Common Core Education And More About Federal Government Control

[Ross]

[Ross]

(This article brings to mind the statement, "Either resign or be fired" doesn't it? Have we seen this happen in the Elk County School Districts? I'm certain we have, but there is no way to prove it, is there? It is not restricted to sex predators, there are other situations that could bring out this statement, ""Either resign or be fired". But that happens behind closed doors doesn't it? Where is the leadership action, where is the protection of children in such situations, where is the honesty? The person offered such a choice can then simply move on and continue undesirable actions or activity within other school districts.  No accusations here, just food for thought something to consider. Are the school Systems protecting children with the use of such action or protecting themselves and the teacher?)

Research and publish 10 major investigative stories on unions protecting sex predators in schools.


There's been an explosion of K-12 teachers being arrested for molesting students in recent years. Some experts are now calling it an "epidemic."

What's less known, but equally sickening, is the role played by teachers unions to help their members cover up their sex crimes and maintain their jobs, or secure letters of recommendation so they can get other teaching jobs.

How can this happen?

It typically costs school districts six figures in legal costs to fire tenured teachers, regardless of their wrongdoing. Some school officials would rather sweep the problem under the rug than pay that amount.

Education Action Group Foundation, a tax-deductible nonprofit, is prepared to research and publish 10 investigative stories on this shameful practice, so the nation can understand how the unions often prioritize the interests of members over the safety of students.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/eagnews/exposing-teachers-union-role-in-protecting-sex-pre?ref=card

[Ross]

Why you should read this!
From the article:
CCSS is designed for the masses,
not the elite.
Elite schools do not adopt CCSS,
and that ought to be a real wake-up call
for those who view CCSS as
Saving American Education.

If CCSS is so great,
why are the prestigious schools
not in the media
promoting its adoption?

Common Core Is
Designed to Drive
Your Local Curriculum

Mercedes Schneider 
Public school teacher, education activist, PhD


Posted:  11/10/2014 10:52 am EST    Updated:  11/10/2014 10:59 am EST

Proponents of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) like to promote the idea that CCSS is "not a curriculum." The CCSS website further states the disjointed idea that local districts somehow retain true freedom over what is taught in the classroom.

This is a lie.

CCSS is a laundered curriculum. That is, in order for schools to truly adhere to CCSS, classroom materials must be brought into line with CCSS. Even though CCSS might not do so directly, it requires as much of those purporting adherence to CCSS.

Moreover, the ever-looming, very-high-stakes, CCSS-aligned tests seal the curricular lock-in deal.

CCSS is designed for the masses, not the elite. Elite schools do not adopt CCSS, and that ought to be a real wake-up call for those who view CCSS as Saving American Education.

If CCSS is so great, why are the prestigious schools not in the media promoting its adoption?

Catch the clue, America. In conjunction with CCSS, the term "high standards" might as well be followed by TM.


CCSS ELA Is New Criticism

CCSS ELA emphasizes New Criticism literary analysis, which excludes moving beyond the text itself in deriving meaning from a text. No historical context considered in understanding a text. No reader experience tied to understanding a text.

This type of "interpretation" seriously limits critical thought and pigeon-holes cross-curricular instruction.

CCSS ELA tells the masses, "Consider the text in isolation."

As an intelligent being, I have a really hard time being told that I must not exit a text in order to justify my understanding of it.

CCSS ELA disregards the con-text of texts.

CCSS ELA "lead architect" David Coleman prefers New Criticism. As such, Coleman prefers to stay "inside" of a text. Moreover, he has peddled a technique to do so, one that has gained national popularity for its coming from the mouth of non-teacher, edupreneur Coleman: close reading.

Teachers who follow CCSS ELA must disregard any instructional materials that direct students to consider context not mentioned inside of a text, whether historical context or (certainly) the reader's personal experience, in approaching a text.

It is one issue to utilize New Criticism sometimes and its alternative, Reader Response, other times. But CCSS lacks this balance.

Thus, CCSS ELA does indeed restrict curricular decisions, and not for the better.


CCSS Math Intended to Alter Math Instruction

As for CCSS math, the "chair" of the CCSS math development group, Phil Daro, has acknowledged purposely constructing CCSS math in a manner that alters the way math is taught. In other words, CCSS math was purposely created to drive local curricular decisions in Daro's et al. preferred direction.

