Goals 2000, the "Educate America Act." (Public Law 103-227)
by William "Bill" Bonville
Goals 2000 was intended "to provide a framework for meeting the National Education Goals established by....this Act." It does so by "promoting coherent, nationwide, systemic education reform" and "defining appropriate...Federal, State, and local roles and responsibilities for education reform and lifelong learning." In short, the Act, by definition, specifies what each level of government must do. It is a "top-down" plan for education reform and statements alleging local control and "voluntary" participation in only what a school district chooses is intended to be for the most part mythical. And the law has to do with much more than revamping schools. It requires a "framework" for "lifelong learning." That means it applies not just to school kids, but to parents and everyone else from birth to death. Want proof? Read the law.
Section 102(1)(B)(i): "All children will have access to high-quality and developmentally appropriate preschool programs that help prepare children for school." That means the social services types will be there to help you young parents shape up -- or else.
Section 405(2)(B) "The Federal Parents as Teachers Program (PAT) is based on the Missouri PAT model." The MOPAT program intervenes beginning in the third-trimester of pregnancy with monthly visits to the home by "trained parent educators (TPEs) to individualize the program for each family," and carry on from birth upward. These "educators" screen parents for "risk factors" including health, economic situation, and even such details as to whether guns and ammunition are present in the home (and kept where?). Is this a voluntary part of the "education" framework? No. Section 402(A)(2) requires "as a minimum, (grantee) shall...use part of the funds received...to establish, expand, or operate PAT programs..."
Section 102(1)(B)(ii) requires "Every parent in the United States will...devote time each day to helping such parent's preschool child learn, and parents will have access to the training and support parents need." Hey, wait! This law says I have to work with my kids in an appropriate manner, which I will be trained to do by the TPEs, no doubt observed by those same TPEs to make sure I am doing what when I am supposed to. If not, then in Oregon the child neglect and abuse laws make me criminally neglectful if not abusive of my child for failing to perform what this so-called education law requires. And this is to be enforced in every family with a pre-school child in the United States? Or is it intended only as a means to "get at" a parent or family that refuses to go along with the stream of things?
Section 102(1)(B)(iii) says "Children will receive the nutrition, physical activity experiences, and health care needed to arrive at school with healthy minds and bodies..." So if I don't play catch or kick a soccer ball with my son, or whatever, I am breaking the law? And who is to say that the diet my family provides our child is nutritionally appropriate? And if I doctor my children with home remedies instead of sending them to the government clinic, I may be breaking the law in the eyes of some TPE?
Section 102(6)(B)(i) mandates that "Every major American business will be involved in strengthening the connection between education and work." So you see that businesses as well as families are now on the hook to perform something (details are unspecified by the law) else they will be law breakers. Thus if your business decides there is no justification for spending time and money on such a nonsensical idea, whatever it means, then you can be accused to breaking the law by some bureaucrat hired to facilitate business "partnerships" with the educrats. Or so it would seem.
The real kicker is Section 301(7): "State and local education improvement efforts must incorporate coordinated access (for students and families) to appropriate social services, health care, nutrition, and early childhood education and child care."
Say, whose kids ARE these, anyhow?.