Documentary Reveals Oklahoma Uses Discredited "Whole Word" Reading Instruction in Many Classrooms, Yet the Oklahoma Department of Education Does Nothing

Today I read with interest an article by Jennifer Palmer for Oklahoma Watch, "In Oklahoma, a Discredited Theory of Reading is Widely Used". In her piece, she informs that a documentary by a group called "American Public Media Reports" has found that many schools across the nation are using a type of reading now called "three-cueing", but what has also been called for decades, "whole word language". 

I Fear For The Future - And I'm Not Alone

Just recently, a topic of discussion on a national list-serve of which I'm a member, turned to "project-based learning". I HATE PBL, which is essentially a way for the type 'A' personalities to show their stuff and the laziest students to hide behind their work. 

Project-Based Learning (PBL) has a very long history that goes all the way back to John Dewey - a Marxist Progressive Constructivist - who believed that children learn best by 'doing'. He developed this idea back on his rural Vermont farm watching kids do their chores (I often wonder if he was in fact simply observing because he wasn't interested in 'doing' himself...).

Progressive/Constructivist Math STINKS ON ICE

Just recently I posted this picture on my Jenni White's Education Page on Facebook. In one day, it had a reach of almost 169 THOUSAND views and it almost 2500 shares. Why? 

Well, I imagine that, no matter how many times the educrats running education today tell us Common Core (Constructivist/Progressive) math is going to make our kids rocket scientists, real moms and dads - once they get settled in for the night helping their kids with the homework they pick up in government (public) schools that use Common Core and/or Constructivist/Progressive math - realize that this idea is crap. Progressive math is not going to help our kids - and their parents - do much of anything except want to bang their heads repeatedly on their desks - or kitchen counters - all across America.

I was granted a Master's Degree in Biology in 1995. Oh, I understood descriptive science wonderfully well (human anatomy, ecology, etc.) - quantitative science (chemistry, physiology) not so much. In fact, I took the Graduate Record Examination 3 separate times in order to get into graduate school. Each time, I blew the top off the English score, but could barely come out with a math score better than a 3rd grader!

It wasn't until I began to school my kids at home (after removing them from public school for many reasons, but mainly because of the 1st grade math my son was doing) that I finally realized WHY. In the 1970's, when I was in middle school, there was a fabulous new fad in public education called, "Open Classroom". Here's an excellent explanation of this concept from the linked article:

In both Britain and the United States, open classrooms contained no whole-class lessons, no standardized tests, and no detailed curriculum. The best of the open classrooms had planned settings where children came in contact with things, books, and one another at “interest centers” and learned at their own pace with the help of the teacher. Teachers structured the classroom and activities for individual students and small work groups. They helped students negotiate each of the reading, math, science, art, and other interest centers on the principle that children learn best when they are interested and see the importance of what they are doing.

Here's how this fabulous concept translated for me; I LEARNED ABSOLUTELY NO MATH IN MIDDLE SCHOOL AT ALL. It floored me how, once I began having to teach middle level math to my kids, I had to teach it to myself first. Fractions and decimals were never part of my mathematical lexicon - EVER - because an educational fad derailed my learning process in my middle grade years. 

Take any standardized test - anywhere. The whole thing is full of fractions and decimals. If you don't learn them, you don't do well on any standardized test. I understand algebra well because I had some great algebra teachers in high school, yet if the algebra had fractional values anywhere at all, I was a big FAIL.

The Open Classroom concept came from Britian - bastion of Constructivist education - and was, of course, embraced by the educational Constructivists/Progressives in America. Without any real consideration of whether or not the process would work, it was foisted upon us unsuspecting students (and their tax paying parents) much to the educational detriment of our generation.

Now, the educational Progressives (unfortunately, most education is now Progressive in nature) have taken over yet again, and this generation's Open Classroom concept is Common Core. Though many states have fought CC and won - like here in Oklahoma - Constructivist math is becoming cemented in place in states all over the nation via large textbook publishers like McGraw-Hill, Pearson, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt etc., who have embraced Constructivist math and are publishing math books (like Everyday Math). 

