Showing posts with label Common Core. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Common Core. Show all posts

Monday, August 24, 2015

Why We Have More Than 40 Million Functional Illiterates

Hundreds of websites still casually assert what is probably the most destructive sophistry in the history of education:
The Dolch Sight Words [created in the 1940s] are a list of the 220 most frequently used words in the English language. These sight words make up 50 to 70 percent of any general text….Dolch found that children who can identify a certain core group of words by sight could learn to read and comprehend better. Dolch's sight word lists are still widely used today and highly respected by both teachers and parents. These sight words were designed to be learned and mastered by the third grade.
Even at a glance, you may see several problems.  Just because they were “designed to be learned and mastered” by the third grade doesn’t mean they will be.  The majority of children cannot master these words by any grade, if by master you mean name them with automaticity at reading speed

“Respected by both teachers and parents” is a slippery construction that conspicuously omits mention of “reading experts who conduct research.” 

Furthermore, even if these words make up two thirds of a text, that means a child cannot read every third word.  Nothing resembling reading can take place. 

Note that phonics instruction would allow the student to read every word by the second grade.  But the sight-word method promises that by third grade, the children will know a small subset of English words but still remain largely illiterate.  What sort of promise is that?

Even all that is not the full indictment.  Trying to memorize many graphic designs – and that’s what learning to read with sight-words entails – is virtually impossible.  The brain becomes cluttered with hundreds of partly memorized designs, all of which look quite similar.  There are children with photographic memories who can survive.  But let’s focus on the average student.  This child might not be able to memorize even 100 sight-words each year, or ever.  But the real flaw is that few children achieve automaticity.  Most are always wandering slowly in the forest, so to speak.  If parents understood how hopeless and painful this process is, they would never allow their children near sight-words.

So we need a way for parents to grasp viscerally that sight-words are a mission impossible for almost all children.  Consider:

Dolch words for first grade include think.  Fluent readers of English see the phonics in this word; they see the logic of this word.  As a result, such readers do not realize how utterly bizarre and difficult this word looks to first-graders told to memorize the design as a sight-word.

It’s important that everyone see this word as the first-grader sees it.  In fact, there is a simple way to do this.  Here are the same letters arranged in other ways: hinktinthknihkthtnikkhtnitkhin.

From the point of view of visual memorization, they are all equally difficult.  For experimental purposes, pick one of them and memorize it (as a shape, not a series of letters).

One site actually prints the official dogma: “Many students do not need extra practice with the Dolch words, as they learn them by reading them repeatedly in context.”

This nonsense is repeated to parents, who then expect their kids to acquire these words the same way a dog picks up burrs in the woods.  It’s not so easy.  If schools were serious about memorizing word-shapes, children would draw them over and over.  Flashcards would be used relentlessly.  But keep in mind that our schools constantly campaign against rote memorization, which is said to be a great evil.  Meanwhile, they’re asking children to commit rote memorization on hundreds (and in Whole Word’s heyday, thousands) of English words.  So you know they are hypocrites.  But let’s stick to the task at hand.  Consider the words again.  I bet you can’t pick out the one you memorized:

itkniitiknhkitnkinhtnktnintikn.

That’s a bit of a trick, because these are six new configurations made from the same group of letters.  The point is, English letters and words look a lot alike.  There is not much to work with.  And imagine the nightmare of longer words.

In the process of trying to memorize these look-alike designs, the brain is soon overwhelmed by complexity and clutter. Furthermore, our eyes scan a face or visual design from all directions.  But English must be read left-to-right, letter by letter, then by syllables and words, but always left to right.  The instant our eyes start darting around, which they always do with graphic designs, reading is finished.  Sight-word readers report the most amazing cognitive problems.  Words slide around on the page.  Words reverse themselves.  This doesn’t seem to make sense until you consider that the eyes are jumping around on the page in random jerks, thus inducing complementary side-effects. 

