Common Core Education And More About Federal Government Control

[Ross]

Where Do States Stand Today
On The Common Core Standards?

Aug 31, 2014

Americans' support of the Common Core is plummeting, so let's take a look at where all the states stand to date on the controversial standards.

Three states have officially repealed the Common Core standards

– Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Indiana

[/list][/b]– but only Oklahoma's repeal bill allowed its public schools to return to its prior education standards while new standards are developed. South Carolina schools are still using the Common Core this school year while they write new standards, but Indiana's "repeal" was actually a "rebrand" of the nationalized standards. Indiana's replacement standards are so similar to the Common Core that the state was granted a one-year extension of its No Child Left Behind waiver by the Obama administration, while Oklahoma's waiver was rescinded.

The following 34 states have introduced anti-Common Core legislation:


Alabama; Arizona; Arkansas; Colorado; Florida; Georgia; Idaho; Illinois; Indiana; Iowa; Kansas; Kentucky; Louisiana; Maryland; Michigan; Minnesota (Data Privacy bill); Mississippi; Missouri; New Hampshire; New Jersey; New Mexico; New York; North Carolina; Ohio; Oklahoma; Pennsylvania; Rhode Island; South Carolina; South Dakota; Utah; Tennessee; West Virginia; Wisconsin; Wyoming

The following 16 states have either withdrawn or are in the process of withdrawing from the Common Core test consortia:


Alabama; Alaska; Arizona; Florida; Georgia; Indiana; Idaho; Iowa; Kansas; Kentucky; Louisiana; Oklahoma; Pennsylvania; South Carolina; Tennessee; Utah

These 27 states have introduced legislation that bans the use of PARCC or SBAC assessments:


Alabama; Arizona; Arkansas; Colorado; Florida; Georgia; Indiana; Illinois; Iowa; Kansas; Louisiana; Maryland; Massachusetts; Michigan; Missouri; Mississippi; New Hampshire; New Jersey; New Mexico; Ohio; Oklahoma; Pennsylvania; South Carolina; Tennessee; Utah; West Virginia; Wyoming.


Executive orders have been issued by the governors of these 10 states regarding the Common Core or the test consortia:

Arizona; Connecticut; Florida; Georgia; Iowa; Oklahoma; Louisiana; Maine; Mississippi; New Jersey.



Alaska, Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia never adopted the Common Core standards, and Minnesota only adopted the Common Core English Language Arts standards.

http://www.theminorityreportblog.com/2014/08/31/where-do-states-stand-today-on-the-common-core-standards/

[Ross]

Teacher Support of Common Core Drops Dramatically

August 21, 2014

Schoolteachers' support of Common Core
national education standards has
dropped significantly since 2013.

The annual PDK/Gallup poll, released on Wednesday, found that 60 percent of Americans oppose Common Core because they fear the national standards will limit teachers' flexibility to teach effectively.

EducationNext's 2014 opinion poll, which was released earlier this week, found teacher opposition to Common Core more than tripled—from 12 percent in 2013 to 40 percent in 2014:


"In 2013, teachers were more positive in their views of the Common Core than the public (76 percent compared to 65 percent), but today teachers are less positive (46% compared to 53 percent). A year ago, only 12 percent of the teaching force expressed opposition—virtually the same as the public. Today, teacher opposition is nearly twice as high as opposition among the public (40 percent compared to just 26 percent)."

In 2009, the Obama administration announced it would use $4.35 billion of competitive Race to the Top grants and No Child Left Behind waivers as incentives for states to adopt "standards common to a significant number of states." Since then, 46 states signed on to Common Core and agreed to implement the standards by this fall.

Over the last year, as the deadline neared, some of those states have begun to reconsider the costs of their commitment—both financially and in terms of autonomy. As opposition grew states either withdrew from the two federally financed testing consortia or halted implementation. In March, Indiana became the first state to exit Common Core.

Since March, three additional states have exited Common Core—Oklahoma, South Carolina and Louisiana—and 14 others have pushed back against the standards in significant ways.

Meanwhile, support among teachers has plummeted and support among parents has declined. According to the Friedman Foundation for Educational Choice's recent 2014 Schooling in America Survey, "intensity against Common Core is strongest among school parents."

But opposition has taken many forms.

