Unmasking the Lie

In my last post, I shared what I consider to be chilling parallels between Common Core and education in Nazi Germany.  If we are unable to get Common Core out of our nation's schools, I hope that in a few years, I am sheepishly donning my tinfoil hat and acknowledging the resounding success of the very thing I currently hold under deep suspicion and with great disdain.  I am not holding my breath, though.  That post just barely scratched the surface of why I believe that Common Core is bad for our free society.  Here's another reason: Common Core is bad for our free society because the developers and proponents of Common Core cannot or will not tell the American public the truth about even the most basic piece of information about Common Core, which is who developed it in the first place and why states are adopting it. The truth is that Common Core is both unconstitutional and illegal.  They know that.  The truth is that if the American public knew about the unholy alliance between government and big business here, filled with crony capitalism and multi-million dollar bribes, the dissent we see now would pale in comparison to what we'd see then.  They know that, too. And that is why the developers and proponents of Common Core are telling the American public a bald-faced lie about its origins.  I'm sure you've heard it before.

Common Core State Standards is a voluntary, state-led initiative to improve the quality of education in the United States.

They are telling this lie often.  As they are telling this lie, they sound like reasonable people.  They are phrasing this lie in simple, easy-to-understand terms.  By coincidence?  I don't think so.  Consider these directives for propaganda in Nazi Germany...

Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.

and

All propaganda has to be popular, and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of whom it seeks to reach.

I don't know about you, but the idea that they hold themselves above the rest of us, that they alone are smart enough to define and dictate what our children need to know, and that they think we can be duped by their snappy slogans and slick marketing phrases rubs me the wrong way.  Their tactics are working, though. They are doing such a good job of perpetuating this lie that even folks who are critical of Common Core have accepted it and characterize it as a voluntary, state-led initiative before they go on to offer up whatever criticism they have of it.

Fortunately, this lie isn't difficult to debunk.  It just takes some digging.  There are lots of people, smarter than I am, who have spent untold hours researching Common Core and reached the same conclusions that I have.  In the spirit of not reinventing the wheel, I'm going to share their words, and I'll start with the two most powerful statements to obliterate that lie.  Then, I'll backtrack and explain why those two people said what they did.

One, in a video-taped lecture about Common Core, Dr. Peg Luksik insists that people, "...can only accept that this was state-led if you ignore the federal legislation (and I will add huge financial contributions toward development and implementation from big business) driving it."

Two, in an article written for American Educator, New York principal Tim Farley says, "What they call 'voluntary', I call 'extortion'."

So, let's backtrack to the federal legislation driving Common Core.  Unless you've done some research or watched one of the many videos opponents of Common Core have delivered, you're probably wondering, "what federal legislation?"  As I understand it, the unattainable standards of 100% proficiency in reading and math set by No Child Left Behind (NCLB) enacted by the second Bush administration, were (are) set to go into full force in the 2013 - 2014 school year.  There are stiff penalties for a failure to meet the standards laid out in NCLB, including the closure of schools and loss of federal Title I funding, which many states rely heavily on.

Moving forward from the second Bush administration to the Obama administration...In the "stabilization fund", the administration allocated $53.6 billion to the federal Department of Education, with $4.35 billion going to a grant program for states for education called Race to the Top.  The states were all invited to compete for Race to the Top money, as though "winning" this grant money was some sort of badge of honor. Nothing is ever free, including money that, by my thinking anyway, should have been state money to begin with.  Depending on whom you believe, agreeing to adopt Common Core was either a requirement for being just eligible to win Race to the Top grant money or the state making that agreement earned extra "points" for doing so.  The way I see it, there's not much difference.  The states making that agreement are going to be the ones awarded the money, and these days, every dollar counts.  Furthermore, states agreeing to adopt Common Core are also granted waivers from those impossible standards laid out in NCLB, which, with huge Title I funding dollars on the line, is yet another "incentive" for states to do so.  In her presentation, Dr. Peg Luksik referred to NCLB as the stick and Race to the Top as the carrot.  In a nutshell, this is both the federal legislation driving Common Core and the reason Tim Farley calls the state adoption of Common Core "extortion".

To further debunk the ridiculous notion that Common Core is a state-led initiative, go to the 1:58 mark of the video titled Common Core Curriculum - A Trojan Horse for Education Reform, a very simple yes or no question sheet developed by Professor Dave Scanlon of Sacramento State University, about whether Common Core could possibly be a state-led initiative was shared.

• Did state legislators have input and control over content, standards, tests, and costs?
• Did the state school boards have input and control over content, standards, tests, and costs?
• Did teachers have input and control over content, standards, and tests?
• Did local school boards have input and control over content, standards, tests, and costs?
• Did school boards convene general meetings for parents, to explain the Common Core curriculum and costs before adopting them?
• Did experimental research support the effectiveness of Common Core content, standards, and digital learning with computers?

The answer to each and every one of those questions is a resounding, "NO".  If Common Core had truly been a state-led initiative, the answer to each and every one of those questions would have been affirmative.

Jim Stergios, PhD, who is the Executive Director of the Pioneer Institute agrees.  "When we developed our standards in Massachusetts, it took us years because we debated texts, we debated what was going to go into US history standards.  It was all publicly debated.  Public testimony was taken," he said in the documentary Building the Machine.  There was no secrecy involved.  Everyone who had a stake in the children's education had a voice.

Not so with Common Core.  David Coleman, the lead architect of Common Core, is not and never has been a classroom teacher.  He's a businessman, and, as you'll learn in a future post, is benefiting from the crony capitalism that has pervaded Common Core since its inception.  It's sick.  Achieve.  Student Achievement Partners.  ACT.  The College Board.  America's Choice.  Who the heck are these people?  They're the folks behind Common Core, not state or local school boards and not classroom teachers and not even researchers with proven track records for studying K-12 education.  Never heard of most of them before I started looking into Common Core. Once I did, finding information about them has proven frustrating at best, and for the record, I am the daughter of a librarian.  Research is something I count as something I do very well, and even I have found myself stymied and at dead ends.  Confirming what I am hearing and reading about them from other people, unearthing their agendas and what's-in-it-for-them has been so difficult that it has raised all sorts of red flags for me.  Something stinks here...and nothing should be stinking so close to our children's educations.

Proponents of Common Core are also citing the National Governor's Association (NGA) and the Council for Chief School Officers (CCSO) as evidence of the initiative being state-led.  Sounds reasonable, right? Governors and State Superintendents of Schools.  Sounds like state stuff to me, too....until I found out that they are both non-profit organizations whose meetings are not public and whose members do not here represent the will or wishes of the people who elected them to their respective offices.  They are trade groups.  They are also each recipients of money from the Gates Foundation, but more on that in a future post about the unholy alliance in Common Core between government and big business.  That's just as galling and even more despicable.