Stop Common Core: The Overview

Jane Robbins discusses the Common Core Standards, looking at their origins, the federal and private interests behind their creation, and the threat they represent to parents’ and teachers’ voice in what their children are learning.

In Defense of Family: Help the Romeike Family Keep and Maintain their Family in Freedom!

If you haven't read the story of Romeike Family yet, if you are not aware of what our government is arguing in the case to deport this family, then you need to take a few minutes and educate yourself. Obama’s Justice Department, led by Attorney General Eric Holder, is arguing that parents have NO fundamental liberty in matters concerning the home education of their children. The US DOJ is arguing that the fines, looming prosecutions, and threats of removal of their children from their custody if they resist state education can't be considered persecution because the complete nationwide home school ban singles out no particular group. Essentially a ban on everybody's freedom persecutes no one.

German parents have not been able to legally homeschool their children since the practice was banned by the Nazis in 1938. The purpose of the ban was to force children to be indoctrinated by schools controlled by Hitler and the Third Reich. After that time, the ban has been upheld by the Supreme Court of Germany. According to the court, “preventing homeschooling was to counteract the development of religious and philosophically motivated parallel societies.” It is simply astonishing that our government would argue that such a ban jeopardizes no fundamental liberty. Not only does the DOJ's case ignore the perils of history, it contradicts thousands of years of tradition and a hundred years of constitutional case law that upholds the God given natural rights of parents to the custody and control of their children; which includes the right to raise their children as they see fit, to direct their upbringing and destiny, and to control their education and activities.

If the Romeike family is forced to return to Germany they will lose the God given right to nurture, teach, and guide their children in a way consistent with their closely held religious beliefs -- and if they resist this state control over their children they will face fines, prosecution, and even the forcible removal of their children from their care and custody. Is there any worse persecution than this? Is state control and abuse of your children worse than the control and abuse of their minds? Is there any kind of persecution worse than this?

I have tried to imagine which is worse, to lose my freedom to worship as I choose or to lose my freedom to control the education and upbringing of my children and have concluded they are one and the same! The unity of the family and a parent's God given right to protect and educate that child is in my mind our most sacred right under God, our most sacred responsibility, and essential to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Not only is it a fundamental human right and an American heritage it is central to my faith and religious convictions. I believe that this is the case with the Romeike family.

All of our natural God given rights acknowledged by our constitution as unalienable rights -- freedom of speech and thought, freedom of religion, property rights, privacy rights -- are in the support of this central human endeavor to form families, to bring children into those families, to love and nurture those children, to teach them and guide them, and to see them grown with those values we've instilled in them. It is central to our pursuit of happiness in this life to pass to our children our legacy of faith as well as our worldly goods. When any government degrades and undermines this fundamental human God given right then they are exercising tyranny over the human soul and mind and denying individuals the essence of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

STAND WITH THE ROMEIKE FAMILY SIGN THIS PETITION

Under American law, the Attorney General has the right to grant asylum to the Romeike family at any time. A petition has been started on the White House website, We the People, requesting the family be allowed to stay. Although the first petition was taken down as it did not meet the threshold of 100,000 signatures within 30 days, a second petition was started on March 19. PLEASE HELP US REACH THE REQUIRED SIGNATURES!!

COMMON CORE: Relinquishing Our Constitutional Rights

Common Core State Standards are essentially education without representation and threatens the freedoms of families nationwide. You don't need to know everything about the Common Core State Standards agenda to make a strong case against it. Even if all the CCSS and it's curriculum models were healthy educationally, even if you could support data-mining student's personal info for the "betterment" of the workforce of the future, CCSS is still a federal takeover of education that has serious implications for the future! On the pure basis of our republican form of government parents nationwide should be seriously concerned and should oppose the federal government taking this much control over local education.

