Call 202-224-3121 to be connected to your Representatives and Senators in D.C. today.
They are about to vote to pass No Child Left Behind/ESEA in a new form that is Constitutionally unacceptable.
It promotes accountability, backwards. Instead of the creation (government school system) being accountable to its creator (We, the individual People) this NCLB/ESEA proposed law wants We, the People accountable to the creation itself via data tagging and an increase of laws to bind us.
You can also just read the official US Dept. of Education blog to see the at-first-glance-seemingly-innocuous words from Secretary Duncan:
“…the nation is at a crossroads with two different paths for an new ESEA — a choice with moral and economic consequences“. That is true. Then he says, “ESEA should be replaced with a law that ensures opportunity for every child in this country; strengthens our nation economically; and expands… accountability.”
Do you see any dangerous false premises behind those words?
It’s based on the premise that the new version of ESEA is a better law, which is false. ESEA cements big government controls over citizens, assumes that the federal government knows best how to define and how to turn around struggling schools; increases the workforce-not-academic mindset of schools; pushes toddlers into the government influence with early childhood education fund promotion, and builds its whole monstrous mess on federally structured, interoperable, common longitudinal databases (SLDS), and common educational data standards— data tags that are nonconsensual citizen tracking for most of the person’s life. That alone should give Congress a second thought.
It assumes that the federal government Constitutionally does, or morally should, hold the power to influence “every child in this country”. But the Constitution says otherwise. So does the Bible.
It assumes that economic fulfillment, defined by government, is a proper role of a school system. That’s communism, folks. In America, we go to school to learn truth– not to be minimally trained in order to serve the government’s definition of what the economy needs.*
It assumes that accountability should be from students, teachers and schools to Big Government. False. That’s almost exactly backwards. Accountability should be from public servants (teachers, state officials, and elected officials, to the clients of public ed: that is, voters, student familes, and taxpayers. We the People created government. We created the school system. The creation cannot demand accountability from its creator. The creation cannot boss its creator –unless We the People who created it, are sweet-talked and bribed by Duncan and others into allowing it. We the People must hold on to the reins of power and not become sheep to our own creation. But ESEA is threatening us.
*The Business Roundtable has written a letter to Congress that says, “A prepared workforce is essential for U.S. employers of all sizes. This is how we guarantee a brighter future for our workers and their families. We ask you to encourage the conferees to strengthen ESEA’s accountability provisions. Schools should be required to implement support strategies in cases where students are not meeting state-defined achievement goals…”
What? Corporations want Congress to pass ESEA so that schools will be forced to move toward a workforce-based, rather than a liberty and individual-based, achievement plan. That sounds no different that the thinking of the communist countries’ systems. Decision making for children should never be based on the judgment of the government machine’s economic dictates –but on what the student, with guidance from the parent, and trusted teachers, choose.
Please don’t be fooled by the cronies’ talk. This is America. We want academic and creative and computer freedom, not a top-down system run by the coupling of government to corporation, which bypasses the will of the voters and the individuals that must abide by it.
Call today. Tell your Senator and Representative in DC to vote NO on ESEA reauthorization. 202-224-3121.
As parents desiring to find a proper high school education for our 13 year old son, my husband and I have been researching a prep school in Indiana that shares our values of faith, founders and traditional academics. This school employs the services of the SSAT (Secondary School Admissions Test) exam as most prep schools do. To help my son, I voluntarily took the first practice exam which we purchased directly from SSAT.org.
I labored through the reading comprehension portion, shocked and dismayed. Within the nine essays presented were subjects on racism, an anti-Christian sarcastic dig, environmentalism, class warfare, history revision and collectivism. Any follower of current affairs recognizes these issues as tools of manipulation used by those of the “progressive” ideology. Here is one example:
“Approximately 28 percent of all energy used in the United States is devoted to transportation and of that fraction, 40 percent is supplied in the form of gasoline to fuel the nation’s nearly 255 million registered passenger vehicles. Americans use more energy to fuel their cars than they do for any other single purpose. The fuel used by American automobiles and personal trucks would just about fill all the energy needs of Japan, a nation of over 127 million and the world’s largest consumer of energy after the United States and China. In an urgent effort to reduce consumption of an increasingly costly fuel whose chief reserves lie overseas, the government has RIGHTLY [emphasis added] identified the American automobile and current habits of its utilization as prime targets for change.”
My first thoughts were, “Do any of the teachers and administration of these schools ever read these tests? Isn’t it presumptuous on the part of the creators to include politically charged, behaviorally persuasive essays for children in 8th grade?”
This started me on a journey and here is what I found:
The SSAT board consists of 19 participants who mostly come from private schools across the country. I found that the board chair, Kilian Forgus, is a spokesperson for one of their 2014 annual meeting sponsors, inResonance. On the face of it, I see a financial conflict of interest.
More concerning to me, though, is their keynote speaker, Charles Fadel, Founder and Chairman of CENTER FOR CURRICULUM REDESIGN. On Fadel’s website at www. curriculumredesign.org/about/team/#charles, he is presented as a global education thought leader and expert who was the liaison with UNESCO, the World Bank and Change the Equation (STEM) while the Global Education Lead at Cisco Systems. Of the other six speakers, five had backgrounds in global aspects of culture, trade, demographics, marketing and business . Progressive ideology uses the word “global” freely as a euphemism for ”make everyone the same”. One of the speakers, Amy Wilkinson, recently spoke at a National Governor’s Association meeting, the birthplace of the national institution of Common Core.