May of last year, the American Federation for Teachers' Randi Weingarten called for a moratorium on the high-stakes tests associated with Common Core. "You think the Obamacare implementation is bad. The implementation of the Common Core is far worse," she said.

New York's test results from last school year also suggest Common Core implementation is not going as planned. New York was one of the first states to implement Common Core and began testing during the 2012-13 school year.

The Empire State's test scores plummeted in 2013 but increased this year. But as the New York Post reported, the state also "dropped the number of raw points needed to hit proficiency levels in six of the 12 English and math exams given to students in grades 3 to 8, officials acknowledged."

Before even the first round of testing, 49 principals in New York expressed their concerns in a letter to education commissioner John King. Now even the Gates Foundation—the second-largest financial backer of Common Core after the federal government—has called for a two-year delay of the consequences associated with Common Core testing.

The breadth of opposition against Common Core, particularly from teachers, suggests those closest to the standards and tests don't like how implementation is playing out.

As The Heartland Institute's Joy Pullmann writes in The Federalist, teachers are entering this next school year with both optimism and worry. Although some teachers are "enthusiastic" about Common Core, most will have to rethink their classrooms and teaching style to conform to a set of expensive standards that are untested and not benchmarked.

The deadline to implement Common Core has been reached in many states across America, but this latest push to centralize education is turning out as many have argued it would—it is further distancing educational decision-making authority from those closest to the students. Empowering teachers means listening to their concerns—especially when it comes to what is taught in their classrooms.

http://dailysignal.com/2014/08/21/teacher-support-common-core-drops-dramatically/

[Ross]

Imperiling the Republic:
The Fate of U.S. History Instruction
under Common Core

September 2, 2014

Authors: Ralph Ketcham, Sandra Stotsky, Anders Lewis

This white paper analyzes K-12 literacy standards for U.S. History that are included as part of Common Core's English language arts standards, and raises serious concerns about the future of history instruction, including the A.P. U.S. History curriculum. The authors urge schools to instead offer separate standards and classes for English and U.S. History, and recommend that local education governing bodies replace the College Board's new A.P. U.S. History curriculum with the common civic core spelled out in Educating Democracy, which was published in 2003 by the Albert Shanker Institute.

http://pioneerinstitute.org/download/imperiling-the-republic-the-fate-of-u-s-history-instruction-under-common-core/?utm_source=History+%26+Common+Core+PR+Sept+2014&utm_campaign=History+Sept+2+2014&utm_medium=email

[Ross]

Common Core is doing its bit
to destroy the constitutional system
that James Madison designed

September 8, 2014 

Dr. Bill Evers is a research fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. He was a member of the California State Academic Standards Commission in late 1990s and again in 2010, when the Common Core national curriculum-content standards were under consideration. He supervised, together with others, the school system in Iraq in 2003. He was the U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education for policy, from 2007 to 2009.

STANFORD, Calif. – Editor's note: This essay has been adapted from the testimony of Williamson M. Evers before the Rules & Reference Committee of the Ohio House of Representatives, August 19, 2014.

The question I would like to address is: Do the Common Core national curriculum-content standards undermine "competitive federalism," which is a feature of our Madisonian system of federalism?

First, I want to discuss federalism under our Constitution as designed by James Madison. What is federalism? U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote in a recent case that the allocation of powers as set forth in the Constitution sets legal "boundaries" between the federal government and the states and provides a way for each of them to maintain their "integrity." But, just as importantly, having a system of federalism "secures to citizens the liberties that derive from the diffusion of sovereign power."

Thus, there is vertical federalism between the states and the federal government, and there is horizontal federalism among, for example, water districts, countries, cities, school districts, and among states.

We can see that the debate about federalism continues in America. In another case, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on ObamaCare, the court said that the federal government cannot use the threat of cutting off federal spending to coerce states into expanding Medicaid. (This decision may or may not apply to Common Core, but it shows the continuing importance of federalism.)

Now, I want to turn to the closely related matter of competitive federalism. Competitive federalism is horizontal competition among jurisdictions. We know that it works in education at the inter-district level. Economist Caroline Hoxby studied metropolitan areas with many school districts (like Boston) vs. metropolitan areas contained within one large district (like Miami or Los Angeles). She found that student performance is better in areas with competing multiple districts, where parents at the same income level can move—at the margin—from one locality to another nearby, in search of a better education for their children.

