The Legacy of Arne Duncan, Common Core and So Much More: College (Part 2)

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As noted in my last post, outgoing Secretary of Education Arne Duncan has done his part to transform America through K-12 education.  This has happened through Common Core and by expanding the Department’s reach into younger and older cohorts.  Duncan got the promise for an additional $1 billion for preschool education.  As the Chronicle of Higher Education noted, Duncan is also leaving a “big imprint” on higher education.  His legacy is one of “innovation and regulation.”  College is put into a seamless web of K-16, or P-20, with an unprecedented federal role in admissions, placement, assessment, and financing.

The Chronicle notes that Duncan has deviated from the standard practice of Democratic secretaries who have just doled out money.  He has been “personally upbraid[ing] colleges over rising prices and low graduation rates, their handling of cases of sexual assault, their lax academic standards for athletes . . . , and their resistance to greater oversight.” Patricia McGuire, president of Trinity Washington University, has become disillusioned with Duncan’s “top-down approach.” Institutions, like Yale University, get nervous about the Department’s investigations of “sexually hostile environments.”

The nonprofits, like the Lumina Foundation, that have been funding Common Core, however, give a positive assessment. Jamie Merisotis, President and Chief Executive, praises Duncan’s “strong leadership” in putting our higher-education system “a step closer to reflecting the needs of today’s increasingly diverse college students — and the changing meaning of ‘college’ to include all types of postsecondary learning.”  Competency-based programs that “measure learning” through demonstration of a skill set are among his many “innovations.”  Inside Higher Education calls it “new delivery model with the potential to improve degree completion, reduce costs to students, and improve transparency and alignment of learning outcomes to the needs of employers and society.”

Currently, over 600 colleges are designing, creating, or already have competency-based education programs. This number has grown from 52 last year. As with Common Core, it is being funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, with “guidance” from the U.S. Department of Education.

The notion of “competency” changes the fundamental notion of education, taking it from learning for its own sake, with a knowledgeable, independent citizenry as an outcome, to producing workers with skill sets.  Colleges that have agreed to align financial aid to such tests have ceded their own power.

Funny, Arne Duncan, when he spoke at the 2013 meeting of the American Education Research Association (AERA) and promised a “sea-change” in assessments for K-12 students, included “competency-based education,” as well as “non-cognitive skills.”  Others at that AERA meeting of academics and researchers working at universities, federal and state agencies, school systems, test companies, and non-profit agencies were Linda Darling-Hammond, who oversaw the development of the SBAC (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium) tests, one of the two Common Core tests, and her close colleague, Bill Ayers.

Many colleges are following the Department of Education in emphasizing non-cognitive, “social and emotional learning” skills.  Seventeen colleges have received funds from the Department’s “First in the World” grants to identify and help at-risk students through the aid of a tool called Diagnostic Assessment and Achievement of College Skills to measure such emotional attributes as “grit.”

Colleges have been targeted strategically.  Jacqueline King, director of Higher Collaboration at SBAC, has been working to “create greater academic alignment between K-12 and higher education.”  Common Core tests are determining placement in college courses.  In 2014, college faculty in Tennessee attended workshops to learn how to “synch up with Common Core,” in effect to teach grade 13.

I reported that the Department of Education had funded the 2013 working paper, “The Common Core State Standards: Implications for Community Colleges and Student Preparedness for College.”   It described the “Core to College” program in ten states: Colorado, Florida, Hawaii, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, North Carolina, Oregon, and Washington.  Core to College is funded by the Lumina, the William and Flora Hewlett, the Bill and Melinda Gates, and other foundations.  Their report, “Making Good on the College-Ready Promise and Higher Education Engagement Core to College Alignment Director Convening, August 1-2, 2012,” provides a record of discussions by “alignment directors” and guest speakers on teaching “a new type of student, more prepared for college-level, discipline-specific work.”  (As a former college instructor I am skeptical: having “more prepared” students meant an easier time in teaching them—not the need for special workshops.)

The ten states are to serve as “bellwethers and models for the rest of the country.”  Among the strategies, directors suggested more data, outreach to other “stakeholders” and private colleges, and more meetings.  They are also looking beyond “the English and Math Departments” that receive Common Core-certified students.  Speakers proposed “engaging faculty in other disciplines that could be touched by Common Core implementation, such as history or the social sciences.”

WestEd, a major Common Core funder, is evaluating the initiative.

The push for new assessments (especially at community colleges) has been quickly followed by calls for free community college.  In his 2014 State of the Union address, President Obama cited Tennessee’s still-developing program as a model.  The American Association of Community Colleges welcomed the proposal.  This year, on September 9, Obama announced that the “College Promise Campaign” would be chaired by Second Lady Jill Biden.  AACC President Walter Bumphus and Trustee President J. Noah Brown will serve on the National Advisory Board.

Democratic front-runners, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, pushed free college in their first presidential debate on October 13, 2015.

To top it off, the federal government is providing a college “scorecard.”  Of course, those who continue to refuse federal aid, like Grove City College and Hillsdale College, will continue to be left off.

Students at these colleges will also find themselves at an increasing financial disadvantage. One of Obama’s first orders of business was to make the federal government the bank for student loans.  This “bank” practices “loan forgiveness,” by graduating payment to income and providing complete forgiveness through work in government jobs, such as in public schools or at Americorps, the federal agency.  Indiana University law professor Sheila Seuss Kennedy and Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce manager Matt Impink enthused about such a “tour of duty” that sounds like the “civilian corps” Obama put forth at the beginning of his presidency.

We are well on our way.  With schools producing graduates with competencies “align[ed] to the needs of employers and society,” and with Common Core spitting out high school graduates “college and career ready,” we will no longer worry about higher learning.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on the Selous Foundation for Public Policy Research website. The featured image is of President Obama announcing free community college with Vice President Joe Biden and Second Lady Jill Biden.

Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag

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I am so angry right now I can hardly think. I am not sure where to even start. This Senate bill would put them closer to the control of Home Schools – knew it was coming but I certainly never expected it from Ted Cruz and Mike Lee. Something in my gut is telling me not only did they not read the legislation to understand what this means for Home Schoolers and children in general, but whomever actually wrote it and I would guess it came from Michael Farris, went in on the evangelical side of their “hearts” in asking for their support.

THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT NEEDS TO GET OUT OF EDUCATION AND OUR CHILDREN’S LIVES!

Remember what happens when anyone gets involved with the federal government especially with money – they own you!

That this bill, S 306 addresses Private Schools and categorizes Home Schools as Private Schools – this is another step to control our children and we need to stop, each and everyone of us, dealing with Common Core since it is not going to go away, and go after every Senator who is supporting this bill. Drown their phone lines and mailboxes – use it in their re-election bids coming up – if we do not do this we might as well walk up to the courthouses and just hand over to them our children. Paints an interesting picture!

As you are aware more and more children are now being Home Schooled because of Common Core so they had to legislate to gain back their control.

The bill is actually to allow GRANT funds to (ONCE AGAIN income below the poverty level) children enrolled in the public schools and the state-accredited private schools/home schools. Mike Lee introduced the bill. You now have Home School Education NAMED in a Federal bill.

How much more money are we going to address to low-income/poverty children and we are getting the same results except now it is CHARTER schools full of these children that are failing?

I have written in the past about Michael Farris of the Home School Legal Defense League (HSLDL). He is the Executive Director of ParentalRights.org; founder of the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) and Patrick Henry College. Home Schooler’s parents all over the country look to Farris almost as their protector and savior from the big bad wolves and he could be. But his total distortion in regards to the Parental Rights Act (PRA) is leading all parents down a path of parental rights destruction.

The Declaration of Independence tells us our Rights come from God not the government; they are unalienable. The very purpose of the government is to SECURE the rights God gave to us and when the government seeks to take away our rights it is time to throw them out with the “bath water.” The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights enumerates 30+ rights and states they come from “man” (constitution or laws). Not God but Man! Wrong!

