Is this Book About Harvesting Teenager Organs on Your School's Common Core Reading List?

 You may not believe what your children are reading in school today.

Grumpy Opinions reposted an article of MEW's recently, Data Mining via PRISM and Common Core Educational Standards.  The reposted article got a response on Grumpy's site:

My daughter will be in the 8th grade next year.  She will be taking AP English.  
Alabama has supposedly already adopted Common Core standards and materials, two 
years ago.

My daughter's summer reading assignment for AP English is a book called 
"Unwind," by Neal Shusterman.  We picked it up at the bookstore yesterday.  This 
book is HORRIBLE.  It's a story about a time in the future, where if you are a 
ward of the state, or if you aren't an excellent student, or if your parents 
think you are "too much trouble" and/or they no longer want you, you can be sent 
to a place to be "unwound;" i.e., you are condemned to death and all your organs 
are donated to people who need them.  All of this "unwound" stuff came about as 
a consequence of abortion being outlawed.

My daughter is so depressed from reading this book that I told her to stop 
reading it.  I wonder whose bright idea it was to add this book to the list of 
approved reading materials, and if it's part of Common Core, since it's required 
reading for her class over the summer.

Indoctrination, anyone?

I did a little research on whether this book is on a Common Core list as a resource.  It is.  Here's what you find when you google "alabama common core unwind":

Unwind Reading Group Guide for Grades 7-12 - TeacherVision.com

www.teachervision.fen.com › ... › Reading › Reading Instruction‎

Use the materials in this literature guide to supplement Unwind, a book about a ... Each piece of content incorporates the Common Core State Standards into the ...

From the above link:

Use the materials in this literature guide to supplement Unwind, a book about a futuristic world in which parents are allowed to forcibly donate the organs of their difficult or unwanted teenagers. This printable includes pre-reading research topics and activities, discussion questions, a character list, a slang dictionary, and post-reading activities for the book.

Unwind
Neal Shusterman
In Unwind, Boston Globe/Horn Book Award winner Neal Shusterman challenges readers' ideas about life – not just where life begins, and where it ends, but what it truly means to be alive. In a society where unwanted teens are salvaged for their body parts, three runaways fight the system that would "unwind" them.

Look how many people "like" this on Facebook.  Are they all teachers?

17,329 people like this. Be the first of your friends.

The following link offers some rather unbelievable teaching methods.  From http://novelinks.org/pmwiki.php?n=Novels.Unwind.  Should this teaching be considered bullying and propoganda?

Waite, Cindy. "Rounding Up Unwinds," Oct. 2011. Before-Reading Activity

Novel of Emphasis: Unwind (Neal Shusterman)

Common Core Requirement: Grade 9-10 Knowledge of Language 3. Apply knowledge of language to understand how language functions in different contexts, to make effective choices for meaning or style, and to comprehend more fully when reading or listening.

Waite, Cindy. “Rounding Up Unwinds.” Oct. 2011

Ask class how many have missed breakfast more than twice this week. Have the “repeat offenders” come to the front of the class and explain to them, that because of their “unacceptable behavior,” their parents have signed them off as “unwinds.” Have students predict what this might mean in the novel they are about to read, as they discuss and look at the cover of the book. Ask class if it is fair for the “repeat offenders” to be punished for missing breakfast. Take a vote and pardon the “offenders.” 

Waite, Cindy. "Unwind Harvest Camp Brochure," Oct. 2011. After-Reading Activity

Novel of Emphasis: Unwind (Neal Shusterman)

Common Core Requirement: Grade 9-10 Production and Distribution of Writing 6. Use technology, including the Internet, to produce, publish, and update individual or shared writing products, taking advantage of technology’s capacity to link to other information and to display information flexibly and dynamically.

Waite, Cindy. “Unwind Harvest Camp Brochure.” Oct. 2011.

Have students create original harvest camp brochures, telling why parents should choose their camp to have their teens unwound. Have them market it in glowing, positive terms. It must be done on a computer, look professional, and market harvest camps in glowing, positive language. It should be a tri-fold layout. 

