Common Core: UNESCO and Bill Gates timeline to federalized education reform in US

Common Core: UNESCO and Bill Gates timeline to federalized education reform in US

4/29/14
0626 am

In most every state,community, every small town, big city or tiny rural town the education landscape is changing rapidly.

This newest form of change has been evolving for over a decade and has finally found a lucrative vehicle to carry it through to it’s completion.

The United Nations via its educational division, UNESCO is the main force that is pushing major education reform across the globe. Microsoft  billionaire entrepeneurs Bill and Melinda Gates are working closely with UNESCO to make sure
that reform is in place as the United Nations desires.

For a while many have stood and watched the changes and have been puzzled at the break neck speed in which education was transforming right before our eyes and have wondered who could be behind this and why.

Common Core, Education for All, Race to the Top, Teachers for America, International Benchmarking, School Vouchers, Teacher pay for performance, ICT, Goals 2000 Act, the School-to-Work Act Opportunities Act, Connect All Schools and the reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) called “Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994″, etc, are all the products of the United Nations, particularly the Millennium Development Goals or MDGs.

Since 1992 there has been a steady drum beat of radical change. This change combined with the right environment and billions of dollars now has a synergist, a vehicle to carry educational change to fruition. Bill Gates and UNESCO, the educational division of the United Nations is carrying the banner for the United Nations that has it’s sights solely on our children with this foray into nationalizing or should I say Internationalizing our educational system.

What started as a benign donation ended up being the catalyst that has finally arrived at Common Core. 

Bill Gates donates many grants to UNESCO and Common Core, this got the ball rolling pretty quickly but for more than a decade the leftist were working behind the scenes to make sure that education reform would be for all, the whole world, not just in the good ole USA. 

Behind the scenes and in conjunction with UNESCO, the Gates and an international body are the main minions carrying the ball for the UN.

http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/05/12/gates-gives-150-million-in-grants-for-common-core-standards/

http://www.unesco-ihe.org/About/News/Bill-Melinda-Gates-Foundation-grant-awarded-to-UNESCO-IHE-and-partners

I love timelines. Timelines organize many actions and events into an organized structure that is easy to read and refer to. So here is my latest timeline that if read carefully and with an open mind you can easily see this is far from initiated by the states. This was and is a deliberate top down internationalization of our school systems. From the very top of the education reform food chain, all the way down to our local school boards.

-Good ole Marc Tucker, Linda Darla Hammonds and a host of others are pressing forward to make Common Core and education for all a reality.

• 1988: Marc Tucker became the president of the National Center for Education and the Economy (NCEE) where he joined up with Hillary Clinton, Mario Cuomo, and Ira Magaziner to get states to move away from local control of their schools and migrate to national standards.

• 1990: George H. W. Bush signed an international agreement entitled, “World Education for All (EFA), the result of a United Nations “World Conference on Education for All” summit. 
http://www.restoreokpubliceducation.com/node/687

• 1991: Tucker and Lauren Resnick created New Standards that pushed standards-based reform.
http://mississippipep.wordpress.com/2011/09/03/controversial-author-marc-tucker-to-speak-at-ms-dept-of-education-statewide-forum-sept-14/

• 1992: Tucker writes “Dear Hillary Letter.” This letter, written to Hillary Clinton, addressed Tucker’s ideas for radical education reform after Bill Clinton’s presidential win. 

The goal is “to remold the entire American system” into “a seamless web that literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same systems for everyone,” coordinated by “a system of labor market boards at the local, state and federal levels” where curriculum and “job matching” will be handled by counselors “accessing the integrated computer-based program.” 

• 1994: Tucker’s ambitious plan was implemented in three laws passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton: the Goals 2000 Act, the School-to-Work Act Opportunities Act, and the reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) called “Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994.”

• 1996: An organization called ACHIEVE, Inc. was formed by the nation’s governors and corporate leaders. (Many of them tied to Marc Tucker and the NCEE). The goals from an Education Summit in Palisades, NY were to ACHIEVE the goals of the 1994 school reform bills. (link)

• 1998: Tucker and Judy Codding created America’s Choice, a comprehensive school reform program, that made sure the national standards were further implemented into schools.

• 2001: George W. Bush renames ESEA “The No Child Left Behind Act” and signed it into law.

• 2004: Microsoft (Bill Gates) contracts with UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) to fulfill part of UNESCO’S Millennium Campaign Goals—universal education and educating for a global economy. A “master curriculum” for teacher training in information technologies based standards, guidelines, benchmarks, and assessment techniques is to be developed. (link)
(UNESCO / Gates Foundation Agreement)

• 2005: Bill Gates funds the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce—created by Tucker. States begin adopting its education reform initiative, “Tough Choices or Tough Times.” In 2008, Utah’s Governor Huntsman touts it and joins with 5 others states (Massachusetts, Delaware, Arizona, New Mexico, and New Hampshire) who adopt it in order to “reinvent their educational systems.” 

2005- Bill Gates signs 26 page agreement with UNESCO:
http://www.edwatch.org/updates05/120205-gatesw.htm

2005- Bill Clinton: “We have to do away with our love of local control of our schools”
http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/05/ed-watch/12-2-unesco-gates.htm

• 2008: Gates Foundation, along with two other foundations, created Strong American Schools (a successor to the STAND UP campaign launched in 2006, which was an outgrowth of UNESCO’s Millennium Campaign Goals for Universal Education). It calls for American education standards.

NOTE- This point in the timeline above and below is probably the most important transition from UNESCO, Bill Gates, the IBAG to passing the Common Core Standards to the NGA. Many think that the NGA just popped out this idea, when in fact it was handed to the NGA on behalf of Bill Gates and UNESCO.

This is the claim where the CCS were state led, “because they came from NGA, a group of state Governors, doing what is best for their states.”

• 2008: Gates Foundation funds the International Benchmarking Advisory Group report for Common Core Standards on behalf of the National Governors Association, Council of Chief State School Officers, and ACHIEVE, Inc. titled, “Benchmarking for Success: Ensuring U.S. Students Receive a World-Class Education.” This report shows the United Nations is a member of the International Benchmarking Advisory Group for Common Core Standards. 

The member of mention is the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which developed UNESCO’s Millennium Declaration—partnering with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. (link)

The report states: While states must take the lead, the federal government can help. And the federal government can do that best by playing an enabling role grounded in a new vision for the historic state-federal partnership in education.

• 2009:  Marc Tucker writes a chapter in the book “Change Wars: The Inspiring Future for Educational Change.” One chapter is called International Benchmarking as a Lever for Policy Reform. The book says the UN’s OECD launched Programme for International Student Assessment in 2000 to monitor the outcomes of education. Linda Darling-Hammond also contributes a chapter. Darling-Hammond heads the SBAC.

• April, 2009: Gates Foundation members, along with a few dozen others, participate in a Washington conference and produce “Smart Options: Investing the Recovery Funds for Student Success.” These ideas were funded by the 2008 Stimulus (ARRA-American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) and supported Race to the Top. Priority 1: Develop Common American Standards—also called Career-Ready Standards—in most states by January 2012.

• 2009 (summer): Council of Chief State School Officers, National Governors Association, and ACHIEVE, Inc. agree to partner on a common core standards project.

• 2009 (fall): The U.S. Dept. of Ed signals it will fund $360M for summative assessments aligned to Common Core Standards and begins planning meetings. Two consortia begin competing for this funding: Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium and Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. States begin adopting Common Core Standards and join one of the consortia in order to receive No Child Left Behind waivers from the U.S. Department of Education Secretary, Arne Duncan.

• 2009 (December): Utah becomes a governing member state of Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and is obligated to use the online assessments created by the SBAC which is led by Bill Ayers’ friend, Linda Darling-Hammond. Judy Park, Associate Superintendent, Utah State Office of Ed, eventually co-chairs the Consortia.

• 2009 (December): Gates Foundation gives the National PTA a $1 million grant to mobilize parents for Common Core Standards.

• June, 2010: National Governors Association and State Education Chiefs launch Common State Academic Standards.

• April 2011: The SBAC Overview Curriculum and Assessment Conference issues a report stating that CCSS member states must adopt their assessments by Dec. 31, 2011. Further, they must develop tests to be administered in 2014-2015.

• 2011: The American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) education task force calls for the demise of the Common Core Standards, but puts it on hold after receiving a $376,635 grant from the Gates Foundation. (link)
http://www.missourieducationwatchdog.com/2011/12/bill-gates-gift-to-alec-376635-reasons.html?m=1

• 2011: Bill Gates speaks at the November G20 Summit in Cannes and issues his report, “Innovation With Impact: Financing 21st Century Development” stating, “My report will address the financing needed to achieve maximum progress on the Millennium Development Goals, and to make faster progress on development over the next decade.”

• 2011: Obama Education Secretary Arne Duncan announces “Today, I promise you that [the Department of Education] will be a committed partner in the national effort to build a more environmentally literate and responsible society… We must advance the sustainability movement through education… Education and sustainability are the keys to our economic future-and our ecological future.”

• 2012: States begin to recognize the loss of local control and enormous cost of implementation of the Common Core Standards. Many states begin pushing back. The Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute call the standards unconstitutional per federal education law.

• 2012: States not on Common Core and not meeting the Annual Yearly Progress requirements of NCLB petition congress for relief. Lawmakers working on options are undercut when the Obama White House circumvents congress to grant waivers from NCLB if states adopt Common Core.

-Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott stated that the common standards movement amounted to a “desire for a federal takeover of public education.” Now, additional states (who originally signed on), including Massachusetts, Iowa, Kansas, and Virginia, are expressing concerns about the common standards initiative.

-Gov. Nikki Haley just signed a letter supporting legislation in South Carolina to block CCSS implementation stating, “South Carolina shouldn’t relinquish control to a consensus of states any more than the federal government.”

2011-Larry Shumway, Utah state superintendent, a member of the CCSSO Board of Directors, a member of the Board of Directors at West Ed which is the project management partner for SBAC assessments, recommends Utah retain its relationship as a governing member of the SBAC (thus forcing Utah to use their tests).

“I am personally opposed to any changes in Utah’s public education governance, either by constitutional amendment or by statutory revision, that would have the effect of centralizing power and decreasing representation.  I oppose changes that would decrease the ability of local boards of education, elected by the citizens of that district, to guide their own schools to meet the needs of their communities as they see it, or that would diminish the ability of 104 elected legislators and 15 elected State Board members to fulfill their responsibilities to lead Utah public education as they represent their constituencies.” -Larry Shumway–State of Education Address October 11, 2011

This seems to me a clear conflict of interest for Mr. Shumway to testify to the Utah legislature on anything related to Common Core or the SBAC.

Gates’ Foundation other contributions during the time frame of consideration and development of the Common Core initiative.

Counsel of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO): 
2009–$9,961,842
2009–$3,185,750
2010–$743,331
2011–$9,388,911

National Governor’s Association (NGA): 
2008–$2,259,780,Mark Tucker’s NCEE: 
2009–$1,500,000

Total: $27,000,000

Bill Gates, via UNESCO and the United Nations and many willing participants taking bribes at all levels has successfully not only nationalized but Internationalized our educational system. 

To any who still harbor the illusion that Common Core State Standards were the product of the states simply coming together, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.
Special thanks to the many people involved in digging this information up. Much work has been done by people all around the country to put this information together and help follow the money trail.

 Please do your part now in passing this information on to everyone you know so they can be educated about what the Common Core Initiative is really all about.

Links to above article:
Bill Gates timeline: best source
http://commoncorefacts.blogspot.com/2012/03/not-federally-led.html?m=1 

Ed for all 2015

Click to access class%20of%202009.pdf

http://whatiscommoncore.wordpress.com/tag/unesco/

IBAG
http://www.achieve.org/benchmarkingforsuccess

Click to access BenchmarkingforSuccess.pdf

http://whatiscommoncore.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/does-u-n-s-education-mandate-push-common-core-in-usa/

http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/55091

2004- UNESCO “Cooperation Agreement” with Bill Gates.

