Deep within the halls of the company formerly known by the motto “Don’t Be Evil,” lurks evil. Google isn’t the only one of course. Massively huge companies setting political agendas and engaging in mass manipulation of the public is no surprise these days. You’ve got to protect *your type* of thinking after all. You don’t want someone sharing a viewpoint and convincing others it’s true if it contradicts your viewpoint and you have the power to deny that brush with truth…
Do you know what’s happening around you?
Prager U, that makes thoughtful 5-minute videos explaining different topics has had 30 of their harmless videos restricted on YouTube. Oh wait, they aren’t harmless. They espouse a conservative non-politically correct viewpoint and Google doesn’t want young people exposed to those dangerous ideas. They are now forced to sue Google owned YouTube. If you want to sign their petition or donate to their lawsuit, visit https://www.prageru.com/petitions/youtube-continues-restrict-many-prageru-videos-fight-back.
Twitter jumped into the fray this week as well in the latest undercover video by Project Veritas. They admit to Shadow Banning people where a person might have a ton of followers but those followers don’t get their tweets and they just think nobody is engaging with them.
Surely this doesn’t extend to education though! That’s SOOOOoooo non-partisan that the mere idea of vetting by political parties is anathema to liberals. “Schools can’t be partisan” they cry. Wake up! They’re already as partisan as it gets and it’s destroying this country.
We already KNOW indoctrination is fully active in education. Partisan elections are to shine a light on candidates by close examination of a segment of society. No more hiding behind meaningless campaign slogans like “For the Children!” Duh! Who isn’t?
Project Veritas already showed that Pearson and other publishers were using the Common Core curriculum market they monopolize to try and change views about Christianity, the 2nd Amendment, and many other topics they have a strong bias against. Check it out here:
That’s printed curriculum that can be viewed by parents with a little effort. So what are parents to do about digital content they can’t easily see? It’s most certainly happening and even worse. With digital platforms, you can track behaviors and attitudes and manipulate the content directly serving up what a publisher deems important for that student to be exposed to. “Intelligent” systems aren’t quite what they’re cracked up to be, and the curriculum just keeps expanding. Planned Parenthood helped create the new Common Core sex ed curriculum. The Next Generation Science Standards will be full of bias and Utah was promised we’d never go down this road yet we are. You can’t stop a freight train, but you can bail out and get on another track.
Parents, it’s time to home school or engage in something you can trust to see the curriculum. If you’ve been nervous about it in the past, it’s far easier than you realize and there are tons of resources available to you online. Protect your child not just from political indoctrination, but give them the gift of freedom of time to learn things they have a real desire to learn. There are so many ways to educate and so many more schools popping up all over the place to support these ideas. One that is opening this fall in North Utah County is Alpine Valley Academy which is a self-directed learning school. These schools tend to create 14 times as many entrepreneurs as public schools (per graduate capita). Other options abound. Just look up home school groups and ask around. Some of the charter schools in your area might be doing really creative things for home schoolers such as Canyon Grove Distance Education or My Tech High.
We just spent Thanksgiving thanking God for our freedom. Now, we must defend it!
STOP Speaker Paul Ryan & Senator Patty Murray’s Foundations for Evidence-Based Policy Act (FEPA) (H.R. 4174; S. 2046) THIS MONDAY!
It is imperative that concerned citizens begin contacting our US Senators on MONDAY, November 27th, to oppose FEPA. And, that we begin now to contact President Trump to veto this legislation if it passes the Senate. FEPA has already passed the House—on a voice vote under suspended rules. Such shenanigans would be truly laughable if they didn’t mark the death of individual freedom by the hands of big data.
What Does the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policy Act (FEPA) do?
FEPA creates a de facto national database on every individual in America through extensive data-linking and data-sharing mandates. Read this important rebuttal to the House Majority’s staff about FEPA.
Who Supports the Foundations for Evidence-Based Policy Act (FEPA)?
Unfortunately, Republicans like Trey Gowdy have joined hands with Democrats on FEPA because it uses language that promotes government transparency. But, data transparency, in our current environment, is designed to support the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals through interoperable data systems—which were streamlined under the Obama administration’s Stimulus Bill to ensure that regions and states follow along with social-justice-aligned policies in education.
FEPA—and Senator Orrin Hatch’s College Transparency Act (CTA)—mark the culmination of efforts made by the United Nation’s Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) to shift America into “Evidenced-Based Policy.” The OECD is a world policy organization that worked with the Obama administration on the Race to the Top program to shift America into globally-defined Competency-Based Education. Both FEPA and CTA work hand-in-hand to support a type of Competency-Based Education that undermines religious freedom. The US Labor Department has also been working with the OECD to ensure America’s shift into global Competency-Based Ed. (more info below). Molly Irwin, Chief Evaluation Officer for the US Dept. of Labor, has been working with the OECD to support the US shift into “Evidence-Based Policy.” See below that her slide-share presentation is for “OECD Governance.”
One of the most telling things about FEPA, is who supports it.
One big-name supporter is Obama administration insider, David Medina who is very excited that House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senator Patty Murray (D-WA) are building upon the Obama administration’s groundwork on FEPA. Medina runs the progressive organization, Results For America, and their recent headline states,
“Results For America Praises Speaker Ryan and Senator Murray for New Legislation to Advance Evidence-Based Policymaking”
Then they say, “This new bipartisan legislation would help build the What Works infrastructure necessary at each federal agency to use evidence and data when making budget, policy, and management decisions”…
“We are particularly pleased that Speaker Ryan and Senator Murray included several recommendations in their legislation that Results for America has promoted over the last several years, including therequirementthat each federal agency designate aChief Evaluation Officer, establish an evaluation policy, and develop evidence-building plans. (emphasis added)
David Medina currently serves as the COO and Co-Founder of Results for America. David previously served in the Obama Administration as First Lady Michelle Obama’s deputy chief of staff and as the Peace Corps’ public engagement director. Throughout his career, David has also served as the US Global Leadership Campaign’s government relations director, US Senator John Edwards’ national political director, the 2004 Democratic National Convention Committee’s deputy CEO, an AFL-CIO legislative representative, the Democratic National Committee’s policy director, and US Senator Carol Moseley-Braun’s legislative assistant.