For many children, the next step is to be told they have dyslexia, which simply means they don’t read well.  They are told they have ADHD.  They need an appointment with a shrink.  They need to take Ritalin.  Pretty soon these children are a mess inside and out, all because their school gave them an impossible task.

Even if you do memorize the 220 sight-words perfectly, you have been set up for a lifetime of cognitive schizophrenia.  You will read some words phonetically and some as designs, back and forth in no predictable order.  You won’t know which kind of word is coming next.  There will be anxiety as your eyes go from left to right.  What is this next thing coming at you?  Is it in your sight-word inventory?  No, apparently not, which means you have to read it phonetically.  Your brain has to make a lot of extra decisions, which cripples reading speed.  You become one of those millions of people who never reads for pleasure because it is, for you, hard work.
Experience suggests that girls are more patient with bad pedagogical methods.  Many boys become angry and sullen.  They pull back and refuse to participate.  If you want to know why American college students are 57% female, think first of the phrase “sight-words.”

When Rudolf Flesch published Why Johnny Can’t Read in 1955, he thought he had made the case so compellingly that no one would dare promote sight-words in the future.  He was wrong.  Our Education Establishment spun off the International Reading Association in 1956.  Their dozens of celebrated experts continued to promote sight-words up until the present day.  First-graders still come home with lists of sight-words that they must commit to memory.  So we have a surreal situation: sixty years later, many a Johnny still can’t read.

For simplicity’s sake, let’s say that Balanced Literacy and Whole Language are the contemporary repositories of all the bad reading theories from the last 85 years, perpetuated to the degree that each separate community will tolerate them.  Now, Common Core seems comfortable with locking in all of this baggage.  That should tell us from the start that Common Core is not serious about improving education.  Common Core Math loves elaborate and elusive word problems – not a good idea anyway, but just imagine these semi-illiterate kids struggling with “Juanita, Charlotte, and Darcy walked to the mall to buy seven bags of stickers, but they had only $22.45 between them and…”  Even the parents are getting ulcers from trying to help their kids.


Thursday, August 20, 2015

FIORINA, JINDAL, CHRISTIE, WALKER STAND AGAINST COMMON CORE, UNLIKE BUSH AND KASICH

Republican presidential candidate, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie speaks during an education summit, Wednesday, Aug. 19, 2015, in Londonderry, N.H.

With educational reform and Common Core being top issues in the 2016 election, several GOP presidential candidates attended a summit in New Hampshire on Wednesday where they stressed different options for how they plan to improve the educational system across America.

