(And all oth­ers with chil­dren in pri­vate & reli­gious education!)
Read Part 1

 

UNESCO: WORLDWIDE STRATEGIC PLANNING
FOR ALL EDUCATION

The U.N. (Unit­ed Nations) advo­cates Com­mu­nist Com­mon Core edu­ca­tion for all stu­dents on this plan­et, no mat­ter the reli­gion and no mat­ter whether the school is pub­lic or pri­vate. The “UN, Oba­ma, and Gates are glob­al­iz­ing edu­ca­tion via Com­mon Core.”(1) Here is a sum­ma­ry of the edu­ca­tion­al aims of UNESCO, The Unit­ed Nations Edu­ca­tion­al, Sci­en­tif­ic, and Cul­tur­al Orga­ni­za­tion.

This ped­a­gog­i­cal rev­o­lu­tion attempts to impose an eth­ic for the cre­ation of a new soci­ety and to estab­lish an inter­cul­tur­al soci­ety. The new eth­ic is noth­ing more than a remark­able pre­sen­ta­tion of a com­mu­nist utopia.

A study of the doc­u­ments leaves no doubt, under cov­er of ethics and behind a rhetoric and remark­able dialec­tic, of a com­mu­nist ide­ol­o­gy for which only the pre­sen­ta­tion and the means of action have been mod­i­fied.… Also it is no sur­prise that the lev­el of schol­ar­ship will con­tin­ue to go down since the role of the school has been rede­fined so that its prin­ci­pal mis­sion is no longer intel­lec­tu­al but social formation.…One no longer gives stu­dents intel­lec­tu­al tools for lib­er­a­tion but impos­es on them val­ues, atti­tudes, and behav­ior using psy­cho­log­i­cal manip­u­la­tion tech­niques. (empha­sis added) (2)

With the usu­al dis­claimer, UNESCO’S Inter­na­tion­al Insti­tute for Edu­ca­tion­al Planning(3) released the work­ing paper, Strate­gic Plan­ning, Con­cept and ratio­nale, in 2010.(4) This is a world blue­print for “man­ag­ing” edu­ca­tion (restruc­tur­ing and gov­er­nance for com­mu­ni­ty con­trol and Com­mon Core) across the globe. This paper describes the struc­tur­al busi­ness mod­el of Total Qual­i­ty Man­age­ment (TQM) for edu­ca­tion to assure each child in the world becomes a glob­al prod­uct of Communism.

TQM was put in place in pub­lic edu­ca­tion years ago through fund­ing from the Ele­men­tary and Sec­ondary Edu­ca­tion Act (ESEA) of 1965. Cook­ie-cut­ter Com­mon Core goals, objec­tives, per­for­mance indi­ca­tors, and assess­ments were in place in all pub­lic schools by the mid to late 70’s. At that time the man­age­ment pro­gram was called Plan­ning, Pro­gram and Bud­get­ing Sys­tem (PPBS).Benjamin Bloom’s Tax­on­o­my (to destroy faith and val­ues) was man­dat­ed for this sys­tem. Now this same Strate­gic Plan­ning Man­age­ment Con­trol Sys­tem is being applied to Catholic Parish­es and the Parish Com­mu­ni­ty.

THE CATHOLICS AND STRATEGIC PLANNING

The Unit­ed States Con­fer­ence of Catholic Bish­ops’ (USCCB) Strate­gic Plan Roadmap, Jour­ney with Christ: Faith – Wor­ship – Wit­ness calls for Strate­gic Plan­ning and affords an over­all view of this par­a­digm shift slat­ed for Catholic dio­ce­ses and parishes.(5) What could pos­si­bly be wrong with such glow­ing mis­sion pro­pos­als and strate­gic plan­ning from the USCCB which include the par­tic­i­pa­tion of so many arch/dioceses and parish mem­bers? It appears that the same for­mat for strate­gic gov­er­nance and restruc­tur­ing pro­posed by UNESCO is now being applied to dio­ce­ses across the coun­try. Such Plan­ning and Pro­gram­ming con­trols always start from the top down.

