Federal Curriculum, Mental Health Screening, and STW


Federal Curriculum, Mental Health Screening, and STW


Urgent
EdAction Alert


March 22, 2005

1. Alert: Support cuts to the Federal
Curriculum, Mental Health Screening, and STW
2. Alert: Oppose the Expansion of NCLB to High Schools

Congress in Spring Recess until April 4th. This is a great time to ask for a
meeting with your Senators and Representative..

I. Alert:
Support cuts to the Federal Curriculum, Mental Health Screening, and STW
The President has proposed significant cuts to
the Federal Curriculum, Mental Health Screening in the schools, and
School-to-Work. Those proposals will not survive the Congressional budget
process without the involvement of thousands of parents and taxpayers. The
well-funded special interests are lining up to defend these programs. Please
take advantage of this important opportunity to eliminate some very bad
programs in the U.S. Department of Education.

EdAction urges you to alert your networks to contact your U.S. senators and
representative to tell them to:
     Support a budget resolution that includes elimination
of all of programs included in the President’s proposed 2006 Department of
Education budget request.
     For a sample letter, click here. Please forward us a
copy of your letter at
edaction@lakes.com.

The following programs are particularly
important to eliminate:

The Federal Curriculum:

  • Excellence in Economic Education
    ($1.5 million) Funds a single non-governmental organization to publish,
    promote, and distribute specific economics standards.

Mental Health

  • Mental Health Integration in Schools
    ($5.0 million)  Links school systems with the mental health
    system.
  1. “to enhance, improve, or develop
    collaborative efforts between school-based service systems and
    mental health service systems
  2. to provide, enhance, or improve
    prevention, diagnosis, and treatment services to students.” This is
    5 million more dollars for screening, labeling and drugging
    students.     (See our

    update    .)
  • Foundations for Learning ($1.0 million)
    Provides federal grants to states and other agencies for preschool
    screenings, parent education, social services, home visits,
    transportation and curriculum to support “social and emotional
    development,”     all based on vary vague criteria like being “at risk”
    of being removed from child care or “exposed to parental mental
    illness.”

      Subsidizes
the labeling and drugging of an alarmingly large population of young
children with potent medications that have not been studied in that age
group. (See our

update.)

School-to-Work



  • Smaller Learning Communities          ($94.5 million) ” The
    question before us is whether…we accept bureaucrats choosing careers
    for our children and directing our economy, or whether liberty will
    remain our children s future. (See article in

    Education Reporter    )
  • Vocational Education National
    Programs     ($11.8 million) Institutes research, assessment,
    evaluation, dissemination, and technical assistance for the
    School-to-Work system that links centralized workforce planning with job
    training in the schools.(See our

    update    .)
  • Vocational Education State Grants
    ( $1,194.3 million) More money to direct states into the
    workforce planning system. (See Marc Tucker’s

    letter to Hillary Clinton    , 1992.)

  • Tech-Prep
    Education State Grants     ( $105.8 million) Transforms schools
    away from academic learning and into job training programs    . (See

    “School-to-Work is Alive and Well    .”)


  • Present STW programs are incorporated into the

    federal     Workforce Investment system that requires states to
    put appointed government planning agencies in charge of business
    development. Schools become the

    “supplier” of a planned economy    , STW is not the voc-ed of a
    generation ago. All students, in today’s STW system, must be on
    career paths at least by 7th or 8th grades, and academics is relegated
    only to what’s useful for the students’ planned career. Parents have
    rebelled over their children’s futures being determined by 12 and 13
    years old.

Other programs




  • Regional Educational Laboratories     ($66.1 million) These Labs
    have been the planning centers for Transformation Education since
    they began four decades ago.
     


  • Comprehensive School Reform ($205.3 million) This program
    funds numerous efforts to transform schools from knowledge-based
    learning to social services centers    , School-to-Work, Early
    Childhood centers    , and transformational learning.

A
sample letter to members of Congress is available on our website.
Personalize your letter to your senators and representative and send it via
email. For more impact, print it out and fax it to their offices! Fax
numbers may be found

here,
 
———————————————————
2. Alert: Oppose the Expansion of
NCLB to High Schools
 

The
proposal to expand No Child Left Behind to high schools expands federal
authority ever farther over education. The National Governor’s Association
is fully behind this expansion, having launched Goals 2000 and
School-to-Work in 1989. The columnist George Will wrote:


“When, a couple of weeks ago, the RSC [a group of conservative
Republicans in Congress] met in Baltimore to enumerate its priorities,
their list included “maintaining local control of secondary education.”
That may seem an anodyne sentiment; actually it is a shot across the
Bush administration’s bow. It is code for: Enough centralization — we
oppose the president’s plan for  extending federal standards to
high schools. Thirty-four House Republicans voted against No Child Left
Behind in 2001. More might oppose the administration’s planned extension
of its sweep.” [Emphasis added.]


Please urge your members to strongly oppose NCLB into high schools. Your
calls make a powerful difference.

For a clear explanation of NCLB, read

AMERICA’S SCHOOLS: The Battleground for Freedom,, by Professor Allen
Quist. The author explains how international agreements form the basis of No
Child Left Behind. He also describes how the state standards and assessments
are promoting pantheism, multi-culturalism and the New Marxism. Most
important, he describes where we go from here.

Contact information for Alerts to Congress:
To find your members of Congress and e-mail and telephone contact
information, visit
this website and click on your own state. For a sample letter,

click here. Both the House and the Senate have passed their budget
resolutions. The specific programs that will be included in these guidelines
will be determined in the coming weeks and months. It is very important that
the public weighs in on some very important budget issues. Please forward us
a copy of your letter at edaction@lakes.com. Thank you!

===============================================
EdAction is entirely user-supported. The continuation of our work is
dependent upon individual contributors. EdAction is a political action
committee. Contributions are not tax deductible. We promote the work of
EdWatch. If you want to ensure that our work continues, contact us here. If
you want to subscribe or unsubscribe to this EdAction e-mail service, mail
to: edaction@lakes.com. Put “subscribe” or “unsubscribe” in the SUBJECT of
the message.