Want to See What CSCOPE and Common Core (Even Homeschooling) Lessons Look
Like? These Parents Opened Up to TheBlaze
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/04/02/want-to-see-what-cscope-and-common-core-even-homeschooling-lessons-look-like-these-parents-opened-up-to-theblaze/
As a greater level of scrutiny is being placed on the controversial curriculum
systems CSCOPE (in Texas) and Common Core Standards (nationwide), concerned
parents spoke to TheBlaze about their troubling experiences, revealing that not
even home-schooling is beyond the reach of these encroaching systems.
Home-schooling not beyond the reach of Common Core?
Keven Card, a former Marine from Houston who has home-schooled his children for
the last six years, thought his family was safe from the reach of Common Core,
but soon learned otherwise. As noted on his blog, two years ago Pearson
Education, which is linked to Common Core, acquired Texas Connections Academy,
the online charter school Card uses to homeschool his ninth-grader.
One lesson plan featured a video dubbed, ”China Rises,” that appears to tout the
virtues of Communism over capitalism.
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Common Core: Nationalized State-Run Education
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/04/m-common_core_nationalized_state-run_education.html
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./
These varying alliances seem to be focused on the fact that Common Core's "lead
architect," David Coleman, says he believes in the value of a liberal-arts
education. The problem is nobody asked what a liberal-arts education means to
Mr. Coleman. Reading his background puts new meaning to the word "liberal" in
liberal arts.....
The foundational philosophy of Common Core is to create students ready for
social action so they can force a social-justice agenda. Common Core is not
about students who actually have a grasp of the intricate facts of a true set of
what E.D. Hirsch would call "core knowledge." Common Core is about, as David
Feith would say "an obsession with race, class, gender, and sexuality as the
forces of history and political identity." Nationalizing education via Common
Core is about promoting an agenda of Anti-capitalism, sustainability, white
guilt, global citizenship, self-esteem, affective math, and culture sensitive
spelling and language. This is done in the name of consciousness raising, moral
relativity, fairness, diversity, and multiculturalism./
President Obama and Education Secretary Duncan falsely said the Common Core
standards were developed by the states and voluntarily adopted. Common Core was
actually developed by an organization called Achieve and the National Governors
Association, funded by the Gates Foundation by at least $173 million dollars.
The states were bribed by $4.35 billion "Race to the Top" dollars if they
adopted the standards. Former Texas State Commissioner of Education, Robert
Scott, stated for the record that he was urged to adopt the Common Core
standards before they were written./
Federal laws prohibit the U.S. Department of Education from prescribing any
curriculum, but four billion is a big carrot -- or is it a stick? Forty-six
states and the District of Columbia have sold out... I mean "signed on."/
For all intent and purposes, Common Core is nationalized education. History has
shown that state-run information control, which begins with education, has
always lead to disastrous results (USSR, Germany, Cuba)./
In fact, the U.S. Department of Education has started a Common Core "technical
review process" of test "item design and validation." The test writing stage is
where the specifics of content, or in this case progressive ideologies, are
inserted. Test questions need content and context, and since Common Core is
about subjective processes, the content can be added without ever notifying the
public. This is where the sleight of hand occurs. After content is tied to test
questions, textbook manufacturers will write the necessary content into their
products, the teachers will teach the progressively-driven textbooks and the
circle will be complete. Herein we see the dirty little Common Core secret,
controlling what is tested is the methodology of controlling the curriculum....
Common Core is not actually about standards, it's about gaining control over the
education system in a futile attempt to create a Progressive utopia using the
important sounding academic umbrella of "standards." But ask yourself, haven't
educators always had standards, guidelines, or benchmarks to guide curriculum?
Please understand this is about power, control, and the agenda! Common Core is
just the host carrier of the disease -- Progressive Secularism..../
Further proof of totalitarian control is seen in Common Core's nationwide
student tracking system. Michelle Malkin writes the 2009 stimulus included a
"State Fiscal Stabilization Fund" that mandated constructing "longitudinal data
systems (LDS) to collect data on public-school students" that resulted in The
National Education Data Model. Then in 2012, the U.S. Department of Education
rewrote federal privacy laws to let it share a child's academic record with
virtually anyone. States have begun combining student records of test scores,
discipline history, medical records, nicknames, religion, political affiliation,
addresses, extracurricular activities, bus stop times and psychological
evaluations into a private database called inBloom....
