Thread: Education "Reform" : “Common Core” standards

Test scores plummet after N.Y. adopts Common Core standards
The exams are some of the first in the nation to be aligned with Common Core.
By JAVIER C. HERNANDEZAND ROBERT GEBELOFF — Published: August 8, 2013

The news Wednesday unsettled the state’s parents, principals and teachers, and posed new challenges to a national effort to toughen academic benchmarks.

In New York City, 26 percent of students in third through eighth grade passed the tests in English, and 30 percent passed in math, according to the New York State Education Department. Last year, under an easier test, 47 percent of city students passed in English, and 60 percent in math.

Common Core emphasizes deep analysis and creative problem-solving over short answers and memorization.

City and state officials spent months trying to steel the public for the grim figures, saying that a decline in scores was inevitable and that it would take several years before students performed at high levels. But when the results were released, many educators responded with shock that their students measured up so poorly against the new yardsticks of achievement.

Chrystina Russell, principal of Global Technology Preparatory in East Harlem, said she didn’t know what she would tell parents, who will receive scores for their children in late August. At her middle school, which serves a large population of students from poor families, 7 percent of students were rated proficient in English, and 10 percent in math. Last year, those numbers were 33 percent and 46 percent, respectively.

“Now we’re going to come out and tell everybody that they’ve accomplished nothing this year and we’ve been pedaling backward?” Russell said. “It’s depressing.”

The Common Core standards have been adopted by 45 states, including Idaho and the District of Columbia. Although not technically national standards, they are ardently backed by the Obama administration and education officials who contend that outdated and inconsistent guidelines leave students ill-prepared for college and the workforce.

New York was one of the first states to develop tests based on the standards. Kentucky, the first state to do so, also reported plummeting scores.

More states are scheduled to introduce Common Core exams in the 2014-15 school year. But there have been signs of turbulence in recent weeks, with several states, including Georgia, Indiana and Oklahoma, halting efforts to roll out exams, citing concerns about cost.

http://www.idahostatesman.com/2013/0...#storylink=cpy

The Common Core curriculum is based on values clarification and changing behavior. Our kids will be challenged to examine their morals and beliefs and question the traditional biblical definition of marriage.

Your kids are being told to QUESTION WHAT YOU, THE PARENT, TAUGHT THEM about sex, social issues, and the Bible. Because now only what the State says is acceptable, will be acceptable.

What Obama Wants Your 5 Year Old To Know
Posted on September 16 2013

Warning: the following message is extremely disturbing and is for mature audiences, only. Unfortunately, the information contained within this message is being taught to our little children in classrooms across the country, because the Left wants to sexualize your kids and introduce a culture of “just do it if it feels good to you” into their educational development.

Obama wants to teach sex-ed to KINDERGARTNERS!

Ladies and gentlemen, the wolves are at the door, and those of us who want to maintain a moral society must fight to stop them.

Obama is coming for your kids. He wants to sexualize them through his United Nations curriculum known as “Common Core.” This program is a nationalized “dumbing down” of our kids and will create a standardized mediocrity.

What Is Common Core?

This has nothing to do with education. Common Core is a socialism change agent that is beginning now, and it will hook the youngest members of our communities—our children—into the net of police state government. Our schools are being told to ditch traditional literature and teach more “informational” texts, and the fuzzy math of the past has now become “whatever you say the answer is, we’ll believe as long as you can tell us how you FEEL about it.”

One of the agencies responsible for testing is the American Institute for Research, or AIR. They are the largest behavioral and social science research organization, and are focused on CHANGING BEHAVIOR. AIR distributes LGBT propaganda to schools and believes not only in the sexualization of children, but in labeling and counseling those children at a very young age.

The curriculum they produce and the data outcome of that will be stored in a massive database called inBloom, which will store your student’s name, address, social security number, blood type, hair color, weight, test scores, nicknames, religion, attitudes, income level, medical history, psychological evaluations, bus stop times and political affiliation. If you are in a private school you will still have to submit to this database. And if you are home-schooled, good luck finding a textbook that doesn’t incorporate the Common Core curriculum.