Click to access strategy_microsoft_agreement.pdf

http://www.unesco.org/new/en/unesco/partners-donors/the-actions/education/microsoft-and-unesco-together-to-promote-education-through-information-and-communication-technologies-ict/

Common Core goes green: Next Generation Science Standards on the way

Common Core goes green: Next Generation Science Standards on the way

Ever since the appointment of Arne Duncan as the Secretary of Education, Governor Bill Haslam elected as our “radical education reformer,” Kevin Huffman,  Secretary of Education in Tennessee, ex husband of Michelle Rhee appointed by Haslam  and our State Representative Kevin Brooks, the recipient of 6,000 dollars of Rhees money our state and our kids have seen this day coming for a while. The perfect storm was formulated.

Common Core is rolling out the green carpet. A liberals dream come true. A radical reformist politicians bucket list has come to fruition.

In a world created by the highest bidder, the next progressive step in common core is to indoctrinate our children using the “green movement” as their platform. 

The big political arm of the green movement is now surfacing in our schools. Science, the EPA and the UNs next big step to further liberalize, globalize our school system in exchange for the minds of our children.

Common Core is teaming up with the “greenies” to provide a multi-pronged effort to promote “fun” contests and activities for students while promoting the new Common Core “state standards” in Science.
 
As reported by Mary Grabar in Front Page Magazine (See link below), she states  “For example, the Department’s latest Green Strides newsletter (February 28) announced three contests for K-12 students who display their agreement with the government’s position on climate change.”

“In that newsletter, the Department of Education announced that another federal agency, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, and its National Environmental Education Foundation, have “launched an exciting video challenge for middle school students called Climate Change in Focus.”  

“In this contest, middle school students are asked to make a video that “expresses why they care about climate change and what they are doing to reduce emissions or to prepare for its impacts.”  

“To win loyalty to the EPA, it is announced that winning videos will be highlighted on the EPA website.”

 “The effort sounds like the kids’ cereal box promotions of yore: the top three entries will receive “cool prizes like a solar charging backpack,” winning class projects will receive special recognition for their school, and the first 100 entrants will receive a year’s subscription to National Geographic Kids Magazine.”

“Another contest, National Wildlife Federation’s Young Reporters for the Environment, invites students “between the ages of 13-21 to report on an environmental issue in their community in an article, photo or photo essay, or short video.”  Entries should “reflect firsthand investigation of topics related to the environment and sustainability in the students’ own communities, draw connections between local and global perspectives, and propose solutions.”

“Students are also encouraged to make nominations for “Champions of the Earth,” a “UN-sponsored award for environment, Green Economy, and sustainability.”  

“Students already get exposed to climate change and sustainability in textbooks which are bought with taxpayer funds, as well as in videos and online materials produced by taxpayer-supported Public Broadcasting.  Many students, of course, have had to sit through Al Gore’s documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.”

The Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS)—the next phase of Common Core—will make the situation worse, however,” Grabar continues.  

“Students will be even less capable of distinguishing science from propaganda.  These standards, like those for math and English Language Arts, were produced by Achieve, a nonprofit education group started by corporate leaders and some governors. 

 As in the standards for English Language Arts and math, the NGSS are intended to be transformative, or as Appendix A states, “to reflect a new vision for American science education.”  They call for new “performance expectations” that “focus on understanding and applications as opposed to memorization of facts devoid of context.”

“It is precisely such short shrift to knowledge (dismissively referred to as “memorization”) to which science professors Lawrence S. Lerner and Paul Gross object.  The standards bypass essential math skills in favor of “process,” they asserted last fall at the Thomas B. Fordham Foundation blog.”

“Common Core standards, in all disciplines, are written with a lot of fluff to conceal their emptiness.”

“The Common Core math standards themselves have garnered much criticism among teachers, parents, and students; focusing so much on “process,” they make simple problems bizarrely confusing, as a collection of examples illustrates.”

“With some sarcasm, they write, “It is charming to say ‘. . . students learn science effectively when they actively engage in the practices of science.’”  However, Students will not learn best if they practice science exactly as do real scientists. A firm conclusion in cognitive science contradicts that claim.  Beginners don’t and can’t ‘practice’ as do experts.”  

“Not only do the Next Generation Science Standards shirk the necessary foundations in math and science knowledge, but they explicitly call for including ideological lessons, such as “Human impacts on Earth systems.” 

“For grades K-2, students are to understand. Things people do can affect the environment but they can make choices to reduce their impact.” 

“In grades 3 through 5, students will learn “Societal activities have had major effects on the land, ocean, atmosphere, and even outer space.”  “Societal activities can also help protect Earth’s resources and environments.”  

This is from part ESS3.C of the NGSS standards. “Human impacts on Earth systems” are huge topics, when approached legitimately.  They present quandaries to scientists at the top levels.  Yet NGSS imposes them on kindergartners. The objective, of course, is not teaching legitimate science, but indoctrination.”

Amazingly, ten states have already voluntarily adopted the Standards.
Such efforts, coordinated by the Department of Education, threaten the future of science itself.

BCN Summary:
Common Core is clearly not doing what it was hyped to do. It is clearly time for us to abandon these standards and the curriculum that follows.

Our children are not available for the transformative thinking of liberals and the assault on their minds.

The ABCs and the 3 Rs need to be our focus, not the accumulation of liberal global indoctrination.

Let’s get back to teaching and let’s see less propaganda in our schools.

Please subscribe to her newsletter and read her info frequently. I have met Mary Grabar and heard her speak. She is an expert on this subject and was a big contributor to this blog entry. Please view the link below.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/2014/mary-grabar/common-cores-little-green-soldiers/

Bradley County Commission votes NO to Common Core, Yarber gets decision

Bradley County Commission votes NO to Common Core, Yarber gets decision 

BCN Note: No one was actually hurt in the writing of this news blog. Humor was added to a very serious subject. The bout was fictional and fun, the details factual. My opinions are below based on my observations of the event as it unfolded.

2/20/14
0749 am

Bradley County TN Commissioners have echoed the efforts of the Bradley County School Board and said NO to Common Core.

Former semi-pro boxer County Commissioner Jeff Yarber, who long ago hung up his gloves, but Tuesday, took them off the shelf and delivered a show of might reminiscent of his days on the circuit.

He stood mighty tall in this setting and went the full 10 rounds and was left shuffling in his corner unscathed.

Throughout the meeting Yarber stepped up, squared up on his opponent, left hand slightly in front of the other, weaved left and right, steps in head low, chin down and delivered a barrage of thunderous blows that left the impression that Common Core is not welcome in our community in any form. Even some of his own debated him but were left in a heap on the canvas of this political arena.

As the debate continued, the formally trained athlete, was fully prepared to go the distance and he did.

The bout started with the introduction for approval of two bills getting cranked up in the House and Senate. 

A vote to back HB 2332 and its Senate companion bill SB 2405 was debated and Jeff Yarber was scrapping the whole time. He took a few jabs off his ample iron jaw while fending off blows to defeat support for these bills. The intent of these bills is to remove Common Core and it’s cronies from our children’s presence, period! The bills are not there so they can be tweaked, renamed or repackaged. They are to be REMOVED, DISCONTINUE! Period!!!

If passed, the House and Senate bills would amend Tennessee Code Annotated section 49-1-302 to say “on July 1, 2014, the state board and the department of education shall DISCONTINUE the use of the Common Core state standards in English language arts and mathematics.” 

At that time, the standards that had been in place before Common Core standards were first being implemented in 2010 “shall become the standards for use by LEAs [local education agencies] and schools until the state board develops and adopts new Tennessee specific standards for English language arts and mathematics.” 

With the final vote pending, just as the Bradley County School Board had done a couple of weeks ago, Yarber and the County Commission stepped up and knocked down the formidable Common Core opponent.

Our buddies on the education board said that Common Core “would be highly disruptive to student growth.” 

During this title match, It was also mentioned that changes like postponing of PARCC assessment tests and tying those scores to teacher licensure, student data collection and non parent or teacher involvement would not be in the best interest of our teachers and ultimately our children.

Let’s not forget the lightweight contender Michelle Rhee of Students First, the ex wife of Heavyweight TN Education Secretary Kevin Huffman and Bantam weight Bill Haslam appointee have advocated, by their support of Students First, for parents to get out of the way so Common Core can be delivered uninterrupted as stated  in past interviews with Rhee. 

How convenient would it be to get parents, teachers, school boards and elected officials out of the way so the deed can be completed. Sounds like a win-win scenario if you ask me.

Like any good story or bout in this case there is always the spoiler. Today that is twofold. Commissioner Jeff Morelock and Bill Winters are once again those wet noodle types among mighty oaks. 

Morelock expressed his understanding of the school board’s resolution was that the board was in favor of the standards as a whole, but some changes needed to be made to them. Did he read the same resolution I did? I dont believe he read the same resolution!  He continued with his drivel of liberalism and said “there were some necessary changes, doing away with the standards would not help.”

Commissioner Bill Winters, Morelocks liberal Co Co buddy chimed in. Remember Yarber is bouncing around doing the rope a dope waiting to be engaged. I know it’s suspenseful but keep reading.

Commissioner Bill Winters said he “had a problem with the fact the Commission’s resolution supported repealing the state standards.”

He sluggishly continued and said ” he would not vote to repeal Common Core because the standards being removed would “tie the hands” of the legislators working to fix the parts of the standards that were not working well.” Hello Bill? The consensus, bills and resolutions are to get rid of it, to DISCONTINUE them, not fix them! Focus! Please allow me to enlighten you in a little constitutional secret. You as an elected official are the voice of the people, you have the authority to limit government intrusion at any level, thus balancing the power! You are a microcosm of the bigger picture Bill! You can do this!

In addition, Winters went on to say he “did not think the vote would be in line with what the local school board wanted.” Really Bill? Once again and please allow me to reiterate, the vote today is to DISCONTINUE the Common Core standards, not fix or tweak them. The vote today! The one before you now! A liberal slant is not the seal of approval and doesnt change the fact that you are voting in a few minutes to DISCONTINUE the standards not fix or tweak them. 

He went on to zap out all the remaining energy out of the room room finishing his monologue “The school board did not ask us to repeal this,” Winters said. He finally gathered enough liberal strength to say “the standards “could be worked for the good of the schools.” Ooooh Yawn, please wake me Jeff Yarber.

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, MAY I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION, In the red corner, hailing from Clevegas TN, weighing in at probably a different weight from his previous days, lets here it for the one, the only, the scrapper, the commissioner of all commissioners, a Commissioner every one wants to be………..Jefffffffffff Yarrrrrrrrber! ARE……. YOU……..READY……. TO RUUUUUUUUUUUMBLE?

Commissioner Jeff Yarber relying on strength and momentum from his youth, meets gloves in the middle, and lands the first punch countering  “I am  in favor of Tennessee scrapping the Common Core standards altogether and creating new standards to replace them.” Kaaaa Pooooow!

Side step, 1-2 punch amongst a flurry of undercuts he continues “this means local education would not be “tied in with” the federal government. Yes! Morelock and Winters are punch drunk but not relenting.

Winters and  Morelock countered with a few soft jabs none phasing the Yarber. Yarber counters with a flurry, “Common Core is the problem, and we can do it better!!!!”

The crowd on their feet, Winters and Morelock on their heels, to the mat. Dazzled by the display of skill and precision of this prize fighter reborn, the ref steps in with the 10 count, 1-2-3… 

Commissioner Adam Lowe steps into the ring to finish off the opponent.

The atmosphere now has changed from a prize fight to a tag team WWF wrestling match, please allow the setting to morph in your mind.

A more cautious Lowe yet equally as effective mounts the ropes and from the top rope with bare chest, tight spandex shorts he shouts….. “the state bills in question were “simple” and “straightforward,” though he was not totally certain they were “a step in the right direction.”  The frenzied crowd yells “Deliver the fatal blow Adam! Jump down and deliver the fatal blow. The cautious approach allowed Yarber to suffer a few minor blows to his seasoned jawline but unable to daze him. Lowe is a thinker! He is contemplating his next move.

