Common Core Education And More About Federal Government Control

[Ross]

Who is to blame they say but
Local School Boards
and
School Superintendents?

At-risk funding misses target
of
putting students first

Posted by David Dorsey on Monday, October 12, 2015

The at-risk program began in Kansas in 1992. Its purpose was "to provide at-risk students with additional educational opportunities and instructional services to assist in closing the achievement gap." In the last 10 years, more than $350 million of the nearly $2 billion increase in education dollars went to at-risk funding, but the program not only failed to close achievement gaps, those gaps are getting worse!

How can that be?

For starters, school districts don't have to spend at-risk dollars exclusively for the benefit of students who have been deemed "at-risk." Special categories like additional half-day Kindergarten and the K-3 reading program have redirected at-risk money to the general student population. Furthermore, districts are allowed to pay the same portion of teachers' salaries as the portion of at-risk students in the entire district, regardless of how much time a teachers spends with at-risk students or the number of at-risk students in a classroom.

Combining that with the fact that districts are not held accountable in any way to a) actually spend the money on those truly at risk, or b) show results that the program improved achievement has created a system in which at-risk dollars have become marbled with other funding to become little more than a supplement to general state aid.

So even legislators' best intentions of getting increased funding to those students is derailed by a broken system and no real accountability for school districts.

http://www.kansaspolicy.org/KPIBlog/129341.aspx

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Where are all those strict rules about how money can be spent by the Schools that our School Superintendent spoke of?

[Ross]

Who can blame this mother for being upset?

Larisa Yaghoobov Settembro
Follow · October 16 · Edited ·


I'm back. Because I just CAN'T. I can't not say anything. I can't not call out the complete insanity of this Common Core Math. Please explain to me in what CRAZY, BACKWARDS, MAKE BELIEVE WORLD this makes sense??

Math is FACT! Fact is 103 - 28 is ACTUALLY 75. As in actually. Factually. And yes, reasonably.

In this scary world of FAKE MATH, 75 is not the correct answer?! In order for the answer to be REASONABLE, my daughter needs to estimate and come up with the WRONG answer?!?!

This math belongs in the world of unicorns and leprechauns. Not in the real world...where numbers matter!

These are our future doctors that will be prescribing "reasonable" doses of medication, future architects that will design on "reasonable" measurements, and future engineers that will build on "reasonable" plans!

[Ross]

PARENT REBELLION BREWING
IN TENNESSEE OVER
ISLAM-CENTRIC EDUCATIONAL STANDARDS

by MICHAEL PATRICK LEAHY
20 Oct 2015

Parents across Tennessee are taking on the state's political and educational establishment, aiming to get rid of the recently implemented Islam-centric seventh grade Social Studies standards.

A group of parents in White County, about 100 miles east of Nashville, are taking the fight to the seven publicly elected county school board members in that county who approved the purchase of the new Islam-centric textbook that elaborates on those standards, myWorld History and Geography: The Middle Ages to Exploration of the Americas, published by Pearson Education.

A similar grassroots rebellion between 1999 and 2002 prevented the state's establishment Republican Governor, Don Sundquist, from imposing a state income tax on Tennesseans. In 2014, that prohibition was made permanent in an amendment to the state's constitution approved overwhelmingly at the ballot box by voters.

The current uprising pits Tennessee parents against Republican Governor Bill Haslam, the Tennessee Department of Education, the large and powerful multinational textbook publisher Pearson Education, the state's educational bureaucrats, unaccountable local county school directors, and their far too compliant local school boards.

The involvement of Pearson Education is particularly controversial since its parent corporation, London based Pearson PLC, is partially owned by the Libyan Investment Authority. With 3 percent of Pearson's outstanding stock, the Libyan Investment Authority is one of its largest shareholders.

The Washington Times recently reported there is a financial connection between the Libyan Investment Authority and the Council on American-Islamic Relations:

According to the Financial Times, the Libyan Investment Authority was founded by Muammar Gaddafi's son, Seif al-Islam; more than five Gaddafi family members own shares. The Council on Islamic Relations (CAIR, a recently designated terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates), Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the Muslim Brotherhood invested in Pearson Education through the Libyan Investment Authority.

