"A REPUBLIC Ma'am - If you can keep it!"

For those of you who have been educated in public schools and have not done any outside reading on your own, the man above is Benjamin Franklin - a signer of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States - an American Founding Father.

I say this in the most snarky possible way because until the other day, I had not read the 'new' Oklahoma Social Studies Standards, adopted by the State School Board in March of last year. 

For those of you who don't know, ROPE was begun when myself (Jenni) and my friend Julie McKenzie realized that young adults in America must not have been taught the fundamentals of US Government, its founding and the Constitution if we were to expand government the way we did under Bush's last term and then go on to elect Barrack Obama. 

If you don't know, our current state superintendent (Janet Barresi) told ROPE (when we complained bitterly to her about the Common Core State Standards) we shouldn't worry our silly heads about this because we would just LOVE the History standards she was working.  We would be proud of these standards because she would have prominent historian David Barton be a part of the working group to create them. 

ROPE wasn't aware there was a working group until November of last year. We didn't even know the standards had been approved until yesterday! Yes, I'm sure the Department of Education put them out for public comment, but how odd is it that a watchdog group dedicated to public education wouldn't know that the state history standards had been completed and were up for review? If we didn't know, WHAT PARENT/TAX PAYER DID?  

In fact, there is a rule change about the Oklahoma State Standards open for public comment currently (through March 25, 2013) on the State Department of Education website.  Did you know that?  Yes, here is the link, right here:   Here is the link to ALL of the current (well current until the rule change is decided) standards.  C3 is Dr. Barresi's way of taking Common Core State Standards and marrying them to standards produced in Oklahoma, producing our own (well, by way of Jeb Bush in Florida of course).  We get the best of both worlds that way, right?  Well NO.  I'll talk about the science standards in another blog!

At any rate, after meeting with David Barton last November at his Pro-Family Legislative Conference, he told us he had come to Oklahoma at Janet Barresi's invitation and had been part of the working group, but he didn't really contribute anything. He said he told the teachers assembled they needed to include American Exceptionalism in their standards and they refused.  

 American Exceptionalism is the notion that America is exceptional because we a Republic - a nation with a Constitution that protects citizens FROM their government by laws - and that our laws are derived by our CREATOR unlike those in any other nation in the world in order to impart upon us NATURAL rights that are not given by the government, nor can they be taken away by the government.  

This is more than frustrating!  How can a teacher object to that?  American history teachers don't WANT the government to be able to protect citizens from itself?  They don't want students to know they live in a country that protects their personal, individual rights through a form of government found in no other country in the world ?  Here is the video where he discusses this with Glenn Beck on his election program from last year. 

I can see why Mr. Barton was so upset. Please read the standards when you have a minute.

Our biggest complaint is on page 11.  It appears the ENTIRE set of standards is predicated on the following notion:

"The goal of civics and government is to develop literate, informed, competent, and responsible citizens who are politically aware and active and committed to the fundamental values and principles of American constitutional democracy." 

What? America is a Constitutional Democracy? NO. It is a Constitutional REPUBLIC. There is an ENORMOUS difference between the two. No wonder Barton wasn't happy with what he was hearing.  This is the same exact thing my co-founder Julie McKenzie and I fought when we first started ROPE!  We found this same nonsense in our OLD Oklahoma State Standards and tied the phrase right back to the Progressive Policy Institute!!!  Basically, Superintendent Barresi told us one thing and absolutely DID ANOTHER!  We don't have 'new' standards 'informed' (to use one of the 'educrat' terms) by David Barton, but a re-hash of the same old tired standards Oklahoma had before which are teaching children INACCURATE information!

Why are we teaching this to kids in America - especially in OKLAHOMA - the reddest state in the UNION!?  Maybe you'd better talk to our state school board and find out!

NGA, FEE, CCSSO = A Bunch of BS For OK

Today was a banner day in Oklahoma.  Today was the day the Speaker of the House of Representatives - the new, up-and-coming conservative Speaker who will be speaking at CPAC next week because he's so conservative - killed the Common Core State Standards Cost Task Force bill authored by Gus Blackwell (HB1907). 

HB1907 passed out of the General Government committee unanimously, February 28th.  It was to go to the Calendar Committee (newly organized by Speaker Shannon...why would we want to have accountability to the taxpayers for what gets on the House calendar held by ONE person?  Why shouldn't we spread that accountability over a total of 18 people?) for a vote on whether or not it would be heard on the floor of the House.  That week, we were told by Calendar Committee Chair, Representative Pam Peterson, that Speaker Shannon was holding all Task Force bills until other bills could be heard.

