Credit: FLORIDA STOP COMMON CORE COALITION

Dear Friend of Educational Liberty,

THIS IS AN ALL HANDS ON DECK RED ALERT! Congressional education leaders have reached a behind closed doors framework agreement on the rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), currently called No Child Left Behind (NCLB). According to Education Week, Congress is poised to ram this through quickly at the end of the year while people are distracted by the holidays and the presidential primaries:

Expect the conference to kick off next Tuesday night [TOMORROW 11/17] and conclude by Thursday. And expect the bill to be on the floor of both chambers after Thanksgiving recess. That will give enough time for rank-and-file lawmakers to read it and make sure they understand what's in it before they have to vote on it.

It is CRITICAL, even with the holidays, primaries, terrorism, and other terrible news to inform your members of Congress, PARTICULARLY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES of what is in the bill and how dangerous it is for our children. PLEASE CALL 202-224-3121! Here also are links to the contact information and social media directories for Congress:

HOUSE: http://patriotjournalist.com/usHouse.php?src=Home
SENATE: http://patriotjournalist.com/usSenate.php?src=Home

Here is a short note that you can copy and paste into an email or message your members on Facebook.

Dear _______________

As a parent and citizen, I am outraged that congressional leadership has negotiated a compromise bill for the re-authorization of No Child Left Behind in secret. This legislation has such enormous implications for the future of our children and the nation. The available information about this compromise contains much disturbing news, especially since it appears to be based mostly on the Senate bill:

False protection against federal interference in standards and curriculum - The language in both bills is no different than the already violated statutes without enforcement mechanisms that gave us Race to the Top and Common Core in the first place.

A new nanny state/"Baby Common Core" preschool program - Federal involvement in education is unconstitutional to begin with, but extending and expanding the invasive, harmful and manipulative Common Core philosophy and methodology to our youngest children is appalling. In addition, here is a new compilation of studies showing the ineffectiveness and harm of these programs.

21st Century Schools/Parent Replacement Centers - These comprehensive womb to tomb, nearly 24/7 schools with school, health, mental health, and other invasive, non-academic programs that are outside of the constitutional authority of the federal government and have no great record of effectiveness.

No parental opt-out provision- The one excellent piece of parental rights language in the House bill has been removed and the 95% test participation mandate remains. This is unacceptable to me as a parent and will also continue forcing our teachers to teach to the test instead of meeting the individual needs of students.

Until the public is allowed to see the actual language, there are a number of other potential horrors like increased psychological profiling and continued control over state plans by the secretary of education that were in the Senate bill and could likely be in the agreement. These, as well as details about what is listed above, are listed in the letter signed by over 200 organizations and experts in 46 states and are also depicted in this cartoon:

This conference report MUST be voted down. While much of the Common Core system with its associated tentacles was implemented via regulatory fiat without Congressional vote or oversight, a vote for this bill will be seen by me as your affirmation of all that is wrong with federal interference in education. This system is harming students, teachers, school boards, states, and local districts. We need a bill signed by a president that understands and will follow the rule of law and will not participate in the destruction of public education, not a lame duck with an abysmal record of overreach and harm to teachers.

Please let me know your position as soon as possible. Thank you for your service to this nation and to the families of our district.

Sincerely,

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In addition to your own representative and senators, it is very important to concentrate on the full congressional leadership and the education leadership. Here are some tweets that you can send yourself or go to the links and retweet or substitute the names of your own members:

For GOP Members:
@SpeakerRyan Listen to 200+ parent groups in 46 states! http://bit.ly/1Lj6uz5 Slay the beast! #StopESEA #EndFedEd
https://twitter.com/libertydocKaren/status/666292929112096768

@repjohnkline Listen to 200+ parent groups in 46 states! http://bit.ly/1Lj6uz5 Slay the beast! #StopESEA #EndFedEd
https://twitter.com/libertydocKaren/status/666295935652134912

@SenAlexander Listen to 200+ parent groups in 46 states! http://bit.ly/1Lj6uz5 Slay the beast! #StopESEA #EndFedEd
https://twitter.com/libertydocKaren/status/666298380201553920

For Democrats:
@NancyPelosi ESEA keeps fed testing mandates. Teachers have to teach to invalid standards/test or leave students #StopESEA #LetTeachersTeach
https://twitter.com/libertydocKaren/status/666302476354588672

@PattyMurray ESEA keeps fed testing mandates. Teachers have to teach to invalid standards/test or leave students #StopESEA #LetTeachersTeach
https://twitter.com/libertydocKaren/status/661667384567193601

@repbobbyscott ESEA keeps fed testing mandates. Teachers forced to teach to invalid standards/test or leave kids #StopESEA #LetTeachersTeach
https://twitter.com/libertydocKaren/status/661668514839838720

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Common Core  Education without Representation.

