For today’s ‘From the Files’ article, we, those opposed to the overreach in education, will see if we can pick up any loose ends of strings the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Machine has left around the nation.
Could we make a ball of yarn with it? No doubt. Those backing the illegally based (now codified into law) education reform point to ‘no strings attached’, we need to not accept this fallacy quite so quickly. Why? Loose strings are not as loose as they appear. Somewhere connected to that loose string is a ball of yarn. What else is in the ball of yarn? Hidden programs, resources, funding, and MORE.
Loose End #1:
ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) will return control to the States. This has been publicly proclaimed by Congress members, the mainstream media, and anyone willing to follow this loose end. However, many of those researching the ESSA, including myself have pointed out what pro CCSS/ESSA organization has the ball of yarn connected to this loose end. The U.S. Dept. of Education!! Pages of the ESSA Final Conference Report (as well as the Final Law version) reveal the ball of yarn as well as the loose ends. “Pages 7, 85, 450, and 905 to see how the States will be under the Sec. of Ed’s thumb, for not only approval of State Ed plans, but getting the bucks to do so.”
To access my “ESSA National Control” Open Office Document (3 pages of where more loose ends of string will tie back to the big ball of yarn): ESSAnationalcontrol
If you would like the entire article this document was first featured in:
https://www.commoncorediva.com/2016/02/29/warriors-guide-to-essa/
Related: States have begun, in earnest, to realign education (which also ties into the loose end of workforce) to fit ESSA. If you want to see what pro CCSS/ESSA groups have lined up to help extend the loose strings to make the ball of yarn bigger:
https://www.commoncorediva.com/2016/03/22/essa-aligners/
As an example of how States are picking up those loose ends and extending them across our Nation, here is the press release the NC Dept. of Public Instruction about implementing ESSA. Below is the screen shot. In the caption is the link address.
Loose End #2:
An invitation to participate. If you haven’t expanded the screen shot above, you may not of seen the invitation so graciously extended to the ‘stakeholders’. This educratic buzzword is a favorite of those in the CCSS/ESSA mix who want to extend what appears to be a ‘string of cooperation’. However, the string is another loose end of the big ball of yarn. In this instance, the ESSA language itself. Because the Law is now the rule of the land and all the parameters/mandates embedded MUST be carried out, the cooperation from stakeholders is pretty much a posturing move. It is a move designed to have us think we can have a say in how education is run, but we really won’t. I am planning on attending one of these meetings to see if and how Delphi Method is used. If you are not sure what the Delphi Method is, here is an excerpt of how is was originally supposed to used, “The Delphi technique is a widely used and accepted method for gathering data from respondents within their domain of expertise. The technique is designed as a group communication process which aims to achieve a convergence of opinion on a specific real-world issue. The Delphi process has been used in various fields of study such as program planning, needs assessment, policy determination, and resource utilization to develop a full range of alternatives, explore or expose underlying assumptions, as well as correlate judgments on a topic spanning a wide range of disciplines.”
The CCSS/ESSA Machine likes to use this Method on parents..a lot. Just ask some anti CCSS Warriors who have publicly shared the meetings they attended under the guise of ‘we want your input to help us plan’. Oh, and here is a fun fact about the Delphi Method, Rand Corporation is given credit for creating it. Rand Corp. is a big CCSS Machine member organization. See the rest of the Delphi Method Study:
http://pareonline.net/pdf/v12n10.pdf
Loose End #3:
Data and Refusing the Assessments. This is a rather big loose end for the CCSS/ESSA Machine to be dangling about, but shamelessly, it is. While I do support those parents who are choosing to protect their children by refusing the high stakes formative, summative, data tracking/mining assessments, we need to know that the ESSA will have MORE assessments, not LESS. We need to realize that almost $850 million dollars in earmarked in the ESSA for digital/technology based updates. This is where the assessments will be hidden! Huge ball of nasty yarn! What do I mean? One of my dear anti CCSS Warrior friends from Alaska granted me permission to share their loose strings and where the ball of yarn ended up. See: http://refusetheamp.blogspot.com/2016/04/the-rise-of-new-answers-while-amp-was.html
We Warriors must opt out of not only the assessments, but ANYTHING digital. This loose string portion of ESSA is a ball of yarn which will be used to knit a web of educational crimes against humanity.
Related: My article detailing the digital yarns of ESSA:
https://www.commoncorediva.com/2016/02/04/essa-and-digital-overload/
The 2015 article where I exposed the data yarn trails of SBAC, PARCC, and the Federal Learning Registry: https://www.commoncorediva.com/2015/01/12/monday-musings-assessments-data-mining/
The U.S. Dept. of Labor’s loose ends/balls of yarn are woven into the ESSA and the HEA (Higher Education Act). These are probably some of the most deceptive loose ends in the nation! See: https://www.commoncorediva.com/2015/12/05/weekend-news-essas-untold-ties-to-hea/
Closing:
Yarn can be used to make many beautiful items. ESSA is not one of them. The CCSS Machine is using all its yarn to bind us up. Let’s be savvy. Let’s fight this. Let’s knot up the yarns as much as we can.
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