"Plain and simple --
'process-over-content' means no right or wrong answers.
This is the philosophy which was implemented through the
National Center on Education and the Economy
(NCEE) run by
Marc Tucker,
Hillary
Clinton, Ira Magaziner, and Mario Cuomo. The NCEE
in the early 1980's drove the standards movement,
flooded into every state in the U. S. through Goals
2000, captured the schools' day-to-day instruction, and
turned it into 'process-over-content.' No longer do our
nation's schools emphasize right answers. The process
has become the important focus. This is what explains
fuzzy math where students go through an elongated
process and write essays about this process.
This is
what explains the lack of attention to right-or-wrong
grammar, an emphasis on invented spelling, integrated
social studies instead of history, the reading of
shallow literature instead of the time-honored classics,
personal victimization narratives rather than
persuasive/expository composition built upon solid
content, etc. Mushy, foggy, non-exact
process-over-content --
"Process-over-content is a
little faster term than the one I have used for years,
but let me spell out the entire issue. This is what the
NCEE brought about:
Our nation's schools moved from
knowledge-based, academic content, objectively tested,
right-or-wrong answers TO performance-based, cognitive
domain (opinions, feelings, emotions), subjectively
assessed, multiculturalism, political correctness,
diversity, environmental extremism, homosexuality.
"We now have twenty years of
indoctrinated people who have come through the
NCEE-influenced public schools where as students, these
people learned to
glorify their opinions, feelings, and
emotions over logical, content-based thinking. What are
we seeing in our society? What are we seeing among our
voters? What are we seeing in our churches? People
honestly think that if their feelings are hurt,
then the laws must be changed for them. If a person
perceives that someone has said something "hateful"
about him, then the 'world is supposed to stop' while
all the rules are changed to suit him.
Instead of churches trying
to teach their young people the Biblical basis for
purity and the consequences of sexual activities, many
churches have decided teens just cannot control their
feelings and emotions and, thus, are backing Planned
Parenthood. These churches have begun to support such
feel-good causes as AIDS for Africa (with an
emphasis on
contraceptives rather than on abstinence), poverty,
global warming seminars, and environmental
responsibility rather than teaching the Biblical basis
for personal responsibility, a solid work ethic,
self-discipline, natural consequences of bad choices,
and self-control. These same churches spend the
majority of their time on
social ministries with
short-term results rather than on heart-changing
ministries where people can learn to lean upon God and
see long-term results. I believe the liberal Baptist
conference just held in Atlanta last week is a direct
outgrowth of the falling-away of the church. For this
conference to have given the microphone to Bill Clinton,
Jimmy Carter, and Al Gore indicates just how far down
the slippery slope the church is moving.
"The Nov. 2006 election began
to show the deep fissure which has developed in our
country. The number of people who are voting based upon
their feelings rather than upon their knowledge of the
facts has
reached critical mass. Are the voters looking for
candidates who have solid and well-documented platforms;
or are they supporting those candidates who say the 'sweetest,' most people-pleasing things?
"May God have mercy upon our
land."