Yesterday, President Trump signed an executive order to reclaim local control of education, and then handed his pen to a school teacher who was watching the event. Watch her at minute 10:00. She is tearful. This executive order meant something to her. Teachers are weary of being micromanaged, standards-whipped, undermined and data-mined. They want peace.
But it isn’t the federal government alone that has stunted teachers’ and students’ freedoms, and this executive order alone does not have the power to fix what’s broken in American education. What local control advocates are fighting is the mighty, wealthy partnership of government to corporate ed-tech. It’s the marriage of enforceable power to greed.
Possibly, an executive order might get the feds out of teacher’s laps, but guess what? Business interests will still be sitting there. Most of them think that there’s nothing wrong with businesses influencing policy– but there is. We can’t un-elect a corporation. We can’t attend their private meetings. We can’t vote for what will be put into the educational computer programs that our children are to be fed. We can’t get rid of the influence of businesses if we do not like what they’re doing; that’s why the business industry must be kept out of public education. The voice of the voter and of the mom and dad and teacher and student must never be quashed under the brute strength that industry plus government can become.
The federal government is neither the main nor the sole entity undermining local control –nor is this a left/right argument. On both the left and the right, at both federal and state levels, watch the monied partnerships combining. The huge combinations are what we’re fighting, and their huge influence are why we’re losing.
All of these combinations rely on common data standards. They must have standardization –or out of their hands slips the golden goose.
What most people don’t know, and what DeVos won’t say, is that the Common Core movement was never just a set of academic standards; it was a set of data standards from day one.
Global data-standardization of all things in education, from tests to curriculum to teacher evaluations to student pathway setting to school grading, is much more controlling than a little old set of math and English standards could ever be!
That private group was called the CCSSO. The very same CCSSO partnered with the National Governors’ Association to create the Common Core academic standards.
Both CEDS and CCSS form the heart of the Common Core movement. Neither are gone.
Those data standards and education standards are embedded into the vast ed-tech reform market and school systems. Few people outside the tech elite know this. So we fall for the rebranding efforts of lobbyists, legislatures, and even the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, over and over again.
States rename their academic standards (as Utah did with Utah Core Standards) but the truth is that we still use the common core academic tests and common data standards. These are not locally controlled.
Because the federal government is only a co-creator of the monster known as the Common Educational Data Standards (CEDS), I don’t see how reducing federal overreach into local academic decision making will help us all that much; the other co-creator, CCSSO/NGA, promoting a centrally planned standardization movement itself –which feeds on investors and has trillions to play with— will thrive on.
(For those who think centrally planned standardization of education data is faulty conspiracy theory, I repeat: check the CCSSO’s official statement: “Common Education Data Standards Initiative is a joint effort by CCSSO and the State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO) in partnership with the United States Department of Education.”)
This is something that Trump’s executive order does not mention. Neither does DeVos.
I can’t trust DeVos to obey the spirit of this executive order. Sweet as she may come across, DeVos embodies the problem that arises when half-truths become acceptable to society. Listen to the Michigan Moms against Common Core. They have history, losing Devos when she fought against parental empowerment and against the repeal of Common Core in Michigan. DeVos’ interests were better served by Common Core’s continuation.
Ask anyone who works in education, or in the education publishing or tech industries, if Common Core is gone. They live it every day.
How can DeVos say that?
DeVos leans on the latest version of No Child Left Behind/ESEA, called ESSA, as evidence that Common Core is gone, saying that states are in the driver’s seat. She’s wrong.
ESSA does not use the term “common core” as a requirement, sure; but it requires states to demonstrate to the feds that they’ve adopted standards aligned to the same definition that the feds have promoted (common core).
Under ESSA, the feds can withhold funding and can veto states’ educational decision making agendas! (“You can have any color as long as it’s black.”)
ESSA pushes everything Obama wanted: the tsunami of nonconsensual data mining requirements; federally set moral/social values in schools (social emotional learning, or SEL); federally defined preschools and social services; and “college and career ready standards” which is code for Common Core.
For more on how ESSA/ESEA does not end Common Core nor create local control, read more: here and here and here.
Short on time? Skip straight to this quote from Obama’s Secretary Duncan, who gloated when Congress passed ESSA: “I’m stunned at how much better it ended up than either [House or Senate] bill going into conference. I had a Democratic congressman say to me that it’s a miracle — he’s literally never seen anything like it… if you look at the substance of what is there . . . embedded in [ESSA] are the values that we’ve promoted and proposed forever. The core of our agenda from Day One, that’s all in there – early childhood, high standards…”
If ESSA was such a win for local control, why was Duncan calling it a miracle for his agenda? More to the point, can anyone honestly say that DeVos’ push for ESSA isn’t promoting the Obama agenda?
Trump’s executive order aims to be a local control enforcement mechanism, but because it relies on ESSA, it can never really achieve its stated purpose, “to ensure strict compliance with statutes that prohibit Federal interference with State and local control over education“.
The order aims “to protect and preserve State and local control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, and personnel of educational institutions, schools, and school systems” which is wonderful, but the next few phrases are where I get stuck. They add: “…consistent with applicable law, including ESEA, as amended by ESSA, and ESEA’s restrictions related to the Common Core State Standards developed under the Common Core State Standards Initiative.”
This seems self-contradicting.
I will admit that I have been doing some laughing this week. I laughed hardest (probably inappropriately) when I saw DeVos say on Fox News, while standing stylishly in front of the White House, that there’s no such thing as Common Core anymore.
Realize that Secretary DeVos has been directed to examine the overreaching actions of her department, while she’s in complete denial that Common Core is a problem and in denial about any partnership between her own department and the creators of Common Core/Common Data Standards, even existing. She’s also promoting the same agenda that GSV and Obama promoted (see below).
Isn’t this like asking the arsonist to serve as fire chief?
A few weeks ago I wrote that this year’s host for the mega education tech conference was Salt Lake City, and that the conference’s co-sponsors, Global Silicon Valley and Arizona State University, had posted a white paper describing their vision and agenda. I was pretty mad that they were taking $2,795 per person to attend this ed tech conference. I was even madder that their real agenda, found in their white paper, was full of pro-Common Core and anti-local control plotting.
But now I’m madder.
The 300-plus page, foundational white paper has been deleted from the internet.
If you go to the GSV website, or to the conference website, or to my own blog’s links to that document, vamoosh! Gone.
This, just a few days before the conference is to begin? Why doesn’t GSV want its agenda widely known anymore? Why not?
I thought I’d post a screen shot of that document’s key page: page 302.
This “Strategic Battle Plan” of Global Silicon Valley and Arizona State University (and Bill Gates and everyone, pawns or knaves, on the ed-tech bandwagon) began with Common Core.
It continued with universal preschool vouchers and No Child Left Behind 2.0 (which is ESSA.) It goes on to school choice, knowledge as currency, tax credits for employee training, and the elimination of locally elected school boards.
The elimination of locally elected school boards.
This is not something that we should take lightly.
Republicans are just as guilty as Democrats in actively destroying local control by worshiping ed tech. Pay attention to this battle plan.
UPDATE 4-28-17: A friend found an online copy of that deleted document. Here is the link to the full document: http://www.educationindustry.org/assets/documents/KnowledgeCenterDocs/2012%20american_revolution%202.0%20gsv%20advisors.pdf
ON SCHOOL CHOICE:
One of the steps on that page 302 agenda (above) is school choice.
I know that many good people have been taken in by the “school choice” idea, so I want to address that briefly.
School choice is no long-term choice! The words sound good, and of course in a free country we need choices– but what do these words mean to ed reformers, and in context of government dollars?
Tax dollars will flow from government coffers to private schools, instead of parents’ dollars flowing to private schools. With government money comes government accountability; in 2017, accountability is spelled D-A-T-A. If you value student data privacy, if you value a private school being allowed to set its own academic, religious, social and moral values, then don’t be sucked in to the school choice movement. In the long run, this movement is taking away what autonomy means, or meant, to a school.
Lastly. And yes, this is related.
Do you know that there is a federal Commission on Evidence-based Policy (CEP) that exists to argue about how and where to house citizens’ personally identifiable data centrally? No one’s suing. They should be.
Data that has been nonconsensually gathered by federally designed school systems called “State Longitudinal Database Systems” (SLDS) plus data that has been gathered by a multitude of other state and federal agencies and organizations is now to be housed either in one federal repository or in a few consortia of repositories, if the CEP gets its way.
The arguments of the CEP members remind me of that line in The Princess Bride: “You’re trying to kidnap what I’ve rightfully stolen!”
Laughter is not always my response to the crazy, crazy stuff that is going on in education reform. But for today, it is.
I’m still an optimist.
Angels greatly outnumber devils. I see greatness in individuals who are doing their best, still thinking outside the box as much as they are able– teachers, principals, parents, grandparents, and yes, even legislators. I see individuals doing what they can, wherever they stand and they are making a difference. The incredible liveliness and buoyant spirit in children is not going to be permanently crushed, not even by the robotic idiocy of tech worship that is plaguing education systems today.
I absolutely believe that the oppression of standardization is less than a fleck of dust in God’s huge wind.
My husband often says, “Truth is truth, whether people believe it or not.”
Here’s the truth that even the Common Core’s lead architect, David Coleman, and its main funder, Bill Gates openly admitted in the videos below:
The Common Core was never state led. If it had been, it would have been constitutionally legitimate. It would have represented voters’ informed consent and desires. It would have a built-in a states’ amending process. It would have represented and standardized something vetted, not this untested theory, this not parentally authorized, not teacher-authorized, not voter-authorized, experiment on, and tracking of, children.
The Common Core is greed-led. It was not an educator but a businessman, David Coleman, who wrote his ideas on a napkin, and brought them to the second richest man on earth, Bill Gates. Gates saw the potential: using standardized data systems, educational standards and tests (and tax dollars) they’d forge what he called, in the video below, a “uniform base of customers” nationally. While Coleman pitched the idea to a partial club of governors and a partial club of state superintendents ( who bought it, and claimed it, and copyrighted it after hiring Coleman’s company, Achieve Inc., to produce it). Gates paid anyone who would take his millions, to promote it.
To this day, the private trade groups NGA and CCSSO claim that they are the “state” originators of the Common Core. That defies common sense and the structure of U.S. government. We have legislatures to represent voters; NGA and CCSSO are not legislative bodies.
I believe in capitalism and I cheer for entrepreneurs who make money legitimately; but Common Core is not legitimate business. It took over political processes. It represents the takeover of voters’ rights. It is collusion: between businessmen who have no authority to determine educational processes, and the federal government. Think that’s just some wacky theory?
Look at this link from the CCSSO’s website. It’s clear evidence of the collusion which went behind constitutional rights of states and which destroyed checks and balances, by setting education policy centrally. Only the feds, married to these nonlegislative and private organizations, call the shots here:
The Common Education Data Standards Initiative is a joint effort by CCSSO and the State Higher Education Executive Officers (SHEEO) in partnership with the United States Department of Education.
So the same superintendents’ club (CCSSO) that partnered with the partial governors’ club (NGA) to copyright a Common Core for math and English, also partnered with the feds to standardize a common data mining program with CEDS standards, nationally.
Video One: Bill Gates
Bill Gates telling legislators to “unleash” the forces of a “uniform customer base” by using Common Core
Video Two: David Coleman
Businessman David Coleman explaining that he personally persuaded governors to sign on to Common Core, a business idea he plotted on a napkin
Despite the fact that the #StopFedEd / Stop Common Core movement has become politically huge, and that many people know the truth about Common Core, many people still believe that it’s a harmless initiative, and that the Common Core was “state-led”.
Who could blame them for believing so? The promoted “talking points” said so. These were marketed by power-wielders: Bill Gates, the U.S. Dept. of Education, the paid-off National P.T.A., and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce –and were passed along by state boards of education and local boards of education to teachers and parents who trusted those lines. Few fact-checked. The lie got passed along and believed.
Common Core is not primarily an academic argument; it’s a takeover of local authority.
A good friend recently asked, “What’s so bad about the federal government controlling local education?”
If you know socialist/communist countries’ educational malpractices and propaganda machines; their lack of creativity, lack of joy, condemnation of faith, and lack of truth, you will not ask this question.
If you know that there is zero constitutional authority for the federal government to make decisions about education for American schools, you will not ask this question.
But if you don’t know or believe that, just think about your own desires for your children and grandchildren.
If you desire to have an ongoing voice of authority in your child’s education, his/her testing, and his/her data privacy, you cannot support federal education nor Common Core.
The Common Core allows nobody but its copyrighters to amend it. Its tests are held secret, even after the tests are over. The SLDS databases collect data on your child according to federal designs, and it is only a matter of time before this aggregated data will be legalized in disaggregated form. These are questions of personal power and personal conscience. Over time, it is ultimately a question of religious liberty, because the freedoms of conscience and of action are freedom of religion.
Who has God-given authority over what goes into your child’s open mind? Business sectors and federal government? –Or parents, with the consented-to assistance of teachers and perhaps a local school board?
If programs (such as Common Core and Common Educational Data Standards) do not allow for user amendability, for personal conscience to input change, then they are on day one, already corrupt. They are, or will be, tyrannical.
Remember the founders’ words: “consent by the governed“.
This is why the chairman of the National Governors’ Association (NGA), Utah Governor Gary Herbert, failed to secure the nomination in last week’s state GOP convention. This is why that same governor was so loudly booed at the Utah County GOP convention by most of the 1,500 delegates in the audience, every time he said that Utah had control of education standards locally. They knew the truth.
The governor/NGA chair either didn’t know it, or didn’t believe it.
Suggestion: Don’t call Common Core “state-led” anymore, because millions of Americans realize that –even though well-meaning people were duped and then promoted it in good faith– Common Core has always been a solely greed-led collusion between the business sector and the federal government.
WHAT COMMON CORE REALLY DOES TO EDUCATION
Let me share my recent experience with you.
While I teach 10th grade English, part time, at a non-common core, classical, traditional, private school called Freedom Project Academy (FPA) I also tutor, for free, neighbors and friends.
The comparison between my private, not-common core school, and the local public school, in English Language Arts, is stunning.
Background: FPA is an online school that recognizes no governmentally-set educational standards. It recognizes time-tested books as standards: the Bible, the classic works of literature, and the classic works of math, etc. It does not promote “informational text” articles, as Common Core does. FPA tenth graders read the following works of literature cover to cover, and wrote about them this year: The Old Man and the Sea; Romeo and Juliet; Murder on the Orient Express; The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn; The Scarlet Letter. Fantastic!
Meanwhile, local public school teenagers who have come for help with their essays let me know that they were assigned “mostly articles” and very few books. Their essay assignments were based on articles about “gender-based toys” and “green cars of the future” –clearly, these young people were being fed the progressive agenda under the banner of “English Language Arts”.
I told them that they are being robbed of real education, and that they should get some real books, especially classics, on their own, and read all that they can.
How can students who are being made to read “informational articles” ever gain the depth of perspective, the insight and humanity found in the rich characters and stories of Hawthorne and Shakespeare and Hemingway?
Common Core apologists are quick to point out that there’s no prohibition against Hawthorne, Shakespeare and Hemingway in Common Core. But Common Core businessmen have made curriculum that is sold and bought nationwide, which is “informational article” heavy, not classics-heavy. The businesses are thus driving what goes on in the classroom, as imagined by noneducator David Coleman, who openly mocks the teaching of traditional, narrative writing. This is not representative governing of education policy!
Talk to your local public high school students. Ask to see what they are being asked to read and write about. I would love to know if my town is an isolated case of losing classic literature.
Video Three: Here’s Coleman, mocking traditional narrative writing, in an effort to promote his notion of reading and writing mostly informational text in English classrooms.
