How two moms halted the Common Core curriculum in Indiana

From National Review. (H/T Maggie G., Nancy P.)

Excerpt:

Indiana has become the first state to retreat from the Common Core standards, as Governor Mike Pence has just signed a bill suspending their implementation.

A great deal has been written and spoken about Common Core, but it is worth rehearsing the outlines again. Common Core is a set of math and English standards developed largely with Gates Foundation money and pushed by the Obama administration and the National Governors Association. The standards define what every schoolchild should learn each year, from first grade through twelfth, and the package includes teacher evaluations tied to federally funded tests designed to ensure that schools teach to Common Core.

Over 40 states hurriedly adopted Common Core, some before the standards were even written, in response to the Obama administration’s making more than $4 billion in federal grants conditional on their doing so. Only Texas, Alaska, Virginia, and Nebraska declined. (Minnesota adopted the English but not the math standards.)

[...]In Indiana, the story starts with two Indianapolis moms, Heather Crossin and her friend Erin Tuttle.

In September 2011, Heather suddenly noticed a sharp decline in the math homework her eight-year-old daughter was bringing home from Catholic school.

“Instead of many arithmetic problems, the homework would contain only three or four questions, and two of those would be ‘explain your answer,’” Heather told me. “Like, ‘One bridge is 412 feet long and the other bridge is 206 feet long. Which bridge is longer? How do you know?’”

She found she could not help her daughter answer the latter question: The “right” answer involved heavy quotation from Common Core language. A program designed to encourage thought had ended up encouraging rote memorization not of math but of scripts about math.

[...]These standards are designed not to produce well-educated citizens but to prepare students to enter community colleges and lower-level jobs. All students, not just non-college-material students, are going to be taught to this lower standard.

I want to pause and highlight the significance of Heather and Erin’s testimony. Heather Crossin and Erin Tuttle did not get involved in opposing Common Core because of anything Michelle Malkin or Glenn Beck said to rile them up, but because of what they saw happening in their own children’s Catholic school. When experts or politicians said that Common Core would not lead to a surrender of local control over curriculum, Heather and Erin knew better. (Ironically, the leverage in Indiana was Tony Bennett’s school-choice program, which made state vouchers available to religious schools, but only if they adopted state tests — which were later quietly switched from ISTEP to the untried Common Core assessments.)

At first Heather thought maybe her ignorance of Common Core was her fault. Maybe, with her kids (as she imagined) safely ensconced in good Catholic schools, she hadn’t paid attention.

That’s when she and Erin started contacting people — “and we found out something more shocking: Nobody had any idea,” Heather told me.

A friend of Heather’s who is a former reporter for a state newspaper and now a teacher didn’t know. Nor did her state senator, Scott Schneider, even though he sat on the state senate’s Education Committee. (In Indiana, as in most states, Common Core was adopted by the Board of Education without consulting the legislature.) Nor, evidently, did the state’s education reporters — Heather could find literally no press coverage of the key moment when Indiana’s Board of Education abandoned its fine state standards and well-regarded state tests in favor of Common Core.

“They brought in David Coleman, the architect of the standards, to give a presentation, they asked a few questions, there was no debate, no cost analysis, just a sales job, and everybody rubber-stamped it,” Heather said.

So began an 18-month journey in which these two mothers probably changed education history.

There’s definitely an agenda, I think, by people in the government to dumb down the electorate with these educational fads. It’s good to see vigilant mothers who are able to challenge the system and win. I hope that other states will take a look at this and see that Obama’s bribes aren’t worth the costs to our children. We’ve already saddled them with trillions of dollars in debt. We shouldn’t be taking away their ability to earn money, too.

Filed under: News, Common Core, Democrat Party, Public School, Schools, Socialism

Good news! Liberty University offers scholarship to persecuted Eagle Scout

This is such a heart-warming story that I had to post it!

Fox News reports.

A North Carolina Eagle Scout who was arrested and faces expulsion for accidentally leaving a shotgun in his pickup truck in the school parking lot has been offered a scholarship to attend Liberty University.

Cole Withrow was just a few weeks from graduating with honors from Princeton High School when he was arrested on Monday and slapped with a felony weapons charge. Withrow had been skeet shooting with friends a day before and had only noticed he had left his shotgun in his truck as he reached to grab his book bag.

