The Centers for Disease Control reports that there are 110 million sexually transmitted infections in the United States with with 20 million new ones annually, which translates to a medical cost of $16 billion.
Corbett Puts Brake On Common Core
Corbett Puts Brake On Common Core — Penn Delco School Director Lisa Esler reports that Gov. Tom Corbett has put the brake on the implementation of Common Core — a corporation-conceived national educational curriculum being pushed by Washington.
Good for the Governor.
Mrs. Esler also says that the below resolution will be proposed at the next Penn Delco School Board meeting:
The Penn-Delco School District
Aston, PA 19014
Resolution Opposing Common Core State Standards Initiative
May 2013
Whereas, a solid education of children is the responsibility of the parents, supported by the locally elected Penn Delco School Board based on a strong foundation of accountability and transparency, that is built by open communication about the policies, programs, curriculum and the funding of these education processes; and,
Whereas, the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Initiative is not a state-led initiative, as it is being presented, but is instead a subpar and unproven experimental set of national standards lacking empirical data to support them, that are still in the early stages of development, and local school board members, school leaders, teachers and most importantly parents were not included in the discussion, evaluation and preparation of the Common Core; and,
Whereas, through a collaboration between three non-governmental organizations, National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, both of which are Washington D C based trade associations with zero grant of legislative authority from states to draft national standards. The primary drafters, Achieve, Inc., is a non-profit progressive education group with a political bias based in Washington DC; and,
Whereas, Common Core State Standards Initiative was financed by private groups that stand to profit from the sales of textbooks and testing equipment to support these new experimental standards which by-passed our state legislature and impose these controls over the Pennsylvania Content Standards and Testing; and,
Whereas, Common Core State Standard Initiative binds us to an established copyright over standards, from which we cannot delete, replace or add beyond an additional 15% even if parents, teachers, and the local school board all agree, ignoring academic freedom, teacher autonomy, stifling creativity, innovation, eliminating a laboratory environment & best practices; and,
Whereas, General Educational Provisions Act prohibits federal authority over curriculum and testing; however, the U.S. Department of Education’s Cooperative Agreement confirms Common Core’s test-building and data collection is federally managed, thereby violating Federal Law; and,
Whereas, Common Core State Standards Initiative violates Constitutional and statutory prohibitions, pressuring states to adopt the standards, even before they were written, and tied financial incentives to “Race to the Top”. If States did not adopt the Common Core Standards they faced penalties, and loss of funds; and,
Whereas, the federal government is imposing an unfunded mandate on our state for unproven Common Core instruction, training, and testing platforms without any pledge of financial support from federal, state or local government; and,
Whereas, neither the Pennsylvania Secretary of Education nor the Governor of Pennsylvania are authorized by the Pennsylvania State Constitution to change public education standards and curricula without prior passage of legislation in the Pennsylvania General Assembly whose mandated responsibility in Article III, Section 14 is “to provide for the maintenance and support of a thorough and efficient system of public education to serve the needs of the Commonwealth.”; and,
Whereas, the CCSS requires collection and sharing of massive amounts of personal student and teacher data creating substantial risk of privacy breach; Now Therefore be it
RESOLVED, That The Penn Delco School District does not subscribe to a one size fits all top down approach to education and recognizes that CCSS as an inappropriate overreach of untested, experimental education standards that are not developed from the results based evidence of their efficacy nor on demonstrated best practices;
RESOLVED, that the Penn Delco School District rejects the collection of personal student data for any non-educational purpose without the prior written consent of a parent;
RESOLVED, That the Board of School Directors of Penn Delco School District hereby officially advises the State Board of Education, the Pennsylvania Secretary of Education, the Governor of Pennsylvania, the Senate and House of Representatives’ Education Committees and the Independent Regulatory Review Commission that it opposes the Common Core Standard Initiative.
Corbett Puts Brake On Common Core
Gas Lines Win-Win For All
Gas Lines Win-Win For All — With the Marcellus Shale gas boom occurring some have been moaning about the cost of building mains which has prompted stories in Philadelphia’s “only the government can do good” propaganda sheet, and causing saliva to start dripping from the jaws of the wolves who rule us as they see another chance to spend our money and increase their power.
For instance State Sen. Dominic Pileggi (R-9) is co-sponsoring a bill to require utilities to create plans to extend their gas-distribution
systems. A companion bill would provide $15 million our money to defray the costs of this.
How about the state just stay out of it?
In Tredyffrin Township in Chesco it has been calculated that a neighborhood at a cost of $6,400 per home could bring in a gas main causing a $3,500 annual savings per home to the heating bills.
