‘ObamaCore’: Radical Education Bill Set to Take Effect After Election
Barack Obama, having little else in his arsenal, began his first debate by touting his signature education program “Race to the Top.” Joe Biden also cited “education” in his debate with Paul Ryan. Last Tuesday, Obama even turned a question about gun control into an opportunity to boast about his education policies. During the final debate, Obama repeatedly claimed that continued government investments in education are necessary to compete with China and to develop “clean energy technology.”
Race to the Top may have been the one domestic policy initiative that did not garner the universal ire of Republicans — indeed, it has many GOP supporters. They likely do not realize what a monster they have birthed by promising to follow federal Common Core curriculum guidelines (in math and English/language arts, so far) as part of the Race to the Top contest for $4.35 billion in stimulus funds.
The potential payoff to well-connected software companies like Microsoft and curriculum and textbook companies like Pearson threaten the likelihood of Solyndra-style failures, with about as much benefit to the taxpayer. While Obamacare puts health and well-being into the hands of federal bureaucrats, “ObamaCore” (as Race to the Top has been dubbed) puts education into their hands as well. The threat to taxpayers is set to come after the election.
The nonsensical debate answers regarding the benefits of Obama’s education plan should give clues. When the first question at the town hall debate came from a 20-year-old student in college but worried about his job prospects after graduation, Obama talked about making college “affordable” and bringing back manufacturing jobs, which wouldn’t be of interest to most college students. On October 17 when Thomas Friedman cited Race to the Top as a “jobs creator,” Fox News host Bill O’Reilly had no response.
To his credit, Mitt Romney replied to the college student by addressing the jobs college graduates would want. He again referred to Massachusetts’ top national ranking,which occured before Democrat Governor Deval Patrick chucked the prior high standards for the Common Core. Although its proponents claim that Common Core increases academic rigor, education professor Sandra Stotsky — a major force behind Massachusetts’ previously high standards — refused to sign off on Common Core, referring to its “empty skill sets.” Others have noted the emphasis on the lowering of standards that is necessary for the goal of “closing the achievement gap.”
In my recent report, I added to the discussion by looking at some of the Common Core lessons now being peddled by school districts and freelance Common Core entrepreneurs. Among these materials was a horrendous “Common Core-compliant” book titled Master of Deceit: J. Edgar Hoover and America in the Age of Lies by professor Marc Aronson. Extremely manipulative, historically inaccurate, and age-inappropriate for middle school students, Aronson’s book is a continuation of the Soviet disinformation campaign of diverting attention about the communist threat to J. Edgar Hoover’s alleged homosexuality. Sadly, it is these kinds of materials – tracts that meet the new focus on “informational text” — that school districts are now forced to buy. Teachers, professors, and freelance writers who had previously resisted standards now see a bonanza, as schools replace traditional literary works with books about such subjects as diamonds, snakes, New York City gangs, public artists, and yes, Justin Bieber.
Teacher training also has been going on apace, at considerable cost to taxpayers. In Georgia, our Public Broadcasting affiliate produced the teacher training videos. PBS, already the recipient of the largesse of taxpayers, has been eagerly promoting Common Core materials through its sites.
The testing is being developed by two consortia that have divided up the states; tests will be conducted nationwide by computer. Linda Darling-Hammond — close colleague of Bill Ayers — heads up the testing content specifications for the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, which received $176 million of the total $360 million for test development (the remainder went to PARCC, Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers).
As I note in my report, critics predict the eventual elimination of private schools and home schools, as mandatory national tests obviate their current standards and curricula. Education Week, the Gates Foundation-funded Common Core promotional organ, recently noted – brightly — that Catholic and other private schools are already voluntarily adopting Common Core standards because of “practical considerations,” like the new college-entrance exams that will follow Common Core.
The same journal then asked readers: “Are You Tech Ready for the Common Core?” The article featured a drawing of a man at the edge of a diving board over a huge wave. The editors, I do not think, want taxpayers to really know the financial tsunami that is coming with the mandate for national testing.
