FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Penn­syl­va­ni­ans Restor­ing Education

Feb­ru­ary 5, 2015, Penn­syl­va­ni­ans Restor­ing Edu­ca­tion, Penn­syl­va­nia Against Com­mon Core, Cit­i­zens of Penn­syl­va­nia, par­ents and stu­dents are ask­ing Sen­a­tor Lamar Alexan­der to stop the REAUTHORIZATION of ESEA: Every Child Ready for Col­lege or Career Act of 2015 which will amend No Child Left Behind. This leg­is­la­tion vio­lates fed­er­al law, the pri­va­cy of our chil­dren and fam­i­lies, our civ­il rights, and states’ rights.

SENATOR ALEXANDER,

• PARENTS WERE NOT INVITED TO TESTIFY.
• PARENTS DEMAND NEW HEARINGS AND AN INVESTIGATION ON THE IMPACT OF THIS LEGISLATION.
• THE PUBLIC DESERVES TO KNOW THAT ESEA ELIMINATES TRUE CHOICE [i.e., not tax­pay­er funded].
• THE REAUTHORIZATION OF ESEA MUST BE STOPPED UNTIL FURTHER STUDY.

The Reau­tho­riza­tion of ESEA must be stopped because the pro­vi­sions inher­ent in this leg­is­la­tion will NATIONALIZE EDUCATION. 2 years of the ESEA Flex­i­bil­i­ty Waiv­er have proven to the states that have accept­ed this waiv­er, exact­ly what the Reau­tho­riza­tion will mean — total fed­er­al con­trol of edu­ca­tion; no state author­i­ty, and no local school board autonomy.

No one at the ESEA pub­lic hear­ings addressed the IES, Insti­tute for Edu­ca­tion­al Sci­ences of the Nation­al Cen­ter for Edu­ca­tion Sta­tis­tics, both of which have the con­tracts for each state to ini­ti­ate a per­son­al­ly iden­ti­fi­able lon­gi­tu­di­nal data sys­tem. The grants in each state cre­ate a nation­al ID for every child. This data col­lec­tion will be used to mon­i­tor EVERY CHILD IN THE UNITED STATES under Title I. In Penn­syl­va­ni­a’s NCES grant, this per­son­al­ly iden­ti­fi­able lon­gi­tu­di­nal sys­tem is called a “womb to work­place” data sys­tem mon­i­tor­ing all chil­dren, ado­les­cents, and adults. The grant also includes wages, human cap­i­tal, a per­son­’s worth or worth­less­ness to soci­ety. The grant also includes babies with data col­lec­tion of behav­iors and dis­po­si­tions begin­ning at birth. Ref­er­ences to the IES and the data col­lec­tion is in the ESEA bill. Source: http://abcsofdumbdown.blogspot.com/2014/12/the-greatest-christmas-present-to.html

Sen­a­tor Alexan­der, why has this not been discussed?

Why has­n’t any­one tes­ti­fied to the fact that in effect the pover­ty guide­lines, as now allowed, are being manip­u­lat­ed to include ALL chil­dren in the ESEA Flex­i­bil­i­ty Waiv­er, 2013, under the Title I blan­ket that man­dates Com­mon Core to EVERY CHILD. (Source: http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/campaign-k-12/ESEA%20Flexibility%20Request.pdf

“(5.) The require­ment in ESEA sec­tion 1114(a)(1) that a school have a pover­ty per­cent­age of 40 per­cent or more in order to oper­ate a school­wide pro­gram. The SEA requests this waiv­er so that an LEA may imple­ment inter­ven­tions con­sis­tent with the turn­around prin­ci­ples or inter­ven­tions that are based on the needs of the stu­dents in the school and designed to enhance the entire edu­ca­tion­al pro­gram in a school in any of its pri­or­i­ty and focus schools that meet the def­i­n­i­tions of “pri­or­i­ty schools” and “focus schools,” respec­tive­ly, set forth in the doc­u­ment titled ESEA Flex­i­bil­i­ty, as appro­pri­ate, even if those schools do not have a pover­ty per­cent­age of 40 per­cent or more.” (empha­sis mine)

Title I now has the author­i­ty to move and switch funds from one account to anoth­er. Funds autho­rized for dif­fer­ent fis­cal areas, can now be trans­ferred into Title I. Every child’s being des­ig­nat­ed as Title I will neces­si­tate that these funds be fun­neled toward the states’ bud­gets. And so Title I expands by quan­tum leaps, mak­ing states liable for increased Med­ic­aid expen­di­tures for every child to have men­tal health wrap-around ser­vices as explained below.

