John McCain Using IAF To Push Amnesty

From AZCentral.com

"He (McCain) also discussed immigration in separate sessions with the Arizona Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, a group of clergy and evangelical leaders from the Arizona Interfaith Network/Valley Interfaith Project and a group of Valley Hispanic civic leaders, his office said."

The Arizona Interfaith Network/Valley Interfaith Project is an affiliate of the Saul Alinsky Industrial Areas Foundation.

McCain certainly isn't the first Arizona politician to work closely with the IAF.

Governor Brewer

Jeff Flake

Former State Senator Amanda Aguirre

Former State Senator Jerry Lewis

And, of course, the IAF has infiltrated our schools, "for the children."

President Obama's 2008 campaign team talks Alinsky IAF strategy.  They said, 

"Obama comes from a very particular organizing tradition.  And it was founded by this guy, Saul Alinsky, in the 1940s.  He founded an organization called the Industrial Areas Foundation that then spun off a number of different groups including a network called Gamaliel....

There's a couple of key principles in the way that the IAF organizes.  First is that you don't organize around an issue, you organize for POWER."

From the Alinsky's Rules for Radicals playbook:

5.  Ridicule is man's most potent weapon.

8.  Keep the pressure on.  Never let up.

10. The major premise for tactics is the development of operations that will maintain a constant pressure upon the opposition.

11.  If you push a negative hard enough, it will push through and become a positive.

13.  Pick the target.  Freeze it.  Personalize it.  Polarize it.

It Takes A Village And Other Leftist Thought

Remember when a commentator from MSNBC said this?

 

That's because radical leftists honestly believe that only the state and federal government is capable of taking care of OUR children.  You can get a better idea from this picture:

That's why non profit organizations such as the United Way, Boys and Girls Clubs, and Big Brothers/Big Sisters have joined the "It takes a village" effort to help fund their after school programs.

Aside from federal funding, the United Way seeks to partner with private corporations.  They say: 

  Partnering with United Way provides companies a way to invest strategically in their communities and advance the common good by creating lasting, sustainable changes that lead to better, stronger places to live and work.



(Remember back in the day when we thought the words "common good" was code for communism?)

The federal government has donated over $150M since 1992 to the Boys and Girls club.  In recent years, the organization has focused on reducing high school drop out rates. The CEO back in 2010 received a measly $1M salary.  

For the common good.....


Another example is the 21st Century Community Learning Centers here in Arizona.  The state has received over $46M since 2010 from the Department of Education to fund 21st Century Community Learning Centers for after school programs. 

 

"This federally-funded program supports afterschool community learning centers that operate primarily on school campuses statewide. Services include academic intervention and enrichment activities along with a broad array of youth development opportunities. These after school and summer classes complement the student’s regular school day program. The 21^st CCLC programs mainly serve students who attend high-poverty and low-performing schools and their families. After school programs help students meet the core standards in academic subjects such as language arts and math. In addition, other educational services are offered to family members of students participating in the program in order to further engage parents in their student’s learning and achievement goals."

According to the 21st Century Community Learning Centers website, they claim:

The average center provides services:

• 32 weeks of the year
• 4.8 days a week
• 3.2 hours per day
• To 287 students on a regular basis

That's a lot of common good.....


In 2010, the Obama administration authorized the "School Turnaround AmeriCorp" initiative through the Department of Education.  This initiative is a three year grant to pay "volunteers" to go to failing schools in an effort to boost graduation rates.  These "volunteers" then receive a scholarship to attend college.  (How qualified are they to tutor/mentor failing students?)

For the common good.

To The Obama Administration, EVERYTHING Is A "Civil Rights Issue Of Our Generation"

First, it was broadband connections.

From the FCC website:

"Closing the digital divide isn’t just an economic issue, it’s one of the great civil rights challenges of our time. Broadband can be the great equalizer."

NAACP even said,

 

"The thought of civil rights often brings to mind images of historic marches and boycotts. A generation ago, such undertakings brought attention to unequal treatment, encouraging action among those who could work to promote equality.

