Archive for the ‘global standards’ Tag

Ten Reasons to Flee NGSS Common Core Science Standards   7 comments

My hair catches on fire when I hear about more standards being shoved at the states by corporate-federal partners, because I believe that constitutional, local conscience, not federal or corporate intentions, should determine what a child’s standards should be.

To me, it’s a matter of huge consequence:  whether to give away my power of finding and defining truth for a child, to then be determined by a corporate-federal partnership’s board meeting, or whether to retain that power.

But this post is written for people unlike me, those who ask, “what’s wrong with common NGSS science standards; isn’t this just a modern science update?”

I want the public to realize that the NGSS standards are not the standards to which anyone should aspire, not even for those who believe that standardizing education nationally and globally is a good idea.

Here are ten reasons to flee from the Next Generation Science Standards.

 

  1.  NGSS  DODGES  MATH 

NGSS standards were rated a “C” by Fordham Institute.  Fordham suggested states that are seeking science updates should check out Massachusetts’, South Carolina’s, and Washington D.C.’s superior science standards:

“NGSS aren’t the only alternative and, in the judgment of our reviewers, they aren’t nearly as strong as the best that some states developed on their own. A state with shoddy science standards should also consider replacing them with those of another state that’s done this well.”

What was Fordham’s “C” rating of NGSS based upon?  Its review included these reasons:

  • “… Our expert team was disappointed by what they found, and didn’t find, by way of math, especially in relation to physics and chemistry…

  •           “… Far too much essential science content was either missing entirely or merely  implied.”
  • … There is virtually no mathematics, even at the high school level, where it is essential to the learning of physics and chemistry.  Rather, the standards seem to assiduously dodge the mathematical demands inherent in the subjects covered.”

    And then, this surprise:

  • “… Where NGSS expectations require math in order to fully understand the science content, that math goes well beyond what students would have learned in classrooms aligned to the Common Core.

 

2.  NGSS IS COMMON CORE FOR SCIENCE — FROM THE SAME FUNDERS AND DEVELOPERS

The Next Generation Science Standards and Common Core were each birthed and funded by Achieve, Inc., with the Gates Foundation.  It’s no secret: NGSS boasts of being aligned with Common Core.  See Appendix A #7: “The NGSS and Common Core State Standards (English Language Arts and Mathematics) are aligned.”

Achieve, which directed the Common Core of English and math, is the developer and partner of NGSS science standards “on behalf of the lead states and other partners”.  NGSS explains:  “Achieve is leading the effort…  Achieve coordinated the second phase of the NGSS development process”.

 

 

3.  NGSS SCRAMBLES “INTEGRATES” SCIENCE  

A Common Core-shared attribute of NGSS science is the integrating of science subjects.

This means dissolving distinct classes in biology, chemistry, physics, etc., as we know them today, to be replaced by conceptually-based (not math based) integrated science.  At every grade level, children will be taught a watery version of these integrated subjects.  This dilutes the expertise of teachers, too, who must change from teaching the richness of biology or chemistry or physics, to teaching a simplified, mostly mathless, conceptual mix of all the science subjects integrated at all grade levels.

 

4. NGSS THREATENS INQUIRY FOR STUDENTS

NGSS standards for sixth graders include this: “design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment”.

The assumption that minimizing human impact on the environment is always the right thing to do is unscientific.  Think of all the remarkable human decisions that have blessed the earth’s environment.  The assumption that humans should be monitored is, likewise, politically and academically narrow-minded.

How can students learn the scientific method, creating hypotheses and then proving or disproving theories with evidence, reason and intellectual debate– when NGSS holds assumptions and many scientific theories as already settled science?  NGSS sets into concrete certain things that the scientific community has not settled.  Is global warming a theory or a fact?  Is Darwinian evolution one of many theories, or is it a fact?  Is the idea that humans are to be blamed for the globe’s problems  a settled science, or a fact?  Is the theory of intelligent design (God) a scientifically mentionable, debatable question, or a settled fact?

Even though I side with intelligent design (a literal, actual God) I would not force this belief or its opposite into the science curriculum as the only allowable conversation.  Scientific, political and religious freedoms demand open minded discussion and debate.

But NGSS frowns upon this.

Some who believe that NGSS is just “updating” school science say that any opposition to NGSS comes from closed-minded creation believers who want to push their religions into schools.  But both Darwinian evolutionists and in Bible-based creationists should hope for freedom of thought and of scientific inquiry and debate.  Otherwise, there’s no freedom nor true science at all– just dogma.