Sen­a­tor Alexan­der, why has this not been discussed?

NAEP HAS MADE A CLAIM THAT THIS DATA COLLECTION, WHICH INCLUDES ATTITUDES, VALUES, BELIEFS, AND DISPOSITIONS, IS TO BECOME THE CENSUS. WHY DOES YOUR LEGISLATION SAY SPECIFICALLY THAT THE IES, NATIONAL CENTER FOR EDUCATION STATISTICS WILL MONITOR ALL TITLE I PROGRAMS, THAT IS EVERY CHILD IN THE UNITED STATES? EVERY INDIVIDUAL, INCLUDING TEACHERS, PRINCIPALS, AND SUPERINTENDENTS, WILL HAVE A UNIQUE NATIONAL ID MONITORED UNDER TITLE I THAT WAS IMPLEMENTED UNDER THESE NCES LONGITUDINAL GRANTS TO THE STATES.

Sen­a­tor Alexan­der, why has this not been discussed?

No one at the pub­lic hear­ings explained INTERVENTIONS FOR “AT RISK” CHILDREN and how that def­i­n­i­tion would apply under IDEA, Indi­vid­u­als With Dis­abil­i­ties Edu­ca­tion Act, to IDENTIFY ALL CHILDREN AS “AT RISK” UNDER TITLE I WITH A MENTAL HEALTH DISORDER.

Sen­a­tor Alexan­der, why has this not been discussed?

The social, emo­tion­al, and behav­ioral dis­po­si­tions were added to the COMMON CORE, now called Col­lege and Career Ready Stan­dards by the Chief State School Offi­cers, CCSSO, under the cov­er of “CITIZENSHIP.” What is the def­i­n­i­tion for NAEP CITIZENSHIP? Tak­en from Penn­syl­va­nia “Get­ting Inside the EQA Inven­to­ry,” (Source: ED 103 488, Rus­sell, Nolan; 1974)

“A review of lit­er­a­ture revealed that the Nation­al Assess­ment of Edu­ca­tion­al Progress devel­oped nine gen­er­al cit­i­zen­ship objec­tives. The cri­te­ri­on for inclu­sion of any one objec­tive was its rel­a­tive impor­tance to soci­ety as agreed upon by a com­mit­tee of schol­ars and lay people.

“These nation­al objec­tives were used to pro­vide a frame of ref­er­ence for what was to be mea­sured. Objec­tives in the fac­tu­al domain such as (a) know­ing struc­ture of gov­ern­ment and (b) under­stand­ing prob­lems of inter­na­tion­al rela­tions were not con­sid­ered in devel­op­ing the scale.

“To assess cit­i­zen­ship, a behav­ior-ref­er­enced mod­el incor­po­rat­ing ele­ments relat­ed to the psy­cho­log­i­cal notion of thresh­old is used. In ref­er­ence to cit­i­zen­ship, thresh­old refers to that set of con­di­tions nec­es­sary to bring about the desired respons­es. Thus by intro­duc­ing con­di­tions of reward and pun­ish­ment we are able to deter­mine the cut­off lev­els at which the stu­dent will dis­play pos­i­tive behav­ior. In this way it is pos­si­ble to assess not only the stu­dents’ pre­dis­po­si­tion to behave in a man­ner con­sis­tent with respon­si­ble cit­i­zen­ship but also to pro­vide some mea­sure of the inten­si­ty of that pre­dis­po­si­tion across a wide spec­trum of sit­u­a­tions.” (empha­sis mine)

These stan­dards were scored toward “group goals,” “group actions,” and “group efforts as fol­low­ers” (pp 19–21) (empha­sis mine), even though that par­tic­u­lar “pos­i­tive” goal or action might very well be moral­ly wrong.