David has served on the University of Chicago’s Alumni Visiting Committee, Human Rights Campaign, Millennium March on Washington, and Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute national boards of directors. David received his B.A. from the University of Chicago and his M.P.P. from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government.
“What Works” means that people’s choices can be directed by the state because their choices have to serve the purposes of the state. Results For America says, “When it comes to so many of our nation’s great social challenges, progress is within our reach. We know more than ever before about what works for young people, their families and communities.”
Hmmm. Do you recall being at any meetings where you asked Results For America to decide “what works” for you and your family—from cradle to grave? Do you recall asking Results For America to REQUIRE government to hold you and your family accountable for pursuing what THEY decide works?
How Can Evidence-Based Policymaking Undercut Christian Values in our Current Big-Data Environment?
David Medina is just one of many globalists working closely with the UN’s Organization for Economic and Cooperative Development (OECD) to implement world-wide “Evidence-Based Policies” to meet the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (which are a threat to Christian liberty).
Jeb Bush’s ExcelinEd is also doing the OECD’s bidding. (Remember that Jeb was the sole Republican presidential candidate that supported and promoted Common Core).
If you want to know what a threat the OECD is to Christian families and children, read their recent report called Global Competency for an Inclusive World where they say,
“The skills, attitudes and values that shape human behaviour should be rethought, to counter the discriminatory behaviours picked up at school and in the family.”
“All young people should be able to challenge cultural and gender stereotypes, to reflect on the causes and solutions of racial, religious and hate violence and to help create tolerant, integrated societies.”
Then, watch my recent 30-min. presentation at the Agency-Based Education conference in Utah to understand how the Obama administration used Common Core’s Common Education Data Standards to support the OECD’s mission for “Evidence-Based Policy.” It’s entitled, The Battleground for Religious Freedom is in K-12 Assessments: The Powerful Culture War that No One’s Talking About.
Our children and grandchildren deserve to live under freedom’s banner.
TAKE 2 MINUTES RIGHT NOW TO MAKE 2 PHONE CALLS!:
Call the US Capitol Switchboard at (202) 224-3121 twice, asking for each of your Senators in turn. Tell them to OPPOSE the Foundation’s for Evidence-Based Policy Making Act (S. 2046).
Call President Trump at: Comments: (202) 456-1111 and/or Switchboard: (202) 456-1414. Tell him to VETO the bill if it passes the Senate.
And, remember, that FEPA is supported by another bill sponsored by Utah Senator Orrin Hatch – The College Transparency Act (CTA) (H.R. 2434; S. 1121). This bill must be stopped when it comes up.
This was posted to Facebook and I thought it worth sharing. The nonsense teachers go through is only going to increase. Those who care about teaching are retiring in droves, leaving those who don’t mind playing the game in the system which will only make it more and more difficult to get “authentic” teaching.
<rant>Unless we stop the computer adaptive tests and the INSANITY of this accountability and test culture (NOT being pushed by parents), we will destroy the next generation. Please, state board and legislators, end school accountability, school grading, computer adaptive tests, competency-based education, database tracking, and all the other soul-destroying nonsense you’ve enacted. Reverse it before it’s too late.
True accountability is between three people. Parent, student, and teacher. That’s it. If you think because it’s tax money paying for our schools that it gives you the right or creates an obligation to prove to the rest of the state and the federal government just how much standardized learning is being done in the classroom, you’re wrong. You’re damaging teachers, students, and families. Free the schools. Free the teachers. LOCAL CONTROL IS LOCAL. Let communities run their own programs and do what’s best for families. Drop the state rules and let local schools and families do what they feel is best. Success and failure will be at the hands of the free. Not the hands of those with governmental power to dictate what should be taught and when. Where there is no agency there is no development of the mind.
Oh, and you administrators who accept this nonsense without speaking out, where’s your soul? </rant>
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A Teacher’s Story From Facebook:
Tampa Bay, Florida teacher describes growing frustrations of a system in place that snuffs out creativity and life. Is this teacher a complainer? No! They are speaking out for the sake of children and the daily damage done. “After 22 years, I don’t know if I have it in me anymore. I am a teacher. I will always be a teacher. I love teaching, but this isn’t teaching. Everything I am required to do is about preparing my students for “the test.” I spend all day, every day, ramming test prep down my students’ throats. Then I do what seems like 8,000 reams of paperwork each week to prove that I’m ramming test prep down my students’ throats. There is no joy in this for them. I see their blank faces with eyes glazed over. There is no fun or excitement in learning, for they are not really learning. This past weekend I spent literally every waking hour working, taking breaks only to do laundry and prepare food for my son. I wrote my lesson plans with all of the required “non-negotiables” included and explained. I examined my data to make decisions about what skills might need some reteaching and what skills could be practiced and reinforced in centers. I dutifully created my differentiated centers and made them rigorous (a term that has no business in education). I printed off copies of things on my own printer, using my own ink and paper, because we only get 1000 copies per month. I laminated, cut, and put things in folders to make sure I was all ready for today. Then, in the middle of my ELA block this morning, my principal walked in to do a walk-through. Apparently, this go round was focused on centers because she asked to see mine as she did for all of my teammates, I later learned. Well, I figured this one would be easy after everything I did over the weekend. She looked at them, asked me a couple of questions, and left. My observation notification came through after school and I looked. Imagine my surprise when I received a Basic for Danielson Domain 1e: Designing Coherent instruction. My principal’s only comment… “While it’s good to see differentiated centers there needs to be paired texts and writing in your centers.” Make no mistake, I am open to criticism, especially when criticism is constructive and valid. This, however, is neither constructive nor valid. This is about playing a game. This is about making up a fault that isn’t included in the rubric when you can’t find one that is. This is about making sure that teachers don’t get too many points so we can keep those merit-based raises to a minimum. This is what education has become. It’s a game, it’s inauthentic, it’s draining. They’re putting out the fire that has blazed inside of me. They’re destroying my soul and my passion. I don’t know what to do now. I am a teacher. I will always be a teacher. I love teaching, but this isn’t teaching.”
