GUEST POST: "Generation Citizen" Provides 'Action Civics' Indoctrination In Oklahoma Public Schools

 

The following is a guest post by Jean Thomson. She has included a list of schools using the program. Additional comments have been added by the editor at the end of the post.

Critical Race Theory is the Next Common Core For Oklahoma Students - But Much Worse

Critical Race Theory. What's that about and how could it be worse than Common Core for Oklahoma's students?

Good questions! 

Let's start with the first:

Critical Race Theory is an ideal developed from Marxist theory that essentially asks human beings to see the world through a lens that sees people as either oppressed or oppressors based on their race and identity. This gets even more complicated when attempting to determine how oppressed one is - a factor determined by something called intersectionality. For example, if we are comparing three individuals - a black woman, a white man and a gay, black woman - the gay black woman is the most oppressed and the white man is the most oppressive.

Critical Thinking and the Common Core - Snake Oil Salesmanship At Its Best!

Betty Peters is a member of the Alabama State School Board.  Unlike a majority of those on the Oklahoma State School Board, Betty is a longtime educator who knows well the dangers of the Common Core.  She has been listening to both sides of the issue for several years now.

Betty and I (Jenni) are on an email network together where a larger number of us every day are discussing the pitfalls of the Common Core.

One discussion recently, involved the Common Core PROPONENTS necessity to blather about how the Common Core standards will produce "critical thinking" in students.  How a set of standards is going to produce critical thinking has always been a bone of contention among us OPPONENTS, as this seems to be one of those 'lines' proponents say without any possible way of backing up the comment.  It's the line of a snake oil salesman who needs to sell the product, but knowing it won't work, has to come up with more and more interesting 'sales pitches' to do the job for him, knowing that people who buy the product can't refute his claims until they buy it and use it themselves.

There is no difference between selling snake oil and selling the Common Core.

Betty Peters' recent comments about critical thinking, made me ask for permission to reprint because, unlike the Common Core snake oil salesmen, her comments made sense!

I would expect that we will not understand how Common Core proponents define “critical thinking” until the assessments are in place. What’s included in the  assessments will be what is taught, and we know they will be assessing “critical thinking” skills. They have said so any times.  Critical thinking as explained in AL by the former Dean of Education at UA is not about knowing facts.  In fact he stated he does not want facts to be taught or assessed since he wants critical thinking.  Apparently  as  long as someone can access info, he can think critically about it, as defined by the Goals 2000/STW/NCLB/CCSSI gurus. 

Even in 1st grade when students are beginning to read (decode) and don’t know very much, textbooks such as the supplemental writing ones from Zaner Bloser  include assignments such as writing a persuasive letter using your “voice” to convince the town council to build a park, etc.  This requires no knowledge of facts.  The more I look at these books (I have studied  some of the ones we recently approved in AL), the more strongly I believe there will be no books to look at anyway—everything will soon be online inside the students’ computers where the information can be changed if someone does get caught indoctrinating. 

I have heard some state DOEs are already smirking about this—no troublesome busy-bodies can interfere with textbook selection if there are no textbooks.  One needs some background knowledge of Marxist terms such as critical theory to decipher what is being said or written today.   Many younger people, including educators and journalists and even elected officials,  do not even know what Marxism is!  It’s like Orwell's 1984—with lots of confusing jargon  which the Left defines and the public thinks it understands but actually does not. 

In our last board meeting, I pointed out what I had found in the Zaner Bloser books and that I felt we must rework our textbook committees to include more scrutiny of content and the inclusion of more k-2 content specialists to insure we are using age appropriate materials.  One of the ZB test booklets for the teachers had a question which required the student to locate the adjective and there was no adjective in that sentence.  This was for first graders. 

This is why I try to obtain the teachers’ editions of all textbooks.  I conclude we need to redirect our attention from standards to assessments and curriculum and textbooks; we do need to focus on the ELA exemplars which are published on the Common Core website.  And remember; all sorts of mischief can now be done via the ELA literacy readings in SS, science, etc. 

