Girl Scouts Offer Common Core Badges

By dianeravitch

April 26, 2013 //

It looks like no part of American life will be left untouched by the Common Core.

The Girl Scouts are now offering badges for Common Core.

What marketing firm dreamed this up?

Will we one day look back and ask who will be held accountable?

Categories Common Core

48 Comments Post your own or leave a trackback: Trackback URL

francesca wood says:

April 26, 2013 at 9:38 am

yes! but we should probably be demanding who is accountable now, which thanks to you, Diane and others we are. this and sustainable development are the 21st century scourge of the planet and are central planning at is rotten core. getting to our kids and societies every institution, even the girl scouts. there is no limit to this strain of cultural marxism.

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John Young says:

April 26, 2013 at 9:43 am

Reblogged this on Transparent Christina and commented:
No more cookies for me.

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- Myra Blackmon says:
  
  April 26, 2013 at 10:12 am
  
  John, please note that Girl Scouts have not developed badges for the Common Core, rather just correlated existing badges to the standards.
  
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tuppercooks says:

April 26, 2013 at 9:47 am

What next, Common Core diapers?

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francesca wood says:

April 26, 2013 at 9:52 am

common core condoms.

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- tuppercooks says:
  
  April 26, 2013 at 10:24 am
  
  Will everybody have to wear the same size?
  
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  - H.A. Hurley says:
    
    April 26, 2013 at 10:44 am
    
    Of course! But, it was announced that we should expect a 30% increase in failure rates. Makes sense to those who set the arbitrary cutoff scores. :-@
    
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  - mathcs says:
    
    April 26, 2013 at 11:30 am
    
    And what will the Pearson test involve?
    
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  - tuppercooks says:
    
    April 26, 2013 at 11:52 am
    
    @mathcs-A student will have to successfully place a Pearson/Gates Rubber on a banana 7 out of 10 times-
    
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  - leona gomez says:
    
    April 27, 2013 at 3:15 pm
    
    yes
    
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H.A. Hurley says:

April 26, 2013 at 9:54 am

I cannot believe it!
Every inch of our lives is an opportunity to make the almighty buck? Gross! Now every CC standard is game for Girl Scout badges?
Is there no place in a child’s life without being choked by CC? What’s left: public restrooms, telephone poles, stray dogs, vacant buildings, billboards, buses, painted sidewalks, blimps, PBS, painted cars, labor shows, etc?
Disgusting!

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- Duane Swacker says:
  
  April 26, 2013 at 11:04 am
  
  Blimps, I originally read pimps!
  
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- Myra Blackmon says:
  
  April 28, 2013 at 8:27 pm
  
  Please note that the Girl Scouts has NOT developed Common Core Badges. If you actually look at the link, you will see that there is a drop-down menu that links existing Girl Scouts badges and programs to a number of different educational standards, including those for states. With our current obsession with high-stakes testing, it makes sense to point out which elements correlate to school. It doesn’t mean anyone has to use them. It’s a resource. As a Lifetime Girl Scout who has not always agreed with decisions by the national organization and an education activist, I see more and more experiential learning disappearing from schools. With the pressure to use multiple-choice tests, kids don’t get the hands on learning so many of them need. That falls increasingly to Girl Scouts, Boy Scouts, Girls, Inc., Y’s and other that provide youth programming. I don’t like the Common Core one bit, but it’s what we have right now and anything we can do to be sure our children succeed in the system they’re in, seems to me worthy of our support.
  
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Stacey says:

April 26, 2013 at 9:56 am

The badges were revamped a couple of years ago, and the Journey program was made the centerpiece of the GS program. Oh how I complained (and many other leaders). GSUSA says they are the “premier leadership program for girls”. Fine. But the only type of leadership role they can seem to envision is in the corporate boardroom or politics. My troop hates the Journeys (and so does every other troop I know of), and the many fabulous interesting badges that awaited them were taken away and whittled down to things like financial literacy and such. Not that those aren’t valuable, but again, this isn’t what we were signing on to GS to accomplish. I hope everyone expresses their displeasure. Leader complaints have fallen on deaf ears. The good news is that each troop makes the GS program what they need it to be. You actually don’t HAVE to earn anything in GS. You can just do activities, and call it good. As for my troop, we have found some interesting ways to get the Journeys done so that they can work on the higher level awards (Silver and Gold) but we have yet to do any of the badges. They are just not engaging at all.