Dr. Duke Pesta spoke at the Newquist breakfast event on 9/30/17 and gave an incredible presentation on Common Core and the dangers in and coming to public schools. Please watch this important presentation and then go register for the 2017 Agency-Based Education conference where among other inspiring presentations, you can see if home schooling is right for your family and how to get started. If not home schooling, there are loads of other options including Freedom Project Education (online private school) which Dr. Pesta works for, and many more.
Cities of Learning (or LRNG Cities) is an initiative propelled by the international Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). They are the creators of the international assessments known as PISA (Programme for International Student Achievement). Both the OECD and PISA were developed to support the UN’s goals for global economic transformation.
Through President Obama’s Race to the Top for Assessments initiatives, the OECD has helped to fundamentally transform America’s online assessment systems and teacher training. Where local teachers used to test for children’s academic skills, now unknown researchers assess and measure children’s emotions and behaviors—in and out of school, online. Measuring children’s emotions and behaviors through online curriculum, apps and assessments is part of the international view of Competency-Based Ed.
It might surprise American parents to know what the OECD says about the goals of global Competency-Based Ed. They say, “The skills, attitudes and values that shape human behaviour should be rethought, to counter the discriminatory behaviours picked up at school and in the family.” (OECD, Global Competency for an Inclusive World.)
Cities of Learning, Common Core, Competency-Based Ed and Digital Badges for children
With the advent of Common Core, Competency-Based Ed isn’t about freeing children from “seat time”, it’s about turning whole cities and countries into Common Core 24/7 Learning Centers with citizens all aligning their learning objectives and “competencies” to global economic and social objectives—and all citizens being tracked by big-data. Online learning, tied to Common Core through big-data, is how children are being turned into commodities for the global economy—and how their emotions and behaviors are going to be shaped in order that they will champion globally approved social causes. The OECD says, “All young people should be able to challenge cultural and gender stereotypes, to reflect on the causes and solutions of racial, religious and hate violence and to help create tolerant, integrated societies. A PISA assessment of global competence, developed in consultation with OECD member countries, would offer the first, comprehensive overview of education systems’ success in equipping young people to support the development of peaceful, diverse communities. ”
CollectiveShift (an apt-name for collectivist revolutionaries) is the name of the organization spearheading Cities of Learning in the U.S.—where libraries, museums, after-school clubs, civic organizations, financial institutions and others work hand-in-hand to tie children’s learning to Common Core’s social-emotional competencies. CollectiveShift’s Cities of Learning video tells a dystopian tale where America’s education system is transformed (by the big-data gurus behind Common Core) into a video-gaming system that awards children, and adults alike, digital badges for the privilege of being tracked and researched from cradle to grave.
Global technology standards created the perfect storm for the loss of local curriculum and assessment control
Cities of Learning were made possible with the help of the Obama administration’s Race to the Top for [online] Assessment partners, IMS Global and Bill Gates’ SIF Association. With the help of these two international technology standards organizations, and groups like Mozilla, “thousands of organizations around the world” now “recognize learning achievements” [global competencies] thanks to IMS Global’s Open Badges standards for online assessment “interoperability.”
PR Web wrote a detailed overview of CollectiveShifts collaborative efforts on Cities of Learning and how groups like the Gates Foundation are working to build competency-based assessments into online games.
Collective Shifts’ CEO Connie Yowell wrote an open letter that gives further details about the vast number of tech groups involved in Cities of Learning.
Readers might be interested to know that the Obama administration’s federal Learning Registry and #GoOpen initiative prompted Mozilla’s involvement, along with the involvement of groups like Amazon, Edmodo, Microsoft and others. (Note: Utah was one of the first states to join the #GoOpen initiative).
America’s cities are starting to join in the movement to badge children’s global competencies (also called social-emotional skills)
The 10 Million Better Futures’ website says that “Chicago launched the Cities of Learning movement in 2013 with a successful summer program that networked more than 100 organizations and served more the 100,000 students. Chicago is now a City of Learning year round, and this year the initiative is expanding to Columbus, Dallas, Los Angeles, Pittsburgh, and Washington, DC.”
This story about Pittsburgh is a MUST READ: Pittsburgh is following the P21 Competency Framework (Common Core’s global competency and social-emotional learning framework as promoted by the World Economic Forum). See all the ways in which children’s competencies will be tagged and pay attention to the fact that kids don’t just code, but they code and their “dispositions” are identified.
What you should know about Digital Badges and international technology standards for Competency-Based Ed
Here’s a great blog called, “The Business of Badging and Predicting Children’s Futures. This is a good starting point for the average parent to start understanding what digital badging is and how it works.
Here, here and here are further background on IMS Global setting the stage for Cities of Learning through Common Core’s Common Education Data Standards which paved the way for globalists to digitally badge children’s global competencies.
See here, that Canvas Learning Management Systems—used by Utah students—has now met 12 IMS Global technology specifications.
And, here is a list of all the learning and assessment platforms that IMS Global says are now meeting their specs for “interoperability.” Get some popcorn, you’ll be reading for a while as you mourn the loss of local curriculum and assessment control.
It’s time to take back local control over online curriculum and assessments
Seriously. Parents. Get your kids out of digital curriculum and assessments, in and out of school, unless you can guarantee it’s locally controlled and operated. Many teachers report that they no longer see their students’ online curriculum or assessments anymore because each child is on a computer and on a different “personalized,” computer-adaptive learning plan.
The surest way to take back what your children are taught and tested is this: Take your children away from the digital badgers.
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Editor’s Note: How can you help protect your children? Starve the data beast. Come see if home schooling is right for your children and how to get started at the 2017 Agency-Based Education conference.