Fortuitously, directly after that meeting, we saw Representative Shannon walking in the hall.  I practically galloped up next to him, and asked him to give HB1907 to the Calendar Committee because the Common Core had been put into law before the standards were even written, so of course there had never been a study done on the costs of the initiative.  He looked at us and said, "I don't think you'll have any problems with that bill" before he walked off saying, "Now don't have a bunch of your people calling, asking me to put it on the Calendar.  We'll get there."

We thought this was great news and prepared to move on to lobbying House members on our bill HB1989 to protect student privacy by preventing certain types of public school data collection and sharing (this passed out of the House unanimously March 11).

I was at "school" with my children today (Classical Conversations home school families meet once a week altogether in one place to review our lessons) when I got a frenetic phone call from Lynn.  She told me she and Danna and Julia (all at the Capitol) had gone to check on the status of HB1907 and found that it would NOT leave Speaker Shannon's office.  Speaker Shannon had killed the bill - the bill ROPE has been working on for THREE LONG YEARS - the bill developed out of our four year study on the Common Core!

Details were hard to get via phone and email, but apparently Speaker Shannon was told EARLY ON in the session BY THE GOVERNOR NOT to HEAR any Common Core bills and he was going to do exactly that.

Let these thoughts sink in:

• The Governor of the reddest state in the union, tells the Speaker NOT to hear a bill put forward by four housewives and mothers - simple TAXPAYERS, not lobbyists or organizations who are paid to see that bills pass or fail.

• The newly-minted Speaker tells self-same housewives, mothers and taxpayers he doesn't see a problem with getting their bill to the floor!  Why?  Apparently he knew all along he wasn't going to put the bill on the floor of the House for a vote. 

• The Governor is AFRAID for Common Core bills to be heard.  Why?

Let's think about this a bit more:

Governor Fallin is the Vice-Chair of the National Governor's Association.  So what?  Well, the NGA is a PRIVATE membership organization not subject to the Open Meetings Act that has PUSHED THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS FROM THE BEGINNING!  In fact, the NGA and the Council of Chief State School Officers are the two organizations that have pushed the Common Core State Standards down to the states!  Look in the upper right hand corner of the CCSS home page to see BOTH their logos!  Their list of Corporate Sponsors is ENORMOUS and contains most of the organizations supplying funding for the Common Core initiative.

Janet Barresi is a member of the CCSSO, a private membership organization - like the NGA - that has no oversight nor accountability to taxpayers for the programs they work with State Superintendents to implement in states.  CCSSO partners with Bill Gates Foundation, Pearson, ACT, K12 (currently embroiled in a lawsuit for overselling investors on student achievement to inflate their stock prices) and many others - again many private donors to the Common Core initiative.

In addition, as we have reported previously a number of times, Superintendent Barresi is a member of Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE), Chiefs for Change program.  The FEE is soundly in the corner of having the federal government administrating LOCAL education - very small government stuff (snark).  In addition, FEE and the Chiefs have long touted the Common Core State Standards.  Jeb Bush and the FEE have written numerous education policy initiatives here in Oklahoma as evidenced by a paper trail of emails turned over via an FOI request made by the Washington Post, which begs the question as to why Oklahoma taxpayers are paying for Florida education reforms - that don't work even in Florida???  Why are we paying a Superintendent to merely fire off emails to the FEE to get them to write Oklahoma education policy?

Let's sum up:

• Most likely, Governor Fallin will NOT hear Common Core bills because she is afraid that after three years of lobbying, educating and studying we have enough votes to get a repeal of the Standards all the way to her desk.  Having a Common Core 'nullification' bill pass the House and Senate in Oklahoma would no doubt cause some real pain for the Governor in her role as Vice Chair of the NGA - one of the two main supporters of the Common Core.  The only plausible explanation here is that she MUST be more concerned about the future of her political career and her standing in the NGA than she is about Oklahoma children and taxpayers.  
• Janet Barresi will not allow the Common Core to even be discussed at state board meetings let alone come to the floor of the House or Senate for a vote most probably because she couldn't DARE go against the FEE!  Why would she want to?  She has the fabulous, "I'm open to running for president so I can spread more of my BIG GOVERNMENT Republican Statism over the whole of America" Jeb Bush, also a speaker at CPAC this year in her hip pocket (or is it the other way around?)!  In addition, Dr. Barresi has lucrative contracts with Pearson and other Common Core addicts/vendors.  If they've been taking her to dinner, what else have they been doing?

Needless to say, both the Governor and the State Superintendent are FULLY PERSONALLY INVESTED IN THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS.  What do you suppose the chances are of either of them hearing the clamoring of the grassroots activists, taxpayers, parents and others against the Common Core when all they can hear is the din of their burgeoning political careers surging in their ears?

