Austin Hill - Pence Hits Pause: Indiana Sets The Pace On Common Core Education Agenda

Indiana’s new Governor Mike Pence has signed in to law a bill that will “pause’’ the state’s involvement in the nationwide Common Core education agenda. That fact that this is happening in Indiana has some very specific political significance, while the fact that it is happening at all has broad ramifications.

Before getting in to the meaning of Pence’s maneuver, consider some facts about Common Core. Officially named the “Common Core State Standards Initiative,” the agenda is not, itself, about curriculum mandates. It is a set of academic standards that students in the various grade levels are expected to achieve, in the states that have agreed to adopt the standards.

It is also the case that Common Core was created by the Obama Administration, but rather, it is actually an effort that first emerged at the state level, undertaken by state governors and state superintendents of education nationwide. The official sponsoring organizations of the initiative are the National Governor’s Association (“NGA”), and the Council of Chief State School Officers (“CCSO”).

Attempts to impose academic standards on public educators date back to the early 1980’s. In the 1990’s it became a state-driven matter, while The federal No Child Left Behind Act, signed in to law by President George W Bush in January of 2002, required the states to create their own academic standards, and then to achieve them, in order to receive federal education funds.

During the past decade, state Governors and state education Superintendents began to collaborate in an effort to bring uniformity to their respective states’ academic standards, and today, there are three primary organizations that advance the Common Core agenda. The NGA and the CCSO, as noted above, remain as the official sponsoring organizations of the initiative. Separately, a group called Common Core, Inc., a non-profit, 501 (c) 3 organization based in Washington, D.C., writes curriculum (not academic standards) that is intended to help educators comply with Common Core Standards.

Supporters of the Common Core State Standards like to remind people that the initiative receives bipartisan support around the country. This is true - both the right-leaning “Excellence In Education Foundation.” a group headed by former Republican Governor Jeb Bush, and the left-wing American Federation of Teachers, support Common Core. Similarly, both Republican and Democrat Governors - including Governor Butch Otter (R-Idaho), Governor Jerry Brown (D-California), and Governor Duval Patrick (D-Massachusetts), all support the Common Core effort.

But Common Core also receives bipartisan opposition. The conservative-leaning Heritage Foundation, along with libertarian leaning groups like the Pioneer Institute of Boston, opposes the Common Core effort. But so also does Glenda Ritz, a Democrat who currently serves as Indiana’s State Superintendent of Education.

Ritz’ election in the heavily Republican state of Indiana is often cited as evidence of Common Core’s unpopularity. In November of 2012, Ritz unseated Indiana’s incumbent Republican State Superintendent, Dr. Tony Bennett, in part by campaigning against the Common Core initiative and claiming that Indiana’s adoption of the Common Core standards would result in a loss of state sovereignty. Ritz ended up receiving more votes in that election than did the new (and now very popular) Governor Mike Pence – and herein lies the significance f Pence’s latest move.

Mike Pence

But Indiana’s “pause” on Common Core is not merely important for political reasons (it does, in fact, exemplify a sense of cooperation between Democrat Ritz and Republican Pence). It also demonstrates that at least some Americans still have a genuine concern about the federal government taking-over and controlling very intimate areas of our lives. It suggests that some of our fellow Americans still adhere to the wisdom of, say, Thomas Jefferson, who warned of the threat of tyranny from government, instead of buying-in to the naïve and selfish view that President Obama articulated last week in his commencement address to Ohio State University when he admonished graduates to resist those who warn of government tyranny (as if such a thing doesn’t really exist).

But is the Common Core standards agenda to be regarded as “tyranny?” Three separate federal laws prohibit the federal government from dictating educational curriculum content to the nation’s public schools. Yet on President Barack Obama’s watch, there has been a concerted effort within his administration to commandeer the Common Core agenda, and to skirt federal restraints.

Back in 2009 and 2010 when the administration was distributing so-called “stimulus” funds, one of the criteria for public schools to receive funds was for school districts to adopt higher “college and career standards” for students. And it just so happened that, in order to qualify for the stimulus funds, many states chose at that time to adopt the “Common Core” academic standards so they could apply for, and receive the federal funds.

The bipartisan group of Governors and state school Superintendents who support the Common Core agenda undoubtedly has the best of intentions. Yet the inability among elected officials to see how government power can be abused is a problem for both Republicans and Democrats.

The other states’ should follow Indiana’s lead. And after we hit “pause” on Common Core, let’s consider the same for Obamacare.

Austin Hill

Austin Hill is an emerging American voice, addressing culture-defining questions through books, talk radio, web, speaking, and interviews. His recent books "White House Confidential" and his new title "The Virtues Of Capitalism" show his range from whit-infused writer to thought-provoking expert on the intersection of philosophy, religion, politics & culture. Hill helps to make the complex seem simple when exploring capitalism, socialism, and other "Isms".

He is an editorial contributor to national publications such as U.S. News & World Report, a columnist with TownHall.com, and is a popular expert-host on radio from leading stations in Washington DC, Chicago, Phoenix and Los Angeles, and nationally with networks such as Fox NewsTalk Radio.  He hosts the "Austin Hill Show" weekday mornings at Fresno, California's Talk Radio 105-9 KMJ-FM,  and weekday afternoons at Boise, Idaho's Newstalk 580 K I D O radio.

Hill holds a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature from California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, and a Master's Degree in Philosophy of Religion and Ethics from Biola University in California.

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Mary Grabar - More Radicals for Common Core: The Pro-Amnesty Contingent

My antennae go up whenever any education initiative is associated with radicals, like Bill Ayers. We still don’t know why Bill Ayers was at an education conference with Arne Duncan and a representative from Achieve, the well-connected, Washington-based non-profit organizing this effort to nationalize education.

But once I began investigating the curricula and test questions I learned that sure enough, the rigorous “standards” turned out to be nothing more than efforts to impose a curriculum that will make global citizens out of all American students. Or the kind of curriculum Bill Ayers would like.

Now I learn via Tina Trent that an organization called NALEO (National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials), a pro-amnesty group, co-hosted an event in Los Angeles last month on Common Core.

The NALEO Newsletter announced “NALEO Educational Fund last month co-hosted a national kickoff on the common core state standards, in partnership with the Campaign for High School Equity (CHSE) in Los Angeles.”