Lowe balancing on the top row, chest bare, pecs glistening continues….he believes “one of the problems the field of education has been facing has been the attention paid to reforming standards rather than actual teaching methods because “standards don’t have feelings.” “We continue to try to teacher-proof the classroom,” he said.  The standards dont have feelings!” Beautiful. Great skill from such a gifted orator, give the appearence that the standards are a living breathing set of standards. Im loving this approach. The crowd sinks back to it’s seats as Lowe steps down from the top rope.

Nice assist Commissioner Lowe, we need you in Yarbers corner, he needs water and some vasoline on his left eye.

Commissioner Caywood receives the tag from Lowe!

Commissioner Terry Caywood, a little long in the tooth, but still with the vigor and stamina of the young bucs weighs in.. 

Caywood cautiously enters the ring very aware of the mood in the room, the roar of the crowd, he becomes invigorated, picks up Bill Winters and begins to spin him around the ring tossing him into Morelock, like a bowling pin they both fall and he grabs the mike and begins to shout  ” I have spoken with a teacher who said Common Core standards “took all the fun out of teaching.” Take that and put it in your pipe and smoke it, I Imagined Caywood saying that last part. The part he is playing in my mind is quite the opposite, he is really a kind gentle christian man unwilling to engage his peers this way.

And from back of the room, much like Ralphie, from the Christmas Story engaging Scut Farkus and Grover Dill in a fight that won Ralphie some respect in the neighborhood, Commissioner Mel Griffith tags in and says he was “very supportive” of the standards’ goals, but they were not being implemented well.” That splatted onto the mat like an overhydrated cow patty. 

Has he been listening to Morelock and Winters?  Somehow, are we blaming this on the teachers now? Anyway, he tried to punch but couldn’t allow the standards to be done away with, Ralphie is retired quickly.

With the fighting done and the warrior weary State Representative Kevin Brooks steps into the ring with his shiny suit, crisp red tie, neatly tucked, half windsor perhaps, hair motif perfectly aligned and undisturbed, he bounces up uncharacteristically and says “the bills would have the state completely scrapping the current standards, meaning it would “throw out the baby, the bathwater — all of it.” Was that an apology? Or did he see his baby (Common Core) just get tossed out with the bath water? Mr Brooks, the baby (Common Core) and the bath water (the standards) are what we want gone! It’s ok! It’s not a real baby.

He continued, “Instead of completely repealing Common Core, he said he was in favor of making “incremental” changes to the standards and changing the name to reflect those changes.” It is pretty clear that the message being sent is not being absorbed. Our elected bodies are saying NO to Common Core, not parts, not increments, ALL OF IT! To DISCONTINUE IT! Not tweak, rename or repackage the standards!

Question to Mr Brooks? If Common Core is fully repealed does this mean he returns his campaigns number one donor Michelle Rhee and Students First campaign donations? It’s a legit question that needs answering.

Few have worked as hard as Representative Kevin Brooks to
bring RTTT and Common Core to Bradley County. Ok, now I’m getting sweaty from that flurry of punches. Jeff Yarber I need a tag out.

Brooks continues “I have been asked what is the most-debated topic in Nashville right now,” Brooks said. “It is Common Core. (Because parents, teachers and school boards are mad and don’t want it) There’s nothing in me that wants to lower our standard, but the name……the brand……is broken.” 

Ok, do we tweak it and change the name? Florida and other states are doing this also. It does not change the facts. If it walks and talks like a duck? It’s a duck!

Ok let’s pretend this epic battle is coming to an end and my children are safely out of reach of a few of our commissioners for the time being.

The 14-member Commission passed the resolution sponsored by the ex prize fighter Jeff Yarber supporting the state bills with nine in favor, four opposed and one absent. 

Yarber has completed the bout and by KO, he chalks up another win.

Wait! There was one more breath of life left in the two on the mat. In one final expression of defiance his eyes slightly swollen, Bill Winters tarries to center ring facing Yarber and 8 other Commissioners and whispers, “I propose a substitute motion to pass a resolution simply saying the Commission supported the school board’s resolution and not mentioning the proposed state bills.” And he collapses to the mat. That motion failed!

Known as an observer and more of a ring manager Commissioner Mark Hall countered with his own motion right before the event concluded, he quips “lets have a work session to be discussed further,” As if to be saying, in other words let me delay this vote so I can find out what this Common Core thingy is. The motion failed! Several Commissioners reminded him this matter had already been discussed in previous meetings.

Enters Dan Rawls posing as the clean up crew, while lifting chairs, kicking aside popcorn boxes and candy wrappers, shouting from the observation deck, crowd dispersing around him he shouts “the passage of this resolution was “brave, calling it “a big vote.” 

The big victor tonight was Commissioner Jeff Yarber and the kids of our county. He stepped up for the teachers, Students, parents all over the county. 

Lowe deserves an assist. 

Yarber stands tall after this bout, the victor.

When all was said and done the County Commission as our elected representatives did what they needed to do.

In a big way, standing in the gap for the kids, parents and teachers who have been left out of the process but are now speaking up and winning small battles to regain our educational system from the hands of the federal government./

Source of quotes: Cleveland Daily Banner. Please continue to read this fine paper and buy it daily, they get paid to deliver the news, I report for free!

http://www.clevelandbanner.com/view/full_story/24610297/article-County-vote-opposes-Common-Core

Bradley County School Board says “NO” to Common Core

Bradley County School Board says “NO” to Common Core

2/17/14
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The Bradley County Board of Education in Cleveland Tennessee, has passed a  resolution that says no to Common Core, with all  7 board members voting unanimously in favor.

The measure was drafted by board member Charlie Rose, a long time board member with the ability to influence decision making in our county on school issues. Select members of the board to include Chris Turner, contributed time and facts to the compilation of this resolution.

The resolution addresses and cites  many concerns about Common Core implementation in Bradley County  to include cost, lack of teacher, student and parent involvement, inadequate testing components, teacher licensure and data collection of students.

Common Core has been labeled the nationalization of our schools by many critics with unique ties to socialism and a system of John Dewey and pedagogical theory. 

Many have said it is another step toward Socialism by indoctrination of our children.

The realization of a top down globalization of our schools and how the federal government plans to control every aspect of your child’s education is a big motivator for stopping Common Core in it’s tracks and our school board has taken a definite step in the right direction by signing this resolution.

Common Core is heavily centered on teaching to a test without real learning of the basic tenets of education, like the three R’s. Teachers need to have the ability to teach without constant interruptions from the federal government.

This resolution has pushed the debate beyond talk, sent a strong message to elected and appointed leaders that teachers, parents and now board members do not want Common Core in our County.

Common Cores empty promises and unproven results with Socialist overtones has forced the Bradley County Board to act. 

Local control of our schools must be established and this resolution sends that message. 

Our school system as it exists in Bradley County already has higher grade standards and results than Common Core promises to achieve. Why change to a system that will at best dumb our children down to the national standard?

It doesn’t make sense and our local school board has pointed out this truth. Is “improving” our system worth a loss to our children? 

The Bradley County School Board has responded positively to
parent and teacher concerns despite the continued efforts of Johnny McDaniel and Martin Ringstaff of their undying support of Common Core!  

The likes of Bill Haslam, Kevin Huffman, Michelle Rhee and our elected reps have made good money off this venture and stand to gain even more  if Common Core is allowed to advance.

Some detractors claim this resolution has no teeth and carries no real weight. I also heard this with the Agenda 21 resolution coming out of our TN State house early last session. Don’t dismiss this as “just a resolution.” 

Bold statements such as this carry alot of clout in this town. Many pushing for radical education change wouldn’t dare raise their heads and oppose a board that says no, political suicide comes to mind. 

With RTTT/Common Core money already spent, our reality is now we have a burdensome, costly program lingering in our midst that smells of nationalization of our public schools with still no means to pay for it. 

The Common Core debate has now been shifted from a conversation of heresay and rumors to one of confirmation with no doubt about the boards intent.

I emailed my first District school board member Chris Turner and asked for a statement from him regarding this resolution and how it was formed, 

“The board was asked by the county commission to quantify the impact of common core implementation on our students and teachers.”

Mr. Rose was tasked with authoring the resolution and I gladly offered conclusions from my research.”

 “Major points I thought should be quantified include the fact that costs for implementing PARCC have not been finalized or communicated to local school systems and the tax payers of Bradley County.”

“Also, impact on teacher evaluation of the global conversation to PARCC has no formal remedy.”

“The biggest issue to me has been the recent pro-common core message claiming improvements in test schools, such as NAEP,  as the sole result of radical reforms made by our Commisioner of Education.” 

“The real impact to these results has been the meaningful changes in state standards made in 2009 implemented by our teachers.”

” Common Core is no silver bullet, Turner continued.”

“There are no quick fixes. Ask any classroom teacher and they’ll tell you that results take hard work and time.” 

“The results we’re getting are the return on investment from the hard work of our students, parents, and our teachers,” he concluded.

These words by my representative are wise and was constructed from much thought, research, teacher input and parents concerns. These statements and the resolution were not made on a whim. It was well thought out and deliberate.

The message to all sent by this board is our kids are not for sale, our teachers are not puppets,the parents and this board are not idiots.

I believe it is important to review The main points inside this resolution and I have compiled it below. 

These main points are from the Bradley County School Board resolution, shortened somewhat but content remains, a link is provided for exact details.

The Bradley County School Board Resolution on Common Core.

Click to access Bradley_County_Board_Of_Education_CC.pdf

1) The implementation of the Common Core Standards could be highly disruptive to student growth.

2) The CCS, Common Core Standards, with current TN Standards dilutes the effectiveness of teacher lesson planning.

3) The Board recommends that the use of PARCC assessment results not be used as part of TVAAS for the purpose of teacher evaluation, licensure, renewal or removal.

4) The Board rejects the collection of personal student data without consent.

5) Rejects the sharing of Personally Identifiable Information, PII, without consent.

6) The implementation resources of Common Core Standards for the teachers of Bradley County TN schools have been variable and dependent upon the source of training and professional development.

7) The variation above has created the opportunity for inconsistency of the implementation of Common Core standards.

8) Bradley County will be tasked with implementing Common Core Standards regardless of the fact that teacher evaluation and student achievement gains will be measured with EOC/TCAP assessments based solely on current TN standards.

9) It does not have a PARCC assessment plan that assures that every student in Bradley County will have equivalent instructional time to cover and reinforce standards prior to administration of PARCC assessments. 

10) Will distort student growth data thence teacher evaluation as measured by the TVAAS system.

11) Has no money set aside for per student test adminstration for the current EOC/ TCAP test.

We the people have created this change. Concerned teachers, angry parents, tax payers and voters have spoken. The politicial puppets that beat the steady drum of Common Core regardless of the consequences on our children must now hear from you.

Let it be forever etched in every citizens mind that this week the Bradley County School Board in Cleveland Tennessee stood side by side many in the fight against Common Core. 

The result is our children and their loved ones were considered. The elected body that represents them sent a resounding message and are willing to stand up against the grain and the lure of an almighty dollar.

I hope the news of this bold stance spreads across our state and nation and more school boards do the same.

Bradley School Board member Chris Turner sums it up best when he said, 

“It (the resolution) expresses the facts and wipes away the opinions and rumors.” 

“Above our lowly school board as elected officials, time and action will tell the story.”

Links of interest concerning this subject:

http://www.chattanoogan.com/2014/2/7/269147/Bradley-School-Board-Told-It-Has-Solid.aspx

Directors of Schools hang on to Common Core despite huge opposition.

http://www.clevelandbanner.com/view/full_story/23929237/article-Directors-assess-Common-Core–McDaniel–Ringstaff-point-to-misconceptions

BCN Note- There are many that have been involved in this and many issues and my hat is off to you. Extended credit goes out to those warriors that stand and fight in local and state issues. I believe information’s the key. Keep supporting this venue. We are taking our state back one community at a time.

Students First, a vehicle for radical change in TN schools

Students First, a vehicle for radical change in TN schools

02/06/2014
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Students First is a radical PAC, a lobbyist group with a socialistic leader as it’s front!

