Important Minnesota, Indiana, and Idaho Standards News
Today is the day we celebrate the memory of Dr. Martin Luther King, no longer mentioned by the Minnesota social studies standards, and which were given an F grade by the Southern Poverty Law Center for their poor teaching of the civil rights movement. As we remember this important day in American history, Education Liberty Watch wishes to express its profound gratitude to the hundreds of parents, grandparents, and concerned citizens, as well as the experts, legislators, attorneys, and groups that participated in the public hearing and comment process for the Minnesota social studies standards. 364 of you signed our petition in five days. Eleven legislators, listed and some quoted below, including Senate Minority Leader David Hann, made formal comments opposing the standards, while none commented in support of them. Four current or past college professors submitted formal comments against these standards and another wrote in the Star Tribune on Jan. 18th even after the formal comment period had closed. The Department of Education responded to the comments received by January 9th. Education Liberty Watch provided a rebuttal to their response as did Representatives Sondra Erickson and Kelby Woodard, Dr. John Fonte, and American Principles in Action, all showing how the Department failed to adequately respond to the myriad concerns raised. It is now up to the judge who must decide by about February 15th whether the rule containing the standards is acceptable. Stay tuned!
Meanwhile as Minnesota fights against the revisionist history and further implementation of the Common Core standards via the link to the English standards, citizens are taking up the battle against big government education in Indiana. More than 500 people came during work and school to a rally opposing that state’s Common Core standards in English and math. Senator Scott Schneider has introduced a bill (SB 193) to withdraw Indiana from the Common Core standards. After the rally there was a four and a half hour hearing. The vote that was expected in the Senate Education Committee on January 23rd has been moved. We will alert you when we know. (Local media coverage is available here). Please see below for details on contacting the Indiana Senate Education Committee.
In addition, the Idaho House Education Committee heard more testimony against the Common Core and teachers are speaking out about the destruction of math and English teaching, their professionalism, autonomy, and creativity. As with Obamacare, the Common Core will have to be resisted on the state level. Please continue to join us in this fight!
Before more excellent testimony and rebuttal regarding the Minnesota social studies standards is quoted below, please consider contacting and urging any friends and family in Indiana to contact members of the Indiana Senate Education Committee and support Senator Schneider’s bill S.B. 193. The bill will receive its vote sometime after January 23rd. Many subject matter experts have written and testified about how Indiana has taken a step backward by tossing its nationally acclaimed standards for fuzzy math, no algebra in eighth grade, less great literature, and no teaching of cursive handwriting. Help protect academic excellence, state sovereignty, and local control.
Indiana Senate Education Committee (If a specific number was available, that was listed, otherwise the Legislative switchboard number of 800-382-9467 was listed):
Chairman: Senator Dennis Kruse (R-14) Senator.Kruse@iga.in.gov 317-233-0930
Senator Carlin Yoder (R-12) Senator.Yoder@iga.in.gov 317-232-9984
Senator Jim Buck (R-21) Senator.Buck@iga.in.gov 317-232-9466
Senator Luke Kenley (R-20) Senator.Kenley@iga.in.gov 317-232-9453
Senator Pete Miller (R-24) sen.petemiller@iga.in.gov 317-232-9414
Senator Jean Leising (R-42) Senator.Leising@iga.in.gov 317-234-9054
Senator Scott Schneider (R-30) senator.schneider@iga.in.gov 800-382-9467
Senator Earline Rogers (D-3) senator.rogers@iga.in.gov (800) 382-9467
Senator John Broden (D-10) senator.broden@iga.in.gov (800) 382-9467
Senator Frank Mrvan (D-1) senator.mrvan@iga.in.gov (800) 382-9467
Senator Greg Taylor (D-33) senator.taylor@iga.in.gov (800) 382-9467
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More Minnesota Testimony:
As stated in the testimony of Education Liberty Watch, there are three federal laws that prohibit federal supervision, direction, or control of school curricula. In my opinion the CCSSI violate these laws. It is my assertion that the “literacy standards” in the ELA are a Trojan horse to impose Common Core national standards into other subjects such as history and social studies, further aggravating the autonomy of the state.
