Common Core Advocates Hail Tuesday Primaries As Vindication

Read more: http://dailycaller.com/2014/06/04/common-core-advocates-hail-tuesday-primaries-as-vindication/#ixzz33mIW6pn9

Dear fellow Iowa Republican,

 If you oppose Common Core, and the federal control over our children’s education that it entails, your choice for governor in the Republican primary election on June 3rd is clear cut.

Terry Branstad supports Common Core, even though he tries to mask that support by using the “Iowa Core” phony label. Do even a little research and you will find that Iowa Core IS Common Core, by another name.

I strenuously OPPOSE Common Core. I am devoted to making sure that it dies a quick death.

But even more than that, I am committed to restoring what I call “T.L.C.,” or True Local Control, over our schools. Parental rights and duties are God-given, and therefore are NOT negotiable!

It makes no practical sense to keep sending our education dollars to Des Moines, and to Washington, D.C., so that they can run those dollars through a huge bureaucracy, before they send a fraction of our money back to us with strings attached.

Bureaucrats do not educate a single child. Only parents, churches, local communities, and teachers can do that.

We need ACTION, not more talk. Not only must we kill Common Core, we need fundamental tax reform that will KEEP OUR MONEY AT HOME.

If you agree, I need your vote on June 3rd.  And I need you to bring your family and friends to the polls with you.

Thank you!

For Iowa, for America, for our Posterity,


Tom Hoefling
2014 Republican candidate for Iowa Governor 

PS … we also need financial help to keep getting this important message out over the next few weeks. If you can help, in any amount, PLEASE CLICK HERE!

The New American

Alex Newman

Facing a growing avalanche of grassroots opposition from teachers, parents, and voters across the political spectrum, pro-Common Core forces — Big Business, Big Media, the Obama administration, and more — are striking back at their critics, oftentimes with outright deception and utterly ridiculous claims. However, under even a modicum of scrutiny, the absurd allegations and unsubstantiated statements made by proponents of the Obama administration-funded nationalization of education standards promptly fall apart. It appears, then, that while Common Core supporters have the big bucks — much of it from U.S. taxpayers, most of the rest from Big Business and the Gates Foundation — advocates for local control and proper education have the truth on their side. 

From the outset, the shadowy development and nationwide imposition of the widely criticized national K-12 standards have been shrouded in deception. The oft-parroted myth that Common Core was in any way “state-led,” for example, has been thoroughly discredited by this publication and many others, including by some of the nation’s top experts in the field. Claims that the nationalized standards would improve education have also been widely debunked, even by some of the respected educators who sat on the largely for-show “Common Core Validation Committee.” The content experts in both English and Mathematics refused to sign off on the standards, citing poor quality, incorrect math, and more.  

Meanwhile, Common Core financier and population-control fanatic Bill Gates inadvertently exposed the lie that the standards did not represent a takeover of the curriculum. “Last month, 46 Governors and Chief State School Officers made a public commitment to embrace these common standards,” Gates said during a speech at the 2009 National Conference of State Legislators. “This is encouraging — but identifying common standards is not enough. We’ll know we’ve succeeded when the curriculum and the tests are aligned to these standards.”

The notion that the federal government and the Obama administration were not involved in the whole scheme to centralize control over schools is so absurd that pro-Common Core zealots appear to have largely stopped making the claim. The national Common Core testing regime, for instance, is being financed by the federal government. The shadowy D.C.-based National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) also receive large sums of taxpayer cash, much of it through the federal government. Of course, as The New American has documented extensively, the Obama administration used billions of taxpayer dollars to bribe and bludgeon states into imposing Common Core, too.    

Still, the deception by Common Core advocates continues unabated. One of the most incredible recent examples reviewed by The New American came from the “Higher State Standards Partnership,” a front group for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Business Roundtable. The astroturf group paid to publish a propaganda advertisement in The Daily Caller headlined “How Common Core state standards prevent federal control of education.” The Big Business front-group’s ad, with a format designed to make it look like an actual article, never explained how the nationalized standards would prevent federal control of education. Instead, the ad made the preposterous claim that abandoning Common Core “would only bolster the hand of the Administration and invite federal control into our schools.”

While the Big Business front group has been producing ads purporting to show that “teachers” support the standards, that lie is easily put to rest by witnessing the revolt among teachers in New York, where the Common Core roll-out has advanced faster than in other states. There, the board of the state teachers union voted unanimously against Common Core as it has been implemented so far. New York State Assemblyman Al Graf, a member of the Assembly Education Committee with a degree in education, even told The New American that the controversial standards represent “state-sponsored child abuse.” Even the governor in the establishment stronghold has been forced to retreat slightly on Common Core in the face of the public uprising. Opponents of the education takeover say this is just the start.         