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- CitizensArrest says:
  
  April 26, 2013 at 10:20 am
  
  I’m going to be spreading your experience around as this is an important insider view of the story. Great post.
  
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- 2old2tch says:
  
  April 26, 2013 at 6:49 pm
  
  My daughter earned her gold award about ten years ago before the insanity hit. Her leadership was absolutely fantastic. She was an incredible leader and had a profound effect on many girls and their families. The local council forced her out of a leadership position not long afterwards. After many years, she was planning to retire as a leader but hoped to continue working with the scouts. It was definitely the Girl Scouts loss. They were going for a new younger business crowd. Keep doing your own thing.
  
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  - Dixie says:
    
    May 2, 2013 at 10:50 am
    
    I’m a Girl Scouting insider too. Any part of the Journeys and badges that the girls have already done in school does not need to be done again under the GS program. If they already know the water cycle, fine, skip it, go on to something they don’t know. It’s always been the GS way; every leader has the power to substitute something else as good or better, or to adapt the program to a girl’s abilities and disabilities. The program as written is for the benefit of those who can’t make program on their own. Fun is still an integral part of the program. Outdoors is still an integral part of the program. If it weren’t would I have a basement full of dutch ovens and sticks and firestarters and washbasins and matches and weiner sticks and…I wish I could get rid of all my little pieces of rope and beads and coffee cans etc. but every year a new groups comes along and they hear about kick the can ice cream and here we go again with the cans and the ice and the salt and the science….Last year I did an encampment based on the 1916 GS handbook. Guess what! The first three knots a girl learned in 1916 and the first three knots prescribed in the 2012 handbook are the same. I’m going to be 60 this year and I want to retire but they won’t let me. Qwitcherbitchin and sign up to do some work.
    
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Spoonbill says:

April 26, 2013 at 9:56 am

“Common Core Condoms” Use of alliteration: Great demonstration of common core standards!

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- Yvonne Siu-Runyan says:
  
  April 26, 2013 at 2:57 pm
  
  Great one – Common Core Condoms.
  
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H.A. Hurley says:

April 26, 2013 at 10:03 am

Bill Gates is working on a new and improved condom to help the world. True! May want to contact him. This would give him the opportunity to influence education with CCC, world wide. Takes on a new meaning: Lifelong Learner? Can vary curriculum through the years and ages.Big Brother….Gates?

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- dianerav says:
  
  April 26, 2013 at 10:42 am
  
  Hurley, Gates is developing a new toilet. Seriously.
  
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  - Dienne says:
    
    April 26, 2013 at 11:41 am
    
    Well, at least excrement is something he has experience with.
    
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  - teachingeconomist says:
    
    April 27, 2013 at 12:54 am
    
    Sanitation is very serious. Take a look: http://www.ted.com/talks/rose_george_let_s_talk_crap_seriously.html
    
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Parents of Christina (@ParentsofCSD) says:

April 26, 2013 at 10:10 am

Will this ever end? I have a 7 years old daughter with high functioning autism plus a rare disorder. She is very empathetic and takes the world on her shoulders. She made tremendous progress in the summer, but September her speech and understanding the world around her started regress once again. She did well because teachers and therapists worked with her current skills and built up from where she was. I am growing frustrated with the thinking of we are all the same. When she comes home from school with the “I am not good at….” I have the usually “talk” we are all different…. It’s at the point where that isn’t effective because she knows she has problems in all academic areas. The teachers truly do their best. Her IDT will not say it’s because of ccss, we know because many her IEP goals are aligned with ccss.

CCSS took away my sweet, caring, loving little girl.

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- Linda says:
  
  April 26, 2013 at 4:21 pm
  
  This is heartbreaking, but since when do we design and write IEP’s based upon national tests and the associated assessments? This is not education and that is absurd.
  
