Thread: "Common Core" And The All-Too-Common Tendencies Of Heavy-Handed Government

"Common Core" And The All-Too-Common Tendencies Of Heavy-Handed Government

Austin Hill | May 05, 2013











Is President Obama taking-over our nation’s public schools? Is a United Nations agenda infiltrating America’s K-12 classrooms? No, not exactly. Not Yet. But the so-called “Common Core” public education agenda could be paving the way for some serious trouble.Here are a few basic assumptions that people are making about Common Core – along with the facts of the matter.


Assumption # 1 : “Common Core” is a set of educational curriculum requirements being imposed on the states by the Obama Administration. Technically speaking, this is false. “Common Core,” whose official name is the “Common Core State Standards Initiative,” is not, itself, about curriculum. It is a set of academic standards that students in the various grade levels are expected to achieve. It has not been created by the Obama Administration, but rather, it is actually an effort that first emerged at the state level, undertaken by state governors and state superintendents of education nationwide. The official sponsoring organizations of the initiative are the National Governor’s Association (“NGA”), and the Council of Chief State School Officers (“CCSO”).


Attempts to impose academic standards on public educators date back to the early 1980’s. In the 1990’s it became a state-driven matter, while The federal No Child Left Behind Act, signed in to law by President George W Bush in January of 2002, required the states to create their own academic standards, and then to achieve them, in order to receive federal education funds.


During the past decade, state Governors and state education Superintendents began to collaborate in an effort to bring uniformity to their respective states’ academic standards, and today, there are three primary organizations that advance the Common Core agenda. The NGA and the CCSO, as noted above, remain as the official sponsoring organizations of the initiative. Separately, a group called Common Core, Inc., a non-profit, 501 (c) 3 organization based in Washington, D.C., writes curriculum (not academic standards) that is intended to help educators comply with Common Core Standards.


Assumption #2: The Common Core State Standards Initiative receives bipartisan support around the country. This is true. Both right-leaning and left-leaning individuals and groups across the U.S. support the Common Core initiative. The left-leaning American Federation of Teachers and the Fordham Institute, both champion the Common Core effort, as does the Foundation for Excellence In Education, an organization headed-up by the Republican former Governor of Florida, Jeb Bush. Similarly, both Republican and Democrat Governors - including Governor C.L. “Butch” Otter (R-Idaho), Governor Jerry Brown (D-California), and Governor Duval Patrick (D-Massachusetts), all support the Common Core effort.


Yet just as Common Core receives bipartisan support, it is also subject to bipartisan opposition. The conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation, along with libertarian leaning groups like the Pioneer Institute of Boston, opposes the Common Core effort. Glenda Ritz, a Democrat who currently serves as Indiana’s State Superintendent of Education, also opposes the Common Core initiative.


Ritz’ election in the heavily Republican state of Indiana is often cited as evidence of Common Core’s unpopularity. In November of 2012, Ritz unseated Indiana’s incumbent Republican State Superintendent, Dr. Tony Bennett, in part by campaigning against the Common Core initiative and claiming that Indiana’s adoption of the Common Core standards would result in a loss of state sovereignty. Ritz ended up receiving more votes in that election than did the new (and popular) Governor of Indiana, Mike Pence.


Assumption #3: The Common Core Initiative allows the U.S. Federal Government to directly control educational content nationwide. This is false. However, a scenario like this could come about indirectly.


Federal law prohibits the federal government from dictating educational curriculum content to the nation’s public schools. In fact, according to independent legal research conducted by the Pioneer Institute, no less than three separate statutes prohibit this from happening.


Yet on President Barack Obama’s watch, there has been a concerted effort within his administration to control public education with the Common Core agenda. Back in 2009 and 2010 when the administration was distributing so-called “stimulus” funds, the U.S. Department of Education devised what was called the “Race To The Top” initiative. Public schools could apply for and receive the stimulus money, but they had to meet specific criteria.


One of the criteria was for schools to adopt teacher evaluation procedures (this was a good thing, despite the outrage to the idea from teachers’ unions). Another criteria was for school districts to adopt higher “college and career standards” for students. And it just so happened that, in order to qualify for the stimulus funds, many states chose at that time to adopt the “Common Core” academic standards as a means of qualifying for the funds.


Interestingly, when the state of Massachusetts first applied for the “Race to the Top” stimulus funds in the first round of funds disbursements, the state had not yet officially adopted the Common Core standards, and ended up ranking only 13th among the 17 states that qualified for the “extra” funds. Later, after Massachusetts officially adopted the Common Core academic standards, the state received a #1 ranking when it next applied for the funds.


The lesson from Massachusetts was pretty clear. Adopt Common Core standards, and you’ll get more money from Washington. The Obama Administration could technically and legally mandate educational content to the states, but it has successfully used a “third party entity,” of sorts – the Common Core initiative – to have its way with the states. Given this precedent, it’s not difficult to see how the feds could eventually begin requiring certain types of curriculum for kids nationwide.


Many of the nation’s Governors and state school Superintendents who support Common Core still like to remind their constituents that the initiative is a “state thing,” not a “federal thing” – and, therefore, it’s a good thing. For them, to reject the agenda is to ignore their brilliance.

