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Delaware’s Republican Party wants to be known as the party of inclusion.. The have a marketing firm trying very hard to present an “image” that helps make this seem believable.
“What we’re telling people is that the principles that drive the Republican party are inclusive, and we’ve had candidates up and down our ticket who reflect that,” said Charlie Copeland, a former state Senate Minority leader who now runs the Delaware GOP.
Voters in November will find a ballot with a number of young candidates, women and people of color, a reflection of a concerted effort within the state party to broaden its appeal and ditch its stereotypical image…..
Yet none of these young, women, or people of color have disassociated themselves from the most bigoted, racist, misogynist, hateful, secular, satanist candidate we have ever seen….
For example, click on Jean Dowding’s website. She is running against Sean Lynn in Dover. Can we really expect her to enthusiastically support Trump’s call to round up all blacks openly execute them on the spot in the name of “keeping our streets safe”?
Of course not. but she is solidly (in public if not private) toeing Charlie Copeland’s line and says she solidly supports and is behind the top of the ticket: Donald Trump, that guy pictured at the top of this article….
(Now to be fair, Donald Trump now is not the same one here in Delaware last April.. If campaigning hard as local candidates are wont to do, she may actually not be aware of what he now stands for)….
Here is the updated list of Donald’s current stance, just off of Delaware Liberal’s site. Thanks Guys, 🙂 )
Cut taxes for me.
Cut business taxes for my business.
Frack, baby, frack.
Keep America ignorant.
Implement legislation written by heath insurance companies.
Create a reality TV show that is one part “Hunger Games” and another part “Logan’s Run”.
Stop Mexicans.
Stop and Frisk The Blacks.
End Islam.
Get even with the Republican Party and the Clintons.
This is directly taken from yesterday’s Donald Trump’s 100 day speech!… This is what he is preaching today.. and this is what every single one of the following below is supporting, whether they know it or not…
Today, we often look back on history as the rise and fall of monolithic entities, we think of Nazi Germany, we think of Soviet Russia, we think of Ayatollah Khomeini’s Iran…
Only they weren’t monolithic. They were established by one sect over-ruling another sect of their people.. Once in control, as presented to the world at large, they then became monolithic entities… But inside, there were a lot of citizens who passionately felt they too were going the wrong direction (until they were killed, lol) ? Many changed their initial support after they discovered the true nature of those who they put their vote behind…(and then they were ratted on, and killed, lol).
Today, we already know what Trump stands for. We already know how much ineptitude he represents. We already know how unprepared he is to lead the greatest nation in the world, We already know how far his values lead our nation from its principals based on those principles underlying all the world’s great faiths.. Today we know what a selfish, sniveling, little snot he really is..
Hitler to his credit, was able to hide it. Stalin, to his credit was able to hide it. Trump to his discredit, spread it across our TV’s for all to see.
And, you still support him? What in the hell is wrong with you? Seriously… Go look in the mirror and say eye to ey to your image that you support in full the above 100 days contract and are proud to represent to your color, your gender, or your age group, that ideal as an American Republican… And if it gags you when doing it in your own mirror image, you can imagine how it gags all of humanity to see you remain silent against the upcoming destruction of the Constitution as well as the underpinning of America’s great economy…
It takes courage to stand up to ones enemies… It takes an untold almost insurmountable level of courage to stand up to ones supporters and friends…
The path all of you have chosen to follow, is atheistic and non biblical. ….
James 4:17 So whoever knows the right thing to do and fails to do it, for him it is sin.
James 2:26 For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.
Titus 2:7-9 Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent, may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.
Matthew 7:21-23 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’
Galatians 5:19-26 Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God. But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. …
Micah 6:8 He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
Matthew 7:21“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven.
Colossians 3:23 Whatever you do, work heartily, as for the Lord and not for men,
3 John 1:11 Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.
Titus 3:14 And let our people learn to devote themselves to good works, so as to help cases of urgent need, and not be unfruitful.
Ecclesiastes 12:13-14 The end of the matter; all has been heard. Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man. For God will bring every deed into judgment, with every secret thing, whether good or evil.
James 2:24 You see that a person is justified by works and not by faith alone.
All which deal a blow directly to Charlie Copeland’s leadership of the party… It’s not what you say Charlie, but how your party acts, on which they will be judged….
All of the following have chosen to act one certain way… which is to support the candidate of their party no matter how crazy he has become… One must seriously question the psychological makeup of anyone who will support violence against women, against blacks, against Hispanics, against the deeply religious, (as long as they are Muslims)…
These people below do not deserve to represent America in the 21st Century…… Please check to see if you have any candidates listed and then be sure to vote for their opponent, or click them, and ask them why they say one thing, but do the opposite which is another….
