Sharman Burson Ramsey's Blog, page 20

The building of a fascist demagogue in 20 steps.

 The building of a fascist demagogue in 20 steps.I was challenged to answer these assertions going around on Facebook. The items listed are to make one see President Donald Trump as fulfilling those assertions. This is my counter to those assertions. 


First, let us define our terms: 

Fascism: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition

1. Exalts nation—

The Left is determined to undermine nationalism because it does not fit in its globalist agenda. Globalists see a nation in control of its own destiny,  patriotism, loyalty to country as a threat to their ambitions of total control. Think Panem in Hunger Games with all goods and services going to a group of elitists who see themselves as best equipped to spread the wealth and resources of the world to bring equity to the planet. 


A. Equity is different than equality. With Equity you level the mountain to make the valley even. You take from the rich to give to the poor to make everyone’s income equitable. Except for the Panem folks. You hear words like subsistence (sustainability) being threatened so someone (and just who will that group in control appoint? Someone like George Soros and the many groups he funds has worked on that for years) will divide the goods and services in a more equitable manner. (But who would know?) 



B. Equality means everyone gets the same opportunity, not the same result. 

2. Trump on the other hand has tried to de-centralize control, send power back to the states (according to our Constitution) and empower individuals to make their own decisions rather than have government agencies take more and more control. That is part of the reason for the Left undermining respect for our basic institutions, like the Constitution and our Founders. 

3. Rather than severe economic control, businesses have become empowered with a freer market to employ more people and invest more in America. The stock market has boomed and other countries look to invest here.

4. As for social regimentation, it is the Left that has a hissy fit and becomes violent when a conservative is invited to speak. They limit speech! They threaten speakers and commit actual violence upon people attempting to practice their First Amendment right. They call themselves Antifa, but in fact, they practice the same actions of the Fascists in Germany, limiting all speech except that that is approved by their ideology, dress in black and carry clubs that they actually use! Encouraged by this mindset, we saw a shooter attack Congressmen whose views he did not approve of while they practiced for a bipartisan baseball game. A neighbor blindsided Rand Paul because he disagreed with his politics. 

5. It is the Left that has encouraged the forcible suppression of expression. Conservatives on the Major Media have been fired. Check out Open Source and see which party newspaper reporters support. Is their coverage fair? Unbiased? The Resist movement encourages the deep state to turn traitor to their country and the duly elected will of the people. Newspapers actually publish leaks that turn out to be fake, but who hears their correction? 

They believe there should be no borders, no national sovereignty. So, Trump’s support of patriotism postpones their goal. 

They intentionally create a sense of crisis (whether it be regarding climate, racism, Russian influence, immigration,etc.) and use the courts to mobilize their agenda. (Human Capital elucidates the method here.)

Antifa: Is funded by George Soros and developed by some 60s terrorists and wild-eyed liberals. 

See the article on the Chicago Connection on my blog. This is Bill Ayers and his co-conspirator Bernadine Dohrn. He is now an activist and curriculum specialist who hired Barach Obama to work with him on his Chicago Anenberg Project. 




These are your leaders in Antifa, along with Soros who funds this. They use this methodology.


This is their goal.


Alinsky Rules for Radicals. Number 13 (See above.) They have picked their target. Trump. They are attempting to freeze it. The Russia Collusion. The Special Counsel. The Media Collusion.And now they attempt to polarize it. Propaganda like this below aids and abets their attempts. Cut off the support network and isolate the target from sympathy. Go after people and not institutions; people hurt faster than institutions. 


So here are the statements that are supposed to make folks align Hitler with Trump. 

1. Divide the citizens into ideological groups, each with its own agenda  
It is the Left that practices IDENTITY POLITICS (BLACKS, WOMEN, LGBT, ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS). 

Conservatives see all citizens as Americans. It is Hillary who called those who supported Trump Deplorables. 

2. Pit those ideological groups against one another, stoking and escalating their conflicts 

ANTIFA is a radical Leftist black clad, billy club armed group that practices terrorist tactics against their fellow Americans to stifle their free expression (speech). Your support of this helps Bill Ayers achieve his agenda of ending capitalism and making a revolution. 

3. Scapegoat minorities. At least one religious group, and one racial group
I have no clue what this is referring to. If you mean illegal immigrants, our country has the right and responsibility to enforce legal immigration because to do otherwise undermines security. And if you mean Muslim, we are now in a war against radical Islamists so pretending to show that we are unbiased and spend scarce resources watching cathedrals would be ridiculous!


4. Attack the free press, calling into question their methods and agendas 
You cannot mean to say you think the Major Media has covered our President fairly. How can you not question their methods and agendas when every utterance expresses contempt and every story expresses their bias and “opinion” -- not facts. 


5. Call into question the validity of facts and reality 
Once again, I am lost here. Challenge accuracy of numbers in a situation? Right now you are challenging my understanding of what you consider facts, so I would say that is a normal event. Ask two people about a car accident and you will see what happens. 


6. Invent and repeat stories about political opponents that your supporters will fervently believe
 
If this refers to Hillary and your comment that they had been “debunked” I must say I differ there and it isn’t Trump’s fault. It is because somehow the Clinton Machine has been able to manipulate agencies we once trusted by silencing the opposition. How did Comey exonerate Clinton for emails and lack of respecting security that she herself taught her State Department and for which my eldest daughter, employee of the government, would have been put in prison. How can one claim innocence when one bleaches or pounds with a hammer subpoenaed evidence. 

7. Repeat lies at mass rallies with a carefully chosen crowd, and record the crowd’s reaction
 
Cite those lies. Could they be like Obama did when he pushed Obamacare and lied about keeping one’s doctor and not paying more for insurance. 

8. Gradually insinuate propaganda into citizens' everyday lives through all available forms of media 
Like how the major media continues to spout the lies about Russian collusion? Trump's propaganda crusade has been amazingly inept if you continue to believe all of this.


9. Reject social norms, and claim a bond with the "common people"
 
I am a common person and he has only supported the social norms that I hold dear – respect for our military, respect for our flag, respect for the police, rejection of Common Core, the security of our nation, the independence of our nation and protection of the industries that employ our people by getting us out of unfair trade agreements, the right for our country to control immigration and protect our borders. 

10. Create public policy that enriches you and your powerful supporters, and then codify it into law
 
Like using Race to the Top funds to sucker school systems into accepting Common Core and institutionalize their radical agenda while sacrificing academics for our children. Like selling 20% of America’s Uranium supplies to Russians who make $143 million donation to a supposed family charity. 
What laws have been passed that enrich Trump supporters?

11. Promote the idea of conspiracies against yourself
 
Trump didn’t say that. The actions of Antifa and the media demonstrate the facts. 
Hillary, on the other hand, accused conservatives of "a vast right wing conspiracy." 
Considering the definition of a conspiracy I would say Trump’s supporters are justified in claiming there is a conspiracy to undermine our president. 
Conspiracy is a "consultation or agreement between two or more persons, either falsely to accuse another of a crime punishable by law; or wrongfully to injure or prejudice a third person, or any body of men, in any manner; or to commit any offense punishable by law; or to do any act with intent to prevent the course of justice; or to effect a legal purpose with a corrupt intent, or by improper means. Hawk. P. C. c. 72." 

Kind of looks like to me that is exactly what the Left is conspiring to do to undo the lawful election of our president. Their propaganda has definitely gotten you to do its bidding.

12. Weaken government bodies and agencies so they are incapable of performing their intended functions leaving a power vacuum that only you can fill
 
Where is that happening? The problem is the slowness of Congress to approve appointments by Trump. A conspiracy? Where Trump can he is scaling down unnecessary jobs and agencies. That is something Conservatives have sought for a long time. The Department of Education was established by Jimmy Carter and really needs to be undone putting education back where it belongs – state and local. 

13. Create friction between those governing bodies and agencies so they fight among themselves rather than govern 

Those “governing bodies” and “agencies” are the swamp creatures that feed off the rest of us. Lobbyists, media, politicians. They do not want to lose their authority, their power, their funding. They are leeches that are bringing our country down and they need to be gotten rid of. They wanted one of their own elected to continue the feeding frenzy. God did an end run around them and they cannot quit spewing their poisonous lies.  

14. Demand personal loyalty and public praise from all your subordinates
 
You’ve got to be kidding. I have never heard so many express their freely given opinions. What recourse does he have to enforce this supposed loyalty and public praise? Everyone agreed Comey had to go – Democrat and Republican. Jeff Sessions remains as Attorney General. 

15. Demand personal loyalty from your espionage organizations, and insist they use their expertise against your political opponents
 
So why was Samantha Power unmasking Americans at the rate of at least one a day? How about the Attorney General meeting with Bill Clinton on the tarmac and then ordering Comey to call the Clinton issue a “matter” and then Comey exonerates Clinton BEFORE he ever interviewed her? Or never doing ANYTHING about her destruction of evidence? Demanding personal loyalty? Please! The ones that are gone are the ones the Swamp Creatures most hated...Bannon for one.

16. Suddenly, and with little warning, remove those individuals who you don't consider loyal or loyal enough
 
As I said before, the Democrats and Republicans were fed up with Comey and justifiably as he himself has been proven to be a leaker! Who else has been removed for not being loyal enough? As President he has the same authorities others have had -- and used. 

17. Promote loyal generals and former-generals to powerful positions, and establish a private security force accountable only to you
  
His own party was such a part of the Swamp, where was he to pull staff? Leaks were coming out even regarding private conversations with world leaders. Where was someone who could be trusted if not from the military that is supposed to be outside of politics. A security force? With the opposition he encountered, he needed people he could trust around him. From what I can see they are quite good at their jobs. Our president needs security.

18. Fill important positions with family members, and promote nepotism within your close associates
 
Ever hear of Robert Kennedy? John Kennedy’s brother who was appointed Attorney General? Now, in this situation, Ivanka Trump is a successful woman promoting issues that pertain to women. Perhaps the problem with the Left is that this is a woman in a powerful position?

19. Build up the military and strategic weaponry citing a need to appear strong to the rest of the world

Surely you are acquainted with the terrorism we face. Surely you know about the leader of North Korea and the way our ships in the Pacific have been run into by tankers? 
Do you think we should go forward with our pants down with defense? My greatest fear is an electromagnetic pulse over the atmosphere creating a devastating end to our civilization as we know it as every electrical (including computer) gets fritzed. Read The Day After. 

20. Create crises with foreign powers with the goal of provoking a military conflict 
Ever hear of Neville Chamberlain? His appeasement policies only empowered Hitler. What did Hillary's ridiculous "reset button" do? 

Sound familiar?
It should. It's a breakdown of Adolf Hitler. Who did you think I was talking about?.
We said we'd never let what happened in Nazi Germany happen again.

So, are you going to? 