CAIR has inserted itself into the Tennessee seventh grade Social Studies standards political battle, even though barely 1 percent of the state's population self-identifies as Muslim. The group has publicly criticized the state legislator who has introduced legislation to prohibit the teaching of religious doctrine prior to the tenth grade in Tennessee.

A number of Tennessee parents also claim that CAIR has provided supplementary materials used by some Tennessee school districts to support the new seventh grade standards.

One reason for CAIR's interest in Tennessee is that it has the highest percentage of Evangelical Christians of any state in its population, according to a recent Pew Research Poll on religion in America. As a result, Tennessee may be the "tip of the spear" in attempts to crush public opposition to Islamization.

CAIR co-founder and executive director Nihad Awad, "a known Hamas supporter," has publicly "reject[ed] Israel's right to exist."

As Breitbart News reported previously:

Even in the face of the Islamic State's rampaging terror and slaughter, Awad called the Jewish state the biggest threat to world peace and security. Breitbart News reported he once publicly declared his support of the "Hamas movement." Hamas, the radical Islamic group, is a United States designated terrorist organization. CAIR was charged as an unindicted co-conspirator in the largest terrorism-financing case in U.S history, the Holy Land Foundation trial.

Before launching CAIR, Awad served as PR director for the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP), an organization identified by the U.S. government as an arm of the Palestinian Committee, a Hamas support network created by the Muslim Brotherhood. A 2001 Immigration and Naturalization Service memo documented IAP's support for Hamas and the "facts strongly suggest" that IAP was a part of Hamas' propaganda machine, according to the Investigative Project on Terrorism (IPT).

Parents from across the county and the state will be gathering at Tuesday night's town hall in Sparta, Tennessee sponsored by the group, White County Citizens Against Islamic Indoctrination, "to continue efforts to inform and engage the community about the pro-Islamic textbooks and materials being forced upon teachers and students by the White County School Board."

In a press release, the group said:

School board members, including Chairman Edd Cantrell and Vice Chairman Gary Sparkman, have ignored parents' objections to the textbooks and materials and refused to remove them or restrict their use in classrooms. Seventh grade social studies textbooks in White County contain nearly 50 pages devoted to a sugar coated view of Islam and the "Islamic World" while barely mentioning Christianity. The School Board has also violated at least 14 of their own policies and procedures in connection with conducting school board business and may have violated state laws concerning public access tomaterials used in the classrooms in White County. . . .

"The School Board has adopted the textbooks and materials in a shroud of secrecy and misrepresentation and have attempted to hide what is happening in our classrooms concerning the promotion of Islam and limited mentions of Christianity," [Chairman] Anthony Wright pointed out. "We plan to expose what is happening and call the community to action since the values promoted by the School Board members in our classrooms do NOT reflect the values of our community nor do they follow the laws of the land."

Bryan Wright, who recently attended a School Board meeting to object to the materials, explained that "the schools should teach any aspect of religion with a focus on fairness, balance and TRUTH; that is not happening with respect to the Islamic Indoctrination being presented in White County thanks to our own elected officials." "The fault is not the teachers who are being forced to use these materials; it is the fault of the school board that unanimously approved them and who should be held accountable for that terrible decision," Bryan Wright noted.

Overton County, Tennessee has adopted a set of supplemental materials to provide a fair and balanced teaching of social studies and religion but the White County School Board has refused to accept any alternative to the textbooks and materials they adopted despite significant and growing parental objections.

The Tennessean reported the group "expects hundreds of people" at Tuesday night's town hall:

The new group, White County Citizens Against Islamic Indoctrination, joins others in the state concerned about pro-Islamic bias in middle school social studies classes.

The group claims a seventh grade social studies textbook unfairly represents major world religions. They also claim the White County school board has been unresponsive to their concerns.

