Written by Malcolm A. Kline

Big name Republicans and putative conservatives signing onto the Obama Administration’s Common Core education reforms in the belief that they will raise standards in public schools may want to entertain the possibility that they will actually lower them.

Stan Karp writes in Rethinking Schools that “For many teachers, especially in the interim between the rollout of the standards and the arrival of the tests—a lot of Common Core’s appeal is based on claims that:

• “It represents a tighter set of smarter standards focused on developing critical learning skills instead of mastering fragmented bits of knowledge;
• “It requires more progressive, student-centered teaching with strong elements of collaborative and reflective learning; “ and
• “It will help equalize the playing field by raising expectations for all children, especially those suffering the worst effects of ‘drill and kill.’”

Available evidence indicates Common Core adherents may be disappointed in all of these expectations.  “David Coleman, head of the College Board (of SAT fame) and sparkplug to the creation of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), seems to believe that if we can measure it, we can know it and evaluate it,” Aaron Barlow of the American Association of University Professors writes. “He also seems to believe that measurement results in truth absolute, not truth relative, a mindset more comfortable to 18th and 19th-century thought than it should be to the 21st-century world of post-Einsteinian understanding.” Barlow is an Associate Professor of English at the New York City College of Technology (CUNY).

Coleman’s College Board has revised the SATs. “The new exam will contain ‘relevant’ vocabulary words, focus in greater depth on fewer math topics, and ask students to cite specific passages that support their answers,” Eric Hoover reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education. “The revised exam will have three sections: ‘evidence-based’ reading and writing, mathematics, and an essay.”

“The latter section will be optional and will be scored separately, meaning the SAT once again will have a 1600-point scale, just like when your father took it.” How many students are going to take up that option?

The change in the status of the essay was fairly widely reported. Another alteration Hoover reported on was not. “Another change: Students will no longer have points deducted for incorrect answers,” Hoover recounted. “Currently, each wrong answer results in a quarter-point deduction.”

Barlow avers that “Coleman is certainly going to yoke his revised SAT to his CCSS, leading American education further down a defined and restrictive path to a model of education completely unable to change with the times and that sees itself only in terms of itself.” This is indeed a distinct possibility, and one that does not augur well for the alleged rigor of the Common Core standards.

This article was originally posted at the Accuracy in Academia website.

Written by Phyllis Schlafly

Many people said Ho-Hum when Barack Obama threatened to change any law with his pen or phone, and even used that power to personally alter Obamacare and the welfare law, and to “legislate” the Dream Act that Congress refused to pass. But Americans are rising up by the tens of thousands to stop Common Core, which is the current attempt to compel all U.S. children to be taught the same material and not be taught other things parents might think important.

Ever since Congress began pouring federal tax dollars into public schools, parents have been solicitous to have Congress write into law a prohibition against the federal government writing curriculum or lesson plans, or imposing a uniform national curriculum. Parents want those decisions made at the local level by local school boards which are, or should be, subject to the watchful eyes of local citizens and parents.

Parents are supported in this view by the U.S. Constitution which gives the federal government no power over education. Here is some of the repetitive language included in federal school appropriation laws.

The 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the first federal attempt to regulate and finance schools, stated: “Nothing in this act” shall authorize any federal official to “mandate, direct, or control” school curriculum. The 1970 General Education Provisions Act stipulates that “no provision of any applicable program shall be construed to authorize any” federal agency or official “to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction or selection of instructional materials by any” school system.

The 1979 law that created the Department of Education forbids it to exercise “any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum” or “program of instruction” of any school system. The amended Elementary and Secondary Education Act reiterates that no Education Department funds “may be used … to endorse, approve, or sanction any curriculum designed to be used in” grades K-12.

Despite all those emphatic words Obama’s Department of Education, headed by an alumnus of the Chicago Democratic machine and other leftists, seeks to mold the minds of all our children into supporters of big-government. Their vehicle to accomplish this is Common Core, which is artfully designed to impose de facto national uniformity while complying with all explicit federal prohibitions.

The mechanism of control is the tests that all students must take, which will be written by the people who created Common Core. If students haven’t studied a curriculum “aligned” with Common Core, they will have a hard time passing the tests required for a high school diploma and entry into college.

As explained by education researcher and author Darcy Pattison, the Common Core gang in 1996 gathered a cozy group of rich big businessmen, six governors, and a few other politicians and founded an organization called Achieve Inc. Working backward from the 12th grade down to kindergarten, this eventually morphed into the Common Core State Standards.

Achieve Inc. started implementation of Common Core with 13 states, but a national curriculum was still the goal, and a congressional debate about that would have been a political risk. So the Common Core advocates bypassed most elected officials, went straight to each state department of education, and by 2009, 35 state curriculums had aligned with Common Core.

Common Core advocates then announced that “standards” had been developed “in collaboration with teachers, school administrators, and experts … to prepare our children for college and the workforce.” By 2011, 45 states signed up even though the final draft of the standards was not yet available and they had never been field tested.

Still careful to skirt the laws barring federal control of curriculum, Education Secretary Arne Duncan used federal funds to bait the states to align with Common Core by offering grants from the federally funded Race to the Top program.

The Common Core promoters, whose goal is a national curriculum for all U.S. children despite laws prohibiting the government from requiring it, used the clever device of copyrighting the standards by a non-government organization, the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO). That enables Common Core advocates to force uniform national standards while claiming that the laws prohibiting federal control of curriculum are not violated.

No one may copy or reprint the standards without permission, and states that sign on to Common Core may not change or modify the standards. The license agreement that states must sign in order to use Common Core states: “NGA/CCSSO shall be acknowledged as the sole owners and developers of the Common Core State Standards.”

This article was originally posted at the EagleForum.org blog.

The Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN) seeks again to exploit captive audiences and disrupt instructional time in public schools for the purposes of transforming the moral and political views of other people’s children through the Day of Silence (DOS). Parents, however, do not have to sit by and passively accept this political action in the class. On the DOS, they can keep their children home.

GLSEN promotes the DOS as a bullying-prevention program. If that were its true goal, IFI and every one of the organizations who are urging parents to keep their children home would support the DOS.

Unfortunately, the ultimate goal of GLSEN and those who promote the DOS is to eradicate conservative moral beliefs. And they are using public schools to achieve that end, thus transforming education into indoctrination.  

Every year middle and high schools see a new crop of students whose parents naively believe that public schools value diversity, honor all voices, foster critical thinking, and remain neutral on controversial social issues. Many parents have no idea the extent to which pro-homosexuality propaganda pervades our schools. And many have never heard of the Day of Silence.

Here are just some of the ways public elementary, middle, and high schools are treating the controversial topics of homosexuality and gender confusion:

• Increasing numbers of schools are allowing gender-confused students to share restrooms with students of the opposite sex, including even elementary schools.
• Teachers—who are, of course, government employees—are being forced by the government to lie by being compelled to refer to gender-confused students by pronouns that designate the opposite sex.
• Girls are being permitted to run for prom king, and boys are being permitted run for prom queen.
• Elementary schools are marching in “gay” pride parades.
• California schools are legally required to teach positively about homosexuality and gender confusion in all social studies classes in grades 6-12, and all resources that espouse dissenting views are by law prohibited.
• Schools—including elementary schools—promote Leftist views of homosexuality and gender confusion in sex ed curricula and in presentations about “family diversity.”    
• Elementary schools make picture books that depict homosexuality positively available to children in their libraries.
• Schools host dances for homosexual students.
• Teachers actively promote the legal recognition of same-sex pseudo-marriages.
• School theater departments mount productions of The Laramie Project, Zanna, Don’t!, and Rent, and English teachers teach Angels in America, The Laramie Project, and The Perks of Being a Wallflower.
• Film teachers show Brokeback Mountain.
• Schools promote the normalization of homosexuality and gender confusion through Spirit Day, Ally Week, National Coming Out Day, “LGBT” History Month, “LGBT” Pride Month, and the queen of all homosexuality-affirming days: the Day of Silence.

And what do conservatives do in response? Virtually nothing. There is, however, something easy they can do. If their children’s schools permit students to refuse to speak on the DOS, they can keep their children home.  

Keeping their children home on the Day of Silence is an easy, safe way for parents to express to school administrations, faculty, and school boards that they—parents—oppose the promotion of non-factual Leftist beliefs about disordered sexuality in their schools to their children.

Every student absence costs schools money, and that matters much more to school administrators and school boards than the beliefs and feelings of conservative parents.

