I love this educator’s site, entitled Betrayed –by Laurie Rogers.
This most recent article on the Betrayed website is greatly enriched by Laurie Rogers’ use of Animal Farm quotes, like: “He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be?” (Animal Farm)
Click on link to read the original, with electronic links to referenced items.
Enjoy!
Children are the key to America’s future. The government wants control of that key.
Those who exert the first influence upon the mind, have the greatest power.– Horace Mann, Thoughts
The writing is on the wall. In a June 7, 2013, statement, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said President Obama is planning to “redesign” America’s high schools. This redesigning will take place through “competitive grants” (also known as “bait”). Who will pay for this redesigning? (Taxpayers will, as we always do.) How much will it cost? (The secretary and president haven’t said, as they rarely do.) Does the president have the legal or constitutional authority to “redesign” America’s high schools? (No.) According to 20 USC 3403, Obama and Duncan also lack the authority to direct standards, curriculum and teaching approaches. That isn’t stopping them. They say their interventions are for our own good.
He would be only too happy to let you make your decisions for yourselves. But sometimes you might make the wrong decisions, comrades, and then where should we be? (Animal Farm)
Please take note of the language in Duncan’s press release. The “redesigned” high schools will entail:
•”Student-centered” learning
•”Project- or-problem-based” learning
•”Real-world experiences” and “real-world challenges”
•”Evidence-based professional development”
•Engaging in “complex projects” and working with others to apply knowledge
•Moving “away from the traditional notion of seat time”Uh, oh.
Math advocates will recognize that language. It typically alerts us to reform math – to fuzzy content, “discovery learning” (or constructivism), excessive group work, teachers who don’t directly teach, and lofty concepts presented before skills. That approach has not worked well for students for the last three decades.
It seems Duncan is a reformer, and why wouldn’t he be? Public education systems, colleges of education, curriculum developers and policy makers all have been bathed in reform philosophy and approaches since the 1980s. The president’s new mandate – excuse me, his new initiative – appears to mandate an instructional model that has completely failed children for 30 years.
Duncan and Obama also push the controversial Common Core initiatives, which are leading many districts to fuzzy math and weak English programs. The CC math standards contain a separate section, called the “Standards for Mathematical Practice.” Many states and districts are emphasizing the SMP, and the SMP supports a constructivist approach. Voila: more reform math.
It’s noteworthy that the publisher of Singapore Math – a series long praised by traditionalists – released a new “discovery” version based on the CC. Other publishers also have done so. They appear to believe the CC embraces constructivism, and they’re going along with it.
And now we have this high-school initiative, announced with the same language used by proponents of reform math. After three decades of grim failure, reform approaches to math are unlikely to suddenly work for students just because the feds throw another trillion taxpayer dollars at them.
In April, Obama also announced plans to “expand” early learning programs for 4-year-olds, rolling them into the K-12 system. Initially, children will be from low-income families, but other families and toddlers are to be rolled in, too. “Preschool for All” is estimated to cost taxpayers $75 billion over 10 years.
This de facto federal takeover of public education is cunning and devious. Many Americans have been persuaded that the Common Core and related initiatives are “state-led” and academically better; that nothing is federally mandated; that our right to privacy is intact; and that the Standards are the key.
Not true.
Proponents say the CC initiatives are voluntary; internationally benchmarked; research-based; rigorous; proved to work; that they’ll save money; they’ll provide commonality and consistency; and that they aren’t “one-size-fits-all.”
Not true.
The CC initiatives were never internationally benchmarked or academically sufficient. They aren’t grounded in scientifically conducted, replicable research. They’re unproved, with no student data behind them. They’re a national experiment on children. They won’t save taxpayers money. A base cost estimate just to get started is $140 billion nationwide (14,000 school districts x $10 million each).
The CC initiatives are voluntary only in a technical sense. States and districts have been threatened with the loss of federal funds, with the loss of money for impoverished students, and (ironically) with punishments under the No Child Left Behind Act if they don’t comply.
This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half. (Animal Farm)
The CC initiatives aren’t “state-led.” The feds are pushing them very hard. They were rammed through states before they were completed, with many proponents appearing to have had a financial reason to support them. The Department of Education has yet to fulfill my FOIA request from four years ago on its role in the development of the CC, but even if the initiatives really were “state-led,” why do the organizations in charge claim to not be subject to public-disclosure laws?
The nature of the CC also is expanding rapidly. Initially, this was K-12 standards in mathematics and English/language arts, but now it’s to be a complete nationalized educational program – with standards, tests, curricula and professional development; from cradle through workforce (P-20); in all subjects, all grades and all schools; in daycares, preschools, K-12 systems and colleges.
The CC initiatives also include an intrusive national database on children and their parents and guardians. Data and information are to be collected and shipped around public agencies, corporations and organizations without our knowledge or consent. Certain state and federal laws were altered or ignored in order to allow and facilitate this sharing of private information. Citizens were not informed.
At the foot of the end wall of the big barn, where the Seven Commandments were written, there lay a ladder broken in two pieces. … [N]ear at hand there lay a lantern, a paint-brush, and an overturned pot of white paint. (Animal Farm)
The CC initiatives appear to entail serious violations of the U.S. Constitution and the U.S. Code. The overall deceit is so huge, few believe it. Fewer in leadership have questioned it. Legislators on all sides, media, state agencies, governors, districts, money advocates, unions, corporations and foundations have lined up at the Common Core trough, ready for a treat and a pat on the head.
The birds did not understand Snowball’s long words, but they accepted his explanation, and all the humbler animals set to work to learn the new maxim by heart. (Animal Farm)
How long will it be before the feds threaten the loss of taxpayer dollars if states don’t comply with the new high school “grant” initiative or the new early learning initiative? How long before states and districts shrug off questions from parents and taxpayers, saying they had no choice in these matters?
Considering the unproved and dictatorial nature of these federal initiatives, they can’t be about academics. I expect the feds will find it necessary to redesign middle schools to “align” with redesigned high schools. Elementary schools will have to “align” with redesigned middle schools. Preschools will have to “align” with redesigned elementary schools. Colleges are already aligning. It will be one brick at a time, each ripped from the fabric and foundation of the country. This is about control.
With this incredible taxpayer expense – and with academic programs that continue to be as weak as a White House explanation – the children and the country will sink into economic and academic dust. Education policy makers have learned nothing over three decades. Or, perhaps they’ve learned everything. Choose your poison. No doubt, Obama and Duncan will report great improvements.
Somehow it seemed as though the farm had grown richer without making the animals themselves any richer – except, of course, for the pigs and the dogs. Perhaps this was partly because there were so many pigs and so many dogs. (Animal Farm)
The Department of Education is now dictatorial and intrusive, assisted by non-government organizations and corporations working together behind our back. Did you think fascism was just for right-wingers? Read up on “fascism” (but do look beyond Google’s definition). This is educational tyranny.
There are some things you can do, however:
Help your child. Fill in academic gaps. Leave the public system if it isn’t working for your child.•Support Alabama Representative Martha Roby’s effort to rein in the U.S. Department of Education. Ask your representatives to support H.R.5 (the Student Success Act 2013), introduced in Congress on June 6, 2013. This bill won’t undo everything, but it’s a step in the right direction.
Say no to the intrusive data collection that comes with a district’s participation in the CC. Don’t tell them anything about your family that you don’t want Bill Gates, Pearson Education, the ED, the IRS, the Department of Justice, and other government agencies to know. Refuse questionnaires and surveys. Don’t tell them your voting status, political preference or religion.
“In a world of locked rooms, the man with the key is king…” (BBC series Sherlock). Don’t let them have the key.
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Rogers, L. (June 2013). “Children are the key to America’s future. The government wants control of that key.”
The Federal government is altering America and shrinking liberty so quickly that it’s hard to keep up with all the destruction. Much of it is connected to education reforms.
There’s the removal of local control of education via Common Core tests/standards. There’s the removal of parental consent via the 50 federally placed (paid-for) State Longitudinal Database Systems (SLDS and P-20) which track all children and from which no student can opt out. There’s Obamacare and its mandate to support abortion, and its related plot to increase the numbers of medical facilities that are in public schools. There’s the IRS/FBI assault on privacy, which violates our Constitutional right not to be subject to unlawful searches and seizures and which plays in to the SLDS/P-20 tracking. There’s Obama’s ConnectEd Initiative, which taxes phone bills to pay for Common Core testing technology nationally, regardless of how any of us feel about the unvetted Common Core. But all of this is old news.
Today I learned that Obama is “redesigning” all high schools.
In part, the redesigning will “promote a rethinking of the high school learning experience” by using more “student-centered learning,” using more “wrap-around support services,” provide “career-related competencies,” doing “project-or-problem-based learning” do “structured work-based learning,” “redesigning school calendars,” and “expanding a comprehensive system of student support.”
It’s central planning. The “wraparound support services” were described by Secretary of Education Arne Duncan in the interview below. Arne wants 6-7 days a week of school. He wants schools to be the center of society, rather than families being the center of society. He is a socialist.
Since many schools do not have the technologies necessary for nationalized testing of Common Core standards, President Obama has decided to raise taxes on everyone’s phone bills to pay for the Common Core testing access.
This is tyranny. What about the states that rejected Common Core? What about the home schoolers and private schools that reject Common Core? Why do we all have to pay for Common Core?