When he realized his mistake, he went to the front office and called his mother. An administrator overheard the conversation and called police.

Withrow’s story has generated national attention. Hundreds of people have joined a Facebook community to show their support. And many local parents are upset over what many believe is a case of a young man getting severely punished for trying to do the right thing.

“You teach your kids if you’re in trouble or if you see you’ve done something wrong, go ahead and admit it,” family friend Kimberly Boykin said. “Be a man and it’ll be fixed. In this case, that’s what he did and he’s being punished for it. That’s not the lesson we need to teach our kids.”

Jerry Falwell, Jr., the chancellor of Liberty University, had been traveling through North Carolina and saw a local television news account of Withrow’s ordeal. He also noticed that the 18-year-old was wearing a “Liberty University” t-shirt.

Falwell told Fox News that he made a few calls and discovered that Withrow’s sister is a Liberty graduate.

“I was really impressed with what a meek and humble Christian kid he is,” Falwell said. “I thought he would be a perfect fit at Liberty.”

So the chancellor made the 18-year-old an offer he couldn’t refuse.

“I told him that we would give him whatever scholarships he needed to attend Liberty University,” he said.

Falwell said the university is willing to do whatever it takes to make sure the teenager gets a college education.

“The anti-gun zealots seem to be vilifying him for making an honest mistake,” he told Fox News. “We want to reward him for trying to do the right thing.”

And that means even helping the young man finish his last few weeks of high school. Falwell said they offered to let him finish his high school work through their online academy.

Wow! Isn’t that a great way to show the public school tyrants a better way? Be sure and share / tweet this story if you liked it, because it really shows how Christians can step up and do the right thing when the secular left is too brainwashed by political correctness make a right judgment.

Filed under: News, Christian Living, Education, Folly, Jerry Falwell, Leftism, Liberty University, Political Correctness, Public Education, Public School, Secularism

What do children learn in “anti-bullying” school programs?

The answer might surprise you. Take a look at this article that Lydia found.

Excerpt:

Young girls at a New York middle school were instructed to ask one another for a lesbian kiss and boys were given guidance on how to tell if women are sluts during an anti-bullying presentation on gender identity and sexual orientation, angry parents allege.

The special health class was held last week at Linden Avenue Middle School in Red Hook, NY. The students were separated by gender – with students from Bard College leading the workshops.

Parents are especially furious after their young daughters were told that it was perfectly normal for 14-year-old girls to have sex and there was nothing their parents could do to intervene.

The boys and girls were also given a sexual vocabulary primer – that included words like “pansexual” and “genderqueer.”

“I am furious,” said Mandy Coon, whose daughter was in the class. “I am her parent. Where does anyone get the right to tell her that it’s okay for her to have sex?”

Coon told Fox News that her daughter was upset by the classroom lecture and was confused about why she had to ask another girl for a kiss.

“She told me, ‘Mom, we all get teased and picked on enough – now I’m going to be called a lesbian because I had to ask another girl if I could kiss her,’” Coon said.

She said the school told her that the purpose of the lesson was to “teach girls boundaries and how to say no.”

“They also picked two girls to stand in front of the class and pretend they were lesbians on a date,” Coons said.

Paul Finch, the superintendent of the Red Hook Central School District, told the Poughkeepsie Journal that the workshop focused on “improving culture, relationships, communication and self-perceptions.”

He told the newspaper those were issues the school was obligated to teach under the state’s Dignity for All Students Act.

The state law requires schools to create a safe and supportive environment free from discrimination, intimidation, taunting, harassment and bullying, the newspaper reported.

Parents said they were not notified about the class or the subject matter.

Now, the public schools are dominated by feminists and Democrats who think that it is a good idea to sexualize children as early as possible as a way of breaking their ability to marry and form stable families that will function independently of the state. The left does not like the traditional family. They would much rather that children are either aborted or raised fatherless. It is very important to the left that children grow up in situations where they take dependency on the state to be normal. It’s much easier to rule over a people that is used to receiving money from the government, and having the government intrude into their lives.

