All posts by Oak Norton
The Governor’s Education Excellence Commission problem
This article was submitted by Tami Hirsch. Thank you Tami for this well-researched article.
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My name is Tami Hirsch and I am a former High School teacher who has taught in both UT and in CA. I have also lived in Japan and Taiwan, where National Standard-based high-stakes testing is destroying their freedoms. I have also home schooled for 10 years while living in CA, because my values and morals were absent in their textbooks. I moved back to UT, where my values match those locally.
I value American public schooling where creativity and innovation are instilled by talented and exceptional teachers. I value the freedom of choice to home school my own children or choose to send them to public or private school. I value local control over choosing standards, curriculum and assessments. I also value the American Dream to have the freedom to choose whatever college or career our children want to pursue. I am also the mother of five children who are currently in public school from K-12th grade. I most likely will choose to home school once again, because I have just learned that SAGE testing will now be FOUR times next year, which I am adamantly opposed to due to students directly having to long onto SAGE servers most likely located in Washington, D.C. where American Institutes for Research is located and were paid $39 million to write, support and score the test. The scores will be given to USOE and then to each school district. This is a top-down approach to testing and opposite to what CTR’s were in the past. Also, the 1974 FERPA law has been changed unconstitutionally so that any third party research company can have access to student data WITHOUT parental consent.
I began researching what Common Core was when my children’s math classes were changed. I have read the standards at www.corestandards.org and compared them against Utah’s Core Standards. USOE was given permission by the copyrighted holders of Common Core, which are NGA and CCSO, (back door entity to push agendas) to modify the ELA standards on July 2010 to add in cursive writing. Common Core State Standards are Utah Core Standards in both Math and ELA. They are one and the same although, our Governor has said they are not. He knows the truth as he is on the NGA’s Executive Committee and I will prove that Governor Herbert is LEADING the implementation of Obama’s corporate-federal national standard-based, high-stakes testing education in Utah unconstitutionally. We have legislation to back out of Common Core, and now is the time to get out.
Because of my education background, I require facts to find the differences between fact vs fiction. Opinions are not facts. I had started my personal search by putting together a notebook with tabs that read: 1. The White House 2. US Dept. of Ed 3. NGA 4. CCSO 5. AIR 6. USOE 7. Legislation 8. Articles
I wanted to first see what Obama’s blueprint for education was and then compare it against what we have here in Utah. I have found that Utah’s education blueprint matches closely to Obama’s education blueprint. I also found half-truths and flat out lies coming from our Governor and USOE.
While scouring the NGA for anything published about Gov. Herbert, I scrolled down to State News for Utah, where it said, “Utah Education Reform Proposals Aligned with Common Core” at this link:
Utah Education Reform Proposals Aligned with Common Core
Utah Governor Gary Herbert’s Governor’s Education Excellence Commission recently adopted eight recommendations for state leader action to increase the number of Utahns ages 24-64 with a postsecondary credential. The Commission’s recommendations focus on college and workforce readiness. The recommendations include:
◾ implementing the Common Core State Standards and adopting a new assessment system based on the Common Core State Standards that expands computer-adaptive, formative assessments and college- and career-readiness assessments;
◾ Funding an initiative to provide high school seniors with opportunities to complete college credits built on the Common Core State Standards; and
◾ implementing a funding system for institutions of higher education that is mission driven.
These recommendations are part of an overall plan that includes a vision statement and five education imperatives, all of which have been endorsed by the State Board of Regents, the State Board of Education and the Utah College of Applied Technology Board of Trustees.
I clicked on the recommendations and printed it off. If you type in the http address from my printed version, the article will NOT be found on the Governor’s site anymore. It can only be found through the link at the NGA.
http://www.utah.gov/governor/news_media/article.html?article=3719
So, I found out that the Governor had formed his own commission that he named, Governor’s Education Excellence Commission. I googled some more and found this article that announced the inaugural meeting of his commission on March 24, 2010 that would meet monthly and form an agenda that would impact the future of public and higher education in Utah powerfully by introducing legislation to force the agenda, which is the back door way to get what you want done.
The Governor will serve as chairman for the Commission, which includes key stakeholders from the state’s education and business communities, as well as legislative leaders. Governor Herbert has tasked the group with examining Utah’s systems of public and higher education and delivering recommendations for improvement prior to the end of the year.
“The Educational Excellence Commission is one of the most exciting initiatives I’ve undertaken as Governor,” Governor Herbert said. “It has great potential to make a lasting impact on our state’s future by developing a blueprint for educational success in Utah.”
The Commission’s inaugural meeting will take place Wednesday, March 24, from 9 a.m. to noon in the Capitol Board Room. The meeting is open to the public and members of the media.
Governor Herbert developed his Education Excellence Commission consisting of 31 members from politicians, business leaders, PTA and stake holders. After close review of Obama’s blueprints on education, and reading directly from www.ed.gov web-site, his Education Excellence Commission was set up to mirror President Obama’s Equity and Excellence Commission. Notice the slight name difference because it reveals the federal commission’s goals of EQUITY. Read his, “For Each and Every Child”. This is a progressive, socialist way of distributing wealth and the most qualified teachers to the poorest neighborhoods to level the inequality. Governor Herbert’s commission’s 2020 Vision stems from a report written by Linda Darling Hammond who is President Obama’s former education policy adviser. She helped form the Presidents’ EEC and is in charge of content specifications for SBAC Common Core aligned assessments. Please see these links:
http://www.ed.gov/blog/2013/02/equity-and-excellence-commission-delivers-report-to-secretary-duncan/
http://www.otlcampaign.org/vision-2020
The next few links contain Governor Herbert’s Education Excellence Commissions Vision Statement, with five education imperatives and how they will be implemented. Remember, this Commission does not represent Utah Citizens by an elected position. In politics now, the way to PUSH AGENDAS through back doors is forming Commissions, Associations and non-profits. The NGA and the CCSSO are both such entities, but have used their influence for powerful legislation to implement Obama’s Race To the Top plan for National Standards-based reform, and the high-stakes testing that goes with it along with data-backed teacher, principal and school evaluations and funding.
