Who has given approval to Obamaschool?

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Posted on 8th February 2010 by Judy Breck in Obamaschool | Politics | Schools we now have

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Obamaschool is underway with minimal evaluation and debate in Congress. Why is this very large socialized education project just happening without the Congressional consideration health care required? President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan show up in a classroom for a presser and simply announce what is being done. What they are calling “Race to the Top” is the expenditure of $4.35 billion in grants to the states that empowers the Secretary of Education to very broadly judge what the states do with the money.

They have now announced another $1.35 billion in the next EdFed budget. Until this big reach from Washington into running our local schools is at least debated and passed in Congress, the money gush should wait. Do we need a Constitutional amendment to authorized federal management of local learning? Until we have settled these important questions about taxpayers costs and states rights, the cat in this post is speaking truth to power.

You can read for yourself what has actually been authorized relative to the Race to the Top project the Department of Education part of the Recovery Act on this webpage at the Library of Congress. SEC. 14006. STATE INCENTIVE GRANTS is apparently what authorizes the gush of money to states in grants that let the EdFed limit and judge what schools do with the money they receive.

How we can keep Obama from creating underclass youth by taking over American education

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Posted on 5th February 2010 by Judy Breck in Obamaschool | Politics | Schools we now have

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Reading the post today that I have written about in the comments that follow has changed my approach. The need to stop the further socialization of learning has become critical, with what Obama is pushing. In the face of that threat, Handschooling is a major way to get local nurture and individual teaching to the children of America and across the world.

This is this what I read today: an explanation of what Obama and Arne Duncan are up to in taking over education, by Susan Durand:

Indoctrination Disguised as Education Reform: How Arne Duncan’s well-funded Race to the Top program will inject (even more) propaganda into your child’s head.

As Durand points out, Texas Governor Rick Perry has said “no” — as have some local districts in various states. Still, I am horrified for what this means for the current generation now in schools.

But can these Obama/Duncan moves really be a ploy to make community organizers out of the already under-served class created by failing public schools? After some further investigation, I think the answer is: yeah, that’s right. As the article points out, by authorizing charter schools the folks who run those can teach 1) what they want to, and 2) what the fed tells them to. Scary.

When I read the parts in the article about indoctrinating kids, I thought: What is this woman saying? She must be a conspiracy theorist. I have had, for example, only the most positive thoughts about Wendy Kopp and Teach for America. Controlled by AmeriCorps? Who are they? So I did some digging.

This is AmeriCorps — our .gov taxpayer paid bureaucracy which is, self-proclaimed: “A program of the Corporation for National Community Service”

It took some real digging in the Teach for America website, but sure enough, as it says buried down in this page, “Teach For America is currently a member of AmeriCorps, the national service network.”

And there I found an example from the Teach for America website how AmeriCorps sets the rules for the their members who teach under TFA and AmeriCorps grants:

My guess is that learning itself is going through a phoenix-like collapse and rebirth. I have thought for a long time that the delivery of knowledge by the internet will inevitably liberate individual students from captive classrooms. It think it will also liberate teachers to become independent professionals. How funny it would be to see the system they are sending out tentacles to control withering in the paws of Arne and The One.

A major part of the ongoing mission of handschooling.com is to shed light on this crucial struggle between educational control and individual learning.

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