpayersfind are being applied to morethan the target population .According to C. Kenneth

Johnson, manager of the Wash-ington, D.C. Federal modelchild development program, theconcept of the InteragencyStandards is to give a ¢iild

Federal Regimentation of Local Agencies(Roll Call May 25, 1973)

"an opportunity to develop theway we think he should be de-veloping . . . his whole person-ality, his whole style of living,his sense of values."Federal programs which re-

quire adherence to Day CareStandards include : Title N ofthe Social Security Act Part A-

Aid to Families with Depend-ent Children ; Part B-ChildWelfare Services, Titles I, II,III, and V of the Economic Op-portunity Act, Manpower De-velopment and Training Actand Title I of the Elementaryand Secondary Education Act(Title I programs subject tothese requirements at the dis-cret3on of local or stateagency) .

27

The Day Care Standards con-tain the seeds of expansion bystipulating: "As a condition forFederal funding, agencies ad-ministering day care programsmust assure that the require-ments are met in all programsor facilities which the agenciesestablish, operate or utilize withFederal support ."

which receives funds under aDay Care program must im-pose Day Care standards uponall local agencies receiving Fed-eral funds, whether they befrom the Federal school lunchprogram or Title II Libraryfunds.

Marilyn P. Desaulniers, whohas studied the relationship be-tween local and Federal gov-ernments for several years, hasprepared a study for the Fair-fax County Taxpayers Alliancewhere she points out that DayCare Standards have made"Federal administering agen-cies" of State Departments ofWelfare and Education .She states that, "under Fed-

eral regulations currently inforce against the county's schoolsystem, through Title II, of theEconomic Opportunity Act aswell as Title N of the SocialSecurity Act, the administra-tion and organization, teacherqualifications and teaching tech-niques, the curriculum and thefunction of "education" in Fair-fax County's public schools aredetermined under the Inter-agency Day Care Standards andTitle 45 of the Federal Code .

. . Thus, the county's schools-at great cost in dollars and edu-cation for the citizens and chil-dren-have become child de-velopment/social welfare agen-cies ."Title IV also provides for

a Work Incentive Program(WIN), which is classified as aDay Care program . The StateWelfare Department must com-ply with both Social Securityregulations and pay CareStandards, which means pro-viding comprehensive servicesthrough other agencies . This in-cludes the integration of con-traceptive and family planning"services" into public schoolcurricula, a blatant violationof the intent of Congress, sinceunder all 'Federal laws suchservices must remain volun-tary. The same is true, ofcourse, of child development .

28

There's no doubt about theseriousness of the bureauc-racy's goals . Many fear thatFederal control on the localand state levels is as importanta goal as the substance of theprogram.Child development advocates

are understandably pleased atthe possibilities for expandingday care through open-endedand loosely defined legislation.Norman V. Lourie, an officialwith the Pennsylvania Depart-ment of Public Welfare, -writesin Children Today (July-Au-gust, 1972) :"The considerable expansion

in child care services made pos-sible by the 1967 amendmentsto the Social Security Act is il-lustrated by the following sta-tistics :

"Expenditures of Federalfunds by' the states for childcare services under Title IV A

. almost doubled betweenfiscal years 1970 and 1971, from$163,914,000 to $305,188,000. . . .By far the greatest extensionof these programs has beenthrough the purchase of servicefrom local, voluntary and pub-lic agencies ."

Lourie is referring to a phe-nomenon which surpasses old-fashioned babysitting' . whilemother works, as his last para-graph reveals . He states that,"Perhaps one day we - shallachieve a level of national com-mitment that will result in theuniversal child care and devel-opment programs called for bythe Joint Commission 'on theMental Health of Children, the1970 White House Conferenceon Children and so manyothers."

While Congress turns its back,thebureaucracy funds the "ex-perts" who are developing,molding, shaping . . .

Hundreds of millions of dol-lars have been w a s t e dthrough "collusion and cor-ruption" in awarding feder-al antipoverty and educa-tion grants, states Rep . Ed-ith Green D-Ore . TheFBI is reportedly investi-gating Office of Education(OE) contract performance.She cites cases where

contracts were awarded atthe insistence of top-levelOE officials after panels,set up to consider them, hadrecommended t h e y beturned down.In an article in the Sum-

mer, 1972, isse of "The Pub-lic Interest" Rep. Greenstates : "Over and - overagain we have found educa-tional organizations takingmoney for work not done,for studies not performed,for analyses not prepared,for results not produced.Over and over again, wehave found educators usingpublic funds for researchprojects that have turnedout to be esoteric, irrele-vant and often not evenresearch."She describes the case of

a Professor A . of New York,a sociologist who requested$70,000 from OE to studythe sociological aspects of aparticular facet of highereducation. Rep. Green saysof the proposal that it con-tained '"no background in-formation at all, no con-text, no reference of otherwork, no methodology or

Corruption in the Office of Education(Anaheim Bulletin May 29, 1973)

plan, no curriculum vitae ofthe principal investigators(or anyone else) ." Profes-sor A. told OE that thegoals of his study were : "1 .A report . . . including back-ground data and reasons forconclusions reached. 2 . Thetraining of a sociologist ineducational research ."An evaluator of the pro-

posal rejected it as "unspe-cific" and lacking in "ameasure of vagueness" inthe proposal yet gave itprovisional approval . Twoofficials at OE complainedonly of the price with theresult that A's proposal wasapproved in fiscal 1969 at$55,000 .It soon became evident

that Professor A's studyparalleled the work of a Dr .J. B., also being funded byOE, and that Professor A.had very little knowledge inhis proposed area of study .As Rep. Green points out,"it appears that the sociolo-gist who was being `trained'in education research wasA. himself."Professor A's "findings,"

as indicated in his progressreports were as hazy as hisproposal had been . For ex-ample he states that "feder-al aid - regardless of theform - aimed at enablingmore lower class highschool graduates to attendcollege would generallyhave less impact on thesocietal stratification struc-ture (in terms of social mo-

29

bility roles) than is general-ly assumed ."

Nevertheless, OE ap-proved additional funds of$6,000 and a time extensionfor A., bringing the totalcost over $60,000 . What didOE (and the taxpayers) getfor the money when theproject was completed inMarch 1970? According toRepresentative Green, "avery, very long . (andwordy) essay, very, veryshort on hard data .""Over a dozen OE offi-

cials were involved at onepoint or another," shestates. "All in all one getsthe feeling that the Office ofEducation was hopelesslyunaware of what the projectwas really all about, andhad no mechanism for keep-ing abreast of what wasgoing on ." . . Inefficiency isthe nature of Bureaucracy .In fact, in the time of tyran-nical kings its manner ofslowing down despoticedicts was a welcome facetof its nature. Today, howev-er, we're dealing with theold colossus of inefficiency,emboldened by the powerthat Congress has abdicatedto it. Elected legislators arepassing the buck to appoint-ed officials .

"The intent of Congress isoften disregarded," statesRepresentative G r e e n ."Awards are often madewith hardly a glance at thelegislative intent of the pro-gram that has been author-ized by Congress . It some-

times seems as if OE consi-ders the total funds appro-priated by Congress in anyfiscal year as a big pool onwhich OE can draw at willfor whatever program itsees fit to fund ."

Bureaucrats, appointed tocarry out the laws of Con.gress, are increasingly dis-torting laws and makingtheir own policies, whichthey enforce with carrotand stick methods . Whenthe population opposed bus-ing for school integrationHEW began cutting off fed-eral funds to rebelliousschool districts. "I saw noalternative but to terminatefunds," said former HEWhead Elliot Richardson, re-ferring to Ferndale, Mich,in 1972.HEW has interpreted the

Civil Rights Act of 1964 torequire universities to hirea certain percentage ofblacks, Mexican - Americansand women if they want toretain federal funds. Whatbureaucrats call "guidelinesfor faculty hiring," univers-ities view as a demagogicquota system.Although President Nixon

vetoed the Child Develop •ment bill, day care programs are in operation allover the country. Aprime example of the in-dependence of the bureau•cracy is the fact that on June18, 1971, the Office. of ChildDevelopment Issued Feder.al Ww4pW lays pre

standards, which are to beapplied to schools and otherinstitutions, which receivefederal funds from certainlegislative acts . Thus par-ticipation in a federallyfunded lunch program couldbring in day core standardsto a school .Economist Ludwig von

Mises in his book "Bureauc-racy" speaks of the growthof a "general bureaucra-cy," which he views as thefirst step toward totalitari-anism ."This expansion," he

states, "is the upavoidableconsequence of the progres-sive restriction of the indi-vidual citizen's freedom, ofthe inherent trend of pre-sent day economic and so-cial policies toward the sub-stitution of government con-trol for private initiative ."Bureaucracy, different

from private enterprise, isa wasteful operation, statesVon Mises. Its power shouldbe restricted. He blamesCongress for not encourag- .ing a trend in that direction ."Congress has in many-

instances surrendered thefunction of legislation togovernment agencies andcommissions, and it has re-laxed its budgetary controlthrough the allocation oflarge expenditures, whichthe administration has todetermine in detail," hestates .All of which accounts for

such iaddeuIs as the grant

30

to Professor A ."My rule is never to de-

viate from the civil code. . . to me duty is sacredand I stand in awe of thelaw," states collegiate coun-cillor Chichikov in NikolaiGogol's "Dead Souls."Chichikov plans to grow

rich by purchasing fromlandowners dead serfs, stillon the census rolls, andmortgaging them to thegovernment. Chichikov's interpretation of the law ismuch like that of many bu-reaucrats today - it's amatter of getting away withas much as possible .

