Archive for the ‘donna garner’ Tag
This letter was sent this week from a Los Angeles teacher to Donna Garner, an education news writer.
It is published here with permission, but without the name of the teacher.
Hi Donna,
I’ve been following your emails regarding Common Core, and the situation certainly is not pretty. Thanks a million for all you do. Many of my liberal friends are no longer liberals. They’re being screwed, and now they know it. We teachers had a meeting with the man who is basically in charge of all school programming, and it isn’t pretty. He’s leaving since they want him to reapply for a job; but he knows his job is being cut. He will be gone. More on that in a minute —
Hopefully Common Core can be neutered. I heard that 35 states have legislation to either restrict or eliminate Common Core. WOW!
Most of our math teachers are puzzled themselves by what they have seen in CC.
Our dept. chair (who is a vocal liberal and was a proponent of CC) came back from a district-wide meeting. He said the entire CC plan was so illogical that his hands were literally shaking after the meeting was over.
I personally don’t think we have seen the worst of CC as of yet, just a mild prelude. That’s why it needs to be eliminated and right now! Anyway, thanks ever so much for the emails and updates. I share them with my fellow teachers.
I learned today that LAUSD is eliminating the Special Ed. dept. altogether. I have no idea what they are doing, but it sounds crazy.
Our staff was asked to “apply” for a new school daily operations plan, whereby we could hire our own principal and have a say in the day-to-day operations. That has all backfired as of today, and one of the teachers said she would sue if she has the option. They have made it a living hell for teachers.
LAUSD is also getting rid of all Advanced Placement teachers. They have to reapply to get a job – now teachers will be called “Instructional Advisors” instead of teachers. Welcome to the real Common Core. Welcome Facilitators. We are no longer to be considered teachers.
People don’t understand the forethought into Common Core and what the feds want to implement. I’ll work at Home Depot or Wal Mart if it gets me out of here “yesterday.”
I am leaving California and moving to Texas. I would have left this year but because of health problems, I could not afford to leave my insurance. However, I am in the process of trying to get my Texas teaching certificate… At first, the Texas assessments were only given in Texas, but now they are available in San Diego. I’ll try and take them, but…we’ll see. I used to be a salesman, and I can do that again. I will do anything to get out of LAUSD.
Donna, please keep letting people, teachers, and parents know what is going on in the schools here. If parents really knew, they would be utterly shocked. This is where the education is heading. Complete control by the Feds. They are doing it to the teachers right now, yet the unsuspecting public is like the proverbial “frog in boiling water.” It’s over with here!
Anyway, just thought I’d let you know where Common Core is going. We in LAUSD are at the forefront. I’m going to try and document as many of the changes as possible so that I can send it to you. Maybe you can use it to alert the rest of America.
Take care, Donna, and thanks for helping me see some of the CC stuff; the whole picture is clearly coming into view now. I hope Texas is a better place for me to live and teach.
XXXXX
The U.S. Dept. of Education now has “Communications Regions”. http://www2.ed.gov/about/contacts/gen/regions.html
( FYI, regionalism and “Regional Equality” are tenets of the United Nations’ Agenda 21. –Because people are easier to control en masse than in smaller localities.)
So, I asked the Region 9 Education Service Center Public Information Officer, Debbie Cummings, to explain things to me. (Does her title not sound so Orwellian?)
I asked her how the U.S. Constitution works with the notion of regions, of U.S. states’ boundaries being less relevant, with the federal departments working with regions instead.
And Debbie Cummings dodged the actual question but answered a related issue that’s also important: “…in regard to your concern regarding “federal and state powers having checks and balances” It is through the Governor’s Office and the Texas Education Agency that the state’s rights are reviewed for compatibility with federal priorities prior to the state making application for any federal funds. It is then through the Texas Education Agency that the use of these funds are tracked to ensure adherence to both the federal and state priorities and requirements. However, if the priorities do not reflect a state’s priorities, then the State is not obligated to apply for the federal funds.
[So, states won’t be funded, even though they paid taxes federally.
They may not have access to their own tax money for their own schools,
if their priorities don’t match federal priorities?]