"We have no problem with teaching world history. We have no problem with world religion. We want it to be fair and balanced and accurate," said Anthony Wright, chairman of White County Citizens Against Islamic Indoctrination.

Tennessee sixth and seventh grade students learn about the rise, spread and impact of major world religions on societies in social studies classes. Students learn about Islamic civilization in seventh grade.

White County Schools, a small district with one middle school, uses "My World History and Geography: The Middle Ages to the Exploration of the Americas" in seventh grade social studies classes.

"It doesn't report 9/11, ISIS. It doesn't talk about any Islamic group," Wright said, referring to the textbook.

Middle school students learn about the Islamic civilization up to the 1500s, according to state standards.

Wright also claimed the book explained how to convert to Islam, but not to Christianity.

"All it takes is one seventh-grader to go home and recite the five pillars of Islam, then go to a school with a bomb in their backpack and blow up 10 kids," Wright said.

Muslim converts technically recite the Shahada to profess their new faith. The Shahada is the first pillar of Islam.

"We don't want that book taught. There's other books available," Wright said.

School districts select and approve textbooks from a state-approved list. Other school districts, for example, use "Discovering our Past, A History of the World."

Superintendent Sandra Crouch said she was advised by legal counsel not to comment.

"Our teachers do not teach religious doctrine at all. We simply teach world history according to the state department of education standards," said school board chairman Edd Cantrell.

In a letter to the school board sent on Monday by James R. Omer, the Nashville attorney who represents the White County parents group, also demanded that the board make the new textbook and all related materials available for public inspection. Incredibly, the White County School district has refused to make either the new textbook or supporting materials available for public review.

The letter, addressed to the seven school members by name—Chairman Edd Cantrell, Vice Chairman Gary Sparkman, Jayson McDonald, Richard McBride, Kenneth Robinson, Janet Webb, and Roy Whited—presented a compelling argument:

Our clients are, by this letter, documenting your numerous violations of White County School Board policies and, if the violations enumerated herein are not remedied promptly, they will seek any and all legal remedies, including writs of mandamus and ouster. They are considering other legal action as well, to include legal accountability for violation of state and federal law.

Our investigation reveals that you have consistently been notified of the above violation and this, when combined with violation of the following sections of pertinent statute, Tenn. Code. Ann. § 49-2-301(b)(1), establishes the intentional lack of transparency which is not only illegal, but ignores the essence of your legal obligations and discharge of your duties.

In the letter, the parents group charges that:

During your August Board Meeting, you and the White County Board established a textbook review committee consisting of various board members and administrators and appointed Mr. [Bryan] Wright as an adviser to that committee. Regrettably, the Board only involved Mr. Wright in one meeting and refused others entry to the committee meeting in violation of Board Policy B-7 and TCA §8-44-102(b). . . .

"White County citizens are extremely angered by the approval of the 7th Grade textbook, "My World History and Geography: The Middle Ages to the Exploration of the Americas"and your actions and inactions have violated not only legislated laws, but the very Constitution of the State of Tennessee. Compare your actions with White County Board Policy A-1, wherein you mention your humble deference to that great document ... our Constitution."

The parents group tells the White County School Board "you have not only violated state, federal and local law, but you have lost touch with the very source of your authority to whom you owe the highest level of service: the Electorate, which you so aptly refer in the attached exhibit. It is easy to become comfortable within the bureaucracy and in a hurry to reach 'rational' decision when a more complicated, democratic movement is afoot."

In addition to "adding policies which address the lack of transparency and website deficiencies," the group demands the White County School Board pass the following resolutions:

- The White County School Board will select textbooks that promote the basic democratic values of our state and national heritage, our republican form of government, and the principles of federalism. We will oppose the selection of textbooks that contain historical inaccuracies or omissions of world religions which could lead to religious bias.

– White County Schools will not discipline or discourage Teachers, Principals and School Personnel "for reporting inaccuracies or errors or potentially inflammatory material in textbooks or other educational materials to supervisors, elected officials, or parents or guardians; prohibits requiring a teacher or other educator to agree not to report inaccuracies or errors or potentially inflammatory material in textbooks or other educational materials, as a condition of employment" as in accordance with Tennessee Law, Public Chapter 165 enacted on July 1, 2015.

