As a college professor, I agree completely. I teach creative disciplines (design, art, etc) and students 'post-no-child-left-behind' tend to be incredibly subservient and unable to challenge themselves. They just want to be told what to do explicitly. An employer that hires many of my former students said "This generation, you have to hold their hand to go to the bathroom". Luckily, I'm seeing a change as of the past couple of years. I'm not sure why. Perhaps it's the internet, social networking finally maturing and not being pure entertainment. That's just a guess.

It could be the marijuana. It was gone for a while...

I'm honestly curious as to how serious you are being. Is there any information to back this up? It wouldn't surprise me if marijuana use dropped during Reagan's reign and has recently spiked back up.

Yeah about the same time of the Wall St. crash. Looks like a NWO tactic to me.

If so it can only backfire ... Marijuana promotes creative thinking and awareness

Yeah, see through the bullshit that is spoon fed to everyone else.

Whenever I watch a hollywood movie while I'm blazed out of my mind I feel like I'm seeing directly through every technique that the filmmakers use to convince my subconscious that all of this is real. I can't keep myself from laughing at some of the bullshit in movies nowadays that subconsciously seeps into every subservient person's mind.

When I smoked dope a long time ago, this is what I was seeing in people's actions and conversations. At a party, all I could do was watch people acting out their little schemes, totally appalled.

I think that's why it has a reputation for making people feel paranoia.

Anyway, that aspect of it was not so much fun, but I think I learned a lot.

There are very few movies or TV shows that I can stand to watch these days. It really sucks for my social life because I'll inevitably be asked "Have you seen..." and the answer is always no. They end up telling the story anyway and then I give them a courtesy laugh. It's awkward.

Do you know the movie "Kick-Ass"? I watched it the other night. One of the main "heroes" of the story is a little 10 or 12 year old girl that says stuff like "cunts" and swears throughout the movie, not to mention shooting, stabbing, beheading, and generic hollywood violence type of stuff.

I think that the intention in making this movie (or at the very least having a 12 year old girl as a main 'super hero' that slays many people and swears) might possibly be to confuse the subservient viewers into becoming pedophiles.

I think that the intention in making this movie (or at the very least having a 12 year old girl as a main 'super hero' that slays many people and swears) might possibly be to confuse the subservient viewers into becoming pedophiles.

See, if people ended their story with something like that instead of <Chris Farely>"Remember that movie were they killed the guy and blood came out?...that was awesome"</Chris Farley> I would be much happier.

I know the feeling man

Haha, I'm the same. Everything just seems to be recycled pish these days. Nothing new and interesting anymore. Well there is but you have to dig through the shit first.

Some movies make no sense at all when you're high because they're twisted by these manipulative tactics into something unrecognizable

Did you try it?

I'm a regular.

When I see things like this, I start to feel better about it.

I do hate the NYS Regents program. That's all a teacher teaches for. I've asked my high school teachers if we were ever going to learn anything that wasn't on the test. Largely, the answer was "if we've got time."

:/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

That's been the plan since the beginning. Schools are meant to control the production of quality individuals.

I really wish they would just teach The Underground History of American Education in class.

Gatto, who was teacher of the year in New York, quit his schooling job and wrote an in depth textbook on the complete history of the public education system, it's true role and how it came to be. It's one of the most insightful and infuriating things I've ever read.

The major premise here is that American schooling has been dumbed down to provide mindless, loyal workers who cannot think for themselves. At least this is the schooling provided to the masses. This was a deliberate act with roots in 19th century industrialism. He shows how the Civil War demonstrated to industrialists and financiers how a standardized population trained to follow orders without significant thought could be made to function as a money tree. Moreover, the proper schooling could be used to strip the common population of its power to cause trouble. You see, our global power and corporate wealth is based on a third-rate educational system that actually works against developing men and women of true character and intellect. The mindless bureaucrat and worker who follows a system without thought or question is the pattern that our "efficient" system depends on. That is what schooling produces. One should never confuse schooling with true education- and definitely not with intelligence.