Can anyone say CONNECTIONS? Are these the types of philosophies that influence the design of that test? After three hours of research, I stopped for the night, but I can tell you that I’m not done.
Ezra Taft Benson, Secretary of Agriculture for President Dwight D. Eisenhower, speaking at a conference on February 28, 1966 in St. Louis, Missouri had this to say,
“To take over our schools, the educational system will first have to be federalized and then prostituted entirely to serving the propaganda needs of the state planners with absolutely no regard for truth or scholarship or tradition.”
Is this happening today? Is the SSAT just one of many means of prostitution and propaganda? Are the SAT and ACT similar? Who is guarding the minds and hearts of our children?
I ask myself whether it’s worth fighting. The machine is so big. I’m just one mom. But I’ve decided to adopt this statement from Secretary Benson’s same speech: “We must be neither fatalists nor pessimists. We must be realists, of high character and deep spirituality.”
If enough of us see this, we can stop it.
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Thank you, Whitne Strain! Parents, please research textbooks and other materials found in schools, soon to be found in our children’s minds. I want to back up Whitne’s perspective with my own recent experience (and encourage all parents and teachers to do this.)
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Is This Curriculum Politically Neutral?
by Christel Swasey
For the past few months I’ve been tutoring some high school students, part time. The students are enrolled in an online, digital school. I’ve been appalled by the online school’s lack of political neutrality and the emphasis on the same types of things Whitne Strain mentioned above: curriculum that is extremely politically charged, an extreme environmental focus, the assumption that global warming is a settled scientific fact (not just in the “environmental science” class but also in English class) and an emphasis on collectivism –along with a de-emphasis, even in the U.S. history class, on our founding fathers.
For example, I read one test question for an environmental science class that went like this (paraphrasing, from memory):
“Which of the following terms best describes an environmental movement that views the rights of the majority of people as more important than the rights of individual property owners? a) environmental law b) environmental justice c) environmental activist d) other”
The question was not teaching science. It was teaching a one-sided political message. It was teaching that the public (the government) could have the right to infringe on individuals’ property rights –maybe for any reason, but at least for environmental reasons. This may be common speech among extreme left-wing politicians –but in school!?
Schools should teach, and used to teach, that all Americans have constitutional rights, including the right and control of their own property. Now it seems that some are teaching that individual, constitutional rights are subservient to environmental socialism.
Tutoring other high school students in their online English classes this summer, I noticed the same extreme left-wing rhetoric. I didn’t write down the questions but recall –for example– many global warming political cartoons popping up multiple times even within one English test. This didn’t seem to match what English classes are supposed to be teaching.
Test questions in this English class took a one-sided stand, making the assumption, for example, that global warming was a settled scientific fact –and that this message belonged in an English class. I asked the online school to take a look at the controversies and debates among scientists in the news to see that global warming is highly controversial, and far from a settled science. I asked them to consider tossing out these inappropriate questions.
Regardless of parents’ own political ideology, I think most would agree that school is not the place for any type of subtle political indoctrination. Just as schools are forbidden from preaching a particular religion, schools must be forbidden from preaching a particular political doctrine.
Parents and teachers, we can’t move a mountain all at once. But we can start by being more aware. We can notice what is being emphasized and re-emphasized, and also notice what isn’t there and should be.
Tell your local and state school boards that you insist on politically neutral curriculum. Look at the curriculum for yourself. You’ll soon dodge anything from Pearson and Microsoft, for example, which together form the world’s largest and most powerful education sales group partnership and which also happen to be working for the United Nations’ Global Education First Initiative. Ask yourself as you read:
Is it promoting “social justice” (socialism and collectivism over classic Americanism) while teaching math, English, history or science?
Is it glorifying the politically controversial United Nations and “global citizenship”? (As I noticed years ago that the widely-used Pearson “Human Geography” textbook does)
Does it push environmentalism into every subject, promoting environmental activism as an appropriate or necessary behavior for students? (To get up to speed on this issue, look at minute 4:00 -6:05 on http://youtu.be/T3ErTaP8rTA –the Pearson Education CEA Summit speech. Pearson CEA Sir Michael Barber said “citizens of the world” including every child, “all 9 billion people who will be alive in 2050″ must have all teachings multiplied by “ethical underpinnings.” Barber explains that “ethical underpinning” is “shared understanding” of earth and “sustainability” that every child in every school around the world will learn. Ethics, to Barber, have nothing to do with the supreme sanctity of human life, individual liberty or the Golden Rule. It’s simply education for the environmental collective.)
So, if you see the typical “learning target” which says something like: “Students will understand current global issues and their rights and responsibilities in the interconnected world,” which is a learning target that I recently saw in my own child’s student disclosure– then speak up.
Say that it troubles you, and say why. Speak from the heart.
I recently explained this to one of my children’s teachers, after receiving the above mentioned “learning target”. I said, “Even though we are of Swedish heritage and speak Swedish at home, I have taught my child to be a deeply rooted American citizen, and to avoid teachings that push global citizenship. I’m opposed to the now-popular concept of “global citizenship” in education, because rights and responsibilities as Americans differ dramatically from those held in other countries or those promoted by the U.N., and I don’t want my child to think of himself/herself as subject to global values, laws, or global governance, which allow for fewer freedoms than those guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.”
If schools do not respect your wishes, take your business (and children) elsewhere: to private schools, to home schools, or to a different public school where the principals and curriculum directors still respect parental research and input.
