Governor Lynch has bypassed our state legislature and local school boards and has signed on to the scheme to have an NGO, the National Governor’s Association, arrange the deal for Race to the Top, or what will result in the nationalization of our NH educational system.
Texas and Alaska have wisely refused to sign on to this scheme.
Please write to the Governor and ask him to leave NH’s education to the people of the cities and towns in NH where the bulk of their taxes are paid. The ‘transformation’ of our public schools is not what you think it is and it should not be determined by some board of a governor’s ‘club’ that is unelected.
A Massachusetts talk show discusses this issue. Please visit the WRKO website to view this video “Feds Invade Commonwealth”.
Related:
“Transforming” NH’s High Schools
Lou Gerstner would like to nationalize.
Barack Obama Pushes to Nationalize
We have reposted the above article as it is no longer on the web.
Next Obama Push: Nationalization of Education
(See video of Obama and Arne Duncan http://youtu.be/-VQYAkMD7HE)
Written by Ann Shibler
Tuesday, 26 January 2010 11:36
As with the nationalization of the banking industry, auto industry, government health care, et al, the policies that could be a giant step toward nationalizing education are found in the program “Race to the Top” (RTTT), a comprehensive education reform plan currently being pushed by the president.
President Obama recently announced (see video below) his desire to extend the RTTT stimulus grant program and wants congress to approve $1.35 billion more for use in 2011, to be awarded to school districts and states that apply for, are approved, and sign on to the government’s requirements. Applicants for the money are supposed to be pursuing new reforms, higher test scores, and more teacher accountability in innovative ways.
In reality, the Race to the Top is a program that would centralize education further than it already is, taking control away from local elected school boards and the state, and place it squarely under the dictates of the federal government via a national curricula and a host of other federal requirements. This would be more than a little shift in the balance of federal involvement in education.
Easily recognized as No Child Left Behind on steroids, the expansion of RTTT even seeks to circumvent states’ authority by, in future, allowing individual districts to apply for grant money — not an option in round one of the giveaway — even though the state has opted out, as in the case of Texas.
http://web.archive.org/web/20100129194118/http://biggovernment.com/2010/01/15/texas-is-right-to-quit-the-race-for-the-top-education-program/
But even teachers’ unions in Michigan and Florida have recommended that districts not get involved with RTTT because of the possible ramifications teachers will face — to quote one blogger Ken Mondschein, on thefastertimes.com:
http://web.archive.org/web/20100201014342/http://thefastertimes.com/academicpolitics/2010/01/23/race-to-the-top-a-bush-doctrine-in-obama-clothing-or-whats-wrong-with-public-education-part-2/
The NCLB [No Child Left Behind] philosophy is even worse for teachers, who are expected to pull up test scores without looking at why they’re so low…. This gives not just an incentive for teachers to rig the test, but basically mandates that they cheat so that they can keep their jobs.
Mondschein also stated, “Teachers are forced to ‘teach to the test,’ making kids into bubble-filling machines rather than thinkers.”
In California the school districts are so concerned about the strings attached to the money that is being waved from the White House Oval Office window that they have refused to sign their state’s RTTT applications. If they can figure this out in California, surely it must be obvious to officials in other states as well.
The Department of Education agents and secretary, Arne Duncan, will literally become the High Lords of Education if this nationalization takes place, as will Education Czar Kevin Jennings. The personal agenda of these appointed non-accountable bureaucrats could easily be promoted through such a scheme.
And this is why: The new programs and reforms will be subject to the approval and meddling of these bureaucrats. The requirements, currently marketed as good ideas, will increase learning time as a prerequisite for receiving the money (a longer day, away from the influence of family and church?). And new programs that engage the family with the community, either through the creation of community-oriented schools, or a partnering with a community-based organization are encouraged. The community-based organization that instantly leaps into minds is ACORN, but there are others that could also have deleterious effects on impressionable students. There is also the call to create all-day pre-kindergarten (just have to get little minds and bodies into the hands of the federal change agents as quickly as possible).
Another call to partnering with “health clinics, other State or local agencies, and others to create safe school environments that meet students’ social, emotional, and health needs,” really raises a red flag. Imagine the possibilities! Under the social, emotional and health needs umbrella, the use of comprehensive indoctrination that ignores basic morals and hygiene and the destruction of parental values and morals can usher the students, at all ages, into the world of sex obsession, gender confusion, and all sorts of unhealthy sexual activity much quicker and on a more massive scale than is being accomplished up to the present. Enormous increases would result in all forms of promiscuous and perverted behaviors, and a rise in pre-teen and teen pregnancies, abortions, sexually transmitted diseases, and cancer — a Planned Parenthood clinic owners’ dream, but the moral downfall of this nation’s youth.
