An article I came across today that has quite a bit of very good commentary and fact.  I thought it was worth sharing and hope you agree.  The original information this commentary is based on appeared in articles in American Thinker and The Washington Times.

Common Core GED book: '9/11 hijackers were poor Afghanis'

Mrs. Red Square 

5/10/2013, 8:21 pm

Homeschoolers will not escape the Common Core - at least those who take GED tests.Thoughtcriminal Oleg Atbashian and his compliant underling Larissa Atbashian (the latter being the main culprit here) have once again threatened the tranquility of Progdom with this new scoop.

Below is a revised version of the articles published in the American Thinker and the Washington Times.

Those who support sending aid to poor countries do so because poor countries often have high levels of poverty, poor educational systems, an ineffective police and judicial force, and limited public services such as healthcare, transportation networks, and banking systems. They believe that when living conditions are this poor, crime levels tend to be higher. Poorer countries, because they have weak governments, often have areas that attract terrorist groups because no one is there to stop them from pursuing those types of activities. Thus, poor countries are often home to terrorist groups that are free to plan and carry out attacks on the rich, industrialized nations, without fear of being stopped. This is in fact [italics mine] what happened on 9/11 when terrorists from Afghanistan hijacked planes and carried out attacks on the United States. In this case, the terrorists originated in a country that had received large amounts of foreign aid from rich countries. Apparently, it didn’t work.

Should rich countries continue to give aid to poor countries, or should they stop giving aid? Develop an argument that supports your position, and make sure to use specific details to help develop your ideas.

The dictionary definition of “indoctrinate” is “to imbue with a usually partisan or sectarian opinion, point of view, or principle.” This is exactly what will happen when GED students are required to generate ideas, attitudes, and cognitive strategies based on the above misleading and purely sectarian “progressive” worldview, which disregards the proven beneficiary power of the free markets, misconstrues the motivation of Islamic terrorists, and misrepresents the identities of the 9/11 hijackers, who were, for the most part, educated Muslim Arabs from well-to-do families in oil-rich countries that, in fact, send plenty of foreign aid to support Islamic extremism around the world.

 
The source text on Global Warming (Page 54) provides a statement that global temperatures are increasing, followed by two theories that explain it — the use of fossil fuels and deforestation — both of which attribute Global Warming to human industrial activity and population growth.

Omitted in this “scientific text” is the existence of other scientific data and theories, for example, the cyclical nature of the planet’s climate and the impact of solar activity on Earth’s temperatures. Nor does it mention the fact that the concept of man-made global warming is most actively promoted by those politicians who have a vested interest in imposing government regulations, which would allow them a greater control over the economy and people’s lives.

When a statement is made to appear true because it is related to known facts, but is not itself a fact, speculation has occurred. Be on the lookout for statements that may be mere speculation rather than solid facts. (Thinking Skills: Critical Thinking for Reading, Science, and Social Studies - Strategy 10 page 30).

While we are grateful for the courteous concession, we’re not in the mood for celebration. How many watchdog activists will it take to sift through all the Common Core materials once it launches nationally, and will future responses, if any, be as courteous when the curriculum is supervised and mandated by the federal government?

 
The GED Test is currently used by all 50 U.S. states, the District of Columbia, U.S. insular areas, Canadian provinces and territories, the U.S. military, and federal correctional institutions for the purpose of awarding a high school graduation equivalency credential.

While homeschoolers usually excel in GED testing, many of the GED students are high school dropouts who often lack background knowledge about government processes, historical facts, and the context in which they occur. It is imperative that resources used to help them gain this knowledge be above political opinion or biased representation.

Until now the United States has benefited from its decentralized, compartmentalized political system, whereby various economic, political, and educational concepts could originate and be tested in individual states and localities before they were shared with others. If they were useful, other states would learn from these practices and willingly implement them within their own jurisdictions. If they were harmful, they would die out without inflicting major damage on a national scale.

The initiative to centralize public education changes that, bringing it closer to the erstwhile Soviet model.