With CCSS we have the most significant change in US education EVER. We should oppose a mandated set of national standards, national tests, and national curriculum models (that inevitably follow such standards) because they are binding on the states. Once agreed to CCSS will transform classrooms coast to coast without parents and citizens having any say in what's happening in their local schools and practically no democratic means to appeal should they be displeased in the future!

We must oppose our state Governors and legislators relinquishing our constitutional powers to the DOE. CCSS has been a clandestine un-democratic takeover of education coast to coast, whatever the supposed benefits, the dangers are far more compelling.

Consider the billions in local and state taxes we pay to fund our schools that will be essentially controlled by the Federal Department of Education by de facto means under CCSS. When we as a state sign onto this federal compact we use state dollars to carry out federal mandates in education. So what if we don't like something in the mandates? So what if we want to change this or that to better suit our state? Nope! Out of luck. You signed the compact your obligated to the whole enchilada!

I know firsthand how difficult it is to address bad public policy when state government encroaches on local school districts. When Nebraska state legislators passed a sweeping school attendance law that removed responsibility from local school boards to the state, they arbitrarily made delinquents of tens if thousands of school children, the majority of whom were at no-risk of academic failure or a life of crime. Nebraska parents found it extremely difficult to affect reforms and solve the local concerns once that power shifted to state government.

Imagine you have a serious concern about a curriculum model that was developed as a direct response to the CCSS. You talk to a member of your school board about your concerns seeking a solution to the problem and they say, "I'm sorry we have to do it that way because it's the law." You then contact your legislator for assistance and they in turn tell you there is nothing they can do because it is a federal standard they have no oversight. What do you do then? Who do you call?

It is unimaginable to think that policies that affect families so intimately would be drawn up by unelected boards in Washington and be binding on my family with no local representation to turn to for redress when those policies become tyrannical. How much harder is it to organize a national grassroots opposition to federal control then to affect change in your own school district? Almost Impossible!!

It was for this reason that our founders taught us that the government closest to the people governs best and that for freedom to endure you needed an educated and engaged populous who are eternally vigilant in protecting those natural rights that the constitution was designed to protect. We are relinquishing our God given rights at breath taking speed and I fear it will be too late to recover them when we finally realize the folly of it all!

STOP COMMON CORE NOW!

COMMON CORE: Which is Worse, the Feds Having Control Over a Person's Health or a Person's Mind?

Forty Six US states have adopted the Common Core State Standards, standards written by NGO's and approved, not by legislatures but rather political unions like the National Governors Association. Four years ago these standards were approved and put in motion outside the political discourse and parents are just beginning to hear the word Common Core!

With CCSS we have the most significant change in US education EVER and no significant national media coverage anywhere until just the last few months ago. HOW DOES THAT HAPPEN? How can a set of national standards, national tests, and national curriculum models that are binding on the states be transforming classrooms coast to coast before parents even know about it?

Even in the handful of states who haven't officially signed the pact with the federal government are making changes in the classroom to get in line with CCSS. For example, in Nebraska, Omaha Public Schools has been re-working curriculum and teaching models for at least a year to get ready for Common Core! All this before their state board of education has signed off on the standards.

It is disgusting to me that something so transformational can be in the works without any information going out to the public about it!! But then that's what the CCSS agenda is all about it has moved forward with no consultation of parents or the public, it's by-stepped legislatures by going straight to state boards, and it has moved into place with astonishing stealth to avoid public push back.

In the months of research I did trying to find the strings on the Nebraska truancy law the NFF fought hard to roll back in 2011/2012, I never stumbled into the CCSS. I saw all the strings, I traced the agenda to the 2009 stimulus dollars incentivizing states to build the SLDS (state student longitudinal data systems) as part of RTT but no mention of how these grants were being used to incentivize the CCSS agenda.

I sometimes wonder if this "quiet revolution", as Arne Duncan called it, is quiet because the NGA agreed to keep it quiet. After all the NGA had all the governors in line on the CCSS in 2009 when they met to "sign off" on the idea that was constructed by Gates Foundation and their partners.