Cummings taught me something I didn’t know: “Many times they carry a different title from state to state, i.e., in New York they are called BOCES (Boards of Cooperative Educational Services); whereas in Texas, they have been named by the legislature as Regional Education Service Centers.” Ok. Harder to see the federal uniformity when states name their federal, regional education headquarters differently, I suppose.
So, I asked a Texas friend, Donna Garner, what she thought of all of this.
Donna Garner said, “The lawyers who set up the TESCCC (who own CSCOPE) knew full well what the laws are regarding the Education Service Centers (ESC), and they deliberately set up this corporation to get around the laws. They think they have figured out a way to make CSCOPE untouchable, but we are working with Texas Legislators to figure out some bills that will counteract the TESCCC. ”
“The ESC’s were not set up to become marketing mouthpieces for CSCOPE curriculum. It was never the intent of the Texas Legislature that set up the ESC’s to make them into money-making organizations that suck money from local taxpayers. We already pay school taxes to our local districts; we do not need to be paying extra dollars far-and-above those local taxes to help ESC’s make huge profits! Notice the ESC buildings around the state. The one locally has turned into a state-of-the-art, huge complex; and within those walls is where the CSCOPE marketing and training is being conducted locally. What a huge waste of our tax dollars!”
“Just yesterday on the Jason Moore talk show in Odessa, a current classroom teacher called in and said what a total waste of time the CSCOPE training is at the ESC. She said that the ESC staffers have little subject content knowledge and that the teachers who attend know so much more than the ESC staffers do.”
“Because the new TEKS curriculum standards (adopted since May 2008) are grade-level-specific for every grade level and for every core course (ELAR, Science, Social Studies, and Math), there is no need for the ESC’s to hire numerous staffers to train teachers. The teachers now know what is to be taught, and it is their purview to decide how to teach it. Even teachers in small school districts can get together with the teachers in the districts around them and share great teaching ideas of how to teach the TEKS. Why should those teachers go to the ESC’s when once they get there, they hardly ever come back with any practical ideas that can be used in their classrooms?”
“Next, the Race to the Top grants now coming from the USDOE go directly to the school districts and the ESC entities; those grants are not dispersed through the TEA. The funds go directly to the school districts/ESC’s if they are chosen in the final round of federal RTTT grants.”
How do I interpret these things? I think corporations and federal entitites should stay out of education, just the way the U.S. Constitution set it up.
U.S. Dept. of Education Arne Duncan
It looks to me like the corporations that make money from Common Core, and the federal Secretary who wants Common Core to be the national uniform, are chasing after Texas. It’s a control problem.
I remember seeing U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan speaking on a t.v. show way back when Texas rejected Common Core. He belittled the state’s education system and said that he felt so sorry for the children there, who would not be getting to learn the Common Core. Oh, yes he did.
http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2011/08/arne-duncan-i-feel-very-very-badly-for-kids-in-rick-perrys-texas-schools/
And Texas’ Robert Scott called Secretary Duncan out for it: http://dallasmorningviewsblog.dallasnews.com/2011/08/robert-scott-fi.html/
Robert Scott
The supposedly non-federal program, the supposedly state-led initiative of Common Core, when rejected by Texas, angered the U.S. Secretary of Education. Hmmm. So he decided that if the state (that is, Governor Rick Perry and Superintendent Robert Scott) were to reject Common Core, he would push it another way– he then started offering Race To The Top funds directly to school districts, bypassing the state completely. And of course, you can’t have Race to the Top funding unless you agree to Common Core. That’s how it works.
The elite D.C. educrats and corporations want their way, and they push and push and push. We must keep pushing back.
Donna Garner has put together a list of resources for those who are just beginning the fight against the Common Core dissolution of sovereignty over American education.