One AL school system is using Howard’s Zinn’s history book this way.  The English teachers may not  know much  about Zinn but they will be teaching it in 11th grade.  That book never could have made it through the SS textbook committee.  

I will give the CCSSI proponents credit for using their critical thinking skills when they came up with the ELA etc. standards.  You can now teach ANYTHING in the ELA classes, from wiring houses to Howard Zinn’s vantage point on American history to how to put on condoms.

Ghost In The Machine

And this, my friends, is how it’s done.  This is how Progressives/Liberals have changed America right in front of our faces – right before our very eyes.

Just today, EdWeek ran this article, “National Service Can ignite School Turnaround Efforts”.  

“Oh, this sounds great!” you think as you begin to read.  After all, what in the world could possibly be bad about “turning around” schools?  We all know they are in horrible shape!  Yes, yes, sending workers from the community out into the community to help kids stay in school!  This is awesome!

Unfortunately (or fortunately – I guess it depends upon where you sit on the ideological fence) I tend to see this kind of thing coming immediately.   

After becoming acquainted with the idea of Community Organizing and Saul Alinsky some years ago, I have an extreme alert hit my heads up display when I hear something – anything – that has the word/s National and/or Service in the title.

It seems particularly well-timed, in fact, that yesterday my friend Kaye Beach posted this on my Facebook page – “The Turning of the Tides” by Paul W. Shafer and John Snow – written in 1953.   

This document lays out how the Intercollegiate Socialist Society and the League for Industrial Democracy (still going strong TODAY by the way) along with UNESCO and John Dewey, took over the public schools.  It literally made me sick to my stomach to scan the document, however, once I had been turned on to that one, I quickly found, “Vital Speeches of the Day – Education for the New Social Order”.  Interestingly enough, this speech (printed February 26, 1948) had a subtitle called, “Tragic Results Now Apparent”.

This speech absolutely puts the nail in the coffin of our thesis four years ago as we began ROPE, that our public schools have completely brainwashed kids in US History so that they have no real knowledge of civics, our Republic and/or the Constitution.  The speaker, Augustus G. Rudd, Chairman of the Guardians of American Foundation and delivered before the National Society of New England Women in New York, clearly lays out the mechanism by which American young people were so brainwashed.  It began in college with the inception of liberal professors from Columbia University (instructed by John Dewey) and filtered down into secondary schools through TEXTBOOKS. 

In fact, the National Education Association sponsored such a set of textbooks called, “Building America”.  The Sons of the American Revolution in California so detested these books, that they took the NEA to court to get an injunction against allowing them in schoolrooms.  This was the opening salvo of their court case, 

“Building America is a subversive publication in that it undermines principles essential to our form of government.”

Under the heading “Scheme of Indoctrination” Rudd writes,  

“Briefly, that is how it happened – how the radical teachers captured the citadel of learning, while parents did not realize what was going on, and consolidated their position by means of great organizations such as the NEA.”

Goodness!  There is absolutely NOTHING more descriptive than that particular paragraph as far as I’m concerned.  This point is driven home further when one remembers that our own State Superintendent, Janet Barresi, has hired a former OEA/NEA president and lobbyist to work for her in the Oliver Hodge Building and has singlehandedly brought about more state and federal control over Oklahoma’s public education than her predecessor Sandy Garret did in 20!

And so, with these little pearls of wisdom tucked carefully into our hat bands, let us review the article concerning how ‘National Service’ organizations can ‘fix’ public schools.

So, what is “National Service”?  Well, we’re told about the disparity in education between the rich and the poor right away, so it takes a bit of time to get to the meat of “National Service”, but apparently, the writer believes, it happens through community organizations such as “Citizen Schools”, “College Summit” and “Diplomas Now”.   

He cites AmeriCorps as ground zero of this effort, 

“Again, working through AmeriCorps, City Year AmeriCorps members—who receive a small living stipend and modest funding for their educations—serve students in grades 3-9 in nearly 250 schools across the country. They work with students before school, after school, and throughout the school day, delivering targeted academic interventions aligned to the common-core standards, and social-emotional support.”

