This post by Peter Smagorinsky is spot on.
He is a professor at the University of Georgia, and he is amazed at the shrewd marketing of the Common Core.
Think of it.
Schools and teachers are overwhelmed by budget cuts, still reeling from the economic crisis of 2008, and are now trying to absorb new and flawed systems of teacher evaluation. In many states, teachers have lost all job security. At the same time, the proportion of students who live in poverty is one of the highest in the postindustrial world, and many children don’t speak English or have disabilities. These are real problems, and the answer is: the Common Core.
How did David Coleman manage to sell the business and government leaders on the idea that the very thing needed to address the nation’s social and economic problems was a set of national standards? Not voluntary national standards, but mandatory ones. Adopt these standards, spend billions implementing it, and all children will be ready to compete in a global economy; all children will be college-and career-ready; our very survival as a nation depends on these standards.
You have to admire a man who displays a genius for marketing.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Especially when someone posted that an article in the CIA’s “Factbook” states that the reason Soviet education was inferior to ours was due to centralization of authority and standardization of curriculum!
Michael Brocum: in the same vein, it is sometimes uncanny how much the edupreneurs and their educrat allies resemble the old Soviet apparatchiks.
“History repeats itself, first as Paul Vallas, then as Pitbull.” [Marx—I think Karl, not Groucho, but I could be wrong]
🙂
Have you ever read Marc tucker’s “Dear Hillary” letter written in 1992? It an18 page description laying out the master plan of the Clinton Administration to take over the entire U.S. educational system so that it can serve national economic planning of the workforce. In 1994 Bill Clinton signed into law: Goals 2000, School-to-Work Act, Elementary and Secondary Education Act. The purpose of these laws was to #1) Bypass all elected officials on school boards and in state legislatures by making federal funds flow to the Governor and his appointees on workforce development boards.
#2)Use a computer database, a.k.a. “a labor market information system,” into which school personnel would scan all information about every schoolchild and his family, identified by the child’s social security number: academic, medical, mental, psychological, behavioral, and interrogations by counselors. The computerized data would be available to the school, the government, and future employers.
#3) Use “national standards” and “national testing” to cement national control of tests, assessments, school honors and rewards, financial aid, and the Certificate of Initial Mastery (CIM), which is designed to replace the high school diploma.
Does this sound familiar? Sometimes ideas have to wait a few years for just the right opportunity.
John Dewey, an avowed Socialist, was funded in his early research by John Rockefeller, a secret supporter of Communism. Rockefeller funded all of the early behaviorist philosophers and psychologists who studied under Wilhelm Wundt in Leipzig, Germany. The idea that “Man has no soul… supply the correct stimulus to get the desired result” was spread by Rockefeller money throughout the U.S.
Read The Leipzig Connection by Paolo Lionni
The following is a partial list from the Congressional Record:
Communist Goals (1963) Congressional Record–Appendix, pp. A34-A35 January 10, 1963 Current Communist Goals EXTENSION OF REMARKS OF HON. A. S. HERLONG, JR. OF FLORIDA IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.
17. Get control of the schools. Use them as transmission belts for socialism and current Communist propaganda. Soften the curriculum. Get control of teachers’ associations. Put the party line in textbooks.
26. Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as “normal, natural, healthy.”
27. Infiltrate the churches and replace revealed religion with “social” religion. Discredit the Bible and emphasize the need for intellectual maturity, which does not need a “religious crutch.”
30. Discredit the American Founding Fathers. Present them as selfish aristocrats who had no concern for the “common man.”
31. Belittle all forms of American culture and discourage the teaching of American history on the ground that it was only a minor part of the “big picture.” Give more emphasis to Russian history since the Communists took over.
“…what you call “Communism” is not run from Moscow or Peking, but is an arm of a bigger conspiracy run from New York, London, and Paris. The men at the apex of this movement …have no intention of dividing their wealth. Socialism is a philosophy which conspirators exploit, but in which only the naïve believe.”
Communism: An international, conspiratorial drive for power on the part of men in high places willing to use any means to bring about their desired aim—GLOBAL CONQUEST. (pp 18-21, None Dare Call it Conspiracy by Gary Allen with Larry Abraham)
John Taylor Gatto quit teaching after 29 years when he was given the teacher of the year award. Check out any Youtube videos of his speeches to see how he feels about our great American school system. He has done extensive research about the “change agents” that were sent out to destroy it by the Rand Corporation in the 1970’s, fully funded by the U.S. government.
Common Core is a continuation of the federal takeover of education. It is the vehicle for pushing in the goals of UNESCO, such as the acceptance of “sustainable development” and “smart growth”. Its’ purpose is to get our children to give up the American Dream, a classical education and the Constitution. Bill Gates signed a “Cooperative Agreement” with UNESCO in 2004 and pledged allegiance to the UN. He has spent $173 million funding the Common Core since then. He placed one of his senior advisers as Chief of Staff to Arne Duncan.
Common Core should be fought not because of what it is (although it is awful) but because it exists at all.
10th Amendment … 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.
I could go on but I’ll stop there.
You’ve nailed it, Dawn. The comrades here know this but they are in on it. Apparatchiks. They are the Muslim Brotherhood (sisterhood) and Diane is Morsi.
Well, that would certainly explain why all the Commie Comrades here are so in favor of the Commie Core.
Because corporate owned politicians at every level find it convenient to collect ever-bigger paychecks and ever-grander bribes while divesting themselves of ever-more responsibilities to do anything at all on behalf of the People they are supposed to represent.
Good comment.
It’s called the shock doctrine or disaster capitalism. It’s working very “well” here in NJ and across the nation. Because of an economic crisis and fiscal woes (caused by the greedy Wall Street banksters, assorted hedge fund managers and other top one per centers) budgets are slashed, teachers are fired and social services are cut back. Oh boo hoo, the politicians say, we just don’t have the money any more, so the teachers will have to make sacrifices, their wages will have to be frozen, their health benefits and pensions trimmed (gutted).
I cannot admire a liar. That’s why I haven’t watched commercials in decades. When is the rest of the country going to learn that they are just trying to sell you something, and you can’t trust the government to assure truth in advertising?
So, who do you trust? I certainly trust our government more the the corporate reformers who only want to make $. Right? What are they solutions? Your thoughts?
My father always told me to trust the left more than the right.
Anymore, I don’t know (from an education standpoint).
Most of our government consists of corrupt politicians who have been bought by big business, so they are not trustworthy and I trust very few of them. I trust Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.
“In questions of power…let no more be heard of confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief by the chains of the Constitution.”
— Thomas Jefferson: Kentucky Resolutions, 1798
As a historian, I am sure that you know that more people have been killed in the 20th Century by their own governments than by all wars combined.
As for solutions, reinstate the Glass Steagall Act, which is pending in the House right now as HR 129, and in the Senate as S.985, to stop the bankers from wrecking the world.
Get state legislators to cut the budget for Common Core and TFA and put back the cap on charter schools.
