DON BELL REPORTS

A WEEKLY COMMENTARY

Year TWenty-Nine ... Number Twenty-Four ... June 18, 1982

Table of Contents

BIG BROTHER'S EDUCATION MONOPOLY

Big Brother's change agents are pulling every available string in an effort to tie down the American education system and bind it to the limiting and absolute control of the Central government. It's as through the Supreme Court, Terrel Bell and his Department of Education, and the NEA are conspiring to destroy all that's left of our traditional system of education in these United States. The latest move in this direction occurred last Thursday, June 15th, when the liberalest components of the U.S. Supreme Court decided it had the right to interfere with the right of the State of Texas to determine the manner in which schools should be run in Texas. The Court decreed that the children of all illegal aliens, undocumented immigrants and others -- be they communists, terrorists, felons or otherwise -- must be given free education at the State's -- not the federal government's -- expense. It is estimated that there are at least twelve million illegal aliens in these United States. It is also estimated by some that about eleven thousand of these are children presently located in Texas. This Mexican influx had caused a serious drain on the State's ability to keep these undocumented individuals in a manner to which they were hardly accustomed. So, State officials dedecided that if these illegal aliens wanted their children to receive an education in state-supported schools, then they'd have to pay a tuition for the privilege. Of course, and as was expected, this decision was immediately challenged by the usual "liberal" crowd. And, also of course and as expected, the Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, and sustained the challenge. However, the vote was the narrowest possible: 5 to 4, and the dissenters -- Warren Burger, Byron White, William Rehnquist and Sanra Day O'Conner - made an important but an overruled point: Why should States be forced to pay the costs of "educating children whose prescence in this country results from the default of the political branches of the federal government?"

A result to be expected almost immediately: States that are suffering from invasions by hordes of illegal immigrants, particularly Texas, California and Florida, will be forced to appeal to the federal government for the necessary funds to take care of these aliens. And when the federal government supplies the funds which it also doesn't have, this gives the central government that much more power and control over State and Local Governments. And a probable final result of this Supreme Court ruling: A precedent will have been set whereby all the "undocumented" people be they communists, terrorists or otherwise, will be able to demand and receive all the other forms of social welfare: health care, food stamps, housing, etc.

This court ruling concerning childrens' education was the most recent attempt to establish centralized monopolistic control over education in this country. Just a few days earlier, another rather ludicrous series of events which have some bearing on our presentation. This also occurred in Washington, D.C., but it concerned another branch of government.

Ed Curran was head of the National Institute of Education (NIE). This happens to be one of Secretary Bell's favorite agencies. According to Donald Lambro, a noted expert on government waste, NIE also is "one of the ten worst agencies in the entire federal rathole." Well, Curran wrote a letter to President Reagan during the last week of May, suggesting that NIE -- the agency that Curran headed -- ought to be abolished. This action infuriated Secretary Bell, who called Curran into his office and demanded: "How can you head an agency that you think should not exist?" It's difficult to fire a federal employee, even for a good reason. So, it wasn't until June 9th that Curran was actually fired, and this because the action was approved by Presidential Counsellor Ed Meese. Meese explained that "as long as Bell is secretary and continues to have the President's confidence, he has to be able to work with his subordinates. There just has to be a certain discipline." In a separate letter on the subject, Meese wrote, "The decision has been made to keep the NIE .. it was a Cabinet decision." The irony of it all being that Curran was fired for proposing to do exactly what Bell was hired to do. Bell was hired to abolish the entire Department. Instead, he makes the Department stronger, and will make it even stronger and more powerful if he is able to turn the Department of Education into an independent foundation, free from Congressional oversight or control. And the added irony: the agency which Bell proposes to use as the center of his new foundation is the very agency that Curran wanted to abolish and that Lambro called one of the ten worst agencies in the whole federal rathole.

There seems little chance of Bell obtaining the necessary Congressional approval for his desired foundation. But there is an equally dangerous project which Bell has been able to install on a sort of test basis in twenty States. This is an operation called Project BEST (Basic Education Skills Through Technology). It is described by the Education Department as "a cooperative effort involving both the federal, state and local governments and the private sector in the planning and use of modern information technologies to improve the effectiveness of basic skills teaching and learning. It is funded by the Division of Educational Technology of the U.S. Department of Education. BEST is a twenty-one month contract which began in November 1981."

*******************************************

A MISUNDERSTANDING WE ARE PLEASED TO RECTIFY
Law Offices, Ball & Skelly
Harrisburg, Pennsylvannia

Don Bell Reports
PO Box 2223
Palm Beach, Florida 33480

Gentleman:

... Don Bell Reports for April 23, 1982 ... deals with vouchers and tuition tax credits. Therein reference is made to the Education Voucher Institute's holding a conference on April 29 and 30, 1982, on education vouchers and tax credits. In this connection it is implied that I would be advocating broadly, education vouchers or tuition tax credits.

I will very much appreciate your correcting that statement.

I did not appear at the scheduled conference at University of Delaware due to a conflict in schedule, but, had I appeared, I would have expressed very very strong warnings against any voucher or tuition tax credit plan which did not embrace certain criteria. I quite agree with you that many people have gone head over heels in favor of "tuition tax credits" or "vouchers", without any thought as to government controls. In my view, a voucher or tax credit program which did not have very clear restraints on the governmental role would be extremely bad and should be rejected.

I also realize even some very good conservatives are looking uncritically at the tuition tax credit concept.

