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Gov. Mary Fallin has issued an executive order in support of education standards in math and English known as Common Core and says she hopes the order will ease fears that the standards represent a federal takeover of public education.

AND…creepier. An assignment sent home from an Oak Forest, IL high school government class is raising eyebrows among parents who are shocked by the questionnaire they and their children are required to fill out. The questionnaire (below) has the parents identify their positions on a number of highly-charged issues, and then places them on a “political spectrum”. The survey is part of Oak Forest High School’s Common Core curriculum, which according to the school district’s website is to …”provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do...

A recent Common Core assignment sent home from an Oak Forest, Illinois high school requires parents to self-identify as conservative or liberal.The Illinois Review reported: An assignment sent home from an Oak Forest, IL high school government class is raising eyebrows among parents who are shocked by the questionnaire they and their children are required to fill out. The questionnaire (below) has the parents identify their positions on a number of highly-charged issues, and then places them on a “political spectrum.”The survey is part of Oak Forest High School’s Common Core curriculum, whichaccording to the school district’s website is to …”provide a...

A Common Core school district – Gulfport, Mississippi – is covering up failing test scores. At a recent meeting by Superintendent Glen East, parents were told that the test scores of the district had improved dramatically under the implementation of the Common Core curriculum.  The Superintendent made his claims regarding dramatic academic improvement of all students by using ONLY the scores of the  top 150 students.In his comments to parents, Mr. East stated, “This district already had national average ACT scores. We’ve now gone with our top students, our top 150 students, we’ve gone from a 23 average to almost...

As Common Core continues to concern parents across the U.S., a book that includes drugs, drinking, racial stereotypes all wrapped up in a political agenda has made its way into the Common Core curriculum. Fourth graders in Dupo, Illinois are reading a biography of Barack Obama entitled “Barack Obama”, written by Jane Sutcliffe and published by Lerner. The book contains very mature content and highlights the problems Obama has faced while growing up, all while blaming the color of his skin

Some parents in Dupo, Ill. are not happy that a biography of President Barack Obama is required reading for fourth-graders. They say the book contains a host of controversial elements, not least of which is that it casts white Americans who disagree with Obama’s politics as racist. Fourth-grade students at Bluffview Elementary School were instructed that they would be tested and graded on the book’s contents, reports EAGnews.org. The book, called simply “Barack Obama,” is published by Lerner Publications. The author, Jane Sutcliffe, appears to specialize in these kinds of biographies. She has written similar titles about Jesse Owens, Ronald...

DUPO, IL - Fourth graders in Dupo Illinois are reading a biography of Barack Obama that's raising eyebrows among St. Clair County parents. The book, which supplements the school's Common Core curriculum, blames television for the negative behaviors the first African-American president picked up as a teen: Screen Shot 2013-11-21 at 7.05.21 AM The book - brought to the attention this week of those on the "Moms Against Duncan - MAD" Facebook page, goes on to say white Americans were hesitant to vote for a black president, and that Obama pushed the race issue to bring the nation together. "But...

Obama’s Education Secretary recently said that opponents to the Administration’s “Common Core” Standards are merely “white suburban moms” who are, all of a sudden, learning that their kids aren’t real bright. Arne Duncan (wow. . . Perfect name for a 1970’s sitcom) made the degrading remarks to a group of state school superintendents on Friday. According to the Washington Post: U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan told a group of state schools superintendents Friday that he found it “fascinating” that some of the opposition to the Common Core State Standards has come from “white suburban moms who — all of...

The Founding Fathers understood government forms. What they meant by the term was the arrangement of power found in any civil society, whether monarchy, aristocracy, or democracy. This is what Thomas Jefferson meant when he wrote in the Declaration, “That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it,” and “mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.” The careful, prudent balancing of the forms of government in the U.S. Constitution—combining...

Schools: Opposition is rising to new national education standards pushed on public schools. They have turned schools into re-education camps for liberalism, with political statements masquerading as English lessons. If one had to include one speech by President Ronald Reagan as recommended reading in a national standardized curriculum it might be the one in which he stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!" One might pick Reagan's first inaugural address when he said, "Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." Or even his 1964 "A...

