As the fight to reform American education institutions continues to simmer, it’s always helpful to draw on the great wisdom and experience of the great reformers who have gone before us. Earlier this year, our Education Reporter chose to highlight one of the great works of education reform—The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America by the late Charlotte Iserbyt (IH-ser-BIT). Iserbyt served as the senior policy adviser in the Department of Education during President Ronald Reagan’s first term.
Her comprehensive book is a must-read for education activists that face the growing conflict between parents and the education establishment over who should control what children are taught in America’s schools. It is potentially the most thoroughly researched and documented work ever written on how American education has been subverted, undermined, and yes, “dumbed down” over the nation’s 250-year history. Iserbyt’s book contains 30 years of research and serves as a factual history and chronology of the this subversion of American education culminating in the disastrous result we see playing out in the schools today. She leaves no stone unturned in unmasking the names and education machinations of numerous plavers over nearly 150 years.
Over these years, education bureaucracies have moved away from academic instruction, instead embracing broader social and political agendas. Parents across the country have voiced concerns about ideological bias in curricula, blatant political activism in schools, and policies that withhold important information about students from their own families. Thankfully this shift has been met with a rise of grassroots activism. Across the country, parents have begun attending school board meetings in large numbers, organizing community groups, and demanding greater transparency in how schools operate. However, there is still much to be done.
Iserbyt’s book provides a clear explanation that education is not just about academics; it is about values, culture, and the formation of the next generation. That’s why it has been front and center in the left’s radical agenda. This debate in education is far from concluded. Parents and activists alike would do well to pick up a copy of Charlotte Iserbyt’s The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America and learn not only what has happened to our American schools, but what we can do to restore them!
There are many great book reviews to be found in our Education Reporter every month! Visit PhyllisSchlafly.com to find them, that’s PhyllisSchlafly.com, and join us tomorrow for the Phyllis Schlafly Report.