We were told that Common Core was voluntary. We were told that we can get out of Common Core any time we like. But now we’re told that we have to pay taxes to support it.
Nobody has to choose between relying on the proponents of Common Core, or relying on the opponents of Common Core.
To find out what Common Core really is and does to education and to liberty, study for yourself.
These are just a starter batch. There are more! Some of these are Utah-specific. If you are in another state, do a related word search to easily find your own.
The full contract that Utah has signed with the American Institutes for Research (if you can get a copy from the USOE; it is not online yet). Here is AIR’s common core implementation document.
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Here are some explanations of each of the documents, and what you can learn from them.
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The Race to the Top Grant Application - Utah got points for having a kid-tracking SLDS database system. Utah got more points for having adopted Common Core. This was how we got into it. Despite not winning the grant money, we remained in these systems.
The No Child Left Behind Waiver – This shows the 15% cap the federal government put on top of the copyrighted, unamendable Common Core standards.
The State Longitudinal Database System Grant – This is a federally paid-for database that every state in the US now has. It tracks students within the state. Aggregated data ion students is sent from this system to the federal EdFacts Exchange.
The lawsuit against the Department of Education – The Electronic Privacy Information Center has sued the DOE for destroying the previously data-privacy protective federal FERPA. The lawsuit explains which terms were redefined, which agencies now have legal access to the private data of students, and much more.
The copyright on Common Core held by CCSSO/NGA – The fact that there are “terms of use” and a copyright shows that we have no local control over the standards which are written behind closed doors in D.C.
The report entitled “For Each And Every Child” from the Equity and Excellence Commission – This report was commissioned by Obama. It reveals that redistribution of wealth is the real reason that Obama wants a national education system.
The Cooperative Agreements between the Dept. of Education and the testing consortia – Even though Utah escaped the SBAC and is not bound by the Cooperative Agreement directly, Utah’s current testing group, A.I.R., works closely with SBAC. This document shows how clearly the DOE has broken laws like the General Educational Provisions Act and the 10th Amendment. It mandates the synchronizing of tests and the sharing of data to triangulate the SBAC, PARCC and DOE.
The speeches of President Obama on education – Obama’s goal is total control of everything– teachers, tests, money, and toddlers.
The speeches of the CEA of Pearson Ed, Sir Michael Barber – Barber wants every school on the globe to have the exact same academic standards and to underpin every standard with environmental propaganda. He also likes having global data on kids and stresses the term “sustainable reform” which is “irreversible reform”.
The speeches of the main funder of Common Core, Bill Gates – He’s funded Common Core almost completely on his own; he’s partnered with Pearson; he says “we won’t know it works until all the tests and curriculum aligns with the standards” so he’s writing curriculum for us all.
The speeches of David Coleman, a noneducator, the architect of the Common Core ELA standards and now promoted to College Board President -He mocks narrative writing, he’s diminished the percentage of classic literature that’s allowable in the standards, he’s not been elected, he’s never taught school, yet he’s almost singlehandedly destroyed the quality and liberty of an English teacher’s classroom. And as he’s now the College Board President, he’s aligning the SAT to his version of what Common standards should be. This will hurt colleges.
The federal websites such as the EdFacts Exchange, the Common Education Data Standards, the National Data Collection Model, and the Data Quality Campaign, sites because three of these four ask us to give personally identifiable information on students, from our state database. -The first link shows what we already give to the federal government; the others show what the federal government is requesting that we share, which does include intimate, personally identifiable information.
The Common Core English and Math standards – These are the actual standards.
The full contract that Utah has signed with the American Institutes for Research (if you can get a copy from the USOE; it is not online yet). Here is AIR’s common core implementation document. – This shows that AIR is not an academic testing group but a behavioral research institute. Parents and teachers may not see the test questions.
In addition to the Constitution’s 10th Amendment, a federal law called The General Educational Provisons Act (G.E.P.A.)
prohibits the federal government from directing education –very, very clearly:
“No provision of any applicable program shall be construed to authorize any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school, or school system, or over the selection of library resources, textbooks, or other printed or published instructional materials by any educational institution or school system…“
America, we need to get smart about education reform. Fast.
Lesson one: when education reformers use the term “rigorous,” they mean to impress you. Don’t be impressed. One size fits all education can never be rigorous for every student. That’s like calling a mile run “rigorous.” It might be rigorous for the couch potatoes but it won’t be for the athletes. The term is meaningless when applied to every child and stripped of teacher input.
Lesson two: when education reformers use the term “high quality teacher,” they mean their version. Don’t buy the assumption that what they call a high quality teacher is what you imagine when you think of a great teacher. The new high quality teacher must be “effective” as a data-collector, test-prepper, and political indoctrinator of environmental and social justice agendas. Gone are the days when good teachers were characterized by benevolence, spontaneity, creativity, love, nurturing, and intellectual openness and honesty. A high quality teacher to the Dept. of Ed means one that pushes the line that the government wants pushed, one that no parent got to vote on.
Lesson three: when education reformers use the term “education reform,”they mean their version. It’s a tightly controlled, standardized, data-collection focused, collective-not-individual focused, environmentally-obsessed, social-justice promoting, uncreative form of education that has little to do with what a particular student needs or wants. Don’t buy the assumption that it’s actually improving education the way a reasonable parent or grandparent would want education to be improved! Ask for evidence and empirical studies to back up claims– always.
Lesson four: when education reformers use the term “internationally competitive,” they mean to intimidate you. Don’t be intimidated. The truth is that America turns out so many highly qualified college graduates that we can’t even employ them all. We are incredibly competitive internationally. Not only are we smart, but we are creative because we have been free. We innovate miracles in medicine, technology, entertainment and agriculture because we have not been stifled as so many other countries are. Watch this video.
Lesson five: when education reformers name-drop, (Harvard, Stanford, Fordham Foundation, Manhattan Institute, the P.T.A., etc.) they mean to marginalize you. Don’t be moved. Common Core is educational malpractice and many –even in academia– know it. Common Core is an untested experiment being pushed without empirical evidence as a foundation. Harvard, Stanford and countless other supposedly intellectual institutions have been literally bought with Bill Gates’ foundation money –bribed to say that the naked emperor is wearing clothes– and these establishments have, by taking Gates’ bribes, lost their ability to question the validity of the Common Core. Don’t listen to anyone’s academic reviews who has been paid to say Common Core is valid. That’s not honest; that’s gold digging.
Lesson six: when education reformers say Common Core is “state-led,” they mean to reassure you that it’s no threat to your constitutional rights. Don’t be fooled. There’s nothing state-led about Common Core. Legislators were completely bypassed. There was never a vote. There was never a public discussion. Most people in most states still don’t even know what the term Common Core means, much less feel they led the process. The standards were developed stealthily behind closed doors in Washington, D.C., by the NGA/CCSSO, two unelected groups who copyrighted the standards and who have provided no amendment process for any state to alter a single strand of a standard. And the federal government claims credit for pushing the standards on the states. Just listen to Sec. Duncan’s and Pres. Obama’s speeches on the subject. For example, see Sec. Duncan’s 2010 speech on “The Vision of Education Reform“:
“In March of 2009, President Obama called on the nation’s governors and state school chiefs to “develop standards and assessments that don’t simply measure whether students can fill in a bubble on a test, but whether they possess 21st century skills like problem-solving and critical thinking and entrepreneurship and creativity.” Virtually everyone thought the president was dreaming.
But today, 37 states and the District of Columbia have already chosen to adopt the new state-crafted Common Core standards in math and English. Not studying it, not thinking about it, not issuing a white paper—they have actually done it. Over three-fourths of all U.S. public school students now reside in states that have voluntarily adopted higher, common college-ready standards that are internationally benchmarked. That is an absolute game-changer in a system which until now set 50 different goalposts for success.
The second game-changer is that states have banded together in large consortia to develop a new generation of assessments aligned with the states’ Common Corestandards.”
The unconstitutional, detrimental, top-down nationalization of education and usurpation of states’ rights to determine education has clearly and without question, occurred.
The thing that remains unclear is this: what are Americans going to do about it?
Interesting. In the same month, both President Obama and Utah’s Sen. Aaron Osmond are pushing to get more toddlers in the arms of the government. Are they concerned for the well-being of the little ones? Then why are they doing this? Why does government desire to hold our babies while we work?
Two reasons: both titled “human capital.”
1. HUMAN CAPITAL. Government sees toddlers as property. Socialist-styled governments increasingly are using the term “human capital” to refer to the people they plan to feed, work, tax, and yes, teach. They want to imprint upon their capital their ideas and values as early as possible. Yes, it’s creepy. But it’s no secret; it’s very openly admitted and promoted. “Education for all” (UNESCO’s term) has now become “Preschool for all” (Obama’s term.)
2. HUMAN CAPITAL. Government sees mothers (or fathers) as property. The socialist-styled governments are increasingly hoping to redistribute the parents; if a parent is highly educated or trained, it is not in the best interest of those who view those parents as human capital to “allow” them to be home, raising children, when they could be serving the government in other ways. It is a basic choice that is being taken away from a parent when the government financially or in other ways, incentivizes the leaving of babies in daycare so that the adults will work and be taxed.
Think I’m making this up?
