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Chapter 3, Part V: Locally Implementing Federal Goals

The United Nations, federal government, and national consortiums set the mandates. States provide administration and legislation based on those mandates. The local community and school districts are responsible for implementing federal and state legislated mandates. Money is the “carrot.” Be sure to also see this book’s chapter titled the “National Center on Education and the Economy.” Also, take note of the ultra-liberal organizations and agencies listed among the members of the SIECUS (Sex Information and Education Council of the United States) Coalition to Support Sexuality Education, which are likely to be active in your local community.

ederal dollars (your tax dollars) are available to states willing to implement mandates found in Goals 2000 which include comprehensive health. These mandates are implemented through schools and local communities.[1]

The following is an example of how long this modus operandi has been in operation: In June and July 1978, hearings took place before the U.S. Senate Committee on Human Resources. The bill was “(T)o establish a program for developing networks of community-based services to prevent initial and repeat pregnancies among adolescents, to provide care to pregnant adolescents, and to help adolescents become productive independent contributors to family and community life.”[2] Among those who spoke at the hearing was Dr. Peter Scales. Dr. Scales has quite a resume. His numerous articles on adolescent sexuality have appeared in many major health publications. Among the CDC funded (your tax dollars) projects Dr. Scales participated in was the 1979 project titled “Barriers to Sex Education.” The project was explicitly aimed at “overcoming” parental and community opposition to sex education. In 1983 he was director of education for Planned Parenthood Federation of America in New York. In 1990 he was the deputy director of the Center for Early Adolescence, School of Medicine, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. In 1992 he was the director of National Initiatives, Center for Early Adolescence, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, a visiting scholar at the St. Louis University School of Public Health. His article titled “Just Say Yes to Sex Education” appeared in the February 1993 issue of “Press,” a publication of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region whose Community Education Committee he is a member. How has Dr. Scales managed to affiliate himself with this Catholic University when he champions tenets that fly in the face of the Catholic faith?? During the 1978 hearing Dr. Scales said:

“–(L)inkage among Government organizations and private organizations, the Office of Education (OE), in an advisory capacity, and CDC’s Bureau of Health Education, in the funding role, are supporting an ambitious PTA pilot project to establish comprehensive health education programs in six States.

“Included with OE on the Advisory Board are the Alan Guttmacher Institute, the Sex Information and Education Council of the United States, the American Council of Pediatrics, and the American Medical Association’s Health Education Department. In this project, now in its third year, the PTA, the ‘lay’ group, acts as the fulcrum in the linkage between governmental set-up support and private resource expertise–If we are to affect the ‘state of the art’ nationwide, however–We must more adequately define what should be included in sex and family life education. Government should not dictate to local communities precisely what they should include in a curriculum, yet it can support the development of guidelines. Whether a community substantially reflects those guidelines might be one criterion for its eligibility for community-linkage funds. A first step would be for an appropriate government unit, such as OE, to work with groups such as SIECUS, the American Association of Sex Educators, Counselors and Therapists, the American Home Economics Association, the American School Health Association, and others in synthesizing the literally thousands of curriculum plans with which they are familiar. From these, a more uniform set of minimum standards for the ‘basic skill’ of sex and family life decision-making can be drafted. These guidelines might then be used, with some modifications perhaps, by States in the regulation of their education.” One of the suggestions Dr. Scales suggested to improve the bill was that “funds should be available for abortion–there should be a recognition that society in many ways fails to enable young people who wish to avoid a pregnancy to avoid that pregnancy. There is little recognition in the language of the bill that society has a responsibility to help those people whom it has failed through the sexual health care system to avoid a pregnancy, to resolve that pregnancy in a manner that is effective for them. At least, counseling and referral should be included in any prevention effort.”[3]

What Scales proposed has now been accomplished as detailed in this book and its chapter titled “SIECUS, the CDC and State Health Curricula.”

National organizations active at the federal level have state and local affiliations. Some examples would include the NEA, the National School Boards Association (includes a representative from each state’s association of local school boards), and the National Association of State Boards of Education (includes a representative from each state’s state school board). The list of such agencies goes on and on. Since money and power talk, the direction generally provided is top down as opposed to bottom up. Such national organizations and agencies are members of the public (government)/private partnerships which are implementing federal health (Healthy People 2000) and education (Goals 2000) goals.