Again, that sounds so awesome!  And cheap too!  What are we thinking NOT to attempt this in OUR state/community? 

Well, it actually goes back to a sentence the writer inserts right after the one above, 

“As near-peer (close in age) mentors, corps members are uniquely positioned to build strong relationships with students that can help them identify and report issues requiring more-intensive services.” 

Yes, they may be uniquely positioned...TO INDOCTRINATE THESE YOUNG PEOPLE ON AN IDEOLOGY COMPLETELY OFFENSIVE TO CONSERVATIVES.   

The writer goes on to say that the Diplomas Now turnaround model, 

“…brings together smart school design, the idealism of national-service members and trained case managers to tap community resources.” 

Fortunately, the writer is honest.

I did a bit of a search on these “idealistic”, “National Service” organizations.

City Year – run by AmeriCorps.  City Year use AmeriCorps members as tutors, mentors and role models through Academic Support, Attendance and Positive Behavior Encouragement and Community and School Improvement projects. Their mission is to 

“build democracy through citizen service, civic leadership and social entrepreneurship. It is through service that we can demonstrate the power and idealism of young people, engage citizens to benefit the common good, and develop young leaders of the next generation.”  

Build…DEMOCRACY?  Guess you’d really have to read the articles above to find out why I object so strenuously to this ‘model’.  Here’s another one for you, 

“City Year’s work in schools is strengthened by its deep history in community service. Since 1988, City Year has been a leader in the growing national service movement, leading to the establishment of AmeriCorps, the passage of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act, and the creation of Voices for National Service.”

How about AmeriCorps?   

“In 1993, President Bill Clinton signed the National and Community Service Trust Act, which established the Corporation for National and Community Service and brought the full range of domestic community service programs under the umbrella of one central organization. 

This legislation built on the first National Service Act signed by President H.W. Bush in 1990. It also formally launched AmeriCorps, a network of national service programs that engage Americans in intensive service to meet the nation’s critical needs in education, public safety, health, and the environment.”   

It is funded by taxpayers (so, as usual, the government can turn on those of us that want it ONLY in its Constitutional role!), but there is much room for people who would like to donate – such as the venerable George Soros!  I thought I might go on, but this article really hits the nail on the head of what a despicable organization really is AmeriCorp.

What about Citizen Schools?  Well, I’ll just go ahead and give you the “about” page from their website.  I think the number of organizations with which Eric Schwarz (the Co-Founder) has been involved will make it easy for you to make up your mind about his ideological bend.

What about College Summit?  Well, just troll around this website for a bit.  Look under leadership and staff.  Note that Barrack Obama has donated a large chunk of his Nobel Peace Prize (snicker) to this organization.  Note that Bill and Melinda gates are prominent supporters.  Note that College Summit has applied for and received a Race To The Top grant for districts.  Lots and LOTS of federal involvement here!

What about Diplomas Now?  This is a 

“national campaign to put all students on the path to high school graduation”.   

Certainly a lofty cause and the one thing going for them is that they appear to be solidly non-profit – taking no taxpayer money.  Apparently, Diplomas Now is funded by the corporation so fully in the pocket of Barrack Obama that they changed their logo to match his during the last election cycle.  Give up on who that could be?

And so my friends, there you have it.  Now - especially if you’ve never heard ANYTHING reported in this little expose - go to the mirror, point your finger at yourself and realize that you are the reason we stand a chance of losing a limited government Republic genetic only to this particular chunk of soil, to a man/party who would create his/their own flag they detest America so.

If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a THOUSAND times – RESEARCH EVERYTHING!  

Our fathers, mothers and grandparents quite apparently trusted the idea that schools were a bastion of all that was good in America to our very sincere detriment.  It must have been swimming upstream for these writers in the late 40’s and early 50’s to come out with their research.  I can just imagine the finger wagging, scoffing and cocked heads they met.  Sad that today they are fully vilified.  