Our kids aren’t guinea pigs for the socialist movement! This program is going to absolutely KILL American innovation and competition. Test scores are dropping across the nation in states that have done Common Core pilots.

The foundation of the Common Core program is to influence and “NUDGE” our kids to embrace the United Nations Agenda 21 philosophy that socialism and blanket equality and environmental justice is best for the United States, and the capitalist structure we currently have is ruining people’s lives and destroying the world.

It is not voluntary, and there is no way to opt-out.

British philosopher and parliamentarian John Stuart Mill writes in On Liberty, “A general State education is a mere contrivance for molding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mold in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominant power in the government … it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading by natural tendency to one over the body.”

The Liberals are coming for the hearts, minds and BODIES of our children.

Mary Black is an educator who has fought Common Core for months and she says, “My review of the Common Core standards indicated that they were designed to teach students what to think and not how to think. The literary classics have been stripped and replaced with books promoting a socialist agenda…. It is certain that it will leave students unable to think for themselves.”

Only a handful of people know that something called Common Core exists, and very few know what it teaches! We desperately need you to help get the word out by sharing these messages and contacting your representatives to ask that they STOP Common Core from taking root in your local school system.

What Are They Teaching Our Kids?

The Common Core curriculum is based on values clarification and changing behavior. Our kids will be challenged to examine their morals and beliefs and question the traditional biblical definition of marriage.

Your kids are being told to QUESTION WHAT YOU, THE PARENT, TAUGHT THEM about sex, social issues, and the Bible. Because now only what the State says is acceptable, will be acceptable.

Some of the “suggested” texts include: government documents and technical manuals, like the EPA’s “Recommended Levels of Insulation” and Executive Order 13423: Strengthening Federal Environmental, Energy, and Transportation Management.

Elementary school standards state, “Human activities, such as the release of greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels, are major factors in the current rise in Earth’s mean surface temperature (global warming).”

This is 1984 indoctrination, happening right now in our schools. It is up to us, and only us, to stop this program before it spreads like a virus throughout America. Fax Congress and tell them we know all about Common Core and we want to save American education!

core3

And, then, there is the sexualization aspect. Planned Parenthood helped write the “National Sexuality Education Standards.” Your child might come home having learned that, ““Testing your ability to function sexually and to give pleasure to another may be less threatening in the early teens with people of your own sex.”

By the end of 2nd grade, “students should be able to identify different kinds of family structures.”

By the end of 5th grade, “students should be able to define sexual orientation as the romantic attraction of an individual to someone of the same gender or different gender.”

Reading assignments for 16 and 17 year olds includes Toni Morrison’s “The Bluest Eye,” which details incest, rape and pedophilia in extremely graphic language. We have not included excerpts in this message because we do not want to offend anyone; however, we suggest you go to TheBlaze.com and look up the passages that have been included there. We guarantee they will make YOU blush…and it will make you furious to know that your high school kids are going to be required to read those words.

Planned Parenthood has funded Common Core so they can get into the classroom and teach your kids that every kind of sex is right, and the only “unsafe” thing is getting pregnant. Watch the video “Hooking Kids on Sex” and see for yourself what Planned Parenthood is going to be putting in our schools through Common Core.

Gerald Hannon of The Gay Lesbian Straight Educational Network (GLSEN) says that one of the biggest challenges the gay movement faces is “recruiting” young people to the “movement.”

A GLSEN activist who also happens to be a kindergarten teacher, Jaki Williams, says that Kindergarten is when “the saturation process needs to begin.”

Who Believes Nationalized Education is Important?

Hitler. Stalin. Obama. Karl Marx says in his Communist Manifesto that government-controlled education is “essential” to achieving the goals of socialism.

Remember Bill Ayers, the old domestic terrorist buddy of Obama’s who liked to blow up things? Ayers is a “neo-Stalinist” who visited Cuba and Venezuela to talk about education being the “motor force of revolution.”