We have seen competitive federalism work in education at the inter-state level. Back in the 1950s, Mississippi and North Carolina were at the same low level. Over the years, North Carolina tried a number of educational experiments and moved well ahead of Mississippi. We have likewise seen Massachusetts move up over the years from mediocre to stellar (though under Common Core, Massachusetts is sinking back again).

We know that national standards are not needed for success in international comparisons. Back in the 1970s, the United States and Canada were both in the middling, mediocre ranks internationally. Both countries are rather similar in culture and level of commercial and industrial development. The United States has continued to wallow in mediocrity, even as we centralize K-12 education. Yet Canada (which has more competitive federalism in education than the United States and has no Ministry of Education in its central government) has climbed into the ranks of advanced nations in academic performance.

Why is this important? Because one of the pillars of the case for national curriculum-content standards is that they are necessary for individuals to succeed in a global marketplace and that all top-performing countries have them. The case of Canada refutes that.

Let's turn to the background of the Common Core. Content standards, tests, and curriculum that had been provided by the states—thus far—will now because of Common Core be provided by federally-endorsed national curriculum-content standards, federally-funded tests, and curriculum (some of it federally funded) based on those tests and curriculum-content standards.

The Common Core national standards had their origins in several Washington, D.C.-centric lobbying and policy-advocacy groups—namely, the National Governors Association (NGA), the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), and Achieve Inc. Shortly after the Obama administration came to power, it adopted and endorsed the national standards. It used competitive grants to coerce states into adopting Common Core. It paid for Common Core national tests and intervened in the test-creation process. It created a panel to oversee and monitor the national tests. It granted states waivers from the burdens of No Child Left Behind (NCLB)—conditional on continued adherence to Common Core or a federally-approved alternative.

Central to the thinking (and rhetoric) of the advocates of Common Core on education reform was the idea that state performance standards were already on a downward slide and that, without nationalization, standards would inexorably continue on a "race to the bottom." The name given to the Obama administration's signature school reform effort, the Race to the Top program (RttT), reflects this belief. The idea is that to prevent states from following their supposed natural dynamic of a race to the bottom, the federal government needs to step in and lead a race to the top.

I would disagree. While providers of public education certainly face the temptation to do what might look like taking the easy way out by letting academic standards slip, there is also countervailing pressure in the direction of higher standards (especially, as long as there are competing standards in other states).

If policymakers and education officials let content standards slip, low standards will damage the state's reputation for having a trained workforce. Such a drop in standards will even damage the policymakers' own reputations.

In 2007, the Thomas B. Fordham Institute looked empirically at state performance standards over time in a study called The Proficiency Illusion. The study showed that while states had a variety of performance standards (as would be expected in a federal system), the supposed "race to the bottom" was not happening. The proponents of the Common Core wrong in their claims that state performance standards were inevitably and everywhere on a downward slide.

Why is this important? Because the other case for national curriculum-content standards is that without nationalization there will be a race to bottom and that only national standards can reverse a supposedly already-existing "race to the bottom." But the facts refute this. This topples the other principal argument for national standards.

To finance its Race to the Top program, the U.S. Department of Education took discretionary stimulus money that could be used as conditional grants, and then turned a portion of that money into a competitive grant program. It used the grants to encourage states to adopt the national standards. Policy analyst Michael Petrilli aptly called inducements to adopt the standards "the carrot that feels like a stick." The department also paid for national consortia to develop national tests aligned with the national curriculum–content standards.

The administration created another inducement in the form of No Child Left Behind waivers. In return for adopting the national standards or a federally approved alternative, states could escape NCLB sanctions for not making timely gains in student achievement. U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan went beyond what the law allows, by substituting the Obama administration's favored education reforms (including national curriculum-content standards and tests) for NCLB's accountability measures. I would add that the new accountability systems under the waivers can all too easily hide deficiencies in the performance of children in previously closely watched sub-groups and may weaken incentives to improve performance of those children.

To some extent, federal officials have commandeered state curriculum-content standards and tests and substituted national standards and tests; to some extent, some state officials embraced the national standards-and-testing cartel as a relief from political pressure within their state and a relief from competitive pressure from other states. In any case, national standards and tests will change curriculum content, homogenize what is taught, and profoundly alter the structure of American K-12 public education.
 

