Today's push for government-mandated attitudes, values, and beliefs in public schools — masquerading as education reform — is an unreported crisis in the nation's classrooms. Crisis in the Classroom, a newly-released special television report, exposes what the education elite don't want the public to know.
The documentary outlines key education issues and why they are so important. Since the 1960s, public school crime has skyrocketed, academic achievement has plummeted, and a radical social and political agenda has saturated textbooks and curriculum. At the same time, taxpayer spending on public schools has shot up from $15.6 billion annually to $230 billion.
Crisis contains exclusive interviews with the national newsmakers on the front line of education. Bill Honig, former California superintendent who first implemented the whole language method of reading, admits that it "became a cult. . . Educators were clouded by the rhetoric and the belief [behind whole language], and basically the parents were more accurate on the essentials of it than many of the educators."
Such failure is not merely coincidental. Part 2 of Crisis in the Classroom discusses "hidden agendas" — the history of education "reform" efforts. Since the early 20th century, U.S. educators have been heavily influenced by European philosophers whose ideals of socialism, collectivism, and atheism became the driving force behind education. The report scrutinizes the National Education Association's role in modern education and how Outcome-Based Education (OBE) facilitates the training of children as servants of the state and global economy.
The final part addresses the growing grassroots opposition to this education agenda through two effective means: literacy and political action. From California to Connecticut, parents are successfully teaching their children to read and defeating OBE in their communities. This report is an important resource for all who want to look beyond the rhetoric of education "reform" and join the growing movement to teach the basics.