Thank you, Donna.
http://nocompromisepac.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=6457500%3ABlogPost%3A28400
9.25.12 — “Mitt Romney Takes Stand Against Common Core at Education Nation Summit” — http://caffeinatedthoughts.com/2012/09/mitt-romney-common-core-educ…
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9.25.12 — “Romney: No Federal Support for Common Core” by Alyson Klein, EducationWeek — http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/2012/09/mitt_romney_do…
CHRONOLOGICAL LIST OF ANTI-CCSI RESOURCES
(Most Recent First)
10.11.12 – “Is Common Core About To Melt Down” – by Neal McCluskey, Cato Institute —
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/is-common-core-about-to-melt-down/
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10.9.12 –“Like Obamacare, Obama Core Is Another Power Grab” — by Phyllis Schlafly, President of Eagle Forum — http://nocompromisepac.ning.com/profiles/blogs/like-obamacare-obama…
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9.30.12 – “Uncommon Allies Question a Common Core” – Editorial Board, JournalGazette.net — http://www.journalgazette.net/article/20120930/EDIT10/309309979/114…
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9.28.12 – “States Beginning To Rebel Against Common Core Standards” — http://nocompromisepac.ning.com/profiles/blogs/states-beginning-to-…
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9.28.12 – “South Carolina Could Regret Student Testing Scheme” – by Sen. Mike Fair – The State – South Crolina’s Homepage — http://www.thestate.com/2012/09/28/v-print/2459190/fair-sc-could-re…
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9.27.12 – “The Pedagogical Agenda of Common Core Math Standards” by Barry Garelick — EducationNews.org —
http://www.educationnews.org/education-policy-and-politics/the-peda…
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9.23.12 – “Do Not Let the DOE Nationalize the Schools in Your State” – by Henry W. Burke, Donna Garner —
http://educationviews.org/do-not-let-the-doe-nationalize-the-school…
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9.14.12 – “Fighting the Common Core Standards’ Social Justice Math” – by Oak Norton —
http://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/jordan-sd-rips-out-unsolvabl…
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9.14.12 – “Nationalized Public Schools Almost Here in America” — by Donna Garner —
http://educationviews.org/nationalized-public-schools-almost-here-i…
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9.10.12 — “Obama’s Inferior English Common Core Standards” – by Donna Garner —
http://educationviews.org/obamas-inferior-english-common-core-stand…
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9.7.12 – “Should the White House Control What Your Kids Learn?” by Stanley Kurtz —
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/09/07/should-white-house-contro…
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9.5.12 — “How To Indoctrinate Students’ Minds with Math” by Donna Garner —
http://educationviews.org/how-to-indoctrinate-students-minds-with-m…
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8.27.12 – “Parents Need To Know About Student Data Privacy” by J. R. Wilson — EducationNews.org —
http://www.educationnews.org/parenting/jr-wilson-parents-need-to-kn…
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8.15.12 – “An Ominous Political Trend for Common Core-ites” – by Frederick M. Hess – Education Week —
http://www.frederickhess.org/2012/08/an-ominous-political-trend-for…
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8.12.12 – “Utah Teachers Speak out Against the Obama Administration’s Common Core Standards” – Utahns Against Common Core — http://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/teacher-comments-on-common-c…
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8.5.12 – “Caring Parents, Where Are You? – Common Core Standards and Big Bang Theory” – by Donna Garner —
http://libertylinked.com/posts/10007/caring-parents-where-are/View….
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5.16.12 – “Incoming College Board Head Wants SAT To Reflect Common Core” – by Catherine Gewertz, Education Week — http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2012/05/16/32collegeboard.h31.htm…
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4.23.12 – “Common Core Math Standards Fail To Add Up” by Evan Walter, The Heritage Foundation —
http://blog.heritage.org/2012/04/23/common-core-math-standards-fail…
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4.17.12 – “Six-Minute Interview: Federal Takeover by the Obama Administration of Education Standards and Assessments” – Lindsey Burke, The Heritage Foundation
http://online.wsj.com/video/opinion-standardizing-schools-/FA09455F…
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3.26.12 — “Two Education Philosophies with Two Different Goals” — by Donna Garner —
http://libertylinked.com/posts/9703/2-education-philosophies-with/V…
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3.6.12 – “Handwaving Away Opposition to the National Standards” by Jim Stergios , Pioneer Institute —
http://jaypgreene.com/2012/03/06/handwaving-away-opposition-to-the-…
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2.20.12 – “Obama Imposing National School Curriculum” – by Bob Unruh – World Net Daily —