Nationalizing standards and tests would, according to this analysis, eliminate them as differentiated school-reform instruments that could be used by states in competition over educational attainment among the states. Sonny Perdue, governor of Georgia at the time Common Core was created, did not like it when the low-performing students of his state were compared with students in other states that had different standards from Georgia's. He became the lead governor in bringing the NGA into the national standards effort.

So, Yes, Common Core does undermine "competitive federalism." Indeed, in part, it was designed to do so.

Federalism is not only distinction from and rivalry between the federal government and the states; it is also rivalry among the states and among local governments within the states. As economist Richard McKenzie writes, the Founders sought to disperse power "among many different and competing governments—at the federal, state, and local levels."

The insight of competitive federalism is that fifty-one state school boards are better than a single federal Executive-branch office. Fifteen-thousand local school boards are better than either fifty-one state school boards or a single federal office. As political scientist Thomas Dye puts it, "intergovernmental competition" was seen by the Founders as an "auxiliary precaution" against the "monopoly abuse of power by a single centralized government."

Competitive federalism encourages innovation, allows movement between jurisdictions that enhances liberty, and permits a better match between policies and voter preferences. Common Core's national uniformity runs counter to competitive federalism.

Let's turn to Alexis de Tocqueville, the most famous observer of American society in our history and see what he can tell us about national education standards. Tocqueville is famous for his portrait of nineteenth-century America and his philosophic insights on why the American society has flourished—and also where it might go wrong. It is worth reminding ourselves what some of Tocqueville's insights were. Once we do, we can consider the current nationalization of K-12 public-school curriculum, with Tocqueville's insights in mind.

One of Tocqueville's major insights was that Americans have benefited from popular participation in the large number of churches, charities, clubs, and voluntary associations in our country, as well as in state and local governments, which stand between the individual and the national government in Washington, D.C.

In essence, Tocqueville believed that the civic health of America depended on popular participation in entities like associations to create and maintain religious, private, or charter schools, as well as in local authorities like school districts with fully-empowered schools boards. Such activity fosters civic virtue and "habits of the heart" and encourages everyday citizens to take on necessary social tasks that in pre-modern society lowly subjects were not allowed to undertake, but were instead the duty of the aristocracy.

When Tocqueville described nineteenth-century American society he spoke, for example, of township school committees that were deeply rooted in their local communities. In those days, state control of local public education took the form of an annual report sent by the township committee to the state capital. There was no national control.

Large sums (much of it taxed from laborers and farmers) were spent by these school committees, and their efforts reflected, Tocqueville thought, a widespread American desire to provide basic schooling as a route to opportunity and advancement. He admired the fact that in self-activating America, one might easily chance upon farmers, who had not waited for official permission from above, but were putting aside their plows "to deliberate upon the project of a public school."

At the same time, Tocqueville observed in European countries that activities like schooling that had formerly been part of the work of guilds, churches, municipalities, and the like were being taken over by the national government of those countries.

Tocqueville feared that if either Americans neglected their participation in associations or local governments or Europeans lost their intermediate entities to the national governments, the tendency would be toward a loss of a liberty and a surrender to a soft despotism.

In Democracy in America, Tocqueville described how in Europe "the prerogatives of the central power" were increasing every day and making the individual "weaker, more subordinate, and more precarious."Once, he said, there had been "secondary powers" that represented local interests and administered local matters. Local judiciaries, local privileges, the freedoms of towns, provincial autonomy, local charities—all were gone or going. The national central government, he wrote, "no longer puts up with an intermediary between it and the citizens."

Speaking of central power remember this from Elk Konnected:

Unified Gov't (w/in the county) to save money and become more unified (do away with city gov't, councils­
(cont.) all centrally located-one managing body) (Big Ideas's)

Tocqueville said that, in Europe, education, like charity, "has become a national affair." The national government receives or even takes "the child from the arms of his mother" and turns the child over to "the agents" of the national government.

In nineteenth-century Europe, the national governments already were infusing sentiments in the young and supplying their ideas. "Uniformity reigns" in education, Tocqueville said. Intellectual diversity was disappearing. He feared that both Europe and America were moving toward "centralization" and "despotism."

