Concerns

Is the USOE gutting American history?

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After emailing out a link to this set of resources showing concerns with the new AP U.S. History class (http://www.educationviews.org/huge-concerns-ap-u-s-history-resource-links/), I received the following email from Ammi Orton. With permission, I’m posting it here. Bolding is mine.

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It is not just AP U.S. History, I think that all the Utah public school’s U.S. History classes are changing based on recent information I received.  I have a daughter enrolled with Mountain Heights Academy.  They allow all their Juniors and Seniors, if desired, to take online courses directly through Weber State.  This year my daughter was enrolled to take Hist. 1700- American Civilizations.  This class is an overview of all of American History from European exploration, colonization and settlement, to the present. This class was supposed to count in place of her high school U.S. History class and for her American Institutions credit in college. 

Here is the email I got from her counselor last week-
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Hello students and parents,

We have just been informed today that USOE will no longer count HIST 1700 for the 1.0 US History requirement for high school graduation.  They will accept HIST 2710 instead.

Will you please let me know ASAP if you have registered for HIST 1700 for fall semester at WSU?  We will need to see if we can get you into 2710 instead.  You may still take 1700, but it would count for elective credit, and not US History.

I apologize for the inconvenience, but am glad that we are finding out now, and not after you have already taken the course!!

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We looked into it and found many interesting issues.  History 2710 is History of the U.S. since 1877.  This is the course that the Utah State Office of Education wants us to take in place of what they used to count.  By taking just this course, many things will be left out considering that leaves out the founding of our great nation, the establishment of the constitution, and many things that make the United States unique and help us understand our freedom. 

This makes me think that many things will be missing from here on out in all high school history classes.  I am not a history teacher, but it would be interesting to see what instructions start coming to them on what to teach and NOT to teach.

What is crazy is even Weber State does not see History 2710 as good enough to count for the American Institutions credit and if you take it, you also have to take History 2700- History of the U.S. to 1877 also.  Yes 2 classes are required in college instead of just 1 Hist 1700.  It appears that even they want you to have a better idea of the whole picture.  I know the requirement is the same at Snow College as well, you have to take both.

HIST 2700 History of the U.S. to 1877 (3) AND HIST 2710 History of the U.S. since 1877 (3)

Needless to say, we dropped the class and picked up a different General Ed. We will have to rethink the whole thing. She didn’t want to take more college classes right now.  To graduate she will still have to take U.S. History in High school and the college class we will probably have her do is POLS 1100.  It will count  for the required US Government & Citizenship in high school, and it meets the AI requirement in college, still killing 2 birds with one stone.  Good thing we have lots of books and study the founding of our country and early American History already.  The LEMI- Key of Liberty and Sword of Freedom classes are looking better and better to give a foundation of what is going to be intentionally left out in the public school system now.  What a loss!

Ammi Orton

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Oak: I find it interesting that the USOE is taking this action. Invite a board member to this page and ask them to dig into this. It would be tragic to further lose sight of our nation’s founding.

Reference

Hegelian Dialectic in CC ELA Standards

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Larry Ballard, a candidate for the Nebo school district, recently opened my eyes more fully to the Hegelian Dialectic and how it is written into the Common Core ELA standards. This excellent essay from him needs to be read and shared. I bolded a part below which I think is one of the clearest ways of explaining this concept and why it’s so diabolical. This takes people who hold an absolute truth and shifts them away from it incrementally. Don’t miss this article. It’s one of the best I’ve read. Thank you for writing this Larry.

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There is a subtle methodology employed in the structuring of the young mind that occurs in the ELA Standards K-5. It has to do with the dialectic. It has to do with whether truth is relative or absolute.

Trevor Loudon states, “Why should you care about the Hegelian Dialectic? How does it affect me? The dialectic philosophy devised by Georg Hegel underpins the entire political and social strategy of the radical left. The dialectical approach to ‘consensus-building’ and ‘conflict resolution’ is the process with which the radical left attempts to control and manipulate outcomes.” In order to grasp the content of this essay, you will need to go to Mr. Loudon’s short article about the dialectic. You can find it here: http://www.trevorloudon.com/2014/01/hegelian-dialectics-for-dummies/

There are entire books written about the dialectic process. Suffice it to say that absolute truth is a single understanding of the mind that resonates with reality. It stands alone, will continue to bring consonance to the mind, and will withstand any assault to its proven reliability. A false truth can become the norm. Open-minded wrestling with an opposite challenging view to one’s truth will either reinforce the long-held truth; or will reveal that the old truth is no longer valid and has been proven false. A falsehood held to be truth is replaced by the newly discovered truth replacing the prior deception. Absolute truth can also imply a God creator who can communicate such truth to the mind of man. For example, when Kepler revealed the absolute mathematical reality of the proportionality of the solar system, he made a giant and miraculous leap that he personally attributed to his connecting with the mind of God. He stated that the discovery came from the mind of God to his mind. It can never change. It cannot someday evolve into a greater truth. He did not exchange an old truth for a new truth. His proportionality equation simply is.

