Posted on 12/10/2013 10:57:14 AM PST by Kaslin
The media are currently filled with reports of students in the U.S. scoring poorly on international tests. The Program for International Student Assessment, which compares 15-year-olds in most industrialized countries, reports that American students dropped from 25th to 31st in math, 11th to 21st in reading and 20th to 24th in science. The solution consistently offered for these low rankings is to spend more money on schooling. But numerous studies examining the billions of dollars we've spent on education in the last decade show that money has not improved the performance of U.S. students, and higher-scoring foreign countries spend far less per pupil than we do.
Now we are told we need a new national system called Common Core State Standards Initiative, and it has provoked a grassroots uprising. Parents don't want federal control or a federal curriculum, and teachers don't like the CC tests.
Common Core advocates loudly proclaim there isn't any CC curriculum, saying there are only standards, which local schools can use to write their own curriculums. But the CC tests (usually called assessments) are the mechanism of federal control over curriculum because teachers must teach to the test.
As states are beginning to implement Common Core, parents and teachers are discovering many things they don't like. An Oak Forest, Ill., high school government class required students and their parents to fill out questionnaires that identified their positions on controversial political issues so they could place themselves on a "political spectrum."
The best way to describe the left-wing bias of this curriculum is to quote some of the questions students are asked, all of which are ideologically slanted. Students are instructed to "put a check in front of each statement with which you agree."
Here are two of the pro-big government statements: "The government has an obligation to regulate businesses in order to preserve the environment for future generations" and "Unregulated free enterprise benefits the rich at the expense of the poor."
Two more slanted statements are: "The government should guarantee medical care for all citizens" and "The federal government should guarantee the rights of homosexuals."
Common Core then requires students to self-identify their political philosophies: "I consider myself A. liberal, B. conservative, C. don't know."
Here is one of the "outcomes" specified as the objective of this biased survey: "Students will be familiar with: 1. Fascism as an historical example of a reactionary group. 2. American Revolution as an historical example of a revolutionary viewpoint."
After students check the statements with which they agree, they're given a so-called performance task to "conduct a political spectrum interview with someone 40 years or older" using this same survey.
It's no wonder parents are upset about this assignment, which asks for information that is none of the school's business. This survey, published by the Center for Learning, is from a textbook entitled "U.S. Government 2." It is part of the Common Core curriculum used by Oak Forest High School.
The Common Core-approved history textbook, "The American Experience," published by Prentice Hall, gives an account of World War II the "greatest generation" would not recognize. World War II is presented primarily with photos of the devastation experienced by Hiroshima and text from John Hersey's article "Hiroshima."
The Washington Post published a letter from a Delaware teacher who is highly critical of Common Core because she was instructed "to teach the curriculum word-for-word." Also, she must "stop teaching for six weeks in the spring to make sure our students pass that test."
New Mexico Sen. Tim Keller described in a recent editorial the complaints he hears from parents who "stress deep objection to the continuing trend of out-of-state, for-profit testing companies' intrusion into the classroom." There's just too much testing driven by those with a nefarious "incentive to make the case for more testing."
Of course, tests are important to measure performance. But Common Core tests are a big moneymaking industry and used by the Obama administration to control the content of the curriculum.
And some of the tests sound downright ridiculous. Here is how a New York City high school principal reported one question on a Common Core first-grade math test: "Take a look at question No. 1, which shows students five pennies, under which it says 'part I know,' and then a full coffee cup labeled with a '6' and, under it, the word, 'Whole.' Students are asked to find 'the missing part' from a list of four numbers. My assistant principal for mathematics was not sure what the question was asking. How could pennies be part of a cup?"
I actually see what they’re trying to get at with that question.
Let’s say I hope they are intending teaching a paradigm to the kids, like “how to deal with the standard coffee cup problem.” Teaching rote to this kind of test will be ipso facto impossible and maybe that was part of the idea.
We have issues of good pedagogy and issues of Federal involvement and they needn’t be intertwined. Bush erred, I believe, in creating this No Child Left Behind program because it was going to turn into a top-down imposed, one-size-fits-all thing, with bribes that would provide perverse incentives for dishonesty. If the government went back to the biblical role of speaking well of those who do well, for example an honor roll of schools, that would remove these bribes, and be cheaper as well as more honest.
One of the Bush kids is heavily involved/invested with a company that sells curricula. Hence Bush’s involvement with education. Family’s got to stick together and all that.
One could heap cynical scorn, or one could press for things that make the cynicism unnecessary. The second one is ultimately what will help. We tend to be a big scornfest here.
Calling a spade a spade isn’t scorn.
It’s the first step of a 12 step program. First, admit the problem.
Corruption. It isn’t just for the left.
I would hope they would object LOUD and CLEAR.
I mean, nobody knows if the pedagogy that this scion is pushing is a bad or good pedagogy. We have to go more than skin deep here to say anything sensible.
Well you only went skin deep.
And indeed that’s a LIBERAL characteristic: only go skin deep.
You might have learned too much, rather than too little, from liberals.
Corruption isn’t skin deep.
It’s the whole core of the problem.
Why do YOU think Bush pushed ‘no child left behind’ knowing his brother was heavily invested in a company that stood to make BILLIONS from that legislation?
I get it. The answer is the kid is ordering his Starbucks Latte with whole milk and is getting six cents change. Now that’s teaching kids practical skills.
Not sure what everyone is complaining about since the primary functions of government schools are sports, clubs, breakfast and lunch and if something in the way of leaning happens that’s just a bonus.
Otherwise, communities could argue that, since the states have never delegated to feds, via the Constitution, the specific power to address schooling issues, an exception being military training establishments, not only does the federal government actually have no legislative control over schools, but Congress cannot lay taxes in the name of schooling. This is evidenced by Justice John Marshiall's official clarification that Congress cannot lay taxes in the name of state power issues, such issues protected by the 10th Amendment.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
In fact, where state funding of public schools is concerned, state lawmakers are evidently as clueless about the federal government's constitutionally limited powers as the citizens who elected them to office are. This is evidenced by fact that state lawmakers have never lifted a finger to stop Congress from stealing what are arguably state revenues from leaving their states in the form of unconstitutional federal taxes, revenues which the states could use to run their public schools the way that they see fit.
And adding insult to injury, corrupt Congress uses the dollars that it stole from the states to make sure that Constitution-ignorant school children get indoctrinated to use their votes to support socialist lawmakers who buy votes with unconstitutional federal government entitlement programs.
Are we having fun yet?
Here is the best article I’ve found on the background of Common Core. Some really excellent research went into the writing of this piece:
Also, I always take the “we're falling to 31st in Science” or whatever with a grain of salt. For one thing, we test all students while other nations only test the top 5-10% of students. Also, US high school students aren't as perfection crazed as other international students and will mess around and not take seriously a test that means nothing to them personally. We had an English essay exam to compare our school to the nation. I can tell you, American students are creative when the grade doesn't count!
Your analysis is skin deep. You have not shown corruption at all.
I understand, being asked to show actual proof of wrongdoing is not what you are used to.
But again maybe you have learned too much from liberals.
If every time there was a superficial “optics” issue we stopped and screamed, we would be paralyzed.
You are going to need to trace much more here. All you have as a “light” is mere cynicism, and further begging of the question on your part will not be entertained by me.
Lay off the dope.
I figured you would descend into an ad hominem, again unsupported of course, like liberals do.
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