Tocqueville believed that in non-aristocratic societies (like America), there is strong potential for the national government to become immense and influential, standing above the citizens, not just as a mighty and coercive power, but also as a guardian and tutor. Tocqueville maintained that religion (as a moral anchor) as well as involvement in local government (such as school districts) and voluntary organizations could help America counter the tendency toward tyranny.

Speaking of central power remember this from Elk Konnected:

Unified Gov't (w/in the county) to save money and become more unified (do away with city gov't, councils­
(cont.) all centrally located-one managing body) (Big Ideas's)

Joseph Califano, President Jimmy Carter's Health, Education and Welfare Secretary, articulated Tocqueville-style concerns about a centralization of schooling: "Any set of test questions that the federal government prescribed should surely be suspect as a first step toward a national curriculum. ... [Carried to its full extent,] national control of curriculum is a form of national control of ideas."

Unless Common Core is stopped, its officials will dismantle what remains of state and local decision-making on classroom lessons and replace it with a new system of national tests and a national curriculum. This policy is Tocqueville's nightmare: As in Europe, education "has become a national affair" and Common Core is the vehicle for imposing in America a one-size-fits-all centralization like that administered by the National Ministry of Education in France.

Federalism, including horizontal inter-jurisdictional competition, allows policies better matched to needs and preferences of voters. It allows individuals and families to "vote with their feet"—to move to jurisdictions that they like, where the authorities don't act counter to their liberties and preferences.

Competitive federalism allows experimentation by alternative jurisdictions. One state can try one policy, while another state tries something else. This is why it is called the "laboratory of democracy."

This feature of federalism is what brought Massachusetts, Indiana, California and several other states to have the outstanding curriculum-content standards that they had before the Common Core. This is the feature of federalism that facilitates an exit strategy from Common Core: It allows states that are leaving Common Core to repeal and replace the national curriculum-content standards with outstanding pre-Common Core state standards. This can be done on an interim basis, while those states design their own replacement standards for the long run. Then the rivalry that takes place under competitive federalism will go back to work to the benefit of teachers, students, and everyone who wants a well-educated citizenry—and also everyone who wants to have the freedoms that are protected by the U.S. Constitution's Madisonian system of federalism.

This article was originally published under the title "Against Common Core," in the Hoover Institution's online publication "Defining Ideas."

http://eagnews.org/common-core-is-doing-its-bit-to-destroy-the-constitutional-system-that-james-madison-designed/

[Ross]

Common Core Blockbuster:
Mathematician Dr. Jim Milgram Warns
Common Core
Will Destroy America's Standing
in Technology

by Dr. Susan Berry  1 Sep 2014

During a Friday conference call sponsored by Texas-based Women on the Wall, Stanford mathematician and former member of the Common Core Validation Committee Dr. James Milgram, told listeners that if the controversial standards are not repealed, America's place as a competitor in the technology industry will ultimately be severely undermined.

"In the future, if we want to work with the top level people, we're going to have to go to China or Japan or Korea... and that's the future we're looking at," Milgram said during the call that was part of a day-long Twitter campaign to target Indiana Gov. Mike Pence's (R) decision merely to "rebrand" the Common Core standards in his state, even though he has a Republican supermajority in the legislature and an appointed state board of education.

Pence was in Dallas Friday for Americans for Prosperity's Defending the American Dream summit, considered to be an essential stop for presidential hopefuls.

In less than 40 minutes, Milgram floored listeners with information about the Common Core standards, how they will affect the nation's students and, ultimately, the country itself, and what parents and citizens can do to try to stop them. During a Friday conference call sponsored by Texas-based Women on the Wall, Stanford mathematician and former member of the Common Core Validation Committee Dr. James Milgram, told listeners that if the controversial standards are not repealed, America's place as a competitor in the technology industry will ultimately be severely undermined.

"In the future, if we want to work with the top level people, we're going to have to go to China or Japan or Korea... and that's the future we're looking at," Milgram said during the call that was part of a day-long Twitter campaign to target Indiana Gov. Mike Pence's (R) decision merely to "rebrand" the Common Core standards in his state, even though he has a Republican supermajority in the legislature and an appointed state board of education.

Pence was in Dallas Friday for Americans for Prosperity's Defending the American Dream summit, considered to be an essential stop for presidential hopefuls.

