Whatever You Believe About War Or The Military, At Least Pause Today to Thank A Soldier Who Never Returned Home To Be With Their Family As You Celebrate With Yours

One Sunday many years ago while attending church, we had a number of opportunities to appreciate our fallen soldiers. During a particularly poignant video played for the congregation depicting service men and women and their efforts over recent history, I looked over to find my 12-year-old son sobbing.

A Tale Of Two Teachers. Which One Do YOU Want Teaching YOUR Children - The Communist or The Christian?

As I scanned the news this morning, I came across the following videos  I would like to share.

Who Are The Common Core People In Your Neighborhood? Marc Tucker

Today I read an article published in EdWeek called, "Common Core The Real Issues" by a man named Marc Tucker. Here, the writer asserts, 

There has been much Sturm und Drang about the Common Core in recent months, but it looks to me as though the Common Core, in most states, is safe for the time being.  Its name may be changed in some states.  It may suffer from nips and tucks on occasion, but in most states it will emerge into the highlands fairly unscathed.

Goodness! This is quite the statement isn't it? If you haven't been paying attention to the Common Core fight today, nearly every state in the union has some form of legislation against the Common Core. Arguably, fighting the Common Core has become a populist movement in this nation not seen since nationalized health care - but then again, the move to 'nationalize' everything in a country that even decades ago was still the bastion of free-thinking, free-thought and free-economy, can do that to a people not ready for serfdom.

He then goes on to tell us,

Consider what the Common Core is all about.  Prior to the Common Core, the states set their own standards and chose their own tests to measure student progress against those standards.  In a majority of states, students can graduate high school by getting a passing grade on their core high school courses and they could do that mostly just by showing up.

This is bad? Local control is bad? I guess so because he also asserts that the reason why Common Core is causing so much consternation is because we don't also have a national curricula to go with it.

But the states have not developed curricula that will become the basis of their examination systems.  It is hard to imagine us having the kind of success that the top performers have had unless we figure out how to create very powerful and coherent curricula that accurately reflect the intent of the standards and serve as the basis of our examinations. 

Wow. So not only are we to create a national system of standards - and, no matter what parents think or how poor the standards have been shown to be - America should not only continue this trend, but double down by now including curricula? Pardon me while I simply utter "Wow" in the exclamatory.

One last quote from the article with worth mentioning,

The Common Core is far more likely to be declared a failure by the general public because the states failed to implement it well than it is likely to be the victim of the attacks of current critics from either the right or the left.

On one hand, this is as frightening as it sounds, but on the other, really quite expected when you look at Marc Tucker and his vision for US public education. 

Here is information about Tucker from the National Center for Education and the Economy - an organization which he founded and for which he has served as President and Chief Executive Officer since 1988.

Marc has been a leader of the standards-driven education reform movement for many years. Mr. Tucker created New Standards, a 23-state consortium designed to develop internationally benchmarked student performance standards and matching student examinations. He authored the 1986 Carnegie Report, A Nation Prepared: Teachers for the 21st Century, which called for a restructuring of America’s schools based on standards; created the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards; created the Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce and co-authored its report, America’s Choice: high skills or low wages!, which called for a new high school leaving a certificate based on standards; and, was instrumental in creating the National Skill Standards Board and served as the chairman of its committee on standards and assessment policy.

The letter Tucker wrote to Hillary Clinton in 1992 - which, coincidentally, shaped the trajectory of public schools in America via the Clinton presidency - explained exactly, and in great detail, how he intended to implement Common Core. 

Clear national standards of performance in general education (the knowledge and skills that everyone is expected to hold in common) are set to the level of the best achieving nations in the world for students of 16, and public schools are expected to bring all but the most severely handicapped up to that standard.

We have a national system of education in which curriculum, pedagogy, examinations, and teacher education and licensure systems are all linked to the national standards... 

As with most initiatives created by those convinced government is smarter than individuals, this system is predicated on the notion that nationalization is the only way to create a level playing field for all involved. Teachers can't be expected to help ALL students equally, but a federal mandates will solve that problem nicely. 

