Free Republic

Government, corporate, and education elites, often supported by religious leaders, have championed both the Common Core standards and amnesty for illegal immigrants, issues that have long been enmeshed in the progressive agenda that includes labor and education. In Part I, we examined how Marc Tucker, president and CEO of the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), was instrumental in the 1990s in helping the Clintons establish the direct funding route from the federal government to state governors and their appointees, circumventing local school boards and state legislatures – the very reason state boards of education, most of them...

In Part 1, we took a look at what the Common Core (CC) standards are all about, and their close compliance with the aims and goals of UNESCO and the U.S. Department of Education. We also looked at how there was very little public comment or debate on Common Core prior to its adoption. We also learned Common Core is a “national program, written by a national team,” which contradicts proponents’ claims that CC is a voluntary States’ initiative. In this article, we will look at the origins of Common Core, and a little more on just what CC is...

[] From the creation of high school academic credits and the College-Level Entrance Examination Program, to federal Pell grants and the establishment of the largest testing organization in the world (ETS), Carnegie Corporation and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching have made important and historic contributions to America’s education system. With each contribution, however, has come increasing influence and power. Likewise, with each passing decade and sitting Carnegie president, the foundations’ objectives for use of that power have changed dramatically. [] former Carnegie Corporation president, John W. Gardner, led the foundation into an “era of strategic philanthropy —...

Last week, the New York Times published a lengthy report on Hillary Clinton’s Common Core conundrum. Today, she commented in Iowa that the debate over the failed Fed Ed standards was “painful” to her (debate is always painful to control freaks in both parties) because it started out as a “bipartisan” effort (Big Government/Big Business alliances are always bipartisan). For those on the Left hoping that their lioness will come out against the Common Core racket, here’s my reminder that the top-down, data-mining, teacher-undermining scheme had its roots with Hillary’s education allies back in the 1990s.

In the early 1970s, Michael Lerner (who would become an important adviser to Hillary Clinton) authored THE NEW SOCIALIST REVOLUTION, in which he proclaimed: "Education will be radically transformed in our socialist community...the main emphasis will be on learning how to... live and work collectively....The next level is learning some series of skills, for one's first set of jobs." In 1980, Ronald Reagan was elected president, taking office in January 1981. Over the next several years, Carter administration holdovers left the National Institute of Education (within USDOE). One of them, Marc Tucker (an NIE Associate Director) went to the newly...

PITY THE Rockefellers. Try though they might, they never manage to get a Rockefeller elected president. Governors, senators and even a vice president have borne the Rockefeller name. Yet the presidency eludes them. And so they busy themselves playing kingmaker behind the scenes. Their latest project is Hillary Clinton. Last Thursday, the public interest group Judicial Watch published a memorandum which the Clinton Library was forced to release under the Freedom of Information Act. The 24-page memo shines a spotlight on Hillary’s little-known relationship with America’s mightiest oil and banking dynasty. Dated May 26, 1993 and addressed to “Hillary Rodham...