Refuse to be taken over by the UN by rejecting anything “smart” anybody wants to bring into your town including “smart meters” and “smart growth”.
Read The Well Educated Mind by Susan Wise Bauer, a guide to the classical education you never had (at least I never had) and then read the books she recommends.
Turn the TV off.
That is absolutely true. We have INFO-TAINMENT, not NEWS. The journalists have lost their way, except for a few like Amy Goodman, Bill Moyers & Co.
There is LITTLE if any TRUTH in advertising any more.
Of course, there will continue to be lamebrains who think that by some magic adhering to mandatory national standards will not drive, narrow, and distort curricula and pedagogy and will not stifle curricular innovation by narrowing the possible design space.
All around the country, now, English teachers are being subjected to hours and hours and hours of “training” in the Common Core as though it were the gospel just arrived from the top of Mount Sinai. A teacher just told me that she and her colleagues were instructed at the beginning of their “training” (This is the same word that we use when talking about teaching dogs to roll over.) that criticisms of the particular standards would NOT be allowed during the sessions and that those who persisted in criticisms would be asked to leave. These standards were foisted on the country with no vetting. And no critique is allowed.
Consider this, CCSS.ELA-Literacy.CCRA.R.8: Delineate and evaluate the argument and specific claims in a text, including the validity of the reasoning as well as the relevance and sufficiency of the evidence.
We are told in the CCSS that 5.8 “Does not apply to literature.” Interesting. Literature never presents arguments, never makes specific claims that can be evaluated, never contains reasoning of questionable validity, never presents evidence that can be evaluated for relevance and sufficiency.
Bizarre. But typical. These “standards” are an embarrassment.
Standards are an afront to the students, teachers, and parents not to mention this country.
Apparently, the First Amendment missed getting in the Common Core.
I have ZERO admiration for coleman. To the contrary, based upon the interviews I have read, and the video clips I have seen, I think he is best described as an arrogant, odious, pompous, ignorant blowhard who is so full of himself that he is nigh to bursting. Anyone who does not see the direct connection between him, microsoft, the broad foundation, the walton family foundation, and pearson and ets, are purposefully deluding themselves. This so-called “common core” and all of the associated appurtenances is one giant scheme to destroy the American public schools and replace them with for-profit “schools” where monitors, not teachers, will be on patrol to make certain that the “students”, grouped 50 to 100 to a room, will sit in front of softly glowing computer monitors, completing one meaningless “lesson” after another, all to display “mastery” of the content. Those kids will then “graduate” with the “just-in-time” skills needed at that point by the corporations, who will “employ them for 2 to 3 years, then dispoose of them and replace thme with the latest crop of “graduate”, who will have “mastered” hte newly required “skills” which the old batch do not possess.
Sounds like a great future, huh? When I made this prediction in 2003, colleagues laughed at me and said I was crazy. They are no saying that any longer. They can now see the puzzle pieces falling into place. I only hope it is not too late to stop this insanity.
Sounds like 1984 more and more.
You have most of this right, but sitting in front of a computer screen to “learn content” is something they won’t be doing. Instead, they will be learning the standards themselves. At least that is what training in New York consists of: teaching students how to learn the standards rather than learning content that meets the standards.
Outstanding article by Peter Smagorinsky. I very much hope that all will read this.
In his articale, Smagorinsky says, “…teachers are left to rely on the rational argument that they have a better understanding of what kids and schools need than people who have never taught but who see schools as places where goods, from textbooks to assessment products, can be sold.”
While Smagorinsky makes a good argument about “buyer beware” on goods and services that are only meant for profiteers, I argue why, not only in his analysis but others as well, they insinuate teachers nonchalantly accepted the implementation of CCS, NCLB.
Teachers in fact have rolled their eyes with every implementation, since NCLB. However, there is lot of blame to go around. There are administrators, superintendents, mayors, governors, etc. who should be looking out for students best interest in defending public education and what swindlers impose on teachers and students. After all, why do they get paid the big bucks and what is their role in the public school system? They are accepting the top-down approach and do little to defend their schools by accepting RttT money for one. Furthermore, it would be as bad if states were in control of education unless they distance themselves from corporations.
It is all bad politics and has nothing to do with teachers, but now we must be the ones to fix the mess which policies were condoned by our leaders. Yes, we have some administrators and superintendents taking a stand now, but we need all to do the same and not behave like government puppets.
Let this ed reform era be a lesson for all.
My only hope is that when the dust settles and the feds/corporations are not in control of education that we have a new direction about the future of our education system. We have identified major problems, but we still don’t have agreed upon solutions. Ironically, we still need the assistance from those who caused this crisis to be a apart of the solution.
Again, what is the SOLUTION that will result in improved educator effectiveness and results for ALL students? Everyone seems to know what does not work. My question, “What is a SOLUTION for all Americans?”
I think more emphasis on being good stewards of what a community has to use in education–like creative reuse facilities where teachers can get materials for teaching projects that engage the senses. Science could use this; the arts can use this; integrated thematic instruction using materials possibly not typically thought of as valuable. The way a poor man’s recording studio might be insulated with McDonald’s drink caddies.
A new definition of what is valuable–other currencies besides just dollars.
“Currencies”–I.e. creative reuse resources.
Gardens.
Etc
Competing curricular models, competing standards, real competition in educational materials, teacher autonomy–these result in improvement. The question “what will result in improved . . . results for ALL students” is wrong from the start. Students differ, and any top-down mandate is going to be less creative and less sensitive to actual conditions on the ground than is an organic competition among competing models that people are empowered to adopt and adapt at the local level.
Just the idea about what can be done to improve education, as if that is where the problem lies is offensive to me. Focus on abject poverty. You’ll get a lot more bang for your buck educationally in my opinion.
I hope that you are an active poster in the next blog entry that condemns students having a choice of schools if their parents can not afford private schools.
The sad reality is that we cannot save every child (b/c we cannot legislate responsible parenting), but we can save more than not by being the innovation we want to see…
Rather than continuing to paint different shades of lipstick on the same outcome-based model pig, how about we try the following:
Empower parents.
Allow the tax dollars to follow the child w/no strings attached, and give vouchers to our most at-risk students to attend any school – public or private – that whomever loves that child most in this world decides will serve that child best. Remove the control freaks at the federal level and watch innovation, best practice models, (and by extension “standards”) and parental involvement increase, while that ownership creates a culture less tolerant of corrupt charters, teachers, boards, etc.
Of course [ostensible] reformers will never go for that…it might actually work.
The bottom line is that a set of standards was foisted upon the nation without proper vetting. Even if one bought the highly dubious proposition that it’s a good idea to have mandatory national standards, one would think that if we were going to have such standards, these would be subjected to meticulous scrutiny by experts in learning in the various domains covered and to national debate and then be thoroughly tested before they were implemented. Instead, what happened is that a small group of insiders decided for the rest of the nation what these standards were going to look like. In other words, they took it upon themselves to make this decision for every teacher, curriculum developer, curriculum coordinator, teacher, and student in the country. It’s obscene. This is not how a democracy works.
