Bill Gates' Monopoly on Education Standards
to Cost States $16 Billion
_www.christianpost._ (http://www.christianpost.)
By _Melissa Barnhart_
(http://www.christianpost.com/author/melissa-barnhart/) , CP Contributor
February 13, 2013|12:54 pm
Billionaire philanthropist and Microsoft founder Bill Gates is spending
millions to bankroll the Common Core _education_
(http://www.christianpost.com/topics/education/) standards that have been
embraced by the Obama
administration.
Forty-five states, Washington, D.C. and four territories have adopted
Common Core, a set of uniform math, English and other education standards that
determine what students should learn in each grade, who teaches them, and
what child and family information the federal government can collect and
share.
Even though the Common Core website states that adoption of the K-12
standards is in no way mandatory, Jason Turesky and Charles Chieppo of the
Pioneer Institute disagree.
"Regardless of how proponents defined it, Common Core is anything but
voluntary," Turesky and Chieppo said. "In actuality, it's a $16 billion
trickle-down mandate, the vast majority of which is unfunded."
"As part of the 2009 stimulus legislation, the federal government created
the Race to the Top (RTT) Fund, $4.35 billion in competitive educational
grants available only to states that adopt Common Core," Turesky and Chieppo
said.
Although parents, teacher and legislators agree that education standards
are necessary, many say that Common Core standards are not the answer,
because they don't benefit students' education, and states cannot afford to
fund
the program.
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"The solution is not more federal government, it's less federal
government," Emmett McGroarty director of American Principles Project's (APP)
Preserve
Innocence Initiative, told the Wall Street Journal last May. "In order for
states to compete for Race to the Top, they had to commit to the Common
Core standards, even before they were able to review the program. … [Also]
States were told that the standards were internationally benchmarked, but
they are not."
Gates has spent $163 million to develop the Common Core and corresponding
curriculum, and to get lawmakers and business leaders to support it,
according to the Heartland Institute, which also states that Gates bankrolled
the
development of the Common Core through the National Governors Association
and Council of Chief State School Officers. And, since all three are
_nonprofit_ (http://www.christianpost.com/topics/nonprofit/) organizations,
their
policymaking happens in private meetings.
"It is not unfair to say that the Gates Foundation's agenda has become the
country's agenda in education," Michael Petrilli, vice president for
national programs and policy at the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, told the
Puget
Sound Business Journal in 2009.
For example, the Heartland Institute reveals that the Gates Foundation has
"directly sponsored state departments of education and myriad groups who
aim to influence policymakers. In 2012, it gave $1.9 million to the Kentucky
Department of Education 'to examine the use of high-quality curriculum to
accelerate common core state standards implementation.'"
On Jan. 16, Indiana's Senate Education Committee held a hearing on the
Common Core, and 26 of the 32 people who testified against a bill to withdraw
Indiana from the education standards are members of organizations the Gates
Foundation funds.
Indiana Sen. Scott Schneider (R-Indianapolis) is the author of Senate Bill
193 that would shift the state away from Common Core.
According to TheStatehouseFile.com, "Schneider said adoption of the Common
Core standards has resulted in a loss of local input from parents, teachers
and administrators. Heather Crossin and Erin Tuttle, stay-at-home mothers
from Indianapolis, urged him to do so. [Because] Tuttle said Common Core
led her third grader to learn 'fuzzy math' taught out of sequence."
"Tuttle said one textbook teaches students to subtract by starting in the
hundreds, tens and then ones – opposite of the traditional way. … after
speaking with the teacher and principal about her issue with the curriculum,
the Indiana Department of Education told her she would have to contact the
national governance association to express her concern. She said she felt
she did not have input on her child's education because of the national
standards."
Turesky and Chieppo said that: "Because of parameters set by the federal
government, states that opt out of Common Core are out of the running for
both federal grants and the coveted waivers from the federal No Child Left
Behind law. From there, states exert the same kind of influence on local
school districts. The districts don't have to implement Common Core, but the
standards are the basis for state-designed standardized testing."
According to McGroarty, "It's time to recommit ourselves to the
Constitution and return education policymaking to states and localities, where
it is
closest to parents."
Texas, Alaska, Minnesota, Nebraska, Virginia, and Puerto Rico and the
Northern Mariana Islands are not signed on to Common Core.
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