An Alert by Anita Hoge

Nation­al Review Online and Thomas B. Ford­ham Insti­tute are wrong, wrong, wrong on HR 5.

Nation­al Review Online and Ford­ham Insti­tute are total­ly wrong on HR 5. They are call­ing HR 5 as “take back our schools” leg­is­la­tion and that “fed­er­al over­reach in edu­ca­tion might final­ly be com­ing to a close.” Michael Petril­li says HR 5 will end Oba­ma’s “pre­scrip­tive play­book.” (http://nationalreview.com/article/415260/take-back-our-schools-michael-j-petrilli?target=author&tid=901836 )

Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.

Noth­ing could be fur­ther from the truth. HR 5 calls for total con­trol of edu­ca­tion with pri­vate and reli­gious schools being dragged into the mix. (SEN. LAMAR ALEXANDER AND REP. KLINE SELLING OUT YOUR CHILDREN (http://newswithviews.com/Hoge/anita114.htm)

This top-down fed­er­al­ly con­trolled design has been the Obama/Duncan equi­ty plan (includ­ing “choice,” elim­i­nat­ing school boards, and expand­ing char­ter schools), doc­u­ment­ed in a white paper called The Equi­ty and Excel­lence Com­mis­sion, For Each and Every Child, Feb­ru­ary, 2013. (http://www2.ed.gov/about/bdscomm/list/eec/equity-excellence-commission-report.pdf)

Inter­est­ing then to note that Oba­ma has pub­licly threat­ened to veto the Repub­li­can ver­sions of ESEA. We also know this is smoke and mir­rors because the objec­tive is to get con­trol of ALL schools includ­ing pri­vate and reli­gious schools through “choice.” HR 5 will do just that. KLINE is frus­trat­ed because par­ents actu­al­ly have read his cur­rent bill and the grass­roots have been protest­ing this fed­er­al takeover. KLINE is still try­ing to scrape up sup­port and votes.(http://edworkforce.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=398543 )

The Sen­ate Democ­rats’ Reau­tho­riza­tion in 2013, SB 1094, cor­re­sponds to Sen­a­tor Alexan­der’s Reau­tho­riza­tion plan. A grand com­pro­mise is in the mix. Title I porta­bil­i­ty and choice is the great­est obsta­cle for Democ­rats, or that’s how it is being pub­li­cized with Mur­ray and Alexan­der nego­ti­at­ing in the back room to get the Reau­tho­riza­tion of ESEA passed. (http://usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/03/09/key-lawmakers-close-to-deal-on-education-law/24659017/)

It is regret­table that a piece of leg­is­la­tion as big, or big­ger than Oba­macare, is not get­ting the nation­al media atten­tion that it warrants.

Chester Finn and Ford­ham’s Pres­i­dent Michael Petril­li state that HR 5 would, “be the most con­ser­v­a­tive fed­er­al edu­ca­tion move in a quar­ter century.”

Time for the truth. HR 5 actu­al­ly leg­is­lates the “mis­chie­vous, dys­func­tion­al, intru­sive, big-gov­ern­ment fea­tures” that the Oba­ma admin­is­tra­tion put into place with the ille­gal Flex­i­bil­i­ty Waivers, plus more. Repub­li­cans, Nation­al Review Online, and Ford­ham are align­ing them­selves with the Obama/Duncan nation­al­iz­ing edu­ca­tion plan.

Chester Finn states in his article:

More­over, states have always had the option to.… “opt com­plete­ly out of the pro­gram. Any state will­ing to forego its share of fed­er­al edu­ca­tion dol­lars is free to do so—and to exempt itself from all the rules and con­straints that accom­pa­ny those dol­lars.” (http://edexcellence.net/articles/the-conservative-case-for-hr‑5)

A state must give up its sov­er­eign­ty by accept­ing fed­er­al dol­lars and must insert fed­er­al law into state statute. Sign­ing away all state leg­isla­tive juris­dic­tion over edu­ca­tion is a gigan­tic un-Con­sti­tu­tion­al pow­er shift in favor of the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment. This is total fed­er­al encroach­ment that rescinds the Gen­er­al Edu­ca­tion Pro­vi­sions Act, sec. 432, that says the fed­er­al gov­ern­men­t’s can­not direct or super­vise cur­ricu­lum. So Chester Finn is agree­ing with the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment mak­ing legal what is ille­gal by allow­ing the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to have total con­trol of edu­ca­tion, and con­sume all the rights of states. Local school dis­tricts will have to bow to the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment with no recourse on the state lev­el. Wow! What could you be think­ing, Chester Finn?!

