Recommended blog on education

Robin S. Eubanks, an experienced corporate attorney from Georgia  authors an insightful blog entitled “Invisible Serf’s Collar” (www.invisibleserfscollar.com) dealing with evolving events in the realm of education and social reform.

See her January 9 column, http://invisibleserfscollar.com/systematizing-human-nature-via-internalized-marxian-standards-of-truth-goodness-and-beauty/

“The idea that the Commission pitched “practices to help students develop a growth mindset” as a solution to school shootings when its creator, Carol Dweck, was originally a Vygotsky scholar seeking to implement his theories on using new classroom practices to create the transformed mindset needed for a new kind of Soviet Man, would be funny in an ironic way if it was not so ridiculously ignorant of these practices. Tragedies like Parkland and the rule of law get used to force poisonous collectivist ideas down this nation’s throats and into our children’s minds and hearts. https://www.learningandthebrain.com/blog/we-can-no-longer-ignore-evidence-about-human-development/ from November 29, 2018 from Professor Immordino-Yang involved in both the US and UNESCO’s neural redevelopment efforts via education is at least honest about the intentions to use new practices to”support the development of our full humanity.””

Ms. Eubanks writes about herself: “A background in Law is also excellent preparation for determining precisely what the terms commonly used actually mean. Especially in an industry that is consciously using language to hide the actual intended goals. My experience allowed me to recognize that education in the US and globally has been, for decades,  engaged in a massive Newspeak (as in George Orwell’s 1984) campaign that creates a public illusion on what is being promised and what is coming to the schools and classrooms that are this country’s future. I know what the words and terms really mean to an Ed insider and how it differs from the common public perception. I have documented what was really behind the reading wars and math wars. I have pulled together what the real intended Common Core implementation looks like. And it is wildly different from the PR sales job used to gain adoption in most of the states.”

Looking back on the Chicago Annenberg Challenge

The Annenberg Foundation funds one of the popular liberal Fact Checkers. But back in the mid-19 90s, it funded a huge program to improve the Chicago Public Schools. "The funding, which had also been provided to cities such as New York and San Francisco, was part of a large-scale local school reform philosophy that intended to improve student achievement and other social and psychological outcomes. In Chicago, the Annenberg Challenge reflected a democratic localism that placed great faith in the ability of local schools, in partnership with parents and their communities, to develop their own strategies to achieve professional development and instructional goals." I was a liberal in the 90s, and if I'd known about it then, I would have been supportive. . . especially the part about "local," and "partnerships."

It was an impressive amount with lofty goals for 200+ elementary schools (Annenberg gave half a billion to be matched by others to 3 city school systems). Barack Obama, a rising young, handsome star on the Chicago public scene, and Bill Ayers, the 1970s terrorist, and meddler in education through the University of Illinois, worked together in the Annenberg Challenge (Ayers wrote the original grant), as it was called. By 2001 a research arm of the University of Chicago did a thorough evaluation at all levels, and pretty much found no improvement in academic scores (compared to those schools which received no funding). It's the same discouraging results that came from Head Start after a 50 year evaluation.

So maybe Obama thought it wasn't enough money and went for higher stakes? And Bill Ayers hasn't changed much either.

https://consortium.uchicago.edu/sites/default/files/publications/p62.pdf

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/obama-run-foundation-gave-millions-liberal-groups-including-one-run-bill-ayers