Mental Health, Education and Social Control, Part 17

By Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D., NewsWithViews.com

Ablechild is an organization of parents for label and drug free education. And in their press release of July 19, 2005, one learns that according to the Drug Enforcement Agency, “Every indicator available, including scientific abuse liability studies, actual abuse, paucity of scientific studies on possible adverse effects associated with long-term use of stimulants, divergent prescribing practices of U.S. physicians, and lack of concurrent medical treatment and follow-up, urge greater caution and more restrictive use of Methylphenidate (Ritalin).” The press release also quoted U.S. House of Representatives majority leader Rep. Tom DeLay as proclaiming that “the federal government should become advocates in strengthening American famililes and encouraging parental participation in decisions that directly effect their children’s health and overall well-being. In the wake of the creation of psychiatric labels, every parent should be wary of relinquishing their responsibility to the government to define and assess their child’s mental health status.”

Concerning parents’ rights in the area of mental health screening, EdWatch in its July 18, 2005, “Issues and Action in Education” e-letter noted that “universal mental health screening ‘at least once by age 3’ was defeated as part of a mandatory kindergarten screening in the 2005 Minnesota legislative session. The legislation wanted to screen children’s ‘socioemotional development’.” In its July 21 e-letter, EdWatch also noted that Florida Governor Jeb Bush signed a bill pertaining to psychotropic medication which stated: “A public school may not deny any student access to programs or services because the parent of the student has refused to place the student on psychotropic medication….A public school teacher and shool district personnel may not compel or attempt to compel any specific actions by the parent or require that a student take medication. A parent may refuse psychological screening of the student. Any medical decison made to address a student’s needs is a matter between the student, the student’s parent, and a competent health care professional chosen by the parent.”

Most Americans do not realize that government has been monitoring our mental health for quite some time. For example, there was a National Center for Health Statistics (NCES, part of the U.S. Department of Education) revised Handbook from 1974 titled “Student/Pupil Accounting: Standard Terminology and Guide for Managing Student Data in Elementary and Secondary Schools, Community/Junior Colleges, and Adult Education.” In it, Major Categories of Student Information 4.00 through 4.40 cover “Mental, Psychological, and Proficiency Test Results and Related Student Characteristics.”

More recently, in June 1993, NCES published FIELD RESTRICTED USE DATA PROCEDURES MANUAL defining “individually identifiable information” as including an “individual’s education, financial transactions, medical history and criminal or employment history” with some “identifying particular assigned to the individual” (e.g., name, fingerprint, voiceprint, etc.). NCES indicated that the bulk of its data files containing such information on individuals is maintained by Boeing Computer Services. And on January 6, 1994, NCES provided a list of 29 companies, contractors and organizations which have access to restricted use National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) data bases that contain individually identifiable information. Some of them are Rand Inc., Educational Testing Service (ETS, which has administered the NAEP and the SAT), National Computer Systems, and the Montana State Attorney-General).

A few months later, NCES 94-303 “Student Data Handbook for Early Childhood, Elementary and Secondary Education” was released July 20, 1994. The Handbook covers information on public and private school children. Codes 013 to 036 include the student’s background, ID number, health record number, etc. Religious background is code 030, and home-schoolers and private schoolers have their own designated codes. Section 189 is “Assessment Type,” with 16 assessments, including “Attitudinal Test” (04) which is “an assessment to measure the mental and emotional set or patterns of likes and dislikes or opinions held by a student or a group of students. This is often used in relation to considerations such as controversial issues or personal adjustments.”

Personality Test, subcategory (12) under “Assessment Type,” is described as “an assessment to measure a student’s affective or non-intellectual aspects of behavior such as emotional adjustments, interpersonal relations, motivation, interests, and attitudes.” Student Support Service Type (category 322, with 39 subcategories) covers “type of related or ancillary services provided to an individual or a group of individuals within the formal educational system or offered by an outside agency which provides non-instructional services to support the general welfare of students. This includes physical and emotional health….”

Following the production of this Handbook, President Bill Clinton on April 21, 1997 issued Executive Order 13045 that included convening an Interagency Forum on Child and Family Services, which “shall produce an annual compendium (‘Report’) of the most important indicators of the well-being of the Nation’s children….The Forum shall provide an ongoing review of Federal collection and dissemination of data on children and families, and shall make recommendations to improve the coverage and coordination of data collection….The Report shall be published by the Forum in collaboration with the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development.”