– White County Schools will include on their website; a copy of social studies state standards, a summary of the basic content of the instruction, a statement of a parent's right to review the materials, and information describing a parent's opportunity to participate in the review of social studies textbooks and supplemental materials. Parents may also request to remove their child from the instruction without retribution or penalty and the process for doing so will also be found on the White County Schools website and/or made available upon parental request.

– Statewide Assessments, or end of course exams, often drive curriculum decisions. Therefore, Statewide Assessment and end of the course exams should be reviewed by teachers, parents and taxpayers, or school boards prior to administration of exam to confirm students are not being tested on their knowledge of any religion.

"The biggest concern is the textbook is telling things that are untrue and is providing a false example of Islam," Ed Butler, a member of the White County parents group, told WWTN Radio's Dan Mandis on Tuesday.

"Islam is presented as matter of fact," in the Pearson textbook, Butler said. "For example, on page 79 of the textbook, it reads 'Mohammad said he worships the same God as Christians and Jews. Mohammad respects those religions.' But that's not how we see it. Allah is not the same God worshipped by Christians and Jews," Butler added.

"The White County School Board is restricting information flow to parents, and not allowing us to speak at public board meetings," Butler added.

"Bryan Wright was going to be part of the textbook review process, but he was only allowed in one meeting. Other parents were not allowed in those textbook review meetings."

"It dumfounds me why they – the White County School Board—would not listen to the citizens of White County and to the right thing," Butler told WWTN's Mandis.

Mandis asked Butler what the next step is if the White County School Board continues to ignore your group.

"The Citizens of White County would demand their resignations immediately," Butler responded.

Butler noted that there is virtual unanimity from the White County parents of children in the seventh grade there who are being forced to use the Pearson textbook.

"There are about 300 seventh grade students in White County. We have about 300 concerned parents in our group. That's about every parent of a White County seventh grader," Butler told WWTN's Mandis.

The Tennessee parent rebellion is not limited to White County. In addition to nearby Overton County, uprisings are developing in Rutherford , Maury, and Williamson Counties as well.

Last week in Williamson County, the affluent Nashville suburb, school board member Dr. Beth Burgos, one of several Common Core opponents swept into office in 2014, "proposed a resolution about the teaching of religion, particularly Islam, pertaining to sixth and seventh grade students."

"Williamson County parents and taxpayers have expressed concerns that some social studies textbooks and supplemental materials in use in Tennessee classrooms contain a pro-Islamic/anti-Judeo Christian bias," she wrote in the resolution. "Therefore, we the Williamson County School Board encourage the state to develop social studies standards that reflect Tennessee's commitment to public education. We know that the standards serve as the basic for statewide assessments, curriculum frameworks and instructional materials, but methods of instructional delivery must remain the responsibility of local educators."

She requested the following actions: that the state revise and clarify the social study standards; textbooks or supplemental instructional materials in Tennessee classrooms reflect a balanced and equitable perspective; supplemental instructional materials should be unbiased; the textbooks and material should be made available to parents and taxpayers.

She also requested that, "no students shall ever be required as a qualification for graduation or statewide assessment to be tested on their knowledge of any religion."

But Tim Gaddis, Williamson County assistant superintendent "said the textbooks treat all religion fairly and no religion is pushed on any student."

This claim, however, is belied by the Breitbart News report that 10 of 75 learning objectives in the 7th Grade Social Studies standards (13 percent) deal with the tenets and history of Islam, while only 1 of 72 learning objectives in the 6th Grade Social Studies (1 percent) address the history of Christianity.
Not all Williamson County School Board members support Dr. Burgo's resolution, and its outcome remains in doubt.

As the Williamson Herald reported:

"You can't go by the number of pages that each religion gets [in the Pearson textbook]. We have problems with getting enough bus drivers or substitute teachers. It's crazy to fool around with this," [School Board member Bobby Hullett said.]