US Education Secretary Arne Duncan’s speech: “Improving Human Capital in an Competitive World– Education Reform in the United States” here:
We are not the government’s human capital. We are free human beings, children of God.
Let’s not be asleep while our leaders turn our society into a socialist/communist styled nanny-government nation and manipulate our babies out of our arms.
Recognize the wrong-minded, popular notion that socialism is good, that government is the ultimate provider, and that individual families are inept caretakers for their own offspring. This should be taken as false doctrine in any church, in any family, in any reasonable mind. Government can never provide a thing; it can only forcibly take from you to redistribute to me, or, forcibly take from me to redistribute to you. But government is not a provider– it’s only a forcible redistributor.
I believe these words on the subject, from Ezra Taft Benson:
“It is a fundamental truth that the responsibilities of motherhood cannot be successfully delegated. No, not to day-care centers, not to schools, not to nurseries, not to babysitters.
“We become enamored with men’s theories such as the idea of preschool training outside the home for young children. Not only does this put added pressure on the budget, but it places young children in an environment away from mother’s influence.
“It is mother’s influence during the crucial formative years that forms a child’s basic character.
Michelle Malkin is determined to wake America up to recognize what harm Common Core is doing to American K-12 education.
Most parents don’t even know what Common Core is.
In part II of her analysis of the Common Core, a nationalized education program heavily promoted, overseen and incentivized by President Obama’s administration, Malkin emphasizes the fact that the Common Core’s “cheerleaders’ claim that their agenda came from the bottom up is false. Flat-out false.”
She says that although the Washington, D.C., board of education “earned widespread mockery this week when it proposed allowing high school students — in the nation’s own capital — to skip a basic U.S. government course to graduate,” that this proposal ”is fiddlesticks compared to what the federal government is doing to eliminate American children’s core knowledge base in English, language arts and history.”
Watch out, Common Core. Political analysis Michelle Malkin has stepped up to the plate.
Malkin’s New Year’s resolution is to use her syndicated column and blog space “to expose how progressive “reformers” — mal-formers — are corrupting our schools.”
Rotten to the Core: Obama’s War on Academic Standards
By Michelle Malkin – (Part 1)
January 23, 2013 09:43 AM
…This is the first in an ongoing series on “Common Core,” the stealthy federal takeover of school curriculum and standards across the country.
…. Under President Obama, these top-down mal-formers — empowered by Washington education bureaucrats and backed by misguided liberal philanthropists led by billionaire Bill Gates — are now presiding over a radical makeover of your children’s school curriculum. It’s being done in the name of federal “Common Core” standards that do anything but raise achievement standards.
… In practice, Common Core’s dubious “college- and career”-ready standards undermine local control of education, usurp state autonomy over curricular materials, and foist untested, mediocre and incoherent pedagogical theories on America’s schoolchildren.
Over the next several weeks and months, I’ll use this column space to expose who’s behind this disastrous scheme in D.C. backrooms. I’ll tell you who’s fighting it in grassroots tea party and parental revolts across the country from Massachusetts to Indiana, Texas, Georgia and Utah. And most importantly, I’ll explain how this unprecedented federal meddling is corrupting our children’s classrooms and textbooks…
This week, President Obama will be sworn into office as the 45th President of the United States of America.
As a history teacher, I was elated to learn he would be placing his hand on two Bibles, one belonging to Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and the other belonging to President Abraham Lincoln, when he takes the oath of office to lead our great nation. Dr. King and President Lincoln helped define civil rights for America…historical heroes who transformed the idea of justice and equality.
As jubilant as I am that President Obama is symbolically using the bibles of two of the greatest Americans in our nation’s history, I am saddened that this administration seems to have forgotten what Dr. King and President Lincoln promoted regarding education.
In Dr. King’s “Letter from the Birmingham Jail,” he stated “the goal of America is freedom.” As a teacher, it is such an honor to teach America’s children about freedom and patriotism. However, over the past few years, I began to learn about a new education reform initiative called Common Core Standards. A few years ago, when I first heard of Common Core, I began doing my own research. My students represent the future of the United States of America, and what they learn is of utmost importance to me. I care about their future, and the future of our country.
My research of Common Core Standards kept me awake at night, because what I discovered was so shocking. I discovered that Common Core Standards is about so much more than educational standards. I wanted so badly to believe these changes would be good for our children. How can “common” standards be a bad thing? After all, isn’t it nice to have students learning the same exceptional standards from Alabama to Alaska, from Minnesota to Massachusetts?
As a teacher, I began to spend nights, weekends, summers, even Christmas Day researching Common Core, because these reforms were so massive and were happening so quickly, it was hard to keep up with how American education was being transformed. I quickly began to realize that the American education system under Common Core goes against everything great Americans like Dr. King and President Lincoln ever taught. The very freedoms we celebrate and hold dear are in question when I think of what Common Core means for the United States.
One of my favorite writings about education from Dr. King is a paper entitled “The Purpose of Education.” In it, he wrote “To save man from the morass of propaganda, in my opinion, is one of the chief aims of education. Education must enable one to sift and weigh evidence, to discern the true from the false, the real from the unreal, and the facts from the fiction.”
When I sit in faculty meetings about Common Core, I hear “curriculum specialists” tell me that Common Core is here to stay and I must “embrace change.” I am forced to drink the kool-aid. These specialists don’t tell us to search for facts about Common Core on our own, they simply tell us what the people paid to promote Common Core want us to know. Didn’t Dr. King want us to separate facts from fiction? Why are we only given information from sources paid to say Common Core is a good thing? Isn’t that the exact same type of propaganda Dr. King discussed in his writings about education? Shouldn’t we discuss why thousands of Americans are calling for a repeal of the standards?
I am told that I must embrace Common Core and I infer that resisting the changes associated with Common Core will label me “resistant to change.” As a teacher, I definitely believe our classrooms are changing with the times and I am not afraid of change. Teachers across America are hearing similar stories about how they should “feel” about Common Core. This is a brainwashing bully tactic. It reminds me of my 8th graders’ lesson on bullying, when I teach them to have an opinion of their own. Just because “everyone’s doing it,” doesn’t make it right. In regards to Common Core, I am not afraid of change. I am just not going to sell-out my students’ education so that Pearson, the Gates Foundation, David Coleman, Sir Michael Barber, Marc Tucker and others can experiment on our children.
I agree with Dr. King, which is why I am so saddened at how propaganda from an elite few is literally changing the face of America’s future with nothing more than a grand experiment called Common Core Standards. Our children deserve more. Our teachers deserve more. Our country deserves more. Education reform is the civil rights issue of our generation, and sadly, parents, teachers, and students have been left out of the process.
President Lincoln once said “the philosophy of the classroom today, will be the philosophy of government tomorrow.” With Common Core, new standardized tests have inundated classrooms with problems of their own. Teachers find themselves “teaching to the test” more and more. These tests violate our states’ rights. I wonder if parents realized that all states aren’t created equal in Common Core tests? Shouldn’t all states, under “common” standards for everyone have everyone’s equal input on how students are tested?
What about privacy under Common Core? Why didn’t local boards of education tell parents about the changes to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act? Do parents realize their child’s data, including biometric data such as fingerprints and retinal scans, is being placed in a state longitudinal data system and shared with others?
If our philosophy of the classroom is to violate states’ rights, use children and teachers as guinea pigs, and hide from parents the fact that their child’s data is no longer private, it can only be inferred that the philosophy of government tomorrow will do the same. What is America becoming?
As I watched President Obama place his hand on the bibles of Dr. King and President Lincoln, the history teacher in me was overjoyed to watch such a patriotic moment in U.S. history. And yet, I was crushed at the realization that if we do not stop Common Core and preserve the United States educational system, the philosophy of our government tomorrow will not be the America we know and love.
If you are new to governmentspeak, you won’t see many red flags. It’s not until you slow down and really think about what they are writing (and not writing) that you begin to see how twisted this Agenda 21 really is.
Two examples:
From Chapter 25: “Ensure access for all youth to all types of education… ensure that education… incorporates the concepts of environmental awareness and sustainable development throughout the curricula…”
Did you catch that? Throughout curricula, that means in every single class– spelling, grammar, science, English, math, history, technology, art, languages, sports, student government, debate, home economics, and the rest– students must be learning environmental awareness and sustainable development? Does that not strike you as dogmatic- almost crazy?
Also from Chapter 25: ” Consider…recommendations of… youth conferences and other forums that offer youth perspectives.”
–On first reading, that sounds fine, right? Listening to young people. What could possibly be wrong with it?
Well, look up “Delphi Technique” when you have some time on your hands.
There are sustainability youth “conferences” happening right now that are clearly little more than the globalists’ politically motivated indoctrination camps.
After youth spend time ”dialoging” about environmental issues –where the dialogue is being controlled by Agenda 21 activist facilitators– those facilitators will take the youth recommendations back to headquarters. Nice. Here’a a link to such a youth conference. All 14-year-olds and up are cordially invited to be totally immersed in the green, anti-sovereignty, anti-constitution, pro-collectivism, pro-communist, environmental agenda: http://www.agenda21now.org/index.php?section=home
It should not be creeping into our schools. But it is.
Teachers are being taught to teach sustainable development across the curricula.
