Archive for the ‘Education’ Category

Think Common Core State Standards are State led? Get the facts:

(Click here to get a 2 page flier you can print or email to share with others)

• 1988: Marc Tucker became the president of the National Center for Education and the Economy (NCEE) where he joined up with Hillary Clinton, Mario Cuomo, and Ira Magaziner to get states to move away from local control of their schools and migrate to national standards. (link)

• 1990: George H. W. Bush signed an international agreement entitled, “World Education for All (EFA), the result of a United Nations “World Conference on Education for All” summit. (link)

• 1991: Tucker and Lauren Resnick created New Standards that pushed standards-based reform. (link)

• 1992: Tucker writes “Dear Hillary Letter.” This letter, written to Hillary Clinton, addressed Tucker’s ideas for radical education reform after Bill Clinton’s presidential win. The goal is “to remold the entire American system” into “a seamless web that literally extends from cradle to grave and is the same systems for everyone,” coordinated by “a system of labor market boards at the local, state and federal levels” where curriculum and “job matching” will be handled by counselors “accessing the integrated computer-based program.” (link)

• 1994: Tucker’s ambitious plan was implemented in three laws passed by Congress and signed by President Clinton: the Goals 2000 Act, the School-to-Work Act Opportunities Act, and the reauthorized Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) called “Improving America’s Schools Act of 1994.” (link)

• 1996: An organization called ACHIEVE, Inc. was formed by the nation’s governors and corporate leaders. (Many of them tied to Marc Tucker and the NCEE). The goals from an Education Summit in Palisades, NY were to ACHIEVE the goals of the 1994 school reform bills. (link)

• 1998: Tucker and Judy Codding created America’s Choice, a comprehensive school reform program, that made sure the national standards were further implemented into schools. (link)

• 2001: George W. Bush renames ESEA “The No Child Left Behind Act” and signed it into law. (link)

• 2004: Microsoft (Bill Gates) contracts with UNESCO (the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) to fulfill part of UNESCO’S Millennium Campaign Goals—universal education and educating for a global economy. A “master curriculum” for teacher training in information technologies based standards, guidelines, benchmarks, and assessment techniques is to be developed. (link)

(UNESCO / Gates Foundation Agreement)

• 2005: Bill Gates funds the New Commission on the Skills of the American Workforce—created by Tucker. States begin adopting its education reform initiative, “Tough Choices or Tough Times.” In 2008, Utah’s Governor Huntsman touts it (see video in link below) and joins with 5 others states (Massachusetts, Delaware, Arizona, New Mexico, and New Hampshire) who adopt it in order to “reinvent their educational systems.” (link)

• 2008: Gates Foundation, along with two other foundations, created Strong American Schools (a successor to the STAND UP campaign launched in 2006, which was an outgrowth of UNESCO’s Millennium Campaign Goals for Universal Education). It calls for American education standards. (link 1) (link 2)

• 2008: Gates Foundation funds the International Benchmarking Advisory Group report for Common Core Standards on behalf of the National Governors Association, Council of Chief State School Officers, and ACHIEVE, Inc. titled, “Benchmarking for Success: Ensuring U.S. Students Receive a World-Class Education.” This report shows the United Nations is a member of the International Benchmarking Advisory Group for Common Core Standards. The member of mention is the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which developed UNESCO’s Millennium Declaration—partnering with the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund. (link)

The report states: While states must take the lead, the federal government can help. And the federal government can do that best by playing an enabling role grounded in a new vision for the historic state-federal partnership in education. (link)

• 2009:  Marc Tucker writes a chapter in the book “Change Wars: The Inspiring Future for Educational Change.” One chapter is called International Benchmarking as a Lever for Policy Reform. The book says the UN’s OECD launched Programme for International Student Assessment in 2000 to monitor the outcomes of education. Linda Darling-Hammond also contributes a chapter. Darling-Hammond heads the SBAC (see 2009, December below) (link)