TRUMP IS TRYING HIS BEST TO PROTECT US FROM THAT. So, why are you giving aid and comfort to his enemies by putting this bit of propaganda out there. I am sure it is original with you, but if not, perhaps it came from the Russians to promote more conflict within our country and make us vulnerable? Something Soros and his efficient PR team could definitely do. You need to watch colluding with the Russians.

HAVE PROFIT AND POLITICS TURNED NEWSPAPERS INTO HIRED HACKS?

Have Profit and Politics Turned Newspapers into Hired Hacks? Do newspapers influence public opinion to public benefit? 


The first thing I was greeted with today on the news was a headline "Our view: Alabama voters must reject Roy Moore; we endorse Doug Jones for U.S. Senate". I have no doubt this was a well considered opinion piece. I say that sarcastically. Now, the publishers may disclaim any political control over the papers they own, but they hire the staff of those individual papers.

Why do people go into journalism if not to, as MSNBC's Mika Brezinski so clearly stated, "... control what people think."

This is REALLY what they think! And what the media thinks is totally lopsided on credibility -- based on being in any way unbiased.

STATISTICS CITED BELOW ARE FROM OPEN SECRETS.


ALABAMAMOBILE PRESS REGISTER and BIRMINGHAM NEWS ARE OWNED BY ADVANCE PUBLICATIONSLook at the financial contributions of Advance Publications the publisher of the Birmingham News at Open Secrets.   The Mobile Press Register is also owned by Advance Publications. Do you see a Republican there? One. What could possibly be their agenda in opposing Judge Moore? 

Top Recipients
ChamberMemberAmountPresidentClinton, Hillary (D)$96,485SenateSanders, Bernie (D-VT)$5,157SenateKander, Jason (D-MO)$5,000SenateHarris, Kamala D (D-CA)$3,550HouseJeffries, Hakeem (D-NY)$2,700HouseGottheimer, Josh (D-NJ)$2,503HouseThrone-Holst, Anna (D-NY)$2,500HouseOrentlicher, David (D-IN)$2,000HouseKennedy, Joe III (D-MA)$1,000HouseCardenas, Tony (D-CA)$750SenateLee, Mike (R-UT)$750SenateSittenfeld, P G (D-OH)$750SenateHassan, Maggie (D-NH)$518SenateCampbell, Foster (D-LA)$500HouseLi, Lindy (D-PA)$500PresidentKasich, John (R)$397HousePelosi, Nancy (D-CA)$375SenateFeingold, Russ (D-WI)$363SenateBlumenthal, Richard (D-CT)$250HouseChane, Jonathan (D-FL)$250 See all recipients



The one editorial I could find published by the Birmingham News on COMMON CORE is supportive.


The Birmingham News is not your friend.


So, what about the Dothan Eagle? 


Warren Buffet effectively sets forth the function of a newspaper in his letter to publishers and editors upon Berkshire Hathaway's purchase of 28 daily newspapers at a cost of $344 million in 2012.

Your paper will operate from a position of financial strength. Berkshire will always maintain capital and liquidity second to none. We shun levels of debt that could ever impose problems. Therefore, you will determine your paper's destiny' outsiders will never dictate it.

Well, now, that's a high standard, isn't it? Financial strength.

ACCORDING TO OPEN SECRETS Berkshire Hathaway did contribute something to some Republicans.

Top RecipientsChamberMemberAmountPresidentClinton, Hillary (D)$106,734HouseRyan, Paul (R-WI)$51,565PresidentTrump, Donald (R)$50,187HouseShuster, Bill (R-PA)$42,700SenateCruz, Ted (R-TX)$34,564HouseYoung, Todd (R-IN)$33,650SenateMurray, Patty (D-WA)$31,250SenateBlunt, Roy (R-MO)$28,700SenateSanders, Bernie (D-VT)$28,249SenateMoran, Jerry (R-KS)$25,800SenateWyden, Ron (D-OR)$25,800SenateHoeven, John (R-ND)$23,990HouseWilliams, Roger (R-TX)$23,300HouseDenham, Jeff (R-CA)$23,000HouseConaway, Mike (R-TX)$21,500SenateAyotte, Kelly (R-NH)$19,700HouseLaHood, Darin (R-IL)$19,500HouseMoulton, Seth (D-MA)$19,100SenateMcCaskill, Claire (D-MO)$19,000HouseVan Hollen, Chris (D-MD)$19,000 See all recipients

I once saw what appeared in the newspaper as truth -- or at least an honest effort at presenting differing points of view and perhaps a skepticism about "innovations". My epiphany came in the early 90s when I entered into the debates in Education at that time: Phonics versus Whole Language, Goals 2000 and Outcome Based Education, the Four Period Day.

I visited the local newspaper and their Education Editor with research countering that which came forth from the Administration. That information never appeared in the paper, unless I wrote an Opinion Piece. But, folks who write Op-Ed or Letters to the Letter are labeled kooks. The folks that get the paycheck get respect and a microphone plus millions of our tax dollars to make themselves look good.

And when all is shown to be the sham others tried to warn of? The newspaper merely becomes the Public Relations entity of the brand new reform to fix the one that failed.

Oh, by the way, the Education Editor for the paper during the time I mentioned was hired by the District Schools as their Public Relations liaison. Little need. In his official capacity for the newspaper he had already served in that function for the public schools for years! Why do research? Why encourage controversy? Why ask questions, like:  Where has this been used before? What empirical data do you have on its effectiveness? Over what period of time was this used and does this data reflect that time span?


As you can see, there is really no preparation for an Education Reporter to challenge any establishment entity. Did you have a heads up about the total restructuring of education with Common Core? My family knew nothing until our granddaughter had trouble with the new math. And even then, even with two degrees in Education, I had no concept of how immensely important this shift in Education practice and theory would be not only to our schools and our children, but our country.

When the Chamber of Commerce runs a film on Common Core and pushes that agenda into a school system, from whom will the challenge come? The newspaper and reporter might report on the presentation and then publish pretty much whatever the Public Relations person in the Education system or Chamber hands him/her.


Why support COMMON CORE on the recommendation of the Chamber of Commerce?

As Buffet said:  "... financial strength.  "  Advertising.

 Do you want to upset major advertisers? Members of the Chamber of Commerce or the School System? Look in the Classified. Who runs the most ads? You'll find their names on Chamber lists.

What is GRIT? Another organization headed up by Caroline Novak about whom I wrote in
Response to AL.Com article "Alabama Superintendent Proposal to Raise Academic Standards." I guess it just sounds better when you can have an organization supporting your political agenda. Who is she and these organizations with which she has such clout to maintain the amount of influence she has on education? I imagine it is her connections with the Chamber of Commerce and therefore the newspapers throughout the state of Alabama.



Yet, all of the assertions made that it would prepare children to be "college and career ready" have been debunked. And, by the way,  just who is Caroline Novak? An individual with a degree in Economics from Hollins College who Delphis Alabamans into controversial education programs beginning with OBE, APLUS and Goals 2000 and now, COMMON CORE!

According to Novak's bio for the Alabama Academy of Honor:


I am very curious as to the criteria for membership with the Alabama Academy of Honor. Obviously Alabama A Plus with Goals 2000 was a flop or she wouldn't be promoting COMMON CORE!

There you have it. Condescension. Schools must lower the bar to achieve equity in education. Novak's goal has apparently never been excellence, or even opportunity, but equity and so she and her groups promoted Outcome Based Education and Goals 2000 which began the lowering of the bar and somehow these folks managed to enlist the Chamber of Commerce in their efforts.



Those Common Core State Standards were NOT developed by the Council of Chief State School Officers and the National Governor's Council as claimed below. Nor do they make students college and career ready .  Follow any of the links below this article.

COMMON CORE has already taken Alabama students for the 26th percentile on the NAEP to the 51st percentile because Alabama has been great at implementing COMMON CORE! Just what determines success in their book?








So, if you cannot count on your local newspapers to do due diligence or remain skeptical regarding issues that can amount to millions of dollars in the education system, who can you trust? 




I wonder if you could actually say that a political conflict of interest has been followed by the press by not challenging COMMON CORE with its obvious political agenda simply because it coincides with that of Major Media. One has only to follow the link to ALABAMA'S CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, Dr. Barbara Cooper's, admitted philosophy of education through the book she mentioned, Radical Possibilities, to know that someone should have researched this connection before assuming she meant to address the academic challenges she was hired to address and not the furtherance of her own political inclinations. I am sure there are others, but hers is the one with which I am most familiar.


See also: 





From what I can tell, Dr. Cooper's efforts as Chief Academic Officer have been to diversify the employees, not improve the quality of the teachers. But she openly admitted her goals by saying that the book, Radical Possibilities by Jean Anyon is her guidebook and reflects her education philosophy.  
DOTHAN REPORTER JIM COOK QUOTES SCHOOL SOURCE SUSAN LOFTIN ON HER EFFORTS TO IMPLEMENT COMMON CORE IN THE SCHOOLS.  Hmm. Really? Do you sense something is wrong also, like parent Jennifer Robinson did?

We are all told that if you feel something is wrong, it probably is! So why must parents be constantly be re-inforced, re-educated (Delphi-ed?) in their support of COMMON CORE.
SEE ALSO: THE DELPHI TECHNIQUE, CHAMBER OF COMMERCE AND THE EDUCATION ESTABLISHMENT









GANNETT OWNS THE MONTGOMERY ADVERSTISERTop RecipientsChamberMemberAmountPresidentClinton, Hillary (D)$5,007SenateSanders, Bernie (D-VT)$2,344SenateMasto, Catherine Cortez (D-NV)$501HouseDelaney, John K (D-MD)$500SenateCruz, Ted (R-TX)$350PresidentSantorum, Rick (R)$125SenatePaul, Rand (R-KY)$100SenateFeingold, Russ (D-WI)$41PresidentTrump, Donald (R)$28SenateStrickland, Ted (D-OH)$10HouseSchneider, Brad (D-IL)$9SenateStokes, Steve (D-CA)$5HouseBarragan, Nanette (D-CA)$1HouseCarroll, Morgan (D-CO)$1HouseClements, Paul (D-MI)$1HouseNolan, Rick (D-MN)$1 See all recipients
  Gannett's public policy seems appropriate, but still their bias appears in the support of candidates. 
FLORIDAGATEHOUSE MEDIA (NOW A JAPANESE COMPANY) OWNS THE  PANAMA CITY NEWS HERALD  (JEFF BEZOS, AMAZON, BOUGHT THE WASHINGTON POST FROM THE JAPANESE)
Wouldn't you think someone in Florida would have challenged the acceptance of something as important as the Education of our children on the recommendation by someone who would be benefitting to such a glaring degree?





Why do the newspapers of Florida not challenge THE CHAMBER, THE EDUCATION SYSTEM, BILL GATES OR JERRY PARRISH?




