Louisiana Anti-Common Core Press Conference & Rally on September 28th

By Danette Clark

Join parents, grandparents, and educators in the fight against Common Core in Louisiana on Saturday, September 28th from 10:00 am to 12:00 pm on the steps of the Claiborne Building (Dept of Education) at 1201 North Third Street in downtown Baton Rouge.

We will be asking Governor Jindal to immediately pull Louisiana out of Common Core and PARCC.

Read more at the Press Conference and Rally to STOP the Common Core Initiative in Louisiana facebook event page.

Don’t forget to Sign the Petition!!

‘We are NOT misinformed. We know what Common Core is — and we REJECT it!’

Louisiana’s ‘Roadmap to Understanding Common Core’ and How to Take Action

By Danette Clark

A fantastic Common Core presentation is available online for anyone to access and share with others.

To view A Roadmap to Understanding Common Core now, click here.

The informational flyer below, which contains a link to the presentation, can also be downloaded and shared.

The word in Louisiana is that Governor Jindal is considering backing out of Common Core and is open to hearing your concerns. This means the time for action is now!

Information will be posted here soon on upcoming anti-Common Core events so please sign up for email updates. In the meantime, be sure to call every one of your parish school board members and Governor Jindal to tell them you want Louisiana OUT of Common Core NOW.

Governor Bobby Jindal’s contact information is below:

Phone:  (225) 342-7015 or (866) 366-1121 (toll free)

Fax:  (225) 342-7099

Email:  http://www.gov.la.gov

Radical Elements of Common Core Curriculum Rapidly Emerging in Louisiana

By Danette Clark

In Louisiana, the new Common Core State Standards for Math and English are just ramping up with the recent start of the new school year, and already many parents are outraged and speaking out about what their children are learning.

A group of parents in St. Tammany Parish voiced their concerns last week at a local school board meeting over lessons they describe as “left-wing” and “anti-American”.

Parents of several high school students and a few teachers have expressed their disgust to me over innapropriate books being used in the classrooms of their local schools.

In Ascension Parish, 5th grade ELA students are already delving into a “close reading” of the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

That particular lesson was originally created for New York City Public Schools by Expeditionary Learning, an organization I wrote about here to explain their close and long-time partnership with the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES). CES is the progressive indoctrination movement whose roots can be traced to President Obama.

The Expeditionary Learning/Common Core lesson refers to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as an “informational text”, which confirms the fears of many — that the increase of informational texts at the expense of quality fictional literature would open the door to more political indoctrination.

As shown in the screen shot below, at least one Ascension Parish teacher is adhering to the lesson’s intended social justice/redistribution of wealth theme by teaching students that under Article 2 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, a person’s rights are violated (‘the promise is broken’) when the wealthy own more land than they do.

As more and more information like this surfaces, Arne Duncan’s recent condescending response to Common Core opposition — “It’s not a black helicopter ploy and we’re not trying to get inside people’s minds and brains.” — becomes all the more laughable and insulting.

To see an overview of the human rights lessons being taught in at least one Ascension Parish School (specifically referenced as Module 1) click here. A more detailed lesson within Module 1 can be viewed here.

With the first few weeks of the new school year in Louisiana already causing a Common Core uproar, many are concerned what the coming months will have in store.

According to this Grade 5 Year-at-a-Glance ELA Curriculum Sample from the Louisiana Department of Education, it appears that students in this largely conservative state can look forward to a false history of Christopher Columbus, a lesson on pluralism from Eboo Patel, a former Obama ‘faith’ advisor who recently compared Christians to Al Qaeda, and the video below titled, A Declaration of INTERdependence.

Still think Common Core is not a globalized curriculum influenced by the federal government?

Much of my previous research on Eboo Patel is no longer on the web, but I would encourage you to at least read this. The people involved in our children’s education are just as important as the content of the curriculum.

Thanks to Kathleen for alerting me to the Grade 5 Year-at-a-Glance sample and Declaration of Interdependence video.

More Than a Just Creepy Vision — Pearson Student Data Systems Already in Use

By Danette Clark

As I wrote recently in Pearson’s Creepy Vision For the Future of Education…, Pearson Education, an official partner in the creation of resources and tests for the Common Core State Standards, recently released a video series revealing their vision for the future of education. In a nutshell, Pearson’s vision includes the intrusive collection of personal student data and monitoring of students both inside and outside of school.