While many of the “conservative” think-tanks and politicians have received Gates Foundation money (the biggest funder of Common Core), a few like the Pioneer Institute and the Heritage Foundation have raised alarms. Among these are costs down the road as the federal government is empowered to dictate education policy — and its attendant compliance costs — to the states.
The Pioneer Institute estimates that costs for technology/infrastructure alone will be $6.9 billion over seven years. One of the Common Core committee members who refused to sign off on the math standards, Ze’ev Wurman, predicted that South Carolina’s testing costs per student would rise to $100 as compared to today’s $12. The state of Georgia currently spends $5 per student on testing, but costs are expected to quadruple at a minimum. Tellingly, the money has not been “found yet,” according to Melissa Fincher, associate state superintendant for assessment and accountability.
The Education Week article linked the recently released “technology guidelines” for Apple, Google, and Microsoft Windows, and quoted Raj Manhas, superintendent of the 14,000-student North Thurston schools in Washington state, where districts must turn to the voters for approval on tax levies for technology purchases. Voters twice rejected technology levies for his district, but Manhas used money from a general fund levy to buy new needed devices for Common Core.
Manhas, though, is concerned about the “technology gap” between “districts that serve wealthier communities and districts with lower-income families.”
No doubt that will be a concern as districts scramble to keep up with the mandates coming from Washington. Such technology “gaps” (and “curriculum gaps,” etc.) will then need to be addressed by the federal government, either with mandates about redistributing state tax funds or by increasing federal funding through the Department of Education. New York City’s schools deputy chancellor has already indicated a need for additional funding to implement the program.
And all this for testing that replaces objective standards and cultural coherence with dubious measurements of “higher order thinking,” “collaboration,” and “deep understanding” that Darling-Hammond favors. This is precisely the kind of curriculum she, Bill Ayers, and the other radical educators from the 1960s have been agitating for for decades.
When their candidate Barack Obama got into office, they found a way to implement them on a national scale under a deceptively named program called Common Core. And we will be left paying the bill.
REZKO, OBAMA, AND THE NADHMI AUCHI RAILROAD LINKING CHICAGO, WASHINGTON, AND BAGHDAD (Part 1of 3)
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2012/10/23/rezko-obama-and-the-nadhmi-auchi-railroad-linking-chicago-washington-and-baghdad-part-1of-3/
The culmination of the Radical-in-Chief’s efforts, at least on behalf of his socialist/red base, requires the full deconstruction of the education system. Hence, his old terrorist pals, Ayers & Dohrn, are now in charge of the kiddies.
Radical revolutionaries know this verily truth – TOTAL control requires the deconstruction of society through economic devastation, and the co-option of the kiddies.
The economy is in free fall, and the kiddies will soon be completely indoctrinated. This plan has been in effect for decades, but has come full circle under the reign of Obama and his racialist AG – http://adinakutnicki.com/2012/07/30/the-racialist-potus-seeks-transformation-via-raced-based-classroom-edicts-say-it-aint-so-commentary-by-adina-kutnicki/
Jail will be too good for this criminally bent duo, as well as their other surrogates!
REZKO, OBAMA, AND THE NADHMI AUCHI RAILROAD LINKING CHICAGO, WASHINGTON, AND BAGHDAD (Part 2 of 3)
http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2012/10/24/rezko-obama-and-the-nadhmi-auchi-railroad-linking-chicago-washington-and-baghdad-part-2-of-3/
The Department of Education delenda est. It came into existence with Carter, and we need to get rid of it after Obama.
HELL YEAH!
I agree with anonymous, with the proviso that the teaching of American literature has always been ideological. See http://clarespark.com/2013/01/05/american-fascism-and-the-future-of-english-and-american-literature/.
A very detailed account of the leftist origins and connections reported by Accuracy in Media, posted at Trevor Louden’s New Zeal. Its only horrifying if you are the least bit concerned of either the indoctination of youth in our public schools or the preverbial dumbing down of America.
http://www.trevorloudon.com/2012/09/terrorist-professor-bill-ayers-and-obamas-federal-school-curriculum/
Sadly, the battle for truth and justice in the government-run schools is probably already lost. Patriots are so heavily outnumbered in that system that our voices aren’t even audible.