The American Federation for Children, an organization that promotes school choice and advocates for school vouchers, partnered with The Seventy Four, a non-profit and non-partisan website that covers news about education, to host the 2015 New Hampshire Education Summit where experts in education reform and GOP presidential candidates spoke about reforming the educational system.
“Today’s education summit is an unprecedented opportunity to have a serious, dedicated conversation on the issues impacting America’s 74 million children,” said co-founder and Editor-in-Chief of The SeventyFour, Campbell Brown.
Several GOP presidential candidates spoke one-on-one with Brown on the topic of education reform, who appeared to forcefully and repetitively question the rejection of Common Core.
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush stressed accountability in the educational system.
Bush – who has gone against most Republicans in supporting Common Core – stressed accountability during his discussion with Brown. Bush said what is most important in his opinion is, “a simple requirement of accountability … a test to measure student learning.”
“If you don’t measure, you basically don’t care,” Bush explained, arguing there must be some basis of measuring a student’s success. He said he supports two bills – one in the Senate and one in the House – because both have testing as a measure. On tests for students, Bush said they “should be based on learning games.”
Bush left stressing accountability in terms of testing measurements, and discussed the importance of skilled teachers. He said the best tool for a classroom is a “capable teacher in a classroom that is well trained.”
Bush stated that aspects of education are “state by state issues, the federal government can be a partner in reform.” He said unions don’t support education reform because they don’t want teachers measured by student success.
Brown asked Bush whom he looks to on guidance and advice in terms of education reform, and if he would name who he would choose as Secretary of Education if he is elected President.
“Researchers who do extraordinary work,” Bush responded, not directly saying who he would choose as Secretary of State, but brought up “Mitch Daniels” who he said told him he took what Bush did in Florida and made it better in Indiana. Bush said Indiana’s success on improving education has been extraordinary, calling Daniels a “wonderful guy.”
On the topic of what future classrooms should look like, Bush said “more hands on, more exciting for kids.” He added that he believes future classrooms should be “more creative.”
“I think it is … I can envision … a system where a child starts with a cohort of kids – all are unique, all are different…and that you use technology, you have a trained teacher that is harnessing the technology that is available today to make sure every child reaches their maximum ability.”
“I think we need to reform higher education as well,” Bush said. “When a third of our kids…are only college and career ready…these are huge challenges.”
Carly Fiorina encouraged more creativity in the classroom.
Fellow GOP presidential candidate Carly Fiorina spoke with Brown next on the topic of secondary education where she stressed that children need the ability to be creative.
As former CEO of Hewlett Packard, Fiorina was asked if she would say education right now prepares someone to enter the workforce. Fiorina answered, “Not uniformly.”
“We know that every child has vast potential…and the goal of this nation is to allow every single American regardless of their circumstances to find and use their God given gifts,” Fiorina stated, saying that is the first step in the process for education.
Fiorina explained that if children live in a poor community, they are far less likely to get a quality education. She referenced a program, which existed at Hewlett-Packard, where the company reached into underprivileged communities to get involved with children who were interested in science, technology, engineering and math

Tuesday, August 18, 2015

Poll: Only 40% of Teachers Support Common Core

Poll: Only 40% of Teachers Support Common Core
(CNSNews.com) – Less than half of Americans (49 percent) now say they support Common Core State Standards (CCSS). 
Public support dropped 4 percent since last year and 16 percent since 2013, when 65 percent of Americans were in favor of the national education standards, according to the ninth annual Education Next poll released Tuesday.
Only 5 percent of Americans say that Common Core has had a “strongly positive” impact on their local schools, with 19 percent characterizing the impact as “strongly negative.”
The greatest change in opinion was among teachers. Although 76 percent said they were in favor of the Common Core standards in 2013, that percentage “collapsed” to just 40 percent in 2015, a 36-point difference, pollsters reported.
“While support for standardized testing remains strong, the debate over the Common Core State Standards continues to divide both teachers and the general public,” according to the poll, which was conducted in May and June by Paul Peterson and Martin West of the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.
Among teachers and parents, the two groups most directly impacted by CCSS, “respondents who believe the standards have had a negative effect on schools (51%) exceed those who think they have had a positive effect (28%),” researchers noted.
Support for Common Core is down among both Republicans and Democrats. In 2013, 57 percent of Republicans and 64 percent of Democrats said they supported CCSS. But by 2015, that percentage had dropped 20 points for Republicans (to 37 percent) and seven points for Democrats (to 57 percent).
Now exactly half (50 percent) of Republicans responding to the survey say they oppose Common Core, compared to just 16 percent of Republicans who were against it in 2013.
Among Democrats, who are the most likely to support Common Core, opposition over the last two years rose consistently, from 10 percent in 2013, to 17 percent in 2014, to 25 percent in 2015.