They quoted the official line from the Department of Education: “The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a state-led, voluntary effort to establish a single set of educational standards for English-language, arts and mathematics that states can share and adopt. They are designed to ensure that students graduating from high school are prepared for college, employment and success in the global economy.”

Right.

The official propaganda continues: “State leaders, through their membership in the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA) Center, have developed a common core of state standards with the assistance of content specialists and education experts.” Common Core, of course, was passed without legislative approval and usually without legislative knowledge, as happened here in Georgia. That’s why Senator William Ligon introduced a bill to withdraw the state from Common Core standards.

So who are these “content specialists and education experts”? It turns out that they are usually radicals, like Bill Ayers’s “pal” Linda Darling-Hammond who is in charge of developing one of the two sets of the nationally administered tests.

The meeting sponsored by NALEO had the usual suspects, and not any traditional Core Knowledge Curriculum representatives in the tradition of E.D. Hirsch, who advocates learning about the literary classics and history: “The program in Los Angeles included local NALEO members and representatives from the NAACP, the National Indian Education Association (NIEA), the South East Asian Resource Asian Center (SEARAC), the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), the National Urban League, the Alliance for Excellent Education, the Leadership Conference on Civil & Human Rights and the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC).”

Trent, who opposed Georgia’s Hate Crimes bill more than a decade ago, says that these are many of the same radical groups who were pushing for hate crimes legislation. And as with the hate crimes law, non-profits are being empowered by the government to promote Common Core. “In the hate crimes model, non-elected non-profits were given vast powers to advise police and develop procedures for identifying and prosecuting so-called ‘hate,’” says Trent. “What we ended up with was the politicization of justice itself, and a handover of government powers to activist groups with an identity politics agenda.” She warns that Common Core is empowering the same activist groups through the federal educational bureaucracy--hardly a process in accord with our republican, representative form of government.

Common Core, it turns out, is just one more way, as she puts it, that we are “handing over government operations to politically driven non-profits.”

Pro-amnesty non-profit groups have been trying to indoctrinate school children about immigration for a long time now. They fought an Arizona law that prohibited teaching hatred towards certain ethnic groups (primarily white Americans), which a Mexican-American (“Raza studies”) studies curriculum did. Education professors have also been using their classrooms to lobby for amnesty. Common Core, the initiative of Obama’s Department of Education, may be the latest way they are trying to deny the sovereignty of the United States in students’ minds.

This information about NALEO and other groups is one more piece of evidence for opposing Common Core. Do we need any more?

For more information about Common Core, see my website, www.dissidentprof.com, where I have a section on Common Core and links to organizations that are fighting this unconstitutional takeover of education.

Mary Grabar

Mary Grabar is a writer and college English teacher, whose parents escaped from Slovenia in 1959 and spent a year in a refugee camp in Austria. They immigrated to Rochester, New York, when she was two.

Her views have been formed by experiences as an immigrant during the racial violence in Rochester in the 1960s and then at her alma mater, Benjamin Franklin Junior-Senior High School.

She tried to be a liberal, but then quickly realized that it was an exclusive club. Her conversion to conservatism was cinched when she returned to school in the master's program in English in the 1990's.

In spite of the hostility of most of the faculty and the torture of having to wade through postmodern nonsense, she earned her Ph.D. from the University of Georgia in 2002.

Mary Grabar is a frequent Columnist at Town Hall.com and writes articles for the Atlanta Journal-Constitution Newspaper.

Visit Mary's Website and her other Website: The Literate Citizen

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4th Graders Taught They Should Give Up Constitutional Rights In Exchange for Safety

A Florida elementary school teacher's lesson on the First Amendment has some parents speaking out. Amy Harvey says she opened her fourth-grader's backpack and found a sheet of paper on which he wrote, "I am willing to give up some of my constitutional rights in order to be safer or more secure."

Father Aaron Harvey says he was so angry that his blood pressure was high for a few days. His son said that his teacher at Cedar Hills Elementary in Jacksonville, Cheryl Sabb, asked he and some other students to write the statement.

The school district's superintendent expressed "possible concern [...] with a follow-up activity that may have been conducted after the lesson," explaining that the approved First Amendment curriculum was created with the help of local attorneys. The Harveys say they, and other parents, plan to meet with Sabb about the lesson.

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Mike Adams - The Campus Crusade for Crust

Author’s Note: I firmly believe that most Americans are not Swift enough to appreciate social satire. I also believe that the best satire is based on real-life events. If you agree, would you prayerfully consider joining my support team? Being a wise acre is a full-time job.

Welcome back students! My name is Biff Latane and I am the campus director of Jesus Crew (or J. Cru for short) here at Denton State University (or DSU for short). Before I tell you more about J. Cru at DSU, I want to take a few minutes to apologize for an episode that occurred during our last meeting at the end of the last quarter.

Abortion is a sensitive issue and I want to assure everyone that it is an issue none of us will have to hear about again during our time together in J. Cru. Regrettably, there was a miscommunication that resulted in a pro-life speaker coming to address us last quarter. One of our officers made the decision to bring the speaker into our meeting. I was not aware abortion was to be discussed until I arrived late for the meeting approximately halfway through the speaker's presentation.

At first, I had no problem with what I heard. The speaker talked for a few minutes about the sanctity of life and the idea that life begins at conception. But then he crossed a line. He stated that RU-486 - even if used early in a pregnancy - results in the killing of an innocent human being. He also suggested that it is the moral equivalent of poisoning an infant. That crossed the line, in my opinion. It was graphic and offensive language that simply will not be tolerated in our meetings. We need to promote tolerance instead. Whether something is true is not as important as preserving an atmosphere of respect as far as I am concerned. I really believe that. And I'm sorry if anyone was offended by the speaker.

Some may have thought it was rude for me to interrupt the meeting and ask our speaker to leave in the middle of his speech. But I used my best judgment in aborting the speech and I have no regrets whatsoever. I can assure you nothing of the sort will ever happen again.

