Missouri Mom Discovers Common Core Can Erode First Amendment Rights

I received this from Missouri mom Stacy Shore on our Truth in Education email alert system.

This is absolutely worth spreading far and wide.  I know I don't have to tell anyone reading this blog that you can't POSSIBLY research ANY topic if you only have a specific parameter in which to search.  This is truly the kind of thing I think opponents of the Common Core are all afraid of.  

After Stacy's story, please continue reading to find what Mary Byrne, (an education consultant with a doctorate in education - she's also a mom and a grandmom who sees defense of liberty in this nation an avocation) says about the term "Academic Freedom" - it's an EYE OPENER! 

STACY'S STORY: 

My daughter told me a story a few weeks ago about doing a research paper for one of her classes this past Spring.  (She was a freshman at the time).   She told me that it was particularly difficult to do since she had to use the "common core approved" search engine "SIRS" for 4 of her 6 sources as required by her teacher. I found this to be very troubling, as did she since she said it was almost impossible to support her point of view by being forced to use that search engine to do her research.  

She said that at the top of the search engine site it shows a "Common Core Approved" banner.  

So, I found this information on SIRS:

Targeted resources for student research;

SIRS Knowledge Source (SKS) provides a portal to relevant, credible information carefully hand-selected by our SIRS editorial staff. When students use SKS, they receive best-of content designed to support student research, study, and homework in key curricula subjects. Databases cross-searchable within SKS will vary based on subscription. SIRS Knowledge Source offers National, State, Province and Common Core Standards aligned to content.

Use SKS to search these SIRS resources at once, or to link to each SIRS collection:

o    SIRS® Issues Researcher—Covering the pros and cons Leading Issues most studied and debated by students

o    SIRS® Government Reporter—Historic and Government Documents, Directories and Almanacs

o    SIRS® Renaissance—Current perspectives on the arts and humanities

SIRS® WebSelect—Collection of editorially-selected reliable and credible educational website covering all curriculum topics

You will find this web site here

"Hand selected" and "Credible"? How do we know something is credible that has been hand selected?  Those ideas are some that really bother me in this context. Research should not be relegated to "Common Core Approved".

We must put a stop to this madness.  When our children are not free to do research from any credible source they choose in order to get a grade, yet they are directed to a site where the message can be controlled in order to indoctrinate we have real problems. 

Okay, now read Mary Byrne's discussion on Academic Freedom: 

It looks like evidence of government control of information and freedom of speech for legislators to know about.  You may be interested in some information about academic freedom that refers to control of research as creation of a police state. Hmmmmm:

Academic freedom was first introduced as a judicial term of art (a term with a specific legal meaning) by Supreme Court Justice william o. douglas. In Adler v. Board of Education of City of New York, 342 U.S. 485, 72 S. Ct. 380, 96 L. Ed. 517 (1952), the Supreme Court upheld a New York law (N.Y. Civ. Service Law § 12-a) that prohibited employment of teachers in public institutions if they were members of "subversive organizations." In a scathing dissent joined by Justice hugo l. black, Douglas argued that such legislation created a police state and ran contrary to the First Amendment guarantee of free speech.

Justice Douglas equated academic freedom with the pursuit of truth. If academic freedom is the pursuit of truth and is protected by the First Amendment, reasoned Douglas, then the New York law should be struck down because it produced standardized thought. According to Douglas's dissent, the New York law created an academic atmosphere concerned not with intellectual stimulation but with such questions as "Why was the history teacher so openly hostile to Franco's Spain? Who heard overtones of revolution in the English teacher's discussion of The Grapes of Wrath? and What was behind the praise of Soviet progress in metallurgy in the chemistry class?" Douglas conceded that the public school systems need not become "cells for Communist activities," but he reminded the court that the Framers of the Constitution "knew the strength that comes when the mind is free."

ROPE has said time and again that Common Core is MORE THAN STANDARDS.  We have said time and time again that this is about creating FUNDAMENTAL CHANGE IN AMERICA.  I think this article is a really great place to go to get an overall idea of how far Arne Duncan thinks America needs to go.

How Do You Solve The Problem Of Dr. Barresi?

Superintendent Janet Barresi is making daily news of late.  Today we read, "Authors dispute claim by Barresi".  

Apparently Dr. Barresi spoke to the Tulsa County Republican Women's Luncheon and told attendees that the authors of the study which debunked the state's A-F grading system had recanted. 

One of the attendees, Jenny Hudspeth, a member of the Tulsa Area Parents Legislative Action Committee (PLAC) says, 

"She also said she would like an apology from the authors with as much fanfare as the release of the report."