Missouri’s Show-Me Plan, that was approved by the Missouri State Board of Education in 1995 is the state plan for implementing Goals 2000. A copy is provided in the state’s 1996 federal grant proposal of Missouri’s School-to-Work system. The State Plan lays out how the state will implement education, health, and School-to-Work reforms to comply with the federal mandates of Goals 2000 which also includes School-to-Work and Healthy People 2000. Everyone should obtain a copy of their own state’s state plan. The state plan provides the entire map for the state’s reforms for ages “prebirth through adulthood.”

“Voluntary” means that a state may choose whether or not it wishes to become a Goals 2000 state. States choosing to implement the mandated programs of Goals 2000 receive additional federal funding to do so. As explained earlier in this book, when a state becomes a Goals 2000 state, the state’s school districts’ survival depends on compliance. If a school district does not comply, it loses its accreditation and funding, and is dissolved.

In May 1993, Missouri passed an education bill to comply with Goals 2000 called the Outstanding Schools Act (SB380). SB380 wrote into law a program that the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education had already been implementing, called the Missouri School Improvement Program or MSIP.

Historically, Missouri schools had been rated “AAA,” “AA,” or “unclassified” by an independent company called the North Central Accreditation. This system is being phased out and replaced with the Missouri School Improvement Program whose accreditation process rates schools as “accredited,” “provisionally accredited,” or “unaccredited” by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education whose decision is then approved by the State Board of Education.

A school district must be accredited in order to be eligible for funding. In order to be accredited, the student support services department of the district must offer comprehensive health education, programs, screenings, services, follow-up, counseling, and referrals. See page 62, section 15.1 of the Missouri School Improvement Program Review Procedures.

In one week’s time Missouri passed both the universal health care reform bill (HB564) which allows schools to become Medicaid providers, as well as the school reform bill (SB380) which contained the vehicle (MSIP) which mandates that schools offer health education, keeping of health records, services, follow-ups, referrals, etc. The two dovetail nicely for bureaucrats who wish to control universal health care by using our nation’s schools and the educational infrastructure to reach students, their families, and the community.

SB380 mandated school health education, services, and referrals. HB564 supplied the vehicle by which to do so — Medicaid funding with which to implement school-based clinics and school/community-linked services.

State testing can indicate whether the government’s goals for change in a student’s knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors are being met. Some questions that should be asked are: What academic and health goals are to be mastered? What attitudes, behaviors, and feelings are to be internalized and tested? The Missouri Mastery Achievement Test (MMAT) measures for mastery of overpopulation and sexually-transmitted diseases at the 10th grade level. What value system must a student adopt to “master” these areas? This is further explained in following chapters.

Schools are the perfect vehicle through which to implement government goals and mandates since they work with people at the grassroots level. Government agencies can effectively ensure that federal health and education goals will be met since continued school district funding and accreditation is dependent on doing so. The state department of education (a governmental body) is now accrediting school districts as opposed to the independent, non-governmental accrediting agency used in the past. Since accreditation is based on compliance and implementation of nationally mandated state standards, school districts sacrifice local autonomy in order to survive financially.

The National Diffusion Network (NDN) is a program of the U.S. Department of Education, and is funded by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI). The NDN “is a nationwide program that helps teachers implement successful programs and practices in their schools and classrooms. Each program has proved its effectiveness to a panel of experts before the program is available for local use. There is a facilitator in each state to help school districts match NDN programs to local needs.”

Missouri’s National Diffusion Network facilitator is (or was) located at 555 Vandiver, Suite A, Columbia, Missouri 65202.[4] This address is EXACTLY the same as the Missouri Education Center. “The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education utilizes the Missouri Education Center as a dissemination center for most materials.” [5] The Missouri National Diffusion Network is currently being decen­tralized, relocating to nine universities within the state, to allow a closer working relationship with local school districts. In many cases across the country, the U.S. Department of Education’s National Diffusion Network contact is located within the state’s department of education at a state university.[6]

Another federal program titled Caring Communities is explained in this book’s chapter titled “Together We Can” Socialize “Caring Communities.” It is a joint program of the U.S. Department of Education and U.S. Department of Health & Human Services, which promotes the delivery of health care services to everyone in the community through the infrastructure of the local school system. Interestingly enough, this program is another piece to the Medicaid-funded universal health care puzzle.

