Posts

The Reasons Jeb Bush Does Not Inspire Conservatives

/20 Comments/in , /by
Photo: Jerry Wolford/Polaris/Newscom

Photo: Jerry Wolford/Polaris/Newscom

By Genevieve Wood

I had promised myself I wasn’t going to write about 2016 until at least Jan. 1, 2015. So much for that.

Jeb Bush announced today via Facebook that he has “decided to actively explore” a presidential run and will launch a leadership PAC early next year to help him “facilitate conversations with citizens across America.”

That’s as close as any potential GOP presidential candidate has come yet to saying, “I’m in.”

But before everyone starts dusting off their old Bush and Clinton paraphernalia for a rematch of the families in 2016, let’s consider that while Democrats may have a weak bench of candidates this go round, the same is not true for the GOP.

For the first time in a very long time, the Republican Party has not one, not two, but several would-be candidates, at both the state and national level, who are not only “viable,” but also conservative. And it’s the latter ingredient that many today question about Jeb Bush.

The GOP has not one, not two, but several would-be candidates who are not only “viable” but also conservative.

Read more from this story HERE.

____________________________________________________________________________

Jeb Bush’s Common Core Problem

By Kelsey Harkness

Jeb Bush has long advocated for all 50 states to adopt Common Core national standards.

Now that the former Florida governor has all but confirmed his plans to run for president in 2016, the issue threatens to overshadow his likely campaign.

Bush’s name, matched with consistently high polling numbers among potential 2016 Republican candidates, makes landing a seat in the Oval Office feasible. But in order to reach the general election—to perhaps take on Hillary Clinton—Bush must first overcome concerns about Common Core with conservative primary voters.

Bush’s longstanding support for Common Core is no secret: Over a year ago, Frederick M. Hess, an education expert at the American Enterprise Institute, predicted that if he decided to run for president, “Common Core could be his Romneycare.”

What is Common Core?

Common Core standards were created by the National Governors Association and Council of Chief State School Officers, and funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The goal, supported by the Obama administration, was to increase education standards in America.

Among conservatives, however, the issue one of the most controversial. Several politicians have flip-flopped on the issue, pulling their support or even abandoning the standards in their states.

Read more from this story HERE.

High School: Islamic Vocabulary Lesson Part Of Common Core Standards

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Fox News

Photo Credit: Fox News

Parents in Farmville, North Carolina want to know why their children were given a Common Core vocabulary assignment in an English class that promoted the Prophet Muhammad and the Islamic faith.

“It really caught me off guard,” a Farmville Central High School student who was in the class told me. “If we are not allowed to talk about any other religions in school – how is this appropriate?”

The Islamic vocabulary worksheet was assigned to seniors.

“I was reading it and it caught me off guard,” the student told me. “I just looked at it and knew something was not right – so I emailed the pages to my mom.”

I asked the school district to provide me with a copy of vocabulary worksheets that promoted the Jewish, Hindu and Christian faiths. The school district did not reply.

Read more from this story HERE.

Common Core Fallout: Homeschooling Rates Are Rising

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

Despite the (at times) acrimonious debate surrounding Common Core, the federal government’s national solution to improving education outcomes, it’s worth noting that the controversial program is drawing some level of bipartisan support.

Most notably, perhaps, presumptive 2016 presidential candidate Jeb Bush isvery much in favor of it, as are a number of other prominent Republicans. Nevertheless, as Fox News reports, many parents are outraged and alarmed by Common Core, which they perceive is creating a progressive-friendly and impossible-to-understand new curriculum. As a result, it seems, they’re pulling their kids out of public schools in droves:

The home-schooling boom is getting a new push due to opposition to Common Core, the controversial national education standard that some parents’ claim is using their children’s public school lessons to push a political agenda, according to critics of the Washington-backed curriculum.

Read more from this story HERE.

Pro-Common Core Math Instructor: Kids Are 'Clean Slate,' Parents Must Be 'Retrained' (+video)

/6 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APThe frustration and confusion over the Common Core math curricula aligned with the nationalized standards has opened up the role of parent “instructional coach,” educators who are teaching not only students, but also parents, in the strange and non-instinctive ways of the nationalized math standards.

