Although the greedmeisters are never again going to call what they promote by the now-toxic name of Common Core, still, the march toward common-everything moves forward like a communist conveyor belt, under the radar of most people.
That common core of greed is everywhere, like a misbegotten Midas touch. And those who are devoted to children are pitted, knowingly or not, against those who are mostly devoted to the tax dollars that children represent to them, even though the stupidity of the common core is now household knowledge– even the latest Disney trailer for the new Incredibles 2 mocks the “new math for life”.
The fed-corp partnerships repeatedly do this. They take over pieces of education, pieces of what is supposed to be supervised and owned by you and me. Someday, if and when the power agendas fully align, what will freedom look like? The child or teacher who wants to have a distinct, uncommon experience, won’t be able to have it; like a small flower trying to take root where an enormous machine has been built, without soil (freedom) nor sunshine (access to whole truth) that small flower will have to give up trying to be a flower. The common everything machine is not built to recognize the presence of a flower. It is Economy First: Persons Last.
The stupidity and the danger of where we have allowed ourselves to sit is bad enough– but the worst part is that the struggle’s not over. We are mid-struggle.
We should stop –STOP– right now– handing our power away. Look at our losses, our choices:
Weallowed the federal government to define common educational data standards (CEDS) in partnership with a private club called Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).
That was a power giveup.
We took money (each state did) from the federal government, to build fed-designed “State Longitudinal Database Systems” that sucked up data about individuals in our states, and now, if the CEP gets its way, that data will, without our consent, be up for grabs to any federal researcher or federal agency or any corporate crony the feds want to “authorize” to see that data– which is data citizens don’t even have about themselves.
That was a power giveup.
We, the states, allowed the huckster David Coleman to “architect” a new education system for all math and English, despite his zero qualification for such an effort, despite its utter unconstitutionality, despite the low quality of the standards themselves.
Another power giveup.
And, right now, we are in the process in Utah of allowing the sick-joke of a set of science standards called Next Generation Science to become the rule of science education in our state, a move that will strangle academic freedom and delete much of classic science curricula, stupidly, to make room for a preponderance of propaganda and unsettled science doctrines: global warming, Darwinian evolution, and human blame for all of earth’s flaws. So, in the wings: another power giveup.
All these have been crimes of greed and negligence for which we cannot fully blame our now-overlords. We had, and still have, the freedom to walk away.
But the one crime that hasn’t fully ripened yet, the big one that churns my stomach and makes me ill, is the Common Sexuality Standards movement, truly a soul-stealing movement. CSE hides behind the respectable title of “sex education”. But it’s not education at all. Rather than teaching biological and moral facts to children, CSE aims to sexualize children, and not only to sexualize them early, but to normalize every and any sexual perversion, early. See CSE’s common sexuality standards for download here.)
If you haven’t seen the video, see it –but don’t show it to your children.
CSE / LGTB promoters know that many, maybe even most, Americans, are God-fearing, chastity-cherishing, family-focused people –whose religion can be twisted against them. So they call the practices or teachings of a devout Jew, Mormon, Baptist, or Hindu American “unkind” or “intolerant” or “old-fashioned”. They say then that inclusion of the transgender or pedophaelia agenda would be kind and tolerant, and many times they beat that American with his or her own good nature.
But it does not work with every person. Some people say to the name-callers, “I do not care what you call me; You will not force your agenda on my child.” They might even be able to say, “I have done my homework and I know who pays you to push this lie-laden agenda on me.” And lies they are. Gender is an eternal and essential characteristic of every human being.
It always seems to boil down to masses of money, and never seems to be about the well-being of children at all, whenever new education agendas are shoved down our throats. Important new research from Jennifer Bilek at the Federalist.comnames the lecturers and fat-cat investors in biomedical companies, who are teaching and funding transgender organizations and programs –for huge, huge amounts of money. J.B. Pritzker. Penny Pritzker. Jennifer Pritzker. George Soros. David T. Rubin. Martine Rothblatt. Drummond Pike. Warren and Peter Buffet. Jon Stryker. Mark Bonham. Tim Gill.
According to Bilek, it won’t end with transgender operations and transgender counseling nor with the surgical and mental meddling with children against their families’ concerns. It ends never, because proponents are grooming young people for a lifetime of expensive, never ending surgeries and expensive services. It’s making money by cultivating human self-hate, particularly body-hate. Gobs of money can be made from stirring up such hate.
