POST UPDATED: Common Core Math Vs. Saxon Math for grades one, two, and three http://t.co/RHvYQU6yWf @JennyHatch #StopCommonCore, #CommonCore
— Jenny Marie Hatch (@JennyHatch) March 14, 2014
UPDATE: The Homeschool Legal Defense Association published their Common Core Documentary on You Tube.
Here it is:
http://www.schools.utah.gov/board/Meetings/Agenda/8-2-13Agenda.aspx
Is this the proper role of government?
The Utah State School Board is using your tax dollars and mine to create a huge marketing machine with the aim to persuade all Utahns (utterly without legitimate evidence) that Common Core will not damage, but will improve education, and that Common Core has nothing to do with the federal government.
Is propaganda in the realm of the proper role of government? There are public-private partnerships that gain financially from the promulgation of Common Core. Our tax dollars are thus enriching companies we never voted into office and cannot vote out. It’s not just Pearson and Bill Gates; it’s Utah individuals and companies, too. This is corruption, in my humble opinion. We are not putting the kids and teachers first. We are putting pride, and money, and the illusion of money, first.
Precious, needed education dollars are now officially funding the…
View original post 954 more words
BY RAYMOND JOHNSON | PUBLISHED MAY 6, 2013
I have had an interesting chat this past week with one of the Pearson curriculum developers in the comment section tied to the post.
Jenny Hatch says:
May 7, 2013 at 4:20 pm
Common core proponents are yelling they are just offering standards to school boards and parents, not curriculum.
When the big progressive corporate powers that be bought out all of the Independent Math Curriculum Companies, they made certain to dumb them all down knowing that when curriculum committees went looking for a “world class” Math book, it really did not matter which one was chosen, because they all stunk.
Heads they win, Tails we lose…Suckas!
Here is what they did to Saxon Math:
Reply
Bowen Kerins says:
May 7, 2013 at 8:24 pm
Working for an Independent Math Curriculum Company, I can assure you that we have not all been bought out, nor have we been dumbed down. Have a look sometime… uh… suckas?
Your claim that “all serious Mathematicians agree, the original SAXON Math curriculum, especially the second edition, has no equal, and is the best in the marketplace” is far from accurate.
Reply
Jenny Hatch says:
May 7, 2013 at 9:53 pm
Hey Bowen,
Does your excellent, world class, bar none the best on the planet Math Curriculum have an accompanying “Remedial” program tied to it?
So that when the younguns’ use your materials approximately 33 1/2 % of the children need a Math Specialist and “Special” curriculum?
#HowTheGameIsPlayed
The thing is all of you specialists need to understand that a group of people are very much aware of the tactics beings used to dumb down American Children and we are not going to sit quietly down and just let this monstrosity percolate in the schools without trying to expose the frauds.
You need to “Simma Down”, taka a chill pill, and decide if you want to be a part of the problem or of the solution…
Jenny Hatch
Homeschooling Mom and General Rabble Rouser about #CommonCore
Reply
Bowen Kerins says:
May 8, 2013 at 8:20 pm
I don’t see myself as a specialist, I see myself as a former high school teacher who started writing books because I thought we could make something better than what existed. (That appears to be the same biography as Mr. Saxon.)
Today I spent the entire day working with math teachers in Lawrence, MA as they begin implementing a schoolwide curriculum at their high school for the first time in many years, and I am proud that they will be using our program, CME Project. We have previously shown success (in student achievement, efficacy, in standardized testing) in many other cities. CME Project is written by teachers with over 100 years of combined classroom experience, funded by the National Science Foundation, and field-tested for five years before publishing. Some of the work in CME Project was incorporated into the Common Core State Standards, particularly the Standards for Mathematical Practice intended to highlight eight deep goals of K-12 mathematics, such as persistent problem-solving, using precise language, and generalizing from repeated reasoning.
Our materials are built with a low-threshold, high-ceiling approach so that all … uhh, younguns’? … can learn and succeed. Our curriculum has very high standards, and students rise to meet those standards. Students learn math by working on math problems — good problems, connected to one another, with both short-term and long-term goals.