Now to take a look at Michael Farris’ web site parentalrights.org and see what he says about our Rights. If you take the time to go to the web site you will see that once again it is being stated parental rights are to come from the Constitution and not God. That will make them they are fundamental rights not unalienable rights. So now from what I read on the PR website – their mission is to protect children by empowering parents through adoption of the Parental Rights Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Farris is telling parents that by adding this amendment to the constitution it will protect our children and prevent the U.S. ratification of the UN “The United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights”.

Farris tells his parents and legislators:  “The U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) is approaching a possible ratification by the United States Senate. This treaty, as harmless as it may appear, is capable of attacking the very core of the child-parent relationship, removing parents from their central role in the growth and development of a child, and replacing them with the long arm of government supervision within the home.”  JUST DOES FARRIS THINK PLACING PARENTAL CONTROL UNDER THE CONSTITUTION WILL DO?  He knows exactly what it will do!

Farris is in fact stating parental rights come from the government not GOD. I wonder if some of the very religious Home School families realize this. From Publius Hildah Parental rights: God-given and Unalienable? Or Government-granted and Revocable? 7/2-/13) Farris uses Supreme Court Justice Scalia’s Dissent in Troxel v. Granville (2000) using this to support his own theory that unless a right is enumerated in the federal Constitution, judges can’t enforce it, and the right can’t be protected.

But I will throw back to Farris and all the supporting legislators that if it is not in the Constitution the Judges have no business ruling on it anyway or even accepting any legal issues pertaining to parental rights. This is no different than Education. Education is NOT addressed in the Constitution, but the lawyers (as Farris is) added the legal part to address it into the Constitution and look where we are today?

Scalia’s stated in part:

parental rights are “unalienable and come from God and are from the 9th Amendment; the Declaration of Independence does NOT delegate power to the federal courts – only the federal constitution; It is for State Legislators and candidates for that office to argue that the State has no power to interfere with parents’ God-given authority over the rearing of their children, and to act accordingly. [The People need to elect State Legislators who understand that the State may not properly infringe God given parental rights]; the federal Constitution does not authorize judges to come up with their own lists of what “rights” people have; and the federal Constitution does not mention “parental rights” so the federal courts have no “judicial power” over these types of cases.

In his closing, Scalia warned against turning family law over to the federal government:

“…If we embrace this un-enumerated right … we will be ushering in a new regime of judicially prescribed, and federally prescribed, family law. I have no reason to believe that federal judges will be better at this than state legislatures; and state legislatures have the great advantages of doing harm in a more circumscribed area, of being able to correct their mistakes in a flash, and of being removable by the people.”

With all the funds paid to HSLDF) every year in case you need their legal advise, I personally would have done more good for the families if they had paid it into a college fund. Farris has gotten rich off the backs of these parents.

Might I remind you Farris is a full supporter of Mike Huckabee in politics and has been since 2008. The very same Huckabee who calls himself a minister, aligned with Jeb Bush in support of the Common Core, Dec 2013 told his TV audiences that he had changed his mind and no longer supported CC and then after the first of the year has lunch with the CCSSO telling them not to drop CC, but to re-brand it/re-name it and eventually parents would forget it was the same as CC.

RELATED ARTICLE: Parental Rights and Responsibilities: Knowing Your Rights and How to Best Provide for Your Child

Florida Minority Leader supports parents who opt-out of standardized tests

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Representative Mark Pafford (D – FL District 86), Minority Leader in the Florida House, stated this week that he supports parents who tell their children to opt-out of standardized assessment testing.

Florida Parents Against Common Core (FPACC) states, “Mr. Pafford wisely recognizes the overuse of assessments and testing in the State of Florida. Such overuse has indeed created a toxic environment between education stakeholders – students, parents, principals, superintendents, school board members, and residents. The trust and  confidence necessary for mutual cooperation, in search of moving the conversation forward regarding best processes and practices for curriculum and standards, is missing.”

For parents, testing and assessments, particularly the non-validated and improperly implemented Florida Standards Assessment, institute an environment of punishment versus an environment nurturing learning. For teachers, unreasonable and out-of-balance accountability measures, focused almost exclusively on student assessment scores, encourage an already acknowledged faulty methodology of  “teaching to the test”.

On September 25, 62 out of 67 Florida county education superintendents agreed with the Florida Association of District School Superintendents’ statement stating that the superintendents had “lost confidence” in the current accountability system for students and schools, which were largely based on the controversial Florida Standards Assessment. In a decision of concern for  students and teachers, the superintendents asked for suspension of the accountability system and a review.

Luz González, FPACC State Coordinator says, “While Florida Parents Against Common Core applauds the unity and aggressiveness of the  superintendents on the issue of easing the unreasonable burden on the adults in the “education room”, i.e. the teachers and administrators, we are vastly disappointed in the lack of similar concern for the well-being of the students in the same classroom.  We ask that they follow Representative Pafford’s lead by placing children, entrusted into their care, as their top priority.

After several years of parents attending school board meetings complaining about standards, curriculum, textbooks, and testing, after numerous hearings on parental and teacher concerns across the state and in Tallahassee, after a contentious Governor’s race where Common Core Standards were a critical divide in the voting population, the Florida Department of Education and its Commissioner Pam Stewart have provided unacceptable mediocre solutions to the ongoing crisis in education, both in standards and assessments. It has been band-aid after band-aid of ineffective management on education reform intentionally ignoring the many voices of those most concerned and closest to the student – the parent.”

Thus, importantly, Florida Parents Against Common Core parents are committed to alleviating the source, the root, the insidious virus of the massively abusive accountability structure – Common Core Standards.  Federal coercion combined with state legislature collusion have destroyed meaningful and necessary local control by developing a structural system where co-dependency of mandates, data, funding, waivers, standards, curriculum, and assessments are currently inexplicably & irrevocably tied between local and federal governments.  At this time, FPACC will contact all presidential candidates before the 2016 Florida Primary for their pledge, should they become President, to on their first day stop the federal implementation of Common Core Standards.

Education is most often the best tool for creating opportunity, prosperity, and happiness.  Let’s    treat each child like an individual, not with a cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all approach to learning. Let’s listen to each child’s learning needs, not increase grossly invasive stressors by forcing  inappropriate developmental education requirements. Let’s encourage proven and successful education tools in cooperation with promoting creativity and innovation, recognizing the   constantly evolving information highway technology world of today and tomorrow – all the while knowing that an individual student’s inherent aptitudes and skills should have preemptive value in the classroom.

Every child should have an individualized education plan.  Not a common one.

ABOUT FLORIDA PARENTS AGAINST COMMON CORE

Florida Parents Against Common Core was started by four mothers and grew into the State of Florida’s largest grassroots parent organization in opposition to the continued implementation of Common Core Standards. Laura Zorc, the organization’s former State and National Director from January 2013 to June 2015 is  currently serving on Governor Scott’s 11 member Keep Florida Learning State Committee.

New York College Professor to Student: Don’t Criticize Common Core

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In September 2015, I received the following email from a New York student in a graduate-level teacher education program:

Dear Ms. Schneider,

I am an educator at a school in New York City who was shocked to find a letter from a Professor [name] in my mail box this week. As an educator, I am of the opinion that creativity should be a key focus of any curriculum.

I have enrolled in a master’s in ed. program at [name of school] and as an educator have expressed disagreement with Prof. [name] over the Common Core. [This professor] also has worked for Pearson….

As the letter from Prof. [name] directs, I should stop expressing my opinions of the CCLS (Common Core Learning Standards) in class. I feel this ironically stifles my right to freedom of speech and I am gravely concerned that [the professor’s] attitude will negatively affect my academic progress.  …

I am shocked by the letter, which was mailed to me in person….

I spoke with the individual sending the email. We had a frank conversation that included the reality that I do not know firsthand how the student has conducted him-/ herself in class. However, there are issues about this situation that are problematic regardless of the student’s behavior. First of all, the professor chose not to ask the student to make an appointment for a one-on-one meeting, instead choosing to “talk at” the student via what is an intimidating letter given the power differential between professor and student.

In the letter, the professor apparently used a required school email address to communicate with students and request individual conferences with each (not sure why the email had to be a school account, but it was). The student in question did not sign up for the school email address; instead of sending the student a brief note requesting a conference via post, the professor decided to unload on the student in a two-page letter sent to the student’s home.

