Parents, Your Kids Belong To The Collective and This Is But One Reason Why You Can't Practice School Choice

This video of Melissa Harris Perry went viral last year. In the video she claims children belong to society - they are products for and of their community. 

Unfortunately, at least two recent blogs against Education Savings Accounts (to be heard in the OK legislature today) point to collectivism as one reason Oklahoma can't tolerate this form of school choice. While I can agree with many things said by people populating Education circles today - especially when it comes to state mandates - THIS is not - nor ever will be - one of them. 

One blogger references another blogger,

Blogger Peter Greene explains this well: "The educated human being (good grief! they are not even referred to as students here, let alone CHILDREN) who emerges from school will become our neighbor, an employee, a parent, a spouse, a voter, a (one hopes) involved citizen, a person whose job will contribute in some way to the life of the community. Everybody who will every deal with her in any of those capacities shares the benefits of that education. They are all "customers" of public education."

This is the philosophy which bore the term, STAKEHOLDER. As soon as this terminology began to emerge in conjunction with public education it was clear it was communitarian. After all, many parents will only agree to so much in the name of their child. Consequently, their child must be tied to a 'greater good' - must be anchored as the face of humanity - in order for parents to be sold many forms of community programming that might otherwise seem a usurpation of parental rights.

Do your children interact with the public? YES. Is it the job of the school to produce citizens? NO. It is strictly the job of the parent. Are all parents doing a good job at this? NO - I was a teacher for many years, I got that - but this is NOT an excuse to justify collectivism in a FREE REPUBLIC on any level. Are there non-profit organizations that help parents be better parents? YES. Should we support these as individuals? YES.

What about the notion of "involved citizen"? I guess it depends upon what kind of a citizen is desired. If it's one that believes in a collective over individual rights, I would imagine the public school system is doing a great job of that considering how little our public school students know about American government or civics - I just don't subscribe to this school of thought. 

This entire blog maintains the philosophy of America as a Democracy and posits that Big Investors are the basis for the ideals of 'school choice' because they

"do not want those parents to do things that might threaten minority rule of the rich like organizing, engaging in collective protest, exercising their democratic power to elect new school boards and demanding change in their publicly-owned schools."

First, referring to America as a 'Democracy' is a common misconception of those who do not understand - or believe in - the concept of American Constitutional government. America is a Constitutional Republic with democratic elections for our representation in government, held together by the rule of law. A true Democracy is at best, mob rule by a majority - a collective. This is NOT what our Founders intended, yet even Oklahoma's own History Standards perpetuate this lie. 

Secondly, I most certainly couldn't be labeled rich, or privileged, but I guess I'm not a collectivist because I don't understand the notion that the STATE can do a better job than individuals in any area involving personal choice. I guess I believe in individual rights as given by God and enumerated in the Constitution because I believe in the right of the individual to fail and/or succeed and as such, learn. 

(At this point the argument will turn to roads and bridges and ambulance service - oh wait, that's privately owned - to make the point that society operates as a collective for different reasons. Yes. That is true. Roads are necessity for commerce from which all residents benefit. Fire/Police service protect and defend the safety of all residents in an orderly society protected by a Constitution. How again do children fit into this picture? Conflating children and the public good is dishonest because roads/bridges/police/fire services do not have human characteristics. You simply can't take a human being with individual rights and self-awareness and slap them into a societal mold because they will - ostensibly - eventually come out to be firemen/policemen/civil engineers to perpetuate the public good.)

I'm told over and over that public education is a societal right which precludes my right as a parent to withdraw my child from the system with the money the state attaches to my child for a public education. After all, apparently I'm rich enough to pay for a state education I don't use and a homeschool education I do because the one the public offers is not appropriate for my children or family. This thought alone is massively frustrating because the public school system is producing high school graduates that can't read or do math, ostensibly because there isn't enough money in the system. Public K-12 education in Oklahoma already uses 51% of the entire budget. How much money is ever enough money to produce educated students?

I'm also told over and over that the Oklahoma Constitution provides for a 'system of free public schools' and we must obey the Constitution. The Oklahoma Constitution also specifies that public education includes only those aged from EIGHT (8) to SIXTEEN (16) years of age. This is the point, however, at which the Constitution is ignored by those citing the previous statute. If Oklahoma taxpayers were to stop paying for pre-K and Kindergarten services based on the Oklahoma Constitution, there would be screaming loud enough to be heard on the moon and it wouldn't just come from parents. 