The commenter on Grumpy's site wrote all of this "unwound" stuff came about as a consequence of abortion being outlawed.  This explains what the "storking" reference means in the link:

Unwind

Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers Reprint Edition, 2007

Discussion Strategy:

4-Corners

Context:

This discussion routine can be used throughout the novel, but works especially well with Part 2, “Storked.”  Storking is a controversial subject within the novel and there are many characters within the novel with different viewpoints.  This strategy will allow students to use their views and other ideas in the novel (see below) to ask students’ opinions.  This activity allows for movement as students will go to the corner that represents their thoughts.  This activity will ensure that all students participate because all students have to move to a corner.

Statement of Purpose:

The purpose of this strategy will be to help students develop opinions regarding events of the novel.  This strategy is also meant to allow students to discuss these opinions with the class in requiring students to make a definite decision regarding what they think and then defend their decision when they have chosen.  This will help teach discussion skills as students will get practice discussing issues with people who may hold a different opinion than themselves.

Directions:

Step One:  Set up the 4-Corners before class starts.  The four corners should be:  Agree, Somewhat Agree, Somewhat Disagree and Disagree (signs are included below).

Step Two:  Present students with a variety of ideas and have them move to the corner that they feel best represents their thoughts regarding it.  Each time students go to their corners, a discussion of the idea should occur regarding why students chose their particular corner.  Some students may try to choose two corners, but this should not be allowed.  Students take a stance on what they think.

Ideas:

1.  The response of the family at finding they had been storked again was completely justified.

2.  Storking is a great alternative to abortion because it allows for babies to go to someone who wants them.

3.  Connor was justified in his response to the baby.

4.  Connor should have thought of Lev and Risa before the baby because they are his friends.

5.  The attitude of the mom shows the negative aspects of storking and is the perfect example of why storking should not be allowed.

6.  Connor’s experience with storking is the perfect example of why storking is wrong.

7.  A baby should not be left on a doorstep.

8.  Storking encourages people to have babies and then get out of their responsibility to take care of them.

 Here is another strategy posted for the same book:

Unwind

Simon and Schuster Books for Young Readers Reprint Edition, 2007

Discussion Strategy: Chalk Talk

Context:

This instructional routine is to be taught after students have read Part5, “Graveyard” which is found on pages 197-261 in the novel.  Students will examine the choice of the characters within this part of the novel and analyze these choices based on each of the characters’ background.  Unwind deals with controversial issues and in being written through the perspective of many different characters, provides the reader with many different perspectives regarding the issue.  Since students need to recognize this as well as need to examine all the different perspectives in order to create a complete understanding of this theme within the novel, this activity will present them with several ideas regarding the actions of different characters (Admiral, Roland, police officers) within this section.

Statement of Purpose:

The purpose of this discussion strategy is to allow students to conduct a silent discussion in which they respond to a definite statement regarding the actions of characters within the novel and other student responses.  In order to ensure that the discussion environment remains positive and respectful, students should be required to initial their responses.  Since students are required to respond a specific number of times in order to guarantee full class participation, this will also help the teacher record who has participated.  As students respond, the teacher should use their attendance sheet and put tallies next to each student for the number of times that they have participated (up to the required number).

A student is mandated to make a specific choice on a moral issue and discuss it in a group setting and/or has to answer a certain number of times to guarantee "full class participation".  Pity the introverted student or the student that finds this particular reading morally repugnant.

Also embedded in the above link as a separate resource is the article below.  From http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6171083.stm:

Ukraine babies in stem cell probe

By Matthew Hill BBC Health Correspondent

There is heated debate about the ethics of using stem cells

Healthy new-born babies may have been killed in Ukraine to feed a flourishing international trade in stem cells, evidence obtained by the BBC suggests.
 
Disturbing video footage of post-mortem examinations on dismembered tiny bodies raises serious questions about what happened to them.
Ukraine has become the self-styled stem cell capital of the world.
There is a trade in stem cells from aborted foetuses, amid unproven claims they can help fight many diseases.
But now there are claims that stem cells are also being harvested from live babies. 

Wall of silence
 
The BBC has spoken to mothers from the city of Kharkiv who say they gave birth to healthy babies, only to have them taken by maternity staff.
In 2003 the authorities agreed to exhume around 30 bodies of foetuses and full-term babies from a cemetery used by maternity hospital number six.
One campaigner was allowed into the autopsy to gather video evidence. She has given that footage to the BBC and Council of Europe.
In its report, the Council describes a general culture of trafficking of children snatched at birth, and a wall of silence from hospital staff upwards over their fate.
The pictures show organs, including brains, have been stripped - and some bodies dismembered.
A senior British forensic pathologist says he is very concerned to see bodies in pieces - as that is not standard post-mortem practice.
It could possibly be a result of harvesting stem cells from bone marrow.
Hospital number six denies the allegations.  