In less than 40 minutes, Milgram floored listeners with information about the Common Core standards, how they will affect the nation's students and, ultimately, the country itself, and what parents and citizens can do to try to stop them. Listen to the podcast in full below: (go to web site: http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/09/01/Common-Core-Blockbuster-Mathematician-Dr-Jim-Milgram-Warns-Common-Core-Will-Destroy-America-s-Standing-in-Technology

Milgram began by addressing the reason why he was on the call: to let Pence know that his "rebrand" of the Common Core was a betrayal of Indiana's citizens.

Born and raised in Indiana himself, Milgram that it was important to him as a fellow Hoosier that the state do a decent job with replacement standards after repealing the Common Core.

"The state actually paid me to evaluate new standards," he said about his involvement in the review process.

The Stanford professor then explained to listeners a key reason why the Common Core standards will prevent students from moving into STEM careers.

Milgram said he was "incredibly disappointed that the drafts I was reading [of Indiana's new standards] looked so much like the Common Core," but was nevertheless happy to see that advanced math classes like pre-calculus, calculus, and trigonometry were left into the replacement standards.

"These were very well-done and absolutely impossible to teach if all these kids had were Core standards," Milgram explained. "It was a complete disaster because even the things that they added—that were of high quality—were added to standards that couldn't support them."

Milgram described his experience in the 1990s when he was asked to assist with a project that would replace California's "disastrous" education standards. The mathematician said he strongly recommended that students in the 8th grade take Algebra and that his recommendation was heeded.

From the time the new standards were put in place and until the time of the adoption of Common Core standards in California in 2010, Milgram said two-thirds of the students in the state were taking Algebra in the 8th grade and doing well, with over half of them at least proficient or above.

Milgram said this piece of information is critical because it showed that it was possible for almost every student to handle Algebra in the 8th grade.

"The group that made by far the most progress were the minorities – blacks and Hispanics – who had essentially been written off by the system," Milgram explained, and then went on to reveal how the fact that challenging minority students – resulting in their increased performance – was a threat to faculty in universities.

"So, their numbers were increasing dramatically and I frankly think that the... faculty in the education schools throughout the country actually got extremely scared by this," he continued, "because it contradicted everything that they've been telling us for the past hundred years about how education works and what one can expect and how one should train teachers."

Milgram asserted that a strong education in mathematics is essential for success.

"If you don't have a strong background in mathematics then your most likely career path is into places like McDonald's," he said. "In today's world... the most critical component of opening doors for students is without any question some expertise in mathematics."

Milgram explained that in the high-achieving countries, where about a third of the population of the world outside the United States is located, about 90 percent of citizens have a high school degree for which the requirements include at least one course in calculus.

"That's what they [sic] know," he said. "If we're lucky, we [sic] know Algebra II. With Algebra II as background, only one in 50 people will ever get a college degree in STEM."

Milgram warned that with the Common Core standards, unless U.S. students are able to afford exclusive private high school educations that are more challenging, they will be disadvantaged.

"This shows that, from my perspective, Common Core does not come close to the rhetoric that surrounds it," he continued. "It doesn't even begin to approach the issues that it was supposedly designed to attack. The things it does are completely distinct from what needs to be done."

Milgram said, in California, they were able to deal with the problem of their poor academic standards in the 1990s because the curriculum was controlled by the state and the high-tech industry in Silicon Valley threatened to move all its research and manufacturing elsewhere if the problem was not addressed.

"The curricula we were fighting then... they're back!" he announced. "We are hearing exactly the same kind of things now with Common Core as we heard back in the '90s!"

"How can you have mathematics problems that don't have a single answer or correct answer – any answer is correct?" Milgram asked. "Well, of course the answer is mathematically you can't, and all of this is just a repeat of what went on 20 years ago in California – but this time, it's national."

"This time I don't see any uniform or systematic way of getting rid of it," Milgram said. "The only way you're going to get rid of it is state by state and parent group by parent group. And if you're lucky, industry will join you because high tech is ever a more important part of our economy."

The bad news, according to Milgram, is that, returning to his experience in California in the '90s, if students had been in that system with the older, poor standards for three or four years, "the damage couldn't be undone," he said.