The first report, Wake Up Catholics (6), doc­u­ment­ed that Catholic edu­ca­tion has not escaped Com­mon Core and TQM plan­ning and gov­er­nance. Dio­cese after dio­cese has suc­cumbed to Com­mon Core and restruc­tur­ing and fund­ing for gov­er­nance under the head­ing of “Strate­gic Plan­ning.” Sim­ply search the inter­net for ”Catholic dio­ce­ses strate­gic plan­ning” to see how wide­spread this is. Check your own arch/diocese’s Mis­sion State­ment for ref­er­ences to ‘strate­gic planning.’

STRATEGIC PLANNING AT THE PARISH LEVEL

Com­pli­ance to this plan­ning is required at the parish lev­el to com­plete the glob­al trans­for­ma­tion. Pro­fes­sion­als train or retrain those on exist­ing parish com­mit­tees and boards, and cre­ate and train new com­mit­tees and small groups. Who knows how many pro­fes­sion­al orga­ni­za­tions exist in which to assist in train­ing and trans­form­ing mem­bers of local parish­es? The fol­low­ing orga­ni­za­tion is per­haps one of many parish plan­ning groups. Their for­mat demon­strates what can be expect­ed to take place in the Parish Community.

The Catholic School Devel­op­ment Pro­gram (CSDP), now called the Healey Edu­ca­tion­al Foun­da­tion, spon­sored work­shops at the major Nation­al Catholic Edu­ca­tion (NCEA) Con­fer­ence in April, 2014. It is prob­a­bly safe to con­clude that their pro­gram would have been made avail­able to many of the attend­ing school super­in­ten­dents and principals.

The stat­ed CSDP mod­el is based on Gov­er­nance and Strate­gic Plan­ning. They inform us that to be an effec­tive (out­come based, OBE) school it takes a teacher’s teacher, a CEO, a finan­cial plan­ner, a per­son­nel eval­u­a­tor, a fam­i­ly coun­selor, a child psy­chol­o­gist, a cri­sis manger, a cur­ricu­lum design­er, and a pas­tor as well. How­ev­er, in addi­tion, the school must have a mar­keter. Schools are referred to as busi­ness­es and fam­i­lies as cus­tomers. Wouldn’t par­ents who “foot the bill” find all this com­mu­ni­ty autho­riza­tion to admin­is­ter to their chil­dren and their parish school rather auda­cious as well as usurpative?

CSDP rec­om­mends “Boards of Lim­it­ed Juris­dic­tion” which would have offi­cial author­i­ty gov­erned by “oper­at­ing prin­ci­ples” (O.P). Of great inter­est, this board does not get involved with man­age­ment, staffing or cur­ricu­lum issues, which only the prin­ci­pal con­trols. Why would there be a school board that has noth­ing to do with the school? The board’s pur­pose is to pro­mote the school’s mis­sion and pol­i­cy posi­tions, etc. and demon­strate this sup­port with­in the com­mu­ni­ty. Are they to become “Alin­skyian-type” Com­mu­ni­ty Organizers?

In oth­er sim­i­lar gov­er­nance plans, the prin­ci­pal must also fol­low the Com­mon Core dic­tates of the dio­cese super­in­ten­dent, either direct­ly or through parish “Con­sor­tiums.” Such struc­tures can ren­der fruit­less parental input and efforts for authen­tic Catholic edu­ca­tion at their parish school.

CSDP says the nec­es­sary qual­i­ties for school boards require the “right peo­ple” to serve as Board mem­bers. They rec­om­mend anoth­er site, The Blue Avo­ca­do, where choos­ing boards is fur­ther discussed.(7) For “diver­si­ty,” The Blue Avo­ca­do sug­gests that ques­tions need to be asked such as: “Do we need some­one who can reach the Arab gro­cers’ asso­ci­a­tion to get their sup­port for the plas­tic bag ban?”(8) They also rec­om­mend Com­mu­ni­ty Orga­niz­ers (Alinkyian­ism?) for posi­tions on the Board.