Each new thread our state government braids between the Department of Workforce Services and the education system in our state just makes it harder and harder for Utah to sever the cord being created by societal central planners. For decades, society’s central planners have wanted national database tracking from cradle-to-grave to provide for big business to have their optimum input: a well-trained workforce. Exhibit A is Marc Tucker’s letter to Hillary Clinton in 1992. Tucker and his organization have been funded by Bill Gates who as we know, funded Common Core’s creation with the CCSSO and NGA.
People no longer look to history for warnings. If they did, they might notice the dangerous parallels we are following that led to darker times in history. Soon enough, unfortunately, people will remember the phrase, “history repeats itself.”
I’m not an economist or an historian. But if anyone takes the time to study it out a little, it’s easy to see the vast framework marrying government to business (ie. Fascism) in the lucrative education industry. From the White House Learning Registry, to CEDS (Common Education Data Standards), to SLDS (Statewide Longitudinal Database Systems), everything is pretty much in place to control exactly what our children are taught, tested on, and rewarded for, and to create behavioral profiles to know just what they’re suited for…according to the central planners.
Business, which has been clamoring for a seat at the trillion dollar school table, is asked by government to step in and save the day. “Please Big Business, tell our schools what you need and we’ll make sure it’s taught so you have a properly trained workforce. We’ll ensure that no child is left behind. You just provide the list of skills and computer adaptive software they need and we’ll pay you to teach them. Don’t you worry about school boards or parents. They don’t know what’s best for their own children and with the convenience of compulsory education, your common training for the youth will become ubiquitous. We will create the greatest generation of workers the world has ever seen. (Oh, and we’ll also set up the regulations to control you for our great strategic vision.)”
Anyone that studies what’s happening around the country can put this picture together without much effort, if they are willing to see it.
Now I’m NOT saying all these people involved with Prosperity 2020, the Salt Lake Chamber, or at the Utah Office of Education, are Fascists. I’m saying they are moving us toward Fascist education, wittingly or not. I’m also saying that once everything is firmly in place it’s a quick trip from governmental control point A to point B and so on. I am sure most of these good folks are just obsessed with the economy and making sure kids get jobs after graduating from high school or college. That’s certainly how most politicians get their re-election talking points!
This email from the Salt Lake Chamber instigated this article showing this connection I’m talking about.
It’s all about career training. Learn this, master this skill, take this test, etc… All pointed toward a common goal, rather than a diversity of personal goals.
C.S. Lewis said, “If education is beaten by training, civilization dies.”
Is there a role for business in education? Certainly. It just shouldn’t be setting the focus. For the rest of the story on business and family involvement in education, please check out this article by Autumn Cook on Agency Based Education’s website, called, Aligning Education with the Needs of the Family.
Classical Education, the Counter
What is the counter to workforce training education? It’s often called classical education. You can Google plenty of resources on it, but here’s a wonderful short essay by Terrance Moore called, “A Classical Education for Modern Times.” That can serve as one example. In short, one might say it is an education foundation for the mind and heart instead of training a person in skills for the workforce.
A well-trained person may always have a job based on their skill set. As long as their industry continues to exist.
A well-trained mind can learn just about any skill, and can problem solve by seeing and creating opportunities. They become the ones who run the businesses and employ the skilled laborers. There’s a reason the elite and powerful in this country send their children to expensive private schools instead of putting them in the Common Core public schools they create for the masses.
I hope school board members and business owners will focus on meeting the unique and diverse needs of each individual child, as seen and encouraged by their own families, rather than on the labor pool they want right now. Doing so, will in fact, solve both problems, in unexpected and magnificent ways.
In an almost unbelievable surprise, Senator Orrin Hatch has introduced the College Transparency Act of 2017 – along with Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Bill Cassidy (R-LA) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) – as a “modernization” of “the college reporting system for postsecondary data in order to provide greater transparency for students, families, institutions, and policymakers.”
A press release about the bill states:
The College Transparency Act of 2017 will provide actionable and customizable information for students and families as they consider higher education opportunities by accurately reporting on student outcomes such as enrollment, completion, and post-college success across colleges and majors, while ensuring the privacy of individual students is securely protected. Most importantly, this information will tell students how other prospective students have succeeded at an institution, and help point them towards schools best suited to their unique needs and desired outcomes.
In other words, a new longitudinal database to track students. Simultaneously…
HOUSE COMPANION BILL TO REPEAL BAN ON COLLECTING STUDENT-LEVEL DATA: A pair of House lawmakers this week filed companion legislation to a Senate effort aimed at overturning a federal prohibition on tracking the educational and employment outcomes of college students. Reps. Paul Mitchell (R-Mich.) and Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) introduced legislation that would establish a new “secure, privacy-protected postsecondary student data system.” The bill would allow the Education Department to more comprehensively capture student success and employment outcomes of students, broken down by college and major.
– Both lawmakers are members of the House education committee, which is chaired by Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.) who has been a vocal opponent of repealing the ban, citing data privacy concerns and questioning whether it’s the proper role of the federal government to collect the information. Read the bill text here and Politico coverage from earlier in the week here.
Senator Hatch’s bill sets up:
[S]haring agreements, with other Federal agencies to create secure linkages with relevant Federal data systems, including data systems of the Office of Federal Student Aid, the Department of Treasury, the Department of Defense, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the Social Security Administration, and the Bureau of the Census.
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Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin also covered student data collection in a recent episode of her CRTV show Michelle Malkin Investigates.
“Rather than protecting student privacy, the government is a complicit partner in eroding it,” Malkin observed. “We’ve gone from No Child Left Behind to Every Child Data Mined.”
Malkin stressed the role of the federal government in the collection of private student data in her show commentary:
The government is not only joining in but also encouraging and mining the data of our children. Washington meddlers are already on the ground and in our schools gathering intimate information on your family. Through Common Core, the feds are funding and mandating invasive longitudinal databases, collecting highly personal information. It’s data they’ll have forever, data that can never be unseen, your children’s privacy ripped away as they tracked from womb to tomb.
“The data-mining octopus keeps growing more arms and tentacles,” Malkin recently told Breitbart News. “It’s inescapable.”