Filed under: News, Anti-Bullying, Bully, Bullying, Dignity for All Students Act, Gay Activism, Gay Agenda, Gay Rights, Gender Identity, GLBT, LGBT, Linden Avenue Middle School, New York, Public School, School, Sexual Orientation, Teacher Union, Tolerance

Wayne Grudem explains what the Bible says about parents and schools

This is a must-listen, especially for any single Christian woman who would like to get married and have children. If you want to marry a Christian man, you should listen to this lecture and also the Dr. Morse lecture on marriage Every Day. Christian men expect Christian women to know a lot about marriage. About why children need mothers, and why they need fathers, and how the state is always taxing families and then using that money to poke their noses in and teach the children all kinds of bad things.

With that introduction, here is the MP3 file on education policy.

Note: public schools = government-run schools.

Topics:

• Does God care whether we people marry and have children?
• Does God care whether Christian parents raise their children to know him?
• Should government promote bearing children?
• What are some effects of declining birth rates in other countries?
• What are the economic effects of declining birth rates?
• Who has the right to decide how children are trained: government or parents?
• What does the Bible say about parents having to raise children to know him?
• Does the government have the responsibility for training children?
• What do educational bureaucrats think of parents training children?
• What do school boards think of parents training children?
• Should school boards be elected by local, state or federal government?
• Should Christians be opposed to government-run education? (public schools)
• How should schools be viewed by parents? As a replacement or as a helper?
• How are schools viewed by those on the left and in communist countries?
• How can you measure how supporting a government is of parental rights?
• How is parental authority viewed in left-wing EU countries like Germany?
• How is parental authority respected in the United States?
• Should parents have a choice of where their children go to school?
• What is a voucher program? How is it related to parental autonomy?
• How does competition (school choice) in education serve parental needs?
• Why do public school teachers, unions and educrats oppose competitition?
• How well do public schools do in educating children to achieve?
• Does the government-run monopoly of public schools produce results?
• Does paying more and more money to public schools make them perform?
• How do teacher unions feel about having to compete in a voucher system?
• Does the public school monopoly penalize the poorest students?
• Does the public school monopoly penalize children of certain races?
• Does the public school monopoly cause racial predujice?
• What else should parents demand on education policy?
• Is it good for parents when schools refuse to fire underperforming teachers?

This podcast is just amazing! This is what we need to be teaching in church. Church should be the place where you go to learn and reflect about how to tailor your life plan based on what the Bible says. And I think that this whole notion of free market – of choice and competition benefiting the consumer (parents) – applies to everything that government does, especially education and health care.

Related posts

• Wayne Grudem explains what the Bible says about parents and schools
• Wayne Grudem explains what the Bible says about self-defense
• Wayne Grudem explains what the Bible says about capital punishment
• Christian professor of economics discusses capitalism, socialism and the Bible
• How I got interested in the relationship between Christianity and economics
• First Things reviews Jay Richards’ Money, Greed and God
• Ron Nash explains what should Christians believe about social justice

Filed under: Podcasts, AFT, Barack Obama, Charter School, Choice, Competition, Conservatism, Education, Education Policy, Education Reform, Europe, Government, Government Control, National Education Association, NEA, Policy, Politics, Private School, Public Education, Public School, Race, Race to the Top, Racism, Regulation, Teacher, Teacher Union, Voucher

Florida high school student suspended after disarming gunman

Fox News reports.

Excerpt:

A 16-year-old Florida high school student says he was suspended for three days for wrestling a loaded gun away from a teen threatening to shoot.

Fox4Now.com reports that the student, who attends Cypress Lake High School in Fort Myers, tackled the 15-year-old suspect on a school bus after he allegedly pointed the weapon at another student.

“I think he was really going to shoot him right then and there,” said the student, who declined to be identified.

According to the referral the student received the following day, he was suspended for his role in an “incident” where a weapon was present and given an “emergency suspension,” the station reported.

The boy’s mother told Fox4Now.com her son was suspended because he refused to cooperate with the investigation, adding that he was scared.

The suspected gunman was arrested and charged with possession of a firearm on school property and assault with a deadly weapon without intent to kill, the report states.

Sgt. David Valez of the Lee County Sheriff’s Office told the station an investigation into the incident is ongoing.

School officials declined to a request for comment from Fox4Now.com due to privacy issues.

If you have young boys, do not send them to public schools. Public schools are not male-friendly places, they do not understand or support men. They view masculinity as something to be suppressed or neutralized. We really need to have more men in the public school system in the classroom as well as in the administration.

Filed under: News, Education, Feminism, Feminization, Misandry, Public School, School, War Against Boys, Women