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. ...

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. Though the charges have reportedly been dropped, the incident remains a shocking reminder of the oppressive nature of Common Core and the liberal educational establishment charged with enforcing it.

 [Please see this video] ... As he is being taken out, Small says, “Don’t stand for this. You are sitting here like cattle. You have questions. ... Just before being removed from the room he asks... “Is this America?”

It’s certainly what passes for America when those in authority want to control the flow of information. Examiner.com writer Ann Miller, who was present at the meeting, described the process as one in which Superintendent Dance “added insult to injury by screening, omitting, and editing parents’ questions.”...

Another parent in attendance sent columnist Michelle Malkin an email corroborating that assessment, insisting the meeting was little more than a rah-rah session touting the greatness of Common Core, followed by the pre-selected questions. ... The description of Small and the incident?

 “He was just a dad trying to get some information about his children’s education and ended up in jail for not sitting down and shutting up. I was there and it was absolutely chilling to watch this man silenced.”

Chilling might be an understatement. Small was held until 3 a.m. after being charged. He faced a fine of $2,500 and up to 10 years in prison for the alleged assault, as well as a fine of $2,500 and up to six months in jail for disturbing a school operation. The police report contended Small attempted to push the officer away when he was first confronted.

On Friday, Small spoke with the Baltimore Sun. “Look, I am being manhandled and shut down because I asked inconvenient questions,” Small told the paper on Friday. “Why won’t they allow an open forum where there can be a debate? We are told to sit there and be lectured to about how great Common Core is.”

The “greatness” of Common Core deserves to be questioned.... Common Core was created – and copyrighted — by two Washington, D.C., lobbying organizations. .... Most of the creative work was implemented by ACHIEVE, Inc., a progressive non-profit group largely underwritten by uber leftist Bill Gates, via the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The series of educational standards was put together without any input from state legislators, teachers, local school boards or parents....

The standards themselves are equally dubious. Cursive will no longer be taught. ... Rote memorization will be greatly reduced. Great literature will be eliminated in favor technical material, such as manuals, that enhance the computer-centric method stressed by Common Core.... Social justice will be stressed, along with redistributionist economic theories and radical environmentalism.

Yet the most disturbing aspect of the program by far is the reality that it paves the way for the acquisition of an unprecedented level of personal information by schools.... Once the program is fully implemented, those sensors will be used to “provide constant, parallel streams of data…used with data mining techniques and self-report measures to examine frustration, motivation/flow, confidence, boredom, and fatigue” of children....

Its gets worse. ... A November 2010 report released by the Institute of Education Sciences as guidance for the aforementioned State Longitudinal Database Systems revealed that “Sensitive Information” will also be acquired from children.... ["political affiliations or beliefs", "religious practices", etc.]

The data mining of Sensitive Information ostensibly requires written parental consent. But as Mary Black, curriculum director for Freedom Project Education explains, that requirement can be circumvented.....

Yet getting parents on board may be even simpler than that. The extraction of such information could be heavily sold to unsuspecting parents under the auspices that it constitutes a critical component of their child’s educational development and success....

Perhaps all of the above explains why Superintendent Dance required pre-submitted questions–and why Robert Small was hustled out of the meeting when it became apparent he had the potential to steer it dangerously “off-script.” It is a script largely designed to obscure the reality that the Common Core is not merely a one-size-fits-all effort to federalize education. It is arguably one of the most egregious invasions of personal privacy ever perpetrated by the federal government, in collaboration with duplicitous state officials and profit-hungry businesses.

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Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/arnold-ahlert/challenge-common-core-at-your-own-peril/

See also Common Core: Who Will Rule the Global Schools? Part 3

The Global Roots of "Common Core" Education Part 1

The Rising Force behind "Common Core" Indoctrination  Part 2