How Common Core’s More Rigorous Standards Dumb Kids Down?

There is a strange phenomenon apparent in how parents talk about the effects of Common Core standards on their children -- some parents see their once happy learners struggling to grasp the curriculum while others parents say the curriculum is too easy and is not challenging their child -- Can they both be right? This is a question I often get from parents researching Common Core and running into this contradiction. Those who are pushing the Common Core know how hard it is for parents to make sense of it and that works to their benefit. I will attempt to answer this question as simply as I can, so stay with me.

The problems with the Common Core Standards start with, and stem from, the fact that they were not developed with careful attention to what is developmentally appropriate for children. You might ask, how this could possibly happen. Hundreds of high profile leaders have said that the standards were developed by hundreds of experts. I too think it is shocking that the Federal Department of Education would push national standards that are fundamentally flawed. However, despite some warnings from early childhood development specialist, the committee of teachers and curriculum experts devising the standards did so “with no input from early childhood educators, only a few elementary school teachers, and no child development specialists, phychologist, pediatricians, or neuro-psychologist… There was no inter-disciplinary input on the committee; and it isn't apparent that the standards were tied to any research. "Normally when you see something this important, you see citations after it that indicate the research the standards are based on. Surely you would think that the academic standards for a nation of children would be based on research." 1

Since the standards were completely unknown to the general public until after they were introduced in the classroom, it has only been since there introduction into the schools that independent experts in the fields of early childhood development have had opportunity to examine the standards. I would encourage parents to read and participate in the lectures that have been presented by these experts that discuss the developmentally inappropriate nature of the Common Core and the harmful effects of the assessments being developed. Here is some of what we are learning about the standards.

"Being developmentally appropriate requires an understanding of how a child's mind is developing and then presenting information based on that." 1 So to understand how Common Core standards are developmentally inappropriate, let’s do a quick crash course in the stages of childhood development and use a widely accepted theory, Piaget's theory of cognitive development.

Kindergarteners are in a developmental period known as “pre-operational” (2-7 years old), this is because they cannot yet understand operational changes. For example, when you show them a picture of two cookies + three cookies = five cookies, they are going to struggle to understand how these two smaller groups can change to become a larger one, but if you wait just a little bit longer till they are in the “concrete operational” (7-11 years) period this kind of instruction becomes much easier and this is the optimal age for developing mastery in math facts and basic language skills. Children don’t begin to think logically and abstractly until the “formal operational” period (11-adult), this is the period where they are able to comprehend logically and grasp algebraic concepts which are abstract in nature. 1

Below is a look at how a typical 5/6 year old is developing:

· Practicing Being Independent
· Exhibiting Creativity
· Focused on how things look
· Thinks that others see things the way they do
· Can't understand another's perspective
· Can't reflect upon their own thinking
· Semi-logical
· Cannot think abstractly
· Confuses reality and fantasy

Below are a set of mathematical practices that Common Core Standards expect students from Kindergarten to 12th grade to exhibit. Based on the cognitive abilities shown above you should be able to pick out the practices that are developmentally inappropriate for K-3rd?

· Make sense of problems and persevere in solving them.
· Reason abstractly and quantitatively.
· Construct viable arguments and critique the reasoning of others.
· Model with mathematics.
· Use appropriate tools strategically.
· Attend to precision.

After reviewing the Common Core Standards, Child Psychologist Dr. Megan Koschnick, concluded that the developers of the Standards saw this collage and career ready goal and they backed the standards down all the way to Kindergarten. So instead of thinking about what is developmentally appropriate for a Kindergartener, they are thinking about where they want that kindergartener to end up, “let's track this all back down to kindergarten and have them work on those skills in a kindergarten way"… There are some major flaws with that. "There're trying to push down heavier higher level things on the lower grades." This will take a lot of time that is wasted at the expense of more basic skills and other crucial areas of a child's learning: active, hands-on exploration, and developing social, emotional, problem-solving, and self-regulation skills.

Below are some specific examples of standards that are developmentally inappropriate:

1) Behavioral and Social Standards housed under writing for Kindergarten students: With guidance and support from adults, respond to questions and suggestions from peers and add details to strengthen writing as needed. "So instead of proposing something that would be more in line with a Kindergartener’s goal of exploring, being creative, and independent they've suggested the social and emotional goal of being dependent on other people." 1

2) Math Standard for Kindergarten: “Require kids in Kindergarten to learn addition and subtraction within 5,” which doesn't seem like a lot, but they are in the pre-operational period and because their brains are not ready for operational concepts these will require lessons and strategies, such as "drill and kill" methods, to program Kindergarteners to test proficient on the math facts."

3) ELA Standard for 1st graders: Distinguish shades of meaning among related words and describe states of mind or degrees of certainty (e.g. knew, believed, suspected, heard, and wondered). Here they are not looking for concrete definitions but rather to understand the nuances of the words which requires abstract thought. This is a cognitive ability not developed in a 1st grader.

So, why does it matter if the standards are developmentally appropriate? And how does that effect the student as they reach higher level courses?

"Kids that are subjected to standards that are inappropriate will be more stressed, this has been proven to be true in research... stress, anxiety, depression, physical hostility, nervousness, physical aches and pains” will all present in a greater number of children. Thus Common Core is causing parents to see their once bright engaged child withdraw from classroom instruction and sink in test performance, giving the impression that the standards are too hard.

Proponents of the Common Core standards say that they “are fewer but deeper,” but what this means in real terms is they will spend more years trying to teach children what they are not ready for while ignoring critical steps in their development. Then when they are ready for concrete operations, for example, they delay them in exchange for what is being called "fuzzy math" pushing off concrete mastery of the language of math and reliable algorithms even further. One math teacher described this insane practice as trying to "make little mathematicians who have no hope of being able to do math."

Dr. James Milgram, Professor of Mathematics at Stanford University, has extensive experience developing mathematics standards throughout the nation and served on the Validation Committee for the Common Core Standards. Regarding the math standards, Dr. James Milgram (the only person with an advanced degree in mathematics on the Validation Committee) refused to sign off on the standards because he concluded that they would place American students at least two years behind those of high-achieving countries by 8th grade. So while some of my friends have little children who are struggling in K-3 many opponents are focusing on the delay in algebra onward and the decrease in quality literary study that as evidence that the standards are "dumbing students down". Thus the apparent contradiction between parents who say their bright kids are struggling and others who say the standards are a step down, isn’t a contradiction at all. It’s the natural effect of standards designed to turn education on its head.

The proponents of Common Core are using this misunderstood contradiction to discredit what parents are experiencing. This was exactly the approach Arne Duncan took recently when he said that parental backlash over Common Core was coming from "white moms" who realized all of the sudden their child wasn't "as brilliant" as they thought they were. The real contradiction is the one Arne Duncan and the private backers of Common Core are selling American parents. That is that the standards are rigorous and go deeper to develop higher level thinking. It’s true that they are rigorous, extreme, and inflexible during the most fragile stages of brain development but it is also true that they foolishly attempt to make adults of 5 year olds while setting seniors years behind their international peers. Sure we will train some students to answer test questions proficiently, we can even train a second grader to answer abstract questions, but we will not have changed the internal process of understanding abstractly. While some students may seem to master the skills there will be many more who throw up the white flag and surrender.

1. Lecture by Dr. Megan Koschnick on how Common Core is Developmentally Inappropriate: http://youtu.be/vrQbJlmVJZo

There is No Place Like Home

In 2009 Obama's education secretary Arne Duncan, in all seriousness, shared his vision of American schools as the center of community life and I dare say family life. He said, “I think schools should be open 12, 13, 14 hours a day, seven days a week, 11-12 months of the year.” The federal education agendas for decades have encouraged and even mandated that schools "increase instructional time" which is a term that disguises the real purpose behind increasing school hours and school years -- which is to replace family free time with an institutionalized childhood.

