Anti CCSS/Fed Ed Warriors, we find ourselves upon the season of thanks. Pretty soon the season of giving will be upon us. We know full well what the CCSS Machine has given us so far via ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) and its related laws (HEA and WIOA, Higher Education Act and Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act). We know each of these have been thankless ‘gifts’ to our nation. And the CCSS Machine isn’t done yet…
No, much like the gravy which will be served in mass quantities in a few days, the legislation to support federal overreach in education AS well as State legislation allowing the federal overreach, is drowning us all. And there will be more to come in 2017.
So, what’s in this ‘education gravy boat’ for 2017? Lots of lumps! For example:
1) Continued implementation of the ESSA
2) The re-authorization of HEA to complete the birth to grave ‘lifelong learning’ streamline
3) The fallacy of ‘school choice’ via vouchers and education savings accounts
4) Charter schools as a solution
5) Data mining and assessing
6) The fallacy that CCSS’s adult form, CTE (Career Tech Education) is a saving grace for our nation.
Who are the ‘gravy makers’? Congress, in a word.
Anyone, and I include ourselves as Warriors, who says any of these are ‘real solutions’ to our American education reform, is not being objective about the evidence.
Between all the research produced here and on other anti CCSS information blogs, we’ve learned how #1 above is a guise used to fool everyone. The CCSS Machine, with Sen. Lamar Alexander leading the lies, has created a ‘perfect stream’ of illusion. That illusion will be once again, played out with his leadership in re-authorizing the HEA.
“School choice” is also a masterful illusion. ESSA wipes school choice out! The incentives being dangled in the form of vouchers and education savings accounts are the brain child of PRO COMMON CORE groups, not anti CCSS ones.
Congress has been anxious to pour an extremely thick layer of CTE gravy on our nation. They’ve been doing it this entire Congressional recess!
So, Warriors, in 2017, we’ll see more gravy produced and poured. Especially if we are helping promote the 6 fallacies above.
Forget if we’re Republicans or Democrats, forget who has the majority of seats. We are MORE than these 2 parties. We should be FREE and INDEPENDENT in America, not tied to a sinking gravy boat of conformity in education!
You wish to see American education excel? We have to ditch our globally tied agreements, especially for workforce based learning. That is a message not only Congress needs to have poured over them, but our Executive Branch leaders!
We MUST stop the current federal and local legislation designed to fit into the global workforce scheme. For example, the LADDER Act, creates a ‘new’ Executive Branch, independent, National Workforce Council. The Council is to be made of of the Secretaries and Leaders of federal agencies, such as the U.S. Depts of Ed/Labor/HUD, and more!
With the ESSA’s total implementation, these very departments will have an insane amount of lumpy gravy to drown us in.
Yes, I know, these are truths we must face. They have also been very unpopular in 2016.
Will they be just as unpopular in 2017? Truth is truth, no matter how popular or ‘glamorous’ it is.
We are not the first generation of anti CCSS Warriors, but we may be the LAST.
The question is, how much of the CCSS Machine (aka:gravy train) are we willing to stunt?
I, for one, am willing to fight with you AGAINST this.
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Warriors, I do wish you a blessed Thanksgiving. Look for my next article this weekend in my regularly published “Weekend News”.
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