I will not reproduce the entire letter, nor will I offer the identities of the student, the professor, or the school. But I will offer readers excerpts that reveal the professor’s intent to squelch opposition related to the Common Core and to defend both Common Core and the test-centric reform. Ironically, the professor states that teachers “will no longer be able to stand at the front of the class and treat students as recipients of received knowledge” in a letter in which he/she expects the student reading it to fall in line and swallow its contents without question.

Here we go:

Below are some of the things I would have told or asked you if we had met face-to-face.

Your repeated condemnations of the “ELA Common Core” as the source of most of the current problems in teaching English in middle and high schools are not relevant to the linguistic material we’ve been discussing and they are startlingly inaccurate. I hope that from now on, you will do what I assume you ask your students to do: explore the theories and research underlying the Standards and the key documents pertaining to their use before asserting generalizations that reflect only your opinion and not the facts. The (sp.) are dozens of documents about the Standards and the Core on our Blackboard site, as well as examples of some of the test texts and exercised and the curricula teachers have created to help students master the skills that the tests assess (in particular, the ability to become an active, engaged reader endowed with the agency necessary for a deep and thoughtful engagement with high-quality literary and informational texts that build knowledge, enlarge experience, and improve critical reading and thinking). So-called “teaching to the tests” provides a far superior education than the scattershot, uninformed curricula and pedagogical strategies that far too many English teachers relied on before the institution of rigorous requirements for both student (sp.) and teachers. Teachers will no longer be able to excuse their ineffective lessons by claiming that students are “not well-equipped enough” or “smart enough” to learn. If they want their students to succeed, they will no longer be able to rely on 20th century curricula and teach a-rhetorical context-less lessons and narrow skill (sp.), and they will no longer be able to stand at the front of the class and treat students as recipients of received knowledge.

White the Core articulates the common Standards, it does not mandate a particular curriculum or pedagogical strategies. It is up to the teacher to create meaningful opportunities for students to master all the English language arts in meaningful social contexts through meaningful interactive activities.

No discussion needed. The professor hath spoken.

The professor then closes the letter by taking up for the students who agree with the professor’s pro-Common Core perspective. In the closing, the irony continues as the professor uses this letter to “shut off or shut down” apparently the only student in the class who has experience enough with Common Core outside of what the professor offers; the professor does so under the guise of taking up for “a few” who “feel shut off or shut down” by criticism to a Common Core indoctrination that in the professor’s estimation will likely ensure all students in the class (except the letter recipient) as being “very effective teachers”:

None of your classmates has done any teaching and they are all excited at the possibility of doing this soon. My guess is that they will be very effective teachers because they are already versed in the kinds of activities that they will have to encourage their students to do: collaborate respectfully on projects requiring them to develop new skills and synthesize new information using 21st Century tools in multimodal ways. However, a few of them have told me how discouraged they are by your constant negativity. They feel shut off and shut down when you refer to your teaching experiences to complain that the tests stifle teachers’ and students’ creativity.  I am asking you to please stop doing this so that your classmates can feel comfortable discussing the linguistic material they need to understand in order to figure out its pedagogical implications. I know that you teach “only to pay the bills” (as you wrote on your survey), but they want to learn how to teach to foster their students’ curiosity and creativity, inspire them to learn about and through varied media, provide them with critical lenses for exploring their lives, and encourage them to love literacy and learning.

So, in order to foster the teaching of “critical lenses” for students to “explore their lives,” the only student with teaching experience is expected to uncritically just put a cork in it as the remaining, naive teachers-in-training are led to believe all is well in Common Core Land without a hint of any push to critically consider its “pedagogical implications.”

Stunning.

After careful consideration, the student decided to drop the class.

Californication: Middle School Cancels Elections Because Too Many White Students Elected

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A San Francisco Middle School holds up a student election because too many white kids won by the blond haired white principal.

Blake Neff from The Daily Caller reports:

A student government election at a San Francisco middle school had its results ignored after a principal decided the candidates elected were too white.

Elections were held at Everett Middle School Oct. 10, but on Oct. 14 principal Lena Van Haren sent an email to parents saying the results were being ignored, without being made public, because those elected did not reflect how diverse the school is. While Everett is more than 80 percent non-white, Van Haren said the election results “weren’t representative” of that.

“That is concerning to me because as principal I want to make sure the voices are all heard, from all backgrounds,” Van Haren told local KTVU News.

Read more.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is of Principal Lena Van Haren, who is blond and white, of Everett Middle School, who canceled election results for being too white [Screengrab: KTVU News]

Bernie Sanders’s Plan to Fix College Is Worse than Nothing by Ariel Deschapell

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Bernie Sanders has tapped into a frenzied millennial base by proposing “free” college tuition (that is, tuition paid for by the government). Bachelor degrees are pitched as the primary means by which individuals can gain skills and increase their incomes, so skyrocketing tuition is becoming a hot election topic. But are more subsidies to the university system a legitimate solution to the problem, or simply a stunt to capitalize on youthful outrage?

There’s no denying that the price of higher education is unrealistically high, and a fix is needed. But Sanders’ plan doesn’t even purport to be a solution. It does nothing to address the root problem of rising costs. It merely spreads those costs to society as a whole by socializing them.

Proponents of this idea don’t ever seem to explore the more fundamental question of why the cost of college continues to increase, let alone how socializing those costs stops the inflationary trend.

The assumption seems to be that rising costs are simply a law of nature that we have to deal with. Fortunately, this isn’t the case. If we look at the wider economy, the cost of higher education is clearly an anomaly. Products across the economic spectrum, from smartphones to automobiles, decrease in cost and increase in quality year after year, despite heavy demand. Indeed, consumer demand is what drives continuous innovation in these industries.

Could the problem be something as simple as decreased public funding? Even if that were true, it still wouldn’t explain why universities seem incapable of cutting costs and maximizing performance. Apple, Samsung, and most any other firms seem perfectly able to do so without any regular source of taxpayer funding.

Higher education possess no unique characteristic that prevents it from improving and adapting as every other industry regularly does. But incentives matter, and the market incentives that drive competitive innovation in other industries are heavily distorted in the college and university system.

For starters, under the Higher Education Act signed into law by Lyndon B. Johnson in 1965, universities and colleges gained a de facto monopoly on higher education.

As Senator Mike Lee explains,

Under the federal Higher Education Act, students are eligible for Title IV student loans and grants only if they attend formally accredited institutions. That makes some sense, for purposes of quality control.

Except that under the law, only degree-issuing academic institutions are allowed to be accredited. And only the U.S. Department of Education gets to say who can be an accreditor.

That is, the federal government today operates a kind of higher-education cartel, with federally approved accreditors using their gatekeeper power to keep out unwanted competition.

Can this explain why higher education seems perpetually stagnant and inefficient? Since 1965, computers have gone from being the size of a small building to vastly more powerful, more common, and more affordable pocket-sized devices. Whole other industries have been continuously disrupted again and again, giving way to newer and better models for doing business.

Yet despite a relentlessly increasing price tag, a college education is largely the same beast it was decades ago. In 21st century America, our higher education system is still governed by rules written in 1965.

Because of these rules (and a flood of taxpayer-backed loans), more students are funneled into accredited higher education every year, while the supply remains artificially restricted. Even the smallest regional colleges turn away more students than they could hope to take in.

Is it any surprise then that tuition continues to climb when there exists so little competitive pressure to keep it in check? Without the risk of losing potential students to superior alternatives, universities lack the basic incentives to maximize the value they provide while minimizing the cost.

With this in mind, what does Sanders’s proposal do to address the underlying structural problem in higher education? As it turns out, worse than nothing.

Instead of seeking to weaken the cartel and drive down prices by increasing competition, free tuition goes the exact opposite way. Like decades worth of failed higher education programs, Sanders seeks to continue stimulating demand while doing nothing to address the artificially limited supply and dearth of innovation. Unchecked by any last remnant of market forces college costs will continue to run away at an even faster rate than before.