Sunday, August 9, 2015

Mandatory Common Core tests in New York just happen to be full of corporate brand names

Across the state of New York, this year’s Common Core English tests have reportedly featured a slew of brand-name products including iPod, Barbie, Mug Root Beer and Life Savers. For Nike, the tests even conveniently included the shoe company’s ubiquitous slogan: “Just Do It.”
The brands – and apparently even some of their familiar trademark symbols – appeared in tests questions for students ranging from third to eighth grades, reports The Post-Standard of Syracuse.
Over one million students were required to take the tests.
Parents, teachers and school administrators have speculated that the kid-friendly brand names are a new form of product placement.
Education materials behemoth Pearson, which has a $32 million five-year contract to develop New York’s Common Core-related tests, has barred teachers and school officials from disclosing the contents of the tests.
Students and parents are not so barred, though, and many have complained.
“‘Why are they trying to sell me something during the test?'” Long Island mother Deborah Poppe quoted her son as saying, according to Fox News. “He’s bright enough to realize that it was almost like a commercial.”
Poppe said her eighth-grade son was talking about a question about a busboy who didn’t clean up a root beer spill. It wasn’t just any root beer, though. No sir! It was Mug Root Beer, a registered trademark of PepsiCo (current market cap: $129.7 billion).
Another question about the value of taking risks featured the now-hackneyed Nike slogan “Just Do It.”

Judge: NY Teacher Exam Not Discriminatory Just Because Minorities Score Lower

A federal judge in New York has deigned to allow a teacher licensing exam which tests rudimentary academic skills and knowledge.
Judge Kimba M. Wood issued her ruling Friday, reports The New York Times.
In June, Wood had struck down another test of basic knowledge used by New York City to vet potential teachers. Wood concluded that the test illegally discriminated against racial minorities because members of racial minorities scored lower on it.
Members of racial minorities also score lower on the test Wood has allowed but, she reasoned, the low scores on the new test of basic knowledge are totally different than the low scores on the old test of basic knowledge.
Wood, a judge in the Southern District of New York, ruled that the two tests are different because the new one more accurately evaluates the skills needs for teaching successfully.
The teaching licensure exam Wood has allowed is called the Academic Literacy Skills Test (ALST). It focuses on reading and writing skills and is aligned with the national Common Core standards for English.
Education materials behemoth Pearson, which has a $32 million five-year contract to develop New York’s Common Core-related tests, developed the literacy skills test. (RELATED: Mandatory Common Core Tests In New York Just Happen To Be Full Of Corporate Brand Names)
Prospective teachers seeking certification in the state of New York must take the literacy test as well as three others.
The Academic Literacy Skills Test first appeared in the 2013-14 school year.
In education departments are universities, would-be black and Hispanic teachers have failed New York’s Academic Literacy Skills Test at a considerable clip. Just 41 percent of black teacher candidates passed the test on the first attempt. Just 46 percent of Hispanic teacher candidates passed on their first try.
The first-time pass rate for white teacher candidates on the test has been 64 percent.
Over 80 percent of America’s current teacher workforce is white.
In a court filing, former New York State deputy commissioner of education Ken Wagner asserted that the literacy test and the other three teacher licensing tests “ensure that each newly certified teacher entered the classroom with certain minimum knowledge, skills and abilities.”
New York State Education Department spokesman David Tompkins lauded Wood’s ruling.
“Our students need and deserve the best qualified teachers possible, and the ALST helps make sure they get those teachers,” Tompkins said, according to the Times.
Critics of testing academic skills as a way to license teachers argue that tests of basic literacy can only measure how well someone can speak and write.
“The question is, is that one of the criterion for determining who will be a good teacher?” Alfred S. Posamentier, former education dean at Mercy College in the swanky suburbs north of Manhattan, told the Times. “My sense is that the answer is no.”
Due to complaints from professors and officials in university education departments, soon-to-be teachers don’t actually need to pass the literacy exam until June 30, 2016. If they fail the literacy test, they can display their English language prowess through coursework.
At issue in Wood’s Friday ruling and her previous ruling is the concept of disparate racial impact. The basic rule when disparate racial impact occurs as the result of an employment test is that proponents of the test must show that the test assesses skills specifically necessary for the job.