I warned about this kind of thing - even during an interview with Dana Loesch for Glenn Beck. Here in Oklahoma, though we (ostensibly) have made Common Core illegal, I got a private message from a teacher friend the other day about English books that said,

Hey, Jenni. I am so irritated that I could spit nails. I just got back from a shindig thrown by the publisher HMH because Oklahoma is adopting language arts books next year. They were swearing up and down that their curriculum and books were not common core aligned. However, after a quick thumb through of the reading material, it was obvious to me that the only difference between the Oklahoma books and the Common Core books were that the words "Common Core" were not on the covers of the Oklahoma books. If this is the material we are going to give our students to read, what did we really accomplish by repealing Common Core? Do you have any thoughts or recommendations of other publishing companies that I can have my school look at? Thanks for your input.

Page after page of math worksheets from Constructivist/Progressive math books, being provided to classrooms of students by teachers trained in Construcitivst/Progressive math teaching, have been plastered across the internet showing the ridiculousness of Constructivist/Progressive math. Here is one below. The problem was 5x3. The boy wrote on his paper that 5x3 was essentially 5+5+5, yet he was docked a point because he didn't mention that it was also three, five times. So? That's worth a point? 

The next problem asks the child to construct an array describing 4x6. He does that in a 4 by 6 fashion. Again he's docked a point because he didn't also do the 6 by 4 array.

To be honest, this isn't really the worst of the ones I've seen. The one in this blog report is another that I've seen a number of times. The child is asked to estimate a number but then doesn't get the answer correct when she provides the EXACT answer and not a number rounded to the 10s place.

This stuff is ridiculous and will absolutely make kids frustrated enough to hate the whole mathematical process. 

The idea of Constructivist/Progressive math is that kids must know why they are getting the answer they record on their worksheet in order to be able to learn. The emphasis is on the WHY, not the HOW. Great. I think it's very important for kids to understand why math works. I teach my own kids that in their lessons. I do not, however, expect them to know the why as MORE IMPORTANT than the how, because that's dumb. You're not going to return change to someone at a cash register where you get your first job by explaining that you're subtracting what the customer gave you from the total owed and providing them change back by counting up that discrepancy in reverse. WHO CARES? The person you're giving the change to doesn't give a flip, they just want their money counted back to them so they know you didn't cheat them!

Last year, I put together a video explaining the differences between Constructivist/Progressive education and Traditional education. It's about 45 minutes, but I think it will help confused parents understand the differences among the two types of education and why 'Traditional' education is better, hands down - especially for math.

The bottom line is this: math requires SPECIFIC knowledge of SPECIFIC concepts. Math is a language and in order to speak the language you have to memorize its terminology. Can you imagine speaking Spanish by - instead of memorizing the vocabulary - explaining what every Spanish word means? No one would ever converse! Every student must know 6x5 is 30. Yes, it's good to know why, but why isn't going to solve a problem on an exam, rote memory of the equation 6x5=30 will accomplish that. Math is black and white - 6x5=30 upside down, on the moon or in Zanzabar - that will NEVER change. 

Educational fads like Open Classroom and Common Core are the definition of fadish; "a practice or interest followed for a time with exaggerated zeal :  craze. Educational fads are destroying the ability of our kids to become educated. Traditional methods work. We need to stop spending educational time and resources re-inventing the wheel. If your child's school is using Common Core/Constructivist/Progressive math books, either get them a traditional math tutor after school, or TAKE THEM OUT AND SCHOOL THEM AT HOME. Math is not an experiment. Traditional math is a time-honored, time-tested way to provide students the tools they need to gain knowledge and lead successful lives. Period.

Schools As Institutions of Democracy? Whose Democracy?

I read an article today - I couldn't help it, the title begged me - called "Why Schools Must Talk About Trayvon Martin".  I had to find out why tax dollar supported public schools MUST talk about Trayvon Martin. 

This was a blog on EdWeek, written by a special education teacher in Boston and his thesis was that since schools are supposed to be institutions FOR democracy, we should be having "contentious conversation" because this discussion should ameliorate societal ills.

Perhaps this is why the National Social Studies Standards (now Oklahoma's own Oklahoma Academic Standards) calls America a Constitutional Democracy instead of the Republic it really is.

The whole blog smacked of John Dewey - the Father of Progressive Education - who believed that - among other things - schools were little microcosms of the world and that we could just change all of society by keeping kids in school and away from their parents.

I simply could not let the post go without commenting, and this is what I said:

"The questions around promoting contentious conversations are messy. We raise schools up as institutions for democracy, even when they have historically fallen short of this ideal when it comes to persistent social ills, such as segregation, student dropout rates, poverty, and school violence."

