U.S. History No Longer a Requirement for History Majors at George Washington University

From TheCollegeFix.com:

George Washington University recently changed its requirements for history majors, removing previously key courses for the stated purpose of giving students more flexibility.

The department eliminated requirements in U.S., North American and European history, as well as the foreign language requirement. Thus, it is possible that a student can major in history at GWU without taking a survey course on United States history.

The new requirements mandate at least one introductory course, of which American history, World History and European civilization are options. Yet, like at many elite universities, the introductory course requirement may be fulfilled by scoring a 4 or a 5 on the Advanced Placement exams for either U.S. History AP, European History AP or World History AP.

Earlier this year, the American Council of Trustees and Alumni released a report revealing that fewer than one-third of the nation’s leading universities require history majors to take a single course in U.S. history. George Washington University now joins those ranks.

“A democratic republic cannot thrive without well-informed citizens and leaders. Elite colleges and universities in particular let the nation down when the examples they set devalue the study of United States history,” ACTA President Dr. Michael Poliakoff said in a statement announcing the report.

Some scholars dismissed the report’s findings, however, arguing that most students enroll in U.S. history classes regardless of whether it’s required, so handwringing over the lack of the requirement is moot.

GWU History Department Chair Karin Schultheiss, several history professors, and the university spokesman did not respond to repeated requests this month from The College Fixfor comment.

At GWU, history majors must take eight to ten upper level courses: one on a time period before 1750, and three on different regions of the world, including Europe, North America, Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Middle East. Previously, students were required to take two courses focused on Europe and North America and complete a thesis or capstone project. Though the thesis requirement still exists, students can choose to complete “digital capstone projects” instead.

This change was motivated by a need to “recruit students” and “to better reflect a globalizing world,” according to faculty comments to the George Washington University student newspaper, The Hatchet.

Faced with declining enrollment, from 153 majors in 2011 to 72 in 2015 to 83 in 2016, the history department decided changes were necessary, it reported.

Department chair Schultheiss told the Hatchet “the main gain for students is that they have a great deal more flexibility than they had before, and they can adapt it to whatever their plans are for the future. Whatever they want to do, there’s a way to make the history department work for them.”

The push for enrollment may also have been motivated by a new funding formula for GW’s colleges that began in 2016, the Hatchet reports. Money for each department is now linked to the number of students enrolled in a that major’s classes. Each school will now receive $301 for every undergraduate student in a class, incentivizing majors such as history to offer classes that will be popular.

Faculty said that the new system incentivizes the individual schools to create popular classes to attract students to boost revenue.

The previous funding formula was related to how many students were majoring in a college. But according to Vice Provost for Budget and Finance Rene Stewart O’Neal, that system did not give the fullest picture of how many students were taking classes in a specific school, as many students choose to take courses outside of their major.

‘Virulently Anti-Israel’ Palestine Teaching Trunk Being Used in Washington State Schools

From EAGnews.org:

The largest independent Jewish newspaper in the U.S. has published an article advising Jews against living in America because of anti-Semitic indoctrination in our schools.

The recent Jewish Press article, titled “Why Jews Should Stay in Israel,” specifically warns of the Palestine Teaching Trunk, a new curriculum that has made its way into at least a few Washington State high schools.

The controversial curriculum was created by Linda Bevis, a lawyer, activist, and former high school social studies teacher.

Bevis’ Palestine Teaching Trunk – both an actual trunk of teaching material that can be checked out by educators for temporary use and downloadable online content – contains videos, activities, and 700 pages of information that Bevis says “provides multiple perspectives” of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. There are others, however, who strongly disagree.

Rob Jacobs from the Israel advocacy organization StandWithUs Northwest not only sees a problem with the contents of the trunk, but, according to The Jewish Sound, also questions “why the same people who put ads highly critical of Israel on the sides of Metro buses and local billboards should be offering its teaching materials in our schools.”

Jacobs is referring to the fact that Bevis is co-founder of the Palestine Information Project and the Seattle Palestine Solidarity Committee, sister organizations that produce propaganda declaring that “the racism and colonialism of the Zionist movement, with its quest for an ethnic supremacist state, remain the fundamental causes of the current conflict.”

As recently reported, the Palestine Solidarity Committee also advocates for the boycott of Israeli made products and of companies doing business with Israel.

In an effort to push back against the Palestine Teaching Trunk, StandWithUs Northwest has asked highly respected faculty from around the country to review the contents of the trunk. According to the organization’s Facebook page, Prof. Michael Weingrad, Academic Director of the Harold Schnitzer Family Program in Judaic Studies at Portland State University, has declared the trunk to be a “virulently anti-Israel high school curriculum,” adding that reading through the material “felt like swimming long-distance through a sewer.”

