Education or indoctrination?

Alex Newman, U.S. investigative journalist and author, is interviewed by Richard House

- RICHARD HOUSE

Richard House [RH]: Your new book, Indoctrinating Our Children to Death is a gripping tour de force, Alex. Tell us about the main inspirations underpinning your work on America’s schooling system.

Alex Newman [AN]: Great to chat, Richard. Frankly, I had no idea what a disaster the American education system was, because I grew up outside of the USA in elite private schools, mostly in Latin America and, later, in Europe. My first taste of American education was taking a high-school equivalency test instead of getting a degree, since I’d been expelled and never graduated. It was so easy I couldn’t believe it… these were subjects I mastered in elementary school! College in the US was a wake-up call, too.

As I was getting started in my journalism career, I read in a local newspaper that US national education standards were being developed. I wasn’t a constitutional scholar, but I understood even then that education was not a constitutional responsibility of the federal government – so I began digging. What I found was shocking: the Common Core State Standards Initiative, also known as Common Core. As I researched this and spoke with many of the key players, it quickly became apparent that these national standards weren’t just bad, they were designed to be bad. That’s what the experts on the Common Core Validation Committee were telling me.