Until this morning, I had never heard it summarized this well. Privacy is the foundation of freedom.On its face, the article below is not about privacy or freedom, but it is inherently part of the issue of rigged assessments. Why? Because those who have built our education system for the last century have been more interested in education as a tool for social engineering than a tool of knowledge transmission. To accomplish that goal, you must gather information about people, their behaviors, attitudes, and beliefs. There must be a loss of privacy to accomplish these goals.
SAGE exams are created by a behavioral testing company. The next alarming trend that MUST BE STOPPED, is that of embedded assessments where students don’t even know they’re being assessed. This is also a violation of privacy and another erosion of freedom. The digital age is unlocking vast potential for good and evil. Stop the evil. Read Wendy’s article and understand what’s happening. Then read this article on the Huff Po entitled “I can’t answer these Texas standardized test questions about my own poem” to see how ridiculous Common Core testing for ELA is.
We all know that polls can be skewed and that ‘what everybody knows’ may not be so. Similarly, assessments and assessment data can be gathered, used, and presented in various ways to feed an agenda. Just because a child is said to be proficient on a state assessment doesn’t mean he or she actually is ‘proficient’ in the way parents want him or her to be.
When I was in school, my teachers would give us tests to help figure out how much of what they were teaching we had actually learned. Then, the state stepped in and started giving assessments to make sure teachers were teaching what the state wanted them to teach. And now? We’re told the assessments are great, but we are just supposed to trust. We can’t see the assessment questions. The algorithms (mathematical formulas) determining which questions come next or whether you have a higher or a lower score are kept secret. The State Boards of Education or the assessment vendors, themselves, can move and change the ‘proficiency’ levels at will.
We take it on faith when a student passes a math assessment it means the student is proficient. Is it possible to rig an assessment? Not only is it possible, but it’s also being done all the time. I have four examples of how the assessments are and have been manipulated to provide different results than most people expect. This is being done without oversight, without insight into what is occurring, and certainly without permission from parents.
The first example is assessing not just what a student is supposed to know but making them do the problem in a particular way. Ask yourself, does this create a disadvantage for a child who knows the math facts but hasn’t been shown a particular way of doing things?
Add and subtract within 20, demonstrating fluency for addition and subtraction within 10. Use strategies such as counting on; making ten (e.g., 8 + 6 = 8 + 2 + 4 = 10 + 4 = 14); decomposing a number leading to a ten (e.g., 13 – 4 = 13 – 3 – 1 = 10 – 1 = 9); using the relationship between addition and subtraction (e.g., knowing that 8 + 4 = 12, one knows 12 – 8 = 4); and creating equivalent but easier or known sums (e.g., adding 6 + 7 by creating the known equivalent 6 + 6 + 1 = 12 + 1 = 13).
This question doesn’t just assess whether a student knows how to do an addition word problem, but it assesses whether a student has been trained on the Making Ten Strategy as outlined in the standard. Could a student solve 8+6 without knowing the Making Ten Strategy? Yes, of course. Does using the Making Ten Strategy indicate critical thinking? Or does it simply indicate a student has been instructed in this strategy? Would you be able to succeed as a mathematician without learning this Making Ten Strategy in First Grade? Have you successfully used addition in your life without thinking about the Making Ten Strategy?
Many parent complaints about Common Core Math come from having to show the various methods for getting the answer or having to explain why an answer is correct.
Parent:“When I was in school, we did it this way.”
Child: “I have to do it this other way or it will be marked wrong.”
One mother asked her child’s teacher if he could simply do the standard algorithm on all his math homework because the multiple strategies were causing him stress. The teacher said if he didn’t learn the strategies, he wouldn’t do well on the state assessment. Once the mother indicated her child would not be taking the assessment, the teacher readily agreed to give credit for just the standard algorithms. The reason for the multiple methods? To do well on the assessment.
A review written in 2011 by Dr. Stephen Wilson of Johns Hopkins University states the following about the Common Core SBAC test (then under development). He says, “It appears that the assessments will focus on communication skills and Mathematical Practices over content knowledge.”
Furthermore, “Mathematical Practices, or what was usually called ‘process’ standards in most states, do little more than describe how someone pretty good at mathematics seems to approach mathematics problems. As stand-alone standards, they are neither teachable nor testable. Mathematics is about solving problems, and anyone who can solve a complex multi-step problem using mathematics automatically demonstrates their skill with the Mathematical Practices, (whether they can communicate well or not).”
In short, we see Dr. Wilson’s concerns demonstrated in the above example: the process of getting the answer is of greater importance than the actual mathematical abilities most people think the assessment should be assessing.
A second example comes from Utah’s SAGE (end-of-year) sample assessment for Third Grade. This question is supposed to assess a deeper understanding of division than simply asking if a child knows the answer to 12 ÷ 4. Unfortunately, in creating a more convoluted problem, the assessment question can be solved without knowing anything more than how to count and how to write a division problem. Division facts, themselves, are not necessary.
There are lots of kids who can divide things equally by putting them in different boxes without knowing 12 ÷ 4 = 3. Supposedly, by dragging the stars and dragging the numbers, you are assessing higher-order thinking. But what you are really assessing is the child’s familiarity with the software interface, the format of the problem, and whether they can count and relate counting to division. But they don’t have to know 12 ÷ 4 = 3.
Would a child who knows her division facts be able to do this problem anyway? Most likely. However, it is also true this question doesn’t distinguish the child who does know her math facts from the one who does not.
A third example has to do with reading comprehension. It dates back to the 1980’s but illustrates that what is on an assessment and how it is asked can be used to manipulate and ‘direct’ a student’s thought processes. I quote Dr. Peg Luksik who worked for Pennsylvania’s Department of Education. From her video :
‘A sample question said: “There’s a group called the Midnight Marauders and they went out at night and did vandalism. I (the child) would join the group IF…”
“…my best friend was in the group.”
“…my mother wouldn’t find out.”
There was no place to say they would not join the group. They had to say they would join the group.’
