By Gretchen Logue of Missouri Education Watchdog.
Two women, one in Maryland and the other in Missouri, are extremely concerned about what’s happening in public education. One is sounding the alarm about Common Core, the other about Race to the Top and her district planning to apply for the RTTT “direct to district” grants, bypassing the state educational agency. Who needs state educational agencies when the Federal government will give your district money and mandates? The Federal DOEd has bypassed state agencies and will direct district education from Washington DC, hardly a constitutional power granted to the federal government.
Cindy Stickline-Rose, a parent, wrote a two part article first appearing at www.TheTentacle.com for parents and taxpayers about Common Core standards. Excerpts are reprinted below with permission from Ms. Stickline-Rose and TheTentacle. From Taking Parents Out of The Equation – Part 1:
According to the application, the grant, offered by the U.S. Department of Education, would allow Camdenton R-III, Marshall and Knob Noster school districts to partner with State Fair Community College and the University of Central Missouri to build a facility to house some of Camdenton’s programs; it would provide personalized learning environments in the form of take-home laptops, iPads and tablet computers for all middle and high school students in the three districts; and it would allow the districts to integrate career planning systems and develop curriculum designed to focus on “real-world applications” of academic content in order to allow students pre-kindergarten through 12th grade and their parents to better plan for the future.Camdenton Schools had expressed interest in program to the U.S. Department of Education by Aug. 30, according to district officials.
“We had just gotten out from under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) program so I was leery about rushing into something else offered by the federal government,” Martin said, adding that her concern quickly grew when she realized the board was being asked to approve the grant so it could be submitted by the deadline of Oct. 30. “It might be a great deal but I wanted to read our application and research the program before committing,” she said. “To me, this had undertones of Nancy Pelosi’s ‘sign-it-now, read-it-later’ handling of the health care law.”
Others apparently agreed. The board told the superintendent to continue pursuing the grant but decided to table the vote until the next meeting. That meeting, which is open to the public, is scheduled for 7:30 a.m., Oct. 23, and will include a presentation by Pat Gillman, the director of College and Career Readiness for State Fair, who took the lead on preparing the grant.
In the meantime, Martin said she set out to learn as much as possible about Race to the Top.
The article details the excellent questions Martin has about RTTT regarding the cost, the federal control, the emphasis on career training for the entire district, teacher evaluations, the sustainability requirements, the lack of teacher input and tax levies necessary when the grants ran out. Martin is doing the job a school board member should be performing; asking questions on debt, future ramifications of decisions to taxpayers and students and the reasons “reforms” are being adopted by the Board. You can find more of Martin’s concerns here on her blog, The Sunshine Seeker.
The War of Women on Corporate/Governmental Educational Reforms is here. Join women (and concerned men) to fight these reforms that are not “for the kids” but for special interests and the federal control of education. These reforms are not “state led”. In fact, these reforms actually make state education agencies, school boards and taxpayers powerless and useless.
The federal mandates are funded by the taxpayers. These taxpayer funded mandates (not voted on by the taxpayers) are administered by bureaucrats who have no power except by which they are “granted” by the Federal Department of Education and private corporations. Are these educational mandates an example ”of the people, by the people, for the people”? Hardly. Instead of education being a Declaration on Independence from the Federal Department of Education, these education reforms are more akin to a nationalized version of managing human capital for state/corporate purposes.