The purpose of our Governor’s Education Excellence Commission is also to PUSH AGENDAS through the legislation. The name of Vision 2020 has now been changed to Prosperity 2020 and to PACE 2020, but it still closely mirror’s Obama’s Vision 2020. Our Governor has had to rename Common Core State Standards to Utah Core as well, to confuse the lay public to not make the connection to the Federal Government.
http://vision2020research.com/files/42283268.pdf
http://vision2020research.com/files/42250711.pdf
http://www.utah.gov/governor/docs/education/2013EducationRecommendations.pdf
http://www.utah.gov/governor/docs/education/PACE2013Booklet.pdf
Here is what Governor Herbert’s original Vision 2020 said, “By 2020 and thereafter, at least 66% of Utahns ages 20-64 will have a postsecondary degree or certificate, ensuring a well-educated citizenry and workforce that qualitatively and quantitatively meet the needs of Utah employers, which will lead to greater economic prosperity and a better quality of life for all Utahns.” He developed a 10 year plan, mirroring Obama’s plan.
I thought Governor Herbert was a Republican? The corporate-federal unconstitutional grab at our children’s education must be more than partisan politics. It must be about MONEY and DATA collection. In fact, that is what I am finding. The Governor boasts that his STEM initiatives will have a “Return on Investment” by “attracting high tech employers such as Adobe and NSA.” REALLY?! NSA?!
Each of his initiatives have stated specifically how much it will cost and what the “return on investment” will be. His Education Excellence Commission has NEW initiatives each year. In 2011, there were 8 proposals.
Proposal No 1: Optional Extended-Day Kindergarten will cost $7.5 million.
Proposal No. 2: Reading and Literacy of achieving proficiency by 90% by 3rd grade. Cost is $2 million. It bothers me that they said, “Some States use 3rd and 4th grade reading test scores to predict future crime rates and to forecast the need for prison beds.” Finland STARTS public school at age 7.
Proposal No. 3: Common Core State Standards: Provide funding support for USBE to complete the first phase of CCSS implementation by the 2010-2011 school year, which will include, among other things, extensive professional development and full implementation from kindergarten through 12th grade. Cost $2 million. They called them Common Core State Standards back then, not Utah Core as they do now. In this proposal under “Importance,” it says CCSS provides the foundation for alignments that lead to other efficiencies in the system. The CCSS will also focus students on moving through the education pipeline preparing for postsecondary education and training. The CCSS provide the framework for developing alignments between public and higher education and between education and economic development in the state.
Proposal No. 4 Assessment Improvements for computer-based adaptive testing that line with CCSS. These are high-stakes data driven tests. Cost $1 million.
Proposal No. 5: Mission-Based Funding which holds colleges and universities accountable for funding. Cost $1 million.
Proposal No. 6: Internal Alignments among relevant government divisions that focuses education on supporting economic development. They want to standardize general education for Utah’s System of Higher Education (USHE) with Common Core State Standards, CCSS K-12 standards. In addition, they want Utah Data Alliance (UDA) to track data of students to career employment. Cost $250,000. Career Pathways programs will help students choose careers.
Proposal No. 7: External Alignments: focuses on extending alignments to business and industry through public/private partnerships. They want to align education, training, and research with the needs of Utah businesses and industries, making the colleges and universities engines of economic development. Cost $250,000
Proposal No. 8: On-line Early College: Develop and on-line college classes to high school students using technology. Cost $500,000
The top link in the group of links above has the specific 2011 proposals. I was unable to find 2012 proposals but found 2013 proposals and the PACE 2020 Booklet. Proposals for 2013 are not listed by numbers but there are 10 proposals totaling in the millions of dollars. The proposals that I am concerned about are spending $13.2 million for computer adaptive testing (CAT) hardware for all students and for $2.9 million to provide one-to-one computer learning devices.
As a teacher, I do not think this is a wise use of money. I would NOT want computers in my classroom. They are a distraction. Computer centers used by all teachers at specific times are a much better use of time and money. They tout that teachers would now be facilitators, not teachers. Teach America’s six week course to become a teacher, uses the term facilitators. Will teachers be replaced by facilitators with each child having to conform to learn only through computers?
Also, in the 2013 proposals, again they revisit teacher performance evaluation and funding, which I think is a BULLYING tactic to force teachers to teach to the High Stakes Tests and to have to teach subjects with CCSS aligned curriculum only. When the Governor and USOE say CCSS are ONLY STANDARDS, they say this KNOWING that they are NOT ONLY STANDARDS, but curriculum, high-stakes testing and college entrance exams and general education at universities are ALL now aligned to CCSS. These documents even state that ACT cadre of tests that cost $800,000, called EXPLORE, PLAN and ACT, will offer common core standard-based assessment in summative form throughout a student’s secondary schooling. These tests also have personal attitudes and behaviors in parts of them. ACT Inc., has announced their new testing, which will include ongoing testing for kindergarten on to help with career placement.
http://www.examiner.com/article/act-plans-career-placement-and-ongoing-testing-to-start-kindergarten
The Governor’s Education Excellence Commission asked for $2.4 million for collecting data on UtahFutures.org. With the UDA database, they can now collect individual data from UEN, USOE, USHE, UCAT, GOPB, DWS and other government divisions can be stored in an integrated database so students can be tracked from Pre-K through employment. Obama calls his “cradle to career” data collection.