http://www.wnd.com/2012/02/obama-imposing-national-school-curriculum/
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2.12 – “National Cost of Aligning States and Localities to the Common Core Standards” – The Pioneer Institute and American Principles Project White Paper —
http://www.pioneerinstitute.org/pdf/120222_CCSSICost.pdf
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12.28.11 – “Feds To Be Able to Track Your School Children’s Personal Information” by Donna Garner —
http://teabook.org/profiles/blogs/feds-to-be-able-to-track-your-sch…
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12.21.11 – “A National Education Standards Exit Strategy for States” – by Lindsey Burke —
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/12/a-national-educati…
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10.27.11 – “Students Losing Their Right To Exress Their Opinions” – by Donna Garner —
http://libertylinked.com/posts/8754/students-losing-their-right/Vie…
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7.27.11 – “National Standards and Tests: An Unprecedented Federal Overreach”—The Heritage Foundation – Lindsey Burke, Robert Scott, et al —
http://www.heritage.org/events/2011/07/national-standards
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5.31.11 — “Liberals Interpret Themselves Liberally: Common Core Standards, Race to the Top” by Doug Lasken —
http://www.flashreport.org/featured-columns-library0b.php?faID=2011…
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5.28.11 — “A ‘Common’ Education Disaster” by Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Annie Hsiao — Politico.com –– http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0511/55857.html#ixzz1NsJZQKOh
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5.26.11 — “Race to the Cradle” by Neal McCluskey, The Cato Institute — http://libertylinked.com/posts/7408/race-to-the-cradle—-by-neal/V…
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5.25.11 — “South Carolina Will Not Participate in Race to the Top” Spartanburg Tea Party —
http://www.spartanburgteaparty.org/2011/05/25/sc-will-not-participa…
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5.22.11 — “The Three-Legged Stool: Obama, Duncan, Gates” by Donna Garner —
http://libertylinked.com/posts/7461/the-three-legged-stool/View.aspx
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5.9.11 — “Association of American Educators Signs on in Opposition to National Curriculum” —
http://www.educationnews.org/ed_reports/edu_assoc_articles/155783.html
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5.9.11 – “Why One Curriculum Is Bad for America” – by Jonathan Kantrowitz – 100+ signatories — http://blog.ctnews.com/kantrowitz/2011/05/09/why-one-national-curri…
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4.12.11 — “The Other Shoe Drops: National Testmakers Worried” — by Donna Garner —
http://www.educationnews.org/ednews_today/153790.html
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4.9.11 — “Congressmen: A Great Place To Cut Funding — National Assessments” — by Donna Garner — http://www.educationnews.org/political/153529.html
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4.6.11 — “Standards Overreach, or According to Plan?” — by Neal McCluskey —
http://www.cato-at-liberty.org/standards-overreach-or-according-to-…
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3.24.11 — “Obama’s Carrot and Stick Control of Our Nation’s Public Schools” – by Donna Garner — http://www.educationnews.org/commentaries/152238.html
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3.20.11 — “Our Hope Rests with Congressman Kline” – by Donna Garner —
http://www.educationnews.org/commentaries/151843.html
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2.24.11 –“The Race to the Top Scheme” – by Henry W. Burke and Donna Garner —
http://www.educationnews.org/ednews_today/108436.html
2.24.11 — “Let’s Get Off the National Standards Train” by Henry W. Burke and Donna Garner —
http://alinahan.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/lets-get-off-the-national-…
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2.14.11 — “Let’s Get off the National Standards Train” — by Henry W. Burke and Donna Garner — http://alinahan.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/lets-get-off-the-national-…
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11.7.10 — “Open Letter to Parents, Legislators, School Personnel: Which Policy Are You Going To Promote?” — http://www.educationnews.org/blogs/102489.html
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10.27.10 — “Bullying Agenda” — by Donna Garner —
http://www.educationnews.org/commentaries/opinions_on_education/101…
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10.23.10 — “What Is the Centers for Disease Control?” – by Donna Garner — http://www.educationnews.org/breaking_news/health/101841.html
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9.16.10 — “Am I a Wacko Now?” – by Donna Garner — http://www.educationnews.org/commentaries/100137.html
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7.29.10 — “Stotsky on the Common Core Vote in Massachusetts” – by Dr. Sandra Stotsky —
http://jaypgreene.com/2010/07/29/stotsky-on-the-common-core-vote-in…
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7.27.10 — “Where Have All the Caring Parents Gone?” – by Donna Garner –
