Tag Archive for: education

Common Core Test Refuseniks

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The time for Common Core tests, devised under contract by the U.S. Department of Education by two private consortia PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) and SBAC (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium), has finally come.

The tests, according to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan, would be far superior to the “one-shot, year-end bubble tests” of old because they would test “critical thinking skills and complex student learning.”

These tests differ from previous ones that measured students’ knowledge in such subjects as history and science, and measured their skills in math and writing.  No longer are correct answers enough.  The new tests favor math problems that complicate solutions with charts, graphics, and stories, causing tears for students who had once excelled in the subject. Sample English Language Arts test questions for eleventh-graders, as I described, involved reading, group discussions, and writing letters about nuclear power, “sustainable fashion,” public art, and meditation.  To test “listening skills” students listened to a computer-generated voice reciting information about Ferris wheels, arachnids, and fluoridation.  (Alas, in the interests of time—because the SBAC test takes 8.5 hours and the PARCC test takes over 10 hours—some of the open-ended “critical thinking” questions have been replaced by bubble-in answers.)

While test questions about Ferris wheels and spiders seem to be below grade level for high school juniors, assessments for the lower grades seem to be too advanced.  Gretchen Logue, a Missouri activist, reading teacher, and mother of a sixth-grader, evaluated the sixth-grade reading test and found it to be above grade level, and promptly withdrew her child from testing.

More Test Anxiety

Although tests are sold as having the advantage of not requiring “test prep” they are producing much anxiety.  (Perhaps there is more anxiety involved in taking unpredictable and open-ended tests.  After all, there is comfort in getting all the flash cards right.)  Some schools have taken to bribing students with incentives like the chance to skip final exams in English and math, or to participate in drawings for iPads.  One girl in a PBS news segment described students’ frustrations with lack of clear-cut answers and the need for advanced technical skills, such as “dragging and dropping.”  The school superintendent in the same PBS video, however, insisted that Common Core testing makes things more racially equitable.

Technical difficulties with the tests abound.  Ear buds must be worn and be working.  An eleven-year-old student taking the practice test in Ohio had difficulty logging on.  The Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation’s second largest, experienced problems with slow connectivity and a website crashing when a practice test was given.  As a result, the state school board has decided not to use the tests in its accountability measurements this year. Other states with technical problems have resorted to paper-and-pencil tests—with bubbles to fill in.

According to California’s FlashReport, education analyst Steven Rasmussen found that, “based on publicly available sample math questions, the Common Core tests: ‘Violate the standards they are supposed to assess; cannot be adequately answered by students with the technology they are required to use; use confusing and hard-to-use interfaces; or are to [be] graded in such a way that incorrect answers are identified as correct and correct answers as incorrect.’”

The technology also brings concerns about privacy.  The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium sent a guidance memo to schools instructing them on how to do “social media monitoring” during the field test. As Jane Robbins wrote recently, it appears that Pearson, the multinational company that administers the PARCC test, has been tracking student comments on social media through its security company.  Robbins, an attorney and senior fellow at the American Principles Project, raises questions of concern about privacy, and students carrying life-long records that unfairly brand them as cheaters.

The New Line of Attack

The first line of attack, Common Core withdrawal bills, worked in a few states and failed in others.  In still other states, deceptive legislators simple rebranded Common Core, by slapping a new local label onto almost unchanged standards.

So a grassroots movement of “opting out” has taken hold in Connecticut, New Jersey, Louisiana, New York, Mississippi, and elsewhere.  The resistance is coming from the political right and the political left.  Those on the right are opposed to federal testing that measures emotional responses more than knowledge and infringes on privacy.  The left often rejects accountability standards.  The national United Opt Out movement, self-described as one of “unyielding resistance to corporate ed reform,” demands an “equitably funded, democratically based, anti-racist, desegregated public school system for all.” Paula Bolyard, noting that students’ complaints often echo those of teachers unions, namely about school choice and “corporatist” Republicans, warns that teachers unions may be “community organizing our kids under the guise of Common Core opposition for students.”

Some school districts, in the Rochester, New York, and Buffalo, New York, areas are considering boycotts.

Some parent activists, such as Gretchen Logue and Anne Gassel of the Missouri Coalition Against Common Core, have filed suit.  Logue and Gassel had joined with former Republican gubernatorial candidate Fred Sauer as plaintiffs against Governor Jay Nixon and other state and education officials.  The judge has ruled that the state’s membership fees to the federally funded Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium is unconstitutional. That ruling is having reverberations already.  In Missouri, a house budget committee has stripped $4.5 million in the state’s budget proposal for membership in SBAC.  In North Dakota, Rep. Jim Kasper (R) is “prodding” the state attorney general about the constitutionality regarding the pact with SBAC, after having failed to get approval for his anti-Common Core bill last month.

In New York State, a bill called “The Common Core Parental Refusal Act” was introduced on March 17.  It would require school districts to notify parents of their right to refuse their third-to-eighth-grade children to take Common Core tests, with no penalties.  Such a bill was also proposed in Maine last month.  A similar bill in Arkansas, introduced in the House, failed before the Senate Education Committee.

In this year of ballyhooed roll-out, only 18 of the original 31 states signed up for the SBAC tests will be administering it.  Only 11 (plus Washington, D.C.) of the 26 signed up for the PARC test will administer it.  (Some states had originally signed up for both consortia.)  Common Core proponents, as quoted in the Hechinger Report are not dissuaded.  They imply: We haven’t had enough time (it’s the first year) or money (the product has to be “refined”).

It doesn’t look like parents, activists, and lawmakers will buy it.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on the Selous Foundation for Public Policy Research website.

Seeing the Light on School Choice

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The arguments against school choice in America are growing more desperate and outrageous as the special interest groups allied against the educational opportunities of America’s school children begin to lose their fight. In a remarkable development, a number of prominent Democrats are siding with Republicans on school choice and in the fight for the educational futures of millions of American children.

These special interest groups are experts at making us believe they’re in it for the kids but this message is far different from the one that takes place behind closed doors.

Think about it; where else do rational people argue against choice? We want to choose our doctors. We want to choose our childcare providers. We want to choose our home contractors. We want to choose the supermarket where we shop. We want to choose the restaurants where we eat. We want to choose which colleges we attend. We want to choose our lawyers, our accountants, our landscapers, our mechanics, our barbers, our butchers, and just about every other provider whose services or products we may want or need.

If choice is the obvious answer for nearly every other arena, then why is there such a controversy when it comes to educational options? The controversy stems from the fact that a number of special interest organizations make a living, and will continue to exist, only if the failed system in place continues to be forced down our throats. These special interest groups are experts at making us believe they’re in it for the kids but this message is far different from the one that takes place behind closed doors. If you have any doubts read the following quote from National Education Association lawyer, Bob Chanin, speaking in 2009 at the National Education Association’s (NEA) annual meeting:

Despite what some among us would like to believe it is not because of our creative ideas. It is not because of the merit of our positions. It is not because we care about children and it is not because we have a vision of a great public school for every child. NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power.

The NEA, and their sister organizations, are showing their unwillingness to get results, and to fight for a better educational future by their intransigence and their unwillingness to allow parents a choice, and a voice, in the process.