In Wisconsin, meanwhile, as The New American reported late last year, a handful of extremist Democrat politicians even resorted to concocting fantastical conspiracy theories about the overwhelming public outrage over the national standards. Among other claims, they suggested that some sort of vast right-wing conspiracy was afoot when five top authorities on the standards testified against them — even though many of the experts the lawmakers were attacking as part of the supposed conspiracy were in fact associated with the political Left. “Your manipulative, race/religion-baiting, sociopathic, misleading press release is a textbook example of what is wrong with American politics and is clearly a window into the mind of a warped individual who values the spotlight over serious discussions related to our nation’s children,” wrote Dr. Gary Thompson, a child psychologist who said he campaigned for Obama, after disgraced State Sen. John Lehman claimed the expert had been “fronting” for “right-wing extremism” in his testimony against Common Core.

More recently, the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel newspaper, widely regarded as having a strong bias in favor of Big Government and the Democrat Party, provided an excellent example of the deception when it launched a half-baked attack on Dr. Duke Pesta under the guise of doing a “profile.” The respected university professor and prominent Common Core critic has been traveling across America exposing the controversial national education standards to massive audiences. Already, he has spoken to tens of thousands of Wisconsin parents during his more than 150 talks, in addition to large groups all over the country. The piece, perhaps in an effort to seem “fair and balanced,” begins by noting that his students at the University of Wisconsin love him. However, the real agenda soon becomes transparent: attacking the popular professor for his powerful opposition to Common Core.

In addition to parroting the debunked talking points of Common Core proponents as if they were fact — a big faux pas in journalism — Journal-Sentinel reporter Karen Herzog cites alleged “critics” of Pesta’s efforts who supposedly “accuse him of making statements about the nationwide academic standards that are inflammatory, inaccurate or just plain absurd.” It turns out that those “critics,” in fact, at least the only one cited in the article, is one state education bureaucrat who makes blatantly false claims throughout the article — claims that the reporter allowed to pass unchallenged. Pesta said he was either not allowed a chance to respond, or the reporter simply ignored and omitted the vast amounts of documentation he provided that refuted the falsehoods.    

Dr. Duke Pesta spent hours sending documents and information to the Journal-Sentinel reporter backing up the assertions he has made during his talks. Indeed, a copy of the documents with the reporter’s questions and Dr. Pesta’s responses obtained byThe New American reveals meticulous use of official sources and news reports to support every statement that the newspaper brought into question. “Every single thing that this [Wisconsin Department of Public Instruction] DPI hack challenges in the article, I went through meticulously and explained it to her,” Dr. Pesta said in a recent radio interview with popular Wisconsin show host Vicki McKenna. “She didn’t include one shred of that evidence.”

Consider, as just one representative example of the deception and journalistic malpractice, the Journal-Sentinel’s claim, attributed to unnamed “critics,” that Pesta’s warning about “a national sex education standard” in the pipeline is “inflammatory, inaccurate or just plain absurd.” In fact, it is public knowledge that a wide assortment of outfits, including abortion giant Planned Parenthood, is pushing national sex-education standards. Dr. Pesta even provided a link to the document and a key excerpt from it: “The National Sexuality Education Standards were further informed by the work of the CDC’s Health Education Curriculum Analysis Tool (HECAT); existing state and international education standards that include sexual health content; the Guidelines for Comprehensive Sexuality Education: Kindergarten – 12th Grade; and the Common Core State Standards for English Language Arts and Mathematics, recently adopted by most states.” (Emphasis added). 

The reporter was apparently not interested. “She never allowed me to make my case, she simply allowed the DPI guy to respond to little fragments of things that I might have said,” Pesta continued, challenging DPI “Director of Education Information Services” John Johnson to a public debate. “If my comments are as absurd as you say they are, you should have no problem dealing with me in a public forum. What do you say, John? Quit hiding behind the DPI and the Journal-Sentinel and letting them do your hit work and lobbing you soft-balls, and you come out and talk to an actual person about this.” The radio host, McKenna, agreed, saying she would like to see the alleged documentation and evidence behind the state education bureaucracy’s claims. Neither theJournal-Sentinel’s Herzog nor the DPI’s Johnson responded to requests from The New American for comment and documentation by press time.