• April, 2009: Gates Foundation members, along with a few dozen others, participate in a Washington conference and produce “Smart Options: Investing the Recovery Funds for Student Success.” These ideas were funded by the 2008 Stimulus (ARRA-American Recovery and Reinvestment Act) and supported Race to the Top. Priority 1: Develop Common American Standards—also called Career-Ready Standards—in most states by January 2012. (link)

• 2009 (summer): Council of Chief State School Officers, National Governors Association, and ACHIEVE, Inc. agree to partner on a common core standards project. (link)

• 2009 (fall): The U.S. Dept. of Ed signals it will fund $360M for summative assessments aligned to Common Core Standards and begins planning meetings. Two consortia begin competing for this funding: Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium and Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. States begin adopting Common Core Standards and join one of the consortia in order to receive No Child Left Behind waivers from the U.S. Department of Education Secretary, Arne Duncan. (link)

• 2009 (December): Utah becomes a governing member state of Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) and is obligated to use the assessments created by the SBAC which is led by Bill Ayers’ friend, Linda Darling-Hammond. Judy Park, Associate Superintendent, Utah State Office of Ed, eventually co-chairs the Consortia. (link 1)

• 2009 (December): Gates Foundation gives the National PTA a $1 million grant to mobilize parents for Common Core Standards. (link 1)(link 2)

• June, 2010: National Governors Association and State Education Chiefs launch Common State Academic Standards. (link)

• April 2011: The SBAC Overview Curriculum and Assessment Conference issues a report stating that governing member states must adopt Common Core by Dec. 31, 2011. (link 1)

• 2011: The American Legislative Exchange Council’s (ALEC) education task force calls for the demise of the Common Core Standards, but puts it on hold after receiving a $376,635 grant from the Gates Foundation. (link)

• 2011: Bill Gates speaks at the November G20 Summit in Cannes and issues his report, “Innovation With Impact: Financing 21^st Century Development” stating, “My report will address the financing needed to achieve maximum progress on the Millennium Development Goals, and to make faster progress on development over the next decade.” (link)

• 2011: Obama Education Secretary Arne Duncan announces “Today, I promise you that [the Department of Education] will be a committed partner in the national effort to build a more environmentally literate and responsible society… We must advance the sustainability movement through education… Education and sustainability are the keys to our economic future-and our ecological future.” (link)

• 2012: States begin to recognize the loss of local control and enormous cost of implementation of the Common Core Standards. Many states begin pushing back. The Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute call the standards unconstitutional per federal education law.

• 2012: States not on Common Core and not meeting the Annual Yearly Progress requirements of NCLB petition congress for relief. Lawmakers working on options are undercut when the Obama White House circumvents congress to grant waivers from NCLB if states adopt Common Core. (link)

Texas Education Commissioner Robert Scott stated that the common standards movement amounted to a “desire for a federal takeover of public education.” Now, additional states (who originally signed on), including Massachusetts, Iowa, Kansas, and Virginia, are expressing concerns about the common standards initiative. (link)

Gov. Nikki Haley just signed a letter supporting legislation in South Carolina to block CCSS implementation stating, “South Carolina shouldn’t relinquish control to a consensus of states any more than the federal government.” (link)

Larry Shumway, Utah state superintendent, a member of the CCSSO Board of Directors, a member of the Board of Directors at West Ed which is the project management partner for SBAC assessments, recommends Utah retain its relationship as a governing member of the SBAC (thus forcing Utah to use their tests).

“I am personally opposed to any changes in Utah’s public education governance, either by constitutional amendment or by statutory revision, that would have the effect of centralizing power and decreasing representation.  I oppose changes that would decrease the ability of local boards of education, elected by the citizens of that district, to guide their own schools to meet the needs of their communities as they see it, or that would diminish the ability of 104 elected legislators and 15 elected State Board members to fulfill their responsibilities to lead Utah public education as they represent their constituencies.” -Larry Shumway–State of Education Address October 11, 2011

This seems to me a clear conflict of interest for Mr. Shumway to testify to the Utah legislature on anything related to Common Core or the SBAC.

Gates’ Foundation other contributions during the time frame of consideration and development of the Common Core initiative.