So enough of what we will not be doing this quarter. Let's talk about what we will be doing. First off, we will be distributing copies of Dan Muller's book Pink like Blues on campus. I love Dan's biographies. I've read all five of them. My favorite quote is the one where he says "If I ever leave Christianity, it will not be for intellectual reasons. Who knows anything anyway? I mean, like, whatever man." Dan is deep and I can't wait to share his work with students all over our campus. We need to make Christianity accessible by responding to the culture in which we live.

Ok, so that's our first big event on campus. In fact, our book distribution project is our only big event this quarter – aside from my periodic pleas for people to join my support team. So let’s make sure to do a lot of sidewalk chalking to promote it. In fact, that will give us another opportunity to get together again later and clean the sidewalks. There is a time to chalk and a time to de-chalk, I suppose.

As far as the rest of the quarter is concerned, we will be having our weekly meetings all quarter long. But instead of having them on Wednesday they will be moved to Monday. Apparently, the Abstinence Club had to have their meetings moved to Wednesday because they wanted to call it "no hump day." For the reasons I specified earlier, I have no additional comment. The best way to prevent unwanted discussions of abortion is to abstain from having discussions about sex. So let’s move on.

Monday meetings will take the form of pizza parties. We want to avoid Chick-fil-A (for obvious reasons). Clearly, everyone seems to like pizza and no one is offended by it. This brings me to the primary issue I need to discuss with you this evening.

It seems our national headquarters has received a letter from the corporate attorneys at J. Crew. We have been threatened with copyright infringement for printing "Jesus Crew" tee shirts and selling them at some of our campus events. So, for the second time in a few short years, we are forced to change our name in order to avoid conflict.

After much prayer and contemplation, Jesus Crew is changing its name to "The Campus Crusade for Crust." We decided to leave out the name of Jesus, which some consider to be offensive. Besides that, it's really about the pizza anyway. So thanks for coming everyone. Don’t forget to leave your pizza orders on the table before you go. Oh, and before I forget, let me leave you with one more question:

Does anyone feel led to join my support team? Organizing pizza parties is a full-time job

Mike Adams

Mike Adams

Mike Adams is a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and author of Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts "Womyn" On Campus.

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Wild Bill for America - Beavis and Butthead Education

To take back America, we must take back our schools. Wild Bill has a plan.

Visit the Wild Bill for America Blog

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Ben Carson - An Extraordinary Life

Ben Carson overcame all odds to become a neurosurgeon and, by age 33, director of pediatric neurosurgery at the Johns Hopkins Childrens Center. Hear Carson discuss his work and philanthropy, his thoughts on health care reform, and about whats still on his to-do list.

Interview length 57:39 (March 2010)

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Mike Adams - Every Idea Is an Incitement

Dear CRM 495 Students:

Welcome back! It's hard to believe that Christmas break is over and that it's time to start a new semester. It's almost as hard as believing that one of your professors is actually sending you an email using the word "Christmas." But even the liberals agree that I am no ordinary professor. Please allow me to explain.

After I got tenure, I left the political Left and became a conservative Republican. I know you've never had a conservative professor before and you are probably wondering what to expect. In a nutshell, you can expect to hear the truth about a number of things for the very first time in your college career. And that means you can probably expect to be offended from time to time.

Just in case you are wondering whether you are getting in over your head, let me give you a few examples of beliefs I hold, which you may well deem to be offensive. Based on the following revelations, you can make an informed decision as to whether this class is really for you.

• African-Americanism. I think the term African-American is ridiculous. If you insist on being called this then you aren't American and you've probably never been to Africa. If you demand to be a hyphenated American then you're just un-American. Get over yourself or get out of the country. Sorry if you're offended but you offend me with your ethnocentrism.
• Coke. I cannot stand that four letter word that begins with "c" and refers to female genitalia. Repeating it at The Vagina Monologues does not make women empowered. It makes them unrefined idiots. If you c*** c*** a feminist play without using feminists who say the word c*** then you simply c*** be taken seriously. Sorry if you're offended, but women who curse like sailors offend me.
• Daddy issues. Every semester, I get at least one female student who comes into class late and hyperventilating. She makes a scene in order to get sympathy. Then, she apologizes after class while dumping all her personal problems on me. Let me be blunt: women like this have daddy issues. Put simply, daddy didn't give them enough attention and now they are seeking it from me because I remind them of daddy. Sorry that offends you. Go tell your daddy.
• Guns. I have more guns than I need but fewer than I want. In fact, as I sit in my home office writing this email I am positioned between two packed gun safes. There are enough guns in this room to issue a 21 gun salute in the event you don’t make it through the semester. There are also about 12,000 rounds of ammunition in this room. And there is more elsewhere in the house. Some people are afraid of guns but I am afraid of gunlessness. Most of your professors say that homophobia is a social disease. I say that hoplophobia is a social disease. If you don't like abortion - oops! I mean guns - you don't have to have one.
• Momma's boys. Every semester, I get at least three male students who cannot run their lives. They constantly ask me questions that I have already answered on the syllabus. When is the first test? What kind of questions are on it? How many tests are there? These are the kinds of young males who still could not wipe their bottoms when they were 12 (and probably still can't do their own laundry). If you are one of them, you have no chance of passing my class and no chance of succeeding in life. Please drop out now and join the army. Sorry if that offends you but you need to be a man. If that's too much to ask, just complain to momma next time you're home dropping off your laundry.
• Pepsi. I cannot stand that five letter word that begins with "p" and refers to female genitalia. Every year at The Vagina Monologues, they sell p***** pops, which are little candied vaginas on a stick. The feminists walk around licking them in a display of feminist empowerment. I hate to be p**** but why don't they sell p**** pops, too. Maybe that would offend them. That's too bad because their sexism offends me.
• Queer Centers. When I was a kid, we played "smear the queer" (dodge ball). Later, they said we could not call it that. Now, the word "queer" has made a queer re-entry into the realm of social acceptability. Some colleges are even opening “Queer Resource Centers.” Make up your mind, thought police. And stop acting like women with daddy issues! Sorry if that offends you. Indecisiveness offends me.
• Racial Preferences. If you can't get into college without checking a box that says African-American or Hispanic, you do not need to be here. Sorry but the only reason there are racial differences in SAT scores is because minorities refuse to take off the training wheels. You're just as smart as anyone else so hop off the Big Wheel and join the bike race. Sorry if you're offended but your racism offends me.
• Wolf-crying. People cry racism all the time. In fact, I've been told I'm a racist for opposing affirmative action. That’s funny to me. I don’t think blacks need a crutch because I believe they are equal. Therefore, I'm called a racist - even though I was the first kid on my block to own a Flip Wilson record. Those people (oops, I said, those people) need to chill. In fact, I should let them borrow my old Flip Wilson record to lighten the mood. Next thing you know, they'll say Flip Wilson offends them because Geraldine made fun of cross dressing. Have I mentioned that cross-dressing offends me?
• XXX. Pornography is more than disgusting. It is evil and I hate it. This is probably not offensive to anyone - unless, of course, you are a porn star. But, once you become a porn star, you pretty much give up the right to be offended. If you're offended anyway just drop my class and sign up for one of Dr. Porco's instead (no I did not make up that last name). Dr. Porco was just hired by the UNCW English Department despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that he published a book of pornographic poems - some of which were written while he was drunk and hanging out in topless bars. He tries to pass them off as academic. And that offends me, which is why I simply choose not to read them.

