Oklahoma Legislative Education Leaders Take Advantage of Free Boston Trip Sponsored by Jeb Bush Foundation

The picture from the Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE) website above missed the text below:

On October 17-18, 2013, Governor Jeb Bush and the Foundation for Excellence in Education hosted the 2013 National Summit on Education Reform in Boston, MA. As the Foundation’s flagship initiative, the National Summit on Education Reform annually convenes the best and brightest from around the world to share strategies to improve the quality of education for all children, everywhere. This one-stop shop of policies and practices offers an opportunity for lawmakers, policymakers and advocates to learn the nuts and bolts of reform.

That many Oklahoma State Department of Education employees would be attending a Jeb Bush function isn't shocking.  The OSDE has made Jeb Bush's foundation their one stop shop for nearly every education 'reform' made in Oklahoma, though, like so many other Republicans, Bush is merely pushing the Obama Administration's vision for remaking public education in America.  This section of the website devoted to last year's 'summit' lists the sponsors of this wonderful event - a veritable who's who in the world that is now education corporate cronyism at its best; PEARSON, Microsoft, Exxon-Mobile and K12 (of course), as well as State Farm and Target among others.

When we found pictures of the event posted on OSDE Board Member Amy Ford's Facebook page recently, however, we thought the public at large might be interested.

This is our state Superintendent - one of Jeb Bush's Chiefs For Change - wining and dining with the sponsor.

Here we have Senator John Ford, Chairman of the Senate Education Committee, Representative Ann Coody, Chairman of the House Education Committee, our Superintendent, OSDE General Counsel Kim Richey and OSDE Board member, Amy Ford enjoying an evening visit to Fenway Park.

In this picture Stand For Children CEO Brian Hunt and Stand staffer Martin Ramirez frame Richey and Ford.

Senator Clark Jolley, Chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee and Ford enjoy the view from Fenway's upper deck.

This is most concerning for this reason.  This trip was made possible by 'scholarships' (yes, FEE refers to them as 'scholarships') from FEE.  The THREE PRIMARY SOURCES OF BLOCKED COMMON CORE BILLS were given all expense paid trips to Boston to hear 2 days worth of information about Common Core - among other education reforms being pushed into Oklahoma from outside her borders via the benefits of big money, private foundations.  Senator Jolley was there to speak on a panel discussing the A-F grading system.

Because I think Senator Ford is a kind, decent person, I contacted him for his comments about these photos and asked him about the trip.  He told me he went on a 'scholarship' because the state did not pay for such travel expenses anymore and it was important for him to attend certain conferences.

I told him this looked as though he was accepting favors - how odd for all the primary players to be 'scholarshipped' to such a meeting.  He told me his mind was made up about Common Core after visiting with some superintendents and this trip in no way influenced his thought process on the topic.  In fact, he told me that he could go to lunch with a lobbyist one day and vote against their bill the next.

This frustrates me for two reasons:

1. ROPE has assisted in now two separate Interim Studies on Common Core, the last in October of last year.  Senator Ford never took the FREE TRIP across the rotunda from the senate to sit in on a single one of these study days - nor did Representative Coody - nor did Senator Jolley - nor did Board Member Amy Ford.  Apparently we didn't have the funds to 'scholarship' these voices FOR the people of our state across the rotunda - or maybe our opinions don't COUNT because we don't have the BUSH name on our letterhead and multimillions in backing.
2. Stand for Children has pushed Common Core into Oklahoma through bright shiny mailers, using Kentucky's cherry-picked numbers with money supplied by Bill Gates.  ROPE doesn't have the kind of money Gates and Bush has to influence votes?  Is that why our bills are getting BLOCKED in the Senate?

Interestingly, within the last several days, Oklahomans have found that Senator Rob Johnson attended a seminar in Las Vegas sponsored by FairVote - a group that wants to establish the National Popular Vote.  Johnson went on to sponsor the bill that was passed out of the Senate. Representative Tom Newell and Senator John Sparks both attended seminars in Miami.  The article goes on to say,

Because the trips were not funded by lobbyists or the companies that employ them, there is no requirement that the lawmakers disclose the travel and lodging, said Lee Slater, Executive Director of the Oklahoma Ethics Commission. 

As a taxpayer I am outraged.  Why does the state even have lobbying rules if lobbyists can just decide they don't want to be called lobbyists and work their money magic via PHILANTHROPY?

We can only take Senator Ford at his word, not knowing what's in his heart, however, this entire trip looks very, very bad and it feels like us plain old regular taxpaying citizens got thrown under the bus yet again.


ADDENDUM: 3/2/14
Apparently, Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education was named  in an IRS complaint filed by a progressive organization in New Mexico in October of last year.  Though many will chafe at the complaint source, the complaint itself appears to cover exactly the issues we have addressed here and those are certainly valid - no matter your side of the isle:

The unorthodox manner of these scholarships—and the fact that they are used as a vehicle to meet with for-profit education corporations—further raises suspicions around the Foundation's failure to properly disclose payment of travel expenses in 2010 and 2011. Additionally, it is possible these unreported payments to the government officials may be deemed to provide a private inurement in violation of IRS regulations.