Daro prefers conceptual math. I wrote a post on Daro-monitored Eureka Math. In the post, I include two videos of Daro speaking, one of which includes a demonstration of CCSS-aligned Eureka Math. The lesson is a conceptual math lesson. Students are speaking to an instructor, who is conducting a conceptual math lesson using post-it notes.

So, what is the issue with CCSS math?

CCSS math is a disjointed business that is arguably age inappropriate, especially for younger students but stops short of including calculus, the absence of which CCSS math "lead writer" Jason Zimba admits as limiting a student's chances at both STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) careers as well as admission into prestigious post-secondary institutions. So, as a pro-CCSS cover, schools are told that they can include calculus if they want to. However, that might mean trying to combine other math courses, such as algebra and geometry, in order to "make room" for calculus.

All of this will indeed drive curriculum and directly affect the so-called "freedom" that districts have over curriculum.

Also heavily dependent upon a student's abilities with language and expression, CCSS math arguably becomes a test of language skills and even personality. I know a number of individuals who have a penchant for math and who are not given to detailed explanations on the processes they followed for arriving at correct calculations. I did my doctoral work in stats with many of them. They chose to major in the theoretical, and I chose to major in application.

Many of them struggle with expressing their ideas in writing to those who are not as adept with numbers and at public speaking.

Are they to be classed as "not college and career ready" in math?


Those "Willing to Help" with CCSS-aligned Curriculum

And then, there are the education corporations such as Pearson counting on offering curriculum to go along with their CCSS high-stakes assessments. Districts desperate to make those high CCSS test scores in order to survive test-driven, state evaluation systems will bend to surrendering curriculum decisions to the creators of the high-stakes tests.

However, whether purchased or locally created, CCSS curriculum must follow the restrictions and problems introduced by CCSS itself.

Though it claims to be "internationally benchmarked," CCSS exists in no other country. It is at best an untested Frankenstein created in cut-and-paste fashion by taking qualities of other countries' education systems, compiling them, and declaring that This Will Work.

And why "benchmark?"

To beat the competition.

It does not make sense to emulate pieces of other education systems in an effort to somehow "beat" them. And it makes even less sense to forge ahead and tie local curricular decisions to unproven "higher" (TM) standards.

But there are a growing number of organizations willing to "help" teachers do just that. On my school email account, I receive each day a numerous emails from organizations offering to "help" me become "CCSS ready." On my personal email, I've had two emails come my way this week, one from the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), offering "rewriting textbooks for Common Core." I've written two posts (here and here) related to both "economically driven education" and NCEE director Marc Tucker, author of the infamous "Dear Hillary" letter, written in 1992 to Hillary Clinton. In it, Tucker posits that education should provide the means centralizing governmental control and, consequently, ending local control.

This is the man whose organization is "helping" teachers "rewrite textbooks for the Common Core." Pause and think about that.

Another email I received is from a nonprofit called EdReports. It has taken upon itself the role of publishing "Consumer Reports-style reviews of curricula and textbooks early next year."

Funded by major CCSS backers the Gates Foundation and Hewlett Foundation, EdReports is organizing "training sessions" to "help" teachers evaluate whether classroom materials are CCSS-aligned.

Both Gates and Hewlett want CCSS to drive the entire public education enterprise-- and that includes curriculum.

Motivations behind these "offers" to "help" teachers standardize public education behind CCSS range from "creepy ideological" to "fiscally opportunistic."

I think it's safe to assume that teachers and administrators nationwide are being inundated with such "offers to help" align their local classrooms to the Great and All Powerful CCSS.


CCSS: Intended to Standardize, Not Localize

So. If after reading this post, one still holds to the idea that CCSS seriously allows for local, curricular freedom, let me suggest that you perform another "close read" of this entry.

But do not hesitate to think for yourselves by drawing on your own experiences and knowledge of various education "reform" efforts that were supposedly The Answer and ended up not being so- not the least of which is the test-driven, punitive No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which now has most states "waiver-beholden" to CCSS and its assessments.

What a great addition to local curriculum such history makes.