 

5. BELIEVE IT OR NOT, NGSS ACTUALLY OPPOSES OBJECTIVITY 

In Kansas, Citizens for Objective Public Education (COPE) sued the state for adopting NGSS because of a lack of objectivity. The lawsuite wasn’t based on the idea that NGSS dismisses intelligent design (creation) –although it does– but instead, based on the idea that the NGSS promotes a religion of its own that crushes objective thought about the design and/ or evolution of the earth.  So, NGSS stands accused by COPE of being its own religion (evangelizing the sustainability movement at the expense of scientific discussion)– while NGSS accuses opponents of the same thing.

Science standards should not be about Darwin vs. God.  They should promote open inquiry for truth.  As board member Wendy Hart of Alpine School District in Utah wrote:

I know many believe the opposition to NGSS is purely religious.  For me, it is purely scientific.  Our ACT science scores are better than the NGSS states… The math associated with physics and chemistry is currently taught and applied…. I don’t think science standards should compel or repel belief one way or another.  It is not our role as public educational entities to dictate belief systems for the students in our purview.  True scientific inquiry does no such thing.”    More here:    http://wendy4asd.blogspot.com/2015/05/state-standards-burden-of-proof-rests.html.

6.  NGSS PUTS A CEILING ON SCIENCE:  “ASSESSMENT BOUNDARIES”

Fordham Institute noted that “… Inclusion of assessment boundaries… place an unintended but undesirable ceiling on the curriculum that students would learn at each grade level.”  Why would science standards control or limit assessment boundaries?  I can only guess that the standardization of tests is more important to NGSS than the power of a student to learn science.

7. NGSS OFFERS NO LEGITIMATE UPDATES

The dull, gray flavor and language and goals of the promotion of NGSS is the same as for common core.  For example, “The NGSS are designed to prepare students for college, career and citizenship” and “Science concepts in NGSS build coherently from K-12“.

I think: if NGSS came up with the idea of preparing kids for college, what were classic science standards doing, then?  How did our standards manage to churn out Nobel Laureate scientists and amazing U.S. astronauts, doctors and engineers?  Were previous science standards an incoherent mess of scrambled eggs? Are we helpless without top-down education dictators?  The truth is that this is not an update to science, but a skewing of it, to become a political tool to influence young people.

 

8.   NGSS  DELETES LEARNING  

Fordham noted, as others have, that “Far too much essential science content was either missing entirely or merely implied”.  NGSS literally deletes some scientific subjects, and grossly minimizes others.  This is probably the most egregious, and most grimly ironic, of NGSS’s academic crimes.

What does that deletion of science look like, close up? 

A sixth grade science teacher from Morgan County, Utah, Dana Wilde, wrote:

My biggest concern with the NGSS is that key science concepts are missing… Why is matter and energy repeated throughout 6th-8th grade as almost an overkill of that subject, whereas other key science concepts are completely removed from the new standards? This is very concerning to me as a 6th grade science teacher… Virtually all the science concepts we have been teaching in 6th grade are not part of the new standards, with the exception of heat energy. The new standards are very environmentally heavy and move [away] from talking about microbes, heat, light, sound energy, space and astronomy to mostly global warming and human impact on the environment…  The new proposed standards are not exciting topics for 11 and 12-year-olds, nor are students mature enough at this age to sift through all the information and misinformation that is out there about global warming (one of the performance tasks required in the new drafts). It’s not that I don’t think students should learn about these topics, it’s that I don’t believe it should be in the 6th grade curriculum… I believe the Next Generation Science Standards were not written by anyone who has spent the last 20 years in a room full of 6th graders.”

Another 5th and 6th grade science teacher from Southern Utah, who asked to remain anonymous, wrote this letter to Utah’s superintendent:

“I am doing this anonymously because of the tensions… I don’t have faith that those of us that have a different opinion will be allowed to voice our opinions without repercussions…. I love helping young people discover their potential, but these standards are stifling my ability to do just that. I will never sabotage my students’ learning for a political agenda…”

The teacher’s letter listed three examples of political sabotage in the new science standards:

“6.2.4 Ask questions to clarify evidence of the factors that have caused the rise in global temperatures over the past century, 6.4.1: Apply scientific principles to design a method for monitoring and minimizing a human impact on the environment,  and 6.4.3: Construct an argument supported by evidence for how increases in human population and per-capita consumption of natural resources impact Earth’s systems.  These are very odd requirements to put in a 6th grade science standards. These belong in a college level environmental debate class, not in a 6th grade classroom.  I have seen the other NGSS standards for the lower grades, and they do not allow a teacher to delve deep into each concept. They require a very shallow teaching of the standards. I understand that the theory behind this is that each year will build on the previous year. That is not how younger minds work. Students need an understanding that they can take with them.”

