Common Core
Federalized educational curriculum

Common Core is a plan to nationalize the public school curriculum and homogenize educational standards in all fifty states, taking control of public education from local school boards and giving it to unelected bureaucrats in Washington, D.C.  The same thing was done to the medical industry with a program colloquially known as Obamacare, and it was done for the same purpose:  centralized control.

Common Core will (I predict) take advantage of several other bad ideas, such as electronic textbooks and ubiquitous laptop computers, to make it possible to revise the contents of all the textbooks in the country simultaneously.  You'll have to read the textbooks yourself every day to see what has changed, but there won't be anything you can do about it, because the school board will be in Washington.  Once you get accustomed to such a system, the remotely-revised dictionary will be introduced next -- just like in 1984.

Proponents of the Common Core standards apparently hope you are not familiar with the Bill of Rights; particularly, the 9th and 10th Amendments.




The Fundamental Problem With Common Core Math.  In 2010, a bold effort to reform math curriculum was adopted by the majority of the United States.  Known as "Common Core Math," the goal of this endeavor was to establish a common foundation of mathematics education across the country, and to help bolster not only students' mathematical abilities, but also their mathematical intuition.  The goal was to help students think about math more deeply, believing that this will help them work with mathematics better in later years.  Before discussing problems with this approach, I want to say that I appreciate the idea of helping students think more deeply about mathematics.  After years and years and years of mathematics education, many students wind up thinking about mathematics as merely a set of formulas that they had to memorize to pass a class, which they will never ever use again in their lives.

How Common Core And Screen Overdoses Are Ruining American Kids' Intelligence.  By every metric (SAT, ACT, and even IQ), the intelligence and aptitude of American students has declined in recent years.  As Joy Pullmann documents in an article about the results of using Common Core, student performance on state standardized tests has also gone down — that is, when the scoring isn't changed to show better results.  Before casting blame on who's responsible, it's important to understand what these numbers actually mean.  All of these tests attempt to measure higher-order thinking skills as they relate to abstract scenarios, nothing more or less.  They do not measure the level of practical skills people might have, their emotional intelligence, or even their actual knowledge of things. [...] Higher-order thinking is not raw intelligence, but more a habit of mind, and the children who practice it more can generally do it better.  Scores on all these tests, including the IQ test, will change based on the person's habits.  When people read and listen more and have more leisure time for using their imaginations, they will improve in higher-order thinking, as they did for much of the 20th century.  If scores fall, this then indicates the problem lies in children's changing habits (not changing demographics), which directly relates to their schooling and their home environment.  Indeed, in the past decade, massive changes have occurred in these two areas: Public schools have adopted the Common Core approach to instruction, and homes have succumbed to screen addiction.

Did Common Core Standards Contribute to Slide in Eighth Grade Math Scores?  For the first time in the study's 50-year history, the National Assessment of Educational Progress' 2020 Long-Term Trend Assessment revealed that U.S. 13-year-olds' scores in both reading and math experienced statistically significant declines over the past eight years.  Despite record-high education spending, these declines are the latest evidence casting significant doubt on Common Core's learning standards and approach to student improvement.  Reversing a 2[-]decade[-]long trend of score improvement, 9-year-olds' test scores saw no change since the test was last administered in 2012.

Common Core:  The Last Time Bill Gates Helped America.  Twenty years ago, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), the legislation intended to save American children from stupidity and the "soft bigotry of low expectations," became law.  Ten years later, Common Core came to the fore.  They both failed.  Like all liberal ideas, they started with good intentions and government intervention and ended in cheating, lying, and wasted taxpayer money.  NCLB was passed in the Senate in June 2001 and ratified into law in January 2002, with a bipartisan effort from George W. Bush and the Big Man of the Senate, Teddy Kennedy.  As far as government responses to tragedy go, NCLB got buried under an endless war, but like so many government programs continues to harm the public to this day.  When NCLB failed to produce desired outcomes, President Obama decided that the answer was more federal control, and more money.  Enter Bill Gates, the Gates Foundation, and Common Core.

Study: Historic Drop in U.S. Reading and Math Scores Since Common Core 'Debacle'.  A study released Monday by the Boston-based Pioneer Institute reveals a historic drop in national reading and math scores among U.S. students since the adoption of the Common Core Curriculum Standards a decade ago.  "Nearly a decade after states adopted Common Core, the empirical evidence makes it clear that these national standards have yielded underwhelming results for students," said Pioneer executive director Jim Stergios in a statement.  "The proponents of this expensive, legally questionable policy initiative have much to answer for."

American Education Can Be Saved, but Not by the Left.  The increase in federal control of educational policy is unconstitutional because the Tenth Amendment relegates control of all powers not enumerated in the U.S. Constitution to the several states.  Common Core got around this with a deceitful strategy.  Common Core says the federal government is not telling the states what to teach, only that the federal government will supply the standardized tests that will give the states greater feedback about whether they are meeting "standards."  Thus, states would begin teaching to the tests, the tests would be controlling, but the federal government — not requiring curriculum x, y, or z — on a technicality would not be literally "in control" of state education.

The New Far-Left Curriculum Transforming Our Public Schools.  "Deep Equity," developed by the Corwin company, is quickly becoming the new standard curriculum being taught in our public schools. [...] Fox News commentator Tucker Carlson reported on the curriculum Friday, November 8, 2019.  Created by for-profit "education" company Corwin, owned by SAGE Publishing, Deep Equity is the latest example of how the "Left has abandoned education in favor of naked political propaganda," stated Carlson.  Corwin described its curriculum "as a teacher training program that is 'aimed at producing real school improvement for equity and social justice,'" Carlson related.  How does Deep Equity purport to accomplish this?  Mainly "by attacking the students on the basis of their skin color," said Carlson.  "According to Deep Equity, America is based on a hierarchy of various oppressions:  men oppress women, Christianity oppresses Islam, English oppresses Spanish, white people oppress everyone," the pundit continued.

Despite Common Core Promises, U.S. Kids Repeat Poor Performance On Latest Global Test.  Add another set of test results to the stack deflating promises U.S. leaders said justified the major arm-twisting required to switch the nation to Common Core.  On Tuesday, the latest results from a respected international test showed U.S. students making no progress in math or reading since the last such exam three years ago.  This trend of no improvement on math and reading has persisted since the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) began in 2000, although U.S. kids have improved in science on the exam, which is given to 15-year-olds.  Common Core, a set of national curriculum, testing, and instruction mandates the Obama administration pressured states into beginning in 2009, dictates reading and math instruction, not science.

[The] First Common Core High School Grads [are the] Worst-Prepared For College In 15 Years.  For the third time in a row since Common Core was fully phased in nationwide, U.S. student test scores on the nation's broadest and most respected test have dropped, a reversal of an upward trend between 1990 and 2015.  Further, the class of 2019, the first to experience all four high school years under Common Core, is the worst-prepared for college in 15 years, according to a new report.  The National Assessment of Educational Progress is a federally mandated test given every other year in reading and mathematics to students in grades four and eight.  (Periodically it also tests other subjects and grade levels.)  In the latest results, released Wednesday [10/30/2019], American students slid yet again on nearly every measure.

The College Board:  Dumbing Down America.  The author of the adversity score nonsense was College Board president David Coleman, the architect of Common Core, which six states have now repealed and which has been a point of contention in many states.  As well, he is the prime mover to feed American kids a prejudiced, anti-American view of history.  Read the full critique of this new history guidelines and test to see what our brightest students are being taught.

Common Core, "Worst Large-Scale Education Failure in 40 Years," Endangers Education Choice.  In the more sane days gone by, children took a year-end achievement test for which there was no class preparation.  Instead, the school year was spent mastering academic content, not constantly preparing for standardized tests.  The achievement test score neither affected academic grades nor was used to determine whether the student passed for the year.  That has changed with the federal government seizing control of education that was left to state and local governments by the Constitution.  Curriculum standards-based reform was underway in the 1980s and the implementation of state standards was mandated by Congress in 1994.

Big Business Needs to Get Out of American Classrooms.  Bill Gates, who devotes his time and vast fortune trying to change the world, used his Gates Foundation to help bankroll virtually every aspect of Common Core's development, promotion, and implementation.  Executives at Exxon Mobil, GE, State Farm, Intel, and other corporations pushed to get the standards adopted and implemented.  It was partly pressure from business and higher education leadersthat Common Core includes teaching collaboration and group problem-solving skills.  Now traditional classroomsare "flipped" — students teach each other while teachers are merely facilitators.  Instead of preparing students with a broad academic foundation, Common Core focused on career readiness.

What Happened to Bill Gates and Common Core?  Bill Gates is among the richest, most successful people on the planet.  He enjoyed a lot of victories until he ventured into a dangerous part of town called Education.  He squandered a few billion dollars by becoming entangled with a shady character named Common Core.  Since 2010, Gates endured a long, slow defeat, as more people turned against Common Core, and he himself realized that it was not what he had dreamed of.  So how did Bill Gates lose his golden touch?

Common Core has given us snowflakes instead of students.  Chances are if you say the two words "Common Core" to a parent they will likely evoke strong opinions, and generally not favorable ones.  The academic standards that focused on math and English and which many states adopted have been an epic fail and have left several states with a change of heart.  But while it's been a disaster academically, from an agenda-driven perspective Common Core has been a huge win for the politically correct propaganda being peddled.

Fake, like Adulterated Milk.  Arguably, New Math, Reform Math, and Common Core Math are fake math programs.  They create a lot of of cognitive confusion.  It's very hard for the parents and the community to understand what's actually happening in the classroom.  We see a lot of negative coverage of these pretenders — kids are crying, parents are unhappy — yet the Education Establishment is so arrogant, they go right on dumbing down their own country.

An Uncomfortable Truth About American Education & Sex.  Spring isn't too far away.  That means the subject of reproduction may be surfacing in schools across the nation.  Join me for an in-depth look at the not so wonderful transformation happening across our nation.  Educrats believe it's their place to teach your children about sex.  We've seen the overreaches of many CCSS Machine groups indoctrinate (or try to), not only public schools, but every school-related group possible, with their brand of sexual beliefs and practices.  Like the picture, the CCSS way of 'teaching' sex, is too much information, at too young an age.

The Editor says...
Apparently CCSS stands for Common Core State Standards.

Florida governor Ron DeSantis orders state to get rid of Common Core standards.  Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has announced an executive order to eliminate Common Core standards in Florida schools.  The state originally adopted the Common Core standards, but those standards were later altered and renamed.  Technically, Florida still has many of the same Common Core concepts in place today; they were just repackaged differently.  Now, DeSantis wants a more permanent solution to parents' concerns.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis Signs Executive Order Ending Common Core.  Newly elected Florida Governor Ron DeSantis announced a new executive order ending Common Core, locally referred to as Florida Standards, from the state's school curriculum in a press conference held this Thursday afternoon [1/31/2019].  "One of the things we would constantly hear about on the campaign trail is a frustration with a lot of parents in particular with this idea of Common Core," DeSantis said in his press conference Thursday afternoon, "Today we are doing an Executive Order that is going to instruct Commissioner Corcoran to get to work and come up with good standards for the state of Florida that will include eliminating Common Core," the governor said to applause.

New Evidence Reveals Full Extent of Common Core's Historic Failure.  Most public schools are still afflicted with the Common Core national standards.  Paid advocates such as the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation continue to push Common Core despite overwhelming evidence of the slow-motion train wreck that has resulted — reduced student achievement by almost every metric.  Fordham refuses even to acknowledge the bad news, much less try to rationalize it.  That's why it was refreshing to hear the blunt truth proclaimed at a Heritage Foundation event last week entitled "Rethinking Federal Intervention in K-12 Education."  At this program the authors of a new Pioneer Institute study, "Common Core, School Choice and Rethinking Standards-Based Reform," explained how Common Core has not only damaged public education but also threatened the independence of private schools.  How?  By imposing government strings on the curricular autonomy of the schools that accept government funding via school-choice mechanisms such as vouchers.

Six Steps to Reform Education Right Now.  Here's a comparable situation.  Let's say there is a high school football team that isn't doing well.  You investigate and find that players are required to put a small pebble in one shoe.  Players in a huddle have to speak in a foreign language.  All calisthenics must involve lying on the ground.  The coach, if he wants to diagram a play, uses pink chalk on green.  All plays must include at least one ballet movement.  Players must address each other by code names used only in this particular sport.  Now you know why the team is performing poorly.  The more interesting mystery becomes, why do so-called experts endlessly recommend self-defeating practices? (Common sense suggests that subversion is the real intent.)

Bill Gates Tacitly Admits His Common Core Experiment Was A Failure.  Bill and Melinda Gates run the world's richest nonprofit, with assets at $40 billion and annual giving around $4 billion. [...] Since 2009, the Gates Foundation's primary U.S. activity has focused on establishing and implementing Common Core, a set of centrally mandated curriculum rules and tests for what children are to learn in each K-12 grade, with the results linked to school and teacher ratings and punitive measures for low performers.  The Gates Foundation has spent more than $400 million itself and influenced $4 trillion in U.S. taxpayer funds towards this goal.  Eight years later, however, Bill Gates is admitting failure on that project, and a "pivot" to another that is not likely to go any better.

9 Years Into Common Core, Test Scores Are Down, Indoctrination Up.  It's been about nine years since the Obama administration lured states into adopting Common Core sight unseen, with promises it would improve student achievement.  Like President Obama's other big promises — "If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor" — this one's been proven a scam. [...] So here we are, nine years later.  Common Core has been officially rolled out into U.S. public and even many private schools for at least three to five years now.  Are American children increasingly prepared for the "the challenges of the 21st century"?  We're actually seeing the opposite.  They're increasingly less prepared.  And there's mounting evidence that Common Core deserves some of the blame.

Walk Away.  You've heard the rumors, or you have seen the results yourself.  Kids can't read, not fluently.  Incoherent Common Core homework makes them cry.  Students don't know the simplest things about geography, history, science, or anything else.  Jay Leno, Jesse Watters, Mark Dice, and now Jimmy Kimmel have shown this over and over.  The incompetent, ideological extremists perpetuating this educational malpractice should be rejected or at least rebuked.  What's a simple way to do that?  You don't need to send them a card.  Just walk away...if not physically, at least emotionally.

Professor Who Worked On Common Core Tests:  Math Education Needs To Downplay 'Objects, Truth, And Knowledge'.  A U.S. professor who teaches future public school teachers will "argue for a movement against objects, truths, and knowledge" in a keynote to the Mathematics Education and Society conference this coming January, says her talk description.  "The relationship between humans, mathematics, and the planet has been one steeped too long in domination and destruction," the talk summary says.  "What are appropriate responses to reverse such a relationship?"  We can already guess University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign professor Rochelle Gutierrez's answer, from reviewing her published writings and comments.  Her plans for "an insurgency by the people" to subvert public institutions and American self-rule through "ethnomathematics" will knock your eyebrows off your face.

Common Core Supporters Offer Yet Another Sad Defense of Failed Standards.  Proponents of the failed and destructive Common Core experiment refuse to let it go.  Bill Gates, who funded a large chunk of Common Core development and marketing despite knowing essentially nothing about education, has yet to admit that it simply didn't work out.  Gates apparently believes there's nothing wrong with Common Core that more of his money and invaluable guidance can't fix.  The same obtuseness animates a new report from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, which for some reason the press generally refers to as "conservative" or "right-leaning."  Fordham's schtick for some years has been evaluating and assigning grades to state K-12 curriculum standards.  The new report does this again, though not for all states but rather for 14 states in English language arts (ELA) and 10 states in math.  The goal was to determine if the states that supposedly revised, replaced, or never adopted the Common Core standards now have better or worse standards than Common Core.

Common Core as an Incubator of Progressivism.  Mistakes are often the best teacher, as they force us to revisit a problem and consider how it can be improved.  We examine and rethink what has caused the problem, ultimately enabling us to produce a stronger product.  Whether that might be a math problem, a difficult marriage, or a troubled nation, the challenge is to identify potential problems, find the source of the problem, and begin a course to correct all mistakes before they become destructive.  When the problem involves a decline of a once exceedingly prosperous nation, the challenge must become a priority and correct as soon as possible.  An example of a problem that could/should have been prevented is the controversial new national education program, Common Core, which was promoted by President Obama and a select committee who developed the program during his presidency.

Robbins: No way to spin lack of education progress.  Conservative educators and education analysts were once again disappointed in the recently-released National Assessment of Education Progress results.  The NAEP scores show fourth- and eighth-graders have made little to no gains in math and reading since 2015.  Jane Robbins of the American Principles Project says even progressives who support Common Core are hard pressed to put a positive spin on this biennial report.  "We're sort of stuck in the mud," she observes, "and unfortunately it's at a lower level than we had known 10 years ago."

Education Secretary Betsy DeVos:  Common Core is Dead at U.S. Department of Education.  U.S. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos gave a far-ranging speech Tuesday in Washington at an American Enterprise Institute conference, "Bush-Obama School Reform:  Lessons Learned."  Most media reporting outlines Mrs. DeVos presentation to state 'the era of common core education is now dead."

K-12: Does Anyone Care That Kids Cry?  There's an education war going on.  It's directed at the parents, keeping them off balance and powerless.  It's directed at the children, keeping them academically enfeebled.  Do they have to be rendered innumerate and illiterate on the streets near your house?  Two thirds of fourth-graders and eighth-graders are below proficient in math.  We know that the country has more than 40 million functional illiterates.  Isn't that enough?  It's happening all around you, every day.  It will go on happening until Americans make a lot more noise.  Common Core's central gimmick is to make children struggle with complex problems before they are ready.  Force them to run before they can crawl — that's the ticket.  Some smart kids will survive.  The not so smart kids will not learn arithmetic.  They will learn to hate it.

Common Core Timeline.  Common Core has many players in the background that most of us are not aware of.  This has been a long-time coming, and a hard-sell for a vast cast of Progressives, but sell it they did, and eventually it received the clueless support of state Governors and departments of Education who thought Race-to-the-Top bribes would shore up state education coffers.  Surely, no one would teach that the Boston Tea Party was a terrorist action or that Allah is "God," or that Shariah law provides for the poor and has an exceptional code of moral conduct.  Who would believe that could happen in America, but it did.  These soldiers for socialism never drop-out.  They started movements years ago, networked and are still key players.  Below is a timeline showing interconnectedness of programs like CSCOPE culminating in Common Core, the fundamental transformation of education, including determining who your child becomes.  Common Core is about racial justice, social justice, education justice, and education debt.  You owe it, "they" don't.  Can't figure out how this happened in your state?  It's all about the money.

Gates Pushes InBloom's Massive Data Tracking System for Everyone in America.  InBloom, which has already been caught selling student information, would store student's scores, attendance, needs, disabilities, disciplinary record.  If you were suspended in third grade, it would follow you for life.  InBloom is working with nine states:  Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, New York and North Carolina.  InBloom goes hand-in-hand with Common Core and standardized testing and they all mesh together to form a nationalized education program run by the federal government.  It is unconstitutional but this approach does an end-run around the constitution.  Many on both the left and right of the political spectrum are opposed.

K-12: The Math You Need Is Not the Math You Get.  Common Core wants you to "to reason abstractly and quantitatively."  What could that mean?  Public schools do not teach fundamental skills, so students, after years in the classroom, can't do life's simple problems.  Instead, they can "use appropriate tools strategically."  Does anybody know what that would be?  Oh, maybe they mean a calculator.  That's pretty much the way all the kids end up:  calculator-dependent. [...] It's a total bait-and-switch, just like sight-word reading.  School officials promise to teach you superior methods that turn out to be vastly inferior.  Then you realize you've wasted years; at the end of it, you can't do simple arithmetic (just as you can't read).  Focus on the tsunami of waste for a few minutes, and you'll start to scorn our professors of education.

Common Core Rape-Themed Assignment for Biology Confuses Parents.  A 9th-grade assignment at a Mississippi high school is causing concern and disgust among parents.  A mother recently posted her student's assignment to Facebook in a special group that was created for the growing discontent parents feel toward public school education — "Inappropriate Common Core Lessons."  This particular assignment asked 14-year-old students to determine the identity of a fictional rapist based on sperm DNA.

The Truth About Common Core.  Even Bill Gates now admits that his Common Core educational reform program has failed.  And yet, Joy Pullmann explains at The Federalist, he is not just going to fold his tent and go back to something he knows about.  Not at all.  Like a good apparatchik he is going to double down on failure.  He refuses to believe that his idea was bad.  He blames the implementation.  One thing we know about philosopher kings, even high tech philosopher kings: they never admit to failure.  They just call for more and better.  Since the Gates funds are basically unlimited, he can keep throwing money at the problem.  Pullmann offers an excellent analysis of what was wrong with Common Core.  And she even names names, shows us who was responsible, from Gates and his wife to the Obama administration.

When 5 × 3 ≠ 15.  5 × 3 = 15 even in Common Core math, right?  Yes, but only if you reach the answer by the most cumbersome means possible. [...] If they are deliberately trying to produce a generation of morons who can't even do simple math, educrats are more competent than anyone thought.

Is There Anything Common Core Gets Right?  Organized in seven chapters, [Joy Pullmann's new] book describes how the Gates Foundation promoted and continues to promote one extremely wealthy couple's uninformed, unsupported, and unsupportable ideas on education for other people's children while their own children are enrolled in a non-Common Cored private school.  It explains how (but not exactly why) the Gates Foundation helped to centralize control of public education in the U.S. Department of Education.  It also explains why parents, teachers, local school boards, and state legislators were the last to learn how the public schools their local and state taxes supported had been nationalized without Congressional knowledge or permission; and why they were expected to believe that their local public schools were now accountable for what and how they teach ... not to the local and state taxpayers who fund them or to locally-elected school boards that by law are still supposed to set education policies not already determined by their state legislature ... but to a distant bureaucracy in exchange for money to their state department of education to close "achievement gaps" between unspecified groups.

Repudiating the Obama Vision for Higher Education.  We are all aware of the undue influence the federal government has had on local control of K-12 education.  This began with No Child Left Behind under President George W. Bush, and moved to new levels of federal control under Common Core.  No Child Left Behind was at least a legislative initiative, passed by Congress.  But Common Core was initiated through the Executive Branch and was developed and implemented through state departments of education — composed of appointed, not elected, officials — that got on board because of Race To The Top moneys being used as an inducement for participation.  All of this was unconstitutional because the Tenth Amendment relegates control of all powers not enumerated in the U.S. Constitution to the several states.  Common Core got around this by saying the federal government is not telling the states what to teach, but if the states would get on board (they all got on board), the federal government would supply the standardized tests that would give the states greater feedback about whether they were meeting "standards."  Thus, states would begin teaching to the tests, the tests would be controlling, but the federal government on a technicality would not be literally "in control" of state education.

How Common Core Damages Students' College Readiness.  Common Core is usually considered a national K-12 education initiative, but it is more than that.  Federal and state regulations loop all the key parts of American education into Common Core, so it affects all levels of our education.  Unfortunately, Common Core undermines students' intellectual growth (as I argue in my book The Education Invasion) and leaves many graduates unprepared for true college-level work, as opposed to career training.  Here are the main reasons why.

Think Again, Collins and Murkowski.  There is no shortage of problems to address when it comes to the American educational system, but the central and urgent problem is the spectacular expansion of the federal government's role in local education decisions.  For going on 20 years, through both Republican and Democratic administrations, the federal government has more and more aggressively insinuated itself into the day-to-day workings of school districts and classrooms.  In the last few years, there has been modest rollback at the state level, as states and municipalities, aiming to break the longstanding, union-backed public-school monopoly, have created new opportunities for school choice.

