At the Provo mall theater Tuesday night, people were being turned away because every seat was purchased for the Glenn Beck “We Will Not Conform” event. The theater was overflowing with parents, teachers and grandparents wanting to know how to reclaim locally controlled education and a feeling of empowerment. I don’t know about the other 700 or so movie theaters, but at this one in Provo, people were energized. After the event, audience members had to be asked to leave because many stayed to talk long after the event. Those post-event conversations moved me more than anything I saw on the screen, even though the event itself was excellent. I’ll explain further along, down this post.
The filming took place in Dallas live, and included a powerful group of panelists. Audience members nationwide participated via twitter, taking surveys and being asked to answer questions. On July 29th, there will be a rebroadcast of the event. If you didn’t attend last Tuesday, or can’t attend on the 29th, here are a few highlights:
Michelle Malkin – Malkin, that vibrant firecracker of an analyst, called Common Core “educational malpractice” and said that no one has a right to experiment upon, and track, our children as if they were guinea pigs. Malkin said that parents need the intellectual ammunition to fight the regurgitated talking points of the pro-Common Core groups. She said that parents should verify and re-verify the claims and assumptions being spoken by the pro-Common Core side.
Kathleen Jasper – Jasper, a former teacher and vice principal, said that there is a giant machine of common core and high-stakes testing that can only be stopped by cutting off the fuel supply, which is the testing; she said parents and teachers must stand up and boycott the common core aligned assessments. She said parents need to know that media centers and computer centers in schools are being shut down to accomodate the high-stakes tests; all the money that classrooms need is being redirected to pay for the testing machine.
Emmett McGroarty- McGroarty, of American Principles Project, said that Common Core’s highly defined standards/curriculum/testing program ushers in an unconstitutional system that parents can stop. He said that legislators must be held accountable by voters; if they’re not fighting it, they are going along with it. Tolerance of common core is a litmus test for legislators.
Jenni White – White, a mom who was instrumental in getting Common Core repealed from Oklahoma, said that one of their greatest challenges was the Chamber of Commerce, since it was paid by Bill Gates to push Common Core. She said that persistence (and matching, eye-popping T-shirts) were key.
Glenn Beck – Beck said that the kinds of teachers who can make the complex simple and the mundane exciting are worth their weight in gold, but these teachers are being systematically wiped out because of the enforcement of Common Core by the tests that make everyone and everything conform.
David Barton – Barton, a historian, make the point that some people think Common Core is “not that bad,” but it is like a tiger cub, cute and manageable at first, but given time, will destroy.
Terrence Moore – Moore, a professor and principal, said that because Common Core uses public money, the public has the right to ask, “what is education?” and not have it re-defined for us. He said, “We have to get those stories back,” referring to the classic literature and the great American stories that Common Core marginalizes due to an emphasis on informational text and progressive ideology.
Heather Crossin – Crossin, an Indiana mom, made the point that we have the truth on our side; once people begin to look at Common Core they realize that the talking points aren’t true.
Brian Glicklich – Glicklich, a marketing specialist, said that when we work to repeal the Common Core agenda, we have to remember that rarely can we be both angry and effective; we should make our best points, but don’t try to make all of our points at once.
