Serving The Truth

Can’t America see the alignment of Common Core “standards” with Karl Marx’s postulate on education and Obama’s desire to fundamentally transform America? – Justin Smith

 

Justin Smith exposes the Left Wing nature of Common Core State Standards as it is affecting his home state of Tennessee; however the analysis could be applicable to every State in the Union.

 

See Also:

 

Common Core is Tool to Produce a Commie Corps – 7/11/14

 

Authoritarian FantasyLand: A Place With Required Habits of Mind but Disdain for Facts – 10/24/14

 

JRH 11/30/14

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Serving The Truth

The Truth And An Ideological Battle

 

By Justin O. Smith

Sent: 11/29/2014 8:30 PM

 

Many states, including Tennessee, are now attempting to extricate themselves from Common Core State Standards, after extensive research has proven them to be much more than an innocuous improvement on the long-standing public education system. The American people now see the subterfuge of CCSS and the intentions of the marxofascist Progressive Democrats to coopt the program in order to affect psychological changes and an alteration in the character of the American people through propaganda presented as fact and indoctrination.

 

In this light, the ‘Our View’ editorial from the November 23rd ‘Daily News Journal’ [Blog Editor: I could only find 11/22/14 DNJ editorial] is reprehensible and despicable. More than a simple “ideological scuffle”, as the DNJ named it, Common Core represents an ideological battle that will ultimately prove to be the most important component of the “21st century complexities of life, labor and liberty,” that they referenced. And yet, the DNJ urges TN State Rep. Rick Womick and “like-minded colleagues” not to “waste a lot of time, energy and resources” in battling CCSS and to essentially abandon the conservative ideas based on individualism, Western philosophies, Judeo-Christian principles and liberty – Our American Heritage – in favor of Progressive socialism, anti-American fallacies and false assumptions, atheism and more authoritarian, centralized government control over our lives and America’s children.

Common Core was originally intended to create new standards only in English Language Arts (ELA) and math in grades K – 12. Science standards were practically ignored. And now, in practice, CC goes far beyond just English and Math standards.

Very little research or analysis was conducted on Common Core prior to its adoption, and the members of the validation committee were required to sign non-disclosure agreements, as the public was initially kept well in the dark on CC. Of the members on the validation committee, there was one ELA expert, Dr. Sandra Stotsky, and one math expert, Dr. Jim Milgram, and neither one of them would sign off on it.

 

On November 13th, TN State Sen. Bill Ketron told an assembly of State Legislators, Murfreesboro City and Rutherford County School Board Councilmen that, during a recent conversation with Gov. Haslam, the Governor suggested he could beat any upcoming bill that attempts to remove Tennessee schools from CCSS, and Haslam had assurances from Lt Gov. Ramsey that such bills would fail. This will soon be tested, since Senate Bill 4 and House Bill 3 were recently filed in the Tennessee Legislature, in order to create “Volunteer State Standards” and stop Common Core expansion beyond this school year.

 

There exists many great reasons for all fifty states to permanently exit from CCSS, with all its flaws and predilection towards conformity, as exposed by Dr. Duke Pesta, who travels the nation speaking against Common Core, using the following example: Three students were instructed to collaborate on a math problem. One student answered correctly and two had wrong answers. The student who solved the problem correctly was marked “wrong”, because he went against the group. So, in the world of CC, consensus is everything and independent thought be damned.

 

One more enormous problem exists, because the College Board that wrote the Advanced Push U.S. History Redesign Framework is also headed by the architect of Common Core, David Coleman. Pay especially close attention to the word “redesign”.

 

The Framework omits Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, Dwight Eisenhower and many other key figures, as it gives one brief mention of George Washington and refers to the Declaration of Independence in just one clause of one sentence; it casts America in a negative light and forces teachers to instruct students in a leftist blame-America first reading of history, tearing apart everything good and decent America was built upon and omitting traditional presentations of our Founding Principles.

 

Look on page 74 of the Framework and one finds that teachers are given the flexibility to use examples such as Students for a Democratic Society and the Black Panthers. On the other hand, please note that Rosa Parks and Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. are omitted from U.S. history.

 

A blatant, overt attempt to portray capitalism in a negative light is found on page 64: “A number of critics challenged the dominant corporate ethic in the United States and sometimes capitalism itself, offering alternative visions of the good society through Utopianism and the Social Gospel.”

 

George Washington doesn’t merit mention in AP U.S. History because he held slaves. This is a low and arbitrary slap in the face of all Americans and all real scholars, as cheap academics and untrustworthy curriculum become the new academic standard; the Progressives have rationalized and justified the evisceration of history, but in so doing, they put on display their own intellectual dishonesty.

 

In association with CC, the incredibly invasive Dept. of Education directive, ‘Promoting Grit, Tenacity and Perseverance’, demands public schools influence students’ non-cognitive development in dispositions, social skills and attitudes, which are independent of intellectual ability. To further this endeavor, schools are collecting more than 400 data points on every child through CC assessments, including their likes, dislikes, grade-point average, home situation and health questions from pre-K into the workforce.

 

Common Core builds a complete psychological profile. Any weaknesses in a child’s attitudes or values could be targeted for remedial indoctrination and education.

 

Can’t America see the alignment of Common Core “standards” with Karl Marx’s postulate on education and Obama’s desire to fundamentally transform America?

 

In ‘The Socialist Alteration of Man’ (1930) Lev Vygotsky, a Marxist Russian psychologist, writes, “It is education which should play the central role in the transformation of man this road of conscious social formation of new generations, the basic form to alter the historical human type … to reunite thinking and work which have been torn asunder during the process of capital development.”

 

The testimony of Lily Tang Williams, a former associate law professor at Fudan University in China and a legal immigrant living in Parker, Colorado, pounds the final nail in Common Core’s coffin:

 

“Common Core, in my eyes, is the same as the communist core I once saw in China … Nationalized testing, nationalized curriculum and nationalized indoctrination … I cannot believe this is happening in this country. I don’t know what happened to America, the shining city on the hill. Chinese children are not trained to be independent thinkers … they are trained to be massive skilled workers for corporations. And they have no idea what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989 …”

 

Common Core proponents want students to view society’s problems and potential solutions through a collectivist worldview that serves the interests of a class, race, certain politicized groups and the State, rather than the truth, logic and rational thought. Creativity and innovation become grounded in emotion, and terms like “critical thinking skills” (red flag) become measures of a student’s acceptance or resistance to the radical changes in values, beliefs, feelings and behaviors that CCSS demands. The word “truth” ceases to have its old meaning, and it becomes something to be dictated by the State.

 

By Justin O. Smith

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Edited by John R. Houk

Text or links enclosed by brackets are by the Editor.

 

© Justin O. Smith