Anne McGraw, 4th District, also weighed in on the matter.

"I've talked to a lot of people, and it never came in any regard," McGraw said.
....
The resolution, if approved, will be forwarded to the state legislature. Dr. Mike Looney and Chairman Gary Anderson, 5th District, will review the resolution and decide whether it should go forward. It has also not been reviewed by legal counsel, Anderson said.

Other board members such as McGraw said they would not sign the resolution and cannot support it.

Tennessee has 95 counties and approximately 140 distinct school districts.

Not all 140 districts have adopted and purchased the Pearson textbook, but all are subject to the new Islamic-centric standards.

"The Pearson text was only adopted by 30 of the 140 districts [in Tennessee]. McGraw Hill grabbed the rest of the market share," Pearson Education's Southern Regional Director, Dominic Chavez, tells Breitbart News.

If Tennessee's recent past is any indication of how this political controversy will unfold, this grassroots parent rebellion is likely to spread to all 95 of the state's counties, and to do so very soon.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/10/20/parent-rebellion-brewing-tennessee-islam-centric-educational-standards/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

[redcliffsw]

                                 

[Ross]

EDUCATION

Common Core-aligned writing lesson
on gun debate
fuels claims of political agenda

By Perry Chiaramonte
Published October 15, 2015

Common Core backers are sneaking a social and political agenda into nationalized curriculum, say critics, who now have new ammo in a writing lesson plan for teachers that they say gives a slanted perspective of the gun debate.

A study guide dubbed, "The Battle Over Gun Control," authored by KQED, a northern Californian affiliate of National Public Radio, and the nonprofit, taxpayer-subsidized National Writing Project, states that "moderate gun control" measures introduced following the Sandy Hook school massacre were deep-sixed by the "powerful political influence" of the NRA. Second Amendment advocates say the wording, in supplemental material designed to help teachers plan instruction, frames the debate in a one-sided fashion aimed at influencing young minds.

"The issue took center stage in December, when a lone gunman entered an elementary school in Newtown, Conn., killing 20 children and six adults in one of the deadliest mass shootings in U.S. history," reads an intro from the guide. "Yet, months down the line, the issue remains highly controversial: An attempt to enact moderate new gun control measures this spring was voted down in the Senate, due in part to the powerful political influence of gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association."

Concerned parents and longtime critics of Common Core say that this is just another example of flaws associated with the federally-imposed standards. While Common Core itself is not technically a curriculum, it drives classroom lessons by imposing a standard, nationalized test. Both private and nonprofit curriculum providers tout their material for its alignment with the standards tested in the Common Core examinations.

"Does a child get a job because they can read well, write well and have competent math skills, or do they get a job for supporting gay marriage and gun control?"

- Alice Linahan, Voices Empower
"This guide shows that the common core philosophy of education is coming to all schools." Alice Linahan, founder of Voices Empower, a grassroots organization that opposes Common Core, told FoxNews.com. "It's a shift from teaching fact to teaching attitudes, belief and behavior."

Linahan says that she is not so much concerned with the gun-control views in the lesson but that such methods may leave students unprepared for the real world.

"Does a child get a job because they can read well, write well and have competent math skills, or do they get a job for supporting gay marriage and gun control?" she said.

"The Battle Over Gun Control" also lists eight relevant Common Core standards for English, Language Arts and Social Studies and how to use methods like information gathering from varied media and other formats, comprehension of informational texts and analytical writing with substantive arguments. The Department of Education funds the National Writing Project with grants that total more than $25 million annually.

Critics say the guide purports to give both sides of the hotly contested topic, but steers the debate to favor stricter gun control. In what the authors refer to as "key points on the gun control issue" from an NPR blog. The "Topic Background" contained in the guide explains that "interpreting the intent of the framers of the Constitution is at the heart of the gun-control debate."

The materials offer "guiding questions" for students such as:

-"Are rules and guidelines that were created over 200 years ago still applicable today?"

-"When a greater number of people in our society own guns, are we safer or more at risk?"

