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Katy Citizen Watchdog$ |
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We’re Taxpayers. It’s Our Money. |
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The Business Roundtable - Part I |
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The Business Roundtable was created in 1972 by a handful of businessmen’s groups who thought that big business should have a role in the development of public policy. According to the “History” on their web site (http://www.businessroundtable.org/), they wanted an “organization where the CEO's of leading enterprises would get together, study issues, try to develop a consensus, formulate positions and advocate those views.” These are laudable sounding goals and a move that was certainly inevitable considering the financial aspirations and desires of a conglomerate of business interests. Much that the Business Roundtable does is worthy. The CEO's let no grass grow under their feet as they became involved with governmental activity. Believing in the free enterprise system, as I do, I cannot fault them for organizing and inserting themselves into the process of developing policies of our government. What I can fault them for is the extreme measures to which they have gone to control public policy, especially with regard to education. It’s difficult to determine what came first: bad schools or education reform. In my mind, they pretty much go hand in hand. As I have stated many times, the education that was being delivered in public schools across America up until 1975 in most places and as late as 1980 in others, was the finest that had ever been conceived and maintained in any country in the world. Our educational system placed America at the forefront in every educational and economic and military effort on a worldwide basis. America was nonpareil in the world. So what happened that made corporate moguls decide to interfere with that almost perfect system? First, what most people understood in the 1970’s was that minority schools in America were operating at a level much below mainstream suburban white schools. For the sake of political correctness, no one would speak out loud about the differences and their causes. In order to bring the minority schools up to par, they could not be singled out, so the effort to change things had to be universal so as to avoid charges of discrimination. The silliness and absurdity of the approach is legend. In our area of the country the first thing that was tried was to place white teachers in minority schools and minority teachers in white schools. The effort was made to make this change in most large urban school districts all over America. In the Houston ISD, the effort was a big joke. Instead of also moving administrators, the administrators stayed in place, so the experiment was a big waste of time and money. Everyone was angry, turf was violated, nothing changed, and the students in all of the schools were the losers. The decision to move the teachers to accomplish parity in and of itself was biased and discriminatory. I know about these matters because I was a “cross-over” teacher in 1970 when the program was started. I taught for two years at Booker T. Washington in Houston ISD. While I adored my students--kids are kids no matter where you find them--the administrators at that school were the pits. The racial and ethnic prejudice I witnessed not only toward all of us who were white but also toward all the minority students was more than incredible. So that experiment as well as magnet schools, busing, and all the other things that were tried, served no valid purpose because in the thirty years since, nothing has changed for minority students. When those students have wise parents, they move them out of schools that do not work and into parochial schools, charter schools, home schools, or suburban neighborhood schools. The problem is getting minority students that “equal” opportunity for a formal education. I really would like to believe that the Business Roundtable leaders wished to improve and reform public education for all students, and if you read their propaganda, you will surely believe that their intent was sincere. But knowing what I know after many years of reading, observation, and discussion, I cannot believe that “education reform” a la the Business Roundtable is anything but a sham. Their motives are spurious and deceitful. The intent of the BRT has NOT been to make education better; it has been instead an attempt to dumb down ALL students so that the big businesses can have a ready pool of semi-skilled compliant, malleable, unquestioning workers to do their bidding. They care nothing about the plight of minority students or any other students. Such a disservice to American children deserves to be exposed. When I became aware of this group, I wrote to them and asked for their brochures that they ordinarily sent to corporations regarding education reform. They did not realize my intents and purposes, and so they sent them. I told my education cohorts about the brochures, and they also asked for copies. When the BRT realized what we were about, they stopped sending them to the public. Such a move certainly raised my suspicions, because as far as I am concerned, if one is doing what’s ethically right, one does not try to hide it. The brochures that they sent included: A New Architecture for Education Reform; Agents of Change; A Business Leader’s Guide to Setting Academic Standards; The Essential Components of a Successful Education System; and Continuing the Commitment. A New Architecture for Education