Take this Educational Survey on School Reform from a George Soros Funded Think Tank

Don't you just love it?  Republican and Democrat politicians in various state and federal positions tout school choice as parent driven.  They tend to minimize or ignore the fact the parents have no control over WHAT their children are learning.  They don't mention the Common Core standards are used in charter schools and do not function much differently in educational content delivery.

If the primary reason traditional schools are failing is the educational content (the alleged reason for the implementation of Common Core standards), then why does the need exist to close traditional public schools and open charters and utilize trigger options, which will teach the same content?  The syllogism should read:

• Major Premise: public schools do not operate under state standards stringent enough for students to prepare for the global economy;
• Minor Premise: public schools must be under the auspices of stringent common standards so all students can be prepared for the global economy to successfully compete in the workforce;
• Conclusion:   public schools must cast aside state standards and utilize common standards so they can succeed in the workforce.

If that's a valid syllogism, then why the big push for charter schools and the trigger option?  Why fire all the teachers and administrators or open charter schools with public funding if the premise is it's rotten standards that placed the US in an educational decline?  The other arguments about rotten teachers, administrators, educational equity disparities should be considered secondary arguments. 

Below is a survey from the Fordham Institute you might want to complete and give your opinion on school "choice".  Some interesting facts about Fordham you might not know:

• Fordham is headed by Chester Finn, former employee of William Bennett who headed up Ronald Reagan's Department of Education.  Finn is on Bennett's radio show regularly.
• William  Bennett defied Reagan and increased the Department of Education's budget. (search "William Bennett" within the document).
• Fordham is now teaming up with the Center for American Progress (as indicated in the survey), a George Soros funded organization. 

The survey is embedded in an email:

Dear xxxxx, As part of our efforts to advance education reform, we are conducting a very short survey on the importance of certain school reform issues in your state. We would appreciate your answers to these questions, and it should not take you more than a couple of minutes to complete the survey. Note that we are working with the Center for American Progress on this project so it’s possible that you may receive a similar survey from that organization. Please fill out the survey only once. Thank you – we appreciate your time!

The Thomas B. Fordham Institute is the nation's leader in advancing educational excellence for every child through quality research, analysis, and commentary, as well as on-the-ground action and advocacy in Ohio. Find us online: www.edexcellence.net Thomas B. Fordham Institute 1016 16th Street NW Washington DC, 20036 202-223-5452 Unsubscribe

It's good to know which organization(s) fund such surveys.  Knowing this push is from a Soros funding group for "advancing educational reform", shouldn't  that make a fiscally and constitutionally responsible politician question the motive for such "reform"?   

Did you notice none of the questions had to do with restoring local control or reducing Federal control and spending in education?

When Up is Down, Down is Up, and Laws Don't Mean a Thing...

I chuckled when I read Neal McCluskey's latest piece "Not in This Dimension". He questions The Fordham Institute's logic on how national curriculum really doesn't encroach on state and local authority:

Contrary to popular belief (especially in some Tea Party circles), a national curriculum, done properly, does not threaten local control. As we learn in this story, plenty of folks, including Randi Weingarten and our own Checker Finn, have signed on to a “common curriculum,” which its proponents say will constitute only about half of a school’s “academic time.”

McCluskey rightly notes that by definition forcing local districts to use national standards must threaten local control. Indeed, it must not only threaten it, it must actually defeat it. And this is in no way changed by the curriculum having to account for "only about half" of a school's time: Hours formerly controlled locally are now controlled nationally, which is inescapably a major incursion on local control.

I chuckled when McCluskey describes the twisted logic put forth by Fordham as:

Maybe in some dimension white is black, black is white, and ants are really walruses. But in this dimension, as far as I know, the laws of reality and logic must still apply -- even to national curriculum standards.

His description of the definition of when national control "really" isn't national control shows the absurdity of Fordham's statement. Not only do the laws of reality and logic NOT apply in the world of Fordham thought, it doesn't apply when Federal law specifically states the Federal Government cannot set national curriculum. This 1979 document, Department of Education Organization Act, Public Law 96-98, Section 103(b) states:

No provision of a program administered by the Secretary or by any other officer of the Department shall be construed to authorize the Secretary or any such officer to exercise any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school or school system, over any accrediting agency or association, or over the selection of library resources, textbooks, or other instructional materials by any educational institution or school system, except to the extent authorized by law.

Has the law been overturned regarding curriculum control? Did we miss that overturning of that particular law? When Race to the Top and common core standards were touted by the administration, the National Governor's Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, states were assured the standards were state led initiatives and assessments and would not lead to a national curriculum. Curriculum was never to be a Federal responsibility. From the myths and facts subset on the CCSSI website:

Myth: These Standards amount to a national curriculum for our schools.

Fact: The Standards are not a curriculum. They are a clear set of shared goals and expectations for what knowledge and skills will help our students succeed. Local teachers, principals, superintendents and others will decide how the standards are to be met. Teachers will continue to devise lesson plans and tailor instruction to the individual needs of the students in their classrooms. (pg 4)

Based on the comments from Fordham advocating national curriculum and the blatant disregard of existing federal law, the laws of reality and logic no longer apply. Perhaps the CCSSI website needs to be amended. Or then again, maybe not. We have truly entered an alternate universe: white is black, black is white, and ants are really walruses.