Parents: Contact the principals of your children’s middle and high schools and ask this specific question: “Do you permit students to refuse to speak during class on the Day of Silence?” If your principal says students will be permitted to refuse to speak in class, keep your child/children home. You might also inform your principal that teachers have a legal right to require students to speak in class and that students have no legal right to refuse to speak if called on to answer a question, give a speech, or participate in a debate, group project, or other activity.

We recommend sending an email to your administrators, your child’s teachers, and school board members explaining why you’re keeping your child home. A sample downloadable letter is available on the Stay Home on the Day of Silence website along with answers to frequently asked questions.

Conservative Teachers: You too have a role in opposing this GLSEN-sponsored political action. You should plan activities that require students to participate verbally. There is far too much cowardice and acquiescence among conservative teachers to homosexuality-affirming activities. Both parents and teachers have an obligation to resist inappropriate curricula and activities in schools.

Here’s something else parents don’t know: Many teachers—including even some on the political Left—dislike the Day of Silence because it disrupts the school day and requires them to create or revise plans to accommodate student silence. And conservative students, many of whom have friends who identify as homosexual, dislike the Day of Silence because they know it implicitly condemns their moral, religious, and/or political beliefs. They know that the Day of Silence is not centrally about eradicating bullying, but rather about eradicating moral disapproval of homosexual acts.

Here is a list of the organizations that are urging parents to keep their children home on the Day of Silence:

 For further information, including parental instructions and the sample calling out letter, visit http://www.doswalkout.net/

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Google’s recent “doodle” announces to the world that Google is gaga over homosexuality-affirming propaganda for minors. Google’s doodle pokes a virtual rainbow-colored flag in the eye of Russian president Vladimir Putin for signing into law a bill that protects minors from homosexuality-affirming propaganda. A financial blockbuster of a company with roots in the country founded to “promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty” pro-actively endorses the propagandizing of children while a corrupt totalitarian cockalorum opposes it. Curiouser and curiouser.

The fanciful notion that having “two mommies” is ontologically and morally indistinguishable from having a mother and a father is not a fact. Presenting that non-fact to, for example, five-year-olds in government schools is propaganda. And presenting this non-fact to children is not a loving act even if it “feels” good to “educators” who don’t think about or discuss the issue deeply.

The motive of the imperious Putin for signing into law Russia’s anti-propagandizing-to-minors bill may be to exploit moral beliefs he actually disdains in order to divide various and sundry constituencies around the world for his pernicious purposes, but a law that prohibits propagandizing to minors is not in itself pernicious.

Two people or two groups of people may have very different motives for pursuing the same goal. The fact that one person or group is motivated by hate and/or error doesn’t render the goal inherently evil or wrong. Some politicians may oppose the legalization of same-sex “marriage” because of their sincere (and true) belief that marriage has a nature fundamental to which is sexual complementarity. Other politicians may be motivated to oppose same-sex “marriage” by self-serving political ambition. The selfish motives of the politician who cares only about getting elected have no bearing on the soundness of the goal of opposing same-sex “marriage.” Only chuckleheads and Machiavellian political tacticians confuse motives and goals.

A defense of a law that seeks to prevent the exposure of minors to homosexuality-affirming dogma is not a defense of Putin, the cagey and cunning political animal.

Physical assaults on homosexuals, like physical assaults on any human being, are reprehensible and should be punished in accordance with laws prohibiting assault. But there is no evidence—to my knowledge, at least—that the legal prohibition of propagandizing to minors causes violence.

And here in the United States, there is no evidence to substantiate the related “progressive” claim that orthodox Christian doctrine and those who love Christ cause violence. The fact that hateful people may quote and misapply Scripture in defense of violent physical assaults or ugly verbal assaults on homosexuals no more means they’re Christians than the fact that someone quotes and misapplies Scripture in defense of same-sex “marriage” means they’re Christians. Humans have for hundreds of years abused Scripture for their own sinful ends.

Exposing minors to homosexuality-affirming propaganda is nowhere more troubling than in our public schools where neither children nor teachers are encouraged to study in depth all sides of issues related to homosexuality. Quite the contrary. Curricula and supplementary resources and activities are controlled by “progressive” dogma, the kind of dogma promulgated by the Gay, Lesbian and Straight Education Network (GLSEN). (Privately, “progressive” teachers actually scoff at the suggestion that there are sides other than theirs worthy of study.)

The propaganda begins in professional development opportunities for teachers in which teachers are never exposed to resources that dissent from the ideology of the “LGBTQ” community. GLSEN assumptions are treated as settled fact:

• There are no discussions of whether or in what ways homosexuality per se is analogous to race.
  
  
• There are no discussions of whether government employees (i.e., teachers) have the ethical right to introduce homosexuality in early elementary school when many children have never heard of homosexuality, their parents object to both the age-inappropriateness and bias of the presentations, and when they’re too young to understand the nature of objections to homosexual acts.
  
  
• There are no discussions of whether it is the right of educators to promote approval of homosexuality, which necessarily entails prior ontological and moral conclusions—conclusions that are shaped by subjects teachers were not hired to teach and for which they have no training.
  
  
• There are no discussions of whether homosexual acts are objectively moral, and if not, what right do government employees have to promote the approval of immoral or possibly immoral acts.
  
  
• There are no discussions of whether it’s the proper role of government employees to expose minors to every sexual phenomenon that can be found in the human community. For example, would it be proper for elementary school teachers to promote approval of polyamory since it exists and is on the rise? If not, why not?
  
  
• There are no discussions of whether disapproval of homosexual acts actually constitutes hatred of persons or causes violent acts.
  
  
• There are no discussions of whether disapproval of racism, promiscuity, over-eating, plagiarism, and drug use constitutes hatred of racists, promiscuous students, obese students, plagiarists, and “druggies,” or of whether such disapproval may lead to physical or verbal assaults against them.
  
  
• There are no discussions of resources written by conservative scholars that affirm the idea that marriage is at its immutable core sexually complementary, even as teachers expose students to pro-same-sex “marriage” resources.
  
  
• There are no discussions of how schools define “safety” (i.e., as “emotional comfort”) and whether safety has any inherent connection to objective reality. 

Ask any conservative public school teachers if their colleagues or administrators ever present resources that challenge “progressive” ideas about homosexuality in professional development meetings. And ask them if they feel as free to express their moral and political beliefs in faculty meetings (or in the classroom) as their “progressive” colleagues do.

“Agents of change,” secure in their tenured positions in public schools, share a certain esprit de corps with totalitarian regimes. They all hatch plans sub rosa to control the beliefs of others. Unfortunately, those victims—I mean, students—happen to be other people’s minor children.

Until our publicly subsidized educators relinquish their white-knuckled grip on curricula with their de facto enforcement of censorship, perhaps we need an anti-propagandizing-to-minors law.

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Written by Nathaniel Knight

Home education is never conventional. Any parent who has accepted the immense challenge of instructing his children at home is familiar with this truth. It’s one of the stumbling blocks parents often encounter when they are deciding whether to homeschool or place their children in public or private institutions. Many of these questions arise: How can my children properly learn outside the confines of a traditional classroom atmosphere? How can they receive a decent education without the care and attention of a college degree-bearing professional? How can home education prepare my children for a world in which most individuals receive their education through public institutions?

Such questions are commonly raised by parents who have reservations about the unconventional nature of homeschooling. To them, the method goes against the flow of what our society accepts as correct and incorrect educational experiences. But what such parents fail to realize when debating whether to continue teaching their children at home or commit them to the public education system is that unconventionality is oftentimes a good thing, especially when it means going against the flow of what secular culture considers acceptable.

That has been the story of my homeschool experience. Guided by parents who devoted years and years to instructing my brother and me, I learned during my educational sojourn that doing things differently is not an evil to be avoided at all costs but a method that opens up great possibilities. While many public and private schools maintain a rigid schedule that makes learning a chore, home education recognizes that no two children learn alike and offers the chance to institute a loosely structured environment in which gaining knowledge is actually enjoyable.

But more importantly, home education creates a setting where parents can truly teach the most critical educational curriculum their children will ever learn—the message of Jesus Christ. It is not a message heard for one hour on Sunday morning; it is not a standard played out by a 10-second prayer before meals. It is an ongoing evangelizing effort that seeks to fulfill the words of Deuteronomy to instruct children in the ways of God “when thou sittest in thine house, and when thou walkest by the way, and when thou liest down, and when thou risest up.”

