We the People Fighting Common Core! By Mary Grabar, Posted February 16, 2013: Jane Robbins, Senior Fellow at the American Principles Projects (and board member of Dissident Prof Education Project), reports from the Georgia Gold Dome that Senator William Ligon introduced the Common Core-withdrawal bill, S.B. 167, on February 14 (nice Valentine to Georgia children!): "Five other senators -- Barry Loudermilk, John Albers, Chuck Hufstetler, Hunter Hill, and Tommie Williams -- signed on as well. We now have about 3 weeks to get this through the Senate so it can be sent to the House." She asks that people call the Senate Education Committee and the Governor (phone numbers below).
The truth is spreading. The Washington Examiner interviews Jane and reports how "Private funding influnced public education policy." Most of it came from the Gates Foundation.
Here's a great article from Heartland Magazine that describes what happened in Georgia this week. Senator Ligon noted that few legislators knew anything about Common Core, which would basically take away local and state control over education: “Such a huge tremendous policy shift was not vetted by the legislature, not vetted by the people in the state.”
Still, on President's Day, Georgia teachers will be doing Common Core training, courtesy of the GE Foundation. Georgia Public Broadcasting has produced much of the training material to date.
Like any other federal program, there is no free lunch. Now that the "stimulus" funds are running out, states realize they have to buy curriculum materials, implement testing and record-keeping, etc.. Some are seeking money from the E-Rate program, a federal program funded in part by FCC taxes on phone lines and services, in other words your cell phone bill. In Arizona, "money is needed" to implement Common Core, says this editorial that nonetheless repeats the propaganda about "rigorous standards." But the Atlanta Journal Constitution reports that students are struggling with math, and it's no wonder when you read what parent James Shuls describes in his Education News article (with actual math problems reproduced, some of it on this page).
Jane Robbins also reports, "Nationally, the news was good this week. The Indiana Senate Education Committee voted 7-4 to send the CC bill to the full Senate, which will vote on it this coming Tuesday. (If you have friends or relatives in IN, recruit them to the cause!). Yesterday the Kansas House Education Committee held a hearing on a similar bill, and a bill has been introduced in Alabama with a slew of co-sponsors. This wave is building." Hoosiers Against Common Core has more information here.
The Department of Education is sending a virtual tsunami wave of efforts to impose itself on all facets of American life, from gun control, to making schools into community centers, to providing a scorecard on colleges. President Obama made a trip to Georgia to visit a Pre-K school as he followed up on his State of the Union Address promise to make pre-K education universal (and under federal control). The idea comes from the George Soros-funded Center for American Progress.
The comrades at the People's Cube understand the value of such programs, like the Progressives Young Knuckleheads Federalization Project. The creator of the People's Cube, Oleg Atbashian, after all, came from the Ukraine, where such progressive programs for post-toddlers instilled respect for government authority. Evidently, they did not take hold on him.
Progressives march on, in spite of such subvervises. Common Core advocates are now trying to expand its imagination-stirring wonders into Social Studies, (in the People's Republic of New York), Science, and Art.
Here in Georgia, the people can stop this progress and call:
Governor Nathan Deal: (404) 656-1776
Senate Education and Youth Committee
Lindsey Tippens, chm (Marietta) 656.0406
Jesse Stone (Waynesboro) 463.1314
John Wilkinson (Toccoa) 463.5257
Freddie Powell Sims (Dawson) 463.5259
Vincent Fort (ATL) 656.5091
Chuck Hufstetler (Rome) 656.0034
Donzella James (ATL) 463.1379
Butch Miller (Gainesville) 656.6578
Horacena Tate (ATL) 463.8053