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Though the State Department of Education makes SNAIL MAIL the only way possible to get in touch with State Board members, I have linked each individual to their state page in the event you would like to contact them and ask these individuals why they could attend an out of state meeting paid for in full by the organization sponsoring the meeting, but couldn't walk for free across the rotunda or down the hall to any of the Interim Studies we worked so hard to present.

Common Core Comment To State School Board From Rope President Jenni White

Remarks to the Board Regarding the Common Core State Standards

Jenni White, President, Restore Oklahoma Public Education

Oklahoma’s legislature passed SB2033, codifying the Common Core State Standards into law in 2010.

Since that time, ROPE has studied this initiative and witnessed what can only generously be called a campaign of misinformation emanate from the State Department of Education regarding the Common Core in Oklahoma.  For instance;

• The idea that Common Core is ‘state led’.  This is a marketing term used to make people believe the standards come from within their states.  They do not.  They were written by several people, including a man named David Coleman – now head of the College Board and responsible for the effort to align the SAT with the Common Core – at a Washington, D.C. non-profit called Student Achievement Partners (http://www.achievethecore.org/about-student-achievement-partners/principles-work)  who gave them to an organization called Achieve, who then passed them on to the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to sell states in a nationally concerted effort via  their Governors and Superintendents (http://achieve.org/history-achieve ).

• Prior to the Common Core, Oklahoma had PASS standards.  After Dr. Barresi entered the Superintendent’s office, we were given C3 standards – the very term for the national (Common Core) Social Studies standards by the Council of Chief School Officers, who pushed them out for Achieve (http://truthinamericaneducation.com/c3-state-social-studies-standards/ccsso-releases-c3-framework-social-studies-state-standards/).  Since Vision 2020, these standards are now called Oklahoma Academic standards which Dr. Barresi has referred to in her regular newspaper column for 7/19/13 as including, “Oklahoma approved standards in the Common Core for English and math and Oklahoma developed standards in social studies, science and other subjects.”

Brad Henry, however, filed a Race To The Top addendum in 2010 adopting EVERY ‘common core’ standard including Social Studies and Science as found in Chapter 15 Subchapter 4 (http://ok.gov/sde/node/3651) of the Department’s own rules.

If the social studies standards were Oklahoma’s, wouldn’t the Department be breaking its own rules?  Is that why Oklahoma’s Social Studies standards are nearly identical to the C3 Common Core standards put out by the CCSSO (http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2013/06/oklahoma-history-standards-could-very.html )?  Why do they match up exactly in content to those prescribed by the RTT addendum?  Why would David Barton tell us directly – and on a broadcast of Glenn Beck’s The Blaze program – that he had nothing to do with the standards  other than showing up at a meeting – though Dr. Barresi has touted him as having had input.  Why do Oklahoma’s standards and the C3 standards call America a Constitutional Democracy and not a Constitutional Republic as is actually the case? (http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-republic-maam-if-you-can-keep-it.html)

• Why are other Common Core adoptive states such as Pennsylvania and Alabama spontaneously doing the same thing – re-naming their Common Core standards (http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2013/07/does-state-department-of-education.html)

• The Guiding Principles for the Arts posted on the State’s website (http://www.ok.gov/sde/sites/ok.gov.sde/files/CCore%20guidingprinciples-arts.pdf) are Common Core standards written by David Coleman - the man who told a group of computer programmers at a seminar that he went around ‘selling’ the standards to state leaders and had to ‘dupe’ Republicans into buying them by leaving out that President Obama supported them.

• Just this month, Dr. Barresi penned a letter meant for distribution to state superintendents telling them she was removing Oklahoma from PARRC testing, yet a letter written by Georgia’s state superintendent was almost exactly the same (http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2013/07/states-dumping-parrc-is-orchestrated.html)

The Fordham Institute – Common Core proponents - gave both Oklahoma’s PASS in English and Math a grade of B+ and said they were clearer and easier to understand than the Common Core.   

Oklahomans pay state taxes to support Oklahoma public schools NOT organizations and companies OUTSIDE our state who want to put us on a path to nationalized standards predicated on a lie.

Common Core Comment To State School Board From Rope Board Member Julia Seay

 

State School Board Meeting Remarks for July 2013

James Lankford, July 19:  “When the (NCLB) waiver authority is given, now the Department  of Education becomes a National School Board telling each district, each state what they have to do to meet the new requirements that they can literally make up as they go because there is no law or statute that they are behind.  That’s why we desperately need to pass a replacement to that NCLB so states and school districts know how to function within the law, and not just something that changes from year to year based on the whims of the Department of Education or the decisions they bring down this year according to their waiver.”

On Congressman Jim Bridenstine’s Facebook Page, he boldly posts our Common Core is not OK logo with this heading: "The goal of good education should be the pursuit of what is true and just and right and real… not the protection or propagation of what is common. ”Dr. Everett Piper, President of Wesleyan University.  Share if you agree.”  This post received 736 Likes and 361 shares… In social media lingo, it went viral.