Charlie Copeland
Colin Bonini
Hans Reigle
La Mar T. Gunn
State Senate Candidates
- Cathy Cloutier: District 5
- Anthony Delcollo: District 7
- Carl Pace: District 14
- David Lawson: District 15
- Brian Pettyjohn: District 19
- Gerald Hocker: District 20
State House Candidates
Kevin Hensley: District 9
Judith Travis: District 10
Jeff Spiegleman: District 11
Debbie Hudson: District 12
James Louis DeMartino: District 14
James R. Startzman, Jr: District 19
Stephan Smyk: District 20
Mike Ramone: District 21
Joesph E. Miro: District 22
Timothy Conrad: District 24
Michael Nagorski: District 25
Janice Gallagher: District 29
William Outten: District 30
Jean Dowding: District 31
Patricia Foltz: District 32
Charles Postles: District 33
Lyndon Yearick: District 34
David Wilson: District 35
Harvey Kenton, Jr: District 36
Ruth Briggs King: District 37
Ronald Gray: District 38
Daniel Short: District 39
Timothy Dale Dukes: District 40
Richard Collins: District 41
“We the above, do solemnly swear to abide, support, and pursue the election of Donald Trump as president of the United States, and will work to uphold, enact, and support all the policies he has put forth…..
Signed:
All of the Above....
You may remember… Only two states were accepted in the first Race to The Top Competition… Delaware..*yay* and Tennessee. Same agenda. Same connections to the Governor’s Association and Chiefs For Change… Same influences, etc…
Let me tell you where Tennessee is now…
In three weeks, they start their school year… yes, August 3rd. This past year they instituted a non-renewal policy that said if you’re scores were not above standard, your contract would not be renewed… AND you would be marked as ineligible for rehire.
(Someone thought the threat of firing would cause scores to rise.)
One of their larger districts is undergoing some pain right now…
The Metro- Nashville Public School system is experiencing a teacher shortage…
- So far, 320 new teachers have been hired- 42 are TFA ( which is the maxamim limit of them which MNPS is allowed to hire)
- The average # of new teachers hired each year (based upon the last 5 years) is 574
- 19% of schools will have new principals
- Currently, MNPS needs to hire 189 new teachers before school starts in three weeks
- MNPS still needs to hire 7 principals.
- There are 74 (out of 153) schools with major teacher vacancies
- The top needs are: Exceptional Ed (22), Math (19), English Learners (10) and Spanish (9)
- Just 21 (15 working) days to the start of school.
Obviously the strict discipline enforced on teachers has made the upcoming year to be one of survival; not excellence…. Just keeping open the doors will be a challenge, heaven help the test scores of 2017…
Also keep in mind that many of those teachers whose contracts were not renewed, were once considered excellent teachers before we started using Common Core’s tests. from the district’s website:
- Sixty-one percent of MNPS teachers hold a master’s degree or higher and 99.75 percent are highly qualified in at least one subject area
That 0.25 % not qualified matches up with the TFA candidates…..
Which proves as all have said, the folly of putting all education’s blame on teachers… Now, you have no teachers so what are you going to do?
Well the MNPS plans to contract out to a computer teaching service for its classes having no bodies in front of it… as well as wave all certification requirements for anyone willing to stand up in front of a class.
Yes.
NOW FOR THE GREAT NEWS…………………………………………………………………………..
This isn’t happening in Delaware.
Why?
Mostly because of you, who objected to insanity and would not be silenced… Though corporate money could buy out Earl Jacques, corporate money could buy out Dave Sokola, it could not buy out parents, it could not buy out teachers, and it could not tamper with the communication system set up between them…..
As a historian I am prone to look for those important moments and speculate had they gone differently, what the new outcome would be… I know that is a weakness of mine. But saying so, if one were to ask this historian where Delaware avoided the train wreak its sister is now going through, I would have to point to the pivot as being John Young of Christina’s Board of Education…
Keep in mind we are a small state. The Metro-Nashville school district alone has 80,000 students. That is two thirds the size of our entire state school system and they are but one district. Therefore each citizen here has a larger percentage of a voice in their government than do almost everyone else.
We also do not have a television station all turn to for local news. There is a definite knowledge gap which most smart people have found is best adequately filled through the blogosphere. Our blogosphere has more investigative reporters then the entire state’s news conglomeration of radio stations and newspapers combined…
As a result of all of this, here it was hard to only give “one side” of the story (though Dave Sokola certainly tried). The other story got out, sometimes too late to change legislation, but not to late to now hold those perpetrators who pushed it, accountable for the damage they have caused Delaware’s children in lost opportunities…
(Remember how our educational measurements soared, up until they hit the Common Core legislation these crooks pushed through?)
With all those kept in mind, it was John Young who pointed the direction long before anyone else publicly, that corporate schemes were behind this new “push” for improving education… I confess, I remember glossing over Kilroy’s exclamations of Markell’s Wall Street connections with glazed eye before John passed on an illuminating tidbit on what was wrong with American education…
What struck me in that video was how on a map, it was very obvious that the diagnosis of ADHD in children starts in Oklahoma and grows exponentially as it heads to the east Coast. Pretty much mirroring the graph for average amounts of extra disposable income after necessary expenses have been met on a state by state basis….