That leader is Michelle Rhee, ex wife of Haslam education czar Kevin Huffman.

Ladies and gentlemen we are in the midst of a revolution and we are not even engaging the enemy of this assault at our front door.

Parents, teachers, taxpayers, citizens, Principals, teachers, administrators, school boards, elected officials and all adults who may dare stand in the way of this nationalization of our schools are not included in this evolution towards socialistic reform in our state. Please step aside, you are now an afterthought and an obstacle to real change.

Students first using it’s platform to change everything about our schools is using big money to buy this change in Tennessee that are you witnessing.

Kevin Huffman, the education secretary in TN, the Haslam appointee, who used to be married to Michelle Rhee of whom they share children and founder of Students First is the radical socialist in charge of betraying the students of TN and subjecting them to the iniquities of a failed agenda that has faced controversy and failure everywhere she has attempted to inject her extreme agenda.

Who is Michelle Rhee? She is a child that has not been able to grow up! She was perhaps the sheltered child that never met her parents expectations and rigid standards customary of her culture. She obviously, in my opinion, never quite measured up to their rigid curriculum of her parents. So with youthful and reckless abandon she somehow thinks she is qualified to lead radical reform inside TN and across the nation injecting her childhood hurt into Tennesssee schools. 

Her childhood has somehow left her with a radical agenda and an unsolicited entry into our school system with the audacity to think that her unproven ways are the sole solution to fix our schools shortcomings.

Reeling from her DC ultimate failure and cheating scandal she sought to bring a brand of education that obviously doesn’t work inside a free republic. Moving children aggressively beyond where they were created an environment and culture that promoted cheating resulting in falsely inflated results.

As a Teach for America fellow at an inner-city Baltimore school in 1993 she reminisces, “Day in and day out, I struggled with my students,” she writes. “They simply wouldn’t listen. I would routinely spend the day alternating between screaming at the children, bribing them, and giving them the silent treatment for their misdeeds. None of it worked.” It was even reported that at one point in her career she resorted to placing duct tape over their mouths so they would listen. For Gods sake she was not even a teacher, she was a Bureaucrat placed in a classroom, a place where only a “real” teacher need be!

During her tenure at DC Public Schools, 2007 to 2010, she gutted the standing system and began to overhaul it. Radical anti teacher, anti union, and basically anti school measures took place. 

Sure one could reduce that all this change was necessary and essential. But the results were not as radical as the changes to
The system and they were definitely  not longstanding. Among the critics it was stated that her change did not last after she was run out of town by a new Mayor. It didn’t have legs and didn’t produce any real change. We are now relying on her unproven and controversy riddled system to work inside Tennessee!

Governor Haslam, several legislators and Senators have taken multiple thousands of Students First lobby money to implement the changes that are so controversial to us today. 

Can you believe any politician would give up his or her soul for Michelle Rhee and Students First to enact the failed system that she advocates for the minds and lives of our children. It would really surprise you at those folks who gladly accepted thousands  of dollars to enact socialistic change and pacify a Governor that is way past his day of reckoning. Perhaps in another blog do I dare address that issue!

Remember, she has no proven system or one that has endured the test of time, yet we in Tennessee migrate to her as if she is the messiah. 

But all we are really interested in is the money she hands to buy your compliance. Michelle Rhees and Students First legacy still haunts her and follows her wherever she goes.Her greatest achievement to date is that perhaps any gains in standardized testing performance was produced at her own hand, by cheating or providing the culture for it.

The embattled Rhee was implicated in the largest cheating scandal in our educational history. She was tagged with having the largest erasures from wrong to right answers on standardized tests in DC. A charge that today she denies. But the legacy follows her and leaves doubt as to the validity and substantiality of her radical reform measures. She has even attempted to cover this ordeal up but her memos and conversations  with educational leaders has crippled her efforts to hide this fiasco.

191 teachers, 70 schools, public and charter were involved in a mass 
cheating scandal that rocked Rhees legacy and offered many doubts as to the effectiveness of her change of cheating as the policy.
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/3070623

As John Merrow of AFT reflects on the failure Washington DC, the leader of the American Federation of Teachers concluded, “Rhee’s overzealous fixation on testing and measurement, and her efforts to silence and fire anyone who questioned her reckless, destabilizing strategies, ultimately failed D.C.’s kids.” 

“Under Rhee’s tenure, DC-CAS scores showed little or no gain, and the performance gap between low-income and upper-income students actually widened. Schools were destabilized by the constant churn of teachers and principals being fired, relocated or leaving out of frustration. Our children deserved better.”

Rhees response to the widespread cheating when confronted answered with a memo that states: What did Rhee do when the evidence in the memo was presented to her?

Apparently she followed Sanford’s number one recommendation as listed in the memo, she was quoted saying “That we keep this Erasure study really close hold. No more people in the know than necessary until we have more conclusive results.”
http://m.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/04/12/why-not-subpoena-everyone-in-d-c-cheating-scandal-rhee-included/

Concerned with Michelle Rhees and Students First legacy? Here are a few disturbing facts. 25, the number of D.C. schools closed during Rhee’s tenure,
 which began in June 2007 and lasted until October 2010. Twenty-three schools were closed in 2008 alone.

1/3, 1 333.3 Teachers of the 4,000 teachers on the DCPS payroll on Sept. 1, 2007 were gone by 2011, through firings, layoffs and attrition.
http://m.washingtonpost.com/opinions/book-review-radical-fighting-to-put-students-first-by-michelle-rhee/2013/02/08/562df41e-671e-11e2-85f5-a8a9228e55e7_story.html

You think through her plan to better American schools she is actually relying on parents to assist and guide the education of our children? Think again. She said this when asked about her goals to turn around education. “My goal is to ensure that laws, leaders, and policies are making students – not adults – our top priority!”

In her book, Radical: Fighting to put Students First she says, “Rhee’s awakening to the potential of every child is blessed with a great teacher, her rage at realizing that adults with special interests are blocking badly needed change.
http://www.studentsfirst.org/pages/about-michelle-rhee

Using the StudentsFirst State Policy Report Card (SPRC), a tool of radical change, to facilitate States to take over our schools, and not in a good way. This reform measure takes our schools and teachers away from local school boards, superintendents and discourages parent or teacher involvement, essentially removing those obstacles called Adults or Teachers from the equation by manipulation, performance measures thus tightening control and eliminating their voice. 

This overtaking of our educational system with no decision making from those pesky “Adults” can only lead to a recipe for disaster, complete control of our schools by our “state led” and eventually fed led and nationalization of our schools. Can you see a pattern developing here. 

She went on to say, remove the obstacles (adults, parents) and real change can take place.
http://www.studentsfirst.org/blog/entry/more-states-taking-over-struggling-schools

In essence what she is saying is “Let’s take our schools away from the teachers, adults, parents, school board, taxpayers, Superintendents and principals and turn them over to the state and DOE and we can have real education reform.”

From her bio on the StudentsFirst website Ms. Rhee is partnering with school districts, state education agencies, non-profit organizations and unions to transform the way schools and other organizations recruit, select and train highly qualified teachers in difficult-to-staff schools.

Another radical change that has been enacted in TN is the teacher performance evaluation that allows a teacher to be evaluated to keep their licensure based largely on how a student performs on standardized tests. A 5 tier grading system largely based on how well a student does on a standardized test that will put their employment, licensure and careers at great risk.

Again, adults removed from the equation, caring locally invested teachers, many who have grown up and been raised in the community they teach, plucked out of their schools and replaced with radical robots with a six week summer training course under their belt using  compliant “adults” brainwashed and made to conduct accordingly via the TFA, Teach for America, or Rhees very own. TNTP, The New Teacher Project.

Interesting to note, teachers from these two organizations do not need to be teachers, trained in education or certified as education instructors, to be inserted into these school replacing these “bad adult teachers” , they just need to have a strong desire to educate and a degree .

In fact, although boasting an educational background, Michelle Rhee has a bachelor’s degree in government from Cornell University and a master’s in public policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government. 

Hardly a teacher, yet given the authority to change our states educational grid. 

We have a bureaucratic stooge deadset on the nationalization of our schools and an eventual takeover of our schools by the federal government and the Department of Education.

We are in the midst of takeover. Your child is the victim. Our elected officials have played you and I and we have given up our student sovereignty for the almighty dollar.

We rushed into RTTT with its millions to create change. Who had called for this change? A politician leading the charge? We can trace this societal change back to a few visionaries blinded by greed and the ability to “bring the bacon” back to Tennessee. 

Surely we can agree that perhaps we need to focus on areas for improvement. Yet I think we can agree that replacing what we have with a moronic scheme of deprivation and inadequacies is hardly the answer!

TN: Parent banned from school for protecting his daughter from harm

TN: Parent banned from school for protecting his daughter from harm

January 28, 2014
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White House,Tennessee: A city approximately 22 miles north of Nashville Tennessee, nestled below the Kentucky line is a Robertson County school system that by it’s actions, has once again brought national attention to it’s liberal policies.

A protective father has been banned from school property for allegedly protecting his daughter from harm as she exits the school for routine pick up.

Damon Holligan (father) observed his daughter strolling to her fathers vehicle as she has probably done many times before.

The casual stroll, observed by Holligan, turned violent for his daughter as he witnessed her being assaulted by a male child as she was exiting the secure confines of her elementary school on her way home.

A male child was grabbing his daughters arm and kicking her in the legs, according to reports.

Mr Holligan I am guessing instinctively reacted to these threats upon his daughters safety and exited his vehicle running to her side to protect her from further harm and securing the area.

The male perpetrator according to Mr Holligan ran away and was later confronted and asked why he would do such a thing to his daughter and demanded an apology.

Police reports state that Mr Holligan was the one that found the male child and asked for an apology but sadly now it’s his word against the schools and will more than likely be determined in a court of law.

Seems reasonable doesn’t it? A father seeing his daughter being abused, running to her side, stopping the assault, verbally confronting the person doing the assault and preventing further harm, right?

In a pre modern education era, this would have been the end of the discussion. Damon and his daughter would return home, the offender knowing he didn’t get away with the crime and all is well, right? Afraid not!

What happens next will blow you away and leave you scratching your head.

Two days after this event, the Principal Kathy Schwab reportedly responded by calling a meeting to discuss the events surrounding Damon and his daughter.
Principal Schwab notified the father that he could not again step on to school property.

“She immediately handed me a letter saying I was no longer allowed on the grounds of the school property until further notice because it was inappropriate for me to even say anything,” Holligan said.

He says the boy who kicked his daughter was never punished and no punishment has been reported in local media to date.

“She doesn’t understand why she’s the one who got physically assaulted and yet now her daddy can’t come to lunch with her,” Holligan said.

Mr Holligan left the impression he plans to sue stating that the school failed to enforce it’s own rules and policies which ended with the Principals verdict being tossed in the wrong direction.

BCN post assessment note:

Inside a liberal machine chocked full of indoctrination with Common Core type equality policies and reasoning lies an underlying vein of distorted equality for all, a judgement that leaves all on a level playing field although the rules of the school demand otherwise, the laws of nature and the consequences of an aggressive child are challenging the debate despite rationale calling for a differing and appropriate outcome.

The school inflicting a banning of a father from his daughters own school leaves one to question the effectiveness of policy intended to protect our children inside a public educational device.

A piecemeal socialist quilt of blind and partial justice, sprinkled with “a trophy for all” mentality is distorting our God given ability of the species to balance themselves with natural progression of the fittest, the best known law of nature given to us by our creator.

By progressive design, a vehicle inside our schools is rolling over into our social environment, overwhelming and perhaps is unintentionally leaving the stronger, more aggressive subject as the protected by liberal policy. More often than not this is leaving the victim wounded and the perpetrator the victor. With this determination and analysis neither ends up being protected.

The overwhelming conclusion is this, the victim, in this case, Damon Holligan and his child is left with numerous questions placed into a forced situation where their rights were overlooked by a Principal that yielded to political correctness instead of reasonable action calling for a balanced and just judgement.

The intent to protect the rights of his daughter and her father, who chose to rightfully protect his daughter are being overlooked and the privilege and will of the father to protect his child is being squelched.

