WHO IS BEHIND COMMON CORE?
A nonprofit organization called Achieve, Inc., in Washington, D.C. is the main driving force behind creating the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI). The Common Core (CC) standards were initiated by private interests in Washington, D.C., without any representation from the states. See Common Core: Myths vs. Facts here written by American Principles Project.
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From the Achieve, Inc. website: "To this day, Achieve remains the only education reform organization led by a Board of Directors of governors and business leaders. This unique perspective has enabled Achieve to set a bold and visionary agenda over the past 15 years, leading Education Week in 2006 to rank Achieve as one of the most influential education policy organizations in the nation." Achieve is a Washington, D.C. "think tank" which does not include membership from all of the states.
In Achieve's "Common Core Implementation Workbook" they state, "After 30 years of fits and starts, true transformational reform in education is not only possible but also entirely within our grasp." So Achieve has been working on "national education standards" for 30 years! They continue on, "The implementation challenge looms large. In response, Achieve and the U.S. Education Delivery Institute have developed a practical Common Core Implementation Workbook for all states in the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC). The workbook uses a proven performance management methodology known as 'delivery' to lay out clear action steps for states and districts. It provides relevant information, case stories of good practice, key questions and hands-on exercises for leadership teams to complete together. Regardless of your timeline, the workbook offers state and district leaders the means to plan for the CCSS and then drive successful implementation. The discipline of delivery was first developed in 2001 under U.K. Prime Minister Tony Blair. "So the system of delivery was not first developed by the states but from from the United Kingdom's Tony Blair and in 2001! So much for the Common Core standards being a "state-led" effort! This is long before what is stated on the CCSSI website of this process starting in 2009!
Achieve Common Core Workbook |
Former UK Prime Minister Tony Blair |
"Eventually the creators of the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) realized the need to present a facade of state involvement, and therefore, enlisted the National Governors Association (NGA) {a trade association that doesn't include all governors}, and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), another DC-based trade association. Neither of these groups have grant authority from any particular state or states to write the standards. The bulk of the creative work was done by Achieve, Inc., a DC-based nonprofit that includes many progressive education reformers who have been advocating national standards and curriculum for decades. Massive funding for all this came from private interests such as The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation which has donated $2.5 billion in grants to implement the Common Core Standards since its implementation in 2007, and these numbers are still climbing. (See Common Core: Myths vs. Facts as well for further information).
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For a quick visual overview on how the Common Core State Standards Initiative
(CCSSI) {actually Federal Standards} view this
flowchart: How
is it implemented in our "States"? below:
WHAT COMPANIES HAVE TO GAIN FROM COMMON CORE?
You can see from the "How is it Implemented in our 'States'?" flowchart, there are companies that will directly benefit by implementing Common Core. Some of these companies are:
The
Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, pledged $2.5 million dollars in
Grants in 2007. The Gates
Foundation has donated $2.5 billion dollars to
the Common Core effort since 2007 and these numbers are still climbing! Bill and Melinda Gates are directly tied to the United Nations, and they will directly benefit
from the software packages that are sold to train teachers in the
classroom through Microsoft.
Publishing Companies-
Pearson, Scholastic
News,
MacGraw
Hill, Houghton
Mifflin Harcourt,
(AZ textbooks used in Public Schools are primarily from the
publisher Harcourt)
etc., will benefit from Common Core because they will provide the
textbooks, for training teachers and teaching students, and
curriculum changes that will need to be made to implement Common
Core. Pearson,
the largest on-line book company in the world, announced in their 2012 Earnings Report that "The
Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC)...awarded Pearson and Educational Testing
Service (ETS) the contract to develop test items that will be part of the
new English and Mathematics assessments to be administered from the
2014-2015 school year. We continued to produce strong growth in secure
online testing, an important market for the future. We increased online
testing volumes by more than 10%, delivering 6.5 million state
accountability tests, 4.5 million constructed response items and 21
million spoken tests. We now assess oral proficiency in English, Spanish,
French, Dutch, Arabic and Chinese. We also launched the Online Assessment
Readiness Tool for the PARCC and the Smarter Balance Assessment
Consortium (SBAC) Common Core consortia to help 45 states prepare for the
transition to online assessments." Can you say more $$$ for Pearson???
Achieve, Inc. connections- who will benefit from Common
Core? Craig Barrett is the
Chairman of the Board of Directors of Achieve, Inc., he is the
current Chairman for the AZ Ready Education Council; and he is a
Thunderbird Faculty member promoting United Nation Principles. (He is also
the Former CEO/Chairman of
the Board of Intel). Computer companies will directly benefit from
computer sales to the states and local school districts. All of the Common Core student
assessment testing will now be computer based. See
(Partnership for
Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers {PARCC} website for more details on the new student testing that will replace AIMS).