Arne Duncan is concerned about the backlash against the federal government’s heavy-handed imposition of the Common Core.
At a speech to business leaders in the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, he urged their support for Common Core.
He probably forgot that the U.S. Department of Education is legally prohibited from being involved in any matters that prescribe curriculum or instruction to the nation’s public schools.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Nothing wrong with the common core, except that it will cost billions of dollars to implement.
Someone tell Duncan, we’re out of money.
Can we FOI his grades and test scores from high school and college? He doesn’t appear to be too bright?
Other than Obama’s basketball buddy and selling out Chicago schools, what exactly are his qualifications?
I think you just stated the qualifications he needed. :>)
There’s everything wrong about Common Core State Standards.
Take out state….don’t use it..it is a lie or call them national standards, which they are.
Let’s just call them the corporate core. Remember, Arne’s kids go to school in Fairfax County, VA, where there is no corporate core.
Do you think that means their data won’t be tracked by Rupert and Joel and stored by Amazon?
Are they free from cyber stalking? Convenient, hmmm.
Of course Arne’s kids aren’t tracked. he’s not stupid. that’s why they are not in the excellent Montgomery County, MD schools or mediocre DC charter schools. Arne knows exactly what he is doing.
I love it … Corporate Core National Standards!
CCNS….banish the old name and never say state or state led….that is a lie!
If Exxon Mobil is selling it, you know it’s polluted.
Nothing wrong? Read a synopsis, buddy.
To paraphrase Leona Helmsley, the law is for little people.
I didn’t know that government officials (of which he is one- ‘technically’) could solicit groups to lobby on their behalf and behalf of legislation that they favored. Doesn’t seem right. Conflict?
oops.
“the U.S. Department of Education is legally prohibited from being involved in any matters that prescribe curriculum or instruction to the nation’s public schools.”
If this is true, don’t we have any lawyers that could remind him of this?
Are there any lawyers who can check out Arne’s investment portfolio?
I believe his boss is a lawyer!
Arne Duncan, as we all know, is intellectually challenged. That fact needs no more evidence than his assertion that high school could be eliminated beyond the Sophomore year due to the fact that this is the year where the highest drop out rate
presents itself AND the Junior and Senior years are nothing but, “a bunch of study halls.” Case closed. He further is a simpleton who loves to inflict the corporate program; destruction of public schools for the money making charter schools, destruction of unions and earned tenure monies. What’s not to love…IF you are an enemy of the education and a toady to any corporate design. Common core is just another cryptic attack on education, and it is unconstitutional to boot; but then, when did the neo-con/tea bag pitchfork crowd give a rip about that backbone of democracy.
“W” put is so delicately when he was shown his unconstitutional actions, s evident in that document blustered, “Don’t show the GD rag to me…” And he and his Fox news ferrets are golden patriots? Double speak can turn a snake into an angel if one gets the PR right.
Arne needs modifications, differentiated lessons, extended time and an aide. He is unable to perform higher level tasks: close reading, deep critical thinking and analysis. He needs to take the 11th grade
PARCC or SBAC test and post his results. Hey Arnold, get busy.
I found two old articles I had rewritten today titled, Politics of the Radical Center, published in the Wisconsin Report, November 3 and 10, 1994. Talk about two intellectually challinged individuals note the two below.
Lamar Alexander, former Secretary USDOE, former Governor of TN, and now Senator from TN, appeared with Dr. Shirley McCune, considered the expert on restructuring education at that time, and who was senior director of the federally funded Mid-Continent Regional Educational Lab., appeared at the Kansas Governor’s Summit on Education in 1989. Lamar Alexander, speaking on “The New American Schools” said:
“Such a school would probably start with babies and go through the eighth grade. It would be all year long. It would be open 6 A. M. to 6 P. M. Every child would have his or her own computer and work-station. Every Child would have a team of teachers that would stay with that child until graduation. These schools would serve children from age three months old to age 18 and would serve as a one stop shopping center for welfare services ranging from family planning, health care, and social services…….”
Dr. Shirley McCune made the following statements:
“….what we are into is a total restructuring of the society. What is happening in America today…is not simply a changed situation and the usual winds of change. What it amounts to is a total transformation of our society…The whole ball game is this particular information capitol that we can put together….Secondly, to produce Human Capital…we have to prepare students not for today’s society, but for a society that’s 20, 30, 40, 50 years down the road….That’s called Social Change Function of schools”. (transcribed from a video).
In a planning workshop in MIllard, Nebraska, July 2, 1983, Dr. McCune presented a draft of change which includes projected
changes of FROM—–TO.
From an industrial society to an information society.
From a centarlized society to a decentralized society.
From a national economy to an integrated global economy.
From representative democracy to issue politics.
From party politics to politics of the radical center.
From business as usual to greater accountability.
The way I read this is we have dismantled our industrial economy and sent them to other countries. Decenteralized means turning citizens property over to corporations, investment companies…hedge funders through privatizing. “We must train our Human Products (children) for the global workforce. Representative government is being replaced with private groups especially local school boards are being destroyed with large management companies and computer based (unproven curricula) through Choice. The “radical right political groups such as the secret CNP, ALEX, Heritage Foundation, Think-tanks such as Fordham, Hoover, Gates Foundation and on and on have now joined with the political left, Council for Foreign Relations, Aspen Institute and on and on….. Greater accountability to who? Certainly not the citizens of the U. S. A.
Nothing has really changed; this plan has been going on for years and years with the insiders. A few names have changed due to
death, or a few Americans defected or some gained wisdom over the years and are now working against this destruction.
Do you want you children to be “human capitol” for the global workforce, or independent thinkers with free-will? America stands at a cross-road today as I see it. Radical behavioral psychologist and radical system managements theories are behind Common Core Standards along with the U. S. Government and most of the state Governors. Check our your appointed councils in your state, the charter schools, and I’ll bet you will find a vested interest $$$$.
What a profound depiction of what, not just we face, but humanity in this struggle against the NWO, global corporatist & what they would reduce our world to.
Sent from my iPhone
Of course, WE all want our students to be independent thinkers with free will, but I am skeptical that such a goal is really at the bottom of public school education, and I am rather skeptical that parents in general want that either.
I think that The Sudbury Valley School in Framingham, Mass. might have such a goal, and possibly other schools of the “Democratic Schools Movement,” but my impression is that most schools, public and private, aren’t really interested in real democracy in schools, because that would mean treating the students as full voting members of the community, who, as at Sudbury Valley, vote yearly on retention of teachers in the annual general school meeting. Kids have a way of sifting out the unhelpful teachers pretty quickly.
Few teachers, I suspect, would care to submit to that kind of “evaluation” given their opposition to being evaluated indirectly by student tests. Granted, the Sudbury Valley School community is highly self-selected, and probably can’t serve as a general model.
The currently flourishing alternative, online charters, gives back to parents some of the control over their kids with which they think the public schools have absconded, but that doesn’t quite give the kid a safe space to find him or herself that a good public school and a good private school provides. Yet conservative parents may want to try to wrest back control of their kids’ minds from the public schools, and that’s why a majority of the legislators representing citizens in Michigan may get away with passing Snyder’s plan. It has those apparent attractions, 1)cheaper, 2)restored parental control.
At last! The lid is off the pot and it’s bubbling over!
If Arne Duncan thinks Common Core is so worthwhile, why isn’t he urging parents instead of the Chamber of Commerce?
Did he ever appeal to teachers?
Why would he do that? He does not even consider us to be teachers?
According to Arne, Bill, Eli and Barack we are merely trainers for the global workforce.
Our job, according to the masters, is to prepare future workers via test prep and test taking.
Educated, professional teachers are a liability because they are costly to employ.
The expected jobs for poor people in this country do not require skilled, well educated teachers, thus the need to increase and perpetuate a revolving door of TFA temps.
They may say one thing (everyone deserves a great teacher), but they clearly don’t mean that.
Once you deskill the teaching force and narrow the curriculum, education is now vocational training.
And there you have it, the Obama/Duncan/Gates “reform” plan.
An exceptionally great question to ask. Perhaps, because parents and students are starting to push back. Arne doesn’t like push-back or venues where he can’t bully people.
Duncan and Obama are challenged both intellectually and ethically. Duncan lied to the State of California to push mayoral control along with Senator Diane Feinstein. I have the documents. Anyone want Duncan gone. This is worse that the situation in which Rod Paige left in disgrace. Do you want to win? Prove it and help.
Post em George.
Arne- Resign now, before it’s too late. Too late to get a job a Burger King.
Arne- Do the right thing and resign.