If there’s hope, it lies in alternatives to the government-school system: private education and homeschooling. Both are growing in popularity, despite the burdens and costs they impose upon families that choose them. Therefore, watch out for attempts to quench those competitors to the government system through regulation, zoning, the imposition of curricular mandates, demands for oversight or frequent testing, and so forth.
The battle to preserve and expand the private alternatives, against the massed forces of statism and political correctness, is where the action will be.
It appears that they’re doing an end run around private and homeschooling. As the article notes:
“…Catholic and other private schools are already voluntarily adopting Common Core standards because of “practical considerations,” like the new college-entrance exams that will follow Common Core”.
It’s not a end run. Public schools graduate kids that are dumber than a bag of rocks. All the private and homeschoolers need to do is know what’s on the test and they’ll be able to pass it. Heck, knowing how to read and write already puts them head and shoulders above the public school kids.
Nailed THAT one right on the head! The Department of “Mis-Education” needs to be totally dismantled and education needs to return to be the sole responsibility of the States. And that includes the abolishment of 2/3rd’s of the meals given each day, breakfast and lunch. The schools are NOT restraunts.
The ONLY money coming from the Federal Government should be predicated on ALL texts used in classrooms must fit the requirement that ALL content must be factual and verifiable historically. In other words, the BS pushed by the Commies which is referred to as “disinformation”, would be punishable by COMPLETE LOSS of Federal Funds. Even for ONE item in ALL the books used.
That, and the permanent and nation-wide revocation of a teacher’s license should they be found to be using material NOT compliant with factual events.
No, this is NOT censorship. THAT is what the socialists/commies are doing. Censoring truth and fact.
I can personally attest to the above opinion’s accuracy at least in terms of Pearson, who have been behind the scenes setting up for the new national core curriculum. But here’s some truth that’s not addressed: 1. For many states, for example, NY, this will be a dumbing down of the state standards. It will not create a shoot for the moon high ground, simply a floor. It will raise the standards for many states where everyone currently graduates, no matter how stupid. I mean, we’ve all seen interviews with college athletes from Florida.
2. The testing obsession was started by Reagan. I remember. I was in 10th grade in ’79 and our teachers were allowed to pass us based on our clearly demonstrated brains, even if we cut and didn’t do all the work. Needless to say, I passed most courses based on my demonstrated brains. Then Ronny came in, decided that somehow we had to keep up with the Japanese, who were clearly going to inherit the whole world soon. He made speeches about it, along with forcing the 18 year old drinking age down everyone’s throats just because his dad was an alcoholic. The fact is, the students of my background were doing fine, and will do fine, no matter what. And we all know who we are. As for everyone else, you can’t make a yokel an intellectual by dint of mandates, as we’ve seen with Canada, anymore than you can stop alcohol consumption by raising the age. Thanks, Ronny.
I don’t know if you’re a troll or just badly misinformed. Your missive is filled with so many inaccuracies and errors that most PJM readers will roll their eyes and just dismiss its content.
One incredibly silly assertion is the forcing of the 18 year old drinking age on all states by Ronald Reagan. The absolute opposite is true. In 1984, President Ronald Reagan signed the Federal Uniform Drinking Age Act, a law that threatened to withhold federal highway funds from states that failed to increase their minimum legal drinking age to 21. This reversed the trend of 30 states reducing the minimum drinking age from 21 to 18 during the Carter administration. By 1988, all states had enacted legislation complying with this act after the US Supreme Court declared the act constitutional (South Dakota sued the feds in 1987 asserting the feds overstepped their constitutional authority but the Supremes disagreed).
(For more details see http://www.cato.org/pubs/regulation/regv32n1/v32n1-1.pdf)
So if you’re going to spout off insults and inanities, do a little homework first or find a more healthy way to deal with your Reagan Rage Syndrome.