http://www.educationnews.org/commentaries/insights_on_education/968…
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7.10 – “Common Core Standards Still Don’t Make the Grade” — a Pioneer Institute White Paper — http://www.pioneerinstitute.org/pdf/common_core_standards.pdf
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4.19.10 — “Marc Tucker’s Bologna” – by Donna Garner —http://www.educationnews.org/commentaries/89899.html
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3.4.10 — “Obama’s Doublespeak” — by Donna Garner —
http://ramparts360.wordpress.com/obama%E2%80%99s-doublespeak/
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3.10 — “Fair to Middling: A National Standards Progress Report” – by R. James Milgram and Sandra Stotsky – The Pioneer Institute —
http://www.pioneerinstitute.org/pdf/100402_fair_to_middling.pdf
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2.10 – “Why Race to the Middle” by Sandra Stotsky and Ze’ev Wurman – The Pioneer Institute — http://www.pioneerinstitute.org/pdf/100223_why_race_to_the_middle.pdf
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1.29.10 — “Cradle-to-Career Plan by Obama and Duncan” — by Donna Garner —
http://www.educationnews.org/ednews_today/39076.html
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1.13.10 — “Texas Tells Feds ‘Enough Is Enough’” — by Donna Garner —
http://www.educationnews.org/ednews_today/29200.html
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12.11.09 — “Children and the Future of Our Country” – by Donna Garner — http://www.educationnews.org/blogs/7704.html
http://nocompromisepac.ning.com/profiles/blog/show?id=6457500%3ABlogPost%3A28400
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States Starting To Rebel Against Common Core Standards
 –Reposted Sept. 27, 2012 from Donna Garner, Texas Educator, at http://nocompromisepac.ning.com/
Although the Common Core national standards have been accepted in 46-1/2 states, implementation is going slower than advocates had hoped. One group of states actually introduced legislation to withdraw from the Common Core or disapprove the standards, others have failed or refused to pass the legislation necessary to fund or align them with state tests, higher education or professional development and still others are doing more formal reviews of either cost or curriculum. In all, nearly three-fifths of the states that have accepted the Common Core fall into one of these groups. Please read on to find out what you can do both to stop the further implementation of the Common Core in your state as well as what you can do to stop the nationalization of education.
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| Although education has not been a front burner issue in this election cycle, there is some evidence that word about the dangers of and problems with the Common Core national standards, about which we have warned you for a long time, is slowly getting out. In addition to Education Liberty Watch, the group of academics, policy makers and individuals that developed and gained over 100 original signatures on a counter-manifesto against the Common Core, The Cato Institute, The Heritage Foundation, Truth in American Education, teachers, parents, and policy makers are working hard to educate and to protest this loss of autonomy, local control and academic rigor. Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, in interviews on Fox News and the Mike Huckabee show pointed out the constitutional and academic dangers of the Common Core in his new book Spreading the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities. In it, he said:
The core of the hard-left’s education agenda – a program shared by Obama, Ayers, and Darling-Hammond alike – has three parts: 1) a politicized curriculum that promotes leftist notions of “social justice,” 2) reducing “disparate outcomes” between students in different districts by undercutting standards, and 3) a redistribution of suburban education funding to less-well-off urban schools. Achieving these goals on a broad scale requires the federal government to usurp local control of K-12 schooling.
Obama is half-way there.
 How did he do it? Instead of submitting his controversial education proposals to Congress and kicking off a vigorous national debate, Obama quietly marked $4.35 billion of federal stimulus spending for his Race to the Top education initiative. Since the stimulus bill was rushed through Congress with barely any debate on economic policy, much less education, Obama never had to go public with his plans.
By coordinating with outside groups not accountable to the voters, like the deep-pocketed Gates Foundation, the White House then orchestrated the creation of a national Common Core of education standards, with an accompanying curriculum and tests.
Supposedly, these standards have been voluntarily adopted by more than 40 states. In fact, by effectively conditioning eligibility for Race to the Top grants on participation in the Common Core, the Obama administration has forced economically pinched states to surrender control of their school curricula to the federal government. Cleverly, states have been pressed to sign on to the Common Core before the actual standards, curricula, and tests are revealed in a second Obama term. The entire scheme is arguably both illegal and unconstitutional. Yet it is moving forward, and the public knows virtually nothing about it.