Now, as for Judge Moore, look at number 13.

The opening paragraph of the book makes it perfectly clear who his readers are:

What follows is for those who want to change the world from what it is to what they believe it should be. The Prince was written by Machiavelli for the Haves on how to hold power. Rules for Radicals is written for the Have-Nots on how to take it away.

I admit to skepticism.






WELCOME TO COMMON CORE: SEE ALSO:

HAS PROFIT TURNED NEWSPAPERS INTO HIRED HACKS?

Has Profit Turned Newspapers into Hired Hacks? Do newspapers influence public opinion to public benefit? 
Warren Buffet effectively sets forth the function of a newspaper in his letter to publishers and editors upon Berkshire Hathaway's purchase of 28 daily newspapers at a cost of $344 million in 2013:

Your paper will operate from a position of financial strength. Berkshire will always maintain capital and liquidity second to none. We shun levels of debt that could ever impose problems. Therefore, you will determine your paper's destiny' outsiders will never dictate it.

As an education activist, I have begun to see newspapers in a different light. I once saw what appeared in the newspaper as truth -- or at least an honest effort at presenting differing points of view and perhaps a skepticism about "innovations". My epiphany came in the early 90s when I entered into the debates in Education at that time: Phonics versus Whole Language, Goals 2000 and Outcome Based Education, the Four Period Day.

I visited the local newspaper and their Education Editor with research countering that which came forth from the Administration. That information never appeared in the paper, unless I wrote an Opinion Piece. But, folks who write Op-Ed or Letters to the Letter are labeled kooks. The folks that get the paycheck get respect and a microphone plus millions of our tax dollars to make themselves look good.

And when all is shown to be the sham others tried to warn of? The newspaper merely becomes the Public Relations entity of the brand new reform to fix the one that failed.

Oh, by the way, the Education Editor for the paper during the time I mentioned was hired by the District Schools as their Public Relations liaison. Little need. In his official capacity for the newspaper he had already served in that function for the public schools for years! Why do research? Why encourage controversy? Why ask questions, like:  Where has this been used before? What empirical data do you have on its effectiveness? Over what period of time was this used and does this data reflect that time span?


As you can see, there is really no preparation for an Education Reporter to challenge any establishment entity. Did you have a heads up about the total restructuring of education with Common Core? My family knew nothing until our granddaughter had trouble with the new math. And even then, even with two degrees in Education, I had no concept of how immensely important this shift in Education practice and theory would be not only to our schools and our children, but our country.

When the Chamber of Commerce runs a film on Common Core and pushes that agenda into a school system, from whom will the challenge come? The newspaper and reporter might report on the presentation and then publish pretty much whatever the Public Relations person in the Education system hands him/her.

Wouldn't you think someone in Florida would have challenged the acceptance of something as important as the Education of our children on the recommendation by someone who would be benefitting to such a glaring degree?




Why not challenge?

Advertising.

Advertising is significant to the bottom line. Do you want to upset major advertisers? Members of the Chamber of Commerce or the School System? Look in the Classified. Who runs the most ads? You'll find their names on Chamber lists.

So, if you cannot count on your local newspapers to do due diligence or remain skeptical regarding issues that can amount to millions of dollars in the education system, who can you trust? 

I wonder if you could actually say that a political conflict of interest has been followed by the press by not challenging COMMON CORE with the obvious political agenda of Major Media. One has only to follow the link to ALABAMA'S CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER, Dr. Barbara Cooper's,  admitted philosophy of education through the book she mentioned, Radical Possibilities, to know that someone should have researched this connection before assuming she meant to address the academic challenges she was hired to address and not the furtherance of her own political inclinations. I am sure there are others, but hers is the one with which I am most familiar.

See also: 






The owners of these papers control the information that comes into our community. Berkshire Hathaway owns the Dothan Eagle. Warren Buffet owns Berkshire Hathaway. 





 





GATEHOUSE MEDIA (NOW A JAPANESE COMPANY) OWNS THE  PANAMA CITY NEWS HERALD  (JEFF BEZOS, AMAZON, BOUGHT THE WASHINGTON POST FROM THE JAPANESE)










GANNETT OWNS THE MONTGOMERY ADVERSTISER  


MOBILE PRESS REGISTER IS OWNED BY ADVANCE PUBLICATIONS







WELCOME TO COMMON CORE: SEE ALSO:

RADICAL POSSIBILITIES: YOUR CHILDREN!

So, who is Dr. Barbara Cooper and why should you care that she is the CHIEF ACADEMIC OFFICER OF ALABAMA SCHOOLS?

Dr. Barbara Cooper was hired by then Supt Michael Sentance to be the Chief Academic Officer of Alabama schools,  She said in a radio interview this year in Montgomery that the book, Radical Possibilitiesby Jean Anyon is her guidebook and reflects her education philosophy.  

She is obviously proud of that. So why should you be concerned? 

Radical Possibilities is reviewed by Pat Ellis below.

But, you live in Florida. So why should you care? The same philosophy undergirds Common Core and ALL that IS IN YOUR SCHOOLS!
You do not realize how insidiously this radical agenda has been inserted into our schools. I became aware of it while battling for the right for children to have effective reading instruction. In the early 1990s, years before my husband and I retired to Florida, I actually read the Whole Language Catalog. A group of parents had invited a principal who used a Phonics Intensive Reading program to address our School Board. Dr. Fritchie, the head of Troy State Dothan’s Reading program, vehemently led the opposition at a Dothan, Alabama school board meeting along with her proselytes in the school system. The event became a Whole Language Hootenanny.



In reading Pat Ellis’ review, I stumbled across the name of someone quite familiar to me from having read the Whole Language Catalog (Kenneth S. Goodman, Lois Bridges Bird and Yetta Goodman), the manifesto of the Progressive Education Movement. Michael Apple appeared in the viewpoint section with an article, Teachers, Politics and Whole Language Instruction. Please notice that Michael Apple writes the introduction to Radical Possibilities. This excerpt from the WL Catalog will alert you as to his philosophy on education. 



...And there are reasons for the current emphasis on an educationally and politically return to a curriculum based on the "western tradition" and "cultural literacy."
...Its proponents need to join with others in the wider social movements that aim at democratizing our economy, politics, and culture, and that act against a society that is so unequal in gender, race, and class terms.

"This does not mean that action in schools is unimportant. However, there are socio-cultural pre-conditions for long term success in transforming education into something worthy of its name. And unless this is understood fully, the whole language movement may unfortunately remain isolated on the margins of "ordinary" educational activity. Or, perhaps even worse, small parts of it will be incorporated into classrooms in "safe" and very limited ways, thereby transforming it into one more set of techniques in the right's reconstruction of education (Wilinsky, 1990). We cannot afford to let that happen. The daily lives and futures of real students and teachers are at stake."


The Whole Language Movement was indeed the Progressive Left insertion into the basics of American Education. Those delicate roots that should have been extracted then with the Outcome Based Education Movement have taken root with full blown Common Core. This curriculum should be called Rotten to the Core. These people have told us their intent in the Whole Language Catalog and here in Radical Possibilities. 
They boast about it on the radio. And yet, we refuse to believe it is happening in our schools and to our children!
So now meet Dr. Barbara Cooper.

Dr. Barbara Cooper was hired by then Supt Michael Sentence to be the Chief Academic Officer of Alabama schools. 


