Bradley County Schools Director Cash says “information about Islam is “just a tool” teachers can use.

Bradley County Schools Director Cash says “information about Islam is  “just a tool” teachers can use.

09192015
0848 am

The Cleveland Bradley Ministerial Association conducted a question and answer session recently in Cleveland Tennessee, inviting several local and private education leaders to share topics that are going on in their school systems. 

The association is seeking ministers and educators to come together to unite in their efforts to to enhance goals that will improve literacy scores across the county.

According to the Cleveland Daily Banner, a forum of four local leaders spoke to the group Wednesday: Dr. Bill Balzano, president of Tennessee Christian Preparatory School; Dr. Linda Cash, director of Bradley County Schools; Dr. Jeff Elliott, supervisor of curriculum and instruction for Cleveland City Schools; and Ramona Kim, principal of United Christian Academy.

Among the goals discussed was our county wide literacy rate of around 50 percent, Superintendent Linda Cash called this unacceptable. 

Many of the leaders provided input into what could make our schools better and what could better prepare them to excel and prepare them for college and beyond.

In summary from the Cleveland Daily Banner article, among the subjects listed to raise the schools literacy rates were promoting Coach Dungys book, “An Uncommon Life”, Read 20, dance and music classes, the “one-to-one initiative”, early reading and math, improving graduation rates and ACT scores, walkingthe halls praying, providing meals for teachers, landscaping schools, learning of their personal faiths, the K-12 program, etc.

After the introduction and small talk, in a question and answer session, the blended group was directed to Common Core, referring to the The Shahada and the 5 pillars of Islam being taught in public schools by an unnamed group member.

The Cleveland Daily Banner said the organizations unnamed member asked the school leaders about the religion of Islam being taught in schools, calling it “a harmful virus.” 

“The unnamed source referenced information about Islam allegedly being taught in seventh-grade history classes  in Tennessee public schools.”

TN Christian Preparatory Schools Director Dr Bill Balzano spoke first and said “Though there may be information about something in a textbook, he said one must actually look at an individual teacher’s syllabus and curriculum map to see what will be covered and when.”

“Though TCPS is a Christian school, he noted junior and senior students are taught some passages from Islam’s governing book, the Quran, in their Bible classes. Balzano said students must know what other religions believe in order to effectively defend their Christian faith.”

Jeff Elliott the Cleveland City Schools director of instruction and curriculum said “Cleveland’s schools do not push one religion over the others, and all classes are being taught in accordance with state standards which dictate students learn about religions to help them understand history.”

“Cleveland City Schools has also seen a continually increasing population of students learning English as a second language, and he said schools are seeing more students from families practicing different religions.”

“Elliott said students learning more about other religions can help them better relate to other people.”

“He added churches have the most important roles to play in making sure Christian students are knowledgeable about their faith.”

Most interesting to me during this charade was the comments made by the new Director of Bradley County Schools Linda Cash stating “textbooks which may feature information about Islam are JUST A TOOL teachers can use. They have to follow the standards that tell them to teach about various faiths, but they can use a variety of resources.”

Considering the words of Cash, We have now evolved from a Christian based school system to the teaching of Islam as a “tool” to teach our kids. 

She further stated we have to teach the standards (that contains the creed of Islam) to our children to teach them about other faiths. 

Many would say the the public school system is not who they would prefer teaching their child about faith.  Many parents would gladly take on that task within the family and at their places of worship.

Cash continued, “teachers are not going into a tremendous amount of depth when talking about religion.”

“Nothing is taught in isolation,” Cash said, adding that no one religion is taught without the others. 

I deem it ironic that not too long ago the Christian faith and prayer were literally removed from our schools and now that Islam wants us to be inclusive, we teach all religions now!

Dr Linda Cash has now endorsed the teaching of Islam in our Bradley County Schools. Regarding my own children, they have had little exposure to Islam or other faiths in school to date. With her statement supporting teaching Islam as a tool, it may drastically change the teaching environment as teachers may see her comments as a green light.   

Dr Linda Cashs statements could potentially lead to handing our kids over to the influence and will of Islam.   

Maury County TN Schools, particularly Spring Hill High School has been blasted recently for teaching Shahada and the 5 pillars of Islam, requiring their students to memorize the passage and proclaim Allah as the one and only god and Muhammed his servant and prophet, and then administering TCAP tests covering the subject. They were also told to write it on paper as “Allah is the one and only god and Muhammed is his servant” (see Brietbart news link below) All this under the direction of Common Core standards.