The def­i­n­i­tion for adapt­ing to change was explained as, “meth­ods of cop­ing with free­dom.”
(Source: Get­ting Inside the EQA Inven­to­ry, Cov­er; ED 103 488, Rus­sell, Nolan; 1974) (empha­sis mine)

“The inven­to­ry pro­vid­ed infor­ma­tion on.….…..(3) Pro­por­tion of the stu­dent body who demon­strat­ed “min­i­mum pos­i­tive atti­tudes.” (Source: Get­ting Inside the EQA Inven­to­ry: Grade 11. Rus­sell, Nolan; 1975, Doc­u­ment Resume; ED 109 199)

NAEP HAS CALLED FOR MEASURING THESE NON-COGNITIVE, 21ST CENTURY SKILLS. (Source: May 2013, http://nagb.org/content/nagb/assets/documents/what-we-do/quarterly-board-meeting-materials/2013–08/tab11-saturday-board-policy-discussion.pdf)

THIS IS COMMON CORE! (It does­n’t mat­ter which name is being used.) The indi­vid­ual man­date fil­ters down to the indi­vid­ual child to force con­for­mi­ty to these stan­dards. This is a pow­er shift away from local con­trol. These non-aca­d­e­m­ic stan­dards were added in the ESEA Waivers. Is the test­ing of atti­tudes, val­ues, beliefs, and dis­po­si­tions through the NAEP in the 12th grade, the piv­otal cri­te­ria for grad­u­a­tion? Is this the gov­ern­ment diplo­ma for col­lege and career readi­ness for stu­dents “with­out the need for reme­di­a­tion?” Has the gov­ern­ment defined that no child will move for­ward with­out this re-edu­ca­tion? How does the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment SCORE ETHICAL JUDGEMENT? HONESTY? INTERPERSONAL SKILLS? Amer­i­can par­ents refuse to have their chil­dren used as guinea pigs with this type of research and maltreatment

PENNSYLVANIA VIOLATED FEDERAL LAW, THE PROTECTION OF PUPIL RIGHTS AMENDMENT, PPRA, IN THE PAST STATE ASSESSMENT, EQA, Edu­ca­tion­al Qual­i­ty Assess­ment, FOR MEASURING ATTITUDES, VALUES, BELIEFS, AND DISPOSITIONS.

ON Octo­ber 22, 2014, for­mer Gov­er­nor Cor­bett with­drew these non-aca­d­e­m­ic con­tro­ver­sial Inter­per­son­al Skills Stan­dards that had re-sur­faced, because the Penn­syl­va­nia Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion was vio­lat­ing fed­er­al law that was enact­ed to pro­tect our children.

This is the expan­sion of men­tal health into the schools through ESEA. The ESEA Flex­i­bil­i­ty Waivers man­date that states imple­ment these non-aca­d­e­m­ic social and emo­tion­al stan­dards. The inter­ven­tions in the ESEA leg­is­la­tion man­date that men­tal health “dis­abil­i­ties” must be iden­ti­fied and reme­di­at­ed in every child to the NAEP group “min­i­mum pos­i­tive atti­tude.”

We must point out that it is ille­gal to re-edu­cate and assess stu­dents in these sen­si­tive areas, and your leg­is­la­tion must pro­vide informed writ­ten parental con­sent for EVERY child in the Unit­ed States. Oth­er­wise, every state depart­ment of edu­ca­tion would be vio­lat­ing fed­er­al law, and in Penn­syl­va­nia, state pol­i­cy. This non-aca­d­e­m­ic men­tal health agen­da is bla­tant in ESEA leg­is­la­tion and there­fore, in fact, it may very well be con­sid­ered child endan­ger­ment for par­ents to know­ing­ly opt their chil­dren into this mal­treat­ment and ille­gal activ­i­ty. Does a hel­met even yet exist that would pro­tect our chil­dren from “mind con­cus­sion?” ESEA leg­is­la­tion vio­lates fed­er­al law.

But yet, no one tes­ti­fied about the expan­sion of men­tal health stan­dards and Med­ic­aid to fund these inter­ven­tions with­in our neigh­bor­hood schools. State bud­gets will be crushed under this debt when SCHOOLS are able to bill Med­ic­aid for ALL THESE TITLE I “AT RISK CHILDREN.” Remem­ber now, that EVERY CHILD will be iden­ti­fied as “at risk.” No one tes­ti­fied about the impact of men­tal health wrap-around ser­vices at school by billing Med­ic­aid, although these ser­vices are man­dat­ed in the ESEA bill.

Sen­a­tor Alexan­der, why has this not been discussed?