She said in a radio interview this year in Montgomery that the book, Radical Possibilitiesby Jean Anyon is her guidebook and reflects her education philosophy.  It is reviewed by Pat Ellis below.
RADICAL POSSIBILITIESBY Jean AnyonPublished 2005In reviewing Radical Possibilities, I noted that Ms. Anyon thoroughly referenced all of her sources. I did not research these sources to determine if they were credible, factual or biased.
In her Introduction Ms. Anyon gives us a short biography of the person she is, her education and the experiences that formed her opinions on education. She believes “what should count as education policy would include strategies to increase the minimum wage, invest in urban job creation and training, provide funds for college completion to those who cannot afford it, and enforce laws that would end racial segregation in housing and hiring.” She makes a case for the aforementioned throughout her book.
Professor Michael Apple introduces Radical Possibilities. As part of his commentary he presents himself as a kindred spirit of Ms. Anyon’s. He states: “The two of us share a sense of profound anger at the ways in which not only schools, but nearly all of this society’s major institutions are organized to maintain massive inequalities. And like so many others who share this anger, we want to participate in struggles to alter these conditions.”
Chapter 1 - The Economic is Political
According to Ms. Anyon, poverty in U.S. families is more widespread than believed and is catastrophic in families of color. Low school funding levels and federal policies maintain poverty. Low wages are an important part of poverty. Low wage workers are those whose hourly wage is less than the earnings necessary to lift a family above the official poverty line.
It is a myth promoted by politicians, educators and corporate spokespeople that the U.S. must improve education because people need advanced skills to get  job. “Most job openings in the next ten years will not require either sophisticated skills or a college degree.” “Managerial and professional occupations will also need more workers, but their numbers pale compared with openings requiring less education. Indeed, a typical job of the future is retail sales at Wal-Mart.”In this chapter Ms. Anyon includes a multitude of statics on jobs and lack of job growth in minority communities.  She makes the case to increase the minimum wage because these are the types of jobs that will be plentiful. She also argues that corporations are disingenuous claiming there is a shortage of Americans with computer skills so that these corporations can go overseas and pay lower wages.
Chapter 2 – Federal Policies Maintain Urban Poverty
Economic policies yield widespread low wage work even among an increasingly educated workforce. This premise strains the credibility of urban school reform as a solution to problems of the urban poor.
(Page 2)
Some federal policies that contribute to widespread poverty wage-work are:1. Anti-unionization laws.2. Federal job training without job creation.3. Class biased regulations of the Federal Reserve Bank.4. Free trade Agreements.5. Minimum wage.
Quoting Gordon Lafer, Ms. Anyon states union organizing: “for non-college education workers unionization can be much more important than further education. For non-union high school dropouts monetary advantage of finishing school is an increase of $2.25 per hour, while organizing one’s workforce will benefit the worker more than twice as much. Similarly, high school graduates contemplating getting some college training short of a bachelors would actually do three times better to organize than go back to school.”
For students who don’t have funds for college, rather than pursue higher education should perhaps become involved in the political contention necessary to organize a union at their place of work.Ms. Anyon asks if education can be used as a remedy for poverty and low-wage work or must we change federal policies in order to solve the problem? Her answer is education is important, but plays less of a role than we assume. Education explains only about a third of income levels.  Another piece of the puzzle is lack of federal and state policies and discrimination on the basis of race.
There are two lessons regarding education and income:1. For many students, economic policy may trump educational attainment.2. We cannot expect education to compensate for inequalities wrought by macroeconomics policy.Policies we need:1. Maintain low interest rates.2. Increase government spending on infrastructure and human capital development, and creating demand side pressure – a need for workers.3. Reinstate wage and price guidelines.4. Creation of jobs by the federal government for those who need and want them.5. Passage of higher minimum wage laws, health insurance and other benefits.6. Eliminate regressive taxes.7. Protect union organizing8. Institute worker protection laws for employees of small businesses.
Black and Latino Workers
1. There is discrimination in hiring because of soft skills (interaction, language use, grooming, attire, positive work attitude, dependable, etc.). “Managers in various economic sectors expressed increased demands for soft skills more frequently than for any hard skill but for computer literacy.” 2. High incarceration rates.(Page 3)3. Employers hesitant to hire workers with criminal record.4. Policies that create jobs with federal  government as employer of last resort.5. Nearly 2/3 of nation’s prisoners are Black and Latino and in many states cannot receive welfare, student loans, live in public housing or vote. “Educators who care deeply about these students must come to grips with the fact that no amount of school reform as presently conceived will make the economy accept minority high school graduates in a more humane manner.”
Chapter 3 – Taxing Rich and PoorRules set by Congress protect wealth and extremes of inequality that characterize the United States. 1. Regressive payroll tax and state taxes.2. Inequality of income directly related to U.S. tax regulations.3. Low taxes charged to those with high incomes.4. Unethical but legal tax dodges for wealthy.5. Laws that allow corporations with billions pay little or no taxes.
Most egregious aspect of corporate tax situation: 60% of largest most profitable corporations pay no income tax at all.
One viable source of income for services for poor is the vast untaxed income of very rich individuals and corporations. Some companies are highlighted as having paid no tax or very little.In the rest of this chapter Ms. Anyon provided statistics on concentration of wealth in different sections of the United States from time of the colonies to the Late 1950’s. She included Robber Barons, Progressive Era and Roaring 20’s. She discussed income tax history and rates from 1861 through the Civil War, Great Depression, WW II and the Reagan Administration.
Corrective Policies:1. Wealth Tax (similar to Swiss system).2. Federal Reserve Board contributes significantly to inequality by high interest rates.“There is one more type of federal policy that contributes significantly to inequality, and should be corrected: the elevation of a U.S. financial governing body that is not elected – the Federal Reserve Board.”
Chapter 4 – New Hope for Urban StudentsThere is direct and indirect evidence that an increase in family resources raises academic achievement. Improving family income reduces negative and aggressive social behavior of children and leads to better school behavior and performance.
(Page 4)
New Hope is a non-profit community based organization that provides:1. Earnings supplement.2. Subsidized health insurance3. Subsidized child care.4. Provides community service job for one year.
Outcome of these four provisions – children’s school performance improved.
Ms. Anyon goes into great detail in this chapter how income supports promote academic achievement and the value of programs like New Hope. She makes the case for equity-seeking educational reform. “The educational success of affluent districts demonstrates to me that economic strength is the engine of systemic school reform.”
Chapter 5 – Jobs and Public Transit Mismatches
This chapter addresses the issue that many jobs for minorities lie outside their residential area and travel is difficult or not worth the expense for the amount of dollar return in wages.
1. There need to be policies that would place jobs in urban communities.2. Need to be transportation policies that establish bus and train routes from cities to outlying surburbs where entry level jobs exist.3. Foundational education reforms could be due to regional jobs, transportation, housing and municipal tax reform.4.  Demographics – Low income minorities are no longer concentrated in inner cities, but in various segregated fiscally stressed suburbs. These share characteristics of inner cities.5. Exclusionary Zoning (state and local). Regulations regarding land lot size, etc. limit construction of affordable housing in suburbs preventing people needing entry level jobs from moving closer to those jobs. 6. Transportation – few low income city residents have cars or public transportation to travel for work7. Difficulty networking for jobs in neighborhoods where there are few jobs and few employed residents.
Project Quest –This is a successful innovative job training program. It was founded through collaboration between community based organizations, businesses and educational institutions. Included are child care, transportation assistance,  medical care, tutoring and modest cash assistance for incidentals and tuition for community college. Project Quest is an important model for assisting low income residents.
Transportation – Without available transportation residents of low income neighborhoods cannot reach job centers.
One method of increasing number of jobs in depressed urban areas is to reconnect neighborhood economies to regional markets.
(Page 5)
The rest of this chapter provides examples of successful community based corporations that hire and train local residents.
Chapter 6 – Regional Housing Reform as Education Reform
The most egregious social phenomena is the housing concentration of low income students into central cities or urbanized suburban neighborhoods. This creates education segregation of urban Blacks and Latinos into schools where majority are poor.
Solution:1. States should spread tax dollars from more affluent suburban schools to cities to increase education funding in those cities.2. The federal government should provide more federal housing assistance.The effects of residential segregation on schools are:1. Insufficient school funding.2. Few AP classes, if any. 3. Too few qualified teachers.4. Undemanding pedagogy.5. Low academic achievement.6. Buildings in disrepair.7. Students unprepared for technology due to few computers.8. Large classes.
Housing Solutions:
1. Mobility programs that relocate urban families who want to move to less segregated and/or higher income areas.2. Construction of more affordable housing. Example – Albuquerque, NM instituted a policy that integrates poor families into middle class neighborhoods and schools. 3. Gatraux Program in Chicago led to over 50 other mobility programs, including the “Moving to Opportunity” program begun by HUD in 1994. MOP was carried out in five cities: Baltimore, Boston,Chicago, Los Angeles and New York.
Fair Share Affordable Housing
While racial discrimination in housing is illegal, discrimination on basis of class is not. Private housing providers are generally free to discriminate against purchases or renters based on income. Class based exclusionary zoning is an area that needs policy and behavioral changes.
(Page 6)
Massachusetts Fair Share Housing Program is an example of distributing low income affordable housing in all cities of the state with middle class and more affluent. Equitable distribution of housing would deconcentrate poor students from central cities and low income suburbs.
Metro Area Finance Inequities1. Federal funds to cities went primarily to income support and in suburbs to wealth creation.2. Another financial inequity among municipalities in regions is racial segregation of low income minorities in cities and financially distressed suburbs. The more segregated an area the more unequal tax base.Educational Finance InequitiesFederal and state policies, regional zoning and various gentlemen’s agreements that segregate low income families in fiscally stressed urban areas condemn them to underfunded education.
Policies to Correct:1. Implement regional revenue sharing (Horizontal sharing between local governments is less prevalent and multi -jurisdictional is very rare.) 2. Since all taxpayers in a region pay taxes that subsidize development in affluent areas, all municipalities should share in taxes that accrue.
Social Movements and New Policies
Public contestation seems necessary if we are going to fulfill the redistributive potential of American democracy and U. S. education. “ Even the more recent passage of Empowerment Zone legislation to assist urban neighborhood economic development was approved in response to riots after the Rodney King beating in Los Angeles. “
Local Challenges to Federal & Regional Mandates
1. “Attempting to fix inner city schools without fixing the city is like cleaning the air on one side of a screen door.”2. Organized public contestation is necessary to build a strong foundation in cities.Federal Programs1. Federal programs fail because they leave unaltered basic macroeconomic policies and regional arrangements that define the underlying rules maintaining poverty and scarcity.(Page 7)2. Although commercial downtowns in many cities have rebounded with the help of federal dollars, conditions in most urban neighborhoods have improved only slightly.Philanthropic Foundations1. “At worst, they fund discrete projects for a short amount of time dropping them to find the next flavor of the month.”2. “At best, they fund comprehensive longer term programs with regional forces whose goal is to foster responsiveness in urban and rural government agencies.”
Community Development Corporations
“Ability of CDC’s to eliminate poverty in urban areas is not only delimited by federal and regional systems. Many CDC’s have become clients in their city’s patronage system of political spoils, and no longer challenge the basic rules of the game as they did in the 1960’s and 1970’s.”
Regional Campaigns and School Reform
“Building coalitions of groups across neighborhoods of a city, across inner city and segregated suburb and throughout metropolitan regions should become a priority. And these campaigns ought to be aimed at unjust metro area, state and federal barriers to effective urban school systems, as well as at school and class size, and pedagogy.”
Chapter 8 – How Do People Become Involved in Political Contention
“Economic justice, this important precursor of systemic urban school reform, will not be achieved without concerted, sustained political struggle. Although activism for economic opportunity is necessary, educational reform must be a target of sustained contention, as well.”
Attribution of Opportunity
“The first process I apply from Dynamics of Contention has to do with how people interpret changes in the political economy.” This type of change should encourage social protest and people should view developments as presenting opportunities.
“Indeed, it is sometimes necessary for social activists to decide they must create a crisis in order to force concessions from governing groups.” “The strategy of the civil rights campaign in Birmingham was to paralyze the city through massive direct action. The plan was to bring out enough demonstrators and create mass arrests that would fill the jails.” If there were enough demonstrators the social order could be changed and the movement would be successful.
______________________________________________________________________________

Please note here the method David Hornbeck, author of Goals 2000 A Plus "grassroots" "education reformation" in 1990s recommended in Human Capital. 


Court orders can be exceptionally good vehicles for creating a sufficient sense of crisis and an imperative to act so that supporting legislation can be enacted. 