Counsel of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO): 2009–$9,961,842, 2009–$3,185,750, 2010–$743,331, 2011–$9,388,911
National Governor’s Association (NGA): 2008–$2,259,780
Mark Tucker’s NCEE: 2009–$1,500,000
Total: $27,000,000

To any who still harbor the illusion that Common Core State Standards were the product of the states simply coming together, I have a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.

Special thanks to the many people involved in digging this information up. Much work has been done by people all around the country to put this information together and help follow the money trail. Please do your part now in passing this information on to everyone you know so they can be educated about what the Common Core Initiative is really all about.

To see where Common Core fits into the scheme of related programs that make up the globalization of education, check out this visual diagram and then other links below.

This chart came from a document prepared by an organization in Oklahoma. You can obtain their full document here which is a comprehensive document entitled “Common Core State Standards and Race To the Top, an Introduction to Marxism 101.“

Wendy Hart on the Alpine School Board has been doing a terrific job this week of posting relevant information on the Common Core. I strongly encourage you to read her posts which you can find at this link. (Common Core State Standards)

Everything is coming together for a total takeover of education by the Feds. This past week a bill at the Utah legislature was thankfully amended to drop a recognition of Common Core from the language, thus leaving things open without codifying Common Core into Utah law. Anyone who looks into Common Core can easily verify the power grab in education by the feds. And yes, homeschoolers are potentially at risk as the Homeschool Legal Defense Association pointed out last November.

Here’s the Borg cube of connections which shows all the various organizations coming together to assimilate the education system. Even though the image above shows federal curriculum as unverified, the reality is that common standards and assessments will drive a perceived need for federal curriculum that matches the rest of the system. Pearson, the Gates Foundation, and others will be more than happy to provide new textbooks everyone is required to switch to.

The Borg was an alien species that threatened the existence of the Federation in the TV show Star Trek. Their race assimilated other races into their collective through hardwired neurological attachments that would reach deep into the mind. Their belief was that central control would raise efficiency. The result was a total loss of individuality and independent thought. What is happening in the education system in this country is very much a parallel to this threat.

Lt. Governor Bell recently praised the Common Core State Standards (CCSS), but there are several important things he and others need to realize.

While the math standards themselves are pretty good (addendum: read better than most states, but not top state standards), the notion that these are not national standards is inaccurate. When you have national organizations (National Governor’s Association and Chief State School Officers) collaborating to create one set of standards, you have de facto national standards.

The claim that the federal government isn’t involved in these standards is laughable. They bribed states to adopt the standards with Race to the Top grants (which would only be available for a handful of states) IF they adopted CCSS. Now, several states have sought waivers on No Child Left Behind’s annual yearly progress and the federal DOE is telling them, “we’ll grant you a waiver, IF you adopt ‘career and college ready standards’ (hint: Common Core).” Why were the Feds so interested in bribing states to get on CCSS even before a final draft was ready? They aren’t involved in this, right?

Why would Lt. Governor Bell say that Utah can adapt the standards to meet our needs and values when we aren’t allowed to modify the standards at all, except to add 15% more to them? How can he say these aren’t national standards?

If the federal government really isn’t taking over education, why have they put millions of dollars into creating assessments with organizations like SBAC, PARRC, and Achieve?

If the federal government isn’t nationalizing education, why have they mandated that states create a database to federally mandated standards to track children on 40 vital factors such as a child’s blood type, what time they get on the bus in the morning, the number of cavities in their mouths, what their religious affiliation is, family voting status, etc…? This is a total invasion of privacy. Is anyone concerned about this?

If the federal government isn’t taking over education, why have they been rewriting the laws at the federal level to strip away state and local control of education and make it look like they’ve always had legal control of education?

Can anyone not imagine the Feds soon telling the states they’ll get no federal funds for education (or perhaps ANY funds) unless they adopt this entire package? Everything is coming together for total federal control and we are embracing the Borg collective! It’s the end of individualism.

The solution isn’t found in joining the collective. It’s found in a return to true local control and giving parents MORE responsibility and authority for their children’s education. Each time we remove authority and responsibility from parents over their God-given mandate to teach their children, their interest and involvement lessens because they know, “the schools are going to educate my child.” Until we put the burden back on parents for their child’s success, education will continue to decline.