 Credit:

https://whatiscommoncore.wordpress.com/2015/11/17/urgent-congress-n...

ACTION ITEM: 

PLEASE MAKE CALLS

 Call 202-224-3121 to be connected to your Representatives and Senators in D.C. today.

They are about to vote to pass No Child Left Behind/ESEA in a new form that is Constitutionally unacceptable.

It promotes accountability, backwards.  Instead of the creation (government school system) being accountable to its creator (We, the individual People) this NCLB/ESEA proposed law wants We, the People accountable to the creation itself via data tagging and an increase of laws to bind us.

I recommend reading what American Principles Project is saying at The Pulse 2016 and what U.S. Grassroots organizations said in an open letter to Congress.

You can also just read the official US Dept. of Education blog to see the at-first-glance-seemingly-innocuous words from Secretary Duncan:

“…the nation is at a crossroads with two different paths for an new ESEA — a choice with moral and economic consequences“.  That is true.  Then he says, “ESEA should be replaced with a law that ensures opportunity for every child in this country; strengthens our nation economically; and expands… accountability.”

Do you see any dangerous false premises behind those words?

1.  It’s based on the premise that the new version of ESEA is a better law, which is false.  ESEA cements big government controls over citizens, assumes that the federal government knows best how to define and how to turn around struggling schools;  increases the workforce-not-academic mindset of schools; pushes toddlers into the government influence with early childhood education fund promotion, and builds its whole monstrous mess on federally structured, interoperable, common longitudinal databases (SLDS), and common educational data standards— data tags that are nonconsensual citizen tracking for most of the person’s life.  That alone should give Congress a second thought.
2. It assumes that the federal government Constitutionally does, or morally should, hold the power to influence “every child in this country”.  But the Constitution says otherwise.  So does the Bible.
3. It assumes that economic fulfillment, defined by government, is a proper role of a school system.  That’s communism, folks.  In America, we go to school to learn truth– not to be minimally trained in order to serve the government’s definition of what the economy needs.*
4. It assumes that accountability should be from students, teachers and schools to Big Government.  False.  That’s almost exactly backwards.  Accountability should be from public servants (teachers, state officials, and elected officials, to the clients of public ed:  that is, voters, student familes, and taxpayers.  We the People created government.  We created the school system.  The creation cannot demand accountability from its creator.  The creation cannot boss its creator –unless We the People who created it, are sweet-talked and bribed by Duncan and others into allowing it. We the People must hold on to the reins of power and not become sheep to our own creation.  But ESEA is threatening us.

*The Business Roundtable has written a letter to Congress that says, “A prepared workforce is essential for U.S. employers of all sizes. This is how we guarantee a brighter future for our workers and their families. We ask you to encourage the conferees to strengthen ESEA’s accountability provisions. Schools should be required to implement support strategies in cases where students are not meeting state-defined achievement goals…”

What?  Corporations want Congress to pass ESEA so that schools will be forced to move toward a workforce-based, rather than a liberty and individual-based, achievement plan.  That sounds no different that the thinking of the communist countries’ systems.  Decision making for children should never be based on the judgment of the government machine’s economic dictates –but on what the student, with guidance from the parent, and trusted teachers, choose.

Please don’t be fooled by the cronies’ talk.  This is America.  We want academic and creative and computer freedom, not a top-down system run by the coupling of government to corporation, which bypasses the will of the voters and the individuals that must abide by it.

Call today.  Tell your Senator and Representative in DC to vote NO on ESEA reauthorization. 202-224-3121.

“What's gotten in the way of education in the United States is a theory of social engineering that says there is ONE RIGHT WAY to proceed with growing up.”
― John Taylor Gatto, Dumbing Us Down: The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling