Seven Reasons Why Common Core Repeal in Oklahoma Isn't

Before I begin this post, please do not misunderstand; ROPE is/was VERY pleased and honored to have been included in so much of the Oklahoma Common Core repeal bill process. We are very grateful to Representative Nelson and Senator Brecheen for all their work and the many times they sought our input when they certainly needn't have.

That being said, I'm sure no one who contributed to HB3399 expected it to serve as a panacea for all things Common Core in the state. In fact, there were "wish list" items unquestionably discarded during the writing and amending stages due to concerns the bill wouldn't pass or be signed by the Governor - a majority jettisoned due to consternation over the possible loss of Oklahoma's No Child Left Behind Waiver. Though every effort was made to due diligence, without the gift of omniscience, no one could have known the effect of every aspect of the bill's mandates.

HB3399 had a rocky start. The bill wasn't passed by the House and Senate until the last day of the 2014 legislative session. It took 11 days for the Governor to sign the bill, yet the ink from the Governor's pen hadn't dried before a lawsuit was filed over its agreement with the Oklahoma Constitution. Once ruled Constitutionally sound by the Oklahoma Supreme Court, Oklahoma's State Regents for Higher Education began the process of certifying Oklahoma's previous PASS (Priority Academic Student Skills) standards - those mandated for use by the bill - as college and career ready. This action was prescribed in order for Oklahoma to keep its NCLB Waiver by allowing for option "B" (state institutions of higher education must certify state standards as college and career ready, page 14), option "A" having been our original choice = Common Core.

Simultaneously, Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, began issuing threats regarding the security of Oklahoma's NCLB Waiver. In the end, the Regents weren't fast enough for Duncan, and our Waiver was pulled, sparking a veritable mountain of ill-informed media meting out pronouncements of economic and educational ruin for our state. October l7 - approximately 6 weeks after the loss of our NCLB Waiver - the Oklahoma State Regents certify Oklahoma PASS as college and career ready. Following quickly behind this decision, now-deposed State Superintendent Janet Barresi announced the State Department of Education's effort to re-apply for a new NCLB Waiver, with the caveat that a new Waiver could not take effect until the 2015-2016 school year.

Since the beginning of the 2014-15 school year, ROPE has been inundated with emails and messages complaining their schools were continuing to use Common Core despite HB3399. In fact, we received so many messages, we spoke with the bills' authors and our Amicus brief attorneys to create a plan to help empower parents to stop schools from its continued use. Unfortunately, when you have the second largest school district in Oklahoma (Tulsa Public Schools) poking its finger in the eye of parents and the state by proudly proclaiming their use of Common Core, follow the leader becomes an issue. Oklahoma City Public Schools (the largest district in Oklahoma) says they are using a Common Core/PASS hybrid but at least their Kindergarten rubric is based solely on Common Core. Some outlying districts, such as Yukon Public Schools, have just told parents they could care less about their issues with Common Core, they've put the money into training and preparation, and they will continue using Common Core.

So, with all the effort so many of us put into repealing Common Core in Oklahoma, why then has it continued to persist? I think there are at least 7 factors that have thwarted the will of Oklahoma citizens and prevented a full repeal.

1. TEACHER LEADER EFFECTIVENESS (TLE) MODELS (NCLB WAIVER)
For those of you unacquainted with the finer points of the NCLB Waiver, you will note on page 76, the section marked 3a - Develop and Adopt Guidelines for Local Teacher and Principal Evaluation and Support Systems. I could provide a dissertation on this particular issue, but I do not have time here.

Suffice it to say, this is one of four pillars of the federal government's plan to re-make government education utilizing the carrot and stick method provided via the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund grants to states (stimulus dollars 2009), Race To The Top grant applications to states (2010) and the No Child Left Behind Waivers (2011) granted to states to counter the 'emergency' created when Congress refused to re-authorize No Child Left Behind. Unfortunately, the three other pillars (TLE, State Longitudinal Database System and Turning Around Low Performing Schools) work to reinforce Common Core while the grants and waivers urge states to cement each in place.

In Oklahoma, our Teacher Leader Effectiveness Commission (because government never shrinks) met and decided to use the Tulsa model and the Marzano model for grading our teachers as specified in our Waiver (if we're going to make them get a teaching degree and then make them take a test to be certified to teach and then make them re-certify to teach every five years at a cost of $50.00, and if building principals must observe teachers yearly as part of their building evaluations for continuous employment, is this not a form of overkill?). Both models were to begin use 2014-15 - and they have.

While I have no intimate knowledge of the Tulsa model, I can tell you without question that you cannot possibly score passing on the Marzano model IF YOU DO NOT TEACH COMMON CORE. I received screen shots from the Marzano model - plus an in depth training on the way it works - from an Oklahoma City Public School teacher now on a Plan of Improvement pending firing for not teaching the Common Core and not entering private personal student information into Google Docs (Google has been singled out as direct violators of student privacy) as directed by her Principal.

First of all, the Marzano model is clearly aligned to CCSS:

http://www.marzanocenter.com/Teacher-Evaluation/2014-model/

Secondly, though the entire platform seems endlessly...well...mindless, once you understand how the whole scheme fits together, there is no way this isn't all about Common Core. For example, here is a screenshot of one of the evaluation screens for the way a teacher organizes her classroom.

This looks pretty antiseptic really, until you realize that most books - this teacher must use McGraw Hill Common Core aligned books to teach math - show exactly how to teach Common Core and then dictate specifically what must go on the board in the classroom to make sure the kids are absorbing all their Common Core content concepts. If you don't have the Common Core objective on the board for the day, you are marked down on your evaluations.

Here is an example of the same thing from Yukon Public Schools. 

2. COLLEGE PLACEMENT EXAMS: ACT/SAT

David Coleman, writer of the Common Core, is now the head of the College Board where he is aligning the SAT to the Common Core. The ACT has spent the last several years re-aligning its tests to the Common Core. Here is their statement of support for the Common Core.

https://www.act.org/commoncore/

The New America Foundation (established by George Soros) has said the following about the ACT:

"Despite the PARCC and SmarterBalance hysteria, the SAT and ACT - along with their remedial placement cousins, ACCUPLACER and COMPASS - are likely to continue to serve as the de facto performance standard for college entry. These assessments are already accepted within higher education, for better or worse, while the Common Core will be greeted with scrutiny and suspicion at many institutions."

So, in other words, "We know Common Core is being discovered and repudiated by the American public, but we must continue to indoctrinate and dumb down American children via the concept that everyone should be exactly the same. We'll just have to do it in backdoor ways to get around them." The ACT/SAT will help do just that. After all, one thing Coleman et al. do apparently understand well, is that seemingly inherent 'necessity' to teach to the test. If the tests that can help you get a college degree have been aligned to Common Core, how can you get into college without learning the Common Core? 

3. ADVANCED PLACEMENT COURSES (AP)

To be filed under the same category as above. You've likely been in a cave if you haven't heard about the push to re-write the US AP History Standards by David Coleman and the College Board. Now, not only will the College Board (David Coleman) continue down the road with their alignment of the SAT to Common Core, but AP courses will also be aligned as well. If we can judge this effort from the new APUSH standards, this will provide a decidedly anti-American spin on coursework along with providing the already identified Common Core shifts from classic literature and study.

4. TESTING VENDORS

As we worked to stop Common Core this year, we were very concerned about language in the bill specifying testing companies. Why? Two reasons: because the amount of personal student data collected by testing vendors is outrageous and because nearly every testing vendor in the known universe is Common Core aligned.

Measured Progress was discussed as a specified testing vendor during the standards re-write period while HB3399 was being amended. This concerned us greatly. Though Oklahoma had excused itself from its seat at the table with Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) ostensibly because the tests were too expensive, ROPE knew that PARCC was a vendor to Educational Testing Service (ETS), the company that received Race to the Top funds from the federal government to contract for the writing of Common Core tests. Measured Progress is in the exact same boat, it's just tied to Smarter Balanced Assessment Corporation (SBAC) as well as PARCC.

Of course, at its last special session, our State School Board gave the contract for our winter tests to MP. Yes, their website states they can help with "item creation" and "test construction" for "current programs", but their main emphasis is Common Core aligned testing. They were given money by the federal government to do just that. 

A recent EdWeek article outlines how all the large testing vendors are being paid to create Common Core aligned tests. What State School Board is going to take the time to root around for the smaller companies that haven't gotten federal money to create Common Core tests like Iowa? The sheer size and scope of the online testing market works against non-Common Core states.

5. TECHNOLOGY AND THE INTERNET

The largest textbook provider in the world (Pearson) is also one of the largest providers of online Common Core aligned programs. If you're in need of anything related to the Common Core, you have but to go to their one-stop shop - Common Core Solutions - to find solutions to any and ALL your Common Core issues from Professional Development to "Research and Innovation".  Of course there are also Pearson Common Core Webinars for those days when you just want to sit in a chair in your PJ's and learn how to better prepare yourself to teach and learn all things Common Core.

Just for fun, I searched the internet for "Common Core apps" (to use via cell phones and tablets). I came up with at least 26 individual apps aligned to Common Core from Common Core Rap to Common Core Look-fors - which allows teachers to integrate the Common Core State Standards into their classrooms. 

Also for fun, I searched the internet for "Common Core Worksheets". I wound up with pages and pages and pages such as those from Help Teaching and Internet4Classrooms and the super precious, Common Core Kids. Virtually anything you would want Common Core aligned from ELA to Math, can be found in worksheet form from a veritable plethora of education-related websites. 

This is a huge issue for the few states that didn't take Common Core and Oklahoma, who has repealed Common Core. Any teacher at any school, or any administrator at any school, can troll the web and pull down any sort of information for use classrooms on any given day.  For teachers in a pinch - or teachers wanting to teach Common Core and/or being forced to teach Common Core by administrators such as those in Tulsa and Yukon government schools - the supply of classroom materials toward that end is, well, endless.

6. DOE/GATES END-AROUNDING STATES WITH GRANTS TO INSTITUTE/CONTINUE COMMON CORE

Another situation that has stimulated concern, is the fact that the Federal Government is such a willing accomplice in the Common Core re-education plan. For example, the Department of Education began to give Race to the Top grants to school districts in 2013 - outside the pervue of state education departments. 

Bill Gates has given a number of government schools - including Oklahoma's own Tulsa Public Schools - large grants for creating "college and career readiness" (Common Core). In this case, TPS was given a grant last year of nearly 4.5 million dollars to be used over the course of the next five years for the generically termed cause of "Professional Development" - and we now know about that, don't we? 

Then, there's the newest federal government carrot, the "Future Ready District Pledge", which 

"establishes a framework for districts to achieve the goals laid out in President Obama's ConectED Initiative and commits districts to move as quickly as possible toward our shared vision of preparing students for success in college, careers and citizenship."

Correct. The last bit sounds exactly like....Common Core. So, if the feds can get districts - via their superintendents - hooked into this nice new pay for play scheme, they can get money, or re-direct funds, as they need to create this wonderful 'shared vision', that Oklahoma citizens don't really share.

7. TEXTBOOKS

I became a homeschooling mom after my kids started experiencing the effects of Common Core in their classrooms. One of the arguments I made against Common Core early on, was very well stated by small book publisher (Institute For Excellence in Writing), Andrew Pudwa in his testimony before the Oklahoma House Rules Committee.

Additionally, because of the virtual monopoly of textbook publishers (Pearson, McGraw-Hill, Houghton-Mifflin), schools required to conform to the Common Core standards will have little choice when it comes to curricula, and the publishers’ largest customers (California, New York, Florida, and Texas) do have a great input on textbook content. In fact, CCSSI is a huge windfall for education publishers, since most districts in most states are being forced to replace their existing texts with CCSSI conforming texts, and any differentiations by state standards have been superseded by the Common Core standards. Consequently, the big publishers can now sell the same or very similar books to all the states, further increasing profitability. This, of course, makes it even harder for small publishers such as myself to keep a toehold in the public education market. 

How, I posited, can those of us not using Common Core find non-Common Core textbooks? The answer is, "It will be much harder", and for the reasons stated above. 

While individuals can simply utilize online sources to purchase textbooks for home/individual use, government schools require government contracts for such purchases. Smaller book companies cannot sell books at the reduced price sustainable by huge publishers. Districts who frequently howl about lack of funding, are not going to authorize the use of even more of their 'precious' resources on arguably better books. In fact, this is one of the reasons cited by both the TPS Superintendent and the Yukon Public Schools Superintendent (and others) as to why they simply can't 'stop teaching Common Core' - switching to Common Core cost them too much to turn back now.

SOLUTIONS

Let's face it, David Coleman and his Common Core buddies knew what they were doing. They knew if they got enough organizations/education sectors to buy in on the idea of 'national standards' - including the seated administration of the federal government - they could essentially stage a coup over government education in America. And they did just that. 