This quote is appalling. Speaking with educators in my family and those I came into contact with on my political campaigns, I bet most teachers would agree. The tragic irony of this quote is that the power Mr. Chanin speaks of is leveraged at the expense of both America’s school children AND its teachers. The NEA and its sister organizations, which have carelessly pursued a merciless, one-sided negotiation strategy, have ignored the alternatives for their members and are costing them both money and career flexibility.

South Korea, a country with a world-class education system, compensates its teachers at approximately two and a half times GDP per capita, while in the United States the ratio is roughly one to one. In addition, South Korean parents spend more on education for their children than parents in any other country (15% of Gross National Product) to attain academic excellence. To be clear, I am not making a case for or against more or less government or private spending on education in this specific piece. But, I am arguing that the education special interests are doing a disservice to their members and to the country by fighting for the failed status quo, and against school choice, under the misguided belief that the educators they represent will suffer financially. South Koreans are willing to spend such large sums on education and, in the process, improve the financial well being of their teachers, because they are getting results. The NEA, and their sister organizations, are showing their unwillingness to get results, and to fight for a better educational future by their intransigence and their unwillingness to allow parents a choice, and a voice, in the process.

Freedom, liberty and choice work because bureaucrats will never possess the information necessary about you and your children to make better decisions than you can make for yourselves. The value of a top tier education will only grow in a globalized future, where productivity enhancements will increasingly come from the arena of ideas, and less from the arena of physical labor.

This is a fight we can all get behind, regardless of our partisan leanings. Invest your time in the fight for school choice and educational freedom and tomorrow will pay us all back a handsome dividend.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the Conservative Review.

Watch out Scott Walker: You carry the burden of Ronald Reagan’s ‘Legacy’ in ‘Liberal Learning’

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Now that Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker is ascending as a presidential candidate, expect to see quasi-scholarly attacks about the devastating legacy of Republicans on higher education.  As James Piereson and Naomi Schaefer Riley noted recently, Walker’s problems with the University of Wisconsin arising over budget cuts and altering the words of the school’s mission “are those almost everyone in the Republican field could soon have.”

Yes, and expect attacks to come from places like the Chronicle of Higher Education, which recently published Dan Berrett’s article, “The Day the Purpose of College Changed.”  The day is February 28, 1967, when newly elected California Governor Ronald Reagan claimed that taxpayers shouldn’t be “subsidizing intellectual curiosity” at universities.  As an example, Reagan described a four-credit course at the University of California at Davis on organizing demonstrations.  He said, “I figure that carrying a picket sign is sort of like, oh, a lot of things you pick up naturally, like learning how to swim by falling off the end of a dock.”

Reagan found “whole academic programs in California and across the country” “similarly suspect.”  The Los Angeles Times’ response, “If a university is not a place where intellectual curiosity is to be encouraged, and subsidized, then it is nothing,” is applauded by Berrett as “giving voice to the ideal of liberal education, in which college is a vehicle for intellectual development, for cultivating a flexible mind, and, no matter the focus of study, for fostering a broad set of knowledge and skills whose value is not always immediately apparent.”

The decline in liberal arts enrollments in the 1980s, when business administration became the most popular college major, is traced back: “On that day in 1967, the balance started to tip toward utility in ways not even Reagan may have anticipated.”

Republican governors continue to degrade the popular opinion of liberal education, Berrett maintains, as he quotes Pat McCrory: “If you want to take gender studies, that’s fine, go to a private school,’ the Republican governor of North Carolina, said on a radio show a couple of years ago. ‘I don’t want to subsidize that if that’s not going to get someone a job.’ In other words, it’s an intellectual luxury” – and “private goods.”

McCrory presumably follows the lead of Reagan, who in the same year he announced budget cuts, hypocritically dedicated a library at his alma mater, Eureka College, a small Disciples of Christ school, while citing the greats of liberal learning: Aristotle, Plato, Socrates, and Maimonides.

In contrast, “plenty of governors through the years have understood that a liberal education also has a public benefit.” At one time, “A farmer reading the classics or an industrial worker quoting Shakespeare was . . . an honorable character.”

Real “Liberal learning”?

As an alternative to the small-minded trend of utilitarianism, Berrett presents the efforts of the 100-year-old, 1,300-member Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U), which promises to “devote the entire Centennial Year to a far-reaching exploration of the connections between high-quality liberal learning and Americans’ global future and of the changes needed to drive equitable access to high-quality learning for the millions of students who remain underserved. .  . .”

Berrett praises the projects on “educational quality, funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and civic learning, commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education.”  One of these projects, the Liberal Education and America’s Promise (LEAP) program, encourages students “to learn by tackling society’s ‘big questions’” through Signature Work.

Although Signature Work’s goal is presented as overcoming the disparity of “providing liberal education to some students and narrow training to others,” the projects are described as either career related, or related to “significant societal challenges such as health, literacy, sustainability, or human dignity.”

Nothing references Shakespeare or the classics, the kind of “liberal learning” that Berrett claims Republican governors are threatening.

In reality, the AAC&U promotes the kind of activism that one finds in the “gender studies” departments that Governor McCrory denounced.

Such politicization has entered the required subjects, such as freshman composition, that recall “liberal learning,” if only by name.  The activity that Reagan mocked in 1967, a four-credit course on picketing and protest, has become institutionalized.  Last year I wrote about a University of South Florida freshman composition instructor sharing tips in a professional journal on requiring student participation in “Slut Walk” and “Take Back the Night” demonstrations.  Other composition courses focus on such topics as “sustainability” and “composing gender.”  This is the legacy of the 1960s protests.

Real History?

In addition to twisting the definition of “liberal learning,” Berrett misrepresents the facts –facts readily available in the biography Governor Reagan: His Rise to Power by journalist Lou Cannon.

Cannon is a liberal.  Yet, he presents Reagan’s actions in full context. It’s a context that Berrett ignores.

Cannon recognizes that Reagan’s predecessor, Governor Pat Brown, did some creative accounting, leaving Reagan to begin his term with a deficit.  Berrett makes no mention of this.

Berrett also perpetuates old charges of anti-intellectualism already refuted by Cannon: “Reagan’s academic critics accused him of anti-intellectualism.  He gave them ammunition by saying, or so it was reported, that the University of California ‘subsidized intellectual curiosity.’  But while Reagan in the long tradition of populism certainly exploited the anti-intellectual biases of his constituencies, he was in awe of people with advanced degrees.  One of the reasons that Reagan was offended by the [campus] demonstrations was that he took higher education seriously.”

Reagan is known for his firm stance against protestors who violently took over California’s public campuses in the 1960s.  He explained to Cannon decades later his belief in outlawing activism that interfered with the rights of others, namely other students.

Although Reagan as a college student was “more concerned with dramatics and athletics than with his studies,” he was proud of being the first in his family to graduate from college (paid for with a partial scholarship and a job washing dishes) and interrupted his 1980 presidential campaign for a trip to his alma mater.

The Real Legacy

Berrett himself illustrates the politicization of liberal learning.  At the Chronicle of Higher Education critics of the degraded form of “liberal learning” are ousted.  Naomi Schaeffer Riley became a casualty when she dared to attack politicized Black Studies.

Such courses do not deserve any public funding.