That and the failure Common Core was having among children who were in the test classes for it… Failures as high as 85% in those test classes, which the DOE still as yet has not divulged. These failures included some of the previous years’ top students… Something was seriously wrong.
Bottom line, Delaware did not go down the path as did Tennessee because the people exerted enough pressure here to slow the process and force the inclusion of parents, teachers, and “active” administrators in the formulation of policy….
No, we still do not have a perfect solution… we still need to fight on… But in all glaring truth, we also do not have Tennessee…..
And that, is a victory for truth, justice, and the will of the American people…. We should be proud of ourselves for what we stopped…. and we should tip our hats to John Young in congratulatory thanks for first sounding the alarm which mobilized us into action….
In a great measure due to him, we are much better than Tennessee.
Courtesy of The O Zone
You hear the handle turn, you here the wheels start to grind.. and then the sound.. the awful sound begins to screech… “Your taxes are going up; we can’t pay more money… Vote NO. It’s outrageous to pay more in taxes… Cut Administrators.. Blah, blah, blah”…and then the sound gets softer and softer and fades quieter and quieter into silence until the next person turns the handle and …”Your taxes are going up… we can’t…..”
And it’s a very small tiny ridiculously low amount of people who believe this crap. .. but they are highly motivated to vote.. Why? Because they get $15 dollars a hour to hand out pamphlets, call radio stations, and write letters to the editor… They are hired by large landowners, the developers…
The developers own thousands of acres. Just $200 an acre costs them a minimum of $200,000 dollars a year.. But, they are making hundreds of million each single year so that much money is still like losing a penny to us… But they still pay people to squawk.
The estimated average is that the increase will be around $237 a year… That means that half of the people who can afford to, will pay higher than that amount and half those who are living on tight incomes, will pay less….
Most houses sell for $240, 000 but they are assessed at 1974 levels.. Which means $60,000 for the above if an older house.. At $60,000 assessment, the current tax is $852 per year. (Go to that site if you know your assessed value), Your new tax will be roughly $180 dollars more… Divide that by month, it is $15.00 more you will find added to your escrow when you pay your mortgage…
If your house is at $100,000, and the 1974 assessment is $30,000, the current tax is $426 and the increase will be $90 more per year or $7.50 per month…
If you rent, this referendum costs you absolutely nothing..
If you are on the high end and have a house assessed at $500,000, your current assessment is $7,100… Your new assessment will be $8,600 ($1,500 more). That huge (cough, cough) jump puts you at an increase of $125 a month. Which it you own a $500,000 house, your cost increase is less than normal utility fluctations… Big deal.
So all the screaming is not from little people owning house, unless they got whipped up by someone with big money… The screaming is by the huge landowners who lease property…
But local real-estate experts insist that good schools DO lead to higher property values, and several studies done in other cities have found strong correlations between highly performing schools and higher house prices.
So defeating the referendum can cost your home to plummet in value by $120,000 balanced against voting “no” you saving your pocketbook $15.00 a month…
It is past time to raise revenue for schools. Many have gone years with no increase, yet costs increase every year. Just as your costs have increased, so have those of all schools. All districts must continue having referenda as often as possible until a “yes” vote occurs, simply because they are out of money. Referenda are the only way districts can increase revenues. Christina for example this year cut 90 teachers and raised.class sizes from 20 to 30 per class. That does not bode well for better learning. it does not bode well for your children….
That makes this a no-brainer. Vote Yes for the referendum…
I forgot to tell you something… Even though at the top I said these “NO” voters were a small sliver of the population,… they all vote. And even though parents of school children can easily overwhelm them 1,000 to one, they don’t every referendum because only 5000 of those 50,000 parents supporting children even bother to go out and vote… Just 6000 “NO” votes were able to derail the last referendum, because only 5000 yes votes bothered to show up…
If you don’t vote, the no’s win… That simple. Everybody who cares about Delaware, needs to vote to make Christina District a better place for all.
Bottom line, this extra tax is not a burden and you have so much benefit to gain for your yes vote. Don’t be dissuaded from voting in YOUR best interest by some fly-by-election-night outfit that is paid for, owned, and controlled by the wealthy landed class of citizens who can easily afford to give up billions for our schools, but cry over giving up 30 additional cents per $100 dollars of assessed value… For a nice $200,000 home, you pay $15.00 a month more for the privilege of living in a district with great schools…
People lie, lie, lie… Math never does.
This kind…
Doesn’t he have an election coming up soon? If so, how can anyone expect to make a credible run for Attorney General IN THIS STATE, AFTER BEAU BIDEN’S TERM, and be guilty of keeping a tiny little bill, which has no harm but opens all board meetings to being recorded and accessible on line?
Only Simon Barsinister could be against something so inane… Or…. Hmmmmm…. Somebody … With… Something…. To …. Hide….