The liberal-dominated House Educa-tion and Labor Committee is about topress upon the public's back a new ver-sion of the multi-billion-dollar Ele-mentary and Secondary Education Act(ESEA), the federal government'smost potent vehicle for intervening inlocal school affairs . Sponsored by Chair-man Carl Perkins (D .-Ky .), andbacked by the Republicans' rankingmember, Rep . Albert Quie of Min-nesota, the legislation will not onlycost some $2-billion-plus per year butis designed to commit the taxpayer tofunding ESEA for at least five moreyears .While many of the ESEA advocates

may think this legislation contributes tothe welfare of children, there is no morereason to think it will solve our educa-tion ills than there is to believe blood-letting will cure a hemophiliac . A closerlook at the projects for deprived chil-dren under Title I, the experimental pro-grams of Title III and the similar fareoffered under Title V forces the ques-tion-what in the world did the kidsever do to deserve this?

If test scores and evaluations areany indication, the $8 .77 billion spentthus far on compensatory educationunder Title I has all been wasted .

Indeed, the progressive infus-ion of federal funds into educationappears to parallel a downwardtrend in test scores in basic skills .While it may be too much to saythat federal funding is the solecause of this, it's clear that gov-ernmental programs controlledfrom Washington have done nothingto improve the knowledge ofchildren and in many cases haveworsened the edreatiwl sihatdM .

Failure of Federal Aid to Education(Human Events July 14, 1973)

31

The National Assessment of Educa-tional Progress revealed recently that 15to 20 per cent of the nine-year-oldscannot read at all, ranging from 7 percent in the affluent suburbs to 35 to45 per cent in the extreme inner city .Despite the fact that more Americansgo to school for more years than everbefore, some 15 to 20 per cent of adultsare functionally illiterate .

Children in cities such as Washing-ton and Chicago read below grade leveland the situation seems to be deteriorat-ing. In Boston, the head of the schoolboard has proposed that the amount oftime pupils spend on reading be doubledbecause reading scores have droppedto a record low .

In New York, the percentage of pub-lic school pupils reading below gradelevel has increased every year . In May1966, 45.7 per cent of the city's sec-ond-graders were reading at or abovethe national norm for that grade . On thenational reading test last year, thefigure had dropped to 42 .3 per cent .The reading scores had fallen off evenmore sharply in other grades .

An idea of just how bad thingshave become can be gleaned from theactions of an 18-year-old graduate ofGalileo High School in San Franciscowho recently filed a million-dollar suitcharging that the school system hadfailed to teach him how to read .

Traditional reservations about fed-.ral aid to education were overcome in1965 by selling ESEA to Congress as)asically an anti-poverty bill . Those whoshould have balked at involving the fed-eral government in a multi-million-dol-lar school program were soothed into

support when ESEA was described asaid to children rather than as aid toschools .

But Title I programs, far from reallyaiding children, seem aimed more atdecorating the schools with new equip-ment, "innovative" programs, andcourses that patronize the poor ratherthan in teaching the tough, basic skillsnecessary for children to succeed in laterlife .

"For all their variety, the programshave generally suffered from one funda-mental difficulty : they are based onsentiment rather than on fact," statesProf. Edmund W . Gordon who co-authored the book, CompensatoryEducation for the Disadvantaged. .Much of the compensation comes in

the form of arbitrary material gain .Mark Arnold, congressional correspon-dent for the National Observer, in hissurvey of Title I schools in Washing-ton, D.C ., found in one school, amongother things, 33 record players, 37 filmstrip projectors, 24 radios, three sew-ing machines and three washer/dryercombinations .

Of Title I programs he says, "Fromthe first time thefirst $5.4 million wasreceived in 1965 with little time for ad-vance preparation, the program hasbeen characterized by poor planning,sloppy management, superficial evalua-tion, and until recently, - precious littleconcern with results ."

Many of the innovations introducedthrough Title I do not nourish the in-tellect, but focus on mental health con-erns such as "self-image" or "self-awareness ." Moreover, there is anabnormal amount of money spent oncomplicated machinery, new teach-

32

ing methods and "cultural en-richment" programs .

Black psychologist Kenneth B . Clark,who believes in a tough curriculum forchildren, shows a marked lack of en-thusiasm for this variety of innovation,much of it funded through Title I .

For minority children, Clarksays, "there is a proliferation ofenrichment programs . . . in fact,one of the burdens of being achild in a predominantly minorityschool is that you have no way ofprotecting yourself from innova-tive programs."A large portion of Title I funds go

for the hiring of "para-professionals"to aid the schools . Most of these peoplecome from the neighboring communityand 'many of them cannot provide as-sistance to the children beyond helpingthem tie their shoelaces and put on theirgaloshes. Any cutback is Title I funds

threatens this army of "para-professionals" with un-employment, thus making such cutbacks politicallyunpopular .

Dr. Rhoda L . Lorand, a clinical psychologist in NewYork City, has been sharply critical of the para-professionals and the programs they're engaged in .People are "fooling themselves if they think theseprograms give the children what they need," shesays. "You can't kill two birds with one stone-both provide the children with the kind of peoplethey need and find general employment for thecommunity ."

"These children should only be taught by teacherswho choose to teach in the ghetto, by people whoreally care," says Dr. Lorand. "Just having a lot ofpeople around, just hiring anyone who happens to bein the neighborhod, isn't going to help . Just throwinga lot of money at them isn't doing any good ."

George Weber of the Council for Basic Educationhas done a study of inner-city schools in the hope offinding successful ones . In his booklet, Inner CityChildren Can Be Taught to Read : Four SuccessfulSchools, Weber lists several qualities common tosuccessful inner-city schools . Among them are strongleadership and high standards at the top, emphasison reading, the use of phonics, special reading per-sonnel and individualized attention .

While all four schools were Title I schools, this'was not the reason for their success, Weber pointsout. "Rather it's just the opposite . It's a sign ofthe failure of Title I that I came up with only foursuccessful schools ."

A disbeliever in the value of federal funds to edu-cation, Weber says Title I is based "on the simplisticfaith that money can do the job . . . . Although someschools have made good use of Title I money, mostof it has been spent to no effect ."

33

Harvard sociologist Christopher Jencks, whoviews things through Socialist-tinted glasses andmight be considered an ally of Title I, has acknow-ledged its shortcomings . He states in his expansivestudy of the schools, Inequality, that "students inTitle I programs do worse than comparison groupsas often as they do better . . . . These programs haveoften been poorly managed . Sometimes the fundshave been misspent . Often they have been widelydiffused . Their aims are typically hard to pin down .Most announce improved reading or mathematicsachievement as their principal goal, but many alsoseek to improve students' self-concept, eliminatetruancy, prevent dropouts, improve school com-munity relations, increase parent involvement or pre-vent fallen arches ."

While some short-term evaluations of Title I pro-grams have shown gains in achievement, these gainshave proven to be temporary in nature . More impor-tantly, the average inner-city child continues to dropfarther behind the national norm, whether he hasbeen in a Title I program or not .

One of ESEA's original sponsors, former Rep .Roman Pucinski (DA11 .), called the program "amonumental flop ."

The conclusions of Title I evaluations have beenmore depressing each year . In its first report onTitle I in 1967 the Office of Education disclosedthat in 19 tests covering basic skills participatingchildren had diminished their lag on 10 tests butincreased it on the other nine . The second-year re-port showed the Title I child to be farther behindnational norms after going through the- programthan he. had been before .

34

Harry Piccariello did an evaluation of Title I forthe Office of Education in 1969 in which he notedthat significant change occurred in 108 of the 198projects studied and that of these 58 were significantpositive changes . He points, however, to the 50 sig-nificant negative changes and states that "theimplication here is that participation in Title I pro-grams for these children resulted in lower achieve-ment than would have been the case had they not par-ticipated in these Title I projects at all ."

The most conclusive evaluation of Title I to date .done by the American Institute for Research inMarch 1972, found that "ESEA Title I has neverbeen implemented nationally as intended by Con-gress," and that, "there is little evidence at the na-tional level that the program has had any positiveimpact on eligible and participating children ."