But the liberal arts, rightly understood, are of value to students.  They produce knowledgeable, civic-minded, clear-thinking, and articulate citizens.  As evidenced by employers’ complaints, our liberal arts departments are failing to teach even basic skills, such as writing clearly, correctly, and convincingly. Shouting, marching, and sign-carrying are no substitute for studying Aristotle’s Rhetoric, reading classical works, and writing essays.

Conservatives do support privately funded independent institutions, such as the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization, where I am a fellow, because they offer liberal learning, in its true meaning.

Scott Walker, and other Republican candidates, should make that distinction—and often.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared on the Selous Foundation for Public Policy Research website. The featured image is of newly elected Governor Ronald Reagan confronting student protestors in Sacremento/Bettmann, Corbis, AP image.

VIDEOS: The Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation Summit

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Dawn Hawkins discusses the need and plan for strong, united efforts among the many involved in these issues through the Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation.

2014 CESE Summit Video: Dawn Hawkins, “The Coalition: Uniting to Advocate for Change” from Center On Sexual Exploitation on Vimeo.

Mrs. Hawkins is the Executive Director of the National Center on Sexual Exploitation (endsexualexploitation.org) where she has developed a national strategy uniting conservative, women’s rights, child advocacy and religious groups, including a bipartisan political leadership, to work together raising awareness of the pandemic of harm from pornography. Through her leadership, NCSE has grown a network reaching hundreds of thousands of people all over the world. Mrs. Hawkins has appeared on many local and national television programs, regularly authors articles and speaks around the country addressing the harms of pornography and what can be done to curb the growing pornification of our culture.

The Coalition to End Sexual Exploitation (CESE) is focused on bringing a diverse spectrum of people together to solve and end the complex social issue of sexual exploitation. Members of the coalition create a unified front when faced with these seemingly insurmountable issues. As of September 2014, there are 280 national, state and local organizations in the Coalition.

CESE combines child advocacy, Internet safety, pro-family, prevention, education, women’s rights and feminist activists, recovery groups, law enforcement, anti-trafficking groups, state policy, and technology groups together, as well as health and science experts and religious leaders.

To learn more and view all of the videos of the 2014 End Sexual Exploitation Summit click here.

The 2015 End Sexual Exploitation Summit will be held in Orlando, Florida from September 10th to September 12th, 2015 at the Renaissance Orlando at SeaWorld.

School Retaliates Against Teacher for anti-Common Core Facebook Post — Federal Lawsuit Filed

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Deborah Vailes has been teaching junior high in Louisiana’s Rapides Parish School District for the past twelve years.  She is passionate about helping special needs children become better readers.  Little did she know that an early morning post critical of the Common Core Curriculum on her personal Facebook page would lead to disciplinary action, suppression of her right to free speech, retaliation from school officials, and possible loss of her job.

As a result, the Thomas More Law Center (TMLC), a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan has filed a lawsuit in the Federal District Court for the Western District of Louisiana on behalf of Deborah Vailes against the Rapides Parish School District and the principal of Pineville Junior High School, Dr. Dana Nolan.

Richard Thompson, President and Chief Counsel of the Thomas More Law Center, commenting on the reason for the lawsuit, stated: “Public school students have become ‘guinea pigs’ in a vast untested educational experiment dictated by the Federal Government. Our Constitution never envisioned federal control over education.  But sadly, most states have voluntarily abdicated their responsibilities over education for federal dollars. Their decision will prove disastrous, not only for public education, but also for the freedom guaranteed by our Constitution.  Debbie Vailes’ uncompromising love for her students prompted her to speak out.  And her voice should not be silenced by a tyrannical principal.”

Facts

On September 23, 2014, at approximately by 5:58 AM, Debora Vailes re-posted on her personal Facebook page a photograph of a little girl crying because of the shortcomings of Common Core.  Later that day, her school principal, Dr. Dana Nolan, after discovering the post, gave Deborah Vailes her first written reprimand and ordered her to refrain from expressing any opinion about public education on social media and to remove her anti-Common Core post from the social media site – ASAP. (The school district refers to written reprimands as a “documented conferences.”)  Dr. Nolan further informed Deborah that she could not to discuss her opinion in public – on any social media or any public forum.

Two days later, Dr. Nolan held a mandatory faculty meeting of the Pineville Junior high school. She informed the faculty at the meeting that Deborah Vailes was reprimanded due to posting a negative opinion about Common Core on Facebook.  Dr. Nolan warned the faculty not to share their personal opinions or speak-out in any way.  After hearing about the Principal’s gag order, Bobby Jindal, the governor of Louisiana, issued an executive order that teachers were to be afforded the same constitutional guarantees afforded to all citizens. However, his executive order did not deter the Defendant, Dr. Nolan, from continuing her vendetta against Deborah Vailes.

Before Vailes posted her Facebook criticism of Common Core, she had a stellar personnel record; she had never received a reprimand.  Since her public criticism, she has received three additional written reprimands. School administrators are now constantly visiting her class, when before her criticism of Common Core, such visits were rare.  Dr. Nolan has stripped Debbie Vailes of her responsibilities, and placed her in a job category which, according to Vailes’ colleagues, will be eliminated at the end of the school year resulting in her termination.

TMLC Senior Trial Counsel Erin Mersino and Alexandria, Louisiana attorney, Theodore D. Vicknair are representing Deborah Vailes.   Mersino stated “Accepting employment in the public sector does not mean a total loss of First Amendment freedom.  Public employees may readily comment on matters of public concern, such as the Common Core Curriculum, and do so free from any retaliation from their employer.  What the School District and Principal are doing to Debbie Vailes is blatantly wrong.”

 Click here to read TMLC’s entire Complaint

 Difficulties with Common Core State Standards

Common Core State Standards (“Common Core”) are national standards in education promoted and funded by the U.S. Department of Education.  The National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers together established Common Core as a set of academic standards to be used in common across all states. These standards replace the existing state standards in the applicable academic areas.

Although Common Core has been adopted by 43 states (including Louisiana), its implementation has caused an uproar from caring parents, grandparents and educators alike. According to an October 2014 Gallup poll, 62% of teachers are frustrated with the Common Core State Standards.

Adding to the frustration is the fact that the Common Core Standards were untested prior to their implementation.  They were implemented without any prior research being conducted on their efficacy, resulting in standards that at best reflect guesswork. Many child development experts have decried even the creation of the standards without input from classroom teachers or early childhood professionals.

Compounding the anger over the standards themselves was the overwhelming emphasis on standardized testing. The Common Core State Standards require so much testing, that teachers can only teach to the test.

Moreover, Common Core’s method for teaching math over-complicates and adds numerous seemingly illogical steps to solving math problems.

Many parents and teachers have also expressed concern over the English Standards set by the Common Core. The reading selections considered to be representative examples of what students should be reading, feature incest, rape and drug use, as well as far left political viewpoints.

Marine’s Daughter Gets Failing Grade for Refusing Islamic Indoctrination – The Thomas More Law Center Steps In

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The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) today announced its representation of John Kevin Wood, and his wife Melissa, in their battle with La Plata High School in Maryland over the Islamic indoctrination of their 11th grade daughter in her World History class. Their daughter was required to complete assignments where she had to affirm that “There is no god but Allah” and the other Five Pillars of Islam.

