CTE, ‘By Hook Or By Crook’

Anti Fed Ed Warriors, we know for a fact, or by several facts, that the ‘hook/crook’ system has been well implemented in American education. Chiefly responsible is the CCSS Machine (in more modern history).

What do I mean by the “CCSS Machine”? The “Common Core State Standards Machine”. What groups or people make up this ‘Machine’? Anyone and every group who/which has undermined our U.S. Constitution to strap us with federal education laws? (Congress and their corporate backers, State governors, State laws, local entities are a few examples) The complete list is long and is well documented.

My focus for this article will be on Congress AND businesses, though. These, in my researched opinion, are the biggest crooks using the meanest hooks.

The political cartoon from long ago, best illustrates how education has been manhandled by Congress and its corporate cronies.

Another Hearing:

Warriors, I don’t know about you, but I get emails every time the U.S. House’s Ed/Workforce Committee has news. There has been an abundance of hearings lately.

Each is a dog and pony show with the head of Ed/Workforce (Rep. Virginia Foxx) leading the agenda. What might her agenda be? It’s the same as every other U.S. Representative, that CTE (Career Tech Education) is our ‘silver bullet’ for America.

(Source of screen shot above)

So, what Hearing am I referring to? It was the House’s June 13th hearing. The Ed/Workforce Committee’s Press Release was selling ‘the power of charter schools’.

So how does CTE connect to charter schools? According to the Hearing’s archive, Rep. Foxx’s final questions focus on charters and CTE. You can find this near the 2:36:07 time mark. She pointedly asked Nina Rees (President and CEO, National Alliance for Public Charter Schools) about the potential of charters to expand CTE. Rees responded with this, ‘Roughly 400 charters label themselves as either CTE or STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and, Math) field schools.’ If you look up ‘CTE’ on the Alliance’s website, there are 22 listings for CTE teachers. From special needs students to all CTE concentrations, Career Tech Ed is used for student’s career tracked pathways and lifelong learning.

What’s interesting, Warriors, is that the CCSS Machine member organizations funding this Alliance include the U.S. Dept. of Education’s Charter School Resource Center. Other funders include the Gates Foundation, The Eli Broad Foundation, the Walton Family Foundation, The Kellogg Foundation, and many others. (source)

By having a group tied to the U.S. Dept. of Education speaking as a witness at a hearing for the U.S. House’s Ed/Workforce Committee is totally subjective, thus, whatever ‘testimony’ is given will naturally support Congress’s moves.

Frankly, as I listened and watched this almost 3 hour hearing, I was offended by the smugness of Foxx, the superiority of some of the other Congress members making statements and asking questions. You could easily hear digs at certain parties, disrespect toward others, and false vibrato towards the one citizen presented as a witness.

You could hear the coached words spilling from not only Foxx’s mouth, but others like Rep. Davis of California, Rep. Polis from Colorado, and Rep. Thompson from Pennsylvania. Other Representatives appeared to have valid questions, but used most of their question time to espouse their opinions.

Davis said that America (‘we’) need CTE. “We” also need to partner with communities. ‘We want CTE’. ‘We want many opportunities for students, we’re primed to do that to a scale which will create careers.’

Warriors, this is the way in which businesses and corporations are infiltrating the classrooms across America. If they aren’t in the K-12 classrooms, they are in the early college classrooms, the apprenticeships, the dual enrollment, the one-stop-job-centers, etc.
Grooming workers tied to 16 different career tracks is the sole goal. THERE IS NO OTHER. Those who don’t fit into these tracks will find themselves on a different kind of career track: management

To access the entire hearing, go here.
(*Note: I’ll be writing a separate article about the dog and pony show surrounding ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) and charters, so the hearing link will be embedded in that article as well.)

Foxx And House:

Not to miss a moment to brag on the PROSPER Act, the Ed/Workforce Committee sent this email out:

The PROSPER Act is a land mine of CTE, STEM, and anything else connecting education to the workforce development. In my recent article, I exposed how as well as Foxx’s misleading the nation on the number of jobs available or not. PROSPER is geared for those in higher education BUT depends on K-12 education to be locked in the alignment for cradle to career ‘education’. Both CTE and PROSPER will encompass ALL school choices! Just like ESSA!
To see other Congressional bills seeking to align all school choices to the skill based mantra in education, my article from Nov. 2017 will help you out.

Warriors, when you see it like this, then the words of Foxx and Davis make even more sense. Not good sense, mind you, but it should show you the underlying need for Congress to by hook or crook, deceive our nation.

(*Note, Foxx and Davis are only 2 of the members at that hearing which were touting charters schools. However, it was this pair which chose to focus on CTE.)

Closing:

Warriors, make no mistake, the U.S. Congress, as a CCSS Machine member, is doing EVERYTHING possible by hook or by crook to mandate education into workforce development. If it’s not CTE, it’s CBE (competency based education).

This is in line with the global education agenda, as well. Look below to see the connections between US and UN visions for workforce education:

Seen below, this one lays out how CBE (aka CTE, STEM, College and Career Readiness) fits to the UN’s Global agenda. We can find each of the 7 steps in WIOA (Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act), the current HEA (Higher Education Act), and ESSA. HEA is the only federal education law left to be 100% aligned to all this.
Currently, the PROSPER Act is the ‘answer’ the House has for HEA. The U.S. Senate? Their ‘answer’ is the Higher Education Innovation Act.

If you need to see how ALL school choices are impacted by all this, look below:

Lastly, if you don’t think Common Core (aka College/Career Readiness) is found in the CTE, I urge you to read my previous research exposing how CTE IS the adult version of Common Core.