My thoughts are if it’s on TCAP, it must be taught in our schools, all of them. Thus, the emphasis on Dr Cashs words when she said teaching Islam is just a tool for teachers to use when they teach.  

The Shahada is a very dangerous Islamic “prayer” for our children to utter while proclaiming Muhammed as a prophet.

It is multifaceted and has many tentacles and is the creed for Islam. 

In very simple terms, by comparison, it’s basically the Christians version of the “Road to Salvation, the Romans Road, the Sinners Prayer or the path to salvation with specified duties to live a faithful life.

In Islam, to become a Muslim according to the Koran, the Hadith and the teachings of Muhammed you must say a prayer or passage to gain entrance to Jennah (Paradise) and to become a devout follower of Allah via Muhammed. That prayer is the Shahada and its proclamation that Allah is the only god and  Muhammed is the prophet. This is the  same prayer that our kids are memorizing and TCAP testing on.

The following is a direct quote from an Islamic website on the subject of Shahada.

“The complete statement of the creed of the Muslim is:
“Ash-shadu anna Laa elaha illa lah. Ash-shadu anna Muhammadar Rasoolulah.” (I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and messenger).

“Every Muslim has been taught that the key to “Jennah” (Paradise) is the statement in Arabic:
  “Laa illaha illa lah.”  (There is none worthy of worship except Allah.) ”

“Many Muslims believe that as long as they have made this statement, nothing will harm them. They think they will be granted Paradise because of this mere verbal statement of the Shahadah.”

“There is no question that the mere saying of the shahadah: “I bear witness that there is none worthy of worship except Allah and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and messenger” is not sufficient for salvation.”

The article continues to elude to the fact that some Muslims only believe the Shahada is their path to Paradise when in fact the Pillars of Islam must be followed also. 

“True scholars of Islam are quick to tell us that this testimony of faith is our “Muftah ul Jennah” (Key to Paradise). The famous follower Wahb ibn Munabbih was once asked;
“Isn’t the statement of “La ilaha illa-lah” the key to Paradise?” 

He answered; “YES! But every key has ridges. If you come with the key that has the right ridges, the door will open for you. Yet if you do not have the right ridges the door will not open for you.” 

Much like the Christian faith and the prayer of repentance, the mere words are not enough, but must be followed by the statement of baptism and living the life, such as obeying the 10 Commandments and following the teachings of Jesus and messages of God almighty.

The 9 conditions of the Shahada are known as:
1) Knowledge  
2) Certainty  
3) Acceptance  
4) Submission  
5) Truth  
6) Sincerity  
7) Love  
8) Denial  
9) Adherence

Your kids are memorizing this prayer and proclamation in your schools!

The Five Pillars of Islam is essentially their rule book for Paradise after proclaiming the acknowledgement of Shahada, Muhammed is the prophet.

The 5 pillars from the Hadith of Gabriel:

1) Faith or belief in the Oneness of God and the finality of the prophethood of Muhammad;
2) Establishment of the daily prayers;
3) Concern for and almsgiving to the needy;
4) Self-purification through fasting 
5)The pilgrimage to Makkah for those who are able.
6) The one that is frequently left out for obvious reasons is Jihad or Holy war on non believers.

Your kids unbeknownst to you have unknowingly pronounced their faith to Allah and Muhammed through the Shahada and introduced to the 5 pillars to live as a righteous Muslim. 

It is a stretch but like myself, to become a Christian I professed my sins and asked God to come into my life, and now your child by professing the Shahada and proclaiming Muhammed as his prophet and servant he or she has submitted and made a faith statement to Allah.

Think about it! If we use the same path of accepting Christ and uttering the sinners prayer to become a follower of Christ doesn’t it make sense that now, technically by virtue of a prayer, your child is now a follower of Islam and Allah?   

What an evil and  ingenious indoctrination “tool” to deliver your your children to Allah . What a statement this makes to Islamic leaders who are very aware of what Shahada is and the tools involved in influencing your children.

Your kids under the direction of our esteemed educators and political leaders have created the path, the “tool” to expose and convert millions of our kids and submit them to the will of Allah. 