A news story out of Colorado today is only one of dozens of stories from across the country reporting significant increases in school hours for especially our youngest children. While living in Nebraska I organized several grassroots organization (here, and here) with the purpose of defending the integrity of the family, the innocence of children, and preserving the role of parents in directing the upbringing and education of their children. "Instructional time" and "attendance" agendas linked to federal education mandates and "initiatives" were of great concern because they challenged the central role of parents in nurturing and raising children. I wrote several articles warning parents of the damages children and family life suffer from the agenda to lengthen school calendars (here, here, here, and here).

The American Academy of Pediatrics released a report in 2007 warning parents of the relationship between increased depression and anxiety in children and the lack of the simple childhood pleasure of play. The report states that "the national trend, to focus on the academic fundamentals... has decreased time left for recess, creative arts, and physical education" at school and has "further diminished the child-driven play that is essential to the cognitive, physical, social, and emotional well-being of children and youth" that happens at home. Compound that with extended hours in after-school programs that emphasize academics, the hours of unsupervised video gaming and constant T.V. and you have a recipe for a nation that cannot create, work, or think.

It is not surprising, but no less disappointing, when I hear mothers complain that the precious little time they have with their children at home is further diminished by these national policies. It saddens me to hear so many parents complaining about stressed out kids who have no time to play and who feel their children are loosing their childhood to the ill conceived notions of "educational rigor". Like states across the country, my own county in Maryland has steadily increased school hours (primarily in elementary school) and they are even sending buses out earlier to make sure kids get to school for breakfast. A friend of mine complained that when she tries to make sure her kids are fed breakfast before they leave for school they say, "Oh mom, they feed us at school." She resents the loss of this family time and she should. Schools are encroaching on the role of parents to nurture and care for their young children to the great determent of the bonds between parent and child.

When your school board proposes an increases in the length of the school day and says they have to do it for "instructional" purposes be VERY suspicious! Even the Colorado story admits that this increased time will not be used for "typical course work" but for is an "extra 300 hours a year for things that usually don't fit in a regular school day, such as using personalized software or learning about world cultures, healthy living and even scrapbooking." After supporting the increased time for educational reasons, parents in Nebraska were surprised to find out that the 30 minutes added to the elementary day and 15 minutes added to middle school day was not used for instruction time but even if it were, the truth is that very young children tune out after about 2 o'clock and any instructional time after that is a complete waste.

When the School Board says they have "no choice" but to increase the school day and year because of state and federal mandates remember that in most states local school boards have constitutional powers over these choices. When the education "experts" tell you your kids need more "instructional time" for them to meet the new "rigorous" standards at school remember that though the school days and years have continually increased over the past four decades scores have remained flat.

If that doesn't convince you that these policies are wasteful and damaging to children and their families, if you are like many parents today who welcome these changes because it makes your work schedule easier, is lighter on the daycare pocketbook, or you simply believe this extra time is benefiting their child's learning. I would encourage you to read about the importance of unstructured free play and the detrimental effects of hyper-schooling on the developing mind and character of your child, you may conclude that the extra money for daycare (where at least they can run and play) is well worth it.

Arne Duncan's vision for a school centered culture rather than a family centered one is quickly becoming a reality and unless that is the world you want for your kids and grand-kids it is time for you to oppose these policies and persuade your friends that these changes are seriously harmful to their children. There really is "No Place Like Home" and there is no adequate substitute in a child's development for the nurture of a parent and the freedom of play.

U.S. History National Standards: America, the Colonial Imperial Oppressor

When my son came home from school yesterday asking about his history lesson on the "Philippine-American War," he explained the event as an example of American imperialist policies that denied independence to freedom fighters in the Philippines and caused the deaths of thousands of innocent natives. You can imagine that I needed to take some time to research the lesson from his text book and other sources in order to understand the frame with which this lesson had been taught. What I found did not surprise me at this point but I did begin to wonder how these history lessons will progress when America enters the world wars, for example. How will this curriculum continue the story of America in such a way as to disguise each and every event so that there is no virtue in the actions of our nation at any time in its history?

In my research to understand where this "telling" of the Spanish-American War and the subsequent American presence in the Philippines came from, I found that the National Standards for United States History sets these unit objectives for students in their study of the Philippine-American War:

• Students will explain the causes of American imperialist policies and values in the 1890's.
• Student will evaluate the arguments for and against the U.S. annexation and subjugation of the Philippine islands and their people.

What are the purposes of these objectives? What are the "values" the students will explain? Parents should examine the text books as well as the lesson plans created for these standards and their objectives. The lesson plans for this historical event teach that the U.S. victory over Spain in the Spanish American war made the U.S., the "New Spain", a imperial empire builder whose "values of assimilation" oppressed the native peoples. These lessons teach students to "examine" the American imperialist policies and values that stem from "the American people’s belief that they had a sacred obligation to spread their institutions and way of life." I have watched as this curriculum has progressed and it is clear to me that it is designed to convince students that America's "superpower" status was gained through religious oppression, capitalist greed, and "white" supremacy.

This characterization of America as an imperial colonial power steeped in hypocrisy starts early in history text books. The curriculum portrays westward expansion as American imperial designs on the globe and suggests that "American Values" were the height of arrogance and cultural insensitivity; that at best westward expansion was misguided and at worst it was a malicious destruction of cultures. These lessons have students evaluate America's past by asking students whether the U.S. was "justified" in settling Texas, the Southwest, Utah and the Great Basin, California, Oregon, and the Pacific Northwest; purchasing Alaska, annexing the islands of Santo Domingo in the Caribbean, and the "territorial expansion" involving Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, Hawaii, and the islands of the Philippines.

As we have daily discussed this series of lessons with my son and tried to provide more perspective and context that has been completely omitted in class, we have been receiving our own education in the political design behind this telling of our nation's history. Yesterday's lesson on the "Philippine-American War" was particularly interesting to me. How is it that in a discussion of international conflict the lesson contained no substantive discussion of the realities of international relations at the time? Britain and Germany had fleets in the region and McKinley realized the choice he faced was not whether or not to liberate the islands, but which of three nations -- the United States, Germany, or Britain -- would control them. Giving them back to Spain was ridiculous, turning them over to France and Germany (our commercial rivals in the Orient) was bad business, and even if they could be saved from the rule of a stronger nation they were in no state to be self governed.

The U.S. projected power in the Pacific as a reaction to the imperial designs of Japan and the other nations. In Hawaii for example, the Japanese were attempting to counter the American settlement in those islands by sending their own immigrants to the islands. The Hawaiians rejected these immigrants and as a result Japan sent war ships to the coast, not a fact you will find in my Son's history text book. My son was taught that capitalist interests in the Islands were the reason for the U.S. annexing Hawaii as well as the driving reason behind the entry into the War with Spain. There are many historical facts that were completely omitted that contradict that assertions. First, the Hawaii annexation was opposed by the business interests of the sugar beat farmers of the western continental United States and the southern Democrats who opposed it because of racial bigotry. These internal factions were the reason President McKinley couldn't get congressional support for the action. McKinley himself was not a fan of the idea of annexing Hawaii but felt pushed to by the presence of Japanese war ships in Hawaii and with the annexation of Hawaii, the Philippines as a military base seemed all the more logical.

I would have encouraged a robust evaluation of the decision to enter the Spanish-American War and a discussion of how history might have been impacted had America not projecting power in the Pacific at that time. Theodore Roosevelt saw the changing nature of the world, the fast pace of technological advancement, and the imperial designs of Japan and other nations and predicted an impending world conflict. It was his belief that America was not prepared for world conflict and needed to get prepared, that America needed to show those world powers that we could compete on the world stage. Those who shared this view sought to strengthen American Navel power, project navel power in the Pacific, and expand trade in our hemisphere. Certainly an examination of these ideas might contradict the idea that Americas designs were imperial. With proper context students might conclude that while the Spanish-American War was offensive the actions taken may indeed reveal a great foresight that contributed to a strong defense in a world quickly advancing toward world war.