Can we fill out an SAT referral so Arne receives Tier I, II, and III support? We will call this new, mandated program NRLB, aka No Reformer Left Behind…heck let’s SRBI all the reformers, and get the State Department of Education to do all the paperwork. Put accountability where it truly belongs.
Diane — What is the legal source of this prohibition against the U.S. Department of Education being involved in any matters that prescribe curriculum or instruction? That could be very useful ammo, so want to check out the precise language. Thanks!
Education is not mandated by the Constitution, so federally imposed education requirements are a violation of the 10 Amendment, Rights of the States:
“The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.”
The federal government has gotten around this by making education laws contingent on state/district acceptance of federal funding.
http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/20/1232a
20 USC § 1232a – Prohibition against Federal control of education
http://whatiscommoncore.wordpress.com/tag/illegal/
“The arrangement appears to be illegal. Under the Constitution and under the General Educational Provisions Act (GEPA) the federal government is restricted from even supervising education.
GEPA states: “No provision of any applicable program shall be construed to authorize any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school, or school system, or over the selection of library resources, textbooks, or other printed or published instructional materials by any educational institution or school system…”
And for those still believing the federal government isn’t “exercising direction, supervision or control” of the school system, look at two things.
1. The federal technical review of tests being mandated by the Department of Education.
2. The federal mandate that testing consoria must synchronize “across consortia,” that status updates and phone conferences must be made available to the Dept. of Education regularly, and that data collected must be shared with the federal government “on an ongoing basis”
3. The recent federal alteration of privacy laws that have taken away parental consent over student data collection…”
Specific GEPA ban on federal role in curriculum:
20 USC § 1232a – Prohibition against Federal control of education
http://whatiscommoncore.wordpress.com/tag/illegal/
“The arrangement appears to be illegal. Under the Constitution and under the General Educational Provisions Act (GEPA) the federal government is restricted from even supervising education.
GEPA states: “No provision of any applicable program shall be construed to authorize any department, agency, officer, or employee of the United States to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school, or school system, or over the selection of library resources, textbooks, or other printed or published instructional materials by any educational institution or school system…”
Arne is a puppet, for sure, but he’s not dumb. He is has let himself be suckered in and misguided by monied interests and politicians for a long time, but he is a clever lackey, as demonstrated by his circumvention of Congress with RTTT and the changes to FERPA regulations.
I think a lot of what he said to the Chamber of Commerce was code. Read between the lines:
According to the EdWeek article, Arne said, “he did not want to see a repeat of when the business community went silent after the passage of the No Child Left Behind Act and states responded by “dummying down” their standards”
Arne knows better than this. States like his own IL were compelled to increase standards for student learning, as well as for teachers, due to NCLB. But over the years, they figured out how to avoid increasing federal punishments by changing pass rates on tests. That has nothing to do with standards and everything to do with federally imposed high-stakes testing.
And he said
“I don’t understand why the business community is so passive when these kinds of things happen,” he said.”
In other words,
Corporations could have been there earlier making the BIG bucks privatizing education, instead of just profiting from the new Supplemental Educational Services industry that NCLB spawned for Title I schools. No need to help low income failing students with drill for skill tutoring/test prep companies anymore. Now all schools are prey, and I did the hard work for you with RTTT. So get going in support of closing neighborhood schools and expanding charter schools everywhere, and feast at the public education funding trough!
And
“he mentioned that he was meeting later that days with U.S. Sens. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, and Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., the Senate’s top two legislators on K-12 policy, to discuss the feasibility of reauthorizing the law in the foreseeable future.”
i.e., We are going to double down and include the draconian components of BOTH NCLB and RTTT in one law of the land, without the possibility of states opting out.
There is still one way out though, since this is all about being tied to purse strings. Such federal laws only apply when states take federal funds. If states really want to hold onto public education and be independent of the federal government, they should be working on figuring out other ways to fund education.
Arne is clever enough to know that won’t happen, as long as corporations are on his neo-liberal side though….
And BTW, no one knows better than Arne how to game the system, such as by changing the cut scores on tests:
“This kind of gaming of test scores points to yet another tactic–shifting the standard as to what constitutes “proficiency,” or “at grade level”. This was employed not only in Chicago, by then-CEO Arne Duncan, but also in New York City by Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who claimed that reforms had helped halve race-based achievement gaps among NYCPS students in just a few years.”
