“I moved into my school district because it has small classes, very well educated teachers… Each year they put out a pamphlet showing where the graduates go to school… 95 out of 100 are going to good schools, some are going to the very best in the country.
Our school district was not broken.
In 2012 we got this incredible, radical shift across the curricula… I just got my son’s homework last night. It’s a MacMillan McGraw Hill which I just learned is a subsidiary of Pearson. And it’s just this incredibly rote –I just think it’s way beneath– where a lot of children are. And what’s very frustrating to me is that I can’t have a meaningful discussion with my son’s teacher or the principal or the superintendent because it’s not our call anymore.
I have this letter from 2010 signed by David Patterson saying we’re committed to Race to the Top. There was no public debate beforehand. There was no legislative debate. Now, as a parent, I’m voiceless in my school district.
I just think that’s outrageous.”
Hear more from Professor Nick Tampio about Common Core on this radio interview from Pacifica News:
Testifiers included several high school students, as well as parents and other citizens before the local school board.
At 22:35 a graduating high school senior speaks about how “we forget about the high achieving students” in the misguided effort to comply to government policies and financial carrots and not allowing enough AP and honors classes. He says, “Time and time again we look at the middle, we do look at the bottom… that also affects the higher achieving students.” He is so right.
Most eloquent and impressively source-based is the seven minute testimony of Anne Marie Banfield. (ending at minute 20:00 and picking up again at 26:25 – 30 when another testifier gave her three minutes to Anne Marie.)
At minute 31:10 a woman spoke (directly to the high school students who were in attendance as testifiers ) saying that in the past a principle might have said to a child who was getting detention, “that’s going to go on your permanent record” as a threat, but now because of the SLDS systems, absolutely everything that a student does, good or bad, is going to be used as part of everyone’s permanent record. “It’s none of their business!” she said.
Then the listeners gave their loudest applause.
The fact that these testimonies were given at a local, not state, school board meeting is evidence to me that it’s individual localities that make a difference, not top-down, far-flung policies from D.C. groups with official sounding names like CCSSO and NGA.
It’s the individual voice that matters.
We the People are individuals, not a coagulated, collective mind as defined by the self-proclaimed know-it-bests: Duncan, Barber or Gates.
Local school boards can make a difference.
Here are the words of a wise member of another local UT school board member, who will remain anonymous here:
“One of the main reasons, in my opinion, Common Core and all of its predecessors have had any traction at all is because we, as a society, have mostly given up on the idea of local control of education. We’ve bought into having “experts” tell us what and how our children will be taught. I’m not opposed to experts, but parents need to be the biggest experts. Local control is exactly what will fix this problem. However, most people don’t know what local control would look like. We drop our kids off at the door, volunteer for PTA, and sometimes go into the classroom. Some fellow school board members in another district were actually in shock when I mentioned that one of the problems with Common Core was that parents were left out of the process.
“Do you really think parents should be involved with standards and curriculum?” “Yes, I really do.”
Back to the point. In our city, a few years back, we put together a rotating group of people to attend city council meetings and report back. It wasn’t much, but it made a huge difference. It only took a commitment of attending 2 meetings/year. And, of course, the more people you can get to attend, you can either have a greater impact or reduce the number of meetings each person needs to attend.
If you had 20 or 30 people in each school district, depending on the number of meetings they hold, you could certainly set something up like that.
Thebeauty of it is 1) the content of the meetings will change when “outside people” are present. I can personally attest to this. If the press isn’t there and if “regular people” aren’t there, it has a different feel. 2) there is an organized group of people to show up for any and all public hearings (like budgets) or if there is an issue of concern. You don’t need to worry about how to get in touch with people, you just email the group and they show up. 3) You end up with a “head’s up” on all new issues. In our district, there is public comment allowed in every board meeting. And having members of the public voice comments and concerns actually has a greater impact than just the individual board members. If you are a board member in the minority, then your voice is often dismissed because of that minority status. Having people in the public show up to voice a similar concern give weight to the board member’s concerns. I tell people that the elected officials are just the tip of the spear. The people need to be behind that spear providing the force.
People keep asking, “What do we use in place of Common Core if we are successful?” The actual answer is: Local Control.
If we don’t backfill with more involved, and locally concerned parents and taxpayers, then there will be another creation, just like Common Core or maybe worse, that will take it’s place. Power abhors a vacuum. So, we need to step up and get back to the system that used to work, once upon a time.
And even if your local district isn’t going in the right direction, it’s a lot easier to replace the local school board than the CCSSO.
My two cents.”
-from a school board member of a local school board in Utah.
—————————————–
Thank you to the school board member who shared those “two cents.”