The case gained national attention when the school banned John Wood from entering school property after he objected to the religion of Islam being taught in his daughter’s history class and demanded that she be given an alternative assignment. The school refused. Wood, a former Marine who served in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm and lost friends in that action, saw firsthand the destruction caused in the name of Allah and that Islam is not “a religion of peace;” and he would not budge from his position.

The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) is a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. TMLC Senior Trial Counsel, Erin Mersino, and Maryland attorney, Michael F. Smith of The Smith Appellate Law Firm, represent the Wood family. Yesterday they filed a request for records relating to the case under Maryland’s Public Information Act.

On October 22, 2014, John Wood discovered that his daughter was being forced to repeat religious tenets of Islam as a part of her World History class assignment. She was required to write how the prophet Muhammad was visited by the Angel Gabriel and preached that there is only one true god, who is Allah. The assignment made her write that Mohammad is the messenger of Allah and that the Qur’an is holy text. The assignment required her to affirm that “Allah is the same god that is worshipped in Christianity and Judaism” and that the “Qur’an is the word of Allah revealed to Mohammad in the same way that Jews and Christians believe the Torah and the Gospels were revealed to Moses and the New Testament writers.” The assignment also forced young women such as the Woods’ daughter, to fill in the following sentences: “Men are the managers of the affairs of women” and “Righteous women are therefore obedient.”

When John Wood discovered the Islamic propaganda and indoctrination, he was rightfully outraged, and that evening unsuccessfully tried to contact the school by phone to voice his objections. Wood witnessed firsthand the destruction caused in the name of Allah and knows Islam is not “a religion of peace.” He served in Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm, and lost friends in that action. On 9-11, Wood responded as a firefighter to the smoldering Pentagon. He refused to allow La Plata High School to subject his daughter to Islamic indoctrination despite the threatened academic consequences.

The next day, October 23rd,Wood had a phone conversation with a La Plata vice principal where he again reiterated his objections to his daughter being indoctrinated into the religion of Islam He asked how the religion of Islam could be taught when schools are prohibited from teaching the religion of Christianity.

The following day, October 24th, John Wood spoke with the high school principal. The principal refused to allow an alternative assignment and threatened that if his daughter, a high school junior with college hopes, did not complete the religious assignment on Islam, she would receive a failing grade.

Commenting on the case, Richard Thompson, TMLC’s President and Chief Counsel stated: “Adding insult to injury, in an arrogant and unnecessary display of power, La Plata’s principal issued a written “No Trespass” notice, which denied this former Marine who stood in harm’s way defending our country including the principal and her staff, any access to school grounds. The school’s actions not only dishonored John Wood’s service, but the service of all men and women in our Armed Forces who defended our nation from Islamic violence. True to his Marine training, John Wood stood his ground. He did not retreat. Yes, his daughter has received a failing grade in her World History Class. But the story is not yet over.”

Eighteen Essay book ‘Common Ground on Common Core’ released

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EssayCover_v9Resounding Books today officially announced publication of Common Ground on Common Core: Voices from across the Political Spectrum Expose the Realities of the Common Core State Standards. The 18-essay volume uniquely gathers 20 top education experts and activists. The authors hold widely varied political and ideological viewpoints, yet they stand firmly united against the Common Core.

Standards expert Sandra Stotsky and prominent mathematician R. James Milgram are among the book’s authors. Both served on the national Common Core validation committee but refused to sign o’ on the standards. Former U.S. Congressman and presidential candidate Ron Paul, a passionate advocate for true education in his own rite, graciously contributed.

Edited to ensure that readers of any political stripe could inform and empower themselves and others in the growing fight to push back against the controversial education initiative, Common Ground on Common Core enables understanding and appreciation not just of the basics but also crucial anti-Common Core arguments and insights they might not otherwise encounter, because those concerns have been raised principally on only one side of the political continuum.

“Common Ground on Common Core takes the fight against Common Core to new levels by encouraging open dialogue and alliances across political lines,” asserts Resounding Books’ Founder and Editor, Kirsten Lombard. “Interacting with Common Ground’s many authors—who self-identify as everything from radical Leftists to social conservatives to libertarians—has made it clear to me that we all have a lot more in common than we’d previously been led to believe.”

The book stands out in yet another way. All of the authors agreed to forego royalties so that Resounding Books, established in early 2013 as a super political action committee, could dedicate a significant percentage of the book’s proceeds to funding anti-Common Core activism at the state and local levels. “Resounding Books is strongly committed to encouraging and funding citizen activism around the subjects on which we publish,” Lombard asserts. “We look forward to realizing that goal.”

In addition to Stotsky and Milgram, other contributors to Common Ground on Common Core who will be more familiar to readers include Ze’ev Wurman, who helped to review the standards for the State of California, education researcher Christopher H. Tienken (author, The School Reform Landscape: Fraud, Myth, and Lies) as well as activists Kris L. Nielsen (author, Children of the Core), Jane Robbins (American Principles Project), Ceresta Smith (United Opt Out National), William A. Estrada (HSLDA), and Shane Vander Hart (Truth in American Education).

There will also be plenty of new and valuable discoveries for readers among the the essay collection has already begun to receive nods from key individuals in various political corners. In addition to Ron Paul, for example, Democratic New York State Senator George Latimer (Dist. 37) describes the book as “a thoughtful presentation of why we must have a slow, deliberate government that always asks who will benefit when we implement any new programs, but especially in education.” Dr. Gary Thompson, a Utah psychologist who has become known for his opposition to the experimental nature of Common Core assessments, calls the book a “brilliant, diverse compilation…which forever will put to rest the notion that Common Core critics emanate exclusively from the Right Wing.”

Lombard

Kirsten Lombard

EDITORS NOTE:Common Ground on Common Core is currently available in print, with two digital formats planned. It is available for purchase on the Resounding Books website. Bulk orders are also possible. To interview editor Kirsten Lombard or any of the book’s authors, telephone Resounding Books at 608.467.0877 or email kirsten@resoundingbooks.org.

FL, GA Education Ethics Differ on Sexual Harassment?

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Based on primary source documents and information from the Education Practices Commission of the State of Florida and the Georgia Professional Standards Commission, the penalty for a specific sexual harassment case seems to vary greatly with a wide range of extremes between the two states.

Former Miami-Dade County Public Schools assistant principal at Miami Central Senior High School and current principal/director with Clayton County (GA) County Public Schools Melvin K. Blocker received two vastly different outcomes stemming from a case of alleged sexual harassment from the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 school years.

According to the Florida EPC’s Final Order:

“During the 2007-2008 and 2008-2009 school years, Respondent served as a principal of a public school in the state of Georgia. During this time, Respondent sexually harassed a teacher. Respondent’s conduct included, but was not limited to, stating that the teacher “was the kind of girl [he] and [his] friends would have run a train on in college,” or words to that effect.

Respondent retaliated against the teacher for seeking conciliation of her grievances. Respondent stated, “teachers who went to [Georgia Association of Educators] about issues no longer work at [Respondent’s] school,” or words to that effect.

As a result of this conduct, Case PSC 09-7-11 was opened, and the Georgia Professional Standards Commission found probable cause against Respondent.

