Back in the days Charlotte Thomson
Iserbyt was a senior policy advisor in the Office of Educational Research and
Improvement at the U.S. Department of Education (Reagan’s first term – she was
relieved of her duties in 1982), staff employee of the U.S. Department of State,
and co-founder of the educational activism group Guardians of Education for
Maine. These days she is most famous for raging and ranting about how current
problems in education and prevailing anti-intellectualism in the US are caused by former Soviet KGB agents.
Much of her, uh, research and worries
about the American education system are summed up in her 1999 book The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America.
According to the book, schools and universities are part of a conspiracy to
suppress creative thinking and brainwash children into toeing the party line.
There are several reasons why this should be obvious: For instance, since
teaching a child to read, write and do basic math isn’t and shouldn’t be
expensive or hard, the fact that education is currently costing a lot of money
and takes a long time must be due to the efforts put into subsequent
brainwashing.
More precisely, the public
education system silently and nefariously work to eliminate the influences of a
child’s parent, religion, morals and patriotism to “mold the child into a member of the proletariat in preparation for a
socialist-collectivist world of the future.” These evil plans, and the psychological
methods used to implement them, were formulated primarily by the Andrew
Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Education (which ostensibly is at
the heart of a great plot to start several large-scale wars and military
conflicts to create world peace) and the Rockefeller General Education Board,
but were adopted by the Ford foundation and even the president himself: during
her stint in the Department of Education Iserbyt allegedly discovered, to her disbelief,
how these socialist-collectivist policies originated all the way from President
Reagan, Vice President George H. W. Bush, and their policy advisers, including
the CIA. Yes: Reagan himself was really a communist agent – Iserbyt suspects he
came under communist influence when he was a member of the National Advisory
Council of the American Veterans Committee, apparently a communist front
organization. And not only Reagan but his administration, the government,
various large organizations and even multinational companies. If you don’t see
some obvious problems with Iserbyt’s theory on your own, we’re not sure we can
help you. One wonders, though, whether Iserbyt might be under some misconceptions concerning what counts as “communism” and “brainwashing”.
Further proof that she is right is
the fact that some critics call her a “kook”.
Diagnosis: Well, “kook” sums it up
pretty well, but “raving lunatic” seems even more appropriate. We doubt that
her own influence is particularly momentous these days, but plenty of crazies
have taken up similar causes.
Do you do more than find outliers and call names? With even the most cursory research, it's easy to find evidence of everything Charlotte Iserbyt warns about. Sam Blumenfeld's "NEA: Trojan Horse in American Education" is a good start, or most anything from John Taylor Gatto's extensive body of work. Another good researcher is Robin Eubanks who publishes the blog InvisibleSerfsCollar.com. Or maybe she's a nut, too?
ReplyDeleteClose your eyes and go back to sleep..
I don't even see an author credited with this idiotic nonsense. Ok, let's see, Mrs. Iserbyt has published extensively on her claims providing names, sources, dates, statute, and her own experience both as a school board member and as a presidential appointment as a senior policy advisor in the US Department OF Education and according to you she's a loon and a kook. Hmm? Meanwhile , you lack the competence to complete even the most cursory research or fact checking on her claims. If you were capable of so much as basic research you would find that most of what she says is 100% true and accurate. It is not hard to find the facts on most of this stuff yet you can't seem to employ even a minimal level of critical thinking to the subject. She's a loon? What does that make an uneducated clown like you. I know what it makes you.....proof that Charlotte was spot on about the dumbing down of America because you are about as dumb as can be.
ReplyDeleteI have researched Charlotte’s work extensively. She is anything but a “kook.” You have a lot of nerve criticizing someone’s life’s work when you clearly have not even delved into the subject material enough to even be able to accurately re-state the claims she is making. She is 100% correct in her “theories” as you call them. She provides incontrovertible proof of every fact she reports. What evidence do you offer that’s she’s wrong? Exactly.
ReplyDelete