Friday, December 12, 2014

Pennsylvania Data Moratorium Information

Posted on Agenda 21 News
Article posted HERE

It is always good to get the word out far and wide! Here are Charlotte and Anita, both appearing in this news story, the two researchers who Joy Pullman said "both go way too far into conspiracy territory" (See blog post "Charlotte and Anita blasted"). If Joy Pullman thinks that the in-depth Pennsylvania research and grassroots activists calling for a moratorium on data collections falls into the realm of "conspiracy territory," then she must really have her head buried in the sand!


By the way, this blog has frequently written about Agenda 21. See posts such as "Community Education & UN Agenda 21: Same Roots?"




Men in Diapers

Dumbed Down Elected Officials...
And their insistence on a national assessment


45 years ago, when the U.S. Office of Education instituted the dreaded ASSESSMENT, most of elected officials were in diapers! Well, maybe they never quite grew up. They do seem to be lacking in intellectual wisdom and solid facts. Time for them to get with it!
Article SOURCE
From the article "Legislation Lets States Cut Ties Between Common Core and Federal Grants," by Kelsey Harkness, at the Daily Signal, December 8, 2014 can be found the following quotes and excerpts of interest below:
Sen. David Vitter, R-La., has drafted legislation to prohibit the federal government from “mandating, incentivizing or coercing” states to adopt the national education standards known as Common Core, The Daily Signal has learned.
Watch video embedded in article HERE
The intent of Vitter’s bill is to enable states to more easily exit the national standards, which more and more parents and educators have come to oppose, by voiding requirements attached to previously issued waivers from federal law.
Article SOURCE

 The naivete of these elected officials is astonishing!
Article SOURCE

Question: And what do these Senators think the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) has been doing every since 1969? Communist Core is simply the same, but updated and "improved" 1969 National Assessment. This time around, with a new label, it has reached the perfection intended since 1969. ALL children are required to take the assessment, not just groups in each state, and specific grades. ALL. And, of utmost importance is the computerization of learning and assessment which allows for Skinnerian brainwashing.



The test, the contents of which have been kept "Top Secret," were made available to parents by a brave teacher in the nineteen nineties, and "Lo and Behold" we activists found out that at least 60% of the test items were of a politically correct nature! 

HISTORY of the national assessment agenda
The National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) was mandated by the U.S. Congress, and initiated in 1969. NAEP has periodically “assessed” (monitored the knowledge, skills, and performance of) students aged 9, 13, and 17, as well as various grade levels. The subject areas assessed have included: reading, writing, mathematics, science, citizenship, U.S. history, geography, social studies, art, music, literature, computer competence, and career and occupational development.  NAEP also has collected background information from students, teachers, and administrators, and has related these data to student achievement.

The Educational Testing Service (ETS) in 1983 took over the contract to administer the NAEP from the Carnegie Corporation-spawned Education Commission of the States. This move effectively kept Carnegie in control of educational assessment, since it was the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching (a subdivision of the Carnegie Corporation) which had provided the $750,000 initial endowment (start-up funds) to launch ETS in 1947. Through an agreement between the American Council on Education, the Carnegie Foundation and the College Entrance Examination Board, all of whom turned over their testing programs and a portion of their assets to ETS, the move to establish Educational Testing Service as the primary provider of testing material was accomplished.



In 1988 Congress established the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB). The purpose of NAGB was to provide policy guidance for the execution of NAEP. The board was composed of nationally and locally elected officials, chief state school officers, classroom teachers, local school board members, and leaders of the business community, among others. Specifically, NAGB has been charged by Congress to perform the following duties: select subject areas to be assessed; identify appropriate achievement goals for each age group; develop assessment objectives; design a methodology of assessment; and produce guidelines and standards for national, regional, and state comparisons.

