Today at 6:20 on KNRS on the Rod Arquette show, Oklahoma’s Jenni White will be interviewed about how Oklahoma successfully booted Common Core from the state. Listen free here.
Tomorrow at 2:00 on KTALK 630, she’ll be interviewed again.
And tomorrow night, at a free public event, she’ll speak telling the story of how a few Oklahoma parents influenced the governor and legislature to boot the entire Common Core out of Oklahoma, as well as explaining what we must do to stop the unauthorized data mining of students, and why parents should opt out of Common Core tests.
Wouldn’t you love to hear the story –directly from an Oklahoma mom– of how a few Oklahoma parents influenced the governor and legislature to boot the entire Common Core out of Oklahoma?
Now you can! Clear your calendar: come hear the incredible Jenni White, from Restore Oklahoma Public Education, who will speak on Thursday, September 11th at 7679 South Main Street in Midvale, Utah at 7:00 PM.
The event is free and open to all.
Jenni White, mother and former teacher, has been involved infighting the Common Core Agenda in Oklahoma for years. Jenni has been featured on Glenn Beck, Fox News and multiple national media outlets. See you there!
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.”
Jenni White, cofounder of Restore Oklahoma Public Education (R.O.P.E.) is a remarkable mother of five who writes research papers on ed reform with her children at the kitchen table, runs the organization of R.O.P.E., writes a lively education reform blog, creates videos, and also finds time to go (or sends a friend) to monitor each public meeting of the state department of education. Jenni’s videos, essays, memes, and white paper research are exceptional.
She’s very smart, and she’s very, very funny!
Attending the state meetings allowed Jenni/R.O.P.E. to discover (and share) that Oklahoma (like all 50 states) tracks students in a State Longitudinal Database. Attending meetings is also how Jenni and R.O.P.E. realized that Common Core was a network of corporate collusion that uses taxpayers and schools for their gigantic, uniform market base. Reading countless government documents and contracts added to the knowledge base, and now, R.O.P.E.’s website teaches the general population of Oklahoma vital, little-known facts about state and federal education reforms that are hurting children, teachers and taxpayers.
She has given permission to repost her writing. Here’s a favorite:
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WHAT WOULD EINSTEIN THINK OF COMMON CORE?
I commented on an article today regarding Michigan’s attempts to shake free from the Common Core. Many of the comments came from sadly misinformed individuals who seem to believe that “common” is good and anything to which a large number of others subscribe must amount to some kind of awe-inspiring notion, spawning my concern that none apparently had mothers like mine, who constantly queried, “If Mary was going to jump off a bridge, would you?”
One man began his comment with this, “Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.” (Sign hanging in Einstein’s office at Princeton)
This thought captured my imagination thoroughly. I have been blessed to know a man named Dr. Everett Piper, the President of Oklahoma Wesleyan University. I love to hear him discuss the horrors of Common Core from a philosophical perspective, not only because he is such an excellent orator, but because people tend to forget the philosophical point of view – the notion that ideas shape the human condition and ideas reduced to commonalities do not advance the human condition.
The best opponents of Common Core predicate their arguments on fact – in stark opposition to proponents who tend to use half-truths and lies upon which to base their case – but the philosophy behind our Common Core concerns are palpable and real and I believe we need to advance these arguments at least as often as we tout our facts.
In this thought, I penned the following response:
The Common Core State Standards were written by several individuals – without education degrees I might add – who then, knowing national standards are against federal law, sent them out through a private organization – Achieve – to the nation’s governors and superintendents with the promise of federal money waiting in the wings – 500 BILLION dollars through Race to the Top – if they adopted them for their state sight unseen. It happened here in Oklahoma exactly as it happened in Michigan and all other adopting states.
Granted, the term “Common” was used to mean ubiquitous, however, another meaning for “Common” is the OPPOSITE of “individual”, which begs the question: How in the world can America continue to be seen as the most innovative country in the world when states fully intend to collaboratively adopt standards to “commonize” all students across all states?
How do you INCREASE student knowledge levels by pulling successful students down to the level of the ‘common’?
Are there really that many low performing students in every school in every state in the nation that we need to stop everything to bring them up to the ‘common’ level of each class?
Do we bring down 25 kids for 1 kid or even 6 kids in a class?
If so, then what are we doing to the other 21?
The simple, straightforward answer is that we’re dumbing them down – there is no other characterization possible – and we can’t scream “civil rights” for those at the bottom without inquiring about the “civil rights” of the individuals in the majority being pulled down.
For those of you in the Chamber of Commerce sect, how do you convince a company to come to Michigan when your students will be taught in a thoroughly homogenous way, forcing out uniqueness, drive and imagination – the very qualities necessary to produce the Einstein’s and Edison’s of this world?