Today, it appears the future of Common Core must reside in the hands of the parent. Large school districts could simply care less what parents have to say about how their children are educated - and they don't have to. Government schools get government money no matter whether they follow the law or not and no matter whether or not they provide an excellent education for children or not. We MUST break this cycle. We must stop districts from simply being granted taxpayer money from both the federal and state level for no other reason than they claim to be institutions of education, when these dollars are clearly being used to build and defend fiefdoms without care for the public they serve. How else do you explain the fact that government schools have consumed more money while exhibiting diminishing return on investment even here in Oklahoma?

There are several ways to accomplish this task: 

1. Parents who can, should remove their children from government schools and either put them in private schools or educate them at home or by co-op, removing their child's education funding from the system.
2. Parents who can't remove their children from government schools should become civilly disobedient and begin to OBJECT to every single program/test/book/questionnaire that offends them, to the point of removing their child on days the offensive material is used/taught and requesting substitute educational materials. Government schools get taxpayer funds from the state when children are in class - they do not when they are not. Parents, use your powers here and don't be bullied by your school YOU are the parent, YOU have the control. Refer to Oklahoma's Parental Bill of Rights should you feel week-kneed in your resolve because of a shaky foundational knowledge.
3. Legislators should remove the free money supporting government education by allowing the creation of Educational Savings Accounts. ESA's put the funds spent on a child to be educated in the government system back into the hands of the parents to use in the way best for that child. This could be home school, private school or a neighborhood government school. It matters not where the money goes so long as it is used to the benefit of the child's education. The point is that the government school no longer gets a chunk of 'free money' to do with as THEY choose, forcing them, instead to actually have to compete for education dollars.
4. States currently creating anti-Common Core legislation should take heed of these issues and attempt to address as many of them as possible within.

Until/unless parents/legislators choose to draw clear lines in the sand, government schools will continue to run roughshod over parents, the law and what's best for the education of our children. There is no impetus for them to do otherwise.

What’s A Win Worth If We Learn Nothing From It?

Thursday, June 5^th, Governor Fallin signed HB3399 – the strongest anti-Common Core law in the nation currently – into law.  Oddly, though fighting the fight against Common Core since 2010, the win was a bit anti-climactic.  It might have been because there was no time for celebration – exhausted, I had two boys to get to two different baseball games that night after having been out of town at an anti-Common Core rally in Ohio for two days – but I also think it’s because I know the process isn’t finished.

The week before Governor Fallin signed the bill, CCOSA (Cooperative Council Oklahoma School Administration), OSSBA (Oklahoma State School Board Administration), PTA, Stand For Children, The Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce, The Tulsa Chamber of Commerce and an organization called, “The Collaborative For Student Success” (funded in part by the VERY politically liberal New Venture Fund), released two full page ads full of scare tactics, in both the Tulsa World and the Daily Oklahoman.  After finding a rate card for both publications, it didn’t take long to decipher the group had spent over 30,000 dollars for these ads.

Wait.  So your school board member is against you if you want to get rid of Common Core?  What about your Superintendent and/or Principal?  So they are against you if you don’t want your child to be educated using the Common Core State Standards?  Yes.  They are against you to the tune of 30K.  Do you parents have that kind of money?  I know we don’t, and we’re an organization who could probably beat the bushes and still only find a tenth of that for a newspaper ad AGAINST Common Core.

Over the years, I’ve written about the various organizations named here, such as the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce (here’s another good one!). I think many of us know the national Chamber of Commerce is not a friend to the Conservative.  With their lobbying for the healthcare law, immigration ‘reform’ (I put ALL reform’s in ‘air quotes’ because I see the word ‘reform’ as a euphemism for ‘more government necessary to give you something only we want’) and other anti-Constitution/big government ‘solutions’ in search of a problem.  In fact, most likely the only real trustworthy chamber is the Chamber in your individual town who cares more for the growth of the township than the State/National Chamber’s big government favoring big business agenda.