Despite this mass of negative data onTitle I, Congress apparently is still under thedelusion that by pouring out huge doses offederal funds "deprived" children wilt be mirac-ulously educated. But a number of experts inthe field have demonstrated that good educa-tion does not depend on the sums spent perpupil .

James S. Coleman of Johns Hopkins University,who in 1965 and 1966 headed the largest and mostthorough examination of American public schoolsever undertaken, discovered the following : "The evi-dence revealed that within broad geographic regions,and for each racial and ethnic group, the physicaland economic resources going into a school have verylittle relationship to the achievements coming out ofit." He concluded that "if it were otherwise, we couldgive simple prescriptions : increase teachers' salaries,lower classroom size, enlarge libraries and so on . Butthe evidence does not allow such simple answers ."

35

The New York City School Fact Book found in1969: `The evidence we have accumulated is some-what surprising . We have recorded traditional vari-ables that supposedly affect the quality of learning :class size, school expenditure, pupil/teacher ratio,condition of building, teacher experience and the like .Yet, there seems to be no direct relationship betweenthese school measurements and performance . . . ."

Harvard's Prof.

Jencks

said

in

1969that "Variations in schools' fiscal and human re-sources have very little effect on student achieve-ment-probably even less than the Coleman Reportimplied." In his 1972 magnum opus on education,Inequality, Prof. Jencks elaborated on the point :"More specifically, the evidence suggests that equal-

izing educational opportunity would do very little tomake adults more equal . If all elementary schoolswere equally effective, cognitive [by which Jencksmeans the ability to manipulate words and numbers,assimilate information and come to logical conclu-sions] inequality among sixth-graders would declineless than 3 per cent . If all high schools were equal-ly effective, cognitive inequality among twelfth-graders would hardly decline at all, and disparities intheir eventual attainment would decline less than '1per cent ."Eliminating all economic and academic obstacles to

college attendance might somewhat reduce disparitiesin educational attainment, but the change would not-b'e large. Furthermore, the experience of the past 25years suggests that even fairly substantial reductionsin the range of educational attainments do not appre-ciably reduce economic inequality among adults .

"The schools, of course, could move beyond equalopportunity, establishing a system of compensatoryopportunity in which the best schooling was reservedfor those who were disadvantaged in other respects .The evidence suggests, however, that educational

36

compensation is usually of marginal value to the re-cipients . Neither the over-all level of educationalresources nor any specific, easily identifiable schoolpolicy has much effect on the test scores or educa-tional attainments of students who start out at a dis-advantage . Thus even if we reorganized the schoolsso that their primary concern was for the studentswho most needed help, there is no reason to supposethat adults would end up appreciably more equal asa result

In short, there is no reason whatsoever tobelieve that federal aid to education is any-thing but a drain on the taxpayer . Yet Con-gress does not even question the value of theseprograms. The primary source of discord inthe House Education and Labor Committee atthe present time is not whether to continueESEA, but just how the funds should bedivided .Title I, however, is not the Qnly problem with

ESEA . Funded at only $146 million a year, as op-posed to the 31 .8-billion figure for Title I, TitleIII is frequently not seen as the sometimes silly,sometimes pernicious provision that it is .

With emphasis on exporting "experimental"and"in-novative" pilot projects to school districts throughoutthe country, projects filled with sham and often aimedat altering the values of Middle America, Title IIIhas a great potential for rendering harm .

"Change agent" is a household word in Title IIIprojects . Gerald Kluempke, secretary of the NationalAdvisory Council on Supplementary Centers andServices, ESEA, Title III, urged the Appropria-tions Labor-HEW subcommittee in recent testimonynot to abolish Title III, but to reexamine "the roleof the Office of Education as a change agent ."

The Office of Education is presently planning anevaluation of Title III and four other OE programsto assess their "impact as agents of change .

37

• On-the-Job Training in Human Relations Edu-cation is a project in Buffalo, N .Y ., which sets "at-titudinal and behavioral objectives ." Among the TitleIII projects to win the "Educational PacesetterAward" this year are many behavior modification pro-grams . While some "behavior mod" programs aremerely a method whereby good learning behavior isreinforced through rewards, many are geared tov, .- .ddeveloping certain liberal values and attitudes .

• An award winner is Project Adventure in Hamil-ton, Mass., which received $86,800 in federalfunds and promises to "transmit a sense that lifeshould be entered into fully, actively and compas-sionately ."

• A typically unintellectual endeavor is Self-Di-rection Through Group Dynamics in Danvers,Mass. The $75,000 in federal funds and $30,000in local funds go toward "helping students and facultyimprove their concepts of themselves, their aware-ness of their own and others' feelings, their com-munication skills and their capacity to function ef-fectively in a group ."

• Project on Student Values in Grand Rapids,Mich ., promises to test students for their "value orien-tation." Because of Title III's orientation towardchange, clues to what we can expect in the future asa result of funding these projects can be read out ofTitle III projects .

• Project Redesign, for example, already covers10 per cent of the schools in New York. It callsfor a "New System of Education" which insteadwill emphasize "direct, real and relevant exper-iences," "human interaction," and "positive self-concept."

In short, federal aid to education is a monstrouswaste of money . Because it has been a massive fail-ure, ESEA can be abolished without qualms of con-science that a small child's education is at stake .Indeed, it would be argued that a small child's edu-cation depends on the elimination of ESEA .

38

DESPITE AN IMPENDING"energy crisis" thousands

of additional buses will be roll-ing next fall as a result of courtdecisions. Memphis will experi-ence busing for the first time inits neighborhood-school-orientedsystem . Denver and Detroitmay be in for massive busing .Every school district in the stateof Alabama is under court orderand in Oklahoma City eventeachers are being bused .

Since polls indicate that some70'/.% of citizens of all races op-pose compulsory busing, thisflurry of transportation indi-cates only how little control lo-cal districts have over theirfate and that of their children .The slew of anti-busing amend-ments to legislation passed byCongress has been circum-vented by HEW bureaucrats.The courts and the bureaucracyhave worked in collusion topush a social policy which isnot only unpopular with mostparents but also has no proveneducational value.

According to a study by Har-vard sociologist David J . Armor,busing has failed to succeed infour out of five areas where themost positive results were antici-pated. Busing for integrationhas in many cases led to low-ered self-esteem and achieve-ment among blacks . Instead ofsmoothing race relations it hasactually fueled a trend towardblack separatism. Busing hasalso failed to significantly raiseblack aspirations .Black parents have tradition-

ally favored busing into whiteschools, not in order to seattheir youngsters next to whites,but in the hope of Improved

Busing and the Supreme Court(Roll Call July 19, 1973)

education . The meager resultshave turned many back to theneighborhood school concept .Black columnist William Rasp-berry reflects this changingmood when he states : "The ar-tificial separation of people, inschools or out, based on theirrace is wrong . . . . But to sendblack children chasing to helland gone behind white childrenis also wrong and , psychologi-cally destructive."The realization that black

children are being used as

39

pawns in the social planners'game has led many black lead-ers to emphasize improvinglocal schools. Edward Bivens,Jr., the black mayor of the cityof Inkster, Mich ., states :

"There are certain school dis-tricts that must maintain a bus-ing system because of certainrural 'characteristics and condi-tions. But in my area, busingis not needed. What we need,across the nation, is betterteachers, in many cases bettercurriculum that give kids a bet-

ter opportunity, and most of all,greater parental involvementwith their offspring ."Brown vs. Board of Education

in 1954 merely banned segrega-tion by law in the schools asa violation of equal protectionas guaranteed by the Four-teenth Amendment. Since thenthe courts have distorted theoriginal intent of the Four-teenth Amendment to the pointof creating their own laws. Twosegregation cases, Swann vs.Charlotte-Mecklenburg Board ofEducation and Davis vs. Boardof School Commissioners ofMobile County, decided by theSupreme Court on April 20,1971 . declared in effect that notonly de jure but de facto segre-gation was unconstitutional .Chief Justice Warren Burger

has said that Federal judgesare misreading these rulings,when they order that schoolsmust reflect the racial composi-tion of the school system as awhole.

The combined forces of theCivil Rights Act, Federal aid toschool districts and the_ atmos-phere in the courts with regardto integration have led to mas-sive busing. If a school district,for example, receives impactaid or funds from the Elemen-tary and Secondary Education

v Act it must comply with theCivil Rights Act or lose funding.

The fact that busing leads toanxiety and frequently loweredachievement- among children ofall races, that it involves chil-dren in unnecessary traffic ac-cidents and that most peopledon't want more busing doesnot deter social planners. A Con-stitutional Amendment againstbusing is doomed to fail, if theSchool Prayer Amendment isany example.