The above scenario should enrage you! It amazes me at the lack of concern for what is being taught in our schools and the level of acceptance to co-exist with a political ideology that promotes the desire to conquer your country and dominate your religious beliefs. 

Can you imagine the uproar if our schools chose to make our kids memorize the sinners prayer and the path to conversion, follow Jesus Christ, pronouncing him as our Lord and Savior? The roof would be lifted from these schools and every teacher fired but instead your child in essence has been converted to Islam and you stand unknowing and unaware.

Islam and the teachings of Islam has been creeping into our lives and now the conversion has been placed in overdrive. Stunningly, the reactionary silence is deafening.

I personally doubt Dr Cash knows of the extent to which Islam is trying to gain control of our children. I also doubt she knows of the level of
Influence her simple statement can have on our children’s life. But her acceptance of Islam being taught in our schools as a tool is well worth providing her with the knowledge to retract her statement.

Please contact her or the school boards and let her know her words can be very damaging to our kids.

423-476-0620

http://www.google.com/url?q=http://www.bradleyschools.org/mobile/default.asp&sa=U&ved=0CDwQFjAKahUKEwjiyebSiYPIAhVDdR4KHaa_Bto&usg=AFQjCNEq9cyue4sStxdjNB8DINS1pyVxxg

Sources of information: Please take the time to visit the sites below, they are full of great information. 

Tony Dungy: I wouldn’t have taken Michael Sam

“Allah is the only god, Muhammed is the prophet, Shahada, 5 Pillars of Islam are the creed of Islam” are being taught in TN Schools most recently in Maury County at Spring Hill High School.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/09/10/7th-graders-in-tennessee-made-to-recite-allah-is-the-only-god-in-public-school/

http://www.islamtomorrow.com/9points.htm

Disclaimer: As with all my posts they are only my opinion based on researching the facts. My expressed opinions are to be used as a source of information only. I encourage us all to live peacefully and bring no harm to no one. If you choose to act and harm then that choice is solely yours! Have a blessed day and share this article.

Common Core Lesson Plans: A call to Jihad, Converting to Islam, 5 Pillars of Islam, submitting to the Will of Allah

Common Core Lesson Plans: A call to Jihad, Converting to Islam, 5 Pillars of Islam, submitting to the Will of Allah

5 pillars of Islam, submission to the will of Allah, A call to Jihad, Converting to Islam, what is Islam? Overview of the Koran and Sharia Law, Islam and the US; hate crimes and hope, spirit of Islam,  root causes of muslim anger with the west, Muslims creating huge empire on 3 continents.

Sounds like the start of a novel or the beginning of a sci fi movie or perhaps the government uncovering a terror plot with the discovery of manuals to carry it out. No! 

What you just read above are lesson plans designed by Lesson Planet for teachers in your public schools in the United States based on Common Core standards as part of the infamous Race To The Top.

Lesson Planet boasts that 400,000 teachers use their plans in their classrooms everyday.

These lesson plans are being followed and designed around Common Core guidelines inside our schools in Tennessee and in the majority of states across our country and our kids are being exposed daily to this brainwashing.

Common Core! The state led initiative to indoctrinate your child with the necessary tools to make them a “good citizen inside a global world.”

Implanted in this very devious scheme, some call nationalization of our school system, lies a Trojan horse that has many tentacles. 

The obvious takeover of our schools by an overreaching government, the dumbing down of our children to the lowest denominator, the ridding of local control of our schools and boards and the easing of our nation into the hands of Islam with Sharia Compliance as the law of our land. This package is wrapped neatly inside a dominant political system while the foundations of our country are being eroded and replaced and parents think our kids are learning the 3 Rs and their ABCs in our schools both public and private. Our kids are being led down a path by our schools that opens their minds to religious beliefs that should be left up to the church and their parents choosing of the most suitable and preferred belief system for their child.

Our kids, parents, teachers, school boards and Superintendents should be yelling Danger, Stranger Danger very loudly through the halls of our schools. Instead, we hear the gentle cry from the politically correct that we should be all encompassing, tolerant and willing to learn more about “other” religions. We should at least respect them and understand where they are coming from. Right?