Hmmm. Now… Why would the surprise future attorney general, be sooooo adamant, even to the point of losing an election over blocking legislation so inane, that all it does is open school boards of all things, open to the public as a service… Anyone can walk into a school board and hear exactly the same thing they’d hear on tape… But sometimes… a diaper needs changed. But sometimes, a family meal needs prepared. Sometimes extra work for the office must be done for deadline the next day…. Darn we say now….I guess we won’t get to know what happened…
So why? Why is HB 23 being put on ice as my compatriot Kilroy is found of saying. Who is soooooo scared someone will find out what is really going on in school board meetings? Is it Charlie Copeland? Is it Mark Murphy? Is it… Darryl Scott? Is it Pete Schwartzkoph?
Hmmm. I wonder if it has any sponsors in the General Assembly right now?
HOLY MOLY!!!!!! LOOK AT THIS!!! Sponsors: Hudson, Sen. Peterson, Reps. Dukes, D. Short, Miro, Peterman, Wilson, Baumbach, Bennett, Mitchell, K. Williams; Sens. Hocker, Lavelle, Simpson, Townsend….
Is Pete Schwartzkoph there?….. No…… Is Bryon Short there? ….. No…… Is Melanie George Smith there?….. No…… Is Valarie Longhurst there?……. No…… Is Darryl Scott there? … No….Is Earl Jacques there?…… No Is Patty Blevins there? …… No…… Is Quentin Johnson there? …. No…. is John Viola there?…… No…. Is Ernie Lopez there?….. No?
Hmmmmmm… What do those all have in common…… 🙂 Hmmmmmmmmmmmm…. Do they all drink their coconut milk imbibed with lime? …. No….. Do they all call each other up and wear the same color of underwear each daily session?…… No…… Ummm. Do they all have the same Delaware extension tatoo’d to their buttocks?….. Ummmm…..M a y… b e…….
It is someone with a lot to hide; that is for sure… And it is nobody from here:
Red Clay, Christina, Capital, Delmar, Brandywine and Colonial currently already voluntarily record their board meetings! As well as the Delaware State Board of Education records their meetings!
So why is this something that has to be kept secret, and never brought to pass?….. Because we are not talking about individuals VOTING on a bill…They could vote YEA or NEA and it wouldn’t matter! What concerns us and you, is the pure morality of KEEPING A BILL FROM BEING VOTED FOR YOU BECAUSE IT WILL PASS….
So according to its sponsor, Deborah Hudson, Matt Denn is sitting on this bill…. He is doing it to protect someone else, to whom perhaps he is loyal…. How seriously then, were a procedural crime to be committed requiring a judicial investigation, can he be trusted to dig and search for the truth instead of whitewashing the whole affair to protect this same someone, when he can’t even be trusted to get a vote for heaven’s sakes….on a voice recording of school board meetings, out on to the floor for a vote? Let that sink in for a second…. Really?
Put all else aside….. Really?
IS that really the kind of attorney general we want after Beau Biden…. a crony?
Really? He’s going to throw his whole career away …. on that?
Really? Why would he do that? But it is definite a campaign issue, like blocking the GW bridge, one that resonates and will stick, because EVERY parent has a child in school….Whether they would ever listen themselves or not, this concerns them now… They too will question: why is Matt Denn, who is running for Attorney General, trying so hard to keep information regarding my kid and his friends, from ever being made public??? Hmmmmm….
Seriously, this blemishes his entire pro-family image he developed while serving as our insurance commissioner. This makes him one of the snakes….. with those evil eyes…..
It goes to show why if you believe in something you should never give up. You never know who is listening… Despite the doubling down by our Chief of Change (pennies on the dollar, get it?) here in Delaware, in a land far, far away, (believe me it is far removed from the real world), a budget gets passed and signed that all but does in Race To The Top and the former Common Core, now called JYAKWRAL
And as touted here and other blogs, the real area that does so much to improve education in poverty areas, is Head Start’s early childhood.education.
It won big, with a billion increase over their past record… That is wise. That is good.
But, wiser and better, are who lost….
Drumroll please…. xxxx—xxx—-xx-x-x-x—-xxxx—xxx—x-x-x-x—-x-x-x-
Before one gets upset over the $750 cut in pre-school programs, that was all signed off to go to think tanks developing early learning Common Core (I mean JYAKWRAL) standards for children too small to fill in bubble tests properly enough to assess their teachers. That money was earmarked to be used teaching 3-5 year olds how to mark tests adequately enough so scanners could read them….
Good thing it’s gone!
So while Arne Duncun and Jack Markell and Dave Coleman and Mark Murphy and Dave Sokola and the Rodel Foundation all turned a tin ear towards parents, students, and teachers, Congress was listening…
Congress chose to put money into students, instead of corporate pockets…. It’s a small victory, but it does show, that the fight against Common Core (JYAKWRAL) is indeed the right fight to be having….
The true fixes for poverty laden schools are:
- Early preschool education to build up word vocabulary.