That’s the core of home education. Like the Puritans fleeing religious persecution in the seventeenth century, the pioneers of the homeschool movement largely objected to public education because of its unvarying conformity to the ways of secular culture. In the beginning, home education was not necessarily about achieving better standardized test scores or winning a national spelling bee. Instead, it was focused on creating an atmosphere in which children were free to express their religion without being reprimanded and learn about the Bible without being persecuted. In essence, the movement was about going against the flow—not in a rebellious fashion, but in a way that honored God and upheld His ways.

For me, home education not only afforded greater opportunity for spiritual growth and a chance to develop strong ties with my family but also the freedom to concentrate on the subject I loved most—writing. Interestingly, my passion for the written word did not stem from having my nose crammed into a grammar book at a young age. While my mother made certain we kept to our learning schedule, she didn’t push me to become an expert essayist or reader of Plato by age 5. She let me be a child first. I didn’t learn to read until I was 9 years old. Had I been enrolled in a public institution, the bureaucracy would have declared me a failed student and requested more federal money to correct the problem. But there was no problem. The very fact that I was not pushed to read at an early age actually made reading more enjoyable. I came to appreciate the depth and creativity possible through the written word because I discovered it on my own, without having undue expectations foisted upon me. My father spent endless hours reading to me, immersing me in literature and helping me to want to learn to read on my own. Had I been subjected to a rigid schedule telling me by what age I should be able to do certain things, I would never have come to love the art of reading, writing, and creating nearly so much.

My older brother had a similar experience. He was introduced to computers at an early age, and the flexible style of our educational surroundings allowed him to learn the ins and outs of our family’s personal computer. He actually wanted to learn more about computers and how they operated, and our schedule was constructed in such a way that he was given plenty of time to pursue what he enjoyed most. He cultivated his interest in computers over the years until it eventually blossomed into his current career path. How was that accomplished? By being willing to turn down our culture’s accepted standards and looking for better ways to do things.

By the time we reached high school, we both had a firm grip on the areas of study we enjoyed the most. We soon turned our attention to college and potential careers. But as we began considering university applications and possible majors, something struck us: was there any legitimate reason to ship off to another state and throw tens of thousands of dollars at a secular university merely to procure a scrap of paper called a diploma? Why should we throw away the flexible method that had been so successful? If going against the flow of secular culture worked for grades one through twelve, why couldn’t it work for higher education as well?

Ironically, many of the same homeschool parents who question public education instantly accept the college system as a suitable institution for their young people, even though the university system is known to nullify or destroy the faith of most Christian students who attend. Secular colleges are universally recognized bastions of humanist thought. Christian students are often placed under the tutelage of atheistic professors before having developed the necessary spiritual maturity and experience to truly be salt and light in such an atmosphere. Even more, students are faced with countless new temptations without the spiritual and emotional support offered by a loving family.

Is God’s perfect will for young believers to intentionally place themselves in such a compromising atmosphere at such a sensitive age? Our answer was no. Obviously, the post-high-school years are a time for maturing and growing into an individual distinct from your family in preparation for marriage, but is partially severing ties to your loved ones, moving to another state, and living in the polluted atmosphere of a university really the best option?

We saw a better way. Rather than take the traditional route, we elected to pursue our degrees through distance education over the Internet, which allows us to remain close to our family and grants us the freedom to take advantage of numerous other opportunities that would have been unavailable had we fully enrolled at a traditional university. Like home education, distance learning allows you to set your own study schedule, freeing up time to gain real-world experience in your chosen career path.

Our society adheres to the Greco-Roman style of learning in which students listen to a teacher at the front of the classroom. Interestingly, the Hebrews took a vastly different approach—they learned by actually practicing the occupation they planned to pursue. Studying about journalistic writing is important, but actually having an article published by a newspaper or magazine teaches ten times more about a career in freelance writing than abstract learning ever could. Likewise, merely practicing how to play an instrument and actually performing before a huge audience are worlds apart. It’s the difference between simply studying about something and actually doing it.

There is no substitute for gaining experience through apprenticeships and internships. Not only do they give you a solid indication of what a career in the particular field you have chosen would be like, but they also offer the unparalleled opportunity to make connections with those already working in your field, which definitely comes in handy when you graduate and begin looking for full-time work. The structure of our academic society strongly suggests that gaining a college diploma is all you need for future career and financial bliss. But the fact is that such a notion is grossly impractical, especially in our current job market. Both biblically and “commonsensically,” gaining real-world experience in your field before graduating is the best way to ensure a better future.

God designed the family for many reasons. One is to provide a solid foundation for young people who are preparing to move out and begin their own families. Our home education adventure taught us the worth of slowing down and taking a minute to consider the options before plowing ahead with life decisions. Solely because everyone else is doing it is not justification for joining the crowd. The Apostle Paul beautifully illustrates this truth in his epistle to the Romans: “And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God” (Romans 12:2).

Parents and children who homeschool are called for a distinct purpose to take a stand for God’s ways in American culture. Some consider child rearing and home education a curse; I like to think of them as one of the greatest blessings God has given us. By remaining strong in our convictions and going against the flow of secular culture, we show others by our actions that there is a better way to live. After all, God has called us out of the darkness of this world into the marvelous light of his Gospel. To have any legitimate influence for good in our modern day, we must be willing to let that marvelous light brilliantly shine.

Nathaniel Knight was homeschooled by his parents K-12. He is a freelance writer pursuing a career in journalism. In addition to attending college, he is currently working on a novel.

This article originally published in The Old Schoolhouse Magazine.

Why does Planned Parenthood push so hard to get explicit sex-education in schools? Why do pro-abortion groups want to get condoms and birth control in the hands of middle and high school students? The graph below answers these questions.

According to this graph the younger a girl is when she first has sex, the more likely she is to have an abortion. The rates are so dramatically different by age that the actions of pro-abortion groups make much more sense. Abortion groups know that women that are at least 20 years old have learned about the harms of abortion and are more likely to choose life. So, these groups are targeting young, impressionable girls. Look at the chart to get a better understanding of how a first sexual encounter can affect a young woman.

The graph was create by the Family Research Council’s Marriage and Religion Research Institute (MARRI). A recent article comments on the study that helped produce this graph:

“Women who become sexually active at age 14, though, and get pregnant have a significantly higher chance of having an abortion sometime in their life. In fact, 37.9 percent of these women will have one or more abortions, the research found. A summary from the Marriage and Religion Research Institute explains that ‘nearly 50 percent of first abortions are to those 20 years of age and younger, and 80 percent are to those 24 or younger.’ Another metric examined in the study is the number of sexual partners a woman has had. While only 6.4 percent of women who have aborted have only had one male sexual partner in their lives, 89 percent of women who reported having one or more abortions had three or more sexual partners.”

What becomes apparent here is that our society is doing young men and women a disservice by pushing sex in their faces and calling it “education.” If we really care about our kids we will encourage abstinence and leave the lessons on sex and sexuality to the parents; where they belong.

As 2013 comes to a close, I want to make a few observations on the pervasive assault on sexuality truths—observations which are relevant to those with and without children.

“Progressives” wax jubilant over the sexual revolution that continues unabated and has rapidly moved into the arena of celebrating perversion. As with abortion, many in our culture who don’t have seeing eyes or hearing ears fail to notice that we are no better than earlier foolish, brutish cultures that deviated from truth to embrace perversion and death. The difference now is in the sophistication— technological, aesthetic, and intellectual—with which purveyors of deceit are able to promote life-killing lies. The lies are sanitized by pseudo-intellectualism, prettified by untrue imagery, and diminished by clever and/or crude humor. Then comes the coup de grace: ad hominem attacks, false accusations, and threats of loss of employment.

“Progressives” self-righteously survey their cultural fiefdom—a fiefdom which theologian Doug Wilson describes as devoid of “civilization-building or civilization-sustaining skills”—amazed at the rapidity of this shocking revolution, exclaiming that this is evidence that the arc of the moral universe always bends toward justice, which is a paraphrase of Martin Luther King Jr.’s words: “The arc of the moral universe is long but it bends toward justice.” The “long” part is often overlooked. History is littered with cultural trends and events that have bent toward the bent—that is say, toward the perverse, false, and evil—before courageous souls sacrificed much to fight for truth.

In their ignorance or tactical savvy, “progressives” refuse to address the causes for this rapid shift. It hasn’t been some organic, evolutionary movement in the direction of truth. Simplistically, the causes are that “progressives” captured Hollywood, academia, and the mainstream press. Once the Left became “the man,” they started wielding their power the way “the man” always wields power. They silence dissent and propagandize. Ironically, those practices are most obvious in the place where the naïve and idealistic would least expect it: our not-so-hallowed halls of learning. The first educational institutions to succumb to censorship, indoctrination, and oppression were our colleges and universities. Then Leftist sexuality dogmatists came for our high school students, and now they’re taking aim at our littlest ones through “bullying prevention” activities, “comprehensive” sex ed, and discussions of “family diversity.”