But all Americans should heed the warning: when a majority of the states begin to all do the same thing in terms of public policy, we, the people, become an easier target for federal control.

http://townhall.com/columnists/austi...1587366/page/2

Backlash Against Common Core

by Phyllis Schlafly
May 15, 2013

The national news media haven’t discovered it, but the issue that is bringing out hundreds of citizens who never before attended political meetings is Common Core (CC). More precisely, it is the attempt of Barack Obama’s Department of Education to force all states and schools to adopt specified national education standards for each grade level that will dictate what all kids learn and don’t learn.
Common Core means federal control of school curriculum, i.e., control by Obama Administration leftwing bureaucrats. Federal control will replace all curriculum decisions by state and local school boards, state legislatures, parents, and even Congress because Obama bypassed Congress by using $4 billion of Stimulus money to promote Common Core.
It’s not only public schools that must obey the fed’s dictates. Common Core will control the curriculum of charter schools, private schools, religious schools, Catholic schools, and homeschooling.
The control mechanism is the tests. Kids must pass the tests in order to get a high school diploma, admittance to college, or a GED. If they haven’t studied a curriculum based on Common Core, they won’t score well on the tests.
Common Core cannot be described as voluntary. Since CC is so costly to the states (estimated at $15 billion for each state for retraining teachers and purchase of computers for all kids to take the tests), CC is foisted on the locals by a combination of bribes, federal handouts, and as the price for getting a waiver to exempt a state from other obnoxious mandates such as No Child Left Behind.
Don’t be under any illusion that Common Core will make kids smarter. The Common Core academic level is lower than what many states use now, and the math standards are so inferior that the only real mathematician on the validation committee refused to sign off on the math standards.
He said the CC standards are two years behind international expectations by the 8th grade, and fall further behind in grades 8 to 12. The CC math standards downgrade the years when algebra and geometry are to be taught.
Parents will have a hard time helping their children with their math homework. CC standards call for teaching kids to add columns of figures from left to right instead of right to left.
CC advocates claim that the new standards will make students college-ready. That promise is a play on words: students will be ready only to enter a two-year nonselective community college.
Common Core means government agencies will gather and store all sorts of private information on every schoolchild into a longitudinal database from birth through all levels of schooling, plus giving government the right to share and exchange this nosy information with other government and private agencies, thus negating the federal law that now prohibits that. This type of surveillance and control of individuals is the mark of a totalitarian government.
Common Core reminds us of how Communist China gathered nosy information on all its schoolchildren, stored it in manila folders called dangans, and then turned the file over to the kid’s employer when he left school.
The New York Times once published a picture of a giant Chinese warehouse containing hundreds of thousands of these folders. That was in the pre-internet era when information was stored on paper; now data collection and storage are efficiently managed on computers in a greater invasion of privacy.
Common Core is encrusted with lies. It is not, as advertised, “state” written; it is a national project created in secret without any input from teachers or state legislatures. It is not “internationally benchmarked”; that never happened.
The readings assigned in the CC English standards are 50 percent “informational” texts instead of great American and English literature and classics. The result is that CC standards are very political.
The suggested readings include a salestalk for government health care (such as ObamaCare) and global warming propaganda (including a push for Agenda 21). Some of the fiction suggested is worthless and even pornographic, presumably chosen to reflect contemporary life. Another suggested reading favorably describes Fidel Castro and his associates without any indication they are tyrants, Communists, and mass murderers.
We should take a bit of advice from our neighbor to the north. Canada has no national standards (all standards are adopted locally) and not even any national Department of Education.
CC advocates admit the standards cannot be changed or errors corrected because they are already printed and copyrighted. Bills to repeal CC have been filed in Oklahoma, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Alabama, South Dakota and Georgia, and Indiana Governor Mike Pence just signed a law to “pause” the CC implementation and hold public hearings.

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On May 11, 2013, the Governor signed the Indiana Common Core bill. This bill requires the State Board to take no further actions to implement any common core standards and calls for the state board, the legislative study committee, and the office of management and budget to conduct “comprehensive evaluations” of the common core standards. In addition, the state board of education is to hold at least three public meetings.

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Further Reading: Common Core

















http://www.eagleforum.org/publicatio...mmon-core.html

Tuesday, August 6, 2013

Look Who Funded and Developed "Common Core" Education

Dave Hodges
Activist Post

After reading this article, the reader will become aware that Common Core is a simply a regurgitation of Bloom’s Taxonomy combined with some very clever propaganda interwoven into the fabric of every course which embraces social justice, collectivism the eventual deindustrialization of America through the acceptance of climate change theories and the resulting carbon taxes and cap-and-trade policies which will follow.

No teacher and no school board member was asked to contribute to the Common Core standards. Nor was any State Legislature involved in the creation of this monstrosity.

Under this plan, every teacher will teach the same material with much of the same teaching strategies as every other teacher. This is the 21st Century educational version of the Stepford Wives. The Tenth Amendment is dead and individual freedom is being stamped out.

Common Core Plagiarizes Bloom’s Taxonomy

Common core espouses the laudable goal of making children think critically. In every piece I have read where the establishment defends Common Core, the company line states that it is important to move children away from memorization learning to analyzing and creating. I wholeheartedly agree with this goal. However, we do not have to spend billions of dollars to achieve this end.


In 1948, psychologist Benjamin Bloom and associates, developed the six levels of Bloom’s Taxonomy. Under the taxonomy, learning progressed from memorization to analyzing and creating. If that sounds familiar, Common Core has copied Bloom's taxonomy almost verbatim. Sure they changed nouns to verbs and verbs to nouns, but the progression of learning is almost identical. And this is what is being touted as the great revolution in teaching and learning. After comparing Bloom's Taxonomy to Common Core, can there be any doubt that of the lack of authenticity of Common Core?

Compare Bloom’s Taxonomy *pictured on the left) to Common Core (pictured on the right).