And besides, the whole idea of one-size-fits-all mandatory national standards is crazy. Crazy.
AMEN to your comment, Richard. It’s crazy making and totally immoral and most disgusting. CUI BONO? Money is the driving force plus CONTROL of the masses. Remember Hitler?
It’s completely totalitarian thinking to imagine that there exists THE solution for all. What ever happened to notions of individual freedom, of competition between competing models, of seeking innovation via the mechanism of competition among different models? What ever happened to the whole idea of site-based management in our schools?
And, how did that work for us?
And, if you will look again, I asked for “a” solution, not THE solution…..
I got ya.
I agree with both Robert’s points and your questions.
I don’t like Common Core because I think it would be boring and less enriching to meet a kid at summer camp who had only read the same informational texts you have. What could you possibly discuss on a sailboat with that as your education.
Balance. Just like sailing, there has to be balance.
When there are many, many different models clamoring for attention, competing with one another, when teachers have the autonomy to make their own decisions, we get innovation, we get creativity, we get change for the better. Top-down, totalitarian mandates don’t result in innovation, in continual improvement. Oh, wait, we are supposed to wait until the Politburo meets again to issue its revised standards.
This small group basically told every teacher, every curriculum designer, every curriculum coordinator in the country, it doesn’t matter what you think you know about what outcomes you want for your students, and it doesn’t matter what you think you know about matching those to your students, and it doesn’t matter what you think you know about rational progression of outcomes across grades. WE HAVE MADE THOSE DECISIONS FOR YOU. DO AS YOU ARE TOLD.
My child is only a rising 2nd grader so I don’t have much experience with the CC. He attends a Title 1 school. In his K class there were 25 students, 22 were the same students from day one to the end of the year – the remaining three were not. One child came in Oct and left in March so he attended three schools in one year.
We looked through his K class pictures and half the students are no longer attending this school. For students who move frequently, (I believe lower income students most likely move more than their middle class counterparts, but I don’t have solid stats to prove it) I think some kind of common standard is needed.
Even with the “Common Core,” every state and district has implemented it differently, so there’s really no common standard at all. Not to mention that there are two different testing consortia AND several states that have chosen to go it alone. This is not going to assist the kids that move a lot. I would know–I teach at a school that has about 1/3 moving in and/or out in a single year. The CC didn’t help keep those kids from being in a different place from the school from which they came.
Thanks for your reply. So then it isn’t true that all children in the US will be reading the same text, doing the same math problems etc or even learning the same concepts?
That’s been my experience, anyway.
LP – Thanks for sharing your experience – I appreciate you taking the time to help me understand the facts. I hope they figure out a way to support you and the kids that move so much. I hope to read more posts from you.
Dear Concernedmom,
I’m so glad to read you on this blog. I believe we need to get many more parents involved in understanding and questioning the laws and policies that impact their children who attend public schools. Thanks for taking the time to investigate.
Like Louisiana Purchase, I work in a Title 1 school and about a third of my class revolved this year. Standards are fine as a means to guide curriculum, to guide what to teach at each grade level, to guide what and when to cover material. Before No Child Left Behind, I could take the time to process children in and out of my class. I could take the time to assess them, find out their strengths and weaknesses, write and implement a well-thought out intervention plan. I could take the time to help them integrate into their new classroom and help the children from more stable homes cope with changing demographics. I could drop everything when conflicts arose because the dynamics of the group changed yet again and I could model, coach, and help the kids find solutions.
The pressure of testing wrought by NCLB has eroded, if not eliminated, time in the classroom for humanity and common sense.
Standards are not new. We have had solid standards in California for many years. CC are just another set of standards that I could live with, if not for testing. Testing is what changed any set of standards from guides to…..I don’t even know to what….words fail me.
Dear First Grade Teacher,
I am debating whether I will opt my child out of NCLB testing. From your post I get the impression that efforts should be concentrated on the testing. I am torn because I am fairly certain my child will pass the test. Even if I don’t think the results mean anything outside of the test itself, his participation would at least give the school I love one more passing data point.
At the same time, I don’t feel right about participating in a process designed to intimidate teachers and school leaders. I wish the option was to “opt-in” to NCLB rather than have to fight to opt-out – that’s the choice I want….
Yes, we need this dialogue of solution to the education crisis to begin in conjunction with the debate of what is wrong with it. If we don’t, it will only be a finger pointing contest (take that however you see fit) to determine who the winner is, where the end result should be a philosophy based on what is best for the education of our children not the adults.
WOW…..I love this dialogue. We are all focusing on the greater good – our future, our kids. I KNOW we, America, have the ability to solve this issue. For me there are three “big rocks” that will move us forward: clear expectations, accountability and communication. AND….lots of LOVE!
DR,
The American government and corporate AMerica have anything but love for teachers, administrators, children, families, and educators.
The only love here is the love for money, and they are taking it away in general from the poor and middle class to fatten some cats who can’t make their billions the same way they used to.
But your optimism is a breath of fresh air!
Build a better mouse trap and they will beat a path to your door. CCSS is not a better mouse trap, therefore the need to “sell it”.
Just wondering….what standards might you recommend that will prepare ALL of our students to be college and career ready?
First, as a public school teacher it is not my job to “prepare. . . students to be college and career ready”. Plain and simple, my charge as outlined in the Missouri constitution is Article IX, subsection 1a: “A general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people,. . ” It says nothing of my charge being to make sure that students are “career and college” ready. That term is the edudeformers’ term used to deflect discussion away from the true charge of public education, that of making sure that the citizens can enjoy and preserve their rights and liberties. Now one may argue that being college and career ready is part of that charge. That may or may not be.
Second, I don’t recommend any standards whatsoever. Again, “standards” is a word of the edudeformer realm. Please define an “educational standard” for me. When we can come to an agreement on what the concept of “educational standard” means then I might be willing to begin discussing how to use such a thing in the teaching and learning process.
Again, I ask that you define “educational standard”. If it can’t be done then all is moot.
OK…..everyone, this has been an interesting dialogue. I’m still not hearing many solution, but lots of blame.
After many, many comments, a simple question. if I’m a 5th grade teacher, “what” do I teach? I’m not talking about the HOW, but the content. Isn’t that what a standard is? The WHAT. What do we want my 5th grades to be able to DO when they leave my classroom? Are you all saying it can be whatever i want it to be? If so, I’m thinking I’ll teach all about HAWAII, my favorite place in the entire world. Or, do you want the big textbook companies to decide?
Just wondering……I want to be prepared for August when my kids arrive, eager and anxious to learn, just like their favorite teacher!!
Right now the Common Core is an empty set of skills without content. It is the creators of the tests and the CC aligned textbooks, workbooks and software that will be in charge of adding the content. These people for the most part are not educators at all. The CC is a ruse. One of it’s purposes is to be the vehicle for bringing in propaganda from the UN such as sustainable development. It is more about changing the values and behaviors of our children than an increase in their academic strengths. In 2004, Bill Gates signed an agreement with UNESCO that he would fulfill all of their goals in the US.