Our program comes with support for students who enter our curriculum below grade level, while continuing to ask those students to take on work at level. We have consistently found that students can and will take on challenging mathematical tasks if they are given the opportunity to work on them, gaining self-efficacy and perseverance through work.
None of this happens without high-quality teachers doing their work. I will always be grateful for the great work of these professionals. It’s an honor to work with teachers and students around the country, and a privilege to see our work succeeding in measurable ways.
However, it may instead be true that I am destroying America and am a complete fraud who needs to simmer down. I suggest you read through our curriculum, talk to teachers who use it, and get a sense of what we wrote and why we wrote it. The chance of this happening may be less than “approximately 33 1/2%” — seriously, why didn’t you just say “approximately one-third” — but I’m always glad to defend our work. Thanks for reading!
Reply
Jenny Hatch says:
May 9, 2013 at 12:00 pm
Bowen,
Thanks for explaining what you do.
I appreciate the overview mostly because Pearson has been fingered as the company with the most at stake in the Common Core rollout.
As a parent my biggest issue with the reading and math curriculums is the recidivism of the various companies.
And really, who can blame them with all that lovely money flowing in. Taxpayer money mostly.
My own research and frankly, national test scores, have proven year after year after year that nothing has changed, children are still being taught with materials DESIGNED to ensure that ONE THIRD of them will need remediation in math and reading.
With so many careers on the line and so much cash to be pumped into the glory hole of the cash cow that is American Education, WHO has the will to reform this glutonous system???
I think of the curriculum companies the same way I think of the Pharma companies who run Medicine.
When the business model DEPENDS on a high percentage of sickness and educational failure…well, I just do NOT believe Taxpayers should be funding this madness.
If we had a truly competitive private sector in education and medicine, with no taxpayer slush fund, everyone would be amazed to watch how quickly these sick systems of education and medicine reformed themselves.
But when every Johnnie and Susie has ten grand tucked away in their backpack every year to be doled out to whoever is smart enough to GO FOR THE GOLD, and when Johnnie and Susie have twenty grand per year if someone can just manage to get them labeled reading or math challenged…
Well, you don’t have to be a rocket scientist or even a Math specialist, (sorry, teacher) to crunch them numbers…
Happy Trails!
Jenny Hatch
And today over at the Utahns against Common Core Blog a devastating Math Post outlined the stark difference between Common Core approved Math Textbooks and Saxon Math.
Here is a link to the Post Titled STEM is Dead in Utah Courtesy of the usoe
And an excerpt from Oak Nortons Post:
Several years ago I was involved in what has been called “The Math Wars”. Alpine School District had quit teaching the times tables, long division, and some other basic math skills, to children under the promise that a constructivist (ie. children need to construct their own knowledge) approach to math would deepen their skills. This was an abominable failure. Even at BYU where 2 math education professors got permission (by someone over the math department’s dead body) to teach a class of honors calculus to freshmen with this method. The result was a disaster. Honors calculus students measuring Dixie Cups with rulers while regular students were learning how to integrate. Predictably to everyone but those 2 professors teaching the constructivist class, their students scored below all 17 sections of non-honors calculus on the final exam. Their final defeat? Blame it on the test writer who had been creating the same test from the same objectives for years…
Now the big lie. Current research says there are NO studies that support constructivism. Dr. Jim Milgram, Stanford math professor who has been and may still currently be the only educator invited to serve on NASA’s advisory board, noted that if constructivist math were a success, NASA would be looking for students that went through that pedagogy. The fact is, BYU’s math education professors’ failure is typical of constructivist programs.
There is only one conclusion. Following the USOE’s math recommendations will kill STEM (science, technology, engineering, and math) initiatives. All you business leaders and technology oriented professionals supporting Common Core are going to be in for a rude awakening as this machine destroys love of math, destroys math skills, and destroys any edge Utah has for technology…unless…
Utah must drop Common Core and restore local control. The USOE is hell-bent on constructivism and unless there is a major personnel change at the USOE, it’s going to rest on the shoulders of parents to take their children’s education into their own hands (literally), and leave those who can’t get the support at home to drown in fuzzy math.
In 2006 or so, Brett Moulding, state curriculum director at the USOE invited me to his office to ask a simple question. “Oak, you’re a parent who is very involved in your children’s education. How can we replicate that to other parents?”