The next link below was found through the White House web-site and shows Obama’s 2020 plan and check marks are placed on which states have plans in place to mirror his plan. Utah’s is check-marked because our Governor has his plan in place through is Education Excellence Commission. It says 38% of Utah’s population holds bachelor degrees or above.
The breakdown for getting 66% in Governor Herbert’s PACE 2020 plan is a hoax, because if you add the bachelor and graduate degrees together, it is 39%. So by 2020, our goals really only represent 1% increase, as the other degrees are associates and certifications. Governor Herbert never graduated from BYU but went the certificate route to become a realtor and business owner before seeking office.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/completion_state_by_state.pdf
Personally, if Utah needs education reform, it should be at a local level, involving local parents, teachers, and school districts in our own communities to draft the reform. Parents should be the leaders in this reform, as they are constitutionally protected as the primary stake holders. Without parental involvement, students do not perform at their best. Utah has talented public school teachers who are the most qualified to discuss reforms because they are in the trenches each and every day and understand what reforms should take place. Education reforms should not come from the government or from the business community, as they have no clue how education happens in the classroom. Reforming education based on how businesses are run will not work, as well.
Finland, who is one of the top performers, does not run their education as a business but as mentors to one another to find what each individual’s learning and teaching styles match up to foster learning. Their standards are broad, not specific and measurable, because they treat each child as an individual, rather than the same or COMMON. They don’t collect data and are not data driven.
As a teacher, I knew if my students understood what I taught without collecting data through SAGE. I was told by Alpine School District Board member, JoDee Sundberg, that next year, SAGE testing will be now take place four times a year. In states where this is happening already, teachers are quitting, children are having to see psychologists for anxiety and depression and creativity is gone in the classroom, as so much time is spent on testing and collecting data. Obama’s Equity and Excellence Commission calls for INCLUDING health and social workers in the schools and that more psychologists need to be hired at each school. Interesting….
Today our children, teachers, principals, and school districts are now being BULLIED through local and federal governments by being forced to give and take high stakes tests and having teacher, principal and school evaluations according to these forced tests.
If the education community and parents in Utah were to vote on whether or not to have high stakes testing in our schools, I am confident that our talented passionate teachers and our caring parents would NEVER vote for this type of reform. This type of reform punishes creativity and individuality in both the children and the teachers. We will lose our competitive edge and become like the Asian countries where they have lost these skills and where suicide is the number one cause of death in children due to cut-offs and career paths chosen. High stakes testing takes away freedom to choose a career they have passion to pursue.
Reforms in education should not be driven by businesses to create a workforce. I was disturbed by our USOE Kindergarten flyer that has the words, Department of Workforce on the front. Our children should not be considered as human capital and the needs of businesses should not circumvent their needs to supply their workforce over the freedom and liberties that we each been given by God.
One of Governor Herbert’s Education Excellence Commissions’ imperatives (http://www.utah.gov/governor/news_media/article.html?article=8445) is called: “Align Education and Workforce Data. Maintain Utah Data Alliance to develop a comprehensive data integration system for collaboration” among UEN, USHE, UCAT, USOE, and DWS ($600K) My children should not be considered WORKFORCE, but as precious humans that can explore, learn, create, and become their own unique person, without being told to align or choose a career path until they are ready. Recently, in Texas, they passed a law that says students have to choose their career path by 8th grade. Really? In Germany, their high-stakes cut off test is given at the end of 4th grade and then they are forced into three career paths. Their future depends on their test taking skills at age 10.
I feel like our precious children’s futures are at risk by allowing Governor Herbert to continue on this education reform path that mirrors Obama’s education blue print. He didn’t listen last year when the appointed delegates at the GOP conference voted against Common Core in Utah. He also emulates Obama’s deceit by saying that Utah Core is not Common Core, when he is LEADING the implementation of Common Core in UT exactly as planned by Obama’s administration. We need to replace our Governor.
Dr. Duke Pesta on Common Core
Dr. Duke Pesta is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh and the Academic Director of FreedomProject Education. In this 2 hour speech, he outlines how Common Core threatens to further undermine, weaken, and centralize public and private education in our country.
UEA President on Problems with SAGE
This short video was published a few weeks ago and is on the home page of the UEA’s website. Listen as UEA President Sharon Gallagher-Fishbaugh talks about SAGE testing and the amount of letters she’s received from teachers with concerns.
UEA President on “hundreds of letters” from teachers administering the SAGE test, “I can only imagine what you are going through in your classrooms right now.”
“Developmentally inappropriate and despairing prompts that were given.”
Judy Park met with teachers and students “and they shared their experiences, as painful as they were, about what they’d gone through during just this writing assessment.”
One parent’s research into SAGE
Tami Hirsch authored and sent this article to me for publishing. Thank you Tami.
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At the Alpine School Board meeting on 4/22/2014, I asked JoDee Sundberg if she knew about this Education Excellence Commission and how one could become a member. I expressed interest in becoming a member as a former teacher and my husband as a business owner. She was excited to tell me that she was a member and that all I had to do was ask to be “invited” to become a member.
I told her that I had written the Governor’s office to request a 30 min. meeting with him to discuss my children’s “non-proficient” score on the new SAGE test. I was told by the Governor’s office that I could only meet with someone at the USOE. I wrote them back explaining that I had already spoken with my neighbor who serves on the USOE board and that I would wait the 6-8 weeks that he was booked out, and requested once again a personal meeting with the Governor. Their response was shocking. It read that I could not meet with the Governor, NOW or EVER.