- 11:1 Student teacher ratio
- Standardized tests used to track educational development; not as a firing tool for teachers
- Rank students by their abilities on those tests; not their ages.
Simple, simple, actions, which if followed, would again give the promise of America’s dream back to 80% of the American population.
Further good news out of the Federal education budget…..
Christina School District comes out smelling like a rose; not so much for Markell and Murphy who appear to have been undercut by the unusual politics of compromise in Washington….
It is a really odd name, isn’t it? But seeing it in writing barely makes up for the fun one has in having it roll off one’s tongue. The easiest way to explain it’s pronunciation, is to mention it sounds a lot like ‘jackel” The first syllable is pronounce like “yak” but with an audible J pronounced in front of it.
Jyak
Jyak
Jyak
(Don’t talk back….)
(Sorry, 50’s song reference….)
The second syllable is pronounced as it looks… wral… and should be said with a similar snarl as does a cat when it takes a swipe with claws fully extended….
Wral
Wral
Wral….
Put the two together and you have it….
Jyak wral
Jyak wral
Jyak wral….
Pretty good you all. You are good learners… So this is the new Common Core. Why change the name? Isn’t an Edsel still and Edsel even if you call it a Ford Fairlane?
The answer is flat no… It is not an Edsel, even though it once was. When you change the name of things, you open up new possibilities. It becomes a chance to suspend ones momentary grasp on reality and grab a tether to a dream emanating from the next world…. It IS a Ford Fairlane, because you say it is a Ford Fairlane… Ford Fairlanes are really cool, so this former Edsel, is now really cool…
It works like magic. If you don’t like the Edsel because it was an Edsel, and someone says… “Hey, that is no longer an Edsel, It’s a Ford Fairlane”,… then you had better like it, because Ford Fairlanes are really cool. You don’t want to be considered a real square now, do you?
And that is why Governor Markel overruled Mark Murphy and changed the name… Common Core just wasn’t cool enough… With our new Chief Of Change, we had to have a name that was different, cool, slides off the tongue so well one can’t stop saying it…. and so now, Delaware, the Small Wonder, The First State, The Diamond State, teaches JYAKWRAL to its students….
Imagine the reactions of friends and family… “Where do you live.” “Uhhhhhhhhhh, it’s a little state on the East Coast, across the river from Chris Christie’s New Jersey, and at the end of the Philadelphia Airport …..” OH MY GOODNESS! YOU DON’T MEAN DELAWARE, DO YOU? YOU HAVE JYAKWRAL. WE LOVE JYAKWRAL. WE WISH OUR STATE WOULD GET JYAKWRAL TOO. JYAKWRAL IS SOOOOOOOOOOO COOOOOOLLLLLL……..YOU GUYS IN DELAWARE ARE SO LUCKY….
It is possible since we are now so cool, other problems will go away. We won’t need a 248 MW power plant in Newark to be cool, we have JYAKWRAL We won’t need to gut the Coastal Zone Protection Act, because we are so cool for JYAKWRAL, people will flock here and bring jobs. We won’t need to sell the Port, for the same reason. We have JYAKWRAL…..
It will probably turn Goveernor Markell’s future around… Jobs go up, Tax revenue goes up, House construction goes up. Transfer taxes go up. District funding goes up. Test scores go up. Teacher’s moral goes up. Racino income goes up. WDEL advertising revenues go up…
So!. let’s get this show on the road, turn things around and bring our little Delaware back out of the doldrums… Cause… nobody puts “Baby” in the Core-ner…..
No more Common Core… Starting tomorrow! Onward with JYAKWRAL
“Well, a little while ago, when we mentioned that this one, in typical fashion, was going right to the wire, little did we know . . .
The state school official winds up, leans back, and throws—
State leaders and Common Core supporters say they hosted public meetings on the standards and that the committees that created them featured many teachers. They also point out that Common Core started with a push by governors – with Delaware Gov. Jack Markell prominent among them.
…..
Kilroy’s at bat… here’s the swing….
…….
And it’s a high fly ball going deep to left! this may do it! . . . Back to the wall goes, yes, I think it is . . . over the fence, home run, the Parents win! . . . (long pause for crowd noise) . . . Ladies and gentlemen, Kilroy has hit a one-nothing pitch over the Common Core fence at Blogger’s Field to win the 2013 Common Core Contest for the Delaware Parents by a score of ten to nine! . . . Once again, that final score . . . The Delaware Parents, the 2013 world champions, defeat the Marky Murphies. The Parents ten, and the Murphies NINE!”
Nice hit, dude.
This story bears repeating. I first became aware of Common Core by being shown a text assignment to a student. It was inane. When I asked at the beginning of the year what literature they would be studying, the room I was in was told by the instructor that there was no literature in the curriculum. Now it is time to finish the rest of this story. This student you may remember was brilliant in his non Common Core English class the previous year (2011-2012). This year he squeaked through with a C- though his DCAS scores were all in the high end. The other courses’ grades were consistent across both years. There appears to be a problem with Common Core.