Secretary Duncan says in the above linked speech, “Educators have a central role in this… They teach students about how the climate is changing. They explain the science behind climate change and how we can change our daily practices to help save the planet. They have a role in preparing students for jobs in the green economy. Historically, the Department of Education hasn’t been doing enough in the sustainability movement. Today, I promise you that we will be a committed partner.”
It’s obvious that teachers are being pushed in the direction of Agenda 21 without knowing it’s a political agenda. The Agenda 21 tenets, such as the supposed importance of limiting human reproduction, of limiting building, sports or recreational activities that touch grass, oceans or trees; of limiting airplane and car use, or of believing that there is human made global warming, are not settled facts among scientific communities (or in religious ones, for that matter.) Yet teachers are supposed to teach them as settled facts, as doctrine.
Please have the courage to say no if you are a teacher, a school board member, a principal, or a parent.
Even if you happen to believe in the tenets of Agenda 21, such as global warming, population control, or putting plants above or equal with humans’ needs, do you believe that all children should be subject to these teachings, regardless of what their parents or teachers or churches believe?
Shouldn’t a child be taught to weigh competing theories and judge empirical evidence for his/herself, rather than accepting a dogma blindly? Isn’t that what education is supposed to mean?
Yukon College Professor Bob Jickling’s article on this subject is worth reading: “Why I Don’t Want my Children to be Educated for Sustainable Development”
Why does the individual and his/her power to choose, matter so much?
I have been thinking a lot about what individual liberty and responsibility mean, since this Nov. 6th election, and have come to the conclusion that many Americans must fear individual freedom. And I’ve been thinking about Ayn Rand. Did you ever read “Anthem” –the novel in which people don’t know the word “I” anymore?
For all the positive effects of having a united society and a cooperative spirit, there is a dark side to collective and cooperative movements. But some fear the responsibility that comes with freedom, so much that they choose to give away their own autonomy in the attempt to gain security (in the form of government handouts, whether of money or of “we know best” life planning handouts, such as the managed workforce that our education system is becoming). They choose the collective responsibility over the individual responsibility. But this ultimately crushes the individual. People need freedom like they need air to breathe, but they are also afraid to be free because they don’t want to be responsible for the consequences of their own decisions. They willingly give up this precious, hard-won prize, believing the lies of those who hope to control them.
It’s like a prisoner who is released from jail but returns deliberately, because he fears the unknown more than he fears jail. It’s like the abused wife who returns to her control freak husband because she fears the emotional or financial realities of independence. They should be stronger than this! They should shoulder the burden and the joy of freedom from oppression and overregulation!
By buying into socialism, collectivism, communism (and even the educational movement of nationalizing education, common core) we reject choice and local accountability; we are giving up true America.
Ayn Rand’s book, Anthem tells of a world in which the concept of individuality and the word “I” do not exist.
Everything is ”we” and everything is common. The individual does not matter; only the collective matters.
Here is a quote from Anthem.
“The word “We” is as lime poured over men, which sets and hardens to stone, and crushes all beneath it, and that which is white and that which is black are lost equally in the grey of it. It is the word by which the depraved steal the virtue of the good, by which the weak steal the might of the strong, by which the fools steal the wisdom of the sages.
What is my joy if all hands, even the unclean, can reach into it? What is my wisdom, if even the fools can dictate to me? What is my freedom, if all creatures, even the botched and impotent, are my masters? What is my life, if I am but to bow, to agree and to obey?
But I am done with this creed of corruption.
I am done with the monster of “We,” the word of serfdom, of plunder, of misery, falsehood and shame.
And now I see the face of god, and I raise this god over the earth, this god whom men have sought since men came into being, this god who will grant them joy and peace and pride.
What does this quote from this book have to do with Common Core?
Everything. When education is nationalized, when local control over schools is lost, when all major tests are standardized and nationalized, when standards must match from village to village and state to state (and from nation to nation, if the globalists get their way) then there is no individuality. Freedom is lost.
And why are we buying it? Why do we want to have common education rather than local autonomy and the freedom to set our own standards and innovate according to our local needs and desires?
Is freedom really so scary? Scarier than losing it?
Consider these words on the subject, from another great man, Howard W. Hunter:
“What is the real cause of this trend toward the welfare state, toward more socialism? In the last analysis, in my judgment, it is personal unrighteousness. When people do not use their freedoms responsibly and righteously, they will gradually lose these freedoms. . . .
If man will not recognize the inequalities around him and voluntarily, through the gospel plan, come to the aid of his brother, he will find that through “a democratic process” he will be forced to come to the aid of his brother. The government will take from the “haves” and give to the “have nots.” Both have last their freedom. Those who “have,” lost their freedom to give voluntarily of their own free will and in the way they desire. Those who “have not,” lost their freedom because they did not earn what they received. They got “something for nothing,” and they will neither appreciate the gift nor the giver of the gift.
“From my own experience in business and as a lawyer and church worker, and from my firsthand observations in this country and other countries of the world, there appears to me to be a trend to shift responsibility for life and its processes from the individual to the state. In this shift there is a basic violation of the law of the harvest, or the law of justice. The attitude of “something for nothing” is encouraged. The government is often looked to as the source of wealth. There is a feeling that the government should step in and take care of one’s needs, one’s emergencies, and one’s future. Just as my friend actually became a slave to his own ignorance and bad habits by refusing to accept the responsibility for his own education and moral growth, so, also, can an entire people be imperceptibly transferred from individuals, families, and communities to the federal government.”
Why’s Obama allocating money to pay local teachers with federal money? Hmm.
It’s gotten to the point that I automatically search the United Nations’ website any time I wonder why Obama or Arne Duncan are coming up with a new reform. It’s the fastest way to figure out what they are really doing. They have no interest in local sovereignty, whether state or national.
Look at this:
From the White House, July 2012:
“Today, the Obama Administration announced the President’s plan to create a national Science, Math, Technology, and Engineering (STEM) Master Teacher Corps. The STEM Master Teacher Corps will begin in 50 locations across the country… Over the next four years the Corps will expand to include 10,000 of the best STEM teachers in the nation… STEM education is one of President Obama’s top priorities… In a roundtable today with a group of K-12 math and science teachers at the White House, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, Domestic Policy Council Director Cecilia Muñoz, OSTP Director Dr. John Holdren, and PCAST Co-Chair Dr. Eric Lander announced the proposal, which the Administration will launch with the $1 billion allocated in President Obama’s 2013 budget plancurrently before Congress…”The rest of the text: http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2012/07/18/president-obama-announces-new-plan-create-stem-master-teaching-corps
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What does it mean?
The entity providing the paycheck is the entity that gets to call the shots. That means, the feds will be telling those local teachers who “qualify” as master teachers, what to do and how to do it.
For those of you who have been under a rock, Common Core math (Obama-and-co.’s -approved math) is much different than traditional, time-tested math. Common Core math is fuzzy-styled, student-and group-work-centered and highly controversial math that pooh-poohs excellent traditions of teaching such as drilling math facts and actually showing students how to do algorithms. Common Core has students waste energy guessing and fumbling toward the formulas, often working in collective groups.
But it’s the math that Obama and Secretary Duncan believe in.
Secondly, Common Core science will be far different from traditional, empirically-based science. It will be politicized version of science that focuses on “green” education, “sustainability” and on “global,” rather than local, citizenship. It’s a globalist, anti-Constitution indoctrination that uses the smokescreen of “sustainability” as if that word defines real science, but it’s based not on widely recognized scientific truth but rather is based on control-and-politics based “green” science, Al Gore style.
Our American STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) teachers will teach that socialists’ version of these subjects to our children. It’s political indoctrination, absolutely.
Think it’s a conspiracy theory? Then fact-check me. Read Obama’s, Duncan’s, Sir Michael Barber’s, and the United Nations’ own words on education reform and see if it’s not all built on the foundation of “sustainability” indoctrination.
This is the reason Obama’s pushing STEM Master Teacher Corps and allocating taxes (or debts) for it; he wants to “transform” education according to the education chapter of the United Nations’ agenda for our century.
The more you study the plans and plots of Obama and of his Federal Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, the more you see the crushing trend. They crush any individuality and local independence or control over education paths or career paths. And the Constitution be damned.
Individuals’ desires or states’ desires are not to be taken into account. The word “accountability” is used as a weapon of coercion. And the desires of the Collective Government are assumed to best determine what a student studies and what he/she becomes. “What benefits society?” they ask; they do not ask what benefits the child, or what do the parents want for the child?
The crushing and stifling effect comes from so much more than the Common Core Standards –or even than the Common national testing. The federal government wants to determine how children will be placed into an almost unalterable path that determines that student’s future based on imposed plans squeezed out of standardized tests early on in life. They call it Prosperity 2020 in Utah. They call it Obama’s 2020 Educational Initiative in D.C. They call it Education For All, a part of Agenda 21, at the United Nations. They all use nice-sounding words but they all slice away at local and individual rights and freedoms over what is to be learned and what is to be eliminated from the learning.
For example, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan makes references to “personalized learning” which sound good. But what is it, really? The removal of a student’s choices. The personalization by the government of that individual’s life path. It starts with “differentiated diplomas” which call students, to use politically insensitive words, “dumb” “mediocre” and “smart.” These “differentiated diplomas” will prepare students for differentiated careers– all determined by standardized, high stakes tests and by people who are NOT the student himself/herself. Nor the parents. (All “for the good of the collective”.) I’m not buying it. Are you?
