Charlotte Iserbyt is a consummate whistleblower! She served as Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement during the first Reagan Administration. It was there she first blew the whistle on a major technology initiative which would control curriculum in America's classrooms. Iserbyt's book is a chronology of the evolution of the Sovietization of the American educational system.

---

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1286902 in Books
• Published on: 1999-09-01
• Binding: Hardcover
• 462 pages

---

Customer Reviews

Whose Children Are They?
America's public schools really don't belong to the American public. They belong to the federal government, not the several state governments as some might imagine and certainly not to the parents of the 50 million children who attend public schools. Federal dollars decide what is taught and not taught in public schools, so if you're wondering why Johnny can't read, write, add and subtract but knows all about rain forests, 3rd world countries and condoms, you can thank your representative and senator who support the teachers unions that beg for those all-important federal dollars that are used to dumb down Johnny, ensuring he learns no more than what Big Brother wants him to learn. It's a frightning scenario, but unfortunately, it's true. Someone doesn't want your kid to learn the verbal skills that enable him to think independently or the math skills that allow him to work independently. Independent thinking goes against the social order. We must work together as a group, not as individuals accountable only to God. We're accountable to each other but most of all to Big Brother. Remember that the next time you question whether your local school has the "right" to teach your 2nd grader about sexual orientation or why your high school senior's SAT score isn't good enough to get into that preferred college. You know, the one most of the rich kids go to. Iserbyt's research proves the government believes you give up your parental rights when you send your children to its schools. If you doubt it, consider some of our more recent federal court decisions. If you disagree with these decisions, it seems you have to decide whether you want to leave your children in Big Brother's care or put your children in a private school or Christian school or home school them yourself.

Can't see the forest for the trees
The author posits that, since at least 1880, US education has been developed with the goal of producing an army of worker-bots, and that to do this, education has been engineered to destroy the cultural matrix that produced the author's ideal --- the rugged individualist, the "God-fearing, educated man of the early twentieth century."

The author overlooks the fact that in the early 20th century, education was mostly confined to white males of the middle and upper economic strata. She also assumes that fear of God was more prevalent then than now, which seems ridiculous in these times of crusading politicians and burgeoning mega-churches.

The book is a chronology, comprising excerpts from the published works and speeches of noted educators, social theorists, psychologists, sociologists, and other "experts," which she claims prove the existence of a movement to subvert traditional American values. This plot, she believes, was rooted in the desire of American industrialists Rockefeller, Ford, Carnegie, et al., to create a pliable workforce out of unbending Americans in response to the global convergence of business, politics and culture which they envisioned.

A basic fallacy of the book, I believe, lies in ascribing to classroom teachers vast powers to mold personality, alter values, and channel behavior.

The underlying problem is this: The author sees the trees and descries an orchard producing poisonous fruit. But the orderly planting she perceives to be the work of diabolical Designers is most likely only a tangled forest grown out of the chaotic strivings of humans struggling in utter darkness to improve their world.

That said, if you overlook the conspiracy theorizing, "Dumbing Down" offers an interesting overview of the development of modern educational theory.

Paranoia
It may be sincere, but its effect on many is probably to discredit better and more carefully thought-out criticisms of modern schooling. Read someone like John Taylor Gatto instead, who has much less of a questionable ax to grind.