This invasion of privacy is a concern to many parents across the country — and for good reason. Pearson Education has created school data systems that are already being used in several states and districts nationwide.

True to its vision, Pearson proudly boasts that its school data systems will increase the “open nature” of student data and create “more porous technology borders”.

So what does that mean, exactly? Due to President Obama’s recent changes to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), it likely means that the technology borders Pearson refers to can now more accurately be described as ‘non-existent’.

Pearson data systems also promise to “enable seamless data flow among stakeholders”, which brings us to another crucial question — who are the stakeholders? Who will have access to student data that will encompass everything from personally identifiable information to learning and behavioral weaknesses, religious and political affiliation, and extra curricular activities in and outside of school?

As shown in the screenshot below, a U.S. Department of Education document titled, Engaging Stakeholders, clearly defines education stakeholders as anyone and everyone — specifically, “students, parents, school staff, district staff, school board members, tax payers, the business community, and other community members”.

Although states and the fed will likely argue that all stakeholders are not allowed access to all student data, this brief prepared by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) discusses privacy risks that existed in managing personally identifiable student information even before the current administration further stripped protections provided by FERPA.

Apparently, simply allowing every Tom, Dick and Harry access to student data isn’t enough. According to Edweek.org, forty-nine states are literally reaching out to “non-educator stakeholders” to tell them that student data is now available to them. Twenty-nine states even provide training to non-educators to help them interpret and use student data to “make informed decisions”.

In many public schools, the local community and business organizations that currently participate as active education stakeholders include Planned Parenthood, interfaith organizations, and ‘anti-bullying’ organizations known for pushing homosexuality and transgenderism on students.

For example, thousands of Annenberg/CES schools and districts already partner with Planned Parenthood and GLSEN. The Annenberg Institute and the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) are at the center of the progressive indoctrination movement that created Common Core. Read more about Pearson, Annenberg, and CES here.

Are organizations like these active education stakeholders in your state? And if so, once allowed access to your children’s student data without your knowledge, are they also allowed access to your children?

Pearson’s Creepy Vision For the Future of Education Confirms Common Core Fears

By Danette Clark

Pearson Education, an official partner in the development of resources and tests for the Common Core State Standards, released a video series last week to share their ‘vision for the future of learning’.

Although the technology shown by Pearson is impressive, these videos confirm the fears of many teachers about what will be expected of them and many parents regarding intrusive data mining of their children’s personal information.

In these videos, educators’ teaching styles are monitored by real-time cameras in every classroom and evaluated on the use of specific points of instruction. It goes without saying that dictating specific teaching strategies makes for big problems, especially if those strategies are used for indoctrination purposes. Just look to Texas for testimony of teachers that say they were reprimanded and threatened with dismissal if they failed to teach in the exact manner directed by CSCOPE.

Pearson also confirms (again) Common Core’s global agenda as students are shown participating in ‘global learning’ activities much like the Model United Nations program I wrote about here (which Pearson actively supports).

This vision of the future also entails teachers and school administrators having instant access to an individualized schedule on each student — not just an in-school/class schedule, but a schedule of the student’s activities and whereabouts outside of school.

In the video, Victoria’s Story: School of Thought–A Vision for the Future of Learning, Pearson demonstrates ease of access to students’ personal lives by showing a teacher instantaneously pulling Victoria’s schedule and sharing with another teacher that Victoria has soccer practice after school that time of year.

While it’s not clear from the video whether Victoria’s soccer practice is a school activity or part of an athletic organization not affiliated with the school, Pearson has shown that they believe educators should have knowledge of all extra-curricular activities students participate in.

For example, Pearson documents like this one (Creating a Classroom Environment That Promotes Positive Behavior) discuss the importance of evaluating data on a student’s after-school activities and other factors of the child’s life at home and in the community.

While this may be necessary for  students with severe behavior problems or a criminal record, the student with the ‘behavior problem’ referred to in Creating a Classroom Environment That Promotes Positive Behavior is a child who simply cannot keep still and talks out of turn.