Congress has another option,however-to remove jurisdic-tion from the courts. Sen. Rob-ert P. Griffin (RMich) intro-duced last January a bill, S .179, to "limit the jurisdictionof Federal courts to issue bus-ing orders based on race, andfor other purposes." Sen . Grif-fin states that "Federal judgeshave extended and distorted thelogic of that case (Brown vs .Board of Education) to the pointwhere thousands of boys andgirls are being denied, by courtorder, the right to attend theirneighborhood schools-and arebeing bused to distant schools-solely because they happen tohe black or white ."Constitutional law expert Clar-

ence E. Manion, former dean ofNotre Dame Law School, pointsout that "the Constitution pro-vides its own corrective for . . -judicial usurpation in its Sec-tion II of Article III where Con-gress is given the power andthe responsibility to put theFederal courts back into theirproper place ."In 1869 the Supreme Court

heard an appeal in a petitionfor a writ of habeas corpus byone McCardle, a Mississippinewspaper editor . McCardle wasbeing held in custody by theUnited States military authori-ties under the authority ofthe Congressional Reconstruc-tion Acts . ,McCardle's petitionchallenged the constitutionalityof these statutes.

Congress, fearing a test ofthe Reconstruction Acts, en-acted a statute withdrawing ap-pellate jurisdiction from theCourt in certain described ha-beas corpus proceedings whichencompass the McCardle ap-peal. The Supreme Court was

40

forced to dismiss the appeal forwant of jurisdiction at whichtime Chief Justice Chase stated :"Without jurisdiction, the

Court cannot proceed at all inany case. Jurisdiction is thepower to declare the law andwhen it ceases to exist, the onlyfunction remaining to the Courtis that of announcing the factand dismissing the case. .Judicial duty is not less fitlyperformed by declining ungrant-ed jurisdiction than in exercis-ing firmly that which the Con-stitution and the laws confer."Thus the Congress by acting

similarly With regard to busingwould be acting with full pro-priety and would also take astep toward curbing future law-making on the part of theCourt.

FEDMAL PROGRAMS 'for .disadv4ntaged college stu-

dents appear to be creatingmore problems than they are ,solving, an occupational hazardamong Federal programs, cynicsmight . say.

There are several .differentscholarship programs for theexcellent student. The noveltyis the program which funds stu-dents who have shown neitherexceptional skill nor motivation,but are deprived and mighthave - "hidden potential ." Thelosers are the bright, motivated,minority group students whoare also deprived, but score toohigh to qualify for Federal pro-grams .Students are adjusting their

behavior accordingly . What mo-tivates. low achievement? TheEqual Opportunities Programsof . the government .EOPs were found to have an

extremely negative influence onstudents at Grover ClevelandHigh School in Buffalo, NewYork. In an interview with theBuffalo Courier-Express, stu-dents explained that theirchances for acceptance intoEOP depended on their gradesbeing below the 85 mark andthat chances improve if gradesgo below 80.

"It's better to get 65 than 90,"said one youth. "They have special programs for deprived kidswith averages 79 and below, butnot for those 90 and above."The students said they could getmore money from the EOP thanfrom regular scholarships. "Youhave to' be poor and dui~nb .We're all poor so we work onbeing, dumb," said one youth.

Negative Incentive in Federal Programs(Roll Call July 26, 1973)

School Wincipal Ronald 1L.Meer calls it "an invidious kindof racism : everyone . else has towork up, but they feel societyexpects them to be stupid, sothey have t6 work down ih or-der to, get anywhere ."Black economist Thomas So-

well, in his book "Black Educa-tion : Myths and Tragedies," issharply critical of the negativeincentive created by Federalprograms. Recruiting effortsunder such programs are rare-ly directed toward finding thebest minority group students,with the result that the beststudents are often at the worst

WWWW

cC

C

41

schools, while low-scorinj stu:dents are funded at the bestschools ."This is even spelled out in

various legislation, in HEW's'guidelines' accompanying Fed-eral grants, or in conditions at-tached to large foundationgrants. _Even where such pro-grams are misnamed TalentSearch, High Potential, etc .,'theyoften recruit black studentsfrom the bottom ('from D+ upto about B-,' according to oneformer Talent Search official),leaving the better qualified blackstudents out of their programsand out of luck as far as going

to college is concerned," statesSowell .

He points to a. program forfinancing black law students, theCouncil on Legal EducationalOpportunity (CLEO L as havinga policy of confining aid to"black law students whose LawSchool Aptitude Test scores donot exceed 500."Sowell places much of the

blame for the radical takeoverat Cornell University in 1968on similarly downward orientedrecruiting policies. Referring tothe Cornell program for blackstudents, he states, "The pro-gram was never designed to getthose black students most ableto handle Cornell's demanding -academic work-week geared toa student body drawn primarilyfrom the top .,1 percent of thenation's students . Rather, insti-tutional and . individual ambltions were to be gratified by de-I1berately , seeking education-ally deprived ghetto youngsterswho' embodied (or spoke) _thefashionable socio-political rheto-ric, and using them ' as ,+guineapigs ."

He points to the case of agirl with College Board scoresin the top 1 percent who, al-though both, her parents werelaundry workers, was rejectedby Cornell on the grounds that"her cultural and educationalbackground does not Indicatedeprivation to the extent nec-essary for qualification as adisadvantaged."

. Federal scholarship programsfor the disadvantaged apparent-ly do not view the failure of theCornell programs as somethingto avoid. If the students at Gro-ver Cleveland High . are any ex-

42

ample, the Federal governmentis stimulating .low achievementby -funding those who merelyneed help rather than those whowork hard and also need help .Congress appropriates large

sums of money for such pro-grams, but HEW sets the guide-lines. Perhaps Congress shouldexercise more control over thefunds to prevent them from hav-ing the opposite of the intendedeffect.

RELATIONSHIP be-tween Members of :Congress

and government bureaucrats of-ten reflects the tension betweena growing, guideline-generatingbureaucracy and a Congressthat's still vibrant .Last week's hearing before

the House Select EducationCommittee chaired by Rep. JohnBrademas ( D-Ind) . concernedthe extension of the Drug AbuseEducation Act of 1970 . "We'rethe Members of Congress whowrote the law. We're asking youto implement it as it was writ-ten," Brademas told Office ofEducation Commissioner, JohnOttina and his assistant JamesSpillane. Erademas who alsocriticized HEW bureaucrats athearings in June for cuttingback on programs prior to aproper evaluation, called thepresent HEW administration"the most lawless in 15 years .""Sloppy implementation" of

the Act would have been an "un-derstandable" human failing, hesaid, and charged, "but youdon't even try to obey the law."

. Ottina stated that the Officeof Education pursued "forma-tive evaluation systematicallyand vigorously" and cited theexistence of an "informationsupport system" to aid this en-deavor .Rep. Lloyd Meeds (D-Wash),

author of the original Act, askedwhat percentage of allocatedfunds had been used in the fourdifferent areas cited at the be-ginning of the Act . When thewitnesses could supply -no fig-ures deeds responded angrilythat, "the Office of Educationand the Administration hasn'tpaid a dime's worth of attentionto the intent' of Congress."

The Bureaucracy and Drug Abuse(Roll Call August 2, 1973)

43

The weak response to Con-gress' sporadic assertion of au-thority is indicative of an ero-sion of power in the legislatureand a growing autonomy in thebureaucracy. A notable con-tempt of Congress by powerfulbureaucrats is evidenced by thestatement of a State Depart-ment official after his transferto the Department of Agricul-ture :"The bureaucrat has a pro-

gram to carry out. . . . The ques-tion of whether or not Congresshas authorized it is not so im-portant -to him. HS figures thatif Congress really had the factsan; '-*-- what was right, itwould agree with Win. So hegoes right ahead getting awaywith as much as he can. I've at-tended lots of these meetingswithin the department wherebudget questions and the likewere decided and I never hearda respectful word spoken aboutCongress in one of them."The bureaucracy aligns itself

with the Administration's oppo-sition to the extension of theDrug Abuse Ed Act. The Brade-mas Committee asks for a threeyear extension and $26 millionfor fiscal year 1974 and $30 mil-lion and $34 .million, respective-ly. for the following two years .Thus far the results of the druged programs are not encourag-ing. Rep. Claude Pepper (D-Fla1, who chairs a House SelectCommittee on Crime, has calledfederal anti-drug programs a"disaster ."They may be exacerbating

rather than curing the problem,according to a two year studyby the National Commission onMarijuana and Drug Abuse,headed by former Pennsylvania

Governor, Raymond, F. Shafer .The Commission assails federalagencies administering the pro-grams.

"To justify ongoing , Pro-grams, the drug bureaucracymust simultaneously demon-strate that the problem is beingeffectively attacked, and that itis not diminishing. Throughoutthis process fundamental as-sumptions are not questioned,programs are not evaluated andthe problem is .perpetuated fromyear to year," the Commissioncharges.At the University ofMichigan

at Ann • Arbor Dr. Richard B.Stuart, professor . In the Schoolof Social Work, quizzed seventhand ninth graders before andafter taking a ten week ditig-edprogram.,He found a significantincrease in drug -consumptionafter, completion of the druged program but almost no in-crease among the control group .