Were it still 1965, the Senator might suggest we deal with the AT&T telephone monopoly by demanding free landlines for all Americans forever. Thankfully, this isn’t what happened, and instead of a sprawling federally subsidized landline monopoly, we have a cheap, competitive nationwide market for cellular and mobile internet providers.

But this is exactly what Sanders proposes for higher education: a stagnant, expensive, uncompetitive industry, stuck in the past and eating up billions in subsidies. In doing so, he threatens to deny us the creative destruction sorely needed to bring higher education into the 21st century.

Socialized college tuition may provide a popular and illusory respite for students, but only the competition present in free markets can actually reduce costs and spur sustainable innovation.

Ariel Deschapell
Ariel Deschapell

Ariel holds the Henry Hazlitt Fellowship for Digital Development at FEE. He is a student of Florida International University with a focus in finance and economics.

VIDEO: ‘Muslim Neighbors’ at Vanderbilt University

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Recently Vanderbilt University hosted an anti-Islamophobia conference called Muslim Neighbors. The conference was a dialogue about inclusiveness. But we should examine what the term “Muslim neighbor” means by looking at Mohammed, the perfect Muslim neighbor.

Mohammed had neighbors in Mecca, but he caused so many arguments and fights that he had to leave and go to Medina. Half the population of Medina were Jews, Mohammed’s new neighbors. In Medina he attacked the Jews, enslaved, murdered, and exiled them. After three years, there were no more Jews for neighbors. He then attacked his Jewish neighbors in Khaybar, took their wealth, and made the Jews dhimmis ruled by Islam.

Mohammed also attacked his pagan neighbors, robbing their caravans, stealing their wealth and murdering them. Then he moved north out of Arabia to attack the Christians in Syria.

Christians in Syria today are being betrayed by Muslim neighbors they thought were friends. But Muslims are never true friends of Kafirs, so says twelve verses from the Koran. So much for Muslim neighbors.

The Legacy of Arne Duncan: Common Core and So Much More! (Part 1)

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Much has been written about Arne Duncan’s surprise announcement on October 2 that he would be leaving his post as Secretary of Education.  A longtime friend of Barack Obama from Chicago, Duncan has also been the longest-serving member of the Obama Cabinet.

Duncan’s announcement came only days after a glowing profile in Politico described Duncan’s undersecretary getting choked with emotion and crying when he talked about how Duncan was “fighting for students.”  The article also noted that Duncan left “an unprecedented national stamp on a policy area with a long and strong tradition of local control.”

Pundits who favor a Washington-top-heavy bureaucracy give Duncan high marks, while opponents, especially Common Core opponents, like “white suburban moms,” whose children Duncan claimed weren’t as “brilliant as they thought they were” (because they were confused by the confusing Common Core standards and tests), see more of the same in his replacement for interim secretary: John King, former education commissioner of New York State, and the target of parents’ and the state teachers union’s calls for resignation because of his disastrous implementation of Common Core.  After an astounding 20 percent of eligible students sat-out the Common Core tests, and scores dropped precipitously for those students who did take them, the state decided to shorten the test.

But another “educator,” radical jester/retired education professor from the Chicago gang, Bill Ayers, announced his availability with a tweet.  Some may recall that at the beginning of Obama’s first term Ayers forwarded the name of Linda Darling-Hammond for Education Secretary.  She is as radical as Ayers when it comes to education policy but has the advantage of not having set any actual bombs.  She was put in charge of designing one of the two national tests, with questions intended to go along with the new emphasis on “non-cognitive skills,” or correct attitudes.  But Arne Duncan was “pals” with Bill Ayers back when Duncan was superintendent of Chicago schools and Ayers was teaching future teachers about “a curriculum of questioning” or overseeing dissertations on “nappy roots” hair at the University of Illinois at Chicago.  Ayers collaborated with Obama and Duncan and doled out millions of dollars intended for education reform through the Chicago Annenberg Challenge to ACORN-aligned educational activities.  Bill Ayers rails on today about excessive testing and corporate control in education, but that did not stop him from participating in a Department of Education conference in 2009 alongside a representative from the company that wrote the Common Core standards.

Of course, Obama was too politically savvy to openly follow Ayers’s suggestion, so he chose a pro-basketball player with a bachelor’s degree in sociology to head up the Department of Education.  Politico is typical in touting Duncan’s athletic qualifications more than his academic ones.  That’s for good reason.  Like the “architect” of the Common Core, David Coleman, Duncan has no classroom teaching experience.  He has written no books or academic papers. He volunteered in his mother’s after-school program for inner-city children in Chicago, but attended the private Chicago Lab School, which his own children will go to. (Incoming Education Secretary King’s children also attend private schools.)

Duncan’s career as an educrat began when he hooked up with a friend from school days, investment banker John W. Rogers, a basketball-playing pal of Michelle Obama’s brother.  After playing professional basketball in Australia after college, Duncan was appointed by Rogers to direct a nonprofit foundation for mentoring children.  According to his government website profile, Duncan then became “part of a team” that later started “a new public elementary school built around financial literacy.”

Duncan comes from Chicago’s elite but wrote his senior thesis at Harvard on Chicago’s urban underclass.  He parlayed that concern to government practice.  As Chicago superintendent his main objective was to increase the scope of schools, to make them round-the-clock “community centers” offering homework help, health care, and three squares a day.  This has also been his objective at the federal level.  This is how a once “quiet outpost in the power landscape of Washington, D.C.” acquires power.  Under Duncan’s tenure, the Department of Education has been busy, indeed, sending out notices to parents on everything from summer meal programs to “Dad Talk” to advice on bullying.  There has been an aggressive push for “parental engagement” even a “parent camp” at the capital.  (As I pointed out, “parental engagement” is a ruse for getting parents on board the feds’ programs.)  Duncan even floated the idea of government-run boarding schools.

Duncan has expanded the political reach of the Department as he weighed in on the so-called “school-to-prison pipeline,” gun control (at opportune times after school shootings), and financial aid for illegal aliens.  Initiatives have included so-called “immigrant integration” and “green schools.”  The Department has addressed “suicide and race.”  There has even been outreach to barbers to close the achievement gap.  Duncan marched with Al Sharpton in the Black Lives Matter protest.

Duncan has done his part in Obama’s campaign to expand the reach of the government under the guise of civil rights.  He oversaw the expansion of the department’s Office of Civil Rights as the department investigated sexual assault on college campuses.  He pushed the nation’s schools to change discipline policies because of the disproportionate suspension and expulsion of minority children.

School administrators are more fearful of disciplining minority students than ever and college campuses hold ridiculous workshops on giving sexual consent.  Frederick Hess charged that Duncan “supersized” the federal role by turning the Office of Civil Rights into “an invasive army of lawyers bent on micro-managing local schools” and infusing the issue of fair discipline with “the cause of racial grievance.”  Traditional modes of justice based on fairness and neutrality have been abandoned for the “critical race theory” Obama once taught. Hess cites Michael Greve of the George Washington School of Law in noting that the new standard “‘goes a million miles beyond the requirements of the Constitution; of Title VI; and even of OCR’s own (legally dubious) disparate impact regulations.’”

The supersizing goes beyond grade 12 to college or higher education.  Increasingly, “K-16” or “P-20” (pre-school through graduate school) are being used in the educrat world.  The change in terminology will get people thinking in a new way, but it also reveals the expansion of the Department into what was once considered off-limits to the federal bureaucracy: college curricula, standards, and testing.  Duncan’s imprint on this sphere will be discussed in the next installment.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on the Selous Foundation for Public Policy Research website. The featured image is of Arne Duncan, Obama’s Education Secretary, announcing his stepping down after seven years/Photo: Andrew Harnik.

Never Judge a [Young Adult] Book by its Cover

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“…But it seems one mustn’t judge [books] by th’ outside. This is a puzzlin’ world.” —Mr. Tulliver, The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

Never judge a book by its cover is a commonly used idiom of the English language adapted from George Eliot’s fictional account of one Jeremy Tulliver in the 1860 novel The Mill on The Floss.

brandi chambless

Brandi Chambless

More than ever, Mr. Tulliver’s words ring true. We live in a puzzling world, one of the toughest assignments of all being the departing of wisdom into teenagers who basically have a foreign media-based world order that looks nothing like we Moms and Dads could have ever fathomed as teenagers ourselves.