“Family diversity” is a euphemistic term used to expose kindergartners to deviant family structures in a positive way. The view that families headed by homosexuals are equivalent to families headed by a heterosexual couples is not an objective fact, and yet it’s presented as one in public schools. This view is a non-factual, subjective assumption, and yet it’s the only one our schools present.

Public school teachers and administrators defend their propagation of this ontological and moral belief by claiming that they don’t want any child to “feel bad.” But it’s not the task of government schools to help students “feel good” about all their life circumstances. And the goal of helping students “feel good” about their life circumstances must never extend to propagating subjective controversial (and false) ontological and moral beliefs.

Yet another false and subjective belief increasingly propagated in public schools is the belief that gender confusion is not disordered. In their deference to and fear of Leftist organizations, elementary schools are now beginning to allow children to use bathrooms and locker rooms that correspond to the opposite sex. The Left has yet to answer this question:

If gender confused children should not be compelled to use facilities with those whose subjective gender “identity” they don’t share, then why should other children (i.e., those who don’t suffer from gender confusion) be compelled to use facilities with those whose objective biological sex they don’t share?

In the good old days before the sexual revolution had taken root in the halls of learning and power, parents could trust that their children’s teachers would espouse and promote not just knowledge but wisdom and moral truth. Not so any more. In myriad subtle and not so subtle ways, today’s teachers in our government schools espouse and promote false and destructive ideas that harm children and the future of this country. I saw it firsthand when my children attended and I worked at Deerfield High School in Deerfield, Illinois. If you look just at test scores, it’s an excellent school, and it had many superb teachers. But a close look behind the curtain revealed a toxic environment of censorship and malignant gossip about any colleague or parent who dared to express dissenting views on the nature and morality of homosexuality.

Many have probably read about the math teacher at Neuqua Valley High School, Hemant Mehta, who in his spare time works feverishly on his blog, The Friendly Atheist, where he demonstrates a condescending distaste for all things religious, particularly Christianity, often in language far more offensive than the two anatomically correct terms that got Duck Dynasty’s Phil Robertson in a peck of trouble. Mehta’s been in the news lately for trying unsuccessfully to donate money to the Morton Grove Park Board after they lost funding from the American Legion who objected to a board member who refused to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance.

Mehta, the not-so-friendly atheist, also has guest writers who promote a host of lousy ideas including public acceptance of polyamory (Click HERE, and HERE and take note that these were written over four years ago. They’re no Johnny-come-latelies to the sexual anarchy parade.) So, in his free time, this role model for other people’s children is promoting hostility toward Christianity and goodwill toward sexual deviance.

Some IFI readers may be familiar with the homosexual high school English teacher from Maine, Rich Robinson, about whom I wrote several months ago. As you may remember, because he has concluded that homoerotic “love” is normal and good and that homosexual acts are moral, he feels justified in using his publicly subsidized position to advance those assumptions and censor all competing views. Despite requesting that he cease emailing me, he continues unabated, harassing me with weekly emails that order me to admit I hate homosexuals. Since I have never felt hatred for those who experience same-sex attraction, nor expressed hatred for those who choose to act on those feelings, what he’s really saying is that my expression of the belief that homosexual acts are perverse constitutes hatred of persons. Of course, if biblical beliefs about gender and sexuality are objectively true, asserting them is not an act of hatred but one of love.

It all comes down to what is true.

The teachers mentioned here don’t even scratch the surface of the problem, let alone get to its dark underbelly. Teachers who lack both wisdom and a proper understanding of their roles as public educators (including the limitations thereof) line the halls of academia. The problem is not insoluble, but solving it will take both time and courage. Those who have children in school now or will have children in school shortly need to find alternatives to public education. And churches need to think creatively about alternative ways to educate children in their faith communities as well as help make these alternatives affordable. This should be a mission field for churches. The need is urgent.

Finally, all who care about the health and welfare of children and this country need to become involved in the education of children. Whether you contribute your time, expertise, and money to establishing affordable church-based schools or run for your local school board, please in this coming year, commit to involving yourself in the project of raising up a God-fearing generation of children.

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Please, donate today! 

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Have you ever wondered what it is about home schooling the government, whether American or otherwise, finds so objectionable? It seems to me that teachers who are often overwhelmed by large class sizes would welcome having a few less students in the classroom.  And for states that don’t have voucher or tax credits for home schooling, it’s not as if unions or teachers are losing out on money. I still have to pay taxes for a school system I am not using in any way.

So what is it that is such a problem that our government would actually declare that there is no constitutional right to home school?

Is the government afraid that students won’t learn and end up academically inferior to their public school counter parts? They obviously have never read a single study, survey, or analysis showing that home schoolers end up much farther ahead of their public school counter parts. My son has just started Kindergarten but he currently reads and writes at a 2^nd grade level after my wife spent just 9 months working with him. So I guess he isn’t behind anyone.

Why are so many so hostile to the idea of home schooling?

It’s not just hostility to home schooling, it’s a downright vehement opposition bordering on ludicrous to the idea that parents have the right and should be allowed to educate their children. Proving this point is the actions of one German prosecutor who is seeking 6-month jail terms for home schooling parents. A recent article reports:

“We are gravely concerned about the case of Thomas and Marit Schaum, a family who face criminal charges over homeschooling. The prosecutor is demanding the parents each go to jail for six months. Germany’s national policy of persecuting homeschooling families must stop and we plan to continue the fight for freedom and for the rights of thousands of others in Germany and around the world to homeschool their children.”

Another article reports the beginnings of a nationwide crack down in the Netherlands:

“According to a petition being promoted by a group of homeschooling parents there, the Dutch Parliament as recently as 2011 ‘agreed with home education’ and the Dutch Education Council advised only that home education should be regulated. Nevertheless, Sander Dekker, secretary of state for education in the country, told the Dutch House of Representatives that he plans to make it illegal nationwide.”

In the case of the German family, the Wunderlich’s, their kids were removed in a SWAT-style raid because they chose to home school rather than send their kids to a state school. Only when the Wunderllich’s agreed to send their kids to a state school did the government agree to return their children.

And yet despite such opposition, even from our own government, home schooling remains a growing trend in the U.S. A report of the number of home schooling students in America, not conducted since 2007 reveals the trend continues to grow:

“…in 1999, it found that 850,000 American children were homeschooled. In 2003, this number had grown to 1.1 million children and, in 2007, that number was up to 1.5 million. This year, the first year the study has been conducted since 2007, that number has risen to 1.77 million. That means that the number of children homeschooled in America has more than doubled since 1999.”

More importantly is the reasons parents are opting for home schooling, even over private school enrollment. The report goes on to show the top responses to the question of why parents choose home schooling: 

91% said it was a concern over the environment of other schools.

77% said they wanted to provide moral instruction to their children.

74% cited dissatisfaction with academic instruction at other schools. 

So, to simplify these results, most parents choose to home school because they believe it is the safest, academically superior, and morally superior choice. Perhaps the problem here is that the government and public school advocates feel offended by these conclusions. Perhaps. But I think it is more likely that government and public school advocates desire to “teach and train” all kids into a worldview that includes homosexuality, abortion, casual sex, blurred sexual and gender lines, and how to spit back rhetoric rather than think critically. 

That might be a harsh assessment, but please offer an explanation that adequately explains the vehement opposition to home schooling by governments and lawmakers. I am willing to listen.

The bottom line is that many in government and public education don’t believe parents have the right to educate their own kids. They believe it is the right of the government to educate and they are threatened by anyone who recognizes the God-given responsibility of parents to educate. This thought from HSLDA founder Michael Farris is both a sobering comment and a call to action for parents:

“Do parents have the right to direct the education of their children? The Germans say no—and the attorney general of the United States thinks that a law that bans homeschooling entirely violates no fundamental liberties. It’s important that Americans stand up for the rights of German homeschooling families. In so doing, we stand up for our own.”

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On the final Thursday and Friday of September, I was honored to stand with two outstanding men in Decatur and Shelbyville. We were there to fight for decency and virtue. At the meetings presented by Parents for Sensible Sex Education we discussed why “comprehensive” sex education means a loss of parental rights.

At both events I was joined by Scott Phelps from the Abstinence & Marriage Education Partnership and Robert Gilligan, Executive Director of the Catholic Conference of Illinois stood with us in Decatur. These leaders offered their perspectives on the recently passed law which forces obscene sexual ideas on the school children of Illinois.  Additionally, I want to thank State Senator Chapin Rose (R-Champaign) and State Representative Brad Halbrook (R-Effingham) for encouraging us in this effort.