 

In the age of information, inequality doesn’t look the same as it did in the 20th century. Today’s civil rights challenges include digital inequality."

Then we heard from Arne Duncan that EDUCATION was the great "civil rights issue of our generation."

"Improving education is not just a moral obligation of society, it is not just an economic imperative. It's the

CIVIL RIGHTS ISSUE OF OUR GENERATION ."

 

 

Today, it's amnesty    immigration reform.

 

Eric Holder spoke last week to the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF) and said,

 

“Creating a pathway to earned citizenship is a critical element of any comprehensive immigration reform plan....Establishing legal status for the nation’s estimated 11 million illegal immigrants is a matter of civil and human rights."

Common Core State Standards: Science Curriculum

Being rolled out to a State near you this month...

Suppose Senator Crandall and the State Board of Education have seen it yet?

Oh wait.  They probably have, considering Arizona is a lead state in developing the standards.  Feel free to leave feedback, although it's probably too late.

Next Generation Science Standards

 

"The way to change a system of equalibrium is to create a stress on the system.  These standards have an opportunity to do that....We have an opportunity, and we kinda need to make sure we don't screw this up."

 - Stephen Pruit/ Achieve

 

"States Developing Next Generation Science Standards In a process managed by Achieve, states will lead the development of K–12 science standards, rich in content and practice, arranged in a coherent manner across disciplines and grades to provide all students an internationally-benchmarked science education. The NGSS will be based on the Framework and will prepare students for college and careers. The NGSS will be developed collaboratively with states and other stakeholders in science, science education, higher education and industry. Additional review and guidance will be provided by advisory committees composed of nationally-recognized leaders in science and science education as well as business and industry. As part of the development process, the standards will undergo multiple reviews from many stakeholders including two public drafts, allowing all who have a stake in science education an opportunity to inform the development of the standards. This process will produce a set of high quality, college- and career-ready K–12 Next Generation Science Standards ready for state adoption. The standards will be published on this website when they are completed, in late 2012 or early 2013."

 

 

The Partners:  If you have been following our previous entries, a few of these names should sound familiar to you.

 

National Research Council

National Science Teacher Association

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Achieve

 

 

The Sponsors:

 

Carnegie Corporation of New York  (The irony isn't lost on the fact that this organization is based in a city where 80% of the high school graduates are illiterate and can't even read Bloomberg's mandated  nutrition information on restaurant menus.)

 

Carnegie Corporation has donated millions to groups like:

Center for American Progress

Migration Policy Institute

Tides Foundation

Achieve

PARCC

Council of Chief State School Officers-  in 2012 and 2009 to implement CCSS

American Association for the Advancement of Science - for the Global Knowledge Initiative's Science, Technology and Innovation Collaboration.

Arizona State University- for a symposium on the social, educational and economic impact of Arizona immigration laws 

ACT - 2009 For an initiative to increase the number of students graduating high school who are college and career ready (See previous entries)

 

 

The Noyce Foundation whose board member, Phil Daro,  happens to have been on the committee to write the Math Standards, donates to groups like

 

Achieve

National Governors Association

 

 

The number one concern from the feedback received on the first draft of the "rigorous" standards was that it covered too much material.  This resulted in the removal of some content and other content shifted grade levels in elementary school.

 

 

Curriculum:

 

Things people do can affect the environment but they can make choices to reduce their impacts

Societal activities have had major effects on the land, ocean, atmosphere and even outer space; Students describe things society does to protect Earth’s resources and environments

Human activities have altered the biosphere, sometimes damaging it, although changes to environments can have different impacts for different living things; Activities and technologies can be engineered to reduce people’s impacts on Earth

Resource availability has guided the development of human society and use of natural resources has associated costs, risks and benefits

Sustainability of human societies and the biodiversity that supports them requires responsible management of natural resources, including the development of technologies and regulations

Global climate models used to predict changes continue to be improved, although discoveries about the global climate system are ongoing and continually needed

Humans depend on biodiversity but also have adverse impacts on it, including the potential of major extinctions that may be harmful to humans and other organisms; Sustaining biodiversity is essential to supporting life on Earth.