Oh I totally agree. That's why I would immediately institute a conversation about Christianity and its contributions to America in my classroom - certainly a 'contentious' topic by any real examination of world views today.

And, though I'm a Christian - don't worry - I can handle the topic evenhandedly, and make sure all religions - including atheism - are also discussed. There will be nothing to worry about - I'm a teacher - I can handle it.

Since classrooms are really extensions of the great social experiment that is 'democracy', there is no reason this topic shouldn't be discussed in depth.

Who is the "we" that believes in raising up schools as "institutions for democracy"? I'm a conservative and I certainly don't believe that. I expect schools to teach the absolute BASICS and let parents - who are the experts in raising their own children - do all the "contentious" stuff at home.

Yes, there are a lot of 'throw away' kids out there today and most are produced by the very system that claims to help them. Many may not have support systems outside of school, but schools are not - and were never meant to be - a place to "cure social ills". That was historically the role of the church.

I always find it curious that the people who seem to scream the loudest about democracy (and the First Amendment), are the last to really practice it. I wonder if that's why people "often feel uneasy about such dialogues" in schools?

As a past public school educator and now a home educator, I think it IMPERATIVE to confront this nonsense when and where we see it.

Public school's lack of results today is simply an extension of Dewey's failed prescription for public schooling.  How can I say "failed"?  Well, let's look at the observable evidence.  Since the 1970's SAT scores have been falling. 

College Board National Report on 1996 College Bound Seniors - http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/CBS%2096%20National.PDF

 

Progressive education began under Dewey in the late 20's and has been churning out teachers from Dewey-seeded teacher colleges since that time.  In fact, the liberal bend of universities is well documented, particularly by David Horowitz.

When I speak, I often refer to a section in the book "To Kill A Mockingbird" where Scout gives an account of the new teacher (she has red nails and high heels) and how she told Atticus to stop letting her read from the Wall Street Journal because she was now in charge of Scout's education and she would take care of that in class.  Scout then goes on to regale the reader with her frustration that this "Dewey Decimal System" of education as Jem called it, forces her to create project after project while everyone she ever knows - like Jem and her dad - were smart because they read books - something she itches to do over 'projects'.  That story was to have taken place in the 1930's - as Dewey's legion were crisscrossing America to take root in primary and secondary schools from cities to sleepy rural towns.

If this has been going on since the 30's, what in the world would it be like today?  Just what we're seeing - Common Core and all!

Attack of the 50-Foot History Teacher

 

I read the most fantastic, truly enlightening (in a, “I can’t believe they really just came fully out of the liberal closet” way) article recently, entitled, “Response: Ways To Deal With ‘History Myths’ In the Classroom" by an author named Larry Ferlazzo. 

After the first election of Barack Obama as president of the United States, I came to the sudden conclusion that America must be educating our youth improperly or incompletely in US History to have so many voters not know what a “Marxist” was and/or how to spot one.  Consequently, I began doing research in US History education in Oklahoma.  What I found startled me enough to co-found an organization (Restore Oklahoma Public Education) dedicated to exposing public education in our state.

“Response” has the dubious honor of containing nearly every category of leftist education drivel I have studied and/or cataloged over the last four years.  After reading this article, I thought it might be helpful to point out to readers a few of the ways it is disingenuous.  Over the years, I've seen many a parent/voter/taxpayer become simply mesmerized by all the rhetoric education 'experts' bloviate by the bucketfuls in order to finance and perpetuate their tree-hugging, Dewey-loving, social-justice-spreading dismantling of America.   People want the truth about education issues, but like deer in the headlights of a Mac truck, they can't figure out how to get past the loud, scary noise to find it.

Toward this end, I have highlighted some of the more astonishing passages from this article.  As you will note, the depths of self-delusion these people have plumbed to truly believe they are NOT perpetuating history myths themselves is quite fascinating.  In fact, that is the most laughable part of this whole, sad treatise.  “NO, do NOT perpetuate history myths”, the author says.  The only problem with their logic is that apparently the only myths present in the system are those stemming from a conservative (accurate/non-PC) viewpoint.  How do I know?  

Let’s deconstruct Mr. Bizarro’s, oops, I mean Ferlazzo’s article.  To do so, I will provide actual quotes from his writing followed by what I will call a MYTH BUSTER ALERT (MBA).  Hopefully, this will draw attention to the inconsistencies in Mr. Ferlazzo’s philosophies - or at least create a very stark outline of liberal (progressive) education ideals.