Lastly– NATIONAL COMPREHENSIVE SEXUALITY STANDARDS – aka “Amorality for All”
The centralization/nationalization is not just about English and Math. It is clear in the push for national science standards (Next-Generation Science Standards) which Utah has tragically now accepted. It is clear in the common alignment of tests and data mining to the illegitimate Common Core and CEDS– whether tests are the Utah SAGE, other states’ PARCC, the College Board’s SAT and AP, or other tests.
Centralization of power away from localities is clear, and most dangerous, in the push for national sexality (amoral) standards, CSE, Comprehensive Sexuality Standards (which Utah considered and rejected for now). The video below explains why it is not true that Comprehensive Sexuality Standards are simply about “medically accurate information” but are instead teaching children amorality, which is so important to the progressives’ anti-family, anti-God agenda.
Don’t watch it with children in the room.
Video Four: The War on Children– The Comprehensive Sexuality National Standards:
We are not a communist country. Why are we acting like one, in centralizing so many matters of children’s education? There is nothing secretive about what’s going on; no conspiracy theory here, but conspiracy fact: progressives proclaim that government, not family, owns the children and defines for children what is true, good, moral, healthy, or allowed.
Video Five: Progressives’ announcement that government, not parents, own children:
We need the fire of Patrick Henry to wake America.
Many today seem to fear taking a stand for parental control, state control, local school board control. Do not fear the pretentious monster! It has no constitutional, no authoritative, legitimacy. Our rights, given by God and protected by the Constitution, are legitimate. Your authority over your own children is legitimate. Own it. Act like it. It is only when each person stands in his or her place, firmly, against encroachment, that a free country remains free.
Patrick Henry’s words apply today to the takeover of authority, which is Common Core and Common Data Mining, which is in the process of stealing our God-ordained duty to determine what our children will be taught:
“[W]e are not weak, if we make a proper use of the means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us.
…There is a just God who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election [choice]. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest. There is no retreat, but in submission and slavery.”
Please vote for Johnathan Johnson for Governor of Utah. Gary Herbert’s pretend-a-thon about Common Core has been growing increasingly desperate and despicable. Johnson doesn’t pretend that the nationalization and standardization of all things educational is acceptable, or that it’s not happening.
I actually keep the campaign mailers that Governor Herbert sends out, rather than sending them to the bird cage, because I see them as evidence in a crime scene.
“LOCAL CONTROL OF EDUCATION,” crows one flier, “Governor Herbert played a key role in supporting Congress passing a law to prohibit federally mandated education standards– including Common Core”.
(I ran around my kitchen and shrieked and burned the pancakes the first time I read this mailer.)
ESSA, a fed ed monster bill that Herbert championed, certainly did claim that it would end fed ed in its talking points, but– since no one actually was allowed time to read it– Congress found out after the vote, in reading the over-a-thousand-pages-long language, that it did no such thing. Those of us who had been studying its predecessors knew what was in the crock pot.
Federal ESSA passed into law last Christmastime, when nobody had time to read or debate the 1,000+ page bill. (To make doubly sure no one would have time to read or debate the bill, the writers gave it to the voters in Congress TWO DAYS before the vote). Senator Lee protested loudly while Herbert promoted ESSA– just as he had so long openly promoted Common Core.
Despite what Governor Herbert or the Wall Street Journal may have said, ESSA didn’t end fed ed. It cemented the entire Common Core / common data standards / common tests / federally aligned preschool system. It just deleted the term “Common Core” so that millions who despised that term might be fooled. All the federal and corporate strings were still there.
Even Federal Education Arne Duncan admitted that.
Duncan, who gloated over the deception of so many Republicans, said, “[I]f you look at the substance of what is there . . . embedded in the law [ESSA] are the values that we’ve promoted and proposed forever. The core of our agenda from Day One, that’s all in there – early childhood, high standards [i.e., Common Core]… For the first time in our nation’s history, that’s the letter of the law.”
In that interview with Politico Pro, posted by Pulse2016, Duncan said, “I’m stunned at how much better it ended up than either [House or Senate] bill going into conference. I had a Democratic congressman say to me that it’s a miracle — he’s literally never seen anything like it.”
Duncan also said:
We had many, many conversations behind the scenes . . . . And I said for us to support [ESSA] they’d have to shed their far, far right [constituents who support the Constitution] . . . . I honestly didn’t know if they’d have the political courage to do that. But they both said they would and they did. I give them tremendous credit for that.
Duncan described an intentional betrayal by silence about the real agenda of ESSA:
We were intentionally quiet on the bill – they asked us specifically not to praise it – and to let it get through. And so we went into radio silence and then talked about it after the fact. . . . Our goal was to get this bill passed – intentionally silent on the many, many good aspects of the bill . . . [W]e were very strategically quiet on good stuff . . .
With such praise for ESSA coming from Duncan (and from Herbert) and with such condemnation of ESSA coming from Lee, Chaffetz, Love, Bishop, and Stewart, one can easily see who’s aligned with progressive, Obama Administration ideology.
Utah’s Congressional delegation very correctly cited local control beingtaken away as the reason for voting against ESSA. Senator Mike Lee was very clear on why ESSA should never pass. The governor must have heard the ear candy of the bill’s prominent promoters, notably LaMar Alexander and Paul Ryan– but did he dismiss the words of Senator Mike Lee about ESSA?
Did Governor Herbert believe that he alone recognized ESSA as cutting fed ed, while the famously conservative Lee, Stewart, Bishop, Love and Chaffetz saw it as growing fed ed? Did these Utah Congressmen vote against local control, and for federal control? Of course not; that’s why Herbert was vague on the mailer and did not actually use the term “ESSA”.
Herbert’s mailer also brags about Herbert being top dog at the National Governors Association (NGA). True, he is its chair, but that is not something to impress an actual conservative.
The NGA is not a constitutional congress of governors. It’s a trade group. Not all governors want to be in NGA. Some governors boldly criticize it. NGA is a closed-door, private club, not subject to sunshine laws, so no voter can influence (or even listen in on) what happens there. –And what does happen there? A lot of grant-taking from the likes of Bill Gates to push Common Core on the states, for one thing; copyrighting and attempting to sell America on the Common Core, for another. One non-NGA governor, LePage of Maine, said, “I get no value out of those [NGA] meetings. They are too politically correct and everybody is lovey-dovey.”
If NGA Chair Governor Herbert wasn’t flabbily playing both sides of the campaign fence, appearing to be pro-Common Core to D.C. and to the ed sales lobby, while appearing to be anti-common core in his mailer to conservative delegates like me, he might come out with a clear and unmistakable statement, like Governor LePage’s of Maine, who said, in addition to the quote above: “I don’t believe in Common Core. I believe in raising standards in education.”
But that wouldn’t fly with the Governor’s friends in his favorite, unconstitutionally recognized, high places: NGA, CCSSO, Prosperity 2020, the Education First lobby, and the Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce.
Parents and teachers in Utah have endured intense, years-long frustration as we have listened to the charade led by the governor, echoed by those friends in unconstitutionally recognized, high places. Herbert once said he aimed to “get to the truth” about Common Core. But the narrow, controlled “conversation” that Governor Herbert then led about Common Core, was light years away from the spirit of the scripture that the governor quoted at his public meeting about Common Core: “Come and let us reason together.” There was no listening happening. Yes, he got his attorney general to say that Common Core was a locally controlled initiative, but that report was easily, factually rebutted.
Lastly: there’s more to object to than just Herbert’s federal rubber-stamping of nationalized education standards and tests and data gathering without consent. Look at other issues, just as important as education:
Why did Herbert veto Constitutional Carry? Aren’t gun rights on the top of conservatives’ priority lists?
Why did Herbert support the expansion of Obama’s ideas for “healthcare” here in Utah? Aren’t conservatives supposed to stand for fiscal realism and self-reliance and charity (as opposed to forcery –not a misspelling–)?
I will never forget that day, four years ago, in the governor’s office: it was just the governor, his bodyguard, and we three teachers and moms: my friends, Alisa Ellis and Renee Braddy, and me.
Although we explained our documented research about Common Core and common data collection (CEDS/SLDS) and gave Governor Herbert a thick binder that documented our research and our alarms; although we begged him to recognize the error and to steer away from these federally-promoted systems; although we pointed out that the State Office of Education was using zero documentation to support their pro-common core ear candy– the governor didn’t hear us.
He didn’t keep his promise to have us back in one month, after he and his legal staff had reviewed the issues, either.
He stayed his Common Core-promoting course and entrenched Utah further, using Prosperity 2020 and Education First as financial and political vehicles.
People might think it could not possibly matter one way or another. But think about it.
We didn’t elect NGA’s huge membership or staff. We can’t fire anyone at NGA. NGA is not a representative Congress. NGA is not a public institution– it’s a private trade group that happens to have an official-sounding name. That name confuses people.
So, as a private club, it’s not subject to transparency laws. It doesn’t even have to allow investigators or media in to the closed-door meetings. No citizen can vote to change what NGA does. Governors can not even vote to change NGA, if they aren’t NGA members, which some very smart governors choose not to be. Last time I checked, the governors of South Carolina, Texas, Maine, Alabama, and Indiana were staunchly determined never to join the NGA, or had joined and quit. Yet NGA aims to make binding national policies without due process of representation — and it has already done so, in the case of Common Core, for example.
NGA is free to exist, as a private group, just like anyone. But as a national governing body, no. That’s unconstitutional.
Ask yourself: will the Governor be representing Utah’s interests to the NGA, or the NGA’s interests to Utah? In all the years he’s been a member of NGA, he’s always chosen to do what NGA asks of him. What does that mean to us? What happens when the goals and hopes of so many Utahns– for greater educational liberty and local autonomy— stand in direct conflict with the history and goals of the National Governors Association? Where is any recourse? Where’s citizen access to NGA?
And that’s not all. Yesterday, we saw our governor fighting to expand his job description here in Utah, too. As the Deseret News and Salt Lake Tribune each discussed or reported yesterday, the Governor’s plan was (thankfully) rejected by the Utah State Board of Education after the Governor’s invited the board to join him in his call for FEDERAL legislation identifying the governor as a “key” partner in education. Thank you, State Board, for having a spine and saying no.
The Utah Constitution says that the elected school board should hold the reins, but the NGA wants to change that situation– here and in every state– so that the NGA can assume a role as a national governing body over education. This is bad. This is serious.
Just as bad: Utah Representative Curt Bramble, this year, becomes president of the National Council of State Legislatures (NCSL) another unaccountable-to-voters private club that, like NGA, we can accurately describe as another “aiming-to-sit-in-the-Congressional-driver’s-seat” club. In fact, Bramble admitted that his private NCSL group aims to take over the role of Congress:
“Congress has been totally ineffective. They can’t seem to find agreements on both sides of the aisle to do anything, from budget to deficit reduction, immigration, marketplace fairness. You can look down a litany of issues where the states, the 50 laboratories of democracy, are finding ways to come forward with strong, bipartisan support for various polices.”
These organizations distort voters’ rights in our Constitutionally-built nation. The Constitution gives individual states the right to govern education. It also gives a few Utahns, elected to represent us in D.C., strong federal roles; so voters can have real influence at both the state and national decision-making levels, if we maintain the roles of the Constitution. This new blurring trend, pushing Governors or state legislators into pseudo-federal roles, robs us of true representation and has no business in America.
I want to give context so that you can fully appreciate the letter’s significance.
Darling-Hammond, of Stanford University, is on the list of “Top Ten Scariest People in Education Reform” for good reasons. She works for private organizations that crush Constitutional control of education; she promotes and writes books about socialist redistribution of wealth, and she plays key roles in the Obama administration’s fed ed goals. She’s been an advisor and/or board member for:
Dr. Thompson pointed out to his Facebook friends that Dr. Linda Darling-Hammond has been very busily publishing this month.
Her sudden articles in the Huffington Post, The Hill, Stanford University, NEA, ECE and elsewhere show that now, while Congress heatedly debates the ESEA/No Child Left Behind disaster, she’s desperate to persuade Congress to use Common Core and its tests as “an engine to drive better educational practice.”
Darling-Hammond paints a pretty, distracting frame around her ugly baby, the Common Core. She pretends that the whole reason parents are pushing back is only high stakes testing and she mentions nothing else that parents are screeching about. Apparently to her, the Constitution has nothing to do with it; experimentation on children has nothing to do with it; data mining has nothing to do with it; unpiloted and shaky standards have nothing to do with it; validity-report-lacking tests have nothing to do with it. She keeps the “conversation” on the clearly obvious: that basing teachers’ entire value on a test students take is stupid; that stressing those test results rather than a child’s whole education is even more stupid. (Yes, the sky is blue and the grass is green.)
But what she’s really pushing for is NOT what parents want. In “The Hill” blog post, she pressed for federal enforcement of Common Core tests: “urge the federal government to make sure districts provide annual assessments of student progress, while allowing states to develop systems of assessment”. She added, “The Feds should continue to require states to flag districts that require improvement” and “the Feds need to treat accountability as an ongoing process…”
Her article in HuffPo praises California for allocating $1.25 BILLION for Common Core and for eliminating “all the old tests while bringing in new and better Common Core assessments” and concludes: “the Common Core standards in California are an engine to drive better educational practice“.
Her strategy seems to be to get readers to start nodding with her about the high stakes tests, and then forget to stop nodding when she crosses the line and promotes a unicorn: a gentler, kinder version of the same darn Common Core tests. She uses the term “we agreed” seven times to make her point in one article, as she claims that reformers from a wide spectrum of political camps agree with her. Dr. Darling-Hammond, please know the wide spectrum of political camps is loaded with those who disagree with you. Case in point: Dr. Thompson (an Obama voter in the last election) and me (long ago lovingly and correctly labeled a “right wing nut case” –by Dr. Thompson.)
Dr. Thompson put it this way to his Facebook friends tonight:
“Advocacy should never be used as a means to effect change in ethics,” –but because Darling-Hammond is doing so– “it makes it real easy for small-town Utah doctors like myself who do not hold positions of import at Stanford University to effectively ‘slam’ the Dr. Hammonds of the world… Not once did she mention the words ‘valid testing‘. Parents are, and always must be, the resident experts of their own children. I will always challenge those in positions of power who use pseudo science to back their claims. It is an affront to my profession.”
Then he posted his pointed letter to Dr. Darling-Hammond.
May his letter go far and wide. May Darling-Hammond enjoy the mountains of money she’s made $erving the institution$ that aim to $tandardize education and data so that they can control citizens more effectively. –And may Congress see right through her words.
Congress just might.
This month we saw Senator Vitter’s Local Control of Education Act pass the U.S. Senate. (Read it here.) It doesn’t end Common Core, but it spanks the Department of Education for ramming it down our throats, and prevents conditional-on-common-standards-grants.
We also saw key members of the Senate and the House sign powerful letters (here’s the other) that demand an end to the funding and pushing of Common Core.
Tonight, Utah’s Governor Gary Herbert will take questions on KBYU TV. The public may submit questions via Twitter, Facebook, phone or email. askeleven@byu.edu is the email address. Click here for additional ways to submit questions.
Feel free to use my questions in your own words if you like.
1. Will you veto SB 235 the school turnaround bill now that you’ve received so much input, including official open letters asking you to do so from the unanimous boards of some Utah school districts, from the UEA and from Utahns Against Common Core? Why or why not?
2. We know that your initiative, Prosperity 2020 is aimed at improving the economy of Utah. Can you explain how it differs from China’s economic centralization of schools linked with the economy?
3. Why are you supporting the ban on citizens being allowed to burn wood in the their homes?
4. What influence do Utah citizens have in the National Governor’s Association; in other words, how does the Governor’s membership in NGA benefit Utah citizens’ constitutional rights to local autonomy?