Now that everything is on the table, you are ready for your first assignment. Since this is a class covering the First Amendment, we are going to focus on important US Supreme Court decisions dealing with free speech. Our first case will be Gitlow v. New York. I want you to read it with two questions in mind:

1. Since the Supreme Court nationalized the First Amendment, speech codes have emerged on most state-run campuses. How have these speech codes survived in light of the nationalization movement?
2. Holmes' dissent in this case has been often quoted. If he is correct in saying that "every idea is an incitement" then how can universities actually enforce speeches codes? As they are actually enforced, do these codes violate other portions of our constitution?

As you can see, we'll be tackling some serious issues this semester. So we need to weed out all of the self-absorbed, hypersensitive products of the era of political correctness in higher education. That was the purpose of this email. If you are still reading then congratulations! You've demonstrated more intellectual integrity and emotional maturity than the majority of your professors.

See you next week in class.

Mike Adams

Mike Adams

Mike Adams is a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and author of Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts "Womyn" On Campus.

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Mike Adams - Bankrupt State University

Many of my friends and readers are disheartened by recent cultural and political trends. Many blame our universities and wonder whether we can ever restore sanity in our nation, given that the enemy seems to control the modern university. They see no chance to win in the war of ideas as long as they are forced to support the public university and, therefore, forced to fund a war against their own cherished values.

But I know something they don't know. The public university that has declined so steadily in recent years will cease to exist in just a few short decades. The moral bankruptcy we have seen over the last twenty years is about to be followed by another sort of bankruptcy. Before long, many of the universities that have betrayed taxpayers and alumni will be forced out of business. It will happen for the following reasons:

1. Federal funding reductions. LBJ got us deeply entrenched in the business of federal funding for institutions of higher education. When he did, tuition began to skyrocket. More recently, the federal government has gotten us deeply entrenched in the business of individual student loans. This has had the same effect. When a lot of people are able to borrow a lot of money to purchase goods or services, the effect on the price of those goods and services is dramatic. Supply and demand is not a rule; it is a law.
   
   State university administrators seized upon the increased demand for higher education by raising tuition. This was done for three reasons: a) because they could, b) because they wanted to give themselves raises, and c) because they /wanted to hire associate and assistant administrators to do their work for them.
   
   Now, the federal deficit is spinning out of control. As a result, the federal government will soon have to cut aid to state universities. This will confront administrators with this important decision: will they a) cut administrative spending, or b) raise tuition? The answer will be "b."
2. Student loan bubble. People are easily enticed into taking the bait when offered unlimited funds to pursue education. This applies to those who are not qualified to attend college at all. (Think about the housing bubble for just a moment). As tuition continues to rise, many more students who enroll will figure out that they have been duped long before they graduate. The universities have lied to them during recruitment. Departments in the social sciences and other disciplines have betrayed them by exaggerating the pay scale and availability of jobs they could likely expect upon graduation. These realizations will result in a massive upswing in the dropout rate over the next few years. These dropouts are many times more likely to default on their college loans than students who graduate.
   
   When the whole college loan industry collapses, people will actually have to pay for school as they go. That will result in many empty seats in many college classrooms. Universities will have to make up the difference by turning to alumni donors.
3. Declining donations. Consider the following scenario: just two weeks ago, a fraternity of 80 men was ejected from a public university campus. They were investigated for hazing but then exonerated. They were also investigated for an alcohol violation that was so minor that police declined to arrest anyone. They were found to be guilty of only one offense, which was dubbed "failure to cooperate with the investigation." This was another way of saying the university thought but could not prove they were guilty because they refused to confess. At the end of the day, the 80-man fraternity was banned from campus for three years.
   
   This real life incident will have two real life repercussions: a) the administrator who led the investigation will be promoted for expelling a politically incorrect fraternity (one of their flags has a Confederate symbol embedded within it). b) 80 future alumni will respond to the administrative overreach by refusing to donate for the rest of their adult lives.

This issue is serious. As the university administration has grown, it has assumed more control over the lives of students. In recent years, students have been prosecuted with increasing frequency for increasingly petty offenses with drastically decreasing respect for their due process rights. This includes petty prosecutions for speech code violations that amount to stripping students of the right to participate in the free exchange of ideas - the very reason many came to college in the first place. Is anyone foolish enough to believe this will have no effect on their willingness to donate?

The army of administrators that grew in the 1990s as a result of generous federal funding and the explosion in student loans will soon have to beg in order to retain their positions. Alumni will wisely apply the norm of reciprocity by exercising their power over these overpaid and underworked administrators who once practiced authoritarianism on them. They will wisely withhold donations and instead focus on paying their entirely-too-high student loan payments.

For all of these reasons, the public universities will eventually go bankrupt. And that is good news for a nation that is going morally bankrupt in the shadow of the ivory tower. They had a good thing going but the party is close to being over. The hangover will soon begin.

Mike Adams

Mike Adams

Mike Adams is a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and author of Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts "Womyn" On Campus.

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Austin Hill - Score One For The Kids: Washington and Georgia Produce An Election Night Highlight

You’ve probably seen the post-election headlines: private sector employers in the U.S. have begun slashing jobs, attributing their economic hardship to President Obama’s healthcare and environmental policies. But did you hear how some Americans actually voted for some really good things – things that can make for a brighter future?