When the event ended, some friends and I passed out fliers inviting people to attend the Utah State School Board meeting on August 8th, and to take the time to make public comment there (two minutes per person are allowed.) At that event, the state board will vote on whether or not to cowtow to the federal government by renewing the ESEA/NCLB waiver, which Utah received in exchange for the agreement to do Common Core (as option a; we also could have chosen option b, which was to create local standards using higher ed as a sounding board). After the event, I listened with mouth agape as to two teachers spoke about their distress about Common Core in the theater lobby. One said that her first graders are being truly cheated and manipulated by the new Common Core math. She said that when she attempted to speak out in staff meetings, she had her job threatened by her administrator. She got scared. She feels that teachers being forced to “collaborate” by PLCs (Professional Learning Communities) — having to sign off, promising to not veer from the common core as defined by the PLC, feels extremely restrictive. She said that healthy debate does not exist; it’s not allowed to exist in the professional educator community. She said that if teachers don’t agree, they have to be silent or they are labeled “not a team player” or “insubordinate.” The teacher also told me that she received a letter from her district, informing her that although parents have the right to opt students out of the tests, teachers do not have the right to inform parents of that right. The letter said that teachers must administer the tests, and any teacher found telling students or parents that they have the legal right to not take these tests, would be in trouble. I spoke with a mother of twelve who has been learning about and fighting against Common Core for three years. She said that many of her neighbors and friends who work in the school system have told her that they feel their hands are tied, and that they cannot do anything about Common Core even though they see its damages. She opts all children out of the tests. In Utah, at least, we are fortunate because we have the law on our side; schools are not allowed to penalize a student’s grade if that student refuses to take the test. Opt out!
If you are interested in attending the Glenn Beck “We Will Not Conform” event which will play live on the big screen at the Provo, Utah Cinemark 16 on 1200 Towne Center Boulevard, today’s a lucky day. I’ve been given four special event passes by a Glenn Beck producer to give away and they need your name on them.
Just send an email to consecutiveintegers@yahoo.com with one reason that you would like two free tickets to this show. Give me your mailing address and I’ll send out the four tickets, two tickets per winner, today. If you don’t win the free tickets, you may buy tickets at FathomEvents.com
About the event:
This Tuesday, July 22nd, liberty goes up against the Common Core. A live, interactive event will take place at about 700 local movie theaters across the nation simultaneously. It will be filmed at the Glenn Beck studios in Dallas, Texas, where a handful of Utah friends will join others in Dallas as part of Glenn Beck’s participant panel.
Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck, Jenni White, David Barton and many other Common Core fighters will interact with the nationwide audience, via social media, in a meeting of the minds to use “the brainpower, experience and passion of thousands of people from around the country…captured in a comprehensive, unified plan of action”.
You don’t want to miss this.
Another, non-interactive repeat showing of the evening will be rebroadcast in theaters on the evening of July 29th.
ACTION ITEMS:
1. Attend the Utah State Board of Education meetings Thursday, July 17 from – 4:00 PM to 5:45 PM and Friday, August 8 (please save the date) at Utah State Office of Education, Board Room/Conference Rooms, 250 East 500 South, Salt Lake City, Utah. We plan to PACK THE HOUSE.
The state school board will consider “a decision on whether to apply for an extension to its waiver under the federal Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)” to be voted on at the August Board meeting (http://schoolboard.utah.gov/news/board-considers-not-applying-for-an-extension-on-utahs-esea-waiver). We hope that they DO NOT renew the waiver from No Child Left Behind. By not renewing the waiver, Utah can send a clear message that we are in charge of our education and would take us one step closer to cutting the many federal ties that are preventing true local control over education. We will not be the first state to make this vital stand. Read more here.
Our strong presence is vital to voice our support so that the board to vote in our favor. This is a critical vote. Please attend; bring your children; we need to fill the room. (This is their work meeting but with brief public input, so we need to be respectful. Signs are welcome to use in the hallways or outside.)
2. Call and write, before the July 17th meeting, to Governor Herbert, the State School Board, USOE representatives and send copies to your legislators, newspapers, and local school boards, asking them NOT to renew the ESEA waiver, to get us out of Common Core, and to return full control of education to Utah.
JULY 22nd we hope to see you as we pack all the available movie theaters throughout our state (and nationwide) for Glenn Beck’s event: “We Will Not Conform: A night to make Common Core history”. It’s in 700 movie theaters! Several Utah parents will be attending the event live in Texas as well. An updated theater list can be found here: http://www.fathomevents.com/event/we-will-not-conform-live/more-info/theater-locations
4. Parent Groups and Candidates Organized to Stop Common Core:
We have updated the local parent group listings for those organizing in their areas.
There is a large SLC group until smaller groups form from it. Here’s an announcement from them.