So, what does it matter that the dialectic is found in the ELA Standards? Loudon says it this way, “Hegelian dialectical theory is simply a philosophy, a way of thinking—a thought process. But when taken to the extreme, and applied by unscrupulous characters, it is a very dangerous and lethal strategy. For it is not a new strategy or idea, but an ancient one. And it takes many forms. Indeed, it can be difficult to expose the strategy, even by those deeply familiar with it, because the agenda is hidden, and the predetermined ends are kept secret by those employing the strategy.”

The dialectic is an account of reality which eschews the concept of absolutes. It de-emphasizes the concept of the Individual. It unites with Darwinian evolutional theory and Marxist theories of a collectivist society. Karl Marx stated, “In the eyes of dialectical philosophy, nothing is established for all times, nothing is absolute or sacred.” Everything is changing—evolving. Think about the process. Take a commonly accepted truth. Now hold it up to scrutiny. A new idea is introduced to challenge the thesis. The anti concept wrestles with the truth in the minds of people. Instead of resolution coming on one side or the other of the dialectic, the resolution to the conflict is a consensus compromise—a synthesis. But, the process does not stop there. As all truth is relative, once the resolution is determined, a new concept is brought forward in counterpoint to the arrived at synthesis of the originally held truth. And the process continues, and continues, and continues. So, the question becomes as to whether this relativistic methodology steeped in gradualism is a secret methodology to greater understanding and truth; or is it a methodology of mind manipulation intent of an evolving movement towards a predetermined end point? Problem—reaction—solution. This methodology begins with, not one absolute truth; rather two opposites in conflict with each other.

What have we learned? There is a dialectical thought process. And, there is a didactic thinking process. The didactic process holds that 2 + 2= 4. The dialectic would suggest that 2 + 2 could = 22 or even 24 or some other answer. The answer may not be as important as the process. In the end, the methodology will produce a consonance or a dissonance. But, what if the dialectic is socially reinforced so that the individual is not allowed to find resolution and is compelled to live within a state of cognitive dissonance? What does this do to the human soul?

On the Silicone Valley Community Foundation web page we find the following video explaining a most cumbersome methodology in discovering how to come up with a correct math problem. http://www.siliconvalleycf.org/content/common-core

You will notice that rather than simply addressing the correct way to apply the absolute historically proven way of doing math, the problem gets personalized by attaching two “people” with opposing views to the teaching methodology in the persons of Rob and Sue. The teacher asks, “Who do you agree with?” Then the students are split up into groups of two and collaborate in order to come up with a consensus answer. The teacher is focused on the methodology in order to guide the students to the correct answer. Critical thinking is inherent to the problem solving process. But, what about the underlying reformed methodology? Has the dialectic been overlooked and simply accepted as the norm over the didactic?

In the Common Core ELA standards we frequently find the phrase, “Compare and contrast two or more versions of the same story…” If you read through the Standards you will find the word “two” a lot. And, you will find that “group reading activities” prevail. Here is another phrase, “Integrate information from two texts on the same topic in order to write or speak about the subject knowledgeably.” The dialectic approach is only apparent. So, the question becomes whether the concept of absolute truth is allowed for within the methodology of the Standards. Could it be that the “critical thinking skills” being taught are the Hegelian Dialectic and it alone? Is the “if and only if” situation that a God creator could reveal absolute truth to man being purged from the equation? Is it being made possible that 3 times 4 actually equal 11 so long as whatever method, valid or invalid, used to arrive at the relative answer can be verbalized? It is the “critical thinking” element that rules the predetermined outcome in which the brain is being trained in the dialectic methodology of relativity.

During a recent debate for Alpine School Board, Wendy Hart and others were asked if politics had a part in the common core debate. Consider that it was the concept of the dialectic that Hegel promoted that, alongside Darwin’s Theory of Evolution, were the backbone and the sinew of Communism and the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia. Both constructs are intellectually stimulating. Intellectually stimulating does not necessarily translate into universal absolute truth or moral goodness. As with the Common Core dialectic, do we find ourselves bouncing off of walls from one crisis to the next these days? This article is simply a starting off point in raising the possibility that if Hegel’s philosophy of idealistic dialectics and Marx’s theory of dialectic materialism are at the core of the methodology of the new common core curriculum, we might want to pay attention and begin to question why?