Links to the above points can be found here: https://www.utahsrepublic.org/dropping-the-common-core-state-standards/

Someone just sent me a link to Lt. Governor Bell’s blog post on the Common Core standards. Here is a link to it with my letter to the Lt. Governor which I sent off.

Dear Lt. Governor Bell,

Having read your blog post on Common Core (https://blog.lg.utah.gov/2012/01/common-sense-on-common-core/), I have a few questions for you.

1) If states joined this initiative without any strings attached, why are some states being forced by the federal government onto the standards if they want a waiver for NCLB and AYP requirements? Why did the federal government offer RTTT incentives to states that signed on? That doesn’t make any sense if you’re right. (see https://www.utahsrepublic.org/jumping-off-the-federal-education-train/)

2) How can you say Utah can adapt the standards to fit our needs and values? We are not allowed to change any of the standards except to add up to 15% more to them. They are not to be changed so they are not Utah standards. By virtue of being mostly nationwide, they are de facto national standards. (https://www.achieve.org/files/15PercentGuideline.pdf)

3) You’re correct the federal government didn’t develop the CCSS, but why are we not worried about the assessments and curriculum efforts they are funding to go along with the CCSS? Why are we not worried about the national database they have developed to track over 40 factors on children in such important ways as tooth decay, blood type, religious consideration, and what time they get on the bus in the mornings?

https://www.utahsrepublic.org/dropping-the-common-core-state-standards/

4) Were you aware that the federal government is rewriting federal education laws to remove state and local education rights and to put the federal government over education? Do you not see this directly related to their effort to get all states on the Common Core standards?

https://www.utahsrepublic.org/education-reform/doe-transition-to-tyranny/

Sincerely,

Oak Norton

Nobody wants to contemplate jumping off a moving train, but the federal government’s takeover of education is driving state and local control right off a cliff.  In several past articles on this site I’ve tried to detail the grab of power the federal government is making. This article (https://www.utahsrepublic.org/dropping-the-common-core-state-standards/) is perhaps the best summary article I can refer to which links to the components of this takeover involving standards, assessments, curriculum, database tracking, and changing of national laws on control of education.

In the past few days, I’ve received articles and insight from a few people that show the feds have become brazenly open in preparing to force states onto its plan.

From an article in the Orange County Register newspaper:

https://www.ocregister.com/articles/schools-318629-states-obama.html

President Barrack Obama on Friday announced that states can opt out of the much-maligned federal accountability system if they agree to implement reforms that include tying teacher and principal evaluations to student test scores, enacting standards to prepare students for college and careers, and adopting national common education standards.

“The federal government really did not cut us a break with this waiver plan. All these reforms will cost schools money they just don’t have,” county Superintendent William Habermehl said. “The better solution would have been for Obama just to give states unconditional relief from NCLB for two or three years while they figure out how to fix the law.”

California’s willingness to even apply for the waivers also remains unclear. State Superintendent Tom Torlakson has already expressed concern over the ability of the cash-strapped state to enact such sweeping reforms.

In other words, if you don’t want to deal with No Child Left Behind Annual Yearly Progress issues, just agree to sign onto the national plan to prepare our children for college and careers which includes CCSS, assessments, and tying school teacher and principal evaluations to those assessments.

The national database will naturally have to be part of this package to track teacher performance and it appears from this article in the NY Post that it was funded in the 2009 stimulus bill.

https://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/how_the_feds_are_tracking_your_kid_xC6wecT8ZidCAzfqegB6hL#ixzz1htUXiCRd

Under regulations the Obama Department of Education released this month, these scenarios could become reality. The department has taken a giant step toward creating a de facto national student database that will track students by their personal information from preschool through career. Although current federal law prohibits this, the department decided to ignore Congress and, in effect, rewrite the law. Student privacy and parental authority will suffer.

How did it happen? Buried within the enormous 2009 stimulus bill were provisions encouraging states to develop data systems for collecting copious information on public-school kids. To qualify for stimulus money, states had to agree to build such systems according to federally dictated standards. So all 50 states either now maintain or are capable of maintaining extensive databases on public-school students.