Federal programs have aban-doned the didactic, information-oriented approach to drug ed infavor of one that assails individ-ual problems and those of so-ciety as the causes..of drugabuse. Dr- Helen Nowlis, headof the Office of Drug Abuse inHEW, said at hearings last yearthat . the problem is "imbeddedin . the, larger social . issues con-fronting the Nation ."

All of which leads to such fed •eral drug curricula as the Coro.nado Plan In California, a "saltawareness" program, which hasas Us goal, "to humanise theschools in an effort to combatdrug abuse by understandingand .a4dafte the fMlitp -ofsti000166'

44

Last year the House Commit .tee of -Interstate and ForeignCommerce created a Special Ac-tion Office of Drug Abuse Pre-vention to coordinate all -federaldrug abuse programs .Whether drug ed programs

would-be more successful if bu-reaucrats complied more closelywith the intent of Congress willprobably 'never be known. Thebigger question is who is run-ning things: the Congress? orthe bureaucracy? Those whothink that a state of increas-ingly delegated Congressionalpower is the way -things shouldbe ought to think back on thewords of John Locke, uponwhose philosophy American tra-dition largely rests :

"There _can be but one su-preme power, which is the Leg-islature, to which all the, restare and must be subordinate ."

Schools' Assault on Individualism(New Guard October 1973)

American respect for individualism-or what's left ofit-can be traced back to John Locke, Edmund Burke,Thomas Jefferson or John Adams .

Over the centuries a high degree of individual freedomhas been experienced in societies not quite firmly or-ganized and it's from this threshold of civilization thatmost of the heroic epics stem .America, different from most societies, has never

reached the stage of centralized over-organization thatcrushes the individual . So far social policy has not rend-ered individualism unfashionable, but not for lack oftrying. Where the concept of "equality of result" hasfailed to catch on, "group think" might yet succeed .Given the choice, sociologists state, man chooses se-

curity over freedom . He prefers the reassuring warmthof the group to making decisions alone . Society's adop-tion of such concepts reflects its unwillingness to defenditself against the sociologists' low opinion of man as amalleable being with little dignity as an individual . Greatmen, such as St. Augustine, recognized the false securityof the group. Since men don't go to heaven in groups, St .Augustine reasoned, they must make their major deci-sions alone .

Perhaps the biggest threat to individualism in Americatoday is the manner in which "group think" is beingfostered in the public schools . This is not surprising inview of the fact that professional educators (not teach-ers, but those concerned with theory of education) havealways admired collectivism .John P. Diggins in his book Mussolini and Fascism :

The View from America points out the strong attractionof fascistic methods of education for American educa-tors . He refers to a New York Times article (September26, 1926) wherein Giovanni Gentile, the Fascist ministerof education, is referred to by one of his American dis-ciples as "the round, humorous professor-he puts groupinterest above individual liberty ." At the 1929 conven-tion of the National Education Association (NEA), MariaCastellani spoke on "What Mussolini Has Done forItaly ."

Today educators speak just as highly of collective edu-cation techniques in Soviet Russia and CommunistChina, stressing the "unselfish" attitude of subordinatingthe individual to group needs . Sweden, where the schoolsare considered a tool for erasing social differences, is theideal . An example of this mode of thought are the wordsof Mrs. Maj Bossom-Nordboe, a departmental chief atthe Directorate of Schools in Sweden :

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"It's useless to build up individuality, because unlesspeople learn to adapt themselves to society, they wouldbe unhappy . Liberty is not emphasized . Instead we talkabout the freedom to give up freedom . The accent is onthe social function of children, and I will not deny thatwe emphasize the collective ."The Hawaii Master Plan for Education, published in

1969 with federal funds as a "blueprint" for educationdepartments across the country, denigrates "ruggedindividualism" as an "outmoded" value and calls for anew set of values, a "common ethic" to be taught in theschools .

Educators' interest in group methods dates back to thegroup dynamics experiments at the National TrainingLaboratories at Bethel, Maine in the late 1940's . Withtheir new power the educators have been able to trans-fer these activities into the classroom in the form of roleplaying and group discussions on values, attitudes andfeelings . Although it is a mild brand of sensitivity train-

ing, group dynamics can be a dangerous tool in the handsof teachers, given the undeveloped nature of children'spersonalities and the unbalanced emotional state ofteenagers in particular .

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Dr. Sigmund Koch, a psychologist and professor atBoston University, is apprehensive over the negativeinfluence of the group movement on the "image of man ."As a principle toll of the movement he views the "reduc-ing and simplifying impact upon the personalities andsensibilities of those who emerge from the group experi-ence with an enthusiastic commitment to its values,"

In the Journal o f Humanistic Psychology (Fall, 1971)Dr. Koch states that, "the pursuit of 'openness' via selfrevelation before an adventitiously assembled group ofstrangers centers the process of individual self-definitionmuch too heavily upon group response . . . . The chancesfor simple-minded, callow, insufficiently considered orreductive shaping of the individual are high ."

In the past teachers addressed the class in the hope ofreaching each individual with the facts of geography orhistory. Today the "New Social Studies" are taught in theform of a group discussion with an emphasis on the stu-dent's attitude toward a particular world view .

Social Science Laboratory Units, developed by ScienceResearch Associates, is a social studies course in humanbehavior, which purports to help students "clarify someof their own values in social behavior and to study thevalues of others ." The class sits in a circle with theteacher. A question such as "what time do you go tobed?" is put to the group . Some children might say eighto'clock. Others say 10 . Typical for the group technique isto arrive at the consensus that "it is best to go to bed atnine o'clock." The teacher is not allowed to introduceher own values, but must accept all values introducedby the children as "an equally important contribution tothe discussion ."The danger occurs when moral values are treated by

the group, as in the case of a discussion on shopliftingin a school in Maryland. Some children denounced shop-lifting as "immoral and illegal," while others felt it wasall right "as long as you can get away with it ." The out-come was a group value of "shoplifting is ok under cer-ttain circumstances, as long as you don't do too much ofit . ,,

In a home economics curriculum used in MontgomeryCounty, Maryland, entitled Human Development in theFamily (partially paid for with federal funds from the1968 amendments to the Vocational Act), there are a hostof suggested activities geared to the group . One of theseis an exercise called "Group Decision Making" and thecurriculum guide describes it as follows :

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This is an exercise in group decision making . Yourgroup is to employ the method of group consensus inreaching its decision . This means that the prediction foreach of the 15 survival items must be agreed upon by eachgroup member before it becomes part of the group deci-sion . Consensus is difficult to reach . . . . Try as a group tomake each ranking one with which all group membersat least partially agree .

Guides are given to aid students in reaching a con-sensus in what seems to be a deliberate attempt to makechildren dependent on a group .Dr . Koch calls the group movement "a deep miscon-

strual of the concept of democracy," and "the most ex-treme excursion thus far of man's talent for reducing,distorting, evading and vulgarizing his own reality ."

Instead of emphasizing individualism the schools ap-

pear to be reducing children to the lowest common de-nominator of opinion . As psychologist Bruno Bettelheimpoints out with regard to the Israeli kibbutz the groupprocess is, at best, a levelling process . In The Revolt ofthe Masses Ortega y Gasset states :

"The mass crushes beneath it everything that is differ-ent, everything that is excellent, individual, qualifiedand select . Anybody who is not like everybody, runs therisk of being eliminated ."

The group processes in the schools have certain paral-lels to those of the Chinese Communists as revealed bypsychologist Robert Jay Lifton in Thought Reform andthe Psycholo8y of Totalism . Lifton describes the effect ofthought reform methods on Western prisoners in China,including "group reform," whereby the prisoner is madeto change himself and adopt the standards of the otherprisoners in his cell . Guards train the group to influenceeach new prisoner by group methods until he accepts thegroup's standard, denounces himself and eventually"confesses ."Lifton states, "Never did the group support him as an

individual or help him to resist the onslaught of groupreform. Rather, the group was the agent of thought re-form, the conveyor of its message ."

This sounds much like sessions in the schools where ateacher will point to one student and tell another to "sayexactly what you think of him (or her) ." Such a classmight be called a "Contact session ."

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Interestingly enough, the National Education Associa-tion has expressed an interest in Chinese Communist "re-education" techniques . Discussing the "integration ofattitudes" in school children, the NEA compares theeffectiveness of its sensitivity training methods to thoseused by Chinese Communists to "inculcate Communistattitudes into their youth ." (from Five Issues in HumanRelations Training, 1962, an NEA journal .)

Jean Dresden Grambs, who also writes for the NEA,states in her book, Intergroup Education : Methods andMaterials, that "if a person can learn to hate and distrustothers, he can learn to like and trust others . . . Educationassumes change ."She describes a variety of group methods whereby

children can be changed and states, "The change willresult in more acceptance of persons who differ andmore acceptance of one's own differences from others ."