Today, we see the fruits of their research. 

If Americans can ignore what stares them right in the face – the metered, specific, planned destruction of their country through its educational system – then, unfortunately for me and those of us that are fully awake and believers, we’ll get the fascist we deserve come November, 2012 and really see for what they have planned so long and so well.

PS: The picture I have used to depict the “ghost in the machine” is from the movie Metropolis.  I had heard of the movie, but never read anything about it.  I pulled up Wikipedia for the movie and found that, interestingly, the plot of the movie isn’t too very far from the plot actually pulled off in American public education.

Do We Really Know What It Means to "Privatize" Education and Other Government Services?

The following is a commentary I wrote for my Facebook page this morning.  Last weekend I took part in an absolutely excellent workshop for a number of researchers, researching a number of different areas. It was very eye-opening to see how ANTI-REPUBLICAN governance is occurring across all spectra of government and how few people (including me!) really understand how pervasive this phenomenon is.

I will be writing some more well-researched (with links) blog posts on such topics as Technocracy, but today's post is more of a down-and-dirty, opinion piece.  I urge you, however, to "google" or "bing" or whatever you do - some of the topics and ideas I present here and see what you find.  We MUST begin to see our government as it is rapidly becoming - essentially Marxist, with rising Fascism components - or we will most certainly be lost.

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Many national Republicans - (including Oklahoma Senator Clark Jolley) - want to privatize government services such as education and DHS.

Is privatizing public services BAD?  If so, how?

Yes, privatization of public government is BAD.  A Republic is governance of the people through members of the people elected to represent the populace using the force of law to protect them from their government.

When you PRIVATIZE government, you remove (shut out/eliminate) the voice of the people in the process. When government services are privatized, citizens PAY for services which exist in a private sector sphere, thereby eliminating 'free market' principles from working. A 'privatized' government agency can't fail because tax payers prop up it up to prevent that from happening. This produces ZERO oversight or accountability to the taxpayers who pay for the 'services'. This, a process directly akin to Fascism in many ways.

Senator Jolley wants to privatize DHS. Okay, let's say a DHS head is paid via public money, but is 'elected' to that position by a PRIVATE BOARD through what is called an appointment. Now, tax-payers little to no ability to call for his/her dismissal because he/she is under PRIVATE contract with an essentially private board.

Additionally, education in America according to the Founders, was to be PUBLIC so that ALL people - whether rich or poor - could take advantage of the ability to learn to read and to write in order to understand the Bible and the Constitution. Latin American (and many African) countries have PRIVATE education, which results in a situation in which much of the poor populace is never even able to be taught how to read and write.

This shift in 'consent of the governed' to 'governance' is completely antithetical to the Constitution. Those suggesting we should privatize government services in order for it to become more efficient are simply attempting to take complete control of government moving it from "consent of the governed" to "consent of the APPOINTED". Americans should NEVER consent to PRIVATIZED government, yet we have been lied to and told that this is better for all. I say NO to Fascism! How about you!?

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 Here are a couple of examples I found in my inbox just today:

Politicians and Team Owners Snooker Sports Fans and Taxpayers

vouchers boo hiss

Bill Gates: Selling Bad Advice to the Public Schools

Obamacare Has Literally Replaced the Constitution Not about education, but about exactly the idea we explain here.

John Dewey Would Be So Proud

I am closing out my day today and just realized. My post yesterday is absolutely the dream of John Dewey, our Marxist/Socialist "Father of Progressive (read 'modern') Education". He is taught like a God in teacher ed courses at Universities and Colleges everywhere - just as his followers had hoped.

School will provide all your needs.