In our media advisory announcing the events I observed regarding the law which becomes effective in January, “Children as young as eleven years old will be required to define sexual orientation using so-called ‘correct’ terminology, such as ‘heterosexual, gay, and lesbian.’ Masturbation would be taught as normal and that everyone does it, with step-by-step instruction. Not just the biology of sexual reproduction would be presented, but explicit details of sexual intercourse. Slightly older children would be ‘educated’ on how to use condoms, obtain contraceptives or even an abortion without parental consent or knowledge, and would be encouraged to experiment with ‘alternative’ sexual behaviors.”

A television news broadcast covered one of the meetings. 

I’m always pleased when the media covers our message, even if only a small amount of the truth we present to the public makes it into the story.  The people of Illinois are figuring out that they must think critically when they view news stories like this one.

More and more people are learning everyday, for example, that the group that offered the response to us in the news story murders babies.  Planned Parenthood of Illinois makes money slaughtering the innocent unborn babies who are all too often the direct result of the irresponsible propaganda that parades as education in laws like this one.

It was gratifying to help get the word out that parents are free to opt their precious children out of this “education.”  If we must have evil laws like this that violate God’s design for sexuality and the conscience of millions of Illinois parents and grandparents they should, however, include opt-in, not opt-out, provisions.  The former puts the authority where it belongs — with the parents.  Opting out gives “educators” far too much power.  The majority of parents would choose not to subject their children to this pathetic brain washing if schools were forced by law to get their permission first. 

Jesus himself said, “Whoever causes one of these little ones who believe to stumble, it would be better for him if, with a heavy millstone hung around his neck, he had been cast into the sea.” (Matthew 18:6)

This is a serious matter.

Three Important Upcoming Events:

–> October 10th – A & M Partnership’s Banquet with Dr. Erwin Lutzer in Palatine
(Click HERE for more info)

–> October 12th — Iron Sharpens Iron Conference for Women in Moline
(Click HERE for more info) 

–> October 23rd – IFI’s Defend Marriage Lobby Day in Springfield 
(Click HERE for more info)

From KVUE News

The Eanes school district announced Wednesday that it has withdrawn its offer to a new Westlake High School assistant principal after the public disclosure that he was criminally investigated last year for sending questionable texts to a male student at a Chicago-area school where he was dean.

“After further consideration and in the best interest of the district, Superintendent Dr. Nola Wellman has announced that Mr. Paul Weil will not be offered a contract for employment with Eanes ISD,” the district said in a statement. “The district values the viewpoints, perspectives and input from members of the community and appreciates those who expressed their concerns.”

The decision comes after a police report showing texts between Weil and the student were made public Tuesday. Weil, who was dean at a school about 30 miles north of Chicago, texted the student: “Pizza delivery boy? Hot” and, referring to a trip the student was taking, “Don’t come home with a venereal disease,” according to a police report.

In one exchange last March, Weil texted the student, “Such a funny boy you are. When are we gonna hang out so I can put you to work? I have long list of things for you to do.”

Weil was not charged with a crime but resigned from his job during the investigation.

The move by Eanes officials is an about-face from the previous opinion of school officials, who as late as Tuesday night had said that Weil was the best candidate for the position among other finalists.

Westlake Principal John Carter, who took the helm of the Eanes district’s high school in 2012-13, had worked with Weil at the time of Weil’s investigation.

District spokesman Claudia McWhorter said both Wellman and Westlake Principal John Carter received emails and calls from parents and others in the community who opposed the hire.

“We heard from our community — they were upset and they didn’t agree with the hire,” McWhorter said. “We value their input and their perspectives. We need to be able to preserve that trust and confidence and that certainly played a part in that decision.”

Carter said Weil was “very open and forthcoming” about the experience during his recent interview for assistant principal.

“Mr. Weil disclosed that he sent two text messages that were intended as jokes to a student,” Carter said in a statement. “He stated that his decision to send the texts was regrettable and that it was a humbling experience in which he learned a valuable lesson.”

District administrators have not yet determined whether they will restart the hiring process or review the other candidates who made the list of finalists, McWhorter said.

Last spring, Stevenson High School (SHS) in Lincolnshire, Illinois erupted in yet another public relations scandal when 41-year-old homosexual dean and former French teacher Paul Weil was forced to resign when it was discovered that he had sent “inappropriate text” messages to an 18-year-old male student. By the time the texts were discovered, Weil had chaperoned ten student trips overseas (Europe and China), and three more trips were planned.

School spokesman Jim Conrey made this statement last spring: “He’s a good man, and it’s an unfortunate way to end, and it should not overshadow all the good.”

This raises the question, what does “good” even mean any more?

Conrey needn’t have worried about the fate of Paul Weil because former Stevenson High School principal John Carter, who resigned in June 2012, found a place for Paul Weil at Westlake High School in Austin, Texas. Carter, who was SHS principal during the time Weil was being investigated, hired Weil to be his assistant principal in Texas.

Unfortunately for Weil, the public in Texas has found out about his checkered past, and now another community is embroiled in a mess.  

The Austin, Texas Statesman reports the following:

Police records show the text exchanges began in September 2011 and included: “Pizza delivery boy? Hot” and, referring to a trip the student was taking, “Don’t come home with a venereal disease.”

In one exchange last March, Weil texted the student, “Such a funny boy you are. When are we gonna hang out so I can put you to work? I have long list of things for you to do.”

The Chicago Tribune reported more troubling aspects to the SHS story last spring:

The student claimed Weil also asked to talk to him by phone outside of school hours.

“It was just weird…Sometimes I would not respond or think of excuses but I didn’t say that I didn’t want to talk with him on the phone.”

…

Weil…said he also allowed the student to have alternative punishments for bad behavior, an arrangement he did not afford to others.

The dean [Weil] said he deleted some of his messages with the student earlier this year after the school confiscated student phones as part of an investigation into on-campus drug dealing. Weil was one of the officials who searched the phones for incriminating texts, Stevenson spokesman Jim Conrey said.

Weil said he later resumed electronic contact after the student texted him again, according to the report. 

In response to the Texas dust-up, John Carter said, ““There is no doubt that Mr. Weil is an outstanding educator…He is an innovative, creative, and student-centered educator. Whether in his teaching or in his role as disciplinarian, he sought creative ways to teach students.”

As Carter should know but apparently doesn’t, the problem is not with the good Weil did. “Creative ways” of teaching do not efface or mitigate the “inappropriate” actions of Weil. The problem is with his lack of wisdom and judgment, his immaturity, unprofessionalism, and perverse predilections, among which is his sexual attraction to males. Yes, we are still permitted to say that same-sex attraction is disordered and homosexual acts immoral. While it may not matter if our architects, plumbers, and engineers are homosexual, it matters if our teachers (and lawmakers) are, and we should not be afraid to say so.

Despite what the Left says, homosexuality is not analogous to conditions like race. Homosexuality is constituted by subjective feelings and behavioral choices; race is constituted by neither. As such, proper analogies would compare homosexuality to other conditions constituted by feelings and volitional acts, like polyamory, adult consensual incest, or paraphilias. And it is entirely proper to make judgments about what constitutes moral sexual conduct—and express those moral judgments.

If truly repentant and remorseful, Weil deserves forgiveness, but forgiveness does not entail hiring him to work with children or teens. He has lost that privilege. And the Westlake School Board should look closely at the actions and judgment of John Carter.

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A recent essay by Allison Benedikt appearing in the online magazine Slate makes the startling claim that all parents have an ethical obligation to send their children to—hold on to your hats and socks—government schools. Well, that’s a summary of her argument in somewhat more diplomatic and less insulting language. Here’s what she actually says:

You are a bad person if you send your children to private school. Not bad like murderer bad – but bad like ruining-one-of-our-nation’s-most-essential-institutions-in-order-to-get-what’s-best-for-your-kid bad. So, pretty bad.

… [I]t seems to me that if every single parent sent every single child to public school, public schools would improve. This would not happen immediately. It could take generations. Your children and grandchildren might get mediocre educations in the meantime, but it will be worth it, for the eventual common good.

…Your local school stinks but you don’t send your child there? Then its badness is just something you deplore in the abstract. Your local school stinks and you do send your child there? I bet you are going to do everything within your power to make it better.

And parents have a lot of power. In many underresourced schools, it’s the aggressive PTAs that raise the money for enrichment programs and willful parents who get in the administration’s face when a teacher is falling down on the job. Everyone, all in.