The reporter, however, did attend one of Pesta’s three-hour presentations on Common Core in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, several days before her article was printed. More than 150 Wisconsin citizens, including four state legislators and two school board members, were in attendance. In detailed fashion, Pesta made his case against Common Core, citing and documenting his information throughout the talk. Incredibly, though, no mention of the hard-hitting talk appears in the article, and Herzog apparently failed to interview a single attendee. Throughout the article, Herzog cites supposed “critics” of Pesta's presentation, yet she never reveals the fact that, according to Pesta, none of those critics (or critic) ever attended one of his talks. Nor did she bother to solicit the opinions of people who actually heard Pesta speak in Cedarburg or elsewhere.

Still, the attack piece may, ironically, be an encouraging sign. “They would not be doing this if we were not making serious, serious inroads, if we weren’t threatening them,” Dr. Pesta said on the radio show, adding that in the day and a half since the article was published, he had received another dozen invitations to speak on the issue. “I prove everything I say, I proved it to that reporter.... This is how the Journal-Sentinel works.”

Indeed, Pesta, who was not informed that the reporter was working with the DPI operative on the hit piece, was never even given an opportunity to respond to his debunked claims. The paper also took some of Pesta’s remarks out of context and, incredibly — in a profile about Pesta — allowed the DPI operative to have the last word in the transparent hatchet job. “So much for a profile piece on me,” Pesta said, adding that the reporter misrepresented basic facts, even claiming to Pesta that her readers were not interested in Common Core and so it would not be the focus of the piece. The radio host agreed with Pesta, arguing that the journalist repeated brazen falsehoods, such as the claim that Common Core standards were “internationally bench-marked.”  

Herzog also invents an alleged “conflict of interest,” citing unnamed supposed “critics,” by noting that Dr. Pesta “moonlights” as the academic director of FreedomProject Education, an online K-12 school that prides itself on being free of Common Core influence. However, she fails to mention the real conflict of interest — that of her “critic,” the DPI’s Johnson. The Obama administrationprovided massive bribes to state education officials in exchange for imposing Common Core. Even worse, Obama and top administration officials repeatedly told government-school employees and officials that their stimulus-funded bribes to state governments were, as the president put it, "saving" the jobs of hundreds of thousands of teachers. Because the unconstitutional bribes were linked to accepting Common Core and Orwellian new data-mining schemes, the administration essentially tried to buy the support of state and local education workers by claiming that their employment was at stake. Now that is a real conflict of interest — one that readers of the Journal-Sentinel deserved to know about.

The fact is that Common Core proponents must rely on taxpayer-funded bribes, deceptive propaganda funded by special-interests, and brazen deception to push the deeply controversial national standards. As the truth becomes more widely known, as it inevitably must, the radical effort to nationalize American education will almost certainly encounter even fiercer resistance. Already, numerous state governments across America, facing a mushrooming backlash from across the political spectrum, are working to extricate themselves from the scheme. However, as the deception unravels and the reality of the standards becomes clear, the tsunami of opposition to Common Core will continue to grow and accelerate.   

Alex Newman is a correspondent for The New American, covering economics, education, politics, and more. He can be reached atanewman@thenewamerican.com. Follow him on Twitter @ALEXNEWMAN_JOU.

Related articles:

Common Core: A Scheme to Rewrite Education

Orwellian Nightmare: Data-mining Your Kids

UN, Obama, and Gates Are Globalizing Education Via Common Core

Common Core and UN Agenda 21: Mass Producing Green Global Serfs

On the Defensive, Shills for Common Core Hype Distractions

Big Business Launches Pro-Common Core Propaganda Blitz

Debunking Myth of Common Core Education as “State Led” (Video)

New York Revolts Against Common Core 

Educators Expose Dangers of Common Core National Education

Common Core: People vs. Big Government, Big Business, and Billionaires

Heritage Foundation

Common Core is on the ropes. More and more states are pulling back from the national standards as the 2014–15 school year implementation deadline looms near.

In Louisiana, Governor Bobby Jindal (R)—formerly a Common Core supporter—is now encouraging the legislature to remove the state from the Common Core aligned Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for Colleges and Careers (PARCC) test. And if they don’t act, he will.

Jindal’s new stance comes after eight members of the Louisiana State House of Representatives sent him a letter, informing him of his prerogative to opt out of the standards and encouraging him to do so. As The New Orleans Advocate reported:

Gov. Bobby Jindal said Monday that a gubernatorial order for the state to drop controversial Common Core tests is a ‘very viable option’ if state lawmakers fail to act. Jindal made the comment in response to a letter from eight House members who said the governor can opt the state out of the exams and should do that… ‘We believe you have the authority, as governor, under the 2010 PARCC memorandum of understanding, to opt out of the consortium,’ state Rep. Brett Geymann, (R–Lake Charles), and seven other legislators wrote.