While it is true that Americans believed that freedom was a gift from God and that their Republic was the most effective form of Government in preserving these God given rights, it is hardly "imperial" to want other nations to be as equally blessed by such freedoms. Among economic trade and military concerns about Spain's outpost in the western hemisphere, Americans were sympathetic to the plight of Cubans who struggled against a bloody military state only 60 miles from their shores. Wanting free trade with nations in our hemisphere and to extend greater freedom to those nations is hardly "imperial" either. Yet it is the effort to spread such freedom and prosperity that the curriculum portrays as arrogance and cultural insensitivity.

My husband asked my son if the lesson at school had taught them of the great strides America made to establish healthcare in the disease ridden island countries which reeled from epidemics of cholera, plague, smallpox, tuberculosis, typhoid fever, and malaria? Or the conflicts the U.S. engaged in with Muslim raiders who exploited tribal warfare and took slaves from native and colonists populations? Of course any noble effort was omitted. The greatest omission being the fact that if America were truly set on imperial interests overseas their actions are puzzling. They limited their presence legally by setting target dates for their withdrawal and the independence of the territories and they kept to it. Never before in history had a nation so willingly and, in general, peacefully rescinded control over so much territory and so many conquered people as in the case of the possessions taken in the Spanish-American War.

What are students meant to conclude when the so called "American expansion" is attributed to motivations arising from "capitalist greed", "christian zealotry", and "a raw competitive drive for national power and prestige?" When students are asked to evaluate "American values" and then taught that those values were based on arrogant "white, Anglo-Saxon" notions that "western nations were superior to the 'inferior' peoples of the world," that the American desire to advance the progress of the world and spread "their principles, institutions, and religion" was self serving and imperialistic, students conclude that America's rise to world leadership was unjustified and that America is a great imperial oppressor.

*For an example of the lesson plans for the Philippine-American War provided to U.S. history teachers under the National History Standards, see this lesson plan from the National Center for History in the Schools, at UCLA.

The Parent/Teacher Relationship

Until education experts and policy makers accept that what children at home and school really need is that personal touch that inspires them to learn and love it, we will continue to make the mistake of trying to improve education through standardization and technology. If we want children to get the very best education, an education that will develop their natural abilities to think, reason, and create then we are going to have to focus our resources and ideas in the two most critical areas, parents and teachers. Parents and teachers are the most important factor in the success of a student and anything that impedes the mutual respect between the home and the school is detrimental to the educational progress of children.

It is simply intuitive that the family is the heart and driver of a child's education. In order to foster the best educational nurturing for children, families and communities must develop a real commitment to family centered education reforms. A couple weeks ago I was listening to a NPR program in my car when the reporter asked her guest which teacher made the most significant impact in his life, she meant a school teacher of course, but my immediate response to the question was, my father. My father and mother nurtured my talents, instilled confidence, encouraged diligence, and fostered a life-long love of learning. I can remember only a few of my elementary teacher’s names or faces. What I remember is the overall impressions leftover from those years in school. I remember my second grade year because my teacher really liked me, my fourth grade year when my teacher completely ignored me, and my sixth grade year when my teacher made me feel stupid. I remember a few more of my high school and collage teachers but in the balance the one teacher who had the greatest impact was and still is my father. Through it all I remember my father and mother were always there answering my questions and helping me make sense of what I was learning, something they continue to do even now.

Being a mother and working in a 3rd grade classroom, I realize that more than my particular relationships with my teachers, it was my parent’s attitudes towards my education that had the greatest impact on my success in any given school year. Teachers should be able to count on the role of parents as the foundation for her students success and they should reverence this truth. Good parents work with their children's teachers, as mine did. Parents support the teacher in enforcement of standards, allowing discipline to take place, addressing at home with their children the issues teachers raise, and raising concerns with the occasional problem in a professional manner. Like two parents who are back each other up in parenting, parents who back up their kid’s teacher and work with them when problems arise, build a firm foundation for their child’s development.

Next to mom and dad, it is common today that children will spend a great deal of their time with their classroom teacher, and for this reason it is in quality teachers that education dollars should be most heavily invested in. Certainly the totally uninvolved parent or the "helicopter" parent who belligerently hovers undermine the efforts of their child’s teacher, but these bad examples don’t excuse teachers from their responsibility to work for the respect of parents. Having worked with many teachers, as a parents and an Para-educator, I have meant plenty of dedicated teachers who love their students and earn the respect of their parents. Unfortunately, I have also met too many teachers who speak with arrogant condescension of their students’ parents. One day during a teachers lunch I listened to several teachers talk derisively of the “stay-at-home” mom of one of their students, a mother that earned their derision for choosing to stay at home and care for her children and lacking a “higher education.” One teacher actually said “I can't listen to all parents.... sometimes my soon to be TWO Master's Degree's outweigh your thoughts as a parent”

I believe the most common reason that mutual respect between parents and teachers is suffering is that a family centered educational philosophy has been undermined by education policy that is shifting responsibility for a child's future destiny from parents to the state, and the purpose of public education from providing equal opportunity to guaranteeing equal outcomes. This shift is making parents feel less connected to their schools and a less valued participant in their child's education. It has angered some parents as they feel their influence diminished. This shift is making it more difficult for teachers to please parents as they have unmanageable pressures and burdens placed on them. It is systematically diluting the art of teaching, turning teachers into technocrats, and making parents inferior to experts. Teachers and students are being drowned in targets, testing, and technology. They are continually at the whim of the latest "educational trend" and the next technology. If only technocrats would leave the schools alone, teachers might be able to get on with teaching and parents may develop more natural bonds with their children’s teachers.

The attitudes of derision that an ever expanding technocrat class have for parents, and the mistrust they have for teachers who want to practice their art, is negatively impacting the extremely important bonds between parents and teachers. What we need to turn it around is a mutual recognition by teacher and parent that far off agendas are pitting us against each other, and that children are caught in the cross fire. Our mutual love for the children in our care is a strong foundation to develop an alliance of mutual respect. To build the education we want for our children and students we must set teachers free to creatively practice their profession in concert with parents in school districts whose policies are family centered and invest heavily in our quality teachers.

Elitism in Education: Parents are Belittled and Disrespected by Educrats

Maryland father, Robert Small, was dragged out of a Baltimore Public School Common Core Town Hall, because he had the audacity to ask an unscripted question about the new Federal education agenda, the Common Core State Standards Initiative. After he was shoved out of the meeting he was arrested and charged with second degree assault of a police officer and disturbing a school function, which charges carry $5000 in fines and up to 10 years in prison. We might never have known of this audacious abuse of power were it not for another parent who's YouTube video hit the Stop Common Core network online and went viral within hours. Within a few days the story went national.

Governments, and the elites, at every level in this nation have forgotten that they derive their power from the governed. School boards have forgotten that tax payers pay their salaries and they work for the people not the other way around. When schools say they want parental involvement it has come to mean they want parents to surrender their natural rights to direct the education of their children and offer their drone like compliance to any decisions the elitist experts deem worthy and appropriate. When will parents stand up in mass and remind them what it means to be a parent and to exercise that God given right to direct the education and upbringing of their children.

Today I interviewed with the local CBS station in Baltimore as just one more parent like Robert who is seriously concerned about the stealth implementation of Common Core. A half hour before this story aired the Baltimore police department dropped the charges against Mr. Small. In my work advocating for parents and families I have seen this kind of scenario play out over and over. The law is too often used to intimidate parents into being quiet and compliant to the agendas of public education systems. In my experience it is only when they (state officials) get caught that they drop the charges and run. Parents, don't be fooled. This abuse is common place not a once in a while thing. It only gets attention when someone faces the intimidation that keeps everyone else quiet and speaks up, and only when there act of bravery happens to find it's way to YouTube.