It’s sad to see what our country has chosen. Barack Obama campaigned in 2008 on a pledge to “bankrupt” the coal industry (if you don’t believe me watch this video from Youtube), and the Obamacare taxes and fees levied against healthcare technology companies are downright onerous. So once it was evident that we chose “more of the same” last Tuesday, it was not surprising to see both the coal energy and healthcare technologies industries announcing thousands of layoffs – they simply can’t afford to continue operating at the same pace, given the President’s policies.

But the good news on election night came from the states of Washington, and Georgia, where residents voted to expand educational choices for children. This is to say that a state which overwhelmingly voted to re-elect President Obama (Washington), and a state that overwhelmingly voted to replace the President with Mitt Romney (Georgia), actually both agreed that increasing kids’ education options by expanding the number of charter schools is an across-the-board good thing.

Charter schools, if you are unfamiliar, are k-12 schools that are partially funded with taxpayer dollars (and partially with private donations), but are usually managed by private individuals and organizations. While each state has their own precise rules, generally speaking charter schools can reach beyond the bureaucratic, one-size-fits-all constraints of the local school district and customize their educational content and approach.

That’s why many charter schools offer academic specialties. Got a kid with an interest in engineering? Some charter schools offer an emphasis in science and mathematics. Does your son or daughter want to be a film maker? A charter school with a fine arts concentration might be a good choice.

The important point is that kids and parents should have these choices available. Charter schools allow people’s tax dollars to be put to use in ways that address the unique needs of students and parents, first and foremost, and in ways that the often self-serving established public schools don’t. Fortunately, Georgians and Washingtonians voted last week to allow even more of these options to flourish.

However, not every good effort to ensure wise use of educational tax dollars was rewarded last week. In Idaho, Indiana, and South Dakota, voters lashed out against state policies that forced local school districts to be transparent with how they spend taxpayer dollars and negotiate labor union contracts, and which provided educational technology in public school classrooms. Initiatives like these may seem like good ideas- and objectively they are-but if you’ve got enough money to spend on advertising, you can successfully portray them as evil.

Who, really, wants to argue that educational tax dollars should be spent on things that don’t benefit students? And who, really, wants to argue against government transparency?

Nobody would try to campaign on these points. But if you’re the AFL-CIO and your teacher’s union members are vested in the status quo, then you want nothing to do with transparency in government, and you certainly don’t want your union members to have to adapt to the “change” of using more computers.

So big labor spent millions in advertising dollars demonizing the education reform laws in Idaho, Indiana and South Dakota, while trashing the policy makers that brought them about. Scrutinizing the negotiation of labor union contracts was equated to “hating teachers,” while using online computer technology was characterized as “trading teachers with laptops” - and the costs of the computers were allegedly going to bankrupt the respective states, according to the teachers’ union’s advertisements.

A quick price comparison between an inexpensive laptop computer purchased in bulk (with enough digital space to store several digital textbooks) and a single hardbound text book suggests that school districts could actually save money with more computers. And expanded internet access can allow kids in the most rural of regions to connect with world class educational content from top universities. But neither of these realities mattered. This wasn’t about the kids, it was about the labor unions – and on election night voters in all three states chose the union’s agenda.

Both the expansion of charter schools, and enhancing transparency and technology in traditional schools, are fundamentally economic agendas: both initiatives have to do with a more efficient use of taxpayer money, and spending money for its intended purposes (improving kids’ education).

Yet one agenda was embraced (by both a “red” and “blue” state), and the other was rejected. The charter school movement has become so successful and popular that even the AFL CIO usually can’t stop it (although unions generally hate charter schools because they produce better academic results while spending less money). But scrutinizing - let alone “changing”-conventional public schools is apparently too uncomfortable. So in three relatively “conservative” states, voters chose with education reform like a majority of voters around the country chose for presidential leadership: they opted for “more of the same.”

Let’s hope that government transparency (even for school districts), and a respect for private enterprise, can become acceptable agendas like charter schools – so more Americans will stop choosing “more of the same.”

Austin Hill

Austin Hill is an emerging American voice, addressing culture-defining questions through books, talk radio, web, speaking, and interviews. His recent books "White House Confidential" and his new title "The Virtues Of Capitalism" show his range from whit-infused writer to thought-provoking expert on the intersection of philosophy, religion, politics & culture. Hill helps to make the complex seem simple when exploring capitalism, socialism, and other "Isms".

He is an editorial contributor to national publications such as U.S. News & World Report, a columnist with TownHall.com, and is a popular expert-host on radio from leading stations in Washington DC, Chicago, Phoenix and Los Angeles, and nationally with networks such as Fox NewsTalk Radio.  He hosts the "Austin Hill Show" weekday mornings at Fresno, California's Talk Radio 105-9 KMJ-FM,  and weekday afternoons at Boise, Idaho's Newstalk 580 K I D O radio.

Hill holds a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature from California Polytechnic State University at San Luis Obispo, and a Master's Degree in Philosophy of Religion and Ethics from Biola University in California.

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Star Parker - Ben Carson on America's Education Challenge

In the midst of the third presidential debate in Florida, which was supposedly about foreign policy, President Barack Obama interjected a few words about American education.

The rationale was not unreasonable. A better-educated America will be a better-performing and more internationally competitive America.

"Let's talk about what we need to compete. ... Let's take an example that we know is going to make a difference in the 21st century and that's our education policy," he said.

Unfortunately, as is so often the case with politicians, what we hear sounds so logical, so compelling. If only it had anything to do with reality.

According to the fractured political logic on education, which is not much different from what we hear regarding most areas of public policy, the reason we have failure is we're not doing enough of what already isn't working.

In the case of education, we're spending a lot of money and not getting results. So the problem must be, in the brilliant political take on matters, we're just not spending enough money.

"I now want to hire more teachers, especially in math and science, because we know that we've fallen behind when it comes to math and science," Obama said. "And those teachers can make a difference."

But, Mr. President, what information do you have that leads you to conclude that more teachers can make a difference?

