What Are Parents To Do To Stop Schools From Violating Student's Rights According to Anti-Critical Race Theory Bill HB1775?

 

Truly, what have we come to when Oklahoma educators are angry because a bill including the above prohibitions was passed during the 2021 Legislative Session?

Common Core Ushers In The Police State - America's New Way Of Life

I was mortified when I went out looking for a photo to add to this blog and found this picture on Bing.com images.  I'm sure this was not an actual Newsweek cover, but it sure could be!

Anymore, I frequently ponder the movie "Minority Report", detailing a world in which everyone was GUILTY until proven INNOCENT and you could be jailed for a crime BEFORE it was even committed because the police (government) had enough data on you to determine your every move.  Of course the journey for the cop at the center of the story - the one who had been such a proponent of the 'predictive' software used by the police - is to discover that even he has no liberty in the end.

We are heading for a police state in this country and people aren't noticing it because it's been a long, slow road getting here - a 'death by small cuts'.

We don't think about having to be fingerprinted or scanned to get into our kid's school because long ago the state made us put our picture on our driver's license with a bar code that can be scanned anywhere to reveal our personal information.  But we have to drive, we figure, so we'll put up with that (except for my brave friend Kaye Beach who is actually fighting this nonsense on religious grounds!).  Or, we think we need to fly, so we'll let TSA agents grope us like perverts because we're now presumed to be TERRORISTS until they find NOTHING on us - a presumption of GUILT instead of INNOCENCE.

This really hit home for me in a big way when I saw this video of a man standing up at a Common Core 'Forum'  in Maryland where a school board had an open time for parents to ask questions, but then wouldn't take direct questions from parents.

Attendees had to submit questions to the board in writing and then individual questions were asked from the pile of questions. (Gosh, how many legislative Town Hall meetings have begun using this tactic?)

Apparently, answers were not forthcoming at this meeting in the manner parents expected.

ROPE isn't surprised, we've seen this before over and over in Oklahoma where, for example, the State Superintendent filibusters for 25 minutes before even getting to the question of Common Core at the Common Core Forum in Tulsa in August and then repeats classic Common Core messaging for every answer to every question - or where the Superintendent makes comments like, "We anticipate low costs" when asked about how much Common Core will cost.

At the last (and I mean probably the LAST we will attend) board meeting we attended - where we were FINALLY going to be allowed to speak at all on Common Core (July 25) - a husband and wife from Edmond had seen our plea to come speak about Common Core at the Board Meeting - and they came.  The husband was an Airman at Tinker Air Force Base.  After speaking out against the Common Core, the Airman had a seat.  Upon listening to Amber England with Stand for Children tell everyone at the meeting that the military were all for Common Core, the airman's wife reacted by blurting out, "You don't speak for the military."

Good Lord, you would have thought she pulled out an AK47 and began to cut down everyone in the room the way Superintendent Barresi and Board Member Amy Ford nearly came across the table at the woman, screaming something to the effect of, "You need to be quiet or you'll be removed!" as if they saw her as an imminent threat to their lives. (This can all be found on the audio recording from that meeting just in case you want to check me up on my story).

At any rate, ROPE isn't surprised at what happened to the poor parent in Maryland who DARED to try to get some answers from a school board and was FORCIBLY REMOVED from the forum by a police officer and later provided with the charges of

second-degree assault of a police officer and faces a $2,500 fine and up to 10 years in prison. He was also charged with disturbing a school operation, which carries an additional $2,500 and up to six months in jail.

He absolutely did NOT assault the police officer - the police officer assaulted HIM - and if you watch the video you will see that.

WHAT IS MAKING THESE PEOPLE SO ANGRY?  What is it about the Common Core State Standards that means you can't answer questions about them, but send people out in an audience like a mobster to break the arms of parents who merely try to ask questions?

As the man leaves the hall at the forum, he tells people they are sitting there like 'cattle'.  Fortunately, as I went back to listen to it again, I definitely heard at least two or three people stick up for the guy and tell the 'powers that be' to let him stay - obviously to no avail.  There were MANY people in that room apparently.  What should have happened is that EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THAT ROOM SHOULD HAVE STOOD UP and deflected that policeman- turned-board-body guard and stuck up for the man.  He was not being rude or ugly or screaming and shouting, he was just tired of not having questions answered and spoke out of turn.

How long are we going to be rule followers when it seems that the PROPONENTS aren't following 'the rules'?  How long are we going to let educrats and those making money off  school 'reform' measures pull us around by our ears and tell us how they're going to spend the money we are forced to contribute to such a broken system?  A system so broken that many parents have given up and now pay TWICE - once for public school and again to a private school or for home school curricula because they refuse to allow their kids to partake of an education that is not only not helping them, but hurting them, their development and their worldview.

I've said it before and I'll say it again....it's time for Civil Rights era tactics.  If we're not going to be heard, we'll sit quietly until we are - even if that is well after time to close up shop!  If we're not going to be heard, we need to take our children out of public schools and deny them their funding until schools again work for PARENTS and CHILDREN and not software developers, book sellers and politicians.

I fear that Common Core is just one of the symptoms of a parasitic disease that is slowly killing its host - America.  I leave you with the following quote:

First they came for the Socialists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Socialist.
Then they came for the Trade Unionists, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Trade Unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out--
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me--and there was no one left to speak for me.

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.