 ____________________________________________________________________________


(Page 9)
Appropriation of Existing Organizations, Institutions and Cultural Forms
People should actively appropriate existing institutions and cause them to become more radical; change their mission and how they operate (thereby becoming useful for transgressive politics). Examples are Black churches in 50’s and 60’s. Churches saw their mission as a preparation for salvation. The churches were appropriated and became tools of the civil rights movement.
Creation of Regional Organizations
“Piven and Cloward contend that organizations weaken social movements, because political insurgency tends to be abandoned as groups build hierarchy and procedure, and cooperate with government bureaucracies in attempts to further the interest of their members.” Aldon Morris contests this theory stating without the SCLC, the civil rights movement might have failed. The author discusses civil rights leaders and their accomplishments regarding mass mobilization.
Centrality of Youth
Ms. Anyon relates an argument by Bob Moses that we can’t count on adults because of lack of time or economic independence enjoyed by the white man. Consequently, young people must organize and be the agents of political and social change.  She hopes to appropriate the anger of youth to constructive political ends.
Community Organizing
One of the most important strategies of the civil rights movement was community organizing. Neutralizing Black middle class leaders was an important first step.
Social Construction of New Identities through Participation in Transgressive Politics
“To activate people to create or join a social movement, it is important to actually involve them in protest activity of some kind.” Participating in contention creates new politicized characteristics.
Appropriation of Threat
“Nonviolent civil disobedience was a process long used by Black activists.” The hope that staging a nonviolent protest would cause the oppressor to react violently and discredit himself. This is fundamental to the Ghandian concept.
(Page 10)
The Process of Legitimation
“Social movement theory and the history of political movements – in this case civil rights – provide a rich tapestry of possibility. Images of suffering, rebellion and victory grace the walls of the American past. If we are willing, we can appropriate this brocade, and design the future with it.”
Chapter 9 – Building a New Social Movement
In this chapter, Ms. Anton repeats information from previous chapters regarding the importance of a new social movement.
New social movement should:1. Double the minimum wage.2. Create decently paying jobs in cities.3. Provide transportation to suburban jobs.4. Tax great personal and corporate wealth to pay for this public investment and share proceeds with rich and poor municipalities across the U.S. metro areas.
We should mobilize underlying rage and channel that energy that is released for the new social movement.
Two existing social movements that have been successful are ACORN and IAF.The IAF trains neighborhood residents and leaders in ten day institutes that help residents with skills of organizing, etc.
Attribution of Opportunity
“Urban-suburban coalitions of distressed, segregated school districts could force the issue of equitable funding in metro areas and the many states that have had legal challenges to the constitutionality of existing school finance.”
Ms. Anton goes onto discuss technological developments to mobilize urban communities. She mentions actions and success of Moveon.org.
Outsiders and Cultural Brokers
Residents of urban neighborhoods, adults and youth, should not be expected to organize a movement on their own. There are sympathetic citizens that are bicultural, bi-class brokers that should take advantage of their relatively privileged position to provide opportunities and encourage urban residents
(Page 11)
to explain their grievances and articulate a strategy and – most important – to engage in contentions politics.
Appropriation of Social Networks
If the 7.5 million grassroots organizations and the several thousand Community Development Corporations were working together toward a common goal they would constitute a vast national network that would be significant in a social movement.
In this section, Ms. Anyon also discusses differences in generations and the importance of bridging the gap for the sake of movement building.  She further states there is “little agreement between members of old and young in the African American community today”. The generations are even suspicious of one another. She also mentions the history of African American churches supporting social justice mobilizing. She brings up that point that these same churches currently are not as concerned about “social uplift”.
Chapter 10 – Putting Education at the Center
In this last chapter, Ms. Anyon repeats some of her thoughts. She also mentions Bill Gates Foundation and the Soros Foundation and the dollars they donated to create new small schools for inner city students in New York. Another organization, Pacific Institute for Community Organizing, is a national network of community based organizations. Ms. Anyon stated the organization facilitates exchanges between networks of school reformers and organizers.
Acquiring Community Organizing Skills
Ms. Anyon provides six suggestions for organizing parents in extended issue campaigns. Following is a short synopsis:
1. Choose issues from the bottom up. Issues should come from parents, students and other residents.2. Begin to build a community constituency for long range reform.3. Locate key school and district personnel who can assist with problems you want to address.4. Develop a program of needed changes and present it to authorities. Plan demonstrations an other activities.5. Develop a plan for what to do when people in power ignore you, etc. 6. Keep pressure on administrations and officials by demonstrations and actions of various sorts.
Classrooms as Movement Building Spaces
In this section, Ms. Anton promotes strategies for teachers to engage their students in civic activism and provides examples from the Philadelphia School System.
(Page 12)
Mapping Community Assets
Mapping community assets is an activity to engage students in researching their neighborhoods for community resources that could be useful to make the neighborhood a better place to live and work. Included in the assets would be the “gifts, skills and capacities of the community’s residents”. Power Analysis
“A power analysis identifies a problem faced by students or other community residents and asks the following kinds of questions:
1. Who is impacted by the problem?2. Who makes the decisions that affect the immediate situation?3. Who makes the decisions that determine what those individuals or groups do and say?4. What kind of informal influence or formal power do they have?5. What kinds of informal influence or formal power do community residents have over the situation? 6. Whose interests are affected by decisions that have been made? 7. Who are potential allies in an attempt to solve the problem.
Developing an Issue Campaign
“One key to developing an issue campaign with students is to break the overall task – say, a campaign for immigrant students’ rights into manageable pieces…”
When working with youth use their own cultural modes. Example: “…a youth organizer in Oakland, CA took a group of her students to a concert by the Hip Hop group Dead Prez, a politically progressive group.” She reported: “Attending the concert was an incredible political education for the students because they related so well to the medium in which the political message was delivered.”This section goes on to list the steps to take in order to have a successful campaign when working with young people on issues. One suggestion is to have teachers and students work together and protest together. An anecdotal protest in Chicago had students and teachers both taking part targeting the board of education. They protested the U.S. military budget supporting the war in Iraq and depleting money available for public education. (A write-up of the “Rally” is on Page 195, Radical Possibilities)
“Long ago, community organizing icon Saul Alinsky pioneered the use of conventions to establish unified agendas and strategies among groups (Shaw 2001, p. 258) and such an approach seems crucial to the creation of synergy and impact today.”


























Conclusion
In closing, Ms. Anyon states: “This reorientation of education policy is unabashedly radical and brings me to a final point. Whether one is born to radicalism or acquires it along the way, the premises on
(Page 13)
which it rests affirm the deeply rooted connections and disjunctures between democracy and capitalism.”
“Public policies regarding economic and social equity ought to be among the strategies we propose in our attempt to increase urban school quality.”
Radical PossibilitiesReviewed by:Pat EllisOctober 4, 2017--------------------------------------------------------------------------




 WHAT IS EQUITY? Leveling to make sure everyone has the same. Equity and Freedom cannot co-exist. A mountain must be leveled to make a valley equal and so in education must excellence be leveled to make all the same.
Hasn’t this been tried before? Pictured above the Title of this page is Antonio Gramsci: Intellectual and politician, a founder of the Italian Communist Party whose ideas greatly influenced Italian communism.  And then we have Russia under Stalin. Only Communism/Socialism didn’t work. The enforcers of this philosophy eliminated challengers. With no incentive to excel, the people starved.
Ayn Rand











WELCOME TO COMMON CORE: SEE ALSO:

COMMON CORE IN BAY DISTRICT SCHOOLS

COMMON CORE IN BAY DISTRICT SCHOOLS

I know all of you want an atheist globalist writing the curriculum your children are taught. No?? Then why do you put up with your children using online text books by Pearson Publishers, the largest international publisher of INTERNATIONAL (a.k.a. globalist)  instructional materials under the direction of atheist globalist Sir Michael Barber?

There it is. Common Core. You paid for it. Your school board bought it.  Now your child (my granddaughter) will be an automaton for Bill Gates and Pearson Publishing -- and therefore atheist, globalist Sir Michael Barber, chief executive officer of the Pearson Foundation. Perhaps now you understand the disrespect for our flag. Globalists want to undermine patriotism and dismantle national borders. Bill Gates wants to data mine (very lucrative) your children through the “testing”  and expand the market for his product -- computers. Pearson also benefits because every three years you have to renew the “license” to use their software. Quite an international collusion there.
As you can see Bay District Schools has committed to having Technology embedded in every subject your child (my grandchild) takes. And we have been brainwashed to think that if a kid has a computer he will automatically be educated. Really? What if the power goes out?


So who is Sir Michael Barber and since he is a Sir, we ought to think that he is something special, right? And Bill Gates is rich! That makes him smart enough to know what ought to go into your children (my granddaughter)’s mind. Right? So why do so many people across the country hate their product? COMMON CORE . So why does everybody Hate Pearson?




“Pearson’s theoretician is Michael Barber, its chief education adviser. Barber, 59, may today be the single most influential educator on the face of the earth. A onetime professor at the University of London, he still has the distant, abstracted air of an academic. Barber was a key architect of England’s educational reform under then-Prime Minister Tony Blair, which involved closing underperforming schools and toughening national standards. Blair later asked Barber to apply the same approach to other services. (His work earned him a knighthood.) After leaving government, Barber became the head of McKinsey’s education practice, then moved to Pearson in 2011. In 2013 he published a report, “The Good News From Pakistan,” examining the positive results of his education philosophy—which has the uneuphonious name “deliverology”—in that country’s Punjab region.”


I love it, don’t you? Think he can speak Southern? Understand our children? Share our values? Do you want your child educated with Sir Michael Barber’s atheistic world view? 
He sees your child (my grandchild) as being human capital for the global economy --or would you rather your tax dollars go to paying good teachers that will give your child (my grandchild) a real education that would open the windows of opportunity to whatever they choose to be?

Do you have a choice with Sir Michael Barber, Bill Ayers, Arne Duncan, David Coleman and Jason Zimba having been the architects of COMMON CORE? Read it.

The information below is from the Common Core and the Culture War Common Core is financed with over $150 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The collaboration of the Gates Foundation and the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has been well publicized.  In addition, Gates, on behalf of his Microsoft Corporation, signed a 26-page Cooperation Agreement in 2004 between Microsoft and UNESCO to develop a “master curriculum” which included benchmarks and assessments.  The agreement stipulates that “UNESCO will explore how to facilitate content development.” (See also: 

Really?!!!!!!!!! We have two military bases here. Is this what you want going into your child’s mind? UNESCO facilitating the content of what your child learns? You must be kidding me!
The major writers of Common Core included David Coleman, known as the architect of Common Core. He is the son of the former president of Bennington College, Liz Coleman, graduate of the University of Chicago, a big proponent of big government and Marxist ideology. Coleman’s prior association with Ayers, Obama and Arne Duncan probably helped his appointment. Or it could be his philosophy: “These standards are the most serious attempt this country has yet made to come to grips with those early sources of inequality.” He has no background as a teacher. He is also president of the College Board (yearly salary $550,000 total compensation $750,000) and will make changes to the SAT to make it more socially just. (This should set up red alert warning flags for Home and Christian schooled children who will need to pass these tests to get into college.)
Coleman’s childhood friend, Jason Zimba, teaches mathematical physics at Bennington College and like Coleman attended Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He admitted that his creation, the Common Core math standards, would only prepare students for a minimum junior college level--not STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).



Coleman and Zimba, co-founders of the New York based GROW network, came to Chicago to produce data studies for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) at the time Obama was on the CAC Board, brought on board by Bill Ayers and Chicago’s Superintendent of Schools, Arne Duncan--later U.S. Secretary of Education. CAC paid $2.2 million for the services of Coleman and Zimba in data studies.

I challenge you to look at the guide to assessments (testing) for children for Bay District Schools.

You tell me, do you think this is objective? Do you think this is grade appropriate? Look at the grading, what are they really seeking in this? Perhaps attitude toward something? Beliefs? Computers (CAI) are not so good at teaching. They are pretty good at changing attitudes and beliefs.
Who grades these tests?
Do you think these are high enough standards for those who determine the future of your child (my grandchild) and their teacher? Who cannot see the tests or results, by the way. Nor can their parents.










Perhaps an inkling on how to manipulate your child (my grandchild)’s beliefs? And then sell it to the highest bidder?

 This is what you pay for the privilege of taking those tests. (Just the beginning).
And this is what those tests produce.