In addition, state legislators and governors are also starting to respond to this unconstitutional federal takeover of education curriculum. According to the states listed or not listed on this comprehensive review table by Daniel Thatcher of the National Conference of State Legislatures, the breakdown of how states are dealing with the Common Core is as follows:
- Twelve of the 46-1/2 states and Washington DC (Minnesota has accepted the English and reading standards) or almost 25% have actively sought through legislation to withdraw from, disapprove, require legislative input or other negative measures regarding the Common Core. Four of these measures were enacted.
- The strongest of the four measures that passed was enacted in Utah which allows the state to withdraw from any kind of arrangement that cedes Utah’s control over its own standards and curriculum.
- Indiana enacted a resolution to urge a state board review of the CCSS.
- Kansas requires a cost analysis and formal review before implementation
- South Dakota implemented a requirement of four public hearings before enactment of the standards.
- Other states had bills disapproving or rejecting the Common Core or future adoption fail in the legislature (Alaska, Alabama, Georgia, Missouri, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Washington)
- Minnesota’s bill to require legislative approval of new standards passed both chambers of the legislature but was vetoed by the liberal governor.
- Four other states have required a formal review of the curriculum or cost analysis. (California, Iowa, Maryland, and New Mexico).
- Twelve states (Alabama*, Arizona, California*, Hawaii, Indiana*, Kansas*, Minnesota*, Missouri*, New Jersey, New Mexico*, Pennsylvania, and Vermont), including seven on one of these other lists (*), have rejected, either by failure in the legislature, by gubernatorial veto, or by failure to introduce a bill, any legislative implementation of the appropriation, enabling, or alignment of the Common Core in their states.
- Five other states (Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin) and Washington DC were not listed in the review as having even introduced any kind of Common Core related legislation at all in 2012.
That brings the total to twenty-six out of forty-six and one half states that have accepted them or 56% who are rejecting or showing some kind of hesitancy or concern with implementing these unconstitutional, illegal and dumbed down, politically correct standards and their accompanying tests. This is very important good news for state and local autonomy, academic excellence, constitutionality and state budgets It is also very important for the the maintenance of private and home schooling as viable alternatives to government education. (More new details on the dangers to private school autonomy via the Common Core and how the Romney education plan affects this issue will come next week. In the meantime, please see Imposing a Federal Curriculum on Private Schools – Why Voucher Programs that Require State Tests Are So Dangerous)
After speaking at Phyllis Schlafley’s Eagle Council along with Education Liberty Watch’s Dr. Karen Effrem, The American Principles Project’s Emmett McGroarty, and Heather Crossin, the Indiana mom who led the rebellion against the Common Core in that state, Kurtz wrote more about the problems with the Common Core and the coming parental revolt in National Review Online:
Crossin has successfully galvanized Indiana’s tea-party groups into fighting the Common Core. It’s a taste of what’s going to happen across the country once Obama’s new national school curriculum hits the ground. Angry parents like Crossin will be multiplied many times over, and they won’t just be making funny protest videos. They’ll be marching on state legislatures and giving the federal government an earful as well.
The resistance to the Common Core seems to be following the same state level resistance or inertia that is happening with the health insurance exchanges that unless stopped will serve as the implementation portals for the life robbing, health endangering, tax increasing and economy wrecking mandates of Obamacare.
 It is therefore critical to make education freedom part of the consideration as we choose not only a new president, but members of Congress, governors, and state legislators. Please do not be shy about asking candidates where they stand on the implementation of the Common Core and what they will do to stop it at both the state and federal levels. If officials or candidates are not interested in discussing the lack of constitutionality or terrible quality of the standards, remind them that Common Core implementation cost estimates vary between $16 and $60 BILLION dollars that will not be available from the federal government given current debt levels of $16 TRILLION dollars and the state deficits that many states have accumulated. Please also consider a generous donation to Education Liberty Watch as we join with groups and individuals across the nation to try to stop this other major usurpation of rights. The future ability of our children to be the thinking, reasoning citizens that will know how to maintain our heritage of freedom depends on being able to stop this Obamacare for education gambit. -Donna Garner
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http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/news/54806451-78/million-districts-apply-department.html.csp
According to the Salt Lake Tribune article linked above, five Utah school districts are applying for Race To The Top funds. Granite, Ogden, Provo, Morgan and Washington County school districts are applying for tens of millions of dollars each, to be accepted directly from the U.S. Department of Education in exchange for making certain federally-determined “reforms.”
