Sarah Palin was the first to recognize the problem: By participating in President Obama's signature education initiative, the Common Core Standards, Alaska would lose control over its own curriculum. Posted on 04/26/2012 4:53:34 AM PDT by Kaslin
Sarah Palin was the first to recognize the problem: By participating in President Obama's signature education initiative, the Common Core Standards, Alaska would lose control over its own curriculum.
On May 31, 2009, then-Gov. Palin announced Alaska would adopt a "watch and wait" attitude:
"If this initiative produces useful results, Alaska will remain free to incorporate them," Gov. Palin said, adding that "high expectations are not always created by new, mandated federal standards written on paper. They are created in the home, the community and the classroom."
Texas Gov. Rick Perry, to his credit, was the next to recognize a federal boondoggle when he saw one: "I will not commit Texas taxpayers to unfunded federal obligations or to the adoption of unproven, cost-prohibitive national standards and tests," Gov. Perry wrote in a Jan. 13, 2010, letter to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan.
In the ensuing two years, it's become clear that Perry and Palin -- two core conservative figures whose intelligence is routinely mocked by liberal "sophisticates" -- were brilliantly prescient, indeed prophetic.
Common Core Standards turn out to be like Obamacare -- you don't really know what's in it until after you pass it and are mired in its tentacles.
Today, even more states are waking up to discover that they have lost control of both curriculum and costs for a program that is untested and unlikely to improve student performance. A February study by the Pioneer Institute conservatively estimates that Obama's Common Core Standards will costs the states at least $16 billion -- money that could be used to promote education in other ways (pioneerinstitute.org/pdf/120222_CCSSICost.pdf).
This past week, Education Week's blog published a review of criticism for Obama's Common Core initiative. The shocking thing is how many liberals are now acknowledging Common Core comes at a high cost for little or no return. Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution, for example, wrote, "(T)he most reasonable prediction is that the Common Core will have little to no effect on student achievement." Joanne Yatvin, a past president of the National Council on Teachers of English, writes, "Taken together, the standards and the criteria project an aura of arrogance and ignorance in their assumptions about how and why children learn."
Four education experts came together at the Heritage Foundation on April 17 to comment on more problems emerging with the Common Core Standards. A blog post describing the expert panel, titled "Why States Should Hop Off the National Standards Bandwagon," states:
"When 'states signed on to Common Core Standards, they did not realize ... that they were transferring control of the school curriculum to the federal government,' explained Sandra Stotsky, 21st Century Chair in Teacher Quality at the University of Arkansas' Department of Education Reform.
"Theodor Rebarber, CEO and founder of AccountabilityWorks, explained, 'States did almost no cost analysis' when they signed on to adopt the Common Core Standards, although Rebarber noted, the Pioneer Institute report he authored conservatively estimated the overall national cost for implementing Common Core at a hefty $16 billion.
"Jim Stergios of the Pioneer Institute warned that the standards create 'a disincentive to innovators long term.' Federal involvement in curriculum, as attorney Kent Talbert of Talbert and Eitel explained, may even be illegal because three federal laws prohibit 'federal direction, control or supervision of curricula, programs of instruction and instructional materials ... in the elementary and secondary school arena.'"
A pivotal moment in the history of American education will quietly occur on May 11 in Charlotte, N.C., when the board of the influential (and under fire) conservative American Legislative Exchange Council will meet to decide whether or not to accept its own education task force's recommendation of model legislation blocking implementation of Obama's Common Core.
"We eagerly anticipate that the ALEC Board will affirm the task force vote," said Emmett McGroarty, who works with the American Principles Project, which co-sponsored the Pioneer study and which lobbied for model legislation at ALEC. (Full disclosure: One of my projects, the Culture War Victory Fund, is also housed at APP.)
Obama's Common Core Standards violate federal laws in order to take over control of curriculum, on behalf of an unproven education initiative that leaves states $16 billion in debt.
Sarah Palin and Rick Perry are proven to be prophets. ALEC, you know what to do.
creeping federalism
Sarah has been very insightful about Obama’s failed economic and energy policies. She identified the “death panels” that are included in Obamacare.
Sarah has survived the vicious attacks by the MSM and the entertainment industry.
I know Sarah’s parents were school teachers, and they were probably nice people. However, they were duped into believing the collectivist lie that “public” education is good for all.
The “public school”, including the “charter school”, is BY FAR, the largest, most expensive, most subversive, and most destructive entitlement program in the country.
The “public school”, including the “charter school”, is better understood as the “government school collective”.
It is silly to imagine that you can fix the public schools, because the very concept itself is communist.
Any child that comes out of the government school collective with their moral compass and common sense intact does so in spite of the government school indoctrination, not because of it.
If you want to win the culture war, have lots of children (see my tagline) and homeschool them or form your own school cooperative with your church or synagogue and like-minded friends and relatives.
Nobody loves your children more than you do.
Nobody can teach your children like you can.
Your children would love nothing better than to be taught by you, if you start doing so before they are corrupted by the government school collective.
It is hypocritical for you to submit your children to an authority with whom you fundamentally disagree. And your children will know it.
If you have children, make whatever sacrifices you must to get them out of the public schools.
DO NOT FEED THE BEAST!
Especially not with your own children.
And DO NOT TAKE GOVERNMENT “EDUCATION” MONEY!
He that pays the piper calls the tune, and that goes DOUBLE for any government “education” program.
Now, that is epitome of stupidity and these people are allowed to administer the children's education??? The parents should tar & feather these incompetent nincompoops and run them out of office!!!
Public school is child abuse.
It doesn’t take any unusual ability to have anticipated these results.
“Any child that comes out of the government school collective with their moral compass and common sense intact does so in spite of the government school indoctrination, not because of it.”
Government doesn’t only indoctrinate, it also manipulates.
Every child goes through a phase as they mature and become self-aware that will cause them to question and compare. If the parents are not there to prove themselves truthful and correct, the government educators or their peers will be there instead. Most of the time the parents don’t even know what their children are being taught and don’t have the opportunity to open discussion.
The liberals have manipulation down to a science (no pun intended) and know exactly how to get the easy pushover to save the planet, even if they kill themselves. I think everyone should take basic psych just to learn how they are being manipulated instead of being educated.
...and from the college classroom teachers.
One of the best cartoons I’ve seen about education shows an older couple walking past a building with a large sign: RACISM AWARENESS CENTER and the man says “I remember when they were called “schools””.
Oh, good one!
What the left has done to education is a crime of gigantic proportions.
Your post #3 is 100% correct.
They are implementing this now in my school district and I am VERY suspicious.
The presentation we were given said “This is not the federal government taking over school curriculum!” Which made me realize that THIS MUST MEAN THAT THE GOVERNMENT IS TAKING OVER SCHOOL CURRICULUM!
It’s sad to see this happen, because now you don’t receive a review about whether you are just teaching and doing a good job at the school level, but now you must be “Core Curriculum Compliant” which means that State Ed. Dept. overseers are going to be in your classroom observing you. It’s a snide move by the Obama administration, but the DoE in its entirety needs to be eliminated.
God help all of the non-sycophant teachers.
Palin and Perry merely demonstrated the good sense the good Lord gave us when he made us.
What makes them stand out is that they did, but most didn’t.
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