Parents have a right to be involved in decision making at the local school level. Common Core threatens local governance of schools and threatens to be the final step in pushing parents out. We could learn something from this father, do we have his courage to stop following like cattle. He challenged parents to do their own research of Common Core and to ask the tough questions. He asks us not to allow ourselves be silenced or our constitutional rights to be trampled on. We better heed his warning and meet his challenge or there will come a day when we will lose all our innate rights as parents to direct the education and upbringing of our children.

When I posted similar comments about the CBS story on the Stop Common Core in Maryland page a teacher commented in a way that I believe sheds profound light on just why a Superintendent feels himself justified in having a father removed and arrested: "While I agree with parents having a right to have a say in education... it has to be an educated right... I can't listen to all parents.... sometimes my soon to be TWO Master's Degree's outweigh your thoughts as a parent." -- AN EDUCATED RIGHT -- Are those rights you only get if you're educated? And who "educates" you and "tests" you to determine your fitness for that right? The government? Sometimes I am just appalled at how some people think.

Even ignorant parents have a constitutional right to direct the education of their children. This is well established. I think it is a dangerous line of thinking to doubt whether one parent is less worthy of this right than another. And what of the one less worthy? Should they then be denied this right which is not only a natural God given right but a Constitutional right? I understand that public school teachers often struggle with absent parents, belligerently involved parents, and yes, even ignorant parents, but I am dismayed how often the existence of so called "bad parents" are used as an excuse to limit or even eliminate the rights of ALL parents. We must not be tempted by this excuse, to say that because some people abuse their human rights, their God given responsibilities, we should divest everyone from them.

One thing is certain, if parents feel belittled and disrespected by the teachers who serve their children, if parents are expelled from the decision making process within their school districts, we will NEVER solve the problems we face. No matter how humble, or ignorant, or how poor a parent may be, the attitude that dismisses parents because they don't hold masters degrees -- or even collage degrees -- the attitude that has a parent expelled and arrested for demanding answers of those he has elected to run his children's school (those he pays to run it), is an elitist attitude that doesn't respect anything but accredited learning. It dismisses the wisdom of life long learning, of experience, of intuition, creativity, the intrinsic wisdom that is born of love for your child. This elitism throughout history has proven dangerous to freedom, it has proven to seed tyranny in society, a tyranny of the type C.S. Lewis wrote of when he said:

"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies [I would substitute accredited elitist experts]. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”

This "torment without end" is exhausting, and more so because those of us who stand against it are so few. Those of us in the ring, those of us who have taken up the fight in our little corners of the world can't hold on forever unsupported. We are getting tired and we need reinforcements. It will take a volunteer army of parents, in numbers much larger than the elitist oppressors. So, If you have casually followed but haven't put your hat in the ring, now is the time.

Our American Story: How Will our Children Discover the Truth?

"At the core of every moral code there is a picture of human nature, a map of the universe, and a vision of history. To human nature (of the sort concieved), in a universe (of the kind imagined), after a history (so understood), the rules of the code apply." -- Walter Lippmann

There may be few things as perplexing as the seemingly opposite versions of America's past that have formed between the political left and right in our nation. It represents as Thomas Sowell has written an abject conflict of visions. With such stark differences between the visions that have emerged from our political struggles and how completely they color the telling of our American story, how will our children discover the truth?

Nearly all American history text books in schools today weave a tale of America's past as the expression of racism, sexism, and bigotry. The tales of the Founders as self interested politicians, brutal white slave owners as the common white man, American industry as robber-baron oppressors, and American foreign policy as imperialistic. Over the past 40 years, people have told the story of this country's past dishonestly and we can no longer afford to ignore this reality. We are reaping what we have sown, for "the classroom in one generation becomes the government in the next." -- Abraham Lincoln

As a parent I teach my children the story of America in a way that is almost completely contrary to what they are being taught at school. I teach them that compared to other nations, America's past is a bright and shinning light. America was and is, the city on the hill, the foundation of hope, the beacon of liberty. It is terribly confusing as they get older, they wonder how can their teachers teach what is so terribly wrong? They begin to doubt whether they will ever know who is right and who is wrong, because one thing they sense all too keenly, they can't both be right.

Thomas Sowell proposes in his book "A Conflict of Visions", that the scientific method might be applied to measure the validity of two very different ideological visions of the world being contested in modern times. He explains how "vision" begets "theory" and theory can be tested by evidence. "What empirical verification can do is to reveal which of the competing theories currently being considered is more consistent with what is known factually." The key is for our children to be presented with all the facts. This of course is impossible if a parent relies solely on the public education (or even collegiate education) system to provide a full pucture.

How often we hear, "history is subjective," as if to dismiss the notion that one vision isn't more correct than the other. It is true that visions are subjective and by extension the teaching of history is subjected to the vision with which is is colored, but this does not leave the truth up in the air. We can judge whether one vision or the other is a more correct "theory". We must judge which is truth and which is error, for they cannot both be truth.

The social vision our children choose to accept as truth is vitally important to the future of our nation and world. "Policies based on certain visions of the world have consequences that spread throughout society and reverberate across the years, or even across generations or centuries. Visions set the agenda of both thought and action." For this reason our children must learn the History they don't teach in school at home, they must be vested with all the facts. They must come to understand the very different social visions and moral codes that have led to these two diametrically opposite views of American history. Only then can they apply the evidence to reveal which vision and moral code is more consistent, which is rooted in truth.

Join me and other parents in our study of an America that was committed to both personal freedom and public virtue, to human achievement and respect for the Almighty God. The history that admits what every Founder, pioneer, cowboy, and business man knew; that freedom alone was not enough, that without responsibility and virtue, freedom would become a soggy anarchy, an incomplete licentiousness.

Join me at “American History They Don’t Teach in School” and join the discussions about our history that they aren’t having in American education today.

My Summer Project: Left-Right Alliance for Education

My summer project has been working with a group of education advocates across the country to construct a multi-partisan outline of common opposition to the Common Core State Standards Initiative. Today we completed the project and published an excellent resource for the Stop Common Core movement nationwide.

Last spring I came away from a Hillsdale collage lecture on the Common Core with a deep concern that the Stop Common Core movements developing throughout the nation were not coalescing around one central message that had the power to cut across the political spectrum and that the opposition to CCSSI was being widely mischaracterized as limited to only one side of the political spectrum, which is hindering the effort to get the opposing message a fair hearing in the public discourse. I was convinced that we needed a serious effort to construct a concise message that would navigate the movement out of the partisan weeds.

The next day I had a discussion with a close friend tied to the Stop Common Core movement in another state who had just that afternoon had a similar discussion with a group of advocates on her side of the country. Within a few hours the Left-Right Alliance for Education was formed to bring together advocates from across the political spectrum, and across the nation, to determine if it is possible to form a multi-partisan alliance for countering the current federal/corporate power driving education reform policy.

After weeks of deliberate, methodical discussions on key points of current education reforms in the U.S. we have finally completed the project we began three months ago. I believe the work we constructed shows that there is a wide spectrum of common political opposition to the CCSSI and I believe we can work together if we stick to those points upon which we agree. The Left-Right Alliance has developed a message as succinct as the CCSSI's own and is a resource that has the potential to be very valuable in shaping the opposition's message.

You can read the document at the Left-Right Alliance for Education but I have also included the report below:

Stop Common Core, Cuts Across Politics

This week I went to a Hillsdale College Kirby Center lecture in Washington DC: "Common Core Common Sense: Why it’s Illiberal and Unconstitutional.” Dr. Daniel B. Coupland gave a measured explanation of the Common Core State Initiative (CCSS) and the general points of opposition from both sides of the political spectrum. There was little presented that I had not already read or discovered in my year of research about the CCSS initiative. What I came away with was a deep concern that the Stop Common Core movements developing throughout the nation are not coalescing around one central message that can cut across the political spectrum and speak to the hearts of every American.

I became convinced that in order to be successful at defeating the CCSS initiative we must do three things, 1) we must set aside those points of opposition that are highly partisan, 2) we must create a clear and succinct message of common opposition and stop haggling over the details, and 3) appeal to the universal desire that all parents have for their children’s education, not just to be “career-ready”, but more importantly to become mature thinkers who are highly-motivated, self-disciplined, hard-working, creative, ambitious, happy individuals who know their own minds and who are prepared to thrive in any life path they choose.