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Welcome to Common Core.  Harvesting organs and dismembering babies in on the reading list for middle/high school students.  Students are required to discuss in a group and participate in a discussion of harvesting organs and perhaps the dismemberment of babies.  No wonder the commentor's 8th grade daughter is depressed.  Go ahead and complain to your school district if this book is on the Common Core Resource list and let us know what response you receive.  

It's time for parents to "take up the torches".  Are you listening Senator Pearce?


Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is:
Logue, G (June 2013). "Is this Book About Harvesting Teenager Organs on Your School's Common Core Reading List?".  Retrieved (date) from the Missouri Education Watchdog site: http://www.missourieducationwatchdog.com/ 

Data Mining via PRISM and Common Core

Does the data retrieval on students via State Longitudinal Data Systems and Common Core data sets have any similarity with the newly discovered data mining on all Americans?

From Pat Caddell and The Fuse Has Been Lit: Seven Critical Points on Uncle Sam’s Spying Program:

...we now know that Silicon Valley, and the telecommunications industry, are the key to the Obama strategy for total information awareness.  In fact, the internet companies, and the phone companies, were the spearpoint for PRISM.  No, wait, that’s not the right image.  Let’s try this: These communications companies put peepholes into all of our private lives, through which Uncle Sam could sneak a peek.  Every e-mail, every phone call, every text-message--the government knows about them all.
  
It’s now evident that all these wonderful digital services--many of them, such as Google’s Gmail, given away for free--were, in fact, a kind of Trojan Horse.  That is, on the outside, it all seemed like a good deal--but then the real truth comes tumbling out, and it’s too late.  Some might recall the rueful lesson of the Trojan War: “Beware of Greeks bearing gifts.” The rueful lesson of our own time: “Beware of geeks bearing gifts.”

Yes, Big Brother walks among us now, peeking and snooping into everything. And we, innocently and unwittingly, invited Big Brother into our midst. 

Think about how Common Core, state longitudinal data systems and educational nationalized development/delivery programs were adopted/implemented.  These were done without voter/state legislature approval and limited knowledge.  Is this similar to the development/delivery of PRISM and the data mining on all Americans?  As our previous post shows, no agency/bureaucrat/politician/superintendent can answer simple questions about Common Core and no one is held accountable. 

...as far as the American people are concerned, this domestic spying is a big deal. Yet revealingly, to the political class--that is, our leaders in Washington DC--it’s not such a big deal.  And there we see the central cleft in our politics today: the widening gap between the government and the governed. 

According to pollster Scott Rasmussen, the American people oppose the US government’s secret collection of phone records by a whopping 59:26 margin.
 
People know, in their bones, that unaccountable government is bad government; as Patrick Henry said more than two centuries ago, “The liberties of a people never were, nor ever will be, secure, when the transactions of their rulers may be concealed from them.”  So when Obama said, on Friday, “I welcome this debate and I think it's healthy for our democracy,” we might ask right back: Mr. President, if you welcome this debate so much, why didn’t you begin the debate yourself?  Why did you wait until PRISM was leaked?

 

The reason, of course, is that Obama did not see anything objectionable about PRISM.  Moreover, neither did anyone around him--in either party. On Sunday, the talkshow airwaves were thick with DC Establishment tools rallying around PRISM--that is, rallying around their own entrenched and centralized power. 

Only a few outsiders, such as Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY)--who has retained his outsiderness, even inside the club of the US Senate--are reading public sentiment correctly. Paul plans a class-action suit against the communications companies, inviting all Americans to join him. That’s the sort of citizen-engagement effort that the insurgent and outsider-ish Obama campaign of 2008 would have loved, even if the arrogant and insider-ish Obama administration of 2013 hates it.

In fact, those Americans whom Rasmussen categorizes as the “political class”--that is, those connected to DC and governance--support PRISM by a 71 percent to 18 percent ratio.  Meanwhile, the rest of the country opposes PRISM by a more than three-to-one ratio, 69 percent to 21 percent. Now let’s think about the enormous chasm here: The political class supports the program by a 53-point margin, while everyone else opposes it by a 48-point margin.  If you add up those two margins, 53 and 48, you get 101. That’s a vivid indicator of the gap between the government and the governed.
  