 But for Bill Gates, he will have collected the data, reaped profit from sales of assessments, computers, licensing, laptops, you name it....



 Welcome to COMMON CORE! SEE ALSO: 

COMMON CORE MATH

First, understand that MANY teachers in the trenches reject Common Core --Math and everything else!
Dr. James Milligram speaks on what happened on the Validation Committee on Common Core on which he sat. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HM8... He was one of only two educators involved in validating the Common Core Standards. The other, Dr. Sandra Stotsky, also refused to sign on to the Standards. 

So, what did we get? A weak Algebra II-- at Dr. Milligram’s insistence. 

From the chart below you can see that compared to the chart below only 7% of students who have only Algebra 1 WILL EVEN CONTINUE TO COMPLETE AN EARNED BACHELOR’S DEGREE. That is how handicapped our children will be with Common Core. 

 Look here to see where ACHIEVE appears on this chart. Where is your state, your school board? Parents? Whatever happened to local control of education? 

 No Pilots! No Research! No Vetting! So who was the lead writer and what did he say about the Math standards? 



















The major writers of Common Core included David Coleman, known as the architect of Common Core. His degree is in Sociology. He is the son of the former president of Bennington College, Liz Coleman, graduate of the University of Chicago, a big proponent of big government and Marxist ideology. Coleman’s prior association with Ayers, Obama and Arne Duncan probably helped his appointment. Or it could be his philosophy: “These standards are the most serious attempt this country has yet made to come to grips with those early sources of inequality.” He has no background as a teacher. He is a Sociologist! 




He is also president of the College Board (yearly salary $550,000 total compensation $750,000) and will make changes to the SAT to make it more socially just. (This should set up red alert warning flags for Home and Christian schooled children who will need to pass these tests to get into college.)Coleman’s childhood friend, Jason Zimba, teaches mathematical physics at Bennington College and like Coleman attended Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He admitted that his creation, the Common Core math standards, would only prepare students for a minimum junior college level--not STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math). 


Coleman and Zimba, co-founders of the New York based GROW network, came to Chicago to produce data studies for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) at the time Obama was on the CAC Board brought on board by Bill Ayers and Chicago’s Superintendent of Schools, Arne Duncan--later U.S. Secretary of Education. CAC paid $2.2 million for the services of Coleman and Zimba in data studies. It was this relationship that threw these people together. 


Now, you know Bill Gates put about 8 billion dollars into this. He will make a lot more on the data he collects and sells on our children. But, his children will not be affected. They attend a private school. But, your children and my grandchildren are guinea pigs. So he can play Russian roulette with our children, but not his own.


Coleman’s childhood friend, Jason Zimba, teaches mathematical physics at Bennington College and like Coleman attended Oxford as a Rhodes Scholar. He admitted that his creation, the Common Core math standards, would only prepare students for a minimum junior college level--not STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).  


So, while Dr. Milligram blames Bill Gates, David Coleman, Jason Zimba, and all of those agencies participating above, he postulates this rhetorical question and lets someone else answer for him below. 


And so we return to the title at the top of this page. What is the real goal of Math Education that has led us to this point?  The radical agenda hidden within the Common Core curriculum has been a part of the colleges of education for quite awhile. It is just now, with the uproar over what has become so obvious with Common Core, that parents have become educated to how this movement has become so entrenched within our schools. 

You must remember that the purpose of education these days is producing Social Justice and EQUITY. That means you must lower the standards so that everyone can RACE TO THE TOP (see the chart above on the Race to the Top (RTT). So where is the TOP? Much lower.

 




Now, if that makes sense to you, you will love Common Core. But to the rest of us, those of us who believe that children are individuals who are unique in their talents and abilities. Do they try to help all children play the violin at the same level, sing at the same level, run triathlons at the same time?



Integrating Sex Ed in Math Education.
You thought we were making this up, didn’t you? 






Just curious. I wonder how many of you think this is developmentally appropriate for 3rd graders? I wonder what our teachers think. These screen shots came from the website for the Florida Standards Assessment.





I do not remember my children reading on this level in the third grade.




I am sure all of you parents have been there. No? Well I challenge you to check it out now. And remember this is just what they permit you to see!  Just another example from their Reading (English Language Assessment ELA)A.
Do you think there is an agenda hidden within this paragraph?
Math fairness?

COMMON CORE: PORNOGRAPHY 101

You realize, of course, that sex education has now been politicized.  And it is integrated into every subject throughout the curriculum K-12 in the Common Core curriculum under the aegis of Pearson Publishing led by atheist, globalist Sir Michael Bailey. Common Core has nothing to do with academic excellence. It has everything to do with social engineering. 


You know that the Guttmacher Foundation works hand and glove with Planned Parenthood. This is their definition of comprehensive sexuality education.

There has even been a set of Sexuality Standards to be taught in Common Core. Let me remind you once more, it will be integrated into every subject including Math and English beginning in Kindergarten. 


I would challenge their definition of “health”. 


Washington State Sex Education aligned theirs to the above. 



What is age appropriate about Kindergarten sex education? I thought parents had control of the attitudes and beliefs of their children!


 Sex skills?  Is this what they consider Age Appropriate? 





I guess this must be considered age appropriate because it is a cute unicorn. And this is only the beginning. 



Respect. How do you measure respect? What is the government definition of respect. That is Bill Gates, Sir Michael Barber (atheist globalist in charge of Pearson curriculum and testing), David Coleman (Sociologist, architect of Common core and now the College Boards), Bill Ayers (anarchist, $100,000 a speech on Implementation of Socialism in Schools) because that is who developed this crazy federal domination of education known as COMMON CORE. 


Practice skills? Variety of Assessments? 


"...think they should act? 



How do you measure respect?



If, as a person of Faith, your world view is different. Does that mean you don’t have enough “respect.” We know how tolerant these people are of other perspectives. Through their indoctrination, if you do not accept their world view (respect) you must be re-educated. They do have their methods of evaluating whether one respects something or not. They were revealed in a document that described the attitudes they are trying to create in each child. Your child (and you because you planted those beliefs in your child) will reveal those attitudes not only in class and in tests they take, but by biometric evaluations revealed in a document now taken down from the internet, but found and screen shots taken before it was removed.

Below you can see the Agenda inclusion in a plan for Multicultural education, another instance of “integrating” all in every subject throughout the curriculum.
 







Really? A Social Construct?







Age appropriate? Theory driven? ( MEANING YOUR KID IS A GUINEA PIG) And you trust these people. Why? You think your teacher is prepared to be a psychotherapist to a classroom of children (your child) each an individual. Do you think he/she has any idea of how your child responds to this? Do you think she/he cares?
Can you imagine any anyone deeming this appropriate -- especially educators?


Middle School Girls Forced to Ask Classmates for Lesbian Kiss

Sex Ed Integrated into Math Education. 



When you see the word Health think SEX. 





So, after all of that “education” you will probably have need of an abortion clinic.

Who are you? Just a Parent?