My hat is off to the wonderful pastors of Oklahoma who have joined together this week to write this letter to Oklahoma’s governor, state school board –and to all Americans.
February 19, 2013
To the Honorable:
Governor Mary Fallin
Lieutenant Governor Todd Lamb
State School Superintendent Janet Barresi
Members of the Oklahoma Legislature
The most concerning thing about last November’s Presidential election was not the outcome, but that almost 60 million people thought reelecting Barak Obama was a good idea. How did a man who openly supports unfettered abortion, homosexual marriage, record setting deficit spending and the redistribution of wealth garner the support of nearly 60 million voters? The reason: That is what the voters have been taught in an educational system that is controlled by the Federal Government.
Beginning with LBJ’s Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the Federal Government began an unconstitutional power grab over public education. Then in 1991, President
George H. W. Bush tied American education into the standards set by the United Nations Education Scientific and Cultural Organization. Since then, every few years the Federal government rolls out the latest version of the same old UN standards. Whether you call it Goals 2000, No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, or Core Curriculum it’s the same old junk and we keep buying it.
The Founder’s design was for local control of education. Unfortunately, the school busses in my town still say “Edmond Public Schools”, but they really aren’t. They are the Edmond branch of an educational system controlled by Washington D.C. We voluntarily have sold our freedom for the sake of funds that come from a bankrupt government, that forces conservative, God fearing Oklahoma children to abide by the government mandated curriculum which is birthed by UNESCO with the intent on creating a sustainable earth
without borders.
We have kicked God out of school and replaced Him with Darwin and Marx. If there is no God, then government is the grantor of all rights including my Obamaphone and Obamacare. That is why American Exceptionalism is no longer taught, but evil American Imperialism is.
Rather than teaching our kids to be thrifty, hardworking and self-reliant, we are taught government dependency. Since God doesn’t exist, there is no absolute truth and consequently right and wrong has been replaced with tolerance and intolerance. We are taught that Islam is good and Christianity is bad. We are not taught to be good citizens (as our founders demanded) we are taught to be global citizens. We are taught about “rights”, but we aren’t taught responsibility. We aren’t taught that no one has a right to do wrong.
Core Curriculum may be the most dangerous Trojan Horse that has yet been brought to our gates for the following reason. With the new push toward the [Common] Core Curriculum Standards, the ACT and SAT tests are adjusting to reflect those same standards. All text books will then conform to these new standards as even “homeschool” and “private school” will be forced to be taught to the test. If we do not stop this program now, it will become America’s next Medicare or Social Security and millions of children will be lost inside a one size fits all system to create equal mediocrity among the new “global citizens.”
Let’s restore American exceptionalism and reject the [Common] Core Curriculum. We’re smart enough to make decisions about our own children and our own schools. Let’s return Oklahoma
Schools to Oklahoma control.
Sincerely,
Pastor Paul Blair, Fairview Baptist Church – Edmond
Reverend Dr. Perry Greene, South Yukon Church of Christ
Reverend Tim Gillespie, Seminole Free Will Baptist Church
Reverend Dr. Steve Kern, Olivet Baptist Church
Reverend Dr. Tom Vineyard, Windsor Hills Baptist Church
Reverend Gerald R. Peterson, Sr. Pastor, First Lutheran Church – OKC
Reverend Dan Fisher, Trinity Baptist Church – Yukon
Reverend Christopher Redding, Stillwater
Reverend Dr. Kevin Clarkson, First Baptist Church – Moore
Reverend Bruce A. DeLay, Church in the Heartland – Tulsa
Reverend Chilles Hutchinson
Reverend David Evans, Highland Baptist Church
Reverend Dr. Bruce A. Proctor
Reverend Dr. Jim D. Standridge, Immanuel Baptist Church – Skiatook
Reverend Donnie Edmondson
Reverend Paul Tompkins
Reverend Craig Wright, Faith Crossing Baptist Church – OKC
Reverend Jesse Leon Rodgers, Gateway Church of Ada
Reverend Ken Smith, Sunnylane Baptist Church
Reverend Dr. Charles Harding
Reverend Rod Rieger, Newcastle Christian Church
Reverend Ron Lindsey, Suburban Baptist Church
Glen Howard, Retired Pastor / Missionary and current host of Senior World Radio
Reverend Dr. Jim Vineyard, Pastor Emeritus, Windsor Hills Baptist Church
Julie Ford, the Topeka, Kansas School Superintendent, wants the cash associated with bowing to the will of the U.S. Dept of Education, and that means dancing solely to the tune of the Common Core drum.