Salt Lake County Committees – To Organize, Plan, Educate, and Act! Salt Lake County Committees will meet each fourth Thursday, except when it is a Holiday – like July 24. In which case we will meet on the third Wednesday (to help other attend that might not be able to). So we will meet July 16th 7 PM, at 7679 South Main St. (700 West), Midvale, a nicer and more central location. All are needed at these education and organization meetings (but attendance is more vital at State Board meeting on the 17th). Come one, come all and join your efforts to making Utah Education the best. The building is Utah Addition Centers – but is unmarked so look for signs, to enter, on the front and rear doors. Parking is in the rear. Contact Wendell W. Ashby ashbyww@gmail.com, and Administrative Support – Michelle Rodgers shelbysemail@yahoo.com
Candidate Alert
If you live in –or know people who live in– Rich County, please contact Bryce Huefner (435-757-0967, behuefner@gmail.com) to help with his campaign.
Click here to watch the t.v. interview with Arkansas mother Karen Lamoreaux on the Glenn Beck show.
Click here (or below) to view Karen Lamoreaux’s smashing testimony to her state school board.
On her t.v. interview, Lamoreaux noted that most state school boards are appointed, not elected and that of the twenty two states that are fighting back against Common Core, all are legislative fights; none are state school boards who have seen the light.
Teachers across the country are contacting her, saying, “Please fight this for us,” because teachers who are currently teaching in government schools are told by their leaders (state school board and down) that they may not speak against Common Core. So teachers rely on parents to stop the Common Core train wreck.
Lamoreaux also said:
“The standards are not the issue; it’s the baggage that comes with it.”
Tomorrow at 2:00 at Salt Lake City’s Grand America Hotel ballroom, Alisa, Renee and I will be making a presentation about Common Core, courtesty of Freedom Works and Glenn Beck’s Man in the Moon Event.
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.
———
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.
An article in the Washington times about the Romeike family contains some very important details. For example, U.S. Attorney-General Holder argues in the brief for Romeike v. Holder that parents have no fundamental right to home-educate their children.
Say what?!
The arguments being presented by the U.S. government against the soon-to-be-deported Romeike family are important to all American people.
Will the U.S. uphold the rights of parents to raise their children in the way that seems best to them, or will a socialist standard be imposed upon millions of homeschooling families in America?
The WT article says:
“HSLDA founder Mike Farris warns, “[Holder’s office] argued that there was no violation of anyone’s protected rights in a law that entirely bans homeschooling. There would only be a problem if Germany banned homeschooling for some but permitted it for others. Let’s assess the position of the United States government on the face of its argument: a nation violates no one’s rights if it bans homeschooling entirely. There are two major portions of constitutional rights of citizens – fundamental liberties and equal protection. The U.S. Attorney General has said this about homeschooling. There is no fundamental liberty to homeschool. So long as a government bans homeschooling broadly and equally, there is no violation of your rights.”
Farris goes on to reveal another argument presented by the Attorney-General: “The U.S. government contended that the Romeikes’ case failed to show that there was any discrimination based on religion because, among other reasons, the Romeikes did not prove that all homeschoolers were religious, and that not all Christians believed they had to homeschool.”
The US Government, says Farris, “does not understand that religious freedom is an individual right.”
Just because all adherents of a particular religion do not abide by a certain standard does not mean that individuals who feel compelled to abide by this standard do not have the right to do so. Religious decisions must be made by individuals, not by groups.
Farris contends, “One need not be a part of any church or other religious group to be able to make a religious freedom claim. Specifically, one doesn’t have to follow the dictates of a church to claim religious freedom—one should be able to follow the dictates of God Himself.
“The United States Supreme Court has made it very clear in the past that religious freedom is an individual right. Yet our current government does not seem to understand this. They only think of us as members of groups and factions. It is an extreme form of identity politics that directly threatens any understanding of individual liberty.”
Education Week reports that hackers got into the Department of Education’s site and so they shut their site down indefinitely.
