Is Common Core Really Over In Oklahoma?

Some time ago I created the meme above based on the notion we've been fed by the Chambers of Commerce that Common Core is necessary in order to train kids for jobs.  Since the standards were forced onto the national scene through Obama's Race to the Top application, the rallying cry has been that business in America is suffering because we are not properly educating our children to be workers.  We must have an educated workforce in order to stimulate our economy.

Once Common Core was repealed in Oklahoma, and the process created by which new standards will be established, Oklahoma is now officially free of Common Core.  Or are we?

The short answer is NO.  Common Core is the name for a set of educational standards predicated on the notion that children must be "College and Career Ready".  Sadly, this prevailing thought has been steeped through nearly every pore of the business machine through both the Chamber of Commerce and the National Governor's Association.  The standards may now be in Davy Jone's locker, but the idea behind them is not.

Take Governor Fallin's recent Oklahoma Now column, "Education Beyond High School is the “New Minimum” for Success in Today’s Economy”.  Here, she makes the case that the state should drive education in order to secure a better future for individuals when she says,

Solving this problem, however, (of “preparing our citizens to succeed in a more competitive economy”) requires state-level action. It requires a commitment to reform. Above all, it demands recognition that the status quo is no longer adequately serving Oklahoma students in today’s competitive, global job market.

It seems apparent from our Governor’s perspective that the state determines the best course for Oklahoma’s students.

In fact, she closes by saying,

My job as governor is to push forward, to demand more, and to work with teachers, parents, and administrators to ensure our students graduate high school ready to continue their education and become college and career ready. Nothing is more important to the individual prosperity of our students or the continued prosperity of our state.  

I very much disagree with her assessment of her job.  Her job is NOT to demand, it’s a parent’s job to demand.  It’s not her job to ‘ensure’ Oklahoma’s students do anything – it’s the parent’s job to direct the education of their children.  In fact, if you've been a parent, you know you can’t ENSURE anything about your children’s future – all you can do is the best you can do and pray.

Recently, I was in Enid speaking with the Sons and Daughters of Liberty – one of my favorite groups in the state.  A man attended the meeting and began to ask very pointed questions about the course of education in Oklahoma.  Sadly, he quite apparently believed it the state’s job to provide accountability for education.  In his opinion, unless we test public education students rigorously, Oklahoma will continue to suffer poor educational outcomes.

I think the only way to describe the disjointedness of this thought process is to share a comment I made to our Facebook page the other day on just this subject.

THOUGHT FOR THE DAY: Those of us that pay taxes to support public schools are being manipulated by a growing chambercrat/statist cadre who care nothing for students excepting their ability to become employable and drive the economic engine that keeps them at the top of the food chain. If we’re not wise, we’ll soon be asked to genuflect and kiss their rings. I’m not talking entitlement – no 99%’er philosophy here – I’m talking about individual liberty and the fact that the more government grows and the more fingers it has in our lives, the less liberty we have as individuals . School reform should be local, individual and parent-driven – not predicated on automaton-generating sameness tidied up with a red bow to sucker parents into believing their children should be educated by the state solely to get a job when they graduate. True education elevates the individual and provides the foundation for a free society. Today’s education ‘reform’ is the exact opposite.

So what is my definition of education?  This is the definition I provided on my application to serve on one of Oklahoma’s new standards writingcommittees when asked to define College-, Career- and Citizen-Readiness.

Students ready to tackle the challenges of the world are the product of a well-rounded education in a school that provides an environment in which every child is responsible for his or her actions. Students should study a variety of broad, rich subjects such as world history, music, art and classic literature to expand their minds and ignite the desire for learning; however learning isn’t predicated simply upon coursework.

The creation of productive, capable individuals ready to enter the world in whatever capacity they desire requires a mixture of education and expectation. Schools must impart knowledge to students, but also the mechanics of personal responsibility.

Students not taught to take responsibility for their learning, perceive education as a job – a rote mechanical effort done becomes someone else wants it done. When students are allowed to move forward in their education without meeting the requirements of courses as prescribed by the teacher and administration, the student learns that knowledge isn’t important – that ‘school’ is a game to manipulate to their own end.