5. Last year, you led a study of the new national standards used in Utah known as Common Core; critics said your study failed to address the governance and local control of the standards. Would you be willing to revisit this issue in more depth? Why or why not?
6. What is Utah’s State Longitudinal Database System, and how does it benefit individuals and families?
7. Some parents are calling for an opt out for the State Longitudinal Database System. Would you support giving parents this liberty? Why or why not?
8. Would you consider following the example of many other states in eliminating the income tax? Why or why not?
Last Friday, my children and I were on an educational field trip to see Governor Herbert address the state school board in Salt Lake City. We were learning how to use civic rights to free speech and expression. I had hoped to influence the establishment to not renew the federal waiver (NCLB/ESEA) and hoped to influence them to consider withdrawing from Common Core and all its data-and-teacher-control-tentacles. We also wanted to spread the good news: that Mia Love’s H.R. 524, if it passed, might help enforce states’ constitutional rights to control education locally.
There we stood holding signs outside the door of the state school board meeting, my children and I: “Vote No on NCLB Waiver” and “We Support Mia Love’s H.R. 524“ (the anti-common core bill).
We couldn’t go inside the meeting because 1) one of my children is very young and noisy, and 2) there was no room.
We had even been discouraged by USOE officials and by the governor’s bodyguard (!) from standing in that hall outside the board meeting; they said the handful of us posed a fire hazard.
Yet we were standing there when Governor Herbert made his exit alongside Tami Pyfer. The Governor read our signs and he said, “I support Mia Love’s H.R. 524.”
I immediately felt the same sick way I’d felt when President Obama came out with his student data review saying he was concerned about privacy, after his administration had done everything in its power to destroy student privacy: from decreasing privacy rights in federal FERPA, to paying each state to build matching, interoperable SLDS databases, to hosting “Datapalooza” and pushing inter-agency “data-mashing.”
Obama (and Herbert) get away with blatant hypocrisy because most of us are, sadly, low-information voters. People don’t know. And they don’t know who to trust.
I prefer it when everyone gives each other plates of warm cookies instead of headaches. I don’t like thinking of –or labeling– my country’s president or my state’s governor as hypocrites.
The governor has only asked Utah to comment about the standards, not the governance of them, and he never asked for comments about the data mining nor testing nor lack of parental and teacher freedom. Although months agoGovernor Herbert said, “we will not cede that responsibility [of local education] to anyone else,” we know that Utah had already given that responsibility away years ago (control of tests, data sharing and of standards-amending). That power left when Utah adopted standards from private groups NGA/CCSSO who created and copyrighted Common Core, groups in which Governor Herbert holds top leadership positions. Governor Herbert’s words about standing up to federal encroachment are either feigned or very, very fractional.
We all heard the Governor quoting the Old Testament prophet Isaiah in his speech to the board that day, “Come now, and let us reason together.” (Isaiah 1:18) But there is no “reasoning together” happening! Where is the real discussion, the real debate? I see a top-down dispensing of “politically correct” marketing lines about Common Core, a one-sided “conversation”. Under the public radar– in emails and blogs and social media, discussion percolates, sans Governor.
We don’t see our Governor (nor Common Core financier Bill Gates nor Common Core architect David Coleman nor Common Core test grant-giver Arne Duncan) ever participating in debates on this subject. These top promoters/creators of Common Core are actively hiding, as is clear from Kathleen Jasper’s Conversation ED and countless others. They don’t want to thoroughly, honestly, honorably reason. They don’t have a leg to stand on. Common Core, when you scratch beneath the surface, is utterly indefensible and unconstitutional.
The Utah public is only allowed ten minutes (divided by five citizens, with two minutes each) per month at state school board meetings. Per month! Some reasoning together! Meanwhile, the state school board is appointed via a very biased, committee-to-the-governor selection process. And yet taxpayers fund this charade, these one sided flyers, mailers and the USOE website itself, all debate-free, marketing the Common Core product without intellectual discussion of any kind.
It’s maddening to those of us who are paying close attention.
Know these facts (and fact check me, so you really actually know it for yourself.)
3. Speaking about standards-tweaking is a charade.
In Friday’s meeting, no mention was made of the fact that if Utah adds the permitted 15%, the addition will never be seen on the nationally aligned test questions. So what’s motivating the teachers to teach the addition? And it won’t be in the shared textbooks anyway.
In Friday’s meeting, no mention was made of any rebuttals to the Attorney General’s blanket statement (that Common Core in no way harms Utah autonomy over education). It was just: “Tell us which particular standard did Utahns find troubling?”
The narrow, controlled “conversation” about Common Core in our state is light years away from the spirit of the scripture that the governor quoted, “Come and let us reason together.”
It is not for corporations or federal entities to delegate an education “role” to the state or to schools or parents, like a play director hands out a role or a prop to an actor. Similarly, it’s not a school’s or any agency’s right to delegate parents as partners in their child’s education. Teaching children is not a governmental dictatorship, nor is is a community collective.
Parents and families are the authority, followed by teachers, followed by districts, followed by states. Unless a parent specifically requests involvement, it’s never a federal or corporate or a “collective” right to rule over the parent-led student’s education. The state is lower on the totem pole than the local district and the schools and families. The federal government and corporations are not even allowed on the totem pole. Neither is the United Nations despite what it has planned for local schools.
We hold the American, Constitutional right to control our own lives, and not to be bullied by outside forces, but the stream of control over education is trying to flow the wrong way: outside in.
Case in point: here is a new homework assignment for those in Common Core 101 (aka researching the unconstitutional ways in which federal ed reform is destroying representative government and parental control): Read and analyze this 268-page document for constitutional viability: “The State Role in School Turnaround“.
No, wait a minute. Don’t bother to read the whole 268 pages. Just read the title– and nothing else– and realize that it’s completely unconstitutional.
Think about it. The “state role”? Under this Republic and its Constitution, the people are in charge– under laws they have created via elected representation. The states individually are in charge –and not the federal government agencies (nor its agents or branches, like WestEd, which wrote this document.)
America, we are losing the local representative form of government, losing power to control what happens in our schools, because of central planning taking place by “councils” and “stakeholders” and “partnerships” and chambers of commerce that lack authority in schools and individuals’ lives. Money, not actual legality, is the source of the assumed authority.
The above “State Role” document happens to be new in 2014, but there are countless other, equally unauthorized, equally arrogant documents written to support mandates created by grant-givers (Bill Gates or federal Dept of Ed) who lack the authority to control our state educational system, but who are nonetheless beginning to rule over us.
Don’t buy into the posture of authority or the glossy, legitimate-seeming pdf’s and conferences. Groups like WestEd, AIR, CCSSO, NGA, Microsoft, Pearson, Achieve Inc., SBAC, PARCC, ACT, The College Board, The Center on School Turnaround, The National Center on Education and the Economy– are nongovernmental. We didn’t elect them and we can’t boot them out.
The Utah Attorney General (AG) recently issued a report about Common Core. I’m grateful that Common Core concerns are receiving much-needed attention, rather than being dismissed as unfounded. I thank the Attorney General for his time spent on this issue. But the report is egregiously errant.
I’m just a full-time mom, not a lawyer. Though I have many years of experience teaching in public schools, plus years spent researching ed reforms, I never aimed to rebut a state attorney general’s education report. But truth is truth and error should not be accepted as fact.
Please study this out for yourself. I’m here to point out and to back up with documentation, the errors and omissions of the A.G.’s Common Core report. It’s for you to draw your own conclusions. It’s for our children to live with what we adults see as truth.
Before I get to the errors and omissions, I will point with gratitude to three key issues that the report correctly clarified:
1) The report’s first paragraph correctly clarified the fact that the “Utah Core” for K-12 math and English is, in fact, the exact same thing as “Common Core.” Many have been confused about this fact and some in leadership allow that confusion to continue because they know Common Core has become a toxic term. But no one need be confused. The A.G. is correct: Utah does (unfortunately and voluntarily) adhere to centralized, standardized Common Core standards and tests.
2) The report also correctly stated that the US Dept. of Education ( by imposing waiver conditions and pushing states to adopt federally approved standards) “has infringed upon local and state authority over public education” and that Utah and other states “consented to this infringement through federal coercion...” (emphasis added).
3) The report correctly said that “Utah has the legal ability to repeal” Common Core. Most people already knew that Utah CAN withdraw from Common Core; our point has always been that we REQUEST that our state will indeed withdraw from Common Core.
The Attorney General’s report wrongly concludes three main things, which I will afterward explain in detail:
1) That adoption of Common Core followed the rule of law; that the parent-teacher lawsuit –brought against the state’s decision to adopt Common Core without proper vetting– holds no water and that the board’s adoption of Common Core was legal; that Common Core standards do not qualify as rules –so the UARA’s rulemaking process did not need to be followed;
2) That Utah has not ceded authority nor lost local control over its education system via the Common Core Initiative; and that there are no groups that now hold direct or indirect control over Utah’s education system;
3) That Common Core does not impact curriculum.
1. The report incorrectly states that the board’s adoption of Common Core followed the rule of law, using “a very public process” and that it was not illegal in any way. That question will soon be determined in a Utah court. The lawsuit to which the report referred –in which parents and teachers are suing the board over its method of adopting Common Core– is still a live, active lawsuit.
Connor Boyack of Libertas Institute (the institution supporting the lawsuit) was correctly quoted by the Deseret News, saying, “Specific behavior was required of the board that was not done.That is the basis of our lawsuit, andthat was not responded to by the attorney general. Our allegations still stand and we’re confident that a judge will determine that the board, in fact,did not comply with the law.”
The A.G. came to a different conclusion not only from that of Libertas Institute but also from U.S. Department of Education secretary Arne Duncan, who noted that Utah’s state school board and many other states very quickly, quietly adopted Common Core “without studying it, without writing a white paper on it,” without consulting with the teachers, administrators and others whose careers would forever be altered by it.
This clearly goes against our state’s law.
As a public school teacher whose credential has never lapsed out of date, I can attest that when Common Core came to Utah, neither I nor any teacher, to my knowledge, received so much as a letter or an email consulting with or discussing or debating or communicating the fact that a decision was in process, nor announcing any potential positive or negative consequences of the decision. Local school boards can and have attested that they were likewise left out of the decision. Millions of public school parents can testify that there was no “very public process”. Although parents often get letters, robocalls and emails about school pajama day, the fall carnival, community council elections and many other issues, it was only long after the state had agreed to Common Core (and its associated data, testing and evaluation reforms) that parents and teachers became aware of what it was and how it would change our lives forever. Teachers and the general public would have had to have been actively scouring the state office of education website weekly basis (–and why would they?) –to have come across any invitation for public discussion or feedback on this huge, transformative issue.
The report also falsely states that prior to adoption of Common Core, Utah was an active participant in the creation of Common Core standards. This claim is not backed up with evidence of any kind. Listening to the minutes of the state school board meetings surrounding adoption of Common Core reveals that the claim is far from true.
Last, there’s the reference to Utah’s UARA which defines rules and rulemaking. The A.G.’s report correctly states that a plausible case can be made that because Utah is now ruled by Common Core’s rules, the rulemaking process should have been followed, and was not. UARA defines a rule as a statement by an agency (in our case, the USOE/school board) which implicitly or explicitly requires some class of people or agencies (in our case, school system employees) to obey it; a statement that implements or interprets law (in this case both state and federal law, even though the federal government does not have constitutional authority to make education laws– since it has done so and it uses money to control states’ obedience to these unauthorized laws and policies, and now Common Core-implementing state laws are congruent with Common Core education reforms as well).
Common Core standards must be considered rules since the state school board and USOE mandate statewide adherence to its benchmarks and tests, and the legislature specifically mandates teacher and school evaluation using Common Core computer adaptive testing.
But the A.G.’s report oddly states that because Utah law does not define the meaning of the term “standard,” the standards aren’t really rules so the rulemaking process was correctly skipped over. That defies common sense, and research. Teachers and administrators rely on USOE/USSB statements on Common Core to interpret and implement education law and policy. Common Core is mandated by the legislature’s Common Core CAT testing laws, and adherence to Common Core was partial payment for receipt of federal waivers, monies and technologies; it was parceled with federal No Child Left Behind waivers, ARRA grant obligations, SBAC (Utah’s former) testing grants, and the federal SLDS grant, each of which helped bind Utah schools, teachers and students to Common Core and common data standards.
2. The report incorrectly states that Utah has NOT ceded authority over standards and curriculum. Utah ceded her authority by adopting Common Core, in several ways:
Way one: Utah has no vote or voice in the revisions to “its own” common core standards. Utah did not write Common Core. Neither did any other state. Common Core was never, despite its marketing claims, a state-led process. The creator-copyrighters of Common Core were two unelected, nonpublic groups— unaccountable-to-voters groups, cannot-be-influenced-by-voters groups; closed-door, private D.C. groups, that go by the misleadingly governmental-sounding titles of “National Governors’ Association” (NGA) and “Council of Chief State School Officers” (CCSSO). NGA and CCSSO are private clubs– they are nongovernmental, and not all governors nor all superintendents choose to belong to NGA/CCSSO; in fact, some U.S. governors and state superintendents avoid the NGA and CSSSO like the plague.
The power of the NGA and CCSSO over standards and education policy in many states is the prime example of education without representation.
Way two: Utah cannot vote for those who have authority to revise or change Common Core. And we know that Common Core IS going to change.
Utah’s Common Core standards are under copyright by NGA/CCSSO. Utah can’t influence who gets hired by NGA/CCSSO or what policies get created in those closed-door meetings. Utah can’t participate in any amendment meetings when Common Core “living work” standards get altered and revised, which the copyright holders have promised to do. The standards state: “The Standards are intended to be a living work. As new and better evidence emerges, the Standards will be revised accordingly.”
Way three: The CCSSO –significantly– has also created the Common Educational Data Standards (CEDS), in partnership with the federal department of education, to match up with the Common Core standards technologically as well as academically. Utah promised the federal government to adhere to CEDS tracking technologies in such documents as Utah schools’ 2009 ARRA federal grant application, which is fully explained and linked here. Because our federally paid-for State Longitudinal Database System is also (per federal grant requirement) interoperable with federal systems, and because our Common education standards and Common data standards match the CCSSO’s CEDS requirements, student privacy and state autonomy over data systems are also no longer in our control. Truly, control over student data privacy is threatened via the interdependence of Common Core standards and federal Common data standards.
Way four: Utah’s statewide SAGE/AIR Common Core tests enforce the Common Core being taught in Utah schools and the Common data standards (CEDS) being used in Utah schools. SAGE/AIR are Common Core-led, computer adaptive tests which are not only end-of-year but year-round formative tests, controlled and created by the American Institutes for Research (AIR) with token help from a handful of appointed Utah teachers. AIR is officially partnered with both the federal government and the SBAC (federally-funded testing consortium). This means that the micromanagement of tests and the sharing of student level data –to which the SBAC is subject by contract— also binds AIR-partnered Utah. Utah students must be tested on Common Core standards using SAGE/AIR tests, which are secretive in nature, written by psychometricians with a mission statement that focuses on applying behavioral and social science research, and which follow the Common Core copyrighters’ philosophies. Test cannot be seen (because of secrecy rules) by those governed and tested and evaluated by them.
All of these controls do fetter Utah citizens to federal dictates, and each rests on the Common Core standards.
3. The report incorrectly states that Common Core impacts only standards and not curriculum. Because the state Common Core tests (aka SAGE tests) are not only year-end but formative (year-round) tests, they impact curriculum very much– much more than any previous statewide testing did. Because state and federal reforms have now attached teacher evaluations and school evaluations directly to student scores on these Common Core tests, teachers must choose from an ever-narrowing spectrum of curriculum that teaches to the test more than ever before. The SBAC testing group, which is partnered with Utah’s AIR testing group, and Microsoft (Bill Gates’ company) which is partnered with Pearson (the world’s largest education sales products company) each offer Common Core test-matched curriculum, and Utah schools and technologies are purchasing them over other products, because the board mandated that Common Core would be Utah’s Core.