I told her that the reason why I was attending the ASD board meeting was to discuss my concerns with SAGE testing. I showed her my notebook of hours upon hours of research, and that I had real problems with my children logging onto American Institutes Research (AIR) servers, which were most likely in Washington, D.C. and that with the 1974 FERPA law being changed by Obama’s education administration unconstitutionally, I believed that my children’s data could be shared with third parties that were research based, without my parental consent. I have a document found on USOE’s web-site that says that AIR will keep all FERPA laws in regards to our students’ data, which circumvents AIR’s letter to Superintendent Martell Menlove that says that our students’ data will be kept secure.
I also explained to her that I believed that this was now opposite of how CRT’s were done in the past. They were once taken at the local schools, given to each district or ASD for correction with a 1-4 score and then their aggregate scores were shared with USOE and then passed on to the federal government.
Now with SAGE computer adaptive testing, it has become top-down, meaning that my children’s data is being collected at the same time they are tested because they are directly accessing AIR’s servers and I have a document that proves that AIR corrects and scores these tests 1-4 and then gives the scores to USOE, where they then pass them on to ASD. I have legislation that says that disaggregate information is now allowed, instead of aggregate information.
Also, I have read legislation that allows, “the use of student behavior indicators in assessing student performance”. In R277-404-9: CRISIS INDICATORS IN STATE ASSESSMENTS, it reads, “A. Students participating in state assessments may reveal intentions to harm themselves or others, that a student is at risk of harm from others, or may reveal other indicators that the student is in a crisis situation.” Since when do standardized state assessments ask questions that would provoke these type of answers?
My main red flag is that AIR is a non-profit, psychometric behavioral research company that UT paid $39 million dollars to have them help write and proctor the test. Also, I found on AIR’s web-site that they have partnered with Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium and also Data Recognition Corporation.
Another red flag, is that I can never see the test, so how do I know if the questions are appropriate. All I have to go on is my research that AIR is a psychometric behavioral company that has “helped change social behavior” and that USOE’s contract with AIR actually says “Psychometrics” as part of the contract.
I know that three of the fifteen parents who were chosen to read the questions, opted their own children out of the test. I would love to take a survey of the remaining twelve parents.
Why would I trust a non-profit organization located in Washington D.C. with ties to the United Nations and UNESCO with my precious children’s data? Why can’t the school district see this is WRONG?
– Tami Hirsch
Students report on SAGE
I received an email yesterday from someone sharing her 17 year old nephew’s experience in taking the SAGE test. Not only are SAGE tests poorly designed, but as has been reported, presentation of material is one-sided which opens up the possibility of pushing an agenda (which we already know is at work through the origins of Common Core).
“I tried to give the SAGE test a chance. It was just going to be another test that I have to take. But after taking most of the English section, I’m realizing how little thought was put into its development. They take a completely wrong approach to testing, and the software is terrible. The essays essentially say, “Read the passages, then write an argumentative essay on the history of dirt. Make sure to include the opposition.” The questions are boring, irrelevant to the context, and many are unnecessarily difficult. The passages are poorly written, and are way too long for the time given to take the test. They don’t need to be as long as they are to test the abilities that they’re assessing. What really kills me is the “listening” questions, which talk in monotone voices that are set in random situations, and don’t supply much relevant information. The questions barely relate to the audio, and some make you infer data from charts that barely have anything to do with the audio. You still have to pay attention to the audio, however, because there are a couple fact questions, like “Which of the following approaches did the teacher use with the student?” (which sounds more like teaching theory than an English question). The audio starts immediately, and doesn’t give a chance to read the questions without stopping the audio. Without stopping it, you have to listen with no clue what to look for and then try to remember what you heard, try to listen and read the questions at the same time, or re-listen. Stopping the audio makes you re-listen to the entire thing, even though there’s no time to listen in the first place. My list of unimpressive observations goes on and on. And I’m pretty sure SAGE (Student Assessment of Growth and Excellence) just added the “Excellence” to the name so it wouldn’t be SAG. The whole thing is just made up of unthought-through, irrelevant components, and is an inefficient waste of time.”
When asked if any of the questions seemed political, he replied:
“The essays seemed geared toward our demographic, making some of us argue the importance of sleep habits, etc., however I haven’t encountered anything really political. Yet. The test isn’t the same for everyone, however, so it’s possible others have had political questions/essays. And the essays are very one-sided. While you’re technically allowed to argue either side, they only supply information promoting one side, and you’re only allowed to reference information from the supplied passages.”
Another student on the same feed posted this:
“When I took this test I had to write an argumentative essay on what the government should fund: scientific exploration of bees or gardening and farming education. That, in my opinion is a super lame choice. I was also really frustrated that I couldn’t do tabs, to keep my thoughts organized I had to do 2 spaces instead and who knows if they’ll take points off for that or not. Is that grammatically correct? Before I took the test, I asked my teacher what this test has to do with anything and apparently if I fail, I still move on to the next grade; if I fail, nobody cares. If I fail my grade still stays the same. My teacher, like most teachers, graded for participation and the outline of the essay. I was also really confused on the essay question when it said “use 30 minutes to read the passages and write an essay on it” and by the time I was done reading the passages, 20(ish) minutes passed. This left 10 minutes to plan and write the essay(not that the time was enforced anyway). What? Really? I was just confused…”
Partisan School Board Elections Resolution Passes
On Saturday, April 26, 2014, the GOP state delegates passed a resolution at convention asking GOP legislators to enact partisan school board elections for both the state school board and local school board members. Though there was no definitive tally made, visual estimates put the passing vote between 75-85% of delegates in attendance. The resolution did get amended to remove the last two paragraphs that dealt with the party engaging in non-partisan election efforts (which apparently they are barred from), so we need to get the party leadership and legislators all on board with this resolution (which was non-binding) so that next session we get partisan elections passed into law.
If you were among the delegates who voted for this resolution, thank you for taking the time to understand the real issues, the federal intrusion that Utah officials have already brought into the state, and recognizing the value of parents in their role as delegates vetting candidates.
Can you imagine a parent who wants non-partisan elections for school board members, actually spending even 15 minutes with each of 6 school board candidates to try and vet each of them and make an intelligent vote in a primary race to reduce the field? It isn’t going to happen among the masses. The one-party education establishment will always get their candidate through a primary because they can send out one email that gets their members out to the polls to vote. The absence of political parties from these races guarantees that each race will stay under the general control of the establishment.
The public at large has rejected partisan school board elections in a poll that was conducted some time ago. These numbers are touted by establishment players like the UEA in order to stop this movement toward partisan elections. The reason the public has rejected partisan elections is because they have not taken the time to understand the issue as delegates did coming to convention. It is evident that when locally elected delegates get informed on an issue and can understand it, they tend to make an informed decision, unlike an uninterested public. We might as well ask the public to take a survey on fracking that environmentalists put together as to ask us about partisan elections. The public just doesn’t have all the facts at hand. It is now incumbent on delegates and anyone who understands the issue to help your neighbors better understand it. I will be posting a master resource page soon that will have links to various resources you can use in this effort.
Here are the speeches I gave at the convention to help illustrate why the resolution needed to pass. Also speaking was Kim Kehrer who was a very qualified individual running for school board last time that made it to the final round where she was asked if she had issues with Common Core, and expressing some, was then eliminated. Also, an educator spoke in favor of the resolution.
Resolution opening speech
With Utah’s education budget over $4 billion, don’t tell me it isn’t partisan and politicized. The reason the education establishment doesn’t want partisan elections is they don’t want independent thinkers and ideas that could change the status quo which is the same tired path of blaming the legislature for underfunding education. The CATO Institution just released a study that shows over the last 40 years, we’ve tripled education spending (link to CATO report) and actually had a decline in SAT scores.
It’s time we gave the same scrutiny to the education system in Utah, that made Utah the best managed state in the union. The superior caucus and delegate system lets a broad cross section of parents, vet candidates for principles and ideas that will spark new life into our education system. To accuse us of wanting to put party above the welfare of our own children is a desperate plea to maintain political power.
And if you want to compare us to Texas, use demographic information and remember, at least they are free to innovate.
I ask that you vote for this resolution which gets our local neighborhoods more involved in the process.
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Note: The reason for the inclusion of the Texas line was because the USBA (Utah School Boards Association) had made talking points for educators around the state and they were at the convention passing out a flier which basically said Utah was superior to Texas in several areas such as the percentage of graduates and other such stats. I didn’t put Texas in the resolution because they were superior, but because they have partisan elections, they rejected Common Core and they are now free to innovate with their own standards.)
Resolution closing speech
Two years ago, Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced a new federal grant program that local school districts could bypass the legislature and state office of education. Five Utah school districts applied for that money with strings attached.
Two months ago, two senior officials at the Utah State Office of Education sent a letter to educators around the state asking them to oppose a bill that would have replaced Common Core saying, “This bill essentially gives more power to parents over curriculum standards, and would prevent us from adopting any national standards.” That bill failed as did the partisan election bill they opposed.
State education officials also signed a Memorandum of Understanding with the feds when Utah agreed to move forward on Common Core, acknowledging a federal role in Utah education.
Don’t tell me the establishment doesn’t welcome federal control or have practically unchallenged power.
We need partisan elections to challenge the establishment. We are parents before we are Republicans and we are best qualified to find principled candidates for our children’s school boards. Please vote for this resolution.
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Note: The same USBA flier mentioned above talks about how they don’t want federal control and how these people who run our education system are for local control in education. The most vocal individual from the USBA on this issue is former state superintendent Patti Harrington, one of the primary authors of the USBA flier, and who was one of the two signatories on the Memorandum of Understanding that acknowledged to the federal government they have a role in Utah’s education system. What irony… Governor Huntsman was the other signer. Ahhh, but what meaning do words have… We’ll just tell the people we favor local control because we do have it as long as we let the federal government have a role and dictate a *few* things to us.
Propaganda in Roosevelt
Roosevelt Jr. High, in Roosevelt Utah
Responding to charges against partisan school board elections
I sent this letter to state delegates today and am publishing it to help the public have an opportunity to see some of the arguments against partisan elections, and my responses to those charges.
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Dear Delegates,
I hope you all took some time to read through my email from a couple days ago to help provide some support for my resolution, particularly the Deseret News piece which was excellent. After my email the other day, I received a number of very supportive comments for the resolution for partisan school board elections, and some questions from delegates. Some of those questions relate to things said on Doug Wright’s radio show from Tuesday. I listened to his show and below is a brief rundown of concerns presented there and my responses. However, first, do you know about the power of the UEA network which is threatened by this resolution and why they are trying so hard to oppose it.
This week the Utah School Board Association has asked for state delegates to contact the USBA Chair so they can speak against this resolution. This is exactly what makes the case IN FAVOR of this resolution. The USBA is free to ask its members to support a particular position. However, without partisan elections, what organization exists with the same ability to disseminate information to combat the USBA, the USSA (superintendents), the UASBO (business administrators), the UEA, the Elementary Principals’ Association (UAESP), the Secondary Principals’ Association (UASSP), the Utah School Employees’ Association (USEA–Lunch ladies, custodians, bus drivers, librarians, school nurses, etc)? All these organizations receive dues, many from taxpayer dollars, like USBA, and have paid people to lobby for or against legislation and for or against candidates. One email to the membership of all these organizations would cover the state, very easily. The only other organizations that have as broad of a reach statewide are the political parties, Democrats and Republicans.