As I've said numerous times, people are entitled to their opinions and I'll certainly stand for their ability to voice them - and so will I. Collectivist thought is not only antithetical to my belief system, it's counter to the thought process that created this country. I shun it on every level because it is dangerous on every level. Collectivist thought is responsible for global atrocities such as ethnic cleansing, it destroys work ethic and allows the state to believe they can make decisions for parents against the parent's beliefs or wishes.

My religious beliefs are most certainly up for derision by secularists and those who don't agree, but according to these, my children are gifts from God and I am to "Train them up in the way they should go so they should not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6). Christians are also told, "Children, obey [your] parents in all things: for this is well pleasing to the Lord. (Colossians 3:20) Please note, the word "public school" or "community" or any other term is present in that statement. 

Oklahoma should provide some kind of publicly-supported education for those that endeavor to use it. I'm also for eliminating public school (state and federal) mandates that force compliance while usurping money from the classroom, putting school officials in the impossible bind of having to educate more and more children with less and less classroom funding. I'm certainly willing to pay a portion of my taxes toward a 'public' education. It seems beyond eternally 'fair', however, that if the public system is not appropriate for my children, I should be able to keep some of those monies designated for their public instruction to the instruction I choose as a parent. If public schools are providing the best educational service, it doesn't make sense to me that public school officials would oppose the right of a parent to choose the education best for their child. After all, how much money would really be removed from the system in that case?

It seems to me that, so long as public schools are responding to their districts and not state/federal money-sucking mandates, school officials should be happy for parents to choose the education best for their child/children. Maybe the fight shouldn't be against 'choice in education' but mandates in education. Maybe that's where individuals from opposing world-view philosophies should work together to make public school changes for the betterment of Oklahoma parents, students, teachers, administrators and tax-payers. Seems fair to me.

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". 

Parental Rights VS The Collective - Or Tyranny VS Freedom

How do you feel, as a parent - or even a grandparent - about this statement?  It was actually uttered by U.S. Federal Judge Melinda Harmon

"In a court ruling concerning parents who sued a school district when their son was forced, by a female Texas Children's Protective Services worker, to strip naked and answer questions designed to determine if the boy's parents had paddled him."

Just recently, America's own Attorney General, Eric Holder, has said parents have no fundamental right to school their children at home.

This week I read a paper provided me by ROPE Board Member Jo Joyce.  Jo is Catholic and has been fighting the IAF (Industrial Areas Foundation) and their movement in the Catholic church, for years.  The paper she gave me, "Change Agents, Alinskyian Organizing Among Religious Bodies" was written by a woman who has become a friend (Stephanie Block) as they have both fought the issue.  Everyone needs to read at least the portion of Stephanie's paper that covers education.

I have been working in grassroots politics for only about 5 years now and have had time to think out my ideas on public education.  This paper made connections for me that I had not yet formed - it was that amazing.

For example; ROPE has had a problem with the word "stakeholder" for ever.  All you have to do is search our blog for numerous posts on the issue.  It wasn't until I read Stephanie's paper that I put this together.  Here is a quote,

Stakeholders, some of whom are parents, who attend an IAF Strategic Planning Meeting are asked, “What is the role of parents and the community in that mission [of the school]?”

Without much effort, a seemingly innocuous philosophical foundation has been created, one on which the IAF’s Alliance schools – models of education reform – depend. The parents have accepted themselves in the “role” of one “stakeholder” or “collaborator” among many in their child’s education.

What happened to the rights of parents?  What happened to the concept that PARENTS were those people who had charge of their own children - adopted or birthed?  If you're a Christian, you believe your children to be a gift from God and you believe your Biblical charge to "Train a child up in the way he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6).  There is no Biblical mention of losing your parental rights the moment you drop your child off at school, however, this is quickly becoming the way of the world.

I posted several comments about this on our Facebook page the other day.  I thought it important to share these.

Jenni:  I just read the most interesting paper describing the shift away from the rights and responsibilities of the parent to educate their children to the responsibilities of the COLLECTIVE (what are 'stakeholders' anyway?) in conjunction with education 'reform'. When we hear people in 'authority' positions describe the ways in which 'stakeholders' should determine the course of public education, we MUST begin to ask those people - publicly if possible, "Since when did it become the job of the COLLECTIVE to determine how my child is educated?" The course of public education is STILL - and always should be - charted by individual parents through their ELECTED school board representative at the local level where it can best reflect the needs of parents and the local community. I will post the paper under this post later this morning so everyone can read. It is truly enlightening the way Community Organizing has turned public education into an engine for social change!