So here we see it: The elites think one thing, and the people think another thing.  Nothing new there, of course, except that rarely, if ever, has the dichotomy between overdog and underdog been this stark.
 
Something is going to have to give.  We are on the cusp of some huge shift in power relations between the core and periphery, between the DC Beltway and flyover country. Right now, Washington has the upper hand, but an aggrieved population can always win--if it is willing to stand up and fight.
 
In the minds of ordinary Americans, the fuse of outrage has been lit.  Now this is the question: Can honest but responsible leaders, truly reflecting populist anger, find a way to force change in DC? Moreover, can this needed reform happen without tearing apart the country?
 
Let’s hope so.

But we must know this for sure: One way or another, a revolution is coming. 

Maybe we can talk Senator Paul into file a class action suit against Common Core State School Officers and the National Governors Association for the invasive data retrieval mandated by Common Core State data sets.  What is the difference between data mining on American citizens via PRISM and data mining on public school students via Common Core mandates? 

A Mom Has Questions About Common Core. No One is Held Accountable for Answers. Lois Lerner Revisited.

Do state agencies, politicians, school boards, superintendents in Missouri all have the Lois Lerner disease?  None of them will answer Common Core questions.  It's not just Washington DC that's sick. It's in our state legislature, school districts and bureaucracies.

We've written how our state agency won't answer questions on Common Core.  Take a look to the right on this website and see how long Missourians have been waiting to get answers from the statewide May 2 meetings about Common Core.

Crickets.

Read the letter below from a mom who wants answers from her superintendent, DESE, state politicians, ANYBODY who has answers about Common Core.  Read about Senator David Pearce's aide who dismisses taxpayers as torch bearers and Common Core will be implemented whether they like it or not.

Read about the dismissive and arrogant attitudes of these bureaucrats and politicians making decisions for your children using your money without your approval.  Then get as angry and tenacious as this mother and start calling, start petitioning, and start pulling your children out of the public school systems. 

This is taxation without representation and this lack of accountability smacks of Lois Lerner.  These are your kids and your money.  It's time to demand answers.  By the way, Senator Pearce's number is (573) 751-2272.  I'm sure he would appreciate hearing from all you moms, dads, grandparents and taxpayers concerned about Common Core.  Tell him you will keep your torches at a minimum, but that you do not appreciate his support of the Missouri NEA's position of Common Core and its endorsement of his campaign should not sway his constitutional understanding of the development/delivery of Missouri education.

*********************************************************

To anyone out there with a listening ear:

I am a mom seeking answers to, what I feel, are very basic questions surrounding Common Core and what its implementation will mean to my children, school and community.  I have been at this a short time, so I am either not aware of who the right contact is, or there is something terribly amiss. I guess that remains to be determined. 

I feel that my children are worth taking the time to find the answers to a few basic questions, especially when it has the potential of affecting them at this level and magnitude.  I honestly want to believe this is a great program, that someone has my child's best interests at heart.  That there are those who still believe that while there should be some accountability, a teacher should have flexibility to be creative, innovative and passionate and in so doing will inspire children to become their best.  I want to believe that teachers still become teachers because they care, and that school boards still function, as quoted from the MSBA website, "...as guardians of the public trust, and through the policies they make are ultimately responsible for the success or failure of local public education.  The board serves as the advocate for educational excellence for the community's youth and puts those interests first..."

Will Common Core help us stay true to these ideals?  Are these ideals old fashioned?  Are they old fashioned partly because we as a people have become unengaged in our children's education, therefore leaving superintendents, school boards and teachers alone to face the overwhelming task of trying to turn out bright, engaged and well educated children?  I could be more engaged and informed, and I am trying to do so. What I'm in the process of learning is if the system, at this point, will even allow such a thing.  If  there are still school boards, superintendents and teachers who still want or believe that the "ideals" can be recaptured.  I'm here.  I have questions. I'm seeking answers.  I am a vested parent who will not allow apathy to dominate the arena and therefore risk my child's future.

Listed below are the people we have made efforts to contact and their responses.  I’d like to believe we are not getting answers because of our lack of understanding of who the proper contact is.  Maybe someone else has some suggestions, which we will gratefully accept!  

