So What Can We Do?

This is the big question that is always asked. I wish I had a satisfying answer.

Our legislators tell us that we’re too late,  the train has left the station. Well, what do we do with a runaway train? Just let it go or do everything you can to stop it so that it does the least amount of damage to the least number of people?

Eradicating Common Core, in all its forms, is just the beginning. The foundational bricks for this Tower of Babel were laid long ago and it has gotten mighty high at the hands of these elites who believe they have the power to control and maintain the human beings with their data, technology, assessments, and power. They can’t, they never will, and the pursuit of their utopian dreams will destroy our education system and our nation. And then they’ll be there looking at the wreckage, pretending like them that broke it, can fix it.

Educate, Inform, Debate

It is going to take an entire culture change and many who have fallen asleep to wake up before things can really change. Many parents just don’t want to get involved. They don’t want to hear it because once you know the awful truth, you must fight it. And it’s no cake walk. We must approach with the facts and the truth. The truth is on our side and it’s all we need.

Many of our fellow citizens have bought into the agenda without truly understanding that under the veneer of  “nice” sounding philosophy and ideas is an agenda that seeks to destroy what it purports to reform and in the end helps no one get ahead, except a small group of elites who are unaffected by any of their own nonsense. Many teachers have come up through the college system learning one way of doing things. They simply don’t know what they don’t know. And many just don’t want to believe it.

Just as Charlie, who created a blog called the Blue Hat Movement, woke up to the truth, we must talk about this whenever the opportunity presents. Charlie describes his own “come to” experience in hearing about Common Core and Pearson publishing at a dinner party:

“Next thing I know Jen starts telling me that she does some kind of curriculum research and as it turned out she had quite a story to tell.  And to be honest, she sounded a bit crazy.  But it is crazy the way all diabolical truths can sound crazy.  It is so hard for us to accept that fellow human beings are willing to manipulate and hamper the happiness of their fellows that when we hear the truth of it, it is just soooo much easier to pretend we never heard it.”

Bingo!

Investigate

Put on your Columbo coat and dig in. Once you understand the “quiet revolutionaries” behind this reform movement – from corporate cronies and their political allies to progressive/collectivists who want to project their vision, their ideas, and their beliefs onto us all — you will understand that we cannot allow them to control our children’s education and you will understand that there simply is no compromise.

We are up against a savvy bunch of people who have been playing this game a lot longer than we have. Names and terms are constantly changing or being misapplied. It’s called semantic deception and doublespeak. Arm yourself with the truth. And we must not let them intimidate us into cowering away when they dispute any of our claims.

Check out my Common Core links pages for excellent resources on learning more about this whole “reform” movement.

A great starting point, which is one of the first things that got me fired up is:

A Mother Speaks Out: Children For Sale by Alyson Williams.

Another great resource that you can hand out to your legislators and others you may talk to is this 16 page handout that was developed by Utahns Against Common Core:

What the State Office of Education Isn’t Telling You About Common Core

Maybe you have time to peruse the grant applications:

• PA Race to the Top grant applications & communications
• PA Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge grant appls
• PIMS & Labor and Industry grant applications

Follow the money

As scripture tells us, love of money is the root of all evil. Which is sadly is a big part of this movement – love of money — and lots of it. The “strings attached” grant money flowing into the state of PA is much more than just the stash that came from the stimulus. Mercedes Schneider does an outstanding job in a five part series that audits the Common Core Gates money trail.

Opt Out of the Tests

As it stands now, the only way might be able to get rid of this is for enough of us to stand up and just say “No.” Opt your children out of the tests. The state cannot make you take them. A group of parents in Lancaster have a website with information on your rights a parents called Lancaster Opt Out.

UPDATE: Pennsylvanians Against Common Core’s FB page has some good info on the opting out movement. Here is a link to a good blog post:

sweeneyosity.blogspot.com/2014/03/keystone-exams-and-project-based.html

Vote

Find out your candidates’ position on Common Core and education policy in general, and vote for representatives who vow to extricate PA schools from this tangled web and to return control to our local schools.

Engage

• What the new FERPA (the federal education privacy rule) rules mean – in plain language – about our childrens’ personal information and why is parental consent not required for this data collection?
• What is contained in the student’s “educational record”?
• Exactly what leaves the school and the district in the form of data, who receives it, and how do we know it is secure and anonymous?
• What assurances can they provide, if any, that our data is safe and secure?
• How do we opt-out of this data sharing?
• Is there a privacy agreement between the parent and the school?
• How much is all this data collection going to cost in terms of equipment, maintenance, and labor?

There is no reason why the state or federal government or any other entity needs all this data on our children to properly educate them, and especially not without our express consent and an explanation of exactly what data is being collected, how this data will be used, and by whom.

I’m very sorry for any of our legislators  and members of the business community who have bought into this lie and refuse to see the truth. There are none so blind as those who refuse to see.