The entire affec­tive domain, test­ing and reme­di­at­ing val­ues and dis­po­si­tions, will be cod­i­fied under this ESEA fed­er­al leg­is­la­tion. This is a direct vio­la­tion of the Pro­tec­tion of Pupils Rights Amend­ment, PPRA. The res­o­lu­tion of the Hoge com­plaint, 1990, filed against the Penn­syl­va­nia Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion, EQA, deter­mined that test­ing and scor­ing the atti­tudes, val­ues, beliefs, and dis­po­si­tions of the chil­dren in Penn­syl­va­nia was in vio­la­tion of the PPRA. The use of the test broke the law. It must be not­ed that this ille­gal activ­i­ty was under­hand­ed­ly DIRECTED BY THE NAEP. THE NAEP WANTS THE PSYCHOMETRIC AND DEMOGRAPHIC DATA ON OUR CHILDREN IN THE UNITED STATES. This NAEP CENSUS will include all data (psy­cho­log­i­cal and demo­graph­ic) on our chil­dren, and their fam­i­lies, their teach­ers, prin­ci­pals, and super­in­ten­dents. This is a bla­tant vio­la­tion of pri­va­cy and Civ­il Rights.

Sen­a­tor Alexan­der, why has this not been discussed?

The par­ents in Penn­syl­va­nia can prove that these men­tal health inter­ven­tions are being imple­ment­ed through fed­er­al ESEA Title I and IDEA, Indi­vid­u­als with Dis­abil­i­ties in Edu­ca­tion Act guide­lines. These behav­ioral inter­ven­tions and the data sys­tem to iden­ti­fy and mon­i­tor our chil­dren were exposed in our Press Release to Gov­er­nor Cor­bett last Decem­ber. (Source: http://abcsofdumbdown.blogspot.com/2014/11/pa-citizens-ask-gov-corbett-for-data.html) Par­ents will not let this child mal­treat­ment stand. We demand that the track­ing and traf­fick­ing of per­son­al­ly iden­ti­fi­able psy­cho­log­i­cal data on our chil­dren’s atti­tudes, val­ues, beliefs, and dis­po­si­tions STOP! The exact same word­ing for inter­ven­tions and iden­ti­fy­ing chil­dren through anec­do­tal screen­ings through­out your bill, are the exact words in our Press Release.

Cor­re­spon­dence dat­ed Decem­ber 29, 2014 from for­mer Gov­er­nor Cor­bet­t’s Gen­er­al Coun­sel, says, in effect: we (the Gov­er­nor’s office and the Penn­syl­va­nia Depart­ment of Edu­ca­tion) are col­lect­ing the per­son­al­ly iden­ti­fi­able infor­ma­tion on Penn­syl­va­nia chil­dren and shar­ing it with oth­ers, as per­mit­ted by the recent changes in FERPA, Fam­i­ly Edu­ca­tion Rights in Pri­va­cy Act and IDEA, Indi­vid­u­als with Dis­abil­i­ties Edu­ca­tion Act as follows:

“Please be assured that indi­vid­ual stu­dent data man­aged by PDE is in accor­dance with state and fed­er­al laws, includ­ing The Fam­i­ly Edu­ca­tion­al Rights and Pri­va­cy Act of 1974 (FERPA), 20 U.S.C. 1232g, and it’s imple­ment­ing reg­u­la­tions found at 34 CFR 300.123 and 300.622, and Penn­syl­va­nia statutes, reg­u­la­tions, and poli­cies gov­ern­ing the con­fi­den­tial­i­ty of, and access to, stu­dents’ edu­ca­tion­al records.” (empha­sis mine)

Now, Sen­a­tor Alexan­der, YOU want to CODIFY this data col­lec­tion and these psy­cho­log­i­cal inter­ven­tions into fed­er­al law, exact­ly as had been fore­shad­owed under the ESEA Flex­i­bil­i­ty Waiv­er and Pres­i­dent Oba­ma’s Exec­u­tive Order, EO 12866, that neutered FERPA, REMOVING ALL PROTECTIONS OF PRIVACY. Your bill advo­cates the col­lec­tion of this per­son­al­ly iden­ti­fi­able infor­ma­tion and allows the re-dis­clo­sure of this per­son­al data to 3rd par­ty con­trac­tors — data which con­tin­ues on to be tracked and traf­ficked into the Nation­al Cen­ter of Edu­ca­tion Sta­tis­tics, IES, data collection.

Sen­a­tor Alexan­der, why has this not been discussed?

Has any­one explained this list of items below in the ESEA LEGISLATION or, per­haps some­one can answer, why these inter­ven­tions are there? Please refer to the hun­dreds of pages of “at risk inter­ven­tions” which expand the def­i­n­i­tions of a dis­abil­i­ty. Why does ESEA leg­is­la­tion man­date the re-edu­ca­tion and reme­di­a­tion of our chil­dren’s, includ­ing babies’, atti­tudes, val­ues, beliefs, and dis­po­si­tions in line with the NAEP “trait iden­ti­fi­ca­tions” as described in the Gor­don Com­mis­sion? (Source: http://gordoncommission.org/rsc/pdfs/20958_gordon_c_msn_assmt.pdf)

SENATOR ALEXANDER, you are cre­at­ing finan­cial incen­tives for chil­dren, even babies, to be labeled with these def­i­n­i­tions for a men­tal health dis­or­der — THROUGH THE FEEDBACK CONTROL LOOP ACCORDING TO THE RESPONSIVE/NON-RESPONSIVE inter­ven­tion meth­ods and manip­u­la­tions. This data is entered on their per­ma­nent elec­tron­ic edu­ca­tion file that can take on a life of its own on the Inter­net. (Source: Data-Based Indi­vid­u­al­iza­tion: A Frame­work for Inten­sive Inter­ven­tion; http://intensiveintervention.org/sites/default/files/DBI%20a%20Framework%20for%20Intensive%20Intervention.pdf)

Note: HIPAA pro­tec­tions do not cov­er any edu­ca­tion­al records.

• Pos­i­tive Behav­ioral Inter­ven­tions and Sup­ports, PBIS
• Func­tion­al Behav­ioral Assessments
• Response to Inter­ven­tions, RTI
• Mul­ti-Tiered Sys­tem of Sup­ports, MTSS
• Spe­cial­ized Stu­dent Sup­port, SSS
• Stu­dent Assis­tance Pro­grams, SAP
• Indi­vid­u­als With Dis­abil­i­ties Edu­ca­tion Act, IDEA
• Sec­tion 504 of the Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Act
• Behav­ioral Health Reha­bil­i­ta­tion Services
• Men­tal Health Wrap Around Services
• 21st Cen­tu­ry Com­mu­ni­ty Hub Schools con­tract­ed with out­side men­tal health providers
• Promise Neigh­bor­hoods, Promise Schools, same as 21st Cen­tu­ry Hubs
• NCES Expo­sure of the Nation­al ID- Align­ment of ALL 50 states
• NAEP/NCES data col­lec­tion cre­at­ing the cen­sus- Nation­al ID iden­ti­fy­ing ALL CHILDREN as Title I
• Expo­sure of FER­PA-allow­ing data traf­fick­ing our per­son­al­ly Iden­ti­fi­able information
• Title I funds “fol­low­ing the child”
• Choice funds (Title I) for all pri­vate and reli­gious schools
• Expan­sion of char­ter schools with no elect­ed boards
• Destruc­tion of local neigh­bor­hood schools and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive gov­ern­ment usurp­ing our vote, our voice through an un-elect­ed board, and remov­ing our tax­es from the local lev­el to a region­al invest­ment work­force board, or to the state.

Sen­a­tor Alexan­der, the states’ rights issue has not been dis­cussed at the hear­ings. Title I funds “fol­low the child” going direct­ly to every child, bypass­ing state gov­ern­ment. No one at the pub­lic hear­ings explained that CHOICE, TITLE I FUNDS “FOLLOWING THE CHILD” would be used to destroy the finan­cial base of pub­lic schools which have elect­ed school boards and are fund­ed by local tax dollars.

Fur­ther­more, Sen­a­tor Alexan­der, there are 60 pages in your ESEA leg­is­la­tion that would expand CHARTER SCHOOLS OPERATING WITHOUT BOARDS ELECTED BY THE TAXPAYERS AS THEIR REPRESENTATIVES. THIS IS A SET UP FOR CHARTER SCHOOL TAKEOVER OF ALL EDUCATION. Yet, no one explained HOW these Title I funds “fol­low­ing” a CHOICE, TITLE I CHILD will impact the intru­sion into pri­vate and reli­gious schools, which will be forced into all of the man­dates that come with Com­mon Core imple­men­ta­tion and EVERY CHILD iden­ti­fied and fund­ed through Title I. This has been done behind closed doors and accom­plished very decep­tive­ly in the way ESEA has been fast tracked. THIS ESEA REAUTHORIZATION will NATIONALIZE EDUCATION BYPASSING LOCAL CONTROL AND STATE CONTROL ELIMINATING LOCAL REPRESENTATIVE GOVERNMENT, THE HALLMARK OF A FREE SOCIETY.

Sen­a­tor Alexan­der, there has been no dis­cus­sion of these issues at your hearings.

The truth of this leg­is­la­tion must be revealed. Stop this Reau­tho­riza­tion of ESEA.