-Oakshaman from the Amazon Reviews

Yep. Came here to recommend Weapons of Mass Instruction. Gatto is brilliant.

The American education system was designed from the start to make people stupid and manipulable.

Well, it's not perfect, but I don't think there's any malice behind it, or at least, the forces of malice aren't as strong as the forces of inevitable progress. 'No Child Left Behind' and schemes like that are more likely the results of idiotic policy intended to streamline and standardise things rather than genuine evil.

I definitely sound like a shill here, so before I go collect my paycheck, I will say one last thing: look at Dickens and the history of public education. It's by no means perfect at the moment, but it's a lot more flexible and directed towards helping students achieve their potential these days. Obviously there's always room for improvement, but I don't think it's much of a conspiracy in the sense of hidden subterfuge, but more a collaboration of stupid ideas coalescing into public policy like it often tends to naturally do.

TLDR: The system now is (slightly) better than it's been in the past, and I don't think policy makers are motivated by malign intentions as much as they are idiocy and ignorance.

But yeah I've thought of it as a Bush plan to keep the masses stupid and compliant. Growing troglodytes to mine the coal and fear The Master.

That and the meds. Keep em stupid and docile. Nothing better to keep people from rioting.

read "The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America". Its free at the author's website. http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/

About the author: Charlotte Iserbyt is the consummate whistleblower! Iserbyt served as Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education, during the first Reagan Administration, where she first blew the whistle on a major technology initiative which would control curriculum in America's classrooms. Iserbyt is a former school board director in Camden, Maine and was co-founder and research analyst of Guardians of Education for Maine (GEM) from 1978 to 2000. She has also served in the American Red Cross on Guam and Japan during the Korean War, and in the United States Foreign Service in Belgium and in the Republic of South Africa. Iserbyt is a speaker and writer, best known for her 1985 booklet Back to Basics Reform or OBE: Skinnerian International Curriculum and her 1989 pamphlet Soviets in the Classroom: America's Latest Education Fad which covered the details of the U.S.-Soviet and Carnegie-Soviet Education Agreements which remain in effect to this day. She is a freelance writer and has had articles published in Human Events, The Washington Times, The Bangor Daily News, and included in the record of Congressional hearings.

Definitely. It is a way to get people to think the same as each other, instead of pushing teachers to learn each students' strengths and weaknesses and teach to that. I would agree that standardized tests help eradicate free thinking in students. That is also why the elite want to control the internet.

Way off.

As a high school teacher, I can tell you that we are constantly being pushed to ID learning styles, and address them all with differentiated instruction. We are pushed to have students use higher-order thinking skills and to be meta-cognitive with their own learning.

However, when the time comes to rate teachers or schools, scores on standardized tests are still relied on very heavily. To the point where a teacher who is doing those things mentioned above will get shit on by the admins if the results aren't there at the end of the year, and the worst teacher will be praised if the students do well on the final exam.

Teachers are being sent mixed signals, and we do the best we can with the situation we are dealt. As someone who is neck deep in American public education, I honestly do feel that the entire system is designed to fail, and that the students, teachers, and administrators are doing their best to find success within a fucked up system. AMA

Thank you for clarifying that. In no way was I trying to dog teachers. I have a ton of respect for teachers. It is the system that is messed up. Thanks for doing what you do.

Could it be that teachers aren't allowed to think outside the box? Thanks to the National Education Association (NEA) they dictate the general directions teachers are required to take. You are required to be apart of the NEA if you are a teacher, and serves as a nation wide teachers union.

While taking a Public Relations course at the university I attended last year the professor dedicated an entire class to the amazing work of Edward Bernays. Not until I was doing my own research did I realize the connection between Edward Bernays and Nazi Propaganda, and today's constant propaganda for that matter. Standardized testing forces teachers to educate their students on predetermined information approved by state and federal education boards.

My question is what if a teacher is required to cover a subject and they know the information is either half truths or whole lies? Does the teacher have the freedom to go against what the approved text books say? Or are they forced to bite the bullet?

I don't know about you, but I never let my schooling interfere with my education.