Lyndsey Layton at the Washington Post reports that elementary school parents, especially, are upset because the Common Core way of math leaves them unable to assist their children with homework. Throughout the country, school districts are holding special classes for parents and offering “homework hotlines” to help them understand Common Core math.

“The kids who come to us are a clean slate,” states Jennifer Patanella, an instructional coach with the Rochester, New York public schools who teaches parents in the strange ways of Common Core math. “It’s the adults who have to be retrained.”

“Almost every parent comes in and says, ‘This is not how I learned math,’” states Melissa Palermo, a fourth grade teacher who also now coaches other teachers in math in the Nathaniel Hawthorne public schools in Rochester.

Palermo is a proponent of the Common Core and says her students are reaping the benefits of being able to show a more sophisticated understanding of math and an ability to perform operations they would otherwise not have learned until they were older.

Read more from this story HERE.

Common Core Horror Stories From Florida

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Daily CallerEarlier this week, parents and teachers convened at Royal Palm Beach High School in South Florida to discuss the massive torment which children in taxpayer-funded schools have endured as a result of the implementation of the Common Core Standards Initiative and the standardized tests that go along with it.

The sad misery of kindergarten students subjected to computerized testing was among biggest complaints presented by irate parents and frustrated teachers, reports the Palm Beach Post.

“I watched a student suffer for over an hour,” explained one elementary school teacher. “They had no idea how to work the computer mouse.”

Not surprisingly, teachers discovered that five- and six-year-old students either have insufficient experience with computers or don’t possess the motor skills to use a mouse to take standardized tests. Over the course of one day, for example, five teachers worked with 10 students — out of 120 —to complete their tests, notes the Post.

“What’s ‘drag and drop’ to a child who’s not worked on a computer?” vented another exasperated teacher. The teacher also griped that the textbooks her school purchased aren’t even the rights ones for the standardized test her school uses, according to the local newspaper.

Read more from this story HERE.

Bureaucrat SMACKED DOWN After Warning Homeschooling Parents They ‘Must Follow’ Common Core

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Reuters The Home School Legal Defense Association says it has successfully intervened in the case of two New Jersey parents who decided to homeschool their child instead of utilizing the Westfield, N.J. public school system.

According to the homeschooling advocacy group, the trouble began earlier this school year when the assistant superintendent of the Westfield Public Schools sent a letter to the parents warning them that they have no choice but to abide by New Jersey’s Common Core standards.

The letter ordered the parents to present a “letter of intent” to school district officials and an outline of their proposed curriculum. Then, the letter reportedly said, the parents had to hope the superintendent would accept their curriculum and allow them to continue homeschooling their own child.

The parents responded by contacting the Home School Legal Defense Association. In a letter of his own, Scott A. Woodruff, an attorney for the organization, schooled the assistant superintendent on New Jersey homeschooling law.

Read more from this story HERE.

A Closer Look at the Botched Common Core Results

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

Misleading title aside, the Buffalo News report was not good. “Students in Buffalo statewide make modest gains in math,” declared an article in the New York newspaper detailing the results from the second year of Common Core implementation. Well yes, math scores did overall improve. But, the rest of the report was not quite so rosy:

Despite another full year of preparation by schools after the rollout of state Common Core tests in 2013, there were no dramatic, across-the-board gains in English this year. Large-city districts saw slight year-to-year improvement, but wealthier suburban districts statewide actually saw overall declines on the English exam.

The detailed grade proficiency results in New York from 2012 through 2014 are downright embarrassing. Even the most successful schools weren’t spared from Common Core. Take Ledgeview Elementary School, for example. This school boasted a 91.2 percent proficiency in 2012 for third grade math. The next year, those scores slid down to 76.3 percent. It ticked back up slightly in 2014 to 82 percent, but that was small consolation.