…

I went K–12 to a terrible public school. My high school didn’t offer AP classes, and in four years, I only had to read one book. There wasn’t even soccer. This is not a humblebrag! I left home woefully unprepared for college, and without that preparation, I left college without having learned much there either. You know all those important novels that everyone’s read? I haven’t. I know nothing about poetry, very little about art, and please don’t quiz me on the dates of the Civil War. I’m not proud of my ignorance. But guess what the horrible result is? I’m doing fine. I’m not saying it’s a good thing that I got a lame education. I’m saying that I survived it, and so will your child.…

…

Also remember that there’s more to education than what’s taught. As rotten as my school’s English, history, science, social studies, math, art, music, and language programs were, going to school with poor kids and rich kids, black kids and brown kids, smart kids and not-so-smart ones, kids with superconservative Christian parents and other upper-middle-class Jews like me was its own education and life preparation. Reading Walt Whitman in ninth grade changed the way you see the world? Well, getting drunk before basketball games with kids who lived at the trailer park near my house did the same for me.

Whew, I’m relieved that Benedikt doesn’t find all those parents who send their children to Christian private schools to be the equivalent of murderers.

A few thoughts about comrade Benedikt’s thoughts:

• Benedikt overestimates the power parents have. Public schools are more immune to parental influence than are private schools whose administrators realize that if they don’t respond efficaciously to parental input, they risk losing their students and the funds on which they depend. Public school administrators feel no such pressure.
   
• Conservative parents have virtually no influence on the way homosexuality and gender confusion are addressed in public schools since colleges and universities that train teachers are controlled by “progressives,” public schools are controlled by “progressives,” and conservative administrators and teachers are too cowardly to promote true intellectual diversity in the face of dogmatic “progressive” demands for censorship in the service of their ideological monopoly.
   
• Perhaps Bendikt’s provocative effort to shame parents into abandoning private schools will pave the way for Warren Buffet’s dream of outlawing private schools altogether: “‘Make private schools illegal…and assign every child to a public school by random lottery.’” Education reformer and former chancellor of the Washington D.C. public schools, Michelle Rhee, shares Buffet’s vision: “‘Think about what this would mean…CEOs’ children, diplomats’ children, many would be going to schools in Anacostia and east of the river, where most of our schools are. I guarantee we would never see a faster moving of resources from one end of the city to the other. I also guarantee we would soon have a system of high-quality schools.’”
   
• Far too many public school teachers have a statist, communal view of children, a problem which is exacerbated by their Bill Ayers-esque belief that they are “agents of change” who have the right to use public education (i.e., the government) to advance their racial quota goals or their social, moral, and political beliefs about “reproductive health,” homosexuality, and gender confusion.
   
• For the second time in as many weeks, I’m reminded of the sentiments of MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry: “We have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to their communities.”  “Progressives” like Benedikt and Harris-Perry hold a worldview that assumes allegiance to the state supersedes allegiance to family (and church).  This is the worldview that results in the banning of home education and the forcible appropriation of homeschooled children by the government as is happening in Germany right now. (Click here and here to read more). Children do not belong to the state. They belong to their parents.
   
• Perhaps Benedikt’s ignorance about the implications of her worldview is directly related to her ignorance of history, which in turn is a result of the lousy education to which she cheerfully seeks to sacrifice other people’s children. It might behoove Benedikt to read some Nazi perspectives on education.
   
• It’s odd that after admitting that she “knows nothing about poetry, very little about art,” and read only one book in high school, Benedikt would confidently assert that getting drunk is as likely to shape one’s life as reading Walt Whitman. It may be true that getting drunk is as likely to “change the way” teens see the world, but it’s not true that it’s as likely to transform in positive ways the life of the mind.

Exiting or banning private schools will never be the solution to what ails America. The solution is to exit public schools pronto while the freedom to do so exists. When government employees (i.e., teachers) even mention something as perverse as homosexuality to five-year-olds—as is happening in all Chicago public schools starting this year —it’s long past time to exit government schools.

And churches need to make that possible by either creating affordable private schools or by financially assisting parents who want to pull their children out of public schools but are unable to homeschool or afford private schools. This is a mission worth supporting. It should spark biblically informed anger that so many of our church leaders—Protestant and Catholic—say and do nothing as children are taught with their money that abominable behavior is good. Where is the church?

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East Prairie School in Skokie, Illinois finds itself in the eye of a storm or at least a tempest in a tea pot. I would love to see more public schools caught in such tempests of their own making. Public school administrators tend to respond to only three things:

• Loss of funds
• A huge community outcry
• Bad press—particularly national press 

That’s why pro-family organizations need to publish more exposés of school issues, using the names of teachers who are exploiting their taxpayer-subsidized jobs to promote their non-factual moral and political beliefs through their classroom comments, curricular and supplemental resources, and activities. But I digress.

A fourth-grade teacher in Skokie distributed an assignment recently that was purportedly intended merely to explain the functions of government. Sounds reasonable enough. The problem is that the assignment compares the functions of government to the functions of family. Perhaps the teacher didn’t think through the ideological implications of the questions posed in the assignment, in which case he or she deserves a measure of tolerance. And perhaps in the future other teachers will learn from this teacher’s mistake.

Here are the questions that ten year-olds were asked:

1. How does your family keep you safe?
2. How does the government keep its citizens safe?
3. How does your family keep you healthy?
4. How does the government keep its citizens healthy?
5. How does your family help you learn and become educated?
6. How does the government help its citizens learn and become educated?
7. What kind of rules does your family have for you?
8. What kind of rules does government have for its citizens?
9. How does your family punish you when you break the rules?
10. How does government punish citizens who break the law?

This assignment reminds many that our government is becoming an unbecoming family composed of Uncle Sam, Big Brother, Nanny, and Mommy and Daddy, all rolled into one colossal icky ball of goo from which it’s difficult to extricate oneself.

And this assignment reveals a number of troubling realities about public education:

• It reveals the supreme place many “educators” assume for the role of government in the lives of citizens—a role that they believe at least equals if not supersedes that of family.
• It reveals the willingness of “educators” to use public schools to propagate their non-factual beliefs.
• It reveals the inconvenient truth that many of our “educators” are not deep thinkers. Even as teachers present assignments that embody or tacitly espouse profoundly consequential ideas, they often have little understanding of these ideas.

There is no disputing the fact that the government protects its citizens, helps keep citizens healthy, educates citizens, establishes behavioral rules (i.e., laws), and establishes penalties for rule-breaking. These questions reinforce—intentionally or not—the false belief that government has co-equal rights with the family, a false belief that has taken root in public schools.

Many teachers see themselves as the arbiter of moral and political truth and feel no compunction about inculcating other people’s children with their beliefs—all in the service of their notions of safety, health and education. This assignment  brings to mind MSNBC’s Melissa Harris-Perry’s startling statement that “we have to break through our kind of private idea that kids belong to their parents or kids belong to their families, and recognize that kids belong to their communities.”

Couldn’t the Skokie teacher have taught the functions of government without a comparison to family? Did he or she think about whether there were any ideological implications of comparing government to family? Would it have been a more useful exercise to encourage children to understand the differences between family and government, pointing out the superiority of family to provide for children’s safety, health, education, training, and discipline?

Unlike the government, mothers and fathers—to whom children really belong—love their children with an ineffable love so deep that they would lay down their lives for their children. Mothers and fathers work diligently and ceaselessly—without pay, I might add—toward the ultimate goal of developing self-sufficiency, responsibility, selflessness, and compassion in their children. Many parents seek to fill the God-shaped vacuum created in their children with a knowledge and love of God that will lead their children to seek to glorify God in all they do.

Many parents seek to teach their children about the proper purpose of their sexuality in order to lead their children in the direction of true human flourishing. Mothers and fathers teach their children through word and deed that “gender” is inextricably linked to biological sex, both of which are beautiful gifts from a loving God. Mothers and fathers teach through word and deed how women and men should think about and treat each other. Mothers and fathers teach their children that through conjugal unions new human lives come into being. Mothers and fathers teach their children that when sperm and egg unite, a new human life begins, complete with its own distinct genetic code. Further, they teach their children that this new life possesses by virtue of its human nature certain unalienable rights, chief among which is the right to live.

Mothers and fathers teach their children truth—including countercultural truth—for it’s only truth that can keep children truly safe and free. Real safety depends not just on exposure to facts, but on protection from exposure to inappropriate facts about an often perverse world. Real safety depends on understanding that not all powerful persistent feelings are morally legitimate to act upon. And real safety depends on understanding essential truths about eternity.