That's exactly right. Teach them how not to think for themselves so the government can do all the thinking for them. Not a bad plan if you're the government.

Nothing wrong with standardized tests, but teaching for the tests defeats their purpose, and where they exist it is almost inevitable that teachers are going to target their material to cover the questions on the test.

What students need more than anything else, is to be taught how to write legibly in cursive script, how to touch-type, basic mental math skills, spelling, and most importantly of all, how to read and how to write an English sentence. Those things are far more valuable than esoteric studies in social interaction or politics or organic chemistry.

What students need more than anything else, is to be taught how to write legibly in cursive script, how to touch-type, basic mental math skills, spelling, and most importantly of all, how to read and how to write an English sentence.

All of those things ARE taught. Just because the student fails to pay attention does not mean it's a problem with the school system.

Not true. Plenty of schools are completely dropping cursive. I know kids in 7th grade who weren't ever taught cursive.

That said, cursive is a waste of time.

Not useless, very useful. I'd go so far as to say an essential skill for anybody who wants to consider himself (or be considered by others) even half-educated.

If they are not learned (and it appears from what we read on the Internet and hear in the malls, that they are not learned) how can it be said that they are taught?

Because the majority of the students in the class had no problem with the material.

Uh... are you kidding about "writing in cursive script"? That has to be one of the most useless things to invest time into.

Let's teach kids how to write in the same language they already learned to write in, just in a redundant, more difficult almost completely phased out way...

Anyone who can't write legibly in cursive script isn't educated at even the most basic level. For an adult not to be able to write with a pen or pencil is nothing short of pathetic.

I write in a mix of cursive and standard, mostly non-cursive. My handwriting is completely legible and others are able to read it without noticeable difficulty. I don't foresee it negatively impacting my life. I am 25. (Cursive is BS. Handwriting in general is not.)

So cursive is phased out now because of computers and texting?

Nothing to see here, just another victim of the school system...

You'd be SHOCKED at what percentage of the population is functionally illiterate these days.

no, it's not. It's a way to get at least the minimum amount of education into the brains of your ever-more-stupid american kids.. but of course, they're stupid because the school system sucks, but at least a test is some way of measuring just how stupid the american nation is becoming.

As long as it's not creationism they're teaching, or rewriting history, then knowing the basics of history, mathematics and physics is in no way bad for free thinking. rather, it serves as a platform from where you can continue to innovate (standing on the shoulders of giants...)

The point of standardized test is to put everyone in the country on an even playing field. Your grades effect where you go in life and there was a huge discrepancy with how kids were graded. If you are the smartest dumb-ass in a school full of idiots should you really be accepted into an Ivy league school at the expense of kids who worked their asses off to compete against other hard working kids? Bad teachers teach the test because their students keep flunking it. Not having the test would not make those teachers any better, or those kids any smarter; it would only serve to hide their ignorance.

And let's just ignore the inconvenient (to this theory) fact that NCLB results dictate federal funding for schools.

I agree that it is ass backwards to give less funding to schools which have a harder time teaching kids. The problem is that no one is distinguishing the good parts of the program from the bad. Nothing will change if one side wants to throw the baby out with the bathwater and the other side wants to save the program at whatever the cost.

damn it, this... makes sense.

I get what your saying, but shouldn't the school district be required to observe their teachers and fire the bad ones, not a state or national standardized test? And if the school district itself is the problem, the parents then are the ones which should be making changes in their child's school. The overall problem is that the only oversight and direction in our public education system are government education boards. In my opinion parents need to be more involved in the local school system.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda; but didn't. No child left behind was instituted to solve a problem. Opponents simply want to throw the program out without any consideration for the problem of inequality within the education system. Throwing blame around in lieu of a solution is simply unacceptable.

Heinlein's Razor - Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity, but don't rule out malice.

Whatever the motive, it seems to be working.

I think the motive has more to do with accountability, measurable progress, clear goals, cover-your-ass, my-Jonny-is-smart, and other normal educational bs. But, control is one of the effects for sure.