I have never thought of myself as a conspiracy theorist but when Bush passed NCLB it was huge news, it was national legislation with congressional oversight. This is very different! My research of RTT in 2010/2011 made me very suspicious. I could tell Obama was planning something but I had no idea the plan was already set, the gates foundation and their partners had already spent 100's of millions, the NGA had already signed off on it, all before the "truancy" troubles in Nebraska began.

For all the national media attention, public outrage, and congressional pushback on Obamacare, essentially a federal takeover of the healthcare industry, there was a real takeover in the planning at the same time. A takeover of far more consequence! CCSS has been a clandestine un-democratic takeover of education coast to coast. This cannot be just a coincidence! This is a conspiracy to keep it from the people.

Which is worse the Feds having control over a persons health or a persons mind? Now we have both!

Common Core: What Kind of People are we Growing?

Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are a set of content standards currently limited to English language arts (ELA) and mathematics. 46 STATES AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA HAVE signed on to the Common Core State Standards Initiative. While supporters of CCSS have recently defended CCSS against rising opposition as a loose construct of base line standards. The push for common education standards argues that all American students should study a common curriculum, take comparable tests to measure their learning, and have the results interpreted on a common scale. National digital assessments are being written to line up with CCSS and schools nationally have been overhauling curriculum to line up with the tests. Change the test at the top control the curriculum and methods at the bottom that's the general intent.

This new construct threatens just about every academic discipline but as a lover of literature and a parent the changes in what books our children will be exposed to is of particular alarm. CCSS calls for 12th grade reading to be 70 percent nonfiction, or "informational texts" -- gradually stepping up from the 50 percent nonfiction reading required of elementary school students.

Mary Grabar, English professor of Emory University and writer, observed, "As a college English instructor, I am dismayed by how much we have already lost of our literary heritage. During the past 20 years, I’ve found each successive entering class to be less familiar with cultural and literary concepts. Often trained to parse imaginative works for political messages, students are rendered incapable of understanding the pathos of tragedy and the delight of humor evoked from sentences that build up complexly. They think that only facts are needed"

One South Carolina school administrator, defending Common Core, declared, “Kids don’t need to be spending hours and hours reading classical literature.” A representative from the state superintendant’s office claimed that students learn to write better if they study informational texts rather than literature. Perhaps, but they learn to write what? Technical instruction manual type writing, sure — but expressing ideas of value in elegant pros and inspiring truth, NO!

The real story behind Common Core's ratio 70/30 in favor of "informational texts" is that it won't be applied 70% great historical non fiction like Tocqueville and 30% enlightenment era classics "A Tale of Two Cities", because there has already been a growing trend of assigning pop fiction in place of the classics; many teachers do it to keep students happy. This focus on keeping kids happy is a deficiency in teaching. Good teachers inspire excitement of meaningful literature and lead children to understand the significance of great historical non-fiction. No meaningful study will automatically appeal to the angry birds generation.

As a parent I have painfully witnessed this shift away from classics first hand. My 14 year old has read one classic novel in his entire education thus far — Frankenstein — he hasn't read in school To Kill a Mocking Bird, Animal Farm, Lord of the Flys, Treasure Island, Tom Sawyer, Little House on the Prairie, Grimm's Fairy Tales — all of which I read before I was his age. And many more books schools could encourage Uncle Toms Cabin, Robin Hood, Arabian Nights, Christmas Carol, The Count of Monte Cristo, Sherlock Holmes, Jane Eyre... And the list goes on. I never hear of these books being read in school anymore!

So why do books like these matter? Classic novels, especially from the enlightenment era of western civilization, stretch a student to ask questions that inform their understanding of human character, historical context, and universal truths. These books are the foundation of our civilization, they have shaped science, religion, inspired the founding of our nation, and reformed the world. When my son read his first "classic novel" at fourteen it was really tough for him. He really struggled to understand the language, themes, and the lessons taught in the book. It takes exposure and practice for a student to grasp the truths found in the pages of the best books.