It can be reasonably argued that in many ways our government actually undermines the safety, health, and education of its citizens, and in the case of the current administration, undermines respect for the rule of law.

Yes, there are more differences between government and family than there are similarities, and children deserve to be taught those critical differences. 

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Yesterday in the Chicago Tribune, Bob Secter writing ostensibly in support of Common Core Standards (CCS) engaged in the very kind of hyperbolic mischaracterization of critics of CCS for which he condescendingly mocks them. He spends the first quarter of his opinion piece comparing CCS critics to Joseph McCarthy, and then he spends the rest of his time mocking CCS critics based on one flawed story on FOX News. He wraps up his piece of demagoguery—as opposed to reasoned analysis—by returning to his dishonest and paranoid McCarthy analogy. This was not a sound analysis of CCS. It was a hit piece on FOX News masquerading as an analysis of CCS. Not once did Secter respond to the substantive criticisms proffered by reasonable experts on the left and right, some of which are outlined here. 

As I wrote in Part 1, opposition to the effort to nationalize public education known as Common Core Standards (CCS) is growing. And we’re witnessing a rare political event: opposition is coming from both the political right and left.  Part 2 outlines some of the problems that are likely to accompany the adoption of  CCS.

Problems with Common Core Standards:

• No prior research or testing of CCS to determine their efficacy. Early on, Common Core proponents claimed the standards were “internationally benchmarked.” Since that claim was proven false, the Common Core website has removed it.
  
  Further, education historian and professor, Dr. Diane Ravitch says, “The Common Core standards have been adopted…without any field test. They are being imposed on the children of this nation despite the fact that no one has any idea how they will affect students, teachers, or schools. We are a nation of guinea pigs, almost all trying an unknown new program at the same time.” 

• Academic quality will diminish in many schools. Literary reading and study will decrease to make room for the study of “informational,” non-fiction texts. Many educational experts believe this will further exacerbate the decline in college-readiness that began in the 1960s with the replacement of more challenging literature by “easier, shorter and contemporary texts.”

  According to Sandra Stotsky, one of the Common Core co-creators, Dr. Jason Zimba, offered this bit of critical information about which the public remains ignorant: “Common Core defines ‘college-­readiness’ as ready for a nonselective community college, not a four-­year university.”
  
  The Common Core math standards too are challenged for their weaknesses relative to other “high-achieving” countries. In a series of articles critical of CCS, Michelle Malkin exposes some of these weaknesses: 

Stanford University professor James Milgram, the only mathematician on the (CCS) validation panel, concluded that the Common Core math scheme would place students two years behind their peers in other high-achieving countries. In protest, Milgram refused to sign off on the standards. He’s not alone. 

Professor Jonathan Goodman of New York University found that the Common Core math standards imposed “significantly lower expectations with respect to algebra and geometry than the published standards of other countries.” 

• CCS will shape both curricula and assessments (i.e., tests). Proponents claim that CCS are just that, standards. Proponents of CCS are crossing their fingers hoping no one will realize that uniform testing will follow uniform standards and that uniform curricula will inevitably follow uniform standards and assessments. They conceal the close connection between CCS and the curricula and assessments (i.e., tests) that have already been developed to align with CCS and which are currently being marketed to schools.
  
  Lindsay Burke of the Heritage Foundation suggests that this newest effort to expand the expansive reach of the federal government into curricula via CCS is unconstitutional:

The constitutional authority for education rests with states and localities, and ultimately with parents—not the federal government. The federal government has crossed this line in the past, but dictating curriculum content is a major new breach that represents a critical level of centralization and a major setback for parental rights.

• Testing/Assessments are flawed. In a letter excerpted here, fifty New York State school principals complained to the state education commissioner about the CCS-aligned assessments developed by Pearson Education (see Part 1):

Unfortunately, we feel that not only did this year’s New York State Exams take an extreme toll on our teachers, families and most importantly, our students, they also fell short of the aspirations of these Standards.

…As it stands, we are concerned about the limiting and unbalanced structure of the test, the timing, format and length of the daily test sessions, and the efficacy of Pearson in this work.

…

[T]he testing sessions….were unnecessarily long, requiring more stamina for a 10-year-old special education student than of a high school student taking an SAT exam. Yet, for some sections of the exams, the time was insufficient for the length of the test. When groups of parents, teachers and principals recently shared students’ experiences in their schools, especially during the ELA exams with misjudged timing expectations, we learned that frustration, despondency, and even crying were common reactions among students.

There were more multiple-choice questions than ever before….for several multiple choice questions the distinction between the right answer and the next best right answer was paltry at best. The fact that teachers report disagreeing about which multiple-choice answer is correct in several places on the ELA exams indicates that this format is unfair to students….The math tests contained 68 multiple-choice problems….The language of these math questions was often unnecessarily confusing….

Finally, we are concerned about putting the fate of so many in the education community in the hands of Pearson – a company with a history of mistakes. (…Pearson has a 3-year DOE contract for this test alone, worth $5.5 million.) There are many other examples of Pearson’s questionable reliability in the area of test design….Parents and taxpayers have anecdotal information, but are unable to debate the efficacy of these exams when they are held highly secured and not released for more general analysis. These exams determine student promotion. They determine which schools individual students can apply to for middle and high school. They are a basis on which the state and city will publicly and privately evaluate teachers. The exams determine whether a school might fall under closer scrutiny after a poor grade on the test-linked state and city progress reports or even risk being shut down.

• Loss of local control. The left is obsessed with choice when it comes to killing babies in utero but not when it comes to educating those lucky enough to survive their treacherous gestational journey. In an interview with Hugh Hewitt, American Principles Project Emmett McGroarty warns that when states choose to adopt CCS, local communities lose control over educational standards: 

[I]n agreeing to entering the Common Core System, they’ve pledged to implement the Common Core 100%. They can’t change the standards at all. They can add 15% but they can’t change any of it….[T]hen tied to the Common Core are federally funded and really federally managed or overseen high stakes standardized tests. So, in entering the system the states have given up large swaths of education policy decision making. 

• Centralization eliminates mechanisms of improvement: local accountability, choice, competition, and flexibility. 

• Costly. Cash-strapped states will have to spend money they don’t have to cover the costs of new textbooks, teacher-training, substitute teachers during teacher-training, assessments, and technological updates to accommodate online testing. Even supporters of CCS acknowledge costs will exceed current expenditures. 

• Invasion of privacy/student tracking: Jane Robbins, attorney and senior fellow at the American Principles Project, explains the creepy invasion of student privacy that will result from the adoption of CCS—an invasion aided and abetted by the Obama administration’s redefinition of terms in a federal student-privacy law: 

Both the 2009 Stimulus bill and the Race to the Top program required states to build massive student databases. It is recommended that these databases ultimately track over 400 data points, including health-care history, disciplinary history, etc. Any of this data that will be given to the Smarter Balanced consortium as part of the national test will be sent to the U.S. Department of Education. USED can then share the data with literally any entity it wants to—public or private—because of regulations it has issued gutting federal student-privacy law. 

Diane Ravitch explains the surreptitious way Obama’s Department of Education gutted this privacy law (Family Education Rights and Privacy Act):

In the past few years, the privacy protections built into federal law have been weakened by the U.S. Department of Education to allow third-parties to access confidential information about students.

…

In December 2011, the U.S. Department of Education changed the regulations governing the release of student data to the private sector, without Congressional authorization to do so. At that time, “the ED issued final regulations implementing its proposed amendments, despite the agency’s admission that “numerous commenters…stated that they believe the Department lacks the statutory authority to promulgate the proposed regulations contained in the NPRM.”…

[T]he proposed FERPA regulations reinterpreted FERPA statutory terms “authorized representative,” “education program,” and “directory information.” This reinterpretation gives non-governmental actors increased access to student personal data.”

…

This is the background for inBloom, the massive database of confidential student information funded by the Gates Foundation with $100 million, assembled by a subsidiary of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, stored on a “cloud” by amazon.com.

Previously, “authorized representative” meant the parents or student once he or she turned 18. The spanking new “interpretation” includes school administrators as “authorized representatives” who have the right to release private student information to third parties. 

A Reuters report exposes who benefits from this indefensible violation of parental rights and student privacy:

[T]he most influential new product [at an educational technology conference] may be…a $100 million database built to chart the academic paths of public school students from kindergarten through high school….

[T]he database already holds files on millions of children identified by name, address and sometimes social security number. Learning disabilities are documented, test scores recorded, attendance noted. In some cases, the database tracks student hobbies, career goals, attitudes toward school—even homework completion.

