#1 WHO CARES ABOUT ESSA/ESEA?
While Utah Senator Mike Lee warned that the ESSA/ESEA bill is dangerously bad (both in policy and in its corrupt passing process) the Deseret News, Lee’s home newspaper, published a loudly pro-ESSA editorial.
While Reps Mia Love, Jason Chaffetz, Rob Bishop and Chris Stewart– all four of Utah’s delegation to the U.S. House of Representatives– rightly voted “no” on the bill just a few days ago, Utah Senator Orrin Hatch, who still has to vote, is aggressively pushing pro-ESSA talking points on his twitter feed.
Obama’s got his Secretary of Education pushing ESSA. In agreement with Obama and Duncan is Utah’s Governor Herbert, and the countless ed-alignment moneymakers, and so is the Utah PTA. Check out their shared talking points; then look at the actual bill. Disconnected. Are they deliberately lying or do they just not read bills, preferring talking points? Either way, they are promoting the wrong thing.
#2 WHO HAS READ IT AND WARNS THAT IT IS BAD? To name a few that come to mind:
- UT Senator Mike Lee.
- 64 of the U.S. House of Representatives
| Amash Babin Bishop (UT) Blackburn Brat Bridenstine Brooks (AL) Buck Chabot Chaffetz Clawson (FL) Culberson DeSantis DesJarlais Duncan (SC) Farenthold Fleming Franks (AZ) Gohmert Gosar Gowdy Graves (LA) |
Guinta Harper Harris Hice, Jody B. Holding Huelskamp Johnson, Sam Jones Jordan Kelly (MS) King (IA) Labrador Lamborn Loudermilk Love Lummis Marchant Massie Meadows Miller (FL) Mooney (WV) Mulvaney |
Palazzo Palmer Perry Poe (TX) Ratcliffe Rogers (AL) Rohrabacher Rothfus Salmon Sanford Schweikert Smith (MO) Smith (NE) Stewart Stutzman Walker Weber (TX) Wenstrup Yoder Yoho |
- American Principles Project.
- Heritage Foundation.
- Michelle Malkin.
- Utahns Against Common Core – we published a simple chart that compares the old bill to the new here.
- Two hundred grassroots organizations – led by the Florida Stop Common Core Coalition; each signed a letter to the Senate, asking them to wait and study the bill before passing it under the rule-smashing Obama Administration.
- Utah’s Heather Gardner read all 1061 pages of the bill and posted her clear, documented report today on her blog, Fire and Ice.
- Utah’s Alyson Williams, assisted by 50 Utah parents, composed a brilliant letter to the House of Representatives after they’d read the bill.
- Jane Robbins of American Principles Project published a reader-friendly article at Pulse2016 here, explaining as Michelle Malkin did, that a candidate who takes a stand against this bill will have parents crawling over broken glass to support his race.
- I wrote about the bill, too, recently (and months ago, when it was called by other names.)
There are many more, of course.
There are enough testifiers out there now, that the Senate cannot honestly pretend not to know how bad it is.
#3 WHAT’S IN IT?
The ESSA/ESEA bill imposes federal dictates on localities, loads many new federal programs on the nation, authorizes the feds to veto what states want to do; increases testing and data mining, cements common standards and common data (“universal principles of design”) shifts power to put the feds in charge of babies’ education, veers into private school decision making; and is as utterly out of harmony with the freedoms outlined in the U.S. Constitution as Obamacare, in no way blessing children’s lives.
It is not better; it is worse than No Child Left Behind.
Not only is it over 1000 pages long; it was hidden from public view until two days before the House of Representatives voted on it.
If it’s so good, why hide it?
(The pretenses of Governor Herbert, Senator Hatch, Secretary Duncan, President Obama, Bill Gates, the National PTA and the Chamber of Commerce, about the supposed goodness of education reforms as cemented by this ESSA, are on very thin ice. So are any senators who will vote yes.)
#4 WHEN’S THE VOTE?
This is voting eve.
The US Senate is going to vote on it tomorrow. Look for the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) — a rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) also known as No Child Left Behind, aka the Frankenstein ugly bill.
May truth somehow prevail in the U.S. Senate tomorrow.
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If you haven’t yet, please call senators at 202-224-3121 (switchboard) or look for their numbers here.
COMMON CORE 