What we are doing to answer the assertions of CCSS supporters is important work, but we are too often pulled away from the central point by engaging them in long drawn out debates about whether the content standards themselves are good or bad, whether the standards will push a curriculum of political indoctrination, or whether the whole public school system is the enemy. What’s lost in these debates is the bigger picture which is that each successive effort to standardize education around a workforce development vision has failed, and Common Core will make those failures look small in comparison.

With CCSS advertising their mission in a clear and consistent way, and grassroots opposition fractured between political poles and decentralized by voluminous websites, bloggers, and local groups, I am not surprised that parents around me are latching onto the one message that consistently breaks through. It is very difficult for most parents, who can't devote so much time to sifting through the arguments, to discover the central point of opposition to the Common Core.

CCSS has this simple message under its logo, “Preparing America’s Students for College & Career.” What parent doesn’t want their child to go to college and have a career? What parent doesn’t want a “consistent, clear understanding” of what their child is expected to learn? What parent doesn’t want a child “fully prepared for the future?” We all do. But what parents wants a “career ready” child who is a simple cog in a managed workforce? What parent wants their child to have a “consistent, clear understanding” of how to navigate the technocratic corporate world or manage the layers of bureaucratic paperwork and rubrics of compliance? What parent would believe that workforce preparation as the central goal of education is going to “fully” prepare their child for the future? What parent isn’t concerned that their child’s education is devastating their innate love of learning?

Instead of sifting through the dozens of complex arguments for and against Common Core, parents need to understand two basic concepts in order to discover the central point: that the Common Core deconstructs the traditional liberal arts education which most contributes to the development of mature, creative thinkers who are prepared to thrive in life. First, they must understand that the CCSS initiative cannot solve the problems inherent in the successive efforts to standardize education because it will mandate standardization on a vast scale. Second, they must understand that by shifting the purpose of education away from the liberal arts in favor of a servile education for the so-called “real world,” the education of their child will be materially damaged.


We oppose the CCSS initiative because it continues the failed education reforms of the past by mandating minimum, common, and quantifiable standards and high-stakes testing which leads to the hyper-focus on quantifiable skills at the expense of the greater characteristics of sound education.


When asked about the standards themselves, The Hillsdale lecturer, Dr. Daniel B. Coupland, said he had found that for the most part they are solid standards. But then he went on to explain the limitations of standards. Common Core standards are just what standards always have been. Standards represent coalescence at the middle, whether that middle is nation-wide or state-wide; they represent minimum standards of quantifiable skills. Even good rigorous standards when combined with high-stakes accountability measures will usually result in the hyper-focus on those quantifiable skills that will be tested, upon which school funding and teacher progress will be measured. Inevitably this focus will squeeze out those portions of education that most contribute to the development of mature thinkers who are prepared to thrive in any chosen life path.

This has been the universal criticism of the last federal effort to standardize education, NCLB. Award-winning reporter Peg Tyre, in her series on the Common Core, started by reviewing the failures of NCLB, highlighting that the failures of NCLB center on high-stakes testing rather than standards:

“Testing kids was a good way of coming up with data on how kids did on the… test, but it didn’t… actually improve what happened in the classroom. In fact, to accommodate NCLB, schools began teaching—and children began learning—less. Under No Child Left Behind, school administrators and district leaders quickly figured out the ugly consequences for schools when they failed to improve their students’ test scores... So in response, many schools demanded that their teachers dumb down instruction… teachers were made to teach to the test in the most direct and simplistic way possible so more kids would do better on the tests. This made school pretty boring… [And was particularly] a profound setback for poor kids. The unintended consequence of NCLB was that it created a “bottom” level of acceptable instruction, but that geared the whole education system toward that low level.”

The architects of the Common Core said this quasi-federal initiative was set apart from NCLB because “They had a vision of creating a high goal for schools to strive for, instead of a bottom set of standards that would ultimately doom them.” But how was their vision different from NCLB in real terms? They didn't create a set of voluntary goals for schools to “strive for”. The CCSS did nothing to address the negative effects of NCLB high-stake testing and the standards are described differently by almost every supporter of the initiative. The architects called them something to "strive for" like an ideal, some repeatedly describe the standards as a "solid baseline", and multiple reports have indicated that the CCSS are set somewhere in the middle when they are compared with state standards prior to the initiative. So which is it, an ideal, a middle, or a baseline?

The idea the the CCSS initiative is designed to correct what is wrong in education, to set high standards and give schools the tools to excel is certainly suspect when schools whose standards were stronger before CCSS are told not only that they can't alter the standards but they can add no more than 15% in any content area. Sound more like their placing limits on achievement that setting high goals to strive for. It's a speed limit in education. Some Schools will inevitably fall well short of their limit (as the farm tractors you get stuck behind on the road) but anyone caught trying to get ahead will be penalized.

We oppose the core vision of the CCSS initiative to build a system for centrally managed student training with the purpose of fitting the future generation as cogs in a managed workforce for the “Global Economy.” This central goal will dismantle liberal arts education which most contributes to the development of mature thinkers who are prepared to thrive in any chosen life path.

CCSS has built its mission around a central idea that exposes how they see the core purpose of education in the “21st Century.” That core purpose is to train kids to be “Career-Ready” to compete in a “Global Economy.” Thier core purpose is to turn education in America into job preparation. Dr. Coupland said that this was the central concern he has about the Common Core. The architects set this as the “goal” for all students to “strive for.” Coupland said that the pre-modern educational models made a clear distinction between the liberal arts and servile arts. James Daniels, a proponent of classical liberal arts education described it this way, “The two models are different in regard to the goals that they pursued. The goal of the liberal arts was to cultivate a wise and virtuous man. The goal of the servile arts was to cultivate skills for a given trade.” The CCSS initiative has made a choice to pursue the servile arts as more “relevant to the real world” and more competitive in the “global economy.”

C.S. Lewis described the purpose of servile schooling this way :it “aims at making not a good man but a good banker, a good electrician… or a good surgeon.” There’s nothing wrong with having good electricians or surgeons, but to pursue “training” at the expense of development of human character comes with a stern warning from Lewis.Hhe writes, “If education is beaten by training, civilization dies… the lesson of history is that civilization is a rarity, attained with difficulty and easily lost.” Dr. Coupland further explained how these two purposes should be applied in education. He said, “To support one’s self is only one part of a good education.” In order for us to be truly free we must have so much more. A broad liberal education is an imperative for the development of “mature” free-thinking people who know “who they are, why they are here, and understand their relationship to others and the world around them.” Coupland said that the CCSS initiative contains in it a “cavalier contempt for the great works of art” and approaches education as though building human beings is like “programming machines.”

The education reforms of the past three decades have incrementally dismantled our liberal arts education in favor of workforce development on the conveyor belt of standardized outcome-based schooling. There is no evidence that this has been good for our children, that it has made them more intelligent, more capable workers, or more moral human beings. In fact, it is apparent that our society has taken a change for the worse and that our kids are being “dumbed down” despite the best efforts of their parents. Parents are sick of their children being deluged in test-taking skills and assignment rubrics that leave no room for creativity. We instinctively know that this has been devastating to the development of our children's minds and character. We know that our children are born with the light and love of learning in abundance, and then we send them to school where within a few short years that love is replaced by boredom or utter frustration, and for some settles in as hatred of and failure in school.