“Easy,” I replied. “Just implement Investigations math statewide and you’ll have all the parental involvement you can handle.”
True story. I just had no idea they were going to take my suggestion literally. Parents, you may seriously want to consider The Great Escape…Homeschooling.
More HERE
Today this clip made the rounds on Twitter. It is a short video taken at a Missouri Common Core Community Meeting on May 2nd 2013.
The video is unique because it shows the Delphi Technique in action. It also depicts the response from the crowd, which was negative. Those who attended were obviously frustrated because the questions they had were not being addressed.
America was built on the principle of open and honest debate. Roberts Rules ruled all townhall meetings for centuries. In the past few decades various tactics have been developed to create the impression that input from the community is being achieved while in truth those who take the time and energy to attend and be involved in the community are being shut out of the process. This has been especially true in Education Circles for many years.
From Consensus and Facilitation
The Delphi Technique: What is it?
The Delphi Technique was originally conceived as a way to obtain the opinion of experts without necessarily bringing them together face to face. In recent times, however, it has taken on an all new meaning and purpose. InEducating for the New World Order by B. Eakman, the reader finds reference upon reference for the need to preserve the illusion that there is “…lay, or community, participation (in the decision-making process), while lay citizens were, in fact, being squeezed out.” The Delphi Technique is the method being used to squeeze citizens out of the process, effecting a left-wing take over of the schools.
A specialized use of this technique was developed for teachers, the “Alinsky Method” (ibid, p.123). The setting or group is, however, immaterial; the point is that people in groups tend to share a certain knowledge base and display certain identifiable characteristics (known as group dynamics). This allows for a special application of a basic technique.
The change agent or facilitator goes through the motions of acting as an organizer, getting each person in the target group to elicit expression of their concerns about a program, project, or policy in question. The facilitator listens attentively, forms “task forces,” “urges everyone to make lists,” and so on. While s/he is doing this, the facilitator learns something about each member of the target group. S/He identifies the “leaders,” the “loud mouths,” as well as those who frequently turn sides during the argument — the “weak or noncommittal”.
Suddenly, the amiable facilitator becomes “devil’s advocate.” S/He dons his professional agitator hat. Using the “divide and conquer” technique, s/he manipulates one group opinion against the other. This is accomplished by manipulating those who are out of step to appear “ridiculous, unknowledgeable, inarticulate, or dogmatic.” S/He wants certain members of the group to become angry, thereby forcing tensions to accelerate. The facilitator is well trained in psychological manipulation. S/He is able to predict the reactions of each group member. Individuals in opposition to the policy or program will be shut out of the group.
The method works. It is very effective with parents, teachers, school children, and any community group. The “targets” rarely, if ever, know that they are being manipulated. Or, if they suspect this is happening, do not know how to end the process.
The desired result is for group polarization, and for the facilitator to become accepted as a member of the group and group process. S/He will then throw the desired idea on the table and ask for opinions during discussion. Very soon his/her associates from the divided group begin to adopt the idea as if it were their own, and pressure the entire group to accept the proposition.
This technique is a very unethical method of achieving consensus on a controversial topic in group settings. It requires well-trained professionals who deliberately escalate tension among group members, pitting one faction against the other, so as to make one viewpoint appear ridiculous so the other becomes “sensible” whether such is warranted or not.
The Delphi Technique is based on the Hegelian Principle of achieving Oneness of Mind through a three step process of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. In thesis and antithesis, all present their opinion or views on a given subject, establishing views and opposing views. In synthesis, opposites are brought together to form the new thesis. All participants are then to accept ownership of the new thesis and support it, changing their own views to align with the new thesis. Through a continual process of evolution, Oneness of Mind will supposedly occur.
The theory of the Delphi and the reality of the Delphi are, obviously, quite different — the reality being that Oneness of Mind does not occur but only the illusion of Oneness of Mind with those who refuse to be Delphi’d being alienated from participating in the process.