Take a minute and read an excerpt from one our assigned Common Core textbooks. It’s pretty easy to see the propaganda and lies to protect one religion over another. 
https://attachment.fbsbx.com/file_download.php?id=632628836772053&eid=ASuVoBaDs1X8xNjUBkzZxCE4WF6ElNTfDCImD0V2huSO_y1xZGgt2p6NfXtGXhh67Ks&ext=1377003589&hash=ASvS6IdNvETimv7g

This is creeping sharia ladies and gentlemen, this is also taqiyah. The deliberate lie to gain acceptance. 

This is the gentle yet massive push that the left and Islam need to complete the task of world dominance and they have found Common Core as the vehicle to do their dirty deed inside the US.

We no longer live securely in a world where we are wrapped up tight inside our own borders, devoid of any outside influence. The enemy is now within. The many faces of our enemy are now inside our own government, they are inside our schools, our country and the persuasive argument that they are also in our minds is in it’s infancy.

Look around you. Listen to the apathy as our nation is ripped to shreds by a concentrated band of evil doers dead set on destroying our country from the inside and the silence from the church and parents is deafening.

Mainstream media is an ineffective monstrosity no longer relied upon to notify it’s citizenry, churches are under attack,  religious leaders are tied and silent, our schools have been successfully re routed, prayer is out and humanism is in, religion and Christianity have taken serious blows, the forefathers have been vilified and the Constitution and it’s credibility are waning, the beginnings and foundation of our country is questioned and on and on.

This is deliberate. As I believe Abraham Lincoln once said       
“America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” 

The enemy has a foothold on the conscience and will of our country. The citizenry is labeled a racist, a bigot, a hater, extremist and even a terrorist if you speak up or out against this coup of our country. It has taken many years and many battles to get here. The propagated system that is in place has raised one generation of children and is working on the next.

The softening and indoctrination of this generation of gullible minds will be the finishing touch that springs us into Socialism and situated within influential positions to perfect the transition.

The left, the communists or whatever you prefer have been working for years to complete this task and will be very successful unless more Americans speak up and speak up loudly.

We are at a critical tipping point. Attempt to talk to a child that has been inside the system, ask them a geography question, how to do their time tables, who is your Congressman etc. The answers will be very shocking and proof that something is astray. 

Why should we be tolerant of Common Core or Islam? Why should we tolerate indoctrination and it’s stronghold on our children and the next generation? Why should I be tolerant of a political system that wants Kafirs (you and I) dead if we don’t convert? Why should I be respectful of a society that sees you as the enemy but yet we need to make our children the tolerant and accepting ones. Why should I sit by idly as Jihad is sending many Americans home in a body bag half the man or woman they once were and bound to a wheelchair for the rest of their lives? Why must I be willing to accept and allow this “religion” where Sharia law dominates and women are less than whale dung? Why? Why does my child’s school feel it needs to be the moral compass for my child’s religious beliefs? Why am I as a parent frowned upon when I demand that my child skip the lessons where “other” religions are discussed?

America was founded on Judaeo Christian values. Our foundation is the 10 Commandments and our God, our savior, of whom millions believed  died on a cross and rose again. My god is not Allah nor Muhammed our messenger. My beliefs or your failure to believe as I do will not result in a sword across the back of my neck and why should I look the other way when my child is being taught Islam and that acceptance is mandatory to be successful inside a global arena?

Why in blue blazes should my child be  subjected to the negativity of “other” religions when my only goal and choice is to show them the love of Christ and not Allah. I could care less if they “understand and become tolerant” of a religion I personally disagree with as a path for which my child should follow. I do not want my child exposed to perhaps other harmful religions, there are things about “other” religions I don not want to think is the norm, to name a couple killing other for your cause and pedophilia. That should be enough, but sadly it isn’t!

Kids are confused enough as is and are trying to sort their way without the confusion of many religious influences in their young minds.

If you wanna teach Islam, Christianity or Buddhism to your child please feel free to do so. After all we live in America and part of living here is we have free choice and the liberties to do as we please inside the law of the land. My liberties are now being infringed upon because now I do not have a choice of what I want my child exposed to. Our school system has taken that right away!

Where did we go wrong when somehow we have relinquished our sovereignty and decision making capability over to a school system that is in the middle of a hostile yet willing takeover.

Backlash? I’m sure many that read this blog will go directly to the sewer and ask why are you and your staff not tolerant of other religions? 

Here is an example of a lesson plan from the standard “submitting to the will of Allah”  where you have replaced one God with another god. 