A report on the NAEP published in 1981 Measuring the Quality of Education: Conclusions and Summary, indicated:
Conclusions... Instead of determining “what is being taught” and basing the objectives on this present practice, the controlling question is “what ought to be taught.”... It is specifically recommended that caution be exercised against putting the Assessment results in a form that could be misconstrued as constituting national—or “federal”—standards....
Summary... The report reflects most significantly the carefully considered conclusions of the Council of Seven which was established at the beginning of the project. Selected primarily for their recognized responsibility and good sense, they also reflect a variety of experiences and institutional interests: Gregory Anrig, then Massachusetts Commissioner of Education and now President of the Educational Testing Service; Stephen K. Bailey, who is the Francis Keppel Professor of Educational Policy and Administration of Harvard Graduate School of Education; Charles Bowen, Director of Plans and Program Administration for University Relations of the IBM Corporation; Clare Burstall, Deputy Director of the National Foundation for Educational Research in England and Wales; Elton Jolly, Executive Director for Opportunities Industrialization Centers; Lauren Resnick, Co-Director of the Learning Research and Development Center of the University of Pittsburgh; and Dorothy Shields, Director of Education for the AFL-CIO....
...It was the Council’s suggestion and eventually its decision to shape the entire report in terms of the Assessment’s potential role in developing higher and more effective educational standards. Where we had been timid about this the Council moved boldly. They were right.... [emphasis added, excerpted from pages 91 and 177 of my book the deliberate dumbing down of america.]

Thursday, December 11, 2014

Think Concept, Concept, Concept

New article by Mary Thompson

Mary Thompson has just posted a new article on NewsWithViews.com "Think Concept, Concept, Concept," and it is a must-read! In this article Mary shares more of her memoirs. This is information that the young generation needs to know. Below are just a few fascinating paragraphs:

It is this writer’s contention that so much of “government” was “local” or “state” until the 1930’s and FDR’s New Deal which fostered the mindset of looking to Federal Government for solutions. The very recent series of episodes about the Roosevelt Family broadcast on PBS television, revisited the FDR era as the catalyst years instrumental in creating the second order change resulting in the 80 year’s march toward a collectivist America. Second Order change has been defined as: deciding or being forced to do something significantly or fundamentally different from what has been known or done before, until the change becomes an accepted value judgment or way of life.


This writer lived through the 1930’s, and still retains vivid childhood memories of the days of FDR and the relentless introduction of federal government programs and more federal government programs which alarmed the adults in this writer’s family and others. The current TV series about the Roosevelts, portrayed the 1930’s as near universal gratitude for the National Programs and all ears glued to family radios to listen to FDR’s “Fireside Chats” as the secular savior of the nation. What the TV series didn’t report was the existence of Americans who weren’t deceived by the glib rhetoric who recognized the times as groundwork being laid for a collectivist (Communist America). As a child I heard the discussion and anguish re: the left turn the nation was undergoing with FDR at the helm of the ship of state.
 Keep reading HERE.

If you enjoy Mary's writings, you can also access her on the DVD Exposing the Global Road to Ruin Through Education available at Amazon.com.    


Making Children into Robots

Common (Communist) Core roots
that date back to at least 1971!
 

AN ALERT FOR THOSE WHO DO NOT UNDERSTAND
WHERE COMMUNIST CORE CAME FROM....

From my book the deliberate dumbing down of america, pages 167-169, discussing the U.S. Department of Education's Tri-County Course Goal Project known as Course Goals Collection. Some of the original research documents are posted here on this blog.

The use of values clarification and behavior modification was  encouraged when the Goals Collection points out that:
Value goals of two types are included: those related to processes of values clarification; secondly, those representing values, choices that might be fostered in the context of the discipline.
Goals states under “Content” that there is to be none because
[E]stablished facts change, causing many fact-bound curricula to become obsolete during the approximately five-year lag between their inception and their widespread dissemination, and social mobility and cultural pluralism make it increasingly difficult to identify the important facts.    




Course Goals Collection was completed in 1980-81 by the U.S. Department of Education’s Northwest Regional Educational Laboratory in Portland, Oregon, having been initiated in 1971 as the Tri-County Course Goal Project. According to the price list for the collection, 70,000 copies were in use throughout the United States in 1981. Descriptors within the Collection state: “The collection consists of fourteen volumes with 15,000 goals covering every major subject taught in the public schools from K–12.”

Course Goals Collection, based on “the theoretical work of Bloom, Tyler, Gagne, Piaget, Krathwohl, Walbesser, Mager, and others,” blatantly recommends the use of Mastery Learning  when it states: “The K–12 Goals Collection provides a resource for developing diagnostic-prescriptive Mastery Learning approaches, both programmed and teacher managed.”

This collection also advocates the use of Management by Objectives (MBO, TQM)  and Planning, Programming and Budgeting Systems (PPBS) when it asserts:
Perhaps the greatest need addressed by the project is for a sound basis for accountability in education... assistance such as Planning, Program, Budget and Management systems or even general concepts such as Management by Objectives.
The Course Goals Collection is evidence of illegal federal involvement in curriculum development. The extent of its use nationwide in 1981 is obvious since 70,000 copies were distributed and there were only approximately 16,000 school districts in the nation. Is it any wonder all states now have the same goals?
   