The main reason why these organizations don’t want partisan elections is that it will create more opposition (competition) in them being able to get their information out. Additionally, if you look at the USBA scorecard, those who voted with the USBA 90% of the time were all Democrats. You had to get down to a much lower percentage to find Republicans who voted with the USBA. Speaker Lockhart was in the 30’s, I think. For the GOP, this needs to be pointed out. Absent partisan elections, the state will continue to provide the Education Associations an uncontested messaging system. Even if partisan elections are problematic in some realms, the ability to inform voters on both sides of an issue, like in a courtroom, demands opposing parties strongly advocating for their positions. Then the jury (or the voters) can make informed decisions. If you only get to hear one side of the argument being vigorously defended, do you have an informed decision?
The point isn’t partisanship, the point is hearing messaging from both sides of an issue and having an organization able to widely disseminate that information to its members to allow for that to occur. As the State GOP, it should be realized that leaving the Education Associations unmatched, the message that is getting out is that supported, primarily, by Democrats.
Now on to the Doug Wright show. During his third hour on Tuesday, Doug thankfully acknowledged on several occasions that the current system is broken.
He had two guests on his show. One was Mark Mickelsen, the executive director of the UEA, and then Patti Harrington, an Associate Executive Director of the Utah School Boards Association. You get one guess where his guests stood on this issue. :)
Doug: “What is the UEA’s opinion of turning school board races into partisan races?”
Mark: UEA supports non-partisan elections for the reason that “it’s probably the most transparent, engaging, and representative process for establishing education policy in the state.”
My comment: Are you kidding?. We already have non-partisan elections locally for school boards, and there is a huge lack of interest in those races, people aren’t engaged, and it’s certainly not representative when you have a single education establishment party that is organized to elect their picks. At least with partisan elections, you get a cross sample of the public in every precinct who are tasked with finding who the candidates are with the best ideas that will help our schools. It’s also more transparent because you know who is promoting and vetting candidates. Nobody sees the UEA network working behind the scenes because they are not a registered political party, but they certainly wield power like one. Engaging? What is more engaging than thousands of delegates asking tough questions of candidates? Where does that EVER happen in non-partisan races? It doesn’t. Everything Mark said above is precisely why partisan elections are superior to non-partisan elections.
Thankfully Mark then acknowledges the election process for state school board members is in fact broken. So basically, the current system is broken, and they want non-partisan elections. Why? Please review the top few paragraphs above.
Doug Wright then talks about how he’s been guilty of not knowing who was running for school board. He then accurately notes “far too many of us, when we do vote, this is the area where we have the least familiarity…”
My comment: Doug is exactly right. School board races fly under the radar. People don’t generally get excited about these races because they’re more focused on the “big races.” Not many people get excited about the county clerk race or county assessor or school board member. However, two of those 3 are able to run low cost campaigns where people actually come and ask them questions and cast an informed, broadly representational vote for someone. Meanwhile, most people remain ignorant about what is perhaps the most important race in the state because it deals so strongly with our future.
Doug: “Why will making the races partisan make it worse?” (than the current broken system)
Mark: He spoke in favor of SB 54 which was the bill that stopped the Count My Vote initiative by basically giving them what they wanted to bypass the parties, and said the resolution is in direct opposition to this resolution. (ie. Mark supports Count My Vote)
My comment: No surprise here that Mark favors Count My Vote, but this also isn’t even a reason partisan races will make what they already identified as a broken system, even worse.
Doug: “one big concern, one huge concern, I don’t like the straight ballot vote… I think everyone who throw their hats in the ring…sacrifice their family makes…deserves the courtesy of having everyone at least read their name.” Doug believes if we have partisan elections, “the lazy voter will just hit the R or D and automatically votes for people they’ve probably never even heard their name which really concerns me.”
My comment: Of course, we hope all people would get involved and informed, but the lazy voter Doug identifies here isn’t someone who is going to know who is even running in a non-partisan election, so at least with a party by a candidate’s name they can vote for someone who is probably closer to their ideological position.
Mark: “There’s another issue, I received some information from a practicing attorney here in Utah, and one of the comments he made that I found very interesting that partisanship may be unconstitutional based on Article 10 section 8 of the Utah constitution.”
Mark then quotes this section which is:
“Article X, Section 8. [No religious or partisan tests in schools.]
No religious or partisan test or qualification shall be required as a condition of employment, admission, or attendance in the state’s education systems.”
My comment: Now I don’t know who this attorney is that sent Mark this concern, but a proper reading of this doesn’t support this interpretation. Nobody is required to be of a given religion or political party to be a school board member. Also, the same exact language exists in the U.S. Constitution. Article 6, section 3 says:
“The Senators and Representatives before mentioned, and the Members of the several State Legislatures, and all executive and judicial Officers, both of the United States and of the several States, shall be bound by Oath or Affirmation, to support this Constitution; but no religious Test shall ever be required as a Qualification to any Office or public Trust under the United States.”
What is a test? The Framers set this in the Constitution because they never wanted a litmus test for office where only a single religious preference could hold office like they suffered under in England (ie. The Church of England). That’s a violation of freedom of conscience of individuals. Article X, Section 8 of the Utah code is simply asserting the same exact thing that there can’t be a religious or partisan “test” for office. We can’t say, “only a Republican or Mormon can hold this school board seat.” It would be unconstitutional and immoral to do something like that, but having partisan votes for school board candidates to see who will go to the ballot for a given party is perfectly constitutional because the ballot doesn’t represent employment, admission, or attendance.
Patti Harrington from USBA now comes on the show.
Patti: She expresses her fear that party members who swear allegiance to a party platform could be making decisions that are about the party instead of about the children.