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Myra Blackmon says:

April 26, 2013 at 10:10 am

Diane, please read this more carefully. Girl Scouts has not developed common core badges. Rather, it has correlated existing badges to the common core standards. There’s a big difference.

When schools have fewer and fewer resources for experiential learning, organizations like Girl Scouts, Boys and Girls Clubs, etc. are providing that. Might as well correlate them to the school standards. What kids get in these programs can make a difference in their school achievement.

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- tuppercooks says:
  
  April 26, 2013 at 10:26 am
  
  Myra, I respectfully disagree. It’s just an example of megacorps extending their greasy tentacles into another facet of America.
  
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  - Carrie says:
    
    April 26, 2013 at 3:26 pm
    
    I have to agree with tupper, and I was a longtime troop leader.
    
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  - Karen Bracken says:
    
    May 26, 2013 at 9:33 am
    
    This type of badge has no place in the Girl Scouts. I think it is time for parents to take their kids OUT OF PUBLIC SCHOOL AND OUT OF SCOUTS. Until we take full control of our children nothing will change. Believe me when enrollment in public school and Scouts starts to plummet THEY WILL LISTEN and THEY WILL stop this insanity. As long as we are content to write our comments on blogs and do nothing else what should we expect. TAKE ACTION, REAL ACTION!!! If we don’t we will not win the fight for our children. There a a ton of alternatives. Start a home school co-op. Get a retired teacher to volunteer time to home school some kids. USe the brain God gave you. We have resolved bigger problems than this and there is an answer if you really want one. PULL THEM OUT. Understand schools get federal dollars based on enrollment. Enrollment goes down, funding decreases. I say we need a MASS movement across America to pull our kids out of school. Even if they sit home and do nothing for a couple of months in the end our kids will benefit. Drastic times demand drastic measures.
    
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  - Harlan Underhill says:
    
    May 26, 2013 at 3:46 pm
    
    The next thing you know the Vatican will issue an explanation of how each of the 643 questions and answers in the Catechism “aligns” with the CCSS. You could probably do that for the Suras in Koran too, unless it would be desecratory. I suppose reading the labels on soup cans can be classified as non-fiction reading. And how about the Constitution. How does THAT align with the CCSS? There’s both math and language in it.
    
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- CitizensArrest says:
  
  April 26, 2013 at 10:30 am
  
  Myra, this is a hideously bad idea. By correlating badges to the CCSS school standards, the previous possibilities for an additional broad array of experiential learning are diminished and narrowed, the exact opposite of what is needed for success in life. Read Stacey’s post above to see how the Girl Scouts have already moved in the wrong direction on this.One of the big reasons that many schools have less resources is that more are being diverted into testing and CCSS materials. There is a story out of a district cutting the arts, music and athletics due to the mess of “reform”. The Girl Scouts should not become an extension of school but remain an enriching counter point to it.
  
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- Stacey says:
  
  April 26, 2013 at 10:32 am
  
  Yes, but they developed a new badge program along with the Journeys that took away from many of the engaging program materials. Many leaders (and girls) protested but they went ahead full steam. As an example, here’s the list of badges from the Cadette workbook:
  Legacy badges: Comic artist, good sportsmanship, finding common ground, new cuisines, Cadette first aid, Cadette Girl Scout way, and Trees.
  Skill building badges: Digitial movie maker, Eating for beauty, public speaker, science of happiness, screenwriter, book artist, woodworker, special agent, trailblazing, babysitter, night owl, animal helpers, field day, entreprenuer, netiquette, business plan, marketing, think big, budgeting, comparison, shopping, financing my dreams.
  The centerpiece of the program isn’t badges, it’s the Journeys. In Cadettes (gr 6-8) there are 3, one dealing with relationships, one dealing with environment, and one dealing with media. Girls do activities in the workbooks and culminate in a “take action” service project. The workbooks IMHO are difficult to follow, full of graphics intended to be “cool” and doesn’t follow a seqential order….and sometimes I’ve found it’s hard to tell exactly what you are supposed to do to earn each section of the Journey.
  I have been one of the leader critics of this program and those like me were labelled as having something to the effect of an “unhealthy attachment to tradition” (can’t remember the exact words). Anyway, I love GS and don’t want to throw the baby out with the bathwater. The powers that be I think are unaware of what’s happening with education and I think they rely too heavily on business influence.
  
