1. ALL UTAHNS ARE TRACKED VIA SCHOOLS USING A FEDERALLY PROMOTED AND PAID-FOR SLDS.
I have an email from the State School Board that says there is no possibility for my student to opt out of being tracked. When a parent signs his/her child up for school, the information is gathered and added to, throughout the life of that child because of the State Longitudinal Database System (SLDS). The SLDS was paid for by the federal government and all states accepted the money and built this interoperable system. It works with the P-20 (preschool through workforce) council, which is appointed by the Governor. http://nces.ed.gov/programs/slds/state.asp?stateabbr=UT
2. THE TRACKING OF CITIZENS GOES BEYOND THE SCHOOL DISTRICT AND STATE OFFICE OF EDUCATION.
The Utah Data Alliance, directed by John Brandt, links six state agencies to share the data collected by schools. These include workforce services; the system is a socialist program to align education and workforce and manage the people as “human capital,” one of their favorite phrases. According to a John Brandt online powerpoint, federal agencies also receive access to the data in the Utah Data system. According to the Joanne Weiss, chief of staff of the Dept. of Education, federal agencies are mashing data and are going to be “helpful” to states “wishing” to do the same.
3. INTEROPERABILITY WAS REQUIRED OF ALL SLDS SYSTEMS FOR FEDERAL PURPOSES.
4. REGULATIONS HAVE BEEN ALTERED WITHOUT CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL CONCERNING PRIVACY LAW.
The Dept. of Education changed definitions and broadened allowances of the Family Education Rights Privacy Act. Though they have been sued for this move, the fact remains that without parental consent, researchers, federal agencies and any “authorized” volunteer can look at the collected data, which includes biometric information (personally identifiable).
5. DATA POINTS TO BE COLLECTED BY STATES HAVE BEEN “RECOMMENDED” BY FEDERAL GOVERNMENT:
According to the National Data Collection Model, the government should collect information on health-care history, family income, family voting status, gestational age of students at birth, student ID number, and bus stoptimes among other pieces of information on the student and their families. You can view the National Data Collection Model database attributes (data categories) at http://nces.sifinfo.org/datamodel/eiebrowser/techview.aspx?instance=studentPostsecondary
6. DEPT. OF EDUCATION COOPERATIVE AGREEMENTS CONTRACTED WITH TESTING CONSORTIA MANDATE INFORMATION SHARING
1. John Brandt has not revealed the exact number of people or agencies in Utah (or elsewhere) who have access to the personally identifiable information collected by schools on individuals. He does not return emails or phone calls.
2. At what point does “allowance” to share information turn into “must” share information? The FERPA alterations right now only removed the requirement for schools to keep the data on students private without parental consent. They have not yet mandated that schools must share the data without parental consent. But we also don’t know which identified information is being shared with which agency in Utah, or which agency outside Utah. We just don’t know.
3. What effect will the Common Core (national) testing have on the data collection and ease of persual by the federal agencies? Is there a “Cooperative Agreement” between Utah’s test writer, the American Institutes for Research, and the federal government, as there is with the other testing consortia SBAC and PARCC?
( FYI, regionalism and “Regional Equality” are tenets of the United Nations’ Agenda 21. –Because people are easier to control en masse than in smaller localities.)
So, I asked the Region 9 Education Service Center Public Information Officer, Debbie Cummings, to explain things to me. (Does her title not sound so Orwellian?)
I asked her how the U.S. Constitution works with the notion of regions, of U.S. states’ boundaries being less relevant, with the federal departments working with regions instead.
And Debbie Cummings dodged the actual question but answered a related issue that’s also important: “…in regard to your concern regarding “federal and state powers having checks and balances” It is through the Governor’s Office and the Texas Education Agency that the state’s rights are reviewed for compatibility with federal priorities prior to the state making application for any federal funds. It is then through the Texas Education Agency that the use of these funds are tracked to ensure adherence to both the federal and state priorities and requirements. However, if the priorities do not reflect a state’s priorities, then the State is not obligated to apply for the federal funds.
[So, states won’t be funded, even though they paid taxes federally.
They may not have access to their own tax money for their own schools,
if their priorities don’t match federal priorities?]