Thursday, July 16, 2015

[EDITORIAL] By any other name, it’s still Common Core

We know now that the state’s supposed dumping of Common Core educational standards is a politically motivated sham. Assistant Education Commissioner Kimberley Harrington told the state Board of Education last week that a review of the standards is designed more to tweak than reconstruct. The special committee conducting the review will have little choice; it must complete its work in less than six months, not nearly enough time for a more thorough overhaul.
There is nothing wrong with periodically refining the state’s education standards; Common Core has been in place since 2010, and New Jersey typically reviews its academic principles every five years anyway. But the premise in this case is Gov. Chris Christie’s explanation that Common Core isn’t working because there isn’t enough buy-in from parents and teachers who don’t believe the standards are sufficiently local. That’s why he’s talking as if he’s scrapping Common Core and replacing it with a New Jersey-developed model, but it won’t be close to that. There will be some nips and tucks and a rebranding, with the same related standardized testing that has been the focus of so much of the opposition.
That won’t generate more buy-in.
Christie is merely appeasing right-wingers who perceive federal intervention in the Common Core national standards that each state can choose to adopt (with incentives encouraging adoption). But Christie was a past supporter of Common Core, and he won’t entirely back away from an initiative that is promoted as raising the academic bar.
So Common Core will be refined and renamed. That’s not by itself anything to fear. The problem for critics of the standards is that this modest review process will likely be the last meaningful reconsideration for years to come in New Jersey. After this, we’ll be stuck with the rebranded Common Core, and the controversial PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) tests that administration officials continue to support.
We can also expect officials to declare any deficiencies largely fixed after the review, which raises the likelihood that the state will quickly and recklessly raise the stakes of the PARCC scores. Those stakes had been wisely curtailed by Christie himself, cutting the impact on teacher evaluations from 30 percent to 10 percent in the past school year. That percentage is set to grow to 20 percent in the coming year and back to 30 percent the year after that. Many individual school districts have also minimized the influence of PARCC scores, but so far the Legislature has yet to deliver on similar statewide action.
So watch carefully how the state discusses the first year’s worth of PARCC scores. If used strictly to help identify individual student weaknesses, those results can have value. But there will be no comparable data to draw any meaningful conclusions. Christie, however, has relentlessly attacked teachers and the quality of public education since he first campaigned for governor. He still has a point to “prove” and may use those PARCC scores to try to do it. If he or administration officials try to portray results as somehow exposing failing schools, it will be wildly irresponsible.

Sunday, June 21, 2015

Nevada’s Common Core Tests Turn Into Costly Fiasco

A new, online standardized test designed to test Nevada schoolchildren on Common Core standards has been a huge fiasco in its first year, with the vast majority of students unable to event complete the test. The failure could expose the state to federal sanctions.
Under No Child Left Behind, states are supposed to test children in grades 3-8 each year in mathematics and reading. At least 95 percent of students must take the tests, or else a state can face federal sanctions such as a loss of millions of dollars in funds.
Nevada, on the other hand, was only able to test 37 percent of the 213,000 students it was supposed to, thanks to a cascade of glitches and computer problems that left students unable to complete their exams. In Clark County, which contains the Las Vegas metro area and over half the state’s students, only 5 percent were successfully tested.
Because so few were tested, Nevada’s department of education says it will be unable to issue grades for individual schools based on performance, like it is supposed to. The failure means Nevada is at risk of losing millions in federal funding, but such sanctions are unlikely in this case because the state made an honest effort that simply undone by technical shortfalls.
Blame for the fiasco is being placed squarely with the groups chosen to produce Nevada’s tests: the Smarter Balanced testing consortium, which is supposed to organize similar Common Core tests for member states, and the company it hired, Measured Progress. Measured Progress attempted to administer its test entirely via computer, but its servers were not up to the task of handling thousands of test-takers at once. Despite providing schools a testing window of nearly three months to avoid overloading, there were still repeated crashes that left students unable to make any progress. In response, Nevada has accused Measured Progress of breaching its $4 million contract with the state.
Even though it designed the tests, Measured Progress has tried to deflect the blame, pointing a finger back at Smarter Balanced instead. They claim the consortium provided an online testing platform which proved to be inadequate and unpredictable.
Via: Daily Caller

Continue Reading....