The administration wants this data to include much more than name, address and test scores. According to the National Data Collection Model, the government should collect information on health-care history, family income and family voting status. In its view, public schools offer a golden opportunity to mine reams of data from a captive audience.

The feds are putting states on the ropes. If you want federal funding, you either comply with AYP and impossible growth targets, or they’ll grant you a waiver for NCLB if you adopt the Common Core package which includes everything including assessments and database tracking of our children.

There is only one solution I see. Utah needs to save about 10% of its education spending and get off the federal train. Without pretty drastic action, we’re going to have state and local educators whose sole function is an administrative check to make sure everyone is complying with federal mandates on curriculum, standards, assessments, and database reporting. Don’t worry, Washington D.C. is full of people who are confident in their ability to tell you what your child needs in the way of education.

Here’s a great little analogy on the benefits of local control.

Fourth in our series this week exposing BYU’s Education Department connections, today we look at the philosophy embraced by professors and how they are reaching our local school districts with their agenda. This isn’t an indication it’s in every classroom or even most of them. It’s just part of putting people with your philosophy into positions of power, much like President Obama’s cabinet and Czars who are drastically affecting our lives.

The following letter is one I received from someone who wishes to remain anonymous. I interject below.

***********

First, I’d like to give you some background about what I’m uncovering in Canyons District just in case it comes in handy on anything you’re doing.

Alta High’s new principal, Fidel Montero, was hired after the “racist incident” at Alta. He was Timpview’s Asst. Principal. Fox 13 News reported on May 18th, 2011 the following:

The Canyon School District says it chose Montero because of his impressive resume. Before his work as a teacher, Montero consulted inner-city schools in Miami and and Los Angeles.

“He is an expert in multicultural education. He is expert in school reform,” says Jennifer Tumor-Cook, spokesperson for the Canyon School District. “

Oak note: please see Monday and Tuesday’s articles for information on multiculturalism problems at BYU’s Education Department.

Canyon’s School Board was also given social-justice educator, Linda-Darling Hammond’s, book “Flat World in Education and How America’s Commitment to Equity will Determine our Future” by our Deputy Superintendent, Ginger Rhodes. Upon reading it, a member of the board, Paul McCarty said, “I see a lot of it as a blueprint for where we are heading in Canyons District.”

Oak note: Linda-Darling Hammond was recommended by Bill Ayers to President Obama to be his Secretary of Education.

After this, Canyon’s District invited the Southern Poverty Law Center to come teach their social-justice program “Teaching Tolerance” to leaders, teachers and student-leaders in the entire district. This infuriated me!

After these tidbits, I looked up Fidel Montero and discovered that he’d come out of the David O. McKay School. And, because I knew what you’d uncovered about their connections to the NNER, I did some research.

The book Fidel co-wrote, Understanding the Whole Student: Holistic Multicultural Education , was co-written with Clifford Mayes, Ramona Cutri, & Clint Rogers (all from the David O. McKay School).

You already know a little about Ramona Cutri, but last night I finally got around to looking into Clifford Mayes. If you don’t already know, his bio describes him as a jungian scholar. This fact will be important as you read further. Here’s the link to his info on wikipedia:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clifford_Mayes

Oak note: from his BYU Vita we find these interests and papers mentioning multiculturalism and Jungian thought.

September 1996-present: Brigham Young University.
Position: Associate Professor of Education (received tenure: 2003; advancement to full professor anticipated in AY 2007)
Duties: Teaching graduate courses in social history of U.S. education, curriculum history and theory, multiculturalism, instructional theory.
Interests: Curriculum theory and history, multiculturalism, (neo-)Freudian/(neo-)Jungian theory and practice in pedagogics.

Mayes, C. (2003). Foundations of an archetypal pedagogy. Psychological Perspectives: A Semiannual Journal of Jungian Thought. C.G. Institute of Los Angeles, 46, 104-116.

Mayes, C. (2005). Ten pillars of a Jungian approach to education. Encounter: Education for Meaning and Social Justice, 18(2), “30-40.