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education happens to have a Caring Communities Section. This section receives diskettes from school districts which contain “school enrollment files [which] must be updated by the school district quarterly and submitted to DESE [Department of Elementary and Secondary Education prior to billing ACM [Administrative Case Management, a Medicaid-funded program.] The diskette must have a return label with the district name and address clearly marked. Diskettes [are] processed as soon as possible upon receipt and returned within approximately 10 days of processing. The returned diskette will include the same file data as submitted but with the Medicaid number appended to each record matched by the state’s Medicaid file.” [7] The address to which Missouri school districts are to send their diskettes is:

Department of Elementary and Secondary Education
The Division of Special Education
Caring Communities Section
P.O. Box 480
Jefferson City, MO 65102
(573) 751-7953.

Federal “health” goals are implemented at the local level through state comprehensive school health programs. State documents verify that the state was already implementing health and education reforms prior to passage of the state reform laws of 1993. In July 1990 the Missouri State Board of Education wrote Missourians Prepared-Success for Every Student. This document provides the following information:

- “Prevention. We must continue to expand our investment in early childhood and parent education and other prevention-oriented programs during the preschool and primary years. The Parents as Teachers program should be available to every Missouri family that wishes to participate–By 1995, school districts must be able to serve 50 percent of all eligible families and preschoolers.

- Shifting from `the Carnegie Unit’ as the primary organizing factor in schools–Reliance on the Carnegie Unit contributes to the fragmentation of our present curriculum and school structure. We need to find alternatives which permit schools to focus on student outcomes and performance–To gain flexibility in meeting the needs of individual students, schools should move away from the Carnegie Unit as the sole basis for scheduling instruction and awarding academic credit–it will require that students’ progress be measured in terms of specific outcomes, not just by grade completion at the elementary level or by the number of courses completed at the secondary level. Achieving this end also will require schools to develop and use new assessment techniques (essays, portfolios, interviews, etc.) which go beyond traditional paper-and-pencil testing methods.

- By the end of the decade, all school districts will adopt outcome-based education practices. This effort should include widespread adoption of mastery learning strategies, greater use of information from the MMAT and other sources to assess strengths, weaknesses and trends in student performance, and reduced dependence on textbooks as the primary basis for organizing instruction.

- The school year will be extended to 200 days. Schools will be open year-round to provide certain programs and services.

- Interaction between schools and communities and community-service options for students will be expanded.

- All school districts will provide adequate health services and comprehensive health education programs.

- Schools will become `one-stop centers for education, health, child care and other family support services.

- Schools, colleges and state education officials should actively promote the concept of teachers as `coaches’ who are expected to become well-acquainted with and responsible for certain numbers of students.

- The requirement that school districts obtain a two-thirds majority approval from patrons for school tax levies above $3.75 must be changed–A four-sevenths majority requirement for school tax levies in excess of $3.75 should be enacted.

- State education officials will refine the current data-collection system to provide better educational trends, student performance and schools’ funding needs.”[8]

The State Board of Education’s follow-up report three years later by the same name [Success for Every Student-Missourians Prepared] makes the following statements in addition to a report on the above listed items:

“Teacher certification standards and procedures will be strengthened by evaluating current requirements for all certificates and revising certification policies to meet the changing needs of schools and teachers. In developing new certification policies, competency-based standards in subject matter and professional areas will be emphasized. Reciprocal certification agreements with neighboring states, designed to provide greater flexibility for teachers and school districts, also will be instituted and evaluated.

- Ultimately, classroom teachers are responsible for `delivering’ education, and they will be expected to carry out any future school-reform initiatives.

- The State Board has two ways to influence the training of future teachers. First, the board is responsible for evaluating and approving all professional education programs offered by Missouri’s colleges and universities (both public and private). This program-approval system involves on-site evaluation by teams of educators, including local school district personnel as well as officials from other teacher-education programs. Over the past five years, this process has prompted several institutions to discontinue weak programs and to upgrade specific programs that were evaluated and found to be unsatisfactory. The Outstanding Schools Act also includes a significant provision that requires the Board to evaluate teacher-education programs on the basis of how well they prepare teachers to use ‘performance-based’ instruction and assessment techniques.

- The law includes new taxes and other provisions expected to generate about $400 million in new revenues for local schools over the next four years (1993-94 through 1997-98).

- In addition, the law sets realistic funding goals and provides earmarked funds to support–initiatives–recommended by the State Board of Education: Parents as Teachers, services for at-risk youth, reduce pupil-teacher ratios in the primary grades, creating a $5 million state fund beginning in 1994-95, to provide special grants to school districts to expand the use of instructional technology.”[9]

Relative to the teacher certification and training mentioned above, the minutes of the Missouri State Board of Education dated January 21, 1997, state: “Missouri is one of seven states to receive funding from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Carnegie Corporation to support a state-level study in connection with the work being done by the National Commission on Teaching and America’s Future.”

Does this mean that Missouri is participating in a pilot for national teacher certification headed and funded by Rockefeller and Carnegie? Could it be that only those who are willing and able to mold students to meet government goals relative to academics, attitudes, feelings, and behaviors will survive the screenings for teaching positions?

“For more information about the National Commission on Teaching & America’s Future, see its World Wide Web site at: http://www.tc.columbia.edu/~teachcom or contact them at: Teachers College, Columbia University; Box 117; 525 West 120th Street; New York, NY 10027; (202) 678-3204.”[10]

Breaking Ranks: Changing an American Institution is a report of the National Association of Secondary School Principals in partnership with the Carnegie Foundation. This book states that “(E)very student will have a personal adult advocate; the Carnegie unit must be replaced or redefined–.”[11]

Section 306, page 108 of Goals 2000 Educate America Act is titled “State Improvement Plan.” This is the federal mandate Missouri implemented with the passage of SB380 in May 1993. SB380 (Outstanding Schools Act) legislates Missouri’s School Improvement Program (MSIP) through which Missouri schools are accredited. SB380 is known as Missouri’s OBE (outcome based education) bill.

States base their academic standards on those produced at the national level by national NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations) associated with the federal government or its subsidiaries. One such example is the National Health Education Standards. The inside front cover states: “Individuals are encouraged to copy and disseminate all or parts of this document to further enhance the quality and scope of school health education. Any copies should cite this document by including the following statement: `This represents the work of the Joint Committee on National Health Education Standards. Copies of National Health (sic) Education Standards: Achieving Health Literacy can be obtained through the American School Health Association, Association for the Advancement of Health Education or the American Cancer Society.’ ” [12]

This document contains a copy of the “Joint Statement on School Health” signed by the joint Secretaries and quoted in this book’s chapter titled “Merging Federal Health and Education Goals.” The National Health Education Standards’ “Glossary of Terms” defines “Adolescent Risk Behaviors identified by the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention to include–sexual behaviors that result in HIV infection/other STDs and unintended pregnancy.” Starting on page 43 and continuing through page 50, this document lists the “Opportunity-to-Learn Standards for Health Education” which are all encompassing. It lists health standards to be provided by local education agencies, the community, and state education agency. Also listed are health standards for the state department of health, preparation standards for institutions for higher education, and standards for national organizations. [13] The reference list of key documents listed in National Health Education Standards reads like the footnotes found throughout the book you are now reading. Members of the Joint Committee which helped develop this document included the Association for the Advancement of Health Education, the American School Health Association, and the American Public Health Association. Note that ALL four of these organizations are members of SIECUS’ National Coalition to Support Sexuality Education. What SIECUS and its National Coalition promotes is explained in this book’s chapter titled “SIECUS, the CDC, and State Health Curricula.”

