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School-to-Work and SCANS: When USA Workforce & Education will be ONE! or TQM and the New National Religion for All!
by Joe Esposito 918-274-8111 October 16,1997
SCANS is an acronym for the Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills developed by and for the U.S. Department of Labor (April 1992). SCANS culminates with a proposal for five competencies and three foundation skills. Without the public's knowledge and without being codified in law, SCANS is being used to radically transform education and the workforce into ONE system in the United States.
In 1988, the National Center on Education and Economy (NCEE) included Marc Tucker, Ira Magaziner, and Hillary Rodham Clinton as board members. NCEE helped create a document called America's Choice: High Skills or Low Wages (1990) which called for the restructuring and education reform. SCANS was then created in (1992) to be "THE TOOL" to accomplish those goals.
I served on Governor Frank Keating's Oklahoma council for implementation of School-to-Work (STW). This five-year plan from the U.S. Department of Labor and U.S. Department of Education provides seed monies for state startup. However, after the five years, state taxpayers will pick up the bill and no estimated cost has ever been stated. Moreover, control remains with the federal government.
While serving on the council, I did extensive research of STW and it became evident that this plan is a federal take over of the U.S. educational and workforce systems. In this plan, vocational education, general education, higher education, and the workforce will all become ONE system. I combined this research into a book, Tangled Web, which traces the SCANS and documents its progress. In the back of Tangled Web is a chart which demonstrates the interactions of allegedly separate and independent organizations.
The proponents of these radical changes use carefully chosen rhetoric. Phrases such as "concentrating educational efforts on what students need to know and be able to do" sound inspiring and positive--but the definitions of the terms have changed. SCANS is actually the implementation of TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT. As TQM is implemented, personal values are taken from the individual and replaced with a unified set of beliefs from the corporation (or the government). American citizens will be trained through Pavlovian techniques what to know and do, and more specifically, how to behave and what to believe.
As you read the evidence, note the similarity of terminology! Also keep in mind: need to know=what is necessary for the work the government determines is beneficial to the country; be able to do= meet minimum competencies to fill positions the government determines necessary. The phrases "know" and "do" are evidence of SCANS and have spread nationally, been accepted locally, and internationally. It can now be shown that the different organizations promoting this plan are converging on the same standards, "SCANS" with its standards deceptively predetermined before being disseminated.
One can trace the use of the key words "know" and "do" back to the SCANS report--Learning a Living: A Blueprint for High Performance a SCANS Report for America 2000. The Secretary's Commission On Achieving Necessary Skills U.S. Department of Labor (April 1992). "Employers tell educators 'what work requires of schools'. [This phrase is the title of another SCANS report.] Educators, in their turn, inform employers of the [SCANS] competencies that students have attained. Teachers certify 'what students know and can do.'"
The following are but a few of the connections.
1. Education reform in Oklahoma from 1989-1992 began to draw attention to this concept. Sandy Garrett said, "OBE is about what students know, what they can do and what they are like. The Oklahoma Learner Outcomes list the 'know' and 'do' parts of the equation. SCANS isolated the very same characteristics often cited as desirable exit outcomes for an OBE education model."
2. Vocational education is now the main carrier of the SCANS disease. Brent Lovejoy, Executive Director of American Vocational Association, used the same phrases in May 1996. He said, "The redesign of education must focus on what students need to know and--this is the key--be able to do."
3. In "Full Subject Matter, Competencies for Licensure and Certification" (January 1997) the Oklahoma State Deparatment of Education enumerates, "What the Superintendent Candidate Will Know; What the Superintendent Candidate Will be able to do."
4. On October 16, 1997, the web page for the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) suggested there is a "need for curricular reform". In addition, they stated, "This vision addresses what mathematics is, what it means to know and do mathematics."
5. The Executive Summary of A Splintered Vision: An Investigation of U.S. Science and Mathematics Education by the Third International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS), which promotes an international test, states, "Reforms have already been proposed by political, business, educational and other leaders. Extensive efforts are underway to implement these standards."
6. President Clinton wants the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB) to oversee the new and controversial national testing program. This is the same board that oversees the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP). As of August 2, 1996, NAGB is in the process of redesigning the NAEP. They list as Objective 2, "To develop, through a national concensus, sound assessment to measure what students know and can do as well as what students should know and be able to do." (It is interesting to note how many NAGB board members are associated with New Standard States, NCEE, and the Achieve Board.)
7. "The Voluntary National Tests Transcripts of Public Meetings" (February 19, 1997) says, "The President has been thinking for quite a while the idea of standards, what kids should know and be able to do, is an idea that's caught on." [sic]
8. If there is any doubt that the whole country is having SCANS done to us, look at the capstone report, "Assessment in Transition: Monitoring the Nation's Educational Progress" (1997). The summary proclaims, "Third: NAEP is the nation's report card...This would include attention to workplace related skills such as those that motivated the SCANS commission."
9. Reviewing a current School-to-Work grant for nearly $300,000 involving Campus Partners for Community Urban Redevelopment, we read, "The system will focus on building career-related SCANS competencies (necessary skills for all students identified by a U.S. Department of Labor Commission) at every level of education and across all disciplines...A seamless and comprehensive STW system will be created by the consistent use of the SCANS (Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills, 1991) competencies as an organizing framework across all academic disciplines at every level of education. Further, it applies to all students and all industries... As parents and community members learn, themselves, [sic] to easily recognize what the SCANS competencies are and when they see them demonstrated in their multiple environments, including the home."
The Tangled Web is sixty-three pages of documents showing the implementation of SCANS: nine different states' STW grants, federal hearings, Oklahoma Chambers of Commerce, first Certificate of Mastery (CIM), vocational education funding grants, the involvement of other countries, and much more.
There are actually twelve SCANS documents. Yet, how are people going to fight something if they don't know it exists? Leaders on the national level extol national standards, competencies, careers, and skill standards; but, what is being discussed is SCANS.
The most amazing thing is SCANS is not in any state or federal LAW. It has been cunningly introduced, without public understanding. In fact, the entire SCANS implementation has been a deception.
Is this what Americans have fought and died for? Is this what America is about? Is this what Americans want?
Now that you know, do! Call your governor and representatives at the state and national levels. Tell your neighbors so they can know and do.
Summary of the book,Tangled Web,
by Joe Esposito
A culmination of Laws passed by Congress (with no public debate -- and for which they had not one shred of constitutional authority) is about to make radical changes in our lives -- and especially in the lives of our children. Following are ...Excerpts from, and a link to,
the fully documented report.
Introduction
"School to Work" and "Total Quality Management" are deceptive terms for what is being sold piecemeal (to each according to what he would like to hear) to educators, to parents, to industry, and to labor. But the whole pie, when in place, will look very different from the individual pieces. The real losers will be the children.First Outcomes
Certificate of Initial Mastery
Personal experience from a "pilot school.""The Thief of American Individualism" by Tim Clem
A former Xerox executive sums it all up.Link to Tangled Web
Researched and Compiled
by Joe Esposito
The fully documented reportTo see all the wonderful things that Kidogo has in store for you...
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