This must stop.  Either Janet and Mary quit playing Hear No Common Core, See No Common Core, Speak no Common Core, or we piddly little taxpayers who are paying to advance their political careers find them primary candidates from another more altruistic branch of the monkey family.

ADDENDUM:  Representative Blackwell was told that if HB1907 was kept alive and passed the Senate and the House, the Governor would veto it.  He was then offered an interim study to pull the bill.  He would be in control of the interim study which would NOT occur in the the Common Education Committee and be allowed to continue over a number of days - in order to collect as much information as possible.  Representative Blackwell is a good man and his intentions are pure.  We are lucky to have him here in Oklahoma.  He took the interim study option, although we here at ROPE can't help but wonder what it would have done to the Governor's grassroots political capital to veto a bill to examine SPENDING in Oklahoma in the face of our national debt and economy.  It would have been nice to get all the legislators on record for their vote on the issue as well, but since Senate Education Committee Chair, Senator John Ford has consistently said he would NEVER hear a bill against the Common Core, it would have been quite the fight to even get it onto the Senate floor.  Makes you wonder doesn't it?  What exactly is the meaning of REPRESENTATIVE government?

Educational Cronyism - in Oklahoma?

Who's Really Responsible for 
Oklahoma's Educational Policies 
- Dr. Barresi or the 
Foundation for Educational Excellence? 

Last month, an article was written in the Washington Post by Valerie Strauss entitled, E-mails link Bush foundation, corporations and education officials. 

An organization called In The Public Interest, submitted Freedom of Information requests for emails between State Superintendents who are members of the Chiefs for Change and Jeb Bush's Foundation for Educational Excellence (FEE) out of Florida - the organization which developed and FUNDS the Chiefs.  Yes, I'm certain this was an effort for a liberal paper to grind their ax on conservatives and free enterprise and yes, ROPE has very little in common with the liberal perspective.  It is important to note, however, that there is a difference between 'free enterprise' and 'cronyism'.  NO taxpaying citizen should sit still for government by cronyism. 

Why do we bring this information to you?  Our state superintendent, Janet Barresi, is a Chief for Change.  Consequently, her emails were part of the FOI request.  This article and the associated emails make a clear and resounding case that our State Department of Education is being run by method of 'educational cronyism'.

There are a number of very interesting emails - some of them described here by this blogger - but all of them show how the run-of-the-mill voter/taxpayer has been cut out of educational policy in Oklahoma.

Unfortunately, the Governor's office is implicit in the described situation.  Here is an email in which Dr. Barresi is communicating directly with Katie Altschuler (a policy analyst in the Governor's office whom I have seen attend state education board meetings) about the key priorities of the C4C (parallel to Dr. Barresi's C3 initiative) policy produced by the Chiefs.  This indicates with little doubt that the Governor's interest also lies in creating education policy outside her state. 

Not only that, but please note the category on the C4C chart labeled, "Human Capital".  What?  We're now a Communist country where we turn school children into a proletariat - workers that represent only the capital their work can provide the ruling class and bourgeoisie?  Does that language not trouble anyone?  Frankly, this does fit into the current educational meme - that of Common Standards and leveling the playing field for every child.

Here is another email where Dr. Barresi's Assistant Superintendent Kari White is asking the Foundation for assistance in writing their NCLB Waiver (which ROPE and MANY others asked Dr. Barresi and Governor Fallin not to take - knowing the federal strings it would attach to Oklahoma).  She also mentions the C4C initiative (C3).

I could go continue obviously, but I needn't.  It is clear.  Dr. Barresi and Governor Fallin are quite apparently ushering federal control into Oklahoma schools through an organization working arm and arm with the Obama administration in order to capitalize on the federal level education reform being pushed through to states with money from the Stimulus.  Go figure.  We're being told these reforms - completely untested and NEVER studied by Oklahoma legislators like Senator Clark Jolley (also associated with this organization as noted in the story) who placed them into state law in order to get Race To the Top (stimulus) money, are necessary for education accountability, yet can't accountability be met at the local level by boards of education?

If you ever believed our State Superintendent and Governor had the best interests of Oklahoma school children in mind, I do hope you will read the story in the Post, the associated emails and other links provided here.  No, we will never know the hearts and minds of these elected officials and as such, can not ascribe motive, however, there is a large body of evidence now available that provides great insight into the impetus of their behaviors.

