Another parent speaks out against Common Core, Data Sharing, and biased studies, such as those contracted from CREDO, supporting charters. Debbie has supplied a number of links supporting and documenting her positions. Teachers and parents who are denied a voice in our public institutions are free to scream as loudly as they wish here. J Much of what we all see on the news, at BESE meetings and legislative hearings is carefully orchestrated theatre. What you can’t see is the censorship and the dissent which is often concealed behind a greasy, sleazy veneer of paid apostles speaking the Reformer gospel to the masses. The latest strategy of the DeMockratizers is to exclude anyone not willing to engage in puffery of the status quo (Reform, federally mandated dubious unproven curricula, endless standardized testing, charters, and unrestrained privatization.)
Wow Crawfish! I am overwhelmed by your post. Thank you for fighting for Louisiana’s children! Your efforts go far beyond this state as you sound the alarm on many different fronts.
With respect to the WDQI scandal referenced in your blog, please refer your readers to “How the Feds are Tracking Your Kids“. Please note in the article that the states have a CHOICE to link their education data to the Department of Labor. So what choice did Bobby Jindal and our LDOE make for our students and teachers? They chose to serve our children and teacher’s sensitive information on a platter in the form of chopped liver to the Department of Labor.
Why didn’t we know about this? Please refer to an article in the Advocate “House Rejects Governor’s Records Bill” where the committee voted 6:3 to allow the governor’s office (and agencies under his control) to keep information, documents, decisions away from public scrutiny. This is being done by a deliberative process exception (Jindal inserted the provision into the law in 2009).
In essence, what Bobby Jindal has done with the help of the LDOE and the acceptance of the WDQI grant is to help create a National De Facto Student/Teacher Data Base(which is supposed to be illegal), but again like a lot of issues in this country, is all happening by the circumvention of Congress. This data base will track our children from cradle to grave and is slated to be finished Nov. 2013. It is unclear to me how to stop this, but if anyone has any ideas, now would be a good time to put them forth.
If any good has come from this heinous act of treason against our children and teachers, it is the exposure of the Common Core/Child/teacher data tracking for what it is – a curriculum crafted by hustlers whose intention is to profit (inBloom) from educational material marketing scams (as the children are dumbed down, educational material will be remarketed to them courtesy of the data bases.) Also note that the data of children who attend the more elite schools is not being collected and herded into these data bases whether they be corporate or governmental agencies – even more proof that only the “Children of the Core” are being funneled into the workforce where data will direct, diminish, or even destroy their futures. I concede that all children should not be forced to follow a course to college, but shouldn’t parents and students have been told that the Common Core State Standards do not put kids on a path to college? If anyone doubts this , they should look to see the math derelicts that Everyday Mathematics ( Please see Dr. Mercedes Schneider -deutch 29) has produced in Seattle. This is the same type of discovery math being used in the Common Core. I guess this was supposed to be a secret just as there was no public scrutiny or debate during the crafting of the standards or the installations of the data bases.
Last but not least, the very fact that this data has been hijacked/stolen negates the quality of the data itself in that “good” data only exists in the hands of “good” people. What kind of person(Bobby Jindal) uses their own MOTHER(head of the work force committee related to the WDIQ grant) to get her to upload all the goodies on students and teachers and then……… to add insult to injury……….. goes out to Kipp Academy to pose for pictures with the very children he dissed(Please refer to New Orleans Charter Schools Show Progress with students – what a joke). Although Common Core was a Republican initiative being driven by a Democratic machine and backed by corporate entities, The Republican National Committee got it right when they condemned the Common Core State Standards /Child Data tracking. It’s time for Louisiana to condemn this scam as well and move on.
Debbie Sachs
parent of a St. Tammany Parish student
Crazy Crawfish 
Very well said indeed!