This blog is a tribute and memorial to the life of my dear friend, O. Jerome (Jed) Brown. The writings posted here are the articles that he published in his newsletter, The Traditional Educator. His theme was the art of teaching versus psychological conditioning, the nobility of the former and the wanton destructiveness of the latter.


Jed campaigned for the office of the Superintendent for Public Instruction in the State of Washington in 1992 and 1996. His platform was to return public education back to the traditional knowledge-based disciplines of learning; to save our school system, teachers, children, families and scociety from the disaster of the "education reform" mandated by HB 1209, our state's version of outcome based education.



In 1993 Jed led a group of concerned parents and teachers in an effort to repeal HB 1209. Had Referendum 47 succeeded, the disastrous WASL test requirement would never have seen the light of day.



In 1995 Jed researched, wrote and co-produced a 4-part video series, "The People vs The Educational Confederacy: Educational Restructuring on Trial" with Katie Levans of Tacoma, WA. If you want to know who is responsible for "education reform," this 2-hour video production lays it all out.


On September 6, 2009 Jed Brown passed away.



Please join me in "Remembering Jed."

1994 Maltby Meeting

Cursor down to the bottom of the page for six video clips of Jed's remarks addressing Education Reform legislation, Outcome-based Education, Behavioral Conditioning and Curriculum.



Saturday, November 10, 2012

The Skinner Box School

“The ‘Skinner-Box’ School” by Jed Brown was published in the March 1994 issue of Squibbs and is reprinted here in its entirety.


Outcome-Based Education (OBE) has become a blight on the landscape of our national heritage. After only a few years of OBE, whole school systems are beginning to wither and die. Much worse, the children, their minds once fertile fields of intellectual soil, are even now being infected by the worm of ignorance. True learning is starved to death, as all of the nutrients of sound academic practice are being replaced with a dust-bowl curriculum that is structured to secure proper attitudes for the “Brave New World.” Sadly, the only “outcome” of OBE will be a baser society, a society in which the nobility of the mind is lost to the savagery of enslavement.

But wait! Parents have been told that Outcome-Based Education has nothing to do with changing the attitudes and values of their children; that OBE will improve learning for all children through “best-practices” research. What parents are not being told is that the research base for OBE is from the field of psychology, not education; that in psychology the term “learning” is synonymous with the term “conditioning.” What parents are not being told is that Outcome-Based Education is not education al all; it is but the hollow substitute of psychological conditioning or, as it is sometimes called, behavior modification.

Saturday, April 28, 2012

Total Quality Madness

TOTAL QUALITY MADNESS
by O. Jerome (Jed) Brown
February, 1994

(Article  from Squibs of Practical Wisdom published by The Phronesis Group, Jed Brown, President)


In true Frankensteinian fashion, the social engineers who are at work in our schools have hatched a most diabolical plan to produce “Zero-defect” children and adults for the 21st Century.  Like the mad scientist who pieced together the monster, these self-deified Orwellian masters have found a way to create an endless supply of robotic automatons for a utopian world that will serve their economic lusts.  The method, the brother of Outcome-based Education (OBE), is TOTAL QUALITY MANAGEMENT (TQM).  So, what is Total Quality Management?  What are the dangers of implementing TQM in education?

Developed from the theories of Edward Demming, Walter Shewhart and Elton Mayo, Total Quality Management (TQM) is a business philosophy founded on the ideas of product quality and customer satisfaction.  According to the Federal Total Quality Management Handbook, “Total Quality control may be defined as: An effective system for integrating the quality-development, quality maintenance, and quality-improvement efforts of the various groups in an organization. . . for full customer satisfaction.” (Appendix A)

Beyond establishing the concept of quality as the first priority of an organization, TQM redefines the word “quality”.  The federal handbook for Total Quality Management goes further to state, “In the phrase “quality control,” the word 'quality' does not have the popular meaning of 'best' in any absolute sense.”  Thus, with TQM, 'quality' is no longer an absolute based upon perfection.  Total Quality Management asserts that quality is not relative, defined only by what the customer wants.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

THE ROCKEFELLER/HERITAGE CONNECTION

THE ROCKEFELLER/HERITAGE CONNECTION
The Money Trail of the New Right Leads to the Edge of the Cliff

Chey Simonton

Originally Written July 1996, mailed out to education activists
 in Washington State with documentation attached.
Companion to Jed Brown's Article "The Dirty Little Secret of School Choice"

Digitally updated with links April 2012

To understand why various "Conservative/Christian" organizations in Washington State as well as every other state in the nation have been less than stunning in their battle for Parents Rights and Family Values in public education, it is necessary to examine the financial contributions or "scientific giving" and patronage of the Rockefeller family, through their family members, various businesses and foundations to social causes over the past century. Bearing in mind that, "He who pays the piper calls the tune," a single-minded piper with very deep pockets can control ALL the tunes, regardless of which band is playing.

Friday, December 10, 2010

THE PEOPLE V. THE EDUCATIONAL CONFEDERACY: Educational Restruring On Trial




Introduction to the studio-produced 1995 two-hour video
Researched, written and presented by Jed Brown and Katie Levans. 
Widely shown on public access television in the mid-1990s
Endorsed by Charlotte Iserbyt and Dr. Dennis Cuddy
To purchase, contact katie.levans44@gmail.com          

$ 15.00 includes S&H       dvd only
$ 25.00 includes S&H      dvd with complete transcript & bibliography

Sunday, January 31, 2010

THE DIRTY LITTLE SECRET OF SCHOOL CHOICE & CHARTER SCHOOLS

By O. Jerome (Jed) Brown - 1995

To begin, it is only proper to clear up some confusion that may exist in reference to the subject in question. Often, the same concept is known by several names, which is the case here. In speaking of the topic, one might quote from the immortal bard, “What's in a name? A rose by any other name would smell as sweet?” Or, depending upon a person's perspective, it might be said, “What's in a name? A dead mackerel by any other name would carry the same stench?” Point being, regardless of one's perspective, school choice, voucher systems, scholarship programs, GI bills, and charter schools, are all terms signifying the same concept, the quasi-privatizing of education.

Monday, December 28, 2009

EDUCATION FOR THE THE NEW INTERNATIONAL SOCIAL ORDER

By O. Jerome (Jed) Brown, August 1995


Education for the New International Social Order is organized under the Complex Life Role of Family Member. This Life Role, however, is not restricted to membership in a traditional nuclear family. The definition of “Family Member” is expanded to include not only the nuclear family, but also the community or “urban village” and the global family of the New World Order.

Saturday, December 26, 2009

GLOBAL CITIZENS OF THE FUTURE

by O. Jerome (Jed) Brown
August, 1995


The New International Political / Governmental Order finds its justification the principle of Social Darwinism. The principle is that that those who have amassed great material wealth have done so by virtue of the dubious assertion that they are higher on the evolutionary scale than we who are mere mortal men.

EDUCATION FOR THE NEW INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ORDER

by O. Jerome (Jed) Brown

The New International Economic Order is a planned global economy that requires redistribution of production and consumption, such that each country of the world will have sound and sustainable economic growth. Ultimately, in order to effect such a redistribution, almost total control of the work force is necessary.