That is what he wished - his Utopian fantasy. In fact, he thought parents were mostly morons and that the state could do a better job of raising little American young people than they. After all, some of them were getting divorced - as the Industrial Revolution began to re-define the stable, two parent family - some of them were neglecting their children to go to work...(if you want to really get a good feel for Dewey and his plans for public education - all of which have now come true - I urge you to get the book, John Dewey and the Decline of American Education - How the patron Saint of schools has corrupted teaching and learning by Henry T. Edmondson III)

Think on this a minute...I was told by a superintendent just recently that the reason why his district provided 'early childhood education' (tax-payer subsidized day care) was because the district 'next door' did. He would lose students as parents moved their kids to the OTHER school to take advantage of the program.

Butts + Chairs = dollars in public schools.

So...it was either provide free state-provided day care to parents, or lose his students AND his funding.

Yes folks, it's about the kids.

No. It's about class warfare, it's about building fiefdoms, it's about power, it's about MONEY. That's what public education is about in America today.

Here's what it will be soon - and a big shout out to ROPE board member Jo Joyce for this little nugget today:

Swedish Officials To Take Permanent Custody of Home Schooled Boy

Yes, according to the Home School Legal Defense Fund, little Domenic Johansson, son of Christer and Annie Johansson, has been in foster care since 2009 when he was seized from the plane on which the family was attempting to flee to his mother’s native India.

Home schooling is legal in Sweden, however, it is necessary to get materials with which to home school your child from the principal of the school of your child's prospective attendance.

However, this principal was not in favor of homeschooling and was hostile to the parent’s request.

“He was very short and not at all in favor of homeschooling,” Christer told the HSLDA. “I told him that it was my right under Swedish law to home school and that I was making contact with him to make the necessary arrangements and to get the materials. We were planning to leave Sweden in just a month or two. Mr. Eneqvist told me that he ‘didn’t care about my right’ that I didn’t have a ‘right to educate my son like that’ and that he was going to take the matter farther.”

The couple, who are devout Christians, had been planning to return to India where they were going to start a new ministry with the poor, but decided to delay the trip in order to get their son’s schooling arrangements made.

And so, as it was, the principal was a man of his word and somehow got the 'state' to remove little Domenic from his parents care. He has now been a 'ward of the state' for 24 months.

Let's see. That will never happen here in Oklahoma...REALLY? We now have the FOOD NAZI'S telling kids what they can and can not eat at school and a legislator that every year submits bills to try and kill the home schooling option in Oklahoma.

Even reasonable legislators like Representative Janine Noland expresses 'concern' over the idea of home schooling because she is acquainted with a family made up of crack-addicted parents who 'home school' their kids because they are often too stoned to get them there.

If you have reasonable legislators with this perspective, what about those like the one that tries to outlaw home schooling every year?

I guess, in the end, not only do we get the government we deserve, we also get the life we deserve - we're either free to pursue our lives under the Constitution given us by our Forefathers - which requires WORK to keep in place - or we can live our life in the chains of governmental tyranny because it just takes too much time out of our little Dancing With The Stars, Blackberry-texting, salon-going, lunching-out day to make the effort to secure our liberties for ourselves and our posterity.

Everything Old is New Again

This was published on American Thinker under the title "The Failure of Education Reform", July 27th, 2011

Everything Old is New Again

Americans today are well aware of the failure of their public education system. From Arne Duncan to Jeb Bush, the cry for “Education Reform” has echoed across this country over and over again.

Since President Obama took office, we’ve been apprised that putting states on a strict diet of curriculum standards prescribed at the national level is the NEW way to reform public education and prepare every student in America for the new “global economy”. States may voluntarily adopt the Core Curriculum State Standards (CCSS) we’re told, and the administration has made 100 billion dollars of stimulus funds (ARRA) available for a competitive grant process with the reality show title of “Race to the Top” to help states with their implementation.

This all sounds fabulous until a review of the history of public education in America.

Since 1965 when Lyndon Johnson prescribed the first Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) based on an inaccurate assumption that poverty caused illiteracy, Democratic and Republican presidents alike have been re-naming and reauthorizing the ESEA, changing little of the original language while adding more and more federal regulation and handouts. This fact is especially easy to appreciate when comparing LBJ’s ESEA and George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act. It is unfortunate then, that LBJ’s legislation was built upon so many of the tenets prescribed by John Dewey, the Father of Progressive Education.