In a statement released on Monday Jindal said,

"We share the concerns of these [anti-Common Core] legislators and also of parents across Louisiana. We’re hopeful that legislation will move through the process this session that will address the concerns of parents or delay implementation until these concerns can be addressed. We think this course of action outlined in the legislators’ letter remains a very viable option if the Legislature does not act."

But as The Times-Picayune reports,

"On a practical level, there is some question as to whether Jindal can unilaterally tear Louisiana away from the PARCC consortium, in which 16 states plus Washington D.C. participate. [Louisiana Superintendent] John White and Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education [BESE] president Chas Roemer said their permission is also required to leave the consortium, and both White and Roemer—who also avidly supports Common Core—are unwilling to do so."

Meanwhile, this week in South Carolina, State Superintendent Mick Zais officially withdrew his state from the Common Core aligned Smarter Balanced (SBAC) tests.

In a letter to the State Board of Education, Zais wrote:

"I want to have a high quality assessment that meets the specific needs of South Carolina, at a competitive price. If we continue to focus only on Smarter Balanced, we lose any opportunity to consider alternatives….

In consideration of the foregoing, and the discovery that I have the authority to withdraw South Carolina from its status as a governing state of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, and after full consultation with the Governor’s Office and appropriate members of the General Assembly, I am informing you that I am exercising that authority."

Oklahoma, too, is currently in a battle over Common Core. The state senate passed a bill earlier this month downgrading the state’s involvement with the national standards, although there is some difference of opinion as to whether it would fully remove Oklahoma from the standards, or merely change the name of the standards.

Governor Mary Fallin (R), a supporter of Common Core and chair of the National Governor’s Association which helped develop the standards, said in a statement that she “support[s] passing legislation that increases classroom rigor and accountability while guaranteeing that Oklahoma public education is protected from federal interference…”

Meanwhile, the Missouri House of Representatives passed their bill to find a Common Core replacement.

“We’re going to create the process to have Missouri standards and Missouri assessments,” State Rep. Kurt Bahr (R), who introduced the measure, stated. The proposal requires that by October 1, 2014 the state board must develop new academic standards by the following October 2015, in place of the Common Core, and adopt and implement these standards by the 2016-17 school year.

Fifteen states have now made strides in halting or downgrading their involvement in the standards. Last month, Indiana became the first state to exit Common Core. This is promising momentum in the effort of states to reclaim their educational decision-making authority.

Tom Hoefling for Iowa

For immediate release

Contact: tomhoefling@gmail.com

April 16, 2014

Des Moines – Iowa GOP gubernatorial primary challenger Tom Hoefling today charged that incumbent Governor Terry Branstad and his campaign are deceiving Iowa Republicans about Branstad’s ongoing support for the Common Core national standards.

Tom Hoefling said today, “I don’t know why they think they can get away with this, frankly. It is obvious to any honest observer that Terry Branstad continues to support Common Core, and that he has done nothing of any real substance in this legislative session to stop it. It is also clear that the Branstad executive order from last October that they constantly cite did nothing to stop the implementation of Common Core. That was, to put it simply, a political smokescreen, and everybody who has looked into this question closely knows it.”

Hoefling added, “Support for the Common Core standards, which amount to the final blow against any remaining vestige of local control of our schools, is bad enough. But when the Governor and his campaign staffers go out on the campaign trail and try to deceive the people of this state, that takes things to a whole new level. It is now more than just a disagreement over public policy. It is a question of honesty and integrity.”

The Hoefling campaign pointed to a report from the statewide group “Iowans for Local Control,” which can be found here:

http://iowansforlocalcontrol.com/2014/01/no-governor-branstad-did-not-reject-the-common-core/

###

Tom Hoefling:

Terry Branstad and his staffers are telling Iowa Republicans that the Governor does not support Common Core. But this is simply not true.

They are telling Iowa Republicans that he has done everything he can to stop Common Core, but again, this simply isn't true. Together with Republican leaders in the Iowa House, he assured that no true anti-Common Core legislation moved in this session of the Legislature.

They continue to deceive Republican primary voters by claiming that last October's Branstad executive order did something to stop Common Core, when it is simply not true.

Please, don't let them get away with this, folks. Does the truth matter to you?

An important repeat from January:

No, Governor Branstad Did Not Reject the Common Core
Iowans for Local Control

Shane Vander Hart

I had a Eastern Iowa resident contact me last week to discuss a tele-townhall he participated in with Governor Terry Branstad.  He said he was asked about the Common Core and Branstad replied, “I rejected the Common Core.” During his press conference on Monday when he discussed progress made on the education reform package passed last year. Branstad said he’s “tried to make it extremely clear that Iowa has our own standards…”

Yes we have the Iowa Core which consists of math, English language arts, social studies, science, and 21st Century learning skills.  During the Iowa House Education Committee meeting Rosie Hussey, the president of the Iowa State Board of Education and Dr. Brad Buck, director of the Iowa Department of Education, shared a presentation on the Iowa Core and Common Core and indicated that for Iowa’s math and ELA standards, Iowa has added 15%, but Common Core is the base.