But U.S. Senators Pat Roberts and Jerry Moran declined Ford’s request that they should write to the U.S. Department of Education to bolster the district’s application for a Race to the Top grant.
Senator Roberts said he did not believe the federal government “should be mandating a one-size-fits-all education reform agenda by proposing a financial reward system in order to force states to make changes deemed worthwhile by the administration.”
Interestingly, the Associated press reporter who wrote the article had obviously not actually studied the Common Core. The reporter wrote: “The standards are considered more rigorous than previous standards, focusing more on depth of knowledge rather than breadth.”
Cutting literature is “focusing more on depth of knowledge”?
Moving Algebra II from 8th grade to 9th is considered more rigorous?
If it was funny, I would laugh out loud. But the oversight of the truth is dead serious.
( FYI, regionalism and “Regional Equality” are tenets of the United Nations’ Agenda 21. –Because people are easier to control en masse than in smaller localities.)
So, I asked the Region 9 Education Service Center Public Information Officer, Debbie Cummings, to explain things to me. (Does her title not sound so Orwellian?)
I asked her how the U.S. Constitution works with the notion of regions, of U.S. states’ boundaries being less relevant, with the federal departments working with regions instead.
And Debbie Cummings dodged the actual question but answered a related issue that’s also important: “…in regard to your concern regarding “federal and state powers having checks and balances” It is through the Governor’s Office and the Texas Education Agency that the state’s rights are reviewed for compatibility with federal priorities prior to the state making application for any federal funds. It is then through the Texas Education Agency that the use of these funds are tracked to ensure adherence to both the federal and state priorities and requirements. However, if the priorities do not reflect a state’s priorities, then the State is not obligated to apply for the federal funds.
[So, states won’t be funded, even though they paid taxes federally.
They may not have access to their own tax money for their own schools,
if their priorities don’t match federal priorities?]
Cummings taught me something I didn’t know: “Many times they carry a different title from state to state, i.e., in New York they are called BOCES (Boards of Cooperative Educational Services); whereas in Texas, they have been named by the legislature as Regional Education Service Centers.” Ok. Harder to see the federal uniformity when states name their federal, regional education headquarters differently, I suppose.
So, I asked a Texas friend, Donna Garner, what she thought of all of this.
Donna Garner said, “The lawyers who set up the TESCCC (who own CSCOPE) knew full well what the laws are regarding the Education Service Centers (ESC), and they deliberately set up this corporation to get around the laws. They think they have figured out a way to make CSCOPE untouchable, but we are working with Texas Legislators to figure out some bills that will counteract the TESCCC. ”
“The ESC’s were not set up to become marketing mouthpieces for CSCOPE curriculum. It was never the intent of the Texas Legislature that set up the ESC’s to make them into money-making organizations that suck money from local taxpayers. We already pay school taxes to our local districts; we do not need to be paying extra dollars far-and-above those local taxes to help ESC’s make huge profits! Notice the ESC buildings around the state. The one locally has turned into a state-of-the-art, huge complex; and within those walls is where the CSCOPE marketing and training is being conducted locally. What a huge waste of our tax dollars!”
“Just yesterday on the Jason Moore talk show in Odessa, a current classroom teacher called in and said what a total waste of time the CSCOPE training is at the ESC. She said that the ESC staffers have little subject content knowledge and that the teachers who attend know so much more than the ESC staffers do.”
“Because the new TEKS curriculum standards (adopted since May 2008) are grade-level-specific for every grade level and for every core course (ELAR, Science, Social Studies, and Math), there is no need for the ESC’s to hire numerous staffers to train teachers. The teachers now know what is to be taught, and it is their purview to decide how to teach it. Even teachers in small school districts can get together with the teachers in the districts around them and share great teaching ideas of how to teach the TEKS. Why should those teachers go to the ESC’s when once they get there, they hardly ever come back with any practical ideas that can be used in their classrooms?”
“Next, the Race to the Top grants now coming from the USDOE go directly to the school districts and the ESC entities; those grants are not dispersed through the TEA. The funds go directly to the school districts/ESC’s if they are chosen in the final round of federal RTTT grants.”
How do I interpret these things? I think corporations and federal entitites should stay out of education, just the way the U.S. Constitution set it up.
U.S. Dept. of Education Arne Duncan
It looks to me like the corporations that make money from Common Core, and the federal Secretary who wants Common Core to be the national uniform, are chasing after Texas. It’s a control problem.
I remember seeing U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan speaking on a t.v. show way back when Texas rejected Common Core. He belittled the state’s education system and said that he felt so sorry for the children there, who would not be getting to learn the Common Core. Oh, yes he did.