As with so many federal handout programs, RTTT started out being billed as a one-time shot-in-the-arm for cooperative states, about which one senior official now says, “you could envision this going on until we felt like we’ve made significant progress across the country.” Russ Whitehurst, director of the Brown Center on Education Policy and senior fellow at the Brookings Institution commented, “I generally applaud this administration’s policies, but I worry about it in terms of that degree of authority being given to a secretary of education. Now we see a shift to a strategy where the US Education Secretary will be able to control a pot of $1 billion a year…. a remarkable shift in terms of the number of carrots in the basket that the federal government has to hand out.”
http://web.archive.org/web/20100122235356/http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Education/2010/0119/Obama-pushes-to-add-1.35-billion-to-Race-to-the-Top-grants
We really must relate to our obviously cash-strapped school districts and state governors that we are not interested in receiving bribes in exchange for the loss of local control and a massive increase in federal control of our children’s education, and to resist the temptation to apply for any federal money. We must insist that bribes be rejected, along with the standardized testing, national curricula, outcome based techniques, and any other stealthy-engineered changes in our children’s social and emotional development that could easily be wrought. And when it comes to health care, we must see to our children’s ourselves, totally rejecting any federal involvement, meddling, or decision-making.
Contact your congressmen today and insist that they refrain from further funding for RTTT. Then you can contact your local school board members to educate them on the issue, alerting them to the dangers of the unbreakable chains that come with federal money. It would behoove everyone to also contact their state legislators and their state governors, letting them know that withdrawal from federal money and control is the only solution for retaining any local determination in educational matters.
Race to the Top Lures States with Money
We have reposted the above article as it is no longer on the web.
NOV 13 2009
USDOE opens ‘Race To the Top’ application
Filed under State by michael brindley at 6:47 pm
Yesterday, the United States Department of Education released the final application for the ‘Race To the Top’ grant. New Hampshire education officials has said they intend on applying for the grant, which will distribute$4.35 billion to states which can show they are implementing “innovative reforms.”
It is those reforms which have drawn criticism from some, including an emphasis on merit pay. To be eligible, states “must have no legal barriers to linking student growth and achievement data to teachers and principals for the purposes of evaluation.”
Here is the full text of the USDOE press release:
U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan today released the final application for more than $4 billion from the Race to the Top Fund, which will reward states that have raised student performance in the past and have the capacity to accelerate achievement gains with innovative reforms.
“The president said last week that Race to the Top will require states to take an all-hands-on-deck approach,” Duncan said. “We will award grants to the states that have led the way in reform and will show the way for the rest of the country to follow.”
The U.S. Department of Education is asking states to build comprehensive and coherent plans built around the four areas of reform outlined in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.
The application requires states to document their past success and outline their plans to extend their reforms by using college- and career-ready standards and assessments, building a workforce of highly effective educators, creating educational data systems to support student achievement, and turning around their lowest-performing schools.
The $4.35 billion for the Race to the Top Fund is an unprecedented federal investment in reform. Duncan will reserve up to $350 million to help states create assessments aligned to common sets of standards. The remaining $4 billion will be awarded in a national competition.
To qualify, states must have no legal barriers to linking student growth and achievement data to teachers and principals for the purposes of evaluation. They also must have the department’s approval for their plans for both phases of the Recovery Act’s State Fiscal Stabilization Fund prior to being awarded a grant.
The final application released today includes significant changes to the proposal released by the U.S. Department of Education in July. After reviewing responses to the draft proposals from 1,161 people, who submitted thousands of unique comments, ranging from one paragraph to 67 pages, the U.S. Department of Education restructured the application and changed it to reflect the ideas of the public.
“The public’s input on this application was invaluable to us,” Duncan said. “The comments helped us clarify that we want states to think through how they will create a comprehensive agenda to drive reform forward.”
The final application also clarifies that states should use multiple measures to evaluate teachers and principals, including a strong emphasis on the growth in achievement of their students. But it also reinforces that successful applicants will need to have rigorous teacher and principal evaluation programs and use the results of teacher evaluations to inform what happens in the schools.
In Race to the Top, the department will hold two rounds of competition for the grants. For the first round, it will accept states’ applications until the middle of January, 2010. Peer reviewers will evaluate the applications and the department will announce the winners of the first round of funding next spring.
Applications for the second round will be due June 1, 2010, with the announcement of all the winners by Sept. 30, 2010.
Drafting SC Kids for Global Work
We have reposted the above article here in full, since it seems to have disappeared from the web…
Against the Grain
Drafting SC Kids for Global Work
by Bob Dill
The European Socialist system of school to work
There is good reason why the SC Department of Education did not want input from the general public when they held two meetings in the Upstate to “solicit public comment” on the report of the “Governor’s Workforce Education Task Force.”
The state plan described in the daily newspaper as a restructuring of high school curricula, is actually a repackaged, enhanced version of the socialist “School to Work” program conjured up by Secretary of Education Riley and President Clinton’s Secretary of Labor.
The scheme was made “voluntary” by federal law, and was watered down by alert lawmakers when it reached South Carolina a few years ago.
For the STW scheme to be successful, it is essential that the school to work laws in South Carolina be enhanced, strengthened, the population manipulated and the ultimate goals disguised, in order for the final socialist plan to be fully implemented in the Palmetto State.
The smooth, clever “King of School to Work,” Willard Daggett has been chosen by Governor Hodges and Education Superintendent Tennenbaum to be the lead “snake oil salesman.” Daggett will “evangelize” the radical school to work “cult,” that will attempt to sell the repackaged school to work proposals to an unsuspecting legislature and the general public desperate for solutions to two decades of failing public schools.