“Micro­manag­ing” does­n’t come near to what will hap­pen if HR 5 is passed. Be pre­pared for the fed­er­al total takeover of ALL edu­ca­tion by hand­ing over your chil­dren to the Feds on a sil­ver plat­ter if this leg­is­la­tion is approved, and your state abdi­cates its juris­dic­tion. As the last act before walk­ing the gang plank, states will be strip­ping local school boards of their author­i­ty, as well.

Oth­er glar­ing issues not dis­cussed by Nation­al Review Online and Finn:

• Nei­ther Nation­al Review nor Ford­ham dis­cuss the bas­tardiza­tion of Title I and IDEA, Indi­vid­u­als with Dis­abil­i­ties Edu­ca­tion Act inher­ent in HR 5.
• Nei­ther men­tions inter­ven­tions on the stu­dents, schools, teach­ers, or spe­cial­ized stu­dent instruc­tion­al support.
• They do not men­tion men­tal health stan­dards in the affec­tive domain, or direct stu­dent ser­vices — let alone define the above.

HR 5 DOES NOT shrink the fed­er­al role in edu­ca­tion. HR 5 expands the fed­er­al roll man­dat­ing that every “at-risk” child, which is ALL CHILDREN NOT MEETING COMMON CORE, includ­ing the soft skill stan­dards in the affec­tive domain, must be reme­di­at­ed. Teach­ers will be required to track and code val­ues, atti­tudes, beliefs, and dis­po­si­tions and treat defi­cien­cies there­in with psy­cho­log­i­cal inter­ven­tions from birth to graduation.

HR 5 IS NOT TRANSPARENT. The def­i­n­i­tions of spe­cial­ized stu­dent instruc­tion­al sup­port, direct stu­dent ser­vices, and inter­ven­tions in the social, emo­tion­al, and behav­ioral domain of a stu­dent are cloaked in dou­ble­s­peak under labels like dis­abil­i­ties, relat­ed ser­vices, or reha­bil­i­ta­tion. The dev­il is in the definitions.

HR 5 DOES NOT REDUCE the author­i­ty of the Sec­re­tary of Edu­ca­tion. (PP. 513–525, ‘‘PART D—WAIVERS, ‘‘SEC. 6401. Waivers of Statu­to­ry and Reg­u­la­to­ry Require­ments) Sec. 6401 gives the Sec­re­tary of Edu­ca­tion the author­i­ty to use waivers for state or local edu­ca­tion agen­cies in HR 5, at his convenience.

HR 5 DOES NOT put states, com­mu­ni­ties, par­ents, and teach­ers back in charge. There are mas­sive amounts of man­dates that force com­pli­ance on states and local school dis­tricts under equi­ty, account­abil­i­ty, and treat­ment. It expands the def­i­n­i­tion of at-risk Title I chil­dren to all pri­vate and reli­gious schools and man­dates they have the same equi­table ser­vices and inter­ven­tions (direct stu­dent ser­vices, or choice) which is no choice at all when an ombuds­man over­sees the school.

HR 5 places the Insti­tute for Edu­ca­tion­al Sci­ences and Nation­al Cen­ter for Edu­ca­tion Sta­tis­tics (IES/NCES) as “BIG BROTHER” NATIONAL SCHOOL BOARD for data track­ing and traf­fick­ing using a unique nation­al ID enter­ing all of the per­son­al­ly iden­ti­fi­able infor­ma­tion on our chil­dren through each state lon­gi­tu­di­nal data sys­tem. Nei­ther Nation­al Review nor Finn ever men­tion the FERPA betray­al imple­ment­ed by Oba­ma’s Exec­u­tive Order(12866) to unlock the data to sell our chil­dren’s per­son­al­ly iden­ti­fi­able infor­ma­tion includ­ing psy­cho­log­i­cal pro­files to big busi­ness. NO expla­na­tions. Just approval of HR 5.

So let’s set the record straight. How do Nation­al Review Online and Ford­ham define Con­ser­v­a­tive? NRO, you have turned your back on the truth and made a mock­ery of rep­re­sen­ta­tive government.You have betrayed your con­ser­v­a­tive sub­scribers and par­ents. Good­bye, Nation­al Review Online.

STOP KLINE’S HR 5 and SENATOR ALEXANDER’S REAUTHORIZATION OF ESEA.

For a com­plete list­ing of Ani­ta Hoge’s alerts on this blog, see the post “It Was­n’t US!” and scroll to the bottom.

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