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As millions of our kids complete another school year, clean out their desks and head out for the summer, President Obama is headed to college...with a plan.
The President is taking Common Core to college during summer break.
This administration has repeatedly assured the public that the government is not trying to nationalize education through Common Core and that Common Core was actually being advanced by educators and governors and parents and various state legislatures who want to "reform" education---to help our kids.
Most all these, now that they are becoming informed as to what Common Core is really about---and not about, are rejecting it. Parents and educators are begging the government to stop pushing it while governors and legislatures are trying to figure out how to withdraw their states from it.
President Obama is certainly not acting like a man who is not pushing an agenda called Common Core.
And if you think he may be reconsidering it in light of the near universal opposition to it, think again.
Napp Nazworth says the new college rating system the president is pushing this summer "bears a striking resemblance to Common Core."
A White House fact sheet confirms it, explaining colleges will receive a rating based upon "costs, graduation rates, how much money graduates make, and how many graduates go on to get advanced degrees."
Common Core is, of course, the natural system to assist in achieving acceptable ratings. Pell grants and all other federal aid is linked to this new rating, forcing compliance.
If you read the White House fact sheet, you notice the President is pitching his plan under the guise of "slowing the rising cost of education."
This is one more example of expanding government in the lives of kids and their families under the rue of "helping" them.
Central control.
Common Core says their standards "define the knowledge and skills students should gain through their K-12 education prepared to succeed in entry level careers."
Most educators say it won't achieve that.
With so much growing opposition to Common Core from all parts and sides of the debate, why does the President continue to push forward with such force while claiming it is not a government program?
Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education has written a letter to the Department of Education strongly opposing Common Core and this latest move by the President.
An op-ed piece in Forbes by a leader in education, not speaking for the right, left, Christian or conservative view, argues that "America's Founding Fathers did not believe that the purpose of education was to make good workers, it was to make good citizens."
That's true.
Noah Webster, considered the father of public education in America, said, "Education is useless without the Bible."
He also said, "The Bible was America's basic text book in all fields."
He explained why this was the case: "In my view, the Christian religion is the most important and one of the first things in which all children, under a free government ought to be instructed...No truth is more evident to my mind than that the Christian religion must be the basis of any government intended to secure the rights and privileges of a free people."
"The moral principles and precepts contained in Scripture," Webster said, "ought to form the basis of all of our civil institutions and laws," adding "all the miseries and evils which men suffer from vice, crime, ambition, injustice, oppression, slavery and war, proceed from their despising or neglecting the precepts contained in the Bible."
This is a true formula for education reform from the man who created public education.
He was placing good citizenship as the highest goal of education and said if that is not attained, unprincipled men would be placed in office and the government would soon become corrupted.
He said, "Laws will be made not for public good so much as for the selfish or local purposes."
Webster also predicted should public education fail in creating good citizens, "Corrupt or incompetent men will be appointed to execute the laws; the public revenues will be squandered on unworthy men; and the rights of the citizens will violated or disregarded."
Karl Marx believed and advocated "education" was the ultimate control mechanism to advance Marxism in the West.
Our Founding Fathers had a different view believing character and good citizenship was most important.
In the face of the growing---overwhelming opposition to the Common Core and what it represents, will President Obama cooperate with educators, parents and legislators in finding a better and more productive way to "reform" education?
The answer is in this New York Times article.
Cecilla Munoz, the Director of White House Domestic Policy Council, told the Times that the college administrators who are opposed to Obama's plan "could fairly have the impression that we're not listening. There's an element to this conversation which is 'we hope to God you don't do this'. Our answer to that is: 'This is happening'."
This is yet one more way that defines this presidency. And reminds us how right Noah Webster was in his thinking.
There is, however, some good news.
There is an election coming up in November, and an even more important one in November 2016.
Let's pray to God that we get it right next time.
Be Discerning. Be Vigilant. Be Prayerful. Be Informed. Be Pro-Active. Be blessed.