The Education Road

Greetings, my fellow anti CCSS/ESSA/Fed Led Ed Warriors! What happens when education reform meets P3 (public private partnerships)/ ESSA, CCSS Machine funding dollars AND involves a bus?!

The  education (with its agenda and all)  comes to your neighborhood for students AND their families!

The Mobile Move:

Seen recently, was this headline, “Mobile Recreation Unit Builds Bonds in a Fun Way”.
See the article: http://www.charlotteobserver.com/news/local/community/lake-norman-mooresville/article93901902.html

*Note: be sure to watch the embedded video. Listen for the ‘expanded learning opportunities for the community’. Note also, the assistance for this comes from community agencies. Why do this even bear paying attention to? The ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) gives your SEAs (State Education Agencies) and your LEAs (Local Education Agencies) more power to use in approving community agencies in the name of ‘student outcomes’ and/or ‘student achievement’.

So, our next questions should be, what entities are involved in ‘expanded learning opportunities’ for students and their families? What do they look like and HOW does all this really point back to the CCSS Machine?

The Entities In My Town:

1) Mooresville Cultural and Recreation Services (MCRS), according to the article the Staff at the MCRS works hard to build P3 relationships. Why? To help the ‘economically challenged’ students/families. While the concept is noble and great, knowing that in the ESSA are mandates for “expanding learning opportunities” in ways which will involve our entire community’s alignment is troublesome. Knowing also, how much of ESSA is written to target ‘at-risk’ or ‘low-income students’ is also worth being on our radars. The last ESSA concern I saw in the article? The ‘driving the students home’. ESSA covers that expense with our taxpayer dollars.

What other community locations are under the MCRS? Our public library, a public golf course, and our citizen center in downtown. How can I tie this back to the CCSS Machine? The public library! (See: https://www.commoncorediva.com/2016/07/03/hitting-the-books-part-2/); Part One is embedded as a link. You can see the libraries are not only part of the CCSS Machine, but to Common Core,  Career Tech Education, College and Career Readiness, community alignment, and the ESSA, WIOA, and the HEA. (WIOA: Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act; HEA: Higher Education Act)

2) The City Government is a natural partner. How? The Recreation Dept. is part of our city’s government. Cities receive federal and state money all the time.

Look at the opportunities connected with ESSA from the City Government’s Rec. Dept. document.
From Page 5 of the “Master Plan” you can find out how tax subsidies offset some of the Recreation Dept.’s cost. You can also find the current Rec. Dept. Partners, “SPONSORS / PARTNERS Currently, the Department has multiple partners such as the Mooresville’s Police and Fire Departments, Christian Mission, I-Care, Benchwarmers, Imagine Music Group, Mooresville Grade School, etc. A majority of the partners have formal agreements with the Department that help raise money, provide their services and/or spaces for programs and events, cover program cost, etc. ” (*Note: Page 6 will show you how “Crowd Funding” is also being used to cover costs.)

What else will the “Master Plan” reveal in its 153 pages?
* You will find the educratic buzzwords of ‘inclusion’, ‘equity’, ‘stakeholders’; you will see the surveys where the citizens voiced where they wanted their tax dollars focused on (that’s weird, I do not recall getting a survey like this and I pay taxes here);
* You will see lots of data (includes the U.S. Census) and graphs used to support the moves; you’ll see the increased push for social and economic equality;
* You’ll see how Mooresville has a goal for being a “Gold Medal” City*, as well as a few other items. (*Note: A “Gold Medal City” is the award given to any size community by the National Parks and Recreation Association (NPRA)

You can learn more about the NPRA’s Gold Medal for Excellence Program: 
http://www.parksandrecreation.org/2016/January/The-National-Gold-Medal-Award-Program-for-Excellence/

Briefly: NPRA is a national, not-for-profit organization. Some of the same CCSS Machine member organizations also partner with the NPRA.) Look below at what I found in their “Strategic Plan”: 

Here are the CCSS Machine member organizations funding the NPRA:

Just think, my place of residence is clamoring to be a ‘Gold Medal City’….

Before we move on, it is important to note that the use of educratic buzzwords is most effective when applied to the pseudo-educational ways the CCSS Machine and ESSA are supporting.

 
For the Warrior Number Crunchers:

So since I am a resident of Mooresville, pay taxes, and OPPOSE the CCSS Machine, where are my dollars going? Has anyone considered how the education reform is the modern day “TAXATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION”?! Directly related to the article, is the below image.