I will remind our readers here that ROPE approached Dr. Barresi a number of times early on in her tenure - after endorsing her for her post - with research we had completed on the Common Core.  We were summarily dismissed.  Sad isn't it?  Legitimate researcher/parents/taxpayers given ZERO time by either the Governor's office or the State Superintendent's office, because these elected officials prefer to get their marching orders from Jeb Bush?

If this information upsets you, ROPE URGES you to contact your legislator, your STATE school board member and your LOCAL school board member.  Let them know you do not appreciate the educational cronyism inherent in our state's educational system.  Let them know that Republicans stand for local control of education - not educational takeover of schools by the federal government through regulations to which we sign on in order to use programs developed by organizations in which the parties involved have some form of personal interest.

It is VERY important to seek out your STATE BOARD MEMBER.  It is interesting to ROPE that early on in her tenure, Dr. Barresi had the State Board members sign a 'contract' stating that they would not go against 'her' education 'reform' measures.  Why is this?  Because we would lose the NCLB Waiver Chiefs for Change helped her write.  So what?  Because inside the Waiver is the A-F grading system - again, which the FEE helped her write - that calls on State Superintendents to take over 'underperforming' schools.  Take school management away from a district?  Yes.  This is an excellent way for organizations benefiting from Race to the Top school 'reform' (such as FEE, Pearson and Achieve) to sell the state programs developed outside of the state to use on local schools.  How is this LOCAL?  How can this be good for Oklahoma children? 

It isn't, but it's great for private industry and makes perfect sense actually.  The business model goes something like this:  Will promote the current Presidential administration's educational policy through a non-profit entity dedicated to assisting state school superintendents in writing parallel educational policy and training them how to convince lawmakers to write this policy into state law, all while investing money in private sector companies that develop programs to be sold to the states to meet the educational programming needs generated by implementing state education policy law.  Wow.  Way to work out a revenue stream!  Too bad the fallout for all this happens to be local school boards and children.

Ohhh, but wait!  An organization inside Oklahoma is suggesting Oklahoma do away with local school boards entirely in order to make this transition to national education policy more seamless!  The Oklahoma Academy - a conglomeration of local elites/dignitaries (including Brian Bush of OCPA, Amy Ford of the State School Board, State Representatives Leslie Osborn and Scott Martin and former Representative Chris Benge) and the hand-picked 'regular' Oklahoman, have determined to "Abolish or Consolidate Current County Structure by 2032" (page 6).  For anyone who understands Agenda 21 and the push to globalize education, this is not hard to believe, but certainly a frustrating situation for anyone who lives in the REDDEST STATE IN THE UNION.

Though we will always believe in local control of education, we might not have been so resistant to Dr. Barresi's plans for Oklahoma education if red flags hadn't gone up immediately due to the fact that the law instituting the Race to the Top reforms she is using (SB2033) - teacher/leader effectiveness, Common Core, data collection, turnaround schools - was put into place in Oklahoma (like in other states) long before any of the reforms had been written, tested or peer-reviewed.  How do you create educational policy for an entire state without results from other states that you can use to extrapolate onto yours?  It's hard to get behind initiatives that reduce children to guinea pigs.  

It seems commonsensical then to wonder what came first - the ideas of how to make money off education reform, or the education reforms themselves?  Unfortunately for Oklahoma, the reforms Dr. Barresi has been embracing through the Obama administration and the FEE are failing all across the nation.  You have but to search "what's wrong with the Common Core State Standards" to see how rife with problems this initiative has become, as more and more states find the expense doesn't warrant the mediocrity of the standards.  Then there's the turnaround of failing schools that didn't even work in Chicago - birth place of our nation's superintendent Arne Duncan. The state databases have found to be overreaching and interfering with family privacy in large ways and here in Oklahoma (as in other states) the A-F grading system has been found to be completely invalid.

Often, those of us who pay attention to politics and governance are frustrated by our inability to effect change in the system.  Now we know why.  He with the gold makes the rules.  The only thing that can stop this situation is to wake up other citizens to the fact that their liberties - THEIR CHOICES - are being threatened daily by those who have self-interest at heart.  Please, don't take us at our word - go to the links, study the documents for yourselves.  If you agree with our position, TELL EVERYONE YOU CAN about what is going on right here in Oklahoma.  Our children - OUR STATE AND INDIVIDUAL SOVEREIGNTY - is much too precious to waste!