Career Academies and “College and Career Readiness*” are the new buzzwords. The concepts sound good on the surface– to help students get diagnosed with skills and trained for specific career skills as early as possible, to make a direct leap into a career.
But think: what if the student later hates that career and has traded his/her well-rounded, meaningful, whole education for a narrow skill set? Then where is he/she going to be? Trained to be a plumber, but with desires to be a nurse? Trained to be a rocket scientist, but with desires to cook? Trained to pick up trash, but with desires to practice law? It’s not good.
The educational trend seems to benefit “society” far more than it benefits the individual. But that’s what socialists are all about. Communists, too. The individual never matters; his or her desires are not significant to The Collective.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan explains it this way:
” My goal today is to share an outline of our plan to transform career and technical education, or CTE. Then, with that as context, I’ll discuss our plans to implement the President’s proposed $1 billion investment in career academies…
…First, a career academy is a secondary school program that is organized as a small learning community or a school within a school to provide a supportive, personalized learning environment.
Second, the academy begins by the 9th grade.
Third, the academy would need to provide a combined academic and technical curriculum that includes CTE courses for which students may receive academic credit. The academy’s curriculum would be organized around a career theme—like the themes identified by NAF: Finance, Hospitality & Tourism, Information Technology, Health Sciences, or Engineering—and aligned with the State’s college-and career-ready standards*.
Fourth, a career academy provides work-based learning and career exploration activities through partnerships with local employers.
And, fifth and finally, the academy’s program articulates and reflects the entrance requirements of postsecondary education programs—to ensure that students graduate from high school ready to pursue a degree or credential.
* By the way, Duncan’s allusion to “the State’s college-and-career-ready standards” does not mean what you think it means. It’s just common core. “College and Career Readiness” is like a code term.
NO INDIVIDUAL STATE WHO IS UNDER THE COMMON CORE YOKE CAN MAKE CHANGES NOR DEFINE COLLEGE AND CAREER READY DIFFERENTLY FROM ANY OTHER STATE.
So, according to Duncan/Obama, being ready for college and career doesn’t mean being ready for college and career. Too forthright.
The term means being yoked to a substandard set of educational standards that are the same, same, same and that are non-negotiable and that are NGA/CCSSO copyrighted, with a 15% federally mandated cap on top of that copyright. (See the definition on the Ed.gov site here: http://www.ed.gov/race-top/district-competition/definitions)
What does Obama really mean when he says that he created education reforms in 46 states during his presidency?
Words need context.
The word “education” and the concept of “education reform” as Obama and others use the terms, rest on our false assumption that reforms are positive in all contexts.
Many education reforms are being done under the public radar, without public knowledge, without any vote or citizen agreement, and they actually negatively affect student/citizen privacy –as well as harming certain academic –and also non-academic– outcomes.
We misplace our trust when we buy the idea that ”education reforms” never make things worse, or never indoctrinate, or never promote dumbing-down, or never push unconstitutional or ungodly agendas, or that educational systems are never used to promote nice-sounding surface ideas that ultimately prove harmful. This misplaced trust will hurt us. Why don’t more people study and pay attention to what the government is doing to our educational freedoms and educational standards?!
Violations of good education are happening behind the unassailed assumption that ”education” always means “good for children”. But it doesn’t. We have to study what the people behind the reforms stand for, to see where their trajectories are taking our children and ultimately, this nation. (Arne Duncan, David Coleman, Bill Ayers, Linda Darling-Hammond, Sir Michael Barber, Bill Gates, Joanne Weiss, Michelle Rhee…. the cast of characters is long, colorful and frightening.)
Obama and his cast of educational characters speak about pouring more money into “education” as if that is always beneficial. Well, that all depends on what they’re buying. (With our tax dollars and without our consent and without constitutional authority.)
Many assume he’s just talking about buying pencils, salaries and books. But new reforms do include indoctrination, corporate enrichment and yes, even dumbing down in some cases.
The recent Common Core reforms include DELETING most classic literature at the high school level, DELETING cursive for all ages, DUMBING Algebra I to 9th grade rather than introducing it to 8th graders, ending FERPA’s previously protective parental consent requirements before agencies and business people can access private student data; pushing the assumption that the United Nations are a positive force on earth; pushing the ”green” extremist political agenda, and pushing most anything Bill Gates/Microsoft touches. To name a few. The data surveillance bothers me the most. Even though I am a lifelong English teacher and hate the fact that they’re slashing the literature increasingly, as the children work toward graduation. The closer to graduation they get, the less literature they will be allowed to read and write. It’s got to be info-texts, they say.
There are some ideas that some parents and teachers might like, and some we definitely don’t, but the fact remains that we never get a chance to weighin on them via a vote. That’s what nationalized education means: the elite at the top determine what is good and true for all. Oh, for the days of local control over education to be back in my state again!
Wearing the shield of “education reform,” guess what the education reformists on the left have wielded?
- a war on student data privacy
- a war on classic literature
- a war on traditional, time-tested math
-a national set of educational standards that is without an amendment process, so nobody can change anything.
-a national set of standards that are under copyright by an unelected group called CCSSO/NGA
-a national set of standards that the Dept. of Education has put a cap on; you can’t teach more than 15% above the Common Core
-a war against transparency;
Parents and teachers are in the dark; very few people know what all the consequences of adopting Common Core really are. And it’s deliberate. The Common Core is supposed to be “state-led” (because it’s illegal and unconstitutional for the executive branch to supervise or direct curriculum). So they are trying to make it appear to be so. They even invite people to help “write” the standards, even though the public license on Common Core says that CCSSO/NGA are the “sole developers” and “no claims to the contrary shall be made.” The half-truths are empowering the radical transformation and, ultimately, indoctrination of our kids to be government-centric collectivists stripped of the ability to self-determine, or to soar.
May I share the words of a great American? Ezra Taft Benson (who served as the Secretary of Agriculture under President Eisenhower in the 1950′s-1960′s and later as a Latter-day Saint prophet) said:
“As a watchman on the tower, I feel to warn you that one of the chief means of misleading our youth and destroying the family unit is our educational institutions. President Joseph F. Smith referred to false educational ideas as one of the three threatening dangers among our Church members… if [parents] have become alert and informed as President McKay admonished us last year, these parents can help expose some of the deceptions of men like Sigmund Freud, Charles Darwin, John Dewey, Karl Marx, John Keynes, and others. Today there are much worse things that can happen to a child than not getting a full college education. In fact, some of the worst things have happened to our children while attending colleges led by administrators who wink at subversion and amorality.” - In Conference Report, Ezra Taft Benson, 1970
President Benson also warned that communism was and is still a great, satanical threat.
How could communism ever become a real threat unless somehow people were taught to like its principles? How could it ever take root in freedom-loving America unless it were widely promoted as something good, diseminated via an information dissemination system (like government schools?)
One-size-fits-all is the name of the common core/socialist game. Individuality is marginalized or deleted; all is collective that is considered good. It’s the redistribution of educational funding and educational sovereignty. Common Core is a huge step toward socialism in America today, accepted because it’s sugar coated with pretty words: ”education reform,” “rigorous standards” and “common core.”
I noticed that a political flier for a local Utah representative came in the mailbox yesterday. It touted as one of the candidate’s bragging points the fact that this candidate/incumbent had ”protected public education from extremists.” I think he was referring to me, and the whole anti-Common Core crowd, thousands of us that will soon be millions, I venture to guess, as the truth trickles out almost completely unaided by mainstream media.
But my point is this: the candidate did not protect the public as he claimed to have done. He didn’t protect public education from extremists – Arne Duncan, Bill Ayers, Bill Gates, Michelle Rhee, Linda Darling-Hammond, Sir Michael Barber, and the rest got their wicked way. This local candidate did not understand who the enemy of quality education and educational sovereignty is. He thought the extremists were those who want us to sticking close to the spirit of freedom and individuality as supported in the U.S. Constitution. This is why I could not vote for him. I did a write-in vote. But he’ll win anyway, because most people do not have time to really care. And the Common Core’s moment of impact hasn’t happened for them yet.
Common Core’s Uniform Doesn’t Fit American Students
by Casey Given, policy analyst covering education and labor issues at the Americans For Prosperity Foundation.
“Throughout the presidential debates, Barack Obama repeated a statement that may sound strange to the average American. Speaking on education, the president twice noted that his administration has been working with 46 states to implement school reform. While he did not explicitly cite the initiative by name in either of the first two debates, Obama was referring to the Common Core State Standards – a national curriculum that 46 states and the District of Columbia have adopted over the past two years.
Though only given passing mentions, it’s a small miracle that the president has made any reference to this underreported effort at all. Both candidates and their parties have largely remained silent on Common Core until now. In fact, one recent poll by the D.C.-based nonprofit Achieve shows that 79 percent of Americans know “nothing” or “not much” about Common Core. As a result, millions of parents across the country send their children to school every day without any idea that American education as we know it is drastically changing.”
If Obama wins another term as president, you can expect to see the tightening of control over education via Common Core, national tracking of students, and more anti-American ideas being promoted across the country and especially in schools, because of the influence of the Gates Foundation, UNESCO, and others.