Cummings taught me something I didn’t know: “Many times they carry a different title from state to state, i.e., in New York they are called BOCES (Boards of Cooperative Educational Services); whereas in Texas, they have been named by the legislature as Regional Education Service Centers.” Ok. Harder to see the federal uniformity when states name their federal, regional education headquarters differently, I suppose.
So, I asked a Texas friend, Donna Garner, what she thought of all of this.
Donna Garner said, “The lawyers who set up the TESCCC (who own CSCOPE) knew full well what the laws are regarding the Education Service Centers (ESC), and they deliberately set up this corporation to get around the laws. They think they have figured out a way to make CSCOPE untouchable, but we are working with Texas Legislators to figure out some bills that will counteract the TESCCC. ”
“The ESC’s were not set up to become marketing mouthpieces for CSCOPE curriculum. It was never the intent of the Texas Legislature that set up the ESC’s to make them into money-making organizations that suck money from local taxpayers. We already pay school taxes to our local districts; we do not need to be paying extra dollars far-and-above those local taxes to help ESC’s make huge profits! Notice the ESC buildings around the state. The one locally has turned into a state-of-the-art, huge complex; and within those walls is where the CSCOPE marketing and training is being conducted locally. What a huge waste of our tax dollars!”
“Just yesterday on the Jason Moore talk show in Odessa, a current classroom teacher called in and said what a total waste of time the CSCOPE training is at the ESC. She said that the ESC staffers have little subject content knowledge and that the teachers who attend know so much more than the ESC staffers do.”
“Because the new TEKS curriculum standards (adopted since May 2008) are grade-level-specific for every grade level and for every core course (ELAR, Science, Social Studies, and Math), there is no need for the ESC’s to hire numerous staffers to train teachers. The teachers now know what is to be taught, and it is their purview to decide how to teach it. Even teachers in small school districts can get together with the teachers in the districts around them and share great teaching ideas of how to teach the TEKS. Why should those teachers go to the ESC’s when once they get there, they hardly ever come back with any practical ideas that can be used in their classrooms?”
“Next, the Race to the Top grants now coming from the USDOE go directly to the school districts and the ESC entities; those grants are not dispersed through the TEA. The funds go directly to the school districts/ESC’s if they are chosen in the final round of federal RTTT grants.”
How do I interpret these things? I think corporations and federal entitites should stay out of education, just the way the U.S. Constitution set it up.
U.S. Dept. of Education Arne Duncan
It looks to me like the corporations that make money from Common Core, and the federal Secretary who wants Common Core to be the national uniform, are chasing after Texas. It’s a control problem.
I remember seeing U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan speaking on a t.v. show way back when Texas rejected Common Core. He belittled the state’s education system and said that he felt so sorry for the children there, who would not be getting to learn the Common Core. Oh, yes he did.
The supposedly non-federal program, the supposedly state-led initiative of Common Core, when rejected by Texas, angered the U.S. Secretary of Education. Hmmm. So he decided that if the state (that is, Governor Rick Perry and Superintendent Robert Scott) were to reject Common Core, he would push it another way– he then started offering Race To The Top funds directly to school districts, bypassing the state completely. And of course, you can’t have Race to the Top funding unless you agree to Common Core. That’s how it works.
The elite D.C. educrats and corporations want their way, and they push and push and push. We must keep pushing back.
I was just reading the above-linked article about how CSCOPE is getting rich replacing Texas textbooks with an online system that parents cannot view and the board of education will not need to approve. Important article.
But my point here is something completely different:
A quote in the article was from Education Service Center Region 9 Executive Director Anne Poplin.
What?? Region 9?
Part of the U.N.’s Agenda 21 goal to overcome American exceptionalism and sovereignty is to have regions replace states. It’s a subtle and effective way to subvert the Constitution’s careful separation of states’ powers and federal powers.
This short video clip shows our U.S. Secretary of Education dodging the question and veering off into the role he wants to keep playing– controlling and “rewarding” local education systems, rather than staying out of their business as the Constitution directs.
I was chatting with an acquaintance as we both watched our kids’ karate lesson today.
She said, “I don’t know what’s different this year. My kids’ teachers say that there are so many rules: ‘You can’t teach this. You have to teach this. It’s like the Nazis have moved in.’ ”
She didn’t know what Common Core was.