Not only should policy makers, parents and schools resist this encroachment on our authority by allowing Common Core national standards to seep into state standards but increasingly, the Supreme Court is acknowledging the limits on the Federal Government’s attempts to increase its authority over states education authority…
…Federal funding of education involves major, preexisting and ongoing programs. The NFIB ruling helped clarify the limits of how far the federal government can go in “modifying the terms and conditions of major preexisting programs” when it struck down the Medicaid expansion mandate. It seems to me the Supreme Court opinion strengthens both my own argument and that of others that the Department of Education’s proposed is not only unwarranted but increasingly dangerous to the rights of parents and schools. It is both moral tradition and the opinion of the United States Supreme Court that parents are the “first teachers” of their children and by extension of that right, then the local school district. The standards being proposed by the Department’s proposed rule pushes the envelope of their authority and threatens the moral and legal authority of the family and the local schools. The body of testimony before you provides a profoundly compelling argument, in my opinion, forewarning the risk to the rights of both parents and local schools and justifies this court in denying their adoption.
Education Liberty Watch would also like to mention and thank Senator Gen Olson (R-Minnetrista. See page 1 of linked PDF), the immediate past Chairwoman of the Senate Education Committee and Senator Carla Nelson (R-Rochester. See page 70 of linked PDF), the immediate past vice-chairwoman and current Ranking Minority Member of the same committee for their excellent hearing requests. We have already quoted Rep. Cindy Pugh’s great oral testimony.
Rebuttal to the Minnesota Department of Education Response:
In the Response, the Department complained twice (pages 2 and 6), “It is important to note that many of the issues voiced at the hearing, [including this concern about statutory authority to so extensively rewrite the standards] were not raised to a substantive degree during either of the two public comment periods or at any other time during the official review process. ” This complaint is neither logical nor correct. The final day for public comment during the “official review process” was May 8, 2011. The final version of the standards to be put into rule was not released until February 17, 2012, a very long period of nine months later. The SONAR with the statutory and other justifications was not released until October 29 2012, another eight and a half months after that, or a total of seventeen and three quarters months after the last public comment was accepted. The whole purpose of rulemaking with its Dual Notice, Request for Hearing, and Public Hearing processes are to allow the public to examine the final proposed rule, digest and respond to the agency’s justification, and make comments throughout the entire period allowed by law. It is completely unreasonable to complain that the public did not raise issues “to a substantive degree” during the formal review process when opportunity for public comment during the review process ended so long before the final rule product and documentation were available for review.
Second, the Response often dismisses complaints with the catch all argument that “we couldn’t list everything important, but these other issues and events will still be taught.” Of course, this is a truism; the department could not list everything. But the department is supposed to tell us what it considers the most significant concepts and events that students should examine. It is supposed to explicitly tell us the “big picture.” If not, there is simply no serious objective standard in which to judge any of the revisions that the department has undertaken. If the excuse is always “we can’t list everything, but it will be taught,” then it would not be possible to distinguish between what is major and what is minor. In that case, what is the purpose of having “big picture” standards in the first place?
American Principles in Action:
If the Committee aligned the social studies standards with Common Core’s ELA standards – as in fact the Department touts – then whoever controls those ELA standards will also control at least a part of the Minnesota social studies standards. And the people controlling the ELA standards are not Minnesotans – they are DC-based trade associations and the U.S. Department of Education (USED). Moreover, especially through its funding of the national tests aligned with Common Core, USED is violating three federal statutes by supervising, directing, or controlling the ELA curriculum in Minnesota schools. First ELA standards, then ELA-aligned social studies standards – the tentacles of illegal federal control reach further into what the Constitution intended to be under the control of Minnesota alone.
Representatives Erickson and Woodard:
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Isn’t Minneota (as appearing in the title of the front page article) a Native American name? Well chosen as it is important for us to honor the indigenous peoples–human beings who our ancestors (European settlers to the “New World”) carelessly, relentlessly, and horribly treated. It appears to be a Sioux word meaning “much water”. Who fished, hunted, and lived these lands & water before the ‘new’ people living in the so called “New World”? It is important to teach our children that we failed miserably in the ways in which we ‘conquered’ this new world. We must teach our children the truth of our mistakes and ways in which we treated humans who were the inhabitants of this land. We must teach our children that we can actually be sorry for what we’ve done and make amends as we move forward in this great nation. If we are unable to live together and recognize our faults, asking for forgiveness, as well as teaching about our faults then we fail our children and we fail ourselves!
The 2004 standards mention plenty about racism, slavery, and the difficulties between the European settlers and the indigenous peoples. They also actually mention the Dakota and Ojibwe by name at the standard level while the new standards do not.