State Hearings: Pay-offs, Politics and Propaganda
 HOUSE HEARING ANNOUNCED
On Tuesday, May 14, the PA House Education Committee will hold a hearing on their Big Government “solution” to educational standards known as Common Core. Unfortunately, the hearing will lack fairness and balance with Education Secretary Tomalis, an advocate of the one-size-fits-all Common Core, being the only speaker.
So one may ask: why have a hearing if only a pro Common Core advocate is allowed to speak? It certainly sounds like the only reasons for a House hearing are to placate those Pennsylvanians who are against Common Core and to be able to later claim that they indeed held a hearing.
If you are as outraged by this action by the House Education Committee as the leadership of Pennsylvanians Against Common Core are, please contact members of the Education Committee and demand that an impartial, balanced hearing be held that includes knowledgeable opponents to expose the many failures and inadequacies of Common Core. The first phone call and email should be directed to House Education Committee Chair Paul Clymer at 717-783-154 or 215-257-0279 pclymer@pahousegop.com and then go here to find phone numbers and emails of the remaining members of the Committee. Please also consider contacting House Majority Leader Mike Turzai who apparently sees nothing wrong with another Big Government solution to what should be a local issue at 717-772-2470 and mturzai@pahousegop.com
BALANCED SENATE HEARING TO BE HELD
On Wednesday, May 15, the PA Senate Education Committee will hold a hearing on Common Core. Unlike the House hearing, this hearing will be fair and balanced. The Senate public hearing on the Common Core Standards will be held in Harrisburg at 1 PM. The hearing will be held in Hearing Room 1, in the North Office Building to the right of the Capital Building.
Pennsylvanians Against Common Core greatly appreciates that Senate Education Committee Chairman Mike Folmer has planned a truly balanced hearing and has allowed opponents to Common Core to arrange to bring in three outstanding and well known proponents of local control. Neal McCluskey from CATO Institute, Joy Pullmann from Heartland Institute along with Cheryl Boise from Commonwealth Education Organization will be testifying against the standards.
 Compromised Testimony
Testifying at the Senate hearing in favor of the Common Core are David Patti from the PA Business Council (PBC) and Joan Benso of PA Partnerships for Children. It should be noted that both groups and speakers have been compromised by accepting huge amounts of money from the Gates Foundation in order to promote Common Core.
The PBC received a $257,391 grant in Aug. 2012 to “educate Pennsylvania opinion leaders, policymakers, the media, and the public on Common Core State Standards and the Common State Assessment.” While the PAPC received -$595,859 in 2011 to promote college readiness from Gates and then received another $100,000 in 2010.
If you are not aware, the Gates Foundation is far and away the largest supporter of Common Core, having given away $104 million to promote Common Core across the country to groups like PBC and PAPC. This amount does not include their funding of the two supposedly neutral “state-led” groups that designed Common Core, the National Governor’s Association ($30,679,116) and the Council of Chief State School Officers ($71,302,833) to develop the Common Core” as part of the push into implementation.
Questions to be Answered
Since there will be no opposition speaking at the House hearing and the Senate Hearing will only allow questions from Committee members, we suggest the following questions of the proponents:
1. What are the costs of implementation and who did the analysis?
2. Will implementation costs of Common Core be included in the next fiscal year budget?
3. Why does this have to be done right now and imposed on every district instead of testing these unproven methods on a smaller sample?
4. Why are we doing this without proof it works?
5. How are we guaranteed that Teachers do not go from "teaching to the PSSA test" to "teaching to the Common Core Standards test"?
6. You said this was initiated by Pennsylvanians. Who?
a. What was their expertise and where are they now?
b. Do they stand to benefit financially?
7. If this will supposedly improve students’ education but you can't point to anywhere where it has been done and worked, why not start with the bottom 5% of failing schools in PA?
8. Who wrote the standards?
9. Who paid for Common Core development?
10. You say that curriculum and testing are not involved in Common Core. Do not the standards drive curriculum and testing?
Do you need a one page flyer? Try here and here.
Please continue to promote the Pennsylvanians Against Common Core on-line petition and Facebook page. We would like to be able to attend the May 15 Senate hearing with a petition with more than 10,000 signatures and we need your help in reaching out to your friends and contacts to make that happen.
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Please educate yourself about the perils of Common Core Curriculum and get the word out to others. After reviewing the information my evaluation of this programs is:
Common Core Curriculum=Communist School to Work
There is a short 5 part video by Jane Robbins below:
About the Stop the National Common Core Power Grab: Reclaim Local Control of Education DVD video. The video:
· Explains the origin of the Common Core – its genesis with private, progressive education interests in Washington, DC – and how the federal government imposed it on the states by tying its adoption to a chance at Race to the Top grants.
· Demonstrates that by adopting the Common Core, a state relinquishes its control over what is taught in its schools and paves the way for a national curriculum designed by unaccountable entities in Washington.
· Explains that the standards not only lack “rigor,” but in fact will diminish the education our children receive in English language arts and mathematics.
· Outlines the problems with the national tests that are being designed – behind closed doors – to align with the Common Core.
· Shows why the costs of implementing the Common Core will dwarf any federal grants received as a reward for adopting the standards.
· Reveals the federal dictates to build massive student-data systems so that students can be individually tracked from preschool through career – all in the name of producing “workers” who can “compete in the global economy.”
Simply put, the Common Core is designed to replace local and parental control over education with centralized, top-down control. The purpose is to train students for jobs, not educate them to be full, thoughtful citizens in our democratic republic. If we do not take action now to prevent this destructive experiment on our children, it will be too late.
Please watch this video and share it with others.
Click for Part 2:
Chapter 3 Education Without Representation
Chapter 4 Sub-Standard Standards
Click for Part 4:
Chapter 7 National Standards Do More Harm Than Good
Chapter 8 Future Effect of Common Core
And for a wealth of information and a preview of the type of data that will be collected please visit:
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