QUESTIONS FOR FURTHER CONSIDERATION: 

• Why would Republicans sign on to a Democratic education program so readily?  Many states with Republican governors have been fighting the Obama Administrations health care and immigration policies.
• Why would Republicans commit to such a program without knowing the costs to their state for such a program?
• Why would Republicans sign on to a program that ratchets up the national debt by redistributing stimulus funds to states that sign on?
• Why would Oklahoma continue to implement these education reforms when the state was not granted a Race to the Top grant to do so?  That automatically placed the burden of cost on the backs of the Oklahoma taxpayer.
• Why lock Oklahomans into educational programming (the Common Core and associated PARCC tests) similar to Medicare that, once established, will be extremely hard to dismantle?  Once state and local taxpayers (through bond issues) have paid millions of dollars to set up these programs, they're not going to want to pay more just to undo it all.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Washington Post.  E-mails link Bush foundation, corporations and education officials - http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/01/30/e-mails-link-bush-foundation-corporations-and-education-officials/

Chiefs for Change - http://chiefsforchange.org/

Foundation for Educational Excellence - http://excelined.org/

Oklahoma Education Truths.  Jeb, FEE, and the SDE:  Why Enanglements Matter (Part Two)  Oklahoma Education Truths - http://okeducationtruths.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/jeb-fee-and-the-sde-why-entanglements-matter-part-two/

DocumentCloud.org - http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/560792-fwd-working-document-for-esea-waiver-call.html

C3 Initiative - http://www.ok.gov/sde/about/janet-barresi

Common Core State Standards - http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards

AFT.  Common Core Standards Will Level the Playing Field - http://www.aft.org/newspubs/periodicals/at/page4commoncoreqa.cfm 

DocumentCloud.org - http://www.documentcloud.org/documents/560838-re-esea-flexibility.html

Restore Oklahoma Public Education.  ESEA Reauthorization:  Does It Even Matter? http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2012/01/esea-reauthorizationdoes-it-even-matter.html 

Oklahoma Education Truths. Jeb, FEE, and the SDE:  Why Enanglements Matter (Part One)  Oklahoma Education Truths - http://okeducationtruths.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/jeb-fee-and-the-sde-why-entanglements-matter-part-one

Restore Oklahoma Public Education.  Common Core State Standards and Race To The Top Flowchart.    http://www.scribd.com/doc/61537521/Common-Core-State-Standards-and-Race-To-The-Top-Flowchart

Restore Oklahoma Public Education. Common Core State Standards Presentation - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dsNVv_iQDMM&feature=share&list=UUffrnW6WlGtduw0C7NXNWKg

OSDE.  Oklahoma State Board Members - http://ok.gov/sde/about/stateboard 

OSDE.  State Board Signs Resolution to Keep Education Reforms - http://www.scribd.com/doc/80408209/State-Board-Meeting-Passing-Resolution-To-Keep-Education-Reforms 

In The Public Interest.  NCLB Waiver Communications - http://www.inthepublicinterest.org/node/2745

Achieve.  Race to the Top - Low Performing Schools - http://www.achieve.org/files/RTTT-Low-PerformingSchools.pdf 

Foundation For Educational Excellence.  Foundation Center - http://foundationcenter.org/educationexcellence/kftf_schools.jhtml

Pearson.  Common Core Products - http://commoncore.pearsoned.com/

Achieve.  College and Career Ready Agenda -  http://achieve.org/college-and-career-ready-agenda

Oklahoma Academy - http://okacademy.org/ 

Oklahoma Academy - Abolish or Consolidate Current County Structure by 2032 - http://okacademy.org/PDFs/2012-IssueBriefs.pdf

Agenda 21 - Grinding Down America - http://www.amazon.com/Agenda-Grinding-America-Curtis-Bowers/dp/B003Z3CZGG 

UNESCO.  Education and Globalization.  http://www.iiep.unesco.org/fileadmin/user_upload/pdf/apre98.pdf 

Restore Oklahoma Public Education. Education Accountabilty Must Originate Locally.  http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2012/05/education-accountability-must-originate.html 

SB2033.  http://www.scribd.com/doc/93232739/Sb2033-Engrossed-Version-of-School-Reform-Bill

The Columbian.  Common Core Standards Aren't Really Very Common - http://www.columbian.com/weblogs/bob-dean-says/2010/oct/19/common-core-standards-arent-really-very-common/ 

Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.  Smart Brief.  http://www.smartbrief.com/news/ascd/storyDetails.jsp?issueid=5F7A6C67-6CC8-4036-97F1-A5EF6ED15D49&copyid=6B53DF3A-6E23-49B9-B580-2B77D61637E9&brief=ascd&sb_code=rss&&campaign=rss&i=5F7A6C67-6CC8-4036-97F1-A5EF6ED15D49

Restore Oklahoma Public Education.  Government Cheese. School Bonds to Pay for Common Core Expenses.   http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2013/01/government-cheese-school-bonds-to-pay.html 

EdWeek.  Spinning The Numbers on Turnaround Schools. http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2012/03/spinning_the_numbers_on_turnar.html?qs=chicago+schools+turnaround 

Restore Oklahoma Public Education.  How Much Data Is Enough Data.  http://www.scribd.com/doc/110458572/How-Much-Data-is-Enough-Data-What-happens-to-privacy-when-bureaucracies-exceed-their-scope 

Restore Oklahoma Public Education.  Oklahoma's A-F Grading System Gets an F.  http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2013/01/oklahomas-f-grading-system-gets-f.htm

Education and Party Unity - A Jumbo Shrimp Oximoron?

Well guys, the challengers for Janet Barresi's State Superintendent perch are already out of the gate!  In a very sad state of affairs, Oklahoma's own OCPA at once cast a very hard line on the candidacy of newly-announced State Superintendent challenger Donna Anderson, calling her the "Status Quo" educator.  I can only assume this is in part because not only is she, well…uh… a 'democrat', but also because she is not an acolyte of the coveted Lindsey Nicole Henry scholarship. 

It doesn't seem obvious to me how we can find the best person for the job of producing education policy for all Oklahoma children by distilling that office down to a single-issue party-line, created and promoted in part, by the same folks that signed the Common Core State Standards into Oklahoma law without reading them.  

Unfortunately, ROPE learned the hard way after supporting Janet Barresi in her bid as State Superintendent - EDUCATION IS NOT A PARTISAN MATTER!  We voted with our party registrations and got slapped hard enough on the face to make us cry - for four whole years!

ROPE's Board is populated with very conservative, God-fearing, Republican women.  None of us could conceive of ever becoming card-carrying Democrats ourselves - especially after last year's Democratic convention when attendees voted to throw God under the bus and continue to embrace the killing of unborn babies en mass.  Clearly, it would seem we have nothing of substance in common with these kinds of ideals. 

I think I speak for the entire board, however, when I say that we wouldn't hesitate to vote for a Democrat for State Superintendent if we thought he or she would actually put education first in in their commission of this office in Oklahoma - and not the Foundation for Educational Excellence out of Florida.  

Pat McGuigan, in his article on Anderson's candidacy says, "Anderson believes the ACT would be a preferable method for evaluating students leaving high schools, rather than the End-of-Instruction tests that have been controversial in recent years. In response to a question from CapitolBeatOK, Anderson said she believes – even without a legislative mandate – counselors should encourage more students to take the ACT. She said the ACT would make a good exit test for all students." 

ROPE has been saying this for years!  This simply makes good policy and fiscal sense since we already pay to administer the tests! 

Why pick a candidate apart for not supporting the Henry scholarship when that doesn't apparently fully characterize her thoughts on choice in education?

McGuigan reports, "In response to another question from CapitolBeatOK, Anderson said she that although she opposes the Henry Scholarships and use of “public dollars for private schools” she did not agree with targeting parents of special needs children in a lawsuit seeking to strike down the scholarships.  Although she opposes recent moves toward choice that includes private schools, she said “there is a place” for private schools, home schools and online education in the educational system".  

Anderson’s website contains the following quote, “Currently in Oklahoma, we are trying to make our schools and students into something they are not,” Anderson said. “The methods currently being promoted have no research based success. We do not need to model education after any other state. We need to be Oklahomans who do the hard work to find our path to success, not run frantically toward unproven methods because of a political agenda.”  

Seriously, how do you oppose that thought? That's a point taken from fact (Janet Barresi's association with Jeb Bush's Foundation for Educational Excellence) and something we actively would support - as we oppose Dr. Barresi's desire to craft Oklahoma education policy from outside the state's borders.  Neither the Common Core nor the PARCC tests they are supposed to assess were tested or studied prior to implementation in Oklahoma.  

Every year, Oklahoma Republicans reinforce the concept of LOCAL CONTROL of education in the state platform.  Every year Janet Barresi has been employed as our State Superintendent, she has forced this concept farther and farther out toward the margins of the Oklahoma Republican political fabric.  Why have a platform for Republicans to stand on if elected Republicans aren’t going to govern on that foundation – and beyond that, why support Republicans if they do not personify Republican ideals just because they have an “R” behind their name?

ROPE knows nothing about Donna Anderson and certainly this is not a campaign endorsement of any kind, just a missive to make us think.  

Why would conservative Republicans even be drawn to voting for a Democrat?  How broken is the system when we can't agree with our Republican State Superintendent on education policy, but the party that was taken over by the hard left Progressives can spawn a candidate with ideals more Republican than those our own Republicans espouse?  