A science and math teacher who has been compelled to teach Common Core math and NGSS science standards at Mar Vista Heights High School, at Imperial Beach, California, wrote:

“At the high school level, NGSS standards require integrated science, just like common core requires integrated math. My school tried integrated math in the 1990’s and abandoned it as a bad idea. Now, I am teaching integrated math III.

“However, science is different than math. Most math teachers have enough background in algebra, geometry and statistics to teach any level of integrated math. It is the rare science teacher who has expertise in all science domains: earth science, biology, chemistry and physics.

“NGSS writers posited that chemistry and physics principles like Newton’s laws, the gas laws, and atomic structure would be so thoroughly apprehended by 8th grade, that it would not be necessary to teach them in high school. In high school, student are to create reports and videos that explain the energy transformations behind global warming and how Darwin’s laws of evolution correctly explain the development of life.There are almost no high school chemistry or physics standards in NGSS.

“I personally believe that the existence of global warming caused by human activity (burning fossil fuels) is settled science. I also think Darwin was a gifted scientific observer, whose theory of evolution is well-founded. On the other hand, why overweight the standards with these two controversial topics? I am not saying ignore them, but they are central to these new science standards and they do not need to be.

NGSS was never pilot tested and was rushed into existence before people had a chance to vet it. Therefore, NGSS is full of errors and horribly misaligned.NGSS is another of those dreams held by a rich powerful man that has been ramrodded into existence. Luis Gerstner, the former CEO of IBM, started campaigning for these standards in 1995. In 1996, he talked the National Governors Association into making him chairman of a new non-profit named Achieve Incorporated. Achieve was charged with making his standards dream a reality…  Like Gates’s Common Core, Gerstner’s NGSS is terrible education policy that came about because America’s democratic process and the principal of local control of education were sundered.”

Julie King, A PTA mom who serves on the Community Council in Utah’s Alpine School District, wrote:

“…There are holes in the NGSS.  There is a lack of computer science as well as chemistry, and the lack of any human anatomy is what raises a red flag for me.  Why would we completely eliminate human anatomy?

“… There is obvious bias in the standards…. Part of true science is being willing to question things and doubt.  We need to look at what our focus is.  When there are over 50 mentions of climate change and only one reference to electric circuits, we are overemphasizing one idea and excluding others.  Am I ok with my kids learning about climate change?  Absolutely!  But I am not OK with my kindergartener being asked to solve global warming.  The following is a kindergarten standard: Communicate solutions that will reduce the impact of humans on the land, water, air, and/or other living things in the local environment.

“…Do you know what kindergarten science should be?  The five senses, weather, and the life cycle of a butterfly and ladybug.  Maybe planting seeds and learning about how plants grow… With less than 3 hours a day, kindergarten should largely be about reading and learning to follow rules… not about rationing paper so that less trees are cut down.”

9. DISHONESTY:  ALSO, WHAT NGSS SHOULD REALLY ADMIT

Visit NGSS’s hogwashy, vague and frankly boring website.  Even just for a minute.  Doesn’t it sound scienc-y and savvy?  How can a math-slaying, science-erasing set of science standards look so slick?

Now visit a state office of education’s website for evidence that NGSS is being used.  It’s hard to find.  States know that the public is against common standards as a movement.  In my state, the officials pretend we’ve no intentions of using NGSS.  But it’s not really so.

In fact, for some grade levels, Utah’s been secretively using NGSS for years.

Here is what I wish NGSS and Utah’s State Superintendent would flat-out admit –and publish:

The NGSS are designed to standardize U.S. students’ science learning and testing, for the convenience of unelected bureaucrats and for the financial gain of NGSS partners, also meeting the social and political goals of NGSS funders and UNESCO. 

NGSS will curtail scientific debate in schools and will dismiss academic freedom of teachers, to promote the controversial, U.N.-based initiative of sustainable development, which seeks to bring about forced, global redistribution of resources by stirring up earned and unearned guilt in human beings. 