Whoever desires a religion other than Islam, it shall not be accepted of him, and he shall be among the losers in the hereafter. (3.85)
http://www.islamicwritings.org/spirituality/submitting-ones-will-to-allah/

This is not hardly what I want my 12 year old to learn in middle school, she is trying as others to find herself inside a world that is not always seen clearly. Why add to this confusion? Why not allow the parents to subject that same child to the religious belief they desire, free of any other influence and let the schools get back to teaching the fundamentals of being a good student.

The left has drilled the school system for years, sued, complained and fought for “no religion, bible, pledge, prayers or 10 commandments” in our schools and now they are saying we should be tolerant and accepting of “all” religions? 

The same folks that wanted religion completely out of our schools are now demanding that Allah, Buddah and others be a part of our children’s curriculum. 

Uh uh! I’ve said it before and I’ll say it one more time. How can you not expect a backlash by many Americans when you are doing the exact thing today that you fought to eliminate over the last 40 years, what is good for the goose is good for the gander! 

You have brought the fight to us and regrettably successfully, don’t come whimpering for your religion to be accepted now that you have another agenda. It doesn’t work that way! Not in America! Our memories are not that short!

Common Core must be eliminated from our schools and the real foundations of our country reestablished and the new age foundation, the 5 pillars of Islam eliminated!

Tennessee Content Standards for Common Core curriculum.
http://www.lessonplanet.com/state-standards/tennessee/content-standards

More lesson plans with varying subjects.

http://www.lessonplanet.com/teachers/presentation-islam-expands-in-spite-of-internal-conflicts-the-muslims-create-a-huge-empire-that-includes-land-on-three-continents

http://www.lessonplanet.com/teachers/lesson-plan-what-is-islam-and-what-are-the-root-causes-of-muslim-anger-with-the-west

http://www.lessonplanet.com/search?keywords=5+Pillars+of+Islam

A call to Jihad:
http://www.lessonplanet.com/search?keywords=Jihad&button=

Submitting to the will of Allah:
http://convertingtoislam.com/submit.html

Message to the black man, the Negro, don’t fear the white man, submit to Allah:
http://www.seventhfam.com/temple/books/black_man/blk17.htm

1st Grade Common core standard: What is Islam?
http://ccss1.watchknowlearn.org/Video.aspx?VideoID=8932&CategoryID=4635

Common Core Standard: Overview of the Quran and Sharia Law:
http://education-portal.com/academy/lesson/five-pillars-of-the-islamic-faith-overview-the-quran-sharia-law.html

Common Core: Letter to Editor addresses Ringstaffs defense of standards

BCN Editorial:

Mr Martin Ringstaff you are wrong on so many levels about Common Core. 

You have been delivered perhaps a federal, State, Haslam issued talking points and you are sticking to script.

You have the appearance of being a total puppet or useful idiot of the federally directed program called Common Core that is ultimately nationalizing our states and local school systems.

Your many blunders in the recent article in the banner speaks volumes of your ability to follow marching orders.

We the people, we the legislators, we our representatives did not “vote” for Common Core. 

In 2009,  President Obama, created a stimulus package with taxpayer dollars to “get the economy going”  and from that allocated around 4.3 billion or so for RTTT, Race To The Top.

You, the state and it’s many bureaucrats were asked to bid, jump through hoops to get this money, a sort of competition. Everyone likes competition, right?

The starting pistol sounded and the race to the top or bottom however you choose to look at it has started. 

You put your beat foot forward and several stages later you were awarded a federal grant of 501 million to initiate RTTT.

With only dollar signs in your eyes you forgot to look and see what was was inside this neatly wrapped package.

In fact, very few if any knew Common Core was tucked in it and gulped down by useful idiots only because the taste of money overpowered the urge to see it’s content. 

You accepted Common Core, sight unseen, because at the time of your acceptance, the Common Core standards had not even been completed and signed off when the check was written. Was this purposeful? I’ll let you decide.

Tucked neatly and discreetly inside was only the mention of new standards, very little mention of Common Core or what it entailed.

This was mainly because so many on the board that issues the standards of Common Core would not sign off on them because they were convinced they would not work and get the results desired.

Mr Martin Ringstaff, and Dawn Robinson you are wrong on so many levels.

I received this well written letter to the editor of Bradley County News and have elected print it’s content, unedited.

This encourages me greatly that many within our community are starting to awaken to what our county, city and state leaders are doing to our community and our children.