*Local school board and superintendent:   Hands are tied concerning CCSS, we cannot stand up to DESE.

*Speaker of the House at a meeting in Joplin:  Schools should stand up to DESE, we will be looking at legislation next session.  (There has been a bill for three years in the Missouri house that would kick Common Core out of Missouri HB 616, it’s never got to the floor of the house and there was a senate bill SB 210 that would have required DESE to answer public questions, it was killed by Senator David Pearce, Education Chairman)

*Contact with Mike Wutke, area C supervisor with DESE. “I checked with Dr. Cooper, assistant commissioner, to see if the department would be expending more resources on individual community meetings across the state.  He indicated that our open meetings were held on May 2nd and we would not be presenting at other meetings at this time.  We have an abundance of information on the department’s website… on that site are PDF links to the lists of the questions that came out of each of our 8 regional meetings held on May 2, and I am told that it will soon have a link to the answers to all of those questions.” 

Our response:  “We would like you to come very much and we would be so happy to pay for expenses so that you could represent DESE at this meeting.  Would you please reconsider?  Thank you for posting others' questions on the website but we already have questions, what we are lacking are answers.  Since this will be implemented in the fall it is not much help to get answers sometime.  This is an important matter affecting our children and their education and we are taking this very seriously and we trust that you take it seriously too. Please either come and/or send a representative, we will have a chair for you.  Let us know about the expenses you incur and we will be happy to assist in that matter.”  Since then there has been no response.

*Representative Mike Moon, Education Committee member calls DESE in our behalf; Response:  Please email questions. (see our concerns about this above.)

*Representative Scott Fitzpatrick, calls on our behalf; Response: DESE will NOT be attending.

*Senator David Pearce: He was set to filibuster the bill that would have required DESE to answer questions, maybe he knows something I don’t.  Maybe he would be willing to come or send someone that knows the answers?  I called and spoke to Matt Michelson, explaining our situation and desire to have both sides equally represented. I told them that there were questions people had.  He possibly misunderstood my concern over CCSS because he said, “Answer their questions by telling them that they can bring their torches, but this is being implemented whether they like it or not.” Hmm, really??? 

He was nice enough to tell me to call the State Board of Education or the Missouri Chamber of Commerce.  More questions:  Why would he have the attitude of “this is being implemented whether they like it or not, and also, why would the Chamber of Commerce have any interest in CCSS?” 

Senator Tom Dempsey   Is he the one that determines who sits on these committees?  Maybe he might know of someone that can come.  His staff was helpful.  His secretary gave me the contact information for Chris Nicastro.  Education  Commissioner and head of DESE.  We have gone full circle.  We did try to contact Ms. Nicastro.  Her secretary said we may have a good chance of reaching her if we call at 1:00 today, which we will do.  She also gave me the name of Stacy Preis.

*Stacey Preis:  Executive Director on the Joint Committee on Education.  From what I was told, that committee is a non-partisan committee for education.  I called and explained where we were at, and our situation.  She didn’t think the Chamber of Commerce would have anything to do with it, but she did say DESE should be contacted and she would be willing to call them for us.  She did call me back.  She was told that the superintendents should present and field questions from local school districts.

*Peter Hurschend. President of the State Board of Education:  We left a message with his secretary.  We are waiting for a return call.

*Governor Nixon  The secretary took my information and said she would pass it down to the right people.  I tried to explain who we had contacted.  She asked who was coming to our meeting.  I expressed my concern and desire to have a balanced meeting and told her I needed to know either way if they knew of someone that could come.  She didn’t promise anything, but said she would pass the information along.

To be totally honest, I have not pursued having a superintendent present at the meeting.  My superintendent can’t answer these questions. We asked them at the school board meeting.  The point in having the meeting is to have questions and concerns alleviated, not perpetuated.  Is it fair to expect superintendents to answer the questions, when DESE tells us they have pdf files of questions posted, but no answers?  Who gives the superintendents answers??  Isn’t that DESE?

The only person I can think of who we haven’t tried is Lt. Governor, Peter Kinder…. I will try his office before lunch. 

Here is a list of some of the questions we are hoping to find answers to at the meeting concerning Common Core: 

Who is going to pay for Common Core?  Will our property taxes go up to fund it?