Why would the creators of Common Core go backwards and regurgitate Bloom’s Taxonomy? First, the taxonomy is respected and gave America some of her best days in public education. Bloom’s taxonomy was successful because of the fact that the government did not get to control the content or the application. Secondly, if a respected learning progression will be universally accepted, then the substance behind the theoretical approach can be slipped in and the propagandizing of the young can begin. Yes, I am talking about a system of education where propaganda is a thinly disguised goal.

Nobody is going to challenge the notion that we should get children to think more critically. And what if the creators of Common Core can mandate specific topical material to be taught within the Common Core, an entire generation of young learners can be molded to the desired point of view. Before you tell me to remove my tin foil hat, please examine the evidence listed below and then honestly tell me that there is not a cause for concern.

First, let’s take a look at the history of failed federal educational programs.

One Failed Federal Education Program After Another

To understand where we are going, we have to first understand where we have been. Teachers have endured such educational faux pas from Goals 2000, to School to Work, to No Child Left Behind and now we are witnessing the latest in fad in American education, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

Each one of the aforementioned programs threw billions of taxpayer dollars down the toilet, while contributing to the dramatic decrease in student performance. For example, SAT Reading scores, for the high school class of 2012, reached a 40+ year low since the implementation of No Child Left Behind. (NCLB).

The successor of NCLB, Common Core, is based upon social justice, arriving at knowledge and subsequent decision making through a spirit of collectivism and developing a communal agreement about the need to teach and to integrate into each classroom an underlying theme of sustainable development. These goals are not just going to be taught in specific Environmental Science courses, but these philosophies are to be implemented and taught in EACH and EVERY course that a child takes during their educational experiences beginning with pre-K and stretching to post graduate secondary education.

Bill Gates, the driving force behind Common Core

Globalist and Eugenics proponent, Bill Gates, is one of the Founding Fathers of the Common Core movement and its copyright holders, NGA/CCSSO. Gates donated about $25 million dollars to promote his version of global education. Gates has made several donations to CCSSO to promote Common Core. In 2009, Gates made two separate donations of $9,961,842 and $3,185,750. In 2010, Gates donated $743,331 and in 2011, he contributed $9,388,911. In 2008, Gates donated $2,259,780 to the National Governor’s Association (NGA) to develop and implement Common Core. The NGA is the conduit into America from the United Nations UNESCO, Education for All Agenda 21 version of globalist education being forced down the throats of our young people.

Gates is listed as partner with UNESCO/UN to fund ”Education For All,” which in turn was transferred to the National Governors Association which changed the name to Common Core. In a key document, "The Dakar Framework for Action: Education For All: Meeting Our Collective Commitments" which identifies the goals for what became Common Core. The document speaks directly to the Agenda 21 educational ideals of collectivism, social justice, environmental justice and the espousing of the beliefs of the pseudoscience known as sustainable development.

Common Core Serves the Edicts of Agenda 21

Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 Public Awareness and Training focuses on impressing upon every citizen on the planet, the indispensable need for achieving sustainable development. In plain language, Common Core is going into every country. The implementation names of this global education may vary, but the underlying Agenda 21 philosophies do not. Chapter 36 also states that the globalists plan to “reorient” worldwide education toward sustainable development. In future installments in this series, the weak academic standards of Common Core will be revealed. Reform of the nation’s standardized objectives is merely a smokescreen to the true intent of the program which is to covertly gain acceptance for Agenda 21 policies.

Subsequently, the Agenda 21/UNESCO documents clearly state their intention to turn each student into a globalist who will accept smaller living space, residing in the stack-and-pack cities of the future, acceptance of drastic energy reduction and the loss of Constitutional liberties. The document goes on to say that:

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…

Educational Russian Roulette

The Common Core is an untested, federally promoted, unfunded experiment. The standards creators (NGA/CCSSO) have not set up a monitoring plan to test this national experiment, to see what, if any, unintended consequences the Common Core will have on our children. This is a game Russian Roulette being played on the socio-emotional, intellectual and spiritual aspects of our children’s development.

This is only the tip of the iceberg. If we let the teaching of the controversial topic of sustainability in each and every course, our children will not be given the chance to debate the merits of climate change theories. This will lead to the unquestioned ushering in of carbon taxes and cap-and-trade policies. This will spell economic doom for this country as know it today through the biggest wealth transfer in American history through cap and trade which will severely curtail individual and small business energy usage.

Yet, the rich will be able to afford to buy their way out of restrictions by paying the penalties that the average person cannot afford. Ultimately, this will lead to neo-feudalism. If you doubt the veracity of these comments, let’s give President Obama the floor and let him tell you in his own words.


Obama: My Plan Makes Electricity Rates Skyrocket






Are we really naive enough to believe that Obama is just making up this nonsense about implementing cap and trade and causing our utility prices to skyrocket and significantly lowering the standard of living for the middle class?

We can teach our kids to think critically without this program, we could just return to Bloom’s Taxonomy because it works. However, this would not offer the pretext for the Bill Gates’ of the world to shove their climate change agenda down the throats of our children and get them to acquiesce to what is coming.

In another 10 years, this federal program will implode like all the other federal education programs, but the damage will have been done. How many more decades can America endure a drop of reading comprehension scores by another 40+ points until we are as functionally illiterate as most Third World countries? And more importantly, how far will that American standard of living be decreased during this time as we produce a generation of children who will mindlessly accept the resources scraps of this planet as they attempt to survive in a completely changed world?