Why Arizona's Plan To Teach Kids Cursive Is Great For Kids.  Cursive is now a state-sanctioned staple of the curriculum in Arizona public schools, a change that marks a victory for the art of handwriting in today's digital society.  The Arizona state Board of Education revised its Common Core education standards on December 19, instituting new standards that expect students to have mastered cursive by the fifth grade (among other requirements).  Beginning in 2018, these amendments will be reflected on the state's standardized test, AzMERIT.  "We now have standards that have been worked on by Arizona teachers, parents, and have been vetted by anti-Common Core experts," Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas said of the change, according to the AP news story.

Betsy DeVos At Trump Michigan Rally:  Time To 'Finally Put And End To Federal Common Core'.  Donald Trump's education secretary nominee Betsy DeVos joined him for a "Thank You" rally in her home state of Michigan, where she told the crowd making education great again means "finally putting an end to the federal Common Core."  Trump's pick is the former chair of the Michigan Republican Party and one of the party's most influential donors.  DeVos is a proponent of charter schools and school vouchers.  "In deference to the U.S. Senate confirmation, I'm not giving interviews, but just between us let me share this," DeVos said to the crowd, speaking from prepared remarks.  "It's time to make education great again in this country."

Federalist: Democrat Michelle Rhee as Education Secretary 'Would Be a Terrible Choice'.  President-elect Donald Trump is reportedly meeting Friday with Democrat Michelle Rhee, the former Washington, D.C., schools chancellor and potential candidate for the post of U.S. secretary of education.  Andrew Ujifusa, writing at Education Week, reported the slated meeting Friday [11/18/2016].  "Trump's search for education secretary appears to be crossing party lines," writes Ujifusa.  "Rhee, who has identified as a Democrat throughout her career, is a strong supporter of school choice (including vouchers), which appears to be the top K-12 priority for Trump."  Rhee, however, who was D.C. schools chancellor from 2007 to 2010, is a Common Core supporter, a fact that does not mesh with Trump's stated goal of finally getting rid of any federal mechanisms that are keeping the boondoggle going.

Common Core Update:  Feelings are More Important than Accuracy in Math Answers.  "Any emotion, feeling, statement, or catchphrase is an acceptable answer to most of the problems in the new mathematics standards," a Common Core representative informed interested media outlets.  "As long as students are being sincere, genuine, authentic, and true to themselves at the time they are answering the question, that's all we can ask as educators."  "Who are we to tell anyone that their own mathematical truth is wrong?" the Common Core representative added.  The Babylon Bee reports that these same touch-feely standards will be added into the Common Core standards set for history, biology, and chemistry. English literature teachers apparently are already able to take the students' feelings into account when it comes to filling out report cards.

Michigan Diocese Adopts Classical Curriculum, Rejects Common Core.  The Diocese of Marquette in Michigan is in the process of adopting a Catholic liberal arts curriculum for all of its schools, instead of using the Common Core State Standards.  A spokesman for the diocese says the program has experienced early success.  Common Core is a set of federal standards dictating what students should know at the end of each grade level.  As of 2011, 46 states and Washington, DC had adopted the standards.  Since then, three states have officially repealed the standards, and of [the 45] states that joined the Common Core Consortia, an association that provides states with Common Core-aligned exams, 25 have dropped out.  Two bills to replace Common Core in Michigan are progressing through the state's legislature.

Has anything united parents more than their hatred of Common Core?  I was not one of the parents who had called to complain last year as I worked with my daughter on shading diagrams and estimating answers and working through unintelligible word problems, but I had felt that frustration.  It is not math, it's guesstimating and abstract concepts.  Remember, under Common Core, the answer to a math problem doesn't have to be exactly right — as long as the student shows he or she understands generally how to solve the problem.  That adds up to insanity.

DNC's failing Common Core exposed by WikiLeaks.  After obtaining a recent data dump of hacked emails belonging to the Democratic National Committee (DNC), WikiLeaks exposed the extreme unpopularity of the federal government's Common Core State Standards ... and how the average American voter sides with local — and not federal — control of education.  The Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLSA) argues that the latest series of leaked communications between DNC strategists surfaces something that should have already been plain to see for the American public for some time — that the only champions of the Common Core is the federal government and others under its payroll who personally benefit from its implementation.

The ACT Can't Decide Whether It Likes Common Core Or Not.  One of America's biggest standardized tests apparently can't decide how it feels about Common Core, and appears to be adjusting its position as the political winds shift.  ACT, Inc. produces the ACT test, the country's most popular college entrance exam, but that's not the company's only project.  Currently, ACT also produces a test called ACT Aspire, which it offers as an academic proficiency test for the third grade through high school.  The company has a substantial financial interest in the test's adoption, but it has encountered a major complication:  the ongoing war over Common Core.

Turning The Tide.  [President] Obama wanted to transform K-12 education in America by nationalizing the curriculum.  That would be illegal if done directly so he launched Common Core State Standards, a set of learning goals tied to achievement tests intended to force every K-12 school, public as well as private or religious, to teach the left's perverse vision of English literature and dysfunctional theory of math instruction.  Common Core got off to a fast start as most states adopted it in exchange for federal money under Obama's Race to the Top program.  But then groups including The Heartland Institute revealed the true origins, content, and intent of Common Core, and support for the standards began to evaporate.  One by one, states withdrew from the consortia created to administer the Common Core-linked tests.  The debate over Common Core has had the opposite effect Obama hoped for.  The public learned the national government doesn't belong in the school curriculum business, and that activist groups on the left use schools to indoctrinate rather than educate their children.  Parents are fleeing public schools for private schools or are homeschooling their children rather than risk exposing them to Common Core.

Kansas House Rejects Bill to End Common Core.  A bill to end the use of Common Core education standards in Kansas was defeated during a House floor vote after passing the state's House Education Committee.  House Bill 2292 would have replaced Common Core with new, non-federal standards that would have been implemented by the Kansas State Board of Education by July 1, 2017.  HB 2292 would have rescinded any existing agreements and prohibited any future ones made with the federal government requiring the use of Common Core, and it included provisions to protect student privacy and safeguard against data mining.  The House rejected the bill in a 78-44 vote.

California Scholars Call for End to Common Core.  California has joined a growing number of states now facing mounting outcry against Common Core State Standards.  The California Alliance of Researchers for Equity in Education (CAREE), which brings together more than 100 university-based education researchers, released a Research Brief, titled "Common Core State Standards Assessments in California: Concerns and Recommendations," in February 2016.  The authors call for an end to high-stakes testing in the state, citing research showing a lack of compelling evidence Common Core standards have improved education.  The CAREE authors dismiss Common Core assessments as lacking "validity, reliability, and fairness."  Although some Common Core critics oppose all high-stakes standardized testing, Lance Izumi, senior fellow and director of education studies at the Pacific Research Institute, says most of those opposing Common Core are concerned about the quality of the standards and their accompanying tests.  "Their problem with Common Core testing rests on practical concerns with the validity of the tests themselves, with the type of knowledge they are trying to measure, with empirically unsupportable instructional methodologies promoted by Common Core, and with the centralization of education policymaking in Washington, DC," Izumi said.

Oklahoma Common Core Replacement Criticized.  New academic standards to replace Common Core in Oklahoma are set to go into effect despite prominent scholars telling the state's legislature the replacement standards are flawed.  House Bill 3399 repealed Common Core in Oklahoma in 2014.  A provision of the bill mandated the Oklahoma Legislature review the new Oklahoma Academic Standards (OAS) upon their completion and, if necessary, return portions of the standards to the Oklahoma State Board of Education (OSBE) for corrections.  OSBE had two years to write the new standards, but it did not begin the process in earnest until February 2015, after the election of a new state superintendent of public instruction, Joy Hofmeister.

Replacing Common Core:  Choices and Tradeoffs.  Since 2014, concerns have arisen that the ACT tests, like SAT and The Iowa Tests, have been aligned with CCSS.  One source of this concern is that ACT was actually the basis or foundation of CCSS. [...] ACT has fueled concern by telling CCSS advocates it is aligned with the new standards while telling CCSS critics it is not.  Without condoning this duplicity, we can nevertheless understand it:  ACT is under tremendous pressure to use its reputation to uplift Common Core while not allowing Common Core's tarnished reputation to harm ACT.

Common Core's "digital learning" is expensive and ineffective.  Transforming education via the Common Core national standards doesn't come cheap.  It was reported recently that California has spent about $578 million on technology to implement the standards.  California taxpayers might wonder why they're having to fork over such enormous sums when their previous state standards were indisputably better than Common Core, but then California taxpayers may be too beaten down to object.  Implemented properly (or "with fidelity," as the current tagline goes), Common Core requires technology for "digital" or "personalized" learning.  Common Core is a blueprint for competency-based education (CBE), which essentially means the old, discredited Outcome-Based Education. [...] As part of their CBE focus, the Common Core standards dictate specific content-free technology skills for students at different grade levels.  Third-graders, for example, should "use text features and search tools (e.g., key words, sidebars, hyperlinks) to locate information relevant to a given topic," and seventh-graders should "compare and contrast a written story ... to its ... multimedia version...."  Thus, the money-dump into the ed-tech companies that (surprise!) promote Common Core.  The result is articles about the glories of digital learning, with students glued to their screens.

Common Core Fails Students.  What if someone who was really rich got together with some people who were really smart and discovered what was best for everyone?  What would happen if they all used the power of government to nudge (that is, to coerce) people to adopt their program... because it was for the best, even if no one knew it?  You would get Common Core educational standards, a one-size-fits-all curriculum reform program that has been forced down school districts around the nation.  The reigning genie behind all this is Bill Gates.  After all, he is richer than everyone else, so therefore he must be smarter than everyone else.  Better yet, he suffers from a malady that seems to inflict nearly all tech oligarchs — they believe that they constitute a class of Platonic philosopher kings or guardians who know what is best for everyone because they have a clearer vision of the Ideas.

Study: Common Core Fails at Preparing Students for College.  A not-so-shocking new report that was recently released by the folks behind the college prep exam, the ACT, found that the Common Core was stunningly deficient in preparing students for college.

Crayola Common Core lesson plans aimed to promote globalization and interdependence.  Crayola joins the list of big name education companies who have sold out our children and America to the United Nations' global agenda.  Teaching children 'to take action as global citizens' in an 'interdependent world' and to 'think about the world more holistically' are the focus of several Crayola lessons provided in partnership with the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), one of the organizations responsible for the creation and implementation of the national Common Core State Standards.  Crayola, Lego Education, Apple, and Disney (among others), as members of P21 (Partnership for 21st Century Skills) entered into a 'strategic partnership' with the Council of Chief State School Officers in 2010.

Green Indoctrination at School.  Federal attempts at Green indoctrination of children continue at a furious pace.  The primary means are the Common Core State Standard Initiative and the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS), aimed at schools from K-12.  Common Core is intended to create uniform, one-size-fits-all, national education standards.  It is a pet project of billionaire Bill Gates, whose foundation not only bankrolled the project but spent over $200 million to encourage widespread political support.  It enjoys the support of the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).  Despite claims that this originated entirely at state level, the U.S. Department of Education was heavily involved behind the scenes and provided incentives for states to adopt the standards via waivers from the No Child Left Behind Act upon adoption of Common Core and cold, hard cash through President Obama's Race to the Top initiative.  To date 38 states have fully adopted the standards.  This is down from a high of 45 as several states repealed Common Core when it became obvious how strings attached compromised local educational autonomy.

Policy Expert:  Obama's Education Agenda Undermines American Values.  Emmett McGroarty, a lawyer and senior fellow with the American Principles Project, is losing patience waiting for the Republican Congress to contest dangerous power grabs by the Obama administration in regards to education policies.  McGroarty's issue portfolio puts him in constant touch with parents in all 50 states to fight Common Core.  He campaigns against increased data collection and privacy invasion by the federal government and helps the national opt-out movement, which is spreading like wildfire as students increasingly refuse to take standardized tests.

Hillary's Fingerprints Are All Over Common Core.  So where does Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton stand on Common Core?  The answer is she's squarely on the side of national standards and assessments, because she played a key role, along with other insiders, in getting this statist scheme rolling a quarter-century ago.  That is not to say she can't take a few shots at pro-Common-Core educrats to please parents thoroughly fed up with the math and English prescriptions being imposed on their schools.

In a "Farce," Missouri Replaces Common Core with Common Core.  In a half-baked effort to placate an outraged citizenry, Missouri officials claimed to be "replacing" Common Core with supposedly "new" standards allegedly developed with local input.  In the real world, however, the dumbed-down, Obama-backed national "education" standards were preserved largely intact, just under a new name, following a process that participants denounced as a "farce."  The federally decreed testing regime and data-gathering schemes will continue, too.  Critics and those involved in the process were outraged by the "un-American" scheming.  They vowed to keep fighting, saying it was time to "clip the wings" of the state education bureaucracy.  Of course, as this magazine has documented extensively, the people of Missouri are hardly the first in America to be victimized by such a brazen fraud.  The same deceitful process used to keep Common Core in Missouri has been used in an effort to dupe parents and taxpayers in multiple other states where outrage over the controversial nationalization scheme boiled over.  Indiana was perhaps the first, but essentially, every state that allegedly "repealed and replaced" Common Core has fallen victim to the scam.  Even in states where Common Core was never formally approved, the standards are creeping in.  But the deception, lies, and manipulation have not passed unnoticed.

SC teacher suspended after questioning standardized tests.  Tracie Happel, a special education teacher in South Carolina, sent a letter to school and district officials today [4/25/2016] to explain why, exactly, she opposes Common Core national standards and associated standardized testing.  EAGnews spoke with Happel about the letter and outlined her objections — from the millions of dollars wasted on the tests and preparation to the erosive effect the testing has on her learning disabled students' self-esteem — in blog published today.  Hours after the original story went online, Happel was summoned to the Oconee County School District administration building, where she was suspended with pay and banned from district property.  Officials told the West Oak Middle School teacher she allegedly violated the district's confidentiality policy for discussing her concerns about her sixth-, seventh-, and eighth-grade students.

Doubts over Common Core won't be easily dismissed.  The Common Core represents the ideas of several national organizations (of governors and school officials) about what and how children should learn.  It is the thin end of an enormous wedge.  It is designed to advance in primary and secondary education the general progressive agenda of centralization and uniformity.  Understandably, proponents of the Common Core want its nature and purpose to remain as cloudy as possible for as long as possible.  Hence they say it is a "state-led," "voluntary" initiative to merely guide education with "standards" that are neither written nor approved nor mandated by Washington, which would never, ever "prescribe" a national curriculum.  Proponents talk warily when describing it because a candid characterization would reveal yet another Obama administration indifference to legality.

More Common Core Promises Evaporate.  Despite Common Core's promise of providing equal, nationwide benchmarks for student learning in math and reading, a new study finds proficiency levels on Common Core tests vary widely, and almost all are below what the National Assessment of Educational Progress considers "basic." [...] Had enough central education planning yet?

Department of Education Harasses Teachers Over Common Core Testing.  As hundreds of thousands of students opt out of Common Core testing, teachers are weighing the professional risks of speaking out against this testing.  Instead of fixing the problems with Common Core and its myriad of regulations, Education Department bureaucrats have resorted to shooting the messengers — our nation's teachers. [...] In 2015, over 200,000 students elected to opt out of Common Core standardized tests.  This year's numbers will be higher, and teachers are more vocal than ever in speaking out against Common Core and advising parents to opt out.  These opinions are expressed despite threats coming in the form of bullying from the Department of Education.

Another state ditches Common Core.  The Associated Press reports that Missouri is getting rid of the controversial Common Core educational standards and replacing them with alternative standards.  Common Core covers only math and English, while the new Missouri standards will also cover social studies and science.  "Major changes include more emphasis on research in language arts and reorganizing math benchmarks for kindergarten through second grade," the AP says.  Elementary students will be expected to learn cursive writing.  Schools will have to design their own curricula to help students meet the standards.

A Liberal Magazine Just Spilled the Beans about K-12 Education.  American public schools, for many decades, have been a killing field for mathematical achievement.  John Saxon became a legend in the late 1980s for his valiant effort to create instruction that would replace the nonsense epidemic in the schools.  The Education Establishment resisted Saxon with all of its considerable resources.  These officials had come up with New Math circa 1964 and then Reform Math after 1985.  All those bad, and very unpopular, approaches have modulated into Common Core Math.  All bunk according to many analysts, but that doesn't mean our Education Establishment willingly lets a smidgen of it go.

Common Core, R. I. P.  Beware of billionaires who think they know what is best for you.  Be especially wary of billionaires who think that they should be dictating public policy to the rest of the country.  It's all for a good cause, you will think.  Who knows more about education than Bill Gates?  After all, he dropped out of Harvard.  And, if he doesn't know something he can certainly hire the best minds, the smartest consultants to teach him.  Apparently, Bill Gates has nothing better to do with his time than to reform the educational system.  He has so much money that he can assemble an army of "experts" who will tell us all how we should be educating children.  And he has enough influence to induce the federal government to force and to nudge the states into adopting what is called Common Core educational reforms.  One notes that a Bill Gates believes in top-down dictatorship, but not the free market.  After all, he did not become hyperrich by competing in the marketplace.  He did it by establishing a quasi-monopoly over operating software.

Gun-Banner John Kasich: His Horrible, Terrible, Awful Track Record on the Second Amendment.  John Kasich is more than a presidential "candidate" that has no legitimate chance to win the Republican nomination.  He's more than a big government Republican who loves the federal takeover of education known as "Common Core".  He's also more than a rabid pro-Amnesty advocate for open borders.  Despite his newfound respect for the Second Amendment, he's also a gun control advocate who once joined with the Clintons to pass the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban.

GOPe sells out on... Common Core, of all things.  [Scroll down]  For example, the Senate GOP sold out its base on the issue of Common Core this week.  Despite the fact Republicans have a majority in the Senate, seven members of the GOP joined a majority of Democrats to confirm President Barack Obama's nominee, John B. King, Jr., as education secretary.  King is an avowed supporter of Common Core and other top-down, government knows best, education policies.  But at least the GOP is going to put up a fight on government spending, right?  No, actually, they aren't.  Apparently House and Senate leadership have decided the budget deal former House Speaker John Boehner and Obama agreed to last year is such a good one that they will keep it.  That's right, despite the fact Congress passed a Budget Control Act, supposedly to control the budget, Boehner and Obama blew through it, adding another $30 billion.  And despite the fact that Boehner's compliance in this matter is one of the primary reasons he is no longer in Congress, the current leadership is taking the same path.  Their reasoning?  Obama will fight us if we try to "cut" spending.

49 Senators OK Common Core Advocate as Education Secretary.  The Senate voted 49-40 Monday evening [3/14/2016] to confirm John B. King Jr., President Barack Obama's nominee, as secretary of education.  A total of 11 senators did not vote on King's confirmation, while those who voted against him cited his loyalty to the system and support for Common Core education standards.

Ted Cruz Is Absolutely Correct On Common Core.  Common Core's biggest problem is that the U.S. Department of Education has been using other programs like Race To The Top funding in order to more or less blackmail states into adopting the standards.  There are very, very few curricula written to the standards, and the majority of the ones out there are barely comprehensible.  Cruz's plan to roll back the executive actions that have led to the abuse of education funding and eventually eliminate the Department of Education is the most sensible way to go about de-federalizing Common Core.

Senate Republicans Help Advance Obama Education Nominee Who Supports Common Core.  Despite opposition from former educators, school boards, and public officials for his "blind commitment" to Common Core, a Senate panel Wednesday voted in favor of confirming John King Jr. to serve as the secretary of education through the end of President Barack Obama's term.  The Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions (HELP) Committee approved Obama's nomination, 16-6.  With the committee's blessing, King's confirmation will go before the full Senate.

Alabama Lawmakers Weaken Common Core Repeal Bill.  After his bill was passed by the Alabama Senate's education committee, a state senator says his legislation, which would have repealed the state's Common Core standards, has been weakened and rendered ineffective.  Senate Bill 30, sponsored by state Sen. Rusty Glover (R-Mobile), was amended in February by the Alabama Senate Education Policy Committee.  The bill would allow government schools to decide whether to retain Common Core curriculum standards, a national curriculum standardization initiative with roots in No Child Left Behind and other federal government education programs, or develop their own set of standards.

Common Core Creator: Subtract Parents from Math Education Equation.  One of the three lead writers of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), a national initiative with roots in No Child Left Behind and other federal government education programs, recently told a Columbia University education magazine parents should avoid helping children with their math homework.  Jason Zimba, co-author of the CCSS math standards, told a reporter for The Hechinger Report, Columbia University Teaching College's trade magazine, parents should not help children with their homework because government school teachers are trained professionals who are better equipped than parents to help students learn.

Cruz launches homeschool coalition, slams Common Core.  The Ted Cruz presidential campaign launched a homeschool coalition with a new video explaining why the Republican candidate is a strong supporter of school choice options.  "Being a dad is the most important job I have.  That's why I admire each parent educator so much, because you're not only parenting, but you're teaching your sons and daughters to know and love what is right and good.

McKinsey's New "Slate"-style SAT Intimidates "Slate" Nonreaders, Like Immigrants, Poor, Blacks.  I've been following for several years the fabulous career of former McKinsey consultant David Coleman, founder of the Common Core and then head of the College Board, which puts him in charge of rewriting the SAT and PSAT.  When a sample version of Coleman's new PSAT came out last April, I pointed out that the reading selections sound like excerpts from Slate.com back when Michael Kinsley was editor in the late 1990s. [...] I'm sure Mickey Kaus or Timothy Noah would ace Coleman's new SAT, but does Coleman really know what he's getting himself into?

Common Core Testing Company Fails to Meet Testing Mandate in Three States.  New Hampshire-based company Measured Progress, which developed online Common Core tests used in Montana, Nevada, and North Dakota, has acknowledged a major glitch in the tests' rollout.  Technical malfunctions, such as servers crashing during testing, resulted in only 37 percent of Nevada students being able to take their exams.  Meanwhile, Montana and North Dakota only managed to test 76 percent and 84 percent of students, respectively.  Though Measured Progress admitted the online test completion rate in all three states failed to meet the federal mandate of 95 percent of 3rd through 8th graders, the company denies any breach of contract.  Measured Progress was tasked with rolling out the Common Core-aligned Smarter Balanced assessments online for all three states.

Denver: Schoolgirls Forced to Wear Headscarves, "Ankles Must Be Covered" on School Trip to Denver Mosque.  School girls at a Douglas County public school in Colorado are being forced to cover up from head-to-toe to visit a mosque on a school mandated Common Core trip.  There are no requirements to visit a Greek Orthodox cathedral or synagogue.  Here again we see that anywhere American law and Islamic law conflict, it is American law that has to give way.  The subjugation and oppression of women are enshrined under the sharia.  Young school girls should not be forced to "respect" a dress code that represents honor violence, female genital mutilation, forced marriage, child marriage, et al.

Study: Common Core and Aligned Testing Consortia Illegal.  A study recently published by the Pioneer Institute says Common Core standards and associated tests are directing the country toward a nationally driven curriculum, in violation of federal law, and it says the Obama administration used stimulus money to coerce states into adopting the program.  Federal Overreach and Common Core, written by Bill Evers, a research fellow at the Hoover Institution, provides a social, historical, and legal look at the effect of the new standards on the nation's educational landscape.  Evers proposes a return to state-based testing and standards to create a legal and more academically promising educational environment.

Common Core Math Standards Writer Tells Parents To Back Off From Helping Children With Homework.  One of the lead writers of the Common Core math standards is advising parents to avoid teaching their children how to do math problems, focusing instead on just making sure the assignments get done.  "The math instruction on the part of parents should be low," says Jason Zimba, who is also the father of two children.  "The teacher is there to explain the curriculum."

