Introduction
Has the Public School system been taken over by Leftists, Progressives, and Socialists with the development and integration of The Common Core Curriculum? The introduction of the Common Core Curriculum in 2010 to the American Board of Governors, has resulted in overwhelming support. resulting its adoption and implementation in forty-six States.
" Despite this almost universal ratification, implementation has been challenging, and even though many states have adopted it, through funding or protest issues, many have not yet been able to implement it into their schools. The four states that never adopted the Standards are Virginia, Texas, Alaska, and Nebraska. The four states who have successfully withdrawn from the curriculum are Arizona, Oklahoma, Indiana, and South Carolina. These eight states are typically republican-controlled, implying there is some correlation between political party affiliation and rejection of common core.
While still technically adopted as the official curriculum, at least 16 states have begun to or passed legislation to repeal the standards. Besides the four states listed above, 12 states are in the process of repealing Common Core." 1
"Furthermore, many of the states who have “repealed” the standards have adopted their own which are still in accord with the standards, and thus the relationship between the state and Common Core is extremely convoluted. It seems its fate in most states is no longer of interest to most people. Minnesota was, at least originally, unique in their adoption of the Common Core Standards. They were the only ones to partially adopt it from the start as they used only the English standards and developed their own math standards. There is no correlation between states that have adopted Common Core and their educational ranking." 1
"The testing revolution sparked by the common core has all but evaporated in less than a decade, with only one-third of the states still using the federally funded assessments designed to measure those standards. Education Week's fourth survey of state tests since 2014 shows that only 16 are still using the PARCC or Smarter Balanced assessments in math and English/language arts in 2018-19. When those tests were being designed in 2010 and 2011, 45 states reported plans to use them. But by 2014, a year before the tests became available, only half the states were still on board. By 2016, that number had dropped to 21. And now it's dwindled to one-third." 2
"To have most states sharing the same assessments would have marked an unprecedented shift in U.S. educational testing: States had never before banded together in such large numbers to use one set of academic standards and tests. It was a grand experiment aimed at creating tests that better measured learning, and allowed parents and policymakers to compare student progress across the states. But opposition to the length and cost of the tests led most states to go back to buying or crafting their own. Political backlash against perceived federal involvement in what students learn was also a factor in that pullback, even though common-core advocates argued that federal funding of tests did not mean the government would shape the curriculum. Federal officials aren't allowed to dictate what students learn. Advocates argue that keeping even a dozen states in the shared-testing game—as is the case with the Smarter Balanced assessment, for instance—still represents an important evolution in a shared commitment to rigorous standards, tests, and comparability. But the scale of that commitment on the testing front has dropped dramatically. Many states retained the underlying common-core standards, however, although some renamed or revised them. Education Week's survey shows little recent change in two other testing trends. Requiring students to take a college-admissions exam, or to take a test to graduate from high school, are both about as popular in 2019 as they were in 2017." 2
"Bill Gates, a key godfather of the Common Core subject-matter standards, wrote five years ago that the national standards “will improve education for millions of students,” but a groundbreaking new study shows that Common Core has actually decreased the level of student achievement. With irresistible prodding by Gates and then-President Obama, the Common Core national standards were adopted by the vast majority of states, which have also adopted tests and curricula aligned with those standards.
But a new large-scale study by the federally funded Center for Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning (C-SAIL) has found that since the adoption of Common Core there has been a decline in key test scores. C-SAIL researchers analyzed changes in student performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, from 2010 to 2017.They had assumed that Common Core would raise student performance on the NAEP exam, but they were in for a surprise.
“Contrary to our expectation,” they reported, the data revealed that the Common Core standards produced “significant negative effects on 4th graders’ reading achievement during the 7 years after the adoption of the new standards.” When analyzing the results of a selected group of states, fourth-grade reading achievement would have improved more “had the states continued with their old standards, thus reflecting negative effects of the new [Common Core] standards.”
In other words, if those states had ignored the entreaties by Gates, Obama, et al., they would have been better off. In addition to the decline in reading performance among fourth graders, the C-SAIL study also found that Common Core “had a significant negative effect on 8th graders’ math achievement.” What’s more, the performance of students declined significantly in specific reading and math categories, such as literacy experience and numbers properties, the longer Common Core was in effect.
Study co-author Mengli Song said: “It’s rather unexpected. The magnitude of the negative effects [of Common Core] tend to increase over time. That’s a little troubling.”
Actually, it’s extremely troubling. Some blame the failure of Common Core on process issues, such as lack of adequate teacher training, but the key culprits are the standards themselves and the type of teaching promoted by Common Core.
When Common Core was first being adopted by states, James Milgram, a Stanford math professor who served on a key Common Core committee, warned that by the end of the fifth grade the material covered by Common Core’s math standards “was more than a year behind the early grade expectations of high-achieving countries,” and that “by the end of the seventh grade, [Common] Core standards are roughly two years behind.”By high school, “Common Core — in its fullness — does not prepare students even for a full pre-calculus class,” notes Ze’ev Wurman, a former senior education policy advisor under President George W. Bush.