Reform was a 1994 Report to the Public on the Business Roundtable’s National Education Reform Initiative. The report was prepared by Paul T. Hill, Kelly E. Warner, The RAND Institute for Education and Training, and The University of Washington Institute for Public Policy and Management. There is no copyright. After the National Governor’s Conference in 1989 (to which I have alluded elsewhere in Mary‘s Corner) which was led by former President Bush, Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander, and Governor Bill Clinton, the government sought the help of large corporate CEO's to help them “restructure” education. Perhaps I am naïve, but I try to believe that President Bush really was sincere in trying to improve the education of American students. All of these public figures had read the 1983 report “A Nation at Risk” which was prepared by the National Commission on Excellence in Education. They knew how bad many American schools were and how poor the education was that was being delivered in those schools. At first look it would seem laudable that these CEO's would come to the aid of their country. However, altruism was not in their hearts, and they saw this moment as one to be seized for less than worthy purposes. These CEO's understood how America’s big businesses needed fewer, not more, truly educated people. What these big businesses DID need were people who would work for less money, be satisfied with more menial occupations, and who would not have critical thinking skills to the point that they would question such servitude as they were being programmed to enter. So how is such a devious plan enacted? Certainly not openly. The Rand Institute is well known for its military manipulations in times of conflict. As strategists, those at the Rand Institute were well qualified to organize a deception of the American people. In the name of “improvement” then, this bunch set out, not to improve, but to mask an effort to diminish the quality of our public educational system. Read that line again, because it is serious and important, and if the reader cannot grasp that, then he cannot understand the vile and ignoble direction this group has fostered. How does one hide such an effort? Words. Words have many meanings, and in order to obscure reality, words have been given double meanings all over the place. The cunning craft of these people is unbelievable. It will take me a while to explain it all, but explain I will. The Roundtable Task Force to change our educational system was led by the former IBM CEO John Akers. They set out to engage BRT members in every state to work for ten years (beginning in 1990) to ostensibly assure that by 2000 every state would see “more effective schools and higher student achievement.” Their goals are all well known to the average American. We have had them crammed down our throats for sixteen years: All students can learn. We know how to teach all students successfully. Curriculum content reflects high expectations for all students. Every child must have an advocate, preferably a parent. The educational system is performance-based. The system uses assessments to measure progress. Schools are rewarded for “success” and penalized for persistent or dramatic failure. The school-based staff has a major role in making instructional decisions. Major emphasis is placed on staff development. Pre-kindergarten is established especially for disadvantaged students. Health and other social services are provided to reduce significant barriers to learning. Technology is used to raise student and teacher productivity and expand access to learning. All of these things are supposed to work together, and supposedly they must ALL be implemented to find “success.” In order to accomplish these goals the BRT accosted every state legislature in America, found their lackeys and got legislation passed while no one was paying attention to what they were doing. In Texas the lackeys were Senator Bill Ratliff, Republican from Mt. Pleasant and a long time Kennedy Family friend and State Representative Paul Sadler, Democrat from Henderson. Both of these fellows answered the call and joined with our governor, George W. Bush, to implement the BRT agenda--lock stock and barrel. Just to clarify the intent of this bunch, Senate Bill 1, their 1995 masterpiece of deception was touted as returning local control to individual school districts, but instead of doing that, local control was “returned” to the superintendent, not the locally elected school board members. To add insult to injury, control of the budget was taken away from the school board and given to the superintendent. So the school board’s legal right to “manage and govern” the school district was changed to “govern and oversee the management of” the school district. Subtle, but ever so important. The design of these instigators of change is to eventually place our state in such a financial mess that we will vote upon ourselves a state income tax, and when that time comes, we will be so happy to do that to ourselves that we will not be able to imagine why we did not do it sooner! Needless to say my contempt for those members of the Business Roundtable and our governments who were and are party to this ruse knows no bounds. They all deserve to be drawn and quartered at Minute Maid Park in full view of all those whom they have harmed by taking away one of their most precious rights--the right to a free, quality public education.
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Mary McGarr, Katy Citizen Watchdog$ |
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Date: 06/22/2006 |