The Editor says...
Unionized public school teachers want the parents' involvement to be zero, because if the parents figure out that they can teach their kids better at home, the public school teachers will be left with only the dregs.  The teachers don't want the parents to assist their children because then the parents would get a good look at the curriculum.

Common Core Math Standards Encourage Dubious 'Inquiry-Based' Approaches.  Purveyors of the inquiry-based and student-centered math agenda, which has persisted for more than 20 years, argue traditionally taught math has never worked for the vast majority of the nation's student population, and they say mental math is the key to "understanding," as opposed to what they consider to be rote procedures. [...] The analytic, problem-solving, and critical-thinking capabilities inquiry-based math proponents tout as the stated goal of Common Core only develop after students master facts and procedures.  Understanding works in tandem with procedural fluency, but the current emphasis on conceptual understanding places the cart before the horse.  Proponents of inquiry-based math point to students' procedural fluency as evidence "they can do it but they don't know what they're doing," but the reality is the students cannot do the math if they do not master the procedures.

The New Preschool Is Crushing Kids.  Step into an American preschool classroom today and you are likely to be bombarded with what we educators call a print-rich environment, every surface festooned with alphabet charts, bar graphs, word walls, instructional posters, classroom rules, calendars, schedules, and motivational platitudes — few of which a 4-year-old can "decode," the contemporary word for what used to be known as reading.  Because so few adults can remember the pertinent details of their own preschool or kindergarten years, it can be hard to appreciate just how much the early-education landscape has been transformed over the past two decades.  The changes are not restricted to the confusing pastiche on classroom walls.  Pedagogy and curricula have changed too, most recently in response to the Common Core State Standards Initiative's kindergarten guidelines.

Common Core Damage Will Last for Years to Come.  Common Core (CC) K-12 math and English standards are lingering, despite concerted efforts by concerned parents and taxpayers to remove them.  It is like a house with an underwater mortgage:  The United States has invested so much in Common Core that it can't easily get out.  The investments include very large amounts spent on textbooks, computers to support the Common Core tests, and teacher training.  The investment also includes some hard-to-quantify things:  the squandered opportunity, the huge expenditure of political capital, the disaffection of millions of parents, and the psychological harm to students who face spending many more years living out the classroom consequences of a discredited educational experiment.  Students face those extra years of miseducation simply because there is no easy exit from Common Core.  The textbooks and computers have been purchased, and the teachers have been trained.  Even the states running for the exit door have a long wind-down ahead of them.

Goodbye To All That: Common Core Forces Fiction From US Classrooms, Lowers Test Scores.  The Common Core standards — now instituted in more than 40 states — mandate that nonfiction books constitute at least 70 percent of the texts read by high school students.  The nonfiction-heavy reading regime has forced English teachers nationwide to ditch short stories, poetry and literary classics such as "Huckleberry Finn" and "The Great Gatsby" in favor of dry how-to manuals and dated dispatches from the Federal Reserve.

Massachusetts abandons Common Core tests, but [its] impact is here to stay.  The Massachusetts State Board of Education has voted to forego Common Core testing in favor of redesigning its own state exam, an influential move from a national education leader that may hasten the end of a national high-stakes testing era, while challenging education experts to come up with a better alternative.  Under intense pressure from both the right and left of the political spectrum, states have been practically tripping over each other to drop the controversial tests:  Parents complained they were too hard, conservatives alleged they represented a federal takeover, and teachers' unions decried test score-based teacher evaluations.  Only 20 states, plus the District of Columbia, are currently scheduled to continue with PARCC or Smarter Balanced tests aligned with Common Core standards.

Author on Common Core: 'A Comprehensive Dumbing Down of American Education at Every Level'.  "The Common Core is supposed to be improving state standards in education, but its bigger effect has been a comprehensive dumbing down of American education at every level, from kindergarten through graduate school," Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, said in an interview with CNSNews.com.  Wood is a co-author of Drilling Through the Core: Why Common Core is Bad for American Education, published in September by Pioneer Press.  The book includes Wood's history of the Common Core controversy and critical essays by more than a dozen mathematicians and English scholars.

Does Common Core hurt minority students the most?  Common Core embraces student-centered "discovery" learning, where the teacher acts as (to use the popular cliché) a "guide on the side" rather than a "sage on the stage."  In other words, the teacher is supposed to teach less and "facilitate" more.  Especially for disadvantaged students, that pedagogy does not work.  Project Follow Through, the largest and most expensive government education study in history, proved this by following 79,000 Head Start participant children for years to determine the best means of educating them.  Moreover, Common Core math locks children into a slowed-down progression that ultimately leaves children unprepared for higher education.

Common Core: third grade math question claims 5+5+5=15 is NOT correct.  Parents are venting their outrage at the Common Core school standards over a math quiz that was posted online, showing how teachers are marking students down even for correct answers.

Common Core Takes Shots at the Second Amendment.  A study guide titled, "The Battle Over Gun Control," that was authored by an affiliate of the supposed neutral National Public Radio and in collaboration with the National Writing Project, is slanted heavily against the Second Amendment in favor of stringent gun control.  The guide begins by stating that it's "a battle over priorities:  the constitutional right to bear arms vs. an effort to reduce violence."  It continues:  "The U.S. has the highest gun ownership rate in the world and the highest gun violence rate of any wealthy nation.  It also has some of the loosest gun control laws."  From there it goes into the horror of Sandy Hook and makes the claim that every "attempt to enact moderate new gun control measures this spring was voted down in the Senate, due in part to the powerful political influence of gun rights groups like the National Rifle Association."

Also posted under gun control indoctrination in schools.

A Key Part Of Common Core Isn't Working Out.  According to backers, Common Core was supposed to make it a lot easier to compare standardized test scores between participating states.  Ohio, Illinois, and Massachusetts all administered Common Core tests created by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), a testing consortium that produces similar tests all member states.  But despite taking nearly identical tests, each state classified what a "passing" score was differently.  So in Ohio, two-thirds of students "passed" despite having real scores that were lower than Massachusetts', where only half of all students passed.  The discrepancy occurred because Ohio bolstered its passing rate by simply declaring that students who scored in the "approached expectations" range were "proficient."

Jeb Bush, Marco Rubio spar over Common Core.  When Rubio, who has served as a senator from Florida since 2010, was asked why Bush is wrong for supporting the national education standards, he was direct.  "Here is the problem with Common Core.  The Department of Education will never be satisfied.  They will not stop with making it a suggestion.  They will make it a mandate.  In fact, what they will say to local communities is, 'You will not get federal money if you don't do things the way we want you to.'  They will use Common Core and any other requirements that exist nationally to force it down the throats of our people in our states."

Schools Threatened by Feds Over Massive Number of Common Core Opt-Outs.  From coast to coast, states throughout the country are trying to find any way possible to escape the widespread mess of Common Core.  Recently, a large number of Long Island schools were at the center of attention when they reported having the highest number of Common Core opt-outs in the nation.  Due to the immense number of students who refused to take place in the intrusive and cumbersome standardized tests, two schools in Long Island risk losing their prized national "Blue Ribbon" award for academic excellence nominations.

Dad fed up with his son's Common Core homework makes out a school check using the controversial math.  Fed up with Common Core, Doug Herrmann went for common sense.  The Ohio dad was sick and tired of not being able to help his son — who is in the second grade — do his homework, after his school adopted the controversial Common Core standard.  In order to make his point, Herrmann wrote a check to Milridge Elementary School in Plainesville, using Common Core numbers — a chart with x's and 0's — in order to show just how confusing the technique is.

Nine Signs of the Impending American Collapse.  American pre-university education, with its inbred pedagogical and curricular decrepitude, has been further compromised by the entrenching of the Common Core program, characterized by coercive federal intrusion and string-attached funding, monopoly publishing and testing, elimination of pivotal American figures and historical events, a leftist disposition, and a powerful pro-Muslim bias.  Higher education is in no better shape.

As Common Core testing results trickle in, initial goals unfulfilled.  Results for some of the states that participated in Common Core-aligned testing for the first time this spring are out, with overall scores higher than expected though still below what many parents may be accustomed to seeing.

Why Does Common Core Require Teaching Islam?  Should parents be penalized for demanding that their child be exempted from the required teaching of Islamic in Common Core curriculum?  Should a teach or public school administrator penalize parents and children for seeking exemption?  Parents are finding out the answers to these questions first hand.  To date, public school students are required to:
  •   Attend public school-sponsored trips to mosques, which also require non-Muslim girls to wear head scarves
  •   Question if the Holocaust was "merely a political scheme created to influence public emotion and gain"
  •   Learn Islamic indoctrination via vocabulary lessons, and world history (from an Islamic perspective), including the five pillars of Islam
  •   Pledge allegiance to the flag in Arabic
  •   Have school days off for "Muslim holy days"
  •   Proselytize to younger school children by creating a pamphlet about Islam to "introduce Islam to 3rd graders" by describing Allah as the same God of Christians and Jews
  •   Recite in class the Shahada ("There is No God but Allah") and kneel and learn to pray the Muslim call to prayer

Bush's Common Core Obfuscation.  Given Bush's past support for Common Core, Marco Rubio wasn't buying Bush's disavowal of support for federal standards.  He responded:  ["]Here's the problem with Common Core:  the Department of Education, like every federal agency, will never be satisfied.  They will not stop with it being a suggestion, they will turn it into a mandate...  They will use Common Core or any other requirements that exist nationally to force it down the throats of our people and our states.["]  Bush countered:  "If states want to opt out of Common Core, fine; just make sure your standards are high."

Common Core: Who Is Teaching Your Children?  Common Core is becoming a rigid national scheme with backers who will make a great deal of money from it.  Once fully in place, there will be no alternative.  The Common Core standards are not any more effective than our current New York State curricula, but it is likely to be a costly and unfunded mandate.  Privacy rights are being sacrificed.  Databases are established with every piece of information on the child including personal and business data on the child's family.  Family privacy law has been gutted so information can be shared.  It will result in a centralized collection of data on every child, sacrificing family privacy in the process.  The Department of Education is talking about sharing the family information with the Department of Labor.  It has to result in the nationalization of education.  It is a Marxist education that parallels the U.N. education goals and it brainwashes children in Progressive ideals such as extreme environmentalism because the government is picking the publishers of materials and collectors of data such as Pierson and they are predominantly far-left.  All children will get the same education and it will eliminate school choice.

Common Core Is Rewriting History Like a Tin Pot Dictatorship.  Abraham Lincoln's religion was Liberal, George Bush stole the election, social justice is the only justice, and the Electoral College is a mistake.  That is what students are being taught in their math classes thanks to the federal government and a number of large corporations.  The Core is merely a set of standards according to the proponents.  That is incorrect.  The government and the large corporations own the copyright to the Standards and the lessons are approved and encouraged by the government.  The publishing company Pearson is intimately tied into the government and the Common Core and is one of the worst offenders, spewing misinformation and politically-biased lessons.

Common Core PARCC Test Consortium in 'Death Spiral,' Boston Globe Admits.  Common Core test consortium PARCC — which has dropped from 26 member-states down to fewer than 10 — is in a "death spiral," says the Boston Globe.  The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is one of two federally funded interstate test consortia that have been developing tests aligned with the controversial Common Core standards.  The high-stakes tests are critical to the education reform initiative that forces teachers to adhere closely to the standards in the classroom in order to produce positive student test results.

GOP: 'Whether your state adopts Common Core is entirely your state's decision'.  No issue has stirred as much controversy as testing.  No Child Left Behind required students to take 17 standardized tests over the course of their Kindergarten through the 12th grade education, and it attached high stakes for schools, school districts, and states to the results.  As we studied the problem, the issue seemed not to be so much the federal tests, but the stakes attached to them.  A third grader, for example, is required to take only one test in math and one in reading.

The nation's biggest Common Core test [is] circling the drain.  Arkansas's board of education voted Thursday to dump a national standardized test aligned with Common Core math and science standards, while New York elected not to adopt the test at all.  Back in 2011, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) had 24 member states (plus D.C.) containing over half the country's schoolchildren.  The group, a consortium of state school leaders, was crafted to create shared state tests closely aligned to Common Core standards in math and English.  Its scope reflected the ambition of Common Core backers to have every state using similar standardized tests for the sake of easier comparison.  Now, only seven states plus D.C. are scheduled to administer the test next year, making the idea of truly "national" comparison seem hollow.

California school backtracks on Common Core opt-out punishment.  A California high school where a majority of juniors opted out of Common Core testing has backed off of plans to ban the students from using the school's parking lot and from taking part in senior class activities after parents and education groups raised a fuss.  C.J. Foss, principal of Calabasas High School in Los Angeles County, last week sent an email to seniors-to-be announcing that certain privileges would be withheld from students who skipped the controversial test, which detractors say is an attempt to nationalize America's public education system.

Nevada's Common Core Tests Turn Into Costly Fiasco.  Under No Child Left Behind, states are supposed to test children in grades 3-8 each year in mathematics and reading.  At least 95 percent of students must take the tests, or else a state can face federal sanctions such as a loss of millions of dollars in funds.  Nevada, on the other hand, was only able to test 37 percent of the 213,000 students it was supposed to, thanks to a cascade of glitches and computer problems that left students unable to complete their exams.  In Clark County, which contains the Las Vegas metro area and over half the state's students, only 5 percent were successfully tested.

Mom says third-grade daughter [was] banned from school party for Common Core opt-out.  A New Jersey mom says her third-grade daughter was "bullied" by school officials — left out of an end-of-year cupcake and juice box party — because she opted out of the state's version of Common Core testing.  Michele Thornton, of Oldmans Township, said school officials would not let 9-year-old Cassidy participate in Monday's [6/15/2015] party, telling her the bash was only for students who took the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) exams.  Thornton feels especially bad because it was she who told the girl not to take the controversial test, which critics say is part of a plan by Washington to nationalize school curriculums.

Meet the New Common Core.  Governors around the country, including many former Common Core supporters, are considering strangling the Common Core in its crib.  Indiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina have already adopted new bespoke state standards.  Democracy in action!  There's just one problem.  What's replacing the Common Core is, by and large, the same thing in a new package.  Standardized tests certainly aren't going anywhere.  States that have dumped exams aligned with the Common Core aren't dumping high-stakes testing; they're just switching to new tests, like the ACT's Aspire.

The War against Black Children.  This is an easy matter for everyone to check.  Just ask any black parents you know who have (or had) children in elementary school.  Go ahead, ask them.  That's the only way we are going to confront and cure this thing.  Here's the key question:  Did your children bring home lists of sight-words to be memorized?  If that was the method of instruction, then those kids were doomed from the start never to become good readers. [...] While memorizing sight-words is the one best example of foolish educational methods, it's not the only culprit.  Reform Math mangles arithmetic.  Constructivism isn't a good way to teach facts and knowledge.  Common Core in general embraces all the worst ideas from past decades.  There is, in every academic area, a war against knowledge.  And as there are often no informed, confident parents to defend them, black children are more likely to be damaged by this war.

Common Core nightmare in science: Climate change indoctrination hits 13 states.  Several U.S. states are noticing a troubling thread in Common Core science lessons:  an attempt to convince students that climate change is real.  Thirteen states and the District of Columbia have now signed on to Common Core's Next Generation of Science Standards, according to Fox News.  And tucked inside the new guidelines is global warming-speak with definitive ties to the U.S. government.

More about environmentalism in schools.

Chris Christie Dumps Common Core in NJ.  Chris Christie is the first of the potential GOP presidential candidates who first embraced Common Core to distance himself from it. [...] That Common Core doesn't work — can't work — is no surprise to those of us who oppose it, but it is interesting to see that Christie has changed his tune as he struggles to rebuild his reputation with conservatives.

Real Education Reform: Opt Out of Common Core.  Common Core was adopted to bring our educational standards up to those of our foreign competitors.  But standards the states had adopted to be guideposts on a trail have, instead, become an HOV, "one-size-fits-all" express-lane curriculum without so much as a passing lane, an exit ramp, or a rest stop.  Even supporters like Randi Weingarten, the head of the American Federation of Teachers, are citing its failures.  "You think the Obamacare implementation is bad?  The implementation of the Common Core is far worse," she said.

Scholar: Under New AP Standards, 'American History Will Not Be About America'.  Stanley Kurtz, a senior fellow with the Ethics and Public Policy Center, sees America being fundamentally transformed by a host of pernicious Obama policies, including education initiatives which are nationalizing school curriculum without a single vote.  This month, America's best and brightest high school students will take a controversial new advanced placement U.S. history (APUSH) test crafted by many of the same ideologues — including David Coleman — who birthed the unpopular Common Core standards for math and English.

Jeb Bush is Dead Wrong on Common Core.  Jeb Bush has a new immature insult for parents, university professors and teachers who recognize Common Core standards are a hindrance to your children's education:  "You believe in unicorns." [...] If you don't believe in Common Core like he does, Jeb Bush says you're an ignorant fantasist.  Conservatives have been reporting on Common Core problems since the federal government first shocked Americans with the scheme, threatening states by refusing billions of dollars in education funding if they don't blindly accept the deal.  Liberals snickered.  Parents working exhaustedly with their school children began studying the assessment tests and learned firsthand of the problems.  Soon after, college professors researching Common Core discovered the standards will not help high school students be ready for college.

Somewhat related:
Farmington teacher who handed out PARCC exam opt-out forms won't have contract renewed.  The Farmington Municipal School District will not renew the contract of the Esperanza Elementary School teacher who was placed on leave for giving her students paperwork in class for opting out of state testing, the teacher said on Monday [5/4/2015].  After meeting with district administrators Monday, fifth-grade teacher Sharon Yocum said she was told the district would pay her for the rest of her one-year contract, but it would not be renewed.

Obama 'Education' Secretary: If Parents Opt Out of Common Core, Feds Will Force Them Back In.  Ed Sec Arnie Duncan — an old Chicago hack and Obama buddy — is warning states that they better stop this drive away from Common Core.  He also warns that if this business where parents and local citizens think they have control over education continues, why, Obama is going to come down like a ton of bricks on all of you.  You better drop that silly notion that your kids belong to you, America.

West Virginia Students Being Suspended For Opting Out Of Common Core Tests.  Parents of students at Liberty High School in West Virginia are receiving phone calls from the school indicating that their child will be suspended if they opt out of Common Core testing next week.

Obama Education Secretary: Parents Who Opt Out of Common Core are Racists.  Secretary of Education Arne Duncan issued a veiled threat to the parents and students who choose to opt out of Common Core testing — The Feds "have an obligation to step in."  Federal law, under No Child Left Behind, requires 95 percent of students in a state to take the annual standardized tests in reading and math from grades 3-8.  It is a requirement which until now has never needed enforcement or consideration.  With as many as 184,000 students in New York choosing to opt out, the 95 percent threshold will not only be in jeopardy, it will be an easily missed mark.

The Common Core Resistance Now Has a Song!.  A bunch of moms in a garage band in Massachusetts have recorded a new version of the Beatles song "Revolution" to give voice to their opposition to Common Core.  Dressed in jeans, anti-Common Core t-shirts, and tri-cornered hats, The Revolution Band sings that "politicians fear no retribution" and that "control and money's is what it's about."  [Video clip]

Study: Common Core Barely Improves Student Performance, If It's a Boost at All.  The Common Core State Standards represent a sea change in American education policy, but evidence for the standards' effectiveness has been hard to come by.  As I noted last fall, George Washington University's compendium of over 60 research articles related to the Common Core contained just two papers analyzing its impact on test scores, and the evidence was mixed at best.  Even the Common Core's validation committee acknowledged the lack of evidence behind the movement.  "It was pretty clear from the start that nobody thought there was sufficient evidence for any of the standards," one committee member said.

Common Core ties to Libya, Qatar, Saudi Arabia.  "Where did Common Core come from?" is a question I often hear from parents as I travel the country speaking about the Islamic infiltration of America. Because in 2014-15 America, public school students via Common Core are:
  •   Participating in public school-sponsored trips to mosques via taxpayer expense, girls must wear head scarves (Colorado parents complain)
  •   Debating whether or not the Holocaust was "merely a political scheme created to influence public emotion and gain," (an eighth-grade assignment defended by the Rialto Unified School District, Los Angeles)
  •   Pledging allegiance in Arabic (New York)
  •   Observing two "Muslim holy days," (New York City)
  •   Being taught Islamic vocabulary lessons (North Carolina)
  •   Being taught Islamic culture (Tennessee)
  •   Being taught world history from Islamic perspective (Florida) that includes learning about the five pillars of Islam (Maryland father, a Marine Corps veteran, complains and is banned from school grounds)
  •   Told to proselytize by creating a pamphlet about Islam to "introduce Islam to 3rd graders" that introduces Allah to children as the same God of the Christians and Jews (Michigan)
  •   Reciting in class the Shahada, "There is No God but Allah," and the Muslim call to prayer (Massachusetts)

More about Islamic indoctrination in American schools.

Common Core Indoctrination of the Nation's Young.  Common Core is a curriculum to be very wary of based on the people who are putting it together, one of whom is Linda-Darling Hammond who was endorsed by domestic terrorist Bill Ayers for Secretary of Education and served as an advisor to the Obama campaign.  What exactly is Common Core?  Essentially it is a standardized, all-out assault on learning:  it is designed to further lower schools standards and is supported by the teachers' unions which have a self-serving interest in avoiding as much accountability as possible; the lower the standards, the less push back against the teachers, too many of whom are failing the young trapped in the government schools.

Common Core Islamic Indoctrination Textbook Has Floridians Outraged.  Common Core Islamic indoctrination of students in American schools is overt.  This is the goal.  In Volusia County Florida, hundreds are protesting the ode to Islam that is "World History," a Common Core approved high school history textbook.  With an entire chapter dedicated to the virtues of Islam, and not a single chapter for Christianity, the textbook has Floridians in a frenzy.  And who is the biggest pusher of Common Cores besides leftist progressives?  The Islamic Society of North America, another Muslim Brotherhood front group, along with Hamas-CAIR; and in Florida, Hamas-CAIR is on the offensive.

Williamson County, TN Schools Ban Christianity and TEACH Islam.  Julie West, founder of Parents for Truth in Education, finds some scary stuff on the Williamson County, TN Schools website.  She goes to the 7th grade Social Studies page and points out a few shocking things, beginning with the fact that we have been told "Common Core is only Language Arts (English) and Math."  First red flag.  Here are other red flags that prove Common Core has an Islamic agenda prepared for the minds of our next American generation. [...]

Anti-Common Core amendment passes Senate vote.  An anti-Common Core budget amendment passed a Senate vote Thursday [3/26/2015], allowing states to opt-out of the educational standards without penalty from the federal government.  The amendment would also prohibit the federal government from "mandating, incentivizing, or coercing" states into adopting Common Core or any other standards, instructional content, curricula, assessments, or instruction programs.

Teacher Admits He Wrote Common Core To End White Privilege.  A professor at Granite State College and chair of the history department at the Derryfield School in Manchester, New Hampshire admitted to writing the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts in order to end white privilege.  According to the response heard on the video, Dr. David Pook shocked the audience at an event at New Hampshire Institute of Politics when he made the following statement: [...]

Wyoming Now to Indoctrinate School Kids in Global Warming.  Wyoming may become the first state to force global warming on kids as part of a state enforced grade school curriculum.  Worse, it is a Republican Governor who is signing the bill.  In fact, the bill Republican Governor Matt Mead just signed a bill that re-instates the Common Core-styled state education standards that are falling out of favor everywhere else in the country.  The re-instated standards maintain that global warming is real and caused by human activity.