I’ve never seen a better episode on the Blaze than that April 2013 episode with Rabbi Daniel Lapin. They spoke about collectivism. Some call it Socialism. Others, Consensus or Social Justice. It’s all the same: it’s top-down redistribution, by force.
The collectivism movement has its heartbeat inside education reform. It aims to lure us away from individual worth, individual wealth, individual rights, liberty or having an independent voice, all in the name of consensus, social justice, and collectivism.
In Utah, we have a problem with being too trusting. So many honest people fall into the trap of believing that others must think and behave honestly, too. And they fall into the trap of believing that collectivism or social justice have something to do with compassion.
Jesus warned his followers of this trap.
“I send you forth as as sheep in the midst of wolves: be ye therefore wise as serpents, and harmless as doves.” (Matt. 10:16)
Because the serpents are out there. We have to be smarter than we have been. We have to identify and outsmart the serpents –or we and our children will live without liberty under the collectivist banner of equality. It’s that simple. Right now, it’s called social justice. Proponents of social justice make it sound like compassion, steering clear from the pesky concepts of “individuality” or “freedom” or “local control” that the Founding Fathers bled for.
The U.S. Secretary of Ed., Arne Duncan, says, “Great teaching is about so much more than education; it is a daily fight for social justice.” – Secretary Arne Duncan, October 9, 2009 speech. At an IES research conference, again Duncan said: “The fight for quality education is about so much more than education. It’s a fight for social justice.” – IES research conference, 2009
Social Justice and wealth redistribution are concepts that come up over and over again in Department of Education reports and speeches. They are pervasively being taught in our schools and in teacher colleges.
The current U.S. Equity and Excellence Commission recently served up a report called “For Each And Every Child.” Read it. It aims to redistribute education and wealth. You will actually find these phrases: “allocate resources to level the playing field across states,” “address disparities,” “advancing national equity and excellence goals using a combination of incentives and enforcement,” and “Historically, our approach to local control has often made it difficult to achieve funding adequacy and educational equity.”
It’s down with local control; up with forced redistribution.
Parents must arm their schoolgoing children with truth so that they can be wise as serpents, harmless as doves.
I saw a very wise dove two months ago on t.v. He is Rabbi Daniel Lapin, and the day I heard him speak, he was a guest on the Glenn Beck t.v. show.
The t.v. conversation went like this:
Rabbi Daniel Lapin: Collectivism is, as it’s usually defined, as any kind of political, or social or economic philosophy that stresses our interdependence with one another. You and I agree with that. We couldn’t live without each other. We know that; we understand that.
Glenn Beck: Yeah, no man is an island.
Rabbi Lapin: We get it. That’s not what collectivism really is. What collectivism really is, is a formalized, deliberate structure…deliberate attempt to create a moral matrix to legitimize taking things from one group of people and giving it to another. That’s what collectivism is all about. It’s essentially finding a framework of virtue about stealing.He goes on to say that the “manure” that fertilizes the idea of collectivism is materialism, “the fundamental conviction that nothing that isn’t material matters in the world.”
Glenn Beck: Define materialism. Because in my own head I was thinking it was about having all this great stuff. But you’re talking about that there is no spiritual part of the world, that it is only the material make-up.
Rabbi Lapin: Well… Willie Brown, former mayor of San Francisco, speaker of the California State Assembly… defined materialism.… What he said is, “If I cannot eat it, wear it, drive it, or make love to it, I’m not interested in it.” That’s a pretty good definition of materialism. If I can’t actually see it, touch it, make use of it, exploit it, benefit from it in some way, it doesn’t exist. In other words, there is no such thing as love. There’s no such thing as loyalty. There is no such thing as awe. There’s no such thing as staring at the heavens in wonder or biting into an apple and just wanting to thank somebody for giving that to you. None of that is true, because it’s all just firing of neurons in your cortex and your spinal column. There’s no mystery in life; it is all thoroughly basic and scientific.
…If materialism and collectivism encourages competition about being a bigger victim, what does this [making money] philosophy engender? Competition to provide service. How beautiful is that! It’s figuring out, to recognize that you will succeed best at making money if you are obsessively preoccupied with supplying the needs of your fellow human beings.
Which is better? Making wealth for your use by providing service to others, or requiring wealth from service providers to provide goods and services to someone who did not earn it? Clearly, the answer is making wealth through service is more moral.
But what about those who can’t provide for themselves? The best answer is for those whose love makes them feel responsible for the weaker members of society to provide for them willingly. And where those closest can’t do enough, then the caring larger public of service providers will offer help. I’m more willing to trust that goodness to a people whose goal is to find ways to serve than I am to trust a people who look for ways to take wealth from service providers.
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The t.v. conversation went on as Rabbi Lapin explained why collectivism is materialism, which sees everything in tangible, ownable terms, and sees nothing in spiritual terms –there’s no love, loyalty, eternity, or other intangibles; collectivism sees a plant or a cow no differently than a human being; it also sees the death of a plant or a cow no differently than the death of a human being. This is why the collectivists want so badly to indoctrinate all people into earth-worship rather than God-worship; because by persuading humans that we are no more important on earth than a plant or a cow, we may more easily give up our rights, our property, our money and our liberty –to the collective, which is of course, controlled and operated by a very few.