Although Pearson apparently believes the more information the better, many parents would rightfully view this as a threat to their children’s privacy and safety, especially considering that student data is now being shared and sold all over the country.

FERPA laws that were put in place long ago to protect the privacy of student information were recently revised by the Obama administration to allow access to student data by third parties without parental consent.

The U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics provides a data model (the National Education Data Model (NEDM)) listing hundreds of very specific individual data points of information on children that they believe “all education stakeholders” need for “effective instruction of students and superior leadership of schools”.

The list of data points currently includes bus stop times, bus stop description, nickname, letters of commendation from any employer or community organization, any medals/awards for athletic or academic achievement, place of residence after the student graduates or withdraws from school, and a detailed reason for absences (family activities or vacation, family emergency, religious observance, etc.).

Data points that were recently scrubbed from the National Education Data Model due to public outcry over their level of intrusiveness included blood type, eye and hair color, birth marks, and whether or not the student was born premature.

The National Education Data Model was created through a partnership between the U.S. Department of Education (as funder) and the Common Core State Standards’ very-own Council of Chief State School Officers (as coordinator).

According to Pearson, the School of Thought videos present “a vision of the future that integrates technology, neuroscience, and educational psychology into everyday life to make anytime, anywhere learning possible”.

Take notice of those words — ‘neuroscience’ and ‘psychology’.

The narrator of Victoria’s Story, Pearson’s own Jeff Borden, eerily appears around the corner to Victoria’s bedroom in the video and explains that students’ learning styles and needs will be constantly analyzed so educators will know “the time of day, part of the week, and the season of the year when each student is most productive”.

So what kind of neuroscience and educational psychology is Pearson referring to for use in the constant analyzing of student learning and to know the time of day a student is most productive?

The Department of Education document, Promoting Grit, Tenacity, and Perseverance: Critical Factors for Success in the 21st Century, recommends evaluating students’ emotions, anxiety levels, and physiological traits using neuroscience devices like computers or tablets that record facial expression. Other devices recommended will monitor students’ brain wave patterns, skin conductance, heart rate variability, posture, and eye movement.

Get ready tax payers — if Common Core isn’t stopped, you will foot the bill for highly advanced devices that will be used to spy on America’s children 24 hours a day.

Important Update to Crayola Common Core Lessons Promote Globalization and Interdependence

By  Danette Clark

In addition to globalization, a glowing report on Maoism and evidence of the promotion of Marxism can also be found in Crayola recommended curriculum resources.

Shortly after posting an article recently on Crayola and Common Core’s promotion of globalization, the link to Crayola’s list of recommended resources disappeared. Fortunately, I saved a few screen shots and was able to use that information to locate it again. In looking again at these resources, I found a lot more that parents need to know, so please share.

See some of Crayola’s recommended curriculum resources below along with a few notes.  The original post, Crayola Common Core Lessons Promote Globalization and Interdependence, can be found below as well.

From Robert Hanvey’s An Attainable Global Perspective (listed in the screen shot above):

“The most effective use of labor and capital, and the availability of resources, will have to be assessed on a global, long-term basis. Such a system cannot be left to the mercy of narrow national interests, but must rely on long-range world economic arrangements.”

“Note the prime condition for saving South Asia. Not the erratic provision of aid at the discretion of individual nations but a massive, concerted program in the context of a coordinated world economy.”

Hanvey on Maoism over capitalism:

“Maoists believe that while a principal aim of nations should be to raise the level of material welfare of the population, this should be done only within the context of the development of human beings, encouraging them to realize fully their manifold creative powers. And it should be done only on a egalitarian basis—that is, on the basis that development is not worth much unless everyone rises together; no one is to be left behind, either economically or culturally. Indeed, Maoists believe that rapid economic development’s not likely to occur unless everyone rises together . . .”

From James Rubenstein’s A Cultural Landscape…:

“If a Palestinian suicide bomber kills several dozen Israeli teenagers in a Jerusalem restaurant, is that an act of terrorism or wartime retaliation against Israeli government policies and army actions?”

The screen shot below shows several resources on ‘Collaboration’. These resources and others like them are used by progressive educators to promote collaboration over individualism — collaboration being a necessary step on the path to collectivism/Marxism.

