Anti Fed Ed Warriors, you’ve heard me say for a long time that the LAST chain in the birth to grave education alignment is the HEA (Higher Education Act) as it is re-authorized. Since ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) embedded the HEA (along with WIOA, Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act) within its 391 final law version, we learned the goal all along is what you see below:
So, Warriors, the million dollar question is, what will the new version of HEA’s goal be?
We know the “every” in ESSA means ALL children in PreK-12th grade (no matter what choice) to be aligned to post-secondary ‘readiness’ standards. Those ‘standards’ aren’t educational ones, but those workforce standards created and credentialed BY industries found in WIOA. (Which is WHY both WIOA and HEA were tied to ESSA’s mandates)
If we were to illustrate the WIOA/ESSA/HEA consortium, I think this is what we’d see:
Notice there are no faces, no personalities, only workers.
The CCSS Machine has taken the old saying ‘All work and no play makes Johnny a dull boy’ and applied it liberally throughout all the Machine touches! It is doing everything it can to make Johnny and Suzy as dull as possible.
What does Common Core show up in higher education? CTE (Career Tech Education), STEM and STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, (the Arts), and, Math), Apprenticeships/Internships, dual enrollment/concurrent enrollment, continuing education, reskilling, community colleges, public and private universities, trade schools, on-line or hybrid college programs, CCR (College/Career Readiness), CP (Career Pathways), CC (Career Clusters or Career Chunks), CT (Career Tracks), AP and IB courses/classes, adult charter schools, and any assessment related to all of these.
Why? Because the HEA/WIOA alignment begins well before adulthood!
Previous HEA (Higher Education Act) Updates:
1) The last time HEA was re-authorized was 2008. It’s been renewed (meaning funding streams) have been updated in 2016. Usually the re-authorizations of federal education happen in a one-two type of punch in the gut. However, the ESSA was passed in Dec. 2015. Congress did try to pass legislation for HEA in the 115th Session, but the bills died.
2) In 2014, I showed you the actual Adult Common Core State Standards. These were used in HEA institutions and K-12th education across America. If you didn’t know it, I showed you how Perkins funding (supposedly funds higher education) is actually based on your State’s 5-17 year old population.
3) In 2015, how College Promise was a cog of the CCSS Machine. P3s (Public Private Partnerships) are a huge part of the intended ‘success’. You also got a look at how those higher education degrees were being ‘profiled’ (data tracked) in 2015.
4) In 2016, before HEA was ‘renewed’, I showed you how a University of PA symposium gave a bird’s eye view of the CCSS Machine’s plans for HEA ‘improvements’. When the renewal funds were announced, I showed you how this would impact our students of all ages.
5) In 2017, you got to read and learn about how ‘free college’ for all was the way America can ‘get smarter’ without a massive debt load (aka higher taxes) & how ‘all education’ is considered CTE (Rep. Virginia Foxx’s infamous quote is in full color)
6) Last year, 2018, I used the higher education true cost for NC taxpayers to show you have federal ‘aid’ has hurt ALL our States. As we know, if it’s in one State, it’s in all the others! In August 2018, I gave “Wormy” Awards to the HEA, along with several other laws and CCSS Machine member groups.
So, why show you previous updates? Because all of what hasn’t passed into HEA before NOW, will be thrown in the newest version of HEA! It will be another ‘kitchen sink’ bill!
**Special Note: Sen. Lamar Alexander retires when the 116th Session of Congress is dismissed. (Meaning Jan. 2021) The ‘new’ HEA is rumored to be his last ‘gift’ to Americans.
Top Priorities for HEA:
To access the articles cited above, you’ll find the National group, CTE Watch’s information here. Rep. Scott’s, here and here; Sen. Alexander’s, here.
In 2014, the Inclusive Higher Education Committee wrote a letter to the Senate HELP Committee addressing how the HEA needed to make sure it provided for those with special needs, especially in relation to WIOA. I’ve reported on this before, but be sure to look for what ‘new’ agenda items will be embedded in the updated HEA.
In a 2014 letter to Senator Alexander from the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, the need for tougher action in HEA towards accrediting groups not interfering with diversity policies.
*Be sure to watch for this, as accrediting processes via ESSA, WIOA, and HEA have seen changes which aren’t good.
In 2015, The U.S. Commission on Civil Rights published a financial report which included higher education. On pages 4 and 5 you’ll find all the references to the HEA. The group was studying if low-income students, students using TRIO and GEAR UP, and under-served students, could not only afford college, but survive economically.
*No doubt the newer HEA will have something about this included.
From 2018, the National Association for College Admission Counseling (NACAC), urged the entire Senate HELP Committee with this quote about the HEA: “NACAC urges the Committee to continue this aspiration (expanding opportunity & access to higher education in America) through this re-authorization as our nation and economy have benefited from the federal government’s investment in higher education.” The NACAC also wants to support GEAR UP and TRIO, while seeing DREAM Act legislation embedded for undocumented students.
*As if the tax burdens on Americans isn’t enough, paying for anyone’s free college is a mistake. What will we see of this in the newest HEA?
From late 2018, this Forbes article shows us, Anti Fed Ed Warriors, some ‘ammo’:
Forbes, from this year (2019) gave 4 predictions about the HEA. One of them was ‘income sharing’
When Nancy Pelosi was Speaker of the House in 2015, she had this to say at the beginning of her statement on the 50th anniversary of HEA. Now that she’s Speaker again, what will we hear?
Related resources:
1) Sen. Alexander was the sponsor for the SUPPORT Patients and Communities Act. It’s main focus was on the opioid crisis. We know drugs are used in schools via mental health programs and services, which this law increased at a federal level. This will tie to the Be BEST White House initiative, where SEL (Social Emotional Learning) is a kingpin from the CCSS Machine.
2) Harvard University (a huge CCSS Machine member) named Sen. Alexander as a Fellow in the Harvard Kennedy School’s Institute of Politics, Class of 1971.
3) According to the Tennessean, Sen. Alexander will spend his last years in Congress focused on two agenda items: health care costs and higher education.
4) In the Rep. Scott information link above, you’ll find he wants to review ESSA as a top priority in the House’s Committee on Education and Labor. He’s wanting to increase the inflexibility exercised over the States.
5) My February 2019 look at the HEA amendment Bills from Congress.
Closing:
In my next article, I’ll be diving into a NC based group which influences higher education across the nation. Are there ties to the HEA? Most definitely. Ties to the CCSS Machine, more than likely.
Warriors, we must fight the Big Four AND the CCSS Machine when it comes to the HEA.
If it is going to be like common core, then do we accept it before the standards are written?
Thanks for asking, the ‘Standards’ are already in place, as they have been since CCSS came to town.
I encourage you to contact your Senator or Representative to block any re-authorization. It’s unconstitutional to begin with.
It’s taxpayer abuse and a violation of federal laws barring federal overreach into education. While you’re at it, demand a repeal of ESSA, as the two are interconnected with WIOA.