Solutions

Is it time to homeschool? It is certainly understandable if many choose this option. For most, the time for mass homeschooling has not yet arrived, but we need to demand accountability and demand it now. Teachers and administrators need to be involved in revamping of this program. For example, when dealing with controversial topics like climate change, both sides of the issue need to be fairly presented. We need to halt the funding of Common Core immediately and embrace what it is based upon: Bloom’s Taxonomy. We need to embrace what we know works, not the anecdotal accounts of Common Core supporters who stand to make billions of dollars through the implementation of this program. We also need to return education to the local level and empower local school boards to make education decisions on curriculum as they once did. Then and only then, can we shape a future for our children that we can trust.

Dave is an award winning psychology, statistics and research professor, a college basketball coach, a mental health counselor, a political activist and writer who has published dozens of editorials and articles in several publications such as Freedoms Phoenix, News With Views and The Arizona Republic.

The Common Sense Show features a wide variety of important topics that range from the loss of constitutional liberties, to the subsequent implementation of a police state under world governance, to exploring the limits of human potential. The primary purpose of The Common Sense Show is to provide Americans with the tools necessary to reclaim both our individual and national sovereignty.

http://www.activistpost.com/2013/08/...ed-common.html

Watchdog Wire shared a link.


Yesterday

Are you familiar with the International Baccalureate program?
If you have kids or grandkids we'd like to hear from you!
This Citizen has a few issues she'd like to address. Share your story with us.

As Texans fight Common Core, CSCOPE in public schools, why is International Baccalaureate unnoticed?

watchdogwire.com

As Texas public school curriculum controversies remain focused on CSCOPE and Common Core, is International Baccalaureate (IB) getting a pass?

Common Core lesson teaches fourth-graders about ‘mobstaz’ and ‘pimps

Posted by EAGNEWS on Sep 22, 2013

VERMILLION PARISH, La. – Under the new, “more rigorous” national Common Core standards, students are learning a lot of things they may not have learned before. We’re just not sure that’s a good thing. Fourth graders in Vermillion Parish, Louisiana, for instance, learned just last week what pimps and “mobstaz” are in their new Common Core-aligned classroom assignments. Predictably, some parents were not impressed. “I try to instill values in my son,” parent Brittney Badeaux told Fox News. “My goal is for him is ultimately to become a great man, a family man, a well-rounded man. And now my son wants to know what a pimp is.” The class assignment consisted of a worksheet with different examples and takes on the word “twist.” There’s a paragraph on the dancing the twist, tornados … and the rapper “Twista.” “In 1997, after appearing on Do or Die’s hit ‘Po Pimp,’ Twista was signed to Atlantic Records. Under that label he released ‘Adrenaline Rush’ and formed the group Speedknot Mobstaz in 1998,” the lesson explains. “It was really inappropriate for my child,” Badeaux told Fox News. “He doesn’t know what a pimp or mobster is.” “I try to teach him morals and respect and to speak correctly,” she added. “It’s hard for a fourth grader to understand Ebonics when you’re trying to teach him how to spell and write correctly.” School officials told the news site the lesson was considered age appropriate according to the new national Common Core standards. It’s aligned to fourth grade English standards. Vermillion Parish Superintendent Jerome Payau said the “Po-Pimp” worksheet is designed to encourage discussion of “real world texts.” “The Common Core curriculum, like it or not – we have to make our students successful,” he said, according to Fox News. We fail to see how knowledge of pimps and “mobstaz” contributes toward that goal. The lesson, however, is only the latest example of Common Core-aligned material with questionable content. Last week, a parent in the Sierra Vista, Arizona school district raised concerns about an erotic novel assigned as a Common Core-aligned 10th grade literature book. The parent was particularly upset with passages from page 80 of Dreaming in Cuban, by Christina Garcia: “Hugo and Felicia stripped in their room, dissolving easily into one another, and made love against the whitewashed walls. Hugo bit Felicia’s breast and left purplish bands of bruises on her upper thighs. He knelt before her in the tub and massaged black Spanish soap between her legs. He entered her repeatedly from behind. “Felicia learned what pleased him. She tied his arms above his head with their underclothing and slapping him sharply when he asked. “‘You’re my bitch,’” Hugo said, groaning. School officials eventually pulled the book, but we’re convinced there’s likely countless other examples of inappropriate Common Core-approved content in districts across the country. Currently 45 states have signed on to the national standards, though many are re-evaluating their participation.


Read more at http://joeforamerica.com/2013/09/com...J42OlucrZUq.99

First, Common Core, cough " Commie Core" as i call it is unconstitutional, it violates the 10th Amendment in that the oversight of educational standards belong to the states, not the Feds. Second, this Commie Core standard is a smoke screen for soft indoctrination with socialist liberal left ideaologies slickly embeded at certian points, i know because i've read it. Parents should be alarmed as it also seems to discourage critical independent thought or thinking.

Tuesday, 01 October 2013 07:00 Expert Explores Link Between Federal Data Mining and Common Core

Written by Alex Newman





In an exclusive studio interview with The New American magazine’s Dr. Duke Pesta, Heartland Institute Education Research Fellow Joy Pullmann outlined the crucial link between the Obama-backed “Common Core” nationalization of schooling, the federally funded tests that go with the standards, and the vast data-gathering apparatus being erected by the administration to gather private information on U.S. students. The Common Core assessments, which have already been adopted by about four in five state governments, are a key element underpinning the entire scheme, she explained.