Mitt Romney wants to turn back the trend of socializing, nationalizing education. If you are able to donate some time to Mitt’s campaign, they need serious amounts of volunteers. There are a few call centers below and you can also make calls from home. Please get involved.
I received this email today and will post the rest for those willing to help Romney get elected.
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A Utah friend writes:
“I just talked to a Romney campaign staffer at the Orem call center who said he was very disappointed in the turnout of volunteers for Governor Romney. In a state where Romney may get 80 percent of the vote, far too many people are apathetic. They don’t think they can make a difference. NOT TRUE!! These call centers are targeting voters in swing states such as Nevada, Colorado, and Ohio. Utah volunteers are desperately needed in a very tight election.”
This election could prove to be a cliff-hanger. One prognosticator last night suggested that Romney might win the popular vote but lose the Electoral College. In other words, states like Nevada, Colorado, and Ohio could make all the difference. And if you imagine that, living in Utah or Idaho or some other safe Romney zone, you can’t have any impact on the races there, you’re absolutely wrong.
Monetary donations, even small ones, can still make a difference. Unless I’m mistaken, Barack Obama substantially outraised Mitt Romney last month, for the first time in quite a while. What a pity it will be if, having come this far, we falter at the end and fail by a hair’s breadth.
This is the time for the final push in the race, the final burst of energy that guarantees the victory. Or the fatal loss of will that turns triumph into failure.
You can also volunteer to make phone calls. The ground game is everything at this point. The candidate who gets his voters out will win the vital contested states and take the presidency for the next four years.
Romney Call Centers in Utah, open Monday-Saturday 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.
If you would prefer to call from home, please click on this link to find out how you can set up your phone and computer. It will, I think, work from anywhere in the country. So you non-Utahns shouldn’t feel that you’re off the hook! You’re needed, too!
SLDS is a citizen tracking program, and a grant program, that rewards states financially for participating. It’s also called P-20, which stands for preschool through age 20 (workforce) tracking. I see citizen tracking as creepy and Orwellian. What do you see?
The federal website shows, here– http://www2.ed.gov/programs/slds/factsheet.html — that SLDS was presented as a financial prize to states, a grant, under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. It sounded good, but in reality, its purpose –besides the uneven redistributing of taxpayers’ money– is to track citizens (students).
The assumption was that everyone everywhere would approve of citizen tracking and would want to be tracked. A secondary assumption is that the government’s holding detailed, intimate information about its citizens would never be used against anybody wrongly, and that none of this has nothing to do with constitutional rights to privacy. (For more on that, click here: http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/conlaw/rightofprivacy.html )
I highlighted the first element of data to be collected because it speaks about PII, personally identifiable information. PII can be a name, a social security number, a blood sample, handwriting sample, a fingerprint, or almost anything else. The fact that the government included “except as permitted by federal/state law” is VERY significant because the federal Department of Education did the dastardly deed of changing federal privacy law, known previously as the protective, family-empowering, FERPA law. The Department of Education did this without Congressional approval and are now being sued by the Electronic Privacy Information Center for doing it. But as it stands now, FERPA has been altered and won’t be put back to its formerly protective state. So parental rights over children’s data, and parental consent rules, have been cast aside. –All in the name of getting lots and lots and lots of data available, whether with malignant or benign intention, especially for federal use.
Here it is, pasted directly from the government site and available in English or Spanish:
American Recovery and Reinvestment Act: $250 million
Grantees: States
Type of Grant: Competitive
Purpose:
The program provides grants to states to design, develop, and implement statewide P-20 longitudinal data systems to capture, analyze, and use student data from preschool to high school, college, and the workforce.
Program Requirements:
Since it started in fiscal year 2005, the program has awarded grants worth $265 million to 41 states and the District of Columbia. The Recovery Act competition requires that the data systems have the capacity to link preschool, K-12, and postsecondary education as well as workforce data. To receive State Fiscal Stabilization Funds, a state must provide an assurance that it will establish a longitudinal data system that includes the 12 elements described in the America COMPETES Act, and any data system developed with Statewide longitudinal data system funds must include at least these 12 elements. The elements are:
An unique identifier for every student that does not permit a student to be individually identified (except as permitted by federal and state law);
The school enrollment history, demographic characteristics, and program participation record of every student;
Information on when a student enrolls, transfers, drops out, or graduates from a school;
Students scores on tests required by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act;
Information on students who are not tested, by grade and subject;
Students scores on tests measuring whether they’re ready for college;
A way to identify teachers and to match teachers to their students;
Information from students’ transcripts, specifically courses taken and grades earned;
Data on students’ success in college, including whether they enrolled in remedial courses;
Data on whether K-12 students are prepared to succeed in college;
A system of auditing data for quality, validity, and reliability; and
The ability to share data from preschool through postsecondary education data systems.
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Tonight at 6:05, I’ll be on the Morgan Philpot show as a guest, speaking about this important issue and all its many tentacles, including the E.P.I.C. lawsuit against the Dept. of Education, the statements on data-mashing by Utah’s John Brandt and D.C.’s Joanne Weiss, letters I’ve received from the USOE on the subject of student tracking, and what we can do about it.
An Opinion Editorial in an Indiana newspaper, the Journal Gazette, written by a candidate for school board, points out a dangerously little-known fact: while Obama’s touting his ”Education reform in 46 states” as one of his accomplishments, people haven’t yet realized Obama is referring to the Common Core…”
Thank you, Journal Gazette and Glenna Jehl.
I would add that another thing almost nobody’s put together yet is that any time that Obama –or any of the elite educrats, including local Utahns– use the term “college- and career-readiness” they are using a code phrase that means COMMON CORE. It’s defined on the U.S. government’s own online definitions page. They are deliberately confusing people. They don’t want you to know what they have done.
Obama takes credit for this supposedly grass-roots, state-led program of Common Core.
But it’s anything but grass-roots and state-led. It was promoted with Bill Gates’ money. It was further incentivized by Obama’s Dept. of Education money. It was marketed by nongovernmental groups that we didn’t elect and can’t fire– CCSSO (Council of Chief State School Officers) and NGA (National Governors’ Association) which are just clubs, not governmental agencies or parentally influenced organizations.
CCSSO/NGA then copyrighted the standards.
And then the Obama Administration put a 15% cap on ever changing any of it. Just read your state’s waiver from No Child Left Behind. Or read your state’s application for Race to the Top.
Fifteen Percent more. That’s it. (No learning too much, now. Slow down, Sonny. No learning too fast, now. We can’t have innovation or self-determination or actual excellence or people exceeding the nationalized speed limit on education. That would not be in the spirit of the new Obama communism at all.)
Where is the liberty in Common Core?!
–Why are good people so opposed to the nationalized takeover of medical care, but so few are shouting about the nationalized takeover of education? We are talking about our children. It matters more than anything what our children’s futures will be. Will their futures offer them lives of liberty or lives of governmental control via the new SLDS and P-20 tracking and control systems built “for education reform”? Will they be lives of indoctrination, now that the Common Core mandates informational text replace classic literature increasingly by age and grade?
Common Core is absolutely socialism. It is absolutely communism. It lacks any vestige of local control– we can’t amend the standards. We had no voice in writing them. There is no process for states changing them. Only the elites may do so. NGA, CCSSO.
It drives me nuts when I go to my local “meet the candidates” night and nobody on the panel has done any homework at all. They say ignorant things like “Common Core is just minimum standards.” Oh really? Ever heard of the 15% cap? Ever heard of moving Algebra I backwards, from 8th grade to 9th, so that kids are learning it at least a whole year later than they used to learn it?
Why do people keep using that passed-down, now-cliched word “rigorous standards” in the face of reality? Rigorous ain’t common core.
Anyone who’s actually studied the standards realizes that although in a few small areas, Common Core is more challenging, that is a drop in the bucket– Common Core is dumbing our students down via fuzzy math, less literature, no cursive, and who knows what kind of science and history they are cooking up? So far we’ve only seen the math and English. I can only imagine– I can only imagine how anti-God, anti-American, pro-Green, pro-Sustainable Education this science and math will be.
So, here’s the article that got me on my soapbox again today. From Indiana; read on:
(Published yesterday, October 18, 2012)
State must reject federal takeover of schools
Glenna L. Jehl
…When President Obama touts “education reform in 46 states” as one of his accomplishments, most people haven’t yet realized that Obama is referring to the new Common Core State Standards being implemented nationwide, including in Indiana.
Surprisingly, Gov. Mitch Daniels and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett helped wheel this Trojan horse into our midst.
Originally, Common Core was supposed to raise academic standards and make what is taught in each grade level more uniform. Unfortunately, the special interests in Washington, D.C., could not resist a huge power grab. Funding incentives like the Race to the Top grants, which requires the adoption of the Common Core Standards in order to receive the funds, lead to school corporations like FWCS and states scrambling for the additional money and willingly embracing the new requirements.
Unfortunately, they never took time to consider what sort of standards they agreed to adopt; no longer in a Race to the Top and higher standards, we are in a race to mediocrity. We are voluntarily relinquishing Indiana’s superior, acclaimed standards for those that are inferior to our current standards in math and language arts.
Under Common Core, by the end of eighth grade students will be two years behind their international counterparts in math. High school graduates will achieve only a seventh-grade reading level. These are hardly rigorous standards, leaving our students less prepared to compete in the 21st century.
