Feds Panic on Mass Common Core Test Refusals, Threaten
Reprisals Written by Alex Newman
Tuesday, 05 May 2015
Public resistance to Common Core is
exploding across America, and officials are not happy about it. The Obama
administration’s Department of Education, along with pro-Common Core government
officials across the country under pressure from the feds, appear to be in
panic mode. Facing a growing nationwide “opt out” movement to refuse
participation in the unconstitutional federally funded testing regime aligned with the Obama-backed national school standards, senior bureaucrats, including
Education Secretary Arne Duncan, have actually started resorting to lawless
threats against parents, teachers, students, and entire state governments. Some
parents were threatened by officials with jail time. Even small children are
being punished by the state for “opting out” of the deeply controversial tests,
with one California mother telling The New American that her daughter
was publicly denied ice cream in retaliation.
But so far, the threats are only
emboldening the opposition.
Perhaps the most outrageous threat
so far came from Obama’s education chief, Duncan, who boasted in recent years of using government schools to create “green citizens” with
UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization) as a
“global partner.” Late last month, Duncan, who was greeted by protesters urging
him to “stop test bullying,” threatened federal intervention to force Americans
to take the Common Core tests if states would not do the job. “We think most
states will do that,” Duncan proclaimed at an Education Writers Association
conference in Chicago. “If states don’t do that, then we [the federal
government] have an obligation to step in.” In reality, of course, the federal
government has an obligation under the U.S. Constitution to butt out. But
despite swearing an oath to uphold and defend the Constitution, including the
10th Amendment, Duncan has led the charge in recent years to finish
federalizing the government school system — and to use it as what he called a
“weapon” to “change to world.”
Sounding oblivious to America’s
federalist system of constitutional government, Duncan proclaimed that he
expected state governments to hold “districts’ and schools’ feet to the fire on
this,” as if state governments were mere administrative units to enforce
decrees from the all-powerful federal executive branch. Hundreds of thousands
of students in New York recently opted out. Almost nobody took the tests in
some districts amid a full-scale uprising by teachers, students, and parents.
In Chicago, where even the teachers' union has blasted the
federal takeover, school officials were threatened with the loss of more than $1 billion
in state and federal “education aid” if not enough students were successfully
coerced into taking the Common Core-aligned tests. Still, few details were
provided on what it might look like to have the Obama administration “step in”
and force students to take the controversial tests — an outrageous threat he
also made in a discussion with Motoko Rich of the New York Times.
Critics, however, ridiculed the
threat, daring the administration to try it. “Assuming that Duncan is not
planning to call in the National Guard to haul off opt-outing 8 year olds, the
only possible ‘sanction’ would be withholding funds,” observed Carol Burris, an
award-winning New York principal who recently stepped down to fight back
against what she sees as problems with the public education system. “That would
surely lead to court challenges forcing the Education Department to justify
penalizing schools when parents exercise their legitimate right to refuse the
test — an impossible position to defend.” Noting that students of all races and
backgrounds were opting out of the testing scheme, Burris pointed out that the
rates “defy the stereotype that the movement is a rebellion of petulant ‘white
suburban moms.’”
In a recent statement published by
the Washington Post, the New York “2013 High School Principal of the
Year” also highlighted a number of troubling government abuses targeting
parents. Among other concerns, she said, citing activists and teachers, that
administrators in some districts took advantage of non-English speaking parents
by lying to them about the tests, saying they were mandatory or that children
would be held back for refusal to take them. One critic called it “blatant
discrimination at best.” Burris also lambasted the Common Core tests and noted
that Duncan’s own children go to a non-Common Core school — as do the children
of Common Core financier Bill Gates, and Common Core strongman Obama. She
concluded the scathing commentary by noting that the movement to refuse the
tests puts the entire “education reform” agenda in serious
trouble.
Beyond targeting states and schools,
education officials in some areas, responding to federal pressure, have strayed
into the realm of potential criminal activity in seeking to boost participation
in the tests. In one especially extreme case from Georgia, school officials,
citing supposed “federal and state mandates” on the tests, said parents could
not refuse to allow their children to take the tests. A meeting was scheduled
for the parents to meet with the principal. However, when they arrived, they
were met by a police officer, who reportedly warned them that they may be
“trespassing” on school property due to their opposition to the testing regime.
In the end, it was apparently sorted out without arrest, but the incident was
deeply troubling to parents.
In South Carolina, education
bureaucrats went even further. The officials reportedly warned parents that
they could be imprisoned for 30 days for refusing to allow their children to
participate in the national testing regime, which was mandated under the unconstitutional
Bush-era No Child Left Behind scheme. According to news reports citing the
group South Carolina Parents Involved in Education, South Carolina Education
Department Chief Operating Officer Elizabeth Carpentier also threatened groups
or organizations that encourage testing refusals with potential criminal
charges of “aiding and abetting a crime.” School officials cited in media
reports downplayed the threats, saying that parents and groups were merely
threatened with existing statutes on “truancy” for not sending children to
school for the testing.
In California, mother Amy Watson and
her husband decided that their 10-year-old daughter would not be taking the unconstitutional federally funded Smarter Balanced
Assessment Consortium (SBAC) test. She was placed in an alternate classroom each
testing day with other “opt out” students. In response to the refusal, though,
on the day after testing was finished, “the three girls who opted out again
were identified, ‘called out,’ and given instructions to go to the same
classrooms as during SBAC testing,” Watson told The New American. “The
girls were sent out so the ‘test takers’ could have an ice cream party. My
daughter returned to her classroom with the trashcan full of empty ice cream
containers. There were three ‘left over’ containers. The three opt-out students
were not permitted to have them. These three containers were given to teachers
instead.” The same thing happened to opt-out students in other grades, she
added, calling it an “egregious act.”
Now, Watson has filed a privacy
law-violation complaint with the U.S. Department of Education after her
daughter and other opt-out students were “intentionally targeted.” The 10-year
old is now fearful of additional retaliation from school officials, and Watson
is seeking counseling for her daughter due to the emotional and psychological
impact the targeting had on her. “I described the situation to the
representative at the federal Department of Education,” Watson said. “He
verified that ‘yes, this is a violation of FERPA [federal privacy law to
protect students].’” The outraged mother is also in contact with attorneys and
vowed to continue pursuing the case. Since the scandal, school officials have
tried to downplay the incident as a “misunderstanding,” Watson said. But she is
not buying it.
As the rebellion against the unconstitutional Common Core
testing regime continues to sweep across America like wildfire, the Obama
administration is certain to continue doing everything possible to stop it —
including lawlessly threatening the American people. But despite those threats,
as awareness of Common Core spreads, opposition will keep spreading as well.
The testing regime is crucial for enforcing Common Core, and for gathering vast amounts of private data on students
for the federal government. Without it, the widely criticized standards regime
foisted on America by taxpayer-funded bribes from the Obama administration may
well crumble.
The education establishment is now
in a serious bind. On one hand, it can rip off the mask and resort to more
outright lawlessness and tyranny in an effort to enforce compliance with its
deeply unpopular machinations. Such a reaction would almost certainly backfire
and produce even more public outrage and resistance. Alternatively, the Obama
administration and its backers can risk having the entire Common Core scheme
come crashing down around them by ignoring the mushrooming national movement to
refuse the tests. Either way, the American people can still win the battle for
education in the long run, if the pressure stays on.
Alex
Newman is a correspondent for The New American,
covering economics, education, politics, and more. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU. He can
be reached at anewman@thenewamerican.com:
Related articles:
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