Mr. Ferlazzo begins innocently enough by asking the question, 

“What history myths are being perpetuated by textbooks that you attempt to break down/challenge in your classroom? How do you do that”

To answer, the writer steers his reader to some resources he insists can combat this phenomenon:

The Best Teacher Resource Sites For Social Justice Issues, The Best Resources For Teaching "What If?" History Lessons and History materials he uses in his IB (International Baccalaureate) “theory of knowledge” class.  

MBA:  The term Social Justice is a very liberal philosophy of teaching in which "educators may employ social justice instruction to promote unity on campus, as well as mitigate boundaries to the general curriculum. These boundaries often include race, class, ability, language, appearance, sexuality, and gender." Gosh and golly – no room for political views here!

MBA:  The IB curricula are written by UNESCO, the education arm of the UN.  ROPE has studied the IB curricula and it’s penchant for ‘educating for sustainable development’.  Yes, if you know what Agenda 21 is, then UNESCO’s your partner to get ‘er done!  Let the IB curriculum educate children on how to implement Agenda 21 in a city/county/state/country near you!  UNESCO will also help everyone everywhere implement the Common Core (which is both ‘core’ and ‘common’ and decidedly UnAmerican).

Mr. Ferlazzo goes on from there, to introduce three people that will tell you (the US History teacher) how to avoid bringing history myths into the classroom.   

The first one is Stephen Lazar.  Here is a brief CV afforded by the author,

Stephen Lazar, a National Board Certified Social Studies teacher, is co-founder of Harvest Collegiate High School in New York City where he teaches students Social Studies and English, is Assessment Coordinator, and Union Chapter Leader. Over the past two years, Lazar worked with Social Studies teachers across NYC and the nation to support to support inquiry-based instruction, project-based learning, and Common Core implementation. He is a member of the Teacher Leaders Network.

MBA:  Stephen Lazar is a Union Leader (who could forget the many colorful antics of the NEA whose reading list containing Saul Alinsky drew enough fire for them to remove from their site his “Rules For Radicals” as suggested reading) that promotes the Common Core and teaches at a high school employing the following philosophy, "Underlying all of our Habits is recognition of fundamental human dignity, expressed in the unwavering core values of Commitment to Peace, Commitment to Diversity and Commitment to Growth." Can you find anything but liberal buzz words in that definition?  In addition, this is an 'experiential' high school - in other words, very indicative of the John Dewey (Marxist/Socialist) teaching style responsible for much of the education ‘reform’ programs of today and the associated decline of public education.

Mr. Lazar gives himself away immediately:

When I became a teacher a decade ago, I entered the classroom equipped with James Loewen's Lies My Teacher Told Me and Howard Zinn's A People's History of the United States in the other. I was convinced that the largest problem with history education was the absence of certain stories or perspectives from our textbooks. I saw myself as a myth-buster, ready to challenge students' preconceived notions of Columbus as hero or John Brown as insane terrorist.

MBA:  Stephen Lazar actually has the unmitigated gal to turn us ALL toward Howard Zinn – a known Marxist - as a method for DISPENSING historical myth in the classroom.  Truly, this is laughable.  Get a load of this Cap Times (progressive) blog where the writer laments President Obama not invoking the name of Howard Zinn during his inauguration.  After all, the great One should recognize ‘real’ American history and be unafraid and unapologetic about delivering that to the American people.  Really.

Ferlazzo then goes on to a narrative about Rosa Parks, which as a Biology major, I’ll leave for debunking by some historical truth-teller to be named later.

Our next author to respond is ReLeah Cossett Lent.  We’re told she is an international literacy consultant and ASCD author of a book called, Overcoming Textbook Fatigue: 21st Century Tools to Revitalize Teaching and Learning:  Just the title of this book sounds exactly like every John Dewey notion in black and white – kids get bored listening to a teacher, kids need to be active doing projects in order to learn and we can’t really have them in a musty old textbook when they can learn so much from each other!  

MBA:  When I went to look up her book, I found it on the ASCD website.  ASCD stands for Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development.  There is a chapter in every state and while Oklahoma’s chapter didn’t put up any obvious red flags, the ASCD full site sure did.  Again, we find here a very progressive (Dewey) education philosophy – ‘whole child’, 21^st Century Skills (very Dewey), ‘health and learning’(page 5).