In light of this communication quandary, I cannot tell you the joy I felt in prying the Wii remote from my teenager’s crusty little fingers in order to deliver the experience of an event that would actually resemble something from the former world order I once knew where he would encounter this once highly popular printed object known as a book.  This was going to be one life-transforming event as far as I was concerned:  Texas Teen Book Festival here we come!

Because of the rush of whetting my son’s appetite for my love of reading or ANYTHING other than the lobotomy-robotomy media addiction that we Mamas battle with our kids, I never considered that the book festival would actually offer material used to entice the sexual appetite of young adult readers, yet that is exactly what I found in the content of almost ALL of the featured authors and panelists.

For instance, take Jenny Han for example, whose writings can be purchased online in Amazon’s dating and sex section just in case you missed the festival.  These are reminiscent of the old Harlequin romances minus the cheesy Fabio cover art, perfect for any 13 year old.  The overarching theme teaches that boys cannot be trusted, but once a fire is lit, the only thing you can do is let it burn.

Or perhaps, you may be interested in assisting your teen in how to find their very own truth, but you don’t exactly have the right words.  Why then, very simply, you can make an easy purchase of Aaron Hartzler’s Rapture Practice which not only features the how-to on his one-way ticket to salvation, including a full-scale rebellion from the upbringing afforded to him by two “overly loving” parents who actually forced him to wear socks when he didn’t want to and had the audacity to bake precious little tomb cakes every Easter with coconut grass. Is it any wonder he felt the need to consistently buck authority and finally overcome this hell to write tell-most books, all the while disciplining younglings in the art of rebellion and losing their faith?

You can also purchase Hartzler’s fictionalized account of the Steubenville rape case featured in his masterpiece entitled What We Saw when Stacey Stallard didn’t handle her alcohol very well. Hey, he is critically acclaimed, so why would anyone think twice about making him the moderator of such an event with thousands of impressionable ears?

And my personal favorite of all is Jesse Andrew’s New York Times Bestseller Me and Earl and the Dying Girl that has been compared to the John Green novel The Fault in Our Stars.  A delightfully touching forward is provided so no Mom would think twice about the benefits of making this purchase.

The onliest “Fault”of author John Green was his failure to include in The Fault in Our Stars account the actual MULTIPLE pornographic accounts of teaching teenagers the art of oral sex and how it can be improved with the use of Heinz 57. Oh, are you offended?  Yes, I was too. Quite. The “Earl” book is FILLED with material so shocking I am unable to quote it here. Earl and Fault are not even in the same ballpark.

Because agents are encouraging writers everywhere to sex it up with salacious compilations in hopes of boosting sales, I urge Moms to take action and contact planning committees of upcoming festivals and library events to let them know you expect the very best selections of authors for young impressionable minds:

North Texas Teen Book Festival, April 23, 2016 coming soon.  Mamas, Grandmothers, Dads and Grandpas everywhere, please email northtexasteenbookfestival@gmail.com.

Tennessee: Teaching Islam in Public Schools

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A Tennessee lawmaker has introduced a bill into the state legislature to prevent courses containing “religious doctrine” from being taught before tenth grade. The bill is in reaction to objections by parents to a three-week curriculum under the topic of world religion for middle-school students that covers the “Five Pillars of Islam.”

The bill is the result of a grass-roots campaign by parents reacting to course requirements that obligated their children to write assignments about Islamic principles of faith, such as “Allah is the only God.” Parents have called it indoctrination.

Parents particularly objected that no other religion was taught at the same time, and that the amount of time spent on Islam was considerably more than that which will be spent on Christianity, Buddism, Hinduism and other religions.

The bill also states that any teaching of “comparative religion” does not focus on one religion more than another.

Rep. Sheila Butt, R-Columbia, who introduced the bill, agrees. “I think that probably the teaching that is going on right now in seventh, eighth grade is not age appropriate,” said Butt. “They are not able to discern a lot of times whether its indoctrination or whether they’re learning about what a religion teaches.”

The parents asked for help from the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), a law firm that addresses constitutional and human rights worldwide. In the course of its investigation, ACLJ ask to looked at the teaching materials from the course but school districts refused to hand them over.

Tennessee law states that the Bible may be used in class, as long as the course doesn’t include the “teaching of religious doctrine or sectarian interpretation of the Bible or of texts from other religious or cultural traditions.”

“If you’re teaching the Middle East, then of course you’re going to mention the religion that was prevalent in that area,” commented Butt, a long-time Sunday school teacher. “But to teach the doctrine is another thing. It’s just a bill about balancing the teaching of religion in education.”

Based on her experience, Butt said, “Junior High is not the time that children are doing the most analysis. Insecurity is in Junior High a lot of times, and students are not able to differentiate a lot of things they are taught.”

Charges of indoctrination by Tennessee parents are reminiscent of a case in California where a federal lawsuit was filed against the Byron Union School District concerning a three-week course about Islam seventh-graders that used the workbook, Islam, A simulation of Islamic history and culture.

In the California school, 12-year old students were told:

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in a ruling marked “Not for Publication,” decided that course did not contain “overt religious exercises” that violated the Establishment Clause of the First Amendment.

Although Islamist organizations have argued that the Tennessee bill is “anti-Islam,” it is reasonable for parents to be concerned about such curriculum. Separation of “church and state” is foundational principle and primary right in the U.S. and should be enjoyed by every individual.

The teaching of religion as religion has no place in America’s public schools.

Meira Svirsky is the editor of ClarionProject.org

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Islamic Indoctrination in Georgia Public Schools

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Yes, in “Jimmy Carter Georgia.”

Georgia Public Schools are teaching key components of Islamic dawah: “schools are reportedly forcing students to learn the Five Pillars of Islam—the creed one must learn to convert—and teaching students that Allah is the same God worshipped by Christians.” So far, unlike in Tennessee, they haven’t [yet] forced the students to actually recite the Shahada, the Muslim confession of faith.

Further, homework assignments are designed to indoctrinate students into accepting this assertion as fact, when it is a strongly contested point which many traditional Christians flatly reject, and with compelling reason.  In addition, the volume of Georgia school materials on Islam outnumber those on Christianity by up to 10 to 1, further highlighting the preferential treatment accorded Islam “in a way that could violate the U.S. Constitution.”

The “Same God” assertion is indeed a primary plank of Islamic dawah (proselytizing), and together with Islam’s claim to be an “Abrahamic Faith” is one of the main tools used by Muslim apologists to advance their agenda within unsuspecting Christian and Jewish communities.

Besides the theological issues with the “Same God” claim itself, Mark Durie explains some of the many dangers this and the “Abrahamic Faith” assertion conceals:

The many “Abrahamic Faith” conferences throughout the world is but one expression of the Islamicisation (sic) of Christian understandings of interfaith dialogue…

This historical negationism—appearing to affirm Christianity and Judaism whilst in fact rejecting and supplanting them—is a lynchpin of Muslim apologetics.

What is being affirmed is in fact neither Christianity nor Judaism, but Jesus as a prophet of Islam, Abraham as a Muslim, Moses as a Muslim, etc. This is intended to lead to ‘reversion’ of Christians and Jews to Islam, which is what [Shamim A.] Siddiqi  [author of the Muslim proselytizing guide, ‘Methodology of Dawah‘, which explicitly teaches Muslim preachers to withhold from potential converts the full truth about Islam’s violent and supremacist aspects until after they have professed the faith] refers to when he speaks of “the joint responsibility” of Jews and Christians to establish “the Kingdom of God”. By this he is asserting that American Christians and Jews should embrace Islam and work together to establish Sharia law and the dominance of Islam in the United States.

The traditional Islamic view is that if you want to know what the God of the Bible is like, then read the Koran. Not only must Muslims believe that “we worship the same God”, but this message is always a central component of the presentation of Islam to Christians and Jews.