Has there been a cost analysis on how much this is going to cost our schools?

Does this mean more unfunded mandates for our schools?

Does this reduce Federal spending and/or control?

Who developed the standards and assessments in the CCSS?

How will this affect homeschoolers, private and Christian schools if the ACT and SAT are realigned to the CCSS? 

What recourse do we have if some of the curriculum does not represent our values? 

What lies ahead for student privacy?  What data is being collected now on my child?  What data will be collected in the future?  Where does that data go, and what is done with that data?

Why are there thirty-two U.S. Congressmen expressing their concerns to the U.S. Department of Education over the legality of CCSS, data mining and the violation of the FERPA laws.  These concerns mimic some of the same concerns we have.  Are these concerns unfounded?

What will happen to our local school board if these education decisions are being made by a consortia of states? 

If we don't like these standards, teacher evaluations, mandates or assessments, can we get out?

Are the assessments available for viewing at any time under the Sunshine Law?

Why would we adopt these standards and assessments before they were even written?

Did the Governor have the authority to sign a Memorandum of Understanding of adoption of CCSS without legislative approval or adoption, pursuant to Missouri Revised Statute 160.518? 

Did my school have to adopt these standards and assessments?  Can they choose not to adopt these standards and assessments?  What are the ramifications if they don't?

Are teachers allowed to use whatever curriculum they want to teach these standards?

Will lessons be scripted?

Will our children have text books that can be subject to review or will most lessons be done in class or online?

Can teachers deviate from the standards to teach other things they think are beneficial?  Will they have time to teach other things, or are we again, teaching to a test?

I understand that half of teacher evaluations are based on the assessments.  Is this true?

Are there cameras in the classrooms, or will there be cameras in the classrooms to ensure teachers are teaching "how/what they should"? Who decides if a teacher is teaching "how/what they should"?

Is it true that teachers can only deviate 15% of their class time from the standards?  Does that equate to about 6-7 min. a day to teach something NOT in the standards, such as Missouri Constitution, cursive handwriting, etc.?

What prevents us as a state from adopting more rigorous standards without all the oversight, mandates and strings?

Who is in charge?  From the school board level to the DESE, from DESE to the Governor, we have not been able to get answers to these questions.

Our children are worth taking the time to answer a few basic questions.  Please help us understand!! I am running out of time as there is currently no bill to stop CCSS ‘s implementation and at this point, I’ve been unable to get answers or even have someone willing to come explain it.

Thank you!

A Missouri Mom

Angry Moms are Rising Up Against Common Core

Anne Gassel, co-editor of Missouri Education Watchdog was quoted in USA Today about her opposition to Common Core.  From Include parents in standards debate: Opposing view:

Across America, moms are rising up against the Common Core, national standards for English-language arts and mathematics adopted by 45 states. As Anne Gassel, of Ellisville, Mo., said, "Parents and their legislators were cut out of the loop. Even now we can't get straight answers."

Read more here.

Anne is correct.  We are still waiting in Missouri for answers from DESE and their statewide May 2 meetings.  Tick tock.  The clock on the site (to the right) keeps ticking away.  The answers to the questions were to be posted within a week of the meetings. 

As Alisa Ellis states in the USA Today article:

Now, parents are waking up. Alisa Ellis, of Heber City, Utah, typifies their resolve: "Administrators want parents like me to step back and be quiet, but we will not. These are my children, and my voice will be heard."

You will be reading one angry and loud mom's account on MEW tomorrow about her attempts to get answers from Missouri politicians, bureaucrats and school officials.  It's time to start demanding straight answers from these people who are using our children and our tax money with no accountability.

Lamar Alexander Educational Plans Then (1989) and Now (2013). Same or Different?

Lamar Alexander's thoughts on revamping No Child Left Behind, 2013 from The Foundry and  No Child Left Behind: Alexander Unveils Rewrite:

Senator Lamar Alexander (R–TN), ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, has just introduced a proposal to “fix” No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

While restoring excellence in education will require more than a fix to the bureaucratic law—states should be allowed to opt-out of NCLB entirely—Alexander’s Every Child Ready for College or Career Act would improve upon existing statute in several ways.

Notably, it would allow states to make their Title I dollars portable, giving children the option to use funds at any public school of choice. Title I portability is a good goal, but it should also include the option for children to use their share of funding at a private school of choice as well.

