Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Feds' 3 Tentacles in the Common Core (Part 2)

Here's the problem. You've heard the version of the golden rule, "He who has the gold makes the rules." Here's the academic version: "He who sets the standards controls the curricula and even the educators." - Chuck Norris/Townhall

Common Core advocates pride themselves in saying that the standards don't set curricula, that they only set goals (or what they call "benchmarks") that educators utilize to help their students reach the academic stars. They say states and local school districts, administrators and educators will fashion curricula.

...In fact, concerned parents and educators across the country just had their curricula fears grow legs when CCSS English lessons for elementary classrooms were discovered with partisan political statements in them. These are the types of covert moves that experts and citizens have warned about and hoped never would become a reality.

Fox News reported recently: "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.'"

What?! Do those statements sound like the principles upon which our republic was founded or socialist dogma and indoctrination?

...And while the protests, debates and storms rage about CCSS, the children of America remain the sacrificial guinea pigs in this political, crippled and inept system that we call public education.

Feds' 3 Tentacles in the Common Core (Part 1) - Chuck Norris/Townhall

...In fact, one of the biggest defenses by CCSS advocates is their belief that the federal government -- particularly the White House -- is in no way behind the standards' implementation, development and utility.

PolitiFact examined the words of Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, who said last July that CCSS is being "used by the Obama administration to turn the Department of Education into what is effectively a national school board." PolitiFact categorically evaluated Rubio's statement as false.

But recent evidence shows that Rubio is right and PolitiFact is wrong. The feds already have started invading local school districts via CCSS in three ways: funding, influencing classroom curricula and siphoning student information from schools....