On April 20, 1999, two 17-year-old students at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold, after a
year of careful preparation, carried out a murderous rampage in their school, resulting in the shooting deaths of 14 students
(including themselves) and a teacher, and wounding 23 others. The two teenagers were heard by witnesses to proclaim, "This is what
we always wanted to do," "This is awesome" and "Today's the day we die."
Columbine was not an isolated event. It was just the most spectacular of a string of school massacres that have taken place in the
last two decades, including the March 2001 shooting rampage at Santana High School in Santee, Calif., when a 15-year-old freshman killed
two students and wounded 11 other students and two staff members.
Why are these school shootings occurring with increasing frequency? What is turning some children into killers? And why, in
particular, are they venting their murderous rage within the walls of their schools?
Beyond the sensational school shootings, what of the less publicized but far more pervasive public school epidemics of functional
illiteracy, "learning disabilities," sexual activity, suicide, drug and alcohol abuse, occult involvement and other dysfunctional
behaviors?
Why is it that today's public schools increasingly offer — in place of the rigorous academic and moral instruction of yesteryear ÌÎÌ_ÌÎ_ÌÎÌ__ÌÎÌ_ÌÎ__ÌÎÌ_ÌÎ_ÌÎå«Ì´ÌàÌÎÌ_Ì´åÇÌÎå«Ì´å
multiculturalism, situational ethics, drug education, sex education, death education, sensitivity training, gay studies, condoms,
look-say rather than phonics, behaviorism, cooperative learning, outcome-based education, Skinnerian mastery learning, magic circles
and transcendental meditation?
Why is it that, according to the U.S. Department of Education, 90 million American adults can barely read or write?
And why is it that, in 1996, the Scholastic Aptitude Test (SAT) was re-normed because scores had dropped so dramatically since the
average (or norm) was established in 1941 that the disparity became embarrassing to the educational establishment?
The October 2001 edition of Whistleblower, WND's highly popular monthly magazine, is titled "DUMBED DOWN: The deliberate destruction of
America's education system." It tells the true and dramatic story of public education — of how government schools were consciously,
intentionally transformed, over the course of decades, into what they are today — institutions that have profoundly failed millions
of young people.
"This edition of Whistleblower is electrifying," said WND CEO and editor Joseph Farah. "It will make you mad, but it will
also open you eyes as to what the government's education system is really all about."