Very truly yours,
(signed)
William B. Ball

*******************************************

The contract mentioned is one made with the Association for Educational Communications and Technology (AECT), an NEA spinoff group. The contract calls for a twenty-one month grant of $855,282. The purpose is to develop computer-based cirriculum materials which will then be disseminated to schools across the nation. Or, to put this in the Department's own words: "A primary goal of the project is to create a network of states and professional organizations that will encourage an exchange of ideas, people and information, and that can continue to grow and to function even after the work of the project is completed. Specifically, the project will provide training and technical assistance to State Education Agencies (SEAs) in the areas of basic skills and technology. Increasing the abilities of SEAs to utilize advanced telecommunications technology and adding to their awareness of successful applications in the field will, in turn, strengthen state efforts to improve Local Education Agencies and school capabilities. The project staff will develop a variety of products, services and linkages with people and resources in the public and private sectors to accomplish the above goals. They will include:

• Written materials on the use of technology in basic skills education
• Audio-Visual teleconferencing to present information on successful applications in the field
• An electronic mailbox to encourage information sharing
• A databank that will include information on software; names of local experts available to assist SEAs and local school districts; and bibliographies of materials on educational technology, the use of technology in education, and the application of technology to basic skills education
• a series of ongoing working relations with industry, professioknal associations, state, regional, and local education groups. (Unquote).

Project BEST is a part of Secretary Bell's Technology Initiative, and includes a National Diffusion Network which, in the final analysis will go far beyond the schoolroom. The outcome, as stated in a Department publication, is explained in these words:

When the title "state teams" is used, it refers especially to an organization called the Council of Chief State School Officers, 379 Hall of the States, 400 North Capitol Street, NW, Washington, DC 20001. This non-profit organization believes that education "is the responsibility of the individual states." Not of the parents, not of the church, not of the community, but of the states. However, it also believes that "each level of government has appropriate roles and responsibilities which are complementary to one another. Thus, each level of government must provide strong leadership in its educational efforts .. the federal government should provide a strong proportional share of education's financial support (and) if special national educational goals are developed, federal programs to achieve them must allow states to have some flexibility in putting them into practice." In the matter of Education for Global Interdependence "the Council urges state education agencies, with the aid of the federal government, to set up, maintain and coordinate programs of international education. Based on the concept of global interdependence, such programs can lead to increased understanding and help in the struggle to attain world harmony and peace."

This "National Diffusion Network" has recently been strengthened by moving it into regional offices. At least 45 States have received over a period of five years an average of half-a-million dollars each to set up a sophisticated computerized dissemination system through which State Departments of Education provide pre-selected and pre-programmed cirriculum materials from computerized databanks. Such materials are prepared by those same change agents and educationist organizations that have already done so much to bring about the decline in public education. Through Project BEST such materials are to be made available on a wholesale basis to every public school in the nation. Remember, so long as the Department of Education continues to exist, America's children will be compulsory attendants at a nationally telecomputerized project aimed at making them wards of the state and contented socialist slaves in a humanistic society devoid of any hope beyond their graves. For some there remains a way of escape: enrollment in a private or church-operated school. But in times like this, millions of parents would find the paying of the necessary tuition difficult, or even impossible. Therefore, if our country is to be saved, its schools must first be saved. And parents must be alerted to this necessity, and must act as independnet citizens, not as the spiritless slaves Big Brother expects them to be.

Guardians of Traditional Education, PO Box 606, Bowie, Maryland, 20715, insists that "The moment of truth has arrived on education -- not only for President Reagan but for all of us. Over and over again the American people have demonstrated by their votes and their concerns that they care deeply about what has happened to American public education. Now is the time for action! .. Under Bell's "New Technology Initiative" the agenda for education has once again been turned over to the same coterie of national education interest groups whose perverse priorities and betrayal of the public trust precipitated a national crisis. Education is the most important domestic issue of the eighties. You Must Prove It!"

And Betsy Kraus, president of Missourians for Educational Excellence and also head of the educational network exchange Committee for Educational Research & Analysis, issues the following warning:

URGENT
The situation has become critical. Terrel Bell, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education, is spending dollars fast and furiously to establish an even broader Computer Technology network, "A New Initiative" around the country which is called Project BEST. This project is one of the final, if not the final "jerk" of the MBO noose around our children's necks. "If Project BEST is not stopped, it's going to be curtains for our kids," states Charlotte Iserbyt. Mrs. Iserbyt is the Senior Policy Advisor to Donald Senese, who in turn is the Assisstant Secretary of Educational Research and Improvement with the Department of Education. Mr. Senese's department is the cutting edge for all educational policy which has tremendous consequences at our local level. Mrs. Iserbyt has been in the battlefield of education, fighting to save our children for the last ten years. She has been in Washington for about a year, watching these latest developments. Now she has courageously and accurately reported what is happening within the Department. But she cannot fight this alone. We must demand that Project BEST be stopped! Write to your Congressman, your Senators, your President..

Extra copies of this Newsletter: 1 copy: 25 cents, 10 copies: $1.50, 20 copies: $3.00, 30 copies: $4.50, 40 copies: $6.00, 50 copies: $7.50, 100 copies: $10.00. More than 100 copies: 10 cents each. Please include extra if 1st class postage is desired. Subscription rates: $24 per year. Foreign airmail: $30 per year. DON BELL REPORTS Weekly, emphasizing the Christian American point of view. Address all orders: DON BELL REPORTS, P.O. BOX 2223, PALM BEACH, FLORIDA 33480

Back to Top