Collectivism v. Making Money
Rabbi Lapin provided a powerful chart. It clearly explained how service/capitalism differs from theft/collectivism. Collectivism/Materialism has as its highest virtue, equality; collectivism stimulates envy, creates competition for victimhood, creates an ambition community organized for politics, and results in static poverty. On the other side, the chart explained that Making Money has as its highest virtue, freedom; that captitalism creates competition for service, that it stimulates success and achievement, that it creates ambition for respectability and riches; and that its result is dynamic growth.
It’s pretty simple. But few people know it.
Please make sure your own children understand it.
Our children are now navigating textbooks that preach the opposite of what the Rabbi (and our founding fathers) have said. Increasingly, textbooks teach that the United Nations (collectivism) are more impressive than the United States (individualism/liberty); that local control is overrated, and that environmental concerns outweigh the concerns of the U.S. Constitution. At least my daughter’s Pearson A.P. Geography textbook did. There was a great emphasis on the United Nations and Sustainability and a de-emphasis on actually learning where countries, rivers and mountains are, in that book. It’s just geography, right? No. Everything is changing.
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.
Some people who’ve spent time in jail return to jail deliberately, having found it was scarier to be free than to be a prisoner. They preferred guaranteed “safety” over the possibilities (and responsibilities) of freedom.
And people with that attitude seems to be growing.
If Obama got more votes than Romney (and it wasn’t a fraudulent, rigged election) then a lot of voters want a nanny government that is “safe” like prison, that is a sort of provider as it is also a slavemaster. This system enriches the few elites, wastes money on bureaucracies, and sometimes, but barely, pays for the poor. It’s communism.
Do unemployed people (those who could work, but don’t) really prefer a tiny government check and food stamps to self respect, self control and freedom?
But more to the point:
Are we afraid of educational freedom?
Do we prefer pre-packaged, nationally written tests and standards to writing our own? Do we so fear failing that we don’t want to have the liberty to innovate and soar or fail on our own? Do we believe that other people –federal officials, for example– know best? If so, why?
Common Core is based on a lie; the lie is that the only way to address the problems we have nationally in education is to put the collective nation in charge of each locality’s choices: what to teach and to test.
That collective notion is not the way to effectively fix the education problems; the right way is to give localities back their own freedom to innovate, to seek out the best and to determine and use what actually works. Give them back their tax money, their self respect, their self-determination, and their freedom. Let them look to the best of the best, like the pre-Common Core educational system of Massachusetts, which was second to none– but never to force any system, no matter how good it may be, on states the way the Dept. of Education has coerced states to adopt Common Core with the dangling carrot of grant money (Race To The Top).
The federal government is too big to be adequately aware of local needs. The Constitution writers set up our nation to make sure that pretty much everything was up to the states– except things like the military, which needed to be federalized for obvious reasons.
Unconstitutional moves –like Common Core– hurt our country. Look at nationalized health care, a horrible idea, a sick waste of money, a sure way to make sure wait lines are long and service slackens as it has in the European countries. Ask a Swede. Ask a Czech. (I have!)
Similarly, in education, nationalized school systems are a horrible idea, a sure way to make sure innovation stops, mass indoctrination has full sway, teachers’ skills are repressed and boxed in, and students are herded and tracked and branded like cattle rather than taught as individuals.
Some of us are fast. Some of us are slow. Common Core is a shackle that tries to make everybody the same. And that ain’t fun and it ain’t freedom: not for students, not for teachers, not for textbook writers.
Please, join the fight to reclaim our educational freedom. Help repeal Common Core.
I have been watching these videos today because my son is sick and has been napping. I’m glad I took the time. I have learned even more about the Sustainable Development movement that I did not know before. Highly recommended.
I gave the speech below, at the Heber City council meeting tonight, asking the council not to adoptCommunities that Care, right after three state employees gave speeches encouraging the city to adopt Communities That Care.
10 Reasons Not to Adopt Communities That Care (CTC)
1. We know so little about the obligations of joining this coalition. The general public cannot get online access to read the grant itself. But what is it, really, other than $10,000 of our federal taxes returned to us?
I used to write grants professionally, full time, for a consortium of charter schools in Utah County. As a grant writer, I learned that federal grants are extremely bureaucratic and agenda-driven. I learned to apply for private grants from local corporations instead.
Grants are not Christmas presents or free money without strings attached. Grants come with obligations. What are the CTC obligations? Has Heber City had a professional grant writer or lawyer assess the application’s obligations fully? I suggest Heber refrain from “getting married” to CTC, this federally operated coalition, before we “date” it thoroughly.
The question is not whether or not some Heber City youth have serious problems that need our help. (We do have great programs in place already that we are underutilizing; I’ll address them llater. ) The question is whether we want/need the federal supervision and lack of flexibility that always comes with federal money and “free training.”
2. University of Kansas has done a study of the pros and cons of CTC. Citing Univ. Kansas:
– CTC is a copyrighted, structured process. It was previously private, owned by the Channing-Bete Corporation, but has been sold to the federal government.
– University of Kansas calls the CTC approach “only inclusive and participatory for certain people,” and notes that
“While it claims to involve the whole community, the formal CTC approach is actually top-down, starting with a small number of “key community leaders.” These leaders who may or may not be representative of the whole community in terms of race, socioeconomic class, or interests – then “invite” other participants “from all sectors” to make up a community board of 30. The reality is that they’ll usually invite people they know, who are apt to be much like them and may not represent the true diversity of the community.”