It is obvious to me and as our thorough research deepens we can clearly see who the puppets and useful idiots are of our federal government.

As the facts are exposed and the dust clears you can begin to see that many of our local city, county and state led representatives have their arms extended through the fog interlocking with the federal government as they attempt to nationalize our education and take over the minds of our children through indoctrination.

Let history be the marker and all involved be held accountable for this federal takeover of our state educational system.

When the chips fall, and they are crumbling fast, let these leftist stand alone with the blood soaked grant money they received for the minds of our children.

Allow me to finish with this thought in mind. Ponder these few questions, please.

Who is responsible for bringing this to Bradley County and our state?

What vote is Mr Ringstaff and Mrs Robinson talking about? Clearly, they assume that state legislators or an elected representative did vote on it, that did not happen. It was a bidding war for stimulus money. NO VOTE was cast that I am aware of by my State  Representative!

Who is vested in this endeavor? Clearly, adjusting the curriculum to the needs of big business makes me wander and guess to the extent of the Chamber of Commerces, a lap dog for the UN, involvement in this endeavor.

Is getting rid of reading literature and adjusting to reading of “technical manuals” going to keep the interest of our children and optimize their learning?

Will reducing our learning standards from the current  “135 to less than 50” Common Core Standards really going to heighten our learning experience?

Why are we not addressing parents in this issue? In the Banner article that started this conversation, Mr Ringstaff did not mention one time the parents and if I recall correctly he did not mention the students as it pertained to their well being. Something is rotten here and it does smell good.

Why are our concerns, many emails and phone calls not being returned when we are inquiring about Common Core.

I have seen one email  from Mr Ringstaff where he dismissed the revealed research as “propaganda” and an article to the Banner about his visit to the Rotary, a UN representative, an NGO or Non Governmental Organization of the United Nations.

I will complete my editorial here and ask you to read the words below very carefully and see the concern of this citizen, taxpayer who is very concerned about the direction that Mr Ringstaff and Mrs Robinson are taking our children in exchange for federal grant money.

LETTER TO THE EDITOR:

Dear Martin Ringstaff and Dawn Robinson,

I read the article recently published in the Banner in which you addressed the Rotary Club on the subject of Common Core.

You paint a very positive picture for the future of education in Cleveland and all of Tennessee because of this new set of standards and the curriculum that will be brought in to align itself with these new standards. 

I have read many things on Common Core as well as other education systems that are being implemented around the country.

I am sure you would disagree with a lot of that analysis that I have studied and would just dismiss it off hand so I promise I won’t bother to argue my points using these sources. 

I find local officials are quick to be dismissive and not engage in debate because they don’t like the sources of information rather than deal with the substance of the information presented. I know this from experience. However my most typical response in none at all. This being the case, I will argue my points strictly from your own words as presented in this article.

The very first thing I noticed in this article is that the word “parent” is nowhere to be found; not even the slightest hint of a reference is ever brought into consideration.

It is very clear from my research (sorry I said I wasn’t going to do that) and from this article that parents are completely left out of this process and their consent was never sought in any of this. 

Who is in control and driving this? I can certainly refer to my research and rattle off the names of government agencies, think tanks, foundations and major corporations but that would violate the promise I made to you at the very beginning of this e-mail. To answer that question let’s refer to your article to provide the answer:

1. State Leadership Council. Who are they? Apparently there are 22 of you arguing details. Did we elect these people as our representatives? No we did not.         

According to this article, this group is charged with the task of “working through the transition” to Common Core so they are certainly not objective and independent.

2. K-12 Educators, College Educators. Again, a generic name to given to create the illusion of approval. 

I challenge you to have one of your teachers go to the Banner and make their own personal, stirring, passionate case for the need of Common Core from their own heart. 

On the other hand, I know several teachers who are at minimum shaking their heads and at maximum making plans to exit the profession because of what this represents. Concerning college “educators”; Are you really trying to tell me that literature professors are begging you to make students read  menus, technical manuals and speeches instead of Homer, Gibbon, Dickens, Longfellow, Tolstoy, Dostoyevsky, and Shakespeare? 

Are you telling me that math and science professors are begging you to strip away the already bare minimum content of Euclidean geometry and physical science classes to allow for more writing and critical thinking skills to be taught during that class time? 