The Georgia Professional Standards Commission and Respondent entered into an agreement with respect to Case PSC 09-7-11. On or about June 30,2010, the Georgia Professional Standards Commission issued a Consent Order suspending Respondent’s educator’s certificate for five days, from June 8, 2009 through June 12, 2009.”

The Georgia Professional Standards Commission did indeed suspend his certificate for five days, which seems to many like a slap on the wrist.

To Florida’s credit, the Education Practices Commission permanently revoked his Florida Educator’s Certificate on October 15, 2014.

Why the stark difference?

According to the Georgia Professional Standards Commission, Mr. Blocker may indeed be in trouble given the teacher certification rules, which state:

“The Clearance certificate is issued at the request of a the employing Georgia local unit of administration (LUA) to educators who satisfactorily complete fingerprint and background check requirements and do not have a certificate that is currently revoked or suspended in Georgia or any other state. All educators employed by a Georgia LUA must hold a Clearance certificate. There are no academic requirements necessary to qualify for this certificate. All holders of this certificate are subject to the Georgia Code of Ethics for Educators.”

Strangely enough, the Florida EPC Final Order states copies were furnished to other related Florida Department of Education entities but not to the Georgia Professional Standards Commission- unless a separate communiqué was sent and not mentioned.

It will be interesting to see what course of action the Georgia Professional Standards Commission decides to take.

A reasonable person may conclude that they would not want a female relative or significant other in Mr. Blocker’s employ or purview.

Though these incidents have occurred 5-7 years ago, has Mr. Blocker truly learned the error of his ways or have other incidents occurred and were covered up and/or repressed afterwards?

Time, and a thorough investigation, will tell.

Remarkable Idiocy: “Economically-driven Education”

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On October 2, 2014, I will be speaking in Indiana to an audience chiefly comprised of university students who have a passing understanding of the intentions of moneyed interests to usurp control of public education.

With a mind toward preparing for my upcoming engagement, I happened to read three pertinent (and powerful) articles: This one on September 26, 2014, in Chalkbeat on Indiana Governor Mike Pence’s plan to use workforce data to determine what schools teach in order to subjugate education to the requirements of the job market, excerpted below:

…Indiana is quietly taking steps to position itself for a future where data drives much of what is learned in school. Gov. Mike Pence has made connecting education and workforce development a centerpiece of his administration’s agenda.…

This year, a bill he wrote created a new state office, under Pence’s direction, with a director who has been nicknamed the state’s “data czar.” That office will manage an expanded network of K-12, higher education and workforce data, working with an outside company to identify trends and opportunities to connect what is learned now to what students will some day need to know.

Just last month, Pence named [state representative Steve] Braun as the state’s new director of the Department of Workforce Development. [Emphasis added.]

Pence wants to tailor education to serve the workforce, not the individual being educated– an important point.

Next is another article, a Living in Dialogue post by Professor Emeritus Denny Taylor, one that deals quite skillfully with the sinister push to make public education little more than the servant of the US economy. The second article refers to very-well-compensated “non-profiteer” Marc Tucker’s 1992 “Dear Hillary” letter, excerpted below. Tucker’s vision is

… to remold the entire American system” into “a seamless web that literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same system for everyone,”coordinated by “a system of labor market boards at the local, state and federal levels” where curriculum and “job matching” will be handled by counselors “accessing the integrated computer-based program. [Emphasis added.]

Again with using education to create workers to serve the workforce.

Finally, in this dehumanizing, “student-as-object” vein, is a third article, from the August 1, 2014, Washington Post and written about the South Korean education system by former South Korean student and teacher, Se-Woong Koo. The entire article I find profoundly sad, but this part stuck me most:

Herded to various educational outlets and programs by parents, the average South Korean student works up to 13 hours a day, while the average high school student sleeps only 5.5 hours a night to ensure there is sufficient time for studying. Hagwons [cram schools] consume more than half of spending on private education.

This “investment” in education is what has been used to explain South Koreans’ spectacular scores on the Program for International Student Assessment, increasingly the standard by which students from all over the world are compared to one another.

But a system driven by overzealous parents and a leviathan private industry is unsustainable over the long run, especially given the physical and psychological costs that students are forced to bear.

Many young South Koreans suffer physical symptoms of academic stress, like my brother did. In a typical case, one friend reported losing clumps of hairas she focused on her studies in high school; her hair regrew only when she entered college. [Emphasis added.]

South Korean children are “typically” losing their hair from the pressure of becoming objects to serve societal education expectation. A shocking image.

US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan believes that the South Korean education system is “better” than the American education system, and he believes America needs to be more like “demanding” South Korea.

When American children *typically* lose clumps of hair as a direct result of the stress of their schooling, perhaps Duncan will be satisfied.

After reading and meditating on these three articles today, I had an epiphany of sorts regarding privatizing utility of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

Now, I know a lot about CCSS. This summer I wrote a book on its history, development, and promotion. However, what occurred to me this afternoon is the reason for the business push for CCSS particularly and the spectrum of privatizing reforms in general.

It has nothing to do with “competing in the global economy.” That’s just a distractor.

The goal of business in aggressively promoting CCSS while bashing the teaching profession into false, test-score-riddled “accountability” is to reshape the purpose of education into streamlined slavery to market service.

Yes, CCSS is about corporate profits, but it is about more than companies like Pearson making potential billions off of selling CCSS products and services.

The true business goal behind CCSS and other market-driven “reforms” is to make American education completely economic– which means completely dehumanized in its purpose.

It is about corporate America’s funneling the nation’s youth into predetermined, objectified service of the corporate, gluttonous market needs. And a crucial component of that goal is to break the spirit of teachers and make us nothing more than the trainers of What the Market Requires.

They must break us because we do not worship profits. The very fact that we enter the modestly-remunerating teaching profession attests to our *failure* to weigh the value of a life in economic terms.

No reasonable individual enters K12 teaching “for the money.”

Though K12 teachers are not driven by thoughts of a fat wallet, don’t kid yourselves for a moment regarding so-called “nonprofits.” They are raking in the dough hand over fist. Consider “think tank and do tank” National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE) CEO Marc Tucker, as cited from the Taylor article:

…For the tax year ending June 30th 2011… Tucker received a total of $2,549,077 in compensation from NCEE and ACI (America’s Choice, Inc.) –$2,055,465 from the sale of ACI to Pearson and $493,612 in compensation and benefits from NCEE. …

In 2012 Tucker received $819,109 in total compensation from NCEE….

Those who run nonprofits can certainly “profit.” Just ask New York charter queen Eva Moskowitz, who collected over $578,000 in “compensation” from running her charter “nonprofit” in 2012-13 and CCSS salesman, Fordham Institute then-VP Michael Petrilli, who was paid over $214,000 for his “nonprofit” work in 2012.

Talk about the benefits of “choice,” eh?

There is certainly money to be made in promoting “reforms” that, ahem, *benefit the economy.* But we must recognize this “cradle to grave” shaping of the American education system for what it is: A purposed effort to separate America into two groups, the privileged and the serfs. Indeed, the privileged are trying to finesse the message of serfdom as one that “concerned citizens” seemingly cannot say no to: a falsified image of national economic health that, if ingested by the American consciousness, will prove to be nothing more than caustic gluttony that dehumanizes most members of our society and corrodes our democratic foundation.