"All of this should really make you angry at the people who are responsible," Milgram said, directing himself squarely to the parents listening to him. "And the people who are responsible – I'm going to be blunt about it – are the people in the education schools – they're the ones who had the ultimate say about all of this and they're the ones whose beliefs are driving it."

Milgram explained that a uniform perspective exists on issues in education and what is important to achieve among a vast majority of the faculty in schools of education. Because of this, he said, the same types of standards always come back.

"You must go after the schools of education and the faculty of these schools," Milgram urged.

Asked about the fact that many industrial giants and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce actually support the Common Core standards, Milgram responded that in the '90s, research centers in this country were still very much needed. Now, however, he noted that most of the research in top-level firms has moved out of the U.S. IBM's main research center, he observed, is in India, and other companies have moved their research centers to Russia, Korea, and China.

"Even Microsoft has moved its software development to Beijing," Milgram noted. The founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, is the primary source of private funding of the Common Core standards.

"Production and manufacturing has also moved out of this country," Milgram added. "The longer this continues, the more we'll see our major industry move over to other countries and the jobs they generate will go with them."

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/09/01/Common-Core-Blockbuster-Mathematician-Dr-Jim-Milgram-Warns-Common-Core-Will-Destroy-America-s-Standing-in-Technology

[Ross]

What do you think you know about the Federal Government and Bill Gates Common Core.
I thought I knew enough, I thought it sounded wrong from everything I had read.

And yes in my opinion that is enough to raise questions.

BUT. I am reading a book about Common Core that is terrifying. The book is entitled

"The Cult of Common Core"

by Brad McQueen. This is far more than wrong.

Do you have children or grand children in school, if so this is a must read.
It is worse than a horror story.

The book is available in print or digital download at Amazon.com
and I bet at other places on the internet.

Common Core = Rotten Control = Complete Control

This is something I just read, separate from the book, "It also is a source if indoctrination of progressive and communist principles."

[Ross]

Common Core: The Government's Classroom

The Famiy Research Council has posted an excellent video that is an hour and ten minutes long about Common Core.

I can not post the video here because it is a flash format.

What is the Famiy Research Council?
This is their explanation:

FRC University is a unique Website featuring resources for use by pastors, professors, students, and concerned citizens about the issues critical to our country's social fabric. You can view lectures by leaders in their fields and find downloadable publications that will better equip you to make public arguments, advanced public policy ideas, and persuade those with whom you are debating. We hope you will enjoy using the resources we are providing through our FRC University site.

http://frc.org/commoncore

[Ross]

My personal opinion illegal alien children are going to cost taxpayers more than higher taxes for educating them. 
I think the Higher cost will be in health related issues for our legal resident children. Just my opinion.

Madeleine Cosman

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Immigration issues

Cosman appeared frequently with host Mark Edwards of "Wake Up America" and provided the medical legal data for "Hold Their Feet to the Fire,"[1] a project of Americans for Legal Immigration - ALIPAC.[6] One article she wrote for the Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons titled "Illegal Aliens and American Medicine" [7] stated that "Horrendous diseases that long ago America had conquered are resurging," she wrote last April. "Horrific diseases common in Third World poverty and medical ignorance suddenly are appearing in American emergency rooms and medical offices." [1]

And she argued that 80 California hospitals closed between 1994 and 2003 because of the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act requirement that those hospitals provide services (including childbirth) to illegal aliens in the emergency room regardless of their ability to pay.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Madeleine_Cosman

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

Madeleine P. Cosman, 68, Medieval Expert, Dies

By MARGALIT FOX

Published: March 19, 2006

Madeleine Pelner Cosman, a prominent writer, scholar and lecturer whose passion for what she called the "glorious order" of the past led her first to a career in medieval and Renaissance studies and more recently to wide public advocacy of tougher immigration laws, died on March 2 in Escondido, Calif. She was 68.

Ms. Cosman could also play the piano, fly an airplane and shoot a gun. In the 1980's and early 90's, she made her living buying and selling medical practices, and in the mid-90's, when she was in her late 50's, she became a lawyer. In recent years, she worked as a health-care policy analyst and was a volunteer patrolwoman with the San Diego County Sheriff's Department.

Most recently, Ms. Cosman's interest in health care policy led her to study the effects of illegal immigration on the United States health-care system. Her article "Illegal Aliens and American Medicine," published last year in The Journal of American Physicians and Surgeons, has been widely reproduced on anti-immigration and other conservative Web sites.