Local education officials retain legal control over their students’ information. But federal law allows them to share files in their portion of the database with private companies selling educational products and services.

…

The database is a joint project of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which provided most of the funding, the Carnegie Corporation of New York and school officials from several states. Amplify Education, a division of Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp built the infrastructure over the past 18 months. When it was ready, the Gates Foundation turned the database over to a newly created nonprofit, inBloom Inc, which will run it.

States and school districts can choose whether they want to input their student records into the system; the service is free for now, though inBloom officials say they will likely start to charge fees in 2015. So far, seven states – Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky, North Carolina, and Massachusetts – have committed to enter data from select school districts. Louisiana and New York will be entering nearly all student records statewide.

Federal officials say the database project complies with privacy laws. Schools do not need parental consent to share student records with any “school official” who has a “legitimate educational interest,” according to the Department of Education. The department defines “school official” to include private companies hired by the school, so long as they use the data only for the purposes spelled out in their contracts.

The database also gives school administrators full control over student files.

No matter what the good intentions of the Gates’ or other cultural movers and shakers are, this is tantamount to an end run around the limits placed on the federal government’s ravenous appetite for power and the people’s money. The critical ends of improving low-performing schools do not justify the means of nationalizing public education and robbing high-performing schools of their freedom to control their standards and corresponding curricula and assessments. Moreover, there is no research-based evidence proving that the expensive implementation of Common Core Standards will even achieve the goal of improving low-performing schools.

The left exploits the human tendency to focus on the immediate. It takes time and effort to think through the logical outworking of ideas and the likely  systemic changes that will follow the implementation of ideas like the adoption of CCS.  Dazzle Americans with shiny gewgaws dangled right in front of them, blinding them to the cliff a mile ahead. And just for good measure, slap a dollop of ridicule on critics to keep anyone from listening to them.

The truth is that the United States cannot afford yet another huge expansion of the parasitic, bloated federal behemoth that feeds on Americans. 

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Most Americans have heard the term Common Core Standards (CCS), but many have little idea what those standards are, who created them, or what is troubling about those standards, which are a significant step in the movement toward nationalizing public education. What’s remarkable is that this governmental overreach is managing to achieve the nearly impossible: unify the political left and right. Even the extreme leftwing Wisconsin-based Rethinking Schools says that the process by which these standards were developed involved “‘too little honest conversation and too little democracy.’” CCS with their yawn-inducing name are anything but innocuous. Americans best turn off their televisions and spend a little time looking at the history, players, and problems associated with the adoption of these standards while there’s still time to jump ship.

Thanks to the concerted efforts of a relatively small number of vigilant individuals and organizations, a groundswell of bipartisan opposition to this effort is intensifying and with good reason. There are huge problems with adopting Common Core Standards, including the vast expansion of government bureaucracy, loss of local control over education, high costs of implementation, invasive individual tracking of children, and the dumbing down of curricula that will follow in the wake of this Bill and Melinda Gates/Barack Obama/Arne Duncan power grab.

Four states (Alaska, Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia) have rejected CCS. Minnesota has rejected the Common Core math standards, and Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, and South Dakota are revisiting the implementation of them. As constituent knowledge of CCS increases, so does constituent opposition. (Their opposition extends also to curricula like those developed by CSCOPE).

The deeper one digs into this labyrinthine and incestuous story, the more confusing it becomes, so a few preliminary statements are in order.

First, I will not include—nor could I include—every detail about this story.

Second, when discussing those who stand to profit financially from the CCS initiative, please don’t think IFI is criticizing capitalism. Profit-making becomes profiteering when the process is insulated from market forces. Our concern is the absence of free market forces in the development and sale of curricular, testing, and professional development (i.e., teacher-training) materials. These materials, which align with the CCS, have already been produced—though not tested—and are now available even though the CCS are not scheduled to be implemented until the 2014-2015 school year.

Third, we and many others are concerned that this has been a top-down initiative largely concealed during its planning phase from state stakeholders. Education becomes corrupted when concealed from major stakeholders, which is to say, parents and other taxpayers.

 Background:

There appears to be an unholy alliance between purported non-profit education organizations; for-profit businesses that produce curricula, testing materials, and teacher-training materials; our government schools; and our elected leaders, which needs to be untangled and exposed.

In 2008 the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) (a private trade organization) and the National Governors Association decided to create the CCS with the central goal of developing “some uniform standards to get more low-performing students into college courses without needing remedial courses once they got there.” Actually, according to the American Principles Project, initially  the idea for these national standards came from “private interests [primarily the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation] in Washington D.C. without any representation from the states. Eventually the creators realized the need to present a façade of state involvement and therefore enlisted the National Governors Association (NGA) [a trade organization that doesn’t include all governors].” Then the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation provided funding to a private organization called Achieve to develop the standards, the final version of which were released in June 2010. (This is not the only troubling involvement of the Gates Foundation in education. More on that tomorrow.)

The next significant step in the propulsion of the CCS was President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan’s plan to incentivize, or perhaps more accurately, coerce, states into “voluntarily” adopting these standards. That plan was the cunning “Race to the Top” competition. Chicago pals Obama and Duncan made $4.35 billion available to states, but the catch was that bonus application points would be awarded to those states that adopted CCS. In other words, the odds of a state winning Race to the Top money increased if they “voluntarily” adopted the CCS. It was the equivalent of affirmative action college admission policies, and in this lousy economy, it was the ethical equivalent of extortion.

Education historian, Diane Ravitch explains her reasons for opposing Common Core standards:

President Obama and Secretary Duncan often say that the Common Core standards were developed by the states and voluntarily adopted by them. This is not true.

They were developed by an organization called Achieve and the National Governors Association, both of which were generously funded by the Gates Foundation. There was minimal public engagement in the development of the Common Core. Their creation was neither grassroots nor did it emanate from the states.

In fact, it was well understood by states that they would not be eligible for Race to the Top funding ($4.35 billion) unless they adopted the Common Core standards. Federal law prohibits the U.S. Department of Education from prescribing any curriculum, but in this case the Department figured out a clever way to evade the letter of the law.

It should be no surprise that Illinois, old stomping grounds of Barack Obama and Arne Duncan, has embraced Common Core standards and the filthy lucre ($42.8 million) that is used as a bribe to lure states in.

Achieve has a 20-state consortium called the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) that develops Common Core-aligned assessments (i.e., tests), and which received $186 million dollars of federal funds from the Department of Education’s Race to the Top. Greg Forster explains what is so problematic about this:

The Department of Education is forbidden by law from developing a national curriculum. This reflects the clear judgment of the people and their congressional representatives, expressed forcefully on all the previous occasions when this issue has come up, against handing over control of education to a single national body.

In lieu of an outright establishment of a national curriculum, the Department has spent the past year pressuring states to “voluntarily” adopt the education standards promoted by the private organization Common Core. At the same time, it has hired two consortia to develop curriculum materials and tests based on the Common Core’s vision. These materials are being developed behind closed doors, with no transparency or accountability to the public.

To further expose the incestuous relationships among the CCS players without boggling already boggled minds, let’s look at just three of them.

Phil Daro and Sally Hampton served on the committee that drafted the common core standards which were released to the public in June 2010. They also worked for the non-profit educational reform organization America’s Choice, which in August 2010, the for-profit educational publishing company Pearson Education announced it was purchasing. Pearson, which bought the non-profit organization for which Daro and Hampton worked, is now profiting from the “voluntarily” adopted Common Core Standards. Pearson has been awarded “the contract to develop test items that will be part of the new English and Mathematics assessments.”

David Coleman is considered the “architect” of CCS. Until 2007 he worked for McGraw-Hill, a company that publishes educational curricula. He left McGraw-Hill in 2007 to start a non-profit organization that played a critical role in the formation of the CCS. And surprise, surprise, McGraw-Hill already has CCS curricula available. (McGraw-Hill even has curricula available that aligns with the Next Generation Science Standards, about which very few taxpayers have even heard.)

Coleman is now the president of College Board that creates the SAT and AP tests. The College Board has recently announced its intention to redesign the tests to align with CCS, which means that even private and home schools will be compelled to align their curricula with CCS in order for their students to succeed on these critical college admission exams.

As it now stands, 45 states have bought into the Common Core scheme to nationalize education, despite the fact that there has been no field-testing to determine the standards’ efficacy. As with Obamacare, it appears most of the country is going to jump headfirst into stygian waters even as a swelling number of prescient guards are screaming at us to stop.

Tomorrow: Common Core Standards Part 2

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