In November, The Weekly Standard published a three-page article on the Palestine Teaching Trunk, referring to it as a collection of “solemn idiocies” that “lurk with malice… ignorance and dishonesty.”

According to the Standard article, the trunk’s recommended reading list includes books by Rashid Khalidi, the Columbia University professor with ties to the Palestine Liberation Organization, and leftist professor and political activist, Noam Chomsky.

No less than five other books recommended were written by former Columbia professor Edward Said, who the Standard reports has declared that “Jews are not truly a people because their identity in the Diaspora is entirely the result of external persecution.”

According to The Jewish Sound, Sarah Stroup, a Professor of Comparative Religion and Jewish Studies at the University of Washington, says the curriculum “puts words and political intentions in the teachers’ mouths.”

Stoup also notes that the curriculum focuses heavily on emotions, so “the topic is bound to give lies to emotions.”

For example, as reported by both The Weekly Standard and The Jewish Sound, the trunk includes a game called the “The Occupation Game,” which uses “action cards” like these:

You try to prevent a soldier from inappropriately touching your sister at a checkpoint. Spin the wheel:

1-2: go to ARREST
3-4: go to BEATING
5: go to Action Card #21
6: they berate you and let you go

You are shot by Occupation soldiers and die instantly.

You hover over the world for some time, unable to leave because you love and fear for your family and friends.
You have desires but no power. You wait, along with the living, for the Occupation to end.

When the Jewish Sound interviewed Linda Bevis in mid-November, she stated that so far, only three teachers had checked out the trunk, but about 200 people had visited the website.

Since that time, the trunk as been presented at social studies conferences in Oregon and Washington with the support of the Washington State Council for Social Studies.

 

Teach for America: Math is ‘the domain of old, white men’ and 2+2 Doesn’t Always Equal 4

Go to EAGnews.org to read the full story:

According to a Teach for America website, culturally responsive teaching in math is important because “math has traditionally been seen as the domain of old, White men.”

As reported earlier this week, Teach for America groups across the country are committing themselves to “culturally responsive teaching,” a radical pedagogy used by communist Bill Ayers and other blatant anti-American indoctrinators.

The site, Culturally Responsive Teaching, Teach for America, says that because math is seen as a domain for old, white men, many students cannot identify with it. Therefore, educators should find ways to relate math to the lives of their students.

Judging from the math curriculum recommended, this TFA group, like all other social justice educators, wants minorities to believe that what relates most to their lives in America is racism and oppression.

For example, the site recommends “Critically Conscious Mathematics” and “Radical Math.”

Read the rest.

‘Radical Math’: Social Justice Indoctrination in Math Class Courtesy of Common Core Assessment Creators and Obama-Backed Ed Reform

By Danette Clark

Re-post with new information. Original posted January 12, 2013.

To ensure that not a single minute of precious indoctrination time is wasted in the school day, liberal educators have incorporated brainwashing into every course subject, including math.

Next month, the organization, Creating Balance in an Unjust World, will hold its annual conference on “math education and social justice”.

The conference is sponsored by Radical Math, an organization founded by Jonathan Osler, a math and community organizing teacher at a Coalition of Essential Schools high school in Brooklyn, NY.

The Coalition of Essential Schools (CES) is the progressive education reform movement expanded by President Obama and domestic terrorist William Ayers through their work with the Chicago Annenberg Challenge in the 90’s.

As I explained here, Common Core ‘architect’ David Coleman’s Grow Network also worked with Chicago Public Schools, Obama, and Ayers during that time.

Common Core assessment creator, Linda Darling-Hammond, who served as education advisor to Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign, is a long-time advisory board member to the Bay Area Coalition of Essential Schools (BayCES/National Equity Project).

Radical Math and the Creating Balance Conference both provide training and resources for teachers to learn how to teach mathematics for social justice.  For example, participating trainers coach elementary school teachers to not use traditional math lessons when teaching children to calculate the cost of food. Rather, they recommend making it clear to students that in a truly just society, food would be as free as the air we breathe.

Radical Math’s website provides over 700 lesson plans and other resources covering a wide range of political and social issues (with extreme bias), including globalization, the redistribution of wealth, and various ways the poor are discriminated against and oppressed by whites, banks, corporations, the rich, and the government. One such resource, Rethinking Mathematics: Teaching Social Justice by the Numbers, contains chapters titled, “Sweatshop Accounting”, “Racism and Stop and Frisk”, “When Equal Isn’t Fair”, “The Square Root of a Fair Share”, and “Home Buying While Brown or Black”.

