The Radical Fingerprints On Common Core

A nationalized school system with curriculum, testing and funds under government control is where progressives have been headed since the days of John Dewey in the 1800’s. Dewey and his fellow progressives gradually gained enough influence over the educational system to assist in giving birth to the radical generation of the 1960’s. That generation has gained enough political power to attempt to remake the country at all levels. Common Core is the progressives’ checkmate on education. That’s not to say it will happen, but that’s to say that as never before Americans need to dare to read, think, speak, and write, and act.

Last September Stanley Kurtz published a column adapted from his book Spreading the Wealth: How Obama is Robbing the Suburbs to Pay for the Cities.

The 2008 controversy over Obama’s years of education work with that famously unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers has faded from view. For a moment, it seemed as though Ayers’ radical education legacy would carry forward into Obama’s presidency. That’s because Linda Darling-Hammond, Ayers’ favorite education expert and head of Obama’s education transition team, was on a fast track to appointment as secretary of education until her leftism alienated even many Democrats…

The core of the hard-left’s education agenda – a program shared by Obama, Ayers, and Darling-Hammond alike – has three parts: 1) a politicized curriculum that promotes leftist notions of “social justice,” 2) reducing “disparate outcomes” between students in different districts by undercutting standards, and 3) a redistribution of suburban education funding to less-well-off urban schools. Achieving these goals on a broad scale requires the federal government to usurp local control of K-12 schooling….

Far from having departing the scene, Obama’s former adviser, Linda Darling-Hammond, is at the center of this plan [for federal control of K–12 schooling]….

So Linda Darling-Hammond was even too much of a leftist for many Democrats, yet she’s a linchpin in the nationalization of education. Also in September 2012 Mary Grabar (the Dissident Prof) wrote Terrorist Professor Bill Ayers and Obama’s Federal School Curriculum. She opens by saying:

Three years after the Department of Education announced a contest called Race-to-the-Top for $4.35 billion in stimulus funds, some parents, teachers, governors, and citizen and public policy groups are coming to an awful realization about the likely outcomes:

• A national curriculum called Common Core
• Regionalism, or the replacement of local governments by federally appointed bureaucrats
• A leveling of all schools to one, low national standard, and a redistribution of education funds among school districts
• An effective federal tracking of all students
• The loss of the option of avoiding the national curriculum and tests through private school and home school

Working behind the scenes, implementing these policies and writing the standards are associates from President Obama’s community organizing days. In de facto control of the education component is Linda Darling-Hammond, a radical left-wing educator and close colleague of William “Bill” Ayers, the former leader of the communist terrorist Weather Underground who became a professor of education and friend of Obama’s.

This is an important article to read in its entirety because Grabar takes you through an extensive look at the movers behind Common Core—who they are, what they think, and what they are doing. She mentions Dewey twice. I wrote the Dewey posts (list here at the bottom of the page) so that you would know more about his legacy and realize that Common Core is not a sudden brainstorm and didn’t come out of nowhere. It’s a reflection and fruition of progressive thinking. Here’s one more quote from Grabar, but make sure you take the time to read all that she has to say.

Common Core is part of an effort to implement regionalism, the replacement of local governments by regional boards of federally appointed bureaucrats, who in turn are beholden to international bodies. Regionalism will eliminate the freedom parents now have in choosing neighborhoods with good schools because tax funds will be distributed equally. There will be no escape in home schooling or private schools either, because the curriculum will follow national tests. Students will be tracked through mandatory state records that will then be accessible to Washington bureaucrats. Ultimately, all students will be subject to education mandates implemented by Obama’s radical cronies.

This isn’t a conspiracy theory. Linda Darling-Hammond is 61 years old, and she was in college and graduate school during the heyday of radical groups such as Bill Ayers’ Weather Underground. I’m only a couple of months older than she is. On my About page I wasn’t kidding when I said the generation I knew then now walks the halls of power. You don’t get much further to the left in political ideology than Darling-Hammond.

I’ve been impressed with the footnotes and references I’ve seen at grassroots activist sites. People need to pay attention now. This is all about government control and indoctrination of our children and control of our money. Truth in American Education has posted a flier designed by a Utah mom on Obama’s education roadmap and Linda Darling-Hammond’s work.

Social justice educator, Linda Darling-Hammond’s role in Common Core, education and wealth redistribution:

• President Obama’s campaign education advisor

• In charge of content specifications for Common Core Standards testing (as part of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortia funded through Stimulus Funds). Yet, she is openly opposed to standardized tests.

• Chair of the Model Standards Committee of the Chief Council of State School Officers (CCSSO). The CCSSO co-produced Common Core with Achieve, Inc. and the National Governor’s Association

• Appointed by Secretary Duncan to the Equity and Excellence Commission to examine the impact of school finance on educational opportunity and focus on systems of finance in order to recommend ways in which federal policies could address funding disparities.

• Co-wrote the 2020 VISION ROADMAP to fulfill President Obama’s education goals. The Roadmap outlines how Common Core should evolve into content standards that should empower the federal government to negate America’s local school funding system and force the redistribution of local tax money across municipal lines.

Click on each page to see an enlarged view of it at Truth in American Education or here is the two-page PDF.

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The flier ends with:

WHAT STATES SHOULD ASK:

•If the ongoing costs of national standards have not be vetted, how can we protect taxpayers?

•If national standards aid the Obama administration’s wealth redistribution goals, how can we protect taxpayers?

•If the NCLB waiver violates federal law & is only good for 2 years, what’s next?

•If the Obama administration bypassed Congress, what kind of control can we maintain over national standards?

•How did the Obama administration bypass Congress and rewrite FERPA to create a national database?

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Almost two years ago at Pajamas Media in Arne Duncan’s Brave New World: Dept. of Education Wants Your Kid’s Blood Type? Patrick Richardson wrote:

Indeed PJM has seen the datasets — and they might be accurately described as a brave new world. While not all of the information in these sets is mandatory at this time, the level of detail being asked for is unsettling.

The sets include such things as hair color, eye color, gestational age at birth (whether a child was premature or not), blood type, blood test results, birth marks, and even bus stop arrival time.

No Child Left Behind prohibited a national database, but Georgia’s Stop Common Core has highlighted federal and state collusion on databases in What Is the Relationship Between Common Core and Student Privacy/Data-Collection?, and last August in JR Wilson: Parents Need to Know About Student Data Privacy, Wilson raised a number of questions.

It appears the federal government is dancing around the issue of developing a nationwide database. While the federal government is not developing it, they are supporting, promoting, encouraging, and funding with tax dollars the development of state longitudinal data systems.

You really don’t need to be a weatherman to know which way the wind blows.

I believe that education is the fundamental method of social progress and reform.

John Dewey

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We’re the counterculture now, but we’re not radicals working to destroy and control. We’re moms and dads and citizens working to protect and provide for our families and children. I’ll be posting links to some of the grass root activist groups working to stop Common Core.

UPDATE:Michelle Malkin has more on the state longitudinal data systems: Rotten to the Core: The Feds’ Invasive Student Tracking Database, March 8, 2013.

I would add to her post that the American Principles Project is far more than an educational think tank. It was, “founded to reinvigorate and restore those principles that made our country great,” and they have many other projects in addition to education. It also works through American Principles in Action, “a non-profit 501c4 organization dedicated to preserving and propagating the fundamental principles on which our country was founded.”

Posts on Common Core are currently listed in the right side bar. They are permanently listed in the Common Core subpage that’s found under Family→Children→Education in the heading.
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