[This message] provides the lynchpin of Muslims’ efforts to convert the “People of the Book” to the faith of Muhammad. In addition, this belief, once accepted, can lead Christians to support Islamic perspectives in ways other than conversion. For example, embracing this Islamic doctrine wins a measure of respect and even support for Islam from Christians.

—Dr. Mark Durie, Revelation: Do We Worship The Same God?, pp 50-51, 75-76 (emphasis added). (Dr. Durie’s highly recommended book has since been updated and expanded, and published in a new edition entitled Same God? Jesus, Holy Spirit, God in Christianity and Islam.)

See also: Tennessee openly promotes Islam: 7th-graders made to recite Islamic statement of faith

“Reports of Islamic Indoctrination Spread to Georgia Public Schools,” by Allison Fick, ACLJ (American Center for Law and Justice), October 2, 2015:

“There will be a test, so repeat after me, ‘Allah is ___’” (Photo: Wikimedia).

Islamic indoctrination in public school is occurring right here in our backyard. As we previously reported, the core tenets of Islam are being taught in public schools in a way that could violate the U.S. Constitution. Other religions, such as Christianity, are barely covered. Recently, reports out of Georgia paralleled what has happened in Florida, Wisconsin, and Tennessee.

Georgia schools are required by the Georgia Department of Education to teach about Islam. For example, the Georgia Performance Standards mandate that students be able to “Compare and contrast the prominent religions in Southwest Asia (Middle East): Judaism, Islam, and Christianity.” Much like other states, the Georgia Department of Education sets state-wide education standards and the local schools decide the curriculum. Local schools in Georgia, however, are reportedly adopting curriculums that appear aimed at indoctrinating—rather than educating—students.

The Atlanta Journal Constitution reported on one local middle school that is taking their curriculum too far. The AJC reports:

“It is important that students understand the differences between each of these religions to help them understand the tensions that exist in the region,” the state standards, known as the Georgia Performance Standards, say.

In Walton County, that manifested itself in a homework assignment one parent found objectionable: “Allah is the [blank] worshiped by Jews & Christians,” the document said. The child filled in the blank with “same God.”

This is outrageous. State education standards require education on Islam, not indoctrinationinto the religion. Rather than explain the history of world religions, schools are reportedly forcing students to learn the Five Pillars of Islam—the creed one must learn to convert—and teaching students that Allah is the same God worshipped by Christians.

Unfortunately, this practice has been happening in schools for years. A spokeswoman for Walton County Public Schools stated that:

“We are teaching the same stuff that everyone else is teaching,” she said, adding that the district hasn’t changed its curriculum on the topic in nine years. Her son, a senior in high school, told her he remembers doing a quiz along the lines of the Allah is the “same God” back when he was in seventh grade.

“The same stuff that everyone else is teaching…”  That could work as the epitaph on the tombstone of American Education, and epitomizes the sheer ignorance of many of those trusted with public education, and their complicity in the accelerating Islamization of generations of American students, not to mention the progressive crippling of the intellectual vibrancy of the United States.

Parents are understandably outraged. As one frustrated parent told the local news, “We are seeing one page, five statements of Christian faith and 5 or 10 pages of Islamic faith, so there is no accountability to make sure it is equal.”

Something needs to be done. We at the ACLJ are working hard to investigate, expose, and end these unconstitutional practices, and are committed to fighting for the constitutionally protected rights of all public school students. We continue to receive contact from concerned parents and citizens.  We are working directly with our clients—parents of students in local schools—and preparing to send out demand letters to these schools if necessary. Moreover, we recently sent open records requests to every school district in Tennessee to find out exactly what is being taught in our schools.

The ACLJ will not stop until our students’ constitutionally protected rights have been restored.

To learn more about Shari’ah law’s threat to our constitutional freedoms, please see our booklet Shari’ah Law: Radical Islam’s Threat to the U.S. Constitution.

Sign the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ) petition, Establishment Clause: Stop Islamic Indoctrination in School.

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Muslim Influence Operations at Texas A&M San Antonio

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“Influence operations” by America’s enemies use soft techniques such as strategic communications, diplomacy and public relations to accomplish a strategic goal in lieu of military force. That goal for Islamists is for Sharia law to become law for everywhere in the world.  Not necessarily today nor tomorrow but no doubt the end goal is Shariah.

A recent example of influence operations is the “clock boy” hoax of Ahmad Mohamed in Irving, TX.  A sympathetic press with quotes from ill-informed politicians, celebrities orchestrated by the Council on American Islamic Relations officials paints the desired picture of hatred and prejudice against Muslims. The resultant “back story” showing the holes in the entire story fails to make the front pages and hence unknowing Americas are duped by this type of “influence operations.”

A similar “influence operation” is occurring here in San Antonio at Texas A&M San Antonio thanks to a partnership between President Dr. Cynthia Teniente-Matson (210.784.1600, email here) and the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR).  On October 7th the school’s chapter of the Society of Human Relations Managers (SHRM) is hosting a two hour seminar on “Islam in the Workplace”.

This exact same presentation was originally presented this spring by the San Antonio SHRM chapter. Sarwat Husain, Executive Director for San Antonio Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), was scheduled to speak. She was removed from the speakers list when public outrage resulted in 10,000 emails to the SHRM president asking why an organization identified as supporting Islamic terrorism by Egypt, UAE and U.S. government officials would be permitted to speak to their members.

CAIR did not quit but played the “victimization card” claiming to SHRM supporters that CAIR’s removal was further evidence of “Islamophobia” and found a willing supporter of this argument in the SHRM Chapter sponsor leader at TAMU San Antonio, Dr Adrian Guardia, Dept. of Business (210.784.2332).

Members of the SHRM Board and TAMU officials failed to respond to information from the TAMU Student Body president, Allison Garcia who passed along documents from the FBI and Congress showing CAIR’s ties to known terrorist organizations.

Husain has a history of conveniently deceiving listeners. The Islamic concept of “taqiyyah’ makes this fully acceptable.  In 2009 Husain said:

“For many months, Israel has denied humanitarian aid to Gaza’s civilian population, a blockade that by itself can be regarded as an act of war under international law.… This is state-sponsored terrorism at its best.”

The facts are exactly the opposite. Israel provided these resources and much more:

  • 10,544 patients & companions left Gaza for medical treatment in Israel.
  • 382 emergency evacuations from Gaza for medical purposes.
  • 572 trucks, 5,000 tons of medical supplies entered the Strip.
  • Hadassah Medical Organization in Jerusalem donates $3 million in aid to treat Palestinians in Israel.

This quote from Husain is equally untrue as the statistics reveal. “No other country in the world have terrorized as many people for so long as Israel has for more than half a century…“

Some 11,000,000 Muslims have been violently killed since 1948, of which 35,000, or 0.3 percent, died during the sixty years of fighting Israel, or just 1 out of every 315 Muslim fatalities. In contrast, over 90 percent of the 11 million who perished were killed by fellow Muslims.

Ms. Husain and others would do harm to Islam if they were to discuss two very important Islamic concepts, “tafseer” and “darura” that employers should know. This example of a protecting Islam by using a half-truth or “kitman” is in very handy when conducting “influence operations.”

Koran 4:28 grants Muslims who live in non-Shariah compliant areas, “tayseer” or “lightening of the load” exception.  This would apply to nearly all jobs where Muslims are employed.  The second Islamic concept, “darura” or necessity is also important. If it is necessary, then what is forbidden is permitted.  If a Muslim is hungry and there is no halal (Sharia compliant) food, then he can eat any food. If a Muslim is where he cannot pray, then the prayer can be made up later.  If Sharia law has not been implemented, then a Muslim may handle pork, for example, with no consequences.

These two Islamic concepts gives Islamic justification for fighting frivolous lawsuits brought forward by Muslim employees.

The “influence operations” is complete when Human Relations managers go back to their offices and give business owners incomplete interpretation of Islamic law thus causing the employer to “submit” (Islam means submission) to the wishes of the Muslim employee.  If employers want accurate information on dealing with Islam in the workplace the last group to listen to would be CAIR, understanding “tafseer” and “durura” is far better legal advice. If you want accurate information write to actbexar@reagan.com and we will connect you to the honest legal and Islamic resources.

