COMMON CORE
PART 7
By
Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D.
May 25, 2015
NewsWithViews.com
[Note: Rarely do I make a personal plea, but I am now. Many of you know that I have been taking care of my mother since she broke her femur in 5 places 9 years ago. On May 18, she became 91 years old, and I do all the cooking, cleaning, washing, etc. In the past 9 years, I have had a regular night's sleep only about 7 times due to all the necessary caregiving work. As a fulltime caregiver, I have not been able to have a typical salaried job, and if I worked and paid someone else to be a caregiver, I would have to pay them not much under $50,000 a year. So either way, I am out a lot of money.
Recently, the Veterans Administration (VA) notified my mother that they had made a mistake, and she owed them over $7000 from her VA's widow's pension payment. Plus, the VA reduced her monthly pension payment to just $32. How is anyone supposed to buy food, etc. on that? Then just a few days ago, the owner of our condominium notified us that she is going to sell it. My mother has been in the hospital twice (for dehydration and a fall) in the last month, and a move at this time would not be helpful to her health. The only way to be sure she will not be forced to move is to buy the condominium, but I obviously do not have the money to do that. However, you could help me to make a down-payment and pay for other expenses, so anything you can send me (in care of NewsWithViews) would be greatly appreciated. Thank you so much.]
In 1990, NCEE formed the National Alliance for Restructuring Education, which had the Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF, founded by radical Saul Alinsky) produce a concept paper, "Engaging the Public: One Way to Organize." Remember what Alinsky wrote about community organizers "rubbing raw resentments" and "fanning latent hostilities."
On May 23, 1991, the Bush administration presented to Congress the "America 2000 Excellence in Education Act," based on the 6 (later 8) national education goals and calling for a "national test" based on national standards. Although the test was supposed to be voluntary, the administration urged colleges to consider test results in their admissions decisions and employers to consider them when making hiring decisions.
President Bush's Secretary of Education from 1991 to 1993 was Lamar Alexander, who endorsed the concept of "a brand new American school" that would be open from 6am to 6pm year-round. He said "these schools will serve children from age 3 months to 18. That may be a shocking thought to you, but if you were to do an inventory of every baby in your community, and think about what the needs of those babies were for the next four or five years, you might see that those needs might not be served any other way."
Also in 1991, WE MUST TAKE CHARGE: OUR SCHOOLS AND OUR FUTURE, by Chester Finn was published. Finn had been head of the U.S. Department of Education's Office of Educational Research and Improvement. In the book, not only does Finn advocate a national curriculum, but he also stated that local control "has become an anachronism no longer justified by research, consistent with sound fiscal policy or organizational theory, suited to our mobility patterns, or important to the public." After reading the book, President Bush's Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander told Finn, "You saved me 6 months" in organizing the president's education initiative.
Likewise in 1991, the "Michigan Model" Common Core Curriculum was introduced. And from July 29 to August 4, teachers from around the country met at Snowmass, CO and produced dozens of performance tasks for students that "are tied to world-class standards that all students will need to meet," according the NCEE's president Marc Tucker. In a press release dated August 5, Colorado Gov. Roy Romer at Snowmass was quoted as saying that President Bush's proposal for a national student examination could lean heavily on the work of the New Standards Project.
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A few months later, in the March 1992 edition of EDUCATIONAL LEADERSHIP, an article titled "Will America Choose High Skills or Low wages" by Ira Magaziner (Rhodes scholar) and Hillary Clinton was published, in which they referred to President Bush's education initiative, "America 2000," announcing the development of a national examination system for the nation's K-12 school systems.
� 2015 Dennis Cuddy - All Rights Reserved
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