Marc Tucker's New Education Initiative
By Allen Quist

    On December 14, 2006, Marc Tucker released his new education proposal, Tough Choices or Tough Times. His plan reads like a bad novel. It is mostly rhetoric, and the claims he makes are fantasy-land variety. If America adopts his plan, according to Tucker, the following will happen: “No one will fail,” he says; and, “we can send almost everyone to college and have them do well there,” Tucker insists; and “95% of our students will [be qualified for college].” Such wild claims are not only unreasonable, they are bizarre. Any experienced teacher knows they are utopian, at best. And does Tucker offer any real evidence his plan can improve education? He does not.
    What is Tucker up to? When reading his proposal, it becomes evident that Tucker has bigger things in mind than merely helping kids learn. The heart and center of his master plan is stated on page 1, paragraph 1, of his Executive Summary. Tucker says that “to compete in the world economy, the United States must adopt internationally benchmarked standards for educating its students and workers.”

Internationally Benchmarked Standards
    Education standards mean ‘curriculum standards,’ also called “content standards.” What would occur if our nation were to adopt international education standards? It would mean that the United Nations (UN) decides what our children will learn. Stated another way, it means the UN will determine what our children will be taught, including specifying the attitudes, values and worldview.
    Most every government has its own education system. The Tucker proposal transforms our education system into what is essentially a UN government system.
    Can Tucker succeed in selling his radical system? He may. He is counting on business to help sell the proposal. Many of them will see the plan as a way of certifying the same basic job skills for all the workers of the world with the training done at taxpayer expense, no less. This way businesses can move skilled workers around the world the same way they move minerals, oil and technology.

Go to Article

Tucker Plan Includes Cradle Control
By Dr. Karen R. Effrem, MD

    Marc Tucker’s ‘new and improved’ School to Work opus, Tough Choices or Tough Times, aside from treating our children as mere widgets or ‘human capital’ to be used as government and industry see fit, also seeks to begin wresting control from parents about what our children think and believe as early as possible, even before kindergarten. A key step of his plan is to: “Provide high-quality, universal early childhood education.”
    As discussed in Professor Allen Quist’s recent article, Marc Tucker’s New Education Initiative, the Tucker plan seeks to educate and train America’s children according to “internationally benchmarked standards.”  Internationally benchmarked standards are ‘content’ standards. This includes compliance with the United Nations’ (UNESCO) 1990 international education agreement Education for All (EFA) that set the framework for U.N. international content standards.
    As also pointed out by Professor Quist in his article Why Re-Authorize No Child Left Behind, the philosophies of both EFA and Tucker’s first plan form the foundation of major federal education legislation Goals 2000, Improving America’s Schools, and No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Acts. These federal laws have resulted in the imposition of national standards or a federal curriculum. Professor Quist goes on to say regarding early childhood: “NCLB, as required by international agreements, directs much of its funding to early childhood education - even though numerous studies have shown that early childhood education has no academic benefit past the third grade. At the same time, various social engineers are imposing a curriculum into early childhood education that includes the ideology of the feminists, homosexuals and globalists. This curriculum is obviously not in the national interest.”
    It is no coincidence that the list of goals in Goals 2000, which are really mandates and form the foundation of NCLB, are remarkably similar to the goals of EFA because both Goals 2000 and NCLB are the means of compliance with EFA. The link between EFA and NCLB is clearly shown in this statement in a 2003 speech to UNESCO by then-U.S. Secretary of Education, Rod Paige: “UNESCO [is] coordinating the Education for All initiative. Education for All is consistent with our recent education legislation, the No Child Left Behind Act. UNESCO is a powerful forum for sharing our views, developing a ‘common strategy,’ and implementing ‘joint action.’ [Emphasis added.]”

Go to Article