Dr. Luksik states that while this was listed as a citizenship assessment, the internal documents stated, “We’re not testing objective knowledge. We are testing and scoring for the child’s threshold for behavior change without protest.”
Additionally, Dr. Luksik discusses another state’s Reading Assessment question: “If you found a wallet with money in it, would you take it?”
She asked, ‘Do you read better if you say “yes”? Or do you read better if you say “no”? Or were they assessing a child’s honesty on a state assessment with their name on it…?’
Clearly, these are examples of assessment questions that were not assessing either citizenship or reading as you and I would define them.
And finally, before a single Utah student took the state’s SAGE assessment in 2014, the head of state assessments warned local school board members that student test scores were going to drop by 10 or 20 points. He also stated there was no way to correlate the previous test results with the SAGE results. So, how did he know this? The point was they knew what the target proficiency rate was. Utah was looking for a proficiency rate in the 40’s. And as they went through the process of setting those proficiency scores, they did so after the first round of testing. Then they modified the scoring to make sure the result fell within that 40% range*. So, in one year, did Utah kids lose 20 points of knowledge? Or does it simply mean the Powers That Be decided only 40% of the kids got to be labeled ‘proficient’ regardless of what they actually knew?
The only sure way of knowing an assessment is truly measuring academic content and grading it appropriately requires transparency with the assessment questions, the assessment methodology, and independent verification procedures.
Instead of wondering how kids are doing on state assessments and whether a school is “good” based on the assessment scores, we need to be asking what are these assessments supposed to be measuring and how do we know they really are measuring what they claim?
Wendy Hart is the mother of three children. She and her husband Scott have lived in Highland, UT for 17 years. She was raised in Cupertino, CA, and moved to Utah to pursue her B.S. in Mathematics from Brigham Young University. She has worked as a programmer and manager in several hi-tech companies in Utah, and owns her own database migration company. Wendy is honored to serve the citizens of Highland, Alpine, and Cedar Hills, UT as a member of the Alpine School District Board of Education.
‘Abstinence, means choosing not to do any sexual activity that carries a risk for pregnancy or STD/HIV,
We know that employees of Planned Parenthood worked on the Common Core National Sexuality Standards which moves their “education” agenda into elementary school to Kindergarten ages. Utah hasn’t adopted these yet to my knowledge, but no doubt there are those who want it implemented.
JaKell Sullivan recently received a copy of Salt Lake Magazine in which an article appeared, written by Susan Lacke, entitled, “Sex (Mis)Education.” JaKell posted this comment and quote from the article.
Our legislators will get hit hard this legislative session with the argument that we must implement Comprehensive Sexuality Education (CSE = Common Core-aligned global/national standards and curriculum teaching a perverted view of human sexuality) in order to fight the pornography epidemic. See this from Salt Lake magazine’s 6-Page article promoting CSE, and make sure your legislators are aware of this tactic.
“It’s hard to fight a public health crisis when we’re not sure exactly what it is. Besides, how would we fight it? Even Gov. Herbert admits the public health crisis declaration is symbolic: Herbert says it’s a step to let “our young people know that there’s a particularly psychological and physiological detriment that comes from addiction to pornography.”
…”There is little legal recourse to actually limit access to sexual imagery–the Internet will always be available on phones or laptops. Victoria’s Secret catalogues will always be in the mail. Reality TV will always have hookups and breakups and one-night stands. Dirty pictures will always be on Twitter.
Republican Sen. Todd Weiler, who sponsored the declaration, emphatically declared “no boy or girl needs to see those images to learn how families are created.” But they’re seeing them anyway. What’s more, boys and girls are actually seeking out those very images, despite being told not to. What other choice does a curious kid have?
Due to lack of proper sex education in homes and schools, many of the youth are turning to adult films and other means of media, which do no always depict healthy sexuality,” says Utah board-certified sex therapist Shannon Hickman. When parents and school are not properly educating children and young adults about sex, it can lead youth to porn for answers.”….
One reply to her post by Rhonda Hair is what triggered my desire to create this post. It’s a quote from C.S. Lewis. Always brilliant, Lewis tears this old argument to shreds.
Rhonda’s comment:
Here is good food for thought – turns out that C.S. Lewis addressed this very claim in “Mere Christianity”, chapter 5. Hopefully here’s enough to leave you wanting to study the whole chapter:
“Everyone knows that the sexual appetite, like our other appetites, grows by indulgence. Starving men may think much about food, but so do gluttons; the gorged, as well as the famished, like titillations.
“You find very few people who want to eat things that really are not food or to do other things with food instead of eating it. In other words, perversions of the food appetite are rare. But perversions of the sex instinct are numerous, hard to cure, and frightful. I am sorry to have to go into all these details, but I must. The reason why I must is that you and I, for the last twenty years, have been fed all day long on good solid lies about sex. We have been told, till one is sick of hearing it, that sexual desire is in the same state as any of our other natural desires and that if only we abandon the silly old Victorian idea of hushing it up, everything in the garden will be lovely. It is not true. The moment you look at the facts, and away from the propaganda, you see that it is not. They tell you sex has become a mess because it was hushed up. But for the last twenty years it has not been hushed up. It has been chattered about all day long. Yet it is still in a mess. If hushing up had been the cause of the trouble, ventilation would have set it right. But it has not. I think it is the other way round. I think the human race originally hushed it up because it had become such a mess. Modern people are always saying, “Sex is nothing to be ashamed of.” They may mean two things. They may mean “There is nothing to be ashamed of in the fact that the human race reproduces itself in a certain way, nor in the fact that it gives pleasure.” If they mean that, they are right. Christianity says the same. It is not the thing, nor the pleasure, that is the trouble. The old Christian teachers said that if man had never fallen, sexual pleasure, instead of being less than it is now, would actually have been greater. I know some muddle-headed Christians have talked as if Christianity thought that sex, or the body, or pleasure, were bad in themselves. But they were wrong. Christianity is almost the only one of the great religions which thoroughly approves of the body-which believes that matter is good, that God Himself once took on a human body, that some kind of body is going to be given to us even in Heaven and is going to be an essential part of our happiness, our beauty, and our energy. Christianity has glorified marriage more than any other religion: and nearly all the greatest love poetry in the world has been produced by Christians. If anyone says that sex, in itself, is bad, Christianity contradicts him at once. But, of course, when people say, “Sex is nothing to be ashamed of,” they may mean “the state into which the sexual instinct has now got is nothing to be ashamed of.” If they mean that, I think they are wrong. I think it is everything to be ashamed of. There is nothing to be ashamed of in enjoying your food: there would be everything to be ashamed of if half the world made food the main interest of their lives and spent their time looking at pictures of food and dribbling and smacking their lips.