NONE OF THIS IS AMERICAN. None of it. As Phyllis Schlafly explains,

Designed on the German system, the Tucker plan is to train children in specific jobs to serve the workforce and the global economy instead of to educate them so they can make their own life choices.

Yes, Tucker's model is predicated on the German system. Knowing this, I found the use of Sturm and Drang in his opening sentence quite telling. Not the student of history I should be, I had to research the term. Here's what I found

(German: "Storm and Stress"), German literary movement of the late 18th century that exalted nature, feeling and human individualism and sought to overthrow the Enlightenment cult of Rationalism.

Lest we believe 'human individualism' to be the same in Germany as America during this time, it is important to note that 'individualism' in Germany - and other European countries - was antithetical to that which became the model for our Constitution. In fact, this kind of 'individualism' became a rallying cry for national community. 

In other words, Marc Tucker - in the opening sentence of yet another treatise extolling the virtues of education for the collective - tells us plainly he will never give up his socialist vision for America and he will never give up plying that upon school children who he understands can be molded to create this utopia.

I do not understand why more parents haven't awakened to the ultimate goal of today's public education - unification training. The architects of this plan tell you this straight out, it's just that they do so in the most elitist of terms possible, betting on the ignorance of today's population. Do not be ignorant. School your children at home if at all possible. If not, 

1. Stay as active and involved in their educations as you possibly can - to the point of activism. 
2. Run for your local school board, challenge teachers and principals who seem to be more interested in advancing the collective than in fostering the individual growth and spirit of your child. 
3. Opt your children out of every test possible - and those are the majority given today. 
4. Educate your children about the loss of privacy that comes with completing surveys that ask questions that probe into personal or family areas.
5. Opt your child out of every form of data collection possible through the school.
6. Never, never use your social security number to identify your child in a public venue - especially public school.

Tucker's vision for this country via it's public education system must be destroyed. This will take parent education and activism at every level and while seemingly a task of epic proportion, one-by-one states are kicking at their chains and stopping his plan for nationalized standards, aka Common Core. We must continue to fight, and on the days we fail to see light at the end of the tunnel, we must turn to Churchill and agree to "Never, never, never give up". 

Past Tense America

One of the things I truly love about schooling my kids at home is that I have the opportunity to also learn things I wasn't taught myself.  In the morning, I read the kids a classic poem (or two...or three) and/or a portion of a classic text.  This morning we read the Pied Piper of Hamlin by Robert Browning.

After the reading (sometimes as we are reading, if paragraphs are difficult for those under 12 to understand easily) the four of us discuss the reading.  What was the author trying to say?  What does this word mean?  What is the moral of the story?

I direct the conversation and steer the kids toward the meaning of the text or words if they are not grasping an understanding themselves.

This was the way school was taught years ago.  This is the way my mother, a now-retired English teacher with at least three Master's under her belt, used to teach her public middle school classes.  She LOVED the classics.  Why?  You HAVE to THINK to understand what words such as "gilder", "ermine" and "pottage" might mean today by determining their context in the passage or the sentence.  You HAVE to THINK to then understand the entirety of the passage or poem.

These texts give you the opportunity for endless learning - looking words up in a dictionary, determining context in a sentence, determining the purpose of the poem, studying about the writer....I could go on and on.

Dr. Terrence Moore of Hillsdale College has written a book called, "The Story Killers" about this very thing.  I suggest to anyone who doesn't understand the damage our new "shallow and fewer" standards are doing to the learning process of children, read this book.

I am posting two classic poems below - one by Emerson and one by Browning.  Both poems extol the virtue of what I will call "Past Tense America".

A Nation's Strength - By Ralph Waldo Emerson

Not gold, but only man can make
A people great and strong;
Men who, for truth and honor's sake,
Stand fast and suffer long.

Brave men who work while others sleep,
Who dare while others fly -
They build a nation's pillars deep
And lift them to the sky.

Reading this particular poem really brought home how far America has fallen (to me) since Emerson's time. Look at the words of that poem.  Do we "stand fast and suffer long" today? No, we want the quick, drive through version of EVERYTHING from religion to food! 

