Fed Ed Budget for Teachers/Leaders

Weekend News

fedledteach

It is no secret how fed up most American teachers are with Common Core Standards. Now iron-clad bound by the ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act).

What MORE CCS (aka: Competency Based Education, College and Career Readiness, or Challenging State Academic Standards) will they be subjected to? What about the other school leaders (principals, superintendents, school board members)? Will, they to, now be dancing with ESSA puppet strings? You bet!
How many of our tax dollars with be used to set the music? Plenty!
Today’s focus: the President’s Education funding requests built into the Fiscal Year 2017 Federal Budget. Why talk about it now so early in 2016? The Budget has just been released and needs Congress’s rubber stamp!

 

Lead On, Oh ‘Mighty Feds’:

In case you missed the preceding article where I detailed the CCSS Machine’s grasp on the ESSA and how it impacts students, schools, families, and communities, see: https://www.commoncorediva.com/2016/02/11/fed-ed-2017-are-you-ready/

Knowing the agenda BEHIND the CCSS (Common Core State Standards) is one of ‘cradle to grave’ AND will include every citizen, we know that teachers and leaders in our schools will NOT be exempt from aligning to whatever name the CCSS Machine slaps on their educational standards.

Like yesterday’s article, you will get a summary of the main ways in which this alignment will either continue or begin.

Oh, and one technicality, ‘Mighty Feds’: ESSA, like CCSS, is illegally based and thus is Constitutionally prohibited! Asking money to back all this ‘conducting’, is quite egregious.

 

ESSA’s ‘Sheet Music’:

To see the U.S. Dept. of Ed’s blog article about the Education Budget requests for teachers/leaders, see: http://blog.ed.gov/2016/02/the-presidents-fiscal-year-2017-budget-request-supporting-teachers-and-school-leaders-for-student-success-3/

To see the hidden CCSS Machine ‘notes and strings’ is where we will spend the bulk of this article.

The article begins with a pretty big erroneous statement about how the ESSA passage will continue the ESEA (Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965) and its civil rights legacy. I guess the U.S. Dept. of Ed totally overlooking the NCLB (No Child Left Behind) as a continuation of the ESEA, is no big deal. Without NCLB, there would not of been the RttT (Race to the Top) which saddled all of us with CCSS in one form or another! Be sure you read the next part about what research proves and every parent understands “the most important school-based factor impacting a child’s academic success is the quality of the classroom teacher..”
No, it isn’t, U.S. Dept. of Ed! As a retired private educator I know for a FACT that the teacher IS important, but she/he is certainly NOT the MOST important factor in education. There is MUCH more that goes into a student’s academic success. I will add, as I have heard from parents and teachers across the nation that they not only understand this, but KNOW it! So, how will the federal government apply even more pressure to perform on our teachers/school leaders? Let’s see:

1) ‘RESPECT: The Best Job in the World’, a new billion dollar program in MANDATORY funding. What is this ‘new’ program? From the 2017 Federal Budget Fact Sheet:
“Helping ensure equitable access to effective teachers and school leaders for low-income and minority students in high-need schools by investing $1 billion in mandatory funds for the new RESPECT: Best Job in the World program to support a nationwide effort to attract and retain effective teachers in high-need schools, and $2.8 billion in discretionary funding to support teachers and principals at every phase of their careers.” Page 5 of the 7 Pages of Facts points out this billion dollars is a one time investment and implies the program is an update of an older version. I found the older version, as well as what ‘RESPECT’ stands for. From the Federal Budget 2015 Justifications document, “Recognizing Education Success, Professional Excellence, and Collaborative Teaching (RESPECT) Project”. See the dollar amount below in the screen shot:
fedledteach15

2) Ten million taxpayer dollars will go to to ‘Teach to Lead’, a most definite collection of CCSS Machine members support this program. Visual proof below is directly from their website (http://teachtolead.org/) You can click on the picture to enlarge it, if needed.
teachleadccss

My look into the ‘Teach to Lead’ article and what, you the anti CCSS Warrior needs to know about them (in case you are not familiar with them): https://www.commoncorediva.com/2015/03/16/monday-musings-leadingteaching-duncan-style/

3) A proposed ‘Teacher/Principal Pathways’ program is also included in the 2017 taxpayer funded Federal budget. The cost? It isn’t spelled out in the Ed’s blog, but I did find a dollar amount in the Fact Sheet. There it states, $125 million. Here is the excerpt, “$125 million for the proposed Teacher and Principal Pathways program for grants to institutions of higher education and nonprofit organizations, working closely with school districts, to create or expand high-quality pathways into the teaching profession, particularly into high-needs schools and high-need subjects such as science, technology, engineering and math (STEM).”
I have repeatedly shown proof as to HOW STEM is a federal led program to create a STEM nation filled with STEM citizens who have STEM jobs and HOW the CCSS was the best way to embed this. Here is JUST one of my anti CCSS Warrior, need-to-know, articles where you can learn this fact AND more! See: https://www.commoncorediva.com/2015/10/29/tech-thursday-stemccss-push-making-it-american/

As an example of what the new proposed program may contain, see how Louisiana started their program for teacher and principal pathways from their RttT funds (2012), see: http://sites.ed.gov/progress/category/teacher-and-leader-preparation-and-pathways/

4) Supposedly saving students ,who decide to teach, big bucks (‘up to $25,000’) is a built in forgiveness clause in the 2017 Budget Request. Sad truth of it all is, the forgiving won’t apply until 2021 and as one teacher who left a comment on the Blog stated, she can’t qualify because she already consolidated her student debt load in 1994! From the Fact Sheet, “A streamlined and expanded initiative to provide up to $25,000 in student loan forgiveness for teachers graduating from an effective preparation program who serve in low income schools, starting in 2021. This proposal would consolidate various post-secondary assistance options available for teachers, such as TEACH grants and the current teacher loan forgiveness program, into a single loan forgiveness program in which the benefit increases over time as teachers stay in high-needs schools.”

5) ‘Teacher and School Leader Incentive Grants’ will receive a whopping $250 million dollars. As an anti CCSS Warrior, you need to know what they will be getting for their money. From the Ed Blog, “support efforts to develop, implement, or expand human capital management systems or performance-based compensation systems in schools.” Why? From the Budget Fact Sheet,attract, develop and retain talented, committed, and accomplished teachers in high-need schools.”

6) “Supporting Effective Educator Development (SEED)”, will get $100 million. Being sold as a way to help teachers become better teachers, this money will go to “nonprofits (who) can provide evidence-based professional development activities, as well as prepare teachers and principals to serve in traditionally under-served school districts.” Below is the screen shot of the 2015 SEED grantees.
2015SEED
To see the U.S. Dept. of Ed Press Release this came from:
http://www.ed.gov/news/press-releases/us-department-education-awards-50-million-support-great-teaching-and-school-leadership


Closing:

For the last look at the proposed (after all, Congress hasn’t approved all this yet) 2017 Federal Education Budget Request, the focus will be the overreach into post-secondary education and how the ESSA is involved.

Related Resources:

To see just how many laws are being violated with JUST the data tracking/mining included in the ESSA and applies to not only our students, but everyone, see: http://missourieducationwatchdog.com/breaking-laws-or-breaking-children-a-list-of-data-and-the-laws/

To see the 2017 Federal Budget 7 Page Fact Sheet:
2017budget-factsheet

To access the 2015 Federal Budget Justifications Document for RESPECT, as well, as other very revealing CCSS Machine ties: 2015Justified

If you haven’t read these, or need a refresher as to HOW the CCSS Machine is targeting our school teachers and leaders:
1) https://www.commoncorediva.com/2015/10/18/weekend-news-ccss-school-officials-alignment/
2) https://www.commoncorediva.com/2015/04/01/wybi-crystal-clear-common-core/
3) https://www.commoncorediva.com/2015/02/13/fom-friday-ccss-cant-be-wrong/

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