Especially in a large community, it takes research to know whom to include, and 30 may be too small a number to be truly representative of all sectors. Furthermore, some sectors – youth themselves, for instance, or single parents on welfare – are unlikely to be included unless specifically targeted by the process. And if the “key community leaders” see themselves as leading the process, its participatory nature can go out the window.
–CTC allows the choice of only a finite number of approaches. University of Kansas found that “CTC’s claim of allowing communities the freedom to devise their own solutions is only partially accurate. Communities can create combinations of interventions that speak to their needs, but only from a limited pool of choices. ”
…”On the one hand, it presents…the security of set curricula … On the other, it can limit the possibilities for creativity and the use of local wisdom that might arise if there were more freedom of choice and the chance for the community to craft its own program.”
– “Choosing from among best practices may encourage communities merely to follow directions, rather than throwing heart and soul into the effort. Though it simplifies the process, it’s an intervention that’s laid out for the community, rather than built from the ground up… ”
–CTC is narrowly focused. CTC “implies taking a small-picture view of community health and development, and not necessarily planning for the long term or for the whole community. If the ultimate goals are as narrow as reducing one or more of the problem behaviors, they can give the impression that reaching those goals “fixes” the problem and the community. If the goal is the end of the process, there’s no community commitment to long-term social change. And long-term social change is usually needed to fully solve community problems.”
– “CTC is, to a certain extent, based on assumptions. While the theory behind it and the best practices have been subject to a fair amount of research, the program has only been shown to be effective in the short- to mid-term range. Long-term data have not yet been collected.”
– “CTC is sold as a package that includes literature, training, and support. While there are some obvious advantages to this, it also means that there can be less flexibility in the model than might be desirable… whether they’re the most appropriate or effective possibilities for the community or not.
Moving on from University of Kansas, I have made the following observations about some additional disadvantages of CTC:
3. CTC is owned by federal government; it makes us beholden to mandates and rules set by bureaucrats far from Heber City, long after the grant money has been spent.
4. CTC will require ongoing solicitation of federal funding or finding other grantors or raising of taxes to continue.
5. CTC adds a layer of bureaucracy and government salary.
6. CTC asks for archival and ongoing data to be collected and shared with the federal government. There may be serious data privacy concerns for some Heber citizens.
7. Most concerning of all to me is blind acceptance of the values embedded in the CTC training and youth surveys. They appear in some instances to indoctrinate with collectivism, and with specific biases that do not match my own, or may not match your own. (See youth survey questions.)
For example, on the risk factors page, it places drug abuse and alcohol abuse and availability of firearms in the same category, all labeled as risk factors for behavior problems. In Heber, a lot of teenagers shoot guns but they aren’t in gangs; they’re hunting deer or recreationally shooting targets. There’s a disconnect there. I quote two cited risk factors: one,
“Availability of firearms: Statistics show that the more available firearms are in a community, the higher the violent crime rates tend to be, and, conversely, fewer firearms in a community is correlated with lower violent crime rates.” [Yikes. Where do they get those nutty statistics? Ask a Swiss citizen!]
two:
Community laws and norms favorable to drug use, firearms, and crime. ”
–In the same sentence! Drugs, firearms and crime. Some are norms in Heber, some aren’t. That’s not going to give us accurate data. Nor will it give our kids the message we want to send them about firearms. Is it?
Another example. I quote this from CTC itself: “…The ideal here… is one where the community speaks with one voice about values and standards.” That sounds extremely collective. We should have many voices heard in our community. Not one. That’s always been the American way. Because if there’s only one voice, who gets to speak? Who gets to set those standards for our children– the federal government, or the people of Heber?
There’s also an “innocence alert” issue. What happens when very young children are exposed to these types of questions? Sometimes, that’s their first introduction to deviant behavior and it could have the opposite effect on some children of creating curiosity. On the youth survey, there are specific questions about drugs which would require a child to know the difference between prescription drugs and illegal drugs that I don’t even know.
I quote from the drugs cited in the youth survey. Do you know which of these are which? : adderall, LSD, peyote, psychedelics, PCP, ecstasy, vicodin, oxycontin, tylox, xanax, valium, ambien, methamphetamine, crank, meth, crystal meth, etc. And are you going to ask a 10 year old these questions?
One question there was how often the child had “Used prescription stimulants, such as Ritalin or Adderall without a doctors’s orders during the past 30 days?”
The question did not allow the child to say “I used it but it was actually 31 days ago,” or “What the heck is Adderall?” We can write better questions that are more appropriately crafted.
8. Examples of questions from the youth survey:
What are the chances you would be seen as cool if you a) smoked cigarettes b) began drinking alcoholic beverages regularly c) smoked cigarettes d) carried a handgun [umm… Shouldn’t this at least be an essay question? Should guns and alcohol both be in the same question? ]
–Used derbisol in your lifetime? [what the heck is derbisol and how do I mark a multiple choice quiz to say huh?]
We argue about the same things in my family over and over. [what a question. Is there any family in the world that never has a disagreement? What is the point of asking whether the disagreements vary or are about the same things? We should write our own survey at the very least, and make it essay based.
9. There are some very controversial issues surrounding bullying-prevention workshops. And bullying prevention workshops are sponsored by CTC. See http://www.communitiesthatcarecoalition.org/
To many this seems noncontroversial, but in fact, in many places, anti-bullying legislation has been used to promote gay lifestyle acceptance via the protection of gays from bullying above any others who may be bullied. This may be an unfair bias, and carefully worded surveys may produce student results that try to legitimize what is actually a political agenda, not an agenda of equal compassion for all groups.