Saturday, April 25, 2015

280 High School Students Just Told Obama To Shove It In An Epic Way…

Screen Shot 2015-04-25 at 5.21.25 PM
280 high schoolers – the entire junior class of Nathan Hale High School in Seattle, Washington – have effectively told President Obama and his band of progressive buffoons that they can take their Common Core and shove it.

When state testing began on Tuesday, not a single junior showed up on campus to participate, as the entire student body had collectively decided to exercise their legal right to opt out of the ‘Smarter Balanced’ exams.

“They didn’t skip school all day,” commented district spokeswoman Stacy Howard, according to the Seattle Times. “They just didn’t show up during the testing period.”

The Nathan Hale students weren’t the only ones to deal this massive blow to the liberal establishment, either. According to early district estimates, about half of the juniors at three other Seattle high schools have also opted out of the Smarter Balanced testing.

“Students voted with their own feet,” remarked Doug Edelstein, a history teacher at Nathan Hale and opponent of the Common Core testing. “They felt like they knew the facts, and made their own decisions.”

Give the junior class at Seattle’s Nathan Hale High two thumbs up for taking a stand against Common Core by sharing this report!


Thursday, May 22, 2014

[VIDEO] Teacher Says He Helped Write Common Core to End White Privilege

A teacher told attendees at the New Hampshire Institute of Politics Monday night that he helped write the controversial Common Core education standards to end white privilege.

Dr. David Pook, a professor at Granite State College and chair of the History department at The Derryfield School in Manchester, New Hampshire, argued in favor of Common Core.

“The reason why I helped write the standards and the reason why I am here today is that as a white male in society I am given a lot of privilege that I didn't earn.”

Ironically, the $28,535 per year Derryfield School that Dr. Pook teaches at considers the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) inferior and does not use them on the student body that is 91% white.

Sunday, March 2, 2014

Is Common Core the One Policy the Public Won’t Let Obama Administration Get Away With?

Some conservatives might get frustrated with the lack of public outrage over the Obama administration’s executive overreach, but there has been no apathy when it comes to pushing a federal takeover of education, conservative icon Phyllis Schlafly wrote.
Is Common Core the One Policy the Public Wont Let Obama Administration Get Away With?
Karima Hawkins of Jackson, foreground, holds a sign against Common Core, the State Standards Initiative that established a single set of educational standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in English language arts and mathematics, at the Capitol in Jackson, Miss., Tuesday, Jan. 7, 2014. Opponents of Common Core hope to convince legislators into ending the initiative. Lawmakers return to the Capitol for a three-month session this year. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis) AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis
“Many people said ho-hum when President Barack Obama threatened to change any law with his pen or phone, and even use that power to personally alter Obamacare and the welfare law, and to ‘legislate’ the Dream Act that Congress refused to pass,” Schlafly wrote for the Christian Post. “But Americans are rising up by the tens of thousands to stop Common Core, which is the current attempt to compel all U.S. children to be taught the same material and not other things parents might think important.”
Common Core is a set of K-12 math and English standards that were adopted by 45 states. Developed by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, the standards are backed by the Obama administration.
Schlafly pointed out that the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Education Act, the 1970 General Education Provisions Act and the 1979 law establishing the U.S. Department of Education all prohibit a national curriculum.
Hamstrung by the letter of the law, Schlafly said that President Barack Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan are using Common Core to go around that.
“Despite all those emphatic words, Obama’s Department of Education, headed by an alumnus of the Chicago Democratic machine and other leftists, seeks to mold the minds of all our children into supporters of big government,” she wrote. “Their vehicle to accomplish this is Common Core, which is artfully designed to impose de facto national uniformity while complying with all explicit federal prohibitions.”
“The mechanism of control is the tests all students must take, which will be written by the people who created Common Core,” Schlafly continued. “If students haven’t studied a curriculum “aligned” with Common Core, they will have a hard time passing the tests required for a high school diploma and entry into college.”
She added that once the standards are adopted, they can’t be changed at the state level and that two national groups, the NGA and CCSO have ownership of the standards.