Baloney! No hackers got into the system. I’ll tell you what’s going on.
Researchers from around the nation have been gathering research from US Dept of Ed documents so we can get them to you directly from the source to prove everything we say. Because everyone is now linking to this site and because now we have so many national groups joining the fight, they pulled the curtain closed and are hiding behind it.
The Dept of Ed is hiding from US citizens! Not only do we have huge groups in every state looking daily at these documents now, but we also have the research crews of Michelle Malkin, Glenn Beck, Freedom Works, Fox News, United Families International and many others all across the nation for the FIRST TIME this week paying attention to what is going on with our education system and realizing we’re being lied to.
The same thing happened a few days after Agenda 21 was exposed nationally. After a year of researching the U.N. site easily, all of a sudden they went dark and no one can access their pages anymore. How dare they blame their lack of transparency on hackers. You know you are onto something really big when the entire U.S. Department of Education website closes down because you have exposed them. What a smokescreen!
Thank you, Susie Schnell, for researching and writing this post. I agree with Susie. Time will prove it to everyone, one way or another. In a reasonable amount of time, if the Department reposts what was there before, we’ll be proven wrong. Then there really were hackers desperate to get to the educational secrets that hadn’t been posted openly. Hmm.
But if time passes and the documents and speeches never resurface, then the Dept. of Ed really is deliberately hiding from the American citizen-researcher. Can you believe it?
Either way, we are not shut down, because we’ve saved the important documents and speeches offline.
Try this on for an explanation: it’s a speech she gave last summer at a UNESCO conference in Paris.
In the speech, Darling-Hammond says that “we allow this extraordinary inequality” in America which may cause us to “innovate our way to failure.” She shows a chart entitled “The Anatomy of Inequality” (see minutes 15:06- 16:00) that explains that taking away money from the areas of richer kids’ schools is a good idea (she mentions rich schools having too many swimming pools).
In her book, “A Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity will Determine our Future,” she further explains why pushing for equity (communism) will solve the problems of education. The book illustrates poverty’s effect on education (tell us something we didn’t know) and she comes to the false conclusion that a governmentally forced attempt at financial equity (redistribution) can create better education. She doesn’t mention how this is to happen without harming individual liberty and without punishing the kids in financially stable schools.
Her ideas are being absolutely shoved down the throats of state school boards and legislators nationally.
And she is dead set on Common Core being the means to these ends. Always has been. She knew that others on the Common Core validation committee refused to sign off that the standards were legitimate; she was aware that common core would be an experiment on millions, implemented without any empirical data supporting its superiority claims. She not only supported this baseless decision making and the copyrighting and implementation of the common standards –but she’s now helping to write the common tests!
Darling-Hammond and her ideas are mentioned 52 times in the EEC report For Each and Every Child, a “strategy for equity report” that she co-wrote. In the words of Congressman Honda, another EEC member, it’s a “bold new vision on the federal role in education” that wants to see “transformations in school funding.”
Take a look at the EEC’s Opportunity to Learn Campaign. Included in the “opportunity” is also the cessation of any semblance of liberty. Dropping out is not an option; you can’t get suspended or expelled from school no matter how hard you try. The EEC calls this “positive discipline.” Also included in the “Opportunity to Learn Campaign” are “wraparound supports” such as extended learning time which might sound good until you realize that we’re moving away from a family-centered to a school-centered way of life that pushes parents to the periphery of children’s lives.
To translate: Linda Darling-Hammond pushes for communism in the name of social justice, for a prison-like view of schooling in the name of extended opportunity, and for an increased federal role in education in the name of fairness. She gets away with it because she comes across as sweetly compassionate.
But she scares me. And people who listen to her scare me too.
Alisa, Renee and I have been doing more and more of these Google Hangout filming chats. So far we’ve interviewed Jenni White, Dr. Bill Evers, and Angela Weinzinger. Today Renee and Alisa said they wanted to interview me, to talk about what it was like to visit the Glenn Beck t.v. show as a guest. So we did.