What is education really about?  What's best for adults, or what's best for kids?

The Complicit Accomplices of Education Reform

This post comes as a result of a posting to Jay P. Greene's blog for an article titled, "Gates Foundation Follies Part 2" (I would've used the French, deux in homage to the comedies of Leslie Nielson!).

Though I agree with Greene 100% when it comes to his thoughts on Bill Gates, I am constantly irritated by the reach-back to educational choice in nearly every one of his blogs - as though CHOICE is the ONLY manner of saving public education at this time. My favorite - total dismantling of the Federal Department of Education - is never mentioned unless to discuss the folly of such an idea as impossible.

While reading the Gates blog, I was stunned to see another man retorting to several of Greene's comments. Though I'm afraid he was talking over my head, this blogger definitely made my ears perk up with his last post.

What is irresistible about that? “Out with the old, in with the new,” is not exactly the best maxim to live by.

Besides my point, and I’m sorry if it wasn’t clear, was that the social and governing ideologies are “management” or “business” ideologies and these infect all organizations in some ways. Thus the original idea of unionization is still valid and necessary, more than ever, as a protection against the manipulations of wealth and power.

You point out the dwindling, and as you’re on this blog I assume you approve of such, as if it is somehow going to lead to some kind of prosperous future that has been “held back” due to the evils of cooperation and the integrity and dignity of communities of workers.

The Broadsides are clear in their intent as pieces of agitprop to serve the masters of wealth–your masters I assume. They will step on you too in the end, I fear, and you will have been complicit in every action.

After reading this, I couldn't help but respond with the comments below:

Interestingly, while I feel I can 'sense', if you will, a spirit of egalitarianism in Mr. Storm's postings which makes my brain bleed, I do actually see with true clarity the brilliance in his last sentence.

"They will step on you too in the end, I fear, and you will have been complicit in every action."

School Choice is NOT the answer to our current "we have big schools, spend lots of money, build huge bureaucracies all while teaching kids virtually nothing" education crisis. School choice is a ruse. School choice is the avenue for more federalized control over education through vouchers and tax credits, both of which will eventually render inert the only REAL choices in education right now - home schooling and private schooling.

Yes, it is true and even Coulson at CATO is beginning to sound the alarm over vouchers. My inherent distrust of all things federal government (I'm a firm believer in Reagan's thoughts on the issue - "I'm from the federal government and I'm here to help you"...) make me keenly aware that ANY avenue utilized to propel school choice is ostensibly to find avenues for the tentacles of the federal government through it's entrenched programming - such as the American's with Disabilities Act - into the lives of families and children who simply want nothing more than to have an UNREGULATED 'choice'.

That this idea is embraced by 'Republicans' or Conservatives - or whatever they're termed (opposite liberals, progressives or Democrats) makes them in fact complicit as Storm suggests - at least in jumping the conservative principles of 'personal freedom' and 'free market' for the 'trendy', 'shiny' education 'reform' ideas covering the dark chocolaty center of statism.

As an example; Jeb Bush jumped headlong into the education crisis fray with his Foundation for Excellence in Education. Since he is a Republican and his dad and brother were Republican presidents of these United States he MUST know much more about education than any of us, so Republicans and conservative education policy wonks follow him into this foray head first.

The Chiefs for Change portion of this organization has published their manifesto of what they want seen in the re-authorization of the ESEA. Please note how it is nearly exclusively dictating MORE federal control. A Republican dictating MORE federal control? In a down economy? When government has spent itself into oblivion? Isn't this statist - which is NOT Republican? I'm confused.

Maybe we should also point out that Jeb's dad signed America up for the UNESCO World Declaration on Education for All, globalizing education in America - also very Republican.

To this we could add that his brother G.W., took Clinton's ESEA re-authorization, "Improving America's Schools Act", amped up the AYP nonsense and simply re-labeled it "No Child Left Behind" - now arguably one of the greatest failures in education 'reform'. From Democrat president to Republican president, education 'reform' became 'reform' in fact because the name was changed.

Additionally, the younger Bush's Foundation for Excellence is embracing wholeheartedly the idea of 21st Century Skills. If you go to the p21.org website (Partnership for 21st Century Skills) you can download a 'white paper' there that details their mission and framework for their program. In it, you will find that p21 principles rest solely on the backs of Dewey, Vygotsky and Piaget - 3 of the most openly Socialist/Marxist members of education 'reform' at the turn of the last century. VERY Republican, yet no conservative/Republican seems to be very offended by this fact and in fact, many openly welcome this in the name of 'education reform'.

