A Monumental “Crush”

Breaking News! Monday Musings

Anti Fed Ed Warriors, as promised in my last article, a close up look at Maryland’s education system. Remember, Marc Tucker dropped a huge hint about this in that 4/23/19 seminar promoting his new book.
I highlighted his comments about it below:
423roundBefore we get too much further, I wanted to see if MD was about the size of any of the “Tucker approved” Top Performing Countries he’s so convinced we need to copy.

After all, since the CCSS Machine is going to such lengths to make us global, we will need to see what’s in store. Can we find any clues as to HOW Maryland is about to become a national show-off?

Estonia:

I found Estonia is about the size of MD. (Estonia is #2 on the Tucker list). If you aren’t sure about Estonia’s education system, I found out it’s a ministry of the government.
Officially called the Republic of Estonia’s Ministry of Education and Research.
If you’re curious about how their school system works, the Ministry has put together a ‘cutesy’ video.

If you look around their website, a bit, the Estonian Ministry has more information. Like their ‘lifelong learning’ plan.

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Warriors, if you notice, ages 65 and up are not included in this 2020 Plan. Why? Those older than 64 are encouraged to become ‘working pensioners’. According to their plan for seniors, you’ll need to still be a productive and contributing member of society, but the government will provide some of your income. You are still expected to go to school, too.
(If you look in the Estonia 2020 Plan’s definitions, you’ll find out all the difference locations the country counts as ‘schools’.)
The Plan for seniors is NOT a Estonia one, my followers. This ‘senior plan’ is called the Madrid International Plan of Action on Aging (MIPAA). The UN adopted this back in 2002.

Going back to education in Estonia and what possibly could be found in Maryland, ‘the village’ concept is applied there. I didn’t see a school board mentioned once. I did see a village/community based commission. These are designed to keep school creative and learning centered.

You’ll also find that Estonia is big on ‘school choice’. The ‘choice’ is largely funded by the government. Will we find this in Maryland, too? Warriors, we know the federal government, here in the US, is pushing for billions of taxpayer dollars for funding ‘choice’.

Maryland And Estonia: 

MDES
Warriors, you’re seeing correctly. MD and Estonia have been partners since the early days following The Cold War.

In 2009, The MEEC (Maryland/Estonia Exchange Council) increased its efforts in education.

(*Note: if you wish to see the long list of overreaches into many school choices the OTHER MEEC (Maryland Education Enterprise Consortium) has, go here.)
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Not too terribly long before America was given the WIOA of 2014, (Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act of 2014), MD and Estonia signed an agreement to mutually share education and workforce programs.

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(Source)

Maryland And Marc Tucker:

Warriors, Tucker, himself, was bragging (just the other day) on how MD is soon to be in the national news.
So, when did he visit MD? EdWeek has a 2017 article Marc Tucker wrote about his appearance in their legislature. His entire point? Revolutionizing education funding for the 21st Century.

In this 2018 Report from the Commission on Innovation and Excellence in EducationTucker’s name appears 16 times. You’ll also see Linda Darling- Hammond and Dr. Chester Finn’s names, too. If you search the over 100 pages, you’ll see that Tucker spoke on every one of his 9 Blocks for Maryland. (see below in “Related Resources”, I illustrated the 9 Blocks). From this Report, it appears the Commission had been meeting since 2016.

In 2018, the Baltimore Sun published an article where the Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education was struggling with how to address ‘at risk’ students. Among the ‘solutions’ was RtI, Response to Intervention. RtI is part of the mental health grab you’ll find in ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act). Tucker’s name appeared in this article as well.

Also from 2018, Johns Hopkins School of Education published a 16 page report on how flawed Tucker’s system was (and still is). The irony is that Johns Hopkins is also in the CCSS Machine.

The EPI (Economic Policy Institute) heavily criticized Marc Tucker’s earlier workforce based reform system for education. This Report is from 2007.

Below, is a screen shot of the MD Advocates for Children and Youth organization. They featured regular updates on the Commission Tucker was a consultant for. They even have a 2019 Legislative look at all the Commission’s findings which have passed in their State legislature. No wonder Marc Tucker’s excited MD is about the ‘rock the nation’.
mdadvocate

Related Resources:

1) From 2018, Seattle Education shared Missouri Education Watchdog’s article all about Marc Tucker’s design for ‘education’ in America.

2) If, you’re like me and won’t be buying Tucker’s new book, but wonder what his ‘9 Blocks’ for ‘high performance’ education are: 

blockhead

3) From MD, their 2018 education accomplishments. If you watched to Estonia video, what you’ll read here, sounds very close. The MEEC (Ed Enterprise) is on Page 21, Estonia is on Page 4, among the countries MD students virtually interact with. The grant for this came from the Humanities arm of the Maryland government. You’ll see here that one county in MD (Montgomery) allotted $25,000.00 in FY 2019 for the Sister States School Linkage Program”. (*Note: look on page 67-11. Does your State have a “Sister States program? Does it have a “Sister Cities” program? DYK?Sister Cities International was founded in 1956 by President Dwight D. Eisenhower as an adaptation of the popular European concept of “twinning” that emerged after World War II. It was established as a way of promoting good will and creating enduring peace between formerly warring countries.’ Source)

4) From 2007, Tucker’s paper on increasing workforce based education. It was published by ASCD.

5) American Educational Research Assoc. (AERA) interviewed Tucker in 2015 (about a month before ESSA became law) take a look back at his words & compare to where we are now, in 2019.

6) WIOA (Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act) embedded 21 different instances for CTE (Career Tech Education) and its CPs (Career Paths), it also embedded the Dept. of Defense 16 times. Why? Funds for workforce education to be extended to the military.
The same military which, not only, aligned itself to the CCSS Machine, but STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and, Math). STEM is a UN (United Nations) tool to create global workforce, education, and, economy.
How does this impact our topic for today’s article? The National Guard Distance Learning Program is funded through WIOA. The National Guard is also part of the MD/Estonia partnership.

meec

7) If you’ve heard of the ERI (European Reassurance Initiative), it was originally proposed back in 2014. Part of the funding for ERI (which a portion goes to Estonia) is used for ‘support in programs, activities, and assist the government’.

While education is not mentioned, workforce training isn’t either. However, we have no documentation to show HOW the funds are divided, once they get to the intended country. So, the question is: does any of our federal funding go to be used for aligning education and workforce somewhere else to be returned to us in educratic reform campaigns by the likes of Marc Tucker?! Long-time Anti Fed Ed Warrior, Charlotte Iserbyt sounded the “NO! Marc Tucker” alert in this article.

8) From 2015, Marc Tucker’s ‘love’ for Estonia shows his true colors: Russian and Germanic education models. Warriors, read the article, and you’ll see it’s not simply education we should be concerned about, it’s our entire nation. If data mining in education bothers you, read how Estonia’s a master at using all that data.

9) Dr. Karen Salmon celebrated MD’s alignment to global education in this Feb. 2019 update:


salmon

In this Aug. 2018 MD Dept. of Education meeting notes, you’ll see Dr. Salmon’s future plan for use of data on Page 3.

The “Lead Higher Initiative” is in place to create “Next Generation High Schools”.

10) Warriors, any guess as to how much Tucker’s influence in MD’s education will cost the taxpayers (State wide and Nationally)? $725 million dollars…and the Plan is being fast-tracked through the MD legislators.

11) If you missed Gov. Hogan’s 2020 Presidential information, go here.

Closing:

Warriors, that’s it. My two-day look at one of the worst Americans I can happily say I will never meet in person. He is dangerous to our children, to us, and to our nation. We know he is not alone in the destruction of our land. He’s not alone in his quest to kill real education. We’ve got somewhat of a leg up on beating the news Tucker’s been gloating about as ‘the other half of the bigger picture’ in American education reform.

fire
We need to roar, Warriors!

Now, let’s EXPOSE it, so we can steal his thunder. If any of you know someone in MD, let’s get the word to them. 

5 thoughts on “A Monumental “Crush”

  1. Everyone needs to read the Dear Hillary letter written to Hillary Clinton by Marc Tucker when Bill won the election. Marc Tucker is not and never has been an educator. His degree is in stage management or something like that…..theatrics is his degree and he is a brilliant actor (fake, fraud). He is also strongly supports communist style education…….polytech school to work training not academics. Kids should get just the education (training) they need to fulfill the requirements of their future field of work chosen by the government (but this will be done using the Delphi technique to make parents/stdudents think the choice was theirs). One thing not mentioned which is a huge factor in academic success of a country. POVERTY. The US has the highest poverty numbers in developed countries. Also, the PISA and TIMSS (the international tests twisted to push Tuckers lies) clearly state because of the different variables between countries you cannot use these tests to determine if one countries education policies are better than another country. Just a little fact Tucker and others refuse to acknowledge. Finland has the population of North Jersey and their poverty rate is extremely low. Dr. Chris Tienken (Seton Hall University in NJ) is an expert on these international tests and the NAEP. He has proven when we compare apples to apply (currently these tests compare apples to hammers) the US comes out on top in just about every category. It would behoove some to read his research. I put together a presentation using his research and it was approved for accuracy by Dr. Tienken if anyone is interested in seeing it let me know. It was created a few years back but valid just the same. Since I put together that presentation PISA was rewritten by Pearson to align with Common Core. That alone should send a cold shiver down the spine of every American.

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