The Progressives have incrementally gone after the healthcare, family and
economic systems. They have been slowly changing education for decades. Common
sense about Common Core tells you they are now going after the whole enchilada.
What is amazing is that it's happening right under the noses of academics on
both side of the ideological spectrum who are supposed to know better.
Connect the dots and you can see Common Core is nationalized state-run education
via an unprecedented partnership between public, private, union, and academic
circles. It does not matter if Common Core is one part self interest, one part
ignorance, and one part blind elite reality. Any way you slice it there is a
razor inside Common Core representing a danger to American culture, education,
and children.
Sources: M. Catharine Evans, Diane Ravitch, Washington Post, Education
Intelligence Agency, Susan Ohanian , Michelle Maslkin, George Will, Jonathan
DuHamel, Valerie Strauss, Neal McCluskey, Lindsey Burke, David Feith, CATO
Institute, Heritage Foundation, transcripts.
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http://illinoisreview.typepad.com/illinoisreview/2013/04/rnc-passes-resolution-to-shut-down-common-core-curriculum.html
RNC passes resolution to shut down Common Core curriculum
The concerns about the federal Common Core curriculum and the national standards
it would impose on local schools reached the level of the Republican National
Committee Friday and was passed unanimously. Illinois RNC National
Committeewoman Demetra DeMonte said she was happy to co-sponsor the resolution
and encourage others to support the effort.
The RNC resolution reads in part:
... RESOLVED, the Republican National Committee recognizes the CCSS for what it
is– an inappropriate overreach to standardize and control the education of our
children so they will conform to a preconceived “normal,” and, be it further
RESOLVED, That the Republican National Committee rejects the collection of
personal student data for any non-educational purpose without the prior written
consent of an adult student or a child student’s parent and that it rejects the
sharing of such personal data, without the prior written consent of an adult
student or a child student’s parent, with any person or entity other than
schools or education agencies within the state ...
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http://blog.escholar.com/?p=105 (Creepy video about how they want to track kids)
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Education Dept. helps leak students' personal data
http://m.washingtonexaminer.com/education-dept.-helps-leak-students-personal-data/article/2525112/
States and schools are signing over private data from millions of students to
companies and researchers who hope to glean secrets of the human mind.
Nine states have sent dossiers on students —including names, Social Security
numbers, hobbies, addresses, test scores, attendance, career goals, and
attitudes about school —to a public-private database, according to Reuters .
Standardized tests are beginning to incorporate psychological and behavioral
assessment. Every state is also building databases to collect and share such
information among agencies and companies, and the U.S. Department of Education
has recently reinterpreted federal privacy laws so that schools and governments
don’t have to tell parents their kids’ information has been shared./
Promises of researchers’ and governments’ good intentions are not enough to
justify this, especially when tax dollars are involved and government entities
are helping invade students’ privacy without parents’ or even school officials’
knowledge./
Very few U.S. citizens want to see their government even slightly imitate that
of China, which keeps dossiers on all citizens’ performance and attitudes. These
records influence work, political, and school opportunities. Because “everything
they do will be recorded for the rest of their life … the dossier discourages
any ‘errant’ behavior,” says Chinese professor Ouyang Huhua. This is not to say
big databases equal communist oppression. But we do things differently in the
United States because we trust our citizenry and we believe in self-rule.
Second, students and their guardians should have full access to their own
records, with the ability to correct false information. They also should be
informed of and able to opt out of all data-sharing involving their records.
Schools need parent consent to give children so much as an aspirin. They should
get consent to share a student’s psychological evaluations or test performances.
Third, agencies should be required to explain exactly how they will keep the
sensitive information in their hands from being hacked or exposed. The more
people and organizations have access, and the bigger a treasure trove these
databases become, the more likely security breaches become. Hundreds of
thousands of people were put at risk of identity theft in 2012 because of
security breaches in government databases, including one affecting
three-quarters of South Carolinians. And child identity theft is often not
discovered until adulthood, which makes youngsters’ records even more attractive
to thieves.
Because the U.S. Department of Education has unilaterally knocked down federal
privacy protections, lawmakers need to rebuild that wall. Alabama, Georgia,
Oklahoma, New York and Oregon are a few states considering such legislation.
They should act swiftly, and so should others.
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Texas Online Curriculum System CSCOPE to Undergo Changes
http://ivn.us/2013/02/19/texas-online-curriculum-system-cscope-to-undergo-changes/