Rethinking Mathematics is a creation of Rethinking Schools, an organization that refers to William Ayers as “a long-time supporter”. In 2011, Ayers was keynote speaker at  Rethinking Schools’ 25th Anniversary Benefit.

Co-founder and co-organizer of the Creating Balance in an Unjust World/Radical Math Conference, Kari Kokka, works with Linda Darling-Hammond at the Standard Center for Assessment, Learning and Equity (SCALE), the very organization currently creating Smarter Balanced and PAARC assessments for the Common Core State Standards.

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.”

Common Core Partner Organization Employs Author of Anti-Semitic Book Used in Tennessee Schools

By Danette Clark

Pearson, the education service company widely known for publishing textbooks, partners with the Council of Chief State School Officers to provide training and other resources to states implementing the nationally proposed Common Core State Standards.

In addition to employing Grant Wiggins, a curriculum ‘expert’ who had a hand in the design of the pro-communist CSCOPE curriculum, Pearson also employs James Rubenstein, author of The Cultural Landscape: An Introduction to Human Geography.

The Blaze.com reported Wednesday that parents in Tennessee’s Williamson County School District are calling for the removal of Rubenstein’s book because of its anti-semitic content.

As reported by TheBlaze:

“…the book… contains the question, “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 book also describes Hamas and Hezbollah as ‘political parties’ rather than terrorist groups.

Pearson’s website offers free virtual conferences for Social Studies teachers and live access to ‘experts’, including James Rubenstein, whom Pearson says “will help high school teachers understand best practices for teaching the economic geography component and cultural elements of a human geography course”.

Rubenstein’s book is used as a resource for Advanced Placement (AP) Human Geography courses. The Advanced Placement program is administered by College Board and was intended to provide a pathway for students to attend college.

College Board, which has leaned to the far left for many years, recently appointed the ‘architect’ of Common Core, David Coleman, to be its 9th president.

As an affiliate organization of the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES), the radical  indoctrination movement behind both CSCOPE and Common Core, College Board posted job announcements on CES’s website in search of teachers for several College Board Schools opened in New York City.

College Board Schools are social justice schools created in partnership with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Michael & Susan Dell Foundation.

When an organization or school posts a job announcement on the CES national job board, it means they are looking for progressive educators who abide by the principles and practices of the Coalition of Essential Schools.

Read about CES indoctrination practices at CSCOPE Curriculum Designer Employed by CCSSO Partner to Aid in Implementing Common Core and ‘Was George Washington Any Different From Palestinian Terrorists…?’.

As publisher of books authored by the likes of James Rubenstein and Grant Wiggins, Pearson knows exactly what kind of material they are endorsing and distributing.

Likewise, on the receiving end, Williamson County Schools Assistant Superintendent Tim Gaddis also knows exactly what content his district uses and what purpose will be served by students ‘critically thinking’ about questions like the one found in Rubenstein’s book.

Gaddis, who defended the text, formerly served as Chief Operating Officer of  Modern Red Schoolhouse in Nashville, Tennessee.

Modern Red Schoolhouse is one of seven organizations that make up the Coalition for Comprehensive School Improvement (CCSI). All seven  organizations closely partner with the Coalition of Essential Schools.

For example, CCSI member, ATLAS Communities, was created through a  partnership between progressive reformers, James Comer and Howard Gardner, and Coalition of Essential Schools founder, Theodore Sizer.

See the faces behind the Coalition of Essential Schools (thereby also behind CSCOPE and Common Core) at Name Names.

Tennessee Tea Party Group Informing Local Parents About the Dangers of Common Core

By Danette Clark

The radicals behind progressive indoctrination in thousands of public, charter, and even Christian schools across the country, have gotten this far by being highly organized and united.

Please contact your local Tea Party to find out if they are already fighting to reverse your state’s adoption of the Common Core State Standards and get involved. If they aren’t, ask them to join you in the fight.

Most Tea Party groups are versed in the necessary process — dealing with local legislators, organizing, and alerting the media.

Members in several states are working to join all Tea Party groups within their state around this issue.

For example, Dickson County Tea Party/912 Project in Tennessee has teamed up with several local groups to educate parents about the agenda behind Common Core. They will hold an informational meeting this Thursday, April 4th at 7:00 pm at The Renaissance Center on Highway 46 South in Dickson.

In coming weeks, I will try to compose a list of groups across the country (not just Tea Party groups) that are already engaged in this fight and post as a resource for those of you looking for a group in your area.

As I wrote in Out Number and Drown Out Concerned Parents — Admitted Strategy of Liberal Indoctrinators, Theodore Sizer, the founder of the progressive education movement behind Common Core, admitted that even if parents are ’well orchestrated’ and ‘noisy’, it isn’t enough to make a difference.

The power is in numbers and organization.

