ALEC wants our Schools

I discovered a copy of ALEC's Report Card book v18

The general academic feeling is the report card fails.  I think they missed the point of the publication. That happens when you are an academic and still believe order and reason are viable goals.

It is fitting that ALEC begins the v17 version with this paragraph:

In World War II, Great Britain suffered a series of crushing defeats. From the conquest of her continental allies and an ignominious evacuation at Dunkirk to the loss of Singapore in the east, Great Britain was under attack. Germany stood as a colossus with its boot on the throat of Europe. Under the assumption there was no way to win, “realistic” members of the British aristocracy advised reaching an accommodation with Germany. Winston Churchill refused to surrender while the Royal Air Force successfully fought off the German Luftwaffe over the skies of England, deterring a German invasion.

Yeah, WWII, the days of Hitler and the Big Lie. Perfect.

"All this was inspired by the principle—which is quite true within itself—that in the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility; because the broad masses of a nation are always more easily corrupted in the deeper strata of their emotional nature than consciously or voluntarily; and thus in the primitive simplicity of their minds they more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie, since they themselves often tell small lies in little matters but would be ashamed to resort to large-scale falsehoods. It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths, and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously. Even though the facts which prove this to be so may be brought clearly to their minds, they will still doubt and waver and will continue to think that there may be some other explanation. For the grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down, a fact which is known to all expert liars in this world and to all who conspire together in the art of lying."
—Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, vol. I, ch. X[1]

All too true. It never occurs to us regular folk that someone would actually -- and on purpose -- tell moutain size lies which fabricate whole political systems. Not only tell them. but then go to the trouble of making several web sites and then writing a full book on the subject. It boggles the mind.

And then we see what Larry Krieger did last year with AP History. The whole thing was a swindle -- so he could get his book business back. Not a single thing he said had an ounce of truth to it, except when he would admit that there was nothing wrong with the AP History course.

As I went through the pages of this ALEC "report card", I found myself making little notes in the margins about the Aggressive Persuasion tactics that were both being described, and being used by the manual. It is a marvelous example of how to acquire people to spread your propaganda, and train them at the same time. It is poetry in motion to be honest.

ALEC has an Education Task Force. They have nine of these "task forces" that are staffed with Think Tanks, such as the American Principles Project, and the Heartland Institute (both highly recommended propaganda outfits by the way. The cigarette companies give them great reviews) who hire people like James Milgram, Sandra Stotsky and Jane Robbins. You'll recall the three of them from the Math Wars days and also how the created the turmoil around Larry Krieger's  AP History swindle last year. They didn't really care about Larry, or the AP. They were after David Coleman, the main guy with Common Core. ALEC doesn't like Common Core. It stands in the way of taking apart the Education System and then making a profit off the parents.

The Review of 2013's Version had this to say:

The 18th edition of the American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) Report Card on American Education: Ranking State K-12 Performance, Progress, and Reform draws on ratings from market-oriented advocacy groups to grade states in areas such as support for charter schools, availability of vouchers, and permissiveness for homeschooling. The authors contend that these grades are based on “high quality” research demonstrating that the policies for which they award high grades will improve education for all students. This review finds that, contrary to these claims, ALEC’s grades draw selectively from these advocacy groups to make claims that are not supported in the wider, peer-reviewed literature. In fact, the research ALEC highlights is quite shoddy and is unsuitable for supporting its recommendations. The authors’ claims of “a growing body of research” lacks citations; their grading system contradicts the testing data that they report; and their data on alternative teacher research is simply wrong. Overall, ALEC’s Report Card is grounded less in research than in ideological tenets, as reflected in the high grades it assigns to states with unproven and even disproven market-based policies. The report’s purpose appears to be more about shifting control of education to private interests than in improving education.

Sigh. Of course it is moving control over to the private interests. There is money to be made there, and we got to get rid of Common Core as well. A system that will give any lame, poor, backwater school system better educational materials than private schools can afford has to go.