If a biological or physical disturbance to an ecosystem occurs, including one induced by human activity, the ecosystem may return to its more or less original state or become a very different ecosystem, depending on the complex set of interactions within the ecosystem.

Humans and other organisms will be affected in many different ways if Earth’s global mean temperature continues to rise

Human activities affect global warming; Decisions to reduce the impact of global warming depend on understanding climate science, engineering capabilities, and social dynamics

Natural hazards and other geological events have shaped the course of human history at local, regional and global scales; in turn, human activities contribute to the frequency and intensity of some natural hazards



Obama's Civic Marshall Plan: Planks For Education Reform

 

In the Federal Government's

"State-led" Common Core Initiative:

 

 

Plank 1: Grade-Level Reading – 

Enhance the role of states in improving literacy instruction; support and invest in enhancing the quality of teacher education and professional development; invest in high-quality early education; and invest in ongoing research and evaluation.

(In February, Obama announced his plans to expand access to the Universal Pre-k program, mostly for those who are from moderate to low-income families.   He also requested an expansion of Head Start in order to provide additional childcare for toddlers.)
 
 

Plank 2:  Chronic Absenteeism -

Changes in policy and practice can help increase attendance and decrease chronic absence, including: requiring the inclusion of the percentage of students who are chronically absent as part of the Civil Rights Data Collection, under the Department of Education's Flexibility policy....chronic absenteeism should be part of the diagnostic analysis and improvement strategy implemented within priority and focus schools as well as included as an indicator in federal grant programs targeting low-performing schools, such as School Improvement Grants, 21st Century Community Learning Centers, and Race to the Top....A policy framework for chronic absence would include tracking individual student attendance and absence in longitudinal student data systems....

(Claiming to curb "chronic absenteeism" will be the federal government's excuse for the need to track students ultimately from birth through career.  The Department of Education has already begun to track students starting in preschool using a longitudinal student data system .  Arizona has been awarded over $10M in grant money since 2007 to design, develop and implement this data system.  This system is being promoted in conjunction with the CCSS by the group called Data Quality Campaign.   The DQC is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and partners with the National Council of State Legislators, the National Governors Association, Achieve and many others pushing the CCSS.)

 

Plank 3: Early warning indicator and intervention systems –

Continue to support development and use of early warning indicator and intervention systems in elementary, middle and high schools...Through learning and teaching summits, we can accelerate efforts to spread early warning information and intervention systems to states, school districts and schools, particularly low-performing schools.

  

 

Plank 4: The Middle Grades –

 

District, state and federal policies should strengthen the structures, norms, and processes for continuous improvement within these grades while increasing academic rigor.

 (See the Common Core Standards and decide for yourself if they are "rigorous" standards.)

 

Plank 5: Adult and Peer Supports –

We should strengthen supports for wraparound services.  Students need to be surrounded with the developmental resources they need to be ready to learn, succeed in school, and graduate.  These resources are especially important for children growing up in high-poverty neighborhoods...Schools and communities should partner with nonprofits, volunteers and full time national service members to implement a cohesive youth system to address the strengths and needs of each student.  They should also devote resources... to fund evidence based student supports as a core function of schools that educate large numbers of students who live in poverty.

 

 (In January 2010, Obama signed an Executive Order creating the Council of Governors with the intent of "strengthening the partnership between federal and state governments involving the National Guard of the various States; homeland defense; CIVIL SUPPORT; synchronization and integration of State and Federal military activities in the United States; and other matters of mutual interest pertaining to National Guard, homeland defense, and CIVIL SUPPORT ACTIVITIES." Governor Brewer is a member of the 11 Governor council. Remember when Obama said about AmeriCorp, "We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as well-funded?"

Recently, Obama  announced the School Turnaround AmeriCorp Initiative   which is a collaborative effort by the Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS) and the U.S. Department of Education (ED).  The CNCS is a partner of the America Promise Alliance which means that your tax dollars are funding the marketing of the CCSS whether you want it or not. "This partnership will support the placement of AmeriCorps members in persistently underachieving schools across the country. Grants will be awarded to organizations that implement programs that utilize AmeriCorps members to engage in evidence-based interventions to increase educational achievement, high school graduation rates, and college readiness for students in our nation’s lowest-performing elementary, middle, and high schools...Members may receive a living allowance and other benefits while serving." 

