You can read for yourself what Utah agreed to, in requesting a federal waiver from the law called No Child Left Behind, which was a restrictive and unpopular federal educational mandate. http://www2.ed.gov/policy/eseaflex/ut.pdf
Today, Utah received a “yes” answer about the NCLB waiver, from the U.S. Dept. of Education. We got the NCLB waiver, so we are released from following its mandates, but that means we have to abide by common standards. Common Core.
I’d rather be saddled with NCLB than Common Core because the mandating tentacles of Common Core are further reaching, and the standards are not amendable by us. At least we used to have local control over our educational standards before Common Core.
If so, we can expect an over-emphasis on “sustainable development,” “climate change,” and “environmental awareness” that will marginalize traditional academic science in favor of United Nations-inspired “sustainability” science. We can also expect a continued degrading of local control.
Utah, like most of the states in this nation, adopted the Common Core math and English standards without any sort of public vetting or a vote. The Utah State Superintendent and State School Board is still marching forward at top speed, having implemented Common Core’s preschool, math, English, the SBAC common nationalized testing system, and P-20 /SLDS citizen tracking systems, so there’s no reason to think we won’t add Common Core Science, unless there’s a huge public outcry against it. http://utahnsagainstcommoncore.com
Why would it be a huge mistake to add the Common Core Science?
Common Core Science Standards will be aligned with the environmental agenda-driven “science” promoted by the United Nations.
The United Nations’ UNESCO, via the funding tool of Microsoft and Bill Gates, is attempting to call the shots on what will be taught in U.S. schools, and it’s going to be “environmental awareness,” not honest academic science. Here’s how we know:
1. MICROSOFT PROMISED TO PUSH THE UNITED NATIONS’ EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES –AND UNESCO’s CONSTITUTION– WORLDWIDE:
Read for yourself. Bill Gates’ company, Microsoft, in its 26-page Cooperation Agreement document with UNESCO (The United Nations Education branch) shows Gates giving support and money to promote the U.N.’s “programmes” in host countries like the USA. That PDF is here: http://www.eagleforum.org/links/UNESCO-MS.pdf .
The document states:
“UNESCO’s intention is to mobilise partners from civil society and in particular from the private sector to achieve its strategic goals and programme priorities…. Microsoft supports the objectives of UNESCO as stipulated in UNESCO’s Constitution and intends to contribute…” (page 2, Cooperation Agreement.)
2. WHAT’S SO BAD ABOUT THE U.N.’S EDUCATIONAL OBJECTIVES THAT BILL GATES/MICROSOFT PUSH?
To me, the honor and trust of “providing regional leadership in education” belongs to my local school board, parents, principals and teachers. Not to UNESCO/the U.N.
In Chapter 25 of the United Nations’ Agenda 21, as well, the U.N. website states that countries should use preexisting systems, formal and informal educational methods, to mandate that global citizens learn the importance of environmental issues. This is the agenda of the Common Core science, in American schools.
25.12. Children not only will inherit the responsibility of looking after the Earth… They are also highly aware supporters of environmental thinking… children need to be taken fully into account in the participatory process on environment and development in order to safeguard the future sustainability…
…ensure that education reflects… and incorporates the concepts of environmental awareness and sustainable development throughout the curricula; … include youth and youth non-governmental organizations to develop educational and awareness programmes specifically targeted to the youth population on critical issues pertaining to youth… use formal and non-formal educational methods to reach a maximum audience …media, non-governmental organizations, businesses and other organizations should assist… ”
3. HOW HAS BILL GATES KEPT MICROSOFT’S PROMISE TO PUSH THOSE U.N. OBJECTIVES?
His own grant-giving website states that he gave about $25 million to the CCSSO to promote Common Core, but $9 million of that was specific to environmental propaganda:
“Purpose: to continue in [CCSSO’s] its leadership role on Common Core State Standards, to continue work on an effective teaching agenda that seeks to move the ‘middle’ group of states farther along the EET policy agenda, and… publicize access to emerging research on resource reallocation…”*
EET, Earth Exploration Toolkit, is heavy on climate change and environmental awareness. EET’s suggested colleagues’ webinar topic for teacherss’ professional development, climate change, is here: http://serc.carleton.edu/eet/eet_interactive.html
A word search in the EET chapter headings from the EET text, gives 43 matches for “climate change” and 43 matches for “ozone,” while it gives 1 match for astronomy, 3 matches for biology, no matches for zoology, and 8 matches for chemistry.
