Obama's Common Core Is A Combination of Fed'l & United Nations Curriculum - On Steroids

Imagine the likes of Janet Napolitano writing the curriculum for your child's education.  Few people realize this is exactly what has happened under Obama's Race to the Top and Common Core curriculum that establishes international benchmarks. 

Remember Janet Napolitano -  Obama's Secretary of Homeland Security, the official issuing the bulletin warning law officials across the nation to watch for rightwing extremist activity - labeling returning veterans, and citizens opposed to abortion, firearms restriction, illegal immigration,  homosexuality, high taxes, government control, etc.  as possible violent antigovernment groups. 1  Napolitano was also attorney for Anita Hill who trumped up sexual harassment charges against Clarence Thomas in 1991,  hoping to prevent his appointment to the US Supreme Court. 2

A press release states that the centerpiece for Obama's Common Core (Race to the Top) includes "adopting internationally benchmarked education standards."  "Internationally" suggests just what it means - curriculum developed through the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Ten billion dollars in grant money from the stimulus bill and the 2009 budget were made available to states and districts that would implement Obama's reform (buying our curriculum with our taxpayer money). 3

An International Benchmarking Advisory Group was created by three leading education policy organizations  to provide the states a roadmap for implementing international benchmarks standards in the US.  The Advisory Group was co-chaired by then Governor Janet Napolitano. The organizations that created this Advisory Group were the National Governors Association, Council of Chief State School Officers, and Achieve, Inc. 4

The only comprehensive "internationally benchmarked" education standards in existence are those developed by UNESCO and the International Baccalaureate Organization.  Schools incorporating these standards are called IB or IBO schools and are found in 31 countries, 1,439 in the United States and 12 schools (not districts) in Arkansas. 5  UNESCO provided the funding to create the IBO program. 6

 "In one of its first efforts in 1949, the UNESCO textbook for teachers, titled Toward World Understanding,' reads,  'As long as the child breathes the poisoned air of nationalism, education in world-mindedness can produce only rather precarious results. As we have pointed out, it is frequently the family that infects the child with extreme nationalism.'"  7

So what is IBO?   IBO or IB stands for International Baccalaureate Organization.  "School board members in a Minnesota district call it anti-American and anti-Christian.  Critics argue that IBO's multicultural themes promote values that conflict with traditional Judeo-Christian values. One teacher objects to the program because of IBO's endorsement of the Earth Charter that calls for sustainability of the Earth through, among other things, responsible reproduction and wealth distribution.  Many opponents have called it Marxist. Another critic says IBO promotes socialism, disarmament, and moral relativism,  and radical environmentalism. 8

 

Obama's Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, has been a leader in implementing  IBO schools in the nation and in the world. In 2007 Duncan was one of the keynote speakers at the World Conference for heads of IB [International Baccalaureate] World schools.  The title of one of his presentations was "Using IB for Systemic Reform in North America." 9 Duncan is former superintendent of schools in Chicago and was previously the Director of Magnet Schools and Programs before he became superintendent of schools.  Chicago has the highest concentration of IBO schools in the country - 24 IB schools in Chicago. 10 

 

Obama's former controversial White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, now Mayor of Chicago, continues with Duncan's expansion of  IB schools, saying in  Press Releases in 2012 that the Chicago Schools will create 10 new International Baccalaureate (IB) Diploma Programmes in high schools and some wall-to-wall International Baccalaureate (IB) schools.  11

 

IBO was slipped through the Arkansas legislature by allowing IBO courses to substitute  for Advanced Placement (AP) courses in 2005 with not one legislator voting against it. However, in the 2007 session some legislators, who had learned about IBO,  fought back legislation to encourage more IB schools in Arkansas.    At one point one of the magnet schools in Arkansas was in the process of becoming an IBO school.  That too was dropped, at least officially.

 

As a public school teacher in Arkansas I researched education at the state and national level for 30 years. I learned all the buzzwords, the experts, organizations, and  techniques used to deceive the public. But it was only about five years ago that I learned all our US  educational reforms were rooted in the United Nations.  I discovered 142-page booklet that can be found on the web http://www.esdtoolkit.org/  that spells it out. The booklet is entitled, "Education for Sustainable Development Toolkit, Version 2, July 2002." 12

 

Among many other such quotes, the author says, "Chapter 36 of Agenda 21 calls for reorienting education to address sustainable development.  Reorienting education can appear as an insurmountable task that requires reform at every level of education - reform that would require more funding than is currently available in national budgets." 13

 

Despite what proponents say, Common core and Race to the Top curriculum do not consist of rigorous internationally benchmarked academic standards.  But like other educational reforms in the last 30 years,  they are designed to gain government control over education so as to  implement the liberal curriculum.   The names of reforms have changed, but the basic philosophy has not.  The reforms began with Outcome Based Education, then Standards and Accountability, School to Work, NCLB, and now Race to the Top and Common Core.

 

The main difference now is that Obama's Common Core Curriculum is a combination of federal and United Nations curriculum on steroids.   

 

Written by Debbie Pelley

 

For 13 footnotes &  Documentation and other articles on IB and IBO, see this link: http://www.wpaag.org/Commoncore%20-%20Napolitano%20oversaw%20curriculum.htm