Just look at the paper that was just posted on the US Department of Education website, called Promoting Grit,Tenacity and Perseverance, published February 14, 2013. It is all about data mining our children, collecting 400 points of data, by surveying them and observing them and using biometric tools on them. This data will be stored in a cyber cloud that is directly accessible to the department of labor and private corporations. Electronic resumes will be constructed for each child. Bill Gates is a sick man. We should not let him anywhere near children. We are making a big mistake to go along with any of this. It is unconstitutional to be mandated to accept national standards (46 out of 50 is national enough). It is immoral to subject students and teachers to this unjust and unhelpful system, not to mention it will prove to be very very expensive and it won’t work.
I have no idea what I would teach to 5th graders. I suppose I’d like them to read books of their own choice a lot, and maybe use some “reader” that the publishing company thinks is challenging enough, and then spelling, vocabulary, and writing (handwriting and the usage conventions and, my favorite, creative writing), and then the math that the CCSS says they should know by that point, and then maybe a little science (one of my own children’s 4th grade teachers was relegated to a portable and HE had a kind of menagerie of hamsters, bugs, snakes, and lots of plants. A rather different smelling classroom, but the kids loved it.). I think I personally would try to do some geography. Maybe some government (I think history and government should be part of every grade), and if the school funded it, definitely ART and MUSIC, maybe two days of art and three days of music in the same period each day. I’d love to have at least one parent or retired volunteer to sort of hang out in the afternoon and provide extra help to kids who needed it, maybe even taking the kid to another room for private individual work. But MAINLY, I know it would be lots and lots of reading, and some instruction in spelling and writing, and math. Isn’t there a sort of standard elementary curriculum for all these things? It would seem that in general elementary school should provide the common knowledge that literature people have.
DR,
To help understand the inherent logical epistemological and ontological invalidities of educational standards, standardized testing and the “grading” of students see Noel Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” found at:
http://epaa.asu.edu/ojs/article/view/577/700
Brief outline of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” and some comments of mine. (updated 6/24/13 per Wilson email)
1. A quality cannot be quantified. Quantity is a sub-category of quality. It is illogical to judge/assess a whole category by only a part (sub-category) of the whole. The assessment is, by definition, lacking in the sense that “assessments are always of multidimensional qualities. To quantify them as one dimensional quantities (numbers or grades) is to perpetuate a fundamental logical error” (per Wilson). The teaching and learning process falls in the logical realm of aesthetics/qualities of human interactions. In attempting to quantify educational standards and standardized testing we are lacking much information about said interactions.
2. A major epistemological mistake is that we attach, with great importance, the “score” of the student, not only onto the student but also, by extension, the teacher, school and district. Any description of a testing event is only a description of an interaction, that of the student and the testing device at a given time and place. The only correct logical thing that we can attempt to do is to describe that interaction (how accurately or not is a whole other story). That description cannot, by logical thought, be “assigned/attached” to the student as it cannot be a description of the student but the interaction. And this error is probably one of the most egregious “errors” that occur with standardized testing (and even the “grading” of students by a teacher).
3. Wilson identifies four “frames of reference” each with distinct assumptions (epistemological basis) about the assessment process from which the “assessor” views the interactions of the teaching and learning process: the Judge (think college professor who “knows” the students capabilities and grades them accordingly), the General Frame-think standardized testing that claims to have a “scientific” basis, the Specific Frame-think of learning by objective like computer based learning, getting a correct answer before moving on to the next screen, and the Responsive Frame-think of an apprenticeship in a trade or a medical residency program where the learner interacts with the “teacher” with constant feedback. Each category has its own sources of error and more error in the process is caused when the assessor confuses and conflates the categories.
4. Wilson elucidates the notion of “error”: “Error is predicated on a notion of perfection; to allocate error is to imply what is without error; to know error it is necessary to determine what is true. And what is true is determined by what we define as true, theoretically by the assumptions of our epistemology, practically by the events and non-events, the discourses and silences, the world of surfaces and their interactions and interpretations; in short, the practices that permeate the field. . . Error is the uncertainty dimension of the statement; error is the band within which chaos reigns, in which anything can happen. Error comprises all of those eventful circumstances which make the assessment statement less than perfectly precise, the measure less than perfectly accurate, the rank order less than perfectly stable, the standard and its measurement less than absolute, and the communication of its truth less than impeccable.”
In other word all the errors involved in the process render any conclusions invalid.
5. The test makers/psychometricians, through all sorts of mathematical machinations attempt to “prove” that these tests (based on standards) are valid-errorless or supposedly at least with minimal error [they aren’t]. Wilson turns the concept of validity on its head and focuses on just how invalid the machinations and the test and results are. He is an advocate for the test taker not the test maker. In doing so he identifies thirteen sources of “error”, any one of which renders the test making/giving/disseminating of results invalid. As a basic logical premise is that once something is shown to be invalid it is just that, invalid, and no amount of “fudging” by the psychometricians/test makers can alleviate that invalidity.
6. Having shown the invalidity, and therefore the unreliability, of the whole process Wilson concludes, rightly so, that any result/information gleaned from the process is “vain and illusory”. In other words start with an invalidity, end with an invalidity (except by sheer chance every once in a while, like a blind and anosmic squirrel who finds the occasional acorn, a result may be “true”) or to put in more mundane terms shit in-crap out.
7. And so what does this all mean? I’ll let Wilson have the second to last word: “So what does a test measure in our world? It measures what the person with the power to pay for the test says it measures. And the person who sets the test will name the test what the person who pays for the test wants the test to be named.”
In other words it measures “’something’ and we can specify some of the ‘errors’ in that ‘something’ but still don’t know [precisely] what the ‘something’ is.” The whole process harms many students as the social rewards for some are not available to others who “don’t make the grade (sic)” Should American public education have the function of sorting and separating students so that some may receive greater benefits than others, especially considering that the sorting and separating devices, educational standards and standardized testing, are so flawed not only in concept but in execution?
My answer is NO!!!!!
One final note with Wilson channeling Foucault and his concept of subjectivization:
“So the mark [grade/test score] becomes part of the story about yourself and with sufficient repetitions becomes true: true because those who know, those in authority, say it is true; true because the society in which you live legitimates this authority; true because your cultural habitus makes it difficult for you to perceive, conceive and integrate those aspects of your experience that contradict the story; true because in acting out your story, which now includes the mark and its meaning, the social truth that created it is confirmed; true because if your mark is high you are consistently rewarded, so that your voice becomes a voice of authority in the power-knowledge discourses that reproduce the structure that helped to produce you; true because if your mark is low your voice becomes muted and confirms your lower position in the social hierarchy; true finally because that success or failure confirms that mark that implicitly predicted the now self evident consequences. And so the circle is complete.”