In addi­tion “The Effec­tive (OBE, Ed.) Par­ents Asso­ci­a­tion” has been rec­om­mend­ed by the CSDP. Par­ents would go out into the com­mu­ni­ty to approach new par­ents, etc. and to present the school’s mis­sion (Com­mon Core and pro­gres­sive edu­ca­tion). These par­ents are to fol­low the direc­tion of the prin­ci­pal and work with an advance­ment direc­tor in the areas of devel­op­ment, enroll­ment, man­age­ment, con­stituent rela­tions, and com­mu­ni­ca­tions. Is this more top-down orga­niz­ing of the Com­mu­ni­ty? CSDP offers work­shop spon­sor­ships, school spon­sor­ships, and ser­vice as a school board mem­ber. Schools in the Arch­dio­cese of Philadel­phia and the Dio­cese of Allen­town, PA. are among their clients. How many more are on CSDP’s list of subscribers?

THE AMAZING PARISH

The Amaz­ing Parish is a new­ly formed orga­ni­za­tion. Its first con­fer­ence was held in Den­ver, Col­orado in August, 2014. There was a capac­i­ty atten­dance of 500 Catholic lead­ers and pas­tors from across the Unit­ed States. Their work­shops focused on parish lead­er­ship teams, for­ma­tion pro­grams and evan­ge­liza­tion. One of their resources is A Guide to Build­ing Teams for Catholic Parish­es by staff mem­ber Patrick Lencioni who is also founder of the Table Group. This Guide deals with team­work for trans­for­ma­tion­al improve­ment in parish lead­er­ship, trust, con­flict, com­mit­ment, and account­abil­i­ty to pro­duce results (out­come/re­sult­s/per­for­mance-based). To accom­plish this, parish lead­ers must over­come “dys­func­tions.” They must trust their fel­low team mem­bers and be com­fort­able with each other’s weak­ness­es, fears, mis­takes, and behav­iors. They should engage in pas­sion­ate dia­logue to reach deci­sions. The guide says account­abil­i­ty means “call­ing out” team mem­bers for their behav­ior and performance.

In addi­tion, parish team lead­ers must allow their weak­ness­es to be exposed to oth­ers mem­bers. They must become vul­ner­a­ble and be pushed out­side their emo­tion­al com­fort zones. They must be will­ing to engage in con­struc­tive con­flict. [See foot­note 10, sec­ond site, for the harm this can cause.] 

“When it comes to teams, trust is all about vul­ner­a­bil­i­ty. Team mem­bers who trust one anoth­er learn to be com­fort­able being open, even exposed, to one anoth­er around their fail­ures, weak­ness­es, even fears. Now, if this is begin­ning to sound like some get-naked, touchy-feely the­o­ry, rest assured that it is noth­ing of the sort.”(9)

If not that, does it, at the least, sound like it is beneath Chris­t­ian dig­ni­ty, Chris­t­ian deco­rum, and counter to the some of the Fruits of the Holy Spir­it, such as char­i­ty (or love), joy, peace, patience, benig­ni­ty (or kind­ness), good­ness, long suf­fer­ing and mildness?

Accord­ing to this guide, achiev­ing “com­mit­ment” is appar­ent­ly not “con­sen­sus.” The guide defines “com­mit­ment” as a group of indi­vid­u­als buy­ing into a deci­sion with which they don’t nat­u­ral­ly agree.

Team mem­bers should also sub­mit to Behav­ioral Pro­fil­ing such as the Myers-Brig­gs diag­nos­tic ques­tion­naire. The guide states:

“Once all types have been iden­ti­fied, have team mem­bers each read a short descrip­tion of their own type out loud to the rest of the team… After the exer­cise has been com­plet­ed, have team mem­bers read a more com­pre­hen­sive descrip­tion of their own type, high­light­ing sec­tions that they find par­tic­u­lar­ly insight­ful and descrip­tive of their ten­den­cies. Also, have them choose one or two areas that they would like to improve about them­selves, based on their Myers-Brig­gs type. Have all team mem­bers report these find­ings to the group, prefer­ably on day two of an ini­tial off-site…[regarding “con­flict” the guide con­tin­ues, Ed.]… Have the team mem­bers each share those impli­ca­tions, along with oth­er con­flict influ­ences in their lives, includ­ing fam­i­ly and life expe­ri­ences as well as cul­tur­al background.”(10)

