Common Core: Bad for Kids

[Adapted from an article in the Oregon Federation of Republican Women's April-May 2013 edition of Republication]: Holly Swanson, outstanding author, activist and member of the Josephine County Republican Women warns, "The Education for Sustainability movement is drastically altering the curriculum in our schools, changing the role of public education and imposing a political agenda on our innocent children. The aim of this indoctrination program is to train America’s children to be against our form of government, free enterprise system, religious beliefs and much more." Holly urges Republicans to become active in attending school board meetings, writing their government representatives, researching, becoming informed and learning from their children and grandchildren what they are studying.

WASHINGTON – Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) is leading an effort to ask leading Senate appropriators to restore state-level decision making about academic content in public schools in response to the way federal incentives have interfered and put a heavy hand on states to adopt the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

Grassley said the Common Core program was initially billed as a voluntary effort, and that current federal law makes clear that the U.S. Department of Education may not be involved in setting specific content standards or determining the content of state assessments. “The reality is that the U.S. Department of Education has made adoption of standards matching those in Common Core a requirement for getting waivers and funds,” Grassley said. “This violates the structure of our education system, where academic content decisions are made at the state level giving parents a direct line of accountability to those making the decisions. The federal government should not be allowed to coerce state education decision makers.”

In a letter to the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee that funds education, Senators Chuck Grassley, Mike Lee, Tom Coburn, James Inhofe, Deb Fischer, Rand Paul, Pat Roberts, Jeff Sessions, and Ted Cruz urged appropriators to set clear restrictions on the U.S. Department of Education from setting academic content standards either directly or indirectly when they put together legislation to fund the U.S. Department of Education for the next fiscal year.

Get involved. If there was ever an issues for Republicans to get behind, it is re-empowering control of the education system to the states, local school boards and parents.

  Holly Swanson is the author of Training for Treason: The Harmful Agenda Behind Education for Sustainability and Set up & Sold Out: Find Out What Green Really Means. She is at the forefront of the fight to protect America's children from the indoctrination of a dangerous ideology that will steal their freedom and change America forever.