“The first thing people have to know is that testing is inseparable from Common Core,” said Pullmann, a leading analyst focused on the education “reform” agenda with the non-partisan Heartland Institute. “When governors signed a bunch of documents saying ‘yeah, we want to do this nationalization of education project,’ one of the things that they signed on to was the Common Core initiative, and they defined it as standards plus assessments. So those assessments, those tests, are the enforcement mechanism to make sure that Common Core gets into the minds and into the hands of teachers and children in the classrooms.”

There are currently two testing consortia developing Common Core assessments for state governments with federal tax dollars, the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). Several state governments have started to withdraw from the testing schemes following massive public outcries, but both organizations are marching full speech ahead despite the growing outrage among parents, teachers, and experts.

As part of the agreements signed between state governments and the federally backed consortia, Pullmann explained in the interview, data gathered on children at school will be provided to the organizations. As an example of the types of data being sought, she said one of the consortia was interested in information on “student behavior, their attitudes, their persistence, their discipline, and so forth — a lot of non-academic things that a lot of parents aren't comfortable with.”

“The reason I call this the student-data pipeline is because states have promised these organizations they'll give this information to them — it's basically a blank check; whatever information they think is necessary,” Pullmann explained. “And they've promised that they'll change their state laws or their regulations according to whatever is necessary to get that carried out.”

Because the testing regime is funded by the U.S. taxpayers via federal government, meanwhile, the assessment consortia have promised to deliver the information they gather on students to bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., she added. The agreement between the Obama administration's Education Department and the two testing organizations it funds, excerpted in the video interview, puts it succinctly: “The grantee must provide timely and complete access to any and all data collected at the state level to ED [the U.S. Department of Education].”

“We have a mass of student information available and open and unprotected — personal information about kids — that is literally being collected by Common Core,” Pullman continued. Indeed, as she points out in the interview, the administration has essentially re-written federal privacy regulations — without approval from Congress — to claim that information on children can be shared without parental knowledge or consent.

Aside from the data-mining schemes, Pullmann said other problems with nationalizing education through Common Core include the fact that it enhances the education monopoly already held by government. That will allow special interests, which invariably seek out power sources, to push their agenda more easily. “Just creating that sort of structure for education really makes it inevitable that bad things are going to be perpetuated on everybody beneath that structure," she said, citing the history of humanity to illustrate the argument against creating such centers of power to begin with.

Beyond that, the agenda goes even deeper. “The real goal is social engineering,” Pullmann said, echoing widespread concerns among Common Core critics across the political spectrum. “I don't like to use explosive sorts of things like that, but this is very obvious — the goal is to create a workforce that responds to the needs of the 21st century, as determined by the central planners.”

Dr. Pesta, who also serves as academic director at FreedomProject Education and an English professor at the University of Wisconsin, recently compared the effort to impose Common Core and associated government schemes on the American people to a frog being boiled alive over time. In the latest interview, he said that FPE, an online K-12 school offering classical education, has been working with Catholic schools. Many have been adopting Common Core standards in the mistaken belief that it would not pull them closer to the federal government, which Pesta noted had become increasingly hostile to Christianity and religious freedom.

For more information on Common Core, Dr. Pesta suggests exploring TheNewAmerican.com, which has been staying on top of major developments, and checking out the Heartland Institute’s page at www.heartland.org/common-core.

^{Photo at top: Dr. Duke Pesta interviewing Joy Pullmann}

Media



More in this category: « Strategies to Defeat Common Core Education Gain Momentum


1 comment

• Comment Link Tuesday, 01 October 2013 23:32 posted by Nora There is absolutely no need or reason for the government to have that much information on minor children or anyone else for that matter. The potential for abuse is plain for anyone to see. We need to pull our kids out of the disaster called "public education" and home school them, because if we don't they will be indoctrinated with socialist values, and unable to perform simple math, read, write or think critically. That's the goal of Common Core; to make children dumbed-down mindless slaves. A good bit of a child's formative years will be spent learning useless drills and blind obedience, if we don't stop this Common Core process of social control in its tracks.

http://thenewamerican.com/culture/ed...nd-common-core

Legislative Alerts and Updates • Current Legislation • Key Votes • Capitol Hill Basics

	Action Alert Share on facebook Share on twitter Share on email More Sharing Services Urgent Action: Stop Common Core in Kansas NOW! May 20, 2013 Time is of the essence right now in Kansas. We have the opportunity to stop the implementation of the Common Core Standards (CCS), but we must act quickly! As a final matter of this legislative session, your State Senator and State Representative will be voting on the state appropriations bill that must be approved by both houses in order to stop Common Core. As you know, the Common Core State Standards Initiative is a big-government, top-down control of education that sacrifices individualism for the sake of the collective. Local school boards will have zero control of content, and costs are estimated to be $16 billion with 90% paid by these states who have no say in what is being taught! There is also a data-tracking requirement from K through Career that is an intrusive violation of the privacy rights of our children and their parents. Additionally, CCS is a deliberate dumbing-down of our children as shown by performance scores that have steadily deteriorated since the inception of the Department of Education. In fact, the standards are so low that two Ph.D.s serving on the CCS validation committee (Dr. Sandra Stotsky and Dr. James Milgram) refused to sign off on the standards. You can read more about this issue in this Phyllis Schlafly column. We can defeat Common Core in Kansas – but only with your help. Take Action! Please call your legislators and ask them to vote “no” on any budget that does not defund the Common Core. You can also click here to send an e-mail (talking points provided) to your representatives.