How well do you think Einstein would fair with the Common Core?
Do you think we would have had a Theory of Relativity with the Common Core…well silly question…of course we would – the Common Core is nothing if not ‘relative’ among every state and every child.
Common Core is what it is – nonsense dreamed up by well-connected philanthropists (Carnegie, Broad, etc) and innovator/billionaires such as Bill Gates, with a dollar to be made in the education “industry”.
I hope no one escapes the irony imbued in the fact that these people who worked and scrapped and sacrificed to make their dreams reality – who reached the pinnacle of success by truly innovating in America – suddenly seem to forget that the great thing about America – the thing that gave them the ability to get to the top – was the variety inherent in every aspect of the American condition – the FREEDOM to receive the best education one could seek out from the very variety contained within.
Common Core will make sweeping changes to the education system in Oklahoma and the nation, but the cost-benefit analysis of these changes has yet to be scrutinized, according to one state lawmaker.
A rally will be held at noon, Wednesday, March 27, 2013, in the Oklahoma State Capitol building, Second Floor, west hallway of the Supreme Court offices. This rally will be sponsored by state Rep. Gus Blackwell (R-Laverne) and Restore Oklahoma Public Education (R.O.P.E.). Blackwell, Glenda Murphey, the Reverend Paul Blair, Traci Montgomery and Jenni White will be speaking about problems with the Common Core agenda.
Common Core was written into state law in 2010. It was one of four education ‘reform’ measures necessary to make the state competitive for a federal Race to the Top, Common Core became law before the standards were available for review or any research had been accumulated on their efficacy or cost. Oklahoma never received that grant. Now that the Common Core and its testing arm, PARCC, are being instituted across the state, districts must have hundreds of thousands of dollars in eRate grants and writing school bond initiatives to fund these mandates. Oklahoma taxpayers are being asked to fund these reforms through property tax, cell phone plans and an increase in the state education budget. The total cost of which is still unknown.
The Common Core changes will also necessitate changes to the increased collection of personal student data, student testing, teacher evaluation, and school performance. At a conference attended by Blackwell and sponsored by Common Core advocates, in the summer of 2012, Common Core was likened to the hull of a ship sailing out of a harbor, while still under construction.
“The fact of the matter is: Few people know the extent of the changes, driven by the private groups advocating this change, which will result in large profits for a few private companies.” Blackwell said.
This year, Blackwell authored House Bill 1907 to create a task force to study the cost of Common Core. Though the bill passed its committee hearing unanimously, Blackwell learned it would not be heard in the state Senate. Blackwell was able to reach an agreement with House leadership authorizing a long-overdue extended legislative study on the costs of Common Core in Oklahoma schools.
“I do not think Oklahomans want to relinquish the local control of their schools or the state-guidance of standards to the nationalization of education, by a handful of elitists in Washington, D.C.,” Blackwell said.
“The Common Core State Standards must be brought to bear under public scrutiny before we move further into its implementation. Taxpayers should not bear the brunt of a program for which we know little about, even three years after its inception.”
The “Restore Oklahoma Public Education” research team has done it again.
Read this tremendously detailed explanation of how the federal government is robbing United States citizens of their privacy, using schools as data collection vehicles and redefining even nonacademic student data collection (blood type, nickname, mental health) a federal entitlement.
(This one is today’s GooglePlus Hangout –about Sir Michael Barber, Pearson and Common Core– with Alisa Ellis, Renee Braddy, and me (Christel)
(This one is the video Renee Braddy and Alisa Ellis made before I’d even met them; in fact, watching this video brought me into the anti-Common Core fight.)
(This one Impact, a Heber, Utah radio show, with Bob Wren and Paul Royall interviewing Renee Braddy and me (Christel).
(This one’s Professor John Seddon, speaking to California State University faculty on why they will ruin education if they use Sir Michael Barber’s “Deliverology” methodology, which harmed the UK.)
This one’s Sir Michael Barber, speaking at the August 2012 Education Summit about how education reform is a global, not a local, control issue; and that every child in every country should learn exactly the same thing, and that all learning in every land should be underpinned by one “ethic,” that of environmental sustainability. See 2:55- 5:30 at least.
(This one’s me speaking to the Heber City Council about “Communities That Care” as a federally controlled, top-down, agenda-laden program we don’t want in Heber.
(This one is Jenni White of Oklahoma’s ROPE (Restore Oklahoma Public Education) being interviewed by the three moms about P-20 councils, data collection via schools, and common core.)
(This one’s Jenni White’s presentation about Common Core to Oklahoma legislature)
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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