-Larry Ballard

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Educational

Unconstitutional NCLB Waivers by Sen. Margaret Dayton

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At last Friday’s state school board meeting, Senator Dayton presented the board with her thoughts on the problems of renewing the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waiver. Senator Dayton led the charge against NCLB years ago when it first came out under the Bush administration.  She emailed me and mentioned that there was a difference between waivers back then and now and I asked her to explain it so I could share it with everyone. Here’s what you need to know from Senator Dayton.

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When the No Child Left Behind law was passed by the U.S. Congress in 2001, it included 1100 pages of rules and regulations and requirements – and many additional pages of instructions on how to implement same. Many of these regulations were conflicting with other regulations in the same law – and in conflict with other federal education laws. Certainly most were in were conflict with multitudinous state regulations. All of NCLB is in violation of the Constitution of the United States – (think 10th amendment) and in violation of all the Constitutions of the individual states which include responsibilities and requirements for the individual states to educate their own citizenry.
Utah led the way in resisting the implementation of NCLB – and eventually all 50 states were in some form of resistance to that federal law. Some states had Opt Out legislation patterned after Utah, some were suing the federal govt for imposing an unfunded mandate, and some just refused to implement NCLB. In an effort to placate the individual states, the U.S. Dept of Education started issuing waivers to individual states. These waivers were a type of ‘permission slip’ to ignore certain NCLB requirements. The waivers were issued in response to various state resistance to compliance – and were issued in an arbitrary and capricious manner – with no template of explanation of why some states were granted certain waivers or exemptions, and other states were not.

Thus – the original waiver requests that were granted just excused certain states from portions of NCLB compliance.

In response, the Utah Legislature unanimously passed HB 135 (Implementation of Federal Programs/Dayton) in 2005. The bill had the support of our Congressmen, the State Board, UEA, PTA, and many, many parent groups. HB 135 requires the Utah State Board of Education to request all possible waivers and allowed the parents and educators to decide which state and federal laws would be followed. Often quoted by those of us resisting the federalization of education was section is Section 9527 in NCLB which states:
“Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize an office or employee of the Federal Government to mandate, direct, or control a State local educational agency, or school’s curriculum, program of instruction or allocation of state of local resources or mandate a state or any subdivision thereof to spend any funds or incur any costs not paid for under this Act.”
(note how this portion of NCLB negates – and is in conflict with – the rest of NCLB – and thus HB135 gives Utah authority over the education of the state!)

The term waiver has changed over the years since that original plan. A waiver no longer means a pass or exemption from compliance.

When the current federal administration decided to offer incentives to certain states (and pick winners and losers) for additional education funding under the Race to the Top program, there was an offer to have waivers from certain NCLB obligations but only in exchange for other Race to the Top obligations. Thus the term waiver morphed from being an exemption – to a trade. Waiver no longer meant the states were excused from NCLB requirements – it now meant that certain obligations under one federal program could be traded for another set of federal programs.

At last Friday’s State School Board meeting, it was my hope to help the board members understand this option that was available to them. They had before them the opportunity to vote for Common Core Option A – or Common Core Option B – by requesting a waiver to do one or the other. They also had the opportunity to ask for no waiver. Many concerned and well informed parents pleaded with the board to ask for no waiver – their requests were to keep the control of education in the state of Utah. The Board was comfortable, however, asking for a waiver of their own creation – an option C that they wrote. By asking for a waiver of any kind, the board continues to participate in ‘mother-may-I’ with the unConstitutional Dept of Education. By requesting a waiver, the Board acknowledges the federal government can grant, or not grant, educational authority – thus further empowering the U.S. Dept of Education.

I do not understand the lack of ‘no’ votes from the Board. With appreciation for their willingness to serve, I do not pretend to speak for the board members – but I do not understand the unanimous vote. In spite of my disagreeing with them, I would still prefer to work with Utah State Board rather than the U.S. Dept of Education in matters affecting our children. The government did not create the privileges and powers of parenting; those are gifts of Providence and should not be ceded to the U. S. Dept. of Education.

Reference

Dr. Duke Pesta on CC Math

1 Comment

Here’s an excellent little video from Dr. Duke Pesta on Common Core math. At one point I think he says a particular aspect of the curriculum is being used in dozens of schools, but I think he’s talking about a local school district, because the constructivist approach is being used all over, especially Utah.