While proponents of education reform feel they are quite justified in this, the effect of this unethical manipulation of people is to create polarized camps. In an effort to maintain the process, advocates have marketed a plethora of publications (such as What’s Left After the Right, No Right Turn and If You Don’t, They Will) intended to label, castigate, and alienate anyone who does not go along with them. As a result, parents come to understand that their role in education reform is merely perfunctory; that the outcome is preset, that they are not but the rah-rah team so when opposition does arise, advocates of education reform can say, “we had community input.”
To make sure that the situation is controlled, only those parents who agree with the process are allowed on the restructuring teams. New participants are carefully screened to ensure that education reform goes forward unquestioned.
If measurable opposition persists, advocates are told, get the local ministers on board. Take steps to neutralize, by whatever means necessary, the opposition. In some places, opponents have been harassed, both at home and on the job, personal property has been damaged and vandalized, people have lost their jobs. Anyone who does not go along with the restructuring of our society is susceptible to the totalitarian tactics of those promoting education reform – whether it be parents, teachers, principals, superintendents or board members. The need exists for advocates to maintain an iron grip on the process. They cannot, for instance, withstand open public debate of the issues. Therefore, they do not partake in public forums. They cannot withstand the criticism, so they close every avenue for parents to address the issues. They are rapidly creating, through their divisive tactics, a volatile situation. America is being torn apart.
Parents, citizens, teachers, principals, superintendents who are opposed to the new purpose being given our American education system need tools to withstand the process being used to bring it in — against the Delphi Technique and consensus which, through their basis in the Hegelian Principle, have Marxist connections and purposes.
First, no opportunity must be left untaken to expose this unethical, divisive process. Second, when this process is used, it can be disrupted. To do so, however, one must be able to recognize when the Delphi Technique is being used, and how to disrupt it.
With thanks to Sandy Vanderberg, Peg Luksik and others.
©March 1996; Lynn M Stuter
Ground rules for disrupting the consensus process (Delphi Technique) — when facilitators want to steer a group in a specific direction.
1) Always Be Charming. Smile, be pleasant, be courteous, moderate your voice so as not to come across as belligerent or aggressive.
2) Stay Focused. If at all possible, write your question down to help you stay focused. Facilitators, when asked questions they don’t want to answer, often digress from the issue raised and try to work the conversation around to where they can make the individual asking the question look foolish, feel foolish, appear belligerent or aggressive. The goal is to put the one asking the question on the defensive. Do not fall for this tactic. Always be charming, thus deflecting any insinuation, innuendo, etc, that may be thrown at you in their attempt to put you on the defensive, but bring them back to the question you asked. If they rephrase your question into an accusatory statement (a favorite tactic) simply state, “that is not what I stated, what I asked was… (repeat your question).” Stay focused on your question.
3) Be Persistent. If putting you on the defensive doesn’t work, facilitators often resort to long drawn out dissertations on some off-the-wall and usually unrelated, or vaguely related, subject that drags on for several minutes – during which time the crowd or group usually loses focus on the question asked (which is the intent). Let them finish with their dissertation/expose, then nicely, with focus and persistence, state, “but you didn’t answer my question. My question was… (repeat your question).”
Remember…
always be charming,
stay focused, and
be persistent.
Never, under any circumstance, become angry. Anger directed at the facilitator will immediately make the facilitator “the victim.” This defeats the purpose which is to make you the victim. The goal of the facilitator is to make those they are facilitating like them, alienating anyone who might pose a threat to the realization of their agenda. [People with fixed belief systems, who know what they believe and stand on what they believe, are obvious threats.] If the participant becomes the victim, the facilitator loses face and favor with the crowd. This is why crowds are broken up into groups of seven or eight, why objections are written on cards, not voiced aloud where they are open to public discussion and public debate. It’s called crowd control. It is always good to have someone else, or two or three others who know the Delphi Technique dispersed through the crowd; who, when the facilitator digresses from the question, will stand up and say nicely, “but you didn’t answer that lady’s/gentleman’s question.” The facilitator, even if suspecting you are together, certainly will not want to alienate the crowd by making that accusation. Sometimes it only takes one occurrence of this type for the crowd to figure out what’s going on, sometimes it takes more than one.