Had an interesting experience today at a church group meeting. I am a member of that group and I wanted to invite this group of Christian women to the Panhandle Eagle Forum meeting. I said, "I would like to invite you to the Panhandle Eagle Forum meeting a week from Thursday at noon at the Bay County Library. Eunie Smith, President of the Eagle Forum, will be there to speak on the Eagle Forum, Common Core and more. If you don't know about Common Core, please watch the video with Dr. Duke Pesta Common Core --Six Years Later. Common Core is here in our schools."
I started telling them about the graphic sex in the American Experience Literature 11th grade specifically the recommendation for Toni Morrison's The Bluest Eyesand how graphic it was. I have a granddaughter in the 9th who may eventually be affected by this. I also expressed my concerns about the Common Core inclusion of teaching Kindergarten children how to know if they were transgender, gay, or lesbian introducing pre-schoolers to age inappropriate sex education being required to be INTEGRATED into the curriculum. (I have grandsons this age.)
Suddenly one of the attendees interrupted saying, "I have LET you speak before."
I couldn't help but say, "Thank you for LETTING me speak."
"But I cannot sit here and listen to this propaganda," she continued.
I persisted, "Christian women ought to be concerned."
She said, "I was a principal." (As if that meant she was an expert on Common Core and what works in education.)
"But, Common Core is new," I responded.
She said, "No, it isn't."
As if that made it better? Really? That was a sad admission. So, now what failed before has been canonized in Common Core?
Then another former music teacher spoke up and said, "You just don't know about what the Black children live in. Toni Morrison's story is just the kind of thing those children experience!"
Well, first of all, who gave the former principal the authority to LET me to speak? That is freedom of speech, isn't it? Or is that another example of the Left attempting to silence the Right. Where did the Left ever come up with the idea that they have the RIGHT TO SILENCE others.
Secondly, she was a principal? I wanted to say, "Oh, then, we have you to blame for the continued failure of our schools. Isn't that why Race to the Top and then Common Core got into our schools in the first place? Everyone felt they "had to do SOMETHING" because things were so bad?"
But I didn't. I did not persist because that would have been bad manners. So I took a deep breath and the program ended. I left.
JUST CURIOUS--WHY DO WE LISTEN TO THOSE WHO PRODUCED THE PROBLEM TELL US HOW TO FIX IT?
And then to the woman who defended the use of pornography in the classroom, I wanted to say, "Don't those children who might have experienced rape and incest have the right to NOT to be mentally raped again? You really consider that (what I think they justify calling it authentic texts) worthy of 11th grade literature. Couldn't you expose them to tried and true classics? What is the REAL AGENDA FOR THIS?
How dare our schools allow curriculum that will Rape the Minds of those innocents who have NOT experienced incest and rape?
And...isn't assuming that Rape is a Normal part of the Black experience CONDESCENDING?
Why don't ALL CHILDREN have the right to an education that will prepare them academically for whatever the world might send them opening windows of opportunity with quality instruction for reading, Math, History, etc. rather than the condescension of assuming we should lower the standards of academics, civility AND COMMON DECENCY in effect giving that pornography the endorsement of the education establishment!
Needless to say, I came home with my tail tucked between my legs. Discouraged. I admit to feeling as if I had been struck by a woman prominent in the organization of the church.
Joe said, "Sharman what did you expect? If you stand up for something you truly believe there are those who will try to silence you or intimidate you into backing down."
I've been there before. I will do it again. It would be easier if God had called me to Uganda to build missions. It is quite difficult when going to "the ends of the earth" happens to be your own town.
This was indeed a wake-up call. The LEFT has an agenda. They blame us for challenging that agenda and want to silence us. They promote this agenda under the guise of social justice-- a term that sounds so righteous. And yet, the purpose is not social justice, but the undermining of the values that founded our country and seeking to establish an atheist globalist, one world order--though those individual teachers did realize this!
It is our wonderful culture that has produced the greatest Social Justice the world has ever seen. Their version would create a nation of slaves because the uneducated are so gullible and defenseless.Too many have "drunk the Kool Aid" and simply circle the wagons defending whatever comes down from the central office.
These two ladies are lovely people. But, we have a serious difference of opinion (as Christians, fellow educators, and citizens) on what the purpose is for sending our children to school where we entrust them to those who assume en loco parentis position when we walk them to those school house doors. That is an awesome responsibility and not one teachers or parents should take lightly.Ironically, I spent an hour yesterday with a young mother bemoaning how the new Math was creating a very, very sad and emotionally drained fourth grader. She was herself quite frustrated because she did not have a clue how to help her daughter with it! I could relate. My own granddaughter here in Panama City did the same thing. And that was when I started digging deeper into what once more was happening in my profession."As a man thinketh, so is he."This experience reminded me of when nearly thirty years ago I sought to find out more information about a “new” “innovative” program our school system (then Dothan, Alabama) was putting into the high school our daughter would be attending. It was the Four Period Day (Block Scheduling). Being a teacher myself, I wanted to know the research that supported this program. I called the central office and they put me through to one of the Instructional Directors.
She asked,“Who are you? Just a parent?”
I have never forgotten that. I was not “just a parent.” I was/am the mother of a precious child who only gets one shot at an education. But, I was also a very disillusioned teacher who saw children in my seventh and eighth grade classes unable to read their secondary textbooks. I looked at their permanent record and saw that some had made all As in elementary school. But when that mental rolodex of memorized words was insufficient to reading secondary material, they had no attack skills (Phonics), could not sound out a word!
I had asked for research to support the Whole Language Method being so highly touted in the local college of education (Troy State Dothan) and then sought it out in the textbooks they use to teach teachers to teach reading and found only a couple of mentions of Phonics. Yet, my children had attended a private Christian school with the ABEKA curriculum and had no trouble sounding out words and read proficiently on a very high level. I asked the Dean of Auburn University what research he had that supported Whole Language and his response was “I don’t have any. It is current wisdom.”
So, needless to say, I had little faith that this new innovation, Block Scheduling, would have any either, but I persisted. Finally we were told that some teachers/administrators had gone to Frederich, Maryland to talk to folks there that had used the method for a couple of months and they “loved it.” Well, that didn’t give anyone much time to evaluate or validate, so we called there and asked the principal at that high school for his research and he cited a study by Dr. David Bateman in Canada. My husband, an attorney, tracked Dr. Bateman down to where he was vacationing and he faxed us his study that concluded that Block Scheduling, the Four Period Day, was “detrimental to academic achievement.”
Well, there you have just a couple of reasons I have no faith in innovations in education. This is my profession. I have a BSE from the University of Alabama and a MSE from Troy University. I have served as an adjunct professor of Western Civilization at TSUD and Gulf Coast. I also write historical fiction and cozy mysteries, but that has nothing to do with this. What I am attempting to say in my bumbling fashion is that Colleges of Education and School Boards are notorious for using our children as guinea pigs.
Though we tried to get the research to parents with Block Scheduling, the Director of Instruction silenced us and used my child as one of her guinea pigs for her dissertation on the effect of Block Scheduling on Math education. She later became Superintendent of another School System. My child went on to become a computer engineer. But, she was not helped along by being a lab rat.
Though I tried to get true information about Whole Language out to the public, the Whole Language Hootenanny with the teachers throughout the area supporting the Reading instructor at TSUD shouted us down and resulted in robbing children of the major purpose of school--proficiency in reading. Today the greatest outrage is Common Core Math, but that is only the most obvious to parents. Somehow with reading parents have been convinced that their child’s problem in reading is some disability and not as Dr. Samuel Orton, founder of the Dyslexia Society, called it -- school induced dyslexia with the methods they use to “teach” reading. (Then they are offered remediation through the school in the method that caused the problem and continue through life “learning disabled” ADD, etc.)
There is so much more to that story, but the gist of it is, it is happening to an even greater degree now with Common Core. This is every problem just mentioned on steroids. Not only undermining basic skills like Reading and Math but undermining the very fabric of our society with Sex Education, and the atheist, globalist agenda to destroy patriotism and nationalism through Multiculturalism and Social Studies. And now, it is more than the colleges of education, it is a cabal of special interests (Bill Gates, Pearson Publishing, and the usual Social Justice ideologues--Bill Ayers, David Coleman, architect of common core, Jason Zimba, Arne Duncan).
And yet, we are forced to send our children to these schools with no input as to whether we want our children to become Social Justice warriors taking tests data mining information and modeling their attitudes and beliefs under the guise of “education.”

I am now not just a parent of three, I am also just a grandparent of five. I am so much more than “just a parent.” And that is why I am involved in Eagle Forum. Because together we can make a difference. Together, they must listen. And together, perhaps...we can save our children!

Common Core = Petri Dish for Radicals

When you see the term Whole Language always replace it with Progressive Education. Reading is basic to education.  As a teacher, this was where I first saw education co-opted by the radicals. Throughout this article I will quote from the Whole Language Catalog, published in 1991, written by Ken and Yetta Goodman with Lois Bird, the Bible or Manifesto, of the Progressive Left in Education.
Whole Language Catalog

 “ We are not just asking for a change in the teaching of reading, but a radical change in the society and political structure of schooling and society (Giroux and McLaren, 1986).” And so it began. We all wondered why our schools produced so many illiterates. I guess it really began with John Dewey. Or maybe Horace Mann.

“We who are engaged in the sacred cause of education are entitled to look upon all parents as having given hostages to our cause.” Enlightening, isn’t it? So, when your child enters a government school you have sacrificed your child to their cause. Think again when you hear someone espouse their “belief” in public school.
Their disciples are alive and well in the colleges of education. I will quote from their philosophers. Let me introduce you to Paolo Freire, an obvious hero for this Leftist Movement to control our schools. He was instrumental in Nicaragua as a defrocked Marxist Jesuit priest who fomented liberation theology before being invited by Harvard to be a visiting professor. He published Pedagogy of the Oppressed in 1968. In 1979 Jimmy Carter advocated for a Cabinet level Department of Education and America gave away local control of education to the radical educators of the time in spite of a violation of the 10th Amendment that should have kept Education with the States.  This philosophy now dominates the colleges of education. Freire is known as the father of liberation pedagogy.

Did you know that when you sent your child to become a teacher? Or chose that profession yourself? Or sent a child into that school?Paolo Freire, Freire for the Classroom: A Sourcebook for Liberatory Teaching:


This is a great discovery, education is politics! When a teacher discovers that he or she is a politician, too, the teacher has to ask, What kind of politics am I doing in the classroom? That is, in favor of whom am I being a teacher? The teacher works in favor of something and against something. Because of that, he or she will have another great question, How to be consistent in my teaching practice with my political choice? I cannot proclaim my liberating dream and in the next day be authoritarian in my relationship with the students.
Freire has been quite influential. This is a screen shot from Google on Freire and Harvard. And these are just a few.

As they reveal here ...”their Eurocentric culturally dominated curricula must be rejected as resistant to seeing schools as places for educating students to be critical citizens in a vital democratic society. On the other hand progressive views of literacy must openly acknowledge their own pedagogical practice that deepen the goals of democratic struggle and cultural justice.”

Whole Language Catalog
Now, you and I thought we were sending our children to school to learn to read, write and calculate. We wanted a cultural literacy to be shared with our children so that we might all assimilate into this wonderful America. Instead, Education was hijacked to become “Transformative Pedagogy.”

Whole Language CatalogTime progressed and Freire became a hero of the Harvard Leftists.




Bill Gates funded Common Core. Common Core is financed with over $150 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The collaboration of the Gates Foundation and the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has been well publicized.  In addition, Gates, on behalf of his Microsoft Corporation, signed a 26-page Cooperation Agreement in 2004 between Microsoft and UNESCO to develop a “master curriculum” which included benchmarks and assessments.  The agreement stipulates that “UNESCO will explore how to facilitate content development.”
Common Core fits right in with the goals of Agenda 21 of the United Nations:



...It is also critical for achieving environmental and ethical awareness, values and attitudes, skills and behavior consistent with sustainable development and for effective public participation in decision-making. To be effective, environment and development education should deal with the dynamics of both the physical/biological and socio-economic environment and human (which may include spiritual development, should be integrated in all disciplines...
Now Bill Gates and the United Nations are who I would have chosen to determine what my child learns in school. Wouldn’t you? I am being sarcastic here.






Whose advice would Gates have sought in redesigning education?
How about Harvard?

And, of course, those involved in the Chicago Annenberg Project. The major writers of Common Core included David Coleman, known as the architect of Common Core. He is the son of the former president of Bennington College, Liz Coleman, graduate of the University of Chicago, a big proponent of big government and Marxist ideology. Coleman’s prior association with Bill Ayers, Barach Obama and Arne Duncan probably helped his appointment. Or it could be Coleman’s philosophy: “These standards are the most serious attempt this country has yet made to come to grips with those early sources of inequality.” He has no background as a teacher. He is also president of the College Board (yearly salary $550,000 total compensation $750,000) and will make changes to the SAT to make it more socially just. (This should set up red alert warning flags for Home and Christian schooled children who will need to pass these tests to get into college.)
Coleman and Zimba, co-founders of the New York based GROW network, came to Chicago to produce data studies for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC) at the time Obama was on the CAC Board brought on board by Bill Ayers and Chicago’s Superintendent of Schools, Arne Duncan--later U.S. Secretary of Education. CAC paid $2.2 million for the services of Coleman and Zimba in data studies.
And now we get back to Paulo Freire, a Harvard idol.
Freire brought great influence on Common Core Math. As you can see, “Paulo Freire’s critical education theory is “re-invented” in the context of application to teaching basic mathematics ...”



“...teaching mathematics for social justice course assisted, in part, in providing not only a new language but also a legitimization in teachers becoming critical mathematics pedagogues.”

 Is it any wonder our children are not taught to truly add, subtract, multiply or divide. That is not the purpose. They are to explicitly connect issues of social justice, not competent computational skills. We must lower the standards to produce equity, not excellence.

Now, since you can figure out where all of this came from, let’s get a bit more of the Whole Language Catalog supported with such vehement evangelistic fervor by our teachers.

The potential for equalizing and democratizing the schools leads to the issue of how whole language changes the power base of traditional schools as well as society. Paulo Freire (1970) points out that traditional approaches to learning and literacy create a group of passive objects in which knowledge is deposited, instead of a group of active subjects capable of transcending and transforming their sociopolitical reality. In a skills approach the learners, especially low-income and minority students, are treated as passive objects who aren't expected to act on their environment.