So 85% of our standards were written by outside groups.

If you read through Governor Branstad’s executive order there is no rejection of the Common Core.

Read this story at iowansforlocalcontrol.com ...

Breitbart

by Dr. Susan Berry

Grassroots parents’ groups across the country who, through new media, have developed organizations around opposition to the Common Core State Standards are making the education initiative central to the 2014 mid-term elections. Opposed equally by people on the right and the left, Republicans and Democrats alike, the Common Core initiative is poised to separate, perhaps like no other issue, the political candidates who reflect the will of “we the people” from big government bureaucrats.

Those who support the standards, in fact, are likely to be labeled “establishment” politicians, regardless of their party affiliation. They are the supporters of government intervention and encroachment upon both states’ and parental rights, and they advocate for the alliance of big business groups, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and political elites.

Read this story at breitbart.com ...

Also at nation.foxnews.com ...

Chuck Grassley Leads Effort to Defund Common Core in U.S. Senate

Caffeinated Thoughts

(Washington, DC) Senator Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) is circulating a “Dear Colleague” letter seeking cosigners for a letter that will be sent to the leaders of the Senate Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education Appropriations Subcommittee – Senators Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) and Jerry Moran (R-Kansas) asking that they include language in their next appropriations bill to block the further use of any funding from the U.S. Department of Education to incentivize or otherwise coerce states into adopting and retaining the Common Core State Standards.

Read this story at caffeinatedthoughts.com ...

College students and others at George Mason University were dumbstruck by the tedious nature of an elementary level Common Core problem during a short series of interviews conducted by Campus Reform last week. The problem, 32-12, was demonstrated to those on campus the traditional way and juxtaposed with the Common Core method.
Read more at http://conservativevideos.com/2014/03/college-students-learn-common-core-math/#yIq6LRlHqfwKIb7S.99

CNS

Will America be a better and freer country three decades from now if the children who turn four in this decade spend most of their waking hours with members of a government teachers union rather than with their moms?

President Barack Obama's vision of America, not surprisingly, starts with very young children spending their time in the custody of government employees.

- See more at: http://cnsnews.com/commentary/terence-p-jeffrey/federalizing-4-year-olds#sthash.2HxnrfvK.dpuf

Read this story at cnsnews.com ...

thefederalistpapers.org

By Steve Straub

This presentation explores the new government mandated Common Core standards being implemented in public schools, private schools and homeschool curriculum. Dr. Pesta and Mrs. Black offer an in-depth look at Common Core, its long-term impact, and why American’s should be concerned about these standards.

Click here to read the story and watch the video ...

Iowans for Local Control

State Representative Tedd Gassman (R-Scarville) introduced a bill, HF 2141, that directs the Iowa Department of Education to pull out of the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium.  It has been cosponsored by State Representatives Sandy Salmon (R-Denver), Dwayne Alons (R-Hull), Larry Sheets (R-Moulton), Greg Heartsill (R-Columbia), Dave Maxwell (R-Gibson), Tom Shaw (R-Laurens), John Landon (R-Ankeny), Ralph Watts (R-Adel), Jason Schultz (R-Schleswig) and Walt Rogers (R-Cedar Falls). This bill has been assigned to a subcommittee...

Read this story at iowansforlocalcontrol.com ...

Iowans for Local Control

Shane Vander Hart

I had a Eastern Iowa resident contact me last week to discuss a tele-townhall he participated in with Governor Terry Branstad.  He said he was asked about the Common Core and Branstad replied, “I rejected the Common Core.” During his press conference on Monday when he discussed progress made on the education reform package passed last year. Branstad said he’s “tried to make it extremely clear that Iowa has our own standards…”

Yes we have the Iowa Core which consists of math, English language arts, social studies, science, and 21st Century learning skills.  During the Iowa House Education Committee meeting Rosie Hussey, the president of the Iowa State Board of Education and Dr. Brad Buck, director of the Iowa Department of Education, shared a presentation on the Iowa Core and Common Core and indicated that for Iowa’s math and ELA standards, Iowa has added 15%, but Common Core is the base.

So 85% of our standards were written by outside groups.

If you read through Governor Branstad’s executive order there is no rejection of the Common Core.

Read this very important story at iowansforlocalcontrol.com ...