The CCSS initiative threatens to sink the future generation into a system where they are fitted as cogs in a managed economy. The results of this federal initiative will not turn us around and get our society back on track, rather this federal initiative will be the worst of them all. It will bring about the total deconstruction of our children’s intellects and moral character by cutting our children adrift from self-discovery accomplished through learning the sound ethics and morals which are found in the pages of the great literary works, the discoveries of the great scientists, the thoughts of the great historians and mathematicians, and all the other elements of a broad liberal arts education. What will CCSS prepare them for? They will be prepared to navigate the regulated technocratic corporate world, to manage the layers of bureaucratic paperwork and rubrics of compliance, and to be adept at storing factual information and regurgitating it upon request. It won't matter that they don’t know their own minds because no one will care to ask what they think. Just ask David Coleman, the director of the CCSS development process and now president of the College Board, who said “As you grow up in this world, you realize people really don’t give a s--t about what you feel or what you think,” and “It is rare in a working environment that someone says, ‘Johnson, I need a market analysis by Friday, but before that, I need a compelling account of your childhood.’”

This construct is seriously damaging to our children and to the future of our civilization. We should not set as education’s central goal “career readiness” at the early age of 3, 5, or even 10. We should focus on providing a strong, quality liberal arts education first, and then when our children are moral, mature, highly-motivated, self-disciplined, hard-working, creative, ambitious, happy individuals, they will not only be prepared for the rigorous study and application of excelling in any career path of their choice, but they will be capable of governing their own lives and sustaining a free society.

Why we oppose the Common Core: 

We oppose the CCSS initiative because it aims to operate a system of centrally-managed student work training, while discarding the vital qualities of a sound education that contribute to the development of mature thinkers who are prepared to thrive in any chosen life path.

Three Points of Opposition: 

1. We oppose the core vision of the CCSS initiative: to build a system for centrally-managed student training with the purpose of fitting the future generation as cogs in a managed workforce for the “Global Economy.” This central goal will dismantle liberal arts education, which most contributes to the development of mature thinkers who are prepared to thrive in any chosen life path and sustain a free civilization.

2. We oppose the CCSS initiative because it continues the failed education reforms of the past by mandating minimum, common, and quantifiable standards and high-stakes testing which leads to the hyper-focus on quantifiable skills at the expense of the vital characteristics of sound education.

3. We oppose the CCSS initiative’s use of highly predictive computerized testing for the tracking of students. There are serious concerns that CCSS violates our children’s privacy rights as these tests can be manipulated to measure physiological, behavioral, and attitudes, which data will be collected along with extensive intimate data in the P-20 database available across stateliness, by the US DOE, and special interests. 

Common Core: The Cost of Uniformity

Outcome Based Education: From Goals 2000, NCLB, RTTT, to Common Core

Well intentioned school reformers have been pushing the idea of outcome based education for decades. What is outcome based education? It's the idea that educating kids is like building a product on an assembly line. The idea that you get predictable quality controlled equality of outcome from every student by an equality of inputs. This has created a paradigm shift in education. Viewing the education of children in an unnatural way and transforming classrooms through the one-size-fits all standardization of education. 

It is not surprising that this idea got teeth after the creation of the Federal Department of Education. Consistent with the compulsory regulatory nature of government, the DOE began it's work by "encouraging" uniform regulation compliance in exchange for federal education dollars. This pursuit of equality of inputs has pushed all the education "reforms" that parents, teachers, and students are fed up with, including the newest, "Common Core". Each "reform" gets progressively more controlling as each one fails to attain the equality of inputs/equality of outputs that is desired.

I believe those who continue to push this idea have a warped view of reality that is seriously dangerous in practice. I struggle to understand their confused thought processes that are coloring everything our kids are taught overt and subliminal. They carry with them a strange dichotomy that pushes "equality" through uniformity, and simultaneously teach the relativity of multiculturalism that supposedly celebrates diversity. These competing messages make for messy minds and kids ill equipped to make sound judgments about themselves and the world around them.

They will not stop pushing their outcome based education philosophy because it is rooted in their misconceived notions of what "equality" is. They keep trying newer forms of "quality control" because in their view the obvious failures are the fault of never quite reaching the equality of inputs (making everyone the same). They say there are still too many schools doing things in too many different ways. Basically we don't have the conveyor belt model down to a science yet.

The pressure this has put on teachers (and by extension students) has changed education from the "lighting of a fire to the filling of a pail" and prompted schools to shift their mission from extending educational opportunity to all, to a promised "guarantee" of success for all" (Thus "No Child Left Behind) -- which of course fails not only because we are all different but because there is not one singular definition of success.

My sons middle school principle once explained it to me this way as he defended the paradigm shift -- because of the failures of parents "now days", schools have a greater responsibility to ensure students succeed in a more direct way. Instead of providing opportunities and then leaving it to the student, aided by their parents, to take hold of those opportunities, school today must “guarantee” that their students will learn. He said, In education today it is “no longer the mind set to give students opportunity,” but it has become, “I’m going to make you learn it.”

My school district’s mission statement exemplified this thinking. The statement said the mission of our schools “is to guarantee that each student develops the character traits and masters the knowledge and skills necessary for personal excellence and responsible citizenship…” Can schools guarantee that children will develop character and master knowledge? How is it done? It is done as my principal suggested, by taking the attitude, “I’m going to make you learn.”

There has always been a certain segment of society that has believed you can guarantee a certain outcome through compulsory means. Whether or not that is true, I believe it is a dangerous way to be teaching American children. John Adams said that, “Children should be educated and instructed in the principles of freedom.” How can we instruct them in the principles of freedom through compulsion?

This changing paradigm is moving us into an era where children are not empowered to pursue excellence, and largely because they are no longer free to manage their own success or to suffer the consequences of their failure. How do the character traits of responsibility and self-motivation develop without experiencing failure and true life consequences? Can any lasting life lessons be learned in a controlled, sterile, forced environment?

The lofty plans of these "reformers" to transform education may achieve the result of universal C-level proficiency. But at what cost? At the cost of highly motivated, self-disciplined, hard working, creative, ambitious, happy children.

If we force “learning” – which in this new philosophy means successfully regurgitating information on standardized tests – we will teach children far more damaging lessons. We will teach them that they are not free. Or even worse, we will teach them that freedom is dangerous because it allows for failure. We will teach them that failure is an unacceptable part of life. Therefore, freedom must also be unacceptable.

This loss of freedom and failure teaches a twisted reality and confuses and harms our children. It removes true accountability and ultimately teaches them that they are weak and reliant on others for their success. In this climate, we raise lazy, entitled children who are unsatisfied with themselves and others and are far more likely to fail in the real world and be unable to recover from it.

We ought to remember the wise words of Abraham Lincoln, “The philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.” If the philosophy of the school room in our generation is to seed mistrust in freedom and accountability then Lincoln's words are a true prediction of calamity for our government in the next.

National Standards Do NOT Require a National Curriculum: True or False?

A reader recently commented on my blog post, "What's Wrong With the Common Core," and I've decided to post a response because his point is so often repeated by supporters of the Common Core Stare Standards Initiative.

His comment refuted my claim that Common Standards push a Common Curriculum. He wrote, "National standards do NOT require a national curriculum. Study the CCSS and you will find for the most part skills and abilities outlined. In the area of language arts, for example, challenging writing skills are outlined. Whether a student in Oregon demonstrates these skills by writing a paper on arguing the validity of MLK assertions in his Birmingham jail letters or whether a student in Illinois writes similarly while studying women's rights, much freedom remains in the curriculum for how the challenging skills are acquired. Currently, I see the CCSS as standards which are challenging educators and students to move to high levels of universally recognized skill levels."

To defend my position that CCSS will lead to a Common Curriculum I would like to share a few logical real life examples of my own.

I often speak to teachers about education policy and how it translates into the everyday classroom. While speaking recently to a 6th grade English teacher (living in Maryland, a state who has fully implemented the Common Core) she expressed her immediate dislike of the changes made to the curriculum in her classroom since the state implemented the new ELA standards. Her chief concern was the decrease in literature and the increased focus on non-fiction reading which she says has made it more difficult to motivate reluctant readers and has shifted student writing skills to favor technical writing styles over creative writing.