Saul Alinksy’s Rules for Radicals, coming right to your child’s classroom.

Obama’s Education Secretary Arne Duncan says his goals “can only be achieved by creating a strong cradle-to-career continuum that starts with early childhood learning and extends all the way to college and careers. Education is still the key to eliminating gender inequities, to reducing poverty, to creating a sustainable planet, and to fostering peace.”

Why Should You Care?

Home-schoolers and private schools are not safe! Homeschool organizations are already lining their learning materials up with Common Core and the testing standards are going to be the same when it comes to taking the ACT and SAT tests.

Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) has been leading the movement against Common Core in the Senate, and Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) is working in the House. They have enlisted help from colleagues to fight the curriculum.

Ironically, states adopted Common Core because they were broke and needed the stimulus money Obama dangled in front of them—but that was just for the first year or so. Ultimately, the Common Core program is going to cost state governments—and taxpayers–$16 BILLION. So, who will the winner be here? You guessed it: the federal government and the Liberals in Charge.

Also ironic: the Left, always concerned with diversity and what divides us and how everyone should be sensitive to the needs of special interest and minority groups, suddenly decides everyone is vanilla when it comes to education. Suddenly, a classroom in an inner city becomes the same as one in the rural Midwest, the same as one in an upscale white collar community, the same as one in a mid-size, middle class industrial town.

Texas has rejected it and is standing firm—other states have said no, but not to all the standards. Indiana, Michigan and South Carolina are concerned. Florida, Oklahoma, Alabama and Utah are fighting back against the testing standards. A single school district in Colorado, Douglas County, unanimously rejected Common Core and put in place its own higher quality standards. Opposition is happening, we just need to alert our representatives and take back control of our education system before Obama and his supporters ruin it entirely.

When we say “the future of America is at stake,” we absolutely mean it. Our children and the education they receive are the key to future generations and the direction we take this country. Don’t let the Liberals dumb everyone down and create a nationalized, socialist state…stop Common Core right now! Also, we beg you to forward this message to everyone you know and make sure they get involved in the fight to stop Common Core.

http://www.conservative-daily.com/20...r-old-to-know/

Yesterday we shared this story with you. After reading it I had my research team start looking into how often and where this text was being used and after preliminary research it's clear that this text is widely used across the country. Now we will be doing a full review of the textbook, finding a replacement, and then mobilizing nationally to have the rewritten history text removed. We aren't going to let them indoctrinate our kids!

Guyer High School (and obviously several others) are complicit in attempting to condition students to interpret the 2nd Amendment in a clearly opposite manner in which it was intended. The 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th are also misinterpreted as several commenters below pointed out.

This textbook, currently being used by Guyer High School, is attempting to redefine the Second Amendment to impressionable young minds. Parents, you must speak up and demand action. Investigate your child's history book ASAP, and post more pictures in the comments below. Call your school and demand that revisionist history books like this are removed from the school district.

Textbook version:

"The people have a right to keep and bear arms in a state militia."

Actual 2nd Amendment: "A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed."

Did you catch the sleight of hand?

A militia is a body of citizens enrolled for military service, and called out periodically for drill but serving full time only in emergencies. It's a common man army of citizens, NOT soldiers. The citizens are called up in emergencies to protect the free State.

The 2nd Amendment says that a militia is necessary to protect a free State, so in order to be able to have a militia, the citizens have a natural right to keep and bear arms and the government cannot infringe on that right.

The textbook version implies that we're only allowed to keep and bear arms if we're in a State militia, a clear misrepresentation of the 2nd Amendment.


http://www.dailypaul.com/299365/high...-2nd-amendment

Here’s a new installment of MM's 'Rotten to the Core' series on education and curriculum. The fight for local control, limited government, and fiscal accountability and the fight against Big Governnment/Big Business/Fed Ed elites continue. Press on!

