Ready for battle?

 The vast majority of people out there with any kind of healthy skepticism (and sense) have been harping about the ridiculousness of Common Core math problems, Common Core testing, yada yada yada for, what, a year now?
Most people saw Common Core for what it is: an attempt to brain wash America’s children into thinking like and doing the bidding of the class of people who consider themselves our overlords. That conclusion was supported mightily this week via... an interview The Blaze did with a 5th grade Arizona teacher who was “involved” in the development process:
My Common Core handlers weren’t interested in my questions about where the standards came from, who wrote them, who wrote the test questions, etc. If they did attempt an answer they usually parroted the phrase “Teachers were involved.” Something didn’t feel right.
My turning point came when in answer to questions I had about a student writing sample, my Common Core handler blurted out, “We don’t ever care what the kids’ opinions are. If they write what they think or put forth their opinion then they will fail the test.”
Talk about a Freudian moment. Kids aren’t allowed to have opinions. Hmmm. But that wasn’t all:..........

My Common Core handlers weren’t interested in my questions about where the standards came from, who wrote them, who wrote the test questions, etc. If they did attempt an answer they usually parroted the phrase “Teachers were involved.” Something didn’t feel right.
My turning point came when in answer to questions I had about a student writing sample, my Common Core handler blurted out, “We don’t ever care what the kids’ opinions are. If they write what they think or put forth their opinion then they will fail the test.”

Talk about a Freudian moment.  Kids aren’t allowed to have opinions.  Hmmm.  But that wasn’t all:

I discovered later that this was not just some irritated, rogue Common Core handler, rather this was a philosophy I heard repeated again and again. I pointed out that this was not the way that teachers teach in the classroom. She retorted that, “We expect that when the test comes out the teachers in the classroom will imitate the skills emphasized on the test (teach to the test) and employ this new way of writing and thinking.” This was a complete kick in the stomach moment for me….
I went back to Chicago again in November 2013 to review reading/writing questions for the Common Core/PARCC test. Again, I wanted to see the test questions and I also wanted to experience the Common Core with all the new knowledge I’d gained. After a week of work I was convinced of the correctness of my feelings and my research about the Common Core. During this visit I worked with Pearson and ETS on the questions they created for the test. Again we were just window dressing so that they could check the box that “teachers were involved.”

The teacher quoted, Brad McQueen, actually wrote a book about his experience as a Common Core teacher “involved in development.”  It’s titled, The Cult of Common Core and thanks to the availability of self-publishing, unfiltered by the overlords.  With this quote, Mr. McQueen sold me on adding it to my summer “to be read” list:

The Common Core is much bigger than just a set of standards, a test, or a data gathering machine. Like a virus, the Common Core tricks its victims into lowering their guard by pretending to be something it is not. But the Common Core isn’t just a mindless infection of our society; rather it is an intentional takeover of our education delivery system and therefore a takeover of our children’s minds. It is a one-size-fits-all, homogenized, centrally controlled education delivery system steeped in Progressive ideology. It is antithetical to everything that makes our country exceptional. This cult is relentlessly pulling our children under its control, with a seemingly endless supply of money, and uses intimidation to silence its opponents.

Yes, we all knew this, but it is still shocking to see it in black and white from someone who was on the inside while the system was being formed.
Of course, McQueen’s book includes a lot of information on just who is financing and driving Common Core (always follow the money).  It is no more innocent and innocuous than any other progressive brainchild meant to destroy society.
For those who are suspicious of the testing system, and the possibility of privacy abuse, McQueen vindicates that fear.  He’s not the only one.  A study from Pioneer Institute, it seems, pinpoints potential (and probably real) violations of privacy incurred by Common Core testing:

A new study released by the Boston-based Pioneer Institute finds that new technology development that has been encouraged through the use of federal grants has served to threaten children’s privacy by allowing the collection of data on every child.

Authors of the study Emmett McGroarty, Joy Pullmann, and Jane Robbins make the case that by means of the nationalized Common Core standards, which states were lured into adopting through competitive grants in the Obama administration’s Race to the Top (RttT) stimulus program in 2009, the federal government has used grant funds to induce states to build identical, increasingly sophisticated student data systems.

McGroarty, executive director of the Education Project at the American Principles Project (APP), said the study, entitled “Cogs in the Machine: Big Data, Common Core, and National Testing,” exposes “an idea that dates back to the Progressive era.”

“It is based in a belief that government ‘experts’ should make determinations about what is successful in education, what isn’t,” he said, “and what sorts of education and training are most likely to produce workers who contribute to making the United States competitive in the global economy.” SOURCE – Breitbart

Yes, it is true.  This has happened before.  The final plank of the Communist Manifesto is free education for children in government schools, thus making it compulsory.  The self-appointed overlords used the American government in the early 20th century to try to install several of the planks of Marxism in our country – and they succeeded for a time.  Some of it is still hanging around.  And with Common Core, there is an all out attempt to make Hillary’s child raising village a reality:

The U.S. Department of Education (USED), however, in its report published last year and titled “Promoting Grit, Tenacity and Perseverance,” expressed a strong interest in monitoring students’ “beliefs, attitudes, dispositions, values and ways of perceiving oneself” and to measure non-cognitive attributes such as their “psychological resources.”…

“This sort of character development and monitoring has traditionally been the domain of parents,” says “Cogs in the Machine” co-author Pullmann, research fellow of the Heartland Institute. “But the Grit report clearly implies that families can’t be trusted to inculcate values and attitudes.”

Again, we all knew this, but it is shocking to see it in black and white all the same. At least we who have been convinced of this for some time now have the data and studies to back the assertions.  The overlords want control of the kids.  It’s up to all of us – not just parents – to object and shine a gigantic spotlight on it.
….Or a magnifying glass in the sun.  Think the worker ants will know to run for cover?
So much to read just to keep up with the monitoring efforts. I’ll be in the back yard with my magnifying glass.