GUEST POST by Richard Twight (Boise, Idaho) —
Below is the text of my testimony last night before the "Governor's Task Force For Education Improvement." The hearing was held in the new Senate hearing room in the Capitol. In my opinion this body is designed to give the appearance of listening to the public while the agenda of the Governor, the Idaho Department of Education, and State Board of Education is already a done deal. Only about 7 of the 30-person "Task Force" showed up, although the auditorium was filled with citizens. To be fair, some of the "Task Force" people are from northern and eastern Idaho so it was understandable that those people might not be present.
Statement of Richard Twight to the Governor's Task Force for Education Improvement
April 25, 2013
At the heart of "Common Core," and of all similar programs like CSCOPE, is national control.
These programs will require nationally designed testing of students at all grade levels. Moreover, nationally designed college qualifying exams will be based on the content of Common Core.
For K-12 schools to prepare their students to pass these college qualifying exams, teachers will have to "teach to the content" of Common Core. Hence, the practical result of Common Core will be national control over course content. That is, over what our children learn.
Of course, the federal government will consult with business leaders about the number of workers they anticipate needing in various skills at various time points in the future, and schools will be "incentivized" to "channel" students into those skill sets based on their test scores.
Thus, schools will steer students so that ultimately schools will turn out the requisite number of workers at those identified time points in the future.
The purpose of all this is to provide a nationally designed, customized work force.
The purpose is NOT to allow individual children to discover for themselves what they love and find interesting.
It is not to allow them to develop their own hopes and dreams and to have the freedom to change directions as they grow up.
This centralized testing, and the entry of over 400 intimate data characteristics of each student into a national computer database—this channeling of each student—will follow each child throughout life as intimately and pervasively as each child's DNA.
It will largely determine what each person can become in life—determining the content of each person's life based on purported "national needs." With Common Core, our children are to be transformed into "creatures of the Central State;" to be molded for purposes defined by, and supportive of, the objectives of the Central State.
If that worldview is what you want to support and achieve, then by all means implement Common Core.
But if that is NOT what you envision for Idaho's children—then get out of Common Core and get out of it NOW.
I urge you to get Idaho children out of this perverse, un-American system.
Thank you.
Below is the text of my testimony last night before the "Governor's Task Force For Education Improvement." The hearing was held in the new Senate hearing room in the Capitol. In my opinion this body is designed to give the appearance of listening to the public while the agenda of the Governor, the Idaho Department of Education, and State Board of Education is already a done deal. Only about 7 of the 30-person "Task Force" showed up, although the auditorium was filled with citizens. To be fair, some of the "Task Force" people are from northern and eastern Idaho so it was understandable that those people might not be present.
Statement of Richard Twight to the Governor's Task Force for Education Improvement
April 25, 2013
At the heart of "Common Core," and of all similar programs like CSCOPE, is national control.
These programs will require nationally designed testing of students at all grade levels. Moreover, nationally designed college qualifying exams will be based on the content of Common Core.
For K-12 schools to prepare their students to pass these college qualifying exams, teachers will have to "teach to the content" of Common Core. Hence, the practical result of Common Core will be national control over course content. That is, over what our children learn.
Of course, the federal government will consult with business leaders about the number of workers they anticipate needing in various skills at various time points in the future, and schools will be "incentivized" to "channel" students into those skill sets based on their test scores.
Thus, schools will steer students so that ultimately schools will turn out the requisite number of workers at those identified time points in the future.
The purpose of all this is to provide a nationally designed, customized work force.
The purpose is NOT to allow individual children to discover for themselves what they love and find interesting.
It is not to allow them to develop their own hopes and dreams and to have the freedom to change directions as they grow up.
This centralized testing, and the entry of over 400 intimate data characteristics of each student into a national computer database—this channeling of each student—will follow each child throughout life as intimately and pervasively as each child's DNA.
It will largely determine what each person can become in life—determining the content of each person's life based on purported "national needs." With Common Core, our children are to be transformed into "creatures of the Central State;" to be molded for purposes defined by, and supportive of, the objectives of the Central State.
If that worldview is what you want to support and achieve, then by all means implement Common Core.
But if that is NOT what you envision for Idaho's children—then get out of Common Core and get out of it NOW.
I urge you to get Idaho children out of this perverse, un-American system.
Thank you.
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