MN Takes Center Stage in Academic Standards Battle this Week

Minnesota legislators played prominent roles this week in the battle to preserve academic liberty at both the state and federal levels. These pieces of legislation that passed the Minnesota Senate and the U.S. House Education and Workforce Committee respectively are very important for re-establishing constitutional authority, state sovereignty, and separation of powers, as well as protecting students from the imposition of an indoctrinating federal curriculum coerced with unconstitutional and borrowed federal dollars.

The Minnesota Senate passed a bill (SF 1656) authored by Senator Carla Nelson (R-Rochester) that requires legislative approval before the implementation of academic standards. This is a variation of the bill that the legislature passed last year (audio of testimony available here for 3/16/11 starting at 39:50) prohibiting implementation of any current or future Common Core standards without legislative approval that was sadly vetoed by Governor Mark Dayton as part of the omnibus education finance bill and then dropped during special session negotiations.  The Common Core Standards have been rightly opposed by Education Liberty Watch and many other expert groups and individuals for a multitude of reasons including lack of constitutionality and legality, poor quality, lack of necessity and cost. (See our testimony submitted to the Senate on this bill).

The bill would have also allowed the legislature to weigh in on the horrifically revisionist, anti-academic, anti-American, pro-big government social studies standards revision that are being implemented by the very leftist members of the Dayton education department and the of the “Blame America First” crowd that resides in too much of the academic social studies community.

It is important to note that this bill passed unheralded after the Indiana Senate education committee voted down a bill to withdraw from the Common Core in part because they were too desperate to receive a waiver from Big Brothers Arne Duncan and the Obama administration on NCLB which essentially requires the Common Core in order to receive that waiver. It also occurred after the Obama administration excoriated and threatened the state of South Carolina for even considering exercising their sovereign right to withdraw from the supposedly voluntary Common Core Standards that are being imposed via bribery and blackmail with Race to the Top, Obama’s NCLB reauthorization plans and NCLB waivers. The South Carolina bill, supported by conservative heroine, Governor Nikki Haley, was voted down in a subcommittee of the Senate Education Committee. The bill will still be reviewed by the full Senate Education Committee. Continue reading »

Oppose NCLB Waivers and Support Federal DOE Elimination

The following testimony was submitted to a joint hearing of the Minnesota House Education Reform and Finance Committees regarding No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waivers held today.  Although this testimony pertains to Minnesota, the concepts described apply to all states that have received or are applying for these waivers.

Despite the great desire for funds and the desire for even the illusion of flexibility, state legislatures must stand up for state sovereignty, separation of powers, local control and parental rights or the federal takeover of education will be complete.

On the federal level, Minnesota’s own Rep. John Kline (R-MN 6), chairman of the House Education and Workforce Committee has authored two bills – The Student Success Act (HR 33989) and The Encouraging Innovation and Effective Teachers Act (HR 3990).  While these bills do many good and important things, like properly codifying flexibility at the legislative level and prohibiting the executive branch from setting standards and demanding other requirements and we support them, we are even more enamored by Senator Rand Paul’s bill that cuts $5 trillion of federal spending over five years and completely eliminates the US Department of Education.  Given the horrific extent of federal spending, debt, and government overreach into every aspect of children’s and their families’ lives, we see this as a more direct approach.

Please urge your state legislators to resist the waivers and their implementation in your states as well as to urge your members of Congress to support the Kline bills as the interim step on the way to the ultimate goal of the Paul legislation.

February 16, 2012

Dear Chairwoman Erickson, Chairman Garofalo and Members of the House Education Committees,

Thank you for your willingness to consider these written comments on the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) waivers. Education Liberty Watch has several concerns:

1)      The waiver program as implemented by the US Dept. of Education is unconstitutional as the executive branch  is usurping legislative authority and implementing reforms not in law.

Former federal judge and law professor Michael  McConnell said, “ [T]he Obama administration has admitted to a strategy of governing by executive order when it cannot prevail through proper legislative channels. Rather than work with Congress to get reasonable changes to President Bush’s No Child Left Behind education law, it has used an aggressive interpretation of its waiver authority to substitute the president’s favored policies for the law passed by Congress. Continue reading »

Suggested Caucus Resolutions

The “Whereas” language is for information purposes in order to guide discussion. The proposed language is in bold font.