“…In the first place our warped natures, the devils who tempt us, and all the contemporary propaganda for lust, combine to make us feel that the desires we are resisting are so “natural,” so “healthy,” and so reasonable, that it is almost perverse and abnormal to resist them. Poster after poster, film after film, novel after novel, associate the idea of sexual indulgence with the ideas of health, normality, youth, frankness, and good humour. Now this association is a lie. Like all powerful lies, it is based on a truth-the truth, acknowledged above, that sex in itself (apart from the excesses and obsessions that have grown round it) is “normal” and “healthy,” and all the rest of it. The lie consists in the suggestion that any sexual act to which you are tempted at the moment is also healthy and normal. Now this, on any conceivable view, and quite apart from Christianity, must be nonsense. Surrender to all our desires obviously leads to impotence, disease, jealousies, lies, concealment, and everything that is the reverse of health, good humour, and frankness. For any happiness, even in this world, quite a lot of restraint is going to be necessary; so the claim made by every desire, when it is strong, to be healthy and reasonable, counts for nothing. Every sane and civilised man must have some set of principles by which he chooses to reject some of his desires and to permit others.”
For more information watch this video by Family Watch International which explains the comprehensive sexuality education plan.
This summer the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL) announced it had chosen eight states to collaborate on creating K-12 “social emotional learning” (SEL) standards. All students, from kindergartners through high-school seniors, would be measured on five “non-cognitive” factors: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision-making.
Under such a system teachers become essentially therapists, and students become essentially patients. Supposedly this will clear away the psychological deadwood that obstructs a student’s path to academic achievement.
But less than two months later, two of the CASEL states (Tennessee and Georgia) have withdrawn from the initiative. Parents have begun to realize the dangers of SEL and to challenge their schools’ lemming-like march toward psychological manipulation of children.
Federal Government Probes Students’ Psyches
We’ve written about the push by the U.S. Department of Education (USED) and the rest of the progressive education establishment to transform education from academic content instruction to molding and assessing children’s attitudes, mindsets, and behaviors. The infamous “outcome-based education” (OBE) in the 1990s began the trend, and Head Start and the Common Core national standards advance the same foundational principles.
The new federal Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) ramps up the trend in several ways. ESSA requires rating schools based partly on “nonacademic” factors, which may include measures of SEL. It also pours money into SEL programs, “which may include engaging or supporting families at school or at home” (i.e., home visits by bureaucrats).
Other provisions include training school personnel on “when and how to refer . . . children with, or at risk of, mental illness,” and implementing programs for children who are deemed “at-risk” of academic or social problems, without ever defining “at-risk.” Similar ESSA language urges school officials to cast a wide net for special education in school-wide “intervention” and “support” programs, allowing schools to sidestep parental consent requirements for formal evaluations.
Beyond ESSA, at least three other federal initiatives aim to monitor children’s attitudes and beliefs. One is the planned revision of the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP), the test referred to as “the nation’s report card,” to assess mindsets and school climate. This revision has been challenged not only on constitutional and privacy grounds, but as a violation of federal law. Of course, law is merely an inconvenience to the Obama administration.
The second effort would fund federally controlled and funded “social emotional research” in the proposed Strengthening Education Through Research Act (SETRA)—a bill supported by individuals and corporations that will profit handsomely from all this sensitive data to help them mold worker bees for the global economy.
A third federal initiative is USED’s bribery of states to promote SEL standards and data-gathering on preschool children via the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge grants. These grants, along with the preschool grants in ESSA and Head Start, promote “Baby Common Core”-style SEL standards and data-collection and preserving this in states’ student-data systems. So now every child’s permanent dossier can include how well he played with others when he was four.
Should Government Track Students’ Thoughts, Feelings?
The problems with SEL are both philosophical and operational. Parents rightly object that the school (which means the government) has no business analyzing and trying to change a child’s psychological makeup. It’s one thing to enforce discipline in a classroom and encourage individual students to do their best; good teachers have done that from time immemorial. It’s quite another to assess students on their compliance with highly subjective behavioral standards that may measure personality and individual or family beliefs more than objective shortcomings in performance. The school exists to assist parents in educating their children, not to replace them in that role.
Writing in trade publication Education Week, a SEL consultant touts a new assessment “to generate data about such character strengths as responsibility, resilience, teamwork, curiosity, and leadership.” This violation of both privacy and freedom of conscience is also an alarming effort to standardize children, who normally develop at very different rates and in very different ways, to fit government-determined norms. The government has no right to collect data on any child’s “character strengths,” which are the most personal aspects of a child’s psyche. Period.
The operational problems are also daunting. Who will be assessing a child using these subjective criteria? Psychiatrists, psychologists, and counselors undergo years of training to delve into this murky area. But even these experts admit there are no firm criteria for mental-health diagnoses, especially in children. The World Health Organization, hardly a bastion of conservative medical or political thought, warned: “Childhood and adolescence being developmental phases, it is difficult to draw clear boundaries between phenomena that are part of normal development and others that are abnormal.”
Through SEL, however, the government wants to have teachers making such evaluations. Psychologist Dr. Gary Thompson has emphasized that placing this type of responsibility in the hands of untrained even if well-meaning people can be dangerous for the children who may be improperly labeled. These dangers can include even forced treatment with medications that have harmful side effects, or threatened or actual removal of children from their homes if parents refuse the treatment.