Volunteers will also qualify for an Educational Award upon completion of their service.  Which begs the question, what qualifications does a volunteer need to have to "increase educational achievement, high school graduation rates, and college readiness" if they, themselves, haven't completed their own education?  Or are these partner programs more for mentoring or Obama's jobs plan, as opposed to helping them understand their school work?)

 

 

Plank 6: Transition Supports –

Research has shown that transition years, when students move from the middle grades to high school, can be particularly perilous.  We should scale best practices, which show that caring, knowledgeable and committed adults who set high standards and assist students in meeting them, coupled with supportive school conditions, are critical to helping students make successful transitions.

 
(By "adults" we're sure they mean PARENTS, right?)

 

 

Plank 7: Effective Schools –

We need to support the reform and redesign of low-performing middle and high schools... states and districts should use the emerging ACGR data- along with other available graduation rate, promotion, and early warning data- to locate the districts and schools that produce most of the non-graduates in the state. Early warning systems should be used, along with enhanced student supports through the integration of community partners and organizations to make sure the students within these schools attend, feel engaged with school, learn how to succeed in school, and pass their courses.

 (more data collecting and community organizing)
 

 

Plank 8: Compulsory School Age –

Compulsary school-age laws must be part of comprehensive reform efforts.  In the past few years, most states have raised their compulsory school age to 18 and created incentives for students to stay in school.  Some state laws are still out of date and fail to reflect the fact that most jobs today require a high school diploma plus some postsecondary education.  Many of the school age laws were written before or around the beginning of the 20th century when many young people needed to leave school to begin working...research shows that raising the compulsary school age reduces the number of students who drop out.

 
(Will this really have any effect on drop out rates?  )

 

Plank 9: Pathways to College and Career –

Preparing students for college and career is a critical responsibility of our nation’s K-12 education system. Policymakers should reform the Carl D. Perkins Career and Technical Education Act to more effectively align secondary and postsecondary institutions and employers to train students to meet the demand of regional and state labor markets; encourage efforts to integrate technical and academic courses; and support state efforts to link student college completion, transcript, and employment data to evaluate the effectiveness of these programs.  

 

 

Plank 10: Dropout Recovery –

Efforts to recover and re-engage young people who drop out of high school have increased in some communities.  These efforts can be improved and expanded by using data to gain a clearer picture of who the opportunity youth are and what services and academic supports they need to get back on track.  Other efforts should reduce administrative barriers to cross-sector collaboration to improve coordination between education, work-force, and social support programs to help opportunity youth re-engage with school.  Leaders in this area should expand availability of high-quality alternative pathway programs that re-engage dropouts and off-track youth in education and job-training; allow education funding to follow opportunity youth who enroll in a re-engagement program.

(Governor Brewer's AmeriCorp Education plan called for a "cross-stream collaborative efforts by the Commission, State Office and the ADE, as well as AmeriCorps*State, AmeriCorps National Direct, AmeriCorps Tribal, AmeriCorps*VISTA, Senior Corps and K-12 Learn and Serve programs."  And of course, more data collecting.)


Notice that none of the Planks clearly mentioned the important role of parents in helping to teach or guide their children to reach their highest potential.


But, then again, the government doesn't think we can function at all without their help.

 

 

Which Came First? The Common Core Standards Or Assessments and Accountability?

This is how the Federal Government got their grubby hands on our schools in order to force-feed us the new "state-led" Common Core Standards.
 
Many who have been out pushing Common Core have been claiming that you have to "talk Standards before you can talk Assessments and Accountability."
 
The reality is that the CCSS were developed AFTER Obama changed the reporting and accountability requirements in an effort to be more "common" among the states.  This naturally led to claiming that if you're going to have an accurate accountability system, then you need to have a common curriculum.  To be fair and all.


