"Reveal who in your family brings you the greatest sadness and why."

"Talk about your allowance-how much you get, when and how, and whether you think it is fair.'

"Tell in as much detail as possible just what you consider the most satisfactory way to handle your burial."

"Tell where you stand on the topic of masturbation."

I agree with the parents that such questions are an invasion of privacy of the student and the family, to say nothing of the time taken away from academic learning.

Values clarification was also addressed in a 1980 hearing by the Senate Armed Services Committee. This technique was used in a pilot program for Army personnel in Europe in the late 1970's. After questions were raised during the hearing, the Army decided not to continue the program. I ask at this time that an article by Prof. Richard A. Baer, Jr., of Cornell University, reprinted in the Congressional Record on April 27, 1982, and a letter from Dr. Harold M. Voth, senior psychiatrist and psychoanalyst at the Menninger Foundation, both expressing concern about the use of values clarification, be included in the hearing record.

Mr. Chairman, this is not a new issue. Ten years ago, during consideration of the Buckley privacy amendment, the respected former Senator from North Carolina, Sam Ervin, expressed his concern about the schools "making guinea pigs out of children and delving into their personal attitudes and their attitudes toward their families." He spoke of federally funded projects which amount to "highly objectionable invasions of the psychological privacy of school children."

There is something wrong here, and we need to get to the bottom of it. I believe that by looking into these areas, we can improve education without the use of additional tax dollars.

We are so conditioned to attempting to solve every problem in education by spending more and more money, that we sometimes overlook the fact that more money has not always resulted in better education. According to the National Center for Education Statistics SAT scores have declined steadily as Federal education spending has increased. In 1964, when the Federal contribution to education was 4.4 percent, SAT scores averaged 980. In 1982, when Federal education spending was at 9.3 percent, SAT scores were down to 890. Surely there is a message here that we are missing. It is time to take a new look at the problems.

I hope that the members of the subcommittee will familiarize themselves with these issues. We need to listen not only to the education establishment, but to parents and others who are also affected by our actions.

My purpose in introducing this legislation is not to criticize teachers, but to determine how teacher education can be improved. It is intended to assure them of the best preservice and inservice instruction and thereby strengthen the teaching profession.

I want to make it clear that this legislation would not create national policy regarding teacher education. And in no way, although maybe it is implied, have I attempted in this legislation to omit the presence of teachers on this Commission. And, although it is not written into the bill, I will be happy to accept amendments to it

profession. The Commission would only look into its problems and make recommendations for improvement. I am aware that other groups have been set up to study teacher education since my legislation was introduced, and I support them. None of them, however, are looking into the areas about which I am specifically concerned. Representatives of business and industry, as well as parents, should be included in any study group because they are also directly affected and can provide a fresh perspective. In addition, Members of Congress who must vote on allocating funds for education should have input into the makeup of such a commission. I therefore urge the members of the subcommittee to act favorably on this proposal.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The following was received for the record:]

8

The distinction between teaching techniques and behavioral science techniques is not clear, since many of the psychological strategies which became popular in the 1960's and 1970's were meant to be interspersed in the classroom in all subjects. However, it is clear that for many teachers the subject to be taught is secondary to the student's inner life-their selfconcepts, feelings and values.

with additional tax dollars. A 1975 Office of Education study found that while the situation is dismal for all American school children, it is even worse for minorities who are disproportionately represented in these illiteracy rates-more than twice that of the population as a whole.

Dr. Rudolf Flesch, in his 1981 book, "Why Johnny Still Can't Read," stated that because of current methods of instruction, the U.S. literacy rate has already dropped to the level of Burma and Albania and is approaching that of Zambia.

The whole-word system of reading being taught in our schools is described by Samuel Blumenfeld in the February, 1983 issue of American Education as imbecilic. He claims it is

In 1981, J. W. Anderson, a member of the editorial page staff of the Washington Post, wrote about a paradox at George Mason University in Fairfax, Va. Its English Department was leading a statewide campaign to instruct teachers at every level on how to teach writing. At the same time, its education department was using a textbook which directed its future needlessly complicated, difficult, illogiteachers not to require written reports cal, and ineffective. He wondered how but instead to have students sign up educators can be "insane enough to for oral reports. This would save the think that you could successfully student the trouble of writing or teach children to read English as if it typing a report, and you the trouble of were Chinese?" reading a report; it will also give you the opportunity to interact with each of your students on a person-to-person basis and to probe more deeply into interpretations. Obviously the emphasis was on interaction and probing rather than on proficiency in writing. Mr. Anderson found the suggestion that writing was mere trouble for both the student and teacher insidious. Yet, this situation at George Mason is far from unique.

In the February 1981 issue of the Phi Delta Kappan, Arthur W. Combs of the University of Northern Colorado authored an article in support of humanistic education. He stated that "our society can get along very well with a bad reader; a bigot is a danger to everyone." While I do not care for bigots any more than Professor Combs does, I am disturbed that a "distinguished professor in foundations of education "could have such a cavalier attitude toward literacy.

Illiteracy in the United States has become so widespread that we have come to accept it as the norm. Over 22 percent of adults in this country are functionally illiterate, and another 32 percent are only marginally literate. Billions of our tax dollars are spent every year on remedial reading. Not only are remedial reading classes taught in colleges, but government agencies, the Armed Forces, and industry are forced to offer courses in basic reading skills.

This problem affects all segments of our society and our economy in that it contributes to increased welfare, unemployment, crime, and other social ills, all of which must be addressed

Mr. Blumenfeld asks how the professors get away with this blatant educational malpractice in a free country where parents and elected representatives are supposed to have ultimate control over the public schools.

In a 1979 research article entitled "Teaching Reading to Learning-Disabled and Other Hard-to-Teach Children," Dr. Barbara Bateman stated,

Near failure-proof methods for teaching all children to read are already available. Continued failure of schools to employ these programs is at best negligent, and at worst malicious.

It has been suggested that the greatest obstacle to literacy in America is our own educational establishment, which has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. According to the 1969 report of the National Academy of Education's blue-ribbon Committee on Reading, "an effective national reading effort should bypass the existing education macrostructure." The intimation is that there is power and money for educators in illiteracy.

The International Reading Association has gone from 7,000 members in 1965 to 65,000 in 1982. According to Mr. Blumenfeld, "it has become the impregnable citadel of the whole-word method." He claims that proven methods of teaching reading are kept out of our schools as effectively as if we had a "dictatorship with an all-powerful Ministry of Education." Strong words? Yes; but is it not our responsibility to find out the extent of the truth behind them? Why has remedial reading become institutionalized? Why are not teachers trained to teach it right in the first place?