Florida: Teacher Uprising against Principal at Miami-Dade Special Education Center?

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RoosThere seems to be growing discontent amongst faculty and staff against principal Dr. Tracy Roos (pictured right) at Neva King Cooper Educational Center, a Special Education Center within the Miami-Dade County Public Schools system.

Last week, every teacher received a letter that was mailed to their home purportedly from a Tallahassee-based group, Ethical Educators of America, which was highly critical of Dr. Roos.

The turmoil at the school seems to stem from the removal of the previous principal, Dr. Albert T. Fernandez, and assistant principal, Henny Cristobal, which was determined to be retaliatory by the Florida Department of Education and DOAH Judge Edward T. Bauar.

The decision ended up costing Miami-Dade and Florida taxpayers over $260,000 in legal fees and back pay to Dr. Fernandez.

There is disagreement over some of the content of the letter by teachers speaking on an anonymous basis for fear of retaliation and retribution, but agreement over how Dr. Roos treats her employees.

According to a legal complaint filed recently in state court in Miami-Dade, on April 9, 2013, Principal Roos delivered her sheep’s clothing address to her employees at a staff meeting:

“And damn it!  When you see something wrong, speak up!  And I’m pissed, instead of hiding behind your, your little sheep clothing . . .”

Could this incident be the “meltdown before the faculty” mentioned in the first page of the letter?

The legal complaint also details how teachers were threatened and/or intimidated and how one teacher was wrongfully terminated and then reinstated by a DOAH judge last May.

Teachers speaking on anonymity disagree on a number of points and offer the following corrections to the letter: that the Region Office did not established the curriculum, it was the District Special Education Office; Dr. Roos was not appointed by the Region but by the School Board; concerning the first paragraph on the second page, it is not true- however, District personnel, not Region, assisted in Dr. Fernandez’s removal; they would have lost over $3 million in funding, the letter states $1 million; the last sentence of the third paragraph on the second page is not true; and it was not a “totally worthless program,” and the program did enhance the students’ lives academically and personally.

Moreover, all parts of the letter which states policy came from the Region Office actually came from the District and/or District’s Special Education Office according to the teachers.

Media inquiries were made to the Florida Department of Education and to Dr. Roos.

So far, no one has commented.

We take no position if the letter is true in whole or in part, that is up to you the reader.

We report, you decide.

RELATED ARTICLE: Miami-Dade Night School Principal arrested for Kickbacks, Bribery

Arne Duncan’s Exit: Not Unexpected

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It’s true: US Secretary Arne Duncan has resigned. He will be out of the White House in December. His story is that he is headed back to Chicago to be with his family.

What is noteworthy is that Obama has another year in the White House. The Duncans could have stayed in Virginia where they were residing (and where Duncan’s kids were attending Common-Core-free public school) for another entire school year. Instead, Duncan’s wife, Karen, and their children headed back to Chicago in July– more than a full school year before Obama would finish his time as a two-term president.

So, for Duncan to say that he is resigning to be with the fam seems more like he knew he would be resigning at the end of 2015– right in the middle of a school year. So, it became realistic for the Duncans to move back to Chicago summer 2015.

john king

John King

Then there is the issue of someone to fill in as secretary for the remainder of Obama’s term. Not any officially recognized secretary, just a sub. Enter former New York State Chancellor John King– the perfect guy to “fail upward.” King resigned his position as NYS chancellor in the throes of terrible publicity for his and NY Board of Regents’ foolish approval for established fraud— Ted J. Morris, Jr.— the responsibility for which neither the New York State Education Department (NYSED) nor the Board of Regents wanted to take responsibility, though both were clearly responsible for not investigating Morris’ fabricated background with even a cursory Google search.

So, in December 2014, King was comfortably ushered up to a higher level of incompetence as a “senior adviser” to Duncan.

King as an adviser to anyone is funny, and more so immediately following the grossly-inept Morris affair. But King is a corporate reformer who needed saving, and he could prove to be a suitable 12-month crash test dummy given that Obama could have been planning for a Duncan exit even then.

Perhaps the Democrats want to try to distance themselves from Duncan’s awful, Common-Core defending, white-mom-insulting, NCLB-waiver-threat-wielding legacy before an election year. Sure, New Yorkers know how terrible King was, but King does not have the national profile that Duncan has– plus he is a fellow Democrat who is national-nothing enough to provide the soft filling needed for a secretary of education in a lame duck president’s final year in office.

RELATED ARTICLE: Text of Obama’s Farewell Speech to Duncan, and Duncan’s Response

Social Justice in American Public Education

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social-justice-walter-e-williamsIt has come to our attention:

The Florida Department of Education is not paying attention to the material given to our students.  Is your DOEd? Social Justice, the UNESCO ideology, is now taught in the classroom.  Social justice supports equality and solidarity in a society by designating a small group as a victim.

So that we are all on the same page lets agree on the definition of Social Justice: Social Justice is based on the concept of human rights and equality, and involves a great degree of economic affairs in which equality of outcome means all people have the same wealth regardless of work.  If wealth is not equal, then the government has the right to take from one and give to another.

Social Justice is a founding principle of various forms of socialism, communism, fascism, globalism, progressivism and cooperative economic organization, implemented through progressive taxation, income redistribution, or even property redistribution.

Notice now there is no need for students to know how to read or write, do math, know science, learn American history, nor to learn about America’s greatness, Bill of Rights, or Constitution.   Instead, so long as students can communicate the values of the teacher, they pass.  Since “grading” will make one student  feel  exceptional and others  feel badly about themselves,  they only ” pass” or “fail.”  This grading causes an unrealistic view of the world as we know “the world – life is not fair.”

On October 9, 2011 Jack Chambless, Economics Professor, Valencia College, Orlando, wrote to the The Orlando Sentinel on The American Dream.  His students had to write an essay explaining their definition of the American Dream and what they expected the federal government to do to help them achieve their version of this dream.

“When contemplating the role of Washington, D.C., in helping them achieve their goals in life, my students, most of whom were educated in America’s public schools, wrote that they wanted government to:

  • pay for my tuition
  • provide me with a job
  • give me money for a house
  • make sure I get free health care
  • pay for my retirement
  • raise taxes on rich people so that I can have more money, etc.

The idea of self responsibility and consequences for ones actions are skill sets no longer taught in school.  The future decision making process has been altered making the first choice reliance on government not self.

One student, who thought her American Dream could be best achieved with more government regulations, went so far as to say, “We all know that there are many bad side effects when regulations take place, but as human beings, we are not really responsible for our own acts. So we need government to control those who don’t care about others. It makes sense that our freedom is reduced every day with the new regulations.”

The Wall Street Journal reported that for the first time in our nation’s history, 51 percent of Americans will not pay income taxes. It should also be noted that in 1983, just over 29 percent of Americans received some form of government assistance. Today the figure is 44.4 percent.

As a retired teacher, with a Masters Degree in Liberal Studies, I was not surprised at what “eductior” were saying. But I doubt if any of the students or parents actually understood what they were asking for in their dream.  Government control comes with a heavy price. Life will not continue along the same path we are accustomed to today. It changes drastically.

  • YOU will go to your government- approved apartment (flat)
  • in your sustainable development with
  • government- approved clothes,
  • eating your government- approved food,
  • going to your government- approved job on your bicycle.

Traveling is out.  Cars and gas will be too expensive. Healthcare is controlled and rationed by the government. Your electricity, energy, and food will be rationed.   Since you now pay for everyone and all services must be fair, the quality will be inferior.  Paying for quality services is out of the question –too expensive for all.  Services provided are mediocre.    Your only purpose in life is to work for the government.  You will never get out of debt for you salary will be substandard.

Economists teach that the economy needs you in debt to guarantee your work.  You work is leveraged for more borrowing.   The debt will never be paid, but the debtors will be happy to take your land and America’s resources. After all, these massive programs offering inferior services, must be paid by you.  When you drive by abandoned houses remember, if the stimulus money was used to help Americnas, there was more than enough to make every American whole. That was not the plan. The plan was foreclosure to level the playing field making it Fair. Net result: you will rent back your home and own nothing.  Ownership is not fair.