You have to go to the link below to sign the petition

http://www.capwiz.com/eagleforum/iss...ertid=62678611

Protesters Condemn ALEC's Push to Privatize Public Education

Demonstrators Crash ALEC convention in Chicago, a city impacted by the privatization of public schools - August 9, 13


Published on Aug 7, 2013
Demonstrators Crash ALEC convention in Chicago, a city impacted by the privatization of public schools

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?...&jumival=10548

here is the transcript


Transcript

JAISAL NOOR, TRNN PRODUCER: Welcome to The Real News Network. I'm Jaisal Noor in Baltimore.We continue our series looking into ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, as they celebrate their 40th anniversary in Chicago. Six people were arrested Monday when protesters descended upon the Palmer House Hilton in Chicago to push back against the impending visit of ALEC. Now joining us to talk more about the protest and the history of ALEC and its influence on public education around the country are two guests. We are joined by Julie Mead. She's a professor in the Department of Educational Leadership and Policy Analysis at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. She researches, teaches, and writes about topics related to legal aspects of education. Her research centers on legal issues related to special education and raised by forms of school choice. We're also joined by Brendan Fisher. He is general counsel with the Center for Media and Democracy, publishers of ALECExposed.org and PRWatch.org. He has worked extensively on the ALEC Exposed project. Thank you both for joining us.BRENDAN FISHER, GENERAL COUNSEL, CENTER FOR MEDIA AND DEMOCRACY: Thanks for having me.NOOR: So, Brendan, let's start with you. Give us the latest on the protest happening right now in Chicago.FISHER: Sure. So today is the first day of the ALEC meeting in Chicago at the Palmer House, which is one of the nicest hotels in town in the [lu] just a few blocks from the lake. Yesterday, six people were arrested. There were smaller protests today, but I think there's a much larger rally planned for tomorrow, with a number of environmental and civil rights and labor groups coming together and bringing in their voices against ALEC and the really broad agenda that it has implemented in the states to lower wage and create fewer environmental regulations and worse educational outcomes for the 99 percent.NOOR: And the significance as far as the protesters are concerned that ALEC is having this meeting in Chicago, what can you tell us about what's been happening in Chicago's public education system over the last, you know, even 15, 20 years?FISHER: Sure. Sure. Well, so Chicago has definitely been bearing the brunt of the education privatization movement. I mean, it does show to a certain extent how bipartisan the education privatization push has become. But it really--when you tie it back to where the source of a lot of this legislation, in many cases it's very far-right groups that are trying to push an ideological and profit-driven agenda. So if you look at ALEC, K12 Inc. is one of the top sponsors of this year's meeting. K12 Inc. is the nation's largest provider of online for-profit schools. And as one of the top sponsors of the ALEC meeting, it's allying itself with the tobacco industry and with the oil industry and with the pharmaceutical industry, all of which are not something you would normally associate with good educational outcomes, not the sort of thing that you would typically expect of a school that is looking out primarily for kids. This year you saw the Illinois Policy Institute, which is the state policy network think tank in Illinois, teaming up with K12 to push virtual charters in the state to try and get virtual charters established in 18 school districts across the state of Illinois. They were unsuccessful in that effort, but it did show how these different nodes in what you might call the right-wing infrastructure are working together to try and push an ideological and profit-driven agenda in many states, including Illinois, which has been typically regarded as a blue state.NOOR: And, Julie Mead, I'm looking at your piece "A Smart ALEC Threatens Public Education: Coordinated efforts to introduce model legislation aimed at defunding and dismantling public schools is the signature work of this conservative organization." What can you tell us about ALEC's influence around the country and just about--just how it goes about exerting this influence?PROF. JULIE MEAD, EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP AND POLICY ANALYSIS, UNIV. WISCONSIN - MADISON: Sure. I can handle that. The way that ALEC works is by bringing together state legislators with various private interests, including for-profit interests like K12. They write model bills, of which there is an entire educational portfolio. Those private interests then have significant influence on the development of those bills. And, in fact, that can't be taken forward as a model bill until those both private and public members of any task force, the education task force or any of its subcommittees, sign off on it. And so if you look at the portfolio of education model bills, you would find that they can be roughly categorized into four groups. One group is to influence market forces into education and all of its realms, including teacher education, for example. The second is to privatize education by introducing vouchers, for-profit charter bills or for-profit charter agencies and tax incentives of tax credits. The third is to increase student testing. And the fourth is to reduce or eliminate the influence of locally elected school boards and school districts.NOOR: And so, Professor Mead, ALEC was one of the forces behind the push for vouchers around the country, and especially in Wisconsin, which became the first state where it was implemented. Talk about the history of the system in Wisconsin and what the impact has been in Wisconsin, especially over the past couple of years, when the right to collective bargaining has been taken away from many of the unions, the public education unions there.MEAD: Well, as you said, Wisconsin got their first publicly funded voucher program, the Milwaukee Parental Choice Program, which was enacted in 1990. And at that time it was a very limited experiment in the terms of the Supreme Court that first reviewed the bill. And at that time, it was limited to only 1,000 students or 1 percent of those enrolled in the Milwaukee Public School District. It required that any eligible student could have a family income of no more than 175 percent of the federal poverty level and that any participating private school had to have a majority of students attending through private tuition. So they could have no more than 49 percent of their student population there by virtue of a voucher. And, in fact, when it was first initiated, only nonsectarian schools could participate. Since then, all of those controls, if you will, have been removed. So now there's no limit to the number of students who can participate. To be eligible, it's 300 percent of the federal poverty level. Schools can be completely--their entire student body population can be there by virtue of a voucher. And, in fact, the majority of schools do have 90 to 100 percent of their students attend by virtue of a voucher. And there is no longer a requirement that the schools, that the private participating schools be located within the city of