We are staring at the newest most progressive version of education in America, in Tennessee, and it should concern every parent and citizen of this great state and nation.

We now have a government controlled indoctrination engine that is purring loudly and is saturating our children’s brains with socialistic
propaganda.

A system where parents and the school board have less and less say so in the decisions that affect our kids.

A system where parents input is no longer valued and its leaving bureaucrats with top down decision making to drive decisions that affect our children.  We are no longer at an empasse where we are thinking this may happen, it is upon us now and is showing it’s ugly fangs.

We now have a system that breeds an environment of secularism, indoctrination and liberal left leaning policies controlled by our federal government.

I will be the first to say let the kids sort this out and allow peer pressure to flush bullies out with natural progression.

Before objectors attack and they will because exposure of the truth in any form brings out vitriolic emotions from the left, even to the point of sadistic and violent.  With that said, I do not condone violence and practice that daily. I do believe God has given us the ability to recognize right and wrong and I also believe that certain repercussions and consequences accompany those decisions.

I also believe that long before a Principal is allowed to inflict his or her will on me or my child with their pre determined set of values allow me to inject this comment.

If two kids get into an argument, as in the old days, we used to allow them to sort it out individually where the offender ended up getting a strong message that the next time he or she decides to be the aggressor there will be a certain consequence and action rendered when you choose to bully or harm another child.

I am not advocating harm for harm but there used to be a system that took care of a bully and didn’t result in a father being banned from eating lunch with his daughter and the school granting the prepetrator a free pass because social justice and equality to all does not allow for a judgement of bad behavior because someone, although the guilty will be offended or his/her social structure may become disrupted.

I know at least 99 percent of my readers will see this point of view, the other one percent consider your self a part of the problem and not the solution.

The liberal left with the establishment of popular “anti bullying”, “anti violence”, “zero tolerance” and “social equality” policies have created a very litigious environment with the advent that we all should be treated the same regardless of the crime.

Little boys and girls, children of parents looking for equality under liberal banners have trapped the very children they untended to protect.

The children are now left at a disadvantage and powerless because every choice is somehow muted by indecision.

We live in a world where stiff policies often leave the victim and their protectors vulnerable to backlash from the equality police as parents/students, our children, assert their individual rights working within this rigid system of equality.

There is no system intact to protect the afflicted. The system that calls for equality presents a duality and an observance of punitive action for those asserting their inalienable rights inside a machine that favors the aggressor with liberal policies and judgement based on the fact that involvement and intervention somehow makes you a guilty party.

Our educational system is swaying too far to the left and is leaving children broken and confused.

P.S.- It is also interesting to note from the links below that the same school district that is rendering this “inequality” of justice upon it’s parents and students is the same system that is not allowing the 10 commandments to be displayed and the 5 Pillars of Islam with Jihad, Holy War upon Christians to be displayed upon it’s walls.

This Common Core exercise in “tolerance” and “equality” is acceptable for all except those being offended or sanitized.

Yes, this particular incident has nothing to do with Islam but the comparison is being made only to show the lack of disparity and annihilation of some people rights are diminishing inside a system that favors equality, banishing our civil liberties for a minority.

Inside a constitutional republic there should be equality and a sovereign balance. Sadly inside a democracy where the whims of a few are saddled with liberal alienation inside a communistic socialist system is emerging and the benefactor is the social trapping of the day, the parent protecting their child.

.http://www.wrcbtv.com/story/24534997/dad-says-hes-being-punished-by-school-for-protecting-daughter

Principal and Staff: Kathy Schwab, Principal
http://www.rcstn.net/hes/faculty_and_staff

Principal  Schwab and Vice Principal email addresses:

Principal
Ms. Kathy Schwab      kathy.schwab@rcstn.net

Assistant Principal
Ms. Angie Freye         angie.freye@rcstn.net

Robertson County anti bullying policy which admonishes kicking, fighting, hitting, pushing and threats.

Click to access bully-harassment_procedure_2012-13-2.pdf

5 Pillars of Islam to include 6th Pillar, Jihad, to be displayed on Robertson Counties, Springfield High School.
https://bradleycountynews.wordpress.com/2013/08/09/tennessee-5-pillars-of-islam-replace-10-commandments-in-public-school-tolerance-reigns-supreme/

Araini of Islamic Mosque in nearby Robertson County states community has seen 156 percent growth in Muslim families and 2 families per month converting to Islam.
http://www.wkrn.com/story/12730407/islamic-centers-spurred-by-muslim-population-growth

Movoto Real Estates 16th best places to live:
http://cityofwhitehouse.com/news/372-white-house-ranks-sixteen-in-best-places-in-tennessee

Post note: This post as with all my blogs are my opinion only. I base my opinion and expression on what I see happening all around me only a daily basis. These posts should be taken at face value and realize it is a culmination of many hours of research with every attempt to be factual, fair, without harm and accurate. With this said, although my opinion may vary from your opinion this does not make you wrong and me right or vica versa, it just means we have a differing view. Simply disagreeing with my point of view does not make the story untrue and unfactual.  I usually dont edit my content or remove posts. I was asked recently to remove a mothers childs name and the school she attends from this blog entry. I was approached in a very nice and professional manner and because I am also a parent with school age children, I reviewed the content and saw that this was a reasonable request and I have granted this mothers wishes. She made a very good argument as to why select content should be removed. I apologize for any inconvenience my words may have caused. It was the best decision for all involved. This blog has been edited and re published for this reason. I learn and grow from worthy advice. Thanks and have a great day.

Common Core: Libyan owned Pearson at the core of TN Governor Bill Haslams Islamic policies in our state

Common Core: Libyan owned Pearson at the core of TN Governor Bill Haslams Islamic policies in our state

In the last few years we have seen a movement in our country to nationalize our educational system, to implement Common Core in all our schools. 

Inside the schools, the most drastic change has been an overwhelming  theme of driving acceptance of different religions in our schools, particularly the overwhelming influence of Islam and Sharia law! I was left with the overwhelming question as to why such a push toward acceptance of multiple religions, in light of the recent push by the left to eliminate “religious” influence from our schools the last 40 years or so.

I believe I have followed the money trail to Pearson Education and our own TN State Governor Bill Haslam, with many assorted tentacles intertwined to deliver Haslams brand of bad policy towards education reform. Together they are deliberately spearheading this drastic change in tandem by implementing pro-Islamic literature and a global policy agenda that supports acceptance and integration of Islam into our communities. 

In my research, I had to look no further than the middle east, to Lybia and the regime of the late Muammar Gadaffi, Bill Haslam, Pearson Education and assorted friends for a connection.

Lybia and their regime own 26 million shares of Pearson stock, a huge 4 percent share, valued at nearly one half billion dollars. 

The LIA, Lybian Investment Authority and five members of Gaddafi’s family own the stock. With a Pearson portfolio this huge it surely carries great influence on the content inside it’s books and on our elected leaders. (See links below)

In the middle east, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, CAIR and the Muslim Brotherhood have invested heavily in Pearson Education and K-12 learning vehicles. 

It has even been reported by Bill Korach, at http://www.thereportcard.org 
that Pearson owners are deeply involved in the Muslim Brotherhood and linked to CAIR.  “Muslim Brotherhood documents seized by the FBI and presented at the Holy Land Foundation Trial in Texas revealed a plan by the Muslim Brotherhood and their subsidiary organizations like CAIR to penetrate and indoctrinate American K-12 students.”

” Key Pearson textbook consultants on Islam, Susan Douglass and Shabbir Mansuri have both been connected to the Muslim Brotherhood and voiced strong support of Islamic Madrassah, Islamic schools where hate for Jews and Christians is a daily lesson. (At the very least) The Pearson Libyan connection and others who may own Pearson bear deeper scrutiny.”

As perhaps one of the strongest lobbying groups in the US, you can easily see how Pearson educational books content could be swayed to contain an Islamic bias and may well explain the strong Islamic literature contained within many of their books.

Pearson has reportedly “frozen” Gaddafi’s holdings and the only explanation given was to keep his regime from funding Jihad against the Lybian people during the 2011 uprising. No mention of freezing the assets because of it’s influence on our K-12 system or on our Common Core curriculum. It has been reported that Pearson has gone on to say that this controversy has not affected their business greatly in the Middle East.
http://www.sharecast.com/news/pearson-freezes-libyan-stake/4079462.htSherRiff 

It seems wherever there is Islamic influence, Middle East money or big oil influence, the money trail always seem to end up in Tennessee and to Tn Governor Bill Haslam. It just seems this way. If it makes money Haslam seems to have his hands near it and allows it to influence his decision making in our state of Tennessee.

It appears Haslam is up to his neck tie in special interest or middle east money. His obvious actions listed below shows him extremely involved, a willing vessel for acceptance or the luckiest man on earth possibly making hundreds of millions on his educational endeavors. Figure in his TN Secretary of Education nominee Kevin Huffman and you have the perfect cocktail to make money off his endeavors into education reform,ie, Common Core, testing materials, online education tools, elearning modules, textbooks and assorted computer software for it’s implementation. It’s a strong suspicion with many links and warrants heavier scrutiny, perhaps in another opinion piece.  

Enter TN Governor Bill Haslam! 

If participation and facilitation make you a guilty party to benefitting off Common Core implementation and all it’s tentacles, then actions and outright policy changes to benefit self makes you part of the problem and responsible for the recent influx of Islamic and Sharia influence in our state, and renders you guilty.

Timelines and pointed data do more to establish this connection and basically renders fact and conjuncture along an organized path for easier consumption, for this reason I am a fan. Critics find it very difficult to dispute facts with links in an organized fashion. This once again tells me that where the flak is heaviest I have a confirmed target!

Let’s just look at what we do know then follow up on my research, then we draw our own conclusions, hopefully piecing the big puzzle together. Remember, this data is based on my opinion first and then while looking for facts I attempt to substantiate and support my claims. Some link up, some don’t. Please consume the info, make your own mind up, and if you find it palatable, pass it along to your friends.

This grouping of assumptions and facts do not follow a specific “timeline” but are instead grouped according to topic with discussion. Enjoy the read.

1) One of the first actions of our Governor was to put out a policy to not allow Pearson or McGraw Hill books to be reviewed by the public and warning of any leaks of their content will be dealt with a stiff hand. The simple phrase that info cannot be reviewed or critiqued because of copyright restraints, sounds like he has a vested interest or the very least for some reason protecting the book companies, for whatever reason, scrutiny would be my guess and don’t try to get a book  of choice from your child’s school. My kids can’t even take their books home. What is the big secret? Bill Haslam declares no books on Common Core be reviewable, claiming copyrights laws protect us from looking at them!

Click to access TextbookCollectionSitePolicies.pdf

2) Who owns Pearson? At least 26 million shares belong to the Muammar Gadaffi family via the Lybian Investment Authority and his five family members who have put together a nice portfolio! Enough said there! But then I question, what could be Haslams involvement in the Middle East, ie; Lybia, Turkey, Iran and Saudi Arabia? See links below, I’m building on this here, be patient.
http://education-curriculum-reform-government-schools.org/w/2013/03/pearsons-libyan-ownership-and-islam-biased-textbooks/

Pearson is partially owned by Lybian government and the late Mohmar Ghadaffi!
http://www.pfspublishing.com/workshop/2011/03/pearson-shuts-down-libyan-shares-in-company.html

3) Who once owned stock in K-12 education, a key component of Common Core, a complimentary reform measures that makes Pearson and other book and software companies multiple-billionaires? Ok, the cat is out of the bag, Bill Haslam invested 10,000 dollars in this program, but “didn’t know it” or failed to recognize that his portfolio contained this investment. He supposedly dumped it from his name and ditched the stock as it was uncovered by a Democratic foe as he was running for Governor.  My intuition would lead me to believe he perhaps got rid of the stock but has it close to him somewhere in another co-owned business, non profit or someone else’s name. Even early on he realized that 10,000 dollars invested in this up and rising stock would reap him possibly millions upon millions. A shrewd businessman and politician he is, a wise man he may not be. He knew education reform was on the way.
Michael Milken, “Haslam Invested in K-12.”
http://www.wbir.com/story/news/local/2013/09/09/haslam-k12inc-investment/2785759/

4) PILOT Oil is deeply associated with Lybia and Iran. Before his election, the then Democrat Gubernatorial candidate McWherter brought many of these issues to the table for review that I have discussed this evening. It is not to far a stretch to assume that Haslam is influenced by big oil and the middle east. To tie these together much less prove or implicate and tie them to Haslam is a stretch, but it makes you wander when most of his decisions are made about education reform it somehow seems to be tied to the middle east or big oil, you begin to think, where is his alliance? What is he protecting with these repeated bad policies with a middle eastern flare to them? Where is his ability to benefit personally from his policy? He has paved a way for Sharia Compliance with other actions in TN, why not with Education Reform? Who is in his pocket and pulling his strings?  And why do most of his decisions seem to tied to that common theme.
http://m.commercialappeal.com/news/2010/sep/21/mcwherter-ties-haslam-business-to-iran/

5) Is there a Saudi, Iranian, Muslim Brotherhood, Middle East, Turkey, Big oil, Education
Reform connection of book companies such as Pearson textbooks  to Pilot oil or Bill Haslam? The verdict is outstanding but the trail is warm. Further research may reveal many more personal interest connections.