The Ten Most Abusive Obama Executive Actions

President Obama has made liberal use of "executive action" throughout his presidency, and pledged to make even more use of executive action in this year's State of the Union speech. He seems to think that because Republicans don't want to implement his agenda, he can go around Congress.
The Heritage Foundation is out with a new report on President Obama's executive actions, titled "An Executive Unbound," finding that "abusive, unlawful, even potentially unconstitutional unilateral action has been a hallmark of the Obama Administration." They've also compiled a list of the top ten abusive executive actions taken by the President.
1. Amending Obamacare’s employer mandate, providing an unauthorized subsidy to congressional staff, and encouraging state insurance commissioners not to enforce certain requirements.
2 Inventing labor law “exemptions” in violation of the WARN Act so that workers would not receive notice of impending layoffs days before the 2012 election.
3. Waiving the mandatory work requirement under the 1996 comprehensive welfare reform law, which required able-bodied adults to work, prepare for work, or look for work in order to receive benefits under the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) program.
4. Ignoring a statutory deadline and refusing to consider an application related to nuclear waste storage at Yucca Mountain, which activists sought to block for years.
5. Circumventing the Senate’s duty to provide advice and consent on appointments and instead making “recess” appointments in violation of Article II, Section 2 of the Constitution when the Senate was actually in session.
6. Deciding not to defend the constitutionality of the federal definition of marriage in court.
7. Implementing Common Core national standards through strings-attached waivers from the No Child Left Behind Act.
8. Intimidating Florida to stop its voter roll cleanup, which included removing ineligible voters such as noncitizens, before the 2012 election.
9. Imposing the DREAM Act by executive fiat under the guise of “prosecutorial discretion.”
10. Refusing to enforce federal drug laws in states that have legalized marijuana.
Heritage's entire report is an excellent read - and these are ten of the most egregious actions of the Obama Administration.

Friday, February 28, 2014

Common core math explains Obamacare results! Written by Allen West on February 27, 2014

obama-math-bad-math-new-math-2+2-sad-hill-newsThis morning while sitting in the Palm Beach International Airport awaiting my flight, I had an interesting thought about how common core math explains Obamacare.
As I understand it, common core math is not based on a student getting a correct answer, but just showing how they got an answer. Remind me never to cross a bridge built by an engineer trained using common core math. With common core math, if you can show how you came up with 12×10=100 you can pass — of course you will have difficulty with simple fiscal tasks, but then again common core math is ready-made for liberal progressives.
And that leads me to the symbiotic relationship between common core math and Obamacare. Yesterday President Obama stood before his darling little angels of Organizing for America — after all they are doing god’s work, freaking unreal. Obama was just ecstatic telling the gathering of mindless lemmings that due to their efforts they have 4 million signed up for Obamacare.
Ok, here is where common core math steps in. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is on record stating that the goal for Obamacare signups by end of March was 7 million — oh yeah, she tried to say that number came from the Congressional Budget Office. I guess another part of common core is that lying equals the truth.
Of course, we have no way of knowing who has actually signed up or even paid — a minor detail indeed. But get this equation, the goal was 7 million, but due to the Obamacare rule, some 6 million Americans lost their healthcare insurance coverage as of October first as they were not compliant with the “law’s” standards. So actually, that put Obamacare in the hole for 13 million.
President Obama in one of his patented “I can change a law all by myself” moments, in December ruled that those previous “junk policies” were now ok and demanded they be restored. So how many of those 6 million have been restored Mr. President?
So for all your little cherubim in Organizing for America, that 4 million number is about as empty and worthless as the MP3 full of speeches you gave to Queen Elizabeth. That number is reflective of someone who achieved an “A” in common core math.
So back to my trip – I’m traveling to Georgia today to speak at two County GOP events in Lee and Muscogee. I am truly excited to be going back to South Georgia where I have so many fond memories as a kid.
After landing in Atlanta I will head down I-75 and will trek through Peach County (Ft. Valley) where my Mom grew up attended Ft. Valley State College (now University) and the resting place of my maternal Grandad. I am looking forward to getting some “real” pecan pie (pronounced PEE-can). Friday evening I will be over in Columbus Georgia — last time there I was blasting from C-130 aircraft as an Airborne and Jumpmaster School student at Ft. Benning back in 1984.
One good thing about being back down in South Georgia, they can sense bovine excrement, and the smell emanating from 1600 Pennsylvania is rather pungent.