Also, the teachers have to actually be teachers if the CCSS is in place and ALEC wants anyone "who feels the calling" to be able to be a teacher -- at minimum wage -- with no union of course.

I've been looking for versions 19 and 20. The propaganda resources alone are worth any purchase price. This is a whole National level disinformation and confusion campaign -- all planned and explained for you. I have some good tactics myself but ... I guess when you have a team of "think tanks" and a million to put into the effort, you can get more done.

Teachers and Parents need to Stop listening to Secondary Sources

Remember in school, when we learned the difference between Primary sources of information and Secondary sources of information -- and why the two are not the same? 

1. A primary source is a document or physical object which was written or created during the time under study. These sources were present during an experience or time period and offer an inside view of a particular event. Some types of primary sources include:

2. Primary vs Secondary Sources

   www.princeton.edu/~refdesk/primary2.html
   

   Princeton University

A parent just asked me if I had answers for the problems with Common Core. Apparently the teachers in her district are looking for ways out of using CCSS. The problem is, the answers are in the Core. 

See, as soon as they succeed in removing CCSS from their school system, then life becomes seriously difficult, because as soon as Common Core is gone, then they are back to 10 years ago under ESEA and the No Child Left Behind hell of 2002. Since every school failed that impossible thing, and the 12 years are up, this means that the schools will be closed, until a new plan can be presented to the Dept of ED, and approved. Most of the teachers will be fired and likely the principal as well. Probably what will happen is the school will be sold to a charter corporation and then re-opned. ESEA and NCLB are laws, not suggestions. Moving into the Race to the TOP program using as a standard CCSS, allowed Obama to give your school an out, and get you from under that mess of a law, since Congress won't fix it.

Obama came up with the "patch" solution of Race to the Top, but to satisfy the requirements of ESEA and NCLB each state is required to have in place a set of standards which demonstrate an ability to "ready students for College ..."  The Gov.'s of each state, seeing that ESEA was going to cut their throats (the changes made by NCLB are simply impossible to achieve. They sounded good when they were adopted, even reasonable, but they didn't take into account the many realities of  education. Too many realities were ignored. In fact, so many that I do not believe a single public school district made the minimum goal once in the 12 year period given to them.) The Gov's came up with CCSS back in 2007, starting development in 2008. At 2010 they had it ready when Obama came up with his waivers and Race to the Top.

It is important to remember here that ESEA and NCLB are not policies or suggestions, they are laws. It falls to the Executive branch to enforce those two laws. Obama has no choice in this. But he also understood that it was impossible to achieve the dictates. 

NCLB -- since the schools were all at "Failure" for more than four years -- dictates that 1) all the teachers, plus the principal should now be fired and replaced with teachers capable of making the goals. (which is impossible for two reasons, 1) all of the teachers are fired, there are not enough to hire available and 2) all the goals are impossible to meet no matter who is teaching the kids) Next the State should take over the school directly OR the school should be sold to a private corporation -- wish I was making this up, but you can verify this here on my blog where I pulled out these amazingly daft dictates.

You'll notice this part --   Institute and fully implement a new curriculum, including providing appropriate professional development for all relevant staff, that is based on scientifically based research and offers substantial promise of improving educational achievement for low-achieving students and enabling the school to make adequate yearly progress.

That there is where Race to the Top comes in, and the need for a fully developed, heavily researched set of standards is needed to satisfy the law. The states had this, developed by the National Governors Association (NGA) The Dept of Education read over the CCSS, and gave their nod to Obama as being acceptable. 

That is and was Obama's only interaction with CCSS -- Simply to accept the DOE's assessment. I'll point out here too that it is against federal law for any Federal Office, including Obama as President, to involve itself with the schools directly at the local level... which is why he could not develop CCSS himself or have it created or suggest that it be created or anything else. The states had to do this themselves. 

So much for Federal plans of Indoctrination. All of this stuff about CCSS is BS. It is a very simple, unoffending, non-dictating set of standards. 

