SCHOOL-TO-WORK ACT WAS BOLDEST ATTEMPT EVER TO TAKE OVER SCHOOLS

It was perhaps the boldest power grab for federal control of our public schools ever. It was designed by Hillary Clinton and Ira Magaziner, of health care fame. It was the School-to-Work Opportunities Act of 1994.

The STW act requires states to form business partnerships intended to reshape education policy to fit the needs of "economic and work force development" of the 21st century. Emphatically not vocational education for those who choose it, as was the case when you and I went through the public schools, this is the bold Clinton/Magaziner plan to re-mold the workforce of the 21st century. STW, officials continually remind us, is for all students. In a shift away from academics, all students choose something called a "career pathway" by 8th grade, if not sooner. "All," you may be sure, means "ALL." In grand design, STW is Central Planning.

Recognize what the ancient Greeks called hubris, or pride? The breathtaking arrogance of these planners! When Bill Gates quit Harvard as a sophomore to start a little company that has changed the world in unforeseeable ways, what would the STW crowd have done with him? What about a 14-year-old Einstein (a mediocre student), pushed down a "career pathway", or the incomparable Winston Churchill, who repeated a grade? Does your 14-year-old know what to do with his or her life?

With STW, there are to be lots of on-site visits to businesses: Children visiting dry cleaners, or the undertaker, or whatever. This may sound good, but what, really, is being asked of the youngsters? Very little, it turns out. No surprise there. STW is being brought to you by the same folks who have so dramatically dumbed down the curriculum to the point that most entering freshpersons in higher ed now require remedial education in math, English, whatever. Ask most solid professors at a good university and they will tell you that the skills and preparation of their entering freshpersons are declining by the year. Give the educrats credit for cleverness, though: They have dressed up this latest fad with a snappy name that sounds good to the frustrated employers so used to hiring unskilled graduates marked by stunningly high self-esteem.

The STW act was literally designed to bypass your elected lawmakers entirely, as we had no say whatever. This was accomplished by empowering the governors to enact it all by executive order. Gov. Mel Carnahan promptly followed suit. Unelected state educrats love STW, because with it came gushers of still more federal millions. Don't expect them to oppose an awful plan on principle when the education herd says this is the way to go and there's lots of cash attached.

About the time the federal STW bill was passing the last Democrat-controlled U.S. Congress, this newspaper quoted an official in a local school district (since retired). He said STW was upon us, here, and that it involved "a complete redesign of the curriculum" that included throwing out the old Carnegie academic units. Who needs such relics in the brave new world of school-to-work? By the way: When was this ever debated, with a shift of such magnitude explained to parents and patrons, accompanied by full disclosure of exactly what's going on?

Here's one little question for our ambitious school-to-workers, busy as beavers as they remake the workforce of the 21st century: In 220-plus years of American history, how did any of us poor folks ever manage to move from school to work, in the years before we had a fancy and expensive new federal program called school-to-work? Just a thought.

~Peter Kinder is assistant to the president of Rust Communications and a state senator from Cape Girardeau.