This curriculum change is directly related to the Common Core State Standards and what unelected boards believed was "relevant to real life". While it is true what defenders of the Common Core say, the standards don't dictate this book over that, they certainly dictate that all schools de-emphasize literature regardless of what individual students, teachers, or schools feel is best in building strong readers and writers.

Another example of how the Common Core is pushing a national curriculum can be found in the uniform reports of parents in states who have adopted Common Core Math (reports you can read if you join education social media groups). These descriptions reflect an immediate and distinctive change in the curriculum and instructional methods used to teach math especially to the early elementary students.

This account is from a personal friend but her account echoes dozens of similar accounts from parents coast to coast: "He was coming home with this insane math that didn't actually teach him much about how to solve the problems. He COULD solve the problems using the methods they taught, but in the time it took him to answer ONE question FIVE different ways, he could've answered so many more! I had NO idea how to help him solve the problems, so if he got stuck, I'd have no idea how to help."

Need more evidence of how common standards push a common curriculum that will permeate every corner of your local school? Just do an Internet search for Common Core teacher helps and Common Core curriculum models. There are thousands of training videos for teachers to help them integrate Common Core into their curriculums and instruction methods. Achieve, the private company who published the Common Core has received federal grants to begin producing curriculum models for alignment.

Need more evidence? Read the market news reports for Pearson, McGraw-Hill, and Saxon. Nearly all producers of curriculum and text books have already or are rapidly aligning their material to Common Core. This is widely discussed among Homeschool groups nationwide.

These companies are ecstatic about these national standards because it will mean producing one text book for every grade and subject instead of catering to schools on a state by state basis. The business model alone is proof that we will have a Common Curriculum as a result of the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

Former Maryland state Superintendent, Nancy Grasmick stated that the Common Core is a "national curriculum... No longer are education initiatives developed state by state, but in a model similar to European countries." Nancy Grasmick now works as a prominent professor at Towson University, a renown teachers collage, where she was appointed a Presidential Scholar for Innovation in Teacher and Leader Education. Her job is to orchestrate a "broad overhaul of the programs at the university" that will train teachers in Common Core alignment. She has spoken openly about how Common Core will fundamentally shape education and her role in reshaping teaching methodology to align with Common Core.

While it certainly is true that curriculum is taught with variation classroom to classroom and that children will differ in the books they read or the subjects they choose to write a report on, it is equally true that text books will become uniform throughout the country and teachers will be commonly trained to administer a common curriculum. Further, universities will align the education they give their aspiring teachers to reflect the methodologies of the Common Core State Standards.

I just don't see how people defending the Common Core can make a logical argument that standards don't drive curriculum. They certainly shape the test, and of course it naturally follows that in order to perform well on the test the curriculum must be tailored to the standards. To deny the real tangible connection between standards, testing, and curriculum -- and of greater impact the standardization of teacher training and methodology -- is a disingenuous argument at best, and manipulative at worst.

Stop Common Core from the Left and Right: Can we build common ground on Common Core?

While reading a recent article from The World Socialist Website in opposition to the Common Core State Standards, I was amused by the interesting bedfellows the war over Obama's education reforms has made. A conservative like myself agreeing with the World Socialist's points of opposition to the Common Core State Standards Initiative — And an accused socialist like Obama sending Arne Duncan to ask the conservative Chamber of Commerce to support the CCSS against increasing attacks. The World Socialist Web Site is simpatico with libertarian Glenn Beck in reporting that CCSS is a "FEDERAL initiative bankrolled by various corporate interests" — while the US Media is backing Obama's agenda and pushing the administrations propaganda that CCSS is "State-led".

To reassure me that I hadn't landed in an alternate universe where socialists support limited government, the "World Socialist" article concluded their astute analysis of the deficiencies of CCSS by placing blame squarely on evil capitalism."The provision of high quality public education is incompatible with the continued existence of capitalism." Here is of course where we differ. My contention has been that Common Core is the result of a key tenet of socialism; markets heavily regulated and centrally managed industries. Common Core is the educational counterpart: managed markets, managed work force, managed career paths - P-20.

Despite our obvious differences -- our different solutions for quality education and strategies to address  poverty and other social factors that most profoundly affect educational outcomes -- we seem to have found common ground on Common Core.

Our common ground includes:

1) We oppose the "intensified testing regime to evaluate the performance of students and teachers" that will not improve education and does great harm to students and teachers.

2) We oppose Obamacore because it seeks to "tailor public and higher education entirely to the needs of corporate America" (State Capitalism). Viewing students as cogs in a global economy and "assessing students for the purpose of channeling them into collage or trade skill tracks."

3) We oppose the unholy and unaccountable partnership between the compulsory power of the federal government and the bankrolled priorities of various corporate interests and political unions.

4) We oppose the movement towards tracking our children from Pre-K through career and the privacy concerns associated with making that data available to the Federal government, private political NGO's, and corporations.

5) We oppose the creation of giant corporate education monopolies, "radically altering the market for innovation in curriculum development, professional development, and formative assessments."

6) We oppose the cost to state taxpayers — "none of the funding going to teachers’ salaries... increasing resources for art, music and gym courses" — instead states will be forced to divert funds to "CCSS implementation and testing materials such as computers, software and training materials for teachers."

Can our common ground NOW lead to a common solutions later?

Common solutions are usually built on common understanding of the problem. Albert Einstein said it this way, "We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them." For this reason I hope to reach open minded progressives, to persuade them to entertain the idea that the Capitalism they see today is not the product of Free Market Capitalism that propelled American freedom and prosperity. Capitalism has been corrupted by the power hungry in the government who seek to control the free market and the power hungry corporate moguls who seek corporate privilege via law. Thus both sides amassing great power and wealth by corrupting both government and business.

It would certainly make for a much more cohesive reform movement if my socialist friends (and yes I have some) might find truth in what a true believer in the virtue of Capitalist, Ayn Rand, taught: "A free mind and a free market are corollaries." Without some foundation of truth to which we all ascribe I am leery about our chances of finding common solutions, however, their is a glimmer of hope because we already oppose Common Core on common ground. It seems like a solid starting point to build meaningful education reform in the US. Can we?  I hope we have the opportunity to find out.

Common Core: Managed Corporate Monopolies for Education Reform

Monopolies are an enemy to liberty, whether those Monopolies are Corporate Monopolies or Government Monopolies.

Our constitution was designed to protect our liberties from the tyranny of government monopolies and the first government policies to "bust-the-trusts" were designed to check the power of a few corporations over the free market.

Today we are losing our footing on both sides, we are consolidating power in the federal government by moving more and more power away from states and local governments, and our federal government is hand picking corporations to provide government sponsored "services".

The Common Core Federal takeover of education is the worst kind of monopoly because it combines the principle of government monopoly with corporate monopoly. Don't be fooled by those who say the Common Core initiatives are "free market" reforms in education! There is nothing free about the federal government coercing states into a central system and making monopolies out of a small handful of companies like Achieve and Pearson to supply the educational products that schools are forced to use.

For example Achieve has a monopoly on the Common Core standards which are copyrighted. These proprietary standards when adopted can not be altered. Pearson will soon be determining what gets taught in schools across the United States with their Common Core aligned curriculum and media centered products. Where is parental or educational oversight? Not in the hands of the people.

Both Conservatives and Progressives need to wake up to the reality; America's free market is on life support and that's why our private and public institutions are failing. Common Core is the natural result of markets heavily regulated by Washington and centrally managed industries. Common Core is the educational counterpart: managed career paths, managed work force, managed markets!

True and sincere conservatives and progressives see the same sickness in America but have been diagnosing it with opposite treatments. Progressives often see capitalism as the sickness that is breaking down our institutions and look to government for the cure. Conservatives and libertarians see government meddling in the free market and heavily regulating business as the sickness and less government as the cure. Since we can agree that the nation is sick we can also agree that administering the wrong cure will be the death blow.