Ironically and truly, even the fattened Marc Tuckers and their like will fall by their own selfish folly. For all of their economic positioning, they cannot hover above American democratic foundation collapse.

The remarkable idiocy of it all.

RELATED COLUMN: AIR and Fordham Institute Grade Standards; Common Core Wins!

Like my writing? Read my education “reform” whistle blower book, A Chronicle of Echoes: Who’s Who in the Implosion of American Public Education

Five Lessons K–12 Can Learn from Higher Ed by Jenna Robinson

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Colleges aren’t perfect, but they can be instructive for the public schools.

U.S. colleges and universities don’t get everything right. On the whole, they’re overpriced, operationally hidebound, and ideologically stagnant. Despite those problems, American higher education does some things very well—well enough that students from around the world still choose to come to the United States to get advanced degrees.

Primary and secondary schools could learn a lot by taking a close look at some of the best practices in higher education. The underlying difference is that higher education behaves more like a free market, where individual choices and actions determine the outcome.

Here are five things that universities gets right:

1.  Students learn at their own pace. When a student gets to college or university, she arrives with a cohort of other students. They’re mostly the same age, and they’ll probably all take English 101 within their first year on campus. But that’s where the class structure ends. After English 101, students all go their own ways, taking classes to suit their particular talents and interests. Entrance exams mean that students enroll in the math or foreign language courses commensurate with their skills. And if a student flunks differential equations or organic chemistry, he doesn’t have to be held back a whole year. He moves on with the rest of his courses while he retakes the one problem class. There are even classes like “economics for non-majors” that allow students to explore a subject without taking difficult prerequisites or learning complicated methodology.

In K–12, students advance in lockstep with their peers. Students must learn all subjects at the same speed. Special talent in math or language doesn’t result in early promotion to the next level. Until students reach late middle school or early high school, they are expected to learn at exactly the same rate as their peers. And adherence to social promotion (which is allowed in half of U.S. states) means that all students advance from one grade to the next, regardless of achievement. This practice occurs despite the evidence that retaining students who fail their courses generates better outcomes for those students.

2.  Students and parents have skin in the game. Paying tuition affects parents’ and students’ behavior in two ways. First, they shop around for the best deal—not necessarily the cheapest school, but the school at which they can get the most bang for their buck. Second, paying tuition motivates students to care about their educational success (or lack thereof). No one wants to see their hard-earned dollars go down the drain—and scholars have found that this is true for money spent on higher education, particularly as a student approaches graduation. Loans, savings, and money earned from working are better motivators for students to stay in school than scholarships or grants.

If students fail their elementary school courses, they don’t have any financial stake in that failure—at least, not until very far in the future. And parents can’t easily make comparisons to tell whether they’re getting any bang for their buck. Thus, they don’t have strong incentives to hold schools and teachers accountable. More importantly, parents who send their children to public schools can’t take their education dollars elsewhere. Even if one student leaves, the school district will quickly fill her spot with someone else.

3.  Professors are required to have degrees in their field. Community college and university departments only hire professors and lecturers with degrees in the subjects they teach. Professors teaching Introduction to American Government at State U. can be expected to have a Ph.D. in political science—probably with a concentration in American politics. They also research in that same field, keeping abreast of the latest scholarship on their topic. Professors are experts in their own discipline when they enter a classroom to teach undergraduates.

In K–12 schools, many teachers have degrees in education and have spent more time studying pedagogy than the subject they teach. In many states, teachers are even rewarded with raises for getting advanced degrees—regardless of whether that degree is in their field. But the success of programs like Teach for America makes it clear that an education degree can’t substitute for good subject knowledge.

4.  Students can attend any school for which they’re qualified. College students aren’t “zoned” for particular schools. Even public colleges and universities don’t limit applications to students from certain area codes (although they often cap out-of-state enrollment). This system means that every student who chooses to go to college must weigh the costs and benefits of each option and make a decision about where to apply and attend; they cannot simply rely on a default option. Because students can choose where to attend, colleges compete to offer students what they want: good graduation rates, tuition discounts, face time with professors, and opportunities for extracurricular activities. The importance of U.S. News and World Report’s yearly college rankings is a testament to the power of education consumers’ choices.

In stark contrast, a large majority of students in most public school districts simply attend the school for which they’re zoned, and few students consider charter, private, or home-school options.

5.  Professors are paid as individuals, not as a collective. University professors in demanding fields, with unique or extraordinary talent, or with impressive resumes are paid more. Thus, the mean salary for a professor of engineering is $117,911 annually, while a history professor earns $82,944. Instructors, who do no research, earn less than tenure-track professors, who are expected to publish. Moreover, professors are evaluated on their merits when they are up for tenure. How many journal articles have they published? How good (or bad) are their student evaluations? Have they performed any administrative, advising, or outreach work to the satisfaction of the committee? University teachers receive no credit for simply sticking around for a requisite amount of time.

In K–12 public schools, however, “longevity pay” accrues to all teachers who continue to show up. Schools award tenure, in most cases, simply for teaching for a certain number of years without getting negative reviews. Most tellingly, teacher pay is rarely based on individual merit. Teachers receive raises en masse, sometimes for school performance and sometimes just because it’s a good budget year.

Higher education is by no means perfect. But by allowing some market processes, it has avoided the worst failures of the public school system. Politicians and K–12 educators should take heed.

ABOUT JENNA ROBINSON

Jenna Robinson is director of outreach at the Pope Center for Higher Education Policy.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of FEE and Shutterstock.

Using a Bill Gates Grant to Sidestep Standardized Testing in University Admissions?

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Billionaire Bill Gates believes in testing. However, it appears that he believes in “the market” even more. Consider Gates’ words to legislators in 2009:

When the tests are aligned to the common standards, the curriculum will line up as well—and that will unleash powerful market forces in the service of better teaching. For the first time, there will be a large base of customers eager to buy products that can help every kid learn and every teacher get better. [Emphasis added.]

Bill Gates has no background in K-12 classroom teaching. He has no background in assessment. He does have money, lots of money. It must be his money that allows him to even write a guest editorial in the April 2013 Washington Post to share his views on the *appropriate* role of student test scores in teacher evaluation. He assumes that student standardized test scores will work as a component of teacher evaluation. He also assumes that merit pay can and will work, if only “we” would be careful as “we” “drive the long-term improvement our schools need.”

We?

Bill Gates has no background in teaching. Instead, he views education through the lens of business. And if the tests are interfering with business, perhaps it is time to pull back on the testing in order to save Gates’ extensive CCSS investment. To this end, in June 2014, the Gates Foundation declared the need for a “moratorium”– not the end of testing, mind you, and not the end of CCSS– just a break from theconsequences of testing in order to take the heat off of CCSS:

The Gates Foundation is an ardent supporter of fair teacher feedback and evaluation systems that include measures of student gains. We don’t believe student assessments should ever be the sole measure of teaching performance, but evidence of a teacher’s impact on student learning should be part of a balanced evaluation that helps all teachers learn and improve.

At the same time, no evaluation system will work unless teachers believe it is fair and reliable, and it’s very hard to be fair in a time of transition. The standards need time to work. …

Including the assessment results in teacher evaluations even though they won’t count for two years also has benefits: First, the teachers can begin to use the assessments to inform their practice, and second, teachers can see how their performance looks using these measures and make sure it lines up with other measures of teaching practice. This is crucial in building teacher trust in the assessments.