10. Under-utililizing our current resources – Heber City is overflowing with churches, schools, 12-step groups and other resources that stand ready to deal with youth problems.
Families and extended families
Heber City police
D.A.R.E. program
Church youth programs in many denominations
Long established 12-step groups
The WHS Cool To Care program
Wasatch District schools’ guidance counselors
Scouting and sporting programs
I spoke this week with the facilitator of one of the valley’s 12-step groups. He told me the groups have very small attendance for people of any age and need to be promoted. The groups welcome all religions, all ages as long as a parent attends if the addict is under age 18, and have separate groups for men and women. They have groups several times a week for groups that include sex addiction, drug abuse, and alcohol abuse.
Utah’s First Lady has been campaigning for EmpowerParents.Org, a Utah coalition designed to help parents learn how to keep their children from underage drinking. The organization gives parents resources
Groups that have joined and support EmpowerParents.Org include
Northeastern Counseling Center
Bear River Health Department
Davis Helps
Four Corners Behavioral Health
Tooele Valley Mental Health
Summit Valley Mental Health
Utah Substance Abuse and Anti-Violence
Weber Human Services
Associated Foods
Intermountain Healthcare
Larry H. Miller
Mothers Against Drunk Driving
O.C. Tanner
The Power In You
Utah Dental Association
Utah PTA
Salt Lake Police Dept.
Salt Lake County Sanitation
Utah Attorney General
–and many more
In closing, here are a list of questions we must answer before we move forward with CTC:
1. What will be our ongoing our obligations to the federal government for accepting the $10,000 and how will we pay for the program when the money runs out?
2. Do we want to use our current resources better, or do we want to add a layer of bureaucracy to implement this program, and then pay for that layer indefinitely, regardless of whether the program “works” or not?
3. Do the values embedded in the youth survey align with our own; for example, how do gun control, homosexuality, and family privacy issues come up in CTC?
4. What will be Heber’s ongoing “accountability” for the CTC program to the federal government, if it accepts the grant rather than paying for CTC ourselves?
5. Are there better, less expensive, more autonomous or higher quality alternatives Heber can choose to use, to work on youth drug use prevention and other important youth issues?
6.What will be the up-front and ongoing-maintenance costs to Heber City for adopting CTC?
Why I Don’t Want my Children to be Educated for Sustainable Development: Sustainable Belief
By Bob Jickling Yukon College
Bob Jickling is instructor of environmental studies at Yukon College in Whitehorse. An earlier version of this paper was presented at the 20th Annual Conference of the North American Association for Environmental Education Saint Paul, Minnesota, September 1991.
There is considerable debate about the merits of sustainable development and the actions it requires. As we enter the 1990s, this term has become, for many, a vague slogan susceptible to manipulation. For some it is logically inconsistent. For others there are concerns that efforts to implement it will obscure understanding of the economic, political, philosophical and epistemological roots of environmental issues, and adequate examinations of social alternatives. This raises questions about the idea that anyone should teach such a thing in the first place. With this in mind, I wish to examine two concerns.
The first concern arises from my observations of the research seminar held during National Association for Environmental Education (NAAEE)’s 1990 conference held in San Antonio. Amid discussions about quantitative, qualitative, and action research, talk about philosophical analysis was conspicuous by its absence. The lack of attention to educational philosophy, and the research methods employed by philosophers, has been an impediment to the development of environmental education. This is a matter of considerable importance.
The second concern relates to the proposed relationship between education and sustainable development, particularly as it is described in the phrase “education for sustainable development.” I will argue that this locution epitomizes a conceptual muddle that environmental educators ought to do something about.
These two concerns are of course related. It is precisely the lack of attention to philosophical analysis of the concepts central to environmental education that allowed the expression and proliferation of such questionable ideas. I will begin by briefly talking about environmental education and the importance of philosophical analysis in this field of study. I will then critique sustainable development education and in so doing will illustrate the importance of philosophical research which employs techniques of conceptual analysis.
One of the problems in environmental education has been the failure of its practitioners to reconcile definitions of environmental education with an . priori conception of education. It is important to understand that concepts such as “education” and “environmental education” are abstractions, or ideas which describe various perceptions. While studying how a word functions will provide some understanding about the enterprise or phenomena that it represents, the analysis remains an interpretation of an abstraction in peoples’ minds. It is a mistake to think of concepts as objects or concrete entities; they are nothing more than conventional signs or symbols. This is not a precise business. For this reason the idea of a true, correct, or perfect statement about a concept is implausible. Analysis of concepts is essentially a dialectical business and such analyses are in constant need of re-examination and clarification (Wilson, 1969).
These points can be illustrated by attempting to identify some of the criteria useful in describing an educated person. For example, we might ask ourselves if acquisition of knowledge is a necessary condition. Many would affirm this, claiming we would not normally say that someone is educated but that they do not know anything. However, while the dissemination of information is an important function of schools, we might continue our analysis by asking if the accumulation of mere facts and disconnected information is enough.
For example, my son at nine years of age, could go to a map of the world and identify an astonishing number of countries, but this was hardly sufficient to convince me that he was educated. We expect the educated person to have some understanding of the relationships between these bits of information which enable a person to make some sense of the world; the educated person should have some understanding about why a relationship exists. We might also wonder if the ability to think critically is a necessary criterion for the educated person. Again we would expect to find considerable agreement; we would be reluctant to say that a person was educated if we judged that he or she could not think for him or herself.