Bilek writes: “Bodily diversity appears to be the core issue, not gender dysphoria; that and unmooring people from their biology via language distortions… Institutionalizing transgender ideology does just this. This ideology is being promoted as a civil rights issue by wealthy, white men with enormous influence who stand to personally benefit…
“…Rothblatt suggests we are all transhuman, that changing our bodies by removing healthy tissue and organs and ingesting cross-sex hormones over the course of a lifetime can be likened to wearing makeup, dying our hair, or getting a tattoo…
“It behooves us all,” Bilek concludes, “to look at what the real investment is in prioritizing a lifetime of anti-body medical treatments for a miniscule part of the population, building an infrastructure for them, and institutionalizing the way we perceive ourselves as human beings”.
Stopping CSE standards and the accompanying philosophies from infiltrating our curricula may help stop a disorder from growing into the enormously lucrative business that its investors hope it will become.
Does every state have a federally funded, interoperable State Longitudinal Database System that tracks people throughout their lives? Yes.
Every state has accepted 100% federally funded data collection (SLDS). The Data Quality Campaign states: “every governor and chief state school officer has agreed to build statewide longitudinal data systems that can follow individual students from early childhood through K-12 and postsecondary ed and into the workforce as a condition for receiving State Fiscal Stabilization Funds as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA). A condition of getting the funding (ARRA money) was that the system would be interoperable.
Is the SLDS accessible by the federal government? Yes.
The SLDS grant explains that the SIF (state interoperability framework) must provide interoperability from LEA to LEA, from LEA to Postsecondary, from LEA to USOE, and from USOE to the EdFacts Data Exchange. The EdFacts Data Initiative is a “centralized portal through which states submit data to the Department of Education.”
The P-20 workforce council exists inside states to track citizens starting in preschool, and to “forge organizational and technical bondsand to build the data system needed to make informed decisions” for stakeholders both in and outside Utah. — http://www.prweb.com/releases/2012/2/prweb9201404.htm
Is personally identifiable student information gathered, or only aggregate group data? Personal, identifiable, individual data is collected.
Many of us in Utah were present last summer when UT technology director John Brandt stood up in the senate education committee and testified that there are roughly twelve people in the state of Utah who have access to the personally identifiable information of students which is available in the Utah Data Alliances inter-agency network of student data. So it is not true that we are talking about only aggregate data, which leaders often insist. The Utah School Board confirmed to me in writing, also, that it is not allowed for any student to opt out of the P-20/ SLDS/ UDA tracking system, (which we know is K-workforce (soon to include preschool) citizen surveillance.)
Is the collected private student data accessible to agencies beyond than state education agency? Yes:
There are state data alliances that connect agencies. The Data Quality Campaign states: “states must ensure that as they build and enhance state K–12 longitudinal data systems, they also continue building linkages to exchange and use information across early childhood, postsecondary and the workforce (P–20/workforce) and with other critical agencies, such as health, social services and criminal justice systems.”
What data will be collected? According to the new FERPA regulations, pretty much anything. Social security numbers, psychometric and biometric information (see pg. 4 and 6) are not off the table. According to the National Data Collection model, over 400 points. Jenni White mentioned another federal model that asks for thousands of data points.
Data linking changes being made in regulations and policies make former privacy protection policies meaningless. The Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) suedthe Dept. of Education, under the Administrative Procedure Act, arguing that the Dept. of Ed’s regulations that changed the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act in Dec. 2011 exceeded the Department of Education’s authority and are contrary to law. http://epic.org/apa/ferpa/default.html
The Federal Register outlines, on page 51, that it is not now a necessity for a school to get student or parental consent any longer before sharing personally identifiable information; that has been reduced to the level of optional.
The Federal Register of December 2011 outlines the Dept. of Education’s new, Congressionally un-approved regulations, that decrease parental involvement and increase the number of agencies that have access to private student data: http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/FR-2011-12-02/pdf/2011-30683.pdf (See page 52-57)
Although the Federal Register describes countless agencies, programs and “authorities” that may access personally identifiable student information, it uses permissive rather than mandatory language. The obligatory language comes up in the case of the Cooperative Agreement between the Department of Education and the states’ testing consortium http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop-assessment/sbac-cooperative-agreement.pdf
Effectively, there is no privacy regulation governing schools anymore, on the federal level. Khalia Barnes, a lawyer at EPIC disclosed that these privacy intrusions affect not only children, but anyone who ever attended any college or university (that archives records, unless it is a privately funded university.)