Common Core Fake Web Sites: Propaganda

I got a Tweet and there was someone I don't know giving me a link to a web article titled A quick overview of fourth grade Common Core Standards

First, off, before we go any further, the Common Core Standards for 4th grade, are right here, on the Common Core web site. These are exactly what your child's teacher will be working off. All the grades are listed there. Every one of them.

She will develop lessons, or they will be supplied to her by your school which will address in an appropriate way, the activities, reading and writing to get those standards met with her lesson.

You'll notice something here with the Real  Common Core standards. It never says Fiction or Non fiction must be used, or how often either of those must be used, or that Mythology can not be used or any thing along those lines. I point this out because I run into the declaration that Common Core is going to rid our children of life and imagination  That is hogwash. Two of the composers of CCSS wrote and published an article on this topic, which clears all of this up.The Role of Fiction in the High School English Language Arts Classroom

Many Children Left Behind.- Epic Fail

This is the 12th year. The year the educational law passed by near unanimous vote in the House and signed by Bush in 2002 "No Child Left Behind" was suppose to be met, and hopefully exceeded. The goal was that every student in the nation should be at or above grade-level in Math and Reading.  Grades 4 and 8 were the check points.

Doesn't seem like that difficult of a goal. If a child is in 4th grade, shouldn't she be reading at 4th grade level?

The whole plan sounds acceptable. It even gets your blood going. "No Child Left Behind". It rings with those slogans we hear from Fireman, Marines and Special Forces, "We Don't Leave Our Men Behind", "Everyone Goes Home." And at the time, 2002, just after the 9/11 crisis, we were looking for things to be patriotically positive about. Yeah, we were going to kill Bin Laden, but rage only gets you so far when you are hurt like that, you need something to care about, something with life in it -- who leaves children behind anyway? So Bush signed that paper, it became a national goal and we all felt good.

Results?  Epic Fail.

The test is only for two areas. Math and Reading. There is a single standardized test for each of those, which is given every year. The objective was to come up with educational strategies which would bring students up to grade level within twelve years. Math came up some. A steady if disheartening amount every year. Reading basically flatlined.

Our results indicate that NCLB generated statistically significant increases in the average math performance of 4th graders (effect size = 0.22 by 2007) as well as improvements at the lower and top percentiles. There is also evidence of improvements in 8th grade math achievement, particularly among traditionally low-achieving groups and at the lower percentiles. However, we find no evidence that NCLB increased reading achievement in either 4th or 8th grade. -- NBER Working Paper No. 15531

Trevor Packer -- Very Effective, Completely Ignored by Krieger

Tevor Paker VP College Board

The following is a document sent to an official at the Georgia Department of Education forwarded, as written by Trevor Packer, a vice president at College Board. 
Trevor Packer – April 9, 2014
This document is in answer to a piece written by Larry Krieger and Jane Robbins and published on the propaganda machine Heartland.org. New Advanced Placement Framework Distorts America’s History but this document pops up all over the web at different Ultra-Right propaganda/hate-pages across the internet. These websites should not be confused with actual Republican party websites, or even Republican News websites. They are all twisted distant sisters which propagate false controversies and erroneous information. Most of these can be traced in funding to the Koch network.

So.. lets begin the rebuttal from Trevor Packer.

Krieger, Robbins and Koch -- To Defile your High School

In answer to :

New College Board US History Framework Defames America
Posted on 18 September 2014.
By Larry Krieger and Jane Robbins

de·fame

diˈfām/

verb

3rd person present: defames

1. damage the good reputation of (someone); slander or libel.

By Krieger's own admission, there is nothing false or misleading or untrue inside the AP material. So,like the rest of the article -- his Title is designed to create an insult where none exists, and then fan the flames. If you read his article, you will find that he often incites hatred and division without cause or actual fact. His rhetoric is confused, and misleading -- with all the dazzle of a con-man. But we need to keep in mind that Larry Krieger owns InsiderPrep, which is a business that creates and sells books and materials to help a student prep for the AP classes and tests. -- Well, it did. See, Larry's Prep course is based on the old study methods, where memorizing is more important than critical thinking. The AP History program has changed drastically, in that it is only a Framework now, not a full course like it was in the past. So, there is no ...series of chronological chapters that match the sequence of topics in the College Board’s official APUSH Course Description booklet. Which is how Larry Krieger's program is developed. No. Now it is a comprehensive, adaptable Framework.