In the "Fishbowl" game six children sit in a circle dis-cussing "problems of common interest ." The game is in-tended to "give students a chance to express their opin-ions, examine alternate solutions, and choose the mostlikely answer ." The "most likely answer" emerges as thegroup value .Group engineering in the schools can cause damage

before bringing about the desired change . Encountergroup expert, Irvin D . Yalom of Stanford University,points to a 10% casualty rate from sensitivity training, a"conservative estimate" he adds . There is a possibilityof an even higher casualty rate with children .Those who place a higher premium on the group move-

ment than on individual dignity fail to take into accounta resilient human stubbornness found in some men,which defies all attempts at social engineering . Dostoev-sky, who equates man's individuality with human dig-nity, says the stubborn resister's life "consists in provingto himself every minute that he's a man and not a pianokey ." Dostoevsky writes in Notes from Underground :

But what if a quite absurd whim, my friends, turns outto be the most advantageous thing on earth for us, assometimes happens? Specifically, it may be more advan-tageous to us than any other advantages, even when itmost obviously harms us and goes against all the sensibleconclusions of our reason about our interest-because,whatever else, it leaves us our most important, most trea-sured possession, our individuality .

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If Dostoevsky is right about the tenacity of man's in-dividualism American school children will perhapssurvive the group movement. If he's wrong the schoolsmight be laying the groundwork for a future collectivesociety .

In a recent motion picture, The Poseidon Adventure,a young minister attempts to save a small crew of peoplefrom a sinking ship . One of his cohorts attempts to per-suade him to change his direction with the argumentthat "everybody else is running to the other end of theship ." The young minister sticks to his chosen course andsays something like, "Just because all those people arerunning the wrong direction why should we followthem?"Such decisions of courageous conviction rarely grow

out of group think. "In a world of fugitives the persontaking the opposite direction will appear to run away,"states one of T .S. Eliot's characters in The Family Re-union. The Israeli kibbutz and the Swedish schools in thelast few decades have produced notably few individualswho are creative and original thinkers .The child emerging today from the group oriented

classroom might find himself lost in a world of individ-uals . But, if the present trend continues, those support-ing individualism might tomorrow find themselves in theposition of Eliot's fugitives .

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What might be the most appropriateway to start another year of low achieve-ment in the public schools? A teacherstrike, of course . "We are the biggest po-tential striking force in this country andwe are determined to control the direc-tion of education," boasted CatherineBarrett, outgoing president of the Na-tional Education Association (NEA)recently .

Like a teachers union official's dreamcome true, strikes broke out in Michi-gan, Ohio, Wisconsin and Pennsylvaniathis fall, putting 500,000 students out ofschool . Statistics show a continuing up-ward curve in NEA teacher militancyas "teacher power" replaces an almostforgotten concern with the quality ofeducation .Last year's 145 strikes marked a 63

per cent increase over the previous year'steacher work stoppages . The NEA wasresponsible for 112 of those strikeswhile the "real" union, the AmericanFederation of Teachers (AFT), caused23 strikes through its locals . MergedAFT-NEA unions caused the rest .

Prior to 1967-68 the term "strike"was not part of NEA vocabulary .Emerging militancy expressed itself inthe imposition of "sanctions" or NEA-mandated boycotts by teachers of schooldistricts which didn't cough up the de-manded pay hike. Thus when FloridaGov. Claude Kirk Jr. refused to raiseteachers' salaries in 1967, the NEAtold its members to boycott Floridaschools . Failure to do so could lead toexpulsion from the NEA .

NEA's Stranglehold on Education(Human Events Nov. 24, 1973)

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In 1968 the first statewide teachers'strike in the nation was called by theFlorida Education Association withNEA support. In 1961-62 the NEA re-ported only one teacher work stoppage,but by 1968-69 the number of NEA-ordered strikes rose to 107, as comparedwith the AFT's 23 .

Today the NEA's primary goalsare definitely not of a scholasticnature . They include : increased fed-eral aid-making the federal gov-ernment responsible for at least one-third of education expenditures, a bigleap from the present 7 .8 per cent ;the placement of "friends of educa-tion" in political office ; the passageof a collective bargaining bill forpublic employes . The pot of gold atthe end of this rainbow of goals ap-pears to be an unlimited reservoirof funds for teachers at a time whenteachers are in surplus .The increase in teacher strikes might

lead one to assume that teachers are inprogressively dire straits financially . Theexact opposite is true. Since 1966 aver-age teacher salaries have increased byabout 8 per cent annually, one-thirdfaster than salaries in general . Whenteacher salaries are figured as if teachersworked a 12-month year, they average inthe $9,000-a-year category, the equiv-alent of starting salaries for men in in-dustry and more than the beginning busi-ness administrators or liberal arts grad-uate is paid by industry . Teacher salar-ies have increased by 90 per cent duringthe same time that industry raised salar-ies by 74 per cent .

The NEA's switch to militancy andthe use of hardline union tactics puts the1 .4 million NEA members in the sameleague with the 400,000-member AFL-

CIO-affiliated AFT, long noted for rau-cous gatherings and violence-pronestrikes. At this moment the only dif-ference between the two groups appearsto be that while both are grasping formore funds than most legislatures canbear, the NEA continues an interest incontrolling the substance of education .

While the NEA meddles with text-book content, the AFT goes for carvingout more minor comforts for teacherssuch as excusing them from playgroundsupervision. Both unions are milkingschool districts of every penny they canget and then lobbying for federal aid toprovide what the local area lacks in

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funds. Both NEA and AFT argue thathigher teacher salaries will somehowbenefit children .

Weary taxpayers don't agree and theirdisenchantment with the idea of morefunds for less performance can be meas-ured by the pocketbook . In 1965 almost80 per cent of school-bond referendumsfor elementary and secondary publicschools were approved by taxpayers . In1972 only 47 per cent were .During the past decade the NEA's

entry into politics has included not onlysupport for germane legislation but all-out backing for political candidates ."The NEA has helped to get the educa-tion `train' started and the VEA willwork to see that it never gets stopped,"wrote the NEA Journal prophetically,following passage of the 1965 Elemen-

tary and Secondary Education Act .Much of the NEA's political activity hasbeen through political action groups .For instance :The Emergency Committee for Full

Funding of Education Programs, formedin 1969 with the NEA as a key group,persuaded the House of Representativesto add $894 .5 million to the President'sbudget, half of which went toward thatdubious reservoir of education funds-"impact aid."

CAPE (Coalition of American PublicEmployes) was formed to circumventthe ban on union political activity andis channeling its energies into lobbyingfor HR 8677, the Public Employes Re-lations Act, which would permit publicemployes to strike against the public .In addition to the NEA, CAPE in-

cludes the American Federation of State,County and Municipal Employees, theInternational Association of Firefightersand the National Association of InternalRevenue Employes. A cause of somechagrin to the AFT, which hopes tomerge with the NEA, is the rumor thatCAPE may become a union, whichwould make it the biggest public em-ployes' union in the world . This couldcreate a stranglehold on public services .

NEA-PACE is a political action fundformed last year to permit NEA to fundpolitical elections without violatingthe 1925 Federal Corrupt Practices Act,a circumvention that has the same effecton elections as the law seeks to prohibit .NEA-PACE made its debut in the 1972elections by supporting 184 nationalraces. Of the 1965 NEA-supportedHouse candidates, 128 won . Thirteenof the 19 candidates supported for the

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Senate won, which Catherine Barrettcalled "clear evidence that teachershave become activists in the politicalprocess ."

Despite an almost even politicaldivision by party among NEA mem-bers, most NEA-supported candi-dates were Democrats. Many arekey figures in education committeeson Capitol Hill such as Sen. Clai-borne Pell (D.-R .I .), who heads theSenate Education subcommittee .

Said Pell at the NEA convention inPortland, Ore ., last July :" Before teach-ers began to help me, I was a 2-to-1underdog. My election is a victory forteacher power ." NEA's Rhode Islandlocal and its political action commit-tee, RIPACE, received an award at theconvention for "outstanding politicalactivity in the cause of quality educa-tion ."

Other' lawmakers supported by NEAlargess are: James M . Hanley (D .-N.Y.);Yvonne Braithwaite Burke (D .-Calif.) ;George Brown (D.-Calif.); Bob Berg-land (D.-Minn .) ; Ogden Reid (D .-N.Y .);Gerry Studds (D .-Mass .) ; Teno Ron-calio (D.-Wyo.); Frank Thompson {-D .-N.J .) ; Bill Roy (D.-Kan .) ; Mike Mc-Cormack (D.-W.Va.) ; Wayne Owens(D.-Utah); Pat Schroeder (D.-Colo .) ;Andrew Young (D.-Ga .) ; , Barbara Jor-dan (D.-Tex .) ; Charles Wilson (D.-Calif.). One of the few Republicans isRep. Marvin Esch (R.-Mich .), a mem-ber of the House Education and LaborCommittee .