If you have an organized group, meet before the meeting to strategize. Everyone should know their part. Meet after the meeting to analyze what went right, what went wrong and why, and what needs to happen the next time around. Never meet during the meeting. One of the favorite tactics of the facilitator, if the meeting is not going the way he/she wants, if he/she is meeting measurable resistance, is to call a recess. During the recess, the facilitator and his/her “spotters” (people who wander the room during the course of the meeting, watching the crowd) watch the crowd to see who congregates where, especially those who have offered measurable resistance. If the “resistors” congregate in one place, a “spotter” will usually gravitate to that group to “join in the conversation” and will report back to the facilitator. When the meeting resumes, the facilitator will steer clear of those who are “resistors.” Do not congregate. Hang loose and work the crowd. Move to where the facilitator or “spotters” are, listen to what they have to say, but do not gravitate to where another member of your team is.
This strategy also works in a face to face, one on one, meeting with anyone who has been trained in how to use the Delphi Technique.
With thanks to Sandy Vanderberg, Peg Luksik and others
©March 1996; Lynn M Stuter
Roberts Rules of Order 
were designed to be the way that our Republic was supposed to function at every level from local up to the Federal Level. So if you as a Taxpayer attend a Common Core informational meeting and the setup of the room is round tables and note cards with little follow through and even less accountability from those moderating the event, just know that you have been Alinsky’d with the Delphi Technique and DEMAND that the room be reconfigured according to Roberts rules with open microphones for the audience and open and honest debate COVERED BY THE PRESS. If the press does not bother to show up and report, create your own citizen reports and post them on the internet.
This is the way for our Republic to be restored from the ground up.
Jenny Hatch
Uncommon Lore, A Series of Education Essays by Homeschooling Mom Blogger Jenny Hatch
Essay Five: A Twitter Rally Miracle
#StopCommonCore was the top trending hashtag on Twitter last night for hours and hours.
As a Mom interested in Education Issues, I found myself getting weepy several times as I participated in the rally. The whole exercise was a testimony to the power of social media, the focus and determination of parents all over the country, and the willingness of families to carve a few hours out of a busy day to engage in a way that sends a powerful message to the elites in our society.
Message being: Our Children’s minds are NOT for sale.
I feel compelled this morning to write the fifth essay in my Uncommon Lore Series, simply because of what I experienced last night.
Here are the previous essays if you want to give them a look:
Twitter is the Activist Tool of the day!
A few weeks ago I watched the Glenn Beck program outlining what was happening with Common Core and I again found myself getting weepy.
Glenn had a couple of Mom/Teachers on the show from Utah. As they described what was going on with the Common Core Agenda I felt once again backed into a corner as a Parent. Then over the following days I spent hours watching You Tube Videos, Reading Blog Entries and the excellent
expose articles by various Parents, Michelle Malkin, and a few educators who had backed away from the whole bloated, toxic, stinking mess after learning more about it.
As I learned what was going on, I found myself hitting the computer monitor a few times in frustration. See, I am a reluctant Homeschooling Parent. A Reactionary Homeschooling Mom. Meaning, I would prefer for my children to attend school, but my conscious has made it impossible for me to allow that at various times and seasons. And because we don’t have the cash to send our five children to private school, the public school system is the only one we have to work in.
Depending on the books I would read at various times I would waffle back and forth from Unschooler to Homeschooler to Charter Schooler to Public Schooler. I have been the parent of just about every type of student except for Private School.
My oldest daughter Michelle, 
who is now 24 would have started Kindergarten back in 1993, but I kept her home for two years. Then under the weight of intense scrutiny from those around me for this choice and because I felt that the watchful busybody focus was damaging to her, I sent her to school for the final four years of elementary school. She attended a public school where they had a Core Knowledge Strand. Meaning they had one class per grade that was using the Core Knowledge Curriculum, Saxon Math, and Open Court Phonics Reading.
As I observed her joy in making new friends, staying in the same class with a wonderful group of students (ten of whom were fellow Mormons), and the love she had for various teachers and classes, I decided that maybe something good was happening in Public Education after all.
When she hit the Middle School years she was very clear that she wanted to be home. She lasted two days at the local middle school. So she came home for 6th, 7th, and 8th grade. We enjoyed a wonderful time together as Mother and Daughter and she never went through any of that middle school drama that so many of her peers were struggling with. She also scored a perfect 100% on her 8th grade math test after using Saxon Second edition books for her middle school Math.