In our view, allowing two years in which assessments will be administered and scored but not yet taken into account strikes the best balance between a commitment to teacher evaluations that measure student learning and a commitment to ensure that teachers will not be harmed as they complete the transition to the Common Core.

Protecting the Gates investment. Cutting mass education a deal.

The Gates Foundation published this position only five days after Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin signed legislation to immediately replace CCSS with Oklahoma’s former state standards until new standards and assessments could be developed.

This is not good for Gates’ CCSS investment, which Gates hopes will bring American education “to scale” in order to benefit “the market.”

Gates does not restrict his business applications to K-12 education. He is willing to spend his billions on better business models for higher education, as well. Consider this January 2014 grant to the Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities (APLU):

Association of Public and Land-Grant Universities:

Date: January 2014 
Purpose: to support a cohort of public urban research universities to develop new business models that can increase access, improve success rates and find greater cost efficiencies and then use national association networks to scale promising practices 
Amount: $2,507,628

Much of this funding has been divided among seven universities in a seeming “innovations contest” to “improve success rates.” The seven recipients have one year to develop its “innovations”– with the intent that “successful” innovations will be “scaled” (efficiently reproduced).

Temple University was one of the recipients:

The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU) and the Coalition of Urban Serving Universities (USU) announced today that Temple University is one of only seven universities nationwide selected to participate in an innovative, one-year project that seeks to transform the way higher education is delivered.

Temple will receive $225,000 as part of the Transformational Planning Grant project—an initiative funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation—to research, develop and test new university business models that can increase access, improve student success rates and find greater cost efficiencies. …

APLU intends to use its national network to work to scale the most promising findings and practices of Temple and the six other grantees—California State University, Fresno; Florida International University; Georgia State University; Portland State University; the University of Akron; and the University of Illinois at Chicago—to help its more than 200 public university members across the country better meet the needs of their evolving student populations.

In an interesting turn of events, Temple University plans to use its Gates “better business of education” money to admit students without use of standardized test scores and instead incorporating “noncognitive approaches” to student success:

Temple’s Transformational Planning Grant will be used to develop new approaches for recruiting and evaluating prospective Temple students. The project will be piloted among students in Philadelphia area high schools whose potential may be overlooked by traditional measures of achievement, such as standardized testing. Temple also will analyze how these “non-cognitive” approaches—strategies that take into account factors such as a student’s grit, determination, self-assurance and self-advocacy—can be incorporated into the university’s academic policies, financial aid strategy, and advising and support services.

So, it seems that Gates might experience some “business model clashing” given the Gates preference for standardized testing as assumed “good for education business” and now a Gates grantee assuming that standardized testing could “overlook potential” in some students– which implies that standardized testing has limitations that make it suspect a component for any high-stakes decisions.

No seasoned teacher needs to be told that some students just don’t test well.

But Bill Gates is certainly no seasoned teacher. He is just a man with lots of money who gets to purchase his viewpoint. He believes that standardized tests should be “part” of “measuring” teacher effectiveness.

I wonder what Gates will do if via Temple University’s “innovation” he is faced with the news that forsaking standardized testing “promotes greater cost efficiencies” in the business of higher education.

Would he be willing to promote such a finding “to scale”?

RELATED ARTICLE: What National Group Is Funding the Pro-Common Core Lawsuit in Louisiana?

America’s New Textbooks are Coming

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In just six months, the state of Texas will adopt new social studies textbooks and educational materials for its five million students.  Approximately 50 new textbooks and 100 workbooks, CDs, and other educational materials will be put before the Texas State Board of Education (SBOE) for approval in November.  The committee’s determinations are not only essential in Texas, where the state purchases almost all educational materials for its school districts, but for the nation at large.  As a bulk purchaser of over 150 million textbooks, the Texas market is substantial enough to influence the textbook publishers themselves.  Major publishers align the content of textbooks offered nation-wide to comply with Texas’ requests in order to ensure their books have a place in this substantial market.

What happens in Texas does not stay in Texas, but impacts parents, teachers, and students around the nation.  The textbooks that the SBOE chooses in November could very easily be on the desks in middle schools and high schools around the country in 2015.  It behooves citizens across the country to pay attention to the choices Texas will make and to understand the content of the books.

So, how is Texas planning to decide which textbooks to adopt?

In January, the SBOE changed the rules for its review process to mostly exclude individuals who are not Texas teachers or professors from reviewing textbooks.  The selection process has become more opaque and the standards for review unknown to those outside the process.  The public only knows that reviewers will meet for a week in Austin over the summer and are instructed not to discuss the process with outsiders (including publishers).  According to a Star-Telegram article, we do know that the changes are specifically designed to prevent citizens from raising controversial issues at the November hearings.

The public does not know who will be chosen to review the textbooks, the degree of scrutiny the books will face, or if the review process will even examine factual accuracy, objectivity, and overall content responsibility.  Newer textbooks, especially the slew of new material now marketed under the aegis of “Common Core,” contain an alarming degree of inaccurate material and need to be scrutinized and analyzed by independent experts who are guided by honesty and objectivity.  An independent review of these educational materials is crucial for students, parents, the education system, and our civic society.

Residents of Texas and other states should be alarmed that such important decisions will be made essentially “under the radar” of the citizenry.  A group of citizens called “Truth in Texas Textbooks,” under the leadership of Lt. Col. Roy White is leading an effort to bring citizen input to the SBOE.  This group has been planning and organizing since the fall of 2013 and is committed to making citizens’ voices heard.

At Verity Educate, we are working hard to provide parents, communities, and schools with the information they need to know about the content of these new textbooks.  Our experts – independent, non-partisan scholars – review material in their specialized content areas.  Textbooks are examined line-by-line for factual inaccuracies and content objectivity.  The in-depth reports we compile note every error, explain biased material, and examine the impact of particular inaccuracies on students’ education.  We spend up to 60 hours reviewing each book, researching the facts, and compiling reports.  How can the SBOE complete a thorough review of all the textbooks in one week?

Because the state will be coming to the November hearings with reviews from its hand-picked expert panels, citizens must also arm themselves with credible, authoritative, and scholarly evidence.  Some of the textbooks up for adoption will be great – factual, objective, and honest.  However, other textbooks will be inaccurate, biased, and un-truthful.  It is important for citizens to be informed about the content of these books before their adoption by the state of Texas and before the books come home in students’ backpacks.  When parents, taxpayers, and citizens inform themselves about the content of these books they can have input with their schools boards, state boards of education, and elected representatives.

An education riddled with factual inaccuracies and biased content affects the heart of our civic society.  When factual accuracy is not accounted for, students will grow into citizens lacking the most basic historical knowledge.  When presented, over and over, with biased content and one-sided arguments students fail to develop critical thinking skills.  The effects of a poor history education are playing out as we speak.  Influential leaders bring their ignorance of key historical events like the Monroe Doctrine and the Crimean War to the attention of the world through their actions and their speech.  When history is taught incorrectly, the nation suffers.