The Foundation for Excellence also embraces nearly every portion of the Core Curriculum State Standards initiative (including the onerous and very 1984 idea of collecting lots and lots of data on school children all in the name of getting them to graduate high school) excepting that of school choice.

I fear that those on the 'right' of the spectrum are most DEFINITELY being led into the category of useful idiots by those on the 'left' of the political spectrum who have controlled educational framework, access and rhetoric since before even Dewey. It appears that we are falling blind to what has been growing slowly before our eyes for nearly a century and even those who wish to be labeled 'education reformers' are now nothing more than accomplices to its demise.

ADDED 9/23/23: Andre Coulson's article has been moved and I only found it on the way back, so I'm posting it in its entirety:

April 8, 2006

Why Federal School Vouchers Are a Bad Idea

by Andrew J. Coulson

Andrew Coulson is Director of the Center for Educational Freedom, and author of Market Education: The Unknown History.

President Bush wants to help kids in failing public schools. That's good. He wants to do it by giving them federal vouchers to attend private schools. That's bad.

The president is right to favor parental choice and competition between schools. Educational freedom has a long and illustrious history reaching all the way back to ancient Athens – and the Athenians gave us democracy (albeit in a crude form) and most of Western culture.

That's not too shabby when you consider that the legacy of ancient Sparta, pioneer of state-run schooling, is, uh... a name for high-school football teams.

But if you study the subsequent 25 centuries of education history, you are driven to an inescapable conclusion: government funding of private schools brings with it government control – and the higher the level of government involved, the more serious the problem.

The Netherlands is a case in point. Back in 1917, the Dutch were at each others' political throats over the content of their government schools. Different religious and cultural factions couldn't agree on the official curriculum (sound familiar?).

Rather than spilling blood, they came up with a kinder, gentler idea: they'd fund any sort of school for which there was a demonstrable public demand. Catholics could get Catholic schools, Calvinists, Calvinist schools, and so on. It worked like a charm. Far from Balkanizing the public, as modern school choice critics fear, educational freedom and diversity dissipated the conflict that government schooling had caused.

So far so good. But with government funding came government control. Today, the Dutch government defines teacher accreditation requirements, fixes salary scales, curtails the firing of teachers, sets the core curriculum, says how much will be spent, makes it illegal to charge tuition over the voucher amount, and prohibits profit-making in voucher schools. In other words, Dutch "independent" voucher schools have lost their independence.

Indeed, like Puritans fleeing England's established Church, I know of several Dutch teachers who came to America to escape the suffocating pall of government intervention in their country's voucher schools.

There are ways to mitigate this regulatory encroachment.

Acting at the state rather than the national level, for instance, can harness the "laboratory" of federalism. States that went too far in curtailing the autonomy of voucher schools would likely drive away parents and businesses, engendering an economic backlash that would discourage regulatory excesses. The lack of this mitigating factor at the national level is a key reason for opposing the president's federal voucher proposal.

An even better solution to the regulatory problem is to avoid using government money entirely. There are two driving forces behind the public's desire to regulate government-funded schools: opposition to paying for instruction that violates our convictions, and a desire for accountability. State education tax credits address both concerns more effectively than either vouchers or the existing government monopoly.

America is in a perpetual culture war over the public school curriculum. Think "intelligent design," school prayer, sex education, textbook selection, etc. The Dutch voucher program eliminated much – but not all – of that conflict. At present, there is discomfort in some quarters of the generally liberal population over certain very conservative Islamic voucher schools – especially in the wake of the religiously-motivated murder of film director Theo van Gogh. But if access to Islamic voucher schools is curtailed, law-abiding Dutch Muslims will suffer. It's a lose-lose situation that is inherent in the government funding of education.

Tax credits avoid this zero-sum game. A complete education tax credit program has two parts: a credit for parents to use against their own expenses, and a credit for individuals and businesses who donate to private Scholarship-Granting Organizations (SGOs). The first part helps middle-income families pay for their own children's schooling, and the second part ensures that low-income families also have the resources they need to participate in the education marketplace.

Under this system, no one is compelled to fund anything to which they might object. The personal credits involve people spending their own money on themselves, and the donation credits allow taxpayers to choose the SGO that receives their donations. No government money is used.

Taxpayer accountability is also far greater under tax credits than either vouchers or government schooling. If you don't like the way a particular SGO is allocating your money, you can redirect your donations elsewhere. Try doing that with your tax payments.

So while the president is right to favor greater choice for parents and greater autonomy for educators, there are better ways to achieve those goals than a dangerous expansion of federal intervention in our schools. Let's leave educational authority to the states and the people – to whom the Constitution and the Tenth Amendment rightfully reserve it.