International Common Core vs. the American Dream‏

Common Core isn’t national, it’s international. So are they just putting together a pretend committee to come up with our “new Oklahoma standards?” Grassroots groups will keep on researching.

Jenni White, President and founder of Restore Oklahoma Public Education commented:

Uh-uh… this is the SECOND annual meeting of this kind. But why? Common Core is locally created! It’s not national in origin or use and certainly NOT INTERNATIONAL! I guess I don’t understand why so many countries would meet in Dubai to be trained in Common Core. As I said in my blog on the 7 reasons why Common Core is still in Oklahoma, this is so much bigger than anyone thinks! PARENTS, stand for your kids!

The MENA Common Core Conference will provide over 20 workshops that educators may participate in. These sessions will focus on English Language Arts and Mathematics as well as School Culture, Community, and Teacher Support, Next Generation Science Standards and Leadership. In addition, schools will attend an action planning session, facilitated by an expert educator, to plan how to go forward and implement the information they learned at the conference in their schools.

Attendees of the conference will have access to the top publishers of education materials. Scholastic, one of the conference’s partners, said, “Scholastic is committed to partnering with educators to support the implementation of the Common Core State Standards. We’ve worked directly with CCSS authors to develop programs like the ground-breaking Scholastic Literacy Pro, an adaptive reading assessment program that provides a clear, immediate view of what students can do now and are positioned to learn next. Educators can use this information to monitor progress and set rigorous goals, as recommended by the CCSS, and forecast performance. 

(To learn more, read THIS ARTICLE from TEACH United Arab Emirates, the 2nd Annual Common Core Conference in Dubai.)

Next, let’s visit Common Core China. (If you Google that, you must go to about the 6th page before you find this…almost as if they are hiding it.)  From the introduction, I found this comment:

“What is the Common Core Curriculum? The HKU (Hong Kong University) Common Core Curriculum is an essential part of academic induction to facilitate the transition from secondary school to university. {My, that sounds a lot like “College and Career Ready”} It is designed to provide key common learning experiences for all HKU undergraduate students and to broaden their horizons beyond their chosen disciplinary fields of study. It focuses on issues that have been, and continue to be, of deeply profound significance to humankind, the core intellectual skills that all HKU undergraduates should acquire and the core values that they should uphold.”

The problem with everything in our system becoming ‘global’ is that in order for that to happen, there will have to be a fundamental transformation of America. We will no longer be the superpower, we will just have to be a player. We can no longer be a first world country. That is not fair to the third world countries. What better way to make that happen than to indoctrinate the children of the world that we are all Common, all the same, no one is better, which means America is not great. Who needs freedom when you can have someone else supply your food and housing? Nothing good really matters, so the immoral are just the same as the moral. Life is not really that valuable if you aren’t willing or able to produce for the chosen.

There have always been people who think this way. The brokers of these ideas will take all the money, but in return give you the health care they deem is valuable to society, and give you the job they have decided at age 8 you are best suited for.

That is why they need all that information from cradle to grave. That is why in Oklahoma, John Kraman from Achieve in D.C. is about to be promoted by Governor Fallin to top IT guy over all of Oklahoma instead of just the Student Information Officer (he put in the system for abusive and intrusive data collection on our students).

All these things combined give you an idea of what a massive mess we are in, and who we are fighting. It is a battle we must win. Common Core is the current description of a system that indoctrinates our children to undermine the values that Americans have held dear for centuries. The global corporations want a workforce, not an educated, the-sky-is-the-limit, bunch of American Dream-believers. They refer to students as “workforce,” “human capital” or “products.” Those are terms that until recently were reserved for Communist countries. Make no mistake, Common Core has its tentacles deeply entrenched in many laws and in many facets of our education system. How does a superintendent get rid of Common Core and then evaluate his teachers based on Common Core scores? Confusing, isn’t it? There is much work to be done.

So did Oklahoma repeal Common Core? Well, we won the argument and we won the battle. We won the hearts and minds of parents and many teachers and state legislators, and made education the focus of every candidate running for office.  (Jenni White recently wrote an article that enumerates seven reasons why Common Core repeal isn’t.)

Did the global corporations just sidestep us again for a new name change and a few more hassles to rename, replace and make more people think they are included in the process? Take a look at the National Governors Association (NGA) donor list. Take a look at all the governors that belong to this private club. Take a look at your own governor and see where they stand.

The only hope I see is to continue to expose the agenda of global organizations such as the NGA, and to abolish unconstitutional agencies like the Federal Department of Education. To give our children a heritage that includes freedom, we must win this fight. We can no longer just vote and go home. We must vote and stay engaged, and follow the money. I still believe in the American Dream.