By the time she was high school age she was comfortable continuing with homeschool, but we were not. I had just given birth to her baby brother and was struggling emotionally. I had really enjoyed various experiences in my own high school, especially around Music and Drama, and wanted her to have the joy of friends, community, school spirit, and wonderful memories and relationships. Fortunately a charter school had just opened up in our community that was a college prep school and she was accepted for enrollment for her 9th grade year. We had to really push her to get out of her comfort zone and attend this school.
She enjoyed a wonderful high school experience with a unique and dedicated group of educators. We also felt very connected to the Peak to Peak community as part of a wonderful group of families focused on preparing our students for University.
Michelle decided to stay home and work as a nanny for the four years after high school when she would have been getting a college degree. She deferred her scholarship to SUU and began attending two years ago. She is now halfway through her College experience.
Ironically she has spent the past year working a couple hours every day in a work environment tied to her major at the local elementary school. As she has shared with me various stories of her experience, it has been interesting to hear what is happening right now in education. I will not take the time to share what she has observed, as I do not have her permission, but the bottom line is that she has zero interest in working in a school, especially after her year of observation, and has pretty much decided to homeschool her own children someday.
When I think of the countless hours I have spent over these past twenty five years reading hundreds of articles, books, blog posts, and time spent in chat rooms talking with various parents about what the best education “looks like”, I just get angry that we have a group of billionaire education boobs who believe they can circumvent the political process and use taxpayer dollars to bribe each state to put in place a top down federal education system that is much more about tracking and testing than it is about knowledge and individual growth.
I took some serious heat for my activism in 1998-99 when I decided to attend some school board meetings and make a stink about changes in the BVSD Diversity Policy. I had harassing phone calls on my answering machine, a nasty article in the local paper that made me seem like a nut job reactionary, and was heckled and hated for my views on teaching homosexuality to elementary children.
I have gone back and forth over and over again wondering how best to teach, train, protect, help, and educate these five souls entrusted to our care.
My anger at the Common Core mess is that I was planning to send Benjamin back to public school at some point so he could more easily participate in Sports, Music, and High School Life without feeling like the Home Schooled Oddball of the community. Nonconformity comes with a price, and I learned years ago that there are some very large benefits to our children when they are able to be a part of a school community. Our Charter was about as ideal of a situation as could be imagined in terms of extracurricular activities and the intellectual climate at the school. We still had Socialist Brainwashing going on and yes they even used that Commie Rag A Peoples History of The United States written by the late Howard Zinn in the history classes.
I was spoon fed European Socialism in my Michigan Public Schools during the 80’s and still came out a fierce Patriot and Lover of the Constitution, so I was not as concerned about that side of it. More, I wanted our children to feel a part of our community and engage with friends on an intellectual level.
Yet now, I feel like I have to be an objector not just with my words but with my deeds, even though I know it will create more work for me as a Mother.
It is obvious that the dumbing down of the American People has been a goal for certain elites for a long, long time.
And these Educrats have been at the helm of some of the most noxious and evil teachings that have seen the light of day in America. How would it have been if Bill Ayers had been death penalized out of this world forty years ago for his Treason instead of influencing Education, Writing the Book of the President of the USA, and implementing his Peoples Revolution through Alinsky tactics with every day that has passed from then to now?
Parents are busy, financially strained, and like to believe that the taxpayer money spent on education means that when they send their child off to school every morning they are going to be taught something important and real for six hours a day.
We do not need yet another layer of this toxicity in our society.
When we have a group of America Women who not only once, but TWICE smugly voted for the Marxist fraud in America when they could have had a decent, god fearing businessman who has a proven record of Leadership as President, then we know that something is terribly off in American Education.
I look forward to the day when it all comes crashing down and we can start over with local everything. Local schools, local food, local control of the school board, and local efforts to teach and train. Then I will know that parents and taxpayers and not the federal government are back at the helm of education.
Until then? We will be homeschooling for the long haul. Ben is in fourth grade and he will NOT be attending public school tied to the Common Core Standards.
