What a difference a year makes! We first linked to Truth in American Education’s resistance map back in March of 2014. Here is an update.

The Common Core landscape has certainly changed. Many more states have pending legislation in to reject the Common Core. Several states have also terminated their membership in their Common Core assessment consortium. More parents are becoming aware of the problems with the Common Core standards, assessments, and especially with the data collection.

Keep up the resistance!

At first 46 states and the District of Columbia signed on to the Common Core State Standards, but Minnesota soon rejected the Common Core math standards while retaining the English/Language Arts standards. Now, more states are re-examining their decision and are taking steps to reject the Standards. States are realizing they have given up state control over their own education system and have committed themselves to spending billions on an unproven education plan. Truth in American Education has updated their resistance map. Read their commentary.

Here’s another good example of an expression that means different things to different people: School Choice.

Of course people want choices. Who wouldn’t? However, often various education choices are either deliberately or unintentionally mixed together. Private school, homeschooling, online schools, vouchers,  and charter schools are often mixed together as “choices,” but there are big differences.

Private school, homeschooling, online schools, vouchers,  and charter schools are often mixed together as “choices,” but there are big differences. Within these choices, private schools, homeschools, and non-government online schools are independent of government money. In homeschooling and independent online schooling the parents are free to choose a curriculum that fits the child and the parents’ goals for that child. In private schools, the directors of the school choose the curriculum, but must be responsive to the parents’ wishes. However with government online schools, vouchers, and charter schools, all funded by government money, there are strings attached. Various aspects of the education the child receives will be dictated by the state. For example, currently in Washington State, all charter schools must follow the Common Core Standards.

There is a more insidious difference with government-funded education options. They work to destroy representative government. With charter schools, the school board members may be chosen by the charter corporation, not elected by the parents or taxpaying citizens, and thus they are really not accountable to the parents or taxpayers. Some say parents can “vote with their feet” and withdraw their children, but what about taxpayers who don’t have children in that school? They still have to pay taxes for that school.  In New Orleans, all the schools are charter schools, so the people there are disenfranchised with respect to the schools.

I rarely defend the current public school system, but at least the structure is compatible with representative government. The people elect the school board, and the school board makes education decisions for the district. If the people are dissatisfied, they can elect different school board members. I admit, in reality different political interests tug in multiple directions and a sort of stalemate often occurs, but the structure still honors representative government. In the Charter school system the parents’ voting input is so indirect that they are effectively out of the governance structure.

Many people think charter schools are akin to a free-market option. If the government is funding the school and controlling the curriculum, how can it be a free market option?

Please read Anita Hoge’s commentary, “Common Core, Choice, and Charter Schools.” Please be aware that even though the Obama administration is directing the development of Charter Schools, as well as promoting the Common Core and data collection, these concepts have been promoted by people from both parties for decades.

In December 2013, a KUOW story revealed that the Washington State Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction had signed an agreement to share student data with the Seattle Times and the Associated Press–without notification to parents or students. Not even Seattle Public Schools officials knew about this agreement. Read more…

It’s an old pattern of behavior on the part of change agents  and societal transformers.  If a program or concept becomes too objectionable, they don’t examine  the criticisms to see if the concerns are valid. They don’t try to repair the program or cancel it.  They rename it and push even harder. In the realm […]

FERPA is the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act. On 12/02/2011, this administration published the final report on the changes it made to the Act. Educational and governmental agencies may now authorize more people and agencies to handle private student information, and those agencies, in turn, may authorize others to handle the information. The agencies […]

“Hidden in Common Core is the real objective – presenting the minimal amount of material that high-school graduates need to be able to enter the work force in an entry-level job.” Dr. James Millgram and Emmet McGroarty have been examining the Common Core State Standards and have been speaking out against them. This article points […]

Of course we all want our children to have teachers who are compassionate, flexible, perceptive, good communicators, and experts in the subjects which they teach.  In other words, we want our teachers to be almost superhuman. Under the Race to the Top initiative of which the Common Core State Standards are a part, the desired […]

As we have stated before, education is not an enumerated power of the federal government under the U.S. Constitution’s Article I, Section 8. It is a power delegated to the States respectively, or to the people as stated in the 10th Amendment. Nevertheless, we have numerous federal education laws. We are somewhat fortunate in that […]

The Gulen schools use US taxpayer money, yet bring in Turkish teachers from Turkey to replace American teachers, and also have construction work done, not by local contractors but by workers brought in from Turkey.

The recently passed Washington State Charter Schools Initiative creates the potential for foreign owned charter schools. See how this can happen.