Any­one engag­ing in this type of group dis­clo­sure for­mat might want to become famil­iar with the Group Dynam­ics of Marx­ist Kurt Lewin (Group Process/Sensitivity Train­ing… brain­wash­ing… out of the Nation­al Train­ing Laboratories/NEA, Bethel, Maine, found­ed by Kurt Lewin in 1947, and the destruc­tive Encounter Groups once led by Robert Coul­son. (11)

Amaz­ing Parish had quite a few sites for all kinds of parish lead­er­ship for pas­tors and oth­ers. These sites can be reviewed at http://amazingparish.org/real-leadership-team.
AND MANY MORE
Boston College’s Bar­bara and Patrick Roche Cen­ter for Catholic Edu­ca­tion also has a “Lead­er­ship Team Ini­tia­tive” for prin­ci­pals, pas­tors, teach­ers, schools boards, and oth­er stake­hold­ers to col­lab­o­rate and man­age mis­sion-dri­ven cen­tered institutions.(12) There are prob­a­bly many more of these types of col­lege-spon­sored and pro­fes­sion­al team train­ing pro­grams for strate­gic gov­er­nance around the country.

In the mean­time, the mas­sive quest for phil­an­thropic mon­ey to sup­port fund­ing and gov­er­nance con­tin­ues. Note the scope of the Phil­an­thropic Round­table and what they sup­port. http://philanthropyroundtable.org/topic/k_12_education.

Foot­notes and Sources:
1. New­man, Alex, “UN, Oba­ma, and Gates are Glob­al­iz­ing Edu­ca­tion Via Com­mon Core”, The New Amer­i­can, 3/28/2014.
2. Iser­byt, Char­lotte, the delib­er­ate dumb­ing down of amer­i­ca, page 346. http://deliberatedumbingdown.com/MomsPDFs/DDDoA.sml.pdf
3. The Inter­na­tion­al Insti­tute for Edu­ca­tion­al Plan­ning, UNESCO. http://iiep.unesco.org/aboutiiep/about-iiep.html
4.” The Strate­gic Plan­ning Con­cept and ratio­nale: Work­ing Paper”, UNESCO, 2010. http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0018/001897/189757e.pdf
5. Unit­ed States Con­fer­ence of Catholic Bish­ops” Jour­ney With Christ: Faith – Wor­ship — Wit­ness.: USCCB STRATEGIC PLAN ROADMAP http://usccb.org/about/2013–2016-priority-plan-roadmap.cfm and http://usccb.org/about/2013–2016-plan-suggested-parish-diocesan-roadmap.cfm and: B Mis­sion: 2013–2016 Con­fer­ence wide Pri­or­i­ty Ini­tia­tives: USCC http://usccb.org/about/usccb-mission.cfm
6. Kraus, Bet­sy, “Wake Up, Catholics: Major New Blows”, 9/2014 http://abcsofdumbdown.blogspot.com/2014/09/wake-up-catholics.html
7. The Catholic School Devel­op­ment Pro­gram, http://csdp.us/news-events/2012/schools-broaden-reach-recruit-and-retain-board-members
8. Masao­ka, Jan, “Ditch Your Board Com­po­si­tion Matrix”, Blue Avo­ca­do. http://blueavocado.org/node/762
9. Lencioni, Patrick, “A Guide to Build­ing Teams for Catholic Parish­es”, Amaz­ing Parish. Page 6. http://amazingparish.org/sites/default/files/uploads/files/catholic-fg.pdf
10. Ibid, Page 26. http://amazingparish.org/sites/default/files/uploads/files/catholic-fg.pdf
11. Kjos, Berit, “Brain­wash­ing in Amer­i­ca: Why Few Dare Call it Con­spir­a­cy”, 2001 http://crossroad.to/articles2/brainwashing.html and http://crossroad.to/Quotes/Education/sensitivity-training.htm
12. “The Lead­er­ship Team Ini­tia­tive”, Boston Col­lege. http://bc.edu/content/bc/schools/lsoe/cce/leadershipteaminitiative.html