Mayes, C., and Blackwell Mayes, P. (2005) Jung, Mormonism, and the dialectics of exaltation. Psychological Perspectives: A Semiannual Journal of Jungian Thought. C.G. Institute of Los Angeles, 48, 84-107

After reading about his background, and how he developed a new way of teaching called archetypal pedagogy, I decided to look up how Critical Pedagogy related it. Critical Pedagogy is described on wikipedia as this:

“Based in Marxist theory, critical pedagogy draws on radical democracy, anarchism, feminism, and other movements that strive for what they describe as social justice.”

Because I’ve now become a skeptic, I started wondering, “Could Clifford Mayes just be using this new term, archetypal pedagogy, to hide the fact that he’s actually teaching critical pedagogy?” So, I looked up jungian pedagogy with critical pedagogy and hit the very sad-jackpot on this BYU Jungian Scholar…

Critical Pedagogy and Cognition: An Introduction to a Postformal Educational —By Curry Stephenson Malott

“A Jungian Pedagogy therefore rejects not only traditional approaches to education that assume that teachers save kids from their inferior cultures by implementing the policies of the superior ruling class, but also the assumption that the only thing that needs to happen for revolutionary change to occur is for dominant institutions to be replaced by ones led by the organic leaders of the oppressed classes. In practice, traditional revolutions follow a hierarchical structure where movement leaders develop vision, agenda, and tactics and an army of activist-pawns carry them out.

A Jungian revolution, on the other hand, would be much more complex involving all members of society engaged in serious, rigorous self-reflection, and theoretical and historical investigations. The new society would emerge out of a rejection of the hegemony collective unconscious and therefore as a byproduct of a mass critical self-awareness that makes decisions not based on externally imposed values, but by those emanating from the internal structure of full consensus.”

So, as you can see, it really is a psychological-warfare marketing campaign for the masses, and far too many Americans are falling for it.

Oak note: Jungian pedagogy is exactly what Bill Ayers has been preaching for decades and is essentially the overthrow of our current government to be replaced by the oppressed “workers of the world uniting.” See these posts for more information on Bill Ayers if you don’t really know his philosophy.

https://www.utahsrepublic.org/bill-ayers-exposed/ (Bill the revolutionary radical Marxist)

https://www.utahsrepublic.org/whats-the-difference-between-john-goodlad-and-bill-ayers/ (a number of quotes from Ayers related to education)

Here’s the link to Curry Stephenson’s book

Here’s a link to one (out of several) books on jungian psychology that Clifford Mayes has written:

Jung and Education: Elements of an Archetypal Pedagogy by Clifford Mayes (May 25, 2005)

Also, go to this David O. McKay School link and read about his publications, a few of which mention Social Justice outright:

https://education.byu.edu/edlf/publications.html

Oak notes: It is foolishness to assume philosophies from teachers such as these don’t get passed on to students. Everything we are colors everything we do. Multiculturalism from organizations like NAME and the NNER filters to down to students through the teachers who are scholars for these organizations. Those students in turn graduate into positions of authority as administrators and teachers.

Aside from direct classroom instruction/indoctrination, one way this happens at BYU is that CITES (Center for the Improvement of Teacher Education and Schooling) trains teachers and administrators for placement within the Public School Partnership school districts. CITES is run by Steve Baugh, a John Goodlad “Agenda for Education in a Democracy” (AED) scholar. Four out of thirty national AED scholars are in Utah county, two at BYU, two in Alpine School District’s leadership.

I have had several emails asking what can be done. Get your local school board loaded with people that understand the problem and will sever the ties to the Public School Partnership at BYU and when the demand dries up, the supply will too. Your school district is paying a lot of money to CITES and to get teachers trained there. Find alternate sources of teacher training. Stop with the extreme pedagogy training and focus on content. Teachers who know their content are generally far superior teachers of subject matter. Most of all, trust no one. You are responsible for your child’s education. Be aware of the things happening at your school and your children’s classrooms. Times aren’t going to get better. Common Core State Standards will see to that.