In the past I have described Common Core as a sausage. If made with the right ingredients it can be great. My post right below this one shows how. But the problem with Common Core as with a sausage, is that until one cooks and eats it, one does not know what is inside. its insides are not shown to the public before it gets sold. If it is shredded beef, it is a good sausage. If it is cooked pork, it is a good sausage, It could be Grade A chicken, turkey, or lamb; no one knows until it is cooked and eaten. But what if it is poop? Simply poop scooped up from the floor of a poultry farm, stuffed into an intestinal casing, tied at both ends, and looking like any sausage, it gets picked, cooked, cut into, and eaten.
Earlier this spring we had a blogger’s frenzy here in Delaware as we tried to determine what exactly was in Common Core. We finally found the standards and for the most part, thought they were ok. We deduced that the problem lies somewhere with the meat processors who are creating this educational sausage without any oversight or accountability. They’ve figured how to make money, and students/parents were being cheated in the process..
So then, the biggest problem with Common Core is that it is run as a business, not just any business but as a monopoly. There is no competition between opposing curriculums so one must take whatever one is given. Llike any monopoly, this business isn’t worried about keeping the customer; it is worried about its bottom line.
The second largest problem is that Common Core program completely ignores the fact that outside influences, particularly poverty, impact education. It waves a magic wand in its calculations and then proceeds to ignore that students who have a huge issue just trying to survive that day, can’t do well in school.
So, here are the issues:
A) Common Core stifles innovation. School becomes boring and learning takes a back seat to all other activities.
B) Common Core and Standardized tests go hand and hand. Test at the beginning and at the end. The accountability piece attached, means the tests must be passed; the stakes are very high. Therefore teaching to the test is what we shall get. Students won’t know how to solve life’s problems unless it is on a standardized test.
C) There is no public input into Common Core. It if is bad, too bad. All students will digest it anyway. No school board, no General Assembly oversight, nothing. It comes straight from the developer to your child.
D) The standards are too low. In and effort to narrow the achievement gap, the levels of knowledge are dumbed down so all students will have the same low basic level of knowledge. No more will the affluent white schools outperform inner city problematic ones. We will teach the exact same to both; they won’t be taught any differently.. The Core material is the same for all schools; students at both will easily pass it. There are no higher state standards anymore, simply because if there were, the achievement gap would continue to grow, not shrink. We are closing the achievement gap primarily by bringing the top end down, not the bottom end up.
E) The repetitive standardized tests will tell a lot about one’s child. Especially over time. Common Core is collecting data on every child, which can then be sold to highly interested Corporate advertisers. It tracks every child after leaving school across their entire work-path through out their career.
F) Common Core has a super high price tag. $16 billion over 7 years. One has to buy copyrighted lessons from a supplier because they go hand in hand with the questions on the final test. All those packets and that software isn’t cheap. Of course, data miners and data transcribers have to be hired to read and explain the data to teachers, principals, and administrators. The money could be spent elsewhere in the school and perhaps to more good.
G) Common Core by making everyone study the same thing at the same time means that no one will know anything else outside the Common Core agenda; the national data base is narrowed. Under the current somewhat haphazard individualized approach we had up to now, people matriculated to that area in which they were most interested. Later when an employer puts people on a team, over the width of the group there is a diversity of opinion upon which to draw for the best solution. But when everyone knows exactly the same thing, has the exact same shared experience, there could be trouble. If you always do what you always did, you always get what you always got.
H) Common Core is being figured out on the fly. Legislatures signed on before knowing any details.
I) Common Core Standards were not created by the states. They actually supplement the state standards previously in place. No, Common Core Standards were developed by corporations in Washington DC, with the lavish funding by the Gates, Broad, and Walmart foundations. These standards they created are not intended to develop doctors, lawyers or teachers, but to develop first year entry level workers for corporations.
J) Common Core standards are designed not to prepare students for entrance into a four year college or university, but for two year programs or four year programs in a community college. In that sense they are much lower than almost all of those state standards which they are replacing.
K) Common Core in that it is being forced by the US Department of Education onto the states through strings attached to basic funding, violates the Federal Statute prohibiting the Fed’s direction, supervision, or control of curriculum.
L) Common Core Standards are not developed by anyone remotely accountable to parents. They are copyrighted standards owned by large educational corporations, completely unaccountable to either legislators, governors, school boards, teachers, parents , or students.
M) Common Core is like a virus that implodes one cell, then scatters replicates to attack and implode other cells. With Delaware’s passage of SB 51, Common Core standards will now begins watering down our great teaching schools within the University of Delaware, Delaware State, and Wilmington University. As it does with the curriculum in public schools, it will be substituting weaker Common Core Standards for more stringent state standards involved especially when it comes to teaching teachers how to teach.
N) There are thirteen issues above that need addressed. Yet this faulty program is being used to fire teachers who are only arbitrarily accountable to test results based on this faulty program.. Even good teachers in poor income school districts will lose their jobs, as factors outside the school such as that area’s poverty, pulls down student scores below the acceptable level, and those teachers must suffer the consequences. Impoverished schools will become closed for the same reason; test scores were too low. High stakes testing is for high stakes. Yet there are so many multiple factors impacting those test scores out of everyone’s control. For every teacher, every new school year is metaphorically like charging across the fields of Gettysburg inside of Pickets Charge; you just hope in all that mass madness, a bullet or cannonade’s grapeshot does not find you. Your fate is completely out of your control. Common Core has begun and will continue to cost us many great teachers who up to now had turned many young children into upstanding citizens.
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Done. Notice there is no agenda 21 listed. That is an issue which lies in a different arena ( a political one) and is not part or this issue which is how this poop gets dressed up as a sausage. Both Jack Markell and Educational Secretary of Arne Duncun have recently tried to deride each and everyone of those against Common Core, as being kooks fearful of Agenda 21 and perhaps even SPECTRE.
I think this short list illistrates there are serious problems with Common Core. In fact, this problem is so serious that recently Michigan, Pennsylvania, Utah, Alabama, Indiana, Missouri, Georgia, South Dakota, and Kansas have passed or tried to pass legislative bills controlling or stopping the impact of Common Core upon its students. None of their reasons came from what Arne Duncun or Jack Markell dismissively alluded. They come from the very real concerns mentioned above… Parents of children bring home Common Core materials, are leading the Common Core pushback.
Bottom line: as illustrated here in Delaware with the student whose example leads off this post, Common Core is bad for students. They can’t succeed living on just poop…. stuffed into an intestinal casing, simply because it gets stamped in black food ink, “Common Core; Quality Grade A”
Obviously we are talking about Bond, as in the Bond bill, and you can probably guess, this will focus upon the educational aspect.
Start with this…
Pupil Accounting $1,073,500 versus Teacher Accountability $2,400,000. Pupils are half as important as making teachers sweat.
DCAS $6,050,100 Always wondered how much those tests were costing us…
Parents as Teachers… $1,121,600
World Language Expansion (teaching Mandarin) $1,938,900…
“Salary schedules and staffing formulas contained in 14 Del. C. c. 13, shall be
revised; remain as specified in this subsection and be effective as of July 1, 2012-2013. ”
“The base salary amount for this section, from July 1, 2012/2013 through June 22, 2013/2014, shall be $27,781. The Bachelor’s Degree, 0-year experience point on the index is defined as the base”
(95-01-00) Secretary of Education $160,145
(95-01-00) Deputy Secretary of Education $131,093
(10-01-01) Governor $171,000
(15-01-01) Attorney General $145,207 (chopped liver)
(12-01-01) Lieutenant Governor $78,553 (cat food)
“Section 18.In accordance with the provisions of 29 Del. C. § 5106, effective for all fiscal years commencing after June 30, 2003, exceptions to the standard practice of paycheck deductions shall be made for employees paying dues to the Delaware State Education Association (DSEA). For all All employees designating that DSEA membership dues be deducted from their bi-weekly paycheck shall have those dues deducted from the 22 pay periods occurring within the 10 month school year. This change will facilitate the maintenance of the state payroll system as well as establish a consistent process for managing the collection of dues from members of the Delaware State Education Association. ”
Section 278. Section 1 of this Act makes several appropriations to the Department of Education (95-01-01) for Educator Certification and Development activities, Student Standards and Assessment, Infrastructure Capacity and Educator Accountability.The Secretary of Education, upon approval of the Office of Management and Budget and the Controller General, may use said appropriations for departmental initiatives and technology infrastructure to implement provisions of the Race to the Top application.
Section 281. Notwithstanding any law or regulation to the contrary, all consequences related to the Statewide Assessment System for individual students including summer school, Individual Improvement Plans, retention, assessment retakes, retests at high school grades and the related student consequences shall be eliminated until such time that the Statewide Assessment System is fully implemented, as determined by the Secretary of Education, for all Delaware students.
Section 294 .For the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2012/2013, any local school district that has had two consecutive failed current expense tax referendums during the time period July 1, 2010/2011 to January 1, 2013/2014, is authorized to exercise the cash option on Academic Excellence units up to the total number of units provided under that program. This provision will apply for Fiscal Year 2013/2014 only. In addition, districts meeting this criterion are authorized to utilize funds derived from this cash option to pay local salary supplements. Any district that has had a successful current expense tax referendum subsequent to two consecutive failed current expense tax referendums is ineligible for the provisions of this section. Section 312.Notwithstanding the provisions of any state law to the contrary, the Red Clay Consolidated School District is authorized to utilize state transportation dollars to fund students traveling from routes to and from the Cab Calloway School of the Arts and Conrad Schools of Science and the Indian River School District is authorized to utilize state transportation dollars to fund students traveling from routes to and from the Southern Delaware School of the Arts.