These are excerpts from a story at: http://www.nytimes.com/2006/03/19/nyregion/19cosman.html?_r=1&

[Ross]

COMMON CORE---What's the big deal?

08/26/2014

Common Core is an integral part of UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development: globalization is the standardization of systems. Whether the system is law enforcement or land use or government, the standardization, harmonization, and integration of all international methods of management is essential for total control. 

Education is the flash point for embedding system acceptance in all sectors of the population.  Standardized propaganda is developed for pre-kindergarten to post graduate school; this is what is meant by 'Life Long Learning.' 

Breaking down traditional methods of learning in order to re-socialize the populace is the goal.  Obedient, dependent people who are constantly being propagandized will provide the 'human capital' to fully implement UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development.

Regardless of the content of this nationalized and internationalized system of behavioral modification, the goal and outcome will be to fundamentally destroy the individual's rights.

This is commonly referred to as 'Transformation' or 'Change'.

- See more at: http://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com/the-way-we-see-itour-blog/category/common%20core#sthash.emCafwyY.dpuf

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX

COMMON CORE IS
UN
AGENDA 21

Common Core is an integral part of UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development: globalization is the standardization of systems. Whether the system is law enforcement or land use or government, the standardization, harmonization, and integration of all international methods of management is essential for total control. 
Education is the flash point for embedding system acceptance in all sectors of the population.  Standardized propaganda is developed for pre-kindergarten to post graduate school; this is what is meant by 'Life Long Learning.' 

Breaking down traditional methods of learning in order to re-socialize the populace is the goal.  Obedient, dependent people who are constantly being propagandized will provide the 'human capital' to fully implement UN Agenda 21/Sustainable Development.

Regardless of the content of this nationalized and internationalized system of behavioral modification, the goal and outcome will be to fundamentally destroy the individual's rights.

This is commonly referred to as 'Transformation' or 'Change'. - See more at: http://www.democratsagainstunagenda21.com/common-core-is-agenda-21.html#sthash.kwtE6glG.dpuf

[Ross]

New Survey Reveals the
Department of Education's Agenda
of Dumbing Down America
is Almost Complete

September 19, 2014 By Matthew Burke

America's education system used to be the envy of the world. We were ranked the best in the world.

By far.

Then, Democrats, under Jimmy Carter, thought it would be a good idea to let federal bureaucrats ruin a great system and dumb down America into a group of useful idiots. The "masses" are so much easier to control when they're uninformed.

Therefore, they established the federal Department of Education in 1979, and after billions and billions of dollars wasted, education has only gotten worse. This new survey is further just one of many examples of how this bloated, unnecessary agency has been an utter and complete failure, unless you call the dumbing down of America a success.

A new survey, sadly released this week for Constitution Day, which was September 17, reveals that the dumbing down of America has nearly been completed.

RELATED:  You Can Thank the Department of Education for This...

In a national survey conducted by the University of Pennsylvania, slightly more that one-third (36%) could name all three branches of the U.S. government. Even more disappointing, 35% couldn't name even one of the three branches.

The survey showed that only 27% knew that it takes a two-thirds vote of the House and Senate to override a presidential veto.

Amazingly, another finding was that 21% think a 5-4 Supreme Court decision is sent back to Congress for reconsideration.

Most Americans also don't know which parties control the House and Senate.

When asked, 44% did not know (that number has skyrocketed from 27% only three years ago) which party controlled the House or Senate, 38% said the Republicans controlled the House, but 17% thought that the Democrats still held the majority.

When asked which party controls the Senate, 38% correctly answered correctly that the Democrats were in the majority. However, 42% did not know (also up from 27% in 2011 who said they didn't know), and 20% believed that Republicans held the majority in the U.S. Senate.

Founding Father John Adams said that, "Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom."

Clearly this is not being accomplished and it will get much, much worse when Common Core, affectionately referred to by this writer as "Commie Core" takes hold.

Please share this article on Facebook and Twitter if you believe that the federal Department of Education should be abolished.

http://www.tpnn.com/2014/09/19/new-survey-reveals-the-department-of-educations-agenda-of-dumbing-down-america-is-almost-complete/