For our 2017 City Budget, just under  $99 million is being reported by the official Mooresville City Government website. ($98,929,412.00 to be exact). Included in the big bucks are not only the funds to continue the Rec.Departments,the schools, and all the places they intersect, but the Community Development Grants. These grants are top-down funded, AND fit right into the ESSA’s mandates for 21st Century Community Learning Centers, Promise Neighborhoods, PreK Development, and more. Community Development projects can also be under other names like ‘Capital Improvement Projects'( CIPs).

Where Warriors Need to Look in Your Area:

*1:  Use what I have found in my town as an example to look in your town.

*2:  CIPs are a key place to look for more ‘hiding-in-plain-sight’ CCSS Machine/ESSA ties. Why? Any public space or service receives these funds.

*3: You’ll also want to see how much of the FEMA funding your town receives. FEMA is a key part of the Agenda 21/UN (United Nations) portion of the CCSS Machine.

*4:  Look at groups like the FFYF (First Five Years Fund). From birth to age 5 education  is also embedded in the ESSA. Birth to 5 will also encompass in home visits in your communities.
See the agenda and support FFYR gives ESSA: http://ffyf.org/our-focus/every-student-succeeds-act-essa/

*5:  Look at the Head Start or Early Head Start Programs in your area. I exposed these:
https://www.commoncorediva.com/2015/10/08/tech-thursday-technically-speaking-for-ccss/

*6: What plans does your town/city/area have for 21st Century Community Learning Centers, after school programs, or related family wrap-around services? Here is what the National After School Alliance has  on ESSA’s mandates (*Note: the use of ‘expanded learning opportunities’ is seen):
http://www.afterschoolalliance.org/documents/ESSA-Opportunities-for-Afterschool.pdf

*7:  What Digital upgrades are you seeing in your area? Just down the road, in Charlotte, NC is the headline making news of the Google Fiber system being completed. Commercials sell it as everyone will be more connected/have better and faster internet. What the commercials are leaving out is how Charlotte is considered a leader in the nation for “Smart Cities”*, that Google is part of the CCSS Machine, or the fact that digital and technology upgrades are mandates of ESSA. No, it is being used as a ‘hiding-in-plain-sight’ tactic.
a) To understand the NC STEM Affinity Network (check in your state for yours) and how it ties to the CCSS Machine AND ESSA/WIOA/HEA. Also note how STEM is being used on the early learners.:
i) https://www.commoncorediva.com/2014/12/02/wybi-wednesday-rttt-stem-ed-waivers-and-more/
ii) https://www.commoncorediva.com/2015/10/21/wybi-tying-stem-to-ccss-again/
iii) https://www.commoncorediva.com/2015/10/29/tech-thursday-stemccss-push-making-it-american/ (early learners)

*8: To see the Google (NC) Data Center:
https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/inside/locations/lenoir/community-outreach.html
a) To see how Google is sold out to CCSS (and will continue via ESSA):

Sic’ ‘Em Saturday: Google’s “CS First”

*9: To see what the White House and the PCAST (President’s Council of Adivsors on Science and Technology) call “Smart Cities”: https://www.commoncorediva.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/pcast_cities_report___final_3_2016.pdf
a) To see Charlotte’s role in helping the White House led Initiative:
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2015/09/14/fact-sheet-administration-announces-new-smart-cities-initiative-help

Related NC/CCSS Machine/ESSA information:

1) Here is a look at how NC is considered a leader in Early Learning Benchmarks:
https://www.commoncorediva.com/2015/07/04/sic-em-saturday-pint-sized-common-core/

2) How local P3s are working in my community and surrounding ones for CCSS Machine alignment. Begins with the youngest learners and goes up in age.: https://www.commoncorediva.com/2015/11/02/monday-musings-alignment-for-wee-ones/

3) For STEM, CCSS, and taxpayer impacts:
https://www.commoncorediva.com/2016/03/10/update-ccss-cte-stem-and-connect-nc-bond/

4) For NC’s “Prosperity Zones” and how they tie to CCSS, ESSA, etc.:
https://www.commoncorediva.com/2015/10/10/weekend-news-collective-workforce/

5) To see how the “Smart Cities” are in other locations:
https://www.commoncorediva.com/2016/04/24/full-steam-ahead/

Closing:

Warriors, what other CCSS Machine items are ‘hiding’ in your area? What alignment to ESSA are you already seeing that is turning out to be much more negative than we were told it would be? What foundations are being laid to align entire areas to the infrastructure ESSA needs to survive? The efforts are there, we MUST expose them. We must not read an article in a weekly paper and take it at face value. Why? Look at the tangled CCSS/ESSA trail I found just from a short newspaper article and a short video.