1)      Oppose imposition of mandatory state preschool standards on private preschool programs via state and federal funds

Whereas parents, not government, are responsible for raising and educating their preschool children, neither the state nor federal governments have authority to set preschool curriculum standards especially via the executive branch and especially for private and religious institutions;

Whereas the Dayton administration is using state and federal grant programs to impose a single set of preschool curriculum standards on those institutions regardless of parental choice and without legislative review;

Therefore be it resolved that:

We are firmly against the establishment of universal pre-school programs in Minnesota, including the imposition of statewide early childhood standards and curricula via state and federal funding.

2)      Oppose the imposition of national (Common Core) K-12 standards

Whereas, according to the 10^th amendment to the US Constitution, education, since not listed as a power of the federal government, is reserved to states and the people;

Whereas the Common Core National standards are being funded and promoted by federal education programs like Race to the Top and creating a national curriculum that is unconstitutional, violates federal law, is unnecessary and unhelpful for improving national  academic performance, and in many cases are of lower quality than current state standards;

Therefore be it resolved that:

We oppose the adoption of the Common Core national standards and the national tests that accompany them.

3)      Oppose federal and executive branch control of education

Whereas, both the Obama and Dayton administrations are ignoring separation of powers doctrine and implementing various aspects of federal and state education programs, most of which are unconstitutional,  such as No Child Left Behind waivers, Race to the Top, and early childhood scholarships without statutory authority or legislative input;

Therefore be it resolved that:

We oppose reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act and until then, Minnesota should opt out.  This also applies to No Child Left Behind waivers, Race to the Top, Head Start, and early childhood scholarships.

4)      Oppose unionization of private businesses and independent contractors

Whereas several states have or attempted to designate individuals like personal care attendants or small independent childcare businesses that care for clients that receive government subsidies for the purposes of unionization and automatically deducting union dues from those subsidies resulting in decreased funds for poor, sick and disabled children and adults;

Therefore, be it resolved that:

We oppose the forced unionization of individuals or businesses whose clients receive government subsidies and the deduction of union dues or fair share fees from those subsidies.

5)      Oppose federal education data tracking from birth.

Whereas, the federal K-12 and early childhood versions of Race to the Top as well as the Stimulus bill all require the states to set up or expand a comprehensive data tracking system of all children from birth on that includes much sensitive family data;

Whereas, the Obama administration has by rule effectively gutted student consent and privacy protection under the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment;

Therefore, be it resolved that:

We oppose the use of state or federal funds to implement this longitudinal education data system and that our state should opt out.

Dayton DOE Admits Plan to Control Preschool Curriculum via State & Federal Funds

Karen R. Effrem, MD – President

In three different and very significant ways, the Dayton administration has admitted that their ultimate aim is to have the state control the curriculum standards first for those governing all preschool and childcare programs in the state that “volunteer” to become involved in the Parent Aware Quality Rating System (the QRS), the Race to the Top preschool grant program, or the early childhood scholarship program regardless of whether these programs are public, private or religious. This seems to be the foundation for then controlling ALL preschool curriculum. (More on that in future alerts).

Minnesota’s Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge Grant application neatly ties all three situations together. The document unabashedly states (p. 87):

“Minnesota’s Early Learning and Development Standards (called the Early Childhood Indicators of Progress, or ECIPs-see C1) for children birth to five are at the foundation of [Parent] Aware. Parent Aware Program Standards require that instruction and assessment be aligned with the ECIPs and the ratings are built on the ECIPs, which function like a scaffold. For example, ELD Programs must ensure that their staff members are familiar with the ECIPs before earning 1 star, and to reach 3 or 4 stars requires both familiarity with the ECIPs and also alignment of curriculum and assessment with them.” (Emphasis added)

In other words, the Parent Aware QRS, even though “voluntary,” mandates a top-down government run curriculum in order for programs to receive the highest ratings, and therefore all of the financial and policy goodies that accompany those top ratings. Adherence to program standards of the QRS that include curriculum alignment to these standards is then the cornerstone of both the Race to the Top Application and the early childhood scholarships. The quality rating system was the top point garnering criterion on the $500 million Race to the Top application which also requires statewide preschool standards and wide participation by preschool programs, including private and religious ones, which comprise more than 80% of the childcare market in Minnesota. The scholarships were a high priority of some of the lead House education negotiators during the final closed negotiations of the shutdown at the end of the 2011 session. The Dayton Education Department recently and arrogantly reported (January 26th) to the House Education Finance Committee that, despite the lack of statutory authority to use the QRS in distribution of those scholarships, they are going to allow use of scholarship funds only at programs that earn 3 or 4 stars, i.e. that require these standards, and parents may not conscientiously object to these standards if they want a scholarship. Are we seeing a pattern here?

Here is a summary of the problems with this approach:

Continue reading »