Stop Common Core

Although I supported Donald Trump and still do I have not spoken out against any of his nominees but to me there is nothing more important to the future of our country than what takes place in the class room today.  I am deeply troubled by his nominee for Secretary of Education, Betsy Devos, and the direction he wants to take education.  

I have supported many of Trump's campaign platforms BUT I have NEVER supported Trump's education policy because I knew he could not repeal Common Core. Common Core is codified in federal law (ESSA....thanks to lying Lamar Alexander) and even if Trump waved a magic wand he could not force the states to give up their current standards (and EVERY state has straight up Common Core or Common Core rebranded standards including Tennessee) and these states cannot afford to drop it now. They have millions invested in books, broadband build outs, computers, teacher training, curriculum and the standards themselves and it would take millions, they don't have, to get rid of it and replace it.  But Common Core is not the end (it is the diversion) and in time will be replaced with the next phase. So getting rid of Common Core won't happen and it is not the solution. CC 2.0 is coming down the street very soon. It is called Competency Based Education (OBE, Personalized Learning, Blended Learning) and Assessments (this is all in ESSA along with Social and Emotional Learning better known as brainwashing). SO my concern was that he was promising something I knew he could never deliver.  

What concerned me even more than his uninformed promise to repeal Common Core was his push for CHOICE/ Charters and Vouchers. His choice for Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos, will again find us fighting a war against education policy coming out of the White House.  I believe this war will be the worst of all.  

It sounds nice. Doesn't it? CHOICE. Who could possibly be against choice?  Ask some parents in New Orleans what they think about this choice.  They are now 100% Charters with no elected school boards.  They have a different story to tell than the story we are hearing from people like Jeb Bush, Betsy Devos and others.  What Charters will do is undermine our elected form of government starting at the most basic level, our school boards.  What level of elected government will be the next to go?  It will not stop with elected school boards.  Charters will privatize public education and make it a for-profit operation.  Will the bottom line be education or "the bottom line?"  Education is big business just waiting to be tapped. A $600 BILLION business in the US alone and "they" want it badly.  Betsy Devos supports for-profit Charters.  Gee I wonder why? 

Charters generally are not equipped to educate ELL and special needs students.  Charters can pick and choose who they want to keep in their school and send back to the LEA those they do not want in the school thus making results appear better than they really are.  Charters do not have to hire certified teachers.  Charters are designed to destroy the vast majority of traditional public schools (have to keep some around for those that cannot be trained), eliminate elected school boards (taxation without representation) and destroy the traditional teaching profession (alternative teachers from TFA $$$$$.)  Charter schools are the training centers of the future.  

When was the last time you saw a public school open for business on Friday only to find the doors locked and lights out on Monday, leaving hundreds of children stranded and the LEA left trying to find places for these children?  Well it happens on a daily basis all across America with Charters.  

Today I can go to a school board meeting and voice my concerns, question spending or give praise but I cannot do that with a Charter school (that I pay for).  

Vouchers and Education Savings Accounts WILL destroy private schools and eventually home school. The moment a private school takes a federal or state money they are no longer a private school and must adhere to federal and state rules and regulations.  

The statistics supporting Charters and Vouchers are scarce and unreliable. After over a decade very little real improvement has been realized inside the Charter community.  So why do they continue to push Charters and Vouchers?  Why do the push PRE-K when all the evidence tells us there is no long term academic benefit??  These are questions we need to ask.  We cannot just follow like sheep.

When all the traditional public schools are closed, school boards are eliminated and when this experiment fails (and it will) then what?  What will they blame for the failure next?  PARENTS perhaps?   Remember Arne Duncan warned us when he said "there will be some children we will have to have 24/7."  What children are they?  The children of parents who refuse to conform?  Children who they deem have parents unsuitable to raise them according to the whims of the government?  Do you see where this is heading?  If you don't then you need to get your head out of the sand and do some reading and research instead of listening to all the snake oil salesmen's pretty words that sound so nice but snake oil is snake oil and by the time you realize you were sold poison it is too late.  My mother always said to me (whenever I wanted to send a $1 for a Lassie puppy) "Karen, if it sounds too good to be true it usual is not true."  Of course we all now know there were no Lassie puppies because Lassie was a male dog.  But they racked in a ton of money back in those days for those puppies.  That is exactly what is happening in education.  If you think Charters, Choice and Vouchers are all about helping the poor please understand they are using the poor as they always do to push their agenda.  Are the poor any better off today than they were in 1965?  I think many poor children got a better education back then than they do now.  Are they better off now than in 1979?  Are they better of now than they were in 2010?  No they are not but we keep plugging away chasing the insanity.  

There are good people out there that truly believe they are doing a good thing but when the time is right Bill Gates, Eli Broad, BETSY DEVOS, Jeb Bush, the Walton Foundation and many more that are hiding in the backrooms will move in and take over the Charter organizations.  Devos strongly supports for-profit Charters and has been successful in buying off people in order to get her way.  80% of Charters in Michigan (and they have one of the highest number of charters) are for-profit operations.  When she couldn't ram voucher legislation down the throats of people in Michigan she took her billions and bought what she wanted.  Stop Common Core in Michigan is waging an all out war against the nomination of Betsy Devos and I am asking that we support this group.  

The solution is to get rid of the US Dept. of Education and return to pre-1965 classical education. Times have changed but the brain still works the same.. How children learn has not changed either. Our education system was NEVER in crisis. The crisis was created in order to push their agenda of creating (training not educating) a global work force and undermining our elected form of government.  

IF interested below are some articles, that I encourage you to read, with facts about billionaire Betsy Devos and her billionaire husband, never taught a day in her life, never went to a public school, nor did her kids, on the board of Jeb Bush's FEE, donated to FEE, Students First, Heritage, Bridges etc. 

http://us4.campaign-archive2.com/?u=cd7c62a3844b03a15 6d2bc105&id=b0b0185100&e=79067ff939  

Comments

I agree with the article above.  Fixing education is the most difficult problem the Trump administration will be dealing with. It could turn into an ineffective exercise in kicking the can down the road.

ESSA needs to be repealed in order to get Common Core out of the regulations. I would like to see Education sent back to the “States and the People” under the 10^th Amendment.

I object to federal funds going to public schools at every level. I don’t mind breaking up the NEA teachers’ union, but I wouldn’t accomplish it through starvation by attrition of students.

I believe the way school boards operate needs to be totally scrapped and rebuilt. They need to stop building new schools and start to control curriculum. I am totally against any for-profit corporations operating any schools at any level. 

Big city schools may need Vouchers to break up bad schools, but School Principals should be able to “not rehire” teachers without a hassle from the union. I would limit the Voucher programs to these big city schools.

The current public school model works best when each class is formed with students who are performing at their level and can keep up with each other.

Oddly enough, segregated education worked better for minorities who attended good schools like Morehouse and Spellman.  These are all-boys’ and all-girls’ schools, like the great private Catholic High School I attended in St. Louis. Neighborhood K-8 schools also worked well.

A good start would be to close the Federal Department of Education and that could be a job for Betsy Devos.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader