Blinded Leaders

From the Files Tuesday Monday Musings

Anti Fed Ed Warriors, if I’ve shared it once, I’ve shared it repeatedly; Rep. Virginia Foxx is a sellout. Her view of education is no secret. She’s traveling the D.C. area with her skewed preaching about how great CTE (Career Tech Education) is. Problem is CTE IS Common Core, or as it’s been re-branded, College/Career Readiness (CCR).

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While Rep. Foxx does ‘represent’ the citizens of NC (in name only), her power as Chair of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Ed/Workforce Committee means her influence is nation-wide.

If you’ve missed her more recent CCSS/CTE (Common Core State Standards/Career Tech Education) appearances touting what a ‘savior’ the PROSPER Act will be for America, or how closing the ‘skills gap’ is everyone’s business, I urge you to listen.

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(*Note:1) if you click on the ‘closing’ link, you can access her brief statement from Twitter.  2)  PROSPER is the House’s version of an updated Higher Education Act (HEA). HEA’s re-authorization will complete the birth to death workforce based education system the CCSS Machine has set out to create. 3) Be sure to listen for Foxx’s bold statement that all education is career education so therefore all education is workforce development.)

This screen shot (below) is from her opening statement during a recent hearing in D.C.:

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Warriors, Rep. Foxx is hardly alone in the selling out of education to workforce in D.C.

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As we’ve seen from Congress many times over, when it comes to education, they’re ALL blinded by the CCSS Machine! Consider Foxx’s ‘blinded’ partner over in the Senate, Sen. Lamar Alexander. He leads the U.S. Senate’s HELP (Health, Employment, Labor, and Pensions Committee).
His power in D.C. is ‘legendary’ in how quickly he’s thrown our children under the CCSS Machine’s wheels. The HELP’s most recent action? It was sharing that a new amendment for the existing HEA has been introduced. S 2984 was introduced, read twice and referred to the HELP committee 5/24/18.

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(Sen. Cardin’s a big sellout to STEM and College Promise programs.)

That Foxx and Alexander are in such high places of leadership should be cause for every single one of us to watch both the Committees (Ed/Workforce and HELP).
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Purse strings

Warriors, look also at every single member of these 2 Committees. Where are they in the CCSS Machine’s pecking order? How sold out to CTE are they? What about STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math)? We mustn’t forget that the ‘Fed Ed’ overreach is in EVERY level of education, so what about the early college programs? The internships or apprenticeships? The rehabilitated education/work programs? What about allowing MORE Private companies and corporations into the education reform?
May 9th’s hearing from the Ed/Workforce Committee did just that!

(*Note: you can also watch the hearing. It’s just over 2 hours.)

We also should keep in mind that education is NOT the only avenue the CCSS Machine will ‘drive’ down. There’s Labor, Health/Human Services, Agriculture, Commerce, Justice, and more! Blindness is rampant in D.C.!

If You Missed Mrs. DeVos:

Warriors, if you missed U.S. Secretary of Education’s DeVos and her ‘testimony’ before the Ed/Workforce Committee last week, you missed a great opportunity to see a CCSS/CTE Machine dog and pony show. Here’s the video, but be warned it’s over 4 hours long according to the You Tube description.

foxxdevos

Below are a few of DeVos’s excerpts from her prepared testimony.

“I must begin by commending you, Dr. Foxx, for your leadership on moving to
reauthorize and reform the Higher Education Act (HEA) through the PROSPER Act.
This is an issue where we share great passion to help American education catch up to the
needs of today’s – and tomorrow’s – students. Unfortunately, in too many ways, the
outdated HEA is holding our students – and by extension, our nation – back. The
Administration is pleased the bill aligns with many of its own goals for HEA
reauthorization. I look forward to working with each of the Members of this Committee,
the broader House of Representatives and the Senate to advance meaningful HEA reform, and I know the president looks forward to signing a bill into law.”

Under the paragraph “Progress Made”:
“In 2015, you wisely passed legislation – the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) – that
intends to do just that. ESSA’s overwhelming bipartisan message was clear: States and
local communities, not the Federal Government, must lead the way on improving
education for every student in America.”

From “FSA Next Gen’s” paragraph:
“Perhaps no effort has a greater potential to positively impact postsecondary students
directly than reforms being undertaken at Federal Student Aid (FSA). The Next
Generation Financial Services Environment will be the most significant improvement to administering student aid in two decades.

From the “Where We Are Going” section:
” We must make bold, fearless changes that allow all students to pursue an education that meets their unique needs. Students deserve learning environments that are agile, relevant, exciting. Every student deserves a customized, self-paced, and challenging life-long learning journey. That is why I challenge the Department and every teacher, school, parent, and leader in America to rethink school.”

Her possible solutions? Look below:

maydevos

Warriors, talk about blinded leaders, are you kidding me, Secretary DeVos?! 
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A “New Approach”:

Never one to disappear from the news, Jeb Bush’s group (FEE, Foundation for Excellence in Education/aka Excel in Ed) and their partner (Education Elements) are blindly leading the whole CCR (College/Career Readiness) agenda from a ‘new angle’, get the parents to buy into the ‘skills gap needs closing’ fallacy.

As we know, CCR is a re-brand for CCSS. It also embeds CTE and STEM in education.

FEEspin

Here’s how Education Elements feels about learning:

edelementCBE

Related Resources:

Continuing the ‘dumbing down’:
1) https://www.commoncorediva.com/2016/04/21/credentialed-transcripts/
2) https://www.commoncorediva.com/2018/03/05/bridging-gaps/
3) https://www.commoncorediva.com/2018/05/07/eager-beavers/

dumb
“Dumb” cannot make our nation great.

Dangers of updating HEA:

1) https://www.commoncorediva.com/2018/01/23/anti-fed-ed-warriors-heads-up/
2) https://www.commoncorediva.com/2017/02/21/the-road-ahead/
3) https://www.commoncorediva.com/2016/12/12/whats-up-ahead/

Closing:

Warriors, did you notice how the ties between Foxx/DeVos/Bush and the rest of the evidence presented all echo the same ideas? It is not by chance this has happened. As we know the plan (for well over 100 years) has been to assimilate America into a more global form. Education has long been the ‘best’ tool by which to do it.
Three Blind Mice Clip Art N4 image in Vector cliparts category at pixy.orgThe reform was never simply for K-12th grade students. It has always been about ‘cradle to grave’. The reality of HOW our lives will become IF we do not stop the CCSS Machine can be seen here. Notice, it’s a loop. Like a hamster’s wheel. Once on it, we won’t get off.
This is what the REAL meaning of ‘lifelong learning’ is, Warriors.

workedcycle
States are ensnared in the alignment of education and workforce.

Re-authorizing HEA via the PROSPER Act or the Senate’s HEIA (Higher Education Innovation Act) WILL complete the CCSS Machine loop. Will we stand by and allow this? Will we march forward and throw kinks into the CCSS Machine?

Warriors, will we continue to follow these blinded leaders?! Will we allow our kids to be subjected to this type of treatment? Will we prostrate ourselves to this system?  Will we let Congress continue to bully us into conformity?

monopolists

Warriors, it’s time WE lead with open eyes and steadfast purpose!

4 thoughts on “Blinded Leaders

  1. That number of unfilled jobs due to skills gap is BS!!! Whatever happened to you went to school, were EDUCATED then a company took a chance hired and trained you to do the job. What they now want is for the schools to do the training for them. So what we will have is kids trained and given only the knowledge they need to perform a pre-determined career. EX: The school convinces parents, based on the massive amounts of data they have collected on your child since conception, that although Johnnie wants to be doctor the job market has a great need for barbers so Johnnie has been given the honor of being placed in a Charter School that is outfitted to train barbers starting at the ripe old age of 7. Problem is what happens when Johnnie is ready for work and the trend is bald heads for both men and women. Johnnie has no other skills and has got the brains or education to re-steer his own ship. He now has to go back and be trained for something else (this is what THEY mean by life long learning) Do you see what is happening? Our children are human capital for the planned global economy. This is an ‘ism” but it is not Americanism. SOLUTION: GET YOUR KIDS OUT OF THE FEDERAL TRAINING SYSTEM we call public schools and that includes Charters. Charters are meant to be the new federal training centers.

  2. The words of C. S. Lewis says it all:
    Lewis contrasts liberal arts education with what he calls “vocational training,” the sort that prepares one for employment. Such training, he writes, “aims at making not a good man but a good banker, a good electrician, . . . or a good surgeon.” Lewis does admit the importance of such training–for we cannot do without bankers and electricians and surgeons–but the danger, as he sees it, is the pursuit of training at the expense of education. “If education is beaten by training, civilization dies,” he writes, for “the lesson of history” is that “civilization is a rarity, attained with difficulty and easily lost.” It is the liberal arts, not vocational training, that preserves civilization by producing reasonable men and responsible citizens.

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