6) The mere fact that Informational textbooks are replacing great works of literature in TN sets one to think that big corporate America is driving education reform changes. The recent endorsement of the US Chamber of Commerce of Common Core and recent private meetings in Bradley County Tennessee with members of SCORE, Kevin Huffman at least shows intent and an attempt to keep info sharing on the down low!

Click to access PESF_G2_3-8_v4web.pdf

7) An Anti-Terrorism, Anti-Sharia, Anti-Jihad bill was introduced, SB 1028, that was spawned from the jihad attack on military personnel and other acts of “homegrown” terrorism acts in TN to include Haslams policies. Haslams actions have resulted in Legislators feeling strongly enough to enact laws to protect its citizens from Haslams bad policies and influence. 

Click to access FAQ%20anti-terrorism%20bill%2011.pdf

Click to access SB1028.pdf

8) PARRC Testing and Kevin Huffman, a Haslam appointee for Education Czar in TN, is shifting the load, favor and money to Pearson to conduct the tests, develop the tests and get them online with loads of software development to support it. This action leaves a lucrative money trail benefitting once again Pearson Education and vested parties, Haslam and Huffman. Can anyone say money,  investments and lobbying influence driving decisions?
http://lastcar.blogspot.com/2013/11/text-book-review.html?m=1

9) Bill Haslams Drive 55 initiative gives the TN GED testing contract to, you guessed it, Pearson Education, yet another obvious push to give Pearson more of our state tax dollars. Can you see the set up and the cronyism displayed in these actions?  The Islamic influence in our childrens schools and text books? He doesn’t seem to make a step without including a benefit package for known associates of K-12, Pearson, PARRC, or Common Core. It makes you think that he might even be in cahoots with Jeb Bush and Bill Gates?
http://businessclarksville.com/education/the-new-face-of-ged-testing-to-debut-in-2014/2013/10/29/58251

10) Jeb Bush and Bill Haslam partner to bring Education Reform to TN. What do you know? Coincidence? I don’t think so!! 

After stepping down as governor in 2007, Jeb Bush created the Foundation for Excellence in Education, which advocates for school choice and higher standards in public education, he announced after speaking to Tn Governor Bill Haslam.

Bush admitted that “it was helpful to have money behind the reforms,” “You’re asking people to eat broccoli—it’s always good to have some hot-cheese sauce. The money is like that hot-cheese sauce,” Bush said.

At the meeting Haslam asked “As Republicans, what do we think the government’s role is in higher standards?” Sinking feeling!!! “What is the Governments role in higher standards?” Did Bill Haslam really ask that?

Jeb Bush went on to correct Governor Haslam and again reiterate, although falsely, that this is not a government program but a state led, school board, teacher and superintendent led education reform plan- emphasis added for maximum impact!

 Mr Bush added, “I’m a conservative, but this is a national imperative. We have close to no standards.” No standards? What have we been doing for the last 50 years?Just a note of interest, with Common Core there are actually much fewer standards than are currently in place, by the way Mr Bush.

Note to self, Bush’s and Haslam’s partnership and education foundation receives funding from major Republican Party donors as well as the philanthropic foundations run by Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg. 

“The event was hosted by the State Collaborative on Reforming Education (S.C.O.R.E.), a Nashville think tank founded by former U.S. Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist. Members of the Tennessee General Assembly were also in the audience, the source below reveals. The Bush-Haslam reform partnership came a few weeks into a legislative session where Tennessee lawmakers were expected to vote on controversial education bills, including a statewide authorizer for charter schools and a generous school voucher program. ” Another reform measure to take away our school board and parents voice. Bring on WGU.
http://m.wknofm.org/?utm_referrer=http%3A%2F%2Fatthechalkface.com%2F2013%2F08%2F23%2Fhaslam-bush-wgu-and-mcgraw-hill%2F#mobile/25392

10) Charter Schools: Haslam signs bill making charter schools more accessible, his idea of bringing new businesses and jobs to TN.
http://news.tn.gov/node/7341

Haslam threatens to take away money from schools in TN for not implementing charter schools! Remember, this man is vested somehow and he doesn’t make a decision without a check in his hand.
http://nashvillepublicradio.org/blog/2012/08/16/haslam-backs-off-threats-to-withhold-state-money-from-mnps/

Charter schools jump 12 fold and growing under Haslams reign.
http://timesfreepress.com/news/2013/nov/17/charter-schools-prompt-concerns-about-money/?news

11) School Vouchers: The timeline continues. Remember Jeb Bush came to town and suggested it and Haslam assumed the lead!  It’s that simple! Does Haslam have an original thought?
http://m.knoxnews.com/news/2013/jan/14/gov-haslam-to-push-for-limited-school-voucher/

12)  WGU, Western Governors University an online Diploma mill, another venture for Bill Haslam coming out of the meeting with Jeb Bush. McGraw Hill  gets the nod to provide the material. . .” a landmark agreement to establish a “pay-for-performance” model in which McGraw-Hill will receive variable compensation for those WGU students who use MHE technology and services for a particular course and pass.”

Through the partnership, McGraw-Hill Education will provide e-books and access to industry-leading adaptive learning tools including McGraw-Hill LearnSmart to Western Governors University’s (WGU) online courses.” 

Meanwhile back in Tennessee just a few weeks later after Bush met with Haslam to talk corporate education reform, Haslam once again was doing the “I’m vested and will do whatever you want dance” and produced the following informercial on YouTube to promote a sweetheart deal to hand over $5 million in public money to set up an office for WGU in Tennessee., with Bill Gates kicking in $750,000.  This public largesse for an out-of-state corporate diploma mill comes at a time when public universities and community colleges can’t pay the light bills or cut the grass.  Please watch (it’s short):
http://m.youtube.com/index?desktop_uri=%2F&gl=US#/watch?v=O0uqrWSecpM

Could there ever be a sweeter corporate welfare deal?  Move right into the State, with taxpayer support and become a state university overnight!
http://atthechalkface.com/2013/08/23/haslam-bush-wgu-and-mcgraw-hill/

13) Bill Haslam, the United Nations via the Gates Foundation awarded $90 million to Memphis City Schools almost a year ago to improve teacher quality. Teacher quality? Are you beginning to
see where teacher evaluations, pay for performance complete with hiring and firing decisions, loss of teaching licenses based on a child’s performance on tests was born? 

 In attendance at this meeting was the then newly elected Governor Bill Haslam, who quickly accepted Gates money for Tennessee schools, but it didn’t come without the favor for money given. Does Bill Haslam do anything he is not told while a check is being written? It doesn’t seem so!

And Bill Gates praised the state’s (Haslams)  willingness to try new things:

“This idea of measuring teachers is very important because a teacher wants to know what they could do better…”

Gates also said  he “wants data to drive teacher evaluations nationwide!”

And as the attention turned to Haslam as the new Governor, Bill Gates essentially tells Haslam what he will do, with a 90 million dollar bribe of course and Haslam does it!

Melinda Gates, Bill Gates spouse offered this challenge to our spongy Governor,

“For a governor-elect, it’s really ‘Continue the course,’ and there will be tweaks to make along the way; there are going to be some hard times ahead, as you try to make sure you get an effective teacher in every classroom. It’s going to take some political will to do that with the parents and the teachers, but I think he’s very committed and we’re excited to be here, and will continue to work with whatever administration is here working in Tennessee.”

The Governor wet and soiled himself in this instance and has in one fell swoop appeased the United Nations/UNESCO/Education Reformer. Gates continued,  “I’m excited by the momentum around education reform, and will maintain it going forward.” Notice, no questions asked, Bill Gates says do it this way, and it is done. No questions asked! Done!

Gates, a UN puppet ended the meeting with this; “Countries with educational systems outperforming the United States academically all have three things in common:
— Students spend more time in school.
— Schools in different areas share the same curricula, or “common core,” meaning a student moving cross-country can arrive in a classroom studying the same material as the old one.
— Teachers get lots of feedback about their strengths and weaknesses.
 (Lets pretend that we don’t know that most countries only report their top students against our median average of all students, let’s leave that fact out of the equation, Mr Gates. Bill Haslam the whip has been  snapped and another set of bad policies are well on their way to
changing the way TN educates it’s children.
http://nashvillepublicradio.org/blog/2010/11/04/bill-and-melinda-gates-visit-praise-tennessee-on-education-reform/

Here is a picture of Bill Haslam and Bill Gates with Phil Bredesen at the meeting.
http://www.forbes.com/pictures/fdmi45fmj/bill-gates-phil-bredesen-bill-haslam/

Bill Gates inks agreement with UNESCO, given to Haslam, to do exactly what the UN wants him to do. Remember, not to long ago the Governor refused to sign off on the anti-Agenda 21 bill from the legislature and senate. Agenda 21 specifically addresses education in it’s plan. Gates and Haslam seem to know that!
UNESCO Agreement with Gates.

Click to access UNESCO-MS.pdf

14) Teacher Evaluations and pay. Bill gates said it, Haslam does it! Let’s rethink our teacher evaluations and tie their license to how well their students perform on tests and decrease their pay too!
http://news.tn.gov/node/8213

Haslam taps SCORE to do teacher evals! Cha Ching !
http://www.nooga.com/mobile/#149893/haslam-taps-score-to-review-new-teacher-evaluation-system/

15) Do I even need to post a link of what happens next, in true Haslam fashion, if it benefits him and you give him money, he’ll do it!

Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam today launched WGU Tennessee — http://tennessee.wgu.edu/ — an online, competency-based university aimed at expanding access to higher education for Tennesseans.

16) Haslam and K-12 investments led by Saudis? Again, the anthem repeated by Haslam. The following summary was provided by the link below ” It turns out that the system of federal subsidies to university programs of Middle East Studies (under Title VI of the Higher Education Act) has been serving as a kind of Trojan horse for Saudi influence over American K-12 education. Federally subsidized Middle East Studies centers are required to pursue public outreach. That entails designing lesson plans and seminars on the Middle East for America’s K-12 teachers. These university-distributed teaching aids slip into the K-12 curriculum without being subject to the normal public vetting processes. Meanwhile, the federal government, which both subsidizes and lends its stamp of approval to these special K-12 course materials on the Middle East, has effectively abandoned oversight of the program that purveys them (Title VI).
Enter the Saudis. By lavishly funding several organizations that design Saudi-friendly English-language K-12 curricula, all that remains is to convince the “outreach coordinators” at prestigious, federally subsidized universities to purvey these materials to America’s teachers. And wouldn’t you know it, outreach coordinators or teacher-trainers at a number of university Middle East Studies centers have themselves been trained by the very same Saudi-funded foundations that design K-12 course materials. These Saudi-friendly folks happily build their outreach efforts around Saudi-financed K-12 curricula.”
http://bwcentral.org/2013/11/prentice-hall-and-pearson-educations-libyan-ownership-and-islam-biased-textbooks/

17) Bill Haslam invests in K12. Yes he did and supposedly dumped his stock before running for office.
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20130909/NEWS0201/309090034/Gov-Haslam-invested-K12-education-company-one-time

18) For sake of time, I will only mention further radical groups that Haslam has embraced as a tool to change education results in our state of TN and they are SCORE, Teach for America, Students First and Achieve Inc ! It’s worthy to research these organizations because they are the catalyst to do the Governors dirty work!