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- Stacey Amick says:
  
  April 26, 2013 at 10:36 am
  
  And I will say, as a leader for 7 years, the LAST thing my girls want Girl Scouts to be is an extension of school. This has been their MAIN complaint about the Journeys….too much like school.
  
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- dianerav says:
  
  April 26, 2013 at 10:41 am
  
  Myra, why are the Girl Scouts correlated with Common Core? Why the connection? GS is about experiences and scouting, yes?
  
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  - Stacey Amick says:
    
    April 26, 2013 at 10:45 am
    
    Oh how I wish that were still true Diane. It seems GSUSA wants my girls to experience the corporate world and project management. Alot.
    
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  - Tara says:
    
    April 26, 2013 at 2:02 pm
    
    Anything can be correlated with the Common Core. I could take any book or program that exists, has existed, or will exist and write up a document stating how it works with the common core. The badges already existed. They have not changed (they were already controversial, but that is a different issue). I say this as both a former teacher, doctoral student in education, and a current volunteer in the Girl Scouts (I’ve been a scout for 24 years).
    
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  - Callie says:
    
    May 2, 2013 at 8:38 am
    
    I am a longtime Girl Scout and have been a leaders for several years and I cannot for the life of me understand why GSUSA is attempting to show a connection between Girl Scout Badges and Journeys, and Common Core objectives. As a Brownie leader, I just clicked on the link you posted to see what Common Core objectives my Brownies “accomplished” when they recently earned their “Snacks”, “Painter” and “hiker” badges. The page that came up was this one:
    
    Click to access CommonCore_brownies_Badges.pdf
    
    It states that when earning badges the following standards applied (list of basic reading literature and informational text standards — main idea and detail, learning vocabulary, etc.)
    
    My Brownies didn’t do any reading to earn the badges. For the Hiker badge — they read maps, learned how to dress for the weather, and hiked! No main idea, no detail. For the Painter badge — they painted! No character, setting, problem or solution. And for the Snacks badge — they washed, peeled, sliced, cut, mixed, measured, cooked (with adult supervision) tasted and ate.
    
    The probably did acquire some new vocabulary along the way.
    
    As I said, I cannot for the life of me understand why GSUSA thinks anyone would want to know that Girl Scout badges have any alignment with any state or Common Core curriculum! Why should they? Scouting isn’t school! Kids get enough of school… at school! And clearly they do NOT actually correlate with math or language arts standards.
    
    So why try to make it look as if they do? The only thing I can think of is that GSUSA and local councils might be trying to get grant funding to put on GS programs, and the people issuing the grants are asking whether Girl Scouting is an education program in some way? It’s a long shot, but it is all I can think of.
    
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- scoutmom says:
  
  May 2, 2013 at 8:56 am
  
  Myra, Common Core talk started two years ago, and now has been adopted in many states. Words about new badges from our girls, especially those that got to do the old program, the new program is dumbed down. Badges are not challenging, We try to change our badges up to make them more challenging. WE do only what we have to on Journeys because they get enough school without bringing it into GS. Variety of badges are slim. School shouldn’t be moved over to GS or BS. I have kids in both. BSA has great badge selection and they are not rewriting them to align to common core. Do they need to be updated, yes some do. THAT is all GS needed to do was update, not redo a complete program. My daughter tells me after every badge that she got more from the old program. and GS leaders shouldn’t have to completely rewrite a badge. Merit badges in BSA don’t have to be rewritten to keep the boys interested, and they keep the OUT in SCouts going in . the out is GS is not the focus anymore and that is very sad.
  