Parents Stage Common Core Sit-Out.  This week several states test whether their students are meeting common core standards — but some students are sitting out in protest, the New York Times reports.  Students who choose to sit out won't see serious punishments, but if enough don't take the test, the school as a whole could face consequences, like lost funds or amped up monitoring.  It's not clear exactly how many people will be in on this 'sit-out,' but what's particularly notable is the assortment of coalitions sympathetic to their cause.

8th Grader Suspended for Informing Classmates of Standardized Test 'Opt-Out'.  A New Mexico eighth-grader was suspended from school for letting her classmates know that they could opt out of the state's new online standardized test.  12-year-old Adelina Silva printed out the forms from her own school's website and was rewarded with a trip to the principal's office.

Jeb Bush tries to ease concerns over support for Common Core.  Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, trying to tamp down conservative criticism over his support for Common Core, told thousands of activists on Friday [2/27/2015] that he opposes the federal government pushing any kind of educational standards on states, as President Obama's Department of Education has been doing.  "This president, and this Department of Education, there's a risk that they will intrude, and they have as it relates to Race to the Top," Bush said as he spoke to the audience at the Conservative Political Action Conference.

Kansas educators worry Common Core repeal could hurt AP classes, IB programs.  Critics of a bill in the Kansas Legislature that seeks to repeal Common Core standards say the measure could affect and possibly even do away with some AP classes and International Baccalaureate programs.  House Bill 2292 would compel Kansas school districts to return to reading, math, science and other standards that were in place in 2010, before the state adopted its Common Core-inspired Kansas College and Career Ready Standards.  The measure — and another like it in the Kansas Senate — also calls for AP, IB and similar courses and tests to be aligned with the 2010 Kansas standards.  Educators say that directive would be difficult, if not impossible, because such courses are modeled on national or international frameworks.

The Common Core: Something to Like and Loathe.  [Scroll down]  There is a reason behind this madness: progressives hate memorization.  The Common Core approach to math is to find "holistic" ways of basic arithmetic.  It's the kind of thing which is so dumb that you have to have gone to a fancy school to believe in it.  Just be glad you're not being subjected to this, and that you learned math the traditional way.  Also on the negative side of the Common Core ledger:  teacher "accountability."  I'm against "holding teachers accountable."  That is to say that I oppose what that phrase connotes, rather than the principle of accountability per se.  Common Core is associated with a testing regime that will ultimately be used to evaluate teachers.  Teach in the ghetto?  Then this is bad news for you, sir.

Watch the Frustration as 3 High School Girls Take a 6th Grade Common Core Math Test.  Three high school students from Elyria, Ohio, took a 6th grade Common Core math test last week and recorded their efforts.  They described their experience in a post on an anti-testing Facebook page.  Two of the girls are seniors and the third is in 10th grade. [...]The girl on the right says she could probably figure out the answers if she had her graphing calculator, but her friend reminds her that 6th graders aren't allowed to use the more advanced calculators.  [Video clip]

Testing based on Common Core standards starts this week.  [Ohio] on Tuesday [2/17/2015] will be the first to administer one of two tests in English language arts and math based on the Common Core standards developed by two separate groups of states.

Common Core German Lesson.  [Otto von] Bismarck used his power to crush all domestic opposition.  He ruled with an iron rod.  And he used the schools to impose his own brand of discipline on the German people.  He cowed the parents by conscripting their children into government schools taught by government-appointed teachers, following a Berlin curriculum.  He legislated all this with his schulaufsichtsgesetz.  That's German for "School Administration Law."  And that's bureaucratese for Common Core.  Oh, and Bismarck was big on STEM.  Science, technology, engineering and math.  His new German Reich astonished the world with its technical achievements.

Top Teacher Winner Resigns Over Common Core Testing.  Stacie Starr, a veteran Elyria, Ohio, teacher who was chosen as the winner of the "Live with Kelly and Michael" 2014 Top Teacher Search, announced her retirement on Monday [2/9/2015], citing the increasing pressures on students and teachers under the mandated Common Core standards. [...] Starr spoke to a standing-room-only audience at the local public library and fought back tears as she announced her retirement at the end of the current school year.  "I can't do it anymore, not in this 'drill 'em and kill 'em' atmosphere," she said.

Bill Bennett Should Know Better!  Bill Bennett and Greg Abbott, governor of Texas, had a short debate about Common Core education programs on Fox News Sunday.  Bennett, like his fellow Common Core supporter, Jeb Bush, is very smart, but he makes the same mistake on Common Core that smart college students make when trying to defend "true" Marxism.  Their arguments center on stated ideals, stated intent, and stated expected final results, not on what actually happens with these government programs or forms of government.

Gov. Jerry Brown Hit With Massive $1 Billion Common Core Bill.  A rather expensive development has surfaced on the way to installing Common Core in California's hundreds of school districts statewide.  Officials have figured out that the big government initiative could collectively cost districts $1 billion every year to set up a new statewide testing system supporting the new curriculum.  The question is, who's going to pay for it?  According to the Santa Ana School District, the state, not the district, should foot the bill.

Common Core Follies: California report cards to include grades for 'grit', 'gratitude', 'sensitivity to others'.  The entire state of California pubic education system is to begin grading students on matters a teacher cannot possibly know or evaluate objectively.  In a sign of descent into full indoctrination camp mode, the Common Cores standards adopted by the state are calling on teachers to grade students on their "grit, gratitude, and sensitivity to others."

Teacher Tearfully Opts Out of Common Core: 'Cruel and Harmful'.  A sixth grade English teacher at Ichabod Crane in upstate New York broke down in tears in front of the school board, as she requested to be reassigned when it comes time to issue the Common Core ELA Assessment tests for her students.  Jennifer Rickert told the board that the Common Core curriculum was well beyond a sixth-grader's language development and referred to the testing as "cruel and harmful."  She added that she could no longer remain silent, and that she doesn't "believe in knowingly setting my students up for failure."  [Video clip]

Let me tell you about the Common Core test Malia and Sasha don't have to take but Eva does.  I get a lot of e-mail from parents and teachers who wonder if President Obama, whose children go to the private Sidwell Friends School, knows what is actually going on with all of the standardized testing in public schools.  Here's an open letter to Obama explaining what he is missing, written by Rebecca Steinitz, a literacy consultant in urban high schools, a writer and an editor.

Louisiana's Common Core Debacle.  John White may be the silver-tongued boy wonder of the school reform movement, lauded for his political acumen and often mentioned as a future U.S. secretary of education.  But last fall, Louisiana's whip-smart and occasionally cantankerous education superintendent found himself on a lonely mission: driving his state-issued Prius along the Bayou State's two-lane highways, stopping at churches, schools and Chamber of Commerce meeting halls, promoting the embattled Common Core learning standards to a state whose governor no longer wants them

Common Core Backers Try to Scare States into Keeping Fed Standards.  In short, the more parents and taxpayers learn about it, the less they like it, and a growing number of states are looking for the nearest exit, including Indiana, along with South Carolina, Missouri, and Oklahoma.  States considering ditching the national standards also include Tennessee and Mississippi, and several more states are dumping their membership in taxpayer-subsidized Common Core testing consortia.  In fact, the election of incoming Arizona Superintendent of Public Instruction Diane Douglas is widely hailed as a victory for parental and local control over education, and a real blow to Common Core and the federal control of education it represents.

Common Core: Continuing the lies that Divide America.  If you look at the "peaceful protestors" talking part in the recent demonstrations across America, what do you see?  Young people who are products of the public school system.  If you listen to the "peaceful protestors" what do you hear?  Lies about America that were "taught" in the public schools.  As if we need another reason to be cynical regarding Common Core, it continues the lies the built Ferguson.  There is no doubt that our schools are places where a leftist agenda is being pushed but it gets even more sinister.  Are we deliberately encouraging these protests and the resulting civil unrest?  The unrest and the "change" we are seeing in the attitudes of the young is the result of several different factors, one being what is taught in the public schools.

You won't believe how Common Core tries to teach kids subtraction.  You'll think this is satire, but Michael Snyder assures us that it is anything but.

Jeb Bush "Owns" Common Core.  George Will understands why conservatives are revolted by the Common Core standards.  Jeb Bush either does not understand or, perhaps worse, does not care.  Either way, Bush owns his insistence upon the highly controversial education initiative, a position that will likely cost him with most conservatives in a presidential bid, and should also matter to all Republicans.

Common Core Vocabulary Teaches About Mohammed and Islam.  Farmville, North Carolina has given their high school seniors Commonc Core aligned lessons on Prophet Mohammed and Islam.  Some parents and students would like to know why.  "It really caught me off guard," a Farmville Central High School student who was in the class said, according to Todd Starnes.  "If we are not allowed to talk about any other religions in school — how is this appropriate?"

Common Core: Why are 10th graders reading pornography?  Recently, the ND Superintendent of Public Instruction Kirsten Baesler wrote a letter to the Grand Forks Herald in an attempt to clear up many of the myths around Common Core Standards versus what many people refer to as the "Common Core Curriculum."  In order to create some context for tonight's conversation, I would like to share some of her letter with you.

High School: Islamic vocabulary lesson part of Common Core standards.  Parents in Farmville, North Carolina want to know why their children were given a Common Core vocabulary assignment in an English class that promoted the Prophet Muhammad and the Islamic faith.  "It really caught me off guard," a Farmville Central High School student who was in the class told me.  "If we are not allowed to talk about any other religions in school — how is this appropriate?"  The Islamic vocabulary worksheet was assigned to seniors.

Jeb Bush's Unseemly Love Affair with Communist Core.  Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush embraces one-size-fits-all national education standards that would turn schools into re-education camps for the left.  His decision could cause trouble with GOP primary voters.

100-Year-Old Math Teacher Blasts Common Core.  Madeline Scotto, a 100-year-old math teacher at Brooklyn's St. Ephrem's School, had some things to say about the Common Core math methods.

Critics say Common Core includes collecting psych data on kids.  A little-known aspect of Common Core should have students worried about what goes on the dreaded "permanent record," say critics of the national education standard. [...] The process, set to play out throughout the country in what critics call a "womb to workplace" information system, was originally developed by the Department of Labor and contains information on every U.S. citizen under the age of 26.  Most of the information on individuals is collected while K-12 students are in school, and includes names, grades and information such as personality traits, behavior patterns and even fingerprints.  The state of Pennsylvania was one of the early adopters of the data mining and contributed to the framework for a nationwide program.  Both groups allege that any state entity as well as outside contractors can access personal information.

Chinese-American Mom Says Common Core Is Just Like Education in Communist China.  Lily Tang Williams, a mother of three, testified before the Colorado State Board of Education that Common Core was similar to the education she received growing up in Mao's Communist China.  "Common Core, in my eyes, is the same as the Communist core I once saw in China," Williams said.  "I grew up under Mao's regime and we had the Communist-dominated education — nationalized testing, nationalized curriculum, and nationalized indoctrination."

Opposition to Common Core spurs jump in homeschooling.  The home-schooling boom is getting a new push due to opposition to Common Core, the controversial national education standard that some parents claim is using their children's public school lessons to push a political agenda, according to critics of the Washington-backed curriculum.  North Carolina, already a home-schooling hotbed, saw a 14 percent rise last year in the number of students being educated at home, according to a report from Heartlander Magazine. Similar increases have been seen in Virginia, California and New York, according to education activists.

Common Core: Just Standards or Deceit?  There are many things that concern this parent and teacher involving the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), the least of which is the actual standards themselves.  My work as a teacher exposes me directly to what seem to be underhanded acts of educational tyranny. [...] Today, the testing of CCSS is being used to ultimately transfer local control, in violation of the Tenth Amendment, to the federal government.  With that transfer comes the possibility that this power in the hands of the federal government could be used for worrisome purposes.

Chinese American woman: Common Core in U.S. same as Communist Core in China.  Lilly Williams, mother of three and and originally from China, tells a Colorado school board that Common Core here in the U.S. is the same as Communist Core in China which, according to her, prevented children from growing up as independent thinkers.

Two More States Eye Repeal of Common Core.  On the heels of Republican victories last week, attempts to replace Common Core with homegrown standards are resurfacing in states across the nation.  Most prominently, elected officials in Wisconsin and Ohio are spearheading efforts to reclaim more control of education.  On Nov. 5, the day after the midterm elections, an Ohio House committee passed a bill to repeal the Common Core standards.

Public School Maven Predicts Public School-Free Cities in Ten Years.  Diane Ravitch says that America's urban public schools are about to go belly-up, killed by the Right (charter schools) and the Left (the Common Core curriculum).  I dearly hope she is correct.

Teachers join parents in questioning Common Core.  The poll, released in October, shows that almost two-thirds of public school teachers dislike the program.  Four in 10 teachers view it positively and 44 [percent] negatively, Gallup found.  "It is rare that someone learns more about Common Core and likes it more," says Jane Robbins with the American Principles Project.

Students are Fleeing Common Core's Sinking Ship.  It is fairly common knowledge by now that most people aren't happy with the Common Core education standards that state and federal governments are trying to ram down their throats.  From needlessly convoluted math problems to anti-American history curricula, Common Core makes education a maddening chore for students, parents, and teachers alike.  But what can parents do?

Why our family believes in homeschooling.  The Common Core curriculum, which is now being forced upon teachers and students in schools across the country, is using students as guinea pigs.  We choose to not participate.  Many good teachers and many thoughtful parents I have spoken with agree firmly that the standardized tests have been a disaster.  It has forced schools to teach to the tests, to the great detriment of students' overall education.  Schools are dropping untested subjects such as art and music.  After all, why provide art and music classes?  They aren't tested.  Yet, it's self-evident that art and music are necessary to become a well-rounded person, and they complement science and math, as many a scientist will testify.  Schools are no longer emphasizing creativity and critical thinking (to the extent that they ever did).  Why not?  Because such things are not tested.

Common Core Seizes Control of Future Internet Education.  While the Common Core program is overtly directed at public, private and home elementary and secondary education, it quietly captures higher education as well, since control of the high school exits provides control of the college entrances.  Additionally, a bill now in Congress carries the Obama administration proposal to regulate private colleges that provide career training; that plus Common Core represents a fair start toward total federal control of U.S. education.  It seems telling that so comprehensive and far-reaching a shift in a democracy is not seen as newsworthy.

APUSH in the Wrong Direction.  The new Advanced Placement United States History curriculum (APUSH) is currently under debate.  The College Board has assured the public that the changes only enhance the course. Let's take a look at the course outline for APUSH to see if public concerns are legitimate.  After all, people may have different opinions, but it we all have the same facts.  APUSH now focuses on "themes" and not specific content.  This opens the door to an official infusion of what can be called a new American history in the mold of Howard Zinn, Thomas Bender, and the La Pietra Commission.  Not surprisingly, the changes come under the guidance of David Coleman, new head of AP and chief architect of Common Core.

The more parents learn of Common Core, the less they like it.  The more parents of public school students learn about Barack Obama's Common Core education agenda, the less they like it. [...] While greater public awareness has not improved Common Core support among Democrat-leaning parents, increased awareness has reduced support among Republican-leaning parents.  Among GOP supporters, 58% now have negative views of Common Core.  That's up from only 42% last spring.

Common Core Wears Many Hats.  Once upon a time a group of millionaires, billionaires were joined by a rather motley crew of people who decided to, (1) snatch our kids from us, (2) Constrain parents and teachers, (3) Take over our educational system in the USA and (4) Go global with their devious scheme.  In other words they would have sole control our children's education throughout the World.  These leeches have spent years organizing and planning the takeover of our children — Obama's job in this plan was to use Arne Duncan (sec of education) and several of his Muslim brotherhood buddies to establish the "mother of all data bases" in the takeover of our children.  Obama, as usual is jamming a "New World Order" down Americans throats!  Obama's Muslim Brotherhood is now partnering up with our Department of Education and the State Department to create an online program (Qatar) that will connect our United States schools with classrooms abroad.

Common Core Question Asks: "There are 25 Sheep and 5 Dogs in a Flock.  How Old is the Shepherd?"  This question has actually been researched for years, and is still being asked to children.  Today, however, it is now considered aligned with the common core because it forces children to think about their strategies in answering questions.

Under Common Core, Children Taught Jabberwocky Math.  In Oceania, 2 + 2 = 5, because Big Brother says so.  In the soft tyranny version of Oceania, 8 + 5 = 10, because Common Core says so.  This is what happens to math education when you let liberal ideologues use the federal government to take control of education throughout the country.

Hell-bent on Rewriting America's past.  There has been a lot of consternation that Common Core and new Advanced Placement United States History (APUSH) standards eviscerate the understanding of our exceptional history.  Most concerning is the anti-historical emphasis on social justice, globalism, environmentalism, race, class, and gender victimhood that undermines Western ideals, the Constitution, capitalism, and American culture.  Up to this point, definitive proof the new "standards" were deleterious was anecdotal.  But facts now show not only intent, but a vision and mission that bring schools face to face with forces bent on instilling a false shame Americas past for the purpose of establishing a global collective.  Where did this nonsense come from, who was behind it, and how could such a destructive approach to the history of our liberty occur?

Top Ten Things Parents Hate About Common Core.  This is the year new national Common Core tests kick in, replacing state tests in most locales, courtesy of an eager Obama administration and the future generation's tax dollars.  It's also the first year a majority of people interviewed tell pollsters they've actually heard of Common Core, four years after bureaucrats signed our kids onto this complete overhaul of U.S. education.  Common Core has impressed everyone from Bill Gates to U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan.  So why do 62 percent of parents think it's a bad idea?  For one, they can count.  But their kids can't.

Un-Common, Not Core.  [Scroll down]  The reform mathematicians who put together Common Core are ignoring cognitive development.  My Common Core pre-algebra students are hurried through the arithmetic review and taught the coordinate system.  They graph lines and parabolas.  They do transformations, exponents (including zero and negative exponents), and a truly horrendous percentage of percentage problems.  The homework can be finished in an hour if the student's parents can afford to hire a BS mechanical engineer to sit at his elbow and remind him when he takes a wrong turn.  Otherwise, he is up 'til midnight.  Students work hard at tasks beyond their strength; they flounder; they fail; they learn that math is no fun.  This isn't education.  This is child abuse.

Examining Conservative 'Support' for Common Core.  Most conservatives instinctively and correctly oppose Common Core.  The issue becomes muddy when a few high-profile conservatives appear to be in favor of it.  Such support provides a bottomless font of schadenfreude for Common Core's mostly liberal supporters and gives them an effective wedge issue.  Therefore, examining conservative "support" for national Common Core standards might be the single most important tactic in the fight against it.

Obama Administration Punishes Oklahoma for Rejecting Common Core.  The Obama administration has punished the state of Oklahoma for repealing the Common Core standards despite assertions that the standards are entirely "voluntary."  Last week Oklahoma became the second state to lose its waiver from the disastrous Bush-era No Child Left Behind (NCLB) scheme. [...] Common Core has come under significant fire from parents, teachers, and school administrators across the country this year, who declare that the standards are a bid by the federal government to take over the education system.  Additionally, privacy advocates have voiced concerns over the distribution to contractors of personally identifiable information about students and their families.

Anti-Americanism, Marxism, Porn, Pedophilia Now Available in the Classroom.  A Tea Party leader, Becky Gerritson, who testified before Congress last year and who told Congress "they had forgotten their place," testified before an Alabama Senate Education Committee in support of a bill to allow local school districts to opt out of Common Core.  Her testimony concentrated on the widely-used literature text, The American Experience: 1900-Present by Prentice Hall.  It is Common Core aligned. [...] Students are led to believe that our founding fathers were promoters of slavery.  They are not told the truth that slavery had been around for thousands of years and up until the 1700's our founders and the Quakers were the only distinct voices advocating the abolishment of slavery.  Students are led to believe that Benjamin Franklin thought the Constitution was a bad idea.  It's important to note that the US Constitution is nowhere to be found in this book.  America is portrayed as barbaric murderers when they dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima.  Students not taught about the thousands of pamphlets that were dropped on the city urging people to flee — or that the action was done to save millions of lives, nor are Students told even how the war started.

Book review:
The Story Killers by Dr. Terrence Moore.  Dr. Moore does the unthinkable:  he subjects the Common Core Standards to actual critical thinking (which they claim to promote).  "Since everyone loves the expression 'critical thinking' these days, let us subject these standards to a little critical thinking."  He questions the Common Core Initiative's obsession with technology and testing.  "Computers are a lot more like televisions than anyone is willing to admit... it is true that art teachers can now much more easily show their classes great paintings and sculptures by using the internet.  It is likewise true that history teachers can employ actual speeches of Churchill or Reagan using videos found on the web. Ninety percent of the time, though, that is not how the computer is being used...  The arch-testers of the Common Core champion the use of the technological elixir that cures all illnesses and heals all wounds without even pausing to warn us of the potential side effects... we are not invited to consider how much technology is compromising the old literacy.  Least of all are we supposed to realize that the remedy for our growing twenty-first-century illiteracy is traditional, nineteenth-century education."

Common Core Validation Committee Member: 'Nobody Thought There Was Sufficient Evidence' for the Standards.  It's all too common:  The backers of a broad-based political movement claim their cause is steeped in evidence, but a perusal of the research reveals more hope than substance.  The Common Core education standards are a good example.  As I noted last week, George Washington University's compendium of 60+ research papers on Common Core included just two focused on the standards' impact on student achievement, and the results were mixed at best.  The people who developed and validated the Common Core have themselves acknowledged its weak evidence base.  That's clear from an article in the November 2013 issue of the American Journal of Education.

"It took a teacher 56 seconds to explain how to add 9 plus 6."
Local News Airs 'Homework Helper' Videos for Parents Struggling With Common Core Requirements.  "When you and I were in school, we used to just memorize 9 plus 6 equals 15.  Not anymore.  With the Common Core, students need to understand why that's the case."  This is the introduction to the first of six "Homework Helper" segments Buffalo, N.Y., NBC affiliate WGRZ is broadcasting this week in honor of back-to-school week.  The series is meant to be a helpful tool for parents confused by their children's Common Core homework this year.

Common Core Rapidly Losing Support.  What teachers and parents subject to Common Core requirements have learned rather quickly is that the program has a number of serious flaws.  It not only slows the process of learning multiplication, it dampens the development of the creative thinking process, and offers a skewed, leftist selection of reading materials about U.S. history.

The Common Core: A Poor Choice For States.  Heartland Research Fellow Joy Pullmann reveals some major weaknesses of the Common Core.  The program represents a major centralization of control over curriculum, contrary to the American tradition of decentralized control and funding.  Instead of being "world class," the standards represent a significant step back from what experts say are the standards America really needs.  No wonder many states are now holding hearings on whether to back out of the Common Core project.

Common Core Endgame: Social Justice.  In one example from a Common Core test, children are given a sentence in which the word "apprentice" is used.  Some children may already know that an apprentice is someone who works for another to learn a trade.  However, in the Common Core text excerpt, the word "apprentice" means a jockey with less than one year experience.  The question asks for the meaning of "apprentice" based on the text.  This method of questioning focuses the child to rely solely on the text.  If a student puts choice "A", an "apprentice" is "someone who works for another to learn a trade", the answer would be wrong in this example.

Jindal Suing Feds Over Common Core.  Opening yet another front in his increasingly complex battle against Common Core, Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal is suing the federal government over the education standards.  Jindal's suit claims that the government, by using federal education grants to encourage the standards' adoption, has illegally infringed upon states' sovereignty in the issue of education.  "The proponents of Common Core will tell you that it's simply about one test and about standards, but that's a ruse.  Common Core is about controlling curriculum," Jindal said in a press release announcing the lawsuit.  "These are big government elitists that believe they know better than parents and local school boards."

