Stuck In An “Up” Gear

Anti Fed Ed Warriors, I hope you didn’t miss the last article of mine. It was full of Congressional amendments to the HEA (Higher Education Act). 

Today, I have two sets of sister bills (identical) which also deserve our attention. They will impact (negatively) our education system.

Both sets update existing legislation by the same name. By rights, the title for today could have gone with ‘second verse, same as the first’, but I don’t want to dishonor Herman’s Hermits (the phrase comes from their 1960s hit “Henry the 8th, I Am”.)

In all seriousness, I present S 213 and HR 787 (SOAR Act of 2019) and S 303 and HR 954 (GEAR UP Act of 2019).

While I’ve not researched SOAR before, I’ve got plenty of archived information for GEAR UP.

The Gears of Alignment:

GEAR UP is short for Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs. In 2014, I showed you how GEAR UP was tied to the College and Career Readiness Evaluation Consortium.  Back then, Congress devoted around $300 million for the alignment between education and workforce.

******GEAR UP ties  high school and post-secondary education together.****

In late 2015, research showed GEAR UP was tied to the College or Career Pathways. CCP was Common Core. CCP has been rebranded to CCR (College and Career Readiness) as well as embedded in WIOA (Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act), ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act), and other related laws.

By mid 2016, Rep. John Kline and Sen. Lamar Alexander teamed up to have the audacity to tell We the People what direction higher education needed to go. Their ‘plan’ played out via Rep. Paul Ryan’s “Better Way”. Only problem, by then,  was the workforce aligned education was fully locked in by the passage of ESSA. GEAR UP was a big part of the “Better Way”. Taxpayer costs for all the aligned education was somewhere around $60 billion.

When the FY 2017 Budget figures came out, Congress wanted at least $22 million for GEAR UP on its own. When GEAR UP was combined with all the other ‘education’ programs, the cost was a whole lot more! Low-income families and under-served populations were used as reasons why so much money needed to be poured into the CCSS Machine’s ‘cradle to grave’ or ‘cradle to career’ system. (Be sure to look at the collaboration of the federal agencies for all the alignment.)

BY July 2017, GEAR UP was up for more money. It was also right in line for P3 (Public Private Partnerships) overreaches, too. Somewhere between these articles and this one, the globalism thread was showing up.

Last year, 2018, I gave you 3 articles on GEAR UP. The first one showed you, from a State level (NC’s) how GEAR UP was being used as a ‘back door’ to reach down to much earlier than high school, for aligned workforce education. The second article showed how amending HEA (and including GEAR UP in it somewhere), would expand our government, not shrink it. The last article I wrote about GEAR UP (mid 2018) showed how it was being used in ALL school choices, at all levels, for 21st Century Readiness.
You can tie 21st Century Readiness to the P21 Group, a notorious CCSS Machine member.

What S 303 and HR 954 Update for GEAR UP:

1) They ‘reform’ the program. Since both Bills are identical, I’ve providing one link (S 303). Each bill will have different sponsors, co-sponsors, so if you need those names, visit www.congress.gov and type in Bill letter/number.
2) They rename the program, at least in Bill form. “GEAR UP for Success Act of 2019” is the full title.
3) They amend the HEA (Higher Education Act). By default, this expands federal government overreach into education.
4) They expand the breadth of students reached for college/career readiness. (Meaning younger than high school are now included.)
5) Incentivize States to have early college/career awareness interventions. Pit States in active competitions against each other for these grant opportunities to expand ‘strategies’ for these interventions.
6) Insert SEL (Social Emotional Learning), mental health counseling, etc. for ‘at-risk’ students. Will include cognitive and non-cognitive assessments. (How this plays into the career readiness will be via those career tracks students are pigeon-holed to. These will basically rank and file students on a pay scale.)

As seen below, this is an example of why students need to be assigned careers via tests.

(Source)

7) Establish or expand data collection to last 5 years AFTER grants expire.
8) Collaborate with any eligible group for college awareness/career awareness.
9) Offer scholarships to students who’ve fully participated in GEAR UP activities. Scholarships will be based on several factors, including the number of students on reduced/free lunch and who’ve filled out FAFSA (federal student aid) forms.

HR 787/S 213, SOAR Act:

1) “SOAR” stands for “Scholarships for Opportunity And Results”.
Here’s the link for HR 787.
2) These scholarships are set aside for District of Columbia students only.
3) These Bills amend Public Law 112-10, Division C. Basically funding DC parents/families for ‘school choice’.
(Below is a screen shot of that law.)

Public Law 110-12 was from during the 112th Congress, 2011. You can read the entire section on the DC School Choice information and what parameters were set in store, as well as see how these 2019 Bills will renew the ‘choices’. Since the print in the picture of PL 110-12 is so small, it’s best to go directly to the website, look for Section 3001 and continue until 3014.
*Note: The NAEP (National Assessment of Educational Progress) is mentioned, as is the IES (Institutes for Educational Sciences). IES is an arm of the U.S. Dept. of Education which harvests and collects, freely shares student data. NAEP is tied to the Program for International Student Asssessment (PISA).
As such, it’s all tied back to  the CCSS Machine. As we know, there is ZERO choice in education since ESSA was made into law. Much of S 213 and HR 787 center on charter schools.

4) These 2019 Bills extend Opportunity Scholarships until FY 2024. No dollar amount has been cited as of yet.
5) Massive amounts of data will be collected and used against each participating student.
How? If they do not conform to all the parameters given in the scholarships, they will lose them. Parameters are strings, Warriors. Strings tied to our children to force the government’s agenda for a prescribed outcome, not a true freely chosen education.

Below, I’m showing you a screen shot of the official DC Opportunity Scholarship website.

While the 2018-19 figures cite a per child cost, the 2017 Report was created by the IES about DC Opportunity Scholarships, as mandated by Congress. In that Report, it revealed that after one year, math scores were down, parents weren’t all that impressed with the new schools EXCEPT for school safety (which ESSA has used as excuses to data mine and indoctrinate children).

So WHY is the 116th willing to throw money at providing scholarships which aren’t really doing that much good?

Among DC Opportunity Scholarship Board Members, Verizon is represented (CCSS Machine member group). Among Partnerships, Jack Kent Cook and Great Schools are listed. Huge CCSS Machine member groups. Capital Partners for Education is a P3 group where you’ll find one of the Bush family members serving representing their international LLC. As we know the Bush family is a big supporter of CCSS.

Capital Partners for Education’s tag line is “Mentoring to College and Career”. From their 2018 Annual Report, you’ll find the mentoring is geared for 3 different ‘outcomes’ for students. They really focus on the kids in the middle of GPAs (Grade Point Averages) and love to focus on ‘soft skills’. For a look at HARD Goals and SMART Goals (where ‘soft skills’ can be found) read my 2017 article.
Capital Partners for Education is partners with Bank of America, Microsoft,and,  Hilton. All of which are CCSS Machine members.

Closing:

Warriors, as I said in my last article, these types of Bills from the 116th are from the early part of the Session. We need to continue to watch, but more importantly we need to take back our government. Take back our students. Stop allowing bad leadership and even worse financial management. We cannot win the War Vs the Core by shear research alone. We must get actively irate! We must strike several blows to the CCSS Machine.