Jeb Bush’s latest Common Core snit fit
September 20, 2013 by Michelle Malkin

This is priceless. Former Fla. GOP Gov. Jeb Bush, consummate politician and 2016 presidential aspirant, has now bitterly accused opponents of his federal education schemes of possessing “purely political” motives. Projection, anyone?

Having previously suggested that critics of the so-called Common Core standards program are crazy, ignorant and lying, Bush piled on at a National Press Club appearance this week. Jeb the Insult Comic Dog did not hold back. Not only is the growing anti-Fed Ed movement of parents, teachers, school board members, academics, privacy advocates and state legislators of all stripes “purely political,” Bush sniped, but the Common Core backlash that’s causing him conniption fits is also opposed to academic excellence.

Yep. If you question Jeb Bush and his Big Business/Big Government cronies, you stand foursquare against student achievement and intellectual rigor. Pay attention, all you informed moms and dads who have raised pointed, carefully researched questions about the costs, quality, validity, constitutionality and intrusiveness of Common Core. Bush thinks you are “purely political” beasts who are recklessly harming your own kids’ scholastic advancement.

“If you’re comfortable with mediocrity, fine. I’m not,” Bush hissed at Common Core critics. “(W)e’re not going to be able to sustain this extraordinarily exceptional country unless we challenge every basic assumption on how we do things.”

Translation: Don’t you know Jeb Bush cares more about your children than you do?

Bush is all for challenging how we do things, unless you’re challenging how the Common Core machine does things. He reiterated Common Core peddlers’ claims that their standards are internationally “benchmarked” and “world-class.” But that’s pure horse-hockey. And it’s not “political” people who are calling out the Common Core racket.

Stanford University professor James Milgram, a prominent dissenting member of the Common Core math standards committee, has exposed how the muddled standards would leave American students at least two years behind the rest of the planet.

University of Arkansas education professor emeritus and Massachusetts school standards architect Sandra Stotsky, who sat on the language arts validation panel, has documented how the English standards will result in:

1) teachers spending at least 50 percent of their reading instruction time on “informational texts” at every grade level.

2) reduced emphasis on analytical skills involving complex literary works.

3) a depleted fund of content knowledge that will leave students unprepared for basic college coursework.

Both Stotsky and Milgram repeatedly asked their panel colleagues for the names of the countries the Common Core standards were allegedly “benchmarked” to, but they never received an answer.

Furthermore, Christopher Tienken of Seton Hall University notes that much of the “evidence” and “empirical research” that the Common Core crowd cites comes from … the Common Core crowd. “When I reviewed that ‘large and growing body of knowledge,’” Tienken reported, “I found that it was not large, and in fact built mostly on one report, Benchmarking for Success, created by the NGA (National Governors Association) and the CCSSO (Council of Chief State School Officers), the same groups that created these standards. Hardly independent research.”

Jeb Bush routinely has dismissed those who protest Common Core’s increasing federalization of local control over schools as conspiracy-mongers. But it’s President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan who’ve made common cause with Bush and corporate elites in foisting Common Core standards, tests, technology and data-mining boondoggles on local school districts. Obama, Duncan and Bush have been meeting with deep-pocketed CEOs in Washington, not with ordinary parents outside the Beltway.

Dr. Bill Evers of the Hoover Institution succinctly debunked Bush’s repeated insistence that 45 states voluntarily adopted the irresistibly rigorous standards:

“(S)tates weren’t leaping because they couldn’t resist the Core’s academic magnetism. They were leaping because it was the Great Recession — and the Obama administration was dangling a $4.35 billion Race to the Top carrot in front of them. Big points in that federal program were awarded for adopting the Core, so, with little public debate, most did.”

Can you spell b-o-o-n-d-o-g-g-l-e? Remember: Bush’s educational foundation, the Foundation for Excellence in Education, is tied at the hip to the federally funded testing consortium called PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers), which raked in $186 million through Race to the Top to develop nationalized tests “aligned” to the top-down Common Core program.