Among the senators are Jennings Ran-dolph (D.-W .Va .) and Walter F. Mon-dale (D.-Minn.), both members of theSenate Labor and Public Welfare Com-mittee; William Hathaway (D.-Maine),a member of the Senate Subcommitteeon Education; William Proxmire (D.-Wis .) and Clifford Case (R.-N .J .), bothmembers of the Labor-HEW subcom .mittee of the Senate Committee on Ap-propriations .

Also on the NEA most-favored listare Charles Percy (R .-Ill .), James Pear-son (R.-Kan.), Sam Nunn (D .-Ga.),Thomas McIntyre (D.-N .H .), James Ab-ourezk (D.-S.D.) and Lee Metcalf (D.-Mont.) .

The American School Board Journalreports that teacher union politicalfunds, are providing strong support forschool board candidates in grassrootselections as well . "In California," says-the Journal, "teacher union-backedcandidates won local school board officein 60 per cent of the 114 elections theyentered . The political arm of the Cali-fornia Teachers Association, the Asso-ciation for Better Citizenship, contrib-uted more than $100,000 to 258 candi-dates, who won 152 board seats ." TheJournal points to the union's attemptto impress the state legislature withteacher political muscle in the hope ofpressing through a collective bargainingbill .

Zealous political activity on the partof the NEA caused raised eyebrows inthe late '60s with regard to the NEA'stax-exempt classification under Sec-tion 501 (C) (3) of the Internal Revenue

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Code, which applies largely to founda-tions organized for religious, charitable,scientific, literary or education pur-poses. As a result, the NEA's tax-exemptstatus was changed to 501 (C) (6), whichapplies to business leagues, and therebylost its right to charitable deduction oncontributions . As the NEA steps up itscollective bargaining practices, it mightbe more appropriate to change its tax-exempt status to 501 (C) (5), whichis that of labor unions .

"Let's face it, we're a union and havebeen for quite a while," said incomingNEA President Helen Wise, a socialstudies teacher from Pennsylvania, at thePortland convention, and she reiteratedher predecessor's interest in a "warchest" of funds for the 1976 election .Sounding like a fusion of George Meanyand a welfare rights leader, Wise saidfurther :

"In the meantime, we will continueto drive for a federal collective bar-gaining law for public employes andfor a substantial increase in the fed-eral share of the total public schooldollar expenditure. To show the poli-ticians and the White House we meanbusiness, we'll put teachers on theCapitol steps if we must. If it isnecessary to mount a march on everystate capitol, we will do it."

The sky's the limit for union demands,but NEA and AFT both virogously re-ject the concept- of teacher account-ability, which is increasingly demandedby taxpayers dissatisfied with their .schools. Accountability ' is a means forweeding out inferior teachers and re .

warding good ones with higher wages .Teachers are encouraged to aim for acertain standard of achievement wi, . .pupils .

Mrs . Wise would agree only to "peeraccountability," while 34-year-old NEAExecutive Secretary Terry Herndonshrugs off accountability as a "fad ." TheClark Reading Plan, which focuses onreading and teacher accountability, washeralded in 1970 by school board mem-bers and segments of tip-. community inthe District of Columbia as a ray of hopefor badly deteriorated D.C. schools. TheD.C. Teachers Union defeated the planlargely because of its strong account-ability language .

In order to gain the desired grip on thepublic school system, the NEA must firstsnap teachers into line with a variety oftactics. This includes insidious pres-sure to join the local union, often exertedby principals or superintendents . Thenthere are the usual coercive union tac-tics such as union shop and check-offdues. In some states the unions even havepolitical contribution check-offs in ad-dition to dues. In California, teacherspay $5 annually for political purposes .Michigan has a similar system .

The unification plan is the NEA ver-sion of Gleichschaltung, whereby eachteacher who belongs to an NEA affiliate'must also belong to the county, stateand national union . This can amount toabout $100 a year in dues, divided amongdifferent NEA levels . The NEA boastsof having "unified" 35 states already .Among the nay-sayers is the MissouriState Teachers Association, which wasexpelled from the NEA this year as itrejected the unification plan. for the 13thtime .

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The NEA has organized its battleplan in a manner that could make meti-culous, strike-weathered AFT organiz-ers jealous. At the push of a button,so to speak, "spontaneous" strikes breakout over entire states . School boards,once viewed as representatives of the tax-payers, find themselves pressed intocorners where, under duress, they agreeto teacher union demands .

14EA strike strategy for this fall, de-signed to coerce Michigan school boards,was outlined in a detailed packet ofguidelines for teachers called "Po-sition Statement on Collective Bargain-ing for School Employes ." The state-ment berates teachers for their "fat catsyndrome" and for "feeling entirely toocomfortable financially."

Among "alternative bargaining strate-gies" listed are "guerrilla warfare,""violence, sabotage," "mass resig-nations, individual resignation," and"blue flu," a technique originated amongpolicemen who, like teachers, are for-bidden by law to strike, but achieve thesame result by calling in sick on thesame day in large numbers .

Since similar "statewide bargainingstrategie have been encountered byschool boards in other states, it appearsthe NEA may be rehearsing for a nation-wide teacher strike that will predictablybecome common practice if the NEAand AFT succeed in merging theirforces .

In many cases teachers have provento be unwieldy elements, insistent onretaining their individualism in theface of pressure to collectivize. Unionpower is, however, usually the victor .

Hawaii's schools have compulsoryunionism and a' sole bargaining agent,the Hawaii State Teachers Association(HSTA), an NEA affiliate . Last year allHawaii's teachers were notified by thestate comptroller that "a service feewill be deducted from the payroll,"which amounts to $77 per teacher andgoes straight to the coffers of the HSTA .

In Wisconsin, which also has compul-sory unionism, Madison Teachers, Inc .,is suing school District 8 for per-mitting an individual teacher to engagein "unfair labor practice," such as nego-tiating on his own with the'school board .

Michigan, which has an agency shop(which means teachers need not belongto a union but must pay the union a fee),is plagued by strikes in Detroit and 33other school districts . Since the schoolboard negotiated the agency shop agree-ment with the Michigan Education As-sociation, many teachers have been firedfor failure to pay dues to the union .Among them are Mrs . Carol Applegateand Mrs. Margaret Maki, later rein-stated as a result of court decisions .

Once public employes are given theright to unionize, the road to strikes anddemands for agency shop is a short one,as evidenced by what has happened inPennsylvania since passage of the Penn-sylvania Public Employees Act in 1969 .Last year there were 34 teacher strikes inPennsylvania, more than in any otherstate, and there have already been strikesin eight Pennsylvania school districtsthis fall, putting 30,000 students out ofschool .

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It becomes questionable whetherteachers who are forced to unionize arecapable of transmitting the values offreedom, individualism and free enter-prise which many parents hope theschools will teach . The collectivist urgeof the NEA is not only reflected in union=ism, but in its repeated attraction to col-lectivist societies, be they Communist orFascist .A speaker at the 1929 NEA con-

vention, Maria Castellani, spoke inlavish superlatives of "What MussoliniHas Done for Italy ." John P. Digginsin his book Mussolini and Fascism: TheView from America points to an articlein the New York Times (Sept . 26, 1926),where an American disciple of GiovanniGentile, Mussolini's minister of educa-tion, describes him as "the round humor-ous professor" who "puts group interestabove individual liberty ."

Gentile, much like the NEA-today,sought to "humanize" the schools andintroduce the concept of "cooperation"to replace competition . Similar conceptsare expressed in NEA pamphlets on "in-tergroup relations ."

Diggins writes : "Although educationperiodicals carried an occasional criticalarticle, more often American teachersand administrators gave gold stars toGentile and his pupils . What-is remark-able is the failure of educators, as edu-cators, to pay attention to the total pic-ture of Italian society under Fascism . . . .In the '20s ,Fascism as institutionalizedthought control did not seem to dis-turb those very Americans supposedlydedicated to the life of the mind."

One of -the more absurd activities togrow out of the NEA's romance with to-talitarian states was the visit in 1970of then NEA President Helen Bain tothe Soviet Union to compare notes withSoviet educators on the question of"campus unrest ."

Bearing under her arm a report by thePresident's Commission on CampusUnrest, Mrs . Bain set out to discuss aproblem that those who understand thenature of totalitarianism know the Rus-sians cannot share .