Student self-reporting such as surveys, another common means of compiling SEL data, is similarly unreliable. Prominent SEL proponents Dr. Angela Duckworth and David Yeager have pointed out that students may interpret survey questions differently from how the creators intended, and that the questions are unlikely to detect incremental changes. As parents of teenaged boys can attest, many children will treat such surveys as a joke and gladly take the opportunity to respond in the most outrageous manner possible.
Because “perfectly unbiased, unfakeable, and error-free [SEL] measures are an ideal, not a reality,” Duckworth and Yeager argue, such measures should not be used to evaluate schools or teachers. Duckworth was so concerned about using these highly subjective criteria in federally mandated accountability schemes that she withdrew from a California project to do just that. But this is exactly what USED is pushing through ESSA, and CASEL through its K-12 standards.
Dangerous Data in the Permanent Record
Despite the objections even from SEL proponents, the movement advances to assess, record, and analyze personal characteristics of children. What happens to all that data? Incentivized by USED, states are building massive statewide longitudinal data systems to track every aspect of every student from cradle to, or through, their career. Thus, unreliable data collected from making guesses about students’ emotional states will presumably be entered into the database, to live in eternity.
Who might want to get their hands on that data? Would a college or employer be interested in whether a particular applicant shows curiosity or “grit”? Would a prosecutor like to know if a young suspect lacked “relationship skills” in high school? Or perhaps that prosecutor would want to know if that child had violated the school’s zero-tolerance policy in kindergarten, even if only with a “bubble gun.” Because USED has gutted federal student-privacy law to allow sharing personally identifiable information on students with almost anyone the government wants, it’s very possible such entities could access that data—without parental consent.
If such psychological data resided in a psychologist’s office, it would be protected by HIPAA (the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act). Would it be similarly protected if located in a school’s database? No. It would probably be considered merely an “education record” subject to (not protected by) federal student-privacy law.
Opening Doors for Indoctrination
So as parents are beginning to recognize, this entire SEL scheme is objectionable on many levels. Particularly troubling are indications that CASEL and other SEL proponents advance political and cultural viewpoints that conflict with those of many families. Parents will be assured the goal is merely to instill more positive mindsets to increase academic achievement, but the evidence suggests another motivation is in play.
It’s revealing to examine the connections CASEL has to far-left individuals and organizations that push particular agendas. One CASEL board member is Linda Darling-Hammond, the radical education professor who was Bill Ayers’s choice to be President Obama’s secretary of Education.
Darling-Hammond also leads the liberal Aspen Institute’s new National Commission on Social, Emotional, and Academic Development. In a video made to promote this commission, Darling-Hammond makes it clear that SEL will be used to instill attitudes that will ultimately help solve perceived global problems: “If you look at the state of the world, with conflict and inadequate resources for many people . . . it is our social and emotional intelligence that is going to pull us through to the world that we want.” Parents might wonder if the world they want and the world Darling-Hammond wants are the same thing.
CASEL’s partnerships and funding also show a distinct political tilt. CASEL is funded partly by the federal government’s Institute for Education Sciences (the same agency that wants to assess mindsets in NAEP and to have social emotional research become a federal mandate) and partly by a range of liberal foundations. Among these are the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which promotes socialized health care and bemoans the effect of climate change on “health and equity”; and the 1440 Foundation, which pushes Buddhist “mindfulness” techniques and raises alarms about climate change.
Another major funder of CASEL is the NoVo Foundation, which seeks to use SEL to “play a significant role in shifting our culture of systemic inequality and violence toward a new ethos that values and prioritizes collaboration and partnership.” NoVo’s founders make funding decisions to change “systems [that are] based on domination, competition, and exploitation.” Presumably they think CASEL and SEL will help them overturn these exploitative systems.
One area of particular concern to NoVo is LGBT issues. In December 2015, NoVo partnered with the Arcus Foundation to kick off a five-year philanthropic initiative focused on “improving the lives of transgender people worldwide.”
So CASEL partners with organizations that openly seek to change the world (or “systems”) in areas such as health care, climate regulation, and sexual politics. How would SEL help accomplish that? Well, if schools are measuring students’ “social awareness,” might that encompass opinions of supposedly critical global problems such as climate change? And might a student’s “relationship skills” be deemed deficient if, in keeping with the influence of his family and faith, he rejects the LGBT agenda such as same-sex marriage and normalization of gender dysphoria?
Lest we be accused of alarmism, consider the many sample lessons offered by a CASEL partner called Morningside Center for Teaching Social Responsibility. One teaches students the perils of climate change and fracking in North Dakota; another encourages students to “take action toward transgender equity.” This fits well with the type of surveys and assessments being collected on children in a Florida middle-school Spanish class:
Regardless of one’s opinions on a given issue, it is parents’ right and authority to discuss these issues with their children, not the government’s to set standardized norms about thoughts, emotions, attitudes, and beliefs. When government begins manipulating the mindsets of still developing and impressionable children, the dangers are legion. Imagine what Vladimir Lenin could have done with these types of standards, curricula, and linkable databases accessible at the touch of a button.
Samuel Adams said in 1776, “Driven from every other corner of the earth, freedom of thought and the right of private judgment in matters of conscience direct [new Americans] . . . to this happy country as their last asylum.” Unless parents and other citizens stand against this kind of tyranny of the mind, our country will warp into one Adams wouldn’t recognize, and our children will be sacrificed to achieve the transformation.
Jane Robbins is an attorney and a senior fellow with the American Principles Project in Washington DC. Dr. Karen Effrem is a pediatrician and president of Education Liberty Watch.
Deep within the halls of the company formerly known by the motto “Don’t Be Evil,” lurks evil. Google isn’t the only one of course. Massively huge companies setting political agendas and engaging in mass manipulation of the public is no surprise these days. You’ve got to protect *your type* of thinking after all. You don’t want someone sharing a viewpoint and convincing others it’s true if it contradicts your viewpoint and you have the power to deny that brush with truth…
