DALLAS – What a devious plan.

Ann Sminsko, presently academic chief for the Dallas Independent School District used to work at the Texas Education Agency during the 1980s and 1990s when the National Center for Education and the Economy’s (NCEE) cradle-to-the-grave education plan under Marc Tucker and Hillary Clinton was spreading across our nation.

This plan was to spew high school student out into the workforce without their taking a full four-year academic course of study. High school graduates who have only shallow knowledge make easily manipulated voters.

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At the same time, the NCEE model provided for full day prekindergarten where children were to be taken at a very young age and thrust into government schools. “The better to indoctrinate you, my dear.”

During the 198s and 1990s, Smisko and other Texas Education Agency (TEA) facilitators were trained by the NCEE at a cost of $1.5 million coming from Texas taxpayers without the elected members of the Texas Board of Education and most other Texans knowing about it.

NCEE trained these facilitators to know how to use the Delphi Technique to take over the TEKS standards writing committees and to psychologically manipulate them to produce type two curriculum standards. Texas’ type two curriculum standards (TEKS) were passed in July 1997. These TEKS stayed in place until May 2008. (Chart on type one and type two.)

It is NCEE that came up with the plan to push public schools from the type one philosophy of education in which knowledge-based, academic content is emphasized toward type two, in which the subjective, project-based, cognitive domain (emphasis on feelings, opinions, beliefs) are emphasized.

The NCEE’s plan was to have the government take over people’s lives from the cradle to the grave; and it is this plan that has led to the Obama administration’s Common Core Standards in which indoctrination into the social justice agenda is the goal rather than to provide students with a strong traditional foundation of academic knowledge and skills. Texas managed to thwart the NCEE’s school-to-work plan by passing type one TEKS starting in May 2008, but the 83rd Legislative Session undid all that effort when they recently passed HB5 and HB 866. Another disastrous bill that passed was HB1122.

Ann Smiko undoubtedly was the person who helped write HB 1122. Then all she had to do was to convince a Dallas school board member to convince three rather unsavvy Dallas Legislators to push the bill through — two big-government Democrats (Anchia and Johnson) and one young Republican (Sheets — who probably knew nothing about the NCEE, cradle-to-the-grave, school-to-work plan).

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The question that these three Legislators should have asked (but undoubtedly did not) is this:  How do we know that students could shove four years of the rigorous “new” TEKS into three years when it has not been done before?  The new TEKS have only applied to present-day juniors on down; no seniors have ever graduated under the new type one TEKS because the present-day seniors were grandfathered into the July 1997 type two TEKS.

One of the reasons that the elected members of the Texas State Board of Education worked so hard to pass the type one TEKS in English/language arts/reading, science, social studies, and math (starting in May 2008) is that they realized the 1997 TEKS did not require students to learn rigorous, knowledge-based, academic curriculum that grew in depth and complexity from one grade level to the next.

The SBOE also knew that the “old” graduation requirements were not rigorous enough, and that is why they put into place the 4 x 4 in which students (this year’s juniors on down) would take four rigorous years of English, science, social studies, and math.

Many of this year’s seniors (and those who came before them under those “old” TEKS) probably were bored; and because of the less-than-rigorous graduation requirements in place for them, they could  “blow off” their senior year (sometimes even their junior year) by finalizing their credit requirements early.

Having worked so long at the TEA, Ann Smisko (a type two proponent) surely knew about the new type one TEKS and 4 x 4 graduation requirements;  however, her desire has assuredly been to bring back the NCEE model from the 80’s.

All Smisko had to do was to locate a gullible school board member and three easily convinced Dallas legislators whom she could manipulate into thinking that students could graduate from Dallas high schools in three years.

Voila! HB 1122 got passed, and now the Dallas three-year-high-school graduation model is going to be considered for other school districts in the state.

This is the Marc Tucker/Hillary Clinton cradle-to-the-grave model which is now moving into our Texas public schools through HB 1122.  Not only have HB 5 and HB 866 dumbed down our Texas public schools, but those bills have also opened the door to HB 1122 which will allow students to graduate in three years without the strong foundational skills that would have made them knowledgeable voters and productive citizens.

In our ever-changing world today, many employees may have to change their vocations from 5 to 10 times in a lifetime. Today’s graduates need all the rigorous, core, foundational knowledge and skills they can get rather than providing them with an “escape route” from that fourth year of higher-level, high-school content.

I dare someone to prove to me after reading the rigorous requirements in the new TEKS (ELAR, science, social studies, and math) that Dallas ISD students (or other Texas students) can master them in only three years!  Obviously for most students, a three-year program will mean many of these TEKS will be completely ignored; and they will graduate with a dumbed-down degree.

Authored by Donna Garner – EducationViews