FTF: More “Know Thy Title 9”, CCSS, and Education

Yesterday, anti CCSS Warriors, I gave you lots of information about CCSS being woven in our educational system via Title 9. I know I’m not alone in this task, for others have also reported on Title 9. Today, however, I want to take you to those in charge of enforcing Title 9. Are we really sure it’s only the U.S. Dept. of Education? Are there other groups out there in charge? If so, what groups? What do they do to enforce Title 9? How has it been aligned to the CCSS? And finally, is all this part of the CCSS Machine? Let’s see if we can discover the answers to these questions.

*NOTE: I must stop here and declare that I am NOT against Title 9 or any of the other Titles, or other special parameters designed to keep our students safe. What I AM against is the purposed abuse of these Titles to enforce more Common Core or any of its related agenda.

ATIXA or the ‘Association of Title 9 Administrators’:

In yesterday’s article I told you a little bit about the group. (In case you missed it, here’s the article:
https://www.commoncorediva.com/2015/06/29/monday-musings-know-thy-title-9-ccss-warriors/)
What I didn’t tell you was who leads ATIXA or who funds it.
From ATIXA’s ‘about” webpage, you’ll find this about their funding, “ATIXA is an independent, not-for-profit organization served by an Advisory Board.  NCHERM’s grant funding includes the ongoing provision of office space, conference management services, and administrative support.”
ATIXA has made a statement concerning CCSS, see below.

 

NCHERM or the ‘National Center for Higher Education Risk Management’:

Website: https://www.ncherm.org
What does NCHERM do? Well, here’s a very short answer from their website, “The NCHERM Group specializes in advancing culture change strategies and problem-solving for the tough wellness, compliance and liability issues colleges and universities face today.” However, here’s a little bit more about their powerful outreach, “We have provided services to more than 3,000 colleges and schools. We represent more than 30 colleges and universities as outside counsel, making The NCHERM Group the largest specialized higher education law practice in the country. Every day, more schools and colleges enhance the health and safety of their communities the NCHERM way. Our reach is vast and our impact is significant.”  To see the entire history of NCHERM,
https://www.ncherm.org/ncherm/about/the-ncherm-story/

So does the NCHERM way include Common Core? Here’s what I believe to be of some proof:

Here’s another clue that may involve educational alignment: Notice in the above screen shot the phrase “CAS Standards”. That stands for  the Council of the Advancement of Standards in Higher Education. Now while I didn’t see the phrase “Common Core State Standards” or “Career and Technical Education” in the CAS Standards, I did see some distinct similarities in the pdf I’m sharing here. Council Higher Ed Standards
If you’d like to look deeper into CAS, here’s their website: http://www.cas.edu/about

However, I want to steer you back to NCHERM. When you look at their website’s home page you may notice a tab labeled “Explore TNG”. Scroll over that and you should see a small collection of NCHERM’s related groups. Here’s a very brief look at most of them:

There’s SCOPE (which co-hosts Title 9 conferences with ATIXA), SCOPE’s website,
https://wearescope.org/about/  Here’s a brief excerpt from their website, “SCOPE is an independent, not-for-profit resource for prevention educators and professionals. SCOPE embraces an ecological, inclusive, holistic, feminist, public health, evidence-based and multi-disciplinary vision of prevention.”

There’s NaBITA (which is behavioral intervention based for K-12, college, and workplaces), see NaBITA’s website, https://nabita.org/    A brief excerpt from their website, ” A behavioral intervention team (BIT) is a multi-disciplinary group whose purpose is meeting regularly to support its target audience (students, employees, faculty, staff) via an established protocol.”

There’s SAACA (Student Affairs Community Colleges), https://www.sacca.org/  Here’s a sentence from their website, sure to grab your anti CCSS/CTE attention, “Community College in this country is now poised to become a right, with two years of free access.”

Other NCHERM services include Conflict Resolution; Student Affairs News (which offers books worth purchasing for summer reading. One such is a book about 21st Century skills in the workplace.); and more behavior resolution team information.
The U.S. Dept. of Ed’s Title 9 Resource Guide:

Yes, officially, the U.S. Dept. of Ed is in charge of Title 9. However, have you noticed the amount of help it’s getting? There’s more help, though. For example, the US DoE’s Resource Guide includes the following information, “Because Title IX prohibits discrimination in all aspects of a recipient’s education programs and activities, the Title IX coordinator should work closely with many different members of the school community, such as administrators, counselors, athletic directors, non-professional counselors or advocates, and legal counsel. Although these employees may not be formally designated as Title IX coordinators, the Title IX coordinator may need to work with them because their job responsibilities relate to the recipient’s obligations under Title IX. The recipient should ensure that all employees whose work relates to Title IX communicate with one another and that these employees have the support they need to ensure consistent practices and enforcement of the recipient’s policies and compliance with Title IX. The coordinator should also be available to meet with the school community, including other employees, students, and parents or guardians, as needed to discuss any issues related to Title IX.”  To access all the other policies, dcl-title-ix-coordinators-guide-201504

The U.S. Dept. of Ed’s Civil Rights Office:

This arm of the DofE is a huge participant in anything to do with Title 9. The website: http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ocr/index.html
Not only does this arm look out for student’s civil rights, they ensure that equity in education is a kingpin of their agenda in the CCSS mix. (Oh, did I mention this office also collects student data?). Here’s an excerpt from the Office’s 2013-14 Annual Report, “For nearly five decades, the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights (OCR) has stood as a guardian of civil rights in educational institutions nationwide. We have taken seriously our charge to remove barriers to students’ full participation in every facet of educational life.” Followed later by, “OCR emphasized the importance of data by releasing a new, expanded Civil Rights Data Collection that made equity indicators in nearly every public school and district in America transparent.”

I found this Preschool Suspension graphic in the Annual Report. (yes, preschoolers receiving suspension in schools) The entire Annual Report is below the screen shot.

report-to-president-and-secretary-of-education-2013-14

Related articles  you should read: 

Here’s one giving credit to Title 9 for the success of CCSS and STEM in schools.
https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/education/report/2014/10/28/99435/for-women-and-girls-the-common-core-is-a-step-toward-greater-equity/

I’ve written extensively about the CCSS/CTE Community College alignment. Here’s one of my first ones.
See: https://www.commoncorediva.com/2014/09/18/tech-thursday-common-core-community-college/ (*Note: if you would like to find other community college articles I’ve written, including the one with the CCSS Adult Standards, use the ‘search’ bar located in the upper right hand corner.)

 

Closing:

Are there other organizations like ATIXA and NCHERM helping the U.S. Dept. of Education enforce Title 9? I’m sure of it. More than likely, not only is there more outside enforcement from a federal level, but a state level as well. Remember that with the upcoming re-authorizations of BOTH the HR5 and the HEA (HR5 impacts K-12 education; HEA impacts higher education), you can be sure that MORE Title 9 and all the other Titles set aside to encompass students, teachers, and schools will be present. Which in essence, gives us MORE CCSS/CTE.

I’ll see you Thursday here on the blog and Wednesday on the radio. Join me 10am to 12 noon, on the NegDog Radio Show. The show is set in the Eastern Time Zone and is always archived so if you miss it, you can access it later.