The Course and Exam Description (.pdf/1.81MB) includes the concept outline, curriculum framework, and sample exam questions. These resources, alongside state and local requirements for American history courses, help teachers build their syllabi. 

A new Curriculum Framework Evidence Planner helps teachers customize the framework by specifying the historical content selected for student focus. It can also be provided to students to track the historical evidence examined for each concept and as review for the AP Exam. 

Schools and teachers develop their own curriculum for AP courses. Submitting a syllabus to the AP Course Audit ensures teachers have a thorough understanding of AP U.S. History course requirements and are authorized to teach AP.

Oops!  Since Every school, indeed every teacher can create her own syllabi, paying attention to areas and focuses of history which are most in line with the state and local focus-- Larry Krieger's chapter by chapter Insider program, is no longer useful.  So Larry has nothing to sell and his publications are no longer marketable. -- Unless he talks you into believing that the new AP Framework design is somehow bad. This is very difficult to do, because there is nothing false, misleading or wrong with the facts or the framework. So, he has to go after something with a lot of emotion behind it, something that will cut through logic and the extra cost of putting together their own AP classes.

Thus begins Larry's impassioned campaign against AP History, where he takes out the examples of the New AP, twists some things up, reads a little too much into what is not really there -- since none of it has to be there, it is all up to the teacher and the school what to build with the Framework -- and begins screaming Leftist Democrats!


To Larry Krieger and Jane Robbins,

After reading your article New College Board US History Framework Defames America, I'm appalled by your actions and your rhetoric. If the student doesn't already know and understand the points of history that you keep harping on, she's not going to be in an AP class, is she? Is there any way -- using any stretch of the imagination -- that a student who is ready for Advance Placement isn't going to know who George Washington was and what he was to our country? Or about the soldiers in WWII? Or about Martin Luther King Jr.? Your arguments are blatant falsehoods.

It is, however, very likely that she will have not been introduced to the full scope of slavery, or to the existence of the Black Panthers. Or to the fact that American citizens who were Japanese were put into camps during WWII, and all of their businesses and lands seized.

Advanced Placement (AP) is a program in the United States and Canada, created by the College Board, which offers college-level curricula and examinations to high school students. American colleges and universities often grant placement and course credit to students who obtain high scores on the examinations.

The College Board collected criteria from 3000+ colleges and universities. Using those combined criteria they created a test. Passing that test fulfills what the 3000+ universities and colleges expected a student to know.  Who gave them the authority?  That question can only be to incite fear, doubt and distrust. It's dishonesty is bitter.

The College Board is a mission-driven not-for-profit organization that connects students to college success and opportunity. 

Founded in 1900, the College Board was created to expand access to higher education. Today, the membership association is made up of over 6,000 of the world’s leading educational institutions and is dedicated to promoting excellence and equity in education.
Each year, the College Board helps more than seven million students prepare for a successful transition to college through programs and services in college readiness and college success — including the SAT and the Advanced Placement Program. The organization also serves the education community through research and advocacy on behalf of students, educators and schools.

You know these facts, and that is the damming part of everything. It is obvious that your intention is not what is best for the students, or the country. Your primary purpose is to cause dissent. You are inciting parents and school boards with meaningless verbiage. City upon the hill?

(1) Diversity among people allows for a variety of ways in which God may be honored. (2) Acts of kindness by the rich toward the poor - and a spirit of obedience by the poor toward the rich - further manifest the spirit of ideal public life. (3) Common need among individuals with different qualities is necessary to society.

...soe the way to drawe men to the workes of mercy is not by force of Argument from the goodness or necessity of the worke for though this course may enforce a rationall minde to some present Act of mercy as is frequent in experience, yet it cannot worke such a habit in a Soule as shall make it prompt upon all occasions to produce the same effect but by frameing these affeccions of love in the hearte which will as naturally bring forthe the other, as any cause doth produce the effect.