Other improvements to Title I include the elimination of “Adequate Yearly Progress,” the well-intentioned but inappropriate federal goal of universal student proficiency in math and English by the 2014–2015 school year. The proposal maintains the requirement for states to set challenging content and achievement standards (defining levels of content mastery at basic, proficient, and advanced) and retains the requirement for states to test students annually in grades 3–8 and again in high school in math and reading. And it still requires states to make that information available on public report cards.

The proposal also eliminates the Highly Qualified Teacher (HQT) provision, which placed significant emphasis on credentialing, despite little evidence that credentialing improves teacher effectiveness. Under existing statute, the HQT provision mandated that any teacher of a core academic subject be state-certified and hold a bachelor’s degree. In its place, school districts would be encouraged to develop teacher and principal evaluation systems that take student achievement outcomes into account.

Read more here.  Upon cursory reading, it sounds good (although the title "Every Child Ready for College or Career Act"  should raise warning bells) and a relief from the centralization of education we are currently facing.  But as you read it again, it's more of the federal government setting mandates for how schools should use curriculum and funding,  and more mandates on teacher certification and testing.  Is Alexander just using different words for the same policies?  Agreeing if this is good policy or not requires having historical knowledge on politicians and educational movements.

Revisit a MEW article on Lamar Alexander and his words from 1989.  From Are Arne Duncan's Educational Reform Plans from a Republican Playbook?:

Lamar Alexander lays out the plan to restructure education at the 11-2-1989 Governors Conference on Education in Wichita, Kansas. The Conference title was "Schools, Goals and the 1990s". As George Bush, Sr's Secretary of Education, he implemented education restructuring as America 2000 that specified creation of the New American Schools Development Corporation. He is currently senior Senator from Tennessee and Conference Chair of the Republican Party.

Transcript of Speech

1989 Governors Conference-Lamar Alexander


.... As far as I know, this is the first state summit following the President's summit, and I think that's a great credit to your governor of the State of Kansas, to be doing that. At least your timing is good!

I would suggest three things:

Number 1: Find out what's really going on because I don't think most people know---- what's going on in schools, how children are growing up, what's really going on in the world.

Number 2: I want to suggest that you create, in Kansas, a brand New American School. Brand New American School.

Number 3: I want to suggest that when you do that, you help that new school develop some new goals and new report cards for itself.

I would go down to the maternity ward of the local hospital, or whatever you call the part of the hospital where the nurses are who are there when the babies are born. Find out how many babies are born out of wedlock, how many babies are born with single parents. Just so you know that!

I would think the Brand New American School would be year-round, open from 6:00 to 6:00.

A second characteristic might be that these schools will serve children from age 3 months old to age 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. They have to be served in some way and maybe around the school. Or, if you study a little more, you might go back and think the school might have to serve the pregnant mother of the baby in terms of prenatal healthcare....

...teams of teachers. Albert Shanker suggested that maybe there ought to be a team of teachers attached to a child from the day that child arrives in the school to stay with that child all the way to the 8th grade.

All this would mean there would have to be a very professional corps of teachers, wouldn't it? They'd have to be very, very good because they would have to be dealing with lots of volunteers. We have a big national service feeling in America today. Why aren't those people working in schools? Well, one reason is it's hard to handle volunteers!

So, this team of highly trained principals and teachers would have to have career ladders. They would have to be master teachers. They would be paid $50,000-$60,000-$70,000 a year to create a Brand New American School in every state capital.

The great advantage of that is there wouldn't be all these arguments of whether to do this program, or that program, or which one to do first. You wouldn't do any of them! You would create just one school and you'd give the responsibility to one person who would form one team. You give them one year or so, and if they succeeded, then all the rest of us would want to be in that school, too! Wouldn't we?

Senator Alexander advocated for:

• Tracking students from birth
• Community schools providing various services other than academics
• School open year round
• 12-hour school days

These ideas from 1989  have been incorporated into Arne Duncan's Race to the Top mandates. Later postings will provide information on how educational policies presented at this 1989 Governor's Conference foreshadowed the elitist takeover of education we currently find ourselves.  

You can thank George Bush Sr. for arranging this conference.

So exactly what is Lamar Alexander's underlying belief of educational direction? Is is 2013 or 1989 vintage?  Or is the same, just repackaged?