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/elaine-weiss/missing-the-point-on-chea_b_3085718.html
except for Bloomberg and Rhee:
“Academic gains in NYC, D.C., and Chicago overstated, report contends”
http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/District_Dossier/2013/04/academic_gains_in_nyc_dc_and_c.html?qs=broader+and+bolder
Reply to Dianne: The Constitution of the United States; “Amendment X
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people”.
Congress has no power under our Constitution to become involved in state and local education. In Arizona, our state Constitution forbids the state from funding religious or private schools, but they are getting around that by devious means.
Not only are the state Legislators now being by-passed, but the local school boards are being stripped of all authority in states through taking the people’s schools and giving them to privately owned corporations. . Many of these schools are being run for profit at the expense of the taxpayers. Councils are being appointed by governors and others to replace local representative government. Councils, foundations, and privately owned corporations do not have to account to the general public.
Also the law that first implemented the Elementary & Secondary Act, Congress forbid the government from becoming involved in curricula. The USDOE has been promoting government supported programs for years through “The National Diffusion Network” . These programs are privately designed but promoted with tax money, and that is still being done through the various organizations in the federal government.
Some of these “mind bending” programs are extremely destructive to our children, teachers and our culture as a whole.
I accuse the government of deliberately creating “the crisis”. The Nation at Risk was a hoax created to further implement what is happening today in our schools and our country.
Through clever means of mind manipulation to out and out lies- the American people have been sold “down the river of probably no return” by traitors inside and outside our government. The “radical political groups” and the “left political groups” have now met in mid-center to complete the destruction of our once great nation. Our children deserve better. Our forefathers who risked their lives, fortunes and families to give us our freedom deserve a better heritage than what we are seeing.
Don’t count on the “free-press” it was bought years ago by the vested interest and traitors. About all any citizens can do is stand up–stand tall for truth and freedom. Say to these manipulators…”NO MORE”! My suggestion is to write, speak, run for public office so you will have a platform from which to speak (regardless of the level) and spread the word…NO MORE! I’m very encouraged by the web blogs that I’m getting from across the country. Just keep it up!!! See some important research below.
See: The U. S. National Institute of Education (NIE) was established in the Education Division, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare by an act of June 21, 1972 (86 State.327). On May 4, 1980, it was transferred tp tje Pffoce pf Edicatopma; Research and Improvement, United States Department of Education, by the Department of Education Organization Act (3 Stat. 678), approved October 17, 1979. The Institute provided leadership in the conduct and support of scientific inquiry into the educational process. Among the studies it sponsored was the Beginning Teacher Evaluation Study. It was abolished in 1985 with functions dispersed among the Center for Statistics, the Information Service, and the Office of Research, all with the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI). (From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia).
On November 5, 2002, President Bush (this would be Geo. W) signed into PUBLIC LAW 107-279 (116 Stat. 1940) the Education Science Reform Act. The act produced the Institute of Education Science organization and abolished the Office of Educational Research and Improvement. The OERI website content is at http://2.ed.gov/offices/OERI as of March 2011. However, visitors to the OERI website information were directeed to visit http://www.ed.gov/offices/IES for up-to-date on the Institute of Education Sciences and its programs.
Some of these questionable “laws” have been passed by executive order. In Arizona, our Governor Janet Brewer, created her Ready Council by Executive Order in 2010 and updated 2011. The head of this council owns BASIC Charter Schools and is on the board of K12 Inc. K12 Inc. was co-sponsored by former USDOE Sec. of Education, William Bennett who according to the web is still on the board. K12 Inc. is computer based education and is run for profit. BASIC is a management company?????
The “radical” New American Schools Development Corporation’s Design Teams were apparently approved by Congress (I never found the law just the propoganda) to restructure American education. Look them up and you will find vested interest running at a rapid pace.
Now we are training (not educating) our children for the “global workforce” under the guise of “Common Core” that was actually designed outside the states by vested interest. Good educators, especially the teachers and parents had no say in the process. Contitutional Law????? Search around for it. Last, but not least, check the web for Bela H Benathy and son Bela A Benathy under “International Society for the Systems Sciences”. We are involved in “systems management” at every level of our society. Strange “science” floating around everywhere especially in education.
Ann, there is a specific law and provision in the DOE regulations that bars DOE involvement in curriculum, not the Tenth Amendment.
Will find and post.
Considering states had to change their laws in order to comply with RTTT, regarding personnel, curriculum, etc. this definitely sounds illegal. I understand that once states signed on to RTTT, without ever having seen the Common Core, there’s a clause preventing a back door out.
