Ed. Note: The Free Trade Agreement got the ball rolling for the development of skills standards by the newly formed National Skills Standards Board, endorsed by the U.S. Labor Department Secretary\u2019s Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills (SCANS) study originated under Labor Secretary Elizabeth Dole, and eventually led to the School-to-Work Opportunities Act and the dumbing down of American education curriculum for workforce training. With all of this emphasis on \u201cstandards\u201d it should be pointed out that NAFTA allows exchanges of all categories of professionals, with those coming from Mexico and Canada having met their own countries\u2019 standards, not necessarily equal to those required in the United States. If this process evolves the way most of these exchange processes have in the past, that disparity will be addressed in one of two ways\u2014by changing U.S. standards to match foreign standards, or by altering both NAFTA nations\u2019 standards to align with international standards like ISO 9000or ISO 1400 monitored by UNESCO. This should be of concern to professional organizations in the United States.<\/em>]<\/p>\n3D, page 315-316: <\/p>\n
THE IMPACT ON EDUCATION OF THE UNITED STATES SIGNING THE NORTH AMERICAN FREE TRADE AGREEMENT was discussed in an article entitled \u201cUSIA\u2019s Grants Go to Schools in NAFTA Nations\u201d published in the September 12, 1993 edition of The Washington Times. Some excerpts follow:<\/p>\n
United States Information Agency Director Joseph Duffey attending a four-day \u201cimplementation\u201d conference at Vancouver, British Columbia, yesterday announced the first North American three-way university affiliation grants to involve exchanges of faculty and staff among Canadian, Mexican and U.S. universities for teaching, lecturing, research and curriculum development. \u201cWe often have university affiliation grants,\u201d Mr. Duffey said in an interview before he left for Vancouver. \u201cThis is the first time we\u2019ve decided to start awarding three or four a year that involved three countries in North America.\u201d\u2026 Each USIA award will carry about $100,000, plus travel and per diem expenses, for exchanges of faculty, administrators and educational materials. The agreement, part of the broadened dialogue that has come out of the North American Free Trade Agreement, will support an array of projects focused on history, economic development, international trade and the environment. \u201cWhat we seek to do is, among other things, nothing less than dismantling barriers to academic mobility,\u201d Mr. Duffey said in a speech at the conference. Mr. Duffey said he expects the North American countries to succeed in achieving a sense of regional community where the quest for a common community of nations in Western Europe has foundered. \u201cWe\u2019re trying to reverse the tradition of nationalism and people, who in looking to their identity, look backwards to the past,\u201d he said. \u201cInstead, we want them to look to the future.\u201d (p. A\u20135)<\/p>\n
3D, page 321: <\/p>\n
1994 U.S. COALITION FOR EDUCATION FOR ALL: A HISTORY WAS PUBLISHED IN 1994 BY THE U.S. Coalition for Education for All based in Washington, D.C. Excerpts from that publication follow: U.S. delegates from government agencies and non-governmental organizations participated in the 1990 World Conference and helped to prepare the Education for All (EFA) goals and action plan. In February 1991 the U. S. Coalition for Education for All (USCEFA) was created to promote EFA awareness and activities in the United States and to serve as a link to the global EFA movement.\u2026 In 1991, USCEFA held its first major conference, \u201cLearning for All: Bridging Domestic and International Education.\u201d\u2026\u2026From this conference the USCEFA\u2019s agenda unfolded. USCEFA organized a symposium entitled \u201cIntegrating Social Services and Education: A Look at Collaboration and Delivery.\u201d<\/p>\n
At the first meeting of the International Consultative Forum on EFA, U.N. sponsors singled out USCEFA as a model for national initiatives supporting basic education worldwide. This forum selected USCEFA to lead an international task force to explore the involvement of media in education…<\/p>\n
USCEFA\u2019s 1994 main events included: a symposium entitled \u201cThe Educational Implications of NAFTA\u201d [North American Free Trade Agreement] that addressed educational issues emerging in the wake of the signing of the NAFTA agreement; co-sponsorship of a global teleconference entitled \u201cGlobal Interdependence: the United States and the Third World.\u201d USCEFA\u2019s most prominent 1994 event is its December conference; \u201cThe Revolution in World Education: Toward Systemic Change.\u201d This conference explores systemic change in education and the achievement of educational goals and outcomes around the world…. USCEFA will continue to cooperate internationally to keep the spirit of the Jomtien Conference alive and to make Education for All a reality at home and abroad.<\/p>\n
3D, pages 291-292:<\/p>\n
BRITISH COLUMBIA TEACHERS\u2019 FEDERATION IN 1991 PUBLISHED \u201cWHAT IS THE MARKET Model?\u201d Excerpts from this interesting flyer made available to Canadian teachers follows: AIMS: The Market Model aims to reduce learning to an instrument serving social power. More specifically public education is enlisted in the Market Model to serve the needs of corporate capital in an information age of global production.<\/p>\n
FEATURES:<\/strong><\/p>\n1. In Canada the market model started in higher education, and is now moving tosecondary schooling.
\n2. Cuts in government funding, with corporate funding targeted to particular projects.
\n3. Purpose of education\u2014to compete economically in the international marketplace.
\n4. Demands that public education be redesigned to serve as a knowledge producer forprivate corporations in the national economic competition.
\n5. Textbook production and distribution under control of private corporations.
\n6. Academic teachers are conceived as \u201cbusiness persons\u201d who provide goods and services under Free Trade Agreement and NAFTA.<\/p>\n
RHETORIC:<\/strong><\/p>\n\u201cNew Reality\u201d
\nCompetition, Market Discipline
\n\u201cThe Campus as Corporation\u201d (Strangeway, 1984)
\nCurriculum Products
\nResource Units or Resource Packages
\nUniform Standards Skills<\/p>\n
MAIN SOURCE: McMurtry, John, Journal of Philosophy of Education, Vol. 25, No. 2, 1991.
\nPD95\u20130016<\/p>\n
[Ed. Note: Many of McMurtry\u2019s tongue-in-cheek ideas are to be found in so-called \u201cconservative\u201d think tanks\u2019 papers on education restructuring. Number 6 under \u201cFeatures\u201d is particularly offensive in that the idea of teachers becoming \u201cprivate contractors\u201d instead of school system employees is being discussed and proposed around many a policy maker\u2019s table in this country. What a peculiar thing. If teachers are being trained not to concentrate on subject matter or \u201clower level skill development,\u201d what would they have to market? The ability to \u201ctrain\u201d students to perform certain tasks in a certain way in a certain period of time? Market Model Maniacs?<\/em>] ”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"[Original article written on May 3, 2016, updated here.] The Heritage Foundation drafted NAFTA (North American Free Trade Agreement). American jobs and companies have moved to foreign countries rendering American workers jobless. NAFTA has also impacted American education. Yet those in the Heritage Foundation call themselves “conservatives”. Upon receiving a solicitation for financial support from […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1757","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/deliberatedumbingdown.com\/ddd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/deliberatedumbingdown.com\/ddd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/deliberatedumbingdown.com\/ddd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deliberatedumbingdown.com\/ddd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deliberatedumbingdown.com\/ddd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1757"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/deliberatedumbingdown.com\/ddd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1758,"href":"https:\/\/deliberatedumbingdown.com\/ddd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1757\/revisions\/1758"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/deliberatedumbingdown.com\/ddd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1757"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deliberatedumbingdown.com\/ddd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1757"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/deliberatedumbingdown.com\/ddd\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1757"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}