Both Senators Coburn and Inhofe signed an official Senatorial letter against Common Core.

Groups such as Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity, Concerned Women of America, David Barton and Wallbuilders, Cato Institute, Family Research Council, Act for America, The Oklahoma Republican Party and the Republican National Committee have come out AGAINST Common Core, even if it is renamed Oklahoma Academic Standards.

Why do we insist on “educating” our children if what is being taught is counter to a productive society?  

Charlotte Iserbyt, former Senior Policy Advisor in the U.S. Department of Education under President Ronald Reagan said that even if the Federal Government wanted to educate children on the 10 Commandments, it is still wrong, because education is NOT the Federal Government’s job. 

For the last 50 years, the Federal Government has interfered with education by offering a pittance of tax dollars, which they take from Oklahomans only to give back if we beg just right and comply with all the strings attached.

If the Standards themselves are not bad enough – and they are -- we have Data Collection on our children to be shared across state lines, then nationally, then globally with “Stakeholders” (a term that can be defined as needed). 

With headlines in the news such as

• Congress, lewd photos and NYC's mayoral race 
• IRS targets conservative groups
• House rejects effort to cut off NSA surveillance program
• Obama's Safe Schools Czar Tied to Lewd Readings for 7th Graders
• Grassley seeks to Defund Common Core

 We do not have to worry about hackers.  The very entity collecting the data is dangerous and corrupt.  Corruption in government is at an all-time high.   For Oklahoma to collect data on students in this climate is insane.  
 

WHY?  What is the rush?  Our children can be sold for a few federal dollars?  Teachers will not teach more effectively by knowing how parents vote or what time a student arrives at his bus stop, or their blood type.  Before you say, “We won’t do that” you should know that the P-20 Council set up by this department burst into laughter when John Kramen said, “Just because the data model is set up to collect that data doesn’t mean they will.”

With state after state trying to pass laws to slow or stop this train wreck, why can we not slow down long enough to examine what we are doing?  What kind of money, either federal OR from “stakeholders,” is worth endangering our children and making them the prey of Big Government and Big Business, and interested private organizations? 

STOP THE LONGITUDINAL DATA SYSTEM and STOP COMMON CORE at least until we have a chance to evaluate the cost, not only to our pocketbooks, but to our children and society.

I have attached a report by the Cato Institute that I believe should be of interest to you.  It speaks to the deception of the implementation of Common Core.   

The drive to impose uniform curriculum standards on the nation’s schools has been one of stealth, and at times, seemingly intentional deception. Most egregious has been the mantra of Common Core proponents that the effort has been “state-led and voluntary,” despite Washington coercing state adoption through the Race to the Top program and No Child Left Behind waivers; standards creators encouraging just such federal “incentives”; and Washington selecting and funding the two groups creating the tests to go with the standards. And now, more than a week after the U.S. Department of Education announced the creation of a “technical review” panel to assess the assessments, it seems increasingly certain that the panel’s work will be done behind closed doors.

(You can find more here:

http://www.cato.org/blog/americans-deserve-know-federal-role-national-tests)

Sincerely,
Julia Seay
Board Member
Restore Oklahoma Public Education

Common Core Comment To State School Board From A Mom

July 25, 2013

Superintendent Barresi and Board Members,

Throughout history, education in the United States has always emphasized local control of schools, standards, curriculum, and testing.  The principle of subsidiarity states that functions which local organizations perform effectively belong more properly to them than to a dominant central organization (Merriam-Webster).  In other words, a matter ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest, or least centralized authority capable of addressing that matter effectively (Wikipedia).

When local control is handed over to a larger, centralized, distant authority, the more likely it is that decisions made by that authority are not in the best interest of those affected by it.  Local control means local involvement. Local involvement ensures the best educational outcome.

Common Core, or the Oklahoma Academic Standards as they are now called, is the opposite of local control. These standards were produced by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers.  These standards are owned and copyrighted by private organizations that are not accountable to the people of Oklahoma.  Not a single elected legislative body has had any input into these standards.  There were no local meetings, public input or debate about these standards prior to their adoption by the Oklahoma state legislature.  Where is the local control?  In addition, it is my understanding that we must adopt and implement Common Core word for word, and can add no more than 15% of the material taught.  Again I ask, where is the local control?

Our state adopted these standards before they were even completed.  That makes as much sense as when Nancy Pelosi said, when referring to the Affordable Care Act, “We have to pass it to see what’s in it.”  I know the legislature had not read the standards before adopting them, but I ask, have any of you?  We are implementing a program that no one has read and that has not been field-tested.  We are drastically changing the way we educate in Oklahoma, and no one knows what the impact will be on our children.

If our state no longer has control over education, neither will the parents in our state.  This clearly violates the right of parents to direct the education of their children.

A quote from Thomas Jefferson seems quite appropriate here: “Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should all want for bread.”

Please don’t give away our local control.

Respectfully submitted,

LeAnn 
Edmond, Oklahoma