While this constitutes an abbreviated analysis it does provide a glimpse at the general approach taken in this kind of research. The philosopher, thus, attempts to find out which of the possible criteria are necessary. It is important to note that this analysis cannot provide a definitive or complete answer, but only a collection of logical arguments of greater or less merit. This point is frequently misunderstood. For example, one of the pitfalls for researchers working in fields such as education and environmental education is to think as if abstract nouns were:
the names of abstract or ideal objects: as if there were somewhere, in heaven if not on earth, things called `justice’, `love’ and `truth’ [and environmental education]. Hence we come to believe that analyzing concepts, instead of being what we have described it to be, is really a sort of treasure hunt in which we seek for a glimpse of these abstract objects. We find ourselves talking as if `What is justice?’ [or environmental education?] was a question like `What is the capital of Japan?’ (Wilson, 1969 p. 40)
What this means for environmental education is, of course, that the claim environmental education “does have definition and structure” (Hungerford, Peyton & Wilke, 1983) is unlikely. Or, to attempt to solve the so called “definitional problem” in environmental education in any fashion, let alone by the American Society for Testing and Materials (Marcinkowski, 1991), is misplaced. In the field of environmental education we appear to be witnessing a treasure hunt for an infinitely illusive abstract object. Environmental education will surely continue to wallow along rocky shores until this field allows an important place for conceptual analysis within its research community.
My preview of conceptual analysis also identifies some criteria useful for understanding the term “education.” Having identified such essential criteria, in this case the acquisition of knowledge, understanding, and the ability to think for oneself, I can now introduce the next task of the philosopher. This job is to examine the implications which logically follow from use of the concept to see if application of the term is consistent with those essential criteria teased out during analysis. While this analysis of education is by no means complete, the criteria proposed are sufficient to illustrate this task. At the same time the adequacy of “educating for sustainable development” can be examined.
While environmental education is in the midst of a conceptual muddle the same can be said for sustainable development. For example, at the 1990 NAAEE conference Slocombe and Van Bers (1990) reminded us that this term is only a concept and that it is characterized by a paucity of precision. Their observations are not unique. Like Slocombe and Van Bers, some researchers acknowledge that there is no agreement about an overall goal for “sustainable development” (e.g. Huckle, 1991; Disinger, 1990; & Rees, 1989). Analysis of the term has not yet been able to identify sufficient criteria to elucidate common meaning and coherence.
It is also possible that that conceptual coherence cannot be achieved. For Huckle (1991), the term “sustainable development” has entered the dialectic which characterizes modern environmentalism. For him, it has taken different, and possibly irreconcilable, meanings for technocentrists and ecocentrists. According to this view, the term is contested and its shared understanding is rendered impossible by inherent contradictions arising from these divergent world views. Disinger (1990) reports views which reinforce these doubts. He states: “To some, sustainable development is an oxymoron – a self-contained non sequitur between noun and modifier.” (p. 3) It appears that there are those who are troubled by questions of logical consistency when “sustainable” is juxtaposed against “development.” If such inconsistency is borne out, the conceptual muddle that surrounds sustainable development will be perpetuated.
The observations reported in the previous two paragraphs accentuate the need for philosophical research, particularly conceptual analysis. Clarifying common understandings of “sustainable” and “development” and examining the logical coherence of their association will help to assess the usefulness of sustainable development. In the meantime disagreement exists. The implication of this reality upon education is foreshadowed by planner William Rees (1989) who argued that a prerequisite to developing acceptable policies and plans for sustainable development is a satisfactory working definition of the concept. It seems equally improbable that we can accept any educational prescription in the absence of an adequate conceptualization of sustainable development. It therefore seems unlikely that I should want anyone to educate my children for sustainable development when it is not clear what on earth it is that they are aiming for.
If, however, an adequate conceptualization of sustainable development was argued, we would still be concerned with the educational appropriateness of aiming for it. In spite of such misgivings there does appear to be considerable momentum amongst environmental educators who wish to teach sustainable development. For example, John Disinger in his article “Environmental Education for Sustainable Development?” (1990), discusses the development of this momentum in North America. Noel Gough (1991) suggests that much environmental education in Australia is concerned with land protection and is often associated with “conservation for sustainable development.” And, UNESCO (1988) has looked to environmental education as a vehicle to promote “training, at various levels, of the personnel needed for the rational management of the environment in the view of achieving sustainable development.” (p. 6) In Canada the environmental education arm of UNESCO, MAB/Net, affirms this objective and characterizes its mission as “Education for Sustainable Development.” However, this momentum is not without anomalies which should raise our suspicions.
Disinger (1990) also reports that many environmental educators have difficulty identifying their own positions, particularly with reference to the eco-anthropocentric continuum. However, he claims that educators generally place greater emphasis on “wise use” than on non-use perspectives. While the implications of these observations are not perfectly clear, there is the suggestion that teachers have sought to identify their preferences in order to determine what perspectives to espouse. Noel Gough (1991) was more explicit. According to his view, environmental education has been overcome by promoters of instrumental land values which are frequently associated with sustainable development. Does this mean that environmental education has frequently become a promotional tool? It seems thus far that many educators implicitly or explicitly assume that their task, teaching sustainable development, involves the advancement of a particular agenda.