See my post above about “disinformation”, or how the socialist/communist dumbs down a population. They start with little distortions, increasing those distortions until they are able to present absolute lies as “truth”… but doing so takes two to three generations of controlling the schools.
We are in our third generation of students. Either we take back the schools NOW or we lose our ability to do so.
And then we will be in the same place as Russia was 50 years ago.
So he signed the bill, did not veto it. He made it possible for them to raise the age.
We’re seeing the future in our book catalogs and the choices they promote for elementary school kids: activism & activists. Biography collections for purchase are filled with activists for cause upon cause whether in the past or present. These propaganda pieces have been around for twenty-some years, but in the past were somewhat balanced out by biographies of truly significant people. Now they overwhelm and include the likes of Che Guevarra for 8 year-olds.
I had long since reached the gagging point on all the kid’s books that tell them that they can “change” or “save” the world through recycling and writing letters to politicians about climate change and drowning polar bears and browbeating their parents into the latest “green” scheme. Usually those books are passed over in favor of Captain Underpants (I know, not my idea of great reading either). But, under CORE more and more “fact books” will be required and the publishing companies are ginning up their inventories. No matter what the subject there’s an activist to promote and activist activities to do to prove that you, at 8 – 12 years old, are part of the “solution.”
I home schooled my children in the 1980s and 90s, my grandchildren are being home schooled now. We’ve always known that the government noose could get tighter anytime and we went to state capitals to prevent it or moved to more friendly states. It was inevitable that education would become a Federal affair, so now we are near that point. Another decision that the government insists it should make for us and our children. “I know not what course others may take…”
The race/gender/class deconstruction of life/universe/everything is alive and well in kids’ books. The publishers pass off a lot of fiction as non-fiction, just like in the newspapers. As Mary notes with her example of the Hoover book, there is just too much room for mischief.
As you note with respect to Che Guevara, I found on Amazon Che Guevara (The Twentieth Century’s Most Influential: Hispanics)
with an Editorial Review from Booklist…
Part of the 20th Century’s Most Influential Hispanics series, this title surveys the brief but remarkable life of a legendary guerilla fighter and revolutionary. Following an exploration of Guevara’s privileged childhood and the origins of his socialist views, Uschan offers clear accounts of his subject’s associations with Cuban revolutionary Fidel Castro, Congolese rebels in Africa, and peasants in Bolivia, where, at 39, he was executed with the help of U.S. operatives. Uschan addresses his subject’s legacy as well as the irony of how, despite a lifelong opposition to capitalist exploitation, Guevara has become a pop-culture icon whose likeness is emblazoned on everything from coffee mugs to T-shirts. Due in no small part to such images (along with the 2004 film, The Motorcycle Diaries), many teens have embraced Guevara as a symbol of youthful idealism; this well-balanced biography, along with its appended sources for further information, will help curious readers separate fact from mythology. Or not.
There is an extraordinarily huge difference between education and schooling, in the past 50 years all education has been forced out of public schools and been replaced by unions and there non-student concerns.
Or enriching the unions and their boards.
Frankly, public schools have become such a waste of taxpayer money the only ethical, the only moral, the only practical step left is to close and OUTLAW public schools.
Schools, or Education, like churches should be strictly personal, and up to each individual.
There should be no government involvement at any level, including the state.
It should also be against the law for any US government instruction to collect tax dollars for schools or education.
Simple solution to another problem caused by Unions, Democrats, liberals and other selfish people.
I disagree with your assertion that there should be no government involvement in education. Communities and states have a compelling interest in education for those residing therein. The supreme governing authority in education should, all things being equal, be vested in the most local level possible.
I do agree, however, that there should be zero interference or influence from the feds on education. We have yet to see, IMO, concrete evidence of increased student attainment as a result of federal government involvement in education. Asserting the opposite (fed involvement has decreased student attainment) is probably a sentiment with which most PJM readers agree.