This is the problem. Most folks still don’t know what it is. There was never a vote. There was never a t.v. infomercial. There was never a cost analysis given to taxpayers nor an academic analysis given to teachers when Common Core got made the tyrant king of American education.
I know because I am a teacher and my credential’s always been up to date, since I began to teach in the 90’s. And I didn’t get the memo.
Yet Common Core’s taken over. It’s in the process of forever changing the systems of education in over FORTY SIX STATES in the U.S.A.
And even in the states who were smart enough to reject the federal offer to join Common Core (via the Race to the Top grant application a few years back)– even those states are now being bought by Arne and Barack.
How?
Sad to report: U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan happily bypassed the wise state superintendents in states like Texas and Virginia who had rejected Common Core, and offered a brand new DISTRICT version (not state version) of the Race to the Middle Top money.
The catch? The districts have to skip to the ever-so-common tune Arne and Barack are fiddling.
Oh, they have other words for it: Career-and-College Readinessis a favorite. But when you go to the ed.gov website and read the way they’ve nailed education reform definitions to the wall, you’ll see. Now, Career and College Readinessmeans you must teach Common Core, no more and no less; you must march lockstep with the nationalized education drumbeat Arne and Barack are drumming. You can’t (by their definition) be preparing anyone for college and career unless your standards are the same as “a significant number of states.”
That reminds me of Henry Ford’s Model T car ad.
“ANY CUSTOMER CAN HAVE A CAR PAINTED ANY COLOR THAT HE WANTS SO LONG AS IT IS BLACK.”
The famous line of the founder Henry Ford referred to the T model since, due to express production, no other color could dry as fast as black.
So, Obama/Duncan’s version is:
“ANY STATE CAN HAVE ANY ED. STANDARDS, SO LONG AS THEY ARE THE SAME AS COMMON CORE.”
(And as long as we hold the lock and key –no amendability– on these national standards. The lock? NGA/CCSSO copyright. The key? A U.S. Dept. of Education mandate that states can’t add more than 15% to what’s in Common Core.)
Does this sameness mandate not upset anyone? Especially since Common Core’s full of terrible rules like REMOVING AS MUCH CLASSIC LITERATURE as possible, SLOWING DOWN Jr. high and high school MATH, and totally ELIMINATING CURSIVE at any age.
Does the dumbing down of the older students’ standards not upset you? Does the force-feeding of the youngers ones not upset you?
I seriously attempted to persuade my friends this week to join me in creating a gigantic banner that would read: REPEAL COMMON CORE.
We’d bear the banner at this week’s “Meet the Candidates” events. Then we’d fly it over the State Capitol building. But this was a fantasy.
–We’ve talked ourselves blue in the face with Rep. Kraig Powell, Sen. Aaron Osmond, Governor Herbert, Lt. Governor Greg Bell, and others. They all think Common Core is dandy.
So do tons of teachers. –But not all. I know a few teachers who wish I’d flown over their schools in a small plane with a big banner.
But they won’t say this out loud. (Spiral of Silence.) They think they’ll lose their jobs. They’re supposed to buy the line that Common Core doesn’t hurt local control in any way, and that it improves education.
They are not supposed to ask why the data collection of students has changed so dramatically, why nonacademic data is now part of the personally identifiable information states are collecting via schools. They are not supposed to ask why there are no references to any real research showing that Common Core is viable or beneficial or better than the old system. They are not supposed to notice that it’s a socialist-communist style of national education now, where states no longer have sovereignty over their educational decision making. They are not supposed to ask why the copyright page of the Common Core standards says that CCSSO/NGA wrote the standards solely, and that “no claims to the contrary shall be made,” even while they were asked to help write portions of the standards. Empty gesture. Teachers had no voice.
The concept of trying to rescue poor and minority students from failing public schools is a noble one. However, if the private schools are forced to teach the public school standards, which are at grave risk of becoming nationalized via the Common Core and its accompanying tests in 45-1/2 states and the District of Columbia (Minnesota accepted the English standards but not the math), in order for their students to pass the state tests, private schools will no longer be a meaningful alternative to the public schools.