Healthy Students 2000 is another national document. This one is also published by the American School Health Association and was recommended to teachers during a state comprehensive school health conference. Like so many others, this document is based on Healthy People 2000 from beginning to end, and explains how to implement health promotion, and “prevention” services, as well as surveillance and data systems. Like all the other documents, it promotes the use of condoms, contraceptives, school-based and school-linked clinics. National Health Standards states: “Students at-risk are a prime target for intervention. However, valid reasons exist for including all students, parents, faculty, and staff as targets for the intervention.”

Healthy Students 2000 contains sample action plans, educational strategies, sample forms, coping styles for dealing with resistance, information on interdisciplinary teams within the school, total quality management, drug and alcohol, disease and injury prevention, adolescent pregnancy prevention and management (condoms and contraceptives), reproductive health (more of the same) and much more.

One tidbit referenced on page 125 of Healthy Students 2000 states, “Research indicates about one-fourth of male adolescents have experienced orgasm through homosexual contact.” Page 131 displays a chart titled “HIV/AIDS Prevention Strategies” which includes the following: “display and openly promote condom distribution in community clinics, use the school as an information broker for dissemination of HIV/AIDS information, use the following community resources for instructional support: public health department, local physicians, nurses, social workers, gay groups, and AIDS task forces, coordinate inservice programming which examines–management of AIDS hysteria, cooperate with health teachers and nurses in the development of an informational exchange network between school and community, use teachable moments to reinforce AIDS educational message, refer students at-risk to appropriate support network, facilitate self-referral of high-risk students for intervention programming, integrate easily accessed pamphlets about the location of STD clinics and anonymous testing sites, integrate counseling role into primary health care clinic, develop crisis management procedures for students faced with HIV/AIDS issues in self, teachers or significant others, such as: HIV positive tests, death and dying, homophobia, and homosexuality, develop task force/coalition for HIV/AIDS policy development if not present.”[14]

Healthy Students 2000, Appendix A, includes 23 pages of assessments for every aspect of comprehensive school health. The assessments range from food and health services to school environment (which includes a student assistance program-see the chapter titled “What Is A ‘SAP’?”), instruction, and counseling. A Youth Risk Behavior Survey is provided in Appendix C, and Appendix D contains Comprehensive School Health Program Worksheets.

A state document titled Opening Doors to Improved Health for Missouri’s School-Age Children is the state’s version of the national documents listed above. It was published by the State Department of Health. Once again, listings in the bibliography and references include documents quoted throughout this book such as Healthy People 2000, Healthy Missourians 2000, Volume II, Adolescent Health from The Office of Technology Assessment of the Congress of the United States. The three-page bibliography includes sources like: the state’s 1994 Manual for School Health Programs (page 52 includes family planning), Medicaid EPSDT Administrative Case Management, Procedures for Missouri Schools (the billing instructions include unclothed physicals and family planning), Children’s Trust Fund, a grant application to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation from the Missouri Department of Health dated September 1993, and Robert Wood Johnson’s The Answer Is at School: Bringing Health Care to our Students, The School-Based Adolescent Health Care Program.

The purpose of Opening Doors was to provide the framework for local implementation of national health and education reforms and standards through school-based clinics. Opening Doors references Missouri’s health reform law (HB564) which encourages schools to become Medicaid providers. Medicaid funds finance the school-based clinics and school/community-linked services, which are necessary to comply with the state educational reform law (SB380) which mandates school health. As in the national documents, student assistance programs and/or activities are used to identify and refer students.

It’s fascinating to watch how the state and its cohorts work to bring about their goal of using schools to provide universal access to family planning. You’ve just read about the connection between those listed in the references and bibliography of Opening Doors with family planning, and school-based clinics. Also referenced in Opening Doors’ bibliography is 2000 and Beyond: A Report on the Status of Missouri’s Children written by the Missouri Children’s Services Commission in 1991. In 1987 Missouri statute 191.597 “created within the children’s services commission the ‘Coordin­ating Council for Health Education of Missouri’s Children and Adolescents.” Statute 191.599 states “(T)he scope of the council shall not include abortion, family planning or school-based clinics.” It seems the intent of the law is no barrier to those who are adamant about using the schools to implement the govern­ment’s population control programs.

Be sure to read this book’s chapter titled “The Sugar Coated Machine” for more examples of how the naive are manipulated to implement health goals they wouldn’t generally support.