As a conservative I hope to convince open minded progressives to entertain the idea that the Capitalism they see today is not the product of Free Market Capitalism that propelled American freedom and prosperity. Capitalism has been corrupted by the power hungry in the government who seek to control the free market and the power hungry corporate moguls who seek corporate privilege via law. Thus both sides amassing great power and wealth by corrupting both government and business.

This central control of government and the State Capitalism it is creating are the most dangerous threat to our liberty. Capitalism is sick, but not because Capitalism was born that way, it is sick because it has been perverted and twisted by unholy power hungry alliances of big business and the government's compulsory power. Together they have created consumers forced to buy their products and now centrally groomed workers to meet their needs.

The solution in education is the same as the solution in government and markets — Free local and unique education markets! If Americans are to succeed in fighting off this latest "education reform" they must combine their efforts across the political spectrum. Tyranny is always more organized than liberty and the forces of tyranny are dividing our nation in order to conquer it. To save our children and the future of liberty in America we have to see the enemy to that freedom clearly, and that enemy is not the limited government our founders devised or the free markets they championed.

There will be no individual freedom, intellectual freedom, or economic freedom if Americans don't come together and oppose the central dangers of government sponsored monopolies. We must understand what Ayn Rand taught, this truth, "Intellectual freedom cannot exist without political freedom; political freedom cannot exist without economic freedom; a free mind and a free market are corollaries."


For the visual learner: Economics 101: School Choice, why government monopolies are bad.

What's Wrong With the Common Core?

WHY COMMON CORE IS NOT FREEDOM IN EDUCATION

What is Common Core?

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are a set of content standards at this time limited to English language arts (ELA) and mathematics. FORTY-SIX STATES AND THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA HAVE signed on to the Common Core State Standards Initiative, a project sponsored by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association (NGA). The standards were written by teams of curriculum specialists and vetted by panels of academics, teachers, and other experts. In 2010, the federal government funded two consortia to develop assessments aligned with the Common Core. The new tests are to be ready in 2014. These standards, if adopted by a state, will replace existing state standards in these subject areas.

There are other components of the initiative beyond standards and testing. States that adopt the CCSS must participate in the Computerized Adaptive Testing (CAT) that will be given twice yearly, and participation in the State Longitudinal Data Systems (SLDS). These data basis will store testing data along with private student specific data and share that data with other states, the Federal Government, and private interests.

What's wrong with Standards?

Nothing. Every state has standards as a way of creating consistency in curriculum throughout their state. Proponents of the CCSS want this same consistency in what schools teach nationally but they defend CCSS by downplaying curriculum as the objective (which would not be popular) and asserting that CCSS are rigorous standards that will raise academic proficiency. The problem is there are real questions about what impacts student achievement most. Is it standards curriculum, and tests OR socioeconomics, family life, and biology?

The Brookings Institution studied the effect of standards on achievement and found that "states with weak content standards score about the same on NAEP as those with strong standards." It found in it's report, "How Well Are American Students Learning?", that variations are most apparent within states where all students learn under the same standards and curriculum. Brookings gives this warning to those who put too much confidence in CCSS as the solution to erasing achievement gaps and improving achievement overall, "The empirical evidence suggests that the Common Core will have little effect on American students’ achievement. The nation will have to look elsewhere for ways to improve its schools."

It's Not A National Curriculum, Right?

Curriculum follows 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. This is the "equality of inputs = equality of outputs" philosophy. Good or bad when standards are written and copyrighted by private companies and then cashed strapped states are enticed into adopting those standards by the Federal Government who promises federal dollars and NCLB waivers in exchange, states are under contract with the Federal government and are not free to change any portion of the standards. In fact, under CCSS guidelines states are allowed to add only 15% of original content standards. The connection between standards and curriculum is clear. As the Brooking Institute wrote in their report, "The intended curriculum is embodied by standards; it is what governments want students to learn. The differences articulated by state governments in this regard are frequently trivial." So national standards will lead to a national curriculum.

Why is national curriculum a problem?

Well to start with, the authority to operate school systems is constitutionally vested in states. But just in case you are an American who isn't motivated by the constitutional argument think about it this way: Control over 100,000 public schools, 14,000 school districts, and over 500 Billion in education tax dollars will transfer from the hands of parents and local school boards to unelected boards, bureaucrats, and private partners the USDOE decides are more capable of managing education.

This massive federal takeover is fueled by the belief that states individually cannot be trusted which is just another way of saying the people can't be trusted. Our founders taught that government closest to the people governs best because it is the most responsive to the unique local needs of the people, it is the most innovative and creative, and most easily corrected when it fails. CCSS will undermine the decentralized, federalist principles on which education has been governed since America’s founding.

What Does Testing Look Like Under Common Core?

Proponents of the Common Core are excited about the CAT tests which are developed by companies like American Institutes for Research (AIR) with grants from the federal government. AIR "is one of the world's largest behavioral and social science research organizations" and is applying behavioral and social science to educational assessments. These tests are highly accurate, therefore the push for implementing the latest and greatest technologies to assist with the accurate measurement of student progress in academics. So what's the problem?

What's wrong with Common Core National Testing?

There is reason to seriously question what these tests are seeking to measure beyond cognitive ability and knowledge sets. Already in use these tests have well documented potential to be highly accurate for personality assessment and companies like AIR have the ability to devise tests that input selected variables that measure “behavioral characteristics” along with variables that measure language arts, science or math. Award winning child psychologist Dr. Gary Thompson wrote, "It would be relatively “easy” to design a language adaptive test that has behavioral characteristics embedded into the design of the test. Formulas could be designed to produce two sets of results (language and behavior), and then forward the language test results to its intended target (The Schools), and the behavioral results to another intended target (Federal Government, Private Agencies)." See the problem?

Are students disadvantaged by not participating in CAT tests?

NO. Research on cognitive ability tests shows that adaptive tests, and paper-and-pencil tests lead to equivalent scores. Paper-and-pencil tests are also cheaper and the state has more control over the content of the tests and what they are designed to measure. It is nearly impossible for state leaders to provide oversight of CAT tests because no two students will see the same test, each question on the test is predictive and prompts which question follows. A grade-level test will have about 1600 possible questions, and it requires psychometrician professionals to interpret the results of such tests.

What information will they store in these data basis and why should I be concerned?

Perhaps the most alarming aspect of the Common Core agenda is the data mining of our children's information outside of parental consent or knowledge. Stored in these data basis that were created as part of the "Race to the Top" grant program is highly personal student data such as social security number, health-care histories, learning disabilities, disciplinary action (from detentions for minor infractions to expulsions), attendance, homework completion, religious affiliations, and any educational or physiological data assessed through CAT. In 2011 portions of FERPA, education privacy act, were changed by Arnie Duncan at the USDOE so that data the states share with the Federal government can then be shared with private organizations and companies WITHOUT PARENTAL PERMISSION.

GOOD OR BAD OVERALL?

Many will argue Common Core based on whether or not the standards are good rigorous standards, whether or not the Common Core will improve education in American, whether a national curriculum will lead to indoctrination of our kids, or whether or not the Common Core will make America's economy more competitive. These are interesting discussions but whatever side you come down on in each of these cases there are a few simple facts about Common Core that make it a dangerous path for American education. (1) States who adopt Common Core lend their constitutional powers and responsibilities to oversee education in their states to the Federal government and move decision making over a child's education further from the hands of parents and communities. (2) There is no way to control the private interests who are highly involved with Common Core or to be certain they have our children's best interest at heart. (3) There is no way to be certain that very private intimate data on our children and by extension our families won't be abused by the Federal Government or private interests with access to this data. And (4) There is NO evidence that further standardizing curriculum and a new testing regime will result in better educations for our children.

In the words of Ronald Reagan: “Remember that every government service, every offer of government - is paid for in the loss of some personal freedom... In the days to come, whenever a voice is raised telling you to let the government do it, analyze very carefully to see whether the suggested service is worth the personal freedom which you must forgo in return for such service.”

THE PRICE IS TOO HIGH AND THE SERVICE TOO POOR