Tag Archives: Elementary and Secondary Education Act

Government Money Always Comes With Strings Attached

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On Monday, Fox News posted an article about the latest efforts of the Biden administration to control what your children learn in school.

The article reports:

The Biden administration confirmed to Fox News Digital that it is withholding critical funds for elementary and secondary schools nationwide with hunting or archery programs in their curriculum.

The Department of Education explained in a statement that its funding decisions were based on the plain text interpretation of the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BSCA), which Congress passed and President Biden signed last year after a string of mass shootings. The agency’s interpretation means funding for shooting sport activities earmarked under the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) of 1965 will be blocked across the country.

“This prohibition applies to all ESEA funds,” a Department of Education spokesperson told Fox News Digital. “The prohibition went into effect immediately on June 25, 2022 and applies to all existing and future awards under all ESEA programs, including [21st Century Community Learning Centers]. The Department is administering the bipartisan law as written by Congress.”

Has it occurred to the Biden administration that if you train children in gun safety that they are less likely to misuse guns? The increase in school shootings probably has more to do with the psychological drugs that are being prescribed routinely for school children than it does with hunting classes. I understand that there is such a thing as ADHD that may need to be medicated, but I also understand that there is an awful lot of over-medication going on.

The article concludes:

The ESEA is the primary source of federal aid for elementary and secondary education across the country, according to the Congressional Research Service. The BSCA earmarked an additional $1 billion for educational activities under the ESEA.

“The Biden administration is DEFUNDING school hunting and archery programs. Yes, you read that right — DEFUNDING them,” Rep. Tom Tiffany, R-Wisc., tweeted Friday. “Wisconsin students should not be pawns in Joe Biden’s misguided crusade against America’s sportsmen.”

“Enjoying the outdoors is a wonderful activity and interest in hunting, fishing, camping, and other such activities should be encouraged and cultivated from a young age,” Rep. Doug LaMalfa, R-Calif., said. “Withholding authorized funding is ridiculous.”

Hunting and pro-Second Amendment groups like Safari Club International, National Shooting Sports Foundation, International Order of T. Roosevelt and National Rifle Association also criticized the Education Department.

“This is a direct attack on our outdoor heritage and America’s ability to educate the next generation of sportsmen,” the International Order of T. Roosevelt tweeted.

Government money comes with strings attached that are strong enough to hold up a suspension bridge!

Your Children’s Education Is At Risk

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The Common Core Diva is a fellow blogger who is extremely well informed on what is being done to the education of our children. Because she understands these things much better than I do, I am posting her latest article exactly as she wrote it. This is a critical time. Congress has decided not to listen to the parents of American and is going forward with a bill that will make it impossible to get rid of Common Core. If you care about your children and grandchildren, please read this carefully and take the appropriate action.

Anti CCSS Warriors, our time is upon us! In spite of all that we’ve uncovered that is WRONG with the illegally based education reform; where Common Core is the conductor; we are seeing our federal level officials board the fast tracking train to educational ruin! The train’s name? “Every Student Succeeds Act”, or in other words, it is the re-authorization of the ESEA (Elementary and Secondary Education Act).

The CCSS Machine, as I call it, has loaded this train with all kinds of luggage (fallacies, media spins that purport the ESSA (Every Student Succeeds Act) will restore the states authority, lessen the role of federal overreach, and other such fodder).
In spite of how full of coal this train is, we have seen proof provided by anti CCSS Warriors which has proven the derailment we are headed for is not only massive, but will alter American life as we know it. Do the passengers aboard this train (the federal level officials) seem to notice? Do they appear to care? From the news we have been hearing since just before Thanksgiving, those on board seem to be suffering from tunnel vision, loss of hearing the citizens (or the truth) How do I know this? Look at the short summary of ‘successes’ the U.S. Committee on Education and the Workforce churned out on 11/23/15: http://edworkforce.house.gov/uploadedfiles/joint_esea_conference_framework_short_summary.pdf
The media ‘spin doctor’ job can be seen here: http://edworkforce.house.gov/news/documentsingle.aspx?DocumentID=399849

Truth in American Education had this feature you may want to consider that shows the latest from 11/23/15 as well. http://truthinamericaneducation.com/elementary-and-secondary-education-act/late-stage-draft-of-esea-reauthorization-bill/
The ‘fuel’  for this bill is the language, fellow Warriors. As we have learned by now the CCSS Machine thrives on double speak. They use one term which sounds like it is a great move for education, but when the real truth is uncovered, it is anything but ‘great’! For example, in the language featured on the TAE website, the title “21st Century Schools” can be seen.
Warriors Against Common Core, how many times have you read the documented proof of what those 21st Century Schools are doing to our students?! I have shared with you MANY articles with evidence of how these are CCSS wolves in sheep’s clothing! Yet, the fast tracking train has them on board!!