When states are done implementing this new, unproven, copyrighted program which includes curriculum, tests, and teacher training from which they may not deviate, they will have lost every last vestige of local control. Common Core districts must use their curriculum, their assessments and their state tests. Even the SAT may become aligned with Common Core… homeschoolers and private schools will be affected, especially if they want accreditation or to accept vouchers.
Imagine the power the federal government will wield when it controls the content and perspective that will be taught to every student nationwide K-12. With virtually no public debate, Obama has quietly engineered the federal takeover of the education system nationwide.
Recognizing the dangers of this overhaul of education, Mitt Romney states his opposition to Common Core as follows: “To financially reward states based on accepting the federal government’s idea of a curriculum is a mistake. … There may be a time when the federal government has an agenda it wants to promote.”
Are we going to place our children’s futures in the hands of Washington bureaucrats?
…we must join the four states that have already rejected it. Our next governor and state legislature must understand that Indiana needs to opt out of Common Core. That is the only way states, local school boards, and parents will retain the ability to choose the curriculum and the standards for the education of the students in their community.
Hoosiers must take a stand now for academic excellence and educational freedom for the sake of our children, before Common Core is fully implemented.
Glenna Jehl is a candidate for the District 2 seat on the Fort Wayne Community Schools board. She wrote this for The Journal Gazette.
Education Week covered it. In brief, what was said:
“On the issue his campaign has been most silent on — the fate of the waivers the U.S. Department of Education and Secretary Arne Duncan have granted so far from NCLB—Handy didn’t outright say Romney would get rid of them. But he broadly hinted at it.”
The waivers are “not about flexibility. They’re very prescriptive. We think they have led to a very unfortunate result: … many of these states are setting different accountability standards for different constituencies of children,” said Handy, a former chairman of the Florida State Board of Education. “I think it’s wrong.” What he’s referring to—different school performance standards for different groups of kids—is becoming a big policy issue in many states, and a messaging problem for the Obama administration.
…Another area that Handy shed light on was Romney’s plan to send Title I and special education dollars directly to parents as vouchers so they can use them at the school of their choice. Handy acknowledged that, since the federal government only pays an average of about 10 percent of a child’s K-12 education, Romney’s voucher plan would have to start small. States would be encouraged to match those dollars, and seven to eight would probably do so right away, he said.
“The federal government’s role should be to get this choice started,” Handy said.
…Handy’s points on school choice illustrated his overarching themes of the night: that the federal role in education should be limited to providing choice and transparent data on the quality of schools. And, it became clear, the role is also to not add to the deficit under a Romney presidency.
Handy reiterated a surprising pledge Romney made in the first presidential debate—that he wouldn’t cut education funding. Handy said the crux of the funding crisis is over entitlement programs such as Social Security. “You can easily hold public education harmless without impacting the creation of more deficits,” he said.
But Romney won’t invest more in education either, Handy said. That includes in areas such as common assessments to match the common core, or in early education. “You just can’t keep adding to the deficit,” Handy said.
The federal government uses lots of different agencies– but increasingly, schools– to track us. It’s citizen surveillance. But they call it research.
I wrote to the Utah State Office of Education a few months ago to ask a simple yes or no question: can my child attend public school without being specifically and individually tracked by name, school record, social security number etc.?
No. The answer was, no. Your child will always be tracked using personally identifiable information. But this will never be shared outside the State Office of Education, they assured me.
After studying the NCES website, the federal FERPA website, the lawsuit between E.P.I.C. and the Dept. of Education, the machinations of CCSSO’s John Brandt with the Utah Data Alliance, Open Education specialist Professor David Wiley’s statements about the necessity of gathering data without parental consent, and Dept. of Ed Chief of Staff Joanne Weiss’s statements on federal data-mashing and “helping” states to partner with data, I do not believe the USOE’s assurances. I wish I could.
Under agencies like ”National Center for Education Statistics” and “Institute for Education Sciences” the federal government is asking schools to collect and share hundreds of data points about your school, your teachers, and yes, your child.
There’s a federal ”Common Core of Data.” There’s a National Data Collection Model that asks for so much private information about each student, way, way beyond math and reading scores– it asks for family information, languages spoken, health information, extracurricular programs, social security numbers, bus stop descriptions– you name it. Right here: http://nces.ed.gov/forum/datamodel/eiebrowser/techview.aspx?instance=studentElementarySecondary There is even a private school survey– private, not government. On the federal data collection website.
If you start to talk about it with people, they’ll pat you on the head and say, “Oh, but FERPA law is here to protect you; it’s a groundless conspiracy theory.”
When they say that, please pat them right back on their own little heads and say, “Federal FERPA regulations were altered by the Department of Education quite recently. Now definitions have been rewritten and parental consent has been shoved aside: it’s an agenda. Not a theory, an actual, verifiable, factual agenda being pushed under the radar upon Americans who still think they are protected and free.” http://epic.org/apa/ferpa/default.html
If they haven’t walked away from you, talk on. Say, “Definitions that have been reshaped –loosened– by the Dept of Ed. without Congressional approval include such details as the term AUTHORIZED REPRESENTATIVE– now it could be literally anyone, anyone who is authorized to view your child’s personal information under federal FERPA regulation. Even a school volunteer can have access to a child’s personally identifiable data, including biometric, physical data like fingerprints or DNA. If parents have allowed the school to collect it. Unless our state FERPA can stand up to the federal FERPA.”
Your listeners will still find it hard to believe that this could be legal. Then take them to this federal 34 CFR Part 99 FERPA pdf page and type in the search terms “volunteer” or “biometric”:
The point: unless many of us look at this and talk about it, and then stand up and say, “No way” to the absolute flood of data-sucking agencies all around us, that are aiming to know everything about everyone, via data mashing and data sharing, we will lose our freedoms, we will lose our way of life as we have known it in the United States and elsewhere.
Bureaucracies of mass data-collection and sharing grow slowly but relentlessly. Will they build a web we can’t break by the time we think it’s time to fight back? Will we be intimidated by the clever sounding ”government-speak” and the researchers’ arrogance?
Or will we take back our identities, our privacy, our freedom?
If you have time, just look at the words they use:
“The Common Core of Data (CCD) is a program of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics that annually collects fiscal and non-fiscal data about all public schools, public school districts and state education agencies in the United States. The data are supplied by state education agency officials and include information that describes schools and school districts, including name, address, and phone number; descriptive information about students and staff, including demographics; and fiscal data, including revenues and current expenditures.” http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/
“Policy Makers – If you are an LEA or SEA policy maker, focus on Chapters 1, 2, and 4 of the User Guide. “Data Modelers – If you are coming from a background in other data model domains such as banking, healthcare, etc. and want to familiarize yourself with the education data model domain, read Chapter 3: How to use the Data Model. Review Appendix C: Common Attributes. Then go directly to the Education Data Model…”
Look behind you.
If you were taking a nice walk in the park and someone said, “Look behind you. There’a a fast moving river of hot lava coming your way,” you could call that person a liar or a mad conspiracy theorist and keep enjoying your walk.
–Or you could just take that one look behind you. What would it hurt to just turn your head and take a look? Do you really not want to know?
“WILLIAMS: Governor, what do you make of ‘Common Core’?
ROMNEY: You know, I think it’s fine for people to lay out what they think core subjects might be and to suggest a pedagogy and being able to provide that learning to our kids. I don’t subscribe to the idea of the federal government trying to push a common core on various states.
It’s one thing to put it out as a model and let people adopt it as they will, but to financially reward states based upon accepting the federal government’s idea of a curriculum, I think, is a mistake. And the reason I say that is that there may be a time when the government has an agenda that it wants to promote.
And I’m not wild about the federal government having some kind of agenda that it then compensates states to teach their kids. I’d rather let education and what is taught state by state be determined state by state, not by the federal government…”
Supports Local Control of Curricula at Education Nation Summit
Washington, DC – Today, American Principles in Action (APIA) praised Governor Romney’s stated opposition to a national curriculum, commonly known as the Common Core, choosing instead to let states and communities decide public school curricula.
“We applaud Governor Romney’s bold support for states and local communities to decide what’s best for their children, restoring power over education from the hands of the federal government to where it belongs,” said APIA’s Emmett McGroarty. “He is right to warn that the national authorities may have an agenda and should be prevented from pushing it on the states. Unfortunately, just as with Medicare reform, thefederal government has resorted to coercing now more than 40 states into adopting the Common Core.
“Congress intended the 2009 Stimulus Bill as a life-line for the states, but President Obama turned it into a weapon through his Race to the Top program. In order to compete for Race to the Top money, states had to quickly sign onto the Common Core and related assessments without having a chance to meaningfully review the Standards and before the assessments were even developed.
“States competed in Race to the Top by demonstrating their commitment to President Obama’s education policy, in effect surrendering to an education monopoly. Their citizens were cut out of the process.
“President Obama has continued to coerce the states by requiring them to sign onto his education policies in order to get relief from No Child Left Behind.
“We urge both candidates to commit themselves to ending the federal government’s political coercion of the states and their citizens, and to ending the Race to the Top program.”
American Principles in Action is a 501 c (4) political advocacy group affiliated with American Principles Project, a 501 c (3) policy organization committed to rededicating the United States to its founding principles.