The purpose in collecting data is to achieve social control. In terms of education, a leading “progressive” educator, Ralph Tyler, was the principal designer of the Educational Quality Assessment (EQA) in Pennsylvania as well as designer for the major part of the similar NAEP. According to B. K. Eakman’s CLONING OF THE AMERICAN MIND: ERADICATING MORALITY THROUGH EDUCATION, the “Interpretive Literature” to the EQA revealed that the ETS was trying to find the child’s “locus of control,” whether the child is “amenable to change,” and whether the child will “conform to group goals.” In B. K. Eakman’s EDUCATING FOR THE “NEW WORLD ORDER,” one learns that “responses serve as indicators of how firmly held, or entrenched, are beliefs and attitudes. If an individual is highly principled, that could be interpreted by test analysts as ‘dogmatic’ or ‘closed-minded,’ characteristics which apparently are considered negative on the testers’ balance sheets.” Eakman also relates regarding the EQA Resource booklet COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT FOR RESPONSIBLE CITIZENSHIP that “the introduction to the curriculum made no bones about the EQA being essentially an examination of attitudes….Nor did it mince any words about the curriculum’s primary objective: to discourage transmittal of certain attitudes held by parents.” One also discovers that a 1984 manual called GETTING INSIDE THE EQA INVENTORY “left little doubt that children were being scored for ‘preferred’ attitudes—that is, each child, unbeknownst to his parents or himself, was being judged on opinions and personality traits. ‘Unacceptable’ and ‘nonproductive’ attitudes, stated the manual, would be changed through remediation.”

For years, the federal government has busied itself with changing American values from Biblical principles to secular humanist ones. In the Spring of 1974, the U.S. Office of Education (USOE) gave a grant of $5.9 million for 500 “change agents” to be trained at 21 institutions of higher education around the United States. The USOE had already funded portions of TRAINING FOR CHANGE AGENTS (1973) by Ronald and Mary Havelock under Contract Number OEC-0-8-080603-4535(010). And in that book, the authors asserted: “The Advocator-Organizder-Agitator (ADORAG) and Social Architect change agents would receive training in value clarification….Because of his political and ego strength, the ADORAG is relatively invulnerable to the system. He is able to ride or create a crisis…to escalate frictions and protests. Knowledge of the law and strategies of confrontation and civil disobedience will be extremely helpful.”

In 1974, the USOE also funded a report for the Chief State School Officers (CSSO) titled “Man, Education and Society in the Year 2000.” In this document’s summary, one reads: “The design of the home, the church and the school…were as ‘maintainers’ of society—that is, to teach our young the ‘right’ things they would need for the future….The home, the church and the school cannot be effective maintainers since the future cannot be predicted….Values, knowledge, and concepts are presented as if they would last forever….Perhaps there is a need for the clarification of new values needed to solve future problems.” And in this same year (1974), the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) approved a $250,000 grant to infamous sexologist Sol Gordon to prepare community leaders to teach parents how to talk to children about sex. As mentioned in Part 5 of this series, Gordon in THE HUMANIST (January-February 1975) referred to himself as “polymorphous perverse,” and his ZING SEX COMIX told young people about homosexuality, bisexuality, oral and anal sex, and pornography.

For many years, the power elite has considered the State as supreme over the rights of parents and others. In an October 29, 1901 ruling by the Indiana Supreme Court (“State v. Bailey,” 157 Ind. 324) regarding the right of parents to direct their children’s education, the Court ruled that the natural right of parents to the control and custody of their children was subordinate to the power of the State. And on August 7, 1918 War Industries Board chairman Bernard Baruch declared: “Every man’s life is at the call of the nation and so must be every man’s property. We are living today in a highly organized state of socialism. The state is all; the individual is of importance only as he contributes to the welfare of the state. His property is only as the state does not need it. He must hold his life and his possessions at the call of the state.” (THE KNICKERBOCKER PRESS, August 8, 1918)

The power elite look at people more in terms of their value to society than as individual human beings with God-given rights. This is the utilitarianism of Jeremy Bentham, which was adopted by British Fabian Socialists like H. G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw and Bertrand Russell, all mentioned earlier. It was also the attitude of American Fabians like John Dewey.

National Socialists like Adolph Hitler believed in getting rid of “useless eaters,” and German schoolchildren studied graphs and calculations of how much money could be saved or how much housing could be built by killing people who were a “drain on society.” Relevant to the recent grotesque killing of Terri Schiavo (her tongue and throat were cracked and raw, her eyes bleeding, etc., none of which was stopped by so-called Christian Americans), supposedly “conservative” Bill O’Reilly of the FOX News Channel commented: “The medical evidence is just too overwhelming to justify keeping her on life support at taxpayer expense.” This is quoted from “Paving the Way for Euthanasia” (July 8, 2005) by Cliff Kincaid, editor of the AIM (Accuracy in the Media) Report, who then said: “If the ultimate rationale for the Schiavo killing is that it would have cost too much to keep her alive, then we are all at risk.” And don’t forget that former Colorado Governor Richard Lamm told a group of senior citizens, “You’ve got a duty to die and get out of the way,” and he compared the elderly to “leaves falling off a tree and forming humus for other plants to grow.” (Minneapolis STAR-TRIBUNE, March 29, 1994, page 13A).

International Marxists like the Chinese Communists (who have killed tens of millions of their own people) refer to every citizen’s “dangan,” which is a file on the person’s value to the State. In the U.S., schoolchildren have been conditioned to accept utilitarianism by teachers forcing them to play games like the “Lifeboat Game,” deciding who should be thrown overboard as least useful to the group. And when these children grow up, they are “entertained” by TV shows like “Survivor” where individuals are not literally killed, but they are kicked off the island based upon their value to the rest.

© 2005 Dennis Cuddy – All Rights Reserved

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