So, It is Our Time!:

Women on the Wall has challenged us to record a short video message to Congress!
PJNET has set up Twitter rallies for 11/29 and 11/30! Why? The vote is set to be as early as 12/2/15!! Many of the anti CCSS Warriors behind these battle cries have urged for a NO vote to the ESSA. Why? As we have seen with other mammoth sized, rushed bills from D.C., time needs to be taken, vetting needs to happen to the language, and many other legal moves. Why rush the train of education reform? There is everything to lose, America!!

This is one video:

About That Transparency Thing…

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As anyone who regularly reads this blog is aware, I am involved in the fight against Common Core in North Carolina. There is a better plan, the North Carolina Education Plan, that would better suit the students of North Carolina–it will encourage critical thinking and improve both their reading and mathematics skills. Common Core is a one-size-fits-all group of standards that is heavily funded by the Bill Gates Foundation and supported by the political class in Washington, D.C. Bill Gates himself has stated, “It would be great if our education stuff worked, but that we won’t know for probably a decade.”  The father of Common Core is the “No Child Left Behind” Law which moved a large part of education in America under the control of the federal government. Just for the record, the federal government does not have the Constitutional right to control local education. Well, No Child Left Behind has morphed into the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, now before Congress.

On Thursday, Truth In American Education posted an article about the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA).

The article stated:

Because the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (No Child Left Behind) will be the largest piece of federal education legislation Congress will pass in over a decade, Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) should allow the bill to be made publicly available for at least 60 days before the House considers it.

The bill is not scheduled to be made publicly available until November 30th. Thus, a vote should not be scheduled until late January. Currently, it is scheduled for December 2; two days is clearly not sufficient. House members will be forced to vote on a bill they haven’t read.

The American people expected a new style of leadership under Speaker Ryan, not more of the same. If he allows a bill of this magnitude to become law without adequately vetting its merits and faults, it will affirm that the same ills that plagued Congress under Speaker Boehner remain fully intact.

Transparency is obviously an issue here, but there are other issues.

The article further states:

What we have heard, but can’t confirm:

The new bill is hundreds of pages longer than either prior version.

It contains new programs that weren’t in either prior version.

There is a new competitive grant for pre-schools- think Race to the Top for Tots

Very complex language that is unclear. This means the US Depart of Education will have tremendous leeway to interpret it to the advantage of the federal government. Because it has discretion over how to administer the law, unclear language makes it easier for the US Department of Education to justify and make decisions to place requirements on the states through its rule-making authority.

Education needs to be under local control. Admittedly, every student in America needs to learn basic English and Mathematics, but different areas of the country have different educational needs beyond that. Americans are individuals, we need to have an education system that educates individuals. One size does not fit all.

One thing that could really help the federal budget would be to get rid of the Department of Education on the federal level. In 1953, the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare became a cabinet-level agency of the U.S. government. In 1979, Jimmy Carter created the cabinet-level Department of Education. In 1979, the Office of Education had 3,000 employees and an annual budget of $12 billion. When the Department of Education was created, it had an annual budget of $14.2 billion and 17,000 employees. According to the government Budget Office, the U. S. Department of Education currently administers a budget of $67.1 billion in discretionary appropriations. I truly think it is time for them to go away.

I also think it is time for Speaker Paul Ryan to live up to his promises about transparency.

The Questionable Roots of Common Core

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On November 14th, the Cato Institution posted an article about the waivers given in the “No Child Left Behind” program. The waivers were issued very selectively and were used as a means to get states to approve Common Core educational standards.

The article reports:

If the outcry over unilateral executive moves we’ve seen over the last few years remains consistent, Obamacare and immigration are likely to keep sucking up most of Republicans’ attention and the media’s coverage. But just as sweeping have been executive waivers issued from the hated No Child Left Behind Act – really the most recent reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act – that have been instrumental in connecting numerous states to, among other things, the Common Core national curriculum standards. And yesterday, the Education Department issued guidance offering states the chance to obtain waivers – if they do the administration’s bidding, of course – lasting well into the term of the next president: the 2018-19 school year.

These waivers are almost certainly illegal – even a Congressional Research Service report often cited to suggest the opposite says they are unprecedented in scope and, hence, an untested case – and even if they are not deemed technically illegal, the reality is they still amount to the executive department unilaterally making law. NCLB does grant the Secretary of Education the authority to issue waivers from many parts of the Act, but it grants no authority to condition those waivers on states adopting administration-preferred policies. Indeed, as University of South Carolina law professor Derek W. Black writes in a recent analysis of waivers, not only does NCLB not authorize conditional waivers, even if a court were to read any waiver authorization as implicitly authorizing conditions, the actual conditions attached – “college- and career-ready standards,” new teacher evaluations, etc. – fundamentally change the law. In fact the changes, Black notes, are essentially what the administration proposed in its 2010 “blueprint” to reauthorize NCLB. And quite simply, the executive fundamentally changing a law is not constitutional.

The federal government is now taking direct power over what our children learn. That is not only unconstitutional–it is dangerous.