Why did the Dept. of Ed need to alter FERPA regulations?
To match their data collection goals (stated in the Dept. of Ed cooperative agreement with testing consortia) which contracts with testing consortia to mandate triangulation of tests and collected data. This federal supervision is illegal under G.E.P.A. law and the 10th Amendment). http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop-assessment/sbac-cooperative-agreement.pdf
Who can access collected data?
The National Data Collection Model (the federal request for what states ought to be collecting) represents 400 data points schools should collect and “it is a comprehensive, non-proprietary inventory… that can be used by schools, LEAs, states, vendors, and researchers”. Vendors are already using this.
How can we get free of this system?
Jenni White of ROPE (Restore Oklahoma Public Education) states that the only way to get free of this federal data collection invasion is to put political pressure on our governors to give that ARRA money back. As long as we keep it, we are in data collection chains by the federal government; also, our increasing buy-in to common core exacerbates the educational tech scam on the corporate side. Dept. of Education infringements upon state law and freedom are explained in the white paper by Jenni White entitled “Analysis of Recent Education Reforms and the Resulting Impact on Student Privacy” – http://www.scribd.com/doc/94149078/An-Analysis-of-Recent-Education-Reforms-and-the-Resulting-Impact-on-Student-Privacy
What else is at stake?
Sheila Kaplan has provided expert testimony about the student data collection, but has also said that an educational data monopoly is an issue, too. She explains that a group exists, including Bing, Yahoo, Microsoft, etc., that assigns high or low attention to content and directs internet traffic. So if code uses hashtags and common core aligned taxonomies, your education data will get traffic. If not, it won’t. If you are searching for any educational data it won’t come up unless it’s using that coded taxonomy. This wrecks net neutrality and is, in her educated opinion, an anti-trust issue of the internet. She mentioned the CEDS, (common element data system) that is ending net neutrality. She also finds appalling the Learning Registry, funded by the Department of Defense and the Department of Education, which is a place for teachers to advertise for common core aligned products– all using stimulus money.
Why did the Dept. of Ed redefine FERPA’s meaning of the term “educational agency” to include virtually any agency and redefine “authorized representative” to mean virtually anyone, even a “school volunteer?
When FERPA is weak, linking of data allowseasy access to data, both technologically and in terms of legal policy. It also trumps other laws, such as HIPPA. For example, as both Gary Thompson and Jenni White have pointed out, the new, weak FERPA law takes precedence over HIPPA (patient privacy) when medical or psychological services are provided in schools or when educational services are provided in jails.
In that document, states are obligated to share data with the federal government “on an ongoing basis,” to give status reports, phone conferences and other information, and must synchronize tests “across consortia”. This triangulation nationalizes the testing system and puts the federal government in the middle of the data collecting program.
For understanding of the motivation of the federal government, read some of US Dept. of Education Arne Duncan’s or Obama’s speeches that show the passion with which the federal agency seeks access to data to control teachers and educational decisions. http://www2.ed.gov/news/speeches/2009/06/06082009.pdf
Are teachers also to be studied like guinea pigs, along with students? Yes.
The Common Core of Data (CCD) is another federal program of data collection that studies TEACHERS as well as students. It calls itself “a program of the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics that annually collects fiscal and non-fiscal data about all public schools, public school districts and state education agencies in the United States. The data are supplied by state education agency officials and include information that describes schools and school districts, including name, address, and phone number; descriptive information about students and staff, including demographics; and fiscal data, including revenues and current expenditures.” http://nces.ed.gov/ccd/
How does Common Core relate to the federal and corporate data collection movement?
Chief of Staff Joanne Weiss at the Dept. of Education has been publicly quoted saying that “data-mashing” is a good idea. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan gives speeches calling for “more robust data.” And at the recent White House Datapalooza, the CEO of eScholar stated that without Common Core tests being “the glue” for open data, this data movement would be impossible.
COMMON CORE 