The Department of Education

The involvement of the Federal Government in education came slowly.  There was a gradual building up of influence.  It was at first with the intention of helping to address the funding gap.  Because education is the domain of States Rights, according to the Constitution, States have historically paid for education, mostly through property taxes.  Schools in rich neighborhoods had far greater access to funds than those in impoverished ones.  The goal of the first federal programs was to right this injustice.  As time went on, the government began to give more, but also to have greater control over how these monies were spent.

Rules dictated that textbooks had to be updated every three years, sometimes more frequently, at an extremely expensive pricetag.  Rules dictated that standardized tests needed to be conducted and scored, every year, and now even multiple times a year, another hefty expense.  This left little money to repair crumbling infrastructure, purchase good creative materials, and provide for teachers salaries. Ultimately, the whole system forced the schools to adopt a federal curriculum.  How could they do this, when it was always the States rights to determine how communities and parents saw fit to educate their children.    

It was all based on the carrot and the stick.  Punitive measures for not meeting test scores, were to be relieved through the use of waivers, and also big payouts by the feds, if the schools would sign on to the the federal curriculum: The Common Core State Standards.  

Typical of corrupt federal programs, the name is completely contrary to the truth.  These standards are not State Standards, they are Federal Standards.  They are connected with content, textbooks and testing.  These are the big money items and the way in which the government is stealing state funds, and funnelling into the big publishing houses which reflect the corporate interests, and not the interest of families and students.

It was my privilidge to be a witness to this take-over.  It was a disaster.  I was studying in San Diego at the time, and these schools serve a high number of Latino students.  Because of the punitive mandates, these schools were undergoing school reconstitution.  This meant they had to fire all the teachers and administrators, and basically turn the school over to the state to run.  

Be honest, do you really think politicians have a better idea on how to teach our kids than teachers do?  

Testing is not an accurate measure of good teaching.  It is a better measure of socio-economic status.  

Check out this video to see how the NCLB act was a set up to bring in the federal curriculum of the CCSS.