This first portion of the show is a clip of Glenn Beck introducing common core and its “Equity and Excellence Commission” which aims to use the educational system to redistribute; to redistribute not only exactly the same standards and testing nationwide, but also the nation’s wealth. Glenn calls the Common Core issue bigger than any other issue facing America today.
The next clip introduces the scarily non-traditional Common Core math, the dumbing-down via “student-centered” rather than teacher-directed instruction; and shows –my favorite part– the moment Glenn was stunned to find out that state legislatures were not a part of the adoption of Common Core, in any state.
Notice when Sherena Arrington describes this. She calls it the executive branch being “off the chain.” Great choice of words. Off the chain– like a mad bulldog. Yes, there is a chain and American needs to stay attached to it because it’s an umbilical cord to mother freedom. It’s a chain forged by the U.S. Constitution, the process of voter representation, the importance of due process and the separation and balance of powers.
I mentioned one of the seminal documents of the Common Core movement, the Cooperative Agreement between Secretary Arne Duncan and the SBAC testing group, which says that the SBAC and PARCC (the other testing group) have to synchronize their tests and data, and that student-level data (personal, identifiable data) must be shared. That creates a national testing system, nationalizing education just like China or any socialist/communist country. This is so offensive, considering the fact that both the Constitution and U.S. GEPA law (General Educational Provisions Act) specify that the federal government may not direct or supervise educational programs or curriculum or tests in any way.
Then I brought up the fact that the Department of Education went behind Congress’ back to alter FERPA law (privacy law) so that parental consent is no longer a legal requirement to access student information. The National Data Collection Model asks for hundreds of data points to be collected on our loved ones, including family income, religion, nicknames, psychological issues, and so much more.
Yes, the executive branch is way off the chain and does need to be brought to account by Congress. By We, The People.
Thank you, Glenn Beck. Thank you for exposing to parents and other viewers nationwide what common core is really all about: it’s so much more than just academic standards.
Glenn Beck’s TV show, The Blaze, will be interviewing teachers who are speaking out against Common Core on tomorrow afternoon’s show. 4:00 their time; 3:00 Utah time. One of those teachers will be me.
(You can get a free two week trial membership to the Blaze TV at the link above.)
David Cox, a fifth grade teacher from American Fork, Utah will also be on the show.
I hope many, many people tune in. We need everybody in the nation to be talking about Common Core so we can push back, repeal it, reclaim our lost freedom over education, get student privacy back, and ensure real education for our children and grandchildren in years to come.
The Blaze published a new article that explains the connection between CSCOPE, the non-transparent curriculum that’s raising controversy in Texas, and the Common Core, the D.C.-written national standards that our state has unfortunately adopted. The article reports that Common Core attempted to purchase CSCOPE as a national curriculum. I would like to see evidence of that fact; if true, then all the claims of the Common Core, that these were “just standards, not national curriculum” were lies. I am reposting the entire BLAZE article below. Thank you, Glenn Beck.
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The Blaze article:CSCOPE: Exposing the Nation’s Most Controversial Public School Curriculum System
In February, Texas announced that the state, along with the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum (TESCCC,) would enact major changes to the controversial curriculum management system dubbed CSCOPE. The system received a litany of complaints from faculty members and parents alike concerning its lack of transparency (parents were allegedly not permitted to review lesson-plans), lack of oversight from the State Board of Education, and for allegedly imposing oppressive working conditions for faculty members.
CSCOPE was created so that teachers could frame their year around teaching points required by the state. Lessons, which are written by CSCOPE staff and current and former teachers, can be updated and delivered online, making it more cost-effective than standard textbooks.
To note just how off-color some of the CSCOPE curriculum is, consider that the Texas CSCOPE Review, an independent watchdog group, uncovered an out-of-date, optional CSCOPE lesson-plan on terrorism — “World History Unit 12 Lesson 07″ — which allegedly likens the Boston Tea Party to “an act of terrorism.”