One of the Bush foundation’s behemoth corporate sponsors is Pearson, the multi-billion-dollar educational publishing and testing conglomerate. Pearson snagged $23 million in contracts to design the first wave of PARCC test items. The company holds a $250 million contract with Florida to design and publish its state tests. Pearson designed New York’s Common Core-aligned assessments and is also the exclusive contractor for Texas state tests.

And in Los Angeles this summer, Pearson sealed a whopping $30 million taxpayer-subsidized deal to supply the city’s schools with 45,000 iPads pre-loaded with Pearson Common Core curriculum apps. That’s $678 per iPad, $200 more than the standard cost, with scant evidence that any of this shiny edu-tech will do anything to improve the achievement bottom line.

As with all political posers who grab power under the guise of doing it “for the children,” don’t read their lips. Follow the money.

Here's how our school district explained Common Core.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5s0rR...&feature=share

This three-minute video explains how the Common Core State Standards will help students achieve at high levels and help them learn what they need to know to get to graduation and beyond.

As you may know if you follow me on Facebook, I pretty much hate, with a capital H-A-T-E, this “new common core” math being taught. Every day it’s a massive struggle for Chris and me, him with a Masters Degree and myself with a Bachelors, to teach 3rd grade homework to our daughter.

Putting aside that we work for hours past an already 8 hour school day, ignoring that we are provided no text books to learn about the material, and sweeping under the rug that they send home homework on things they have yet to even teach yet, we are doing our best.

But we are lost.

LOST.

And I am a bit angry to tell you the truth.

Today was just another example of “fuzzy” math.

This is on Charlotte’s homework:



All her problems have to be done this way.

Under what math EVER would 291 be “estimated” or “rounded off” to 200? Am I missing something? And this is the example for her to base all her other math homework on.

I can tell you that if I estimated or rounded off my bills from $291 to $200, I would get a notice of an unpaid bill. I am not sure my mortgage or car payment would agree with that.

And let’s jump to the answer. The estimated sum ’500′ is considered reasonable with ’645′?

Is 5 million the same as 6.5 million? Ask an accountant that. Ask a corporation that.

I can’t help but wanting to refuse to teach Charlotte something that I find completely and utterly wrong.

http://www.momdot.com/common-core-is...g-me-stupider/

How Common Core is Slowly Changing My Child

Posted on October 2, 2013 by shannonstyles


A Letter to Commissioner King and the New York State Education Department:

I have played your game for the past two years. As an educator, I have created my teaching portfolio with enough evidence so I can prove that I am doing my job over the course of the school year. I am testing my students on material that they haven’t yet learned in September, and then re-testing them midway through the year, and then again at the end of the year to track and show their growth. Between those tests, I am giving formative assessments. I am taking pictures of myself at community events within my district to prove that I support my school district and the community. I am teaching using the state-generated modules that you have created and assumed would work on all students, despite learning style, learning ability, or native language. I am effectively proving that I am worthy of keeping my job and that my bachelors and masters degrees weren’t for naught. I have adapted, just as all teachers across the state have, because that’s what we do. We might not agree, we might shake our head at the amount of time creative instruction has turned into testing instruction, but we play the game.

Today, things got really personal. Today I saw just how this Common Core business is affecting kids. Not my kids in my classroom; I know how it’s affecting them and I am doing the best that I can to make this as painless as possible on them. Today, my third grade son came home an angry, discouraged kid because of school. On the contrary, my oldest son is doing pretty well with the Common Core. He’s had some difficulties, but for the most part he’s just rolling with it and we’re doing OK. But my younger son is not my older son; which just proves that this one-size-fits-all curriculum that you are throwing at these elementary kids is bull.

That’s right, NYS, I call bull. When my eight year old boy, who loves to read to his little sister and is excited to go to back to school come July of every summer, calls himself dumb because he is bringing home failing test grades, then this has turned personal. My son isn’t dumb, Commissioner King. He works hard to learn, he writes stories and songs, builds entire football stadiums out of Legos in record time, and he can explain how to divide in his own words. He. Is. Not. Dumb. But when he gets consistently failing grades on the module assessments, what message do you think he’s getting? These module assessments, sir, that have words like ‘boughten’ on them and the children have to infer what ‘boughten’ means. Did you know that boughten is no longer used as a form of the verb to buy? According to the grammarist.com website, boughten is as foreign to modern language as the word thou.

“Boughten is an archaic participial inflection of the verb to buy. It was once a fairly common colloquial form—it was used to describe something bought instead of homemade—and it still appears occasionally, but it is widely seen as incorrect and might be considered out of place in formal writing”

So, when my son is faced with answering questions on outdated language, on topics such as a ‘sorrel mare’ and the reading passages take place in foreign war-torn lands, when these children haven’t even mastered the basics of their own country yet, what do expect him to feel like? Do you expect him to feel like he’s just on the road to become college and career ready, which is the basis of the common core, and these challenges will only make him stronger?

No, sir, I’ll tell you what it does. It beats him down. It discourages him. It exhausts him. It makes him dread going to school and then lash out in anger at the nightly homework that is associated with these common core modules. It is turning him off of school and if this trend continues, he will be far from college and career ready because he will want nothing to do with college.

I understand that we want to compete globally in the area of education. High school and college students should absolutely be challenged and learn to become a valuable, contributing member to their chosen career. Attributes such as creativeness, leadership, self-directedness, and being a team player are all skills that our next generation need to possess. But let’s work backwards: our high school teachers signed up for this. We can get our kids college and career ready; and if we don’t, shame on us. Our goal as high school teachers is send productive citizens into the world. Some years are better than others. Some kids have the advantage of supportive homes, while many do not. But we know where they need to be, and if our colleges and universities are unhappy with the product they are receiving then the communication between the the high schools and post-secondary schools needs to improve. We don’t need to throw it on the elementary teachers and students. No, those teachers need to instill a love of school so when children get to our middle and high schools they are not burnt out. They are encouraged, excited, confident, and motivated.

Creating modules that are a scripted nightmare for both the teacher and student is not the answer. You are ruining children. You are killing their spirit. You are making them believe they are dumb because they can’t multiply and divide on the exact day that the module says they should be multiplying and dividing. You are creating a generation of disengaged children who now feel insufficient.

This mom is angry. This educator is pessimistic. This state is in trouble.

Sincerely,

Mrs. Momblog

http://mrsmomblog.com/2013/10/02/how...ging-my-child/

The new national learning tool that's being carried in classrooms across our state is getting a lot of heat. Louisiana is one of 45 states that have accepted common core standards. Many parents have been very vocal about their opposition, but one teacher is speaking out saying the parents should be concerned.

Teachers, parents voice concern about Common Core
Posted: Oct 11, 2013 4:20 PM By Cheryl Mercedes

BATON ROUGE, LA (WAFB) -
The new national learning tool that's being carried in classrooms across our state is getting a lot of heat. Louisiana is one of 45 states that have accepted common core standards. Many parents have been very vocal about their opposition, but one teacher is speaking out saying the parents should be concerned.

There is no question Common Core Standards are changing the environment in which kids learn. The national outline is geared toward increasing accountability and providing data that draw better comparisons among students across the country.

The standards are said to require students to think more critically rather than memorizing a list of facts. Elementary school teacher Maya Bennett says she's seen a difference.

"My classroom is completely transformed and my student's voices are actually the primary voices in the classroom. I'm merely a facilitator letting my students lead the way to discovery and understanding," said Bennett.

Not all educators and parents are on board. Some have rallied on the steps of the State Capital to voice their concerns.

"If you have national assessments, and you have state tests - several a year, how are children supposed to know what's on the test?" said Liz Gary.

Common Core calls for children to work and learn in groups. A teacher that wants to remain anonymous says while it can be a great support system among students, it's not for everyone.