The Fed needs to be forced to keep out of the education of our youth. The only way to do this is by a Constitutional Convention where this is made perfectly clear by article in the New Constitution. I know, the existing Bill of Rights says ‘those things not specifically given to the Feds is reserved to the States and the Citizens thereof’ and if the States only insist on their rights then the Fed would have to obey the law. Here is the problem, the Fed over taxes all of country and creates a slush fund used for bribing and blackmailing the States. WE need to hold a CC in order to put term limits on all elected Federal Offices, Set the salaries and benefits of all elected Federal Offices and define how large the staff can be in those offices.
Next we need to abolish the Privately Owned Federal Reserve System and reinstitute it as as National Federal Reserve directly under our Treasury Dept. What to do about the money that has been distributed by the existing Privately Owned Federal Reserve and the debts the existing federal reserve owes? It is not the debt of the United States or the Citizens, it is the debt of those International Bankers who own the Federal Reserve System, a private corporation. Let them solve their own problems, they have been screwing the citizen taxpayers of the United States for right at 100 years.
A Constitutional Convention is exactly what we need, we can restart this nation with exactly what our forefathers gave us, A REPUBLIC WITH FREEDOM FOR ALL CITIZENS TO ASPIRE TO GREATNESS BASED ON THEIR OWN TALENT….
No – the state and fed should get out of the schooling business because they are a failure at it. It’s already been shown that kids who graduate college come out dumber than when they went in.
I don’t know what it’ll take to burn those heaps of rubble down, but they have GOT to be replaced with something else.
Where I live many property tax paying citizens live in very run down houses (you get punished with tax increases if you keep your property well maintained, as the saying goes if you want less of something, tax it), meanwhile the elementary school marching band has brand new uniforms, the middleschoolers get free smartphones, and some of the very few luxury cars can be found in the school parking lot. Did I mention our district scores poorly on math. While I do believe education is important, it should not be prioritized above clean and decent living standards. What is the point of working your ass off getting educated when in the future nobody will be able to afford a home because the taxes just to pay pensions will be poverty inducing high. I want my kids to have a shot at an ordinary life if not an extraordinary one. At this point though I feel hopeless that they will have a chance in the future.
The solution to your problem.
A Constitutional Convention. Article V of the existing Constitution gives us the power over an overbearing Federal Government and Congress. We, the people, are in charge. Get off of your butt and join the Tea Party and help get a CC started. Read your Constitution, your forefathers wrote it to keep you free from the dictates of the Federal Government…
Education and supporting teachers is code for supporting teachers’ unions and pensions which is a core democrat voting block. There needs to be a distinction amongst: teaching, propagandizing, training parrots, and giving path ways to appreciate thought. Likewise in learning there is: conditioned reflex, critical thinking, useful tool, and independent thinking.
For a central planning committee to chain us all into an educational program is to doom us all to the ship of fools. E Pluribus Unum requires both the many and the towards the one. If the one is government supreme then they may as well issue implants for blind obedience.
Homeschooling is clearly the answer.
The Obama educrats are killing homeschooling too. See my report.
Nowhere in our Constitution is there one word or phrase that give the Federal Government the power over EDUCATION OF THE CITIZENS…
This is a usurpation of the power of the several States. It is time for the States to stand up and demand their rights.
The Federal Government, by the Constitution can not own land within the United States except for ’10 miles Square’ which is Washington DC. And yet T. Roosevelt with his Progressive crap started the land grab and now the Feds claim to own more than 60% of the country. This is completely outside of the original Constitution… It is time for a CC and a return to the thoughts of our forefathers…. Get involved and help make it happen…
Targeting young minds, getting in early to infiltrate the neural circuits, has been a prime focus wherever Leftists have raised their ugly heads, historically.
Barack and Billy Ayers sat on those boards in Chicago, where they used copious grant cash to bend the minds of young Chicago students.
Who better to explain these techniques than a former KGB guy ?
Ideological subversion
…precisely the kind of curriculum she, Bill Ayers, and the other radical educators from the 1960s have been agitating for for decades.