To glean greater insight, Glenn Beck invited special guests David Barton and Pat Gray, along with teachers Mary Bowen, Stan Hartzler and Texas State Sen. Dan Patrick to discuss what is truly going on within their state’s education system.
Barton explained that CSCOPE is referred to as “instructional material” and not “curriculum,” therefore is not subject to regulation by the State Board of Education. The historian also brought in artifacts of Texas public school curriculum to showcase just how different it is today and to mark, year-by-year, the increasing application of political correctness in lesson plans.
Using a chart, Barton documented and mapped out core CSCOPE material, which eliminates national values, Americanism or rather, American exceptionalism, the study of federalism and majority rule (the core of our constitution) along with patriotic symbols like the Liberty Bell. Christopher Columbus, Rosh Hashanah and Christmas are all relegated to the dustbin along with American military history. Equality and a belief in justice is replaced by “fairness” and instruction on American propaganda and imperialism.
Disturbingly, Beck and Barton noted that the worst is yet to come. Showcasing a lesson plan for grades 1-3, Barton revealed CSCOPE’s list of “heroes,” which comprises a dozen secular progressives and only three conservatives or political moderates.
According to a previous report from TheBlaze, teachers complained that they were expected to deliver the curriculum verbatim and only on days allotted by the CSCOPE lesson plan. Even if students were unable to absorb the lesson, teachers were allegedly directed to progress to the next lesson regardless. TheBlaze also reported that teachers were “asked to sign a contract that would prevent them from revealing what was in the CSCOPE lessons or face civil and criminal penalties.”
The controversial program’s website states that CSCOPE is a comprehensive online curriculum management system developed and owned by the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum Collaborative (TESCCC), a consortium composed of the 20 ESCs in the state.” It goes on to explain that the CSCOPE system provides curriculum framework for grades kindergarten through 12 across a broad range of subject areas.
The online description might raise red flags for some when it states that the CSCOPE content is regularly updated based on, among other criteria, “feedback collected through various stakeholder groups in the collaborative, including individual teacher submissions through the CSCOPE website and the School District Advisory Committee, comprised of district representatives from all participating regions of the state.”
What, or rather who, comprises CSCOPE’s collaborative and stakeholder groups? That question and a myriad others are what critics hope to get to the bottom of.
But while the groups to which CSCOPE appears relatively beholden may sound alarms for critics, the actual researchers CSCOPE credits with providing the basis for its curriculum seem to be formidable industry veterans by and large. Those educators include Robert Marzano, Fenwick English, John Crain, Heidi Hayes Jacobs, Grant Wiggins, Jay McTighe, H. Lynn Erickson, and James Barufaldi.
CSCOPE has been adopted by some 75 percent of Texas schools and the aim was to implement a national adoption of the management system. However, CSCOPE reportedly refused when Common Core Standards sought to purchase the system as the national curriculum standard. It is by far and away, one of the more hotly contested topics in the current education debate and much mystery still remains as to CSCOPE’s core tenets.
Beck noted that secular progressivism, further, the notion of communal life and collectivism, is at the system’s core. Other points of contention concerning CSCOPE curriculum include lesson-plans positing that Christopher Columbus was an “eco-warrior” and, when referring to the famed explorer’s journal, all references to God and Christendom were removed.
Students are also posed with hypothetical scenarios concerning historical figures and have allegedly been asked to take a position on population growth. Students were even subject to a lesson framed around the idea that “Christianity was a cult,” Beck noted.
CSCOPE’s director, Wade Labay has defended his curriculum and maintained that controversy has stemmed from misconceptions.” For instance, he said that framing the Boston Tea Party as an act of terrorism was merely one teacher’s way to engage students in the day’s lesson.
State Sen. Patrick, who chairs the Senate Education Committee, has led the CSCOPE hearings, bringing the controversial system to public light. He pushed CSCOPE to allow parents to view curriculum and to lift gag-orders on teachers. Patrick explained his experience bringing CSCOPE to task and revealed what he believes is in store for his state.