In summary, you can easily see who is really driving education reform in TN and across the nation, big corporate money, special interests,  a seedy middle east influence, education reformers, self made millionaires, opportunists, big oil,  government controllers and they all have one thing in common and that is our Tn State Governor Bill Haslam. 

Other sources of information:

Pearson who are they?
http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/1850169

Pockets of rebellion: Many educators are calling for Huffman and Haslam to stop their assault and push toward education reform.
http://usnews.nbcnews.com/_news/2013/10/04/20759234-parents-teachers-join-pockets-of-rebellion-against-common-core?threadId=3830961&commentId=79453394#c79453394

http://www.networkforpubliceducation.org/news/tn-school-superintendents-ask-gov-haslam-to-rein-in-commissioner-huffman-the-tennessean/

Is Bill Haslam turning TN into Saudi Arabia?
http://www.zimbio.com/Mayor+Bill+Haslam/articles/oxAhrKLMukc/Governor+Haslam+tuning+Tennessee+Saudi+Arabia

http://education-curriculum-reform-government-schools.org/w/2013/03/pearsons-libyan-ownership-and-islam-biased-textbooks/

http://tn.gov/education/cte/Career_Clusters/Career_Clusters.shtml

An added bonus: Many other allegations about the Haslam dynasty.
http://www.tennessean.com/article/20130425/NEWS0201/304250057/Pilot-Flying-J-mess-could-hurt-Bill-Haslam-s-political-ambitions

Pearson Middle East
http://www.pearsonmiddleeastawe.com/

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2011/feb/28/libya-pearson-financial-times

Gadafis assets frozen
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/feb/27/gaddafi-family-assets-frozen-queen

Haslam and Huffman sweep into a public school, select taxpaying citizens ousted with police escort.

Haslam and Huffman sweep into a public school, select taxpaying citizens ousted with police escort.

Breaking News:  11/8/13

Governor Bill Haslam and TN Secretary of Education Kevin Huffman whisk into town, the general public is not allowed in their vicinity.

It could be called “Gestapo” like as taxpaying citizens were profiled then escorted out of a public school library where Huffman and Haslam were within minutes of speaking.

The site, the Cleveland Middle School in Cleveland Tennessee, the provocateur principal Mike Collier.

A couple of concerned parents, who happen to be Veterans who fought in foreign wars, taxpayers and coincidentally independent reporters  were attempting to attend a public meeting of which they wanted to attend, to gather information. 

Mike and I have covered events across the nation and have even ventured where most men dare trod to get you the truth. 

We were immediately given access to the building then denied the right to stay and listen to the Governor and his Secretary of Education because many labeled us a disruptive or combative although our records are clean of that charge.

A sunny afternoon it was and the mood in the main office area jovial with many suits and a strong police presence felt in room. 

When entering the room my escort and myself were met with many friendly faces and were asked if we were with the press, we signed in, were given our pass, our sticker which we quickly attached to our lapels of our shirts.

Police quickly shuffled us in as the guest speakers were soon to be arriving. 

The ease of entry was surprising which left  me and Mike at ease because after all, a publicly announced meeting inside a taxpayer funded school should be this easy. Concerned, law abiding citizens should be able to gain entrance into a public school where they plan to distribute info that may directly affect my children.

Our soul intent was to attend the meeting, gather, video and assimilate information out to a very hungry public. 

After all, if it’s coming from the Governor and the Secretary of Education why should it be kept secret and why should it be a private meeting. Why should we not be allowed to attend?

As we are setting up our cameras for the big media event, a lady enters the room and says I’m so sorry we must ask everyone for their press credentials and she turns to me and Mike Mallard with Tin Ship Productions (a nationally known documentary team) and myself, a staff writer of BCN with near 150,000 readers in 164 countries to display our credentials.

Mike and I were quickly encircled with Principal Mike Collier, the lady, and two policemen at our sides. It was obvious by the lack of activity outside this rather small group that we were the only ones being asked for credentials and quite frankly the only ones that needed them. So we searched our pockets, our wallets no credentials found and no one else in the room were being asked. So we knew the mood was fixing to change a very public lynching was to ensue.

We were approached by very aggressive principal that started making demands for us to leave as it was obvious the conservative “right wing”, independent reporters were not welcome and clearly had no say so in this debate. He must have read the latest DHS memo on Christians and right wing terrorists destroying the country.

After asking several pointed questions of which no defining answers followed we were told this is not open to the public and that we were not welcome.

At the crescendo and the principal obviously tiring at having his “authori-ty” questioned he lunged toward me and said “we do not allow combative people like you into these meetings!!!” I chuckled as evidently I asked one to many questions and replied “Sir, I’m not yelling at you so I do not expect you to yell at me!” “I’m just trying to find out how I can attend this meeting!” 

I changed the tempo a bit and slid around to his left, leaving his forehead and his hands shaky for some reason. I said “at this point I would like to be considered a concerned parent and a taxpaying citizen and would like to stay and not video but take notes of the planned speech by our duly elected Governor and his appointee” at which time he flashed his hands in a sweeping motion and said forcefully like a child exiting his office “GET THEM OUTTA HERE!!!”

As we exit the heavily guarded entrenchment with police escort, the library at our backs and into the main office I hear a familiar female voice squeaking condescendingly “That sure didn’t take you long! Is it over?” The laughter around her clearly displayed that the intent of her comment was relayed to me and Mike that we were not welcome in this very public building.

The walk to the exit to the end of the awning was very pleasant and as our escort turned verbal we met a very nice and friendly officer, last name Mason. He was very accommodating and apologetic stating he was not trying to squelch our rights. But our rights were violated! His willingness to honor someone eliminating my ability to peaceably gather and redress my government, to have freedom of the press stripped and to somehow impede the balancing of the powers of our federal government and their representatives, yes their was an assist here!

Yes, unknowingly perhaps but being the escort that gives these self appointed elite the ability to rewrite the Constitution and enforce their assumed power, yes, yes, you did participate in that classless action by providing a means for them to weld their unchecked tyrannical behavior.

Mike and I and several others soon resign to the partitioned “grassy knoll” to watch as the Governor, the Secretary of Education and their lap dogs arrived like rock stars and enter unscathed, unquestioned and uninhibited through the halls and the path we, who just moments ago exited under police duress. From this public domain they will now spew their well timed rhetoric to a liberal press that will filter till the info is unrecognizable and is palatable enough for all the sheep to lap up and digest!  

I’m sure the lead in story on all newscasts will be about their strong support of the unproven common core federalized standards. The propaganda spin cycle is on and completely unfettered by a concerned public attempting to dispel the agenda of the federal machine. Spin the nightly news will you please?

As a vocal or better known outspoken American you will never know the feeling of loss as when you lose your rights at the barrel end of a gun and witness a government completely out of control, unbridled and ready to pull the trigger.

Ponder these thoughts and observe the happenings around you! We are losing our rights and many more don’t care or are simply uninformed.

I’m becoming very accustomed to this type behavior and all too familiar with my rights not being honored. I’m still thinking this is not such a good thing! Right?

To contact this Principal I would encourage you to call or email him. Please be civil, nice and I do not condone violence or any threats.

I think it would do a world of good to let him know there are many out there that feel that the Constitution is still intact and many are still willing to speak up for those rights and believe in full disclosure, especially if our kids are involved!

Principal Mike Collier:
Cleveland Middle School
Cleveland Tennessee.
423-479-9641 ext 8002
mcollier@clevelandschools.org

Common Core: “State Led?”, think again

Common Core: “State Led?”, think again

Think the Common Core State Standards are State led? 

Many have led you to believe that the Common Core standards were born from the states. 

The states had very little choice but to implement them, not create them.

They were left with no choice but to accept hundreds of millions of dollars to reform education.

The push from the top down forced the states to adopt the standards that were created using many layers of influence around the world.

From Marc Tucker, ALEC, UNESCO, to BIll Gates and the United Nations, etc, this has never been nothing but a huge plan put into motion many years ago to radically reform our educational system thus controlling the future generations minds and shaping the future. Thus birthing the next generation of little Socialists and Marxist hell bent on morphing our world into a one government, one world scenario.

Don’t just take my word for it. Read the info below, do your own additional  research and you will quickly see that Common Core is a federally funded and forced reality complete with the assistance of the UN and funded with the wallet of Bill Gates and his foundation.

The link below contains the timeline posted below and can be easily printed for your use to help spread the word about this nationalization of our public schools.

Click to access CCSS-timeline-bulletpoints.pdf

• 1988: Marc Tucker became the president of the National Center for Education and the Economy (NCEE) where he joined up with Hillary Clinton, Mario Cuomo, and Ira Magaziner to get states to move away from local control of their schools and migrate to national standards. (link)
http://mississippipep.wordpress.com/2011/09/03/controversial-author-marc-tucker-to-speak-at-ms-dept-of-education-statewide-forum-sept-14/

• 1990: George H. W. Bush signed an international agreement entitled, “World Education for All (EFA), the result of a United Nations “World Conference on Education for All” summit. (link)
http://www.restoreokpubliceducation.com/node/687

• 1991: Tucker and Lauren Resnick created New Standards that pushed standards-based reform. 

• 1992: Tucker writes “Dear Hillary Letter.” This letter, written to Hillary Clinton, addressed Tucker’s ideas for radical education reform after Bill Clinton’s presidential win. The goal is “to remold the entire American system” into “a seamless web that literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same systems for everyone,” coordinated by “a system of labor market boards at the local, state and federal levels” where curriculum and “job matching” will be handled by counselors “accessing the integrated computer-based program.” (link)

• 1994: Tucker’s ambitious plan was implemented in three laws passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton: the Goals 2000 Act, the School-to-Work Act Opportunities Act, and the reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) called “Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994.” (link)

• 1996: An organization called ACHIEVE, Inc. was formed by the nation’s governors and corporate leaders. (Many of them tied to Marc Tucker and the NCEE). The goals from an Education Summit in Palisades, NY were to ACHIEVE the goals of the 1994 school reform bills. 

• 1998: Tucker and Judy Codding created America’s Choice, a comprehensive school reform program, that made sure the national standards were further implemented into schools.
http://www.timeandlearning.org/marc-tucker

• 2001: George W. Bush renames ESEA “The No Child Left Behind Act” and signed it into law.

• 2004: Microsoft (Bill Gates) contracts with UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) to fulfill part of UNESCO’S Millennium Campaign Goals—universal education and educating for a global economy. A “master curriculum” for teacher training in information technologies based standards, guidelines, benchmarks, and assessment techniques is to be developed.
http://www.crossroad.to/articles2/05/ed-watch/12-2-unesco-gates.htm

Below is Bill Gates agreement with the UN to make the push for radical reform in the United States as part of the Millenium Development Goals that many of our churches have joined to bring in a One World Religion.

(UNESCO / Gates Foundation Agreement)

Click to access CCSS_UNESCO_MICROSOFT_AGREEMENT.pdf

• 2005: Bill Gates funds the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce—created by Tucker. States begin adopting its education reform initiative, “Tough Choices or Tough Times.” In 2008, Utah’s Governor Huntsman touts it and joins with 5 others states (Massachusetts, Delaware, Arizona, New Mexico, and New Hampshire) who adopt it in order to “reinvent their educational systems.” 
http://www.skillscommission.org/?page_id=135

• 2008: Gates Foundation, along with two other foundations, created Strong American Schools (a successor to the STAND UP campaign launched in 2006, which was an outgrowth of UNESCO’s Millennium Campaign Goals for Universal Education). It calls for American education standards.
http://www.nms.org/Blog.aspx

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stand_Up_and_Take_Action

• 2008: Gates Foundation funds the International Benchmarking Advisory Group report for Common Core Standards on behalf of the National Governors Association, Council of Chief State School Officers, and ACHIEVE, Inc. titled, “Benchmarking for Success: Ensuring U.S. Students Receive a World-Class Education.” This report shows the United Nations is a member of the International Benchmarking Advisory Group for Common Core Standards. The member of mention is the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which developed UNESCO’s Millennium Declaration—partnering with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund.