Ms. Cossett Lent says, 

“Who can know all of the inaccuracies that history textbooks may contain? Experts in one historical area or another often are dismayed at the simplistic, sometimes misleading information presented in textbooks. Simple narratives that distill complex events into a nice story, lists of facts devoid of any emotional underpinning, or unintended bias resulting from the selection of, say, one photograph over another can skew readers' understanding of historical events, perhaps for a lifetime.“

Well goodness!  Who in the world would want kids studying lists of facts?  Facts are certainly politicized mythology, right?

Now, here comes my FAVORITE contributor to the article – Bill Bigelow!  Bill, as we find out from our author, is the curriculum editor of Rethinking Schools magazine.  He also co-directs the online Zinn Education Project, which provides free curriculum materials to help teachers "teach outside the textbook."

MBA:  Ok, I know, Zinn again.  But, here’s a tasty morsel…one of the articles our editor has put on the front page of the Rethinking Schools website is entitled, “Lessons in Social Justice Unionism – An Interview with Chicago Teachers Union President Karen Lewis”.  Yes, absolutely, NO politics there and certainly, there can be ZERO mythology in a story with that title I feel certain.

Of course, his treatise is eye-poppingly progressive!  You really must go to the original article and read the entire thing – unless you’re a conservative with a heart condition and then, I just sincerely don’t recommend the read as it could be hazardous to your health.

Here are a couple of lines to illustrate my point:

And, as Bill McKibben pointed out recently in a remarkable article in Rolling Stone magazine, "Global Warming's Terrifying New Math," from a mathematical standpoint, it is demonstrably impossible to prevent the climate from spinning out of control with unimaginably horrible consequences, if we burn the fossil fuels, including coal, that energy corporations are in the process of exploiting and selling.

When it comes to teaching about what matters in the world, teachers should not rely on textbooks published by enormous corporations that profit from--and in many cases, create--our most dire environmental and social crises. We need to work together through our unions, professional associations, school communities, and activist organizations to build a curriculum of conscience, one that addresses the most significant challenges facing humanity. As June Jordan wrote in her "Poem for South African Women," "We are the ones we have been waiting for."

 Certainly, no mythology present in any of that.

 At the end of the article, Mr. Ferlazzo mentions that quite a few people left responses to his question on The Zinn Education Project's Facebook page.

He then includes a few:

Max Castillo:

That indigenous, Mesoamerican, aboriginal civilizations became civilized through the conquering and interactions with European civilizations. We need to teach our students to value our indigenous cultures and heritage as early as possible.

Dennis Shaffner:

Ask students to question the bias in any textbook: easy in art history if woman artists are omitted.

MBA:  Seriously?  That's too easy to waste the keystrokes.  If you can't see those for yourself, there is most probably no saving you from yourself.

Truly, this situation MUST be seen as THE integral problem with America today - history teachers teaching mythological history aligned fully and completely with their narcissistic, thoughtless worldviews completely ignorant of the history they suggest they know.  How else can you explain the slide of a once-great Republic into the entitlement abyss of socialism? And so I will end with two applicable quotes from Winston Churchill as food for thought - though I’m almost certain there are zero public school graduates under 30 who know who this is.  

Study history, study history. In history lies all the secrets of statecraft.    

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy, its inherent virtue is the equal sharing of misery.

How do you get a REPUBLICAN to push a LIBERAL EDUCATION AGENDA?

I wish I had written this, alas, I have not. This is from Suzie Schnell, in Utah. It is absolutely fabulous and I hope you spread it far and wide. She has single-handedly identified why it is that REPUBLICANS are falling IN DROVES for a LIBERAL education agenda! Please, again, post, re-post and send to any legislators to which you feel this could apply!

If you are a Progressive Educator or leader on the National/Federal level and want to get your Education Agenda through quickly to as many states as possible,

you need the support of conservative Republicans. 

So...

1. You push this agenda through individual "states" instead of at the "federal" level because conservatives like state's rights. 

2. You appeal to their desire for "higher standards" because conservatives believe in an educated populace.

3. You talk about modernizing schools with the latest technology and equipment.

4. You partner with private institutions since it appeals to their sense of capitalism and free enterprise.

5. You talk about college and jobs because this is foremost on their minds in a failing economy with failing schools.

6. You hold national conferences to teach these ideas to state and local school boards and get them to buy into it. You give them all the tools they need to bring this into their own states. You start this process years before you actually bring it into the public's view and then you push it through legislation quickly because "Education is in a crisis". 