Lead Common Core funder Bill Gates revealed in a speech, “Identifying common standards is just the starting point. We’ll only know if this effort has succeeded when the curriculum and tests are aligned to these standards… When the tests are aligned to the common standards, the curriculum will line up as well. And it will unleash a powerful market of people providing services… For the first time there will be a large, uniform base of customers looking at using products…”
The A.G.’s report also omits key concerns, including:
I. Copyright and control of Common Core– The report ought to have clarified who truly controls and holds copyright over the Common Core standards and its related data standards, and who has authority to revise them. Neither voters, nor elected representatives, nor local teachers, nor Utah’s State school Board, but only the nonpublic D.C. group, NGA/CCSSO, controls them.) As has been stated, there is no amendment process for our state to revise the “living work” of Common Core, by which we are now governed, although these standards will be revised by its copyrighters.
II. The State Duty to Educate Locally – While the report is correct in saying that the federal government coerced states into adopting its definition of college and career ready standards with the hope of getting federal money, the report does not stand up and say that Utah is under a constitutional obligation to stand up for the right to educate via local dictates. The A.G.’s report does not recommend that Utah cease being controlled by and unreasonably swayed by federal money. It apparently accepts Utah’s seeming submissiveness to the federal (unconstitutional) posture of authority over education. If the A.G.’s office has not itself adopted the submissive mindset under the federal posture of (unauthorized) authority, then the report should have recommended that Utah fight for a reclaiming of state power over all aspects of education. If Utah’s A.G. believes in the constitutional separation of powers and in the importance of maintaining local control of the constitutionally state-held right and responsibility over state education — then the report should have focused on that point rather than sidelining it as an historical, water-under-the-bridge detail. Nor did the report recommend standing in solidarity with Oklahoma, a state which recently repealed Common Core and has faced federal power grabbing struggles as a result.
The report said, “Will we lose federal monies if we modify Common Core standards? No.”
That is a half-truth. Utah didn’t lose federal monies by adding cursive to Utah’s English standards in addition to Common Core, true. But if we make more than minimal additions (there’s a 15% cap on adding to Common Core) or if we aim to repeal the whole enchilada we end up with severe federal pushback as has been demonstrated in the case of Washington state and Oklahoma. We should, of course, still hold the line of state authority and ignore the pretended authority of Secretary Duncan.
III. The State Board’s Constitutional Duty to Not Cede Its Authority – The report correctly states that the school board has the authority to set standards, and that the board “is the appropriate constitutional body” to withdraw from Common Core, based on the Utah Constitution‘s words: “The general control and supervision of the public school system shall be vested in a state board of education consisting of the Superintendent of Public Instruction and such other persons as the legislature may provide.” True.
But nowhere in Utah’s Constitution does it say that the board, superintendent and other persons may give away or delegate that “general control and supervision of the public school system”.
Conclusion:
The Attorney General’s report receives an “F” in my gradebook. It simply veers so far from the truth that it cannot be taken as correct.
I don’t expect to hear from the Attorney General’s office, apologizing for the errors. I don’t expect the state school board members nor those education staffers at the Governor’s office who openly call me and other teachers and parents “crazy” to suddenly fact-check, turn around and be enlightened. I simply wrote this piece for other people like me– people who care about the truth, people who aren’t financially rewarded by and tied to the claim that Common Core is the One True Path, people who value this knowledge, to better protect and educate their children and to possibly have a chance at saving some of the local control that is our Constitutional inheritance.
In this week’s stories, all key public education stakeholder constituencies — parents, teachers, administrators, school board members, community activists, and the general public — add their voices to the ever louder call for assessment reform. Too many politicians, however, give little but lip service to the movement’s demands while continuing to double down on failed test-and-punish policies. The Atlanta and Philadelphia standardized exam cheating scandals are reminders of one kind of ugly fallout from this obsession
Paul Ryan did not mention Common Core at last month’s Independence Day address at Hillsdale college. But the Wisconsin Congressman’s speech, called “Renewing the American Idea,” had everything to do with what this blog stands for. When Ryan spoke about discerning between” measures that conform to the American Idea and those that weaken or conflict with the American Idea” he warned, “The American Idea imposes a duty to oppose programs that subvert popular government and impose bureaucratic rule.”
That duty and distinction is why Common Core stands opposed in America today.
Ryan defined the American Idea as, “self-government under the rule of law” that declares “human beings are created equal with unalienable rights that come from God.” He noted that many political measures conflict with the American Idea and undermine self-government, being “composed of boards and commissions with uncertain responsibilities and unaccountable decision-making”. As I read that sentence, I was thinking of the CCSSO, the NGA, the NDCM, and the College Board. Ryan explained that “the way they operate creates relationships between government and money that encourage cronyism and breed political corruption… they are incompatible with the American Idea, and they must be rejected.”
Nodding in agreement, I thought of Gates’ countless millions given to the CCSSO, NGA, PTA, Education First, Jeb Bush, and even granted to the Department of Education directly, that helped ensure that Common Core’s rule became not only the business success of Microsoft’s and Pearson, but also became government policy.
Ryan said, “these programs and their administrative forms…cannot be reformed and restructured, but must be ended, or, if we choose, replaced by something completely different and consistent with popular consent and self-government… No reform is worth pursuing that does not turn against this rule and take us on a path of renewal.”
Ryan talked about the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) but I was applying his words to the No Child Left Behind Waiver, as he wrote:
“Nobody understands it, and it makes everyone anxious… maybe you can get a delay or a waiver or an exemption. How do you get these things? Nobody knows. The administration makes decisions on the fly, so the law changes every day… bureaucrats are calling the shots and running the show… protect[ing] the big guys– the biggest, most powerful [education sales] institutions in the country. The result is predictable: Big [education sales companies] get bigger and small [education sales companies] get fewer… [it’s] the difference between fair play and playing favorites.”
I was thinking about the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Utah Chamber of Commerce, which has been drooling all over Common Core and pushing, pushing its promotion. Ryan wrote, “Big business is a willing accomplice because regulation keeps the competition out. Many times, large corporations don’t oppose new regulations; indeed, they help write them. The point is, crony capitalism isn’t a side effect– it’s a direct result of big government… big businessmen spend less and less time hustling in the marketplace and more and more time lining the halls of government.”
(At this point, I was thinking about truths recently articulated by Ze’ev Wurman in a Breitbart article about Gates and his crony capitalism: “…Bill Gates’ goal is ‘to leverage private money’ in a way that ‘redirects’ how tax dollars are spent inside public education… Gates is using his personal philanthropy to direct government policy, to channel taxpayers’ funds to pay for the national curriculum he personally wants… paying for Common Core, Common Core ‘validation studies,’ curricular units development, and through paying for Education First to promote textbooks and pedagogical approaches he supports. Yet consider that the computer technology and infrastructure needed to support just the annual testing by Common Core’s newfangled assessments is estimated at $50 per tested student every year. Since over half of students are tested annually, we are talking about public education spending an additional one and a half billion dollars annually on technology for testing – 30 million students times 50! …Microsoft will capture at least half of that market, and assuming just 40% gross margin, Bill Gates is expected to reel in every year in extra profit (not revenue) as much as all he spent on supporting Common Core throughout the years. I’m not arguing Bill Gates wants necessarily to harm education for his personal profit. But isn’t it nice when you can convince yourself that what’s good for Microsoft is good for America, even when studies show it’s not necessarily so?”)
Ryan then explained how the difference between the U.S. Founders’ vision and the Progressive vision is the difference between freedom and the end of it. He wrote that the founders “limited government… Progressives believed in a much larger and more active central government that reaches further and further into our lives…[O]ver the course of the 20th century, the Progressive view came to dominate the modern Democratic Party– and to cloud Republican thinking as well. This is the core problem we face today. The American Idea has not been rejected. Far from it: The Progressive counter-vision has never commanded a settled majority… [Americans] have never consented to have their lives micromanaged by bureaucrats.”
Ryan nailed the Progressive (and Common Core) agenda when he explained that in Progressive ideology, self-government gives way to “professional bureaucrats governing according to centralized plans.”
Centralized plans that are uninfluenced by those who are governed by them = Common Core.
Common Core: where those governed by the rules don’t get any voice in what those rules will be.
Common Core: where big corporations marry big government, using taxpayer dollars to pay for the wedding and the couple’s future living expenses –and make sure not to invite taxpayers to the wedding lest any stand up and oppose the union.
Common Core: where corporate+federally aligned tests drive local curriculum and standards.
Common Core: where student absorption of common standards is tracked by corporate+government longitudinal database systems –without parental knowledge or consent.
Common Core: where the unelected, such as David Coleman (a noneducator-businessman, now president of the College Board and leader of English standards) get to run Common Core’s promotion company, Achieve, Inc., as well as alter the A.P. and the ACT, thus conforming all student tests to unelected and unaccountable whims
Common Core: where the unelected CCSSO and NGA get to hold copyright over Common Core –and also set common data standards, which enables the robbing of student privacy and ends local autonomy in testing.
It’s hard to find a more perfect fit for Paul Ryan’s definition of “measures that undermine the American Idea” than Common Core. Yet, despite the monstrousness of the problem we face, I believe in the same hopeful note of Paul Ryan’s closing paragraph:
“Nothing in history is inevitable. If we are to get through our current trial, as we have done in the past, it will be by the use of our wits and through tremendous effort … Let us remain committed to the American Idea.”
I love to watch my favorite thinkers from the left and the right wing agree that “college- and career- ready standards” or Common Core– aka ObamaCore –along with its CEDS data-grabbing plot in cahoots with the CCSSO — is utterly unacceptable and has got to go.
Today I read Stanley Kurtz (conservative writer) who praised Diane Ravitch (liberal writer) for her public call for Congressional hearingson Common Core.
Both are must-read articles.
They explain why in recent cases of states dropping Common Core, leading events appear to be bipartisan efforts. Nobody likes to be micromanaged. And the Constitution protects us all.
Look at a few highlights of the Stop Common Core fight:
Last year, in February, liberal educator/historian Diane Ravitch announced that she could not support Common Core. In April, eight Republican senators wrote an open letter decrying Common Core. The same month, the national GOP met to discuss (and then passed) the anti-Common Core resolution. In August, Dr. Joseph Rella, a superintendent of Comsewogue District in New York, led 1,500 parents in a rally against Common Core. In October, Democratic Massachusetts Senator Ed Markey penned an open letter to Secretary Arne Duncan, also attacking federal-corporate education “reforms” in student data collection. The next month, 132 Catholic scholars wrote a letter to U.S. Bishops, voicing their concerns about Common Core. Following several governors who wrote executive orders” against Common Core, a group of Florida parents launched a parental national executive order against Common Core and student data mining. And the teachers! Look at heroic progressive Democrat teacher Paul Horton alongside conservative Republican teacher David Cox — two examples of thousands from both political camps, equally opposed to Common Core.
“The misguided notion of social justice that stands behind the Common Core excuses in the minds of its advocates… silly little things like the consent of the governed… Congress is obligated to investigate.”
Ravitch wrote: “The story about Bill Gates’ swift and silent takeover of American education is startling. His role and the role of the U.S. Department of Education in drafting and imposing the Common Core standards on almost every state should be investigated by Congress.
“The idea that the richest man in America can purchase and–working closely with the U.S. Department of Education–impose new and untested academic standards on the nation’s public schools is a national scandal. A Congressional investigation is warranted.
“The close involvement of Arne Duncan raises questions about whether the law was broken.
“Thanks to the story in the Washington Post and to diligent bloggers, we now know that one very rich man bought the enthusiastic support of interest groups on the left and right to campaign for the Common Core.
“Who knew that American education was for sale?
“Who knew that federalism could so easily be dismissed as a relic of history? Who knew that Gates and Duncan, working as partners, could dismantle and destroy state and local control of education?”
——————
Ravitch and Kurtz make me proud to be an American. This is what freedom of speech, freedom of political choice and the national tradition of lively debate can do.
“We are capable of developing our own Oklahoma academic standards that will be better than Common Core… What should have been a bipartisan policy is now widely regarded asthe president’s plan to establish federal control of curricula, testing and teaching strategies.
“We cannot ignore the widespread concern of citizens, parents, educators and legislators who have expressed fear that adopting Common Core gives up local control of Oklahoma’s public schools…
“For that reason I am signing HB 3399 to repeal and replace Common Core with Oklahoma designed and implemented education standards…They must raise the bar – beyond what Common Core offers… I also ‘get it’ that Oklahoma standards must be exceptional, so when businesses and military families move to Oklahoma they can rest assured knowing their children will get a great education.
… While those new standards are being written, the state standards for English and math will revert to the Oklahoma Priority Academic Student Skills (PASS) standards used from 2003 to 2010. “
How I wish I could be a fly on the wall, listening to conversations in Oklahoma now! What is the local Oklahoma PTA saying? What are Oklahoma state and local school boards thinking? And what are Oklahoma’s chambers of commerce saying now to their members? All these figureheads have pushed pro-Common Core marketing on parents and teachers and businesses for several years, and now they are having to change their whole story.
What are the students in Oklahoma saying? What about the teachers!? Are they having big bonfires, using the worthless pro-common core pamphlets, professional development handouts and books?
This is truly an historic moment.
The withdrawal from Common Core by Governor Fallin –not only a member, but the chair of the National Governors Association –the same NGA to which Bill Gates has given millions upon millions of dollars to create and implement Common Core– is a very big deal.
And the elephant that’s been crowding the room for years now –Common Core’s pretense of academic excellence– has taken a serious hit with Governor Fallin’s acknowledgement that Oklahoma’s soon-to-be-written NEW standards “must raise the bar beyond what Common Core offers.”
Questions that will keep me up tonight:
Will Oklahoma’s new standards reintroduce Oklahoma’s children to mountains of stories and literature in unlimited amounts, re-igniting the love of language and reading?
Will Oklahoma’s new standards reinstate the traditional Algebra standards, and add higher math –beyond Common Core’s Algebra II? Will they drop the absurd constructivist math methodology and teach math in clear, classical ways?
Will Oklahoma’s new standards require creation of an alternate college entrance exam, since the ACT, SAT, GED and AP have become Common Core aligned (corrupted)?
Will Oklahoma drop the common educational data standards (CEDS) and the common database that tracks children (SLDS) as well?
Will Oklahoma’s precedent of saying “no” to the unconstitutional moves of Secretary Duncan and President Obama also extend itself to dismiss the federally partnered, solely Common Core-aligned, Pearson-Microsoft ed sales monstrosity?
How many thousands of not-from-Oklahoma teachers plan to move from other states to Oklahoma –solely based on this turn of educational events? How many parents in other states, who are exhausted from the effort of being endlessly dismissed by their state school boards and governors, are thinking what I’m thinking?
If the rest of our U.S. governors, legislators and school boards don’t see the light –and fast– it’s going to be wahoo, pack your bags and let’s move to Oklahoma.
Here are several important news/action items for those concerned about stopping the Common Core “reforms” and restoring freedom in education:
1. Michelle Malkin has joined American Principals Project and others on a letter-signing campaign aimed at governors, insisting that they break free of Common Core. Read and sign here.
2. The Utah State Office of Education is permitting people to give public comment on the new common library book standards.
I urge you to comment; the survey takes very, very little time. Also, send a personal letter to the USOE on this issue, to these addresses for the board: librarycomments@schools.utah.gov and Board@schools.utah.gov
Here is one of the library standards: 1.2.4. Maintain a critical stance by questioning the validity and accuracy of all information.