The supposedly non-federal program, the supposedly state-led initiative of Common Core, when rejected by Texas, angered the U.S. Secretary of Education. Hmmm. So he decided that if the state (that is, Governor Rick Perry and Superintendent Robert Scott) were to reject Common Core, he would push it another way– he then started offering Race To The Top funds directly to school districts, bypassing the state completely. And of course, you can’t have Race to the Top funding unless you agree to Common Core. That’s how it works.
The elite D.C. educrats and corporations want their way, and they push and push and push. We must keep pushing back.
The more you study the plans and plots of Obama and of his Federal Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, the more you see the crushing trend. They crush any individuality and local independence or control over education paths or career paths. And the Constitution be damned.
Individuals’ desires or states’ desires are not to be taken into account. The word “accountability” is used as a weapon of coercion. And the desires of the Collective Government are assumed to best determine what a student studies and what he/she becomes. “What benefits society?” they ask; they do not ask what benefits the child, or what do the parents want for the child?
The crushing and stifling effect comes from so much more than the Common Core Standards –or even than the Common national testing. The federal government wants to determine how children will be placed into an almost unalterable path that determines that student’s future based on imposed plans squeezed out of standardized tests early on in life. They call it Prosperity 2020 in Utah. They call it Obama’s 2020 Educational Initiative in D.C. They call it Education For All, a part of Agenda 21, at the United Nations. They all use nice-sounding words but they all slice away at local and individual rights and freedoms over what is to be learned and what is to be eliminated from the learning.
For example, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan makes references to “personalized learning” which sound good. But what is it, really? The removal of a student’s choices. The personalization by the government of that individual’s life path. It starts with “differentiated diplomas” which call students, to use politically insensitive words, “dumb” “mediocre” and “smart.” These “differentiated diplomas” will prepare students for differentiated careers– all determined by standardized, high stakes tests and by people who are NOT the student himself/herself. Nor the parents. (All “for the good of the collective”.) I’m not buying it. Are you?
Career Academies and “College and Career Readiness*” are the new buzzwords. The concepts sound good on the surface– to help students get diagnosed with skills and trained for specific career skills as early as possible, to make a direct leap into a career.
But think: what if the student later hates that career and has traded his/her well-rounded, meaningful, whole education for a narrow skill set? Then where is he/she going to be? Trained to be a plumber, but with desires to be a nurse? Trained to be a rocket scientist, but with desires to cook? Trained to pick up trash, but with desires to practice law? It’s not good.
The educational trend seems to benefit “society” far more than it benefits the individual. But that’s what socialists are all about. Communists, too. The individual never matters; his or her desires are not significant to The Collective.
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan explains it this way:
” My goal today is to share an outline of our plan to transform career and technical education, or CTE. Then, with that as context, I’ll discuss our plans to implement the President’s proposed $1 billion investment in career academies…
…First, a career academy is a secondary school program that is organized as a small learning community or a school within a school to provide a supportive, personalized learning environment.
Second, the academy begins by the 9th grade.
Third, the academy would need to provide a combined academic and technical curriculum that includes CTE courses for which students may receive academic credit. The academy’s curriculum would be organized around a career theme—like the themes identified by NAF: Finance, Hospitality & Tourism, Information Technology, Health Sciences, or Engineering—and aligned with the State’s college-and career-ready standards*.
Fourth, a career academy provides work-based learning and career exploration activities through partnerships with local employers.
And, fifth and finally, the academy’s program articulates and reflects the entrance requirements of postsecondary education programs—to ensure that students graduate from high school ready to pursue a degree or credential.
* By the way, Duncan’s allusion to “the State’s college-and-career-ready standards” does not mean what you think it means. It’s just common core. “College and Career Readiness” is like a code term.
NO INDIVIDUAL STATE WHO IS UNDER THE COMMON CORE YOKE CAN MAKE CHANGES NOR DEFINE COLLEGE AND CAREER READY DIFFERENTLY FROM ANY OTHER STATE.
So, according to Duncan/Obama, being ready for college and career doesn’t mean being ready for college and career. Too forthright.
The term means being yoked to a substandard set of educational standards that are the same, same, same and that are non-negotiable and that are NGA/CCSSO copyrighted, with a 15% federally mandated cap on top of that copyright. (See the definition on the Ed.gov site here: http://www.ed.gov/race-top/district-competition/definitions)
ROMNEY BASHES OBAMA’S NATIONAL ED STANDARDS THAT DUMB DOWN CALIFORNIA MATH
by Lance T. Izumi
October 9, 2012
Governor Jerry Brown recently approved a new law that will eliminate algebra from California’s eighth-grade math standards. While troubling, even more disturbing is the fact that this move is dictated by Sacramento’s adoption of less rigorous national standards supported by President Obama.