I Hear America Singing By Walt Whitman

I hear America Singing, the varied carols I hear:
Those of mechanics, each one singing his as it should be, blithe and strong;
The carpenter singing his as he measures his plank or beam;
The mason singing his as he makes ready for work, or leaves off work;
The boatman singing what belongs to him in his boat; the deckhand singing on the steamboat deck;
The shoemaker singing as he sits on is bench; the hatter singing as he stands;
The wood-cutter's song; the ploughboy's on his way in the morning or at noon intermission or at sundown;
The delicious singing of the mother, or of the young wife at work, or of the girl sewing or washing;
Each singing what belongs to him or her and to none else,
The day what belongs to the day - at night the party of young fellows, robust, friendly,
Singing with open mouths their strong melodious song.

Whitman is not describing white-collared executives sitting behind a desk with an iPad below their hovering fingers.  Whitman is not describing Professors in Ivory Towers decrying the goodness of America as they simultaneously take research funds (hand over fist) from private corporations who have made their fortunes from the American work ethic and free enterprise system.  

No, Whitman is describing America in past tense.  An America in which calloused hands provided a tale of untold riches to anyone that shook them.  An America in which students were taught the value of independence through reliance on one's own efforts, and the benefits reaped by America because of the values therein instilled. 

Our education 'reform' measures (ie; Common Core) will never work in present-tense America because we are now the America of the soft underbelly that expects and deserves instead of works and perserveres.
 
Our education 'reform' measures (ie; Common Core) will never work in present-tense America because they are based on punishments and not an embracing of learning for the sake of learning. 

Our education 'reform' measures (ie; Common Core) will never work in present-tense America because we desire results without effort - critical thinking without foundational knowledge - tests (assessments) that teach instead of teachers who teach.

Our only hope will be a Great Awakening of learning in our country, and until (and unless) we extricate ourselves from the cycle of government instilled poverty of effort, we will never summit that Everest.

More on the Core or Yet Again, Common Core is Not OK!

There seems to be a compunction to continue dissecting the reasons why Common Core is not OK.  This morning, I chose to tackle a few:

STANDARDS DO NOT DRIVE CURRICULA

Yes and no.

Yes.  Teachers are free to pick and choose curricula with the Common Core (just as they were with PASS) for use in their classrooms.

No.  When you have a state test over standards that now determine whether or not a local  school will be managed by the State Department of Education should it fall below a D or F grade on an unproven grading scale - you must be very careful to use specific curricula aligned with the specific standards.  Therefore, there is no way to get around the fact that standards do drive curricula to some extent.  Not only that, but because Common Core is now the law of the land for so many states, curricula (especially in math) has become extremely homogeneous.  Economics drives that issue.  Booksellers can't compete in the marketplace if their books are too very different than what teachers expect to teach to the standards.  There's a great letter written by a book publisher who lives in Oklahoma that can explain this and you can find his written testimony to the Common Core Interim Study here http://www.scribd.com/doc/181696903/Written-Testimony-of-Andrew-Pudewa-to-Common-Core-Interim-OK.

EDUCATION CAN BE MANAGED AT THE FEDERAL LEVEL

The Founders of this country meant for education to be localized.  In fact, I understand that in order for new states to be admitted to the union after the original 13, incoming states had to present a plan for the education of their citizens.  Students in different Oklahoma counties/districts may not have been all on the same educational path in the past.  Why should they have been, or be so now?  Ada is not Tulsa; Oklahoma City is not Woodward.  District taxpayers support their schools.  School board members are elected by taxpayers from their district/community.  Board members have an obligation - through those they serve - to create schools that reflect the values and needs of that community.  That is not to say we should not have state standards to model or even a yearly state test to assess student progress, but those mechanics are not the micromanagement of education we are seeing today with the Common Core.


ARE COMMON CORE STANDARDS NECESSARY?


It is interesting to note that when the Fordham Institute - a very pro-Common Core organization - chose to examine each state's standards against the Common Core, Oklahoma was given an excellent grade for their existing standards (http://standards.educationgadfly.net/).