Niky:  I still always come back to all those kids whose parents can't or won't be that guiding force. What do they get? Our children are blessed with good homes. In Oklahoma, the poverty rates of children are climbing. Whose taking care of them and helping make sure they break the cycle? What parental figure do we get to blame when they don't?

Jenni:  Niky, I understand, I really do - and I know you have the very best desire to care for all children - the only problem is that the line between individualism and the collective is a thin one and the idea you are espousing - while worthy - is on the slippery slope toward the latter. I wrote a blog once about the Straw Man argument that education reform has become. At once many say parents are not doing enough for their children, while at the same time making certain the system favors anyone but the parent. How else do you explain State School Board meetings that will go on endlessly - where APPOINTED officials intone their desire to mold education to be a system for everyone - yet parents are allowed THREE MINUTES to make any kind of comment at all?

We all agree that ALL children should be educated, but we also have to realize that this is not reality. Many children do not have advocates to speak for them. Some of these children grow up to be very productive citizens that are very self-reliant. That is not a bad thing.

I think that in America today - we have SO MUCH - that we have begun to believe that every system REQUIRES a safety net. Now, we have 'safety-nets' for everything from health care to education. FAILURE IS A GOOD THING. Failure teaches us all what NOT to do. This idea that we can't have failure in America anymore is driving the idea of socialism - the idea that we'll all be better off if we'll just circle the wagons and form a collective only works with zebras, not human individuals who are all very different and who all have very different needs.

We must begin to realize that failure IS an option - and not a bad one at that - and let the great American EXPERIMENT work as was planned in 1776.

Elena:  Life is not fair and things happen that seem wrong; but do you really think the Chinese system provides a higher quality of life than allowing children to learn, think and take advantage of the freedoms in the US? I know many people that had nothing, that now have everything. Struggle makes you stronger, makes you appreciate what you have and get. Thinking that the government is the solution is why the rest of the world has known so much misery.

Gina:  This reminds me of the MSNBC promo/commercial I saw where they say.... we must stop thinking about our children like they are our own and begin to think of them as the communities responsibility. This is where we are headed and if you don't accept this mind set you are labeled heartless or uncaring.

Jenni:  Exactly Gina! I think people truly want to help children, but we've lost our way. We don't remember how to do that without the government doing it for us and we don't understand now that to have government doing it for us takes away our autonomy and when we have no autonomy, we can't help ourselves and if we can't help ourselves we're helpless and if we're helpless we'll fail. Make sense?

Niky:  We have a lot of failure in this country.

Jenni:  Yes, I agree, but not failure because of lack of opportunity, failure due to federal and other micromanagement in the system which has bent the whole thing in the direction of collectivism. Look at ACT scores. When did they begin to plummet? During the late '60's and early '70's AFTER LBJ's federal interventionist program into schools called the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. Until that time, schools - for the most part - thrived. Heck, we put men on that moon!

Have you studied the early colonists? They weren't able to survive as a collective. The only way for them to thrive was utilizing individual skills and effort. Both of these instances are well-documented and provide excellent examples of why collectivism cannot work. By its very nature, education MUST be as individual as humanly possible because each child has God-given skills and personalities. The only way to provide that is when government is as close to the people as possible, in the most local possible ways.

If we are careful and wise, Americans will begin to learn from history that these experiments in educational collectivism will continue to fail. We can throw off the cloak of failure by allowing parents the PRIVILEGE of caring for their own children and not subsidizing failure by providing government-sponsored programming that continues the cycle of failure. Individuals (and churches) must be allowed to pick up the mantle and provide for those in need so the federal government can return to its sole enumerated powers. Further commitments to the failed collective system will produce nothing more than continued failure.

James:  We have the idea that poverty dooms kids, that ineffective and underfunded public schools doom kids, etc. ad infinitum. I grew up poor and was fifth in my class due to slacking off my senior year; my best friend was from a poorer, broken home and was valedictorian. I didn't have air conditioning or a television in my home until I was 14 in southern Georgia.

Having little money, a broken home, or a thousand other excuses has ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with parent's ability to love, nurture, and encourage their children to succeed, nor with children's ability to receive that input and run with it.

Schools have ONE purpose: when the students show up, teach them rigorously and effectively in the academic fundamentals. Teach each student to be accountable for only their own actions in their studies and send them home for the day.

Bottom line here:  If parents do not wake up and begin to regain their parental rights, the collectivists will win - and it won't matter if your kid is autistic, or super smart, or perfectly able but perfectly lazy - there will be no individualism left to allow these children to bloom into the precious INDIVIDUALS they will one day be.

COMMON CORE WILL NEVER BE OK!