Thankfully, in the first presidential debate and in recent interviews, it’s clear that Mitt Romney realizes what Barack Obama can’t seem to fathom: the federal government is not the nation’s school board.
SB 1200, which Gov. Brown just signed, says that the state Board of Education shall ensure “One set of standards is adopted at each grade level.” Those standards will be the Obama-backed national standards. As education journalist John Fensterwald points out, the law will remove California’s algebra requirement and “will leave [the national] Common Core pre-algebra standards as the default course for eighth grade.”
Why did California opt for the lower national standards?
In the debate, President Obama touted his Race to the Top grant program, which requires applying states to implement the national standards. California applied for a grant, didn’t win one, but was still stuck with Obama’s standards…
In an interview with NBC News prior to the debate, Romney said, “I don’t subscribe to the idea of the federal government trying to push a common core on various states.” Why are national standards dangerous? Chief among the reasons is that they will lead to a national curriculum.
As California’s experience proves, changing over to a national-standards system will affect what’s being taught in every classroom. According to Fensterwald, “Last year, about two-thirds of California students had taken Algebra 1 by the eighth grade.” Now, because the national standards will change the state’s math curriculum, relatively few students will likely take algebra in the eighth grade.
Romney says that for the Obama administration “to financially reward states based upon accepting the federal government’s idea of a curriculum, I think, is a mistake.” Specifically, Romney says that he worries about the federal government promoting an agenda through national standards, tests and curricula. For the Obama administration, its agenda neatly coincides with the agenda of the teacher unions.
The American Federation of Teachers is a longtime supporter of national standards and its members helped write the Obama-supported standards. In legislative testimony, Stanford University math professor James Milgram, who served on an advisory committee for the national standards, said that special-interest groups, like the unions, “were mainly focused on things like making the standards as non-challenging as possible.” He said that the national math standards “are written to reflect very low expectations.”
…Obama and his union allies have triumphed by overturning California’s rigorous state standards.
During the debate, Romney articulated a very different strategy that would empower, not special interests, but parents. Rather than a top-down Washington-centric approach, Romney proposed attaching federal funds, such as Title I money for disadvantaged children, directly to students. These dollars would “follow the child and let the parent decide where to send their student” and allow children “to go to the school of their choice”, where school-choice programs have been enacted.
When asked by debate moderator Jim Lehrer about the federal government’s role in education, President Obama said, “I think that it has a significant role to play.”
Indeed, his nationalization of education has already altered and distorted math education in California. In contrast, Mitt Romney envisions more local control and more parental choice.
It is now up to Americans to decide which future they want for their children.
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Lance T. Izumi is Koret Senior Fellow and Senior Director of Education Studies at the Pacific Research Institute for Public Policy (PRI), California’s premier free-market public-policy think tank based in San Francisco.
Supports Local Control of Curricula at Education Nation Summit
Washington, DC – Today, American Principles in Action (APIA) praised Governor Romney’s stated opposition to a national curriculum, commonly known as the Common Core, choosing instead to let states and communities decide public school curricula.
“We applaud Governor Romney’s bold support for states and local communities to decide what’s best for their children, restoring power over education from the hands of the federal government to where it belongs,” said APIA’s Emmett McGroarty. “He is right to warn that the national authorities may have an agenda and should be prevented from pushing it on the states. Unfortunately, just as with Medicare reform, thefederal government has resorted to coercing now more than 40 states into adopting the Common Core.
“Congress intended the 2009 Stimulus Bill as a life-line for the states, but President Obama turned it into a weapon through his Race to the Top program. In order to compete for Race to the Top money, states had to quickly sign onto the Common Core and related assessments without having a chance to meaningfully review the Standards and before the assessments were even developed.
“States competed in Race to the Top by demonstrating their commitment to President Obama’s education policy, in effect surrendering to an education monopoly. Their citizens were cut out of the process.
“President Obama has continued to coerce the states by requiring them to sign onto his education policies in order to get relief from No Child Left Behind.
“We urge both candidates to commit themselves to ending the federal government’s political coercion of the states and their citizens, and to ending the Race to the Top program.”
American Principles in Action is a 501 c (4) political advocacy group affiliated with American Principles Project, a 501 c (3) policy organization committed to rededicating the United States to its founding principles.
Governor Jerry Brown recently approved a new law that will eliminate algebra from California’s eighth-grade math standards. While troubling, even more disturbing is the fact that this move is dictated by Sacramento’s adoption of less rigorous national standards supported by President Obama.
COMMON CORE 