So why would we need Common Core?  The answer lies in No Child Left Behind.  This FEDERAL law, forced states who wanted to continue to keep their Title funding (Titles 1-9) to accept the fact that they would have 100% of their state's students proficient (scoring 60 or above) in Mathematics and English/LA by 2014.

I often say this pie-in-the-sky edict that could only have originated with a very far out of touch federal government, only works when riding on a unicorn across a rainbow bridge.  Yet, it was made federal law.  Consequently, states began to dumb down their state tests (which stemmed from their state standards already in place) in order for students to more easily obtain a higher score.  This discrepancy finally came to light (ostensibly one possibility Superintendent Garrett chose not to run again) and upset lawmakers and parents, in Oklahoma and across the nation, alike.  Instead of realizing the real problem lay with a ridiculous, onerous edict in NCLB, a group of elite bureaucrats and businessmen stepped in to say they had the answer to failing schools all across the country.  But how could they?  Is Massachusetts really like Kansas?  What about Florida and Idaho?

Because government tends to favor those with the most money and those with the most money are able to message the loudest, the Common Core was sold to lawmakers as the greatest opportunity for students since the pencil.  That didn't make it so, it simply gave this group a louder voice. 

BUT OKLAHOMANS WERE INCLUDED IN THE WRITING OF THE STANDARDS

By now, many anti-Common Core organizations have shown that not only did the Common Core Standards writers not even have educational backgrounds (save one - Jason Zimba - in math), they did not even utilize comments from the committee they formed to help write the Standards, though we are told that even Oklahomans had a voice in writing the standards.  If several nationally known math and English professors (Dr. Sandra Stotsky and Dr. James Milgram) weren't heard, how were Oklahomans?

THE COMMON CORE ARE NOT FEDERAL IN NATURE

No, the Common Core were NOT federal in nature.  They were created by using private, dues-paid organizations unresponsive to the people to create and push the standards out.  However, the Obama Administration has taken the standards  (along with 3 other educational 'reform' ideas - here under Program Description http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html) and made them necessity for states to get State Fiscal Stabilization Funds, Race to the Top funding and the whole series of No Child Left Behind Waivers.  It would seem historically apparent (although completely incompatible with the US Constitution) that whatever Washington values, states become coerced in some way to adopt.  Consequently, this makes Common Core an historically unprecedented take over of education at the local level, generally incompatible with our Constitution.

So, to sum up, there are certainly good things about the Common Core - including many of the people involved - unfortunately, it is not appropriate for use in America today and certainly not Oklahoma.



*(See our previous blog for more citations and further reading http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2013/12/rope-response-to-gov-fallins-executive.html)

Missouri Mom Discovers Common Core Can Erode First Amendment Rights

I received this from Missouri mom Stacy Shore on our Truth in Education email alert system.

This is absolutely worth spreading far and wide.  I know I don't have to tell anyone reading this blog that you can't POSSIBLY research ANY topic if you only have a specific parameter in which to search.  This is truly the kind of thing I think opponents of the Common Core are all afraid of.  

After Stacy's story, please continue reading to find what Mary Byrne, (an education consultant with a doctorate in education - she's also a mom and a grandmom who sees defense of liberty in this nation an avocation) says about the term "Academic Freedom" - it's an EYE OPENER! 

STACY'S STORY: 

My daughter told me a story a few weeks ago about doing a research paper for one of her classes this past Spring.  (She was a freshman at the time).   She told me that it was particularly difficult to do since she had to use the "common core approved" search engine "SIRS" for 4 of her 6 sources as required by her teacher. I found this to be very troubling, as did she since she said it was almost impossible to support her point of view by being forced to use that search engine to do her research.  

She said that at the top of the search engine site it shows a "Common Core Approved" banner.  

So, I found this information on SIRS:

Targeted resources for student research;

SIRS Knowledge Source (SKS) provides a portal to relevant, credible information carefully hand-selected by our SIRS editorial staff. When students use SKS, they receive best-of content designed to support student research, study, and homework in key curricula subjects. Databases cross-searchable within SKS will vary based on subscription. SIRS Knowledge Source offers National, State, Province and Common Core Standards aligned to content.