You Won't Learn This with Common Core Curriculum.  Here's a history lesson that will never be incorporated into the Common Core Curriculum of Western Civilization, where context is not just optional, it's actively discouraged.  Fact based history?  How is that going to help your children get a good score on their Advanced Placement History exam?  Answer:  it won't.  [Video clip]

Gov. Bobby Jindal to sue Obama administration on Common Core.  Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said he was filing a lawsuit on Wednesday [8/27/2014] against the Obama administration over alleged manipulation of grant money to force states to accept Common Core as their school standards.  Mr. Jindal is also accusing the White House of manipulating the regulatory process to compel states to take the much-disputed educational program, The Associated Press reported.  The U.S. Department of Education used its $4.3 billion grant program and waiver policy to press states into accepting the same educational testing and standards program.

A Closer Look at the Botched Common Core Results.  Misleading title aside, the Buffalo News report was not good.  "Students in Buffalo statewide make modest gains in math," declared an article in the New York newspaper detailing the results from the second year of Common Core implementation.  Well yes, math scores did overall improve.  But, the rest of the report was not quite so rosy: [...]

New Poll Suggests Pretty Much Everyone Hates Common Core.  That didn't take long.  While parents in America have been complaining about Common Core for quite a while, now even many teachers don't like it.

Common Core educational standards are losing support nationwide, poll shows.  A year ago, the term Common Core meant little to the American public.  But today, a vast majority of people in the country are familiar with the nationwide educational standards, and most of them oppose the initiative touted by the Obama administration, a new survey shows.  The results of an annual poll by Gallup and the Phi Delta Kappa educators' organization provide more evidence that support for the Common Core State Standards, originally adopted by 46 states and the District, has faded in recent years.  The survey showed that those who opposed the standards thought that the Common Core will hurt teachers' ability to craft lessons that they think will be best for students.

Common Core's Growing Unpopularity.  [Scroll down]  The latest is a detailed criticism of the mathematics standards by a prize-winning math professor at the University of California at Berkeley, Marina Ratner.  It is refreshing that her criticisms are very specific and include examples of assignments that parents can see are ridiculous. [...] Ms. Ratner concluded that Common Core is making simple math concepts "artificially intricate and complex with the pretense of being deeper, while the actual content taught was primitive."  The bottom line is that Common Core is inferior to the current good California standards, and the $15.8 billion spent nationally to develop and adopt Common Core was a gigantic waste.  College ready?  That's another deceit.  Math experts are saying that Common Core standards are not preparing students for colleges to which most parents aspire to send their children.  The Common Core History Standards have just become available.  Real scholars say they are a "stealthy" plan to teach kids a leftwing curriculum.

A Common-Sense Approach to the Common Core Math Standards.  An article by Elizabeth Green (CEO of a nonprofit education news organization called Chalkbeat) that recently appeared in the New York Times magazine, attempts to explain why most Americans are bad at math.  In so doing, Green puts the final nail in the coffin for establishing that Common Core requires an approach called "reform math".  The article is extremely well-written, which I suppose is why many people reading it (including the editors) find her arguments reasonable and would unquestioningly buy into the rather tall premise her article is built on:  traditional math teaching has never worked.  That's simply not true.  But Green is not alone in mischaracterizing traditional teaching.

Michael Mulgrew defends Common Core.  Teachers union honcho Michael Mulgrew unleashed a venomous screed directed at anyone who would dare threaten his beloved Common Core agenda.  "If someone takes something from me, I'm going to grab it right back out of their cold, twisted, sick hands and say it is mine!  You do not take what is mine!" the head of the United Federation of Teachers shouted in a speech at a convention last month in Los Angeles.  The rant was posted Thursday [8/7/2014] to the Ed Notes Online blog.  "And I'm going to punch you in the face and push you in the dirt because this is the teachers'!" added Mulgrew.

Moms winning the Common Core war.  Supporters of the Common Core academic standards have spent big this past year to persuade wavering state legislators to stick with the new guidelines for math and language arts instruction. Given the firestorm of opposition that took them by surprise, they consider it a victory that just five states, so far, have taken steps to back out.

Amnesty: The Death of America.  The same sort of people who have controlled education in the cities for so long are now in charge of a standardized national curriculum, Common Core.  Teacher evaluations are a big part of these changes as well.  In our schools, for example, one of the criteria used to evaluate teachers in some districts is whether they have "created a classroom that embraces other cultures".  God forbid, they put America first or comment that English should be the national language.  It could be grounds for termination, or at least a poor rating.  Teachers who do not follow the script, or who believe in American exceptionalism may be rated "ineffective" or face termination.  It is great for children to be proud of their ancestry and to be bi-lingual, but our classrooms have become places where there is celebration of any culture except American.

Missouri Governor Signs Bill to Replace Common Core Standards.  Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon (D) has signed legislation that provides for a task force to write new education standards that will eventually replace the Common Core in his state.  Nixon's office announced his approval of the measure Monday [7/14/2014], the last possible day the governor could take action on bills passed earlier this year, local news KMBC.com reports.

Oklahoma Supreme Court upholds Common Core repeal.  The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled Tuesday [7/15/2014] that the Legislature had the authority to repeal Common Core education standards for English and math in the state's public schools.

South Carolina education officials act swiftly to replace Common Core.  South Carolina's Department of Education is moving at full speed in its effort to rewrite the state's standards of education.  Members of the state's Board of Education are expecting to vote on math and English language arts standards educators will use for teaching students during the 2015-16 school year as early as December, with a team of writers producing the new standards no later than August, said Larry Kobrovsky, who represents Charleston and Berkeley counties on the board.

Will Bobby Jindal Have to Fight Common Core in Court?  A legal battle over the fate of Common Core, the national education standards developed by a coalition of governors and educators and adopted by the vast majority of states, may be brewing in Louisiana.  The state's top education board voted on Tuesday [7/1/2014] to retain legal counsel, a sign it is gearing up for a lawsuit against Louisiana governor Bobby Jindal after he issued a series of executive orders in an attempt to withdraw the state from the Common Core.

Common Core Backlash Claims New Political Casualties.  [Scroll down]  You'll remember that one of those national information collection schemes is inBloom.  The idea was originally funded with Obama stimulus money and grants from the liberal Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  A division of Rupert Murdoch's News Corp. built the database infrastructure.  The nonprofit startup "inBloom Inc."  evolved out of this strange alliance to operate the invasive database.  The entity planned to compile everything from student and family health-care histories to income information, religious affiliations, voting status, blood types and homework completion.

Common Core Opponents Winning, Polls Show.  As the grassroots uprising against the Obama administration-pushed nationalization of schools continues to grow, public sentiment is quickly turning against the widely criticized Common Core standards — especially among parents with school-age children.  Indeed, since just November of last year, the shallow "support" that did exist for the controversial education scheme has plunged dramatically, a new survey showed.  Other polls found similar results.  The latest nationwide public opinion data on national standards, released by Rasmussen Reports on June 26, represents another devastating blow to Common Core proponents — primarily Big Business, special interests, and the Obama administration.  Despite pouring billions of dollars in taxpayer and special-interest funding into deceptive marketing gimmicks and propaganda to build support for Obama's education "reform" schemes, opposition to Common Core continues to surge as awareness spreads.

Teachers Unions Are Using Common Core As Excuse To Force Crappy Teachers On Kids.  A coalition generally consisting of conservatives called the Common Core into question, and some states have retreated from adopting them.  One argument against the Common Core was that there was undue pressure on states to use them, in part because they were a requirement for states that wanted to get federal "race to the top" money.  Education is the province of the states, critics say, and the federal government is prohibited from being involved in school curricula.  Another argument is that the Common Core standards are in reality less rigorous than the standards in a number of states.

Math Under Common Core Has Even Parents Stumbling.  Rebekah and Kevin Nelams moved to their modest brick home in this suburb of Baton Rouge seven years ago because it has one of the top-performing public school districts in the state.  But starting this fall, Ms. Nelams plans to home-school the couple's four elementary-age children.  The main reason:  the methods that are being used for teaching math under the Common Core, a set of academic standards adopted by more than 40 states.

New York's Common Core-Aligned Standardized Tests Are Painfully Stupid.  Well America, the Common Core-aligned standardized tests that Common Core supporters have zealously trumpeted as college-related and so dramatically superior to all previous standardized tests are finally starting to trickle out for public consumption.  New York is one state that has released some Common Core tests.  The tests for elementary school kids remain strictly guarded.

"Common" Concern In Coppell ISD.  The latest trend in public education is a push towards "1-to-1", where laptops or IPads are purchased and distributed to every student. [...] High-school students have been caught accessing pornographic and offensive material.  They have also allegedly been caught "sexting" and sending inappropriate pictures to each other.  Students also use the devices for entertainment, either by playing games or watching movies, causing parents to question the academic value of the program. [...] There are privacy concerns with data collection from student activity on the Internet.  Parents also have expressed difficulty accessing student assignments and reviewing curriculum.

Bobby Jindal issues orders to sever Common Core ties.  Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal issued executive orders Wednesday [6/18/2014] to withdraw the state from the Common Core standards and federally subsidized standardized tests, defying his state legislature, his superintendent of education and the business community — but endearing himself to tea party activists across the country who could be influential in early primary states if he chooses to run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016.

Inside GOP, the question is where do you stand on Common Core?  Common Core has emerged as the newest Republican litmus test for gauging candidates' conservative bona fides, and experts say the controversial national education standard will help shape elections from school boards to the White House for the foreseeable future.  Whether prompted by pressure from grassroots groups and well-funded political action committees, or simply by a realization of what is involved in the sweeping K-12 reform, Common Core has become a hot button issue within the GOP.  Several Republican governors, including some rumored to be considering 2016 White House runs, have turned against the plan and critics have coined a loaded term for it that lays bare the political divide:  "ObamaCore."

From Oklahoma to Louisiana: Why states are dropping Common Core.  When Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed a bill repealing Common Core national standards from her state's schools, it was perhaps the most ironic moment in the fight over the initiative.  Fallin is chairwoman of the National Governors Association, one of the private groups that hold the copyright of Common Core.  (Yes, this marks the first time in history a private group has owned school standards.)  While Fallin wasn't governor at the time the standards were created and adopted, she nonetheless rejected her own organization's initiative.

How Obama Instituted Common Core on the Sly.  It seems like the new Common Core educational standards suddenly appeared out of nowhere, doesn't it?  All of a sudden, every kid was getting a Common Core education.  The whole thing just materialized before we got a chance to think about it! [...] Through a combination of lavish spending by Microsoft's Bill Gates and swift movement by the Obama administration, the Common Core standards that have now become so controversial were instituted pretty much before anyone knew what was happening.  And of course — this is the Obama administration we're talking about — without the cumbersome, annoying intrusion of democratic processes.

Brat, McDaniel, Carr, and Maness: Get Rid of Common Core.  As expected, the Common Core standards have become a significant electoral issue — one that is separating Washington establishment politicians from grassroots conservative candidates.  While Dave Brat's (R-VA) stunning victory over House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) was largely focused on the immigration debate, Brat's opposition to the Common Core standards and such "top down approaches by the Federal Government" was spelled out on his website.

Bad to the Core.  In the past week, Govs. Nikki Haley of South Carolina and Mary Fallin of Oklahoma evicted Common Core from public schools, even at the risk of losing hundreds of millions of federal dollars promised to states adopting it.  Haley and Fallin initially supported Common Core, but public outrage is forcing them to reverse course, and more states will follow.  In New York, Rob Astorino, the Republican conservative challenger to Gov. Andrew Cuomo, vows to topple Common Core if he wins in November.

ObamaCore Emerges As a Major Issue As Education Takes An Orwellian Turn.  In the past week, Governors Haley of South Carolina and Fallin of Oklahoma evicted Common Core from public schools, even at the risk of losing hundreds of millions of federal dollars promised to states adopting it.  Mmes. Haley and Fallin initially supported Common Core.  But public outrage is forcing them to reverse course, and more states will follow.  In New York, the Republican-Conservative challenger to Governor Andrew Cuomo, Robert Astorino, vows to topple Common Core if he wins in November.

How Bill Gates pulled off the swift Common Core revolution.  The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation didn't just bankroll the development of what became known as the Common Core State Standards.  With more than $200 million, the foundation also built political support across the country, persuading state governments to make systemic and costly changes.  Bill Gates was de facto organizer, providing the money and structure for states to work together on common standards in a way that avoided the usual collision between states' rights and national interests that had undercut every previous effort, dating from the Eisenhower administration.

Now There Are Three: Oklahoma, South Carolina Join Indiana in Exiting Common Core.  Common Core is on the chopping block.  Oklahoma today became the third state to exit the national education standards and reclaim its decision-making authority in education.  The move comes on the heels of South Carolina, which days ago put an end to Common Core — setting precedent for other states to follow.

NC Senate votes out Common Core, McCrory says decision 'not a smart move'.  Gov. Pat McCrory said the Republican-driven effort to repeal the Common Core education standards "is not a smart move," using his strongest language yet to warn against an effort pushed by conservatives in his own party.  "These are things we need to correct and recognize," he said, citing concerns with implementation and testing in remarks at a Raleigh meeting of the N.C. Business Committee for Education, a group that supports the standards.  "But again, you don't just throw out the whole thing if you have some minor issues you need to fix.  We are trying to get some of the language out of the current bills in which we toss the whole thing out with no replacement."

Jeb Bush's Common Core problem strikes at heart of his foundation.  Jeb Bush is one of the country's most visible advocates of Common Core, forcefully defending the K-12 standards even as it puts him at odds with a conservative base he would need to mount a viable campaign for president.  But his problem is deeper than policy.  Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education has collected millions of dollars from pro-Common Core organizations — from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to the for-profit education giant Pearson — giving critics something to sink into and drawing attention to the venture that has allowed the former Republican governor to expand his profile beyond Florida.

Oklahoma Lawmakers Vote To Repeal Common Core.  The Oklahoma legislature voted overwhelmingly Friday night to repeal the Common Core math and English standards for its state's schools and to replace them with standards developed by the state.  The bill now heads to Gov. Mary Fallin's (R) desk for her signature.  As local Fox News affiliate Fox23.com reported, the state House voted 71-18 on the bill to reject the Common Core standards.  The House also voted 68-19 in favor of an emergency clause that would have the law go into effect as soon as the bill is signed by Governor Fallin.  The Senate passed the bill 31-10 with the emergency clause.

Teacher says he helped write Common Core to end white privilege.  Ironically, the $28,535 per year Derryfield School that Dr. Pook teaches at considers the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) inferior and does not use them on the student body that is 91% white.

White Teacher Says He Helped Write Common Core Because Of His 'Privilege'.  An educator who helped write Common Core standards said Monday that one of the reasons he contributed to the curriculum was because he is a privileged as a white man.  Dr. David Pook teaches at The Derryfield School and Granite State College. [...] The Derryfield School, where Pook teaches history and English, is a bastion of "white privilege" itself.  Its student body is 91 percent white, and the annual cost of attendance is over $28,000, Campus Reform reports.

Education That You Know Is Sick.  The basic technique is to create garbled problems that have no clear answer.  Here is a hypothetical illustration of the basic gimmick:  "Tom has six oranges.  Mary has five oranges.  Mrs. Smith has 10 oranges.  How many pies can they make?"  The average adult says, Hey, wait a minute, that's bull.  The average child, however, assumes you are asking an honest question — and grows increasingly miserable trying to answer it.  Furthermore, that example is easy; many others used in schools will defeat most adults.  For example, this problem has puzzled a multitude:  "Tyler made 36 total snowflakes which is a multiple of how triangular snowflakes he made.  How many triangular snowflakes could he have made?"

Parents say Common Core curriculum makes kids' math homework needlessly confusing.  As schools around the U.S. implement national Common Core learning standards, parents trying to help their kids with math homework say that adding, subtracting, multiplying and dividing has become as complicated as calculus.  They're stumped by unfamiliar terms like "rectangular array" and "area model."  They wrestle with division that requires the use of squares, slashes and dots.  They rage over impenetrable word problems.

Taking the Country Back starts with Taking the Children Back.  No teacher, no politician, no Common Core has more influence over children than their parents and relatives.  Ninety-year-old 'children' remember what their parents, not their teachers taught them.  It may take supreme effort, time and patience to turn the table on the Marxists in the classroom, but the end result could be the only way left to save the country.

Price for Nevada dad to see state's school files on his kids: $10G.  Nevada dad John Eppolito got a bad case of sticker shock when he asked state education officials to see the permanent records of his four children.  He was told it would cost $10,194.  A Lake Tahoe-area real estate agent by trade and a fierce opponent of Common Core, Eppolito was concerned about Nevada's recent decision to join a multi-state consortium that shares students' data.  He wanted to know exactly what information had been compiled on his school-age kids. But state officials told him he would have to pay fees and the cost of programming and running a custom report.

Common Core: 2014's Bipartisan Wedge Issue.  At least a half-dozen victorious candidates in GOP state legislative contests in those three states, including several who defeated party-supported incumbents, discovered that the key to motivating voters on their behalf was expressing genuine and vocal opposition to the federal government's stealth imposition of the Common Core standards and testing regime in their schools.  Their success has national implications.  You can rest assured that party leaders who have been doing all they can to hide from the issue, as well as all-in "Fed ed" proponent and current Republican establishment fave Jeb Bush, have noticed.

GOP Courts Pence For 2016, But His Common Core 'Deception' Looms.  Gov. Mike Pence of Indiana is being courted by some establishment GOP leaders who believe he can take their party to the White House, and Pence himself seems to be warming to a bid for president in 2016.  Pence and the GOP political class may be sharing the delusion, however, that the Indiana governor's deceptive maneuvers around the Common Core standards won't be a factor in making him a viable presidential candidate.

Chicago Teachers Union Joins War on Common Core.  Echoing concerns from teachers and parents from across America and the entire political spectrum, CTU President Karen Lewis also lambasted the administration's meddling in state and local education issues.  "I agree with educators and parents from across the country, the Common Core mandate represents an overreach of federal power into personal privacy as well as into state educational autonomy," said Lewis, who is also a nationally board certified teacher.  The criticism is especially devastating coming from Chicago, where a former top-level Obama official now dominates the city.

The Common Core.  I did not start out to be against Common Core.  In fact, most of the people who are loudest against Common Core sound crazy.  I've heard all sorts of conspiracies. [...] My gut was to support Common Core.  It makes sense.  As someone who grew up overseas and moved back to the U.S. in high school, I see the benefit of common grade level standards.  But I have a second grader who is being subjected to Common Core.  And I see first hand that Common Core is deeply devastating and I now understand the rage of so many people.

'Today was the first day I was ashamed to be a teacher'.  Students around the country are taking high-stakes Common Core-aligned standardized tests now and some teachers are expressing unhappiness about having to administer them.  Some are refusing to administer them and others are going public with their concerns about the nature of the tests and the emphasis being placed on them by policymakers.  Numerous problems have been reported with these tests in New York, including badly worded questions, unfair cut scores that determine who does well and who doesn't, and booklets with blank pages.

Someone doesn't know what opt means.
Alabama teen suspended after opting out of Common Core testing.  An Alabama teen says she was suspended from school after refusing to take standardized tests aligned with national Common Core curriculum standards.  Alyssa McKinney, an 8th-grade student at Whitesburg Middle School in Huntsville, Ala., told WAAY-TV she was given two in-school suspensions after telling school officials that she didn't agree with the requirement and that she was opting out.  When she opted out the third day, she was given an out-of-school suspension.

School District Officials Reportedly Threatened Over Holocaust Assignment.  School district officials in Rialto have received death threats in connection to a class assignment instructing students to debate the veracity of the Holocaust, according to reports Monday [5/5/2014].  Rialto Unified School District officials first responded last week to reports of the assignment, which asked students to compose a written debate over whether the Holocaust was "merely a political scheme created to influence public emotion and gain."

California school district cancels lesson plan that involved Holocaust denial.  Following a storm of criticism — and at least one death threat — a California school district Monday canceled a lesson plan that instructed middle school students to make arguments denying the Holocaust happened.  The assignment, aimed at eighth-grade students in Southern California's Rialto Unified School District, sought to teach children to learn the nature of propaganda.  "Some people claim the Holocaust is not an actual event, but instead is a propaganda tool that was used for political and monetary gain," the assignment said, according to a document posted by The Daily Bulletin.

Holocaust Denial Comes to Common Core.  It's interesting how we never, ever see people questioning whether, say, the Battle of Gettysburg happened or whether Mohammed ever lived.  It's always the Holocaust, which is one of the most well-documented sequence of crimes in human history.  There are still living survivors around to testify to what happened to them.

GOP's Common Core Re-brand Hustle.  This weekend on "Fox News Sunday," [4/27/2014] anchor Chris Wallace credited his guest, Republican Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, with leading the nation as the "first state to fall out of the Common Core national education standards."  If only it were true.  Wallace didn't do his homework.  And presidential aspirant Pence was too busy daydreaming about 2016 to correct him.  Reality check: Last week, Pence faced the anger of hundreds of Indiana parents, educators and activists at a public Indiana Business Roundtable meeting to discuss his phony charade.  The protesters openly booed Pence's derision of critics as out-of-staters and elitists.  They roared their disapproval when he claimed that his "new" standards were superior and homegrown.

State Republicans praise Common Core replacement.  The board voted 10-1 Monday morning [4/28/2014] to endorse the new education standards in a step that makes Indiana the first state to formally abandon the national benchmarks that had been adopted by 45 states.

Leave education to local control.  It is true, the Common Core standards did originally grow from states wanting to increase standards so our students can better compete with the rest of the world.  Great idea.  And Louisiana was in that group.  But a few things have happened along the way.  First, the federal government became increasingly involved.  Unless you are fighting a war, the kind that requires tanks, submarines and jets, you really don't want the federal government involved.  I'm from the school that believes education is a matter best left for local control.  The notion of Washington determining curricula is something most states are simply not interested in.  It's a non-starter.

North Carolina Dumps Common Core.  At the fourth and final meeting of the NC General Assembly's Common Core study committee, a bill was unveiled that will remove Common Core from the state's statutes. The bill also calls for a return to North Carolina Standard Course of Study, which will be developed by an academic review commission.

Chicago Schools to offer "Afro-centric" curriculum as part of Common Core program.  ot content with gutting useful math skills and rewriting history, organizers of the Common Core program in Chicago are now planning to focus on "Afro-centric" material in their districts.

See what they'll be teaching in the Chicago public schools.  Chicago public schools are set to introduce a new Afro-centric curriculum, according to a closely-guarded copy obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.  The curriculum covers kindergarten through tenth grade and is designed to align with Common Core.  It includes a web link to TheAfrican.com, a website whose publisher decries "fake-Jews" and calls the United States a "Zionist-occupied enemy territory."  The site also claims that the world will end sometime this year and that President Barack Obama is "merely another trick of [the beast of the 4th Kingdom]."  The new Chicago curriculum was announced last December.

Parent to Obama: Let me tell you about the Common Core test Malia and Sasha don't have to take.  I get a lot of e-mail from parents and teachers who wonder if President Obama, whose children go to the private Sidwell Friends School, knows what is actually going on with all of the standardized testing in public schools.  Here's an open letter to Obama explaining what he is missing, written by Rebecca Steinitz, a literacy consultant in urban high schools, a writer and an editor.

The Common Core Conundrum.  Right now, the standards are just for math and English.  Superficially, it seems harmless.  Some conservatives, however, have groused that Common Core comes with increased federal strings.  The more a school adopts the standards the more the federal government can control the curriculum.  Additionally, some of the original source material for Common Core is copyrighted by outside groups that stand to profit from its adoption.  Most troubling, from a philosophical standpoint, Common Core teaches children to be good worker bees for the big companies that support it, but not necessarily good citizens with an entrepreneurial mindset.

Common Core's Dirtiest Trick: Dividing Parents and Children.  [Scroll down]  When he tackled multi-digit addition, for instance, Patrick did not just line up the two numbers and then add the columns, as his parents had been taught to do.  Instead, he sketched out a graph with a series of arrows and marks that appeared at first to his parents as indecipherable as hieroglyphics."  When we hear these stories, we typically focus on the comical oddity of adults not being able to do homework intended for children.  How is that even possible?  But the ramifications are anything but funny.  The real damage is that Reform Math opens up fractures throughout society.  Parents are cut off from their children.  Parents and schools are pitted against each other.  Students are alienated from their teachers and schools.

Indiana faces deadline on new education standards after dropping Common Core.  As the first state to drop the national Common Core learning standards, Indiana is rushing to approve new state-crafted benchmarks in time for teachers to use them this fall, and education leaders from across the nation are closely watching.

Schools Could Learn a Lot From This Video.  When a video of high school student Jeff Bliss calling out his teacher went viral, a lot of people started talking about the state of our education system and ways to improve it.  However, almost a year since the video was posted, not much has changed.  In fact, many would say that with the extension of Common Core curriculum across most of the country, it has actually gotten worse.  Take this attempted explanation of Common Core's approach to math: [...]

Teach Common Sense not Common Core.  [Scroll down]  Common Core, the brainchild and work of 30 individuals under the aegis of the Governors' Association and the almost $200 million sponsorship of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is something else.  It is the tool to achieve the "fundamental transformation" of our society as promised in 2008.  It is nationalized education "standards" that require students to find another way to reach an answer, particularly in math, even if the answer is wrong, justifying the incorrect answer as the path to help students learn to think critically.

Think Common Core class material is bad?  Check out the unbelievably AWFUL standardized tests.  Around the country, students are now taking preposterously lengthy standardized tests related to the Common Core Standards Initiative.  To the chagrin of education bureaucrats, there's a growing backlash against the test among parents — many of whom are opting their children out of the tests.  There's also a growing backlash against the tests among teachers and school officials at elementary and middle schools.

Common Core's rollout rocky in New York.  Seirra Olivero, a 13-year-old student at Orange-Ulster BOCES, claims she was suspended from school last week after telling classmates they could opt out of taking the Common Core English test — a decision few students and parents in the area knew was possible, according to the girl's mother.  The eighth-grader was suspended for two days for "insubordination," following the April 1 incident, in which she informed her friends they had a choice whether or not to take the exam on the day of the test.

Kids take Common Core tests with 'inappropriate content, ambiguous questions'.  New York City principals are rising up against the Common Core testing that was forced on their students last week and contained "inappropriate conduct and ambiguous questions," according to one principal.  "The teachers and administrators are truly devastated by what a terrible test it was and how little it will tell us about our children," wrote Liz Phillips, principal of PS321, in a statement.  According to Phillips, the Common Core-aligned tests — which were taken last week by third, fourth and fifth graders — contained misleading questions, subjective reading passages and even product placement.

I was suspended for protesting Common Core, eighth-grader says.  A 13-year-old girl in New York believes she was suspended from school last week after she was reprimanded for telling several students that they had freedom to opt out of Common Core testing.  Seirra Olivero, an eighth-grader at Orange-Ulster BOCES in Goshen, was suspended for two days for insubordination, the Times Herald-Record reported.  Seirra filed a complaint under the state's Dignity for All Students Act, which said that on Tuesday, the day of the English test, she told several students over the course of the day that they didn't have to take the test if they didn't want to.

Common Core Proponents Attack HSLDA Documentary on Common Core.  Even before Building The Machine, a 39 minute documentary on the Common Core, was released by the Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) on Monday proponents went into attack mode.  Missouri Education Watchdog reported over the weekend on a leaked email from the Council of Chief State School Officers (one of the partners in the development of the Common Core) preparing its members for the documentaries [sic] release. [...] It's important to note that Council of Chief State School Officers, the Fordham Institute, and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce all have been funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation for the promotion and implementation of the Common Core State Standards.

Kansas Senate passes school finance bill stripping funding for Common Core standards.  The Senate voted to halt state spending on Common Core on Thursday night, during debate over a court-ordered fix for funding inequities between school districts.  It went on to pass a school finance bill that provides more money for local option budgets if voters approve, grants tax credits to parents who have their children in private school or home school, allows tax breaks for corporations that provide scholarships for private schools and removes administrative due process for public school teachers.

Common Core-approved Textbooks Rewrite Second Amendment .  As the grassroots revolt against Common Core grows stronger, attention to lessons contained in textbooks approved for use within the Common Core curricula is increasing, as well.  One of the chief criticisms of the standards mandated as part of the Common Core education program is that it is one-size-fits-all, federally funded, and permissive of fundamental errors that affect the quality of education of students.  Such errors include those found in history textbooks approved by the Common Core State Standards Initiative [...]

On the first day of Common Core testing, some NY students sit it out.  While her son's fourth-grade classmates were taking the nation's first round of tests under the controversial Common Core program, Heidi Indelecato decided to teach her son a lesson in civil disobedience.  "We respectfully refuse to participate in the test," said Indelecato, whose son Benjamin attends school in Lancaster, N.Y., which on Tuesday became the first state to administer testing under the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

This second grader's revenge against Common Core math will make your day.  The litany of frighteningly stupid Common Core math worksheets never ends.  Perhaps now, though, kids are starting to fight back in satisfyingly creative ways.  An alert reade1212r sent The Daily Caller this image of her seven-year-old son's perfectly reasonable homework answer.

Untangling Common Core groups from lobbyists is impossible.  Attention, class:  A Common Core mouthpiece wants to rap my knuckles with his Gates Foundation-funded ruler.  In response to my column two weeks ago about the marketing overlords pushing the Fed Ed racket, Chad Colby of Achieve Inc. demanded corrections. [...] Someone didn't do his homework.

Common Core: Anatomy of a Failure.  What fascinates Bill Gates is something else entirely:  namely, the variety and incoherence from school to school, city to city, and state to state.  It looks so messy and inefficient.  And he thinks:  a guy with my money and management skills should be able to organize all this disorder, turn it into an efficient machine, save the country, and make another fortune in the process.  Potentially all true.  But at that moment he has lost the game.  Because he is no longer talking about educational goals, which must be our main concern.  He is talking about standardization.  He is talking about a tidier assembly line.  (But nobody ever said that democracy is supposed to be tidy.  Dictatorship is tidy.)

Open the floodgates? Indiana becomes first state to scrap Common Core.  Indiana has become the first of 45 states to opt out of the national education standard known as Common Core, and critics of the controversial K-12 program say the move could "open the floodgates" for others to follow.  Growing criticism over costs imposed by the program, as well as fears that by setting a national education standard, the program has already begun dictating curriculum, has made Common Core an increasingly polarizing issue.

Parents may use vote to vent on Common Core.  Parents across the country may hold the key to this year's mid-term elections as they vent their anger over the implementation of a controversial education achievement measure called the Common Core State Standards Initiative.  Forty-five states and the District of Columbia have adopted the initiative in a bid, they say, to improve education standards in Math and English, and give new life to what many view as a sagging education system.  Indiana recently voted to back out of Common Core.

Common Core emerges as potent election issue for fed-up parents.  Parents across the country may hold the key to this year's mid-term elections as they vent their anger over the implementation of a controversial education achievement measure called the Common Core State Standards Initiative.  Forty-five states and the District of Columbia have adopted the initiative in a bid, they say, to improve education standards in Math and English, and give new life to what many view as a sagging education system.  Indiana recently voted to back out of Common Core.  But many parents see the initiative as a bid by the federal government to take over the education system.

The Political Party Elites Have Spoken: It's Bush vs. Clinton in 2016.  I have no objections to Jeb Bush running for president.  He obviously has a wide appeal as a potential candidate.  With a Mexican wife, and as a man who speaks fluent Spanish, he would be able to increase the Hispanic vote in the GOP column.  On the other hand, many in the Republican base find his position on immigration untenable, and would fight him tooth and nail during primary season.  He is also a serious advocate of education reform.  His support of Common Core, however, will also find many who are in the conservative ranks objecting, since they fear that Common Core represents educational centralism and having the government ram federal standards down their throats.

Common Core spawns Widespread Political Debate.  More than five years after U.S. governors began a bipartisan effort to set new standards in American schools, the Common Core initiative has morphed into a political tempest fueling division among Republicans.  The U.S. Chamber of Commerce leads establishment voices — such as possible presidential contender Jeb Bush — who hail the standards as a way to improve student performance and, over the long term, competitiveness of American workers.

Unbelievably Intrusive Common Core Questionnaire.  [This article includes] a pic of a questionnaire sent home with a first grader.  The parent's response indicates their opinion that it is part of common core.

GED Test Shifts to Fit Common Core.  On January 2, 2014, the GED test shifted to a new version fully aligned with Common Core national K-12 benchmarks.  The high school equivalency test now costs nearly twice as much and will be offered only on computers. [...] The new test costs approximately $120 per student, which has a dozen states looking for alternatives, as taxpayers often subsidize the test.  New York, Montana, and New Hampshire chose to switch from GED to another high school equivalency test in 2013.  Eight more states are considering a similar decision, according to the Associated Press.

Pence approves Indiana withdrawal from Common Core.  Gov. Mike Pence has signed a bill pulling Indiana from the reading and math education standards adopted by most states around the country.

First Common Core Lawsuit Tossed Out.  A Kentucky judge has thrown out the nation's first lawsuit against Common Core, saying the plaintiff had no standing to bring the suit and did not demonstrate a "unique, personal injury."  David Adams -- father of two public school students in Kentucky's Jessamine County — filed the first national lawsuit against Common Core in November, alleging its development was ill-planned and its implementation has not allowed for public input.  "The mismanagement and political influence brought to bear by the Common Core implementation is just outrageous.  It's technically a violation of our constitution, and our general assembly has the duty to fight against this," said Adams, president of Kentucky Citizens Judicial, an organization that promotes individual liberty.

Oklahoma to Consider Another Common Core Repeal Bill.  A bill filed a few weeks after statewide hearings on national academic standards would require the Oklahoma State Board of Education "to remove alignment with the K-12 Common Core State Standards Initiative."  If Senate Bill 1146 passes, it will forbid the board from implementing "any curriculum standards or related assessments aligned with" Common Core.  SB 1146, sponsored by state Sen. Eddie Fields (R-Wynona), also requires the board to request the federal government to remove any requirement "which conditions the receipt of federal funding" on adopting Common Core.  The bill will be read when the legislature's second session meets in early February.

Unions, Anti-Choice Activists Sue Over North Carolina Vouchers.  A bill filed a few weeks after statewide hearings on national academic standards would require the Oklahoma State Board of Education "to remove alignment with the K-12 Common Core State Standards Initiative."  If Senate Bill 1146 passes, it will forbid the board from implementing "any curriculum standards or related assessments aligned with" Common Core.  SB 1146, sponsored by state Sen. Eddie Fields (R-Wynona), also requires the board to request the federal government to remove any requirement "which conditions the receipt of federal funding" on adopting Common Core.  The bill will be read when the legislature's second session meets in early February.

Get To Know the Common Core Marketing Overlords.  They're everywhere.  Turn on Fox News, local news, Animal Planet, HGTV, The Family Channel or talk radio.  Pro-Common Core commercials have been airing ad nauseam in a desperate attempt to persuade American families to support the beleaguered federal education standards/testing/technology racket.  Who's funding these public relations pushes?  D.C. lobbyists, entrenched politicians and Big Business interests.  The foundational myth of Common Core is that it's a "state-led" initiative with grassroots support that was crafted by local educators for the good of all of our children.  But the cash and power behind the new ad campaign tell you all you need to know.

The Eleven Dumbest Common Core Problems.  The Common Core State Standards Initiative is widely denounced for imposing confusing, unhelpful experimental teaching methods, involving test problems that lack essential information and sometimes make no sense whatsoever.  Some 45 states and the District of Columbia have so far adopted Common Core standards, leaving students all around the United States to puzzle over Common Core's mysterious logic and language.  Here are eleven Common Core-compliant problems that have caused parents, students, and even teachers to scratch their heads or respond in outrage.

Jeb Bush Praises Illegal Immigrants as 'Risk Takers,' Defends Common Core.  In a speech Friday [3/21/2014], Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush praised illegal immigrants as "risk takers" who embody the entrepreneurial spirit of America and doubled down on his defense of Common Core.  According to the Miami Herald, Bush made his remarks in front of business leaders in Florida. [...] Speculation has intensified about whether Jeb Bush will become the third person in his family to seek the White House.

The Editor says...
First of all, the surest way for the Republican Party to lose the 2016 election is to nominate someone named Bush.  Jeb Bush may be a nice guy and an adequate governor, which is far more than we have in the White House at the moment, but the American voters are sick of the Bush family, even if the Republican establishment is not.  Second, anyone who looks upon Common Core standards with anything other than revulsion is not a conservative, and the only way for the Republican Party to win a national election is to move to the right and offer the voters a distinct choice between left and right.  Voters stay home if they are given the choice between bad and worse, or between left-wing baby killers and middle-of-the-road pork barrel spenders, especially when both parties' nominees are permanent fixtures in Washington.

Dead Bankers, Common Core, and Destruction of the Middle Class.  American Pageant, currently used in history classrooms across America, reintroduces the word republicanism but the definition is that of Communism.  The book states, "republicanism defined a just society as one in which all citizens willingly subordinated their private, selfish interests to the common good."  Dewey's collective society has arrived.  Parents are not the suckers that educational experts describe.  They consider Common Core Standards inferior and the resulting curricula inadequate to prepare children to preserve the values and principles that have served America so well.  Parents are battling educational theorists who support increased federal control of education that will be accomplished with the implementation of Common Core Standards.

The 'Before Obama' and 'After Obama' history lesson for school children.  With Common Core spoon-feeding school children a steady school-day diet of anti-American propaganda, it's prime time for parents to school their own children in the true chronicled History of the one nation the rest of the world still cherishes as the escape hatch to freedom and liberty.

Nation's biggest teachers union slams 'botched' Common Core implementation.  The nation's largest teachers union is pulling back on its once-enthusiastic support of the Common Core academic standards, labeling their rollout "completely botched."  National Education Association President Dennis Van Roekel said he still believes the standards can improve education.  But he said they will not succeed without a major "course correction" — including possibly rewriting some of the standards and revising the related tests with teacher input.

Nation's Largest Teachers Union Calls Implementation 'Completely Botched'.  The country's largest teachers union is no longer a cheerleader for Common Core national education standards.  In a letter to the National Education Association's 3 million members, President Dennis Van Roekel issued a sharp critique of Common Core.  It marks the first time NEA has voiced concerns about the standards, a key initiative of the Obama Administration.

Common Core testing costs strain rural Tennessee schools.  Curtains make do as doors and lockers form walls of makeshift classrooms inside cramped, cash-strapped DeKalb Middle School in the wooded hills of the Upper Cumberland region. [...] Like all local school districts in Tennessee, DeKalb County schools are preparing for new computerized testing that aligns with Common Core academic standards, which have phased into the state's classrooms in recent years.  Right now, the 600 students at the county's middle school — a 1970s "open-space" building in Smithville — take turns to use a single computer lab with just 30 computers, about 70 shy of what is needed.  Above the building's ceiling tiles, adequate wiring and switches to handle the upgrades are still lacking.

The Editor says...
Evidently Common Core will accomplish one thing:  It will create an atmosphere of over-reliance on computers, and produce a generation of dumbed-down students who will be conditioned to believe whatever the computer says (since, with no books on hand, it won't be possible to see if the computer is contradicting what it said last month), and students who will have no marketable skills other than data entry and reflexive response to whatever the computer asks.  Low-budget schools are now worrying about where they'll get all the computer hardware needed to comply, when they should be pushing the other way, and resisting the trend toward computers and away from books and independent thought.

Common Core Is Rewriting History Like a Tin Pot Dictatorship.  Abraham Lincoln's religion was Liberal, George Bush stole the election, social justice is the only justice, and the Electoral College is a mistake.  That is what students are being taught in their math classes thanks to the federal government and a number of large corporations.  The Core is merely a set of standards according to the proponents.  That is incorrect.  The government and the large corporations own the copyright to the Standards and the lessons are approved and encouraged by the government.  The publishing company Pearson is intimately tied into the government and the Common Core and is one of the worst offenders, spewing misinformation and politically-biased lessons.

Common Core Curriculum Now Has Critics on the Left.  The Common Core has been applauded by education leaders and promoted by the Obama administration as a way to replace a hodgepodge of state standards with one set of rigorous learning goals.  Though 45 states and the District of Columbia have signed on to them since 2010, resistance came quickly, mostly from right-leaning states, where some leaders and political action groups have protested what they see as a federal takeover of local classrooms.  But the newest chorus of complaints is coming from one of the most liberal states, and one of the earliest champions of the standards:  New York.  And that is causing supporters of the Common Core to shudder.

A Common Core math problem that is positively facepalm-inducing.  A sample math problem posted by a frustrated mother at MomDot.com will have you wondering if developers of Common Core materials can do simple arithmetic.  The mother, Trisha Haas, laments that mastering "Common Core math" is a "massive struggle" for her daughter, Charlotte, who is in third grade.  If the problem, which is reproduced below, is any indication, Charlotte is not the one with the difficulties.

Common Core: How The Left Will Grow Its Power in America's Schools.  Though leftist indoctrination of principles such as social and economic justice and income redistribution through governmental action has been occurring mainly in public schools for decades, more Americans are seeing the methods of indoctrination as the Common Core standards are increasingly exposed.  However, it is not just children who attend public schools who are affected by Common Core.  With the new nationalized standards having been accepted in some Catholic schools; with college entrance tests such as the ACT and SAT, and even the GED, being aligned with Common Core; and with the Obama administration's decision to use Race To The Top funding to lure states into funding universal preschool, more students will be exposed to the social indoctrination than ever before.

Common Core and Unionitis.  Study after study concludes that the one factor that makes a difference in the success or failure of students is the teacher. [...] So why don't we have astounding teachers?  Remember the year Bill Clinton promised to hire another 100,000 new instructors?  Where did he think he was going to find these people?  And why did he think it was a quantity problem when it was clear that we had a quality problem?  We didn't have enough good teachers.  The biggest reason for that is the unionization of the profession.

More about unionized teachers.

Panelist at Podesta Think Tank on Common Core: 'The Children Belong to All of Us'.  In addressing criticism of the Common Core national education standards, a panelist at the Center for American Progress (CAP), a liberal think tank, said critics were a "tiny minority" who opposed standards altogether, which was unfair because "the children belong to all of us."  The CAP was founded by John Podesta, former chief of staff to Bill Clinton and now an adviser to President Barack Obama.

All Your Children Are Belong to Us.  An advocate for Common Core recently said the children belong to all of us. [...] As Bill Whittle points out, Common Core is political indoctrination... plain and simple.

School Choice and Common Core: Mortal Enemies.  Every family in America deserves maximized, customized choices in education.  It is the ultimate key to closing that "income inequality" gap the politicos are always gabbling about.  Yet, the White House and Democrats beholden to public school unions and their money are the ones blocking the school choice door.

Bill Frist-led group continues support of Common Core.  Frist is aligned with fellow Republican Gov. Bill Haslam, who has remained steadfast in support for Common Core and its companion Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career test.  Tennessee school districts are implementing the curriculum and its test overhaul for next fall, but the changes must overcome resistance from a faction of conservatives in the Tennessee General Assembly.  SCORE, a nonpartisan nonprofit whose steering committee is stacked with Common Core backers, has turned into Tennessee's biggest cheerleader for the new curriculum, which 44 other states already have adopted.

Putting lipstick on a pig:
Some state rebrand controversial Common Core education standards.  Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) used an executive order to strip the name "Common Core" from the state's new math and reading standards for public schools.  In the Hawkeye State, the same standards are now called "The Iowa Core."  And in Florida, lawmakers want to delete "Common Core" from official documents and replace it with the cheerier-sounding "Next Generation Sunshine State Standards."

Common Core Rooted in Math Class Social Justice Indoctrination.  While proponents of the Common Core claim that the new standards are focused on "college and career readiness," more evidence is surfacing that a central purpose of the initiative is social justice and income redistribution indoctrination.  Social justice indoctrination in Common Core is not just limited to language arts.  Radical Math is a group founded by Jonathan Osler who teaches math and community organizing at a Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) high school in Brooklyn, New York.  Its website states Radical Math is "a resource for educators interested in integrating issues of social and economic justice into their math classes and curriculum."

Common Core is the Obamacare of education.  While attention is on the debacle that is Obamacare, there is another even more disturbing comprehensive government program being implemented called "Common Core" a set of educational guidelines that were never voted on by Congress, the Department of Education nor by local or state governments.  This federal takeover of public education redefines reading and math standards, teaching and testing for K-12 schooling.

No Space, No Books, No Clue At NYC's Worst Elementary School.  Students at PS 106 in Far Rockaway, Queens, have gotten no math or reading and writing books for the rigorous Common Core curriculum, whistleblowers say.  The 234 kids get no gym or art classes.  Instead, they watch movies every day.  "The kids have seen more movies than Siskel and Ebert," a source said.

Common Core and the EduTech Abyss.  The Common Core gold rush is on. Apple, Pearson, Google, Microsoft and Amplify are all cashing in on the federal standards/testing/textbook racket.  But the EduTech boondoggle is no boon for students.  It's more squandered tax dollars down the public school drain.  Even more worrisome:  The stampede is widening a dangerous path toward invasive data mining.  According to the Silicon Valley Business Journal, the ed tech sector "is expected to more than double in size to $13.4 billion by 2017."  That explosive growth is fueled by Common Core's top-down digital learning and testing mandates.  So:  Cui bono?

Life in the Emerging American Police State.  If parents don't reclaim the education of their children en masse, whether with a massive, nationwide homeschooling program or by occupying the schools and extirpating the government indoctrination programs — Common Core and CSCOPE, America will be forever lost.  (En masse is critical for this effort.  Remember Robert Small of Ellicott City, Maryland who was forcibly removed and arrested after questioning the Common Core curriculum while other parents did NOTHING. [...] These standards, which were developed through a partnership between big government and corporations and are being rolled out in 45 states and the District of Columbia, will create a generation of test-takers capable of little else, molded and shaped by the federal government and its corporate allies into what it considers to be ideal citizens.

Global warming will kill us all, warns Common Core-aligned homework.  Fifth grade students at Fremont Elementary School in Colorado were assigned a reading passage that describes global warming as a dangerous, man-made phenomenon that will destroy civilization in a few hundred years.  The reading assignment was found inside a workbook aligned with the controversial national Common Core curriculum guidelines, and was titled "Homework from the Future."  It tells the fictional story of a visitor to the year 2512 who discovers that the eastern United States is under water and the country's population greatly reduced, all thanks to man-made global warming.

Obamacore.  This article is about the travesty called the Common Core Standards.  Its design began before Obama was elected but I and others refer to it as Obamacore because Obama played a major role in imposing it on the country, and like Obamacare it was passed without being read, and it involves centralized data collection of private information.  States across the U.S. signed on to Obamacore because they were bribed with stimulus funds.  As parents became aware of the changes that were made to their children's education many joined organizations to oppose it.  Many insightful and alarming critiques have been written regarding the danger of Common Core.  There are fears that Common Core is paving the way for indoctrination of American students by centralizing control of education, collecting massive amount of data on students, and telling teachers what they must and must not teach.

Common Core Roots Lie in Ties Between Barack Obama, Bill Ayers.  Just prior to the presidential election of 2008, Dr. Stanley Kurtz, Senior Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, wrote an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal in which he observed that then-Democrat presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama's "most important executive experience" was heading up the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC), an education foundation that was the invention of Bill Ayers, founder of the Weather Underground in the 1960s.  Obama led the CAC from 1995 to 1999 and remained on the board until 2001.  The foundation funneled more than $100 million into community organizations and radical education activists.