This simple little sentence begins with “maintain a critical stance” –implying having good critical thinking skills, but then it veers into idiocy by “questioning the validity and accuracy of ALL information.”
Are children to doubt the existence of any truth? Yes, according to the state school board’s library standards.
Classical (very pre-common core) education taught children to confidently and logically pursue truth. But “progressive” education teaches children that there is no truth, no morality, no known anything. Thus all information is of equal importance and any library book is of equal worth: reading the rantings of Joe the communist pedophile may be as worthy a way to spend class time as studying what Washington, Einstein and Shakespeare wrote. What a terrible “standard”!
Of course there is truth; and there are facts. Doesn’t our existence on earth depend on the truth that the earth is a certain, precise, indisputable distance from the sun? If it were not so, we’d freeze or burn! That library standard has got to go.
Utah Standards for Library Media are posted; comment please. (The USOE Web site is hosting the public comment –before Aug 17, 2014. Also widen your audience by posting your opinion of the library standards to librarycomments@schools.utah.gov and Board@schools.utah.gov as well as to your local newspapers and radio stations.)
4. Governor Herbert has approved government preschool in Utah, and President Obama is pushing for federal preschool for all, but is anyone questioning the wisdom of such a move? What are its impacts on the business of private preschools? What are its impacts on little ones who would stay home with their families if not for the big government push to put them in rigorous preschools? Jonas Himmelstrand’s my favorite opponent of this push. This Swede has spoken to countless groups in many countries about the disintegration of families, mental health and academic success when government daycare becomes the norm. He speaks from experience. Himmelstrand’s voice needs to be more widely heard. Please read more here and here.
5. If you haven’t already seen them, see these news links, published by Oak Norton at Utahns Against Common Core today:
Pioneer Institute Study Finds That New Technology, Relaxation of Protections Threaten Student PrivacyA must read press release: you can also download the full Pioneer Institute study.
Here’s a relevant clip: “These expansive data structures are intimately connected to the Common Core State Standards Initiative and national testing. Any information from the data initiatives mentioned above that is given to the two federally funded national assessment consortia aligned with the Common Core State Standards will be made available to the USED. The national standards will also create a unified “taxonomy” that facilitates creation of common instructional materials and data-collection technology. Because Common Core focuses not on academic knowledge but rather on “skills” that involve attitudes and dispositions, it paves the way for national assessments and digital platforms that measure such attributes.” http://pioneerinstitute.org/featured/study-new-technology-relaxation-of-protections-threaten-student-privacy/
Massachusetts Teachers Association Elects Anti-Common Core President We’ve already had the NY and Chicago teachers unions take anti-CC stances, but for a strong teachers association to join in is a great step. “The Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA), a union that represents about 110,000 teachers in the Bay State, elected an anti-Common Core president on May 10 in a hotly contested and close election. Barbara Madeloni, a clinical psychologist turned teacher, beat a Brockton teacher by 681 to 584 votes. A proponent of local control, Madeloni opposes high stakes testing and nationalization of educational standards.” http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/ma/201405130.asp
Saber-Rattling on Common Core (Utah) This is why we want legislators who understand Common Core issues. “On Wednesday, education officials climbed Capitol Hill to inform lawmakers of the progress they’re making on implementing the Common Core education system into Utah’s K-12 schools. But the educators were met with an extremely hostile welcome, as Republican lawmakers expressed their animosity towards the Core changes, which have grown increasingly unpopular among conservatives nationwide.”
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 last year, the U.N. launched a “Global Education First Initiative”?
What is the “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” ? Whosedefinition 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.”
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.”
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“?
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.”
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.
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).
“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:
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?”
Utah radio personality Jason Williams of KVNU’s “For the People” has asked the public to submit questions for next week’s Common Core debate, which will take place at Mount Logan Middle School on January 6th, 2014, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. in Logan, Utah, at 875 N. 200 E.
Submit questions to: jasonthe@gmail.com or kvnuftp@gmail.com.
Legislators have already committed to attend the debate. I hope thousands of teachers, parents, grandparents, students and reporters show up.
The debaters will be Alpine School Board member Wendy Hart and mother Alyson Williams (against Common Core) versus state school board members Dave Thomas and Tami Pyfer (for Common Core). The event will be moderated by radio personality Jason Williams.
I sat down to write a few questions and ended up with 40. Some are borrowed from Professors Yong Zhao, Professor Christopher Tienken, Dr. Sandra Stotsky, Dr. Daniel Coupland and others. I hope Mr. Williams has time to ask them all.
2. How important is the defense of local autonomy and local control of schools, to you personally –and does Common Core affect local control in any way? Yes or no?
3. The Common Core itself calls itself a “living work” and it admits that the document will change. Does the Utah State School Board have authority over the copyrighted Common Core “document” to change the document itself? ( To clarify: this is not a question of adding 15% as the Common Core governance allows a state to add in-state, but we are asking about changing the national standards themselves.) Yes or No?
4. Can Utah voters remove from positions of power the people who hold copyright over Utah’s Common Core standards (Board of Directors of CCSSO/NGA) if we do not approve of the direction of Common Core? Yes or No?
5. Are those who hold copyright over Common Core subject to transparency (“sunshine” laws) –so that the Utah State School Board can supervise the decisions which affect and govern Utahns? Yes or No?
6. Where can I read for myself how the states-led (inter-state) amendment process will work when we want to change something in the Common Core standards, if a process exists?
7. Where can I see for myself the evidence that Common Core standards have been field tested prior to implementation, so they were proven to be of superior academic quality, if testing evidence exists?
8. Professor Christopher Tienken of Seton Hall University has called Common Core “educational malpractice.” Regardless of how you feel about Common Core, how would you recognize educational malpractice if you saw it; what would be its hallmarks?
10. Where can I see for myself the specific countries and specific standards to which the Common Core standards are “internationally benchmarked” if such benchmarking exists?
11. Where is the American process of representation of individuals in the Common Core education and assessments system, if it exists?
13. Where can I see for myself empirical, researched evidence that Common Core’s move away from traditional math toward constructivist math will benefit our children, if it exists?
16. Several official documents show that there is a 15% cap on a state adding to the Core; we also from Common Core architect Jason Zimba and validation committee member James Milgram that Common Core math does not prepare students for STEM math careers; then how are Utahns to prepare for STEM careers?
17. If local Utahns break through the common core academic ceiling and add more than the allowable 15% to their local standards, how will that 15% be taught using common core aligned math and English tests and texts?
18. Although we have been told that Common Core was state-led, no citizen in this state received an invitation to discuss this, before math and English standards were decided. To make sure this does not happen again, please explain the vetting process for Utah teachers and parents, before we add upcoming national science, national social studies, and national sex ed standards.
19. Which element played a larger role in Utah’s decision to adopt Common Core: the chance to win Race to the Top grant money, or a thorough review of the Common Core academically? Please give evidence for your answer.
20. Where can I read our state’s cost analysis for implementing Common Core standards, tests and professional development costs?
21. Does the Common Core essentially discriminate against talents and interests that are not consistent with their prescribed knowledge and skills?
22. What roles does the Utah State Longitudinal Database System (SLDS)play in reporting to the federal Edfacts Exchange and to the national E.I.M.A.C./CCSSO data collection machines?
23. How do you respond to the question asked by Christopher Tienken of Seton Hall University? He said:
“This is not data-driven decision making… Yet this nation will base the future of its entire public education system, and its children, upon this lack of evidence. Where is the evidence to support the rhetoric surrounding the Common Core standards?”
24. Do you see Common Core’s emphasis on testing as potentially harming American creativity and entrepreneurial fields in which U.S. graduate have historically led the world– or do you see this emphasis on standardization and testing as simply creating more individuals who are very good at taking tests– like students in some Asian countries– without any harm being done to creativity or love of learning?
25. The Constitution assigns education to the states, not to the federal government. Also, the federal General Educational Provisons Act (GEPA) states: “No provision of any applicable program shall be construed to authorize any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school, or school system …“ In light of this, please explain why our state has partnered with those who agree to micromanagement by the federal department of education such as the CCSSO.
26. Which portions of local autonomy have been traded for federally-lauded Common Core standards and tests?
27. What types of legal protections does student data have in writing that can protect us from the federal government and vendors and researchers– in light of recent changes to FERPA privacy regulations, and in light of the federally funded and federally-reporting State Longitudinal Database System (SLDS) that is partnered with the CCSSO (and PESC) under Utah’s SLDS grant agreement?
28. Why has the Utah State School Board not stood up against federally-partnered and SBAC-partnered Common Core tests to defend local control?
29. For students in the United States to be globally competitive, they must offer something different, that is, something that cannot be obtained at a lower cost in developing countries. High test scores in a few subjects can be achieved in most developing countries, so how could Common Core increase global competitiveness for U.S. students?
30. How can any test predict global competiveness or economic growth?
31. What empirical evidence do you have that high Common Core test scores could result in higher levels of innovation, creativity, and entrepreneurship?
33. Are you aware, that when you disaggregate the data by percentages of poverty in a school, the U.S. scores at the top of all the international PISA tests? (see Riddle, 2009) In other words, why are we pushing Common Core when our previous system of local control and freedom worked better academically than other countries’ governmentally standardized systems?
34. Companies like Boeing and GE are allowed to give their technology, utility patents, and know-how to the Chinese in return for being able to sell their products in China (Prestowitz, 2012). Can U.S. emphasis on standardized test scores create global competitiveness, really, or is it more likely that we should change the policy of allowing U.S. multinationals to give away our technological advantages, to increase our global competitiveness?
35. Are you aware that 81% of U.S. engineers are qualified to work in multinational corporations – the highest percentage in the world (Kiwana, 2012) while only 10% of Chinese engineering graduates and 25% of Indian engineers are prepared to work in multinational corporations or corporations outside of China or India (Gereffi, et al., 2006; Kiwana, 2012)?
36. Are you aware that the U.S. produces the largest numbers of utility patents (innovation patents) per year and has produced over 100,000 a year for at least the last 45 years? No other country comes close (USPTO, 2012).
37. Are you aware that adults in the U.S. rank at the top of the world in creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship –and that those adults were educated during a time of NO state or national standards (Tienken, 2013)?
39. How do you feel about the funding of the Common Core: one unelected businessman– Bill Gates— funded the Common Core initiative, paid the PTA and the pro-Common Core think tanks (Fordham Institute, Manhattan Institute, Foundation for Educational Excellence) that advocate for it, he partnered with Pearson, the largest educational text sales company in the world to market it, that he publically calls American schools his “uniform customer base”, and that he has said that his goal is for Common Core tests, curriculum and standards to align? See Gates’ public speech here.
40. How do you feel about Secretary Arne Duncan’s stated goals for national Common Core Educational Standards andCommon Data Standards? To summarize, a few of Duncan’s stated goals are:
(More thoughts on the ongoing Common Core debate:)
If you aren’t going to attend the debate, please use these questions or your own to create more strong pushback from the Common Core disaster.
This is America! We are the people with the power to make things right when we see that they are wrong. This is not a land of centralized power, dictatorship, socialism. This is a land of liberty, where the local people self-govern. We have to wake people up to see that freedom matters– and that Common Core surely takes it away from our children.
We can use the beautiful American processes of debate, of real representation, and of constitutional balances of powers that are supposed to defend freedom and local autonomy.
If everyone who cared deeply about the damages of Common Core were to weary the school boards and governors with questions —repeatedly, weekly, persistently, patiently, unceasingly— Common Core could not stand.
Common Core has no legs –except expensive marketing legs and lies– to stand on.
It has no academic pilot testing, no written amendment process for states to retain local control, no privacy protections for its tests’ data collection processes, no wisdom, no international benchmarking, no chance of improving “global competitiveness,” no heart, no state-led history, no commitment to local control; no hope to develop any real love of learning; no common sense.
What it does have is millions upon millions of dollars gambled on this takeover of American schools as a “uniform customer base” and many more millions spent on marketing its unsupportable talking points.
Parents (and teachers) can win back local control. We care more deeply about our children and about legitimate education than the proponents care about our children or Common Core.
“There was in a city a judge, which feared not God, neither regarded man:
And there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, Avenge me of mine adversary.
And he would not for a while: but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God, nor regard man;
Yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me.”
Weary them, weary them.
We can write or call newspapers and t.v. stations.
We can politely and persistently pester our governor: 801-538-1000 or 800-705-2464 (Utah’s Governor Herbert’s number).
We can politely and persistently pester the principal and others in the school districts and especially make sure to pester state and local school board members, who are supposed to REPRESENT US, not Arne Duncan, Bill Gates, or Sir Michael Barber.
Here is the Utah State School Board’s address: board@schools.utah.gov
Here is the state superintendent’s address: martell.menlove@schools.utah.gov
Here is the governor’s education counselor’s address: ckearl@utah.gov
If you want to get 2 minutes to testify about these things at the monthly state school board meeting, contact secretary Lorraine at: Lorrain.Austin@schools.utah.gov
Folks, there can be no question that the federal government is using Common Core to take away our freedoms.
So why do many people still believe that “there’s no federal control of Common Core”? Because trusted education leaders are not being forthright with –or are not in possession of– the truth. Here in Utah, for example, the Utah State Office of Education, has a “fact-versus-fiction” pamphlet which still says that the standards “are not federally controlled.”
The fact is that states that adopted Common Core standards are being co-parented by two groups in partnership, neither of which takes seriously the constitutional rights of the states to govern education locally: these partners are 1) The federal government and 2) Private trade clubs financed by Bill Gates– NGA and CCSSO.
So first, here’s evidence of terrible federal controls: (click to fact check, please)
And here’s evidence of unelected,corporate controls of Common Core:
1) Common Core copyrights (and “living work” alteration rights) are held solely by two unelected, private clubs, the superintendents’ club (aka CCSSO) and a governors’ club (aka NGA).
2) These two clubs’ Common Core creation was influenced and funded not by voters/taxpayers, by the politically extreme Bill Gates, who has spent over $5 Billion on his personal, awful version of education reform– and that dollar amount is his own admission.
3) No amendment process exists for states to co-amend the “living work” standards. The “living work” statement means that OUR standards will be changed without representation from US as the states; it will be controlled by the private trade groups CCSSO/NGA.
4) Bill Gates and Pearson are partnered. (Biggest ed sales company partnered with 2nd richest man on earth, all in the effort to force Common Core on everyone.)
5) The speech of corporate sponsor Bill Gates when he explains that “We’ll only know [Common Core] this works when the curriculum and the tests are aligned to these standards.” This explains why he is giving away so much money so that companies can be united in the gold rush of creating Common Core curriculum.
6. Virtually every textbook sales company now loudly advertises being “common core aligned” which creates a national monopoly on textbook-thought. This, despite the fact that the standards are unpiloted, experimental (in the words of Dr. Christopher Tienken, Common Core is education malpractice.)
7. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and many huge corporations (ExxonMobil) are loudly selling Common Core as a way of creating wealth, despite the standards’ untested nature.
The federal partnering with the private groups like CCSSO/NGA, means that mandates and thought-monopolies of Common Core are truly beyond even legislative control. –Because they are privately controlled, they’re beyond voters’ influence.
This is why nothing short of an outright rejection of all things Common Core can restore us to educational freedom.
Why should you care? Why should you fight this, even if you don’t have children in school? Because of the Constitution.
The Constitution sets us apart as the only country on earth that has ever truly had the “freedom experiment” work. This makes us a miraculous exception. Why would we ever shred the Constitution by accepting initiatives that disfigure our representative system?