Milwaukee. They can be anywhere.The next push, then, was to add Racine to have a limited voucher program. And then most recently it's been expanded now that--with a limited--at least to begin with--a limited manner to 1,000 students--excuse me--500 students initially across the state can participate in a voucher, a publicly funded voucher.In terms of its impact on education, again this has been operational for more than 20 years, and research very clearly does not show that voucher schools do any better than traditional public school systems, and, in fact, sometimes worse. And even when you do those comparisons, you have to recognize the fact that the private schools don't serve the same population, so they're not required to serve children with disabilities to the same extent. Same thing with children who are learning English to the same extent. So all of those kinds of special needs populations remain in the Milwaukee public school district. That also then means that you've got a lot of money that flows to these private schools without the same kind of accountability.NOOR: And the significance of Scott Walker's antiunion bill being passed in Wisconsin which severely limits the power of public unions, including teachers unions, to collectively bargain, how has that impacted public education? It's one of the efforts that ALEC also has supported.MEAD: Well, just as you said, it's a measure to make it much more difficult for public employee unions to operate. And, in fact, it creates a situation in which, because it's harder for them to operate and because it's harder for them to gain their membership, that then makes it more difficult for them to influence public elections.NOOR: So, Brendan, at The Real News we've been closely following how private companies have been increasingly looking at public education, the hundreds of billions of dollars spent every year as one of the last untapped resources that they can get their hands on around the country. What can you tell us about the at least 139 bills or state budget provisions introduced by people who are getting support by ALEC around the country in just 43 states? And that's just in the first six months of 2013.FISHER: Yeah, that's right. So there were actually--31 of those bills became law, but the number of bills that were introduced, so how much of a priority it is for ALEC and ALEC legislators to promote the privatization of education.And like you mentioned, this is a big industry. Rupert Murdoch, who owns News Corp., which is the parent company of Fox News, has called it a $500 billion industry just waiting to be transformed. There's a lot of money to be made when taxpayers are spending this much on trying to educate our children. You may not be surprised to find that News Corp.'s new education division, called Amplify, is an ALEC member. They are a part of the Education Task Force. They've been promoting policies to try and use a specialized Amplify tablet in schools which would certainly increase the profits of Amplify and News Corp. You know, I think there's two things connected to this push for the privatization of schools. It's not--one part is profit. Clearly, Amplify, K12 are seeking to make as much money as they can on the back of taxpayers. But the other part of it is political. Many voucher programs are not--or many voucher schools are not unionized. And teachers unions are one of the biggest political forces in politics. They often support Democratic candidates. They're often supporters of progressive causes. And in the post Citizens United world, as you've seen corporations being able to spend more and more money trying to influence politics, trying to advance their agenda, trying to influence policy, teachers unions and unions in general are one of the few counterweights to that corporate power. So the more that you can reduce the influence of unions, and teachers unions specifically, the more that you can expand corporate power. So that's another piece that's really at stake here, which really, to be clear, that should take second--should take the back seat to educational outcomes and making sure that our kids are educated. But when you're looking at the motivations of the reasons that these bills are sweeping across the country, it's not for the benefit of children; it's for political purposes and to advance the profit motive.NOOR: And finally, Professor Mead, let's end with you. What are the lessons of Wisconsin that the rest of the country should be paying attention to as these same policies, like vouchers, spread throughout the country?MEAD: Well, one of the things that I like to talk about is what's public about public education, because I really do believe that that is precisely what is at stake, what is public about public education. And when we think about that publicness, I like to talk about five dimensions of publicness. There's public purpose, public funding, public access, public accountability to communities, and the public curriculum. And as we push to privatize all of those, save for--perhaps except for public funding, are at risk. So the public purpose becomes muddied. Yes, there are some [incompr.] purposes are served by private education, certainly, but you also introduce private interests, private for-profit interests, and even private interests of wanting to control the nature of the education itself.Public funding gets preserved in both systems, but without the same public access. So public schools have to serve all of the public in whatever form that public school child comes to us. Private schools, that's not so. So they don't have to serve children with special needs in the same way. They don't have to serve English language learners and so forth. Public accountability to communities. We elect our neighbors as public school boards, and then we can petition those neighbors and talk to those neighbors to try to make sure that our schools reflect what we want them to reflect locally. We can do the same thing at the state level, on the federal level in terms of influencing educational policy. Once you shift into a privatization mode, there is no accountability to voters. There's no way I as a voter with a child or I as a voter without a child can influence what's happening at that private school once they've accepted the voucher. So we lose that public accountability to our communities. And finally, public curriculum. If you think about it, over the many years that public schools have been in existence, we have continually, as a collective, through our representative governments at all three levels, defined what it means to be an educated citizen, what kinds of things should be taught in schools, what should be emphasized, how that's going to--how a child's going to progress through that curriculum throughout their educational journey. All of those things we have codified in various kinds of statutes, both state and federal, and of course local policies. And once you shift into a private school, all of that is lost, save for the very rudimentary you have to teach some reading, you have to teach some arithmetic, and perhaps you have to teach some science, and how many days you have to be in school or in session. So we lose all of that history of what we [inaud.] together to determine what it means to be an educated citizen.NOOR: Julie Mead and Brandon Fisher, thank you so much, both, for joining us.MEAD: Thank you for having me.FISHER: Thanks for having me.NOOR: And thank you for joining us on The Real News Network.