I really think it's just laziness and stupidity. I do believe the end results are exactly the same though.

But my motto, if it comes down to laziness, or some elaborate plot, pick laziness every time.

While "teaching the test" certainly has a negative effect on critical thinking and creative skills, I find it difficult to believe that the same politicians who talk about competing globally in technological fields would also want to hinder our ability to think for ourselves. Engineers who can think critically and creatively are necessary for the US to have any chance of continuing its global dominance in the technological/information age. Perhaps they intend to have a small middle class of (unfortunately necessary) engineers while the masses are left to be poor and undereducated, but this would be a very difficult balancing act to accomplish considering the growing demand for geeks in the tech race.

You find it difficult to believe that politicians would lie?

I honestly stopped thinking the politicians want anything other than to bleed middle America dry and then start over in another country doing the same thing.

Then I remembered that the politicians are just puppets like the rest of us.

Sir Ken Robinson on the inflation of education and divergent thinking.

I have long thought this. My problem with it is the funnel of knowledge; the mandates what you "should" know at your age, and teachers and textbook makers must base curriculum around this. I feel that it slowly eradicates the teaching of things that the powers that be don't want taught.

http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/underground/index.htm

Book written by a NY teacher who taught for 30 years about the progression of American schooling from pre-revolutionary times up to now. Entirely free online, and will answer OPs original question in quite some detail.

The teaching for the test is just an unwanted by-product of standardized tests. Standardized tests work based on the principle that if you are taught certain material, you'll know the stuff on the tests. If everything were to work perfect, this would be great. But you have lazy or greedy teachers who would rather cheat the system or mercilessly beat test questions and answers into kids skulls rather than just teaching them the required coursework. Education IMO is actually heading more toward free thought and critical thinking. If you take a look at or remember your text books, they all had critical thinking questions at the end of sections, and the best example I can think of was my Psyc101 book. It had a whole section devoted to the use of the book and how you should ask questions about the material as you read. In short, I don't think this is anything more than lazy teachers, because evidence in the way textbooks work and the amount of people fighting these types of laws shows that many people don't want it working this way.

Crosspost this elsewhere. It's a good topic worthy of debate larger than r/conspiracy.

i think what your saying is plausible but i really believe the reason for the massive testing on students is simply from the testing companies lobbyists. i wonder how much money schools and students have to pay for all those damn tests. a consequence of all that damn testing is a more subservient student.

I have a couple of things for you to take a look at. First, is John Gatto's book Weapons of Mass Instruction. He was an educator for 30 years and resigned in disgust with a letter to the Wall St. Journal's Op-ed section. He goes through the history of education in a very interesting way.

http://www.amazon.com/Weapons-Mass-Instruction-Schoolteachers-Compulsory/dp/0865716692/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1305845327&amp;sr=8-1

And here's a book (free online) written by Charlotte Izerbyt, formerly high up in the government's dept. of education who also resigned after she figured out what was going on. http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/ It's much more technical than Gatto's book, but provides better documentation. As an example, she tells us what the definition of "education" was in the past and compares it to the current definition. Apparently, today's education is more based on neurology......basically "training" students to have certain responses to specific stimuli.

To call it a plan is utter paranoia. You simply can't find a unified motive within all of the school administrative legislation and government legislation that would qualify this as a malicious scheme.

That's not to say that they aren't eradicating free thinking because they definitely are, but it's not a secret plan to instill conformity; that's lunacy.

Anyone remember this episode of the 1985 Twilight Zone?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Examination_Day

Non simply the title. Chomsky's piece in You are being lied to proves the thesis "Education is system of filters designed to prevent any independent thought from penetrating the Establishment".

It's another layer of defense of the Status Quo (on this below), which wants to live forever. It's natural and understandable. Equally natural and understandable is your refusal to participate in the system of 'education' once you have realised what it's about.

This decay is not targeting our younger generation specifically: this is a cyclical thing.

Long periods of degeneration are accompanied by scholasticism, while independence is encouraged only within short bursts of building a new order on the debris of the previous cycle. Once built, the order starts degenerating, etc.