My comment: When I vetted candidates for county clerk, I didn’t ask them “if it comes down to a decision that comes to you directly from the GOP party, are you going to be loyal to the party, or do what’s right for taxpayers?” That would be a stupid question to ask. I heard none of my fellow delegates ask such stupid questions. It’s not on anyone’s mind except those trying to dissuade the party from creating a competitive environment for the current monopoly. If I was a delegate and had 3 school board candidates to vet, I’d ask them their philosophy on education, what principles they feel makes for a good education system, how they would enhance the ability of a teacher to work more directly with parents and students, and so on. Partisan elections aren’t about partisanship, they are about getting a marketplace of ideas to compete with each other and see what cream rises to the top. Yes, it’s about the children and partisan elections will help make their future brighter.
Patti: on state board elections “so that process universally…is considered broken.”
My comment: 3 for 3 now in agreement the current process is broken.
Doug: “Patti, what are the downsides/upsides to local partisan elections”
Patti: “I don’t see any upsides.”
My comment: People in the education establishment of course wouldn’t see any upsides because partisan elections represent a loss of power to the single party network that covers the state and with a single email can reach all their members with an endorsement of a candidate. The only people that can stand against this well organized party, is another political party. Nobody else is so well organized.
Doug: said he read a couple editorials and shared these quotes:
“Candidates when they are running on a partisan basis tend to look to the party officials and party needs rather than the needs of the students and the parents.”
“It brings into the school system the overheated rhetoric of the state house campaigns. It brings that now into our schools.”
My comment: My first response is, have these people even looked at the broad range of voting by Republican lawmakers in Utah? It’s all over the board with some conservative and some voting to the left of many Democrats. Once in office, people tend to follow their own agenda, not the party. With $4.6 billion at stake in education spending in Utah, the UEA establishment likes their virtual monopoly on board seats.
Doug: “we are already sadly, too many of us, clueless about who is running for the school board and this will make us even more clueless.”
My comment: Actually, it will have the exact opposite effect. As Doug noted above, even he doesn’t know who his school board members are. Nobody vets them except the UEA. Making elections partisan will give far more people a “clue” about who is running and what their principles are.
I sincerely hope you will vote for this resolution on Saturday and help bring a fresh new perspective to the education system in Utah. Lets get the best ideas out there to rise to the top and make Utah the best education system in the country.
Sincerely,
Oak Norton
A Teacher’s Impact – Too Far Reaching to Leave to Fate
Teachers, you know what you hold in your hands when children enter your classroom. You become their heroes, mentors, friends, and one of the greatest influences of their lives. Your influence spans generations. The positive things you do stick with students forever. Unfortunately, the negative things do as well. Your influence is so strong, it can even divide families. There are those in positions of power who have strongly influenced the design of the education system to intentionally bring this about. I write this post to let teachers know that they have precious cargo in their hands and are accountable to the highest degree because they can shape the world view of children in ways that few understand. I also write it as a warning to parents on what they must constantly guard for. The terrorist Bill Ayers understood this power and when he discovered blowing up buildings wasn’t getting him very far, he went into teaching to shape minds.
“I walked out of jail and into my first teaching position—and from that day until this I’ve thought of myself as a teacher, but I’ve also understood teaching as a project intimately connected with social justice.” -Bill Ayers at the World Education Forum in Caracas, Venezuela in front of Pres. Hugo Chavez
I will now illustrate the power of a teacher with two stories from parents I recently received.
“My third grader came home talking about who created the telephone and that his teacher, who I really like, was kind of sad and told the kids the phone was created for lazy people because no one wanted to write. I kept telling my son that is not correct and must have been joking. But my child kept saying “But my teacher said…” Drove me crazy to the point I had to snap at my child :( “No, your teacher is wrong!!”
After I calmed down I explained to him that I feel his teacher is wrong and that his teacher’s statement was one of a personal opinion, and then had to explain how people feel differently about issues by using books and movies as examples. This teacher is in reality amazing and I admire him. I think I was mostly shocked because of how much we have enjoyed him. But it’s so easy for kids to take the word of the teacher over the parent and if the teacher isn’t careful there are damaging effects that can come from this.” -Heidi
“What else are they teaching our kids without parents knowing? My 2nd grader was told that George Washington was not a Christian by 3 separate teachers before I pulled her out to homeschool. She would not believe me when I dictated inspirational quotes to her from his writings. She said, “But mom! How could he have said ANY of these things? He wasn’t even Christian!” After I got over the shock, it took me over an hour and many original documents to counteract something that she had learned at school. It was months later and because of a simple assignment that I found out. Otherwise, she would have kept this in her head and added to it with other teachers telling her similar things.” – Susie Schnell
With at least two of our own children, we can recall times they have come home with something they heard their teacher say at school which was incorrect and they would not believe us for the longest time. I don’t know if you’ve experienced this, but teachers have such high trust from our children, it can be quite dangerous to fully trust everything that a teacher might say to your children. I believe every parent needs to sit down and warn your children not to believe everything their teachers tell them, particularly when teachers don’t always know the truth for themselves and often just repeat what is written in the curriculum they use.
Now let me turn your attention to the education system and how it creates a wedge between parent and child…by design.
Years ago when I was fighting Investigations math, I was shocked at how the U.S. National Science Foundation could endorse constructivist math programs when they’d be proven to be utter failures by massive studies like Project Follow Through (http://oaknorton.com/imathresults34.cfm). It baffled my mind at how some teachers and administrators could think that not teaching children the times tables and long division was going to help them prepare for upper math where instantaneous mental math of basic facts was a critical tool in seeing relationships in equations.
I kept asking myself why anyone would want to use a math program that confused children AND their parents, who often were unable to help their children with their homework.
Around this time, I discovered two things.
The first was that John Goodlad was BYU’s Education Department consultant and he was an anti-family, atheist, socialist, humanist. Among the things he taught in his writings are:
“Public education has served as a check on the power of parents, and this is another powerful reason for maintaining it.”