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George Buzzetti says:

April 26, 2013 at 10:12 am

This is the fascist corporate world we now live in due to the public in this country being in reality self-destructive. There is no other way it could get this far. Thanks to Bill Clinton and the 1996 Telecommunications Act we no longer have a free press. Read “Hapsburgs to Hitler” for the plan in place to finish the job of fascism and “Crossing the Rubicon” to see how they are implementing the final plans by helping and allowing 9-11 as the vehicle to insure this. There are no accidents here. Also read Robert Reich’s latest piece on corporations. Talking alone does nothing. Action must be taken. Unfortunately, most people want to stay in their fantasy world that everything is beautiful and we will be saved in the end by magic. Ask those in Europe before WWII how that worked out. I have known two body loaders in the death camps. Didn’t work to well for most of the 6 million that went to the ovens or for the about 50 million that died in that war alone and now all those we are killing today and the terrorists we are creating to continue our warlike society.

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- Rangoon78 says:
  
  April 26, 2013 at 11:09 am
  
  Bill Clinton did sign the telecom bill, but, in the interest of accuracy, I refer you to the paper by the non partisan group Commom Cause:
  “1996 bill could have been far worse. President Bill Clinton’s veto threat of the original House and Senate proposals, combined with the efforts of key House and Senate Democrats, resulted in the addition of amendments and concessions in a House-Senate conference committee that blunted the bill’s deregulatory sweep.24 White House opposition forced Congress to revise the bill to strengthen federal oversight of media mergers.”
  
  Click to access FALLOUT_FROM_THE_TELECOMM_ACT_5-9-05.PDF
  
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- Yvonne Siu-Runyan says:
  
  April 26, 2013 at 2:59 pm
  
  I agree.
  
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Mark Collins says:

April 26, 2013 at 10:23 am

I first saw this on FB at this site.

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-Common-Core-in-Illinois/388021897963618

Even more troubling than the CCSS infiltrating the Girl Scouts are the numerous errors on their splash page. Yikes! What ever happening to sourcing?

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jim says:

April 26, 2013 at 11:01 am

Diane, or anyone,
Please write an open letter to the Girl Scouts of America explaining the rest of the story about the Common Core National Standards (let’s call them what they really are)

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Virago Black says:

April 26, 2013 at 12:50 pm

Wait…

So the Girl Scouts are not, in fact, offering ‘common core badges,’ and the linked pages doesn’t say that they are.

Shouldn’t you change or remove this story?

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Mark from FL says:

April 26, 2013 at 2:45 pm

I agree with Myra. These are not Common Core badges. The girl scouts have always done this as far as I know. Is it a little ridiculous? Sure. Does it say more about the Girl Scouts than about the Common Core? Yes. Maybe people will read the standards as they click through this story. That would be refreshing.

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JD says:

April 27, 2013 at 12:20 am

I am conservative and will not let my friends place their girls in Girl Scouts. There are other saner options.

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Jill H. says:

May 2, 2013 at 11:58 am

As a long-time GS (Although I predate the “Gold” – back when rocks were soft the rop award was “First Class”) I don’t like the new program at all – I became a leader – but honestly – I do more with my LARGE troop out of my old GS books than the new….we minimize the new stuf because it’s not what the girls want – it seems to me the changes and alignment to CC are to chase grant money – and a huge attempt /effort to keep older girls (Middle and High Schoolers) which if they are successful will greatly increase Girl Scouting. I don’t see that happening – especially as our kids are increasingly involved in the “Race to Nowhere” – but I do think it’s an attempt to show the “value” of the Girl Scout Experience to those outside the program – particularly parents and teachers/administratiors.

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Sheri Nichols says:

May 2, 2013 at 10:02 pm

I have also been a Girl Scout my entire life and a leader for 25 years. I work with older girls in the Cadette/Senior and now Ambassador levels. I have seen membership drop like a lead balloon and there seems to be no end in sight. The Journeys are like school books. The badges are dumbed down and cover a small range of interest. There is no official uniform anymore. We have completely lost our identity. My troop is doing it’s own thing and enjoying it. This troop is completing it’s 31st year, but I wonder how much longer we will be able to keep it going. If girls quit before they have a chance to experience our troop eventually everyone will bridge to adults or quit and we will be no longer. The saddest part is that my daughter and co-leader who has also been a lifelong Scout is questioning whether or not her 8month old daughter will be in Girl Scouts when she is of age. Sad statement from someone who is a second generation Scout.

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