The Common Core Assaults World War II.  [Scroll down]  There is no reading in this chapter ostensibly devoted to World War II that tells why America entered the war.  There is no document on Pearl Harbor or the Rape of Nanking or the atrocities committed against the Jews or the bombing of Britain.  The book contains no speech of Winston Churchill or F.D.R. even though the reading of high-caliber "informational texts" is the new priority set by the Common Core, and great rhetoric has always been the province of an English class.  There is not a single account of a battle or of American losses or of the liberation of Europe.

Ohio Republicans target Common Core.  House Bill 237 would prohibit the state board of education from adopting or implementing the standards in Ohio.  A hearing on the bill drew hundreds to Columbus last week.  The bill comes even as Ohio's educators are being trained to teach the new standards — and as Ohio students start learning and testing based on Common Core standards next year.  The battle isn't unique to Ohio.

Feds May Raise Phone Taxes to Fund Common Core Test-Taking.  The Obama administration may raise taxes on everyone's phone lines by about $5 per year to increase K-12 tech subsidies because most schools cannot administer the computerized Common Core tests coming out in 2015.  President Obama announced the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will likely overhaul the schools and libraries universal service support program, commonly known as E-Rate.  He also asked the U.S. Department of Education to use federal funding to give teachers more training in using technology.

Common Core Instructs Students to Learn About Gettysburg Address Without Mentioning the Civil War.  Is it possible to teach students the meaning behind President Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address without mentioning the Civil War?  According to the government's new Common Core education standards, the Gettysburg Address must be taught without mentioning the Civil War and explaining why President Lincoln was in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania.

Thanks for nothing, President Obama.  President Obama's war on America has accelerated.  We're losing ground on every front. [...] The Common Core indoctrination continues to be implemented against the will of the People, and even — can you believe it? — the teachers' unions.  Public hearings are pro forma, conclusions forgone, consequences intended.  Our children's futures are being sacrificed on the altar of "progress."

Common Core third grade book goes full Dear Leader on Obama.  [Quoting an Amazon review of the book:]  I'm pretty neutral about Barack Obama as a person and a candidate, but the messianic message in this utterly insipid book makes me roll my eyes over and over again.  The language is decent enough on a technical level for that age group, though patronizing.  When he starts seeing the ghosts of JFK and MLK and references are made to Langston's Harlem, I'm not sure that the kids that the book is aimed at are going to pick up on the references.  The illustrations are passable in the beginning, but as it continues, they become more and more over-the-top (Barack Obama crying in church, Barack Obama praying with a butterfly perched on his clasped hands, Barack Obama glowing with a heavenly aura).  Cramming this political tripe into a children's book is bad enough, but the heavy-handed treatment and political sloganizing makes it unbearable.

Common Core [is] Obama's Means to 'Fundamentally Transform' America's Education System.  Proponents of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) often insist that the new standards are not a federal takeover of education.  Actually, Common Core supporters could be right in one sense:  Common Core is not so much about a nationalization of education as it is part of a world-wide initiative that may ultimately serve to make American values and practices secondary to global sharing.

Arne Duncan's War on Women and Children.  Just when you thought the Obama administration couldn't antagonize America any further, along comes Education Secretary Arne Duncan.  He didn't just attack "white suburban moms" and children over their criticism of the Common Core "standards"/testing/data-mining program.  The feds' top educrat also managed to insult every one of the nation's minority families and educators who oppose Fed Ed's threat to academic excellence, local control and student privacy.  On Friday [11/15/2013], while defending the beleaguered Common Core program in a meeting with state school superintendents, Duncan unleashed a brazen race and class warfare attack on grassroots foes.

'Common Core' curriculums turn classrooms into cultural battlefields.  The National Education Association and the National Parent Teacher Association work with progressive groups that redefine the family, human relationships, and life itself.  Tax-funded programs introduce children to sexuality and even entice them with cash to participate in sex surveys without parents or students ever being told who the "teachers" are.  Only after a Portland math teacher demanded identification did he find that the presenters sent to his class by the principal to enroll students in the federal government Teen Outreach Program (commonly known as TOP) were actually employees of the local Planned Parenthood.

It's never too early to play the race card.
Arne Duncan: 'White suburban moms' upset that Common Core shows their kids aren't 'brilliant'.  The Common Core was designed to elevate teaching and learning.  Supporters say it does that; critics say it doesn't and that some of the standards, especially for young children, are not developmentally appropriate.  Whichever side you fall on regarding the Core's academic value, there is no question that their implementation in many areas has been miserable [...]

Common Core Teaches Kids Government Must Be Obeyed.  Opposition is rising to new national education standards pushed on public schools.  They have turned schools into re-education camps for liberalism, with political statements masquerading as English lessons.

Some Staten Island parents planning to keep their children home from school Monday for National Common Core Protest Day.  As Staten Island parents vent their frustrations about the state's new Common Core Curriculum standards, parents throughout the state are preparing to keep their children home from school on Monday [11/18/2013], in what's being labeled as "National Common Core Protest Day."

Common Core or Common failure? Families pull kids out of class.  Nine parents pulled their seventh- and eighth-graders out of math class and started teaching them at home, because they are upset with the new Common Core curriculum that public schools in Oregon are starting this year.  Seventh-grader Amy Craig has always been an "A" student in math until this year.  She came home with a "D." [...] Math hasn't changed, but he said there are now fewer numbers and formulas and many more word problems and real-world examples.  It includes more group work.  That's tough for some kids.

The Editor says...
Students are taught to work as teams, rather than learning to be self-reliant; moreover, I suspect the "word problems and real-world examples" are full of political propaganda.  Elementary schools are actually teaching kids to count on their fingers rather than memorize addition and multiplication tables.  Schools are preparing young people to be dependent on computers and "smart phones," which will lead to a life of dependence on Big Government.

High School Student Gives Devastating Speech Against Common Core Education.  "The president essentially bribed states into implementation via 'Race to the Top,' offering $4.35 billion taxpayer dollars to participating states, $500 million of which went to Tennessee," Young said.  "And much like No Child Left Behind, the program promises national testing and a one-size-fits-all education, because hey, it worked so well the first time."  "If nothing else, these standards are a glowing conflict of interest and they lack the research they allegedly received."

New York City teachers say new Common Core textbooks 'loaded with errors'.  The problems surrounding the implementation of the new Common Core learning standards continue to mount.  New York City teachers are publicly condemning the new Common Core-aligned textbooks they've been given to teach the new standards.  According to the educators, pages are printed upside down, some teachers' manuals don't match student textbooks, and they're riddled with other errors, as well, New York Daily News reports.

Friedman Foundation casts doubt on Common Core standards.  Here is our position:  "Parents should have the primary power and authority over their children's education, which includes both the power to choose any school that they deem best and the control over the type and quality of school they pick.  Ultimately, the power of parents trumps the desire for common standards, particularly standards decided by either state or federal education experts or bureaucrats."

The Common Core Rabbit Hole.  [Scroll down]  It will take Herculean efforts for the Common Core philosophy to have long-term success in black underachieving communities.  Here are just a few of the obstacles that it must find a way of overcoming:
  1.  Many black Americans are not interested in acquiring core knowledge or becoming culturally literate according to the standards of western civilization.  This is especially true when whites champion the acquisition of such knowledge.  Assimilating into mainstream western culture is viewed as an affront to blacks' cultural bona fides.
  2.  As the saying goes, "If you want to hide something from a black man put it in a book."  The lack of core knowledge within black communities has nothing to do with poverty.  It has to do with a culture of intellectual laziness that is passed down from one generation to the next. [...]
  4.  [I]t is apparent that there is a definitive swath of black America that has reached a point of no return with regards to low cultural standards.  The rest of America must be resigned to the possibility that many of these people are irredeemable.  They cannot be helped because they do not want to be helped.

Common Core lessons blasted for sneaking politics into elementary classrooms.  It's exactly what critics of the Common Core school curriculum warned about:  Partisan political statements masquerading as English lessons finding their way into elementary school classrooms.  Teaching materials aligned with the controversial national educational standards ask fifth-graders to edit such sentences as "(The president) makes sure the laws of the country are fair," "The wants of an individual are less important than the well-being of the nation" and "the commands of government officials must be obeyed by all."  The sentences, which appear in worksheets published by New Jersey-based Pearson Education, are presented not only for their substance, but also to teach children how to streamline bulky writing.

Common Core Slips Creepy Politics Into An English Lesson.  Did someone resurrect Stalin to outline this program?  Every time a Common Core proponent tells me I am imagining things evidence seems to show up that makes my imagination very, very vivid.

How NOT To Argue With Parents About Common Core.  Central planners in Washington have been caught off-guard by the grassroots revolt against the national standards/testing/curriculum juggernaut.  Real input from the hoi polloi was never a part of the grand implementation process.  So when parents and educators in dozens of states started challenging the privacy intrusions posed by and the constitutionality, cost, quality and validity of Common Core, its architects went on the attack.  And now, the education control freaks are freaking out.

Common Core's Warped View of the Constitution.  The [illustration in this article] comes from a Common Core second grade workbook.  It is completely inaccurate.  The Constitution is not a piece of paper, first off.  It is also not true that we can't say things that hurt others.  We would hope people would care about peoples' feelings but US law does not abridge speech based on other's feelings.  Sharia law does, the South African Constitution does, but US law forbids that type of infringement.

Common Core Reaches a New Low.  The first worksheet is the tale of Peter and Patty.  It's a terrible piece of literature (I'm using the word 'literature' very loosely).  It's about a father who abandons his children in the woods but wishes them well; some woman in the woods takes them in, feeds them fruits and vegetables (she must have been listening to Michelle Obama); and they all live happily ever after.  Seriously?  I don't think I'm overstating it when I say it's bizarre!

Common Core's Convoluted Math Problem for Friday.  I like to post Common Core math problems from our local schools on Long Island because people need to know what happens when children are forced to go by curricula NOT based on research. [...] One would think they are deliberately trying to confuse the children.

Common Core will lead to schools of indoctrination.  As the saga of the Affordable Care Act continues, another mammoth program being pushed by the Department of Education for approval by all state legislatures is a national curriculum, which is called Common Core State Standards.  This is purposely misleading, as they are national standards.  This program would nationalize education against the constitutional provisions that prescribe this responsibility to the states.  The founders realized that giving the function of educating citizens to the federal government would eventually be used politically, to mold the minds of children by defining moral values and beliefs of the populace while enlarging their power.

Common core name changes, standards remain.  Gov. Jan Brewer ordered her agencies to stop using the term "Common Core" when referring to new education standards, in response to hostility from critics over what they see as a federal intrusion.  In an executive order, the governor said she was "reaffirming Arizona's right to set education policy."  Her order spells out "no standards or curriculum shall be imposed on Arizona by the federal government."  But it concedes the standards adopted by the state Board of Education in 2010 already are being implemented.

Challenge 'Common Core' at Your Own Peril.  Last Thursday in Towson, Maryland, concerned parent Robert Small was physically removed from a public forum for daring to interrupt Baltimore County Schools Superintendent Dallas Dance during the so-called "question-and-answer" portion of a school board meeting.  Dance was only answering questions from parents previously submitted in writing.  When Small stood up to tell the audience that he believed the introduction of the new Common Core curriculum would compromise education standards, he was approached by an off-duty police officer working as a security guard and forcibly removed from the auditorium.  He was subsequently handcuffed, and charged with second-degree assault of a police officer.

Rent-A-Cop Manhandles, Arrests Maryland Father for Asking Questions About Common Core.  [Scroll down]  At about the 2:50 mark, the rent-a-cop apparently shoves Mr. Small through a closed gymnasium door.  If anyone in the situation committed assault, it was the rent-a-cop.  Mr. Small wasn't doing anything wrong or illegal.  He was doing what every parent should do, in being involved in his children's education.  But apparently being involved doesn't include being informed.

The Editor says...
Here i0s the lesson to learn from this incident:  Always record public meetings on video, from every possible angle, to document the rash and unprofessional actions of the police — or, in cases like this one, the rent-a-cop wannabe police.

Dad arrested at school meeting after challenging Common Core.  [Robert] Small's crime is daring to ask questions and refusing to be intimidated by the Common Core mafia.  The stakes are high and the elites trying to force Fed Ed down America's throat will shamelessly use any and every kind of government-backed force and coercion necessary to stifle dissent and get their way.  This is a watershed moment for parents, activists, and educators who refuse to surrender to the For The Children control freaks.

Parent arrested at forum after protesting use of common core.  The officer grabbed Small's arm and pulled him toward the aisle.  The audience gasped and some people sitting nearby got out of their seats.  As he was being taken out, Small said, "Don't stand for this.  You are sitting here like cattle."  Then he said, "Is this America?"  The officer pushed Small and then escorted him into the hall, handcuffed him and had him sit on the curb in front of the school.  He was taken to the Towson precinct and detained.  Small was charged with second-degree assault of a police officer, which carries a fine of $2,500 and up to 10 years in prison, and disturbing a school operation, which carries a fine of $2,500 and up to six months.

Update:
Charges dropped against Maryland parent who spoke against Common Core standards.  The Howard County father whose arrest became a viral web video and a cause celebre of conservative talk radio won't be prosecuted for disrupting a meeting on state education standards.  The Baltimore County state's attorney's office dropped assault charges Monday against Robert Small, who had been led out of the Thursday night meeting in Towson by an off-duty police officer.  Small interrupted education officials, complaining that new standards were aimed at sending children to community colleges.

The Editor says...
The charges were probably dropped only because there were numerous witnesses and photographs to disprove the state's case.

Close Reading Is Close to a Con.  A key component of the blitzkrieg known as Common Core Standards is something called "close reading."  This is an educational activity that children are supposed to engage in.  They will not merely read; they will read deeply and profoundly, like professors. [...] A serious problem at this point is that more than half our fourth graders are not proficient readers.  Same with our eighth-graders.  You cannot expect these children to do "close reading" because they cannot, in any real sense of the word, do "reading."

Common Core Standards Flunk Logic 101.  Even if logic is relevant to mathematics, how exactly is it relevant?  And why is it important that our schools make sure K-12 mathematics students have a firm grasp of the concepts of logic?

Classroom chaos? Critics blast new Common Core education standards.  A full year before students around the nation submit to the new Common Core standardized tests, the federally-backed program is already causing chaos and confusion at local school board meetings, in the classroom and at the dinner table.  As critics fear Washington is poised to take control of what and how local districts teach kids, school administrators are adopting new curriculum in an effort to ensure their students outperform their peers and parents worry that their children are being used as academic guinea pigs.

Common Core and more — why don't parents get to have a say in their kids' education?  The new Common Core educational standards seem meager at best, perhaps because so much educational class time is dust in the wind as my children watch movies, presentations and create "discussion trees" while contemplating the evils of bullying, only to be sent home with hours of homework.  But to call and ask about the time management of the classroom is to put your children in danger of retaliation by a blustering teacher who has essentially transferred the work of educating your child back to you.

Common Core: What's in It for Bill Gates?  To set the record straight, Common Core is not about "core knowledge" but rather is the foundation for left-wing student indoctrination to create activists for the social justice agenda.  Education is being nationalized, just like our healthcare, to eliminate local control over education, imposing a one-size-fits-all, top-down curriculum that will also affect private schools and homeschoolers.  Being in the business of contributing to educational technologies for decades, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates has a much vested interest in education.  Great concern has been expressed over the years regarding the driving force behind Gates and his organizations, which have demonstrated unflagging support of many leftist causes.

Oklahoma Drops National Common Core Tests.  Oklahoma students will not participate in national tests corresponding to Common Core K-12 standards.  State Superintendent Janet Barresi cited high costs, technological unpreparedness, and parent and teacher concerns over the testing length as her reasons.  In 2010, 45 states agreed to trade their standards for Common Core.  The next step is developing tests that track whether students are meeting the standards.

New York Legislature to Reconsider Testing, Common Core.  Lawmakers will review New Yorks recent education reform agenda, including Common Core national education standards, in public September hearings.  The quality of Common Core, state assessments, and student privacy are the main issues the hearings will address after widespread public outcry largely centered on testing.

Indiana Holds First Common Core 'Pause' Hearing.  Another packed room awaited Indiana lawmakers reviewing Common Core national standards Monday [8/5/2013], with people lining the walls, ringing the star-studded hearing room floor, and filling the upper gallery.  The five-hour meeting was the first of three lawmakers will conduct before another three by the state board of education.  In between, accountants will estimate the costs of overhauling Indiana's education system to fit national goals and tests for English and math in grades K-12.  By July 2014, the state board of education will decide whether Indiana improves its own standards or sticks with Common Core.

Common Core Testing Costs Increase; Georgia Withdraws.  It will take only three more states to withdraw from PARCC national Common Core tests to jeopardize the group's $186 million federal grant.  On July 22, Georgia announced its withdrawal from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers after PARCC released a new cost estimate of $29.50 per student.  PARCC is one of two federally funded national testing consortia creating Common Core tests due in 2014-2015.  It now has 19 member states, while Smarter Balanced, the other, has 24.

Feds May Raise Phone Taxes to Fund Common Core Test-Taking.  The Obama administration may raise taxes on everyone's phone lines by about $5 per year to increase K-12 tech subsidies because most schools cannot administer the computerized Common Core tests coming out in 2015.  President Obama announced the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will likely overhaul the schools and libraries universal service support program, commonly known as E-Rate.  He also asked the U.S. Department of Education to use federal funding to give teachers more training in using technology.

Teacher: I Changed My Mind about Common Core.  Christy Hooley is a sixth grade teacher in Wyoming.  She used to support Common Core national standards.  But now she doesn't.  And her principal has told her not to talk about it in school.  So she's telling the country.  [Video clip.]

Pennsylvania to Consider Common Core Repeal.  Pennsylvania will revert to its state tests rather than use national Common Core tests, according to Pennsylvania Department of Education spokesman Tim Eller.  Lawmakers are also considering repealing the entire initiative.  Concerns voiced by residents and the state legislature prompted the switch, Eller said.  The state will use a combination of Pennsylvania System of School Assessment (PSSA) and Keystone Exams instead.  This switch will "likely be completed in fall 2013," he said.

GED Test Shifts to Fit Common Core.  On January 2, 2014, the current GED test will be replaced by a new version fully aligned with Common Core national K-12 benchmarks that costs nearly twice as much and will only be offered on computers.  "This is not about Common Core — this is about jobs and how to be successful in a job and in life," said C.T. Turner, director of public affairs for GED Testing Services.  "The GED tests high school equivalence, but also career pathways.  In most states, 50 percent of all available jobs are 'middle-skill' jobs — jobs that require some college, but not a BA.  We are aligning the GED with the Common Core in order to fulfill the need for those jobs necessary to compete in a global economy."

Are Common Core State Standards an Education Solution?  According to the most recent calculations available, the United States stands at the 32nd rank in math among nations in the industrialized world.  In reading, the U.S. ranks 17th in the world, say Paul Peterson, a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, and Peter Kaplan, a student at Harvard University.  The low performance of U.S. students has been attributed to low expectations set by states under the 2002 federal law, No Child Left Behind (NCLB), which expects all students to reach full proficiency by 2014.

5 Things Every Parent Needs to Know About The Common Core.  If you have a child in school today, chances are you've heard something about the Common Core standards.  Forty-five states and the District of Columbia have decided to align their instruction to them, promising sweeping changes to classrooms across the country over the next several years.  What are these standards?  Where did they come from?  Are they a good idea?  These are all questions parents should be asking.  But even today, some of the answers are far from clear.

Feds May Raise Phone Taxes to Fund Common Core Test-Taking.  The Obama administration may raise taxes on everyone's phone lines by about $5 per year to increase K-12 tech subsidies because most schools cannot administer the computerized Common Core tests coming out in 2015.  President Obama announced the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) will likely overhaul the schools and libraries universal service support program, commonly known as E-Rate.  He also asked the U.S. Department of Education to use federal funding to give teachers more training in using technology.

Feds to 'redesign' public schools as Obama attacks Catholic education.  To all conservative Common Core supporters who claim the initiative is state-led, please pay attention.  And to all liberals who support parochial schools, you might want to pay attention, too.  On June 7, the federal Department of Education announced its plan to "redesign" all government high schools in America.

Mike McShane: Common Core Is Going to Get Worse.  Michael McShane is an education research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and he's been writing a 10-part series called "Dispatches from a Nervous Common Core Observer."  The former teacher joins the podcast to discuss how a little less PR and a little more critical thinking would have dissuaded more states from excitedly tossing their students into this nationwide experiment.  He raises concerns about curriculum, testing, teacher preparation, and the looming specter of federal entanglement.

Five People Wrote 'State-Led' Common Core.  Many education leaders continue to insist the process for creating national education standards was "state-led," referring to its incubation within two Washington DC-based nonprofits, the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers.  That seems to depend on how one defines "state-led."

'State-Led' Common Core Pushed by Federally Funded Nonprofit.  A central defense of the new national education standards, now generating spirited public debates, is that the federal government did not mandate or create them.  "The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a state-led effort that established a single set of clear educational standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in English language arts and mathematics," the official Common Core website states.  In 2009, two nonprofit, nongovernmental organizations called the National Governors Association (NGA) and Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), convened government officials and dozens of consultants to write, rewrite, and, in June 2010, finally publish Common Core.

North Carolina Sixth Grader Refuses Common Core Tests.  North Carolina sixth grader Zoe Morris believes the new standardized tests entering her Chapel Hill middle school are wrong, and she wants out.  Zoe and her father, Charlie, began researching Common Core national standards after he realized "teachers were teaching from scripts," Charlie said, and Zoe began to register frustration in school.  "Kids would ask questions in class and the teachers would say, 'I can't answer that — it isn't part of the curriculum,'" Zoe said.  Deciding she needed to spotlight this change and support her teachers, Zoe opted not to take the new state tests, which contain elements of Common Core.

Kansas Common Core Opponents Look to 2014.  Although frustrated by this month's three-vote defeat of a bill to reconsider Common Core national education standards or related tests, former Kansas Board of Education member Walt Chappell is resolute:  "House Bill 2289 [to repeal Common Core] is still alive."  The Common Core opponent expects a repeal bill to be re-introduced in 2014, but in the interim, Chappell, president of Educational Management Consultants, believes a "groundswell of activity from teachers and parents" is necessary to make that bill law.  He plans to spread the word about Common Core, and assist parents and teachers in outreach to their communities.

Environmental Literacy in America.  As kids become more "wired" than ever before, they are drawn away from healthful, often soul-soothing, outdoor play.  The age-old pattern of children spending hours roaming about and playing outside is becoming close to extinct due to a combination of electronics, cyberspace, and parental efforts to keep their children indoors and, in their minds, safer.

Was adopting Common Core a mistake?  Race to the Top pressured financially strapped states to adopt education policies that varied widely in their value.  Many of the policies, such as the push to tie teacher evaluations to student test scores, were not backed by any sort of evidence.  Yet they were adopted quickly because of application deadlines, and there was little time for thoughtful crafting of new rules.  Yet for all the excitement, Race to the Top provided little actual cash.  California would have received a one-time award of $700 million — less than 2% of what it spends on education every year.  It failed to win a grant, but nonetheless had committed itself, as most states did, to the Common Core curriculum standards that the Obama administration supported.

The Common Core Straight Jacket.  American education was based on some very fundamental principles and, from the 1640s until the 1840s, they were, in the words of Joseph Bast, the president of The Heartland Institute, "real civics, real economics, and real virtues."  Bast is the co-author of "Education and Capitalism" and in a recent speech at the Eighth annual Wisconsin Conservative Conference took a look at the way an education system that produced citizens who understood the values that existed before "progressives" took over the nation's school system, turning it into a one-size-fits-all system of indoctrination.