Use SKS to search these SIRS resources at once, or to link to each SIRS collection:

o    SIRS® Issues Researcher—Covering the pros and cons Leading Issues most studied and debated by students

o    SIRS® Government Reporter—Historic and Government Documents, Directories and Almanacs

o    SIRS® Renaissance—Current perspectives on the arts and humanities

SIRS® WebSelect—Collection of editorially-selected reliable and credible educational website covering all curriculum topics

You will find this web site here

"Hand selected" and "Credible"? How do we know something is credible that has been hand selected?  Those ideas are some that really bother me in this context. Research should not be relegated to "Common Core Approved".

We must put a stop to this madness.  When our children are not free to do research from any credible source they choose in order to get a grade, yet they are directed to a site where the message can be controlled in order to indoctrinate we have real problems. 

Okay, now read Mary Byrne's discussion on Academic Freedom: 

It looks like evidence of government control of information and freedom of speech for legislators to know about.  You may be interested in some information about academic freedom that refers to control of research as creation of a police state. Hmmmmm:

Academic freedom was first introduced as a judicial term of art (a term with a specific legal meaning) by Supreme Court Justice william o. douglas. In Adler v. Board of Education of City of New York, 342 U.S. 485, 72 S. Ct. 380, 96 L. Ed. 517 (1952), the Supreme Court upheld a New York law (N.Y. Civ. Service Law § 12-a) that prohibited employment of teachers in public institutions if they were members of "subversive organizations." In a scathing dissent joined by Justice hugo l. black, Douglas argued that such legislation created a police state and ran contrary to the First Amendment guarantee of free speech.

Justice Douglas equated academic freedom with the pursuit of truth. If academic freedom is the pursuit of truth and is protected by the First Amendment, reasoned Douglas, then the New York law should be struck down because it produced standardized thought. According to Douglas's dissent, the New York law created an academic atmosphere concerned not with intellectual stimulation but with such questions as "Why was the history teacher so openly hostile to Franco's Spain? Who heard overtones of revolution in the English teacher's discussion of The Grapes of Wrath? and What was behind the praise of Soviet progress in metallurgy in the chemistry class?" Douglas conceded that the public school systems need not become "cells for Communist activities," but he reminded the court that the Framers of the Constitution "knew the strength that comes when the mind is free."

ROPE has said time and again that Common Core is MORE THAN STANDARDS.  We have said time and time again that this is about creating FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE IN AMERICA.  I think this article is a really great place to go to get an overall idea of how far Arne Duncan thinks America needs to go.

Education Armageddon?

I had been planning to write another personal post, and here it is.  I have noted that people simply LOVE to hear personal stories and as a person who loves to share to the point of oversharing, I will provide!

Originally, my post was going to detail only my latest in yet another public school run-in, followed by a blog post on what I believe is wrong in public schools today.  I have decided to merge these two activities here for the most part, however (although I will include a later post on what is wrong with public schools to include some diagrams upon which I have been working).

Let me begin with the personal story...As many of you know, I have had a crazy time of first grade with my son Samuel.  Last week, Sam brought home paper after paper on the rainforest.  I didn't pay much attention to any of them frankly.  To me, a child in first grade who can't do his addition or subtraction math facts to mastery but is studying the rainforest seemed too stupid a situation to even confront.  Then, it started happening...."Mom, did you know the rainforests are being destroyed all over the world?"  "Mom, did you know there won't be any sloths by the time I grow up?"  Hmmmmm....

Teachers who attempt to teach biology (especially Rainforest Ecology) to the child of a woman with a Master's degree in Biology who actually went all the way to Costa Rica for a Rainforest Ecology class and who saw rainforest first hand (and there is a whole lot of it in Costa Rica), should probably walk softly.  But oh no...

Of course I had to put Sam in the White Family Re-Education camp for that week and answer the constant questions arising from his overwrought, environmentalist, indoctrination with comments such as, 

"Yes, Sam, some rainforests are being cut down and the land used so people don't have to live in poverty.  We don't believe God gave the world rainforests to simply sit and look at.  If people have no other jobs, but have land, they should use it wisely and make a living for themselves and their families rather than rely on the government or churches to support them."

and,

"Yes Sam, sloths die and they do reproduce slowly, but there is LOTS of rainforest out there in the great big world God gave us (all around the equator) and many countries manage sections of their rainforests to preserve it for future generations.  Sloths will be around for you to see, it is fairly certain." 