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?...&jumival=10548


Here we go again public and private partnerships, profit for them, taxes and bills for us( the taxpayers. ) More of our money from our pockets to their pockets, with no accountability for them and no say from us for our children. Now isn't that a plan!! Our children will suffer for their profits!!

Common Core…stealth jihad directed at America’s children

Posted on September 16, 2013 by Diane Sori

While we’re all focused on the Middle East right now, especially on Syria, a form of stealth jihad is sneaking into our country…a form of which affects all states…all schools…and all our children…and it’s name is Common Core.
Forced on the states by the Obama administration…enabled by Obama’s federal stimulus law…Common Core will be implemented this school year in the 46 states that have adopted it, thus eliminating local control over the kindergarten through12th grade curriculum in those states. The adoption of Common Core means that teaching becomes a one-size-fits-all affair that will NOT address the needs of the ‘special needs child’…neither the gifted child nor the slow learner…because NO deviation from the standard norm in teaching is allowed.
And there will be NO escaping Common Core as its curriculum and teaching methods will also apply to private schools and the home schooled. In fact, many Catholic and other private schools are adopting Common Core in preparation for college-entrance exams…exams that will be based on Common Core criteria.
Simply put…the truth about Common Core is that it will revamp America’s public educational system and NOT for the better as Common Core also allows for a rewriting of American history, with the new curriculum and accompanying textbooks showing a definite slant and bias towards islam, while at the same time mocking or ignoring America’s Judeo-Christian roots and values.
And with one of its most in-your-face leftist agenda aspects, the Common Core curriculum has, for example, replaced the world’s great literary works with what’s called ‘informational texts’…another name for government propaganda. Shakespeare, Hemingway, and the other literary giants will be replaced by ‘informational texts’ extolling the virtues of same-sex marriage, abortion, drug use, and the all-important acceptance of all things islam. Students in the lower grades will now divide their time between literature and these leftist writings until high school, when literary works will make up a mere 30% of English/Language Arts instruction.
And the teaching of math under Common Core guidelines means getting the right answer just does NOT matter anymore as long as the student can explain the faulty reasoning they used to get to that wrong answer. 2 + 2 = 5 is OK…just explain how you got that answer. And Common Core puts many students mathematically two years behind those of many high-achieving countries. For example, Algebra 1 would be taught in 9th grade NOT 8th grade as previously taught, making calculus inaccessible to them in high school, and this would affect top-tier college entrance requirements.
Also, contrary to the traditional American belief that justice is based on individual rights, Common Core teaches ‘Social Justice’ meaning teachers must teach that America is an unjust and oppressive society that should be changed.
And the most unbelievable of all is that Common Core is using our public schools, Catholic schools, and private schools to indoctrinate our children into islam. ’The Five Pillars of Islam’ are an integral part of Common Core teaching beginning in pre-k and lasting through the12th grade. For example, students have muslim beliefs lessons where they must watch videos, research pre-selected web sites, complete worksheets, and create posters about the duties of muslims.

I wonder if that includes a muslim’s duty to wage jihad…as written in the qur’an.
And even with all this, Common Core still self-promotes itself as a fair and just universal set of educational standards that will unite all students under a common learning system…under common leftist political beliefs…with a curriculum in place that proponents say is designed so that every student graduating from high school is prepared to either enter college or the workforce. But what proponents do NOT tell you is that Common Core actually lowers school standards negating the very thing they promote themselves as doing.
And Common Core is far from the educational panacea that most dissatisfied with our public system of education hoped for as Common Core remains…NO matter how it’s packaged and sold…a one size fits all form of education that ignores the fact that each child is unique…each child’s learning skills or lack thereof is unique…and each state’s educational guidelines are unique.
In fact, Common Core is actually ‘dumbed-down’ education with less teacher responsibility than ever before as there is NO incentive to reach for higher standards, as all states will be judged by the same mediocre national benchmark enforced by the federal government…the Obama federal government.
So while Common Core proponents are in total support of the already ‘too much in control’ federal government setting even more educational standards than they already do, they fail to accept the fact that the federal government should NOT be involved in public education at all nor should they be setting any educational standards as public schools should be under state, county, and local auspices with standards set within each school district to meet the needs of the students going to school in said district.
And when you add in the specific negatives in how Common Core was implemented ‘red flags’ should be waving in the faces of every parent with school age children…’red flags’ waving because Common Core was pushed through state legislatures by unelected bureaucrats who created the Common Core ‘standards’ using monies garnered from special interests groups…meaning there was NO legislative vote by elected officials reflecting the will of the people or the will of the parents.
And in addition to all the educational negatives, schools that have implemented Common Core have government permission to collect private data on each student including religion, medical, and psychological info, and to do so WITHOUT parental consent. WITHOUT parental consent… meaning once again the federal government is butting into our personal lives and doing so without a warrant or just cause…doing so simply because they can.
Also, Common Core does NOTHING to address how teachers actually teach for even with Common Core standards in place teachers will still be teaching to the test…maybe NOT the same tests that are now in effect…but standardized tests nevertheless…with the end result being that parents and teachers will have even less control over their child’s education than they do now.
So with a curriculum so deviated from the much needed basics…reading, writing, and arithmetic… with a curriculum that reeks of the leftist liberal political agenda…and with a curriculum that smells of Agenda 21 indoctrination….Common Core should be rejected by all school districts for the sake of our children…for Common Core is rotten to its very core.
Diane Sori is the Editor of The Patriot Factor and a regular contributor to The D.C. Clothesline.
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http://dcclothesline.com/2013/09/16/...b_source=pubv1


A wake yet Everyone????