Dewey, who studied with neo-Marxists at Johns Hopkins and was accepted by Marxists as one of their own, had radically different ideas about the education of children than the traditional, local methods favored and secured by the Founders of this country. LBJ instilled many of these within his ESEA. For example:

· The call for Universal Preschool. Dewey resented the changes in familial structure associated with the Industrial Revolution. He saw the changes in culture from rural/agrarian to urban/industrial as detrimental to the growth and development of children. Public schools, he reasoned, could supplant the instability of the family unit by providing all a child’s needs and provide the basis for the social unity he craved. As stated by William Brooks, “The school would affiliate itself with the life of the child and the community. It would become an embryonic socialist community. The new school communities would become incubators for peaceful social revolution.” Unfortunately, as noted by Rogèr in his article, “Preschools Are Using a Marxists’s Theories to Manufacture Collectivists”, Dewey’s ideals are alive and well in pre-schools today thanks in part to every American president since LBJ.

· The need for teacher training and development. School was to cater to all the needs of the child and allow them the freedom to explore and experiment with the learning style that suited them best. It was important, therefore, to train teachers away from their roles as “authoritarian” taskmasters, and develop their role as “guides”. The rights of the child dictated the need for them to learn on their own by active play or creation of projects. It was important for teachers not to stifle this exploration through outmoded and antidemocratic ideas of drill, discipline, and didactic exercises. Teacher development courses today (now required as an employment condition) can help teachers transmit social or political ideologies within their classrooms through such offerings as ‘The Many Faces of Teddy Roosevelt’, or ‘A Heated Debate’.

· Education within the public school specifically for the handicapped and poor. Education must now be a civil right in order to move as many children as possible into the “incubators” for social change. Matthew Spalding explains (p 205) that separation of people (children in this case) into ‘groups’ (poor, religious, handicapped) promoted local communities with local ideas, preempting the promotion of the national ideals necessary to encourage national progress. This revelation was also consistent with Dewey’s belief in Humanism, which allowed him to conclude that rights are based on the needs and practical demands of various groups (poor, women, black). Instead of an individual having inherent rights ‘endowed by their Creator’, rights were ‘civil’ – applying equally to all persons across the constitutional process.

· Programs to provide counselors and psychologists to schools. In order to treat each child as an individual and because the scientific study of each pupil’s development was essential to direct social development within the community, the child must be studied in their ‘social’ circumstances – the classroom. It was also necessary to study the child from a psychological standpoint in order for the teacher to understand and assume the rights of the child, as these could not be as easily expressed or understood by the child as an adult. Education was ultimately about growth, Dewey argued, so it was important to create an environment responsive to the child's interests and needs to allow the child to flourish.

Though Section 604 of the first ESEA made it unlawful to ‘nationalize’ curriculum, states were unable to collect federal money if they did not first apply to the “Commissioner of Education” and then conform to the stipulations accorded in the grant. If the Commissioner deemed the state not to be producing the desired results, the Commissioner could remove granted funds. And so it was that Dr. John Dewey’s vision of Progressive/Experiential education for America was firmly cemented into place.

What outstanding means of education “reform” we have undertaken today as states submit Race to the Top grants to obtain federal funds to preserve the tenets found in LBJ’s first ESEA.

Interesting how the traditional education of our Founders produced a near 100% literacy rate, astounding visitors to our early nation like DeTocqueville (p 252), while Dewey’s Progressive method in use since 1965 has produced adults today of whom only 13% are proficient in reading prose.

No matter what term (Marxist, Progressive) we use to identify the methods personified in the federal government’s initial intrusion into public education since 1965, ‘reforms’ since have been not only decidedly un-American and antithetical to our Founders vision for traditional, state centered education available to all, but have produced categorically inferior results. If we are to rehabilitate our Republic, we must TRULY reform our public education system. We must return, not only to the Founder’s vision for localized public education, but to the traditional methods shown to produce superior methods over and over again.