Posted on 05/05/2013 6:28:53 AM PDT by Kaslin
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.
You are referring to the simple standards themselves, when you say they don’t dictate content, but that is not how they are necessarily implemented at the state level.
Here is an example of the common core at the state level, as implemented in MA. Note that the actual texts are specified at the state level:
http://www.doe.mass.edu/candi/commoncore/
I totally agree, but believe me when I tell you that you are not the first, nor will you be the last. Even those of us who are not teachers, but disagree with her position have been often so compared.
Personally, I appreciated your take on this particular situation regarding Common Core. Your students are fortunate. As a parent, I am happy to say your attitude reminds me of most of the math and science teacher my daughter has or has had - even though Common Core has not been implemented in my state. Thank you for caring so much about your students.
Conservatives work to shut down such abominations. They **rescue** children from this horror.
Conservatives do not establish, uphold, cooperate with, or assist in the operation of any institution in which children would risk learning to be comfortable with socialism. That **is** the risk in a socialist-entitlement government K-12 school. The child risks learning that the voting that takes money from his neighbor to give him socialist schooling can take money from his neighbor for **lots*** of goodles.
Conservatives work to shut down abominations of this sort. They warn others about the danger. They **rescue** children from this abomination.
As for abortion, the fact is that the chances of a child remaining faithful in his faith 2 years after graduating from a socialist-entitlement government high school is about 15%, and these are children who come from **highly** active evangelical families. The statistics must be much worse for less committed families.
So? Which is worse? An aborted body where the infant soul flies directed to the arms of Jesus, or an aborted soul condemned for an eternity?
If Christian teachers **really**really** really*** cared about kids they wouldn't be cooperating with evil.
Yes, there is a limited role for Christian teachers in the government schools, however they would be quickly fired. They would be warning the parents of every child in every classroom to remove their child. They would be opposing vocally the very existence of the institution and warning other teachers of the damage they are doing to the children and to our nation.
Many say, “Well,..Some children may not get an education!” My response is that NO education is better than government forced godlessness. Illiteracy and innumeracy can be fixed. Many illiterate and innumerate government school graduates are fixing it as adults as I type this message. But...An eternally lost soul can not be fixed. And...If the nation loses its freedom it likely will not be fixed for centuries.
Political withdrawal from public schools is already a failure.
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Well...I see your point. Fix what you can within the corrupt and evil system. It is like giving flea powder to a concentration camp victim. Yes, there may be some relief from the pain.
However....The solution is to work toward the complete shut down of this **EVIL** abomination. Forced attendance at godless, Marxist controlled, and socialist-entitlement indoctrination camps is an abomination. It is evil for the child. It is evil to use police threat to force citizens to pay for it.
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you ( call you a “nut”), then they fight you, then you win.” Mahatma Ghandi.
Government socialist-entitlement schooling is losing its legitimacy, and so are the government functionaries who open the door on this abomination and feed its poison to the children every day.
Regarding vouchers:
I would prefer to see tax credits.
So your plan instead is to withdraw from public schooling entirely? That strategy certainly has worked well for the media, entertainment, and universities. Where are the children of non-conservatives going to receive any conservative impact if we just withdraw from every entity and seclude ourselves from the world? Not everyone has the option of private school (I did), and not everyone has the option of home schooling. Your philosophy basically writes off one enormous entity. You would prefer for all conservatives to withdraw completely from these biased entities, instead of trying to make an impact in whichever way they can...
That’s bad strategy...
I’m glad you’ve equated some of my relatives, some very strong pro lifers, with abortionists though... it’s always good to paint your fellow conservatives as the enemy, based on their profession.
Government schooling and the people who run them have lost their legitimacy. Those running the government abomination camps ( misnamed “schools”) are in good company. Many large seemingly intractable institutions have quickly gone from legitimate to illegitimate. Some examples that come to mind are the Reformation, the American Revolution, slavery, Jim Crow, the fall of the Iron Curtain.
There are entire counties and whole states where, if Christians and conservatives removed their children from the godless socialist-entitlement K-12 schools the entire corrupt system would immediately collapse.
I see what you are saying. However, not in any way endorsing the concept, I have to point out that any state could have always done this, regardless of how which standards they were using.
Massachusetts had state standards before Common Core. All that has been done with their adoption has been to make their standards the same as Connecticut, Rhode Island,... and most other states. I think 40 states have adopted Common Core.
AS you point out, and as I have pointed out, the standards themselves are not the problem, it's the texts and methodologies used to implement them. And those are left to state/district. In my case, it's an individual teacher decision, although the teachers in my district share ideas and resources sometimes.
Being in the middle of the transition, so far I haven't seen it as that big a deal. I will say that the teach-gnashing and hissy-fitting I've seen has been from teachers who aren't good at their craft anyway, and their main concern is how test scores will impact their evaluations. It's not a perfect system, but I believe in some accountability for teachers.
Oh, Dear Lord in Heaven. How did they manage to take straightforward concepts and mangle them into these crazy documents?
I skimmed the English standards, because they tend to be the most open to liberal manipulation. They do "suggest" appropriate texts to tie to standards. This isn't anything new.
At the bottom of the link you provided, the previous standards are also provided... and they, too, specify the texts.
I'm not familiar with all the "suggested" works, but I was somewhat surprised to see the likes of Thomas Paine, Jefferson, Patrick Henry. The literature also included "Little Women" and similar classics of literature that most would deem non-objectionable.
Still, the whole document is an exercise in micro-management. Some consulting firm charged them a fortune for it.
We lost the schools long ago. I have 10 grandchildren, and they’re products of the nashunel skool system now.
All I can do is offer to take them to the range for some shooting-skills time ....................................................... FRegards
I do believe the standards themselves are a problem. It is an end run around a federal law not to have nationalized standards, and then the English requirement that half of all texts be nonliterary and informational and not considering of outside material is not only an unnecessary assault on students having exposure to good writing: it is a setup for propagandizing on a level that hasn’t existed previously.
That is a major problem IMO, but we can of course simply agree to disagree.
Here’s another article that skewers the Common Core as more federal dumbing down:
That is, no one in MA should want their schools lowered to the level of those in MS.
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