3. Here is the best one that really gets me; Business leaders. This may be just me, but I do not care less about the opinions of business leaders as to what they think my child needs to learn in kindergarten. They have no right to dictate that we change our historic liberal arts education system into their own personnel workforce development racket. This is just another example of corporations transferring their costs (in this case it is employee training and development) to the taxpayer.

Don’t you see how the local school systems have been cheated out of money and made to go beg to the state and federal government for funding just for their very existence?

 Do you not understand that all the PILOT agreements/tax abatements to corporations and now the new tool of tax increment financing pose an ever increasing threat to our tax base and ultimately school funding? 

In this state, the school board has no voice on these decisions on whether to enter into these agreements.In some states you do. 

Do not believe the lie that the school portion of taxes is protected in these agreements. The city of Cleveland as well as the county have run up massive amounts of debt over the last 20 years. Ask these mayors, city council members, county commissioners and members of the local industrial development board why these agreements with corporations haven’t produced budget surpluses? I have asked them. They won’t answer me. Maybe they will answer you. (Warning: broken promise ahead!!) 

If you would like a copy of an NEA study on the effects of tax abatements on school funding, I would be happy to give that to you. 
Sorry, I got off topic. 

In summary, these corporations have taken our money to build their plants, buy their equipment, pay portions of their employees wages through tax credits and now they want to use our money and our K-12 and our universities to be their own personnel training grounds for equipment operators, quality technicians, and other general plant workers and supervisors? 

I say train your own workers with your own money and stay out of education which should belong and be accountable to parents and students alone.

You say “it is not a mandatory, nationally driven, “you have to do it or else” kind of situation”. Really? 

You would have me to believe that the federal government just handed Tennessee $501,000,000 with no strings attached??? 

There was nothing in the Race to the Top application process in which you agreed to implement these standards sight unseen? 

There was nothing that Lamar Alexander had to agree to in order to get us out of the consequences of not being able to meet the requirements of No Child Left Behind? I need help to believe that but I am certainly willing to listen.

In closing I never really made the case for what is wrong with Common Core in and of itself? I will do that now.

– What you described is outcome based education principles. How will that help translate into the real world?

How would you like to be on the operating table and have an outcome based surgeon? Will you give them credit for 85% of the operation being done right? 

Would you get on a plane with an outcome based pilot? Would you give him a passing grade for missing the runway by only 200 yards?

How about outcome based dentistry? 

Outcome based accounting? 

I can go on but I hope you get my point: You are directing children toward mediocrity. 

When your aim is mediocrity you end up a total failure. We don’t accept this anywhere else, why do so in education?

– You are robbing the youngest student of the joy of learning at a time that they are the most teachable just for the sake of utilitarianism. They are not being taught anymore; They will now be trained and assessed. You will direct them toward a predetermined career path by an extremely early age when I personally would council a person to not ever worry about what you want to be before the end of your second year of college. Obviously we differ on that point.

– The removal of great books for “relevant” non-fiction. What is wrong with that? I am not a very smart person but let someone who is answer this question. 

In The Closing of the American Mind, By Dr. Allan Bloom he says these things that I pulled out that text:

“It is not merely the tradition that is lost when the voice of civilization elaborated over millennia has been stilled in this way. It is being itself that vanishes beyond the dissolving horizon”.

“As the awareness that we owed almost exclusively to literary genius falters, people become more alike, for want of knowing they can be otherwise”.

“Thus the failure to read good books both enfeebles the vision and strengthens our most fatal tendency – the belief that the here and now is all there is.”

To all on this e-mail. You did not start us down this road. It has been going on a long time but I believe Common Core represents the final death nail in the coffin of our educational journey in our nation. 

Please consider these words and consider the ramifications of this system to future generations.

Thank you,

Rob Bower

Source of conversation: I encourage you to read this paper often as The Cleveland Daily Banner does an excellent job of covering the “happenings” in our community. Go to the stands and buy up multiple copies and give them to friends and families. Please use the Banner as a great source of information, then entertain your self and turn to BCN for the rest of the story.

http://www.clevelandbanner.com/view/full_story/22315165/article-Ringstaff–Common-Core–has-%E2%80%98awesome%E2%80%99-prospects

Please remember, all my posts, future and present, are my opinion based on facts and my research. I am simply using my first amendment rights to redress concerns with my elected reps, those appointed to represent me and my tax dollars they spend.