City Honors School, a top rated school in the state, had an impressive 90.2 percent proficiency in eighth grade ELA in 2012. That shot down to 80.4 percent in 2013.

Orchard Park Middle School experienced a swift decline as well. Eighth grade ELA in 2012: 77 percent proficiency, 2013: 58.1 percent, 2014: 52 percent.

Read more from this story HERE.

Why Top Catholic Education Organization Says Common Core Could Threaten Religious Liberty

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A leading Catholic education organization is warning that Common Core could pose a threat to religious freedom for Catholic schools that adopt the controversial education standards.

The Cardinal Newman Society’s summer newsletter named among the 10 things Catholics should know about Common Core is that it “could lead to religious liberty violations.” That’s in part because of the Department of Health and Human Services mandate to cover contraception coverage for employees.

“Catholic schools’ protection from threats like the HHS mandate depends on showing consistent Catholic identity, because First Amendment protections often depend on demonstrating a bona fide religious character,” the newsletter warned. “The Common Core may diminish a school’s Catholic identity by ‘crowding out’ important elements of authentic Catholic formation, emphasizing skills and practicality over vocation, and failing to teach reasoning from a foundation of truth.”

Further, as more Catholic schools adopt Common Core-certified textbooks and have to comply with Common Core exams, that could in turn lead to schools’ accepting more federal and state funding, which often has strings attached, said Denise Donohue, deputy director of the K-12 Catholic Education Program for the Cardinal Newman Society.

“Testing requirements affect instruction and that can be tied to funding,” Donohue told TheBlaze. “Any federal funding puts contraints on a program.”

Read more from this story HERE.

This Teachers Union President Will ‘PUNCH YOU IN THE FACE’ If You Don’t Like Common Core (+video)

/8 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: YouTube

Photo Credit: YouTube

By Eric Owens.

Video surfaced on Thursday showing Michael Mulgrew, president of New York’s United Federation of Teachers, as he unloaded a hateful rant against critics of the Common Core Standards Initiative.

“If someone takes something from me, I’m going to grab it right back out of their cold, twisted, sick hands and say it is mine!” Mulgrew bellowed clownishly. “You do not take what is mine!”

The union boss also challenged opponents of Common Core and union control over education to a fist fight.

“I’m going to punch you in the face and push you in the dirt because this is the teachers’!” Mulgrew threatened.

The teachers union bigwig made the speech at a convention in Los Angeles last month, according to the New York Daily News.

Read more from this story HERE.

_________________________________________________________________________

Photo Credit: TownHall

Photo Credit: TownHall

Proposed AP History Curriculum Portrays Colonists as “Bigots”

By Sarah Jean Seman.

David Coleman, current president of the College Board and lead architect of Common Core State Standards, has been accused of “inculcating a negative view of American history” in his proposed advanced placement curriculum. In a letter dated August 4, American Principles in Action and Concerned Women for America, presented an exhaustive list of how American oppressors and exploiters are highlighted while dreamers, innovators and heroes are left out.

The new material portrayed the colonists as bigoted and interpreted America’s attempt to spread democracy as “white racial superiority,” according to the letter…

Read more from this story HERE.

Governors Group Skirts 'Radioactive' Common Core

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: TownHall Reviled by staunch conservatives, the common education standards designed to improve schools and student competitiveness are being modified by some Republican governors, who are pushing back against what they call the federal government’s intrusion into the classroom.

The Common Core standards were not on the formal agenda during a three-day meeting of the National Governors Association that ended Sunday, relegated to hallway discussions and closed-door meetings among governors and their staffs. The standards and even the words, “Common Core,” have “become, in a sense, radioactive,” said Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad, a Republican whose state voluntarily adopted the standards in 2010.

“We want Iowa Common Core standards that meet the needs of our kids,” Branstad said, echoing an intensifying sentiment from tea party leaders who describe the education plan as an attempt by the federal government to take over local education.

There was little controversy when the bipartisan governors association in 2009 helped develop the common education standards aimed at improving schools and students’ competitiveness across the nation. The standards were quickly adopted by 44 states.

Read more from this story HERE.