Time to push back, local-level America.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/mercedes-schneider/common-core-is-designed-t_b_6130576.html

[Ross]

High School Seniors to be proud of.
A must read article for all adults,
especially parents of school children.
How negative attitudes have a positive effect.
People who only push Positive here is a wake up call for you from our children.
They say not Common Core Related but then why all new testing and testing for things not taught?
This should raise all sorts of questions shouldn't it?

Thousands
of high school students
skip
Colorado state tests

Reuters
By Daniel Wallis
7 hrs ago

A young protester holds up a sign referring to a controversy with the local school board in Broomfield, Colorado October 3, 2014.

Thousands of Denver-area high school students skipped state-mandated science and social studies tests this week and some staged street protests in the latest dispute to hit Colorado education since a flare-up over history curricula.

Nearly 1,900 high school seniors in Douglas County failed to take the newly introduced Colorado Measures of Academic Success tests, while about 1,500 pupils missed them in each of two other districts, Boulder Valley and Cherry Creek, media reports said.

Critics say the tests do not represent what is taught in state high schools, and that preparing for them wastes valuable classroom time and stretched resources.

"Practically no teachers or students were involved in the passing of this legislation," Chaya Wurman, one of the organizers and a senior at Boulder's Fairview High School, said in a video statement.

"We're being tested on things that we have never learned before, or haven't learned in years," she said, adding that many students believe they would not do well on the tests.

The debate, which is unrelated to the Common Core educational standards adopted by many states in 2010, comes after a dispute over an advanced placement history course that saw more than 1,000 students protest in another Denver-area school district in September.

That was part of a liberal-conservative fight over curricula, while this week's controversy is tied to the broader debate over the value of standardized testing.

Several students demonstrated in frigid conditions on Thursday outside Fairview High, some waving home-made placards reading "Education not standardization."

Students at 10 schools including Fairview wrote an open letter outlining their opposition, for instance that CMAS includes economics even though that topic is not a required subject for Colorado high school pupils.

Colorado Department of Education Commissioner Robert Hammond said he hears the concerns about the quantity and timing of tests, and wants the process to be better.

"I understand the frustration," Hammond said in a statement cited by Boulder's Daily Camera newspaper. "I am fully committed to evaluating how the testing goes and working with districts and policymakers to identify ways to improve."

A state task force is seeking public input on how to improve the system and is to report back in January.

[Ross]

Bill of Rights gets
disturbing makeover
in major classroom publication

November 14, 2014

TUCSON, Ariz. – Studies Weekly touts itself as "America's new textbook" and thinks it's a good thing that it has teachers in at least 30% of public and private schools in all fifty states subscribing to its weekly Common Core-aligned publications.

Parents who want their kids to accurately learn their freedoms as guaranteed in the Bill of Rights in the U.S. Constitution may have a different opinion, however.

According to Ednet online, the Studies Weekly periodical was first published by Studies Weekly president and founder Ed Rickers when he was a fourth grade teacher who did not have a traditional history textbook for his classroom in 1984.

Since then his Studies Weekly, written in a colorful newspaper format, has been expanded to include the subjects of social studies, science, health, character education, and math in both print and e-book versions and has a presence in over 30% of our nation's public and private schools.

Studies Weekly touts itself as a kid-friendly replacement for the dull, expensive adopted textbooks gathering dust on a shelf in the classroom. Subscriptions are under $6 a year for each subject.

Studies Weekly also sells the fact that it is Common Core-aligned and it has Common Core-aligned assessments, both written and online, that time-strapped teachers can use in their classrooms.  Why prepare for lessons and create tests, what teachers are paid to do, when you can buy the easy fix with Studies Weekly that does all that draining teacher duty stuff for you?

On the Social Studies Weekly website they claim:

"Studies Weekly... is a rigorous, exciting social studies curriculum that aligns to the state standards and the national Common Core State Standards...Studies Weekly includes writing prompts each week to assist teachers in meeting the new CCSS(Common Core State Standards) writing requirements of drawing evidence from texts and citing sources in grades 3-5."

The fourth grade version of Social Studies Weekly, when explaining freedom of religion enumerated in the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, reads, "...you are free to practice any part of your religion so long as it doesn't hurt other people."

Take a look for yourself:

Who will determine when practicing your religion reaches the level of "hurting other people"? According to Social Studies Weekly I guess if you hurt the feelings of an atheist by going to church that may just constitute hurting someone else.

With just a few words the 1st Amendment has been redefined for a fourth grader's impressionable mind perhaps reading it for the first time.

The establishment of religion clause in the 1st Amendment in the Bill of Rights in our Constitution actually reads, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof." What's wrong with just using the original wording?

If the original wording would have been used then kids would have known they were being duped, even in fourth grade.  Everything that kid learns about freedom of religion will be layered on this misleading first impression of the 1st Amendment.

The 2nd Amendment to our Constitution contained in the Bill of Rights reads, "A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed."
 

As you can see above, Social Studies Weekly couldn't leave the clarity of our Founder's words to chance.  They reinterpreted it to read, "When our Constitution was written, the right to keep a weapon was protected. Today, some people think that this right refers only to a local militia or National Guard.  Some people want to ban guns, hoping that will reduce crime."

A fourth grader's first experience with this politically twisted version of the 2nd Amendment would plant the seed that it is an antiquated idea written way back when the Constitution was written, you know, when there was a tyrant in charge of us abusing his power?  It obviously doesn't belong to current times it seems to suggest.

Social Studies Weekly also infers that "some people," or more likely they want to impart the idea that "most people," think the 2nd Amendment does not belong to individuals, but to a militia or National Guard.

Notice that Social Studies Weekly also attempts to implant the idea that crime surges when people have all that "right to bear arms" stuff, so let's get rid of guns so crime will go down.  That must mean that Chicago is the most peaceful, crime free city in the country since it has very restrictive gun laws. The facts bear out that just the opposite is true.

Again, this may be a fourth grader's first experience with reading the 2nd Amendment and already they have major misconceptions imparted by the "expert" source.

A major facet of the new Common Core way of writing, reading, and therefore thinking is that students are mandated to "cite evidence" from the text written by the chosen "experts" and not offer their own thinking or opinions. A fourth grader would have to cite the erroneous intent of the 1st and 2nd Amendment in his writing and on his tests and his grade would hang in the balance.

The teacher will make sure the student cites the chosen experts in the Studies Weekly because this skill will be required to be performed with precision on the Common Core tests connected to teacher evaluations and pay.

Textbook adoptions are usually done by a committee at the state, district, or school level where the curriculum/standards experts decide which textbooks fit the needs of their students.  Studies Weekly claims that a few states have approved the adoption of Studies Weekly but many have not.

Since Studies Weekly has a print and an e-version, which can be instantaneously updated, keeping up with the changes to the content in their newly adopted "textbooks" may prove difficult even if a state does officially adopt it.

Some teachers use Studies Weekly as a supplement to the textbook, while many others use it as a cheap textbook replacement. Studies Weekly, or a similar publication, may be the "expert text" that many kids will be required to cite from even though it was never approved to be used as a textbook.

Parents must check those cute, colorful little newspapers your kids are bringing home.  The devil may be in the details, or on the page about our Constitution.

http://eagnews.org/bill-of-rights-gets-disturbing-makeover-in-major-classroom-publication/

[Ross]

What is wrong with Today's Education?
This is a apart of it !

Islamic Indoctrination
REQUIRED for
Passing Grade at Maryland High School

November 26, 2014 By Clark Holmes

La Plata High School in Maryland requires History students to complete assignments and affirm that "There is no god but Allah" and the other Five Pillars of Islam.

They are required to write that the prophet Muhammad was visited by the Angel Gabriel and preached that there is only one true god, who is Allah, that Mohammad is the messenger of Allah, and that the Qur'an is holy text.

Assignments also require young women to fill in the following sentences:

"Men are the managers of the affairs of women"

"Righteous women are therefore obedient."

When John Wood discovered his daughter was being forced to repeat the religious tenants of Islam as part of her World History assignments and accept such propaganda and indoctrination, he was outraged. He unsuccessfully attempted to contact the school by phone to voice his objections.

Wood witnessed firsthand the destruction caused in the name of Allah and believes Islam is not "a religion of peace." He served in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, and lost friends in that service. He also responded as a firefighter to the smoldering Pentagon on 9/11. Wood refused to allow La Plata High School to subject his daughter to Islamic indoctrination, despite threatened academic consequences.