If you are interested in learning more about the content of new textbooks and efforts to ensure accuracy and objectivity, visit www.VerityEducate.org.  Follow us on twitter @VerityEducate and Facebook for regular updates.

George Will Demolishes Arguments for Common Core in Under Two Minutes

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“Conservative pundit George Will delivered a fierce attack on Common Core, characterizing the educational standards as a way for progressives to further promote their political views,” notes Katrina Trinko from The Foundry.

“This is a thin end of an enormous wedge of federal power that will be wielded for the constant progressive purpose of concentrating power in Washington so that it can impose continental solutions to problems nationwide,” Will said on Fox News’ “Special Report.” He also warned Americans that the federal standards posed a significant threat to local autonomy.

“The advocates of the Common Core say, if you like local control of your schools, you can keep it, period. If you like your local curriculum you can keep it, period, and people don’t believe them for very good reasons,” Will remarked.

[youtube]http://youtu.be/fmgadgKNz0I[/youtube]

Florida: Education the Defining Issue in the 2014 Governor Race?

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On Tuesday, November 4th Floridians will go to the polls to select their governor. Currently there are thirty-two active candidates running. The gubernatorial race is the only statewide race in Florida. So what will make one of these candidates standout from the crowded field? If a recent election is any indicator, the defining issue will be – education – specifically Common Core State Standards (CCSS). People are rising up in Florida and across the country to stop Common Core. As George Will wrote, “Viewed from Washington, opposition to the Common Core State Standards Initiative still seems as small as the biblical cloud that ariseth out of the sea, no larger than a man’s hand. Soon, however, this education policy will fill a significant portion of the political sky.”

Chris Quackenbush in her column Common Core: The Chain of Betrayal notes, “Political battles are now being won and lost on the education issue as in the Florida Congressional District 19, where an ‘outsider’ Curt Clawson, beat sitting State Senate Majority Leader Lizbeth Benaquisto by 12 points largely because of her duplicity on Common Core.  Her conservative base was not fooled by her superficial conversion after sponsoring a bill in 2013 to implement Common Core as she is allied with Jeb Bush.  His tentacles reach far in Florida where he is a major donor and supporter of many State Legislators including Governor Scott.”

Quackenbush states, “Common Core is the final nail in the coffin of American Exceptionalism.” That’s how heated the debate has become in Florida.

Associated Press reporter Thomas Beaumont wrote, “Raising U.S. educational expectations through national goals was a priority for Republican President George W. Bush. But many of his would-be successors in the GOP are calling for just the opposite of government-set rules, and it’s splitting the party as the GOP class of 2016 presidential hopefuls takes shape.” Common Core is splitting the party between those who support Jeb Bush and those who support parents, teachers, administrators, academics and citizens who favor keeping local control of education.

While Florida Democrats want to focus on income equality, the minimum wage, legalizing marijuana and abortion rights, and the Republican Party of Florida focused on the economy, jobs and tax reform, the defining issue remains public education.

Will the Florida race for governor in 2014 be a harbinger for the 2016 race for president? Those interested in a winning formula will, by all indications, be keeping a close eye on Florida on November 4th.

Candidates for Florida Governor

Candidate Status Primary General
Gibson, Kyle Chaderwick (NPA) Active
Adeshina, Yinka Abosede (REP) Active
Allen, Joe  (NPA) Active
Anderson, Rubin Lewis (NPA) Active
Angiolillo, Vincent Dominic (REP) Active
Crist, Charlie  (DEM) Active
Cuevas-Neunder, Elizabeth  (REP) Active
Devine, Timothy Michael (REP) Active
Fraleigh, James Edward (INT) Active
Gazetas, Vassilia  (NPA) Active
Giger, Herman Lee (NPA) Active
Griffis, Mark D. (NPA) Active
Horwath, Jefferson L. (NPA) Active
Khavari, Farid A (NPA) Active
Lee, Monroe  (DEM) Active
Lipner, Ryan Adam (DEM) Active
Martelly, Marcelle  (DEM) Active
McCoy, Roland  (DEM) Active
Murray, Paul  (WRI) Active
Reed, C. C. (NPA) Active
Rich, Nan H. (DEM) Active
Rolle, Leonard  (NPA) Active
Samuel, Berthram B. (REP) Active
Scott, Richard L. (REP)  *Incumbent Active
Smith, Dr. Joe  (REP) Active
Smith, John Wayne (LPF) Active
Stewart, Jessica Lana (DEM) Active
Tolbert, Charles Frederick (NPA) Active
Trujillo, Lesther  (NPA) Active
Wyllie, Adrian  (LPF) Active
Yarrow, Atlee David (SPF) Active
Zapata, Randy  (DEM) Active

Active candidate list courtesy of the Sarasota Supervisor of Elections.

RELATED STORIES:

The Dying of the Light: How Common Core Damages Poetry – by Esolen, Highfill, Stotsky
AP: Common Core a Defining Issue for GOP 2016 Hopefuls
Revolt: Common Core gets gored

Profiting Off of the Children by CATHY REISENWITZ

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Writing at Salon, David Sirota is horrified that capitalists are supposedly making money off school choice initiatives. Amazon and Microsoft prompted the horror by contributing to a recent campaign to expand school choice in Seattle. Sirota is convinced that the companies are giving because “lucrative education technology contracts” are “much easier to land in privately run charter schools because such schools are often uninhibited by public schools’ procurement rules and standards requiring a demonstrable educational need for technology.”

Last year Microsoft alone raked in $77 billion in revenue. Seattle’s public school system is set to spend $6 million on tech upgrades. Bill Gates alone spent $2 million on the initiative. In no universe does the math work out that Gates and Amazon are promoting school choice to make money.

What’s much more likely is that these companies are sick and tired of the public education monopoly’s horrifying results—especially for poor and minority students.

School choice programs consistently produce similar or better results for much less money.

Voucher programs offer significantly higher levels of high-school graduation and college matriculation, with private schools achieving better results at about half the cost per pupil.

A 2009 review of the global research literature found that every study to measure efficiency in education returned a statistically significant positive result for markets.

Perhaps that’s why polling data shows strong support for vouchers among Latino voters. In fact, a large number of minority families are entering charter school lotteries and more than 500,000 students are on charter waiting lists nationally. Even President Obama likes the concept of school choice. He’s spoken well of charter schools while spending millions in federal funds to expand them in minority communities.

The problem of public education money misspent on technology is a serious one, and Sirota is right to make an issue of it. But Sirota’s distrust of the profit motive causes him to miss the solution. Rather than use arcane procurement rules to attempt to force schools to spend wisely, simply look at expenditures versus results—you know, like Microsoft and Amazon do. School choice means that schools that waste money on useless toys will lose students, while smart spending schools will gain them.

Rather than an attempt to grab “lucrative” contracts, it’s much more likely that Microsoft and Amazon are applying what they have learned in the marketplace, that competition and choice spur innovation, which improves products and services. They want to apply those forces to education. If only critics like Sirota could do the same.

ABOUT CATHY REISENWITZ

Cathy Reisenwitz is an Associate at Young Voices and Editor-in-Chief of Sex and the State. She will be speaking at the FEE summer seminar “Are Markets Just? Exploring the Social Significance of a Free Economy“.

EDITORS NOTE: The featured image is courtesy of FEE and Shutterstock.