The G.E.P.A. law states that “No provision of any applicable program shall be construed to authorize any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school, or school system, or over the selection of library resources, textbooks, or other printed or published instructional materials by any educational institution or school system…”
So the federal government is prohibited from creating tests or instructional materials– but the private groups NGA and CCSSO, funded by Gates, are not! This is why the federal Department of Education officially partnered with these unelected, private corporate interests –groups which are not accountable to G.E.P.A. laws, to teachers, principals, taxpayers, voters or children. (This may also explain why Arne Duncan goes to such great lengths to distinguish between standards and curriculum. Everybody knows that standards dictate curriculum like a frame dictates the height and width of a house. But GEPA law doesn’t use the word “standards.”)
We are in unrepresented dire straits: In no way do voters or teachers (or states themselves) control what is now set in the Common Core standards.
This is true in spite of the so often-repeated “the standards are state-led” marketing line. Don’t believe the marketing lines! So much money is money being spent on marketing Common Core because of Bill Gates. Gates sees this whole Common Core movement as a way to establish his (and Pearson’s) “uniform customer base.”
Please don’t let people keep getting away with saying that the Common Core is free from federal controls, or that “we can add anything we want to it” and “there are no strings attached.” It simply isn’t true.
This week’s Politico article entitled “The Common Core Money War” made me snort. While the authors admitted that the Gates Foundation has spent almost 200 million pushing Common Core on the masses, they asserted that opponents of Common Core (that would be people like me) are “backed by an array of organizations with multimillion dollar budgets.”
Not very funny. Not very true.
I am an example of the opposition to Common Core. I may be just one mom/teacher/voice against Common Core. But I can testify that I have never received a penny for any of my work against Common Core, and neither have my friends in this battle.
We spend countless hours researching government documents and attending boring school board meetings, write hundreds and hundreds of blog articles based on hours of research; plead with legislators and our governor; speak to groups and to the media. Our “stop common core” work is very tightly sandwiched time, budgeted between teaching school, changing diapers, doing laundry, being wives and mothers and church people.
We don’t sleep a lot and our houses aren’t all that tidy. We do this because it MUST BE DONE.
We are protecting our children and our Constitution. This is the only reason we work so hard.
We lose money in this fight; we pay for all our photocopies and the gas in our cars to drive to give speeches all over Utah. Notice: the reason there are no donate buttons on this blog, and the reason I haven’t paid WordPress the $100 they charge to get rid of their ads at the bottom of my page, the reason I don’t choose to accept ads or to make money off this blog is simple: I think I would lose credibility if this became a paid job for me. I think I would watch my words too carefully, be too careful of who I might offend, be afraid to speak out of my heart, be afraid to quote religious leaders or business leaders. WordPress is the only entity making money off my anti-common core fight.
There may be salaried folk at FreedomWorks or some of the think tanks that are against Common Core, but none of them are paid off by the conflict-of-interest, Microsoft-owning, Pearson-partnering Leviathan of all Grantmaking, Bill Gates.
And almost all of the Common Core proponents are paid by Gates. Follow the money trail: National PTA: paid by Gates to advocate. Harvard: paid by Gates to advocate. Jeb Bush: Paid by Gates to advocate. National Governors’ Association and Council of Chief State School Officers: Paid by Gates to develop and advocate for the Common Core.
But Politico is right about one thing: there is definitely a Common Core Money War going on. Lots of people ARE GETTING SO RICH because of the Common Core gold rush.
Just today in the Salt Lake City paper, Deseret News, I saw this little doozy: Companies are announcing plans to bring over a thousand new jobs to Utah. Guess what almost all of them are? Common Core jobs. Jobs that are Common Core dependent.
The article states: “The School Improvement Network provides tools and resources to educators to help them improve their teaching ability and meet the needs of all students. Over the 10-year life of the agreement, the company will pay out more than $5.9 million in new state wages… School Improvement Network will pay more than $15 million in new state taxes and invest more than $10 million in capital expansion at the Utah-based offices….’Utah is increasingly known as the emerging Wall Street of the West,’ Gov. Gary Herbert said. “The opening of the new office by Indus Valley Partners demonstrates the capabilities of Utah’s educated and hardworking workforce'”
Governor Herbert is more concerned with Utah making money by using Common Core technologies and Common Core sales products than he is concerned with making sure we haven’t been sold snake oil. But we have.
The Governor’s never done a cost analysis on Common Core although he promised us in a face to face meeting that he would.
He’s never looked into the fact that Common Core is an unpiloted experiment on children that throws out time-tested classical education and local control of education in favor of a collective notion of federally supervised and funded tests and standards.
I don’t care how much money Common Core implementation could make for our state. So could legalizing gambling, prostitution and drugs. It’s so wrong.
I laughed out loud a year ago, when I read what Governor LePage of Maine said upon withdrawing Maine’s membership in the National Governors’ Association. Along with citing the waste of taxpayer’s money on NGA “membership dues” ($60,000 per year) LePage described NGA meetings as “too politically correct and everybody is lovey-dovey, and no decisions are ever made.”
When Texas Governor Perry rejected Common Core, he said, “The academic standards of Texas are not for sale,” and has explained that the reason Texas doesn’t pay National Governors’ Association (NGA) dues is that the Governor doesn’t believe the $100,000 cost to Texas taxpayers was justifiable.
According to CNN, way back in 2011, Texas, South Carolina and Idaho were not paying NGA dues.
I already knew that Bill Gates spends billions implementing his personal version of education reforms –without any approval from American voters, without any authority other than his cash.
I already knew that Gates had singlehandedly paid for the development, creation and marketing of Common Core, which the Post noted, “demonstrates (sadly so) that when one has enough money, one can purchase fundamentally democratic institutions.” (The only part of Common Core that the federal government funds is common testing and interoperable longitudinal database set-up.)
I already knew that those promoting CCSS are deliberately misleading the public to believe that Common Core is ‘state-led’ when it is in fact “Gates-led.”
I already knew that with the help of Gates’ funding and connections, “strong state-federal partnerships” were colluding to accomplish the actually illegal goal of creating national education standards.
But I didn’t know, before reading the article, the extent to which Gates was involved in Common Core’s twin sister, the personal student data collection racket.
The article pointed out:
Gates gave $47.1 million to CCSSO …with the largest amount focused on data “access” and “data driven decisions“:
… Gates funded CCSSO an additional $31.9 million, with the largest grants earmarked for CSSS implementation and assessment, and data acquisition and control:
… [Gates’ stated] Purpose: to support the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) in helping States’ to build their data inoperability capability
… Purpose: to partner with federal, state, public, and private interests to develop common, open, longitudinal data standards Amount: $3,185,750 …” (The list, when you read the whole article, is much longer.)
Also, I did not previously know that the company that Common Core lead creator David Coleman (a noneducator) started in 2007, Student Achievement Partners, has no work other than CCSS. They live and breathe to push Common Core on all of us.
David Coleman first created the SAP company. Then he led the creation of the Common Core standards, on which his company depends to survive. Then, when Coleman moved over to the radically influential position of College Board president, he aligned college entrance exams to his creation, Common Core. He benefits from the whole deal at the expense of legitimate education and local control, as does Bill Gates, who has now partnered with the word’s largest education sales company, Pearson, to create more money-making curriculum for all of us who are trapped under the Common Core.
I am not against people making tons of money. That’s not the issue; American capitalism and entrepreneurship are wonderful inventions.
What I oppose are these unrepresentative, public-private partnerships (often called P3’s). All Americans ought to oppose the circumvention of the American voter by any “philanthropy” that creates new governance structures over previously representative educational systems.
Who is Gates’ constituency? Who elected him? Nobody. And nobody can vote him out –except by not cowering to his grantmaking wand.
As the author of yesterday’s Huffington Post article put it:
“So much Gates cash, and so many hands willing to accept it. Bill Gates likes Common Core. So, he is purchasing it. In doing so, Gates demonstrates (sadly so) that when one has enough money, one can purchase fundamentally democratic institutions… Can Bill Gates buy a foundational democratic institution? Will America allow it? The fate of CCSS will provide crucial answers to those looming questions.”
Please click on the links to get to the original source documents that verify Common Core does far more damage than good.
The Race to the Top Grant Application – In this, Utah got points toward possibly winning grant money. Points were awarded in this application for the state’s having a student-tracker, this federally funded, nationally interoperable SLDS database system. (It is illegal to have a national student database; yet, all 50 states have matching, interoperable SLDS systems. The 50 SLDS’s effectually function as a national student database.
States submit K-12 data to the federal Edfacts Exchange –despite the U.S. Constitution and GEPA law which makes such accountability to the federal government illegal. Note that it is not allowed for any Utah student to opt out of being tracked, and parents are not notified nor asked for consent for this P-20 (preschool through grade 20) surveillance.) Also in this application, Utah got points to adopt the Common Core (without having seen any empirical data to prove Common Core academically legitimate). This lure of federal money was how Utah got in to the current bind. Despite not winning any grant money, Utah unfortunately chose to remain in both the Common Core and what amounts to the federal student surveillance program.
The State Longitudinal Database System Grant – This is the federally paid-for database that every state in the U.S. has. It tracks students within the state. But each SLDS can communicate with another. There is no apparent limit to how much information is being collected by schools, and no permission is collected from parents to have such information, nor is there any limit on how much information can be given by states to the federal government about students, because of Department of Education alterations to federal FERPA regulations. Vendors, volunteers and other unwanted “stakeholders” can now be considered “authorized representatives” to access data. Parental consent has been reduced from a requirement to a “best practice.”
The copyright on Common Core held by CCSSO/NGA – The fact that there are “terms of use” and a copyright shows that Utah has no local voice in altering the national standards, which were written behind closed doors in D.C. and which can be altered by their creators at any time without representation from the states governed by them.
The report entitled “For Each And Every Child” from the Equity and Excellence Commission – This report was commissioned by Obama. It reveals that power to forcibly redistribute resources, including teachers, principals and money, is a key reason that federal education reformers want a national education system.
The Executive Summary of Race to the Top – see page 3, part D 3. This clearly shows the same tactic: the federal education reformers hope to gain the power to redistribute teachers and principals to their definition of “ensuring equitable distribution of effective teachers and principals.”
The speeches of Secretary Arne Duncan on education – He claims Common Core was Obama’s plan. He also states that he hopes to make schools replace families as the center of people’s lives, with schools open seven days a week, all year round, almost all day long. See video clip: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuO_nB7WY9w
The speeches of President Obama on education – Obama’s 2020 goal is to control teachers, tests, money, and toddlers.
The speeches of the CEA of Pearson Ed, Sir Michael Barber – Barber wants every school on the globe to have the same academic standards and he promotes the underpinning of global education standards with environmental extremism. He promotes ending diversity, using global sameness and uses the term “irreversible reform.” His ruthless book, Deliverology, is dedicated to American education reformers. It advocates delivering a set goal at any price and at any cost. Pearson is the world’s largest education sales company; it’s now partnered with Bill Gates, the second wealthiest man on earth, to promote global common education, devoid of any academic empirical proving that the standards are beneficial rather than harmful.
The speeches of the main funder of Common Core, Bill Gates – He’s funded Common Core almost completely on his own; he’s partnered with Pearson; he says “we won’t know Common Core works until all the tests and curriculum align with these standards” and he’s writing curriculum for all. He also speaks of the usefulness of having students be “a uniform customer base.”
The speeches of David Coleman, non-educator, and the lead architect of the Common Core ELA standards who has been promoted to College Board President. He mocks narrative writing, has diminished the percentage of classic literature that’s allowable in the standards, promotes “informational text” without studying the effect of the reduction of classic literature on students long term, and, although he’s not been elected, yet he’s almost single-handedly reduced the quality and liberty of the high school English teacher’s options. As College Board President, he’s aligning the SAT to his version of what Common standards should be. This will hurt universities, which now know, for example, that students are not learning Calculus nor much classic literature in high school any more.
Promoting Grit, Tenacity and Perseverance – see p. 62/44 – This U.S. Dept. of Education report assures all that data about behavioral and attitudinal indicators of students are desperately wanted by the federal government. It’s all about controlling students by knowing their inner thoughts. Facial expression cameras, posture analysis seats, pressure mouses, wireless skin sensors are all recommended as ways to collect data about children in a continuous stream, in this document.
The federal websites such as the EdFacts Exchange, the Common Education Data Standards, the National Data Collection Model, and the Data Quality Campaign, sites -Three of these four ask states to match other states’ personally identifiable information collection. – The first link shows what we already give to the federal government; the others show what the federal government is requesting that all states do, which does include collecting intimate, personally identifiable information such as bus stop times, nicknames, parental voting record, academic scores, health information, mother’s maiden name, social security number, etc.
The Common Core English and Math standards – These are the actual standards. (CCSS)
The CCSS were rejected by key members of their validation committee, who have published and testified extensively that Common Core is an academic mistake that dramatically weakens high school standards.
American Institutes for Research – AIR’s common core implementation document shows that AIR is not an academic testing group but a behavioral research institute partnered with the federally funded and federally controlled SBAC testing group. Parents and teachers may not see these subjectively written, attitude assessing test questions; and students cannot succeed in this computer adaptive test, which guarantees that all students fail about half the questions.
HB15 – This bill shows that Utah law requires the assessment of behavior and attitudes. See line 59.
SB 175 – proposed amendments to this bill show that it is Utah educational leadership’s will that any student who opts out of Common Core testing will be punished academically (see line 135) and his/her school will be punished as well (see line 168)
Legislators in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Indiana, Georgia, North Carolina, and elsewhere are working to write protective laws guarding data privacy, upholding parental and local teachers’ voices in education, and halting education dollars for unpiloted, experimental Common Core trainings and tests.
They aren’t only concerned that time and money are being invested in an academic train wreck. It’s a precendent-setting liberty issue. Unelected groups now set governance policies that Utahns must abide by. Surely, CCSSO, NGA, Achieve, Inc., or Bill Gates have no constituency. Yet the whims of this group are ruling teachers, administrators and students in Utah.
Getting caught up in discussions about whether Common Core is “state led” or a federal program seems a fruitless debate of semantics.
What is the danger of a federally controlled education system that makes “state led” sound better? Those who oppose federal control typically oppose a concentration of power that would dictate one set of educational ideals (yes, even standards represent certain values) to the exclusion of others, establishing an intellectual tyranny of sorts.
Whether one sees Common Core as a federal program, or as the product of an extragovernmental cartel of state leaders (aka state-led) and special interests who had no constitutional commission to affect nationwide education policy in the way that they did, the outcome is the same:
Decisions were concentrated into the hands of a select few and the reforms of one ideology were championed (with the help of federal funds) while all other voices were shut out.
In other words, those who argue that this was not an outright federal mandate have a valid point. Common Core is the result of the second scenario, which is even worse than a direct federal mandate (as if No Child Left Behind wasn’t intrusion enough) from our duly elected representatives in Washington D.C.
This process sets an alarming precedent for circumventing our constitutional representative form of government and seems to establish a safe haven for the collusion of public funds and private interests without the traditional oversight established by law at either the federal or the state level.
I question what seems to be a generally accepted notion that Governors and Chief State School Officers have the legal authority to represent the state in making decisions jointly with other states. I see that as the role of Congress.
Common Core was not a “best practice” that was modeled by one state and copied by others. It was a joint initiative that had never been piloted anywhere… an unusual collaboration between the executive branches of State and Federal government and private interests that was brokered by the National Governors Association (NGA) and Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). It was a process that was not openly accountable to “we the people,” that was not subject to open meetings, open records, lobbying restrictions etc.
There is a long history of disagreement over the best way to teach math, or what books and literature are of the most worth. In a free society, this competition of ideas has traditionally been considered a valuable condition that would encourage innovation, preserve liberty, and provide options. When the results of competing ideas and methodologies can be compared, people can make informed decisions and choose for themselves what works best.