 

Susie Schnell found yet another connection for BYU’s Education Department. This time it’s the organization NRMERA (Northern Rocky Mountain Educational Research Association) and their home page contains this message from the organization’s 2011 president, BYU Education Department professor Pamela Cantrell.

Message From the President:

In deciding our theme for NRMERA 2011, I was very influenced by the following quote by William Ayers:

“Thoughtfulness requires wide- awakeness– a willingness to look at the conditions of our lives, to consider alternatives and different possibilities, to challenge received wisdom and the taken for granted, and to link our conduct with our consciousness.”

Our teaching profession often rallies around the “best practice” cry, framing it as an end result, a set of competencies to be met before best practice can be claimed. Some researchers talk about “owning” a given number of best practice principles and warn that if not perfected, the principles may just become another set of unproductive rituals that are mindlessly applied just to meet best practice criteria. What often happens is these principles are placed on a shelf, we glance at them once in awhile, maybe we take one out for a spin now and then, but we largely ignore them and perhaps feel a bit guilty and overwhelmed by the magnitude of achieving all of them.

What I like about the Ayres quote is that it suggests a willingness to evaluate where we are, and then take action that aligns with our personal philosophies. Those actions may be incremental—moving us step by step at our own pace—guilt-free–toward better alignment between where we are and where we hope to be. In our very busy and productive lives, what I think is needed is a measured personal effort inspired by hope and optimism that will lead us…

Toward Better Practice

Helping to frame our 2011 Conference around this theme will be our Keynote Speaker, Robert V. Bullough, Jr., eminent scholar and colleague, Professor of Teacher Education, Association Director of the Center for the Improvement of Teacher Education and Schooling (CITES), Brigham Young University, and Emeritus Professor of Educational Studies, University of Utah. His most recent books include (with Craig Kridel), Stories of the Eight-Year Study: Reexamining Secondary Education in America (SUNY Press, 2007) andCounternarratives: Studies of Teacher Education, and Becoming and Being a Teacher, also from SUNY Press (2008).

Pamela Cantrell, 2011 NRMERA President

Robert Bullough at BYU, is also good friends with Bill Ayers, pictured here together (Ayers on the left sporting the communist star, Craig Kridel in the center, Robert Bullough on the right):

Why do so many BYU Education Department professors have an infatuation with Bill Ayers and other people who want to tear down our country and our God-centered morals? Yesterday’s post showed BYU’s professors on the board of directors of NAME, an organization that wants to educate children in the classroom in order to END heterosexism. This must end. I’m certainly not perfect, but this whole situation brings to mind this scripture:

Mormon 8:38 “O ye pollutions, ye hypocrites, ye teachers, who sell yourselves for that which will canker, why have ye polluted the holy church of God? Why are ye ashamed to take upon you the name of Christ? Why do ye not think that greater is the value of an endless happiness than that misery which never dies-because of the praise of the world?”

You can’t mix Korihor’s doctrine with Christ’s and come up with a perfect blend of educational ideas.

President Joseph F. Smith said, “There are three dangers that threaten the church from within, and the authorities need to awaken to the fact that the people should be warned unceasingly against them. As I see them, they are flattery of prominent men in the world, false educational ideas, and sexual impurity.”

I have previously posted this quote and declared that the first two of those notions were being fulfilled by BYU’s Education Department’s involvement with John Goodlad’s NNER and the accolades he was bestowing on them to help them continue to feel good about promoting his transformational agenda. With yesterday’s news about NAME’s goals and BYU Education Department professors being on the board of that organization, I have to say all three are now unfortunately in play. Even if BYU’s Education Department says, “oh, we only take the good from these organizations and people and ignore the bad,” they give full credibility to such organizations by lending the name Brigham Young University to the list of institutions partnered with these organizations, sitting on their boards, and presenting at their conferences. Brigham Young must be rolling in his grave along with David O. McKay.

With BYU’s education program training so many teachers who are then placed into our schools, we are seeing the fulfillment of Abraham Lincoln’s statement, “the philosophy of the school room in one generation will be the philosophy of government in the next.”

My apologies to anyone in the Education Department at BYU who understands these problems but is silenced by the politics of your own personal situation.