Tuesday, February 25, 2014

The ‘Before Obama’ and ‘After Obama’ history lesson for school children

Teaching your children well is your best defense against the anti-American Barack Hussein Obama




With Common Core spoon-feeding school children a steady school-day diet of anti-American propaganda, it’s prime time for parents to school their own children in the true chronicled History of the one nation the rest of the world still cherishes as the escape hatch to freedom and liberty.

Only yesterday, it was revealed that the Obama administration is planning on gutting the U.S. military to pre-World War II levels.

Parents should turn the tables by using this latest Obama move as the impetus to teach their children how America can legitimately claim guardian of world freedom status.
Make a homemade ledger marking it under just two simple categories: ‘Before Obama’ (BO) and ‘After Obama’ (AO).

America detractors repeat ad nauseum that America was late coming into World War II. While this is true, were it not for the Americans knowledge of the full horror of the evil of the Nazis may have been late in coming, too.


Monday, December 23, 2013

Photoshop: #CommonCoreGames

games
Over at Twitchy earlier today, they posted a photoshopped image of a board game modified for the Common Core crowd.
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Pretty funny stuff, and with that edge of sad truth that makes any photoshop worth doing. It inspired me to create a few #CommonCoreGames of my own. And so, I present to you now ….
COMMON CORE BORD GAIMZ!!
First up, Common Core Chess.
chess
In common core chess, everyone is the same color, and the only piece is the queen. Everybody loses!!
Next up, we have the the game that sums it all up in the name:
clue
In No Clue, your job is to try and open the box and remove the contents. Did you do it? YOU WIN!!
Next up, common core’s version of Scrabble, SCRIBBLE!
scrabble
Spelling schmelling. Ever heard of spellcheck? What’s important, Billy, is how did you feelwhen you drew on the board?

Thursday, December 5, 2013

ILLINOIS HIGH SCHOOL REQUIRES PARENTS TO SELF-IDENTIFY AS LIBERAL OR CONSERVATIVE

OAK FOREST - An assignment sent home from an Oak Forest, IL high school government class is raising eyebrows among parents who are shocked by the questionnaire they and their children are required to fill out. The questionnaire (below) has the parents identify their positions on a number of highly-charged issues, and then places them on a "political spectrum."
The survey is from the textbook "U.S. Government 2", published by the "The Center for Learning". It is part of Oak Forest High School's Common Core curriculum, which according to the school district's website is to ..."provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them."
EPSON005 copy
EPSON007 copy
In Stage 1 of this particular unit, students are to match political philosophies with political parties, debate a political/social/economic issue from their viewpoint on the political spectrum and identify the viewpoint of a social issue on that spectrum.
In Stage 2, the students are to conduct a "Political Spectrum Interview" (questionnaire above) "...with someone 40 years old or older." The specific curriculum instructions are as follows:
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Parents of some of the students told Illinois Review they fear possible retribution on their children if they refuse to complete the survey. However, each had determined not to do so.

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