In 1992 Charlotte Danielson, in the appendix to her Practitioners Implementation Handbook: The Outcome-Based Curriculum, 2nd Ed., “Classification System for the School Curriculum” acknowledged her use of the Course Goals Collection developed by the Tri-County Development Project. In the “Introduction to  Outcome-Based Education” to Danielson’s Handbook she inextricably connects Outcome-Based Education (precursor to Common Core, ed.) to Effective Schools Research when she says:
Outcome-Based Education is a system for the organization and delivery of the instructional program in elementary and secondary schools which assures success for every student [emphasis in original]. It incorporates the findings of the Effective Schools Research, linking them together into a comprehensive and powerful model. Educators in outcome-based schools know that if they organize their schools properly, and offer high-quality instruction, all students will succeed with no change in standards. (p. 1)  
Probably the most important quote involving the above Goals Project—at least as it relates to the definition of scientific, research-based instruction—is one found in Indiana Senator Joan Gubbins’s excellent report entitled “Goals and Objectives: Towards a National Curriculum?” prepared for the National Council on Educational Research, September 26, 1986 as part of an investigation of the NWREL Goals Project. On page 16 of her report is the following statement:
I believe the personal valuing goals (included in the Goals Project) would be more properly classified as behavior modification procedures. Therefore, the Project’s definition of behavior modification is illuminating:
[P]rocedures used in programs of behavior modification or behavioral management are based on principles derived from scientific research (e.g., stimulus-response-reinforcement). [emphasis added]
Americans supporting the use of mastery learning, outcome-based education, and direct instruction to teach reading, take heed! When advised that such instruction is “scientific, research-based,” remember the above U.S. Department of Education definition!

For more information, see the month of October, Skinner Horror Files, on this blog. Each day something was posted that explained and defined the terms you see in this above post.

Wednesday, December 10, 2014

Charlotte's Radio Interview



Listen to Charlotte talk about phony choice, the facts behind the Common Core movement, documented history of education reform, the real agendas, etc. Blog readers can listen in with the usual fee waived. Charlotte's interview begins after the first news segment. Click on the link below:
http://caravantomidnight.com/show-archives/C2M-187-A-Iserbyt_Jewell-12-9-14.mp3  Purchase Episode 197 Charlotte Iserbyt and Eric Jewel: http://caravantomidnight.com/product/episode-187-charlotte-iserbyt-eric-jewell/

WATCH the VIDEO of the INTERVIEW on YOUTUBE: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PGz0YBipzWo 

http://caravantomidnight.com

Charlotte and Anita blasted

Anti-Common Core leaders rattled
 

Word must be out amongst the pro-tax-funded school choice and anti-Common Core people about my blog. They don't like it. We are telling the truth about their phony "choice."

Joy Pullman, researcher at Heartland Institute, which supports Skinnerian operant conditioning and which has recently published a book entitled Rewards, recently wrote the following comment to  anti-Common Core leadership:

"I've discussed Charlotte and Anita Hoge with a number of folks, and my conclusion is that both go way too far into conspiracy territory. As for Koch, they do support FreedomWorks and FW has been strong anti-CC for a long time. I don't think the Kochs or FW or anyone is perfect, but neither do I think it appropriate to tar and feather people just because they have money. Yes, that includes Bill Gates."
Rewards advertisement on Heartland website

Our comment could be: If having documented research puts those opposed to tax-funded school choice and charters with no elected boards into conspiracy territory, so be it. This is the easy way out for those who can't substantiate their positions. This is the way they react to sound research. That comment proves how lacking in education history are those supporting tax-funded school choice.

Also, those of us contributing to posts on abcsofdumbdown have never objected to neoconservatives and corporatists having money.

That is not the point. Money or not, their principles are unconstitutional and damaging.  
Heartland Center for School Transformation

Governors Closing Barn Doors After Horse has Bolted!

or... BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR!
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/12/06/Jeb-Bush-s-Education-Reform-Empire

The above cited article by Dr. Susan Berry, published on Dec. 6, 2014, went on to report the increasing unpopularity of Jeb Bush's continued drive for Common Core:
"With polls showing Republican support for Common Core plummeting, common sense would dictate that Bush call it a day with the nationalized standards, as has been done by other Republicans, such as Maine Gov. Paul LePage..."
Read the remainder of this article. It also goes on to report that
Bush is also the founder and chairman of Foundation for Florida’s Future, a statewide group that says its mission is to “make Florida’s education system a model for the nation.” 