This danger was detailed in our 2011 alert Imposing a Federal Curriculum on Private Schools – Why Voucher Programs that Require State Tests Are So Dangerous. At that time, we mentioned Minnesota’s proposed law that has not yet passed (that would have received a D grade on our scale) and Indiana’s enacted law (that did receive an F grade) that both require state tests to be given to private school students receiving vouchers or to the entire private school. Since then, I have reviewed the testing accountability requirements for all of the 30 school choice laws that have passed in 18 states and the District of Columbia through 2012 based on the Alliance for School Choice’s annual report and looking at the newest 2012 laws passed since that report was written.
And, since grading scales are becoming de rigeur, I though that Education Liberty Watch should join in on the trend and provide a freedom grading scale based on how well each statute protects private school autonomy. My hope is that you will see where your state falls and contact your policymakers to either improve your own state law if needed, make sure that any school choice bill offered in your state is as strongly pro-freedom as possible, and if nothing else, warn the private schools in your area what may be coming and urge them to speak up as this type of legislation is considered.
Before the table with the grades is presented however, it is important to also mention the education plan of presidential candidate Mitt Romney on this issue. Thankfully his plan is a just a plan right now that was likely mostly written or at least heavily influenced by former Governor Jeb Bush. Mr. Bush, whose organization is funded by the Bill Gates Foundation, is a huge fan of the Common Core to the point of trying to prevent model legislation against the standards from being supported by ALEC. He also seems to be completely tied in with the corporate interests such as the US Chamber of Commerce, the Business Roundtable, and the Business Partnership and the Gates Foundation, which has funded his own organization, that seem not at all concerned or even determined to bring about the usurpation of private school curriculum with the national standards. The Romney plan, A Chance for Every Child, speaks of the federal government promoting and paying for both public and private school choice. It says on pages 23-24:
Romney Administration will work with Congress to overhaul Title I and IDEA so that low-income and special-needs students can choose which school to attend and bring their funding with them. The choices offered to students under this policy will include any district or public charter school in the state, as well as private schools if permitted by state law… To ensure accountability, students using federal funds to attend private schools will be required to participate in the state’s testing system. (Emphasis added.)
Aside from the fact that the federal government has no constitutional authority to be involved in education, a fact both parties have completely forgotten, this would be an utter disaster for education freedom. It would bring the full force of the federal government to impose the federal curriculum of the Common Core on private and religious schools. It would also negate the laboratories of democracy in the states that have passed good state laws that do not require this public school testing accountability. On Education Liberty Watch’s Freedom Grading Scale, the Romney education plan, as currently written, would receive a D grade for requiring students to participate in the state tests. If the plan is meant to require that all of the students in a private school attended by voucher recipients take the state (Common Core) tests, we would give it a failing grade.
However, the good news is that Governor Romney has recently made some important and very good statements opposing the Common Core and government expansion of preschool, which we will outline in our next alert. It is therefore hoped that the more pro-freedom members of his education team are beginning to hold sway and that Governor Romney can be educated about the perils to private schools in his plan.
EDUCATION LIBERTY WATCH FREEDOM GRADING SCALE FOR PRIVATE SCHOOL CHOICE LAWS:
The chart form of the grading scale with more detail is available here. Here is the scale broken down by grade:
A+= NO testing requirements & accountability is specifically to PARENTS.
-Georgia (2001 – special needs voucher)
-New Hampshire (2012 – means tested tax credit scholarships, including for home schooled students)
-Oklahoma (2012 – special needs voucher)
A = No testing requirements for special needs vouchers or scholarships -Arizona (2011 – education savings accounts for special needs children)
-Florida (1995 and expanded in 2011) -Louisiana (2010) -North Carolina (2011)
-Ohio (2003)
-Oklahoma (2010)
A = No testing requirements for corporate or individual scholarships, including scholarships for foster children
B+ = Private schools with voucher or scholarship recipients must administer a nationally norm-referenced test but report only to parents &/or the state in aggregate
-Virginia (2012)
-Washington, DC (2004)
B = Requiring private schools with voucher or scholarship recipients to administer a nationally norm-referenced test & reporting results to the state.