"History will not judge our endeavors—and a government cannot be selected—merely on the basis of color or creed or even party affiliation. Neither will competence and loyalty and stature, while essential to the utmost, suffice in times such as these. For of those to whom much is given, much is required... " -- JFK

I read your examples in the News Week. It was like listening to con-man, or a fortune teller.  as you stretched your illogical explanations to fit across the test questions and 'wrong answers' to make a drum to beat on. You are not a teacher. Teachers care about their student's future. You only care about your past. You offer only  a scam, and you are spreading fear and intolerance where none exists.

This part really gave me a laugh:

To his continued horror, Manifest Destiny suffered the same fate as the Founders. An idea Krieger taught for years as “the belief that America had a mission to spread democracy and new technology across the continent” was described in the framework as “built on a belief in white racial superiority and a sense of American cultural superiority.”

Which from the outset Manifest Destiny—vast in program, in its sense of continentalism—was slight in support. It lacked national, sectional, or party following commensurate with its magnitude. The reason was it did not reflect the national spirit. The thesis that it embodied nationalism, found in much historical writing, is backed by little real supporting evidence In 1845 John L. O'Sullivan coined the term "manifest destiny" in reference to a growing conviction that the United States was preordained by God to expand throughout North America and exercise hegemony over its neighbors. In the United States Magazine and Democratic Review (July–August 1845, p. 5) he argued for "the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.

O'Sullivan's original conception of manifest destiny was not a call for territorial expansion by force. He believed that the expansion of U.S.-style democracy was inevitable, and would happen without military involvement as whites (or "Anglo-Saxons") emigrated to new regions. O'Sullivan  described the agency of Manifest Destiny as a "irresistible army of Anglo-Saxon emigration," supported the Confederacy and the idea that slavery was the only way for whites and blacks to live together. I'd say the current AP characterization is pretty accurate.

So.. what part of "built on a belief in white racial superiority and a sense of American cultural superiority" is mis-represented? It sounds more like you have been teaching this wrong to hundreds of students for your whole career, and now you wish to compound that misguided definition even further.

They also disagreed with the College Board over how children should learn, with Krieger and his allies preferring a curriculum based on memorizing facts to one based on critical thinking.

I'm not going to even try to make that statement anything other than it is -- robot non-thinkers are your goal. But I forget. You aren't a historian, you are a high school teacher. You are not an expert in education, or someone qualified to actually judge a full curriculum. You are only qualified to follow one, and from all that you have said, you aren't very good at that either.

Your partner, Jane Robbins, has used this statement several times:

Defenses of the College Board's revised Advanced Placement U.S. History (APUSH) Curriculum Framework have ranged from "it's a balanced document" to "teachers will have flexibility" to "what's wrong with a leftist slant?" None of these defenses should be acceptable.

Except she's lying. Flat out lying, like she does many times in her writing. "What's wrong with a leftist slant" is never said by the College Board. The Framework can just as easily be used to create a Far Right Conservative course. Again,your statement is only there to incite, to cause anger about something that doesn't exist. Also, just because you don't like the answer "teachers will have flexibility" does not make it invalid or unacceptable, and having you say this over and over, doesn't make it any more valid.

Heartland Institute is the hand puppets of the Koch brothers. That's all this is -- another Koch brother propaganda machine. Their goal, which they have stated proudly, several times, is the removal of the Department of Education, and to push publish schools out of existence. More here. This alteration you are promoting is designed to diminish the ability of public schools so that they become ineffectual.

You are making this a political agenda, when it has nothing to do with politics. The College Board is not a government agency. They are a business. A business which is offering students a step up into college. They are professionals who gathered the criteria and made the program to fit that criteria.

History will remember this: the propaganda, the Koch brothers, you and the false front businesses and groups you have created. That list of people you have in this article? I've researched them all. I'm amazed they haven't run you out of the state.

The students will remember this, and they will not remember you kindly, when they achieve no credit, no placement and arrive to college unprepared.