Poor quality education programs and grants like Race to the Top has brought us a National Data Base.  Your children will be required to “tell all in school”.  Tell:  how much you smoke, eat, drink, if you have a gun, your political associations, friends, sexual orientation. Now, all of your personal private information will be  reported into the National Data Base. If you are a Tea Party member, White males have been classified as terrorists and now, with bill like the

National Defense Appropriations Act, the government needs no excuse to pick you up and detain you indefinitely.  Not to worry – the TSA, the new Obama home army that he promised to create and fund, will come and get you.

Do students really understand Social Justice or do they think they are joining another social network?  Do you understand your new life? Let’s see how this social justice will work on a middle class family used to making their own decisions.

So what if:

Your Government has determined that you have accumulated more wealth than your neighbors?  That is not acceptable as the requirement of Social Justice demands that wealth be shared. You will be required to share your wealth to make room for other less- fortunate families.  In preparation of implementing Social Justice, you will now be required to register all bedrooms in your home. Many people already did this by answering Census surveys.

Your child will register information on the National Data Base, as required in the Race to the Top grant. This information will be stored on the National Data Base and will be shared with all government/corporate agencies (for your protection) to monitor your compliance with the program. Toady a chip with all of your private – banking, health, political etc. information is now embedded in your credit/debit/benefit cards, drivers license id cards etc. Eventually your net pay will be deposited on your card.  As long as you are good and say nothing derogatory, you will keep your money. Speak out and the government can debit your account.  (remember Greece)

According to sustainable development you and your spouse are entitled to 700 sq ft. 900 for a family of 4. Your family can occupy 1 bedroom. Each of the other bedrooms will be assigned to another family. This program is open to all residents of Florida, legal or illegal, working or not. You will be required to clothe, feed, educate, as well as to provide shelter, transportation and medical attention to all people living in your home.  The Pope is calling for this today.  Instead of fighting ISIS, they want you to share your wealth. Although I agree we must help the refugees that is a short term answer. In the long term, who as the funds and weapons to fight? you or the government? Yet the Pope says you must give up your wealth.

Continuing, your family can only have 1 car, which you will be unable to drive because fuel will necessarily skyrocket. You will be required to redistribute all other cars to those living in your home.

You will register your income so it can be divided equally among those living in your home. Under NO circumstances will those living in your home be required to pay or assist in any services required for the upkeep of your home. They are not obligated to you for any reason, it is just your obligation to pay for them since you accumulated too much wealth and wealth must be shared equally.

Once the registration is complete, you will transfer ownership of your home or business to the State. Private property is not acceptable under a Social Justice program. Don’t want to register, do not worry; your child will be able to complete this registration in the national data base required in Race to the Top.

If you need any references as to how this program works, we refer you to those models of implementation of Social Justice in Cuba, Argentina, Venezuela, Hitler’s Germany, Stalin’s Russia, Hungary, China, and Poland.

If you feel that you have been selected unfairly, then contact the FLDOE and tell them that you live in the Constitutional Republic of America, not the Communist Republic of America. Demand that communist/socialist programs be removed from the schools. Demand that the Bill of Rights, American exceptionalism, nationalism, history, civics, and economics be returned to the Florida curriculum.

Teaching Social Justice is un-American.

Take Action

Homeschool whenever possible. Can home school? Go to your Pastor.  Tell your Pastor it is time to start a CCS free church school. Go to your school demand to see every piece of paper your child receives in school. Correct all mistakes and demand these boards and programs be removed from school.

Go to your school board and demand these books and programs removed form school Replace them with on of the many American exceptional curricula.   The test scores are in and CCS has failed miserably.  Why are we torturing our children year after year with programs that prepare them for NOTHING? Why are we forcing them to change their belief systems? The answer, MONEY POWER CONTROL.

Do you value your freedom of choice? Will you work for our children, our country?

The White House
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
September 15, 2015

Executive Order — Using Behavioral Science Insights to Better Serve the American People

President Obama announced a new executive order on Tuesday which authorizes federal agencies to conduct behavioral experiments on U.S. citizens in order to advance government initiatives.

“A growing body of evidence demonstrates that behavioral science insights — research findings from fields such as behavioral economics and psychology about how people make decisions and act on them — can be used to design government policies to better serve the American people,” reads the executive order, released on Tuesday.

The new program is the end result of a policy proposal the White House floated in 2013 entitled “Strengthening Federal Capacity for Behavioral Insights.”

According to a document released by the White House at that time, the program was modeled on one implemented in the U.K. in 2010. That initiative created a Behavioral Insights Teams, which used “iterative experimentation” to test “interventions that will further advance priorities of the British government.”

The initiative draws on research from University of Chicago economist Richard Thaler and Harvard law school professor Cass Sunstein, who was also dubbed Obama’s regulatory czar. The two behavioral scientists argued in their 2008 book “Nudge” that government policies can be designed in a way that “nudges” citizens towards certain behaviors and choices.

The desired choices almost always advance the goals of the federal government, though they are often couched as ways to cut overall program spending.

In its 2013 memo, which was reported by Fox News at the time, the White House openly admitted that the initiative involved behavioral experimentation.

“The federal government is currently creating a new team that will help build federal capacity to experiment with these approaches, and to scale behavioral interventions that have been rigorously evaluated, using, where possible, randomized controlled trials,” the memo read.

That document cited examples from the U.K. which showed that sending out a letter to late taxpayers which read “9 out of 10 people in Britain pay their taxes on time” led to a 15 percent increase in compliance.

The new executive order encourages federal agencies to “identify policies, programs, and operations where applying behavioral science insights may yield substantial improvements in public welfare, program outcomes, and program cost effectiveness,” as well as to “develop strategies for applying behavioral science insights to programs and, where possible, rigorously test and evaluate the impact of these insights.”

To jump-start the programs, agencies are encouraged to recruit behavioral science experts to join the federal government and to develop relationships with researchers in order to “better use empirical findings from the behavioral sciences.”

A fact sheet sent out by the White House on Tuesday shows that researchers at numerous universities and think tanks — from MIT, Harvard, and the Brookings Institute, to name a few — have signed on to the program.

The executive order specifically directs federal agencies to develop nudge programs that help individuals, families, communities and businesses “access public programs and benefits by, as appropriate, streamlining processes that may otherwise limit or delay participation.”

This can be achieved by “administrative hurdles, shortening wait times, and simplifying forms,” the order suggests.

The initiative also urges agencies to tinker with how information is presented to individuals, consumers, borrowers, and program beneficiaries.

The “content, format, timing, and medium by which information is conveyed” should be taken into consideration as those characteristics affect “comprehension and action by individuals.”

In programs that offer choices for consumers, agencies are instructed to “consider how the presentation and structure of those choices, including the order, number, and arrangement of options, can most effectively promote public welfare.”

The order also suggests that agencies fiddle with whether to label certain expenditures as “benefits, taxes, subsidies” or other incentives to “efficiently promote” programs.

President Obama’s federal health care law, Obamacare, is replete with “nudge” language and experimentation.

In its fact sheet, the White House noted that reminding individuals who had started to sign up for Obamacare led to a 13 percent increase in completed applications.

To help determine which presentation was more effective, the Department of Health and Human Services “sent one of eight behaviorally designed letter variants to each of more than 700,000 individuals who had already begun the health insurance enrollment process but had not yet completed an application.”

The most effective version of the letter generated the 13 percent improvement. Other less effective letters only increased enrollment rates by around four percent.

Another nudge contained in Obamacare was brought to light in the debate over whether the individual mandate contained in the law was a tax hike.

Republicans insisted that it was a tax increase, but the White House portrayed it as a penalty on the logic that the word “tax” has a negative connotation.

While the Obama administration touts nudge policies, others are hesitant to get on board.

“I am very skeptical of a team promoting nudge policies,” Michael Thomas, an economist at Utah State University, told Fox News in 2013.

“Ultimately, nudging…assumes a small group of people in government know better about choices than the individuals making them.”