2nd in a Continuing Education UPDATE Series
By A. Patrick Huff Ph.D.
AUSTIN Texas (Texas Insider Report) The reality is we have an education system run by an agency a Governor and Lieutenant Governor
that despite their intent to do so does not act in the best interest of the children of Texas. This is because
they are not in control of their own system. They do not provide for a system of education through the public schools (that by the way have the ability to provide the very best education) because
they cannot decide on their own what is best.
To make matters worse even if we the people vote them out of office and the new governor appoints a new commissioner and a new head of the state board nothing will change. This is because despite all the rhetoric about ESSA returning local control back to the states and independent school districts Texas and every other state in the Union is tied to the federal government and has turned over the dictates of its governing education agency to the bureaucrats in the U.S. Department of Education.
I got to witness this first hand when I went to a meeting of
the Commission to evaluate the Next Generation Assessments & Accountability. This is the Commission that will make final recommendations to the Commissioner of Education Mike Morath for
the type of assessments our students will have and the new accountability system that will rate and label the public schools.
Two members of the Texas Legislature
Representative Jimmie Don Aycock (at right) from the House of Representatives and
Senator Larry Taylor from the Texas Senate are overseeing the Commission. Both serve a chairman of the Education Committee in the body which they serve.
At this particular meeting that was held in April of 2016 two gentlemen from Washington D.C. were on hand to assist on interpretations in
the new ESSA Federal Law. When these two gentlemen talked everyone paid close attention. Not a single objection was heard from anyone on the panel as the men from Washington told them how Texas would operate their schools.
The subject of grading schools by the A-F method was brought up. The two gentlemen from Washington D.C. left no doubt this is how the system will operate. No one objected to this distasteful method for grading our public schools.
Is this what we expect from our elected officials in Texas?
Even more disturbing in regards to who is calling the shots in our childrens education when you begin to dig a little deeper you find our federal government marching to the beat of UNESCO under the United Nations. Yes thats correct the reason we cant decide our own curriculum for our schools is because
UNESCOs agenda for world education is driving policy decisions here in America right down to the local school district that cant determine which curriculum it wishes to follow.
In truth while most want to blame President Obama for Common Core the truth is even if John McCain had won the election in 2008 Common Core was set to go. Common Core had been chosen to become the standard bearer for American education long before Obama. In fact Common Core has its roots as much in the philosophy of the right as it does from the left.
Although I dont put a lot of stock in any report coming out of a Non-Governmental Agency with particular ideologies meant to sway public opinion this report from the
Brookings Institute deals fairly with this issue. One has also only to ponder at the oddity of Republican Jeb Bushs adamant support for the Common Core supposedly a Democrat initiative to see the push from both sides of the political isle to make Common Core the education standard for our country.
To add one more piece of documentation to the UNESCO link let me include this document from the mid 1980s that demonstrates UNESCOs desire to put the globe under one set of education standards. In this report from 1984 we see a
UNESCO document exploring the best ways to teach the various disciplines and the best way of training teachers and others involved in education so as to best mold the minds of the children to the curriculum being taught.
All of this sounding innocent until you look to see who is controlling the curriculum and how the teachers are trained to teach it.
As history has taught us the centralization of authority may start off with good intentions but it ultimately leads to manipulation corruption and deceitful practices all for the benefit of a few. It could easily be argued that this is exactly what has happened with our education system.
We have to come to grips with the reality of our plight with our education system. We have lost control and furthermore we have lost control to the extreme detriment of our children.
We are seeing the affects of this loss of control in the classrooms across the state daily. Teachers are sounding the alarm as well as parents and experts in the field of study.
The subject most affected due to the influence of the Common Core is math. In this article from
Breitbart.com we read During a Friday conference call sponsored by Texas-based Women on the Wall Stanford mathematician and former member of the Common Core Validation Committee
Dr. James Milgram told listeners that if the controversial standards are not repealed Americas place as a competitor in the technology industry will be severely undermined". (The link provided will take you directly to the conference call. You will find it very enlightening.)
Now what do we do?
More and more people students parents teachers counselors principals superintendents and school board members are waking up to the reality of this horrible mess of an education system we have allowed state federal and global entities to bring in for our childrens education. Many in the education profession are afraid to speak up. Jobs and pensions are on the line. Parents stay quiet
often because they dont want their child stigmatized at school.
Once learning became quantified the reformers had what they needed to declare an emergency with huge numbers of schools
failing.
The people of Great Britain stood up and let their voice be heard. Time will tell what direction this historic vote will take but what the people of Great Britain let the world know is we the people will decide our fate. Lets take note of this courageous stand taken by the Brits and tell our elected officials in one common voice:
- We want our schools back.
- We want sanity returned to the classroom.
- We want to decide what curriculum our teachers will teach.
- We want the teacher to be returned to their rightful place as the purveyors of knowledge in the classroom not a computer or some other digital device.
- We want our children to love going to school and learning for the sake of learning.
Thats all we want. Is that too much to ask?
Lets let our voices be heard. We need to say No to Washington D.C. and No to the United Nations. Lets have a Brexit in education.
A. Patrick Huff received his Ph.D. in Educational Leadership in June 2014 from Prairie View A&M University. His Dissertation was entitled The Subjugation of Public Education in America: A grounded theory study into the domination of testing in public schools and the rise of charter schools." He is the author of the book The Takeover of Public Education in America: The Agenda to Control Information & Knowledge Through the Accountability System".