NGSS is promoted under the banner of  “updating science” but NGSS will mimimize the teaching of science subjects:  electricity, astronomy, anatomy, chemistry, math, etc., in favor of finding enough room to focus on sustainable development programming. 

To silence its critics, NGSS will call critics unfashionable, or religious, or stupid.

If you haven’t already, please watch the video that documents the promises Utah’s superintendents made to citizens that we’d never adopt common science standards.

10.  NGSS REMOVES LOCAL CONTROL

Like the math and English Common Core standards, the NGSS science standards are  locked up by the people who made them and are double bolted by the tests and curriculum to which they are aligned.  A local, nobel prize-winning scientist or a state superintendent or a dad will have absolutely no say in what students will learn as truth when we’re all shackled to NGSS.

NGSS-based tests may label your child or your school as incompetent if he or she has freedom of thought that goes beyond NGSS “scientific” assumptions and standards.

For certain, NGSS is no friend of local control.

Maybe because of the standardization of education data standards, maybe because of the standardization of federal, unconstitutional mandates and the conditional money they come with, maybe because of the standardization of federally approved school testing, now maybe our state office of education believes that saying “no” to common science standards is too much like swimming upstream.

Maybe we don’t believe we have power anymore.  Maybe we believe other people are better off deciding for us what’s best for us. But if so, we are wrong.

The U.S. Constitution is still the supreme law of this land.  That means people, not bureaucrats, are to  have the power over their own lives –and it means that education is to be a local, not a federal, authority.

Stand up and make your voice heard.

Just because the corporate greed and political goals of Microsoft and Pearson and the United Nations match the standardization movements of the NGSS (and of CCSS and CSE and common library standards and common art standards) it does not mean that we don’t  have the power to say no to these partnerships whose gaze is on our tax dollars.

If you’ve been following this blog, you know of the extreme dishonesty that’s been going on at the state office of education concerning science standards.  Why the state office chooses to hide its headlong dive into using the common NGSS science standards is a mystery.  Why the teachers and parents don’t rise up in absolute rebellion against NGSS is another.

We can say no.  If we don’t, we might be as unthinking as NGSS wants us to believe that all its opposers are.

What’s the U.N.’s “Global Education First Initiative” and “Academic Impact”–and what do they have to do with Common Core?   8 comments

This post is long. But I cannot “byte” these pieces apart for easier consumption. They have to be seen as a whole.

Thanks for reading –and sharing. Unpaid parents and teachers like me (and there are many of us) —have to report, because the so-called “real” reporters are failing to give us real reports with actual evidence and fact-checkable links about what is going on in education.

Today I’m reporting that the Common Core developers (in corporate and governmental partnerships) and the United Nations’ global education developers (also in corporate and governmental partnerships) are working hand in hand to deliberately take away classical education. Yep. They call it “whole system revolution.”

Actual classic literature and classic math takes up too much time that the globalists desire to use to teach environmental “education.” (Why? It sounds so nutty.)

The reason is both sneaky and evil. The one-world-government believers (U.N., Sir Michael Barber, Bill Gates, and others) want big power and big money, and that comes when they get rid of pesky things like loyalty to a country, local control and local rights, –all easily done when they circumvent the voice of the people by creating public-private partnerships. –Which is exactly how Common Core’s developers have done what they’ve done. (Links and specifics on that, below)

This puts our most basic rights and liberties at risk. If we have no actual representation, no actual say in how education is run, what is to be taught, or whether our children will have to attend these nonrepresentative systems, what do we have?

Let me bring you to some sites to show what I mean.

Did you know that there was a global monitoring report on education put out by the International Bureau of Education at the U.N.?

Did you know that last year, the U.N. launched a “Global Education First Initiative”?

What is the “GLOBAL EDUCATION FIRST INITIATIVE“?

global education first initiative

The Global Education First Initiative is the United Nations’ Secretary General’s new program, launched last year. (See http://www.globaleducationfirst.org/ )

It states that it plans to:

1. Put every child in school.
2. Improve the quality of learning.
3. Foster global citizenship.

This might sound nice to some. But think about it.

1. “Put every child in school”? Will this pit the government against some parents? (What if the student’s physical or other circumstances mean he or she should not be in school? What if the U.N.’s definition of school differs from yours or mine? What if the school is a danger to the student?) The word “every” can be tyrannical as easily as it can be compassionate.
2. “Improve the quality of learning” ? Whose definition is meant by “quality” of learning? Newsflash: the UN’s “global” and “sustainable” definition of education is not about classical education, nor is it about teaching time-tested truths.