One wouldn't necessarily think that true of school administrators, but alas, they have turned against parents as well.  I wrote a blog recently where I enumerated the pro-Common Core organizations that ‘sponsor’ CCOSA.  Of course CCOSA wouldn’t support Common Core because they are financially backed to do so, right? (snark)

Interestingly enough, I have had numerous teachers report to me that their superintendents are saying they will follow Common Core no matter what.  One woman who posted on the Oklahoma Parents and Educators for Public Education Facebook page said, “The district’s stance was that if the state could change their mind, then the district could just do what they wanted.”  Sadly, it wasn’t “the state” it was THOUSANDS of parents and teachers that wanted the ruling reversed – it was thousands upon thousands of parents and teachers who wrote the Governor letters and made phone calls pleading with her to sign HB3399 and stop Common Core. 

Apparently, as an OPEPE administrator told me moments ago, when a group of parents consulted this same school district for help on the third grade reading assessments, they were told that the district couldn’t break the RSA law.  I guess in administrator land, it’s all just whatever they want to do whenever they want to do it – parents be damned.  This would be simply fall on the ground hysterical if it weren’t for the fact that parents pay property taxes for those services and the administration are there to SERVE parents, not demand the parents serve them on their terms.

What about NASBE (National Association of State Boards of Education)?  Well, NASBE wants to sue the state over HB3399 saying it was against the Oklahoma Constitution to allow the legislature to sign off on the new standards rather than the state school board.  Can you imagine the veritable gall of these people?  Coming into another state and threatening a law suit over a state law proposed and enacted by the people of the state?  Seriously, solid silver guts here.

Why would NASBE act this way?  Simple, because they are Bill Gates shills like most of the rest of the pro Common Core factions.  This fight has always been the big money corporate elitists against parents.  Sad the OSSBA (Oklahoma State School Board Association) has had to get into the fray as well, signing on along with these other groups to keep Common Core.  This organization is made up of your local school board members.  You ELECT your local school board members to represent YOU.  Why would they counter parents?

Two separate school board members in the state have told me they never received a survey from OSSBA asking them if they wanted Common Core or not; the OSSBA leadership apparently decided that for themselves.  Well, as the OSSBA website says, “The OSSBA is a player on the national scene as a member of the powerful National School Boards Association”, and we all know where they get their money!  Oklahoma law stipulates that ALL Oklahoma school board members – though elected by the citizens of their district – must succumb to school board training.  Several school board members have told me this training ends up being accomplished through NASBE.  Recap: parents vote for school board members who then go to training with NASBE who then come back to the board with Bill Gates inspired ideas that move the school further and further away from parental control.

(NOTE 6/10: Shawn Hime of the OSSBA corrected me here.  NASBE isn't the NSBA - National School Boards Association.  OSSBA is affiliated with NSBA NOT NASBE.  NSBA has received money from Bill Gates, but not in any way to the extent of NASBE. That needs to be kept straight)

Then there’s the PTA. If you didn’t know, the PTA is really an offshoot of the National Education Association (NEA).  Consequently, though the name include the word “PARENT”, this organization left that idea behind in 1968 when leadership voted to support teachers in the event of a strike, leaving parents behind for their unholy league with the NEA.

Two other groups identified on the newspaper ad, are Expect More and Stand On – oops, I mean – For Children. 

Stand, has a tainted reputation here in Oklahoma.  First we find they are bankrolled primarily by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and therefore have no voice of their own, other than a parrot of Gates.  Second, we find they sent in a petition to our state’s legislature including 7000 signatures – just like a petition in Colorado – which was misrepresented to the press and contained  a large number of false names.

Expect More is simply a hodgepodge of organizations – mainly the Tulsa and Oklahoma City Chamber of Commerce’ - who have come together “in support of higher standards” for education. Not only have they spent large sums on advertising FOR the Common Core, they recently paid for a very slick video to be shot declaring the wonders of the standards.  So, again, this is a re-brand of Bill Gate’s money and that’s about it – period.

Here’s the takeaway.  We need to pay attention to the organizations and groups we support.  While parents may support them – they don’t support parents.  The fact that the OSSBA doesn’t support the parents that elect them to their positions should cause people to stand up in arms.

School board elections are in February.  Here is all the necessary information to run as a school board member.  Parents from across Oklahoma should plan NOW to sign up to run for school board against the NASBE-trained members currently working against them in their district.  The ONLY way you’ll take your school district back, is through the board – the board that in turn hires the ADMINISTRATION of the school! 

If you don’t like the research I’ve provided you on these organizations, STOP SUPPORTING THEM.