I even helped him study words like "Kapok Tree", "toucan", "protect" and "habitat" for his spelling test, though he can't spell "huge" or "very" - words I would think should pull a bit more weight in the English language.

Thursday Sam brought home a math paper that had him adding 2, 3-digit numbers in column form.  Hmmmm...

I decided I'd had enough.  On this homework paper, I placed a lined sticky note with the following comments,

Dear Mrs. Smith,  Sam will not be doing this homework as he's spent most of the week learning how to spell Kapok Tree and still is unable to recount most of his basic math facts.  I don't feel he needs to be further confused.  Here are four pages of basic math facts that I had him pull out of some math practice books I keep at home.  You may count them for homework, or give Sam a zero - whatever you think is best.  Thank you, Jenni White."

Now, Mrs. Smith has been absent for the past several days, so I have no idea if she will count them or not, but between 2 days a week of art classes, computer class, and classroom days spent on activities such as field day and the Jog-a-Thon (- to raise money for the computer lab.  Once, as a member of PTA last year, I suggested we didn't need a computer lab in elementary school.  This was not at all a popular thought.  Suffice it to say, I am no longer a PTA member.), when exactly is Sam supposed to master ANYTHING that matters?

Which brings me to the second portion of my post.  Today, I read an article called, "Never Let a Crisis Go to Waste". It was written by a man who extolled his time in public education after World War II and what an excellent education it was.  He then went on to make comments on public education today - insisting that the thorough failure we are seeing is a result of lack of investment and inattention to the detail of those poverty-stricken students who just can not get on track.

After my experiences in public education, I felt absolutely OBLIGED to respond to this sad, utterly misinformed, geriatric individual with the following post;

This is where I get sad and cry for the Greatest Generation.  Eli, why in the WORLD, after admitting that you graduated with an excellent education following WWII, do you believe that our education system is suffering due to a LACK of anything other than, well, EDUCATION?  You of ALL people should realize the great inroads in all industry after WWII which were made on the backs of those who earned an excellent BASIC education in sometimes one room school houses - without computers and online training and special accommodations.

I regret to admit that I believe it is your generation, Eli, who have let my children down by pandering to an outmoded, selfish belief that your children MUST possess more than did you yourself.  Frankly, what our children - and our bloated, over-priced, over-spending school systems - need is the swift kick in the pants of NOT needing - of simplicity and thrift - all those things provided your generation from which my (and my children's) generation have been robbed by the very souls that benefited most from those practices.

The propensity to look toward other countries as a way to educate Americans is not only spurious - as our system was NEVER meant to educate Communists or Socialists - but also disingenuous as well when you state that our educational system is inadequate to educate children of poverty.  Poverty is defined in a completely different way today than it was in your day.  People with cell phones and big screen TV's are considered destitute enough to qualify for enough free federal government programs to grant them access to better resources than even those NOT on public assistance! 

Not only that, but your comparisons to education in other countries doesn't include that America's poverty rate (the number of children actually unable to eat with both parents working) is a bare fraction of theirs.  And you also do not mention that other countries do not provide PUBLIC education in the same manner as the US.

I take umbrage to the incongruent parallels you, and others who insist that America's PUBLIC education system only needs MORE - more money, more computers, more STUFF.

My first grader can not add 7+7, but by God he knows that rainforests are being destroyed before his eyes.  My 4th grader can not write a coherent, perfectly spelled paragraph, but she understands that American Indians were murdered by non-natives and that Global Warming is a fact.

Return schools to the oneness of parental control, schools boards and districts, teach the basics as you were taught, and not all the other GARBAGE and I would absolute bet GOOD money we'd see the results you had as a lad.

Less is more Eli.  Face it and a hearty dose of REALITY as well.

More on the absolute cognitive dissonance that is what we call today, "Educational Choice", later.