Billy, about to turn 68, is still at it.
A lot of people back in the late 40s and 50s were not so enthused about Joe McArthy, but time has shown that Joe was right on the money as was J.E. Hoover.
Today we have hundreds of Communists, we might as well call them what they really are instead of Progressives.
They were Liberals progressing towards Socialists, who were progressing towards Communism and now all they lack is complete control of our Nation and if Obama is reelected they will become the Communist Dictators of Our Nation and we will become the willing slaves at their command. DO YOU SEE THAT IN YOUR FUTURE?? WELL IT IS JUST AROUND THE CORNER… if Obama is reelected.
In less than a month we will elect a ‘new President’ hopefully. If that happens we will have riots in every major city in the Nation and Obama will still be the sitting President. Who will be rioting? Obama’s people will be rioting and they will be attempting to draw the Conservative Citizens into the fray. Do not join in at all. Leave the cities and go to the country away from cities, do not get involved, this will be more OWS crap, more Obama carp, KEEP CLEAR….
If Obama is reelected do not make any trouble at all. Wait and hope we gain control of the Congress so we can impeach and remove Obama legally.
We need a Constitutional Convention, Article V of the Constitution, so we can define and restrict who can and cannot be our President and we can set the term limits of Congress and all other particulars of the Federal Government. Read Article V and you will see the answers to our problems.
hmm.. still not really focused on the Economy. I don’t think this thing would fly.
It is hugely relevant, the indoctrination agenda of Barack and his fellow travelers.
Shoot, this has been going on for decades. Obama and his wife are PRODUCTS of this indoctrination. I’m of Obama’s generation and I KNOW what I’m saying. Some of us were just lucky enough to have the prog-scales fall from our eyes. A lot of people will never wake up to the truth.
Oh, I dunno. Obama’s 51, I’m 54, so also of his generation. Although I grew up in a rural/agric., mid-America [red state] area — we were culturally about a generation behind the rest of the country. This was before the Dept. of Education, however. We all did just fine, education-wise. In my small h.s. class (180), we had 4 Nat’l Merit Scholarship winners. Before grade inflation to “close the achievement gap” on college entrance exams, i.e. when points meant something, I had a 28 on the ACT — 29 would’ve given me FULL 4 yr. ride at my state univ. The very tippy-top, a “100%” score was a 31 (I think). Now to get the 4 yr. deal you must have a 34-35. Those #s didn’t even EXIST back in late 70s!
I thought I was a fairly well-informed person, but until now I haven’t heard of “ObamaCore”. I am HORRIFIED by this, and what it means for our country & kids. It’s hard to believe people like Darling-Hammond & Bill Ayers will get their way: “This is precisely the kind of curriculum she, Bill Ayers, and the other radical educators from the 1960s have been agitating for for decades.”
OMG, literally & prayerfully.
“And all this for testing that replaces objective standards and cultural coherence with dubious measurements of “higher order thinking,” “collaboration,” and “deep understanding” that Darling-Hammond favors. This is precisely the kind of curriculum she, Bill Ayers, and the other radical educators from the 1960s have been agitating for for decades.”
This book is a must read for anybody in or interested in education:
http://www.amazon.com/dp/1879618036/?tag=googhydr-20&hvadid=9070645641&hvpos=1t1&hvexid=&hvnetw=g&hvrand=511022317976600734&hvpone=18.59&hvptwo=19&hvqmt=b&ref=pd_sl_35w8ien9m9_b
I do not receive remuneration of any kind for this recommendation. This book is of a type libruls hate. It is logical and definitive, a common sense description of why good testing is an absolute essential in planning courses and classes. Those who do not follow its recommendations end up in the dreaded fog of Arneland.
Standardized testing, and the emphasis thereon, are way overdone these days.
I believe partly as an extension of federal interference (read insertion) into public education and bureaucratic insistence on meeting “federal standards” (there’s an oxymoron) in order for your school district to continue getting federal cash.