-"How accurate is this statement: 'The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.'"

Other resources provided are an infographic titled, "Armed to the teeth: Gun ownership in America," and originally published by GOOD magazine, which calls itself "a magazine for the global citizen."

It is not clear how widely the lesson has been distributed, although schools throughout the country have used lessons prepared by the National Writing Project." Officials for KQED did not respond to requests for comment.

National Writing Project Executive Director Elyse Eidman-Aadahl said that both her organization and the NPR affiliate stand by the supplemental teaching materials.

"[T]he National Writing Project and KQED both feel it is important for students to engage in fact-based conversations about issues that matter to them, their families, and their communities," she told FoxNews.com in a written statement.

Linahan says that materials such as "The Battle Over Gun Control" will be continued to be used in schools nationwide if the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which provides funding for schools, is re-authorized.

"What will be mandated in the act, if it's renewed, will continue a shift in our education system and makes it federal law," she said, adding that her organization, Voices Empower, is looking to campaign against the upcoming re-authorization.

The Common Core State Standards Initiative was devised by an association of the nation's governors and backed by the Obama administration in 2009 with the goal of setting a uniform standard for grades K-12 nationwide. Some 45 states, in many cases enticed by federal grants, have signed on and are testing students in grades 3-8 and once in high school.

Critics of the initiative maintain that it is not the federal government's job to impose educational standards.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2015/10/15/common-core-aligned-writing-lesson-on-gun-debate-fuels-claims-political-agenda/?intcmp=hpbt1#

[redcliffsw]

                     

[Ross]

Money and fancy buildings and large property taxes and winning football games do not make for a good or great education. It is the teacher in the class room. When that teacher is standing in front of a class room teaching, they are also being an actor. If the teacher lacks the enthusiasm and passion to put some excitement in their presentation they will loose their audiance.

As a shipboard electrical shop leader onboard an aircraft carrier I held muster every morning which included information updates and giving job assignments. Had I lacked the enthusiasm and passion for our very important work, I would not have been able to motivate my men to get much accomplished. We aired out personell problems and good times alike and everyone was permitted to have input and offer solutions. It was my job to keep it improtant and to bolster the desire to get the job done. And that included on the job training and special one on one training for specific electrical equipment. Boring was never permitted by me.  The job required keeping people interested.

Boring should not be in the class room. It may be repittion for the teacher from hour to hour, but it is not repition to the next classroom full of kids. That is my opinion and my opinion only.



********************************************************************************

EDUCATION
Here's why $7 billion didn't help America's worst schools

What two troubled high schools tell us about why the government got so little for so much money.
By CAITLIN EMMA 11/03/15 05:16 AM EST

Principal Trynegwa Diggs and Alberto Carvalho, superintendent of Miami-Dade County public schools, descend the main stairwell of Miami Edison Senior High School in September

In 2009, the Obama administration saw a chance to tackle a problem that had bedeviled educators for decades.

"Our goal is to turn around the 5,000 lowest-performing schools over the next five years, as part of our overall strategy for dramatically reducing the dropout rate, improving high school graduation rates and increasing the number of students who graduate prepared for success in college and the workplace," said Arne Duncan, the administration's new secretary of education in August of that year.

The administration pumped $3 billion of economic stimulus money into the School Improvement Grants program. Six years later, the program has failed to produce the dramatic results the administration had hoped to achieve. About two thirds of SIG schools nationwide made modest or no gains — not much different from similarly bad schools that got no money at all. About a third of the schools actually got worse.

Even Duncan acknowledges the progress has been "incremental."

School turnaround is "hard, but it's not rocket science," said Sarah Yatsko, a senior research analyst at the Center on Reinventing Public Education. "We know a lot about what an effective turnaround strategy looks like."

But then why has the SIG program, created in 2007 under President George W. Bush, produced such uneven results at a total cost of about $7 billion?