According to the Boston-based Pioneer Institute, which has closely studied Common Core, “Instead of accelerating the curriculum to more advanced topics and following the practices of leading international competitors, Common Core’s politically-driven process resulted in the adoption of the mediocre curriculum sequences used in a number of mid-performing states and promoted progressive instructional dogmas shared by its developers.” These failed progressive instructional methods include “convoluted math strategies, group learning, and [emphasizing] how students get an answer rather than whether they get the right answer.”
"Common Core has turned out to be an expensive disaster for America, with billions of tax dollars wasted on incentives for states to adopt the national standards, on developing and implementing new Common Core-aligned tests, and on ineffective curricula. States should repeal their Common Core regimes and consider standards that actually produced higher student achievement, such as Massachusetts’ pre-Common Core standards. They should also give parents and their children greater school choice, so they are not tied to the regular top-down government school system."3
Education standards do not flop spectacularly. Their failure gives rise to nothing like the black-and-white films of early aeronautical experiments: no missiles exploding on launch pads or planes tumbling from the sky. But 10 years after 46 of the 50 states adopted the Common Core standards, the lack of evidence that they have improved student achievement is nonetheless remarkable. Despite the fact that Common Core enjoyed the bipartisan support of policy elites and commanded vast financial resources from both public and private sources, it simply did not accomplish what its supporters had intended. The standards wasted both time and money and diverted those resources away from more promising pursuits.
Three studies have now sought to examine the effects of Common Core and, more generally, “college- and career-ready” standards on student learning. The picture that emerges does not inspire confidence. The most recent study, conducted in 2019 by the federally funded Center on Standards, Alignment, Instruction, and Learning, or C-SAIL, found that college- and career-ready standards had negative effects on student performance on the National Assessment of Educational Progress, or NAEP, in both 4th-grade reading and 8th-grade math. A series of analyses that I conducted over several years revealed mixed effects from Common Core in states defined as “strong implementers” of the standards. And a 2017 study showed that adoption of Common Core standards did prompt many states to raise their performance benchmarks—that is, the minimum score at which students are judged as attaining “proficiency” on state tests. These higher proficiency bars, however, have not translated into higher student achievement. It is time to accept that Common Core didn’t fulfill its promise."4
Who is responsible for the failures of our education system? The root cause of this problem goes back as far as the 1940's, when traditional teaching methods were being changed by progressive approaches in Education. The Frankfurt Institute's relocation to the United States from Germany to Columbia University is where the Marxist Political Philosophy's became the Standard in Ivy League Schools.
"Since the 1960s Leftists, Progressives, Socialists, and Marxists have migrated to, and have taken positions in every level of public school and college education, including in the National Education Association (the national teachers union), public school teaching positions, public school administrator positions, college professorships, college department heads, college deans, members of Boards of Regents, and in government positions at every level of The Department of Education.
In 2007, four U.S. Communist groups formed an alliance in order to work toward taking control of the Democrat Party in California, and then in other states, with the ultimate goal of taking control of the National Democrat Committee. The long-term plan included the indoctrination of students at all levels of public school education, and in colleges around the country, in order to convince millions of students that the Constitutional Republic had been a massive failure, while at the same time, painting a positive image of Socialism. The goal was to gain the support of generations of naïve students, with the expectation they would eventually help the Communists gain control of local, state, and the federal government. Their detailed plans are outlined in the attachment, labeled The Inside/Outside Project.
“Give me just one generation of youth and I’ll transform the world.” – Vladimir Lenin
Traditionally, for over 200 years, the curriculum in public schools and in state colleges was developed and controlled by local school boards and individual state Education Departments. In 2008, then Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano led a Common Core Task Force composed of commissioners of education, governors, corporate chief executive officers, and recognized experts in higher education. In December 2008, that Task Force developed what became known as the Common Core State Standards, those state standards were then adopted by 45 states and the District of Columbia.
The Common Core Curriculum State Standards became the mechanism by which the Federal Government took control of public education. The Obama administration required states to adopt Common Core State Standards, implemented by the Department of Education. The 50 state Education Departments were informed that it would be much easier to receive federal aide to state education, if the states adopted the Common Core Curriculum for their public schools.
The newly adopted Common Core Curriculum erased much of the US History once taught in public schools for over 200 years. That required the revision of the accurate US History textbooks once used in public schools. The revision of US History textbooks was funded by front groups, controlled by George Soros. The new US History textbooks disparaged the remarkable history of the Republic, portrayed Socialism as beneficial of the masses, while stating The Free Enterprise System was unfair; yet The Free Enterprise System has been the most successful economic engine in the history of mankind." 7
"The new US History textbooks eliminated events, misrepresented facts, inserted new individuals who were unimportant, defamed the Founding Fathers, criticized the US Constitution, falsely reported the massive genocide of Native Americans, covered up the fact that the US fought wars to free millions of enslaved people, and invented an inaccurate and wholly negative impression of the Republic, as being cruel, racist, oppressive, violent, and discriminatory. US History textbooks now enumerate the contributions of Sikhs, LGBTs, Filipinos, Japanese, Chinese, Mexicans, black Americans, Hindus, and many other groups—it’s a modern Socialist handbook.