7. You write the national standards, assessments and curriculum through gov't partnered organizations so it doesn't seem like the govt is writing them directly. After all, you know it's illegal for the federal government to do much of it so you let huge corporations like the Bill Gates Foundation do it for them and fund it. 

8. You help each State Office of Education write their own bills for implementing this plan by giving them model legislation so all states are coming up with the same laws throughout the land, using the same language, but think they are being independent. The public will believe that each state wrote them independently of the others.

9. You advertise this as a Governor's and State's program to the general public so no one looks behind the curtain.

10. You get as many Republican and conservative legislators and governors to sign on to your agenda using these key words and phrases of "higher standards" and "state initiated", but the best part is that conservatives won't know till it's too late that they are setting up the foundation for a federal takeover of education. Families and citizens don't question these conservative legislators, but trust they are only after state's rights and what is good for the children. Without realizing it, these good legislators have enacted laws to usher in this progressive agenda.

Problems:

1. This whole idea was set up by the Federal Gov't, USOE and dangerous national interests who are working together, like the Bill Gates Foundation, Pearson, Hewlett Foundation and other large private interests set on making billions by partnering with the federal govt, states and local districts for a guaranteed income for years. These Public Private Partnerships (PPP) threaten not only local control, but also real free enterprise for smaller businesses that have not been chosen by the govt for these contracts. What the Federal Gov't cannot legally do, and visa versa, the other partner can accomplish. We have been tricked into thinking this is a locally grown program in each state using local textbook companies, etc.

 In Utah, for example, the Dept of Ed has partnered with BYU's McKay School of Education to come up with online curriculum for the state. They are completely funded by the Hewlett Foundation (http://www.hewlett.org/), a global environmentalist and pro-population control organization based in the Bay Area of California, to write online textbooks for the entire state. Math and Science texts will be coming from C K Foundation (http://about.ck12.org/about/), another Bay Area, CA company which highlights their goals of teaching environmentalism, climate change, and global warming in their Probability and Statistics chapter featured on the home page.

2. The next phase in this federal takeover process is to develop Century 21 Community Schools (http://www.communityschools.org/) which will invite more Public Private Partnerships (PPP). Big corporations contract with federal, state and local school entities to go into these community schools full time, 6-7 days a week, and provide services of free healthcare and dental, PreK-12 education, job placement programs, recreation, daycare, 3 meals a day and every service you can think of for the entire family. This has already started in Ogden School District and Ogden's plan is to make every school in it's district a full service community school. Arne Duncan speaks a lot about this plan and thousands of these schools are popping up all over the nation. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DuO_nB7WY9w) All of this data (healthcare, psychiatry records, academic scores, meals, recreation, etc) will be a part of the state and national data base because these families go to a one-stop community center with every amenity they need. No need to go home or church or extended family. 

3. Right now, we're just talking about collecting school records from Pre-K to college to career. That's bad enough. But by setting up extensive data collecting technology, we are easily setting ourselves up for the next step of education when full-service 21st Century Schools will be the growing phenomenon and all that data from all those extra-curricular programs will be included because all these services will be housed together in one place.

4. FERPA, the 1974 Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, which protects your children's school records from being seen by anyone but local school officials and parents, has now been changed as of Jan 2012. State and local education authorities are now allowed to share data with other government agencies that are not under their direct control, as long as those other agencies are involved in federal or state supported education programs. http://www.forumfyi.org/files/First_Look_FERPA.pdf. Arne Duncan said in a 2009 speech that he would "push states" into sharing student's private information with research firms.

5. Utah State Office of Education has chosen global leader, Pearson, to set up the "federally funded" data collecting technology we need to implement longitudinal data systems to collect massive and complicated data from our schools. http://www.redorbit.com/news/technology/1999361/utah_state_office_of_education_partners_with_pearson_for_new/

Please look beyond just the phrases "Common Core", "higher standards", and "state-led program" and compare what is really going on. See how Utah is implementing Obama's National Education Goals. Look to see what these bills in Utah are setting up in the bigger scheme of things for the future.

Simple, local and parent-centered are the answers. We must protect our local control of education, putting parents first in the choices they make for their own children.

Thoughtfully,

Susie Schnell

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.