Instead of PTA, have your school move to the Parent Teacher Organization (PTO).  PTO’s don’t take parent money and then lobby the legislature against parents.  PTO’s are individual associations within districts that have only an informational website for educational materials.

Look, public schools were instituted alongside the parent for the education of their children.  Somewhere along the line, however, parents deemed it more of a babysitter, than a give-and- take relationship where the two parties worked TOGETHER for the education of that child.  If this last year has taught us anything, I hope it has taught every parent to become an engaged fighter for the education of their children.

As Edmond dad, Matt Wilson, so eloquently opined on the ROPE Facebook page after the passage of HB3399, “…I know our work is not done and thank you for encouraging me to take a more active role in my children’s education and lives.”

Matt’s words mean more to me personally than I could possibly express.  No matter what we set out to accomplish with Common Core, Matt hit the heart of the matter – the one thing we truly wanted after all was said and done.  I hope EVERY parent can – and will – echo his sentiments and work to truly put themselves back in the driver’s seat of their child’s education in as many ways as humanly possible.

What Would Einstein Think of Common Core?

I commented on an article today regarding Michigan's attempts to shake free from the Common Core.  Many of the comments came from sadly misinformed individuals who seem to believe that "common" is good and anything to which a large number of others subscribe must amount to some kind of awe-inspiring notion, spawning my concern that none apparently had mothers like mine who constantly queried, "If Mary was going to jump off a bridge, would you?"

One man began his comment with this, "Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." (Sign hanging in Einstein's office at Princeton)

This thought captured my  imagination thoroughly.  I have been blessed to know a man named Dr. Everett Piper, the President of Oklahoma Wesleyan University.  I love to hear him discuss the horrors of Common Core from a philosophical perspective, not only because he is such an excellent orator, but because people tend to forget the philosophical point of view - the notion that ideas shape the human condition and ideas reduced to commonalities do not advance the human condition.

The best opponents of Common Core predicate their arguments on fact - in stark opposition to proponents who tend to use half-truths and lies upon which to base their case - but the philosophy behind our Common Core concerns are palpable and real and I believe we need to advance these arguments at least as often as we tout our facts.

In this thought, I penned the following response:

The Common Core State Standards were written by several individuals - without education degrees I might add - who then, knowing national standards are against federal law, sent them out through a private organization - Achieve - to the nation's governors and superintendents with the promise of federal money waiting in the wings - 500 BILLION dollars through Race to the Top - if they adopted them for their state sight unseen. It happened here in Oklahoma exactly as it happened in Michigan and all other adopting states.

Granted, the term "Common" was used to mean ubiquitous, however, another meaning for "Common" is the OPPOSITE of "individual", which begs the question:  How in the world can America continue to be seen as the most innovative country in the world when states fully intend to collaboratively adopt standards to "commonize" all students across all states? 

How do you INCREASE student knowledge levels by pulling successful students down to the level of the 'common'? 

Are there really that many low performing students in every school in every state in the nation that we need to stop everything to bring them up to the 'common' level of each class? 

Do we bring down 25 kids for 1 kid or even 6 kids in a class? 

If so, then what are we doing to the other 21? 

The simple, straightforward answer is that we're dumbing them down - there is no other characterization possible - and we can't scream "civil rights" for those at the bottom without inquiring about the "civil rights" of the individuals in the majority being pulled down.

For those of you in the Chamber of Commerce sect, how do you convince a company to come to Michigan when your students will be taught in a thoroughly homogenous way, forcing out uniqueness, drive and imagination - the very qualities necessary to produce the Einstein's and Edison's of this world? 

How well do you think Einstein would fair with the Common Core? 

Do you think we would have had a Theory of Relativity with the Common Core...well silly question...of course we would - the Common Core is nothing if not 'relative' among every state and every child.
 
Common Core is what it is - nonsense dreamed up by well-connected philanthropists (Carnegie, Broad, etc)  and innovator/billionaires such as Bill Gates, with a dollar to be made in the education "industry". 

I hope no one escapes the irony imbued in the fact that these people who worked and scrapped and sacrificed to make their dreams reality - who reached the pinnacle of success by truly innovating in America - suddenly seem to forget that the great thing about America - the thing that gave them the ability to get to the top - was the variety inherent in every aspect of the American condition - the FREEDOM to receive the best education one could seek out from the very variety contained within.