After attending a “Common Core workshop” for school board members and their staff, which was “facilitated” by one of its architects, I am left with a few thoughts. Strap yourself in kids it may get bumpy. First, man are we screwed! There, I got that out of the way. Now let me explain why.

The United States Department of Education also referred to as ED or the ED for (the) Education Department, is a Cabinet-level department of the United States government. Recreated by the Department of Education Organization Act (Public Law 96-88) and signed into law by President Jimmy Carter on October 17, 1979, it began operating on May 4, 1980. Since this time our educational standards have become “progressively” worse. As I sat through the workshop today I was thinking about the level of intelligence I share with my peer group. That’s right, the same ones that drank from garden hoses and had lead paint on their windows and cribs. If we ended up with the functional ability to solve problems, read, balance a check book and create businesses, jobs and the greatest nation known to man, what the hell happened to our kids? Then it hit me. Progressive Globalists did. They hit us like a MACK freekin truck head on while we were sitting still. Some of us are just waking up from the impact and have one hell of a headache. Others have been performing triage and others have been trying to tell everyone else to get off the road that more trucks are coming.

Today, when confronted with fact the facilitator outright lied. When confronted with concern about their ideas he turned the table. When shown the future using common core, educators swooned. Board Members feared openly what they had to do to administratively implement the new educational ideology. Prior to 1980 these discussions either happened because the changes were made by a local school board or a State office of education. Either way they happened, the decisions were made closer to the people. They were less radical in their transformational concepts and focused more on true accountability. They happened closer to those ideals envisioned and put forward by our forefathers. They had greater parental input and interaction. Now they occur because we have had thirty three years of acceptance of eroded freedom. They occur because we as a society somehow came to believe that someone in a “higher” office must be more intelligent than us local yokels. It happened because we did not remain vigilant in making sure that Liberty’s light remained lit.

When the facilitator was asked today how common core was going to replace a failed system of “No child left behind” and FCAT – the answer was stunning. There was no answer. Instead, it was a reflection upon how the afore mentioned failed. He asked the group to think about the failures of the past and look to how they could use the new common core in the future to replace these blunders. Because I was taught as a child to be a critical thinker I will pose the obvious question then. If one after another federally mandated approaches to teaching have brought the USA from the number one nation educationally in the world to one of a third world, why should we continue to use this approach of centralized top down implementation? If decentralized oversight worked in the recent past, then why are we so blind that we do not see the progressive agenda involved in our educational system? We have placed men on the moon using a decentralized educational system. So do not tell me it does not work!

We have reduced our school boards to administrative servants to handle the distribution of Federal dollars that mandate curriculum, meals, sports, outcomes and everything else we do in our schools. And, the school board members travel along the path happily wearing their titles and occupying their seats while ignoring the fact that they have been made into bureaucratic slaves. They place their bones on a consent agenda and derive a sense of freedom because they are “allowed” minimal latitude in overseeing the education of our children at a local level. Now do not get me wrong. I know our superintendent. I know our school board members. I have home numbers for most and I am on a first name basis with them. I have voted for most of them. I know at heart they are God Fearing people that have the community at heart. The problem is not with them as much as it is with the “reformed” system that we have slowly allowed to creep into our daily way of life and replace our Liberty. We need now more than ever people in office to stand for Liberty and proclaim offenses to her when they occur and stand in her defense when needed. This, like previous eras is one of those times.

If we do not push back as a people, we will be pushed as a people. If we do not govern as close to home as possible we will be governed from afar and lose accountability. I call upon all that read this to pause, sit quietly and reflect. Ask yourself if you think that we are as free in our educational system today as when we were students. Do you think that our children as a whole are as prepared for life as were we? If you in your heart know the answer, then you have an obligation to generations forward to exercise your God given right to self-representation and demand of our elected officials that this idea is struck from our State.

This is not about Left vs. Right or DEM VS REP. This is about Liberty and our children’s futures. This is about passing the torch of freedom to a generation and knowing that they understand the burden associated with it. This is about our existence as a free people. So do not say that you have no children and thus do not care. And do not let it be said of you that because you have no children you cannot care. Stand as an American and demand this be stopped. I will stand alongside you shoulder to shoulder and will not waiver in our determination. We have a responsibility to do this. So let’s do it!

Here are a couple of instructional pieces for your use on common core.

Common-Core-Facts-and-Response-to-NRO

Education and Common Core Documentationp1 (3)

http://www.ceopa.org/education-standards.aspx

Yours in Service
~ Eric D. Miller
2013