The ninth of November marked the twenty-fourth anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall, probably the most important historical event since World War II and the most important lesson about human freedom experienced within the living memory of most of us. Presumably, next year there will be more of a commemoration, but the salient question now is how this lesson is being taught in the nation’s classrooms. For while those of us in our forties and older remember the fall of communism and its causes, today’s teenagers are wholly in the dark. What, then, are the high-school students of...

Wade through several hundred discussions about education. You finally realize it all comes down to one question: did all this crazy bad stuff happen by accident, or do the people at the top get up every morning scheming to keep kids semi-literate, unable to do much arithmetic, and ignorant in any direction you look? I'm fascinated by this question because, for one thing, the crazy bad stuff seems too vast to be accidental. You can’t take your eyes off it. Watching Rome burn must’ve been a similar experience. The waste, the incompetence, the reckless malice. Whatever the exact cause, finally...

You will not indoctrinate my child,” he wrote. “If you are going to present articles with a slant to one side you are morally and ethically required to present the opposing views, to give an opportunity for the student, your captive audience, to come to their own conclusions.” Barry also reached out to the principal, who defended the teacher’s assignment and allegedly told him The New York Times story was not slanted. On Friday the story took a bizarre turn. A friend of Barry’s received a telephone call that he says came from Cydnee Cohen, the president of the East...

There is a phenomenon that is rarely commented on but which is as common as it is significant. For at least two generations, countless conservative parents have seen their adult children reject their core values. I have met these parents throughout America. I have spoken with them in person and on my radio show. Many have confided to me -- usually with a resigned sadness -- that one or more of their children has adopted left-wing social, moral and political beliefs. A particularly dramatic recent example was a pastor who told me that he has three sons, all of whom...

A new Common Core-aligned lesson is teaching third-graders across the United States that “the commands of government officials must be obeyed by all,” and that “the wants of an individual are less important than the well-being of the nation.” Those un-American and unconstitutional concepts are being peddled to elementary students by the Pearson Education company, one of the nation’s leading producers of school curricula, reports MinutemenNews.com.The historically inaccurate lesson appears to be part of a Pearson Education unit that teaches kids about Abraham Lincoln and the Civil War – “Hold the Flag High” – while doubling as an English assignment....

Kyle Olson of EAGnews, an education reform non-profit based in Muskegon, recently published a video exposing the content of the curriculum that will be used by fourth grade teachers for the Common Core national standards in English. Olson takes issue with the use of a children’s book called “The Jacket.” Olson explains, “The story centers around a young white boy named Phil who wrongly accuses an African-American student of stealing his brother’s jacket. This is a fun little book about racism and white privilege – a left-wing concept that teaches students the values of an American society are actually designed...

Kyle Olson of EAGnews, an education reform non-profit based in Muskegon, recently published a video exposing the content of the curriculum that will be used by fourth grade teachers for the Common Core national standards in English. Olson takes issue with the use of a children’s book called “The Jacket.” Olson explains, “The story centers around a young white boy named Phil who wrongly accuses an African-American student of stealing his brother’s jacket. This is a fun little book about racism and white privilege – a left-wing concept that teaches students the values of an American society are actually designed...

The difficulty of obtaining good, affordable day care is well known as a problem afflicting the working poor. But increasingly, middle- and upper-middle-class parents are finding that day care is hard to find or access and that even when it is available it is startlingly costly. Among the mothers I spoke to, one sent her daughter to a day care proprietor where the owner secretly had another woman mind all eight babies all day long; another signed up for a slot at a local day care when she was newly pregnant. Her daughter is now 5, and she is still...

What are your kids studying in school today? Public schools from California to Florida are celebrating LGBT History Month, where they highlight a homosexual or lesbian each day. Today, America’s school children are learning about Edward-turned-Gwen Araujo, who was intimate with men who allegedly beat him when they discovered that he was not a woman. “If parents think our school children should be focused on science and math, not sex and murder, they need to talk to teachers, principals, and school boards to ensure that this program is stopped,” cautions Mat Staver, Founder and Chairman of Liberty Counsel. “The sexual...

People say public schools are "one of the best parts of America". I believed that. Then I started reporting on them. Now I know that public school -- government school is a better name -- is one of the worst parts of America. It's a stultified government monopoly. It never improves. Most services improve. They get faster, better, cheaper. But not government monopolies. Government schools are rigid, boring, expensive and more segregated than private schools. I call them "government" instead of "public" schools because not much is "public" about them. Members of the public don't get to pick their kids'...