According to information recently published by Face the Facts USA, a nonpartisan project of the George Washington University School of Media and Public Affairs, over the last decade the federal government spent $293 billion and states spent a combined $5.5 trillion -- money targeted to improving academic performance -- with no discernable change in reading and math scores. "A quarter of high school seniors don't meet basic reading standards and a third fall below basic math proficiency," Face the Facts USA reports.

Throwing money at education may make those who get the money better off, but there is little, if any, evidence that it makes any difference at all in improving academic performance.

Recently, I sat down and interviewed one of my heroes: Dr. Ben Carson, director of pediatric neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital.

Outside of his work, Carson's passion is education. As someone who grew up in a Detroit ghetto, whose mother was a domestic who could not read, he has some idea what it means to start with nothing and achieve the American dream.

But listening to Carson -- whose latest book is titled "America the Beautiful: Rediscovering What Made This Nation Great" -- you get a much different take on what is wrong with education and our nation today than what we hear from politicians.

Carson says, "We were a 'can do' nation and now we're a 'what can you do for me' nation."

He talks about the two biggest influences when he was a boy: a demanding and caring mother and his church.

According to Carson, "we're being crucified by political correctness -- that any lifestyle is equivalent to any other lifestyle."

Through the Carson Scholars Fund, he provides $1,000 college scholarships to kids "who excel academically and are dedicated to serving their communities." He also builds reading rooms -- there are now 77 at schools in 11 states -- designed to provoke kids to want to read.

After a half-hour interview with Carson, here's my takeaway: Education is about family, meaning, personal responsibility, standards of right and wrong, and appreciating the uniqueness of every child.

Without these fundamentals, truckloads of taxpayer money will accomplish nothing. Which is why the trillions being spent are poured into a black hole.

I would add that, given the realities of today's public schools -- defined by the political correctness that Carson says is crucifying us -- there is no hope of meeting his standards for education without giving parents freedom to choose where to send their kid to school.

Star Parker

Star Parker is founder and president of CURE, the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, a 501c3 think tank which explores and promotes market based public policy to fight poverty, as well as author of the newly revised Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can do About It.

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PJTV Trifecta - US Students Still Not Learning: Does School Really Make a Difference?

A recent study shows that US schools are lagging behind international counterparts. Does education matter more than life experience? Find out on this Trifecta.

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Mike Adams - When Students Cheat Liberals Retreat

The best argument against liberalism is that it doesn’t work. That should be obvious to any teacher who has to deal with student cheating. Even some sociology teachers are beginning to learn this although they are not aware that they are learning it. Like rats in a Skinner box, their behavior is being modified by reality even when they lack the intellectual capacity to recognize it. It warms my heart to see old liberals changing their ways, even if mindlessly. So I have written a column about it, which I am hoping will someday be reprinted by the New York Times.

Liberals are reticent to address the issue of student cheating because it reminds them of the fallen nature of man. Utopia requires cooperation and evidence that people tend to cheat undermines the view that they are inclined to cooperate. So liberals would prefer to ignore evidence of cheating in order to preserve a vision of what “society” ought to be and could be if only they were given the means (read: more of our money) to re-engineer it.

But evidence of student cheating has become too widespread to ignore. So the liberals in my department have started circulating articles on the subject coming from reputable sources like the New York Times (sarcasm = off). Some of these articles and some of the faculty reactions to them have focused on what they describe as “a culture of cheating.” Accordingly, some liberal faculty members have started talking about what needs to be done about it. Others have started acting on it. This should be causing cognitive dissonance for several reasons:

1. Merit is irrelevant. Sociology students are frequently fed the liberal line that people do not succeed in America on the basis of their own merits. The old “it isn’t what you know, it’s who you know” maxim is more than just a cultural adage. It seeps into the college curriculum in sociology classes that focus on Marxian conflict theories. Students are routinely taught that wealth, power, and privilege are the keys to success. This tends to denigrate the importance of knowledge. It should go without saying that people are less inclined to rely on their own achievements if their efforts are thus devalued. The connection of such notions to acceptance of cheating is fairly obvious. If we teach people that they cannot succeed through legitimate efforts we will soon see them pursue success through illegitimate means. As always, liberals fail to understand that ideas have consequences. And bad ideas can have very bad consequences.
2. Ethnocentrism is unacceptable. Sociologists like to teach others that it is wrong to judge other cultures by the standards of one’s own culture. Such judgments are called “ethnocentric.” This concept has slowly crept into mainstream liberal thinking. That is unfortunate because promoting anti-ethnocentrism is problematic for at least two reasons:
   1. it tends to undermine the idea that one’s actions (including cheating) can be considered objectively wrong.
   2. It renders efforts to condemn a “culture of cheating” hypocritical. Remember that we aren’t supposed to judge other cultures!
3. Punishment is ineffective. Sociologists routinely teach the liberal idea that punishment is ineffective and the corresponding idea that “society” has an obligation to rehabilitate criminals. Then, in their own syllabi, they warn students that cheating will be punished. Claiming to be shocked when their threats are ignored, they send students through the campus penal system, not through rehabilitation. And the liberal campus penal system can be quite punitive and dismissive of due process. No attorneys, no tape recorders, no note taking, no soup … oops! I mean, no due process for you!

In a nutshell, sociology, like modern liberalism, teaches that we can’t get by on our own merits, we should not judge other cultures, and that punishment does not work. When students cheat, however, the sociologist urges advancement through one’s own merits, condemnation of the culture of cheating, and punishment of the transgressor.

It is little wonder that many students are intellectually lost and morally confused. They make the mistake of taking their sociology professors seriously, which means buying into contradictory liberal ideas. So my advice is two-fold: First, don’t cheat in college because it is objectively wrong to do so. Second, don’t cheat yourself by choosing a major populated by hypocrites who cannot abide by the consequences of their own ideas.

Mike Adams

Mike Adams

Mike Adams is a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and author of Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts "Womyn" On Campus.

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Wild Bill for America - Little Hunter

A three year old scares public school officials.

Visit the Wild Bill for America Blog

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Prager University - The Moral Case for the British Empire

Is there a moral case to be made for the British Empire? To even ask the question at your typical university would be to invite derision. That's a shame because the British Empire's legacy is one Western Civilization should be proud of. We'd be living in a much less free and prosperous world without it. Historian HW Crocker III explains why in this eye-opening Prager University course.

