I’ve been starting to pay attention to this nefarious “Common Core” that has wormed its way into U.S. education, thinking that it’s got to be Agenda 21 driven, cuz that’s the way this corporatized UN plan thinks — people as products, commodities, to be pulverized into anonymous units to produce, consume, and be identified with (identical to?) “goods,” I imagine, for the upcoming, all encompassing, networked and surveilled to the max, Internet of Things. Yuck!
I google “Agenda 21 and common core. . .” Yep! My intuition still works. Great!
Common Core and UN Agenda 21: Mass Producing Green Global Serfs
Do watch this video. Really good.
Here’s the latest. April 2, 2014: InDiana’s very own governor Pence, staunch Republican, wants to do the right thing. Go figure! Maybe this bullshit “common core” is flushing to the surface the real common core in humanity that lives below left/right political distinctions. Dare we dream?
Are Fed Up States Finally Dumping Common Core?
Excerpt:
Out of 45 states that implemented the hideous Common Core State Standards, Indiana Governor Mike Pence signed a bill last week that officially made his state the first to withdraw:
“I believe our students are best served when decisions about education are made at the state and local level,” said Pence in a release about Senate Bill 91.
“By signing this legislation, Indiana has taken an important step forward in developing academic standards that are written by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers, and are uncommonly high, and I commend members of the General Assembly for their support,” he said.
Wow, good news about Pence! Didn’t know he had it in him.
Yeah, kind of astonishing, though I imagine our “reasons” would be very different. But maybe not!
And my comment is that while I’m glad Governor Pence withdrew from Common Core, I suspect his reasons are different from being opposed to Agenda 21. Some say the new standards bear a resemblance to Common Core, and my concern is that Pence and the Indiana Legislature focus so intensely on “workforce development” standards – they do not believe in what used to be called a liberal arts education except for the elite, with exposure to great literature or cultural experiences or the types of things Waldorf schools or the Reggio Emilia program develop. They want to focus on what industry wants, so that the mass of citizens can obediently serve the needs of industry. They are avid supporters of privatization and charter schools. A letter signed by some scholars led by a Notre Dame law professor put it this way – “the Core is a recipe for standardized workforce preparation,” which transforms literacy into a ‘critical skill set’ at the expense of sustained and heartfelt encounters with great works of literature” – but it is not to that that the Governor is opposed. I just don’t see Indiana politicians disagreeing with “workforce preparation” or the type of “teaching to the test” to which activists against Common Core are opposed.
a followup to my above comment, from Northwest Indiana Times late last year:
INDIANAPOLIS | Indiana’s schools would minimize constitutionally mandated focus on general “knowledge and learning,” and become worker training centers from the earliest grades under an agenda announced Tuesday by Gov. Mike Pence.
Declaring his intention to move the state from education “reform” to education “innovation,” he set a goal that “the K-12 experience should lead seamlessly to training that provides the best industry certifications or to an affordable college degree — both of which, in turn, lead to jobs that are in demand today.”
The Republican governor said more charter schools are essential because they “stir the pot” of what’s expected in education.
He called on the GOP-controlled General Assembly to make it easier for charter schools to open — there are 71 charter schools — and to permit charters take over unused public school buildings.