Those who comfort themselves with the remaining sliver of local control over curriculum within the confines of the Common Core standards and tests seem strangely willing to trade some of the last vestiges of local control (unlikely to ever be returned once surrendered) to support an untried philosophy of education that is dismissive of the experience and creativity of our best teachers, and of the primary stewardship of parents over their children.
Meanwhile textbooks, summative assessments, prepackaged curriculum and formative assessments grow ever more homogenous as they align to “common” standards, and the benefits of school choice are practically erased.
If this were just about standards that would be one kind of disagreement… but the furor over Common Core is about a fundamental shift in control over education.
This is about how decisions for education, and perhaps even other “state led” initiatives, are governed going forward.
This is about whether those closest to the children and their needs will be marginalized in favor of overgeneralized policy by bureaucrats and educrats.
This is not just about what our kids will learn, but about who gets to decide.
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Thank you, Alyson Williams and Utahns Against Common Core.
It seems in the Governor’s best interest and in the best interest of Utahns for him to drop out of the National Governor’s Association (NGA).
This nonprofit, unelected group creates the illusion that Governors have a legitimate federal presence on a national stage, when Constitutionally, they do not. Our elected D.C. representatives are to govern national issues. Governors are to govern inside of states.
Texas Governor Perry does not feel that NGA membership is a smart use of taxpayer funds; Maine’s Governor LePage said,
“I get no value out of those meetings. They are too politically correct and everybody is lovey-dovey and no decisions are ever made.”
Utah’s Governor’s NGA membership is particularly problematic because the NGA/CCSSO 1) uses taxpayer dollars to pay Governors’ dues, 2) writes national educational standards behind closed doors, 3) allows no amendment process for those illegitimate national education standards, 4) allows for no voter representation, since the whole NGA governance setup is an unwanted step-sister to the American system of actual representation by proper channels; and 5) NGA is a federal contractor.
The question of who’s controlling education today could be fodder for a hilarious classic comedy skit, like “Who’s On First?”
–Except that messing with our children and wasting tens of millions of hard-earned tax dollars ain’t funny.
Does anyone really know the answer to the question of who has the authority to change Utah’s education standards today? Where is the statewide pressure point? Does the state board have to change the standards –or can the legislature? Can the Governor?
Utahns have been contacting their school boards and teachers and local superintendents. The school boards and superintendents insist, “It came down to us from the state. Our hands are tied. We have to do Common Core.”
They feel it is a mandate that they can’t get out of.
Utahns also contact their elected representatives about Common Core. These representatives and D.C. congressmen almost unanimously say that they are also concerned about Common Core, but are not sure the legislature can do anything about it. They then redirect citizens back to the local and state school boards. The buck gets passed back again.
Utahns have spoken with the Governor about this. He tells us he’s for Common Core because he believes that teachers and principals are for it. But teachers won’t speak up (except anonymously, or except if they are retired) because they fear for their jobs. So how would the governor or anyone really know what teachers are feeling? They don’t.
Governor Herbert does sit on the board of the NGA/CCSSO that wrote and copyrighted the standards. (But no, he can’t affect the standards. The NGA/CCSSO position is a token position that makes the governor –and Utah– buy into the idea that Utah has a voice in Common Core, even though we don’t.)
Constitutionally, the Department of Education has zero authority to direct states’ educational systems, although many Utahns act as though there is no constitutional rule on the matter. To our detriment.
In 2007, Utahns got the superintendent and state board to change the standards because concerned parents brought the standards under fire from the legislature. But today, with a copyrighted Common Core held by the very D.C. groups that wrote Common Core –the NGA and CCSSO– parents can’t pressure the state to improve standards anymore.
So no one knows who’s in charge, but all believe and repeat the claim that it’s not the Federal Government. Now that is classic confusion!
It is worse than the blind leading the blind.
When the academic, privacy, financial and legal liabilities fallout, as soon as a majority of people realize how bad Common Core really is, who will take the blame?
I don’t know; but I know who gets hurt: the voiceless, totally unrepresented student whose data gets mined in the name of “human capital,” and whose educational standards have sunk to a mediocre common denominator, written by designing individuals and by corporate greed –not by educators at all.
Michelle Malkin’s true to her word. She said her New Year’s Resolution would be to expose the truth about Common Core, and she’s well on her way. Her fourth installment in the series “Rotten to the Core” is out.
In “The Feds’ Invasive Student Tracking Data Base” Malkin brings up the fact that while millions of Americans worry about government drones spying on citizens from the skies, millions are unaware that Washington is already spying on us using a web of recent “education reforms” known as the Common Core Initiative.
Malkin shares a link to the National Data Collection Model which asks states to report intimate details of an individual’s life, including bus stop times, parental names, nicknames, languages spoken, and more.
Reading her article made me think of last year’s “child privacy no more” revelation.
Last year, when I first learned these student data tracking facts, I contacted my state school board to ask if there was an opt-out privilege. Could my public school attending child NOT be intimately tracked by the state’s SLDS data collection system? The answer came back, eventually. They said NO. They blamed it on the technology: the technology doesn’t allow us to opt certain children out.
The idea of “data driven decision making” has become a passion to many educrats, corporate icons and government leaders (Think Obama, Duncan, Joanne Weiss, –or Utah’s own John Brandt, David Wiley, and Judy Park).
“Data Driven” is a concept used as justification for behavior that in the end amounts to corporate/government stalking of children –without any parental consent.
I’m not using the word “stalking” facetiously. Does the governmental obsession with personal data collection differ from stalking?
I can think of only one answer to the question of how these differ: an individual stalker tends to stalk just one person at a time and rarely “inspires” millions to help stalk.
So what do we do? Let’s look at our options. We can:
Across the nation, many people are beginning to raise concerns about implementing Common Core in our schools.
Wondering what you can do? Here are some suggestions that add to what you’ll find in Truth in American Education’saction center tool kit.
1) Check this map of the U.S. to see if legislative educational liberty movements are happening in your state.
2) Check this spreadsheet to see if there are people fighting common core in your state and join them.
3) If nothing is happening at all in your state, do an internet search for Race to the Top application (name your own state) and find the application from Jan. 2010
4) Go to your state school board’s minutes site and find out at which meeting the CCSS were approved (June 2, 2010 the standards were finalized… states such as Illinois approved them 22 days later!)
5) Like “Truth in American Education“ because this is a main hub for national cooperation.
6) Start speaking to friends, teachers and family about common core — many use Facebook FB, Twitter, Pinterest, email, etc.
7) Call or write your state representatives.
8) Sign your state’s educational liberty petition or start one. If you need assistance, ask people from other states for help.
9) Attend local and state school board meetings and visit or call your state superintendent to find out who actually cares about this issue. Sample questions to ask:
Where can I read our state’s cost analysis for implementing Common Core and its tests?
What is the amendment process for Common Core standards if we find out they are not working for us?
Where can I see for myself evidence that Common Core’s transformations (deleting cursive, minimizing classic literature, moving away from traditional math, etc.) –will benefit our children?
Does it seem good that the meetings of the standards writers (the CCSSO/NGA) are all closed-door meetings?
I read that there is a 15% cap on a state adding to the Core; so what do we do if we need to add a whole lot more to actually prepare our children well?
Although I have been told that Common Core is state-led, I missed the invitation to discuss this before it was decided for me and my children; please explain the analysis and vetting process for the upcoming national science and social studies standards.
The Constitution assigns education to the states, not to the federal government. Also, the federal General Educational Provisons Act (GEPA) states: “No provision of any applicable program shall be construed to authorize any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school, or school system, or over the selection of library resources, textbooks, or other printed or published instructional materials by any educational institution or school system…” In light of this, please explain why our state has agreed to intense micromanagement by the federal government under Common Core testing.
Thanks to Alyson Williams for this explanation of how our state board of education abdicated local autonomy.
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TO HONOR, UPHOLD AND SUSTAIN THE LAW … even when you think you have a really good reason to do otherwise
by Alyson Williams February 5, 2013
Board members insist that these standards are better… They also insist that there are benefits to having the same standards across states. They use these assertions as the justification for their acting outside their authority.
The Utah Constitution and related statutes establish the Utah State Board of Education and assign them authority to set standards for Utah students. Members of the State Board of Education are appointed or elected from a narrowed field of candidates to represent the citizens of Utah.
In adopting the Common Core State Standards it appears that the Utah State Board of Education abdicated their control over standards to unelected bodies* outside the jurisdiction of the State or Federal government, and usurped the role of parents or citizens to monitor or give feedback to the process.
This is not how standards have been established in our state before.
The authority to do it this way can’t have been implied or hidden in their legal commission, because this is a newly invented process. This is a creative path to national standards through private brokers who are not constrained by federal laws that would prevent the Federal Government from doing the same thing.
Abdicating authority (whether voluntary or motivated by federal or financial considerations) is not an option established under the constitutional commission given to the State Board of Education. Any right not specifically given to the Board by law is a right that is retained by the people.
The people of Utah did not vote directly, or indirectly through the representative voice of the legislature, to transfer the standards-setting authority to another body.
Board members claim to have retained control by representing the citizens of Utah during the standards writing process. Again, this was not their commission. Furthermore, the Board can point to no specific input or influence they had on the final, copyrighted, standards. In light of the fact that 46 other states were also involved, and they had zero input on who was hired to write the standards, any influence real or imagined would have been highly diluted.
There is broad disagreement on the quality of the standards. The term “scientifically-based” seems to have been re-defined to mean the opinions of few “experts” rather than peer-reviewed research. The wording of certain standards doesn’t just specify what the student should know, but how they should be able to demonstrate that knowledge which in some cases requires or favors specific, controversial methods of teaching.
Still, board members insist that these standards are better than Utah’s previous standards. They also insist that there are benefits to having the same standards across states. They use these assertions as the justification for their acting outside their authority.
Even if they were the best standards ever, or if the arguments for homogeny outweighed the real challenges of aligning demographically and financially diverse states, the end does not justify the means.
Despite a well-documented timeline and recorded statements that would suggest a correlation between the adoption of the standards and federal incentives in the form of Race to the Top grant money and a waiver from No Child Left Behind, the Board insists that Common Core does not represent a Federal overreach in violation of the 10th Ammendment and several other federal laws.
Finally, the Common Core State Standards do not represent the competing opinions of a diverse group of education experts. The writers were a group of like-minded education reformers. The writing, evaluation and promotion of the standards was paid for by the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation. While the State Board of Education can assert that they themselves were not influenced by the special interests of those funding the process, they cannot claim that the standards themselves were not wholly influenced by the education reform ideals of the funders.
It is a violation of trust that our elected officials would be complicit in a re-organization of the standards setting process that favors well-funded outside interests over the voice of the people.
* Unelected bodies include :
–the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)
— the National Governors’ Association (NGA)
— the Department of Education (USDE)
–the 2 testing consortia: Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and
–Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC)
Though 46 states will spend an estimated $5 to $12 billion [2] to implement a new set of national education standards called the Common Core, public officials are arranging these standards in hundreds of closed-door meetings.
Meetings between members of the Council of Chief State School Officers to write and discuss these standards and corresponding tests are closed to the public, though taxpayers pay for state officials to attend these meetings and to be CCSSO members.
“[T]he Council of Chief State School Officers holds over one hundred meetings per year,” its meeting webpage states [3]. “CCSSO meetings are closed to the public and attendance is by invitation only unless otherwise denoted” (emphasis original).
CCSSO and the National Governor’s Association are two nonprofits that coordinated state involvement and adoption of the Core. It outlines what states will expect K-12 children to know in math and English/language arts in each grade. Nearly all states adopted them in 2010 within five months of their release, and plan to fully implement them, along with matching tests currently in development, by 2014-2015.
“What was behind those policies, what was considered, the different elements that went into them, the ideas that went into them—it’s a black box,” said Bill Allison, editorial director at the Sunlight Foundation, a public transparency watchdog. “The public do have the right to know the laws that are going to affect them and their families, especially when they’re paying for them.”
Millions From States State membership in each related CCSSO committee costs $16,000 each year, and states can and do participate in several committees. Lead state Indiana, for example, participates in the math and social studies committees, where 23 and 10 states, respectively, are members, said Indiana Department of Education spokesman Adam Baker. On its latest financial statement, the CCSSO reported $2,187,626 in revenue from membership dues for all activities in 2011.
Multiply just one membership fee by 46 participating states for a minimum of $736,000 in tax dollars the CCSSO receives each year for an initiative reshaping nearly every textbook, replacing nearly all state tests, overhauling teacher training nationwide, providing the basis to measure teachers, and creating nationwide data repositories for student grades, behavior, attendance, and more.
Despite this monumental impact and tax sponsorship, CCSSO activities are largely hidden to taxpayers because it is a nongovernmental nonprofit. This means its meetings and paperwork are not subject to open records laws that let the public find what their money is funding.
Frustrated Parents Indiana resident Heather Crossin, whose children attend schools implementing the Core, attempted to attend an October 2012 CCSSO meeting in her Indianapolis hometown. Crossin called Michele Parks, a CCSSO meeting planner, to see if she could attend. No, Parks said. Crossin asked to see a list of people on the Social Studies standards writing team: “I was told that was not available for public release,” Crossin said.
Ten weeks entailing dozens of emails and phone calls to at least six CCSSO spokesmen and personnel for access to the Indianapolis meeting or any others at last yielded an email to School Reform News from spokeswoman Kate Dando in December: “our meetings/sessions at our meetings are open to press really on a case by case basis,” she wrote.
Some reporters have attended some CCSSO meetings, usually on background, she said, which means they cannot directly quote what they hear. Why?
“It’s going to be reported that X state said this about their progress,” Carrie Heath Phillips, CCSSO’s Common Core director, told SRN. “When they have those conversations, we keep that protected, but it depends on the meeting and topic.”
Federal Tax Sponsorship CCSSO receives tax money from more than state dues. It receives millions from the U.S. Department of Education.
“Approximately 13% and 33% of the Council’s revenue and 25% and 34% of accounts receivable were provided by U.S. Department of Education grants or contracts for fiscal years 2011 and 2010, respectively,” the nonprofit’s 2010-2011 financial statement reads.
Applying the 2011 percentage to that year’s revenues yields an estimated $3,450,930 in CCSSO revenue from the federal government, just in that year. In 2011, $558,000 came from the 2009 stimulus bill for CCSSO’s involvement with one of two networks creating new tests to fit the standards.
In 2010, the U.S. DOE granted those two networks $330 million in stimulus funds. This action, more than any other, led conservative supporters of the Common Core to complain of federal interference in education, a constitutionally protected state function.
‘Outsourcing a Core State Function’ CCSSO and NGA are member organizations where states pay dues to belong, like the left-vilified American Legislative Exchange Council, said Emmett McGroarty, director of the American Principles Project’s child rights initiative.
NGA would not release member dues information to APP, he said. CCSSO did give basic information about membership costs, but not about what specific states paid them.
States have historically created education standards in public meetings, with related documents also a matter of public record, Allison noted.
“The state is outsourcing a core state function to an outside organization that is then outsourcing to other organizations, and you can’t have the parental and legislator input you normally should,” Allison said. “Education is the future and I do think people have the right to know who is writing the curriculum.”
Joy Pullmann is a research fellow of The Heartland Institute and managing editor of School Reform News
Diane Ravitch has posted this information, given by a USC linguistics professor, Stephen Krashen, a literacy expert.
He writes that Common Core’s excessive detail will:
(1) dictate the order of presentation of aspects of literacy
(2) encourage a direct teaching, skill-building approach to teaching.
Both of these consequences run counter to a massive amount of research and experience.