Notice the force of that statement.  Oftentimes, those who wish to mislead use hubris to elicit an "appeal to authority" response in listeners:  facts are replaced by an emotional statement, which, when provided by an authority figure, creates a sense of urgency - an appeal to the listener for solidarity.

An abuse of the public trust such as this is bad enough, but once caught, Dr. Barresi throws Assistant Superintendent Meridyth McBee under the bus by saying her remarks were the result of a misunderstanding between herself and McBee - another apparent falsehood.

Moreover and possibly more interesting in the Tulsa World article, was the comment made by Patrick Forsyth, one of the A-F critque researchers,

"I just think that there isn't anyone at the state Department (of Education) who can really understand the scope of the critique," he said. "From what was reported to me, the superintendent is just essentially dismissive of the report."

ROPE was able to read and digest the report and produce an informed opinion echoing the thesis of the researchers.

Interestingly, ROPE has had the exact experience described by Dr. Forsyth.

In 2011, Representative Sally Kern - the only Oklahoma State legislator to ever really question the Common Core State Standards initiative - was granted an Interim study before the House Education Committee on the issue.  Because the Heritage Foundation is among the strongest critics of the CCSS, Lindsey Burke, a Heritage Expert, came to Oklahoma to testify before the few legislators that attended the study.  ROPE also gave a presentation to the committee based on our several years of research on the issue.

Dr. Barresi was given the opportunity to make her case for the CCSS directly after we presented our case against the initiative.  We have video encompassing the entire study.  In her initial remarks, Dr. Barresi told the committee,

"We are all entitled to our own opinions.  We are NOT entitled to our own facts." 

It was obvious to nearly all in attendance, that Dr. Barresi was disparaging our research - actual research made up from over 100 different citations to government websites and other papers and articles (that has now been read and cited thousands of times).

During the study, Dr. Barresi also made disparaging remarks to Representative Kern, who then asked Dr. Barresi to supply the legislature with a written summation to include specific ways in which the Heritage Foundation and ROPE were wrong in our presentations.

The response took many weeks and inquiries from Representative Kern's office to make it's way to her desk.  Once produced, the 'report' was found to be, unarguably, the most unenlightened, uninformed piece of writing (research?) anyone could read.  It was clear from the first sentence that Dr. Barresi's staff had simply gone onto the Common Core website, lifted quote after quote on the initiative and placed them into a quickly-worded response - as though they believed they were never actually going to be expected to produce the promised rebuttal.  There was no indication of research or information gleaned from sources other than those connected to the CCSS.  It was truly nothing more than an opinion piece which appeared as more of a marketing exercise than a true literature survey or formal response of any kind.

In fact, we were so dismayed by the comments, ROPE wrote a statement in response.

All this information should be troubling as it shows clearly a pattern in which the Oklahoma Department of Education under the leadership of Janet Barresi, neither understands nor appreciates informed opinion and/or the tenets of basic research.  How can a department of "education" exist in this realm?

Clearly it can not.  Clearly, this kind of administration must seek outside assistance for creation and support of educational programming and initiatives - as we have seen with the OSDE and the Foundation for Educational Excellence - because there is apparently not enough utilized expertise in the Department to creatively attack educational issues on a state (local) basis.

Republicans must wake up.  Instead of swallowing every line of every candidate and/or elected official with an "R" behind their name, hook line and sinker, we must do more.  We must SEEK TRUTH.

Ronald Reagan uttered the the 11th Commandment in 1966, "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican."  The Republican Party has been unable or unwilling to let go of that thought since, and it has completely ruined our Party.  Though both Democrat and Republican parties have been infiltrated by Progressives bent on destroying this country from inside by increasing government and government regulation of American lives at every turn, much of the Republican establishment remains firmly rooted in 1966, bowing at the alter of Reagan while the world crashes down around us (INCALCULABLE NATIONAL DEBT FOR EXAMPLE?)

I loved Ronald Reagan - I perceived him as a father figure that must have been the sweetest soul to ever have walked the planet.  He was the first president for whom I cast a vote.  You can not tell me he would be pleased with the Republican Party today - there is nothing in his memoirs that would suggest such a thought.  You can not tell me he would sit idly by while Republican Progressives destroyed the Party's base - by undermining it's long-held tenets of smaller government, lower taxes and personal freedom.

Wake up REPUBLICANS.  WAKE UP!  Your Party is no longer the Party of Reagan and if we don't start making those who wear an "R" beside their name accountable to the platform of its grass roots, we will lose our Party and our Country!  Let us with boldness declare the truth.  Let us with boldness stand for our principles.  Let us with boldness hold accountable those who would undermine our ethics and our beliefs and let us start NOW.