Those familiar with Common Core will note that FEE’s “reform agenda” includes college and career readiness; digital learning; effective teachers and leaders – a goal that observes the need to eliminate tenure and utilize student assessments to determine teacher performance ratings; K-3 reading assessments; outcome-based funding; school choice; standards and accountability – which includes “high academic standards with their progress measured,” and grading schools on an A-F scale.
Not surprisingly, the reform agenda for Foundation for Florida’s Future is nearly identical to that of FEE.

Additionally, Bush has joined with former president of the pro-Common Core Fordham Institute Chester Finn and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in Conservatives for Higher Standards, a group that promotes the Common Core standards but whose supporters still call themselves “conservatives.” Among the organization’s supporters are Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), soon-to-be head of the Senate committee that oversees education; former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour (R); former U.S. Secretary of Education Bill Bennett; Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad (R); Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam (R); former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee (R); and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez (R). [links removed, all emphasis added]

Maine Governor Le Page called me one day before his inauguration four years ago (he was re-elected last November!) to ask why I disapproved of charter schools which is the major part of Ex-Gov. Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE) agenda.

[Steve Schran, public school teacher, and I attended a Governor/Maine Commissioner-approved FEE (Bush/Levesque/Jeanne Allen, formerly with Heritage Foundation/former Florida Ed, Supt. Tony Bennett) road show conference that came into Maine with all its bells and whistles two years ago to push for tax-funded public school choice and charters with no elected boards. Steve and I tried to speak against this tax-funded school choice agenda, but were not allowed to do so; in other words we were told to "shut up."]

Continuing with my conversation with Governor LePage:
GOVERNOR: "Mrs. Iserbyt, what problems do you have with charter schools?" And then he gave all the reasons naive Americans have bought into on why charters will save American education from catastrophe.

CHARLOTTE'S RESPONSE: "Charter schools are public schools, Governor. The only difference between a charter school and a public school is that public schools have a school board elected by all the taxpaying voters of the municipality. Charter schools are run by unelected boards/councils.  Therefore, they do not represent the taxpayers who are paying for the schools.  They do not allow taxpayers/parents a say in what goes on in the school.  This is taxation without representation."

GOVERNOR: "Oh, well, we will have to do something about that." 

CHARLOTTE'S RESPONSE: " Governor... if you do something about that, you will be right back where you are now with a public school with an elected school board."


So, four years later, Gov. LePage who became so famous across the country as the conservative Republicans' savior, pushing Communist Core and Tax-Funded School Choice and Charters (with unelected boards) is withdrawing from communist Core?

I have one question left for him, and all the anti-Communist Core tax-funded/ pro school choice Governors, although I doubt he or they will want to talk to me:
"Mr. Governor, do you really believe that your withdrawing Maine from the Communist Core standards is going to get rid of the Communist Core Standards?  Don't you realize that students in tax-funded charter schools, which you support, will have the federally-funded Communist Core once they move out of the public school  system and into a tax-funded public charter school?"
The reason for that is very simple: Communist Core is not new it is just the latest label for the national/international curriculum necessary for the Marxist brainwashing of students for life in a totalitarian global system and for  limited learning for lifelong labor. 

DO THE GOVERNORS NOT UNDERSTAND THAT WHAT THE GOVERNMENT FUNDS THE GOVERNMENT CONTROLS?

SINCE TAX-FUNDED SCHOOL CHOICE/CHARTERS ARE GOVERNMENT FUNDED, COMMUNIST CORE, ALTHOUGH UNDER A NEW LABEL, MUST BE USED, AND WILL BE USED. 

And the parents of those students in the long-planned new form of education (tax-funded charter schools run by unelected councils which is being used in Russia and many other schools internationally as well) won't have anywhere to go to complain about the Communist Core since  charter schools do not have elected school boards."

Is it any wonder Jeb Bush, part of a famous CFR-connected internationalist family, would support this long-planned Communist Core (Marxist planned economy) curriculum?

One almost has to give him credit for sticking to his globalist COMMUNIST CORE principles.
from Google Images