*(the meaning of mandated “resource reallocation” = state/global control of lands, or communism).
I got to talk with Khalia Barnes today about the legal action her company, EPIC (Electronic Privacy Information Center) has taken against the U.S. Department of Education.
Ms. Barnes said that they’ve had no press. No press! The U.S. Department of Education is being sued for stepping outside the bounds of their statutory authority and making regulatory changes to FERPA, a Congressionally written law from 1974, and nobody thinks it’s newsworthy? This affects us all, now and for years and years and years to come. It matters, people. Strange that this is not in the news.
Also not newsworthy, apparently: Ms. Barnes told me that if FERPA regulatory changes don’t get overturned by the judge over this case (when it’s completed in October 2012) then it’s not just kids who will be exposed to massive privacy intrusions. It’s every single citizen, regardless of age, who ever attended a college or university that keeps educational records, so long as that institution has accepted federal funding, which most have. So the kid-tracking now affects all ages.
— Unless EPIC wins the suit! I’m going to be following the EPIC webpage and lawsuit very closely.
1. Bill Gates paid the National PTA (Parents and Teachers Association) a million bucks to promote Common Core in 2009, before the Common Core Standards had ever been written or released –in 2010. (It is like getting married before you meet your spouse. So reasonable a thing to do with the educational future of the entire nation.) But ah, the PTA– how brilliant of Gates. And no wonder we all seem to believe Common Core is such a good thing, like bake sales and pajama day. http://www.pta.org/3723.htm and http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=news/parenting&id=7147532
5. The U.S. Department of Education paid $4.35 BILLION DOLLARS –our tax money– to push Common Core, to promote and incentivize states’ adoption of Common Core, via RTTT (Race to the Top) grants. But we never got to vote on Common Core. No one did. http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/fact-sheet-race-top. This is money they could have spent on legitimate public education– teacher salaries, textbooks, school buses, etc.
Arne Duncan says he needs to control children via data-driven decisions. This data will be collected via the Common Core testing system:
“… so that every child knows on every step of their educational trajectory what they’re going to do.”
THIS IS NOT GOOD. Children don’t always know what they want to be when they grow up. Some children make huge mistakes. We don’t want them over-guided and over-tracked. Let kids be kids. Let people make up their minds as they go along! No tracking and pushing, please, Mr. Secretary of Education Duncan.
“You should know in fifth and sixth and seventh and eighth grade what your strengths are, what you weaknesses are.” Yikes! No way!
and:
“We have to be transparent about our data.”
This statement explains so much: why he wrote the Cooperative Agreement that triangulates the data Common Core tests will collect under his watchful eye; why he rewrote FERPA regulations without authority or Congressional oversight, why he paid for states to create SLDS systems to track citizens, why he’s happy about our P-20 tracking councils… What he really means is, YOU have to be transparent about YOUR data; give it to Big Brother.
I am not using the term “wicked witch” lightly. This is the person who pushes the anti-liberty values of Common Core and who literally said in an email to me that she knows equality, not freedom, is the driving force of the U.S. Constitution.
She lied. She emailed all the board, saying that I had never even been a teacher, so no one should listen to me at all. This is silly, because why shouldn’t the board listen, even if I was only a concerned parent? But anyway. All this was after I’d given her my up-to-date teacher licensing information, and after I had invited her to contact all the principals and university administrators who had ever worked with me and under whom I had taught.
I even had parents of former students write to her. They all defended my truthfulness.
She ignored it all and kept saying her lies to the rest of the school board.
WHY? Because I was calling the board on their misrepresentation of Common Core! I wrote a four page rebuttal to their flier (Fact v. fiction about Common Core) and she wanted it all discredited. http://www.schools.utah.gov/core/DOCS/coreStandardsPamphlet.aspx (their flier, which is without references)
She really tormented me (for questioning the board’s adoption of Common Core). I had to ask for an official reprimand to be given to her, and an unofficial electronic restraining order because she was so mean, dishonest, and attacking. After I asked for that official reprimand of her treatment of me, she quit attacking me.