Hartzler, who taught math for nearly four decades, retired early because of CSCOPE. He said that he was written nearly a dozen times for not following the system’s lesson plan and maintains that CSCOPE is dumbing-down American students. He said he tried his best to follow the lesson plans, but simply could not.
Bowen, who is currently forced to use CSCOPE in her school district, feels that schools are now more like factories that send children out into the real world from an assembly-line that has not even given them the basics. She spoke to Beck despite the fact that CSCOPE had set up disciplinary consequences for doing so.
Bowen said that the lessons were mediocre at best, often “riddled with errors” and that “tests were invalid.”
“There’s tremendous coercion. It’s an incredibly oppressive environment.” She added that there have been teachers who were fired for speaking out to the school board.
Bowen also explained that teachers spend “one out of every five” days testing students, and that those tests provide data for the government’s use.
When asked what they tell parents who are inquisitive about their child’s lesson-plans, Hartzler said he violated his gag-order “right away.” He said he showed the parents why the students were struggling and where they should go from that point on.
Beck said that President Obama will look to move forward with implementing CSCOPE or such systems within a short time-frame. The panel said concerned Americans should send letters to the Attorney General and that emergency legislation should be enacted to help teachers push back.
For months and/or years, many of us have been studying the United Nations’ Agenda 21, especially the education chapters. It’s the U.N.’s plan to change everything in the 21st century.
But just now, just today, we noticed that if you try to find it on the United Nations website, it is GONE.
The U.N. has deleted all public access to even reading it on the internet. I am shocked. If you didn’t know what it was, it’s an agenda the United Nations is trying to push on every global locality that puts green-mindedness and “sustainable development” above any other educational, political, or economic goal. It marginalizes the importance of academics, to push “sustainable education” on kids. It uses collectivity as a philosphy to get people to forget about individuality or things like property and property rights. It’s totally anti-nationalism, anti-liberty, anti-Constitution. Organizations like I.C.L.E.I. and SmartGrowth and Prosperity 2020 are a part of it. But now you can’t even study it. They zapped it off the internet.
Maybe they deleted access because of Glenn Beck’s new book (fiction) that was also titled “Agenda 21”? I don’t know.
This is just unbelievable.
If you weren’t worried about Agenda 21 before, maybe this will persuade you to study it now.
Rosa Koire, author of “Behind the Green Mask” and a very smart democrat, a guest on the Glenn Beck show, talks about the education reforms that are part of Agenda 21.
Common Core’s Uniform Doesn’t Fit American Students
by Casey Given, policy analyst covering education and labor issues at the Americans For Prosperity Foundation.
“Throughout the presidential debates, Barack Obama repeated a statement that may sound strange to the average American. Speaking on education, the president twice noted that his administration has been working with 46 states to implement school reform. While he did not explicitly cite the initiative by name in either of the first two debates, Obama was referring to the Common Core State Standards – a national curriculum that 46 states and the District of Columbia have adopted over the past two years.
Though only given passing mentions, it’s a small miracle that the president has made any reference to this underreported effort at all. Both candidates and their parties have largely remained silent on Common Core until now. In fact, one recent poll by the D.C.-based nonprofit Achieve shows that 79 percent of Americans know “nothing” or “not much” about Common Core. As a result, millions of parents across the country send their children to school every day without any idea that American education as we know it is drastically changing.”
At the Provo mall theater Tuesday night, people were being turned away because every seat was purchased for the Glenn Beck “We Will Not Conform” event. The theater was overflowing with parents, teachers and grandparents wanting to know how to reclaim locally controlled education and a feeling of empowerment. I don’t know about the other 700 or so movie theaters, but at this one in Provo, people were energized. After the event, audience members had to be asked to leave because many stayed to talk long after the event. Those post-event conversations moved me more than anything I saw on the screen, even though the event itself was excellent. I’ll explain further along, down this post.
COMMON CORE 