Status Quo is the degeneration which calls itself "stability" or even "progress".

... and there goes America. You see our free and open thinking is our great advantage. This article proclaims it. http://www.reddit.com/tb/hf26t

Our owners dont care.

Yeah, read Foucault's *Discipline & Punish."

That's actually exactly what it is.

The assumption in conspiracy-land is that there's a "deliberate" <enter world-manipulative shadow-entity here> that "wants" to enslave the uneducated, in order to get their world domination orgasm on. I like big explosions and evil antagonists, don't get me wrong, but the assumption that the people at the top are somehow planning to "eradicate free thinking in the younger generations" is like turning a greedy asshole into super-evil-nasty-alien-crazy-hate-monger"----a bit too far. Standardized testing is a testament to human laziness. They think of education in terms of dollar bills and statistics. They want black&white results so they put a mechanism into schools that gives them easily digestible numbers. They turn kids into statistics and expect the schools to train kids into statistic-creationists. Stupid idea. Classic disassociation from the majority/reality, easily ridiculed and corrected. It isn't the devil incarnate, and would be a boring movie overall, but all it takes is pushing the idea that education is more important than profit.

Here's an excellent link to a podcast called School Sucks. It's from a 30 some year old teacher who teaches in private schools and blats the education system. It's really informative. One episode and you'll be hooked.

21yo college student speaking so I have a fairly narrow experience-based viewpoint, but I'd have to guess there's little to no causation here. In fact, the general sense of things where I live is that us young'ns are getting smarter by the generation.

Or maybe it was just the classes of '11/'12.

Perfect example of the wanted results right here.

Not really, actually. Unless you care to elaborate, which I don't believe you do.

Your beliefs are adorable.

Are you basing your claim that you are “smarter” than the previous generation on the fact that you passed your standardized test with flying colors? Because if so, you are a perfect example of being dumbed down while at the same time believing in your superiority. Standardized tests are NOT, I repeat NOT, a measurement of intelligence. They measure your ability to robotically commit useless information to memory. So good for you, a dog can learn keywords too.

Public school has long been useless, save for a good way to brainwash kids into sitting down and shutting up. When you make the entire school experience about passing a standardized test, you take away what little actual intellectual value school might have once held.

The best part of it is, you think you are smarter than those who came before you, and were taught critical and free thinking. Beautiful.

When he say his standard test scores were better? He just said, In general people in his locale thought young generations were getting smarter. From my experience in the Midwest, when I compare what I learned at a certain age with the age my kids are learning the same thing, they seem to be 2-3 years ahead. EG my 9th grader is taking physics, something didn't take until I was in 11th grade. My 6th graders routinely do group research projects that I didn't do until high school.

Sorry, I went to private school. Anything else you want to add in?

I'd like to request your basis for your original statement. Are you making it based on facts and studies that you've read? If so, what are the names of the authors? Were they peer-reviewed? Do you have any links to the evidence that you used to make this statement?

Or are you operating off an anecdotal opinion, based on nothing more than what you've chosen to observe through your own limited frame of reference?

If so, then looknottothesky is 100% correct about you and everyone else like you.

As for me? Well, I talk to kids like you every day. I have to teach them the basics, since school didn't and their managers don't have the time to train them. Usually they believe they know everything until they don't and the world stops. Then they need someone like me (pre-NCLB education) to show them STEP FOR STEP how to do something thats in the documentation RIGHT IN FRONT OF THEM.

You'd be shocked to learn how much of your generation, and the population in general is going about their lives functionally illiterate, and just barely at that.

Yes. This post is about public education. If you were privately educated, your experience is not related to this topic and is not representative of the population being discussed.

I agree, man. Where I'm at it seems as if each incoming freshman class is doing more and going further than the previous.

Shoulda, woulda, coulda; but didn't. No child left behind was instituted to solve a problem. Opponents simply want to throw the program out without any consideration for the problem of inequality within the education system. Throwing blame around in lieu of a solution is simply unacceptable.