There is very good evidence from both first and second language acquisition that aspects of language and literacy are naturally acquired in a specific order that cannot be altered by instruction (C. Chomsky, 1969, The Acquisition of Syntax in Children from 5 to 10. Cambridge: MIT Press; Krashen, S. 1981, Second Language Acquisition and Second Language Learning, Pergamon Press, available at http://www.sdkrashen.com).
There is also very good evidence that we acquire language and literacy best not through direct instruction but via “comprehensible input” – for literacy, this means reading, especially reading that the reader finds truly interesting, or “compelling.” (Krashen, S. 2010.The Goodman/Smith Hypothesis, the Input Hypothesis, the Comprehension Hypothesis, and the (Even Stronger) Case for Free Voluntary Reading. In: Defying Convention, Inventing the Future in Literacy Research and Practice: Essays in Tribute to Ken and Yetta Goodman. P. Anders (Ed.) New York: Routledge. 2010. pp. 46-60. Available at http://www.sdkrashen.com)
– – – – – – –
As has often been noted: the wonderfully informative insights about the flaws of Common Core are so important, but not nearly so important as the fact that Common Core puts into cement teaching philosophies that cannot be altered by the people using them.
There is no voice and no vote. Teachers and citizens have nothing to do with what will be decided upon to be taught. Only the central planners can alter or amend the standards. That’s the NGA/CCSSO: National Governor’s Association and Council of Chief State School Officers. Nobody else. Does that sound constitutional to you?
In this manual, on page 25, the manual discourages governors from reducing class sizes, in order to “maximize resources and share costs” for Common Core implementation.
This manual is published by the National Governor’s Association (NGA).
The NGA, in partnership with the Council of Chief State State School Officers (CCSSO), are the “sole developers” and copyright holders of the standards.
Quote:
“Copyright Notice: NGA Center/CCSSO shall be acknowledged as the sole owners and developers of the Common Core State Standards, and no claims to the contrary shall be made.” http://www.corestandards.org/public-license .
Its summary states: “In order to realize the world’s commitment to ensuring education for all by 2015, important innovations and reforms will be needed in the governance and financing of global education. In 2008, Presidential Candidate Barack Obama committed to making sure that every child has the chance to learn by creating a Global Fund for Education. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has recently called for a new architecture of global cooperation… A new Global Fund for Education… must be capable of mobilizing the approximately $7 billion annually still needed to achieve education for all, while holding all stakeholders accountablefor achieving results with these resources. None of these objectives will be achieved without a major rethinking of the global education architecture and an evolution of current mechanisms for financing education… Achieving these two Millennium Development Goals, and the broader Education for All Goals… will require more capable international institutions.”
I have to ask three questions as I read this:
Since when do nations collectively finance global education?
Since when has the whole world agreed onwhat should be taught to the whole world?
Since when is the United States of America reduced to “accountable stakeholder” status over its own educational and financial decisionmaking?
So Obama created a global education fund, using U.S. taxpayer money. I don’t remember voting on this.
And Hilary Clinton is misusing the word “inclusiveness” to now mean “no more independent sovereignty for anyone.” Meanwhile, there’s a United Nations/UNESCO program called “Education For All” that involves the same ideas and the very same key people as “Common Core”. And there’s also an “Education, Public Awareness and Training” chapter in the U.N.’s Agenda 21 goals.
Both the U.N.’s educational goals (via UNESCO and “Education for All” ) and “Common Core” do sound very appealing on the surface. Each seeks to educate by teaching the exact same standards to all children (and adults) on a national or a global scale. But both supercede local control over what is taught to students, and both dismiss the validity and importance of the U.S. Constitution implicitly.
Both UNESCO’s educational goals and Common Core are, coincidentally, heavily funded by activist and philanthropist Bill Gates, one of the wealthiest billionaires on earth. http://www.eagleforum.org/links/UNESCO-MS.pdf ( Link to Gates’ Microsoft/Unesco partnership)
Gates gave the Common Core developer/copyright holders, NGA/CCSSO, about $25 million dollars to promote his special interest, Common Core. (See CCSSO: 2009–$9,961,842, 2009— $3,185,750, 2010–$743,331, 2011–$9,388,911 ; NGA Center: 2008–$2,259,780 at http://www.keepeducationlocal.com .
Gates partnered with UNESCO/U.N. to fund “Education For All” as well. See http://bettereducationforall.org/
The “Education For All” developer is UNESCO, a branch of the United Nations. Education For All’s key document is called “The Dakar Framework for Action: Education For All: Meeting Our Collective Commitments.” Read the full text here: http://unesdoc.unesco.org/images/0012/001211/121147e.pdf
At this link, you can learn about how Education For All works:
In a nutshell: “Prior to the reform of the global EFA coordination architecture in 2011-2012, the Education for All High-Level Group brought together high-level representatives from national governments, development agencies, UN agencies, civil society and the private sector. Its role was to generate political momentum and mobilize financial, technical and political support towards the achievement of the EFA goals and the education-related Millennium Development Goals (MDGs). From 2001-2011 the High-Level Group met annually.”
The six goals of “Education For All” are claimed to be internationally agreed-upon. But since much of what happens with the United Nations threatens the sovereignty of the United States and all sovereign nations, I do not recognize that these goals, or anything else for that matter, are “internationally agreed-upon.” Do you?
For everyone on earth to totally agree, we’d have to submit to a one-world government with a one-world constitution that would override any individual country’s constitution. There are some great thoughts on this subject here: http://www.keepeducationlocal.com/
So Agenda 21 is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken by everyone. We all apparently have been signed up to agree, whether we agree or not. I’m already getting the communist creeps.
But most of us haven’t even heard of Agenda 21 nor do we know anything about “sustainable development”.
On the linked Education and Awareness page of that same U.N. website, we learn:
“Education, Public Awareness and Training is the focus of Chapter 36 of Agenda 21. This is a cross-sectoral theme both relevant to the implementation of the whole of Agenda 21 and indispensable for achieving sustainable development.” http://www.un.org/esa/dsd/susdevtopics/sdt_educawar.shtml
Did you get that? Education is indispensable for the U.N. to get its agenda pushed onto every citizen worldwide. They just admitted it out loud. They want a strong hand in determining what is taught worldwide.
So then we click on Chapter 36. The “indispensable” implementation tool they are describing are your children’s American public schools. Yes, really:
36.2 says they plan to “reorient” worldwide education toward sustainable development. (No discussion, no vote, no input needed on this reorientation plan, apparently.)
36.3 says: “While basic education provides the underpinning for any environmental and development education, the latter needs to be incorporated as an essential part of learning. Both formal and non-formal education are indispensable to changing people’s attitudes so that they have the capacity to assess and address their sustainable development concerns. It is also critical for achieving environmental and ethical awareness, values and attitudes, skills and behaviour consistent with sustainable development and for effective public participation in decision-making. To be effective, environment and development education should deal with the dynamics of both the physical/biological and socio-economic environment and human (which may include spiritual) development, should be integrated in all disciplines, and should employ formal and non-formal methods
The take-away?
Environmental education will be incorporated in formal education globally.
Any value or attitude held by anyone globally that stands independent to that of the United Nations’ definition of “sustainable education” must change. Current attitudes are unacceptable.
Environmental education will be belief-and-spirituality based.
Environmental education will be integrated into all disciplines, not just science.
The stated objectives (36.4) include endorsing “Education for All,” achieving “environmental and development awareness in all sectors of society on a world-wide scale as soon as possible”; and to achieve the accessibility of environmental and development education, linked to social education, from primary school age through adulthood to all groups of people; and to promote integration of environment concepts, including demography, in all educational programmes, and “giving special emphasis to the further training of decision makers at all levels.”
Does that not sound like quite an agenda?
But it gets worse.
Under “Activities,” we find:
“Governments should strive to update or prepare strategies aimed at integrating environment and development as a cross-cutting issue into education at all levels within the next three years. This should be done in cooperation with all sectors of society…. A thorough review of curricula should be undertaken to ensure a multidisciplinary approach, with environment and development issues and their socio-cultural and demographic aspects and linkages.”
So, if a country like the USA, for example, has a Constitution and G.E.P.A. laws that states that its federal government has absolutely no legal right to supervise or direct state school systems, then what? How can it be done?
I’ll tell you how! Just get a U.S. President to circumvent Congress and the states’ right to educate. Just use nongovernmental groups like the NGA/CCSSO to write and copyright new national educational standards. Just pay groups to do what you are not legally authorized to do. Just create “Race to the Top” grants. Just promote a socialist education system but call it a state-led Common Core. Then get zillionaire philanthropist Bill Gates to promote and pay for most of it.
And that is what has happened.
Enough info for today? Oh, no. Not even close.
They go on to say how countries should pay for all the reorientation and values/attitudes changing for all people. And there’s even a media-to-museum rebranding blitz outline:
In 36.10:
“Countries… should promote a cooperative relationship with the media, popular theatre groups, and entertainment and advertising industries by initiating discussions to mobilize their experience in shaping public behaviour and consumption patterns and making wide use of their methods. Such cooperation would also increase the active public participation in the debate on the environment. UNICEF should make child-oriented material available to media as an educational tool, ensuring close cooperation between the out-of-school public information sector and the school curriculum, for the primary level. UNESCO, UNEP and universities should enrich pre-service curricula for journalists on environment and development topics;
(f) Countries, in cooperation with the scientific community, should establish ways of employing modern communication technologies for effective public outreach. National and local educational authorities and relevant United Nations agencies should expand, as appropriate, the use of audio-visual methods, especially in rural areas in mobile units, by producing television and radio programmes for developing countries, involving local participation, employing interactive multimedia methods and integrating advanced methods with folk media;
(g) Countries should promote… environmentally sound leisure and tourism activities… making suitable use of museums, heritage sites, zoos, botanical gardens, national parks…”
So, it should be pretty clear that there is a huge re-education program happening to all countries, the aim of which is to change people’s attitudes toward believing in “sustainable development” and environmental education. If it’s picking up litter, some other innocuous program, fine; spend trillions without taking a vote to make sure we all think alike. Stupid but harmless. On the other hand, what if, what IF, it’s something we DON’T all agree upon? There are hundreds of countries. Even if it were just up to China* vs. the U.S. to define “sustainable behavior” how would we ever agree? Paper or plastic? Paper wastes trees; plastic creates landfills. These “green-defining” issues are endless.
But the problem, in a nutshell, is simply: Whose version of “sustainable” do you want to re-educate everyone to believe –assuming that you can accept massive-scale propagandizing for the promotion of one single belief system, under which people didn’t get a representative vote)
*Sustainable thinking includes limiting by abortion the number of babies allowed to be born, in order to have control over population growth. The Chinese “One Child Policy” was introduced by the Chinese Government in 1979 with the intention of keeping the population within sustainable limits even in the face of natural disasters and poor harvests, and improving the quality of life for the Chinese population as a whole. Under the policy, parents who have more than one child may have their wages reduced and be denied some social services.” (BBC)
COMMON CORE 
Here are several important news/action items for those concerned about stopping the Common Core “reforms” and restoring freedom in education:
1. Michelle Malkin has joined American Principals Project and others on a letter-signing campaign aimed at governors, insisting that they break free of Common Core. Read and sign here.
2. The Utah State Office of Education is permitting people to give public comment on the new common library book standards.
I urge you to comment; the survey takes very, very little time. Also, send a personal letter to the USOE on this issue, to these addresses for the board: librarycomments@schools.utah.gov and Board@schools.utah.gov
Here is one of the library standards: 1.2.4. Maintain a critical stance by questioning the validity and accuracy of all information.
This simple little sentence begins with “maintain a critical stance” –implying having good critical thinking skills, but then it veers into idiocy by “questioning the validity and accuracy of ALL information.”
Are children to doubt the existence of any truth? Yes, according to the state school board’s library standards.
Classical (very pre-common core) education taught children to confidently and logically pursue truth. But “progressive” education teaches children that there is no truth, no morality, no known anything. Thus all information is of equal importance and any library book is of equal worth: reading the rantings of Joe the communist pedophile may be as worthy a way to spend class time as studying what Washington, Einstein and Shakespeare wrote. What a terrible “standard”!
Of course there is truth; and there are facts. Doesn’t our existence on earth depend on the truth that the earth is a certain, precise, indisputable distance from the sun? If it were not so, we’d freeze or burn! That library standard has got to go.
Utah Standards for Library Media are posted; comment please. (The USOE Web site is hosting the public comment –before Aug 17, 2014. Also widen your audience by posting your opinion of the library standards to librarycomments@schools.utah.gov and Board@schools.utah.gov as well as to your local newspapers and radio stations.)
3. Jenni White of Oklahoma’s ROPE has this blog post: If you do nothing, nothing happens!
4. Governor Herbert has approved government preschool in Utah, and President Obama is pushing for federal preschool for all, but is anyone questioning the wisdom of such a move? What are its impacts on the business of private preschools? What are its impacts on little ones who would stay home with their families if not for the big government push to put them in rigorous preschools? Jonas Himmelstrand’s my favorite opponent of this push. This Swede has spoken to countless groups in many countries about the disintegration of families, mental health and academic success when government daycare becomes the norm. He speaks from experience. Himmelstrand’s voice needs to be more widely heard. Please read more here and here.
5. If you haven’t already seen them, see these news links, published by Oak Norton at Utahns Against Common Core today:
Pioneer Institute Study Finds That New Technology, Relaxation of Protections Threaten Student Privacy A must read press release: you can also download the full Pioneer Institute study.
Here’s a relevant clip: “These expansive data structures are intimately connected to the Common Core State Standards Initiative and national testing. Any information from the data initiatives mentioned above that is given to the two federally funded national assessment consortia aligned with the Common Core State Standards will be made available to the USED. The national standards will also create a unified “taxonomy” that facilitates creation of common instructional materials and data-collection technology. Because Common Core focuses not on academic knowledge but rather on “skills” that involve attitudes and dispositions, it paves the way for national assessments and digital platforms that measure such attributes.” http://pioneerinstitute.org/featured/study-new-technology-relaxation-of-protections-threaten-student-privacy/
Massachusetts Teachers Association Elects Anti-Common Core President We’ve already had the NY and Chicago teachers unions take anti-CC stances, but for a strong teachers association to join in is a great step. “The Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA), a union that represents about 110,000 teachers in the Bay State, elected an anti-Common Core president on May 10 in a hotly contested and close election. Barbara Madeloni, a clinical psychologist turned teacher, beat a Brockton teacher by 681 to 584 votes. A proponent of local control, Madeloni opposes high stakes testing and nationalization of educational standards.” http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/ma/201405130.asp
Saber-Rattling on Common Core (Utah) This is why we want legislators who understand Common Core issues. “On Wednesday, education officials climbed Capitol Hill to inform lawmakers of the progress they’re making on implementing the Common Core education system into Utah’s K-12 schools. But the educators were met with an extremely hostile welcome, as Republican lawmakers expressed their animosity towards the Core changes, which have grown increasingly unpopular among conservatives nationwide.”
http://utahpoliticalcapitol.com/2014/05/22/saber-rattling-on-common-core For the audio go here: http://le.utah.gov/asp/interim/Commit.asp?year=2014&com=INTEDU
Conflict: Common Core Testing Company VP Evaluating NCLB Waivers Utah mom Autumn Cook dug this interesting tidbit out showing a Vice-President of AIR (the SAGE test company) was selected to review NCLB waivers. http://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/conflict-common-core-testing-company-vp-evaluating-nclb-waivers/
Student-centered or subject-centered education?
This article by Lynn Stoddard in the Standard contains a great story about a mom who noticed what her struggling autistic child was good at, and now, as a 15-year old, the child is being considered for a Nobel prize. For that full story here’s a link (http://themotherlist.com/mother-tore-label-nurtured-sons-hidden-genius/) http://www.standard.net/Opinion/2014/05/08/Student-centered-or-subject-centered-education.html
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