Diane, do you know if anyone has filed a lawsuit against the DoE contesting RTTT, Common Core, etc. based on GEPA and the 10th Amendment?
PLEASE don’t confuse Banathy’s work and Systems Science/Theory/Thinking with standardization, privatization, and top-down control of education. Systems theory is antithetical to the goals and methods of corporate “reformers.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/education/159911-education-hornets-nest-us-department-of-education-is-creating-a-national-k-12-curriculum
“The General Education Provisions Act, the Department of Education Organization Act and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (now known in its current form as the No Child Left Behind Act) all forbid or protect against the Department intruding into curriculum choices by the states and local districts. The legislative history of these statutes and the intent of lawmakers are clear — the federal government has no role in establishing the K-12 curriculum…”
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=31543
Department of Education Organization Act Statement on Signing S. 210 Into Law.
October 17, 1979
http://education.laws.com/elementary-and-secondary-education-act
Elementary and Secondary Education Act
Actually, the prohibition was codified in 1970.
Thank you.
I looked and I could not find anything indicating that a lawsuit has been filed, such as by the ACLU or Common Cause.
If this is illegal, as it sure seems like it is, then why is it not being contested by someone???
Or, if there is a lawsuit pending that anyone is aware of, could you please let us know about it here?
Who funds the ACLU and other civil rights groups? My guess is that it’s the same wealthy people who are now in the school privatization business. The only lawsuit I have ever heard of is the one filed by the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) over changes to student privacy laws (FERPA).
EPIC v. U.S. Department of Education, Civ. Action No. 12-00327(ABJ) (D.D.C.)
http://epic.org/apa/ferpa/default.html#legal documents
Maybe I’m naïve, but I’d like to think that the ACLU is funded by people like those of us followers of Diane and similarly like-minded liberals who are deeply committed to ensuring equality and justice for all. It’s one of the very few nationwide activist organizations I trust. That doesn’t mean I like all the causes they take up (remember the Nazis marching in Skokie?), but the legal principles they pursue almost always make sense at a fundamental level. The ACLU’s historic role in bringing or otherwise supporting education litigations for school finance equity, racial integration, SPED rights, or other equal educational opportunity causes has been extraordinary. Any other long-time ACLU card-carrying members out there?
The Department of Education, Department of Labor, Department of Health and Human Services, Congress, Executive, or any other branch or division may make any specific provisions and try to evade the 10th Amendment, but as long as the 10th Amendment stands as written, one must question the legality of the actions.
If the people no longer support or believe in the U S Constitution, then it provides a way to be legally changed, not worked around by manipulation and specific provisions. The same applies to state consitituions, they must be changed by a vote of the people. Appointed Councils, Executive Orders, specific provisions such as SCANS, Choice, Scientific Reading, America 2000/Goals 2000, No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top…and on and on must be questioned by logical educated citizens.
I am fully aware of the provisions provided in GEPA, but consider them now a major hoax and a foot in the door to destroy the people’s schools and privatize other citizen owned property. I was a reader for the “Joint Dissemination Review Panel” for several years, so I know how government money promoted destructive programs and how the federal government managed to get the states to take the grants for implementation.
That is all I have to say on the subject for now, but check the International Systems Institue for further information re computer and technology education. Check Robin’s blog “Invisible Serf’s Collar” for current updated data in this area.
The ACLU has its own agenda. When another Reading teacher and I presented our case to them re the Exemplary Center for Reading Instruction, they referred the case to a lawyer who was the attorney for the National Educational Association in the state of AZ. He declined to follow through. That was like connecting a snake to its rattlers. Before we went to the ACLU we tried every possible outlet known; they were the last resort, so forget ACLU because they also seem to be in “bed” with the controllers. They take a few cases that generate national publicity to get more funds rolling in..just like the rest, but in the overall long-run do nothing to protect citizens from big totalitarian governments. I speak from experience.
“When all government shall be drawn to Washington as the center of all power, it will render powerless the checks provided and will become as venal and oppressive as the government from which we separated.” (Thomas Jefferson)
When any Amendment to the U. S. Constitution is by-passed with Executive Orders, Congressional Acts, Provisions, Waivers- as allowed in No Child Left Behind and Rush to the Top, then Thomas Jefferson’s words ring true. Enough said!
I concur.