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Mike Adams - Ratio Christi

In one week, it starts all over again. Thousands of young people will enroll in classes in the sixteen-campus University of North Carolina system. Before the first day of class is over, the professors and administrators will begin the assault on students and their Judeo-Christian values. Parents will have spent their entire lives saving money that will ultimately be used to turn their children against them. Students will unlearn everything they were taught about the foundations of liberty, the basis of morality, and will even begin questioning the very existence of truth. Before long, many parents will realize they have risked bankruptcy funding a legacy of intellectual and moral impoverishment.

I realized the situation was bad when a military officer wrote me a few years ago. While he was off serving his country, his twin teenaged girls were enrolling at Rice University. During “O” week, Rice orientation week, their orientation leader told them it was time to “experiment with their sexual liberty” now that they were off at college and away from their parents. The military officer was outraged over the incident – as he should have been. More parents would be outraged if only they were paying attention.

Later that same semester, I sat through an excruciating graduation speech by a feminist sociologist. She smugly told the parents of graduating seniors that she hoped their children were leaving college with a “different perspective” than the one they brought with them. She said nothing about knowledge during her speech. She spoke only of “perspective” – smugly asserting that hers was better than the one held by the parents who were paying her salary.

If I sound a little edgy when I broach this topic there is good reason for that. I abandoned my faith as an 18 year old college freshman – a mere two months into my first semester of college. It is true that I carried some anger into my freshman year, which fueled that abandonment. But it is also true that I took my first psychology class from an atheist professor who used the classroom to evangelize students.

There may have been a legitimate reason for my psychology professor’s decision to discuss Sigmund Freud’s theory of how man created God, not vice versa. But when he talked about how B.F. Skinner’s theory of operant conditioning “explained away” religion it bordered on obsession. The psychology professor who feels compelled to rid students of their faith is no less perverted than the orientation leader who feels compelled to rid students of their chastity.

eventually made my way back. And reading apologetics played a huge role in my spiritual transformation. For years after that transformation, I wondered why there was no national organization dedicated to bringing resident apologists to campuses in order to establish Christian apologetics groups that would challenge campus atheists.

Then it finally happened. After hearing a speech I gave at Summit Ministries (www.Summit.org) in Colorado, Professor Lonnie Welch of Ohio University invited me to speak at the national conference of Ratio Christi (www.RatioChristi.org) in October of 2011. I did not even know that my friends John Stonestreet of Summit Ministries and ADF attorney Casey Mattox were on the Ratio Christi board.

Speaking at that conference was one of the greatest thrills of my year. During my speech, my friend Frank Turek came in with none other than Josh McDowell. William Dembski and Greg Koukl showed up later for our conference dinner. It was an evening to remember.

While I was there to speak, I was also there to learn. And what I learned was that Ratio Christi is the ideal campus Christian organization. There may be scores of Christian organizations already. But none prior to Ratio Christi were focusing on apologetics training. Such training is desperately needed to keep kids from falling away during college. How can students remain firm in their faith if they are not hearing both sides of the story? And how can they remain grounded if they were never grounded in the first place?

Ratio Christi is dedicated to doing the work that other Christian groups are ignoring. It is also laying the intellectual framework that the church has failed to provide for the last half-century. So it was easy to say “yes” when attorney Aaron Marshall asked me to be the faculty sponsor of the new UNCW Ratio Christi chapter. Aaron will be leaving his law practice in Charlotte and moving to Wilmington to become our new chapter advisor.

In addition to being a chapter sponsor, I am also a financial supporter for Ratio Christi. Throughout the year, I will be sending them 10% of the gross profits from every column I write and every speech I give. If you want to join me, send your donations to:

Ratio Christi

5531 Gardner Drive

Erie, PA 16509

(Aaron Marshall’s account number is 43001 if you want to direct a donation to him).

There is other good news on the anti-indoctrination front. At the end of the school year, Regnery will publish my next book, which is tentatively titled Letters to a Lost Progressive. The book is a collection of 33 letters written by me to a student who lost his way in college. Like our new Ratio Christi chapter, the book is meant to keep young people from following false ideas presented by false teachers. It assumes that ideas have consequences that should not be taken lightly.

I’ll have more to say about the book as the publication date arrives. In the meantime, take a good look at the Ratio Christi website (www.RatioChristi.org). They might make a believer of you. Or make it difficult to make a non-believer out of someone you love.

Mike Adams

Mike Adams

Mike Adams is a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and author of Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts "Womyn" On Campus.

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Mike Adams - Our New SMLXL Center

Well, it looks like the libertarians are mad at me again. Several of my libertarian readers have written to complain that my recent columns have been switching back and forth between making fun of homosexual rights activists and abortion rights activists. That must really make them angry because so many libertarians are homosexuals who need to have abortions. At any rate, I think I have identified the source of the problem and a possible solution.

What my libertarian readers fail to understand is that I simply write about the insanity that surrounds me here at the University of North Carolina at Wilmington. At UNCW, the two most prominent non-academic offices are:

the Women’s Resource Center, or WRC - which focuses on destroying the family by aborting children, and

The LGBTQIA Office – which focuses on destroying the family by undermining marriage. Both centers want to destroy the family so it can be replaced by the government. People who are smart enough to understand that are called conservatives. People who miss the point are called libertarians.

Along those lines, some of my readers may remember a column I wrote suggesting that the WRC and LGBTQIA Office be merged in order to save money. After the column was published, the unthinkable happened. The university took my proposal seriously! They merged the two offices and put UNCW lesbian czar Amy Schlag in the WRC located in Randall Library.

Of course, that made everyone happy except for the lesbians running the LGBTQIA Office. Apparently, they considered the idea of a UNCW LGBTQIAWR-Center to be simply unworkable. They were coming dangerously close to using up the whole alphabet! So they did what lesbian activists do when denied government funding: they made so much noise that they drowned out the activities of all the NORMAL people who do legitimate academic work.

First, the former director of the UNCW LGBTQIA Office started organizing pro-abortion events in her new capacity as an administrator within the WRC. At one event, organized and promoted by Schlag, they actually sold “I Had an Abortion” t-shirts to women who had murdered their children in the name of “choice.” This caused a huge protest, which was organized by an un-named right-wing professor who collects guns and smokes illegal Cuban cigars.