-Arizona (2006)
-Utah (2005)
C = States that require private schools to offer either the state tests or nationally norm-referenced tests to voucher or scholarship recipients
-Florida (2001 and expanded in 2011 & 2012 – Corporate tax credit scholarship)
-Indiana (2009)
D+ = States that require the state tests to be administered to voucher or scholarship recipients in private schools & scores are reported to parents or other entity beside the state
-Louisiana (2012 – statewide means tested voucher)
-Wisconsin (1990 – means tested voucher in Milwaukee) -Wisconsin (2011 – means tested voucher in Racine)
D = States that require the state tests to be administered to voucher or scholarship recipients in private schools
-Colorado (2011 – means tested voucher in Douglas County)
-Louisiana (2008 – means tested voucher in New Orleans)
-Ohio (2011 – special needs voucher)
F = States require the state tests to be administered to ALL the students in a private school that have any students that receive a voucher
Keeping Kids Safe is Bill Wardell’s radio show. He invited Alisa Ellis, Renee Braddy and I on his show today to discuss data privacy issues, Common Core national education, and what most parents do not know about Common Core.
Let’s reason with John Adams. In 1763, Adams didn’t know Utah would be facing the decision to reverse adoption of Common Core and reclaim local freedom over education, or not. But he did know this much:
“…[A]s we know that ignorance, vanity, excessive ambition and venality, will, in spite of all human precautions, creep into government, and will ever be aspiring at extravagant and unconstitutional emoluments to individuals, let us never relax our attention… We electors have an important constitutional power placed in our hands…It becomes necessary to every subject then, to be in some degree a statesman, and to examine and judge for himself of the tendency of political principles and measures. Let us examine, then, with a sober, a manly, a British, and a Christian spirit; let us neglect all party virulence and advert to facts; let us believe no man to be infallible or impeccable in government, any more than in religion; take no man’s word against evidence, nor implicitly adopt the sentiments of others, who may be deceived themselves, or may be interested in deceiving us.”
Do some research. Don’t assume others’ claims and promises are correct or true, when they give no verifiable references. Even leaders (especially leaders) are subject to vanity, ignorance, ambition and unconstitutionality. Search for facts. Ask questions. Look for an application of Constitutional principles on new education reforms. Do they put the government above the parent? Do they put federal government above local? Do they sell something valuable for something temporarily sparkly? Be smart.
Learn what Common Core means to local control of standards, to Constitutional issues like representation and limited government power over people, to student math standards, to English standards, to taxpayer burdens, to data privacy, to parents worried about the speed and quality of what their kids are being taught, to parental consent issues. Common Core is much more than most realize.
Adams did speak to us directly:
“Posterity! You will never know how much it cost the present Generation to preserve your Freedom! I hope you will make good use of it. If you do not, I shall repent in Heaven, that I ever took half the Pains to preserve it.”
Adams also said:
“There are two types of education… One should teach us how to make a living, And the other how to live.”
Common Core Architect David Coleman’s idea was to cut classic lit and narrative writing so that schools churn out kids who can read and write computer manuals and infotext.
But how to live? That comes from stories. David Coleman is blind to the spiritual human need for stories. And he just got promoted to be the College Board President. Heaven help us all.
“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passion, they cannot alter the state of facts and evidence.”
There are those who hold Sec. of Education Arne Duncan’s letters as if they were freedom-guaranteeing facts, as if the letters held any legal water in comparison to his mark on definitive documents states are really bound by: the Race to the Top Executive Summary, the ED website’s definitions pages, the ESEA Flexibility Waiver, the Cooperative Agreement.
I apply it to the USOE’s unreferenced lie claim that Common Core makes kids “globally competitive” and gives more “rigorous” standards while all the while it’s homogenizing 2 year, 4 year and vocational college-readiness, (common for all) and while it slows Alg. I from 8th grade to 9th grade, and while it slashes cursive and classic literature. –Oh, and there are the little details called GEPA law and the U.S. Constitution, which Common Core kicks to the curb. And then there’s that little fact that the only math professor (James Milgram) and the top English Language Arts professor (Sandra Stotsky) refused to sign off on the standards when they served on the Common Core Validation Committee because the standards were not high. Truth and factuality are slung aside by Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, and the Common Core troops.
“Rigor.” Ha!
Three more John Adams quotes for Common Core debate:
1- “Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.” AMEN.
2- “I read my eyes out and can’t read half enough…the more one reads the more one sees we have to read.” Yep.
3- “But a Constitution of Government once changed from Freedom, can never be restored. Liberty, once lost, is lost forever.”
COMMON CORE 