The vice principal of La Plata High indicated that Wood's daughter, and 11th grader with college aspirations, would receive zeroes on the assignments on Islam if she didn't complete them. Wood asked why the religion of Islam could be taught in schools when schools are prohibited from teaching the religion of Christianity. The school has refused to allow an alternative assignment.

John Wood and his daughter have stood for their ground and not retreated. His daughter has received a failing grade in her World History class.

Institutional Power Play
The school's principal, in an unnecessary display of power issued a written "No Trespass" notice, which denied Wood, a former Marine who defended the country including the principal and staff, access to school grounds.

The school's actions dishonor John Wood's service, and the service of all Armed Forces,
men and women, who defend our nation against Islamic violence.

Watch the Video Report: you will have to got to the link:

http://viral.buzz/maryland-high-school-requires-islamic-indoctrination-for-passing-grade/

[redcliffsw]

How about the Keynesian economics?  It's taught and promoted by the government schools.  Of course, that's OK too and mighty fine with Obama and the Republicans. 



   

[Ross]

The Tea Party asked
2 hrs ·ago when they posted this link on facebook:
Should American History and Civics be required teaching in all public schools or should new Common Core guidelines take over?

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Nine States Consider Making High Schoolers Pass Citizenship Tests

December 4, 2014 By Greg Campbell

For decades, the federal Department of Educated has placed a low priority on the importance of teaching U.S. history and civics. The cooperation with far-left teachers unions, the federalized education system in the U.S. has restricted the teaching of topics that will alert future generations to the dangers of collectivist ideologies and restrictive government.

After all, a young adult who does not understand the Constitution and it's foundation in enlightenment thinking- that our rights are derived from God and guaranteed by government- is likely to shrug-off such usurpations and totalitarian abuses like executive amnesty edicts, unconstitutional gun laws and radicalized bureaucracies like Eric Holder's so-called Department of Justice.

Don't take my word for it; even the architect of Obamacare has proudly noted that the Obama Administration relied on an easily-duped, "stupid" American populace to enact the socialized medicine monstrosity.

Now, a nonprofit education group is calling for American high-schoolers to be required to pass the same citizenship test given to immigrants...

You know, when waiting in line and going through the legal immigration process mattered...

The Daily Signal reports:
The Civics Education Initiative, an Arizona-based non-profit group, is pushing for legislation in Arizona, Louisiana, Missouri, New Mexico,  North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota and Utah that would require all high school students to pass the same test that immigrants applying for U.S. citizenship must pass. The test includes questions about U.S. history and government and the Constitution.

There's reason to believe too many Americans aren't getting enough of a civics education these days.

According to the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania, just one-third of Americans can name all three branches of the federal government. More alarming is the fact that another third can't name even a single branch.

Only 13 percent of Americans knew that the Constitution was signed in 1787. Only 15 percent were able to correctly identify John Roberts as the chief justice of the Supreme Court. But fear not, people aren't completely ignorant:  Nearly twice as many were able to identify Randy Jackson as an American Idol judge.

Civics education has been placed largely on the backburner in American public schools as the focus of curriculum has shifted more toward science, technology, engineering and math to prepare students for the technology-based economy. STEM education is no doubt important: after, all Americans need to be properly trained to compete in the global economy. But by neglecting civics education, we undermine citizens' sense of what it means to be an American and weaken the foundations of our society.

Let's be fair; while we still retain, in theory, three distinctly separate branches of government, one can forgive the confusion of graduating students. After all, when a president operates as a legislator and an executive, are there, in fact, separate branches in place?

Still, the point remains that if America is going to come back from the precipice of fiscal and cultural ruin, an emphasis on the foundational principles and an understanding of what made America so great is needed in public schools.

http://www.tpnn.com/2014/12/04/nine-states-consider-making-high-schoolers-pass-citizenship-tests/

[Warph]

Excellent post, Ross.  Keep at it, buddy

[Ross]

Excellent post, Ross.  Keep at it, buddy

Thank you Warph, I appreciate your post as well.
Keep that "This and That" rolling along.

I feel we need School Board Members that are more interested in education than in sports.
If that were to happen we might have less of the Federal Government dictating, teaching muslim and common core and trying to change the way our constitution is taught among other things.

But that would require the School Board members to work, wouldn't it?
It would also require that they take a stand, right?