Anyone can read and understand simple non-fiction, it's self explanatory, but reading literature and historical non-fiction from the Enlightenment Era and understanding the complex themes, morals, alliteration, ironies, historical context, and analogies connects students with the significance of human history, our social progress, our language. It develops the abilities of thought that make it possible to think and judge for ones self and discern truth. This exposure reaches both intellect and spirit.

Grabber says, "We are losing not only writing skills, but cultural cohesion. What will the future hold when we have no frame of reference, such as a “Rip Van Winkle” or an “Invisible Man”?" With such sober warnings why would the majority of our leaders in both parties support the Common Core? Why would so many embark together on such a destructive path? Common Core's mission statement sheds light on the answer: "The standards are designed to be... relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers."

What does "relevant to the REAL WORLD" mean? It means classics are no longer relevant or true (real). In the same way that secular socialists are systematically removing morality and God from education the thoughts and values that have informed our western civilization are "out of date" and no longer relevant — or have been determined to be completely false. Most of this classic literature delves deeply into themes that relate to the role God has played in shaping history and human society, if not promote spirituality, and we can't have that!

What is meant by "skills that our young people need for success in college and careers?" It means the American political and corporate classes see education as purely technocratic and want education tailored to workforce placement. Thus, CCSS establishes the P-20/Workforce Longitudinal State Data Systems for tracking and analyzing personal student data from birth to career and is unaffected by cutting classic literature. For this purpose you don't need people who know Shakespeare or citizens who think for themselves, are creative, and self-taught. The corporate money and interest in the SLDS gives validity to this argument.

As a mother who sent my son to school at the onset of NCLB and have seen what that experiment has done! My 14 year old takes tests very well. He knows how to make the grade! He's a straight 'A' student. He has learned to regurgitate the text book, even when he doesn't believe the interpreted conclusion. He can follow an assignment rubric to the letter, but I'm not sure how that facilitates any creativity. He will excel in high school, he will get 'A's', and he will probably score very well on his Common Core aligned ACT!

This year for the first time I felt as though I had really failed my son. I have not been oblivious to the deficits in his public school education. I have tried to expose him to what I thought he was missing at school but in the end school has taken so much family time away with longer and longer school days and years, more and more homework, that there's no time left for re-educating at home. It has been a real struggle.

As a prolific writer myself I am disheartened when I watch my son struggled to write out his thoughts and conclusions after spending quality time reading and discussing the complex themes. Years ago as they beat into him a stale 5 block writing technique I thought how unnatural it was and worried they were beating out the children's unique voices. Now I worry, is he is handicapped.? He struggles to hear his inner voice and write how he speaks.

When I learned that the Common Core will further deemphasize classics, and continues to drill writing techniques that destroy creativity, there was simply no way could send my youngest into school now at the onset of Common Core. What will they prepare him for? To navigate the over regulated technocratic corporate world? Smother him in busy work so he won't be frustrated by bureaucracy paperwork and rubrics of compliance? Make him adept at storing factual information in his brain and regurgitating it upon request? It won't matter that he doesn't know his own mind because no one will care to ask what he thinks.

The education reforms of the past two decades that have favored standardization, deluged our children in test taking skills, and de-emphasized classics have been devastating to the development of our children's minds and character. I believe this transformation is designed on one hand to deconstruct intellectual and moral character by cutting our children adrift from self discovery and the sound ethics on the pages of the great literary works. And on the other hand this deconstruction acts to turn our children into workforce technocrats who are proficient technical writers with the skills and factual information they need to be good employees but who possess no wisdom.

What will the next generation look like in this construct? What education will children be left with when they have been saturated in facts and technology at school and media and pop-culture at home? What kind of people will they be when their lives contain NO discussion of universal truths or social morality at school, and for most American children even less exposure to these concepts at home? What kind of people are we growing?