Governor Sanford, Lt. Gov. Bauer and Speaker Wilkins would be well served to do some independent study of Mr. Daggett and the Hodges committee proposals before they take any action to implement the proposals. Implementation would certainly jeopardize a second Sanford term as Governor when the public realizes what will be happening to their children under the socialist School to Work proposals.
A series of 5 meetings held across the state by Daggett, who bills himself as the “President of the International Center for Leadership in Education,” are designed as an “invitation for input on the Direction and Strategic Foundation for Steps to Prosperity proposed by the Hodges committee. The proposal made public week, contains 10 recommendations.
1. Replace the 1994 South Carolina School-to-work Transition Act with New Legislation.
2. Reorganize Curriculum around Clusters of Study.
3. Retool Educator Preparation and Professional Development.
4. Seamlessly Connect P-12 Education, Postsecondary Education, and the Workplace.
5. Revitalize Career Guidance and Counseling. (Translation: doubling the number of counselors in schools to herd students into the career programs at an early age.)
6. Establish Alternatives for At-Risk-Students. (Definition: At-risk-students are students the government/educators decide are at risk).
7. Integrate Character Education into All Schooling.
8. Streamline and Focus Resources.
9. Conduct Extensive Outreach. (Definition: Use every liberal group and media outlet to spread the positive propaganda).
10. Assure Accountability. (?).
Who is Dr. Willard Daggett?
Dr. Willard Daggett founded the International Center for Leadership in Education after “serving in various management positions at the New York State Education Department.”
Dr. Daggett is a virtual expert on everything having to do with education, ranging from facilities design to curriculum. He will speak to any group on those subjects who are willing to pay him $7,000 to $10,000 a day, according to Investors Business Daily.
Investors Business Daily, in the October 22, 1999 issue alleged that Education Consultant Willard Daggett lies about his resume, gives false information, and charges an exorbitant amount for his speeches – – triple what most education scholars charge. Much of Daggett’s income comes from tax dollars. It has not been announced who is paying for his 5 presentations in South Carolina.
Daggett was “honored” with the Gerald Bracey “Rotten Apple Award” in Bracey’s 5th annual report titled, A Critique of Criticisms of Public Education.
Education expert Bracey said he presented the Rotten Apple Award to Daggett because Daggett “gave on Oscar-Winning performance” from a study that could not be found. “He’s full of c — as a Christmas turkey,” Bracey concluded.
Despite his critics, Daggett is highly respected by the education establishment and some politicians of both the Republican and Democratic parties.
Daggett was teamed up with William Spady to implement Outcome-Based-Education across the country until OBE became known for what it is. One of their “critical issues” was “Building Community Support for Change.” Now that Governor Hodges has had OBE and School-to-Work disguised and repackaged, Daggett is back to build community support for the old product in a new package.
Willard Daggett was the featured speaker at Governor David Beasley’s “Governor’s Rural Summit” Confronting the Future” on March 3 and 4, 1997.
“I am upset and disillusioned at the direction the Governor has taken on the issues of education,” said Patty Stoner, founder of Parents Involved in Education, at the time.
Stoner explained that Daggett and William Spady, the Father of OBE” were claiming to be “experts on implementing OBE” throughout the country.
“Willard Daggett has led Polk County, NC schools in the implementation of Outcome Based Education along with integrating it with Tech Prep Curriculum,” Stoner said.
She explained that Daggett advocates “that education decisions should be made by locally formed commissions not elected school board trustees. He espouses that memorization of facts is mindless and should be classified as “lower order thinking:”. He disapproves of letter grades.”
“Daggett believes it will require massive retraining and restructuring of education to meet new outcomes based curriculum. He is walking directly in line with others in the national reform movement, such as Mark Tucker, Ira Magaziner, David Hornbeck and Lauren Resnick,” said Stoner. “They all desire that the American education system be modeled after the German system; which is a seamless web that extends from cradle to grave.
“The German system is coordinated by a system of labor market boards, where curriculum and ‘job matching’ is handled by counselors.
“These national reform gurus plan to restructure our schools by bypassing all elected officials on school boards and state legislatures and flood our schools with federal dollars with federal regulations attached.
“They all promote the ‘careers’ legislation that would create a computer database, into which school personnel will be able to scan all information about every school child and his family; identified by the child’s social security number, which includes academic, medical, mental, psychological, behavioral and the school counselors recommendations for future employment.
“All of this will convert the school system into job training to serve a managed workforce. Is this why the ‘Rural Summit’ is sponsored by the SC Department of Commerce and the SC Department of Education? Are we seeking the merging together of education and occupation for total government control?” Stoner asked.
The predictions of Patty Stoner six years later have materialized in the final days of the administration of Governor Jim Hodges.
The extent to which South Carolina will buy into this plan to transform South Carolina children into model socialist workers in 2003 will depend on the willingness of elected officials and salaried bureaucrats to resist the lure of federal and tax-exempt foundation dollars in the form of lucrative grants.
Published in The Times Examiner 12-11-02, Publisher & Editor-in Chief Bob Dill, Greenville, SC