[Congressional Record Volume 143, Number 22 (Wednesday, February 26, 1997)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E334-E335]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                         SEMINAR ON GOALS 2000

                                 ______
                                 

                           HON. HENRY J. HYDE

                              of illinois

                    in the house of representatives

                      Wednesday, February 26, 1997

  Mr. HYDE. Mr. Speaker, on February 12, 1997, a day long seminar on 
education with particular emphasis on the pernicious effects of Goals 
2000, school to work and careers legislation was held in the Rayburn 
Building. The participants were greeted by Phyllis Schlafly, who was 
responsible for the event--along with many other organizations and 
individuals--and heard from experts and several State legislators and 
Congressmen from many States, including California, Oregon, Alabama, 
Pennsylvania, Florida, South Carolina, Illinois, Arizona, Michigan, 
Texas, Kentucky, and Arkansas.
  Mr. Robert Holland of Richmond, VA, an editor for the Richmond Times 
Dispatch not only delivered one of the best presentations but 
contributed the following editorial which appeared in the Washington 
Times, Sunday, February 23, 1997, which I am pleased to share with my 
colleagues.

               [From the Washington Times, Feb. 23, 1997]

                   Beneath the Seamless Model's Hood

                          (By Robert Holland)

       The hearing room of the House Judiciary Committee looked 
     like a busy ``show and tell'' classroom for scholars bearing 
     large stacks of homework Feb. 1-2. Chairman Henry Hyde had 
     convened an unusual grass-roots conference on the spreading, 
     entangling ``Seamless web'' of collectivized education, 
     health and social services, and work-force preparation.
       Citizen-activists joined members of Congress and 
     legislators from five states in talking about what their 
     research had yielded, and they brought much of it with them 
     as Exhibits R through Z: thousands of pages of fine print 
     illuminating the complex scheme to make schools the central 
     instrument for transforming American society into one that 
     takes its lead entirely from government technocrats 
     certifying ``skills'' and dispensing ``care.''
       Such documentation is essential because merely to criticize 
     the seamless web is to risk being branded a conspiracy 
     theorist. The extensive paper trail belies the existence of 
     any conspiracy. It shows, instead, that a slumbering 
     mainstream media--or mediacrats who cheerlead for 
     collectivization--are the problem. The proof exists for 
     anyone willing to risk the eyestrain to read the fine print.
       Nor do the leading citizen-activists spurn facts in favor 
     of imagined plots. Consider one of the featured presenters at 
     the Hyde conference: Virginia Miller, a former women's 
     basketball star at Penn State, and Rhodes Scholar candidate 
     who spent 10 years as a systems consultant to U.S. Steel, 
     Mellon Bank, Blue Cross, and Westinghouse.
       Now the acting director of the Pittsburgh-based Public 
     Education Network, Ms. Miller provided voluminous supporting 
     documents to show how the Human Resources Development Plan 
     devised by Hillary Clinton's sidekick, Marc Tucker, is coming 
     to fruition through the multifarious works of the National 
     Center on Education and the Economy.
       For instance, one sentence penned by Mr. Tucker in a Labor 
     Department-commissioned paper on organizing the work of the 
     National Skill Standards Board (to which Mr. Clinton--
     surprise, surprise--has appointed Mr. Tucker) fairly jumps 
     off the

[[Page E335]]

     page. In discussing a three-tiered system for developing 
     ``comprehensive qualifications--or standards'' for jobs and 
     clusters of jobs, Mr. Tucker reached Title 1:
       ``This would be,'' he wrote, ``a set of standards for what 
     everyone in the society ought to know and be able to do to be 
     successful at work, as a citizen, and as a family member.''
       Now, ponder the breathtaking absolutism behind such a 
     vision: Not only should Big Government issue, in effect, work 
     permits, and not only should it monitor each person's civic 
     participation; it should go so far as to pass judgment on how 
     every American functions as a mother, father, brother, sister 
     or other member of a family--however the technocrats chose to 
     define ``family.''
       That sounds far-fetched--until one looks at Senate Bill 321 
     recently introduced in Oregon--one of the model states for 
     the womb-to-tomb seamless web. That legislation would require 
     every taxpayer with a dependent between the ages of 1 and 2 
     to attend state-directed ``parent education courses'' in 
     order to claim a personal exemption on state taxes. The state 
     also would set up a new system to certify parent-education 
     providers. It is true that the agency Mr. Tucker envisioned 
     as the promulgator of Tier I standards--the National 
     Education Standards and Improvement Council--fell prey to 
     Congress' partial dismantling of Goals 2000 last spring. 
     However, there are many more new bureaucracies--the Skill 
     Standards panel, for one--that can continue spinning the web.
       Other presentations showed how schools are becoming 
     instruments of nationalized health care through creative 
     Medicaid re-interpretation; how databases are being set up to 
     check each American's advances through the seamless web; how 
     the School-to-Work system will function to steer students in 
     directions that satisfy economic planners' objectives, not 
     necessarily their own.
       It is important to document how all this is meshing, as the 
     conferees attempted to do. For example, Ohio's STW plan 
     flatly declares as a goal the training of student for jobs in 
     accordance with ``the state's work force development and 
     economic development strategies.''
       But as chilling as such words are, most people probably 
     will not become gravely concerned until they see the seamless 
     web infringing on their own family's liberties. That may be 
     happening in Nevada, where Gov. Bob Miller, current chairman 
     of the National Governors Association, brags about a ``Smart 
     Card'' that students will have to present when applying for a 
     job in order to show they have the work-force competencies 
     Big Brother says they should have.
       Out in Las Vegas, Rene Tucker tells me that her daughter, 
     Darcy, recently was pulled out of a geography class--without 
     parental consent--to be administered a computerized 
     assessment of career possibilities. Darcy wants to become a 
     veterinarian. But the computer said she ought to become a 
     bartender or a waitress, and it spat out a list of courses 
     she ought to take in high school toward that end.
       Mrs. Tucker was furious first that the career counselors 
     had robbed her daughter's valuable class time. She added: 
     ``We're Christians, and the school stepped on my ties as a 
     parent. It is my job to direct my child's career path, and it 
     would not be in her best interest to be a bartender.''
       Ah, but it might be in Nevada's best interest, you see, 
     given the huge hospitality needs driven by the gambling and 
     entertainment industry.
       Another Nevada mom, Kristine Jensen, and her daughter 
     Ashley had a similar experience. Ashley has a 4.0-plus GPA 
     and currently aspires to work at NASA. Indeed, a NASA 
     official told her, ``Set your goals high and set your heart 
     and mind to it and you will be there.''
       However, said Mrs. Jensen, the STW career inventory said 
     Ashley ought to set her goals quite a bit lower as she enters 
     the ninth grade. ``Garbage woman'' was a career pathway the 
     computer said this honors student should follow.
       The School to Work Opportunities Act of 1994 states that 
     career counseling is to begin ``at the earliest possible age, 
     but not later than the seventh grade.'' That's a federal 
     requirement, mind you, for schools spending STW money. As 
     such fine print becomes a killer of dreams, the uprising 
     against this seamless web figures to grow.

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