The protest included pro-life students wearing shirts that said “I Dismembered My Cat” and “I Did Not Kill My Baby.” Of course, that offended the PETA people who care more about cats than human beings. In fact, there was such uproar that the WRC had to cancel its next pro-abortion event. The incident made international news when it was picked up by the pro-life press in Great Britain.

In the wake of all the uproar, the UNCW Gaystapo went to the media to complain about the shutting down of the LGBTQIA Office. And, of course, the university capitulated by reopening the office in a more prominent location in the student union building. The capitulation predictably angered conservatives who are opposed to all of these non-academic offices that promote liberal politics at taxpayer expense. Did you hear that libertarians? Do you understand the connection between social and economic issues?

So what are we conservatives to do in the midst of a difficult and, quite literally, taxing situation? If we shut down the LGBTQIA Office, the LGBTQIA people will continue to scream like petulant children. In the process, they will disrupt the legitimate activities of all the NORMAL people on campus. But if we keep the LGBTQIA Office, then the NORMAL people will all have a claim to offices representing their opposition to the LGBTQIA political agenda.

Naturally, I have a solution to all of this drama. It’s called the SMLXL Center. It may sound strange, but I think it gets to the heart of why people discriminate against LGBTQIA people – and it does so without entering the messy realm of sexual politics.

It does not take a rocket scientist to figure out that gay dudes are, on average, skinnier than straight dudes. That is why it is easier to bully them in the school yard. If gay dudes were as large as straight dudes, it would be much more difficult to push them around.

Nor does it take a rocket scientist to figure out that lesbians are, on average, bigger than straight chicks. That is why they are so often excluded from the dating pool. Guys simply prefer smaller women over the larger women you see congregating at Indigo Girls concerts. I guess you could say that lesbianism really isn’t a choice. It’s all determined by their jeans!

Since what has previously been characterized as “homophobia” is really body-weight discrimination, all we really need is a campus SMLXL Center. No person should be judged on the basis of whether he or she (or it) wears a small, medium, large, or extra-large t-shirt. Those who would discriminate based on body-type should be prosecuted under the full weight of the justice system. Even gay men who look like lesbians deserve equal protection under the law. Elton John deserves the same treatment as Rosie O’Donnell – even if he isn’t a tiny dancer!

Our LGBTQIA Office needs to be replaced with a new SMLXL Center today. It might not trim any fat off of our bloated state budget. But at least we can spare a general public that is tired of hearing about gay marriage and sodomy. And, who knows, maybe a greater appreciation of weight gain will end the feminist war against pregnancy. It makes little sense to kill small people just to keep others from getting large.

I really think our new body-size diversity center will be a lesson to one and to all. A person is a person, whether extra-large, large, medium, or small.

Mike Adams

Mike Adams

Mike Adams is a criminology professor at the University of North Carolina Wilmington and author of Feminists Say the Darndest Things: A Politically Incorrect Professor Confronts "Womyn" On Campus.

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Star Parker - Republicans Missing Chance on Education Reform

One area that awareness of the need for freedom from government control has penetrated black attitudes is in education.

The chronic failure of public schools to notably improve dismal test scores and high dropout rates of black children has made it clear to many black citizens of good will that there has got to be a better way.

Polls show black support for school choice. For example, in a poll done last year in New Jersey by the Rutgers-Eagleton Center at Rutgers University, 54 percent of blacks expressed support for school vouchers compared to 36 percent of whites.

Growing grass roots support among blacks for education alternatives surely influenced the Obama administration’s agreement, this past week, to ongoing support for the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program. The administration opposes the program and would have been perfectly happy to see its funding spigot turned off.

This is a modest program, with federal funds available now for 1,615 scholarships for kids in DC’s public schools to attend private schools. Its existence and potential for growth was at stake, with House Speaker John Boehner and Senator Joseph Lieberman carried the ball for it. The new agreement will allow it to continue, with a small provision for 85 new scholarships.

But this makes even more perplexing recent incidents where Republican state legislators have turned their backs on the education hopes of blacks.

Republicans in Pennsylvania can change the political landscape of their state by helping black aspirations for education freedom. But in a state that some analysts see as conceivably swinging into the Republican column, Republicans are blowing it.

The Pennsylvania state Senate passed a bill last year that would make vouchers available to kids in the worst 5% of public schools.

The public schools serving blacks kids in cities like Philadelphia are disasters. I know from my own survey of pastors in local churches there that hopes for this voucher initiative have been high.

Yet, by all indication it’s not going to happen.

The state House, controlled by Republicans, has been sitting on the bill. With no action before the end of the session on June 30 it will be dead.

There is talk of an alternative scholarship bill financed through tax credits. But the most optimistic estimate I have heard is that the scholarship would be worth less than half what the voucher would pay and therefore insufficient on its own to pay full tuition in a private church school.

Courageous leadership by Republicans could have captured black hearts and minds in Pennsylvania’s cities that might have paved a path to a new black relationship with Republicans.

But sadly, fear of union power rather than leadership and courage seems to be motivating these legislators.

In 2010, a similar disappointment occurred in Illinois.

In a genuine breakthrough, a black Democrat in the Illinois state Senate, Rev. James Meeks, who happens to also be the pastor of Chicago’s largest Baptist congregation, introduced a school voucher bill.

The bill passed the Illinois senate and then died in the state House, with only 25 of 48 Republicans supporting it. It fell 12 votes short of the 60 it needed to pass.

This is not an across the board indictment of Republicans. Two Republican governors – Mitch Daniels in Indiana and Bobby Jindal in Louisiana – have spearheaded passage of school voucher programs in their states.

In a new Gallup poll, only 29 percent, an all time low, express “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in our public schools.

The Republican Party is supposed to be the party of freedom and limited government. No where are these principles more needed than in education, and no community needs it more than blacks.

At a time when our country and our poor communities are hurting so badly, any failure of leadership by those in the party of Lincoln is inexcusable.

Star Parker

Star Parker is founder and president of CURE, the Center for Urban Renewal and Education, a 501c3 think tank which explores and promotes market based public policy to fight poverty, as well as author of the newly revised Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can do About It.

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