– John Goodlad, Developing Democratic Character in the Young, pg. 165“Parents do not own their children. They have no ‘natural right’ to control their education fully.”
– John Goodlad / Developing Democratic Character in the Young, pg. 164“Most youth still hold the same values of their parents… if we do not alter this pattern, if we don’t resocialize, our system will decay.”
– John Goodlad, Schooling for the Future, Issue #9, 1971“Enlightened social engineering is required to face situations that demand global action now… Parents and the general public must be reached also, otherwise, children and youth enrolled in globally oriented programs may find themselves in conflict with values assumed in the home. And then the educational institution frequently comes under scrutiny and must pull back.” – Dr. John I. Goodlad, “Guide to Getting Out Your Message,” National Education Goals Panel Community Action Toolkit: A Do-It-Yourself Kit for Education Renewal (September 1994); 6
(you can read more shocking quotes here contrasted with religious leader quotes: http://www.utahsrepublic.org/prominent-educators-vs-religious-leaders/)
Why BYU’s Education Department chose Goodlad as their consultant is still somewhat of a mystery except that he was a prominent national educator who perhaps through some flattery influenced some to join him in his quest. When confronted about this, BYU Education Department and local school district administrators say, “well, we don’t believe everything he says.” No, but by closely working with him you provide him enormous klout and cause people in your sphere of influence to think you agree with everything he does. Goodlad was also the man that Charlotte Iserbyt, Reagan’s senior education policy advisor, called “America’s premier change agent” in her book “The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America.”
The second thing I discovered was a light bulb moment for me. The Anchorage School District in Alaska had adopted the constructivist program “Everyday Math,” and an article in the press spoke about the problems parents were having helping their children with their homework. (http://www.ktuu.com/news/ktuu-report-suggests-improvements-for-anchorage-school-district-math-program-20110620,0,7214623.story)
“Both Comeau and Nees say that they’ve heard complaints about the ‘Everyday Math’ program from parents, who say that the method is so different from what they learned in school, that some parents aren’t able to help their children with their homework.
‘When you have [the traditional method] on the board, and [the ‘everyday math’ method] on the board, and the parent’s trying to do it the traditional way, [the student] is going to stop listening to Mom and Dad, and Mom and Dad can’t help them,’ Nees said.”
WHOA!!! The reason for completely changing the way math has always been taught wasn’t about finding a better way to teach math (because it clearly wasn’t). It was a way to break up the family. If mom and dad learned traditional math which was efficient, these social reformers needed to replace that with something that would confuse parents to the point of frustration so that children couldn’t get help from them and would learn to recognize teachers as their ultimate authority figures. “Never mind mom, I’ll just ask the teacher tomorrow.” Heard that one before?
Teachers, I want you to know that we love you and appreciate all the positive things you do for children. But also please realize the awesome responsibility you have in playing a secondary and supportive role to parents. You know you are not the primary caregivers who are responsible for the thoughts, attitudes, behaviors, and beliefs of a child, in spite of what you might be trained to think you’re supposed to do in those areas. Parents have the natural, sovereign right to fully direct the education and upbringing of their children. You need to respect parents’ desires. They want to help their children, but Common Core (particularly math) in many instances is destructive of building positive relationships between parent and child. And when you as a teacher introduce topics that are inappropriate and interfere (and I’ve heard quite a number of instances of subversive teaching), you are in the wrong. When you teach critical thinking, it shouldn’t be from the perspective of a strong vs. a weak argument, it should be put right to the sources and then compare the arguments. Put the Communist Manifesto right next to the US Constitution and help students understand the magnificence of the Constitution.
Parents, ultimately the responsibility rests on you and me. We have to know what’s happening in the classroom better than ever. Talk with your children that sometimes teachers make mistakes and if they ever feel like something wasn’t presented fairly or made them feel uncomfortable, they need to come to you to help them get clarity. In a sense, you have to damage your child’s trust in their teachers early on, because you don’t know what that teacher is going to teach YOUR child. This is what you are up against:
“Every child in America entering school at the age of five is insane because he comes to school with certain allegiances to our founding fathers, toward our elected officials, toward his parents, toward a belief in a supernatural being, and toward the sovereignty of this nation as a separate entity. It’s up to you as teachers to make all these sick children well – by creating the international child of the future.”
Dr. Chester M. Pierce, Harvard Professor of Education and Psychiatry, address to the Childhood International Education Seminar, 1973
“…a student attains ‘higher order thinking’ when he no longer believes in right or wrong. A large part of what we call good teaching is a teacher´s ability to obtain affective objectives by challenging the student’s fixed beliefs. …a large part of what we call teaching is that the teacher should be able to use education to reorganize a child’s thoughts, attitudes, and feelings.”
Benjamin Bloom, psychologist and educational theorist, in “Major Categories in the Taxonomy of Educational Objectives”, p. 185, 1956
I’m not necessarily saying these things are prevalent all throughout Utah schools, but the people who are highly regarded and wield vast influence in the education systems of our nation, are definitely making efforts to implement this agenda.
In closing, I invite all of you, but particularly teachers, to ponder the 5 principles outlined at www.agencybasededucation.org. I believe these are the 5 principles that every school board member and teacher and administrator should wholeheartedly support.
We hear criticism of the government bailouts because legislators and executives said some companies were too big to fail and had to be rescued. However, legislators are largely unwilling to let go of control in education and bring back true local control to schools for fear that some will fail.
When parents and teachers work together for the benefit of a child, there will be no failures. That child will feel more important than ever. If you want to strengthen education, strengthen the home.
However, the forced application of a single path of education for all students is guaranteed to destroy the liberty of this nation. After all, how can we expect the youth we denied educational liberty to, to be empowered with wisdom born of that same liberty, to protect our Constitution? Freedom begets freedom.