So, Obama “applauds” the non-governmental organizations (NGA and CCSSO) for the supposedly ”state-led” program, while announcing his own Obama Administration’s “efforts to promote college- and career-ready standards” via ESEA. So who is really behind it? Obama or the states?
Actually, both. –But only because the states never had a chance to vote on it. The whole thing was done using non-governmental groups. Very sneaky. Very.
Some of you are thinking: ” I didn’t see the word “common core” in the announcement.” –So why am I using “Common Core” as a synonymn with “College-and-career ready standards”?
Because that’s what the White House does.
If you go to the U.S. Department of Education’s own “Definitions Page” you will find this definition:
College- and career-ready standards: Content standards for kindergarten through 12th grade that build towards college- and career-ready graduation requirements (as defined in this document) by the time of high school graduation. A State’s college- and career-ready standards must be either (1) standards that are common to a significant number of States; or (2) standards that are approved by a State network of institutions of higher education, which must certify that students who meet the standards will not need remedial course work at the postsecondary level. http://www.ed.gov/race-top/district-competition/definitions
Common with a significant number of states?! There is no other set of common standards that many states share. It’s only Common Core.
And it’s totally unAmerican because it’s education without representation. We didn’t vote for nor can we repeal the members of the CCSSO/NGA, who hold the common core copyright.
We can’t amend the standards like we can a legitimate American law; they’re under CCSSO/NGA copyright. And we can’t adjust Common Core to suit us, more than the mandated 15% maximum. So if we want to teach our high school seniors using 100% classic literature, we may not do it. The Common Core says they can only have 30% classic literature. The rest has to be info-text. Our state can add 15%, bringing it to 45% max. See how we are bound? Where is the liberty in that? Where is the feeling of American innovation and freedom in our educational system?
I beg you, if you don’t know much about Common Core yet, to read the following and do the research for yourself.
1. Look at the dates we adopted Common Core. Then look at the dates the Common Core was written– we never saw it before we signed up!
2. Look at the copyright page for NGA/CCSSO on the common standards. It says “no claims to the contrary shall be made” right after it claims to be the sole developer and owner of the standards. Yet proponents say teachers and states came up with them.
3. Look at the 15% cap set on innovation in the waiver application for ESEA (No Child Left Behind waiver).
4. Look at the U.S. Constitution. Where does it say that the President has authority to promote Common education?
5. Look at G.E.P.A. law. (General Educational Provisions Act.) It specifically excludes the federal government from supervising, directing or ruling over educational systems in any way. ALL THEY CAN DO IS PAY FOR IT. States run it. Period.
6. Look at the online “Cooperative Agreement between the Dept. of Education and SBAC”. It uses mandatory language that forces both testing consortia to synchronize testing. It uses mandatory language that forces the consortia to share data with the federal government “on an ongoing basis.” Triangulating educational consortia under the feds’ direction and supervision is ILLEGAL. It takes away local control.
7. Look at the official Common Core Validation Committee Members’ reviews of Common Core. Google Sandra Stotsky and James Milgram. They refused to call the standards adequate for education.
According to Stanley Kurtz, whose Fox News editorial is excerpted below, one of Obama’s biggest plans to create socialism in America comes in the form of Common Core education. His book on the subject is in stores now: “Spreading the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities.”
Kurtz says that Obama is quietly promoting a dumbed-down national curriculum (called “rigorous”) that is designed to artificially suppress achievement gaps between urban and suburban students. Kurtz says that although the right way to help poorly performing students is not to gut standards but to raise achievement, still Obama is committed to defining performance down. What a way to equalize college readiness.
Kurtz concludes that Obama’s ultimate goal is to erase the differences between local school districts with a massive redistribution of suburban education spending to the cities.
What if President Obama’s most ambitious attempt to transform American society was also his quietest plan? You wouldn’t vote against the president on account of a program you’d never heard about, of course. That, I’d wager, is why President Obama has told the American public next-to-nothing about his plans to undercut the political and financial independence of America’s suburban school districts.
Obama is quietly busy making an end-run around our constitutional system, which forbids federal control of what your children learn in school. Step one, already well under way, is a dumbed-down national curriculum designed to artificially suppress achievement gaps between urban and suburban students. The right way to help poorly performing students is not to gut standards but to raise achievement, yet Obama is committed to defining performance down. That’s why the president’s ultimate goal is to erase the differences between local school districts with a massive redistribution of suburban education spending to the cities.
The 2008 controversy over Obama’s years of education work with that famously unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers has faded from view. For a moment, it seemed as though Ayers’ radical education legacy would carry forward into Obama’s presidency. That’s because Linda Darling-Hammond, Ayers’ favorite education expert and head of Obama’s education transition team, was on a fast track to appointment as secretary of education until her leftism alienated even many Democrats.
(LINDA DARLING-HAMMOND)
When Arne Duncan, who ostensibly backs demanding standards and tests, became education secretary instead, it looked as though Obama had tacked center. He hadn’t, and appearances to the contrary, neither had Darling-Hammond left the scene.
(BILL AYERS)
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… requires the federal government to usurp local control of K-12 schooling.
(ARNE DUNCAN)
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.
A few conservatives have been fooled by the seemingly traditionalist call for national “standards.” Yet most conservative education experts understand that the new national standards will be low, not high. With so many pressing economic issues on the table, however, nobody’s listening. Too bad, because the ultimate outcome of Obama’s education scheme will actually be economic: a sweeping redistribution of suburban education funding to the cities. Far from having departing the scene, Obama’s former adviser, Linda Darling-Hammond, is at the center of this plan. She works with the Smarter-Balanced Assessment Consortium, selected by the administration to create the testing system for the new Common Core. Darling-Hammond has gone out of her way to downplay her role with the Smarter-Balanced Consortium, but the group’s own publications make it clear that she is effectively running the show. So, although Darling-Hammond is the top national opponent of standardized tests, she is now effectively in charge of designing a new K-12 testing system for much of the nation. The result will be politically correct questions, and standards that aren’t really standards at all.
That’s only part one of the plan. President Obama’s Department of Education has established an Equity and Excellence Commission, charged with finding “ways to restructure school finance systems to achieve equity in the distribution of educational resources and further student achievement and attainment.” Conveniently, the commission’s recommendations will emerge only during a possible second Obama term. Darling-Hammond is a member of that commission, and if past experience is a guide will have outsize influence on its recommendations.
Darling-Hammond has already made her intentions clear. She is pushing a plan to add common “resource standards” to the new Common Core’s curricular standards. That is, Darling-Hammond hopes to condition federal education aid on the equalization of school funding across municipal lines. She has also proposed allowing students to transfer across school district lines, with transportation provided at government expense. The target here is the suburbs. Obama and Darling-Hammond are both longtime supporters of the little-known “regional equity” movement, which aims to undercut the political independence of America’s suburbs so as to redistribute suburban wealth to the cities. Obama is too sharp politically to advertise this part of his program, yet he is aggressively pressing it forward.
The right to educate your children as you see fit has traditionally stood at the very center of the American vision of self-government and personal liberty… Agree or disagree, shouldn’t President Obama clearly explain his ambitious redistributive plans for K-12 education – and America’s suburbs – so that they can be discussed and debated during this epochal national election?
…The so-called Common Core State Standards in English and math were almost entirely developed inside the Beltway by a small group of D.C.-based education trade organizations.
Many of the 46 states that adopted the standards did so before they were even complete. In the vast majority of states, educational officials adopted the standards unilaterally; few state legislatures ever even voted on them.
To bolster their decisions, some state education officials relied on comparisons of their existing standards to Common Core, comparisons that were funded by the same Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation that has spent more than $100 million to develop and promote the national standards.
This embarrassing spectacle calls into question John Adams’ famous claim that the United States is “[a] government of laws, and not of men.”
At least three federal laws explicitly prohibit the federal government from directing, funding or controlling any state and local standards, curriculum, testing or instructional materials.
Despite these clear legal prohibitions, the Obama administration made adoption of Common Core a criterion for states competing for more than $4 billion in federal grant money. Each state that received a so-called Race to the Top grant had either adopted or promised to adopt Common Core.
Another $362 million in federal grants was doled out to two national consortia that are developing common assessments to “help” states transition to nationalized standards and tests.
In their federal grant applications, the two testing consortia flat-out stated their intent to use the money to create a “model curriculum” and instructional materials “aligned with” Common Core, in direct violation of the law. U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan even said that the consortia’s work includes “developing curriculum frameworks” and “instructional modules.”
In short, the U.S. Department of Education has paid others to do what it is forbidden from doing. The tactic should not inoculate the department against curriculum prohibitions imposed by Congress.
Courageously, Thomas Gosnell, who heads the state chapter of the union Shanker once led, opposed Massachusetts’ 2010 adoption of Common Core. “Our standards . . . are clearly higher than what the federal government is proposing,” he said. “Our students are number one in the nation and the Western world, and here we are being asked to sign onto those [national] standards”…
Charles Chieppo is a senior fellow and Jamie Gass directs the Center for School Reform at Pioneer Institute, a Boston-based think tank.
According to Stanley Kurtz, whose Fox News editorial is excerpted below, one of Obama’s biggest plans to create socialism in America comes in the form of Common Core education. His book on the subject is in stores now: “Spreading the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities.”