See some of the faces behind Common Core and CSCOPE at Name Names — The People Behind the Largest Progressive Indoctrination Movement in the U.S.

Name Names — Radical of the Week

THE PEOPLE BEHIND THE LARGEST PROGRESSIVE INDOCTRINATION MOVEMENT IN THE U.S. 

RADICAL OF THE WEEK

Tim Wise

A self-proclaimed anti-racism expert, Tim Wise has no qualms about expressing his disgust for conservatives and traditional American values.

Just before the 2008 presidential election, Wise wrote a piece claiming that people attending McCain/Palin rallies were shouting demands to kill Barack Obama. The article warned that if fascism comes, it will come from “men and women…with baseball caps and What Would Jesus Do? wristbands… from the soil of middle America, from people known as values voters but whose values are toxic…by tailgaters at the big football game, by Joe Six Pack…a hockey mom or a NASCAR dad.”

Wise was a featured speaker at the 2009 Coalition of Essential Schools Fall Forum and has been invited to speak to students at several CES schools.

Wise was also a featured speaker at the 2010 White Privilege Conference. The conference has been attended by many Coalition of Essential Schools teachers and students.

Go to Students Schooled on White Privilege and ’5 Million Ways to Kill a CEO’ to read more about the White Privilege Conference and to learn which CES school district used tax payer dollars to transport students across 3 states to attend the conference.

In response to the Republican Party’s broad victory in the 2010 midterm elections, Wise wrote an ‘open letter to the white right’. In his seething rant, he  warns ‘rich folks’ that their time is limited. Wise then goes on to say:

“…conservative old white people have pretty much always been the bad guys…the folks unwilling to share the category of American with others on equal terms. Fine, keep it up. It doesn’t matter. Because you’re on the endangered list… you are not worth saving.”

“In forty years or so, maybe fewer, there won’t be any more white people around who actually remember that Leave it to Beaver, Father Knows Best, Opie-Taylor-Down-at-the-Fishing Hole cornpone bullshit that you hold so near and dear to your heart…there won’t be any more white folks around who think the 1950s were the good old days…so therefore, we’ll be able to teach about them accurately and honestly…”

“It’s OK. Because in about forty years, half the country will be black or brown. And there is nothing you can do about it…”

“Do you hear it? The sound of your empire dying? Your nation, as you knew it, ending, permanently? Because I do, and the sound of its demise is beautiful.”

See other radicals behind the Coalition of Essential Schools at Name Names.

More Proof that CES, a Nationwide Progressive Organization Launched in Part by President Obama, is Behind Recent Controversy in Texas Schools

By Danette Clark

As I wrote here, Texas ASCD (Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development) is linked to the Coalition of Essential Schools (CES), a nationwide progressive education reform movement that, as a matter of practice, indoctrinates students in a racist, pro-communist, anti-American environment and curriculum.

In an apparent attempt to fly under the radar in Texas, the Texas ASCD website does not specifically refer to Theodore Sizer’s Coalition of Essential Schools (CES), as does the national ASCD website. In fact, a few pages that did connect Texas ASCD to other progressive organizations are now no longer found on the internet.

Texas ASCD’s website does, however, name many progressive educators that can be directly connected to CES schools.

For example, here are just a few of the keynote speakers to past Texas ASCD conferences and professional developement seminars that are affiliated with CES schools:

Howard Gardner – partner with CES founder, Theodore Sizer, in the creation of Atlas Learning Communities, a CES partner organization.

Heidi Hayes Jacobs – curriculum designer for CES schools.

Pedro Noguera – educator who has partnered with Theodore Sizer and CES on many programs and initiatives.

H. Lynn Erickson – consultant to CES mentor schools and other schools and districts for the implementation of CES reform.

Grant Wiggins and Jay McTighe – consultants to schools and districts for the implementation of CES reform.

Robert Marzano – research and consulting to schools and districts regarding the implementation of reform, including the CES reform model.

Interestingly enough, five of the Texas ASCD professional development keynotes listed above (Jacobs, Erickson, Wiggins, Tighe and Marzano) are also developers, along with Linda Darling Hammond, of the Texas CSCOPE curriculum.

Linda Darling Hammond is a board member of the Coalition of Essential Schools Bay Area location in Oakland, CA (now named the National Equity Project).

Each of these people also work for progressive organizations to implement Common Core State Standards.

The largest private funder of CES schools, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is also the largest private funder of Common Core. Gates also funds several organizations, including ASCD, to support implementation of Common Core standards.

Read about the connection between President Obama, Bill Ayers, and CES schools here and here. Also, see other radicals involved in CES schools at Name Names (where a new radical will be added each week, including state representatives, school superintendents, and school board members).