I ran for the Dothan School Board in the early nineties. It was difficult, but I finally got to read the By-Laws, something one might think is important to understand. One fact jumped out at me. Learning was to be SEQUENTIAL... building from simple to complex, from smaller to larger skills. The Whole Language Catalog explains this below through their chart of contrasting models of education --Transmission model (Traditional Education) as contrasted to the Transactional Model (Whole Language a.k.a. Progressive/Common Core). Remember now, this is from the Whole Language Catalog. This is what they are telling you about themselves.
TRANSMISSION/TRADITIONALEmphasis on direct teaching, controlled by the program and secondly by the teacher. (Contemptuously referred to as sage on the stage)Behaviorist model of learningLearning is viewed as a matter of building from simple to complex, from smaller to larger skillsSince correctness is valued, risk-taking is discouraged/penalizedAll learners are expected to master what is taught, when it is taught, thus, most children experience varying degrees of failureAbility to reproduce or verbalize a predetermined correct response as taken as evidence of learning.
From the Whole Language CatalogI lost. The system got the candidate elected whose campaign they ran from the central office.  Goals 2000 came about and the move to Delphi the public to consensus succeeded. Our board paid an “expert” probably about $100,000 to rewrite our bylaws. And that is when the Transactional model was adopted. It happened all around the country.
TRANSACTIONAL/PROGRESSIVE/WHOLE LANGUAGEEmphasis on learning which is facilitated, but not directly controlled by the teacher. (Guide on the side)

Cognitive/social model of learning (e.g. Vygotsky, Halliday)Smaller “parts” of a task are seen as more readily learned within the context of a meaningful whole.

Learning is seen as a result of complex cognitive processes that can be facilitatedby teachers and enhanced by “peer interaction.

Risk-taking and hence “errors,” is seen as absolutely essential for learning.

Learners are expected to be at different stages and to develop at their own pace, in their own ways, there is no concept of “failure.”

Ability to apply knowledge and to think in novel ways is considered as evidence of learning as is the ability to use general strategies across the wide range of tasks and contexts. ____________________________________________Well, I don’t know about you, but this makes me very nervous about the bridges they will build and the planes they will design and repair. I cannot believe that thinking people could have bought this and responded with such fervor to put this into our schools!

So, from SEQUENTIAL learning they went to THEMATIC teaching. Now, can you understand here how foundational knowledge has been lost? They will take a single topic and INTEGRATE these different subjects based on a single theme. What if they take the dropping of the bomb on Nagasaki and Hiroshima? Will they have learned what led up to that or how many lives were actually saved by that action? In taking ancient Egypt, do you think they acknowledge that Jews were slaves there and built pyramids? That slavery existed in Africa then and throughout the history of the world. Even today in parts of the world?
From the Whole Language Catalog
Integrated Curriculum and Thematic Learning are one and the same.




Just so you know --Sex Education is also INTEGRATED across the curriculum. What else might be INTEGRATED across the curriculum? Makes it hard to OPT OUT in any way, doesn’t it?


From the very beginning children are tracked on the basis of socioeconomic and cultural background. This is achieved initially by imposing expectations and criteria for the kinds of literacy experiences and abilities that will “count” as evidence for reading and writing development. The book-reading event is the most highly valued literacy experience prior school. Academically related activities and abilities, such as displaying knowledge about print letters and the alphabet are highly valued. These experiences are primarily associated with middle-class children.


Print letter and the alphabet are HIGHLY VALUED? Associated with MIDDLE CLASS children?

Therefore, I guess, Phonics must be withheld for all children to level the playing field? Make reading equitable?
The answer to that is to do away with books!

“...for a sizable percentage of the population, books are downright discriminatory.” Interesting thought to plant in a child’s brain.


All the research proves that children who are taught to read phonetically (across all socioeconomic groups) are better readers (with astronomically fewer dyslexics, by the way?). In addition, those children also score better in Math because their first introduction to school is abstract thinking. So now, we withhold direct instruction in Math!




Can you understand how anyone would think the methods below actually teach children to be proficient readers? These children would need someone to follow them around all the time to tell them what the word is with this “method”. No wonder they get frustrated. Do you see sounding out a word or breaking it into syllables as attack skills? But then, their favored reading specialist is Dr. Ken Goodman who wrote Reading a Psycholinguistic Guessing Game (1968).  Guessing seems to be their favorite method for Reading and Estimation for Math!


Is it any wonder parents must have their children remediated because of their lack of comprehension? They cannot get enough words that make sense out of a sentence by the time they get to the end of it with these attack skills to comprehend the meaning! I saw that happen over and over in my classroom!


Quite a contrast to Webster’s Blue Back Speller with which generations of immigrants and the natural born citizens of this country learned to read. You can see the difference here. Teachers taught directly the sounds of the alphabet. They did not instruct them to look at the picture (no pictures), say the beginning sound, think of a word that begins with the same letter, does that word fit? Skip over the word and go on. Go back to the beginning and start over. Then just ask for help. Of course, they don’t read those words of instruction. They have pictographs to remind them. They are going all around the country to keep from having to give the children the phonetic keys to our language.
Breaking words into syllables. No Guessing here.
And then look at the morally uplifting material the child read.
What a difference.
And here is Estimation. Are absolutes obsolete?


 The Delphi Technique was used in many places to bring groups to thinking they had developed consensus on these issues.




Is the Delphi Technique unethical? Remember reading above about Agenda 21 and effective public participation in decision making? That is where you will see the Delphi technique at play once more.
“...It has evidently become popular within politics to give the impression that public input is actually having an impact on decisions when in reality, the decision has been made already, and the group is being guided, unknowingly, toward that end...”

http://www.leadershiptechniquesllc.co... then we come to Co-operative/Group Learning and Peer Tutoring. After all of the above you probably understand that the purpose of this is to undermine individual rights and re-enforce group rights -- Capitalism versus the rights of the Collective. We are breeding little Socialists. These folks are very much aware that you model behavior to mold attitudes and beliefs.


...A National Middle School Association conference promoted cooperative learning as an “essential” classroom practice because it directs competition away from individual performance and toward a group identity.
And there you have it. With Common Core we have the Standards, Curriculum and Assessments all bound together and cemented in concrete to indoctrinate and collect data cradle to grave on our children and through them each of us.





And like sheep we accept it? Why is this not like the Hunger Games with Panem demanding our sacrifice -- though they number in the millions. “...all parents as having given hostages to our cause.” They are our children!

Common Core: The Emperor is Wearing No Clothes

The people were told how brilliant the designers were, how precious the materials that were to be assembled, how fortunate the Emperor was to have those designers focusing their talents on their product. They had produced so well, so successfully and all were amazed with their talent. And so they went to work and soon all would see to their awe and amazement the product of their efforts. 
And so the Emperor led the parade and the murmurs followed him, “How amazing,” “How brilliant,” “How simple, yet elegant,” because no one wished to be considered unsophisticated. Until the child’s voice piped up above all the murmurs, “The Emperor is Wearing No Clothes!”
Our children cry out for us to listen. It is time to quit repeating foolish approval of what is so obviously flawed. It doesn’t matter how much it cost us! How erudite the designers! Our children have only one chance at an education. It is time to pull the plug and return as fast as possible to traditional education that never stopped working in private schools unduped by the Left Wing controllers in the Department of Education and Colleges of Education across this country!
Watch out, folks. They’re changing the name again. Common Core is in such disrepute they have now changed the name to College and Careers or some such. Florida has renamed it “Next Generation Sunshine State Standards.” That is the usual ploy when the public gets cued in on what is going wrong in our schools. 

“People claiming the Sunshine Standards in Florida are a rebranding of Common Core aren’t far from the truth. Florida is leasing the majority of questions from Utah, which is a well-known rubber stamper of Common Core standards,” Punwasi says. “In Florida, they’re supposed to be a little more relaxed now that it’s no longer called Common Core even though it’s a carbon copy.”
Common Core-aligned assessments, PARCC and Smarter Balanced are also under threat in a number of states, with the majority of states not using the tests during this current testing cycle.
Alabama College and Career Ready Standards are the Common Core standards. Since adopting Common Core Alabama fell from 26 and rising to 51st with no place else to fall.
The Common Core State Standards Initiative, as it is officially known, began in earnest in early 2009. The National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers drafted the standards, but the effort quickly became a Washington-centric one. 
“The children belong to all of us,” former Massachusetts Education Secretary Paul Reville recently stated. Likewise, according to MSNBC host Melissa Harris-Perry, “We have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families and recognize that kids belong to whole communities.”



But parents across the nations are seeing through the claims and are demanding that Common Core be ousted from our schools!

Perhaps the first thing parents notice is their children’s Math education through Common Core.
One Fourth Grade Teacher writes: As a 4th grade teacher, I have tried teaching these new tools and models. It has added the number of steps and teaches the children to just be close. The ones who struggled with math struggle more now that there are extra tools to figure out and we mislead them by playing these little games of changing numbers and trying to figure out that 34 - 8 is actually 35 - 10 - 1 + 2. There are numerous more places for mistakes and the grades are actually dropping. The kids who do understand the new models actually make comments like, "of course you came up with a different answer, you solved it a different way than I did." They don't realize how the numbers relate to each other and that 24 time 17 is always the same, no matter which tool you use to solve it. If we just teach them what the numbers actually represent and require them to learn basic addition and subtraction so they can actually do the arithmetic portion of the problem, they will have a much better chance to succeed. Our students get dumber and dumber as we keep complicating basic subjects in an effort to find a magic bullet to replace actual learning.
Tea Party groups soon made Common Core a national rallying cry. In 2013, Glenn Beck took up the cause, declaring it “Communism—we are dealing with evil.” That April the Republican National Committee passed a resolution condemning Common Core as an “inappropriate overreach to standardize and control the education of our children so they will conform to a preconceived ‘normal.’ ”
Phyllis Schlafly called Common Core an Obama scheme—in collaboration with book publishers and Gates—to “dumb down” schoolchildren, “indoctrinate them to accept the left-wing view of America,” engage in “active promotion of gay marriage,” and “dismantle moral society.” Bloggers warn that Common Core would allow the federal government to engage in wholesale data collection on schoolchildren—including iris scans—then sell the information “to the highest bidders.” 
This is a story about the role Big Business has played in the war over Common Core: how a handful of executives helped turn a decades-old ambition for education reform into reality, their fumbling bewilderment at finding themselves assailed by opposition they didn’t expect or understand, and how they’ve regrouped and rallied to defend what they wrought. It’s a high-stakes conflict that has generated breathtaking political flip-flops and upended traditional alliances, turning natural bedfellows into bitter enemies. It has seen some of the nation’s foremost capitalists accused of promoting an “immoral,” “freedom-robbing,” “socialist agenda,” aimed at turning America’s children into “mindless drones for the corporate salt mines.” (http://fortune.com/common-core-stan...)
In other words, folks, there are many of us out there who are crying out with voices laced with emotion: 

The Emperor is Wearing No Clothes!