In other words students “internalize” what those “marks” (grades/test scores) mean, and since the vast majority of the students have not developed the mental skills to counteract what the “authorities” say, they accept as “natural and normal” that “story/description” of them. Although paradoxical in a sense, the “I’m an “A” student” is almost as harmful as “I’m an ‘F’ student” in hindering students becoming independent, critical and free thinkers. And having independent, critical and free thinkers is a threat to the current socio-economic structure of society.
DR. Look at your question. It makes no sense to have a single set of standards for ALL students for ALL possible college and career paths. And even for one student, with one path ahead of him or her, there are many ways of getting there. The whole idea that we need a single set of mandatory standards for all is kooky. Such standards are a Procrustean bed, and they stifle innovation.
Governors Hand Over the Minds of Our Children to the Pearson and Gates Conglomerates Via the Insidious Common Core
When I realized that the Common Core and its Standardized Testing are instilling fear in the hearts and minds of the most expert, esteemed and dedicated teachers, I decided to find out why. When parents were becoming alarmed and one parent felt a need to take her child for therapy because of his negative reaction toward the pre standardized test I knew something was wrong with the CC. I was one of the people who aligned our district’s primary reading standards with NY State’ Standards . The NY State Standards are far superior to the Common Core’s Standards. There are problems with the CC on every front.
I first looked at the Reading Standards of the Common Core. The opening paragraph of the CC:
“One of the key requirements of the Core on reading … is that all must be able to comprehend texts of steadily increasing complexity… ”
The word must bothers me. A set of Standards can be presented as a goal but it is ridiculous to demand it. Furthermore, increasing complexity has always been one of the goals but we start with the child and the curriculum.
CC states, “Far too often, students who have fallen behind are given only less complex text rather than the instruction they need in the foundational skill in reading as well as vocabulary and other supports they need to read at an appropriate level of complexity.”
First of all, student haven’t fallen behind. They were behind before they began formal education. What research are they referring to? What reading programs are they referring to? What tests are they referring to? A test can easily be invalidated if student is fearful, overly tense, upset… Standardized tests by its nature is regionally biased. The statement above is meaningless. Standards are a goal to aim for but teachers work with the abilities and home life of the students.
Do not assume it was the teachers’ fault or the approach and their teaching tools. My expertise is with the At Risk students but my last year I was assigned a group of gifted students – every student scored a 99% on their standardized test in the spring. It isn’t the State Standards, material or the teacher that has caused a student to fall behind. It is the home environment and the parents/caregivers that have the biggest impact on the child’s success. Now the Standardized Test – the process and results- are having a very harmful affect.
It is obvious that whoever constructed the CC had no background, no knowledge of the Emergent Reader, the materials, nor of the reading process itself. It was obvious that the Behavioral approach was influencing them :
“varied and repeated practice to rapid recall and automaticity.”
It claimed that the CC was “research based.” Something is wrong here so I searched the Reading Biography. None of the researchers and thinkers who made great contributions to learning theory and philosophy of education in regards to reading were cited. viz, Dewey, the Einstein of education, Piaget, Frank Smith, Bruner, Marie Clay, Montessori.. I did find one name: Kintsch, W. Learning and Constructivism. Kintsch discussed learning and the teaching of science; Kintsch did not discuss Constructivism and the teaching of reading. Kintsch favored Behaviorism.
I went on to read, ” The Common Core develops higher order thinking skills through comparing and analyzing concepts only with text… Ask and answer questions to demonstrate understanding of text, referring explicitly to the text as the basis for the answers.”
CC has no understanding of the reading process: reading is the interaction of the reader with visual/perceptual (text, pictures, and graphics) and non visual/conceptual which includes background knowledge along with knowledge of the language structure: semantic, syntactic, and graphophonics systems. The reader uses these two sources of information to construct meaning. It is a selective process bringing together experience, knowledge, skills, and abilities. It is a strategic process- strategies used before, during, and after reading to achieve goals. Constructivists believe that it is essential to relate the child’s background knowledge/experiences to the curriculum/ text. Learning is social; we learn from one another. We don’t see with our eyes, or hear with our ears, we perceive with our whole being which is based upon our experiences.
CC states that “… information lies in the text. Learn sight words, and phonics to decode and the student will find the answers within.”
Frank Smith, a psycholinguist, maintained that one must bring meaning to print before one can acquire meaning from it. As we become fluent readers we learn to rely more on what we already know, on what is behind the eyeballs and less on the print on the page in front of us.
CC places emphases on facts/ knowledge but Dewey says that the pursuit of knowledge is only one higher order thinking skill; imagination is what makes advances in science. The affective realm is ignored. Narratives study the whole person: soul, mind, and relationship, empathy and respect for others. Narratives provide laughter – food for mind and body. They encourage life long learners/readers. Expository text, in contrast, fills the brain with facts but today’s technology removes the need to commit to memory the facts and figures which CC is trying to do with the informational text. It is not that committing information to memory is not important, but if that is our only goal than we are neglecting other higher order thinking skills which are also necessary for any educated person.
CC has no respect for diversity and Gardner’s 9 intelligences. It does not recognize mental limitations. All children can learn, but children do not learn in the same way and at the same pace. Fouteen states and the District of Columbia mandate retention of all third graders who do not score adequately on the Standardized Test. When medical researchers publish a finding, we listen; we had better or most of us would be dead by now. But we ignore the findings of our esteemed psychologists who maintain that retention is most devastating and destructive- destroying ones self image to say the least. It is compared to a death of a parent. Edmund Burke stated, “The equal treatment of unequals is the greatest injustice of all.”
Instruction for slower readers is most effective when it addresses all of the critical reading components in an integrated and coordinated manner. Students who need additional assistance, however, must not miss out on essential instruction their classmates are receiving to help them think deeply about texts, participate in thoughtful discussions, and gain knowledge of both words and the world.”
Again, a lot of gibberish! There is a total lack of understanding of the reading process. The State Standards support the teachers but the CC Standards place fear, hardship, and impose a harmful task on the teachers.
A Constructivists develops higher oder thinking skills at every level with the text being used as their teaching tool be they caption books or B, C, D, E…levels. Skills and strategies are developed at the rate the student can understand and master. Concepts, skills, strategies are all intertwined; we don’t teach in isolation. The CC has no understanding of the meaning of scaffolding so important in developing the skill of reading.
Furthermore, placing a text into the hands of a student that is too difficult will hinder a student’s progress. Forcing a child to read on a frustration level can cause a disability. Instead of top down trying to prepare students for the future, for college, we need to learn how to live and interact in the present. Examine how we can close the Achievement Gap starting at the bottom – the home.
Other realities about CC that are wrong:
Politically it is unconstitutional. Governors have signed over to the Gates, Pearson Co., and the Hartcourt conglomerates the minds of our children.
Examine their origin:
The architect of CC, David Coleman, has degrees from Yale, Oxford and Cambridge but that does not make him an expert in all areas. He is not an educator; he never taught, has no degree in education. Susan Pimentel has an early childhood degree and a law degree. Jason Zimba has a BA, MA Ph.D. in math and physics. He taught on the college level. He is a cofounder of Grow Network, an education technology company and the founding principal of Student Achievement. None have a background in education nor have they taught on the elementary and high school level. Pimentel taught in Head Start but that doesn’t make her an expert in the teaching of elementary and high school students. These three are telling elementary and high school teachers what they should teach. What an insult to the teaching profession not to have one educational expert on the original team!