Nationwide, the Tribune states, 893 districts are applying, but only 15 to 25 will win the grants.
If the rules of the district Race to the Top grant game are the same as the rules were for the states’ Race to the Top grants, then even those applicants who do not win the grant money will still have been “reformed” in ways pleasing to the Federal Department of Education. (For example, when Utah applied for, but did not win, its original Race to the Top grant, it made policy changes to enhance its eligibility toward winning. It adopted Common Core standards. It joined a testing consortium. Today, Utah has dropped its consortium membership but it still hasn’t dropped Common Core, and students are paying the price for the mediocre standards that slow down math learning, eliminate cursive, dramatically diminish classic literature, homogenize what college and career readiness standards used to be, yet go by the self-appointed title of “rigorous” college prep.)
Contrary to popular belief, grants are not “free money.” They come with rules, mandates, requirements, and legally binding chains created by the grantor.
The Dept. of Education’s decision, to dangle the carrot of Race to the Top for districts, is particularly alarming to many Texans. Texas was one of the few states independent-minded enough to reject joining the Common Core movement. But today, 64 Texas school districts are applying for the Race to the Top for districts, effectively creating the federal dependence for many districts which Texas had worked hard to avoid as a state.
Donna Garner, Texas educator, explains:” On Jan. 13, 2010, Texas Gov. Rick Perry and the former Commissioner of Education Robert Scott announced their decision that Texas should not enter the statewide Race to the Top competition for $700 Million because they knew the federal strings attached to the money would require school districts to follow theCommon Core Standards Initiative.Not to be deterred, the Obama administration and Sect. of Ed. Arne Duncan came up with a “work around” so that the RTTT funds (requiring schools to follow theCommon Core Standards Initiative) could be sent directly to the local school districts in spite of being blocked by the state agencies.Unfortunately, local Texas school administrators are ignoring the dangers of the federalstrings and are salivating over the federal funding. Nationwide, there are 893school districts (and other eligible entities) that have indicated their intent to apply for the RTTT’s $400 Million “workaround.” The deadline for these entities to file their formalapplications is Oct. 30, 2012.
This is what happens: Even though most of these local entities do not have a chanceto receive the RTTT federal funds, the applications themselves end up driving school district decisions.
School administrators know their schools’ grant applications will not have a chance ofbeing accepted unless the districts can prove the federally desired changes are already in place (or well on their way to being implemented) in their districts; therefore, the administrators, acting like little robots, configure their districts to match the USDOE’s agenda. They swear to do such things as implement the Common Core Standards, base teacher evaluations upon student improvement on the CCS assessments, and collect the personally intrusive information on students, parents, and educators that is required for the national database.
Thus, the USDOE ends up nationalizing the public schools without ever giving the districts the RTTT grant funding. Entire states such as California applied for the statewide RTTT funds in 2011 andreconfigured their school district policies to match the USDOE’s application requirements; but in the end, California found out that their state was notselected to receive the RTTT grants. The same outcomes will occur with the RTTT’s direct-to-school funding. Many locals will implement the USDOE’s changes but will not receive the RTTT funds.
The“carrot and stick” used by the USDOE – RTTT federal funds:
[The arrows mean “lead to.”]
National standards → national assessments → national curriculum → national teacher evaluations with teachers’ salaries tied to students’ test scores → teachers teaching to thetest each and every day → national indoctrination of our publicschool children → national database of students and teachers
Please go to the following links to read more about the Common Core Standards Initiative:
3.26.12 — “Two Education Philosophies with Two Different Goals” — http://libertylinked.com/posts/9703/2-education-philosophies-with/View.aspx
9.14.12 – “Nationalized Public Schools Almost Here in America” — http://educationviews.org/nationalized-public-schools-almost-here-in-america/
ACTION STEP: Parents and taxpayers, please take the time to go to administrators and school board members in your district and demand that they not apply for these RTTT grants nor make any of the changes that the USDOE applications require schools to make to get the funds.”
COMMON CORE 