Inspection of comments in Our Common Future (1987) illustrates this problem:
Sustainable development has been described here in general terms. How are individuals in the real world to be persuaded or made to act in the common interest? The answer lies partly in education, institutional development, and law enforcement. (p. 46)
This statement suggests that sustainable development is in the common interest and the public must be persuaded, or made, to pursue this end. Further, education can be contributory to the process of persuasion or coercion required. This raises the question: Should education aim to advance a particular end such as sustainable development? Is it the job of education to make people behave in a particular way?
To seek answers to these questions consider first the idea that environmental education should promote “training for the rational management of the environment in the view of achieving sustainable development.” (UNESCO, 1988, p. 6) As I have argued elsewhere (Jickling, 1991), training is concerned with the acquisition of skills and abilities, and frequently has instrumental connotations. We generally speak of training for something; we might be training for football or training for work in a trade. Further, training tends to be closely associated with the acquisition of skills which are perfected through repetition and practice and are minimally involved with understanding. Thus, the capacity for rational management is inconsistent with the means suggested for its achievement.
In contrast we speak of a person being more or less well educated indicating a broader, and less determinate understanding which transcends immediate instrumental values. We would not normally speak of educating “for” anything. To talk of educating for sustainable development is more suggestive of an activity like training or the preparation for the achievement of some instrumental aim. It is important to note that this position rests on several assumptions. First, sustainable development is an uncontested concept, and second, education is a tool to be used for its advancement. The first point is clearly untrue and should be rejected; there is considerable skepticism about the coherence and efficacy of the term. The second assumption can also be rejected. The prescription of a particular outlook is repugnant to the development of autonomous thinking.
As we have seen in the earlier analysis, education is concerned with enabling people to think for themselves. Education for sustainable development, education for deep ecology (Drengson, 1991), or education “for” anything else is inconsistent with that criterion. In all cases these phrases suggests a pre-determined mode of thinking to which the pupil is expected to prescribe. Clearly, I would not want my children to be taught sustainable development. The very idea is contrary to the spirit of education. I would rather have my children educated than conditioned to believe that sustainable development constitutes a constellation of correct environmental views or that hidden beneath its current obscurity lies an environmental panacea.
However, having argued that we should not educate for sustainable development, it is quite a different matter to teach students about this concept. I would like my children to know about the arguments which support it and attempt to clarify it. But, I would also like them to know that sustainable development is being criticized, and I want them to be able to evaluate that criticism and participate in it if they perceive a need. I want them to realize that there is a debate going on between a variety of stances, between adherents of an ecocentric worldview and those who adhere to an anthropocentric worldview. I want my children to be able to participate intelligently in that debate. To do so they will need to be taught that these various positions also constitute logical arguments of greater or less merit, and they will need to be taught to use philosophical techniques to aid their understanding and evaluation of them. They will need to be well educated to do this.
For us the task is not to educate for sustainable development. In a rapidly changing world we must enable students to debate, evaluate, and judge for themselves the relative merits of contesting positions. There is a world of difference between these two possibilities. The latter approach is about education; the former is not.
References
Barrow, R. St. C., & Woods, R. G. 1988. An introduction to the philosophy of education(3rd. Ed.). London: Routledge.
Disinger, J. F. 1990. Environmental education for sustainable development? Journal of Environmental Education, 21(4), 3-6.
Drengson, A. R. 1991. Introduction: Environmental crisis, education, and deep ecology. The Trumpeter. 8 (3), 97-98.
Gough, N. 1991. Narrative and nature: Unsustainable fictions in environmental education. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 7, 31-42.
Hamm, C. M. 1989. Philosophical issues in education: An introduction. New York: Falmer.
Huckle, J. 1991. Education for sustainability: Assessing pathways to the future. Australian Journal of Environmental Education, 7, 43-62.
Hungerford, H. R., Peyton, R. B. & Wilke, R. J. 1983. Yes, EE does have definition and structure. Journal of Environmental Education, 14(3), 1-2.
Jickling, B. 1991. Environmental education and environmental advocacy: The need for a proper distinction. To see ourselves/to save ourselves: Ecology and culture in Canada. (pp. 169-176). Montreal: Association for Canadian Studies.
Marcinkowski, T. 1990-91. The new national environmental education act: A renewal of commitment. Journal of Environmental Education, 22(2), 7-10.
Rees, W. 1989. Defining “sustainable development.” CHS Research Bulletin, UBC Centre for Human Settlements.
Slocombe, D. S. & Van Bers, C. 1990. Seeking substance in sustainable development. Paper presented at North American Association For Environmental Education. San Antonio, Texas.
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization-United Nations Environment Programme (UNESCO-UNEP). 1988. International strategy for action in the field of environmental education and training for the 1990s. Paris & Nairobi: UNESCO-UNEP.
United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization-Canada/MAB (UNESCO-Canada/MAB). Environmental education for sustainable development (Brochure). Canada: UNESCO-Canada/MAB.
Wilson, J. 1969. Thinking with concepts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
World Commission on Environment and Development. 1987. Our common future. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
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What an incredible article. The most important and clearest thought that I found was this:
“[E]ducation is concerned with enabling people to think for themselves.
Education for sustainable development, education for deep ecology (Drengson, 1991), or education “for” anything else is inconsistent with that criterion.
In all cases these phrases suggests a pre-determined mode of thinking to which the pupil is expected to prescribe.
Clearly, I would not want my children to be taught sustainable development. The very idea is contrary to the spirit of education.
I would rather have my children educated than conditioned to believe that sustainable development constitutes a constellation of correct environmental views“
Some people are afraid of freedom. Not me.
COMMON CORE 