"I'm delighted to be able to sharethe commission's report with Sovieteducators. We share a common in-terest in the youth of our countries ;we'll look to them to write the blue-print for world understanding andpeace," said Mrs. Bain as she pre-pared to discuss with the Soviets "thenew culture" of youth in America.The fact that NEA favors collectivism

is not to imply that the organization issoft on "extremists ." The NEA has infact established a mini CIA or FBI, pre-viously called the Commission for theDefense of Democracy through Educa-tion and now known as the Commissionon Professional Rights and Responsibili-ties (CPRR), to ward off what it calls"thinly veiled political attacks on pub-lic education itself."The . publication, NEA: Education's

Voice in Government, states: "The Na-tional Education Association is alarmedat the nationwide attack on the publicschools and the teaching profession byextremist organisations.... The As-sociation urges its affiliates to take con-certed action and, if . necessary, legal

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aatioa to, defend . itself against such ir-responsible attacks."The NEA is strangely paranoid for so

large an organization . Dr. James Koer-ner, president of the board of directorsfor the Council for Basic Educationwrites in hi , book The Misedueation -ofAmerican Teachers that the CPRR"maintains, oddly enough, for defendersof democracy, a secret file of dossiers onpersons or organizations who criticizeeducation anywhere in the nation, andstands ready to send out summaries ofthis intelligence to any beleaguered edu-cationist in the field ."

An example is the CPRR's "Stateof the Nation Bulletin No . 7 In Regardto Criticisms of the Schools and Prob-lems of Concern to Teachers," issued inDecember 1970. The bulletin describesthe nature of criticism of education andhow schools across the country havegone about diverting the attacks .

The NEA appears to classify everyoneto the right of . Angela Davis as "ex-tremist" if that individual is a critic ofthe public schools . Thus ad hoc parents'groups, formed around a specific issue,are simply classified as "right wing,"which saves the public school establish-ment from taking seriously their criti-cisms. Instead of being concerned withthe extremism that has faced manyschools-such -as riots and violencewhich have caused some teachers to fearfor their lives-the NEA attacks thosewho find fault with the schools .

Thus, the CPRR's "Twentieth AnnualConference on the Extremists and theSchools" featured such observers of the"right wing" as Wesley McCune ofGroup Research and others described as

"experts" in curiously esoteric sub-jects such as the Ku Klux Klan and theJohn Birch Society . What these groupsthink of the schools is of far more signif-icance to the NEA than what is actuallycausing schools to deteriorate .

And there's plenty wrong with theschools, judging by the estimated 20 mi -lion functional illiterates which havecome out of our primary and secondaryinstitutions of learning . According to theRight to Read Program of the Office ofEducation, 43 per cent of all elementaryschool children are in need of help inreading. Yet the NEA advocates a"problem curriculum," which would fo-cus on discussions of race, war, pollu-tion and overpopulation rather thanbasic skills .

As Catherine Barrett stated re-cently: "We will need to recognizethat the so called `basic skills,' whichcurrently represent nearly the totaleffort in elementary schools, willbe taught in one-quarter of the schoolday. The remaining time will bedevoted to what is truly fundamentaland basic."

The NEA's change of collar fromwhite to blue will presumably have littleinfluence on the traditionally anti-in-tellectual stance of the organization. Forthe public schools it will mean existingwithin the tightened grip of mediocrityas opposed to resting merely in itsshadow.

According to Edgar B . Wesley, theNEA's own biographer, the NEA notonly instilled in the American people the"ideal of secondary education for allyouth" but it also steered" young peopleaway from classical subjects to those

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that better met society's "-needs ." AsWesley describes it in his book NEA:The First Hundred Years, the NEA hasover the decades exercised a ,levellingrather than elevating influence on theeducation system .As recently as 1900, Wesley pouts

out, the popularity of Latin as a . sub-ject "reflected the persistence of theclassical illusion and the power of . . .the`dead hand from the tombs of culture' ."Thanks partially to the NEA the Ameri-can people were "freed . . . from thesuperstitious awe of the classics ."What the NEA considers "truly funda-

mental and basic" became . apparentduring a "Critical Issues" session atthe NEA convention. The truly criticaleducational issues of the schools wereneatly avoided as teachers mulled oversuch "right on" social issues as :

"Why Legalize Grass?" "What ShouldTeacher Political Power Be Used For?for education or for social change?" (theNEA usually opts for the latter) . "Stu-dents Rights : Will Participatory Democ-racy Work in the Schools?" "Sex Educa-tion-The VD Crisis." "Violence in theSchools-A panel led by a professor ofcriminal justice followed by a .group dis-cussion on `realistic and yet humane'approaches to preventing youth vio-lence." "Pornography-Spillover intothe classroom ."

Columnist Sidney J . Harris, who at-tended the 1973 NEA convention notesin an article in the Tulsa Daily World:"Consider that a mere dozen years ago,not a single theme listed here would betaking up the time, energy and concernof this professional group, whose mainjob is to teach children how to read,write and count ."

John Mathews of the WashingtonStar-News notes that $2 million, or lessthan 6 per cent of the NEA budget, isspent on strictly educational activities .The $11-million NEA building houses,for example, the Student NEA, a branchof the parent group with 110,000 mem-bers in over 1,000 associations on col-lege campuses .No less militant than the parent group,

the Student NEA asks in its brochure,"Would you like to invest in . . . determ-ining the direction of teacher militancy?effecting changes and innovations in pub-lic education? alleviating urban andrural poverty problems?"

Although the NEA with a budget of$31 .6 million and executive salaries in'the $40,000 and up bracket is accus-tomed to handling big money, it turnsto Socialistic rhetoric when it comes tolobbying for federal aid . The battle forfederal aid becomes "a fight between thepeople with the wealth and the peoplewith kids." According to an NEA pam-phlet entitled "The Root of Opposition,"published by the Division of FederalRelations:

"We are all supposed to be of a mold-alert, freshly scrubbed Americans, be-lieving that capitalism and free enter-prise came down to us on stone tabletsfrom the mountain and that democracywas devised by angels ."

After assailing a fictitious moneyedelite, the pamphlet goes on to herald thepublic school system as the ` .`greatestof sociall programs," for `channeling thewealth of the nation to the benefit of themasses."

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The NEA's power grab for the-publicschool system would loom not nearly aslarge and dangerous if it were an or-ganization with a demonstrated respectfor quality education . The NEA, judgingby its journals, has come to view the roleof the schools as something far and be-yond simple instruction .

What, the NEA has in mind for chil-dren is something akin to manipulationof emotions and values for adjustmentto a Utopian society. that exists in theminds of education theorists . The mentalhealth flavor of NEA goals is apparent in"Forecast for the '70s," an article in theNEA magazine Today's Educationwhich describes the teacher of the future :

"Ten years hence it should be moreaccurate to term him a learning clin-ician .' This title is intended to conveythe idea that schools are becoming`clinics' whose purpose is to provideindividualized psychosocial 'treat-ment' for the students, thus increas-ing his value both to himself and so-ciety ."

If the NEA realizes its goals, theschools of the future will provide "ser-vices" to children through . individualsbearing such titles as : "Culture Analysts,Media Specialists, . Information-inputSpecialists, Curriculum-input Special-ists, Biochemical 'Therapists/Pharma-cists ; Early Childhood Specialists, De-velopmental Specialists, Community-contact Personnel ."

The dominant power in the National .Council for Accreditation of TeacherEducation, the largest teacher accredi-tation.body, is the NEA . Given this fact,goals presented in NEA journals can be-come course content in colleges of educa-

tion, *hich. is -then introduced fnto. ttpublic schools by school of -educationgraduates . Scholar Jacques Barzun rb-fers to education courses as "the scienceof non-thought." There's slim hope thatNEA-ordained "non-thought" willundergo transformation on its way fromthe education college to the classroom .

The fact that the NEA was charteredby an Act of Congress in 1906 to serve

the American public in the area of educa-tion raises, the question whether theNEA can merge with the AFT withoutcongressional approval . Teacher unionactivist Myron Lieberman notes in hisbook Education As . a Profession : "fte

NEA does not have the power to amendbasic elements of its own constitutionand congressional approval is necessarybefore amendments to the NEA's conati-tution areeffective ."

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-Otber-organizations chartered by Corngross include the American National RedCross, 'Boy Scouts of America, Ameri-can -War Mothers and the AmericanLegion, none of which have undergonethe tremendous transformations fromprofessional association to union as hasthe NEA .

There are two separate questions to beasked with regard to the NEA's activi-ties: Should an organization that pro-fesses a disinterest in- education as theNEA clearly does be in .control of thepublic school system to the extent thatthe NEA is? Should any, outside interestgroup (NEA or AFT) control and use forits own purpose, a tax-supported systemsuch as the public schools? In the interestof quality education, justice to tax-payers and the future of children, theanswer must be emphatically no .

Solveig Eggerz received a BA from the University ofKansas in International Relations in 1968 . She willcomplete an MA in Comparative Literature in May 1974from Catholic University, Washington, D .C .

She is a contributing editor of Human Events and a col-umnist for Roll Call, the newspaper of Capitol Hill . Sheis also a regular contributor to Private Practice and theWashington Star . Her articles have also appeared in thechristian century and Religion and Society .

Miss Eggerz has worked as a research assistant andspeechwriter for Congress in the area of education .