Section 315.The provisions of this Act to the contrary notwithstanding, consistent with the provisions of 14 Del. C. § 509(b), charter schools eligible to receive allocations from the Professional Accountability and Instructional Advancement fund, Academic Excellence and Minor Capital Improvements program will not be required to submit an application to the Department of Education. Any funds received as a result of the allocation of these programs may be used for current operations, Minor Capital Improvements or tuition payments.
Section 316. Notwithstanding 14 Del. C. § 508 or any regulation to the contrary, a charter school may negotiate a contract (multi-year, if desired) for contractor payment for school transportation up to the maximum rate specified which is currently 70 percent of the average cost per student of transportation within the vocational district in which the charter school is located or the charter school may publicly bid the transportation routes. If the actual negotiated or bid costs are lower than the maximum rate specified above, the charter school may keep the difference. If the charter school includes a fuel adjustment contract provision, the charter school shall be responsible for increased payments to the contractor or it may keep funds taken back from the contractor.
Section 319. The Brandywine School District Board shall maintain as a standalone program its Gifted and Talented Program (also known as the Odyssey Program, formally known as the Brandywine Academically Gifted Program) at least through the end of the 2013-2014 school year. The program shall be fully maintained at Mount Pleasant Elementary School, the Claymont Elementary School and the P.S. DuPont Middle School. During this time, the District shall fully support the Odyssey Program in terms of outreach, recruitment, assessment of students for entry into the program, curriculum development, teacher assignment and other support elements as currently exist.
Section 322. A school district operating a tuition eligible program or school special school or program or with tuition eligible students may not reallocate state units earned for the special school or program in these cases, if such reallocation requires an increase in the tuition tax rate or tuition billing amount. If a reallocation of state units earned will not require such an increase, districts may reallocate positions as necessary to ensure the most efficient delivery of services, except for those instances currently prohibited by Delaware Code.
Section 331.To ensure that districts and charter schools are implementing the needs based funding system appropriately, the Department of Education shall, in cooperation with the Governor’s Advisory Council for Exceptional Citizens, create a Certification of Earned Staff Units protocol. The results of all monitoring shall be reported atleast annually on the department’s website.
Section 332. The provisions of 14 Del. C. § 154 and § 155, and any implementing regulations in DE Admin Code that the Delaware Department of Education determines to be inconsistent with the Department’s ESEA Flexibility Request as approved by the U.S. Department of Education shall not be applicable to Delaware Public Schools and School Districts during the flexibility waiver period, and the Department is authorized to promulgate interim regulations consistent with said application and approval which shall be effective during the flexibility waiver period. (Potter just took over the School Boards)…
(ok, I know it’s not the “Bond” bill, but that was just too good of a title to pass up… ) So, are you “shaken up” yet? Or just moderately stirred?
Delaware Libertarian posted the talking points being emailed to Charter School Parents. Note: these are in support of HB 165 and were written by the Charter lobbyists for that organization.
So taking their memes and removing the lies and instilling the truth, gives us ours… Simple, quick, effective… (Thank you Charter Schools for doing our work for us…)
Pass this one on asap.
- Hello, My Name is ________ and I am a parent of ___ children in Delaware Public Schools ________, _________, _________ . I calling to ask you vote down the Charter School Wish List known as HB 165 for the following reasons.
- It is a bad bill. It takes money away from public schools and gives to Charter Schools. Public schools are public property and need to be fixed up first with public money.
- This bill is being “sneaked through”. There is considerable opposition to this bill by every public school parent whose child will lose if this bill is passed. You may not know how mad they will be yet because this bill came out of nowhere overnight, and instead of being featured in the media and discussed up or down, it has remained secretly burried in a “working body” until last week.
- The “working body” was even secret. We just discovered it now. The Attorney General yesterday ruled it was indeed a public body and was required to publish minutes, (which it didn’t), announce its meetings (which it didn’t) and respond to all requests for information (which it hasn’t).. This means this body broke the law in coming up with this bill.
- We have the list of all Charter School owners. Charter School Networks are huge businesses. They are corporations who get rich by siphoning off our school taxes we pay yearly to maintain our public schools. These owners are well connected state big-wigs who aim to get rich off this bill, while funds for our public schools get smaller, and smaller, and smaller.
- Public School Parents who choice out of their feeder pattern school, have to drive their own kids to school. Charter Schools get millions to bus their kids to school. Why? Why are they so special?
- Charter School kids do worse on standardized tests than public school kids. This is documented. Rich versus rich. Poor versus poor. Charter Schools don’t get the same quality of education as do students in public schools. We need to fund what works; not take money away and give to what doesn’t.
- Charter Schools are discriminatory to Blacks, Hispanics, and all Whites-not-having-incomes-over-$100,000. Charter Schools are no better than private schools for rich white people, except now HB 165 wants to take a big portion of public money actually being spent on teaching Blacks and Hispanics, and put it into these filthy rich white school systems.
Dear Sir/Ma’am: How you can possibly vote yes on this bill is beyond me and everyone whom I have talked about it so far.
kavips 