Teachers teach to the test instead of teaching to the minds. Standardized test scores are practically reduced to the category of your school’s basketball scores.
Some administrators (I think it was in Georgia) have gone so far as to change test answers so their students’ scores wouldn’t appear so bleak and hopeless.
I can’t repeat the entire book for you, tans, but if you would read it objectively you would see you have to agree that those tests, if well constructed, are the only way to find out what students have learned. The most difficult task is to determine what students MUST know in finishing specific grades. Once that is well done there is absolutely nothing wrong with teaching to the test.
If there is another way, I would appreciate hearing about it.
Well, a teacher gives those things called “tests” to see if a student has integrated the information he/she has presented to them.
Standardized tests, more generic and less attuned to specific information presented by specific teachers, have a role, but are mainly about whether a student has acquired certain skill sets, attained certain levels, rather than whether or not a student has successfully integrated classroom instruction.
My point is that federal interference has resulted in over emphasis on standardized test scores.
Since I watched it happen, up close and personal, over decades, I’m not backing down
. I also worked at CTB/McGraw-Hill for several years which is (or was anyway) the standardized test creating arm of McGraw-Hill book company.
Over-emphasis on standardized test scores, who’s up, who’s down, has turned public education into some kind of horse race between school districts. That’s why I mentioned them in the context of a school’s basketball scores.
All that has little to do with book learnin’ and intelligence enhancement, areas in which America is significantly behind.
For the record, all those (taxpayer paid) ads you see now about “investing in our teachers” are also beside the point. Our teachers used to be already good, didn’t need no stinkin’ government “investment”.
tans, I worked in textbook/testing publishing too at Science Research Associates (SRA) in Chicago. In addition I was also a teacher for about five years all told. In my mind the states are responsible for education. No expensive and dictatorial agency is needed at the Federal level.
Who asked you to “back down?” Just recommend to those interested in education that the Meger book is one of the best ever written on the subject of educational objectives and testing.
Sorry, it’s Mager not Meger.
I blame the parents for this too. If they do not value their hard earned money and keep an eye on what is being taught to their children, none of this would come to pass. This “ObamaCore is very Soviet in nature and must be stopped by PARENTS!!!!! Unless if many parents believe in or don’t care what is being taught to their children.
Read Marx and Engels… they lay out a multi-step plan to OWN the next generation as being key to infecting the world with their sick idealogy: get the children OUT of the home and into state-controled schools. This takes a bit of work. So far, though, the INdustrial Revolution has taken the Fathers out of most homes, and the Feminist Revolution (another of their schemes) has taken the Mothers out of most as well. The government have managed to insinuate itself into what is left of “the home” in many ways, thus the home has been taken away from the children, leaving the state pretty much free rein to programme them. Now comes ObamaCore…. no surprise, that. Knowing this Darling thing is in charge, and that she has run with the likes of Ayers and the kinyun, is almost too perfect.
They desire their control totally. SO it is certain they will come after alternatives to their system.. homeschooling being their toughest, and most certain, target. They are already out-flanking private schools, and will almost certainly do the same with charter schools, by means of the ubiquitous testing. As mentioned in an earlier comment, the homeschooled, by virtue of their wide exposure, learning to learn on their own and think for themselves, and their far superior command of language, will manage to perform adequately. In my sixties now, I am currently a full time college student, and the other “students” I deal with are, in the main, significantly inferior to most thirteen year old home schooled children.. a VERY sad accusation indeed. The vast majority of youth with whom I relate these days are homeschooled…. the government “products” are not pleasant to be with….. a few hundred, in all. They are interesting, stimulating, challenging, eager to learn anything I can share with them, motivated, eager to explore new interests, and are incredibly articulate, with the keenly developed mental capacity to back it up. I learn much from them.
Interesting side thought: we HAD a candidate who had vowed, amongst other things, to dismantle the US Department of Education, were he elected, partly on the grounds it is unconstitutional (not amongst the “enumerated powers”, thus prohibited FedGov and left to the States), partly because it is a financial and functional disaster. But, this man was determined to be “unelectable” by the ruling elites with much to lose. Pity, that…..