"It's fine until one of them gets mad, or they're not understanding it, then they resort to their screaming and fighting, goofing off and it can just get really bad really quickly," said a concerned teacher.

The anonymous teacher says while common core sets are the bar high, it's nearly impossible for every student to achieve the same level of success at the same time.

"If you then give them tests that are at a certain level they are not necessarily going to be successful because they were already so far behind."

While some teachers and leaders back the program, they too admit there are challenges.

"There is a ton of struggle but it's a really cool learning process. I feel so respected given such rigorous standards," says Bennett.

It is those standards that have left some wondering whether the transformation is too much too soon.

The teacher that wanted to remain anonymous said "its one extreme to the other. It's going from all teacher directed to all student directed and there needs to be a balance."

Common Core also changes the way teachers are evaluated. They are graded on their lesson plans and how their students work in groups, which has some educators worried about their futures in the classroom.

For more information on Common Core standards, click here:

http://www.corestandards.org/Math

http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy

http://www.wafb.com/story/23671359/s...ut-common-core

Obama's America: Teachers indoctrinating students
Common Core Teaches 3rd Graders to Protest like Unions
Posted 10.11.13 by Greg Campbell

If the radical left has any other motto aside from Rahm Emanuel’s insistence that they ought never to “let a serious crisis go to waste,” it is that radical liberals must always strive to brainwash the masses as early as possible.

The left has made a “great leap forward” in the battle against individual free-thinking by creating and implementing “Commie Core,” formally known as Common Core- the school standards initiative that subtly stresses liberal ideologies in a format that an unsuspecting child would naturally perceive as unchallenged fact.

The Education Action Group Foundation (EAG) recently released a report that revealed some insidious methods by which the left aims to radicalize our children. While the abuses by Common Core have been well-discussed in conservative circles, too many parents still are in danger of missing the glaring propaganda that is present in the materials given to children.

The report found that textbook publisher Zaner-Bloser has included in its Common Core materials a book for third graders entitled, “Si Se Puede/Yes We Can!” It is intended for units dedicated to “rights and responsibilities.”

Of course, when freedom-loving Americans think of rights and responsibilities, the natural topics of discussion should include the Bill of Rights, enlightenment thinking, our duty as citizens to recognize oppressive government, etc. In later grades, students can learn of Jefferson, Locke, Burke and learn of the classic understandings of what it means to be free.

However, Common Core has other plans for the next generation…

In the Si Se Peude book issued to 8 and 9 year-olds, the authors discuss the 1985 SEIU union strike. The book claims that janitors went on strike, “for more money because their wages [were] too low to be fair.”

In the guide for teacher’s, the book stresses that teachers should introduce the children to a word for the week: “protest.”

The teacher’s guide instructs teachers to “remind students that a protest is an event in which people publicly show their strong disapproval of something. Discuss protest throughout the week. Challenge students to use the word while speaking and writing.”

Of course, the right to protest is an integral part of our republic. However, this right to protest can better be illustrated by discussing the Boston Tea Party or the Civil Rights Movement; showcasing union extortion as an example of fighting for the rights of Americans is clearly sending the wrong message.

The teacher’s guide also stresses that teachers are to encourage the application of this ideology to their own lives. The authors suggest, as an example, if there is no talking allowed in the lunchroom, to makes signs and march.

Though this can be defended as benign rhetoric, it is exactly the opposite. What this curriculum proposes is small-time demonstrations and the installation of the mindset that whenever a group wants something, civil disobedience is an appropriate response, regardless of the grander implications on society.

The topic of rights and responsibilities is too nuanced, too complicated for 8 and 9 year-olds to understand on any meaningful level. It is important to introduce this topic as an application of free thinking, but not as an insidious tool to condition children to think in radical leftist terms.

But, as I said before, one of the left’s main mottos has long been, “get ‘em while they’re young.” It is no wonder why college universities are so intolerant to conservative mindsets.


http://www.tpnn.com/obamas-america-c...t-like-unions/