Who is at the top approving all this craziness with the CC? Arne Duncan, Secretary of Education; a man whose degree is in sociology- not in education, not in philosophy of education or learning theory. He has no masters nor a doctoral degree yet our N Y State mandates a masters degree for teachers; worse yet, he is imposing standards which are now inferior to our state standards.
If you compare the members of the English-language Arts Work Group and the members of the mathematics Work Group you will find some names on both the English and math group: Sara Clough, Hohn Kraman, and Sherri Miller. English and math are two different disciplines. All three belong to a company. Other members on the “Work Group” belong to one of the following three: founders of Act, Inc., Achieve, or are a member of the College Board. The Feedback Group have credentials but final decisions regarding the common core standards document were made by the Standards Development Work Group. The Feedback Group served as an advisory role, not a decision-making role in the process. Two people on the Validation Committee didn’t sign off. Dr. Snow signed off but in a video she made at a later date she made a point to state her position on the need to use prior knowledge. Something is not right.
Economically:
With the Freedom of Information Act, Matt Chingos of Brookings Institute estimated the cost of testing to 41.7 billion..
The following blog has been removed Common Core Standards Aren’t Cheap; Taxpayers Will Pay the Heavy Price but this is what it stated:
“AccountabilityWorks, in their study of Common Core, estimated that the total additional costs (one-time plus a 7-year time period for implementation) to state taxpayers will amount to $15.8 billion across participating states.
This constitutes a “mid range” estimate that only addresses expenditures required for implementation of the new standards. It does not include the cost of additional expenses or controversial reforms that are sometimes recommended to help students meet high standards, such as performance-based compensation or reduced class sizes. That estimate includes the following additional expenses for the states:
$1.2 billion for participation in the new assessments; $5.3 billion for professional development; $2.5 billion for textbooks and instructional materials; and $6.9 billion for technology infrastructure and support.
The Sequester reduced govt. funding by $2.6 billion for ’13-’14. Districts had to lay off teachers or agree to no pay increase for the coming year. One district on Long Island had to lay off 100 teachers and the superintendent does not foresee hiring for another ten years. With the govt. 17 trillion – 100 trillion net present value of future obligations- in debt (Jonh Willians: The US Has $100 Trillion in Debts & Obligations), the high unemployment, the high number of homeless, and people working for salary that doesn’t pay the bills, who is going to pay for all this unnecessary bill?
A big concern is the Pearson Company- a conglomerate.
Pearson Conglomerate Gets $32 million for Standardised Test Scandal and Idiocy
On another site, Our History/ Pearson the following was noted:
1998
Pearson Education, the world’s leading education business, is created from the merger of Addison-Wesley Longman and the educational businesses of Simon and Schuster.
Pearson Education leads in every major sector of educational publishing, including elementary and secondary school, higher education, professional education, English Language Teaching (ELT), and educational technology, both in the US and internationally. Over 100 education brands including Scott Foresman, Prentice Hall, Allyn & Bacon, Addison-Wesley, Silver, Burdette and Ginn, Longman, Benjamin Cummings and Macmillan Publishing USA fall under Pearson’s umbrella.
Jeffery Horn summarizes well:
So Who REALLY Developed Common Core State Standards?
Common Core State Standards were developed by individuals coming from interests in the testing, textbook, training, and student and teacher tracking industry. Here are the major players:
America’s Choice – http://www.americaschoice.org
• Senior Fellows Phil Daro (MATH) and Sally Hampton (ELA)
• Really Pearson Publishing – One of the largest providers of services and materials to help low performing schools raise their performance through professional development, technical assistance and high quality materials.
•
Student Achievement Partners – http://achievethecore.org
• Founders – Jason Zimba (MATH) and David Coleman (ELA) [now with College Board]
• Non-profit with goal to promote CCSS
• $18MM Grant from GE Foundation
ACT, Inc. – http://www.act.org
• Sara Clough (MATH and ELA), Ken Mullen (MATH), Sharri Miller (Math and ELA), Jim Patterson (ELA), Nina Metzner (ELA)
• One of the largest college testing and test preparation services
The College Board – http://www.collegeboard.org
• Robin O’Callaghan (MATH), Andrew Schwartz (MATH), Natasha Vasavada (MATH and ELA), Joel Harris (ELA), Beth Hart (ELA)
• One of the largest college testing and test preparation services (SAT)
Achieve, Inc. – http://www.achieve.org
• Kaye Forgione (MATH), Laura McGiffert Slover (MATH and ELA), Douglas Sovde (MATH), John Kraman (ELA), Sue Pimental (ELA)
• P-20 Data Systems Consulting, Student and Teacher Assessment Tools, Data and Accountability Systems with strong alignment to policies in post-secondary and economic development sectors
So, the Common Core State Standards were created by two trade associations by individuals who worked for interests with a great deal to gain by creating a national standard for education in the United States!
This entry was posted in Background on Common Core, Pushed By Big Business on April 13, 2013 by Jeffrey Horn.i
You have cited a lot of facts about the CC that are important. I am curious about your devotion to John Dewey, however, since my understanding is that he was an avowed socialist that thought the state should bring up the child. Maria Montessori was very different and believed that humans are born with a divine spirit, John Dewey believes that no such spirit exists, and that it is society that shapes the child.
John Dewey was instrumental in spreading the ideas of Wilhelm Wundt who was a German philosopher who believed that man has no soul. He taught in Leipzig and trained all the educators and psychologists who established schools of education in America. He was the beginning of behaviorism which we still suffer with today in our classrooms. It was John D. Rockefeller that funded the teacher’s colleges and Dewey’s career with the secret aim of destroying the minds of our youth. Rockefeller donated the land that the United Nations sits on. UNESCO is the educational arm of the UN.
David Rockefeller has already admitted on page 405 of his memoirs that he and his family have been working in secret to establish one world government. They fund the UN. Bill Gates funds the UN. In 2004, Bill Gates signed a “Cooperation Agreement” with UNESCO and pledged allegiance to the UNESCO constitution (which is in direct opposition to our US Constitution). He has spent $173 million developing and marketing the CC since then. The CC is nothing more than a vehicle to spread UN propaganda. At first the CC will appear to be an empty sets of skills with no content. However, with Gates in partnership with Pearson who creates the tests, he can control the content. Gates put a senior fellow of his foundation in the position of Arne Duncan’s chief of staff.
CC is all about getting the American people to accept the principles of Agenda 21. The plan is outlined in Chapter 36 of that very thick book. Sustainable development is the politically correct term for Agenda 21 now. Smart growth, smart meters, smart appliances, all designed to get us to give up the American dream and to want less and use less energy.
