ObamaEd is Coming to a School Near You

Do you know what the Common Core Curriculum is? Whether you have children or not, unless you live in Alaska, Texas, Nebraska or Virginia, it behooves you to become familiar with it before it kicks in, full-bore, in 2014.

Forty five states have adopted the entire Common Core Curriculum. One might ask why that is so dangerous. After all, Federal standards have been around since Jimmy Carter made the Department of Education a bona fide arm of the federal government in the 1970s. Simply put, Common Core is the federal government’s takeover of education.

 It means the federal government now decides what children learn. Neither parents nor local school districts will have any say in what is being taught. Education is being nationalized. 

Take, for example, the mathematics component of the program. Glyn Wright, Executive Director of Eagle Forum told Fox News: “The math standard focuses on investigative math, which has been shown to be a disaster… With the new math standard in the Common Core, there are no longer absolute truths. So 3 times 4 can now equal 11 so long as a student can effectively explain how they reached that answer.” 

Via: Political Outcast

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Obama administration offers strategies to promote Obamacare in schools

The Obama administration has posted materials online aimed at promoting the new health-care law in schools.

The materials, offered at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ (CMS) Health Insurance Marketplace website include a resource card directing students to online materials about the Health Insurance Marketplace, as well as “What it means” fact sheets about the Affordable Care Act for school communities, students and parents and teachers, and a document on ways to promote the new health-care options in schools.

Each of the fact sheets, which appear under the “Affordable Care Act series from the Department of Education” category, offer basic information about the new health-care law.

“The US Department of Education is working to make all schools healthier and safe,” the fact sheets explain. “To help states, districts, and schools ensure healthy schools and students, the Department encourages school communities to make use of exciting new provisions of the Affordable Care Act. … To get all of America’s schools covered, the Health Insurance Marketplace begins with YOU.”

The fact sheets in the series were also recently included in the latest Education Department’s bi-weekly newsletter “ED Review.”

In addition to the student, school community, and parent and teacher fact sheets, the Marketplace website also offers a how to guide on promoting the Affordable Care Act in schools, titled “Ten Ways Schools Can Promote New Health Insurance Opportunities” and explaining that “schools can play a vital role in making sure people know how to get coverage.”

The ways the government says schools can “contribute to the outreach effort” include spreading the message about the marketplace through special events, school materials and coaches.

The document also advises schools to help students and their families apply for coverage and make the school’s computer lab available to parents “to sign up for coverage, as well as sharing best practices with statewide training sessions.”

Via: Daily Caller

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71.4% of Full-Time College Students Get Federal Aid, Averaging $10,500 a School Year

(CNSNews.com) - As President Barack Obama was preparing this week to embark on a bus tour on which he intends to propose ways to “fundamentally rethink and reshape” the higher education system in the United States, the U.S. Department of Education’s National Center for Education Statistics released a new report on the financial aid paid to American college students.

In the 2011-2012 school year, says the report, the federal government provided 71.4 percent of full-time college students with some form of taxpayer-funded aid for their education.

According to the report, 55.2 percent of full-time college students in the 2011-2012 school year took out direct federal student loans, 47.4 percent received a federal grant, and 10.5 percent were in some type of federally backed work study program.

On average, full-time college students received $10,500 in federal aid during the year.

The average value of the direct student loans made to a full-time college student in 2011-2012 was $7,000, according to the report. The average value of the Pell Grants made to full-time students was $4,400.

Via: CNS News

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Unreal: Florida Passes Plan For Racially-Based Academic Goals, Asian Students Expected To Be Top Performers, Blacks Last…

Palm Beach, Fla. (CBS TAMPA) – The Florida State Board of Education passed a plan that sets goals for students in math and reading based upon their race.

On Tuesday, the board passed a revised strategic plan that says that by 2018, it wants 90 percent of Asian students, 88 percent of white students, 81 percent of Hispanics and 74 percent of black students to be reading at or above grade level. For math, the goals are 92 percent of Asian kids to be proficient, whites at 86 percent, Hispanics at 80 percent and blacks at 74 percent. It also measures by other groupings, such as poverty and disabilities, reported the Palm Beach Post.

The plan has infuriated many community activists in Palm Beach County and across the state.

“To expect less from one demographic and more from another is just a little off-base,” Juan Lopez, magnet coordinator at John F. Kennedy Middle School in Riviera Beach, told the Palm Beach Post.

JFK Middle has a black student population of about 88 percent.

“Our kids, although they come from different socioeconomic backgrounds, they still have the ability to learn,” Lopez said. “To dumb down the expectations for one group, that seems a little unfair.”

Others in the community agreed with Lopez’s assessment. But the Florida Department of Education said the goals recognize that not every group is starting from the same point and are meant to be ambitious but realistic.

As an example, the percentage of white students scoring at or above grade level (as measured by whether they scored a 3 or higher on the reading FCAT) was 69 percent in 2011-2012, according to the state. For black students, it was 38 percent, and for Hispanics, it was 53 percent.

In addition, State Board of Education Chairwoman Kathleen Shanahan said that setting goals for different subgroups was needed to comply with terms of a waiver that Florida and 32 other states have from some provisions of the federal No Child Left Behind Act. These waivers were used to make the states independent from some federal regulations.

Via: CBS News

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