It became obvious that failure to adopt Common Core State Standards would make federal financial aid to states more difficult to obtain, and/or would delay financial aid to states an unreasonable long period of time. Implementing the Common Core Curriculum also required states to purchase approved textbooks for each course, including a newly revised US History textbook.
The Common Core Curriculum has re-educated America’s youth, by not only misrepresenting the US History of the Republic, but by misrepresenting the character of Socialism. American students have never been informed that Socialism has failed miserably in 37 countries over the last 100 years, and that it was responsible for the murder of 60 million formerly free citizens in most of those 37 countries. Students are not taught that the current example of a Socialist government is Venezuela and Cuba.
The Common Core Curriculum eliminated Civics Courses previously taught in public schools for hundreds of years. The concepts of Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, and The Right to Bear Arms are regularly attacked and restricted on the grounds of college campuses, in college lectures halls, and in college classrooms.
Today multiple generations of students are not taught the importance of, nor do they understand the Declaration of Independence, US Constitution, Amendments to the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, how the three branches of government interrelate, why the Electoral College is so important, the Judicial System (the Supreme Court, the 13 Appellant Courts, 94 Federal District Courts, 3 Territorial Courts, etc.).
Civics in public schools has been replaced by Ethnic Studies. Now grammar, middle, and high schools across the nation are provided with classroom instruction in Ethnics Studies that has been destroying the positive culture of America’s society. Students are being taught that race, class, gender, sexuality, and citizenship status are tools of oppression, power, and white privilege. Students are being misled about state violence, racism, male toxicity, intergenerational trauma, heteropatriarchy, and that there is a common thread that link them.
Students are being graded on how well they apply the above listed concepts they are being indoctrinated with in classroom instruction and are being evaluated on how they apply those concepts in their writing assignments, classroom discussions, and in their community organizing projects. Teachers around the country are offering Ethnic Study classes, units, or lessons on their own initiative, citing a growing urgency to confront racism, sexism, homophobia, white privilege, and other entrenched social inequalities. There is a national movement to require students to have a passing grade in Ethnic Studies, in order to graduate from high school.
Since the Common Core Curriculum courses in US History misrepresents and denigrates the accurate US History of the Republic, the curriculum must be revised. The inaccurate, perverted, and misleading US History textbooks must be rewritten to present an accurate and positive history of the Republic. Since 2008, many generations of America students have never been taught, or have little knowledge of the accurate facts about US History, but have been indoctrinated in how beneficial and superior to democracy, Socialism is for the United States." 2
" Civics must again be taught to all American students as it once was taught to them for hundreds of years. Having a knowledge of the Declaration of Independence, US Constitution, Amendments to the US Constitution, the Bill of Rights, how the three branches of government interrelate, and the US Judicial System, would give students an appreciation of the Freedom of Speech, Freedom of Religion, and that all law- abiding citizens have a Right to Bear Arms.
Ethnics Studies demeans the United States and misleads American students to believe the US is racist, violent, oppressive, supports white privilege, homophobic, supports male toxicity, a heteropatriarchy society, etc.; that type of daily misleading vilification of the US being taught in millions of classrooms daily, to American students, must cease. Instead Ethnic Studies should support Freedom of Speech, support Religious Liberty, eliminate Political Correctness, support interracial cooperation, support legal immigration, oppose voter fraud, support Law Enforcement, promote patriotism, promote support for the US Armed Forces, and so much more that is positive.
Unfortunately, many public schools, especially in major metropolitan centers, have been turned into indoctrination centers, and many refugees and Illegal Alien public school students refuse to assimilate, do not agree with US values, and are bad bet for adjustment in the United States, like legal immigrant have been for 100 years. The US Census Bureau released it’s Annual Community Survey, it found that 22 million of the 44 million foreign-born US residents are not U.S. citizens.
Degrading the US History of the Republic, while promoting Socialism to America’s students since 2008, resulted in 51 % of American’s youth preferring Socialism to Democracy. Now 72% of voters between 18 and 34 prefer receiving basic government income (Hill-HarrisX poll), and millions of millennials have demonstrated their support for Bernie Sanders’, Elizabeth Warren’s, and the Democrat Socialist Party’s Radical Socialist policies. A quote from the late Czech college professor and Communist Party lawmaker, Milan Hübl, Ph.D. explains what the four Communist groups have been working to accomplish, since they created their Inside/Outside Project, in order to gain control and support of many generations of naïve students.
Professor Hübl stated, “The first step in liquidating a people is to erase its memory, destroy its books, its culture, and its history. Then have somebody write new books, manufacture a new culture, invent a new history. Before long the nation will begin to forget what it is and what it was. The world around it will forget even faster.”
“If only today’s schools still presented America as a nation of great ideals and progress, instead of a racist failure.” 2
By Vincent F. Shapanus, Cdr. U.S. Navy Retired, C.R.E., MA. Ed.
Senior Research Fellow
Institute of Military, Scientific, & Industrial Research (IMSIR)
July 19, 2020 Copyright IMSIR 2020
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