As those of you who are regular readers of this blog will know, many of us are mothers who are deeply disturbed by, and are dead set against, adoption of  the Common Core initiative. Friday, I had an enlightening exchange with my sister who is a teacher in an unspecified state who shall remain unidentified in this article to protect her from the National Educational Association (NEA) and their wrath. She had been asked to put together a resource book to support a subject area for Common Core (CC) and thought she would have a European colleague review the book, since teachers in her district are being told that CC is needed to help bring our children up to meet their European counterparts on a more even field when they graduate and enter the workforce. Her colleague’s response to the curriculum was, as my sister so colorfully described it, a combination of disbelief and Whiskey Tango Foxtrot (WTF).

Pat Gray over at the Blaze wonderfully explained his own Whiskey Tango Foxtrot moment involving CC when he read Fred Lucas’s interview with Secretary of Education Arnie Duncan recently. It seems that Secretary Duncan was less than truthful about CC’s not being a form of Federal coercion. First of all the CC standards were presented as a one size fits all curriculum standard to be applied across all 50 states that would enable families to transfer between state school systems without worrying about their children falling behind or having to repeat grades due to not being able to keep up. Sounds great, especially in the current economic climate where parents have to make decisions like where to move to find work. Where does the Federal coercion come in, you ask? Well when the Administration passed the Stimulus Bill (OINK for short) they included some $4.35 billion for the Department of Education to use as they saw fit. DOE carved out $362 million to support the development and implementation of CC.  This is where the Administration’s infamous “Race to the top” program financially rewarding states that signed on to CC sight unseen  comes into play. 45 states signed on to the curriculum without reviewing it (in fact the applications from the states were due to the government in January of 2010 while the actual curriculum was not published until March of that year). Some states have opted out of the curriculum: Virginia, Texas, South Carolina and most recently Arizona, hopefully more will follow.

In addition to the frightening educational ramifications there is the insanely creepy data mining and product research aspect of this curriculum. Do we really want our public schools to be nothing more than indoctrination factories outfitted with Microsoft product research gear? Oh, yes. Bill and Melinda Gates are HUGE proponents of the CC standards. This quote, with emphasis added from the Blaze article should sum it up for you:

“For example, Gates explained [emphasis added]:

“…identifying common standards is not enough. We’ll know we’ve succeeded when the curriculum and the tests are aligned to these standards. To create just these kinds of tests—next-generation assessments aligned to the common core. When the tests are aligned to the common standards, the curriculum will line up as well—and that will unleash powerful market forces in the service of better teaching.”

Gray goes on to explain the 1984-ish aspect of the Microsoft founders involvement with CC:

“Yep. Gates will be using the data gathered from our kids to develop products he will then sell to us and our children. Does his reasoning for investing a quarter of billion dollars or more on this project begin to make a little more sense?”

How does Gates propose to do this? Here we depart Orwell and join George Lucas in his futuristic sci-fi classic Star Wars as Gray explains:

“We, along with Michelle Malkin and others, have explained the sinister data mining that the Department of Education outlined in a February 2013 report. The report contemplated plans to use techniques such as “functional magnetic resonance imaging” and “using cameras to judge facial expressions, an electronic seat that judges posture, a pressure-sensitive computer mouse and a biometric wrap on kids’ wrists.”

That is right, the Federal Government wants to record data on your family (such as their political affiliations, religious values and observances-are you getting nervous yet?) and make it part of your child’s permanent school record. They also want to strap your child into a seat outfitted with all kinds of technological doodahs to record their biometric feedback during standardized testing.

How do we stop this?

Get involved!! Michelle Malkin has written tons of  articles on CC, The Blaze has an entire section dedicated to it on their site and there are independent blogs like What is Common Core that are created and maintained by concerned educators. Run for office on your local school board, involve yourself with the PTA or PTO and seek out Facebook groups that are addressing this in your state. The best defense against CC’s disasterous implentation is a good offense-and no one knows how to execute one of those better than angry, concerned mothers!