Original post from June 7, 2013:

Crayola Common Core Lessons Promote Globalization and Interdependence

By Danette Clark

Crayola joins the list of big name education companies who have sold out our children and America to the United Nations’ global agenda.

Teaching children ‘to take action as global citizens’ in an ‘interdependent world’ and to ‘think about the world more holistically’ are the focus of Crayola lessons provided in partnership with the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), one of the two main organizations responsible for the creation of the national Common Core State Standards.

Crayola, Lego Education, Apple, and Disney (among others), as members of P21 — Partnership for 21st Century Skills, entered into a ‘strategic partnership‘ with the Council of Chief State School Officers in 2010.

According to P21′s Executive Chair, Kathy Hurley, CCSSO and P21 work very closely on Common Core, as well as CSSO’s Next Generation Learner program, and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act re-authorization.

Hurley is also Senior Vice President of Strategic Partnerships for Pearson Education. Pearson, in partnership with CCSSO, has been instrumental in implementing Common Core in many states by providing resources and employing progressive educators, like Coalition of Essential Schools disciple Grant Wiggins, to provide professional development training.

The U.S. Department of Education hosted the launching of P21 and Crayola’s Champion Creatively Alive Children program in 2011.

Crayola lessons, like other Common Core material, are designed to create, in children’s minds, a specific and biased perspective of the world — globalization over national sovereignty, interdependence over self-reliance, and social and economic equity governed by a few over social and economic freedom governed by self.

Crayola-recommended resources promoting social justice, globalization, and the theory of global warming, are listed here along with writings by humanist Linda Darling-Hammond, CSCOPE’s Robert Marzano, and progressive Howard Gardner, also CES disciples.

Read more about CES (Coalition of Essential Schools) and Common Core at Unravelled! The 30 Year Agenda Behind Common Core and at the Common Core / CSCOPE / CES Connection page.

James Rubenstein’s anti-semitic book, The Cultural Landscape, is also listed as a Crayola Arts-Infused Education Resource.

Despite Arne Duncan’s denial that Common Core purposes a political agenda, the curriculum itself proves otherwise — that Common Core has everything to do with the political and global agenda of those who created it, and nothing to do with a sound education for the benefit of those being taught — our children.

‘Parents Present Pearson With $38 Million Invoice for Use of Child Labor for Field Tests’

By Danette Clark

This is great. It looks like it comes from a pro-progressive education crowd opposed to Common Core because of the possibility it will bring more ‘high stakes’ testing. Regardless, it’s a good way to get the point across…

From Ednotesonline:

“New York City – Concerned parents, who wonder why it should be assumed that their children would serve as uncompensated research subjects in a commercial R & D product development process, have drawn up a bill, payable to the people of New York State, for the creator of the stand-alone field tests, Pearson LLC.

To arrive at a “Balance Due” of $37,991,452, parents calculated the value of their children’s free labor, including the opportunity costs of lost instructional time and resources, and added these to the real costs to schools of administering the June tests. They unveiled the invoice at a press conference held in front of Tweed Courthouse on the morning of June 6th. At that time, they also announced that at least 37 New York City schools had parents opt their children out of the tests; on Long Island, more than 30 schools saw test refusals. Organizers were also aware of resistance at 4 schools in the Westchester and Hudson regions. [List of schools at end of this document.]”

Read the rest.

MONTANANS AGAINST COMMON CORE

By Danette Clark

Montana residents — you now have a great source of information for your state. Go to MontanansAgainstCommonCore.com and join the fight to have Common Core repealed.

Don’t forget to Sign the Petition!!

Common Core Lessons Akin to ‘Community Organizing 101’

By Danette Clark

The video above, created by Oak Norton of Utahns Against Common Core, shows Utah State approved ELA Common Core resources that revolve around a general theme of social activism.

Voices: Literature and Writing, published by Zaner-Bloser, teaches elementary-aged children to “advocate solutions to social problems” by using “emotional words” to manipulate the reader so that they “want to do what is being asked of them”.

As evidenced by the screen shot below, Voices also undermines parental authority by implying that a mother is ‘nagging’ if she tells her child to clean his or her room.