It’s full of politics in “environmental stewardship” lessons, an environmental focus used as a facade to teach that individual freedoms and individual property rights should be destroyed for the global, collective, environmental “good”. (But again, whose definition of “good”? See globalist/Common Core Implementation Guru, Sir Michael Barber’s international speech where he explains that “ethical underpinnings” of global education are nothing other than an intensely environment-bent focus.) So when they say “quality of learning” they are not talking, for example, about helping more students learn calculus in high school, as you might assume. –In fact, the globalist NCEE has called Algebra II “too much” math for high schools.

They are talking about teaching students to be prepared to sacrifice country loyalty, religious loyalty, and God-given rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of property– anything for the global green collective. The U.N.’s education arm, UNESCO, has endless documents which preach the same doctrine: environmentalism IS the new global education.

This leads us to #3.

3. “Foster Global Citizenship”? As opposed to what— local citizenship, national citizenship? Yep. What global citizenship really means is global law and global punishment. They talk about the obliteration of local and individual liberty. They make the United Nations a governmental god.

Don’t believe this?

Check out Article 29 of the U.N.’s Declaration of Human Rights which states that “rights and freedoms may IN NO CASE be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.”

http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/index.shtml#a29

Please read that out loud.

RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS MAY IN NO CASE BE EXERCISED contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.”

My question is: What purposes or principles could possibly deserve more weight than human rights and freedoms?

I’ll answer the question for myself: one purpose and principle of the U.N. that the U.N. feels deserves more weight than human rights is “sustainable growth“.

But free agency is more important than the U.N.’s “sustainability” principle. Freedom is a God-given natural right that every person can claim and no person nor government has a right to steal, no matter how pretty their reasoning.

My rights should only end when I aim to destroy the freedoms of others; that’s why we have laws– to protect individual freedoms and rights. Article 29 of the U.N.’s Declaration of Human Rights is perversion.


Because the U.N. believes that it should destroy individual rights when they conflict with the U.N.’s designs, it flat out believes in tyranny. It believes that it knows better than anyone and that it has more authority than anyone.

One of my religious leaders, Elder James Faust, spoke about the United Nations’ “sustainability” phraseology, in a 1994 speech at Brigham Young University entitled, “Trying to Serve the Lord Without Offending the Devil.”

faust

Elder James Faust said:

“Much controversy surrounded a recently concluded United Nations International Conference on Population and Development held in Cairo, Egypt. No doubt the conference accomplished much that was worthwhile. But at the very center of the debate was the socially acceptable phrase “sustainable growth.”

This concept is becoming increasingly popular. How cleverly Satan masked his evil designs with that phrase.

Few voices in the developed nations cry out in the wilderness against this coined phrase “sustainable growth.” In Forbes magazine of September this year, a thoughtful editorial asserts that people are an asset, not a liability. It forthrightly declares as preposterous the broadly accepted premise that curbing population growth is essential for economic development. The editorial then states convincingly that “free people don’t ‘exhaust resources.’ They create them” (Forbes, 12 September 1994, p. 25).

Those who argue for sustainable growth lack vision and faith. The Lord said, “For the earth is full, and there is enough and to spare” (D&C 104:17).

That settles the issue for me. It should settle the issue for all of us. The Lord has spoken.”

Elder Faust, a man I recognize as an apostle of Christ, just said that the phrase “sustainable growth” is being used as a tool of Satan to try to curb population growth in the name of economic prosperity, and that those who argue for “sustainable growth” (U.N.) are lacking “vision and faith”.

I say Amen.

Just as I don’t believe in the assumptions of “sustainable growth” nor of the “Global Education First Initiative,” I do not believe in the U.N.’s “Academic Impact” program.

—————

WHAT IS “ACADEMIC IMPACT“?

academic impact UN

The United Nations is not content simply to push their version of education on children. They also mean to push it on university students via the initiative called “Academic Impact.”

What is the “Academic Impact”?

The stated purpose is to bring together “universities committed to the goals and values of the United Nations.”

academic impact we believe

Why should we oppose this?

The United Nations has a stated opposition to individual liberty if it conflicts with U.N. dogma. The United Nations places itself above countries’ and individuals’ freedom.

Why would ANY university or college join the “Academic Impact” movement? Doing so means that the institution agrees with the U.N.’s Declarations, which –I am repeating this because it’s so important– openly states:

Article 29- “rights and freedoms may in no case be exercised contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations.”

Please tell your local colleges and universities and schools to RUN from the United Nations’ “purposes and principles”. Don’t JOIN with them, for heaven’s sake.

Now, what does all of this have to do with Common Core?

Everything!

You won’t see it in the text of the standards but you will find it in the network of individuals and corporations and governments that worked in harmony to develop, fund, market, implement and entrench Common Core’s power grab everywhere.

The Common Core is the globalists’ approved method for making sure students in the U.S. can be tracked and compared, and also that they will not be able to be exceptional, very easily. Everyone must be the same.

See this: http://asiasociety.org/education/learning-world/global-roots-common-core-state-standards for more evidence of the globalists fawning over the United States’ acceptance of Common Core to reach their global goals.

For evidence of this globalist-approval of Common Core, study globalist (and Pearson CEA) Sir Michael Barber who has been praising and pushing and profiting from Common Core and its alignment with globalist goals, all along.

Worldwide, Pearson’s CEA is pushing the idea of partnering governments and corporations (which circumvents voters).

Public-private partnerships (such as Pearson and Microsoft’s partnership with the U.S. Department of Education, via the U.S. Council of Chief State School Officers acting as middleman, is a case like that old song:

elbow two

“The hipbone’s connected to the thighbone, the thighbone’s connected to the kneebone, the kneebone’s connected to the shinbone…”

These groups that promote Common Core, whether globally or locally, are all partnered and connected with MONEY and not by any vote by the people’s voice:

Pearson is officially partnered with Microsoft. Microsoft’s officially partnered with UNESCO. (UNESCO is the education arm of the U.N.)

The owner of Microsoft and partner of Pearson, Bill Gates, is partnered with, or the creator of, Common Core, having given millions to Common Core’s developers, CCSSO and NGA, and to its paid promoters, the National PTA and Harvard and Fordham Institute and Jeb Bush and many, many others.

elbow

“The hipbone’s connected to the thighbone, the thighbone’s connected to the kneebone, the kneebone’s connected to the shinbone…”

Pearson AND Microsoft are corporate partners of the Council of Chief State School Officers. And the Council of Chief State School Officers is officially partnered with the National Governors’ Association and have developed and copyrighted the Common Core together.

The U.S. Department of Education and the Council of Chief State School Officers are officially partnered to collect national Common Core data.

The U.S. Department of Education is financially partnered with SBAC and PARCC test creation and data collection.

No potty breaks. We’re not done.

ankle two

“The hipbone’s connected to the thighbone, the thighbone’s connected to the kneebone, the kneebone’s connected to the shinbone…”

Pearson’s CEA, Sir Barber, is on the Board of Directors of U.S. Education Delivery Institute. He also has made Pearson the lead implementer of Common Core nationwide. And Pearson’s CEA is a directing force behind Common Core test creation at PARCC. Pearson’s Sir Barber wrote the book “Deliverology” for American educators to help them implement Common Core (like good little globalists.)

Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Pearson’s CEA Sir Michael Barber are as mutually fawning as can be. Secretary Duncan quotes Barber and praises his “Deliverology” methods (which are controversial in their ruthless aim to “deliver” without regard for people). See Secretary Duncan’s Vision of Education speech to UNESCO.

And Barber is equally cozy with Duncan. He retweets Duncan’s tweets on Twitter all the time. Think about that. Our U.S. Secretary of Education is holding hands with the head of the largest educational sales company on earth.

“The hipbone’s connected to the thighbone, the thighbone’s connected to the kneebone, the kneebone’s connected to the shinbone…”

And the CEA of the world’s largest educational sales company, (who is cozy with the U.S. Secretary of Education, who, like Duncan, loves and praises Common Core) happens to believe that education reform is a “global phenomenon,” and reform is no longer to be managed by individuals or sovereign countries; education reform has “no more frontiers, no more barriers.”

Pearson’s Sir Barber shows a chart during this summit speech, displayed at 12:06 minutes, which he calls his goal of ”whole system revolution,” pinpointed as the sum of the following addends: systemic innovation + sameness of standards + structure + human capital.

–Whole system revolution? Human capital? What awful word choices, even for a global-control-freak.

Sir Michael Barber admits that he’s after your privacy, too: “We want data about how people are doing. We want every child on the agenda.” (6:05)

Who will control or protect global student data? And what if my desire to maintain my rights to privacy, conflicts with the U.N.’s article 29 “purposes and principles?”

What then?

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