When students are allowed to behave against expectations without prescription and delivery of a reasonable, identifiable punishment for those behaviors, students are provided no framework for authority. Without a framework for authority, there is no trust. Without trust, students are unable to see the value of education in their lives and learning cannot occur.

Oklahoma can create the best set of standards in the world, but until it is understood that education is a mixture of education and expectation – and follow through on that understanding – Oklahoma will continue to see poor educational outcomes. 

Here’s how the NGA defines College and Career readiness:

A college- and career-ready student is an individual that is ready to succeed in entry-level, credit-bearing, academic college courses and in workforce training programs.  College refers to two- and four-year postsecondary schools.  Workforce training programs pertain to careers that offer competitive, livable salaries above the poverty line; offer opportunities for career advancement; and are in a growing or sustainable industry.

*National Governors Association, “Common Core State Standards Initiative: Standards Setting Criteria” (Washington, D.C.: 2009).

With which definition do you most agree?

Common Core Communist Standards?

I have just read the Oklahoman piece on Mary Fallin's ascent to greatness (she is only the FIRST FEMALE REPUBLICAN governor to scale this height of greatness) as the new Chairman (Chairwoman?) of the National Governor's Association.  

On our car ride from Wagner County the other evening, Julia and I counted up the times we have placed FORMAL requests to the Governor's office for an appointment to see the Governor of our state - a woman for whom we voted (after the primary) because she was a REPUBLICAN (so done with the R and D thing now, frankly).  We counted the number to be THREE.  

THREE times in three years we have placed formal requests to meet with the Governor of our state.  Think about that.  ROPE is the ONLY 100% grassroots organization devoted to education in the ENTIRE STATE of Oklahoma.  Individually, we also pay her salary, but I guess that's beside the point.

To be fair, we were granted audience with one of the Governor's chief policy analysts, Katie Altshuler, after our first formal request.  Of course Katie nodded her head as Lynn and I spoke with her - and even took our paper - but of course, the next legislative session, she was informing legislators that we were misinformed and as such, should be discounted.

As I read the comments reported by McNutt, I was fairly disgusted.  Fallin's initiative as head of the NGA is called, "America Works: Education and Training for Tomorrow's Jobs".  Here is an excerpt of her comments:

“Improving our workforce and ensuring it remains internationally competitive is an issue that calls for national attention and demands gubernatorial leadership"

Gosh, is that true Governor?  You see it as your job to create an internationally competitive workforce?  

Please read the following and think upon where it might have originated:

"...needs to raise people's science awareness and education levels, and train skilled and qualified personnel in order to achieve modernization goals..."

So, who could this be?   

Well, it was Hu Jintao, President of China, speaking to a meeting attended by members of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

Still not convinced?  Let's compare and contrast.  Who said this?

Education is a priority in our overall development strategy and its reform must be deepened to support the building of a moderately prosperous society and the reinvigoration of the nation.

What about this?

Engaging education, business and government leaders in a dialogue about what governors can do to more closely align common education, universities, community and technical colleges and workforce training providers with future labor demands.

First one, Hu Jintao; second one, MARY FALLIN.  It gets worse.  She follows with this:

Supporting governors and their staff in using data and information to identify states' future labor demands, prioritize changes in state education and workforce training systems to meet those demands and take action to achieve desired results.

So, our governor is ALL in on this education 'reform' deal!  She wants your kids data to make sure Oklahoma can put them to work after compulsory schooling at the public expense.

Here are the final paragraphs from the Communist Manifesto.  Think on this - or scream!

8. Equal obligation of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.
9. Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.
10. Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children's factory labor in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, etc.

When, in the course of development, class distinctions have disappeared, and all production has been concentrated in the hands of a vast association of the whole nation, the public power will lose its political character. Political power, properly so called, is merely the organized power of one class for oppressing another. If the proletariat during its contest with the bourgeoisie is compelled, by the force of circumstances, to organize itself as a class; if, by means of a revolution, it makes itself the ruling class, and, as such, sweeps away by force the old conditions of production, then it will, along with these conditions, have swept away the conditions for the existence of class antagonisms and of classes generally, and will thereby have abolished its own supremacy as a class.

In place of the old bourgeois society, with its classes and class antagonisms, we shall have an association in which the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all.

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?