From the 2013 Grad Nation Report:
 
 
"NCLB marked the first time, on a national basis, that schools and school districts were held accountable for graduation rates. The accountability pressure exerted to raise graduation rates, however, was largely muted when the states were allowed to determine how they would measure graduation rates...from their schools. Not until the U.S. Department of Education’s 2008 graduation rate regulations were all states required, beginning in the 2010-2011 school year, to report a common graduation rate measure and to set ambitious graduation rate goals and rates of progress for all students and all subgroups.


As a result of the failure to reauthorize NCLB, the U.S. Department of Education (ED) responded to requests from states to create flexibility through waivers from some of the provisions of federal law. This waiver process required states to adopt a core set of education reforms—implementation of the common core standards, turn-arounds of their lowest-performing schools, and teacher and principal evaluation systems.

 

In 2005, members of the National Governors Association, deeply concerned about strategies for improving schools, reached consensus that high school graduation rates should be calculated in a uniform way across the states; then, in a pioneering compact, they generated a formula for doing so.

The formula and associated definitions were later refined in a rulemaking document released by the U.S. Department of Education in December 2008. States were expected to report graduation rates using the Cohort Rate beginning with school year 2010-2011.

With the timely reauthorization of NCLB stalled in Congress, and with NCLB in need of improvements, in 2012 the Department of Education (ED) created a flexibility policy for states (“waivers”) to create some positive revisions to NCLB in the absence of legislative action and to 'better focus on improving student learning and increasing the quality of instruction.' "

The goal of the waivers is to 'provide educators and state and local leaders with flexibility...in exchange for rigorous and comprehensive state-developed plans designed to improve educational outcomes for all students, close achievement gaps, increase equity, and improve the quality of instruction.' "

 

Within this flexibility policy, "ED is maintaining the reporting requirements under the 2008 regulations."

 

"The most recent data on graduation rates and the challenges that remain for the nation to reach a 90% high school graduation rate provide support for ED’s continued push through flexibility waivers and the school improvement grant program for dramatic reforms in high schools with graduation rates below 60 percent."

(Remember, it was Obama's Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, who said, "The fact is, higher standards will make some of your states look bad at the same time.  So, I promise to work WITH you to ensure that your states will NOT be penalized for doing the RIGHT THING.")


"These data also suggest the need for federal policy to maintain and strengthen accountability for raising the graduation rates of low-income students, students of color, students with disabilities, and students with limited English proficiency.   

 

 

As the most recent graduation rate data show, the students furthest from this goal are those who will need the most help to meet the Common Core State Standards - students who are economically disadvatages, have disabilities, or have limited English proficiency.

Although Common Core outlines standards specific to ELA and mathematics, and will eventually do so for science and social studies, many educators believe standards should be developed for other areas of study and student competencies."

 

 

The Science Standards are set to roll out this month.... 

 

Arne Duncan's View Of The Role Of Our Schools

 

Grad Nation Summit

February 2013

 

Be sure to pay close attention to how often Mr. Duncan suggests (or doesn't suggest) the role of PARENTS in the education process.

 

"Schools can't do this work by themselves.  Where schools sweep their children out the door at 2:30 and onto the streets is simply not good enough... We have 100,000 schools in this country.  Every school has classrooms, they have libraries, many have computer labs, they all have gyms, some have swimming pools.  They don't belong to me, to the Principal, or to the union or to the teachers.  They belong to the community.  We should really be opening these doors and just a very different vision of what schools should be.  Where schools truly become the hearts, the hubs of community life and family life, then I become optimistic about where children can go. 

 

So, the idea of schools being open 12, 13, 14 hours a day, 6-7 days a week, 12 months out of the year is just a VERY different vision.

 

Bringing in the non-profit partners, the social service agencies, faith-based institutions and community colleges.  Having a range of programming, academic enrichment being at the core for students with dance, and drama, and art, and music, and chess, and yearbook, and robotics, and GED programs. 

 

We served tens of thousands of students in Chicago three meals a day- breakfast, lunch and dinner because we worried about them not eating at night.

 

When schools truly become the hearts of the neighborhood, then great things happen for kids."

Once a community organizer, always a community organizer....