Does The State Department of Education Think Oklahomans Are Stupid?

Bad...parents and taxpayers catching on to the 
Common Core and don't like the idea much!

Bad...no one really understood what this meant since 
many other states have similarly-named initiatives.

Good!!  Brand new totally awesome LOGO that 
taxpayers/parents will NOT associate with Common Core!

Sadly, the Oklahoma Department of Education must think Oklahomans are stupid.  We just got a look at the Vision 2020 Program for this year.  Hmmmm....no Common Core State Standards mentioned on there anywhere, but there are lots of offerings with titles like this:

ROOM 9 Diane Stout

■ Oklahoma Academic Standards Made Easy 

Need an effective and efficient way to teach the Foundational Skills of Oklahoma Academic Standards? Learn how to engage K-2 students in fun games and activities while holding them  accountable to the benchmarks. Teaching tools will be shown for interactive whiteboards, computers, ipads, and hands-on activities. Participants even get to play on a SmartBoard!

ROOM 4 Timothy Laubach

■■ Aligning Scientific Practices with Oklahoma Academic Standards in Literacy for the Elementary School Classroom Participants will experience fun activities that exemplify the eight scientific practices, which were identified in “A Framework for K-12 Science Education.” These activities can be modified to meet the needs of the elementary school learner. Strategies of how to align these scientific practices with Oklahoma Academic Standards in Literacy will be shared and discussed. 

Question:  What are these new "Oklahoma Academic Standards"?   They look SUPER FUN!  I guess simple factual learning is out in this new era of 21st Century Skills (more on that later) where we simply think critically about everything.

Answer:  They are the Common Core State Standards repackaged as Oklahoma Academic Standards, but also called Oklahoma C3 Standards.

Notice they are not called PASS, as that designation would reference Oklahoma's PREVIOUS state standards - you know, the ones that got nearly the same grade as the Common Core!

Question:  If they are not referred to as "Common Core", are they still Common Core or are they something else? 

Answer:  Nomenclature means nothing here.  The Common Core are still the law of the land, but now, because of the national turmoil surrounding Common Core, the State Department of Education is having to try and FOOL the public into accepting the Common Core by using different terminology to sell it. 

The state has every intention of moving forward with the Common Core - they just don't apparently intend to call it that exactly.  Interestingly, Pennsylvania is doing exactly the same thing.  PA's new standards are the Common Core, renamed "PA Academic Standards". 

This is the website for Alabama's 'new' state standards.  Hmmm....nothing similar here to Oklahoma.  We're going on a trip, Alabama has the compass!  Note, these are not called the Common Core Standards, but the website says, 

The Alabama State Board of Education approved the adoption of the internationally benchmarked Common Core State Standards along with selected Alabama standards in November 2010.  By combining both Common Core and Alabama's standards, our state has adopted one of the most comprehensive sets of standards in the nation, ensuring students are prepared for a successful future in the ever-expanding global environment.  

Question:  So, is the attempt to sell the public on “new”, non-Common Core, state standards orchestrated?


Answer:  It sure looks that way.  The Future Ready Project is a website by Achieve - the private organization through which Common Core writer David Coleman sold the Common Core to states.  The project describes itself this way: 

This website represents all of Achieve’s communications, outreach and advocacy resources, and is designed to provide all college- and career-ready advocates with the information, strategies, messages, and tools needed to effectively make the case for the college- and career-ready agenda in their states. With customizable resources and fact sheets, we encourage you to take the materials you find here and tailor them to best fit your audiences.

Here's the National Governor's Association website that also indicates how to force feed the Common Core on the general public.  I'm sure there's just a coincidence that many states are renaming their standards (many of them with a travel theme!) and inventing new Common Core packages!  I'm sure the Governor's aren't getting talking points...I'm sure this is all just coincidence.

Of course, this is all powered by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the major source of money behind the nationalized standards movement.

Question:  Is it really such a far stretch to think that, with all the money involved and all the same organizations and individuals involved, states are getting their ideas from a ‘top’?   

Answer:  No, it’s not.  After all, many people were initially fooled by the idea that the Common Core State Standards initiative would be comprised of standards for Math and English/LA only!  Of course those who did can now be considered suckers, as the CCSSI website now describes the English/LA standards this way:

The Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts & Literacy in History/Social Studies, Science, and Technical Subjects (“the Standards”) are the culmination of an extended, broad-based effort to fulfill the charge issued by the states to create the next generation of K–12 standards in order to help ensure that all students are college and career ready in literacy no later than the end of high school.

Immediately, Oklahomans should be revisiting that old axiom, “Fool me once, shame on you.  Fool me twice, shame on ME!  

Oklahoma, you're NOT stupid!  DON’T BE FOOLED AGAIN!

Rugged Individualism Be Damned! Socialism's Easier!

Diane Ravitch's latest column, Murdoch’s Bold Move into Education Market, really tested my metal today.  Not so much because of what SHE said, but in reading the comments section I was extremely put off to see so much straight up class warfare.  

Murdoch shouldn't be delving into education because he's RICH and somehow the filth of the earth!  What about mention of Murdoch not getting into education because public education in America shouldn't be privatized?  Nope.  Not so much...okay, at all. 

I don't see how this is helpful on even the atomic scale of smallness.

Vilifying “rich people” and continually engendering class warfare over education will create zero solutions and many more problems, as kids (and parents) are divided into smaller and smaller groups and pitted against each other for one reason or another in the media and literature – gosh, that’s productive. 

I in no way want public education in America privatized. Frankly, today it’s one of the few things America has going for us – the fact that we don’t have to eek out a meager existence in order to afford to send our children to school for even the most basic knowledge. No one mentions this EVER, but privatization of public (common) government in any form is really a form of Fascism, and the central shift away from our Republican form of government in America during the last decade is very troubling to me personally. 

Not only that, but to me, the real enemies in public education today are the founders of this ‘Education Reform’ nonsense. People who are not educators at all really, but are simply just politically connected enough to get their ideas heard. People like Marc Tucker and David Coleman who keep pushing Chinese (Communist) centered education on American children. Truly? We want common standards to commonize every kid in the nation? What happened to individualism? Why are we ‘assessing’ the worth of kids to get a job in elementary school? Why do we feel the need to test kids to make them creative? This is all simply nonsense – and worse – it represents a clear movement away from what public education has stood for in this country since it’s inception – a way to INDIVIDUALLY rise above your circumstances in order to be whatever you want to be (and as rich as you desire!)

Though I feel sadly grim at the prospect, I hope most Americans still have enough ‘common’ sense to see that the ‘common’ public education identified and promulgated by these people since the early 1900′s are exactly what has KILLED American education.

I live on a clinging, yet paltry, hope that those of us who do understand the ramifications and repercussions of the new “education reform” model, are able to sabotage these efforts to create a socialized system of education designed to churn out workers and ‘thinkers’ based on COMMON (socialized) standards and COMMON (socialized) tests, relieving America of the individuality that – until the last couple decades – had made it, in every way, superior to every other country in the world since 1776.