Get over it. Support his son (Rand) if you’d like, but get off the Ron Paul bandwagon. Dude is too old and I’d rather not have a, “it’s all the Jews fault,” kinda guy at the helm, if you know what I mean.
why is tax payer money going to Washington, to let those their take their cut, before going back to the state.
Keep the money in the state, and stop the nonsense.
That’s a great idea. It’s also a great way to starve the beast!
The stimulus funds were too tempting. Remember not letting a crisis go to waste?
Yes the city of Atlanta Schools had a huge cheating scandel going all the way to the superintendent. My sister teaches high school English and the amount of total BS they have to do outside of the classroom is unbelievable. The new Core program rewards schools on scores not percentage increases. So the school with a huge non english and lower class population must have the same scores as the school with kids from more affluent college educated parents. The pressure on some teachers is enormous. The bueracracy is crazy and yes there is unbelievable dumbing down. Its difficult to discipline when you have no parental support and few options. As long as a child is in AP and honors classes they are getting a good education at her school.
Education (really indoctrination) has become a Leftist echo chamber. Professors, teachers and students within the chamber refuse to hear those outside. We have been dumbing ourselves down for several decades; there will be consequences. Those who “race to the top” will find nothing there.
Posters here would do well to remember their BASIC CONSTITUTION: to wit, the main duty of the Federal government (next to defense) is STANDARDS. NOT manipulating (withholding)monies, NOT manipulating education, SETTING STANDARDS IS THE ONE THING THAT IS CONSTITUTIONALY CORRECT FOR THE FEDS TO DO.
Setting Testing standards is NOT inherently bad or wrong, it’s the DETAILS, the standards themselves, not the setting of them.
There MUST be standards, lets NOT get caught up in who sets them as much as what the individual standards ARE.
“How can I be certain I have a job after I graduate?”
“Change your major to mining engineering.”
Seriously, though, the government should NOT ensuring jobs.
The government should be ensuring business, so business can create jobs. It is up to the student to select a course of study that gives him/her skills that employers want.
Just how do they think the US will have any kind of economy, let alone a future, if all the kids are uneducated, unskilled, but well politically indoctrinated morons fit for nothing but collecting welfare and voting?
They want to destroy the economy.
If Obamacore came about by Executive Order, it will be easier to dismantle than Obamacare, the former becoming law at the whim of a despot, and the latter becoming law through constitutional means. If by fiat and Romney wins, this might not even get off the ground; indeed, preparations for its implementation may cease altogether; and he may rescind it altogether if he doesn’t like it – he has spoken of returning power to the states, after all.
I guess it all depends on how this came into being.
I have a 13 year old nephew, his 7th grade class “Mid-Evil Times” had him learning the Koran for the first three weeks of school and on the final day of learning those chapters in order to get an A he had to dress like a Muslim for “Dress like a Muslim Day.” I had no idea that was part of a well rounded education. By the way George Washington has his own chapter in the book at the end and he is not written about in a noble way, he is called a tyrant.
Would love to get details about this incident.
What I can’t understand is why the GOP doesn’t take on the DoEd, the EPA, HHS, and other government monstrosities and completely restructure them. Why? What’s holding them back?
I do not recognize what the author and the commenters here call “Common Core.”
Common Core is an attempt to return discipline and results to K-12 education. The underlying idea is to make students both literate and effective. It has been described by some as an attempt to return to a more rigorous teaching/learning environment such as we had in the better schools many decades ago.
But what this article and many of the comments demonstrate is that even the best-intended educational “reforms” cannot survive bureaucracies and their agendas.
the NAACP successfully sued the Anne Arundel County, Maryland, School District For discrimination, based on lower participation of blacks in advanced classes. The settlement resulted in the virtual elimination of different tracks for students. This is how “social justice”, the equality of outcomes, plays out it the real world. The high achievers have to be brought down to the level of the low achieves, in effect “raising” the results for the low achievers.