None of this is surprising when you consider that the movement behind the creation and implementation of Common Core was created by and has been driven by far-left social activists for decades.

Read more at Common Core / CSCOPE / CES Connection.

New ‘Globally Aware’ Social Justice Charter School in Wisconsin

By Danette Clark

The warning below was written by Frank Gabl, who, using some of the information on this site about the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES), was able to connect the dots and discovered that a new charter school opening in his state is affiliated with the progressive CES Schools.

SOAR (School of Options and Applied Research) Charter School, located within Land O’Lakes Elementary School in the Northland Pines School District of Wisconsin, is a project-based learning school that teaches children ‘social responsibility’ and ‘global awareness’ using biased far-left political indoctrination tactics.

As Frank discovered, SOAR’s professional development training is provided by the Buck Institute for Education, a CES affiliate organization listed at Schools, Districts & Organizations Indoctrinating in Your State.

Understanding the connections (and dangers) outlined on this website between the Coalition of Essential Schools and Common Core, Frank recently wrote the following warning about Winconsin’s implementation of Common Core:

“Parents warned about education restructuring

Abraham Lincoln is credited with profound insight when he cautioned: “The philosophy of the classroom today will be the philosophy of government tomorrow.”

So it is quite remarkable when one considers that an estimated 93% of the public knows practically nothing about the massive national education restructuring called Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI).

Common Core curriculum standardization is well on its way to full implementation in 2014, whereby a student’s K-12 academic framework will be predominantly controlled by detached unelected bureaucrats at the federal level, special interests and the agenda of Washington elites.

Never wanting “a serious crisis to go to waste,” the Obama administration slipped a $4.35 billion earmark into the 2009 stimulus package for the Department of Education. In return, the department led by Secretary Arne Duncan, launched Barack Obama’s Race to the Top education competition which shackled Common Core to the state level. The blueprint is a virtual copy of the vision Marc Tucker marketed to the Clintons with his memorable “Dear Hillary” congratulations letter in 1992. Unsurprisingly, Tucker’s National Center for Education and the Economy is a major player in constructing Common Core.

And much like the dynamic beleaguering Obamacare, Common Core is overflowing with unknowns. But one thing is certain in spite of inevitable future surprises; the final structure will bear the fingerprints of radicals the likes of social justice extremist, Linda Darling-Hammond who directed Obama’s 2008 education transition team, as well as the president’s former ally from his UIC days, the unrepentant-domestic terrorist, Prof. Bill Ayers.

To ensure national implementation, the Department of Education dangled a piece of the infamous stimulus pie to lure states into adopting the standardized curriculum of which, former Gov. Doyle was one of 46 governors to grab the handout. Hence, in school districts statewide, Common Core is just months away from stripping Wisconsin of its constitutional authority over education, thereby empowering the federal government with control of school curricula while rendering parents powerless to affect change in their own child’s learning development. And to flex muscles, Common Core imposes a federal tracking-system which includes disciplinary records, health history, family income range and parent’s religious/political affiliation.

Furthermore, if the federal takeover of education is not un-American enough, the Common Core framework will eventually provide unrestricted access of our educational system to the United Nations. A number of textbooks and curricula written by UNESCO’s International Baccalaureate (IB) program (ages 3-19) are already in many public school districts across the country. The IB curriculum teaches values and human rights dictated by the U.N., including radical environmentalism, abortion, social justice, multiculturalism, wealth distribution and a religion alternative, pantheism.

Parents who are troubled by this information because they know it threatens their child’s upbringing will naturally question whether it’s too late? The bad news is yes if people choose denial or decide to remain uninformed and uninvolved. But because average Americans have had enough freedom usurped in recent years to equal a lifetime, 13 states have been forced by their engaged citizens into convening public forums/hearings and advance legislative bills in an all-out effort to keep decision-making up to the trusted servants of their communities where control belongs.

To develop a fuller understanding of how smart people intend to raise our babies and grandbabies the way only they know best, search on line: “Stop the Common Core Video Series,” “States Fighting Back — Truth in American Education,” “Common Core’s Race to the Middle in Colorado” (a must see) and “Think Common Core Standards were a State Initiative — Utah’s Republic.”