A comparison by POLITICO of two troubled high schools — one in Miami and one in Chicago — both of which received millions in SIG funds, both of which followed a similar turnaround strategy, reveals that education officials at the federal, state and local levels paid too little attention to a key variable for success. One school made impressive gains, rebounding in three years from an "F" rating to a "B." At the other, less than 10 percent of juniors are proficient at reading, math and science — the same level as before the grant.

The difference between the schools was in their readiness to make use of the sudden infusion of money. In Miami, school district officials had prepared for the grants. They had the support of teachers, unions and parents. In Chicago, where teachers fought the program and officials changed almost yearly, schools churned through millions of dollars but didn't budge the needle.

Now, the Department of Education is preparing for another multi-million grant competition. But interviews by POLITICO with nearly two dozen analysts, teachers, administrators and policymakers, who have studied the performance of SIG schools, raise questions about whether any of the changes ordered by the Department of Education or Congress will actually yield better results for the money spent.

"Reviewers need to spend more time focusing on who's ready and who isn't," Yatsko said. "One thing that people have glommed on to is that the program offered a tremendous amount of money and a lot of it was wasted."

READY IN MIAMI

When Duncan made his pronouncement, Alberto Carvalho had been the superintendent of the Miami-Dade public schools for about a year. It was "a dark time for Miami schools," Carvalho told POLITICO. The state of Florida was threatening to shut down a number of them. Huge achievement gaps divided poor, black and Hispanic children and their more affluent, white peers.

But Carvalho, 51, had an advantage going in. He knew what didn't work.

As a deputy to former Miami Superintendent Rudy Crew, Carvalho had his hand on federal funding for the district's failing schools and he had seen up close the implementation of Crew's School Improvement Zone plan. That initiative had mixed results, which critics attributed to its lack of focus on developing effective teachers and administrators.

In his new job, Carvalho went looking for expertise and he hired Nikolai Vitti, Florida's deputy chancellor of school improvement, to head Miami's Education Transformation Office. Vitti drew on lessons he learned at the state level while Carvalho, who had to weather a mini-scandal over a romantic affair with a local reporter, deftly cleared political barriers, securing buy-in from the school board and the community.

When the $43 million in SIG money arrived in 2010, Carvalho and Vitti knew that improving personnel in the failing schools would be the key to their success. That meant moving weak teachers out and replacing them with stronger teachers from high-performing schools.

In order to do that, the district and the United Teachers of Dade signed a memorandum of understanding to help ease teachers through the changes. The union took pains to ensure that transferred teachers were happy with their new placements. For example, some were moved to better schools closer to home, cutting down commutes.

Miami Edison Senior High School was one of the 19 schools in the Miami-Dade district that got SIG money in the first round of grants. Located in Miami's impoverished Little Haiti neighborhood, it was known as a dropout factory — less than half of students graduated during the 2007-08 school year. A year later, just 12 percent of students were reading at or above grade level.

After years of failure, the state ordered Edison to hire a new principal, who started in 2009. Then, with the help of nearly $1.5 million over three years in federal grant money, officials changed out more than half of the school staff. The district brought in Teach for America recruits and held teacher recruitment fairs. Top teachers who volunteered to work at Edison were given financial incentives, like signing bonuses and extra pay for boosting student test scores.

The strategy worked.

********************************************************************************

A very long read, read more at http://www.politico.com/story/2015/11/failing-schools-education-white-house-214332

[Ross]

[redcliffsw]

Good one. 

Government free stuff like free education and free health care are un-American.  It's not free, it's stealing our liberty.  That's what Republicans have been doing for more than 150 years.  While the Republicans and Obama are dis-mantling America, we're losing our liberty.

[Ross]

{Emphasis is Mine}

Thomas More Law Center
Challenges Constitutionality of Common Core
in Lawsuit
Against West Virginia State Officials

NOVEMBER 9, 2015 08:17 AM EST


ANN ARBOR, Mich., Nov. 9, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, MI, late last week, filed a lawsuit against West Virginia Governor Earl Tomblin and several state officials to stop the state's implementation of Common Core and its participation in the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium ("SBAC").  The lawsuit claims that West Virginia's funding and participation in Common Core violates the U.S. Constitution, as well as federal and state laws that prohibit the federal government from usurping control over public school education. The lawsuit was filed in the Kanawha Circuit Court in West Virginia on behalf of two West Virginia taxpayers.

The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) is co-counsel in the case with D. John Sauer of the James Otis Law Group based in St. Louis, MO.  Two prominent West Virginia attorneys, Jeffrey Kimble and Ryan Kennedy of Robinson & McElwee, PLLC, are assisting as local counsel.

TMLC's lawsuit seeks to stop West Virginia's payment of membership fees totaling over $1.5 million per year on the grounds that SBAC, to which West Virginia is a member, is an unconstitutional compact because it was never approved by Congress. The Compact Clause of the United States Constitution provides that "[n]o state shall, without the consent of Congress . . . enter into any agreement or compact with another state."
West Virginia's SBAC membership agreement forces West Virginia schools to align their curriculum with Common Core. 

The two Plaintiffs named in the lawsuit, Angela Summers and Fred Dailey are prominent members of West Virginia Against Common Core and over the last two years have voiced deep concerns about their state's participation in Common Core.

Summers has five grandchildren.  She began her battle against Common Core in 2013 over the new Common Core aligned math being taught to her grandchildren.  Her concerns grew as she became aware of the federal government's intrusion into local classrooms, federalized collection of student data, and the requirement of excessive testing.  Summers says that the battle against Common Core is a battle "we cannot lose. If we lose, we will lose our children. If we lose our children, we will lose this nation."

Dailey, who also has grandchildren, is an Environmental Engineer with a Master's degree. He worked as a Plant Manager for a major Chemical Manufacturing facility for 10 years prior to retiring. He explains one of his reasons for getting involved in the lawsuit, "I strongly believe that the education of our children is best done locally with choices made by parents, teachers, and locally elected Boards of Education."
The Thomas More Law Center and Sauer filed a similar lawsuit on behalf of state taxpayers against North Dakota officials five months ago.  A decision in that case is still pending.

Both the North Dakota and West Virginia lawsuits follow the success of a previous lawsuit filed by Mr. Sauer, that stopped Missouri's implementation of Common Core. That case is currently on appeal. The Thomas More Law Center filed a friend of the court brief in support of upholding the Missouri district court decision.
Forty-three states initially joined either SBAC or the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers ("PARCC"), to implement Common Core under federal government oversight. However, several states have since canceled their membership due to growing opposition from parents and teachers.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center commented on behalf of the Law Center, "The unspoken agenda of Common Core is to undermine the fundamental right of parents to control the education of their children. It's an insidious bureaucratic system in which the Federal Government takes control of what and how American students learn.
Teachers who complain about the Common Core are muzzled by threats of discipline or dismissal."

In school districts across the country, administrators subject children, who obey their parents' wishes and decline to participate in Common Core standardized testing, to unbelievable punishments. Students have been suspended, refused entrance into their classrooms, refused bathroom privileges, stripped of their academic and extracurricular honors and awards, removed  from athletic participation, and punished with "sit-and-stare" policies. "Sit-and-stare" is a practice that forces students to sit at their assigned desk with no materials, books, or paper in silence for multiple hours during testing.

As a part of its efforts to help parents combat Common Core, the Thomas More Law Center developed a Test Refusal and Student Privacy Protection Form and a Common Core Resource Page as a general reference and guide.

The Thomas More Law Center defends and promotes America's Judeo-Christian heritage and moral values, including the religious freedom of Christians, time-honored family values, and the sanctity of human life.  It supports a strong national defense and an independent and sovereign United States of America.  The Law Center accomplishes its mission through litigation, education, and related activities.  It does not charge for its services.  The Law Center is supported by contributions from individuals, corporations and foundations, and is recognized by the IRS as a section 501(c)(3) organization.  You may reach the Thomas More Law Center at (734) 827-2001 or visit our website at www.thomasmore.org.

Read at http://news.sys-con.com/node/3545271