GOP: Do you realize Obama is seizing control of local education too?  To put it simply, Democrats want a national school board; Republicans favor local control.  Over the last decade, the United States Department of Education has become so congested with federal mandates that it has actually become, in effect, a national school board.

First Empirical Evidence: Common Core Hurts Kentucky Students.  The New York Times published a wonderful op-ed by Andrew Hacker and Claudia Dreyfus acknowledging that Common Core is a radical experiment adopted with almost no public discussion and that it is fueling parents' anxieties.  They also note something I did not know: Kentucky adopted Common Core in 2010, and the results was a huge drop in students' test scores.

Grooming the New Totalitarians.  For the umpteenth time I will warn my fellow Americans:  the nation's educational institutions are the central battleground for the nation's soul.  It is a battleground where the American left is doggedly determined to turn America's younger generations into people with no concept whatsoever of personal privacy, even as a reverence for the collective, aka the "greater good" is unrelentingly nurtured.  The evidence of their handiwork is everywhere.  The most blatant manifestation is the reality that kids can no longer do simple mathematical calculations such as making change.

"Common Core" or "Rotten to the Core" — You Decide.  [S]tate and local groups who are bothering to do their homework and look into the details of Common Core have concluded that what the public has been told about this initiative has not been the truth.  In fact, none of what the Common Core establishment is pushing is true. [...] The curriculum replaces the classics with government propaganda. [...] The Federal Government has standardized the education curriculum that will apply to all public schools, charter schools, private schools, Christian schools and homeschooling.  No one is safe from this new mandate.

Tea Party Revives to Fight Common Core.  Today's [5/31/2013] Washington Post has a front-page above-the-fold article on the battle that's revitalizing the Tea Party:  blocking the Common Core, the Obama administration's push for a de facto national education system.  The IRS scandal has surely helped to energize the Tea Party, but it's the fight against Common Core that's lent the movement new purpose and substance.

Rotten to the core.  President Obama wants to be involved in drafting the curriculum in our local schools.  It's part of an initiative called "Common Core," the brainchild of state educational bureaucrats crying out for more centralization.  This administration is more than happy to advance this because it means a larger role for the federal government. [...] The White House is now taking the next step by offering $4 billion in "Race to the Top" stimulus money to bribe states into embracing decisions made by a central committee.

Tea party groups mobilizing against Common Core education overhaul.  Tea party groups over the past few weeks have suddenly and successfully pressured Republican governors to reassess their support for a rare bipartisan initiative backed by President Obama to overhaul the nation's public schools.  Activists have donned matching T-shirts and packed buses bound for state legislative hearing rooms in Harrisburg, Pa., grilled Georgia education officials at a local Republican Party breakfast and deluged Michigan lawmakers with phone calls urging opposition to the Common Core State Standards.

Communist Indoctrination Included in Common Core for First Graders.  Reading, writing and arithmetic are out — Communist indoctrination is in!  The radical left is indoctrinating first graders in communist doctrine disguised as educational tools for first graders.  The indoctrination is part of the Common Core curriculum for elementary students.

States Respond to Common Core Science Standards.  States have begun to take sides on the new Common Core science standards released earlier this month.  The standards shift students towards engineering from traditional biology, chemistry, and physics disciplines, and tell children starting in kindergarten that humans have contributed to dangerous global warming.

The use of textbooks as propaganda tools:
Michelle O Wants Textbooks to 'Swap Cupcakes for Apples' in Math Problems.  First Lady Michelle Obama's "Let's Move!" initiative is praising textbook publishers for "swapping out cupcakes for apples in math problems," in a campaign to incorporate health information into the learning resources for kids.  "Today at the White House, we celebrated a group of educational publishers on their development of voluntary guidance to incorporate health information into textbooks and other learning materials," Let's Move! said in a blog post entitled, "Cookies 2 Carrots," on Wednesday.

Common Core GED textbook: "9/11 hijackers were poor Afghanis".  Adult basic education and GED programs, with about 800,000 students taking GED tests each year, serve a segment of society that escaped government schools, including many homeschoolers.  But the national propaganda effort called the Common Core Curriculum is spreading its tentacles to them.

Sen. Grassley: Stop Federal Funds, Coercion on Common Core.  U.S. Senator Chuck Grassley wants the federal government to stop funding Common Core, national K-12 education goals in math and English.  Late yesterday afternoon [4/17/2013], his office released a letter Grassley wants his Senate Appropriations Committee members to sign, supporting a ban on all federal "attempts to cajole states" into Common Core and its corresponding national tests, wrote James Rice, Grassley's legislative assistant, in an email.

North Carolina Questions Common Core.  North Carolina legislators have introduced a proposal that would require their state to examine national Common Core education standards.  Over the last few years, North Carolina and 44 other states signed on to the Common Core, a list of goals detailing what children should know in math and English for grades K-12.  Yet, about a dozen states are now taking a second look, as policymakers and citizens raise concerns.



"A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the dominant power in the government, whether this be a monarch, an aristocracy, or a majority of the existing generation; in proportion as it is efficient and successful, it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by a natural tendency to one over the body."
— John Stuart Mill, On Liberty, 1869.     


Common Core 'Exemplars': Graphic Sex and Praising Castro.  I must admit that I would have been too embarrassed to teach Julia Alvarez's sexually explicit novel, In the Time of the Butterflies, to the college students I have taught for over twenty years, much less to ninth- and tenth-graders, as many Georgia high school teachers have been instructed to do. [...] The novel is taken straight from Common Core's "Text Exemplars" for ninth and tenth grades.  Although the "exemplars" are officially intended to be suggested readings, educrats take the suggestions literally.  They know that they have to prepare students for the national tests being rolled out in 2014/2015.

Propagandizing the Plebs: The Common Core Curriculum Meets The GED.  Adult basic education and GED programs, with about 800,000 students taking GED tests each year, serve a segment of society that escaped government schools, including many homeschoolers.  But the national propaganda effort called the Common Core Curriculum is spreading its tentacles to them. [...] Thus, aligning GED with Common Core has the potential of erasing all the efforts and sacrifices the homeschooling parents have put in to protect their children from the centralized indoctrination.  You can run but you can't hide from the omnipresent Big Brother: the new GED workbooks and requirements will still drag many of their children through the biased Common Core curriculum.

The Great Education Power-Grab.  Did you know that reformers intent on implementing the Core Curriculum (National Standards) have invaded public education?  They do not care about kids or about individuals.  Armed with statistics and vast software systems, their intent is to establish one-size-fits-all curricula and success parameters in public education nationwide.  The scope of their ambitions leads this educator to the conclusion that their underlying impulse is totalitarian.

The Pressure is Building!  [Scroll down]  Two of the more dangerous issues, aside from gun CONTROL, amnesty, EPA dictates, Fast & Furious, the Benghazi Massacre, NDAA, drones being used against U. S. citizens within our borders, Dodd-Frank, the Sequester, etc., are U. N. Agenda 21 and Common Core.  The low information voter is blissfully ignorant of these assaults, thanks to the media.  The media will not discuss these issues because if people/parents knew about these assaults, they would get involved.  If people were to become involved, the layers on the onions of lies, fraud and malfeasance may be unwound.

The New Liberals' Hymnal: The Book of Common Core.  Here's how it's supposed to work: Under Common Core a small group of union stooges, educrats and crony-crats from each state will get together and decide the newest version of No Child Left Behind.  They will then impose it on the rest of us in the name of the federal government.  Everything taught will have to get the stamp of approval from the Communist Core, uh, Common Core-o-crats made up of various people who have already screwed up education in their own states.  Doesn't that seem much better than leaving it to parents and school boards at the local level as rescribed under the Tenth Amendment?

Common Core: Nationalized State-Run Education.  Like all Orwellian euphemisms, "Common Core" is not about innocent ideas like the word "common" or the term "core."  The phrase "Common Core" is used to hide the real aspects of an education policy which if articulated openly would never be taken seriously, let alone be implemented.  Common Core is being driven by an amalgam of overt/covert actions, apathy, and Progressive passions, where their ends justify any means.  Some people cheering Common Core seem to be unwittingly going along out of good intentions and laziness.  While some on the bandwagon are motivated by the usual suspects of money and power, others have just been duped.

Pulling a Reagan Against Common Core.  The end of local control of education looms as 46 states have signed onto the Common Core, a set of national K-12 education standards and federally funded tests.  Opposition to it, though, is suddenly burgeoning into a full-blown national movement, with 13 states either not participating or seriously rethinking the issue.

Lawmakers Rethink Indiana's Common Core Participation.  When 46 states signed the Common Core initiative in 2010, few held public hearings.  Kentucky even agreed to adopt the requirements for what K-12 kids should know in English and math before they were published.  Even now, nearly three years later, legislators, teachers, parents, and the general public routinely report in interviews and opinion polls they've never heard of the standards.

Alabama to Exit from National Common Core Tests.  In 2010, 45 states agreed to use the same set of requirements for what K-12 students should know in math and English.  It's called the Common Core.  Since then, states have joined one or both of two groups developing Common Core tests to replace state tests.  Alabama has now withdrawn from its membership in both.

Bill Would Withdraw Georgia from Common Core Standards.  A lawmaker has filed a bill that would withdraw Georgia from Common Core national education standards and prohibit personal information collected on the tests from being shared outside the state.  That makes Georgia the eighth state to formally reconsider the Common Core, a list defining what K-12 tests and curricula must cover in math and English.  Forty-five states adopted the standards, nearly all in a span of three months in 2010.

Only parents can set their children free from Common Core indoctrination.  Millions of parents with school-age children will never know their children have been captured and led away.  The name of the program set up for the kidnap of all time is so innocent sounding:  Common Core.  But in typical Marxist fashion, the name can be morphed into a myriad of others when it becomes expedient to keep parents in the dark.

Marxism in Education: Schools Poisoned by 'Common Core Standards'.  My friend and fellow blogger Michelle Malkin has done a set of four in-depth articles on reporting on the Common Core Standards as well as additional pieces providing more information.  Her work is very well done.  Before her write-ups, I would wager most parents had never heard of Common Core.  There are now many teachers who are quitting and/or standing up against this Progressive travesty that is intent on corrupting our schools and students.

Time To Opt Out of Creepy Fed Ed Data-Mining Racket.  An independent grassroots revolt outside the Beltway bubble is swelling.  Families are taking their children's academic and privacy matters out of the snoopercrats' grip and into their own hands.  You can now download a Common Core opt-out/disclosure form to submit to your school district, courtesy of the Truth In American Education group.

Rotten to the Core: The Feds' Invasive Student Tracking Database.  Say goodbye to your children's privacy.  Say hello to an unprecedented nationwide student tracking system, whose data will apparently be sold by government officials to the highest bidders.  It's yet another encroachment of centralized education bureaucrats on local control and parental rights under the banner of "Common Core."

Welcome To Your 21st Century Global Educational System.  We are entering into a new era of education with a global curriculum designed by the United Nations that will be implemented not just in developing countries, but right here in the United States.  Once our daycares are forced to shut their doors because of purposeful and costly over-regulation by state and federal governments, babies will be forced into the 0-12 educational system and the educational leaders will have accomplished their goal of compulsory education for even the youngest in our society.  Once all children are herded into the public school system (because homeschooling will no longer be allowed), this is what our newly transformed educational system will look like.

The Educational Tech Scam.  Although no reasonable person would buy a new car sight unseen and without comparing price to another similar vehicle, states have signed on to the Common Core — including its testing mechanism — without any serious funding studies and no opportunity to review either testing package, as test questions hadn't even been released until August of last year.  In fact, it wasn't until the Pioneer Institute released a paper counting CC's costs at nearly $16 billion nationally that any kind of a critical eye was cast on the cost of Common Core in any way.

Readin', Writin' and Deconstructionism.  The Washington, D.C., board of education earned widespread mockery this week when it proposed allowing high school students — in the nation's own capital — to skip a basic U.S. government course to graduate.  But this is fiddlesticks compared to what the federal government is doing to eliminate American children's core knowledge base in English, language arts and history.

Obama Bribes States to Adopt National Education Curriculum.  The Obama administration is using taxpayer money to bribe state governments into accepting a dubious national education curriculum known as "Common Core," and so far, the controversial campaign has flown largely under the radar.  The national scheme, which is already arousing some serious opposition, is geared toward standardizing educational requirements in a move that critics say represents an assault on local control over the school system.  Homeschooling groups are expressing concerns, too, and the outcry is growing louder every day.

Goodbye, Liberal Arts?  The president's push for states to accept new curriculum standards should give chills to anyone who believes in the importance of the liberal arts.  If you think it's good for kids to read stories, these changes will probably disturb you.

Why States Should Hop Off the National Standards Bandwagon.  When "states signed on to common core standards, they did not realize... that they were transferring control of the school curriculum to the federal government," said Sandra Stotsky, 21st Century Chair in Teacher Quality at the University of Arkansas's Department of Education Reform, speaking at The Heritage Foundation on Tuesday [4/17/2012].  Stotsky and four other education scholars from around the nation met to discuss the Obama Administration's growing push for Common Core national education standards and why states should resist Washington's attempt to further centralize education.

American Schools Replace Great Fiction With Government Propaganda.  Forty-six states have surrendered control of school curricula to the federal government under the remarkably successful and sweeping "Race to the Top" challenge.  By entering the challenge — with no promising of winning the money — states agreed to replace local school district curricula with federally mandated subjects and standards:  the common core state standards.  The process took less than two years, and ensures that the federal government will dictate every aspect of a child's learning forever.

What happened to the Three R's?  Start with the basics, then work up to computer technology later.
For DHS, Cybersecurity Education Begins in Kindergarten.  In a blog titled, "Inspiring the Next Generation of Cyber Professionals," Napolitano said, "In addition, we are extending the scope of cyber education beyond the federal workplace through the National Initiative for Cybersecurity Education, involving students from kindergarten through post-graduate school."

The Editor says...
Would you teach first-grade students about weight lifting or how to sharpen an axe?  No, things like that are taught to young people only after they are mature enough to handle it.  Is it really necessary to teach kindergarten children about cybersecurity, when most high school kids probably can't even spell the word?  This is just another symptom of the computer fad -- anything related to computers sounds like a good idea to public school pencil-pushers.

Like Obamacare, Obama Core Is Another Power Grab.  It's well-known that public schools are not graduating students as well-educated as before, that Americans score poorly on international tests, and that billions of federal dollars showered on public schools have not achieved any of the designated goals, which were to raise test scores and to eliminate the gap between higher income and lower income students.  The Obama progressives want us to believe that the remedy is to turn over total control to the federal government.

Terrorist Professor Bill Ayers and Obama's Federal School Curriculum.  [Scroll down]  Common Core is part of an effort to implement regionalism, the replacement of local governments by regional boards of federally appointed bureaucrats, who in turn are beholden to international bodies.  Regionalism will eliminate the freedom parents now have in choosing neighborhoods with good schools because tax funds will be distributed equally.  There will be no escape in home schooling or private schools either, because the curriculum will follow national tests.  Students will be tracked through mandatory state records that will then be accessible to Washington bureaucrats.  Ultimately, all students will be subject to education mandates implemented by Obama's radical cronies.

Education Secretary Sees Laptop on Every Desk As Way to 'Insure Educational Equity'.  U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan says the federal government "will do all we can" to support the use of technology in education because technology "can even the playing field" for low-income, minority and rural students who don't have laptops and i-phones at home.  "The future of American education undoubtedly includes a laptop on every desk and universal Internet access in every home.  It definitely includes more on-line learning," Duncan told a conference in Austin, Texas, last week.

The Plague in American Education.  The solution for American education is not a longer school year for children in a failing system or more federal government control over education as President Obama promotes in his strategic plan for American education.

No National Curriculum, Thanks.  All but six states (including Texas) have fallen into bed with an effort — supported by the U.S. Education Department and led by the National Governors Association and state educational officials — to shape a core curriculum "robust and relevant to the real world."  A couple of weeks ago, the Pearson Foundation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation said they were developing a complete online curriculum for math and English/language arts courses.

Obama Continues Pushing Absurd College Agenda.  [Scroll down]  The core idea, that the country needs more college graduates, is nonsensical.  The first point to observe is that "our" college graduation rate is just a statistical artifact, like "our" home ownership rate and "our" voting rate.  To people imbued with a central planning mindset, such statistics betoken national success or failure.  In fact, the nation isn't doing anything.  Millions of individuals are deciding whether or not to go to college and complete the course of study.

This is another step toward 24-hour ownership of your children:
Education secretary calls for 12-hour school days, longer school year.  If Education Secretary Arne Duncan has his way, kids would be spending a lot more time at school — and a three-month summer would be a thing of the past.  Duncan joked with attendees at a luncheon at the National Press Club Tuesday [7/27/2010] in Washington that he would like schools to stay open 13 months out of the year.  Then he told the audience of over 100 that he seriously supports longer school hours.



No Child Left Behind

NCLB was an earlier iteration of the federal government's meddling in education, which (according to the Constitution) is supposed to be "reserved to the States, or to the people."

Public School Privilege.  "No Child Left Behind."  That's the stated policy of our nationalized, near-monopoly public school system.  The slogan is the usual grandiose utopian mumbo-jumbo we've come to expect from Washington, followed by a multitude of annoying and absurd outcomes in schools across the country.

Neither liberty nor safety.  "No Child Left Behind" has been expanded to collect not only student test scores and grades, but the government now keeps permanent records on students' disciplinary actions, economic status, and even pregnancies.  Worse, the feds discourage the states from allowing parents to access these "permanent records."  What police state has ever done without such record keeping?

No child left behind – Republican ode to socialism.  The Constitution grants no authority for the federal government to be involved in education, and for good reason:  centralizing all learning in one distant spot is a stupid, narrow, dangerous, communist idea, one which has throughout all the world's history led to despotism and slavery.  Thus our forefathers limited federal power to a few necessary objects like national defense and foreign policy, and not at all to education.

The Bush education fix will only make it worse.  The President's proposal accepts the incorrect conclusion that the problem with education is simply an overblown bureaucracy that wastes federal funds and fails to enforce clear standards by rewarding bad schools.  His statement that "no child will be left behind" comes straight from the decade-old motto of the Children's Defense Fund, the group that claims Hillary Clinton as one of its leaders.  By being so off-the-mark, there just is no way the Bush proposal can address a single school reform issue.

Screening Mothers and Babes Instead of Potential Terrorists.  I was absolutely dumbfounded to read about something called The Children's Mental Health Act of 2003.  It requires a mental health screening of children ages zero through 18 and pregnant women.  Pregnant women would be screened prior to delivery for depression and periodically for the first six months after giving birth. … This measure fits extremely well with the outcome based educational methods currently utilized in our failing school systems.  OBE is based on the ideas that our schools are responsible for the emotional and nurturance needs of children from families where they're not being met. … OBE is exactly the type of non scientifically backed method that No Child Left Behind is trying to eliminate.

Why "No Child Left Behind" Is Nuts:  My original assumption was that the Commission was cynically aware that NCLB is a bad joke.  Yet it is also naïvely recommending plugging the crucial loophole that might make "100 percent proficiency" almost achievable on paper.  In the current NCLB, which was largely the result of an alliance between President Bush and Senator Kennedy.  Each state is allowed to concoct its own test to determine whether its own students have reached "proficiency," which the state can define however it pleases.

"No Child Left Behind" Should Be Left Behind.  NCLB was intended to improve education standards in America's dismal public schools.  It should have been named No Bureaucracy Left Behind instead.  I opposed NCLB from the beginning.  Why?  Because education is a local concern.  There is simply no way that all public schools from New York City to Alaska have the same problems that require a one-size-fits-all solution.

All Americans Left Behind.  Congress passed the No Child Left Behind Act overwhelmingly in December 2001.  NCLB's popularity was partly political and partly geopolitical.  Republicans wanted a legislative victory for the new president, and legislators sought to demonstrate U.S. solidarity in the wake of 9/11.  But adding to its appeal was the mom-and-apple-pie promise that it would raise overall achievement in math and reading while narrowing the test score gaps dividing rich from poor, and black and Hispanic from white.  Recent results from two different sets of international tests suggest that NCLB has failed to deliver on that promise.

'No Child' Data on Violence Skewed.  At Anacostia Senior High School last school year, private security guards working under D.C. police recorded 61 violent offenses, including three sexual assaults and one assault with a deadly weapon.  There were 21 other nonviolent cases in which students were caught bringing knives and guns to school.  [And yet] Anacostia is not considered a persistently dangerous school.

"No Child Left Behind" Rebellion:  "From Utah to Virginia, a revolt is building in classrooms and legislatures against the biggest education reform in a quarter century," observed the February 11 Christian Science Monitor.

Defining Achievement Downward:  How NCLB encourages mediocrity.  Holding schools accountable to the AYP [Adequate Yearly Progress] schedule has some bad effects.  Most importantly, it encourages teachers and schools to focus heavily on "bubble" children currently near the proficiency level.  Derek Neal, a University of Chicago economist who recently released a study of NCLB, found that schoolteachers are pressured to increase their proficiency numbers, while kids outside the bubble, particularly high achievers, are slighted.

Battling the 'No Child' Backlash.  The last thing President Bush needs is another fight with his political base.  But that is what he has found as he presses Congress to renew the No Child Left Behind Act, his signature education program passed by a bipartisan majority in the first months of his first term.

Intense Battle Looms over NCLB.  No Child Left Behind (NCLB) … is likely to provoke increasingly intense debate on Capitol Hill throughout 2006. … NCLB requires states to test children in reading and math annually in grades 3-8 and once in high school.  However … it allows the states to set their own standards and adopt their own tests.  Some critics believe this ensures a race to the bottom as states and localities demand less from students in order to avoid having many schools officially designated as "in need of improvement."

No Child Left Behind is beyond uninformative — It is deceptive  NCLB takes a giant step toward nationalizing elementary and secondary education, a disaster for federalism.  It pushes classrooms toward relentless drilling, not something that inspires able people to become teachers or makes children eager to learn.  It holds good students hostage to the performance of the least talented, at a time when the economic future of the country depends more than ever on the performance of the most talented.

Utah takes on the Feds.  If you seek a window into conservatism's current consternations, look into Utah.  The nation's reddest state … is rebelling against President Bush's No Child Left Behind law.  Only three states have not challenged in some way NCLB's extension of federal supervision over education grades K through 12….

Poll shows people are worried about No Child Left Behind.  A poll of people's attitudes towards public schools reveals some concerns about the No Child Left Behind law. … When asked directly about the testing being done as a result of the No Child Left Behind law, more than two-thirds said they don't think a single test gives a true picture of how a school is doing.  Eighty-percent say testing students only in math and English fails to show if a school needs improvement.

The Looming Train Wreck of No Child Left Behind:  Facing the task of reauthorizing No Child Left Behind (NCLB), Congress … faces an unsustainable status-quo.  Although fashioned with the noblest intentions, NCLB created a perverse incentive for states to lower their academic standards — an incentive that will become increasingly powerful in coming years.

Let's 'Restructure' Washington While We're at It.  [Scroll down]  Take the 2001 No Child Left Behind law, a 670-page statute that ostensibly provides for national testing so we know how schools are doing.  But that worthy goal could be accomplished in a few pages, with delegation to the Secretary of Education to make sure the standards are uniform and providing adequate funding.  Instead the statute is a model of micromanagement, a top-down exercise in terrorizing teachers into thinking nothing is important except, as one teacher put it, "test, test, test."



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Updated March 28, 2023.

©2023 by Andrew K. Dart