Published in 2006 to promote the educational goals of UN Agenda 21, Education for Sustainability Toolkit states
“Generally, more highly educated people who have higher incomes, consume more resources than poorly educated people who tend to have lower incomes. In this case, more education increases the threat of sustainability.”
So why are we going along to get along with the CC?
I would recommend that you become acquainted with some of what John Dewey actually wrote and did in his long lifetime, instead of whatever ignoranus you got these half-baked sound bites from.
Do you consider John Taylor Gatto to be an ignoramus?
http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/chapters/12o.htm
Do you discredit everything outlined in Paolo Lionni’s book, The Leipzig Connection, which includes names, dates, photos, footnotes, which connect John Dewey to the German philosopher Wilhelm Wundt through G. Stanley Hall with Rockefeller funding?
No teacher wants to admit that they have been caught in a system of duplicitous lies and misrepresentations but I am afraid I can come to no other conclusion after my investigations. Please look further. And always follow the money. Sometimes the answer is hiding in plain sight.
I think Gatto is a person with a particular point of view. What he writes tells me a lot about him and nothing about Dewey.
I don’t have to admire someone good at marketing. That’s one of the reasons I don’t admire the president: he talks the talk, but he doesn’t walk the walk. He is part of a bipartisan teacher bashing (among other things)that will leave the country yet worse off. It is well past time for a progressive party! I don’t vote for the lesser of two evils. The lesser of two evils is still evil.
Duane,
Thanks for the link.
A few years ago I sent both electronic links and paper copies of Wilson’s “Educational Standards and the Problem of Error” to my Superintendent. In theory, perhaps he agrees but in practice, he is charged with improving test scores.This educational “practice” seems to be S.O.P. all over the country through an educational variant of Munchausen by proxy http://kidshealth.org/parent/general/sick/munchausen.html
“Typically, the cause is a need for attention and sympathy from doctors, nurses, and other professionals. Some experts believe that it isn’t just the attention that’s gained from the “illness” of the child that drives this behavior, but also the satisfaction in deceiving individuals who they consider to be more important and powerful than themselves.” The “educational reformers,” “privateers,” politicians, school boards and their superintendents, cast themselves in the role of care-givers who will “save” the children from the disease of teachers and unions and unfortunately parents “often overlook the possibility of MBPS because it goes against the belief that parents and caregivers would never deliberately hurt their child.”
If this medical metaphor holds true, there is a simple fix (though not easy) to what is ailing American education, simply remove the “reformer” motivation — profit.
If this is done , the patient will be able to recover on her own if she is given a balanced diet of literacy, numeracy, art, exercise, science, social studies, history, psychology, etc. In short, the knowledge, understanding, and individual attention under the care and guidance of a trained teacher who will foster their growth and development in all the “kinds of smart” that Howard Gardner imagines,
Gatto traced our educational system back to Germany. Perhaps the current German health care system – not for profit — could work just as well for education as it does for health.
Robert,
I’m not so sure of your Munchausen by proxy metaphor. I prefer a simpler explanation, that of Hannah Arendt: the banality of evil. That the evil that occurs in the world usually is not done out of a sense of evilness or of a slyness in deceit of those involved in the processes that cause harm to other humans (if that sense is there then we would consider it a psycho/sociological pathos) but of “going along to get along” and “doing a good job at doing what one is told to do” without thinking through the logical consequences of doing that job and/or ignoring the very real harmful consequences.
Former Green Beret Master Sergeant Donald Duncan did acknowledge the banality when he noted in “Sir! No Sir!” that: “I was doing it right but I wasn’t doing right.” about his actions in Viet Nam.
In the everyday realm of public education and the current deforms, the proliferation of educational assessments, evaluations and canned programs belongs in the category of what systems theorist Russ Ackoff describes as “doing the wrong thing righter. The righter we do the wrong thing,” he explains, “the wronger we become. When we make a mistake doing the wrong thing and correct it, we become wronger. When we make a mistake doing the right thing and correct it, we become righter. Therefore, it is better to do the right thing wrong than the wrong thing right.”
Our current neglect of instructional issues are the result of assessment policies that waste resources to do the wrong things, e.g., canned curriculum and standardized testing, right. Instructional central planning and student control doesn’t – can’t – work. But, that never stops people trying.
The result is that each effort to control the uncontrollable does further damage, provoking more efforts to get things in order. So the function of management/administration becomes control rather than creation of resources. When Peter Drucker lamented that so much of management consists in making it difficult for people to work, he meant it literally. Inherent in obsessive command and control is the assumption that human beings can’t be trusted on their own to do what’s needed. Hierarchy and tight supervision are required to tell them what to do. So, fear-driven, hierarchical organizations turn people into untrustworthy opportunists. Doing the right thing instructionally requires less centralized assessment, less emphasis on evaluation and less fussy interference, not more. The way to improve controls is to eliminate most and reduce all.
And from one of America’s premier writers:
“The mass of men [and women] serves the state [education powers that be] thus, not as men mainly, but as machines, with their bodies. They are the standing army, and the militia, jailors, constables, posse comitatus, [administrators and teachers], etc. In most cases there is no free exercise whatever of the judgment or of the moral sense; but they put themselves on a level with wood and earth and stones; and wooden men can perhaps be manufactured that will serve the purpose as well. Such command no more respect than men of straw or a lump of dirt.”- Henry David Thoreau [1817-1862], American author and philosopher
Duane,
For the most part I agree with you. Unfortunately, the people at the top pulling the strings do not think they are doing evil. They actually think they are improving things — often by whatever destructive means they think necessary. The perpetrators of Munchausen by proxy do not think they are evil. They are stimulated by the attention and their ability to control the system. The vast majority of medical professionals are simply following protocols – ‘doing the wrong thing righter.”
We are still following a medical model of education. Perhaps we always have. It follows this protocol. Test the student to determine what is wrong with them. Teach to the deficiency. Re test.
This is especially damaging for students whose strengths (Gardner’s intelligences) do not fall in the literacy and numeracy categories.
As a HS English teacher I prefer holistic writing conferences and portfolio grading (my control and autonomy) but at my HS we are increasing class sizes, eliminating performance levels, and developing two common assessments per quarter for a grading system that averages performance (their control). 😦
How can “we the people” eliminate the profit motive from education? Are the caring teachers doomed to be like Hamlet?
“Oh, cursed spite that ever I was born to set it right.”
Is the United States of ALEC Fortinbras?
Yes. Spot on, Peter Smagorinsky says, “Like any good salesman, Coleman pitched the idea that schools are failing and that his new vision — unproven but plausible in the rhetorical world he spun around it — provided the value toward which we as a nation must aspire.”
But I’m not sure it’s really a “new” vision. I adapted the following (intended as satire and an attempt at poisoning the well) from a 1937 booklet titled, “On the German People and Its Territory” http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/hjhandbuch.htm
Auf der Common Core und Höherer Ordnung Denken (On the Common Core and Higher Order Thinking)
Introduction: The Common Core Worldview of Facts The worldview of Common Core is today the common property of the whole American people. All unprejudiced citizens of good will have made Common Core Higher Order Thinking so deeply their own that it provides the support for every question of college and career and provides direction for every action. This shared worldview makes it possible for American citizens to participate actively in the formation of our national educational life and culture. Regardless of his position, each American can through thought and deed participate in political, cultural and economic renewal. This common view is the unbreakable bond that holds together the leadership and the followers of our people in their common labor. In the past, there was no such general involvement of all citizens in forming our political life. There was a deep chasm between the “political and business rulers” and the “workers or subjects.” Even though we were under so-called democratic rule, the average citizen had no role in determining the fate of our people. Deep involvement and real participation by all Americans was impossible, since in most cases only a small circle of the elite determined the direction the government should go. This was because the past lacked a unified and common educational worldview. The many so-called educational worldviews were sufficiently unclear and confused as to be unable to lead to a building of the political will.
Former educational worldviews were not built on a recognition of reality and a knowledge of the facts. Rather, they were abstract theories unrelated to reality that had developed over the course of history. They had nothing to do with the real facts, and indeed often stood in sharp conflict with them. The conflict between theory and reality soon so confused all matters of national life that even the “leaders” of such educational worldview groups could make no order out of the confusion. The average citizen could do no more than wait more or less patiently to see what resulted in the political realm. He was driven from the political stage into the audience. The exact opposite is the case today. All the questions of our political life are so clear, simple, and unified that each citizen can both understand them and work to solve them. The Common Core worldview is not the result of abstract and convoluted thinking. It is not a theory, but rather is clearly bound to reality. Common Core thinking comes from experience and informational texts. It is an educational worldview based on the facts and on reality. The most important and influential facts in the life of nations are “good education and good health.” He who understands that good education and good health are linked can determine the future. The goal of this manual for American Youth is to build their political will according to the Common Core worldview.
Chapter I: Human Inequality The foundation of the Common Core worldview is the knowledge of human inequality. No one will likely disagree with this as long as we stick to physical appearance. It is obvious that the “red skins,” the “yellow people,” the Negroes and the whites are very different. And all whites are not the same. The careful observer can find differences in physical size and shape. The color of the eyes, hair, and skin also varies greatly. But there are also cognitive differences between people. That is particularly clear when various people speak about a particular subject. For one person, work is a “curse,” “God’s punishment,” a burden that one should remove as rapidly as possible. For the other, it is a necessary part of existence that gives human life its meaning. For one, bravery and loyalty are nothing but great stupidity. He would rather be “a coward for a few minutes” than to “be dead for the rest of one’s life.” For another, bravery and loyalty are the characteristics used to value and esteem people. He holds to his word, in good times or ill. He cannot live without honor, and would rather die than be a coward. People differ therefore in more than their physical characteristics. Just as deep, and with no way of bridging the gap, is the difference in intelligence, and soul. Body,
intelligence and soul together make up the whole person, since they form a unified whole. Their inner relationships must therefore be studied. Then we will clearly recognize the vast difference between those of Higher Order Thinkers and Lower Order Thinkers, although their physical characteristics might otherwise suggest that they were both members of the same human grouping. We then understand human inequality. We act according to this understanding. The past era either entirely ignored human inequality, or else acted contrary to its better knowledge. During the colonization of Paraguay in the nineteen century, for example, the Jesuits permitted white settlers to marry native Indian women. Perhaps they thought that the native population would thus be raised to the level of the whites. But these mixed marriages produced unhappy bastards who were neither white nor native. In most cases, they inherited the bad characteristics of both groups, lacking intellectual stability. In our time, too, certain people occasionally lacked a feeling for intellectual honor. Even the highest government offices of the Democratic System era intentionally ignored racial knowledge. For example, they prohibited the well-known racial scholar Ludwig Schemann from studying the nature of the races and withdrew support for his research. Even today, Common Core Higher Order thinking has implacable opponents. Freemasonry, Marxism, Unions and the Christian churches make common cause in this matter. World Freemasonry conceals its Jewish plans of world domination behind slogans of “humanity.” The Jew and the Turk can achieve its degrees just as well as the Christian. Marxism has the same goals as Freemasonry. To conceal its true aims, it used the slogan of “Equality, Freedom, and Brotherhood.” Under Jewish leadership, Marxism wants to unite everything “that has a human face.” The Christian church, above all the Roman Catholic Church, rejects racial and higher-order thinking by claiming that “All men are equal before God.” All who are of the Christian faith, be they Jew, a Negro from the jungle, or white, are better and more valuable to it than a German who is not a Christian. Saving faith is the only bond. Proof that the Roman Catholic Church is acting against its better knowledge in rejecting Higher Order thinking is clear from the following facts. There was once a danger that Jesuit goals would be subverted or redirected by Jewish members. The result was a ban on Jews becoming Jesuits. Today, the danger is long past, and the church wants to forget about it. Why do we find the nonsense about human equality in Freemasonry, Marxism, Unions and the Christian church? All four are more or less striving for world power. They therefore have to be “international.” They can never accept racial, ethnic, intellectual or national ties between people without giving up their goals.
Despite these major opponents, however, Common Core Higher Order thinking is constantly winning ground. Common Core Higher Order Thinking Standards have been raised in nearly all 50 States with the help of ALEC, The Foundation for Excellence in Education, and The Broad Foundation. Truth is winning! We need only think of the growing front of countries that are resisting the destructive influence of equality. And we recall the immigration laws of many countries that ban Lower Order Thinkers or other unwanted groups. But we do not want to remain with superficial matters. We need still greater clarity in this matter. Only then can we understand the fourth point of the program of Common Core Higher Order Thinking, which says: “Only Higher Order Thinkers may be successful citizens. A citizen must be of American Intellect and blood, without regard to religion. No Inferior Thinker can be an American voter. The PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Career) will rigorously test all school-age children to determine if they are likely to be a burden to society or will assume their rightful role as a leader in Common Core Society consistent with the new American Worldview.”
Adapted from http://www.calvin.edu/academic/cas/gpa/hjhandbuch.htm Fritz Bennecke (ed.), Vom deutschen Volk und seinem Lebensraum, Handbuch für die Schulung in der HJ (Munich: Franz Eher, 1937). By Magister Mark Thyme
As a 1st grade teacher in Alabama, I fiind the Commmon Core and the ways we are being told to teach it completely inappropriate. I may have to teach the standards, but I am determined that I will do so in ways that I want to that are developmentally appropriate for the six and seven year olds that I teach. I am NOT going to stress my 1st graders out over prepositions and prepositional phrases, one of the things that has found its way into the 1st grade curriculum in Common Core. Common Core is scary any way you look at it.
No, let’s talk about a murderer who killed an unarmed teenager. The murderer, GZ,was misguided for refusing to stand down. This wasn’t in defense of his property or family, he was a want to be who ignored the council of the 911 operator and his own neighbor hood watch about not carrying weapons. If white men are so scared of blacks that they have to murder children, what does that say about them..