Click to access BenchmarkingforSuccess.pdf

The report states: While states must take the lead, the federal government can help. And the federal government can do that best by playing an enabling role grounded in a new vision for the historic state-federal partnership in education.
http://www.achieve.org/BenchmarkingforSuccess

• 2009:  Marc Tucker writes a chapter in the book “Change Wars: The Inspiring Future for Educational Change.” One chapter is called International Benchmarking as a Lever for Policy Reform. The book says the UN’s OECD launched Programme for International Student Assessment in 2000 to monitor the outcomes of education. Linda Darling-Hammond (Weather Underground with Bill Ayers) also contributes a chapter. Darling-Hammond heads the SBAC (see 2009, December below)
http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/1934009318/ref=redir_mdp_mobile/185-5018575-2937229?qid=1330537718&ref_=sr_1_1&s=books&sr=1-1

• April, 2009: Gates Foundation members, along with a few dozen others, participate in a Washington conference and produce “Smart Options: Investing the Recovery Funds for Student Success.” These ideas were funded by the 2008 Stimulus (ARRA-American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) and supported Race to the Top. Priority 1: Develop Common American Standards—also called Career-Ready Standards—in most states by January 2012. (link)

Click to access 429-arrasmartoptions.pdf

• 2009 (summer): Council of Chief State School Officers, National Governors Association, and ACHIEVE, Inc. agree to partner on a common core standards project.
This site has since been evidently taken down by those protecting the information.
http://www.wera-web.org/?s=2.2+SBAC+Overview.pdf&search_404=1

• 2009 (fall): The U.S. Dept. of Ed signals it will fund $360M for summative assessments aligned to Common Core Standards and begins planning meetings. Two consortia begin competing for this funding: Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium and Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. States begin adopting Common Core Standards and join one of the consortia in order to receive No Child Left Behind waivers from the U.S. Department of Education Secretary, Arne Duncan.
This info has also been taken down by those trying to control the information, but it was there and the link is provided but states it no longer exists.
http://www.wera-web.org/?s=2.2+SBAC+Overview.pdf&search_404=1

• 2009 (December): Utah becomes a governing member state of Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and is obligated to use the assessments created by the SBAC which is led by Bill Ayers’ friend, Linda Darling-Hammond. Judy Park, Associate Superintendent, Utah State Office of Ed, eventually co-chairs the Consortia.

Click to access Smarter-Balanced-Governance.pdf

• 2009 (December): Gates Foundation gives the National PTA a $1 million grant to mobilize parents for Common Core Standards.
http://www.gatesfoundation.org/Search#q/k=Common%20core%20race%20to%20the%20top

The second link has also been removed but this one exists:
http://www.pta.org/search/searchresults.cfm

• June, 2010: National Governors Association and State Education Chiefs launch Common State Academic Standards.
http://www.corestandards.org/articles/8-national-governors-association-and-state-education-chiefs-launch-common-state-academic-standards

• April 2011: The SBAC Overview Curriculum and Assessment Conference issues a report stating that governing member states “must” adopt Common Core by Dec. 31, 2011. Note this does not say the states must create the standards, it says the states must adopt! Adopt meaning here they are…..use them and get a bundle of money to do so.

Click to access sbac_overview.pdf

• 2011: The American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) education task force calls for the demise of the Common Core Standards, but puts it on hold after receiving a $376,635 grant from the Gates Foundation. Reminder: A couple of TN legislators hold key positions within this organization.
http://www.missourieducationwatchdog.com/2011/12/bill-gates-gift-to-alec-376635-reasons.html?m=1

• 2011: Bill Gates speaks at the November G20 Summit in Cannes and issues his report, “Innovation With Impact: Financing 21st Century Development” stating, “My report will address the financing needed to achieve maximum progress on the Millennium Development Goals, and to make faster progress on development over the next decade.”
This site info has also been taken away!
http://americanpolicy.org/2012/01/04/global-poverty-act-is-back-is-bill-gates-the-world%E2%80%99s-richest-useful-idiot/

• 2011: Obama Education Secretary Arne Duncan announces “Today, I promise you that [the Department of Education] will be a committed partner in the national effort to build a more environmentally literate and responsible society… We must advance the sustainability movement through education… Education and sustainability are the keys to our economic future-and our ecological future.” (link)
http://www.uspartnership.org/main/view_archive/1

• 2012: States begin to recognize the loss of local control and enormous cost of implementation of the Common Core Standards. Many states begin pushing back. The Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute call the standards unconstitutional per federal education law.

• 2012: States not on Common Core and not meeting the Annual Yearly Progress requirements of NCLB petition congress for relief. Lawmakers working on options are undercut when the Obama White House circumvents congress to grant waivers from NCLB if states adopt Common Core.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/02/09/no-child-left-behind-waivers-let-team-obama-seize-control-your-childs-education/

Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott stated that the common standards movement amounted to a “desire for a federal takeover of public education.” Now, additional states (who originally signed on), including Massachusetts, Iowa, Kansas, and Virginia, are expressing concerns about the common standards initiative.
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/02/09/no-child-left-behind-waivers-let-team-obama-seize-control-your-childs-education/

Gov. Nikki Haley just signed a letter supporting legislation in South Carolina to block CCSS implementation stating, “South Carolina shouldn’t relinquish control to a consensus of states any more than the federal government.”
This site has also been removed:
http://www.foxcarolina.com/story/16947979/bill-would-block-education-standards-in-sc

It is so obvious the standards did not begin with the states, they were picked up by a determined messenger (Gates) from a higher entity (UN) and delivered to many non governmental agencies, wrapped up nicely and delivered to the states in the form of bribes (RTTT Grants) 

Bill Gates’ Foundation contributes 10s of millions, during this time frame for consideration and development of the Common Core initiative. See below: 

Counsel of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO): 2009–$9,961,842, 2009–$3,185,750, 2010–$743,331, 2011–$9,388,911

National Governor’s Association (NGA): 2008–$2,259,780

Mark Tucker’s NCEE: 2009–$1,500,000

Total: $27,000,000

To any who still harbor the illusion that Common Core State Standards were the product of the states simply coming together, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.

Special thanks to the many people involved in digging this information up. Much work has been done by people all around the country to put this information together and help follow the money trail. Please do your part now in passing this information on to everyone you know so they can be educated about what the Common Core Initiative is really all about.

63 Superintendents draft “No Confidence” petition to Huffman’s radical reform

63 Superintendents draft “No Confidence” petition to Huffman’s radical reform  

Teneessee Education Czar Kevin Huffman, a Bill Haslam appointee has been on a radical romp in Tennessee the last few years transforming our educational system into a nationalized mess leaving many doubting his motives.

Pushing RTTT, common core, charter schools, new teacher assessments, merit based pay, reduced overall teacher pay, nationalized education, nationalized school boards while trending away from local control, Teach For America and many other reforms are drastically changing the educational landscape in Tennessee. Many within the system forced to accept these changes are not happy.

The 63 or so Superintendents from the state of Tennessee have started a petition to garner Mr Huffmans attention and tell him they may have something to add if only given the opportunity and that they are not happy with the product presented.

A statewide petition made up of educators and superintendents are requesting state legislators and Governor Bill Haslam to reconsider his appointment and the direction our state is heading regarding his massive education reform agenda.

This group of Superintendents are essentially saying they have no confidence in the reform he is initiating.

Mr Huffman brings very little experience as an educator working sparsely as a teacher inside TFA (Teach For America)  an organization marked to replace teachers when they do not measure up to the new teacher evaluation system. TFA is a 7 week training course for “bright individuals” trained in these socialist tactics of Mr Huffmans. My research has revealed they don’t even have to be teachers to graduate as a TFA product ready to step in and teach for teachers unable to keep their license or jobs.

When teachers are fired or lose their license for poor results on standardized testing or TVASS asessments, a TFA teacher will step  in and perform as a Huffman robot “teacher” that does as he says and the new system requires of them.

As an attorney, Huffman is not known as a teacher, and reportedly only taught in lower grades for a couple of years developed from within the TFA puppy, er, teacher mill.  

He is well positioned to be a useful idiot of the federal government to radicalize and eventually nationalize our educational system. He wears that “Yes man” suit well.  Perhaps a DOE post in his not so distant future.

Having roughly half of all Superintendents signing this petition  sends a strong message to Huffman and Haslam.

They are calling on our state legislators and Governor Haslam to stop his radical reform immediately and halt the assault on the system that holds the future of our children and weakens our teachers ability to teach our children.

The petition, posted below is withholding the names of those signed fearing that Mr Huffman or Haslam will retaliate and weaken their push to have him removed. Their names will be added upon presentation to Haslam as soon as next week.

The petition warns of possible political fall out for Haslam if he continues to support Huffman and his changes. See petition below:

Click to access DN211626911.pdf

The petition suggests that Mr Kevin Huffman is “not interested” in dialogue with educators on the front lines and even sees them as an “impediment” to implementing his socialistic changes. 

Several superintendents voiced they are “desiring input” into this change but have not been asked, just simply asked to tow the line, no questions asked. 

What little input that has been heard has fallen on “deaf ears” even calling their efforts “futile.” The petition goes on to say “Today we feel that we are not respected and valued and and that the unique culture of our system is not valued…..feeling voiceless and powerless.”

This hardly seems like the environment we need for our teachers and ultimately our children. With this many folks unhappy, where is the motivation for them to succeed?

Bill Haslam  must now know that further support for these radical ideas with even deeper radical ties is not the best choice for Tennessee.

Firing or not renewing their licenses, based on the results of a broken system is ridiculous and begs for us to ask questions of their intent. 

Kevin Huffman brings to the table a portion of his past that may be influencing his decisions even today. It is a proven fact that not too long ago he was married, now divorced to Michelle Rhee, another equally controversial radical reformer with her own problems and controversies. 

Kevin Huffman has obviously taken a few plays from his ex wife’s playbook. It is rumored their children attend schools in TN. Why would there not be an influence? 

Michelle Rhees legacy of failure and controversy has followed her from DC to other parts of the nation and is now shaping our educational system.

The radical reformer has dealt with several education scandals in her recent past varying from reduced teacher salaries, firing superintendents and teachers, cheating on standardized testing stirring heavy resistance and upheaval from many different districts and educators.
http://www.therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=10102

Not falling far from that tree is her ex-husband, Kevin Huffman, who has his own issues brewing in Tennessee, not unlike those his wife has  encountered.

Their shared idea of transforming our educational system into a socialistic utopia dead set on targeting teachers solely as the blame for poor schools  is not sitting well with many.

Has anyone asked our teachers what they think is best for our school system?

 I can only bet there are about a million teachers in TN that could give you strong enough answers to radically transform our system without getting rid of those that teach and love the profession dearly.

Teachers must speak up and support their Superintendents that are sticking their necks out. Next move, if you want to be heard you must speak up.

You can easily see the motive of large cheating scandals of teachers losing their jobs or worse if kids do not score well enough. This is the environment being fostered in Tennessee.

Other sources of information:

http://www.wrcbtv.com/story/23428978/tenn-education-commissioner-responds-to-petition

http://www.tennessean.com/article/20130913/NEWS04/309130161/Metro-Nashville-teachers-vote-no-confidence-Kevin-Huffman?gcheck=1

http://www.change.org/petitions/stop-hurting-our-schools-remove-kevin-huffman-as-the-appointed-tn-commissioner-of-education

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2012/08/30/is-teach-for-america-working/teach-for-america-is-a-glorified-temp-agency

http://tn.gov/education/AboutCommissioner.shtml