Reader Tom C notes that a smart local bank confident of undue government interference would be more than willing to solicit loans to each household with an assignment of 75 percent of the savings. The loan would pay off in less than four years with a 8 percent interest rate. Everybody wins and the rest of us don’t have to have our money forcibly taken from us.
Gas Lines Win-Win For All
Tea Partiers Picket IRS In Upper Prov.
Tea Partiers Picket IRS — IRS offices nationwide were picketed today by tea party groups in protest of the Obama Administration use of nation’s powerful tax enforcement agency to punish its political opponents. Here is some of the contingent outside the Delaware County, Pa. office in the Rose Tree Corporate Center at 1400 N. Providence Road, Media, in Upper Providence Township.
Tea Partiers Picket IRS
Gifted Education Hearings Loom In Pa.
Gifted Education Hearings Loom In Pa.— Members of the House voted unanimously, last week, in support of a resolution that calls for a study of gifted education in school districts throughout Pennsylvania, reports State Rep. Jim Cox (R-129)
House Resolution 139 tasks the nonpartisan Legislative Budget and Finance Committee to conduct a comprehensive study of the process for identifying children as gifted; the process for developing and implementing gifted individualized education plans; the programs and services provided to gifted students; the cost of providing such programs and services; and a demographic breakdown of the children who benefit from such programs and services. The resolution directs the committee to report its findings to the House Education Committee this fall.
In addition to House action on gifted education, the speaker of the House this week appointed four House members to the new Special Education Funding Commission, formed as a result of Act 3 of 2013. The speaker appointed Representative Bernie O’Neill (R-Bucks County), Representative Michael Peifer (R-Monroe/Pike/Wayne counties), Representative Mike Sturla (D-Lancaster), and Representative Mark Longietti (D-Mercer County). Additional members of the commission include the majority and minority chairmen of the House and Senate Education committees, four members of the Senate, the secretaries of Education and Budget, and the deputy secretary for elementary and special education.
The commission will hold public hearings this summer to work to develop a new special education funding formula. It has until this fall to recommend a new funding formula to more effectively pay for special education throughout the state.
Gifted Education Hearings Loom In Pa.
Cryptowit
By William W. Lawrence Sr
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Answer to yesterday’s puzzle: Most men, when they think they are thinking, are merely rearranging their prejudices.
Knute Rockne
Common Core Makes Your Child But A Number
The children of Pennsylvania have been assigned unique, irremovable numbers that will track them from pre-k through college and career, activist and educational expert Dr. Peg Luksik told a packed house at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Newtown Square.
The assigning was part of a Common Core plan adopted by the state Board of Education in July 2010. Every teacher has also been assigned a number she said.
“They can track down who’s doing and who’s not. There are repercussions for those that don’t,” she said.
Common Core is the attempt to impose a national education standard, usurping state authority and local control. Mrs. Luksik said that despite insistent claims to the contrary by its proponents it is a federal mandate — she noted the distribution of federal money is tied to its approval — and mandates a curriculum in the fields of English, math, biology, history and civics.
She said the mandates will include teaching population control ethics and unquestioning acceptance of man-made global warming.
“If you could pull your child out of public school, do it now,” she said. “If you are a teacher stay as long as you can in the system and fight it out.”
But she pointedly noted that those in private schools and charter schools and even homeschoolers will be eventually ensnared as well, since the GEDs required by the homeschooled
will be be based on Common Core as will school accreditation and teacher
certification.
She mocked how the new policy was being marketed noting the way its proponents used the word rigorous.
“When you use rigorous over and over again, it’s not accidental.”
She said the program was pushed by corporate titans such as Bill Gates and was designed to create workers rather than thinkers.
She said, however, this rather Orwellian concept can be defeated with a simple resolution passed by the state legislature, and hearings by skeptical committees have already started.
Mrs. Luksik’s talk was sponsored by the Delaware County Patriots. Joanne Yurchak of the group began the night describing how she attended one of those state committee hearings. She said that the Democrats seemed even more hostile to the plan than the conservative Republicans.
Common Core Makes Your Child But A Number
IRS Protest In Media
A protest against the politically oppressive actions of President Obama’s IRS has been scheduled for noon, tomorrow, outside the local IRS office at 1400 N. Providence Road, Media, Pa. 19063 (Upper Providence Township)
IRS Protest In Media
Primary Election Day 2013
Tomorrow, May 21, is primary election day in Pennsylvania and as this is an odd-numbered year just about everything on the ballot will involve local or county races.
Remember, cross-filing is allowed for school board and judicial races so unless you are following things closely you’re probably best off following the sample ballot distributed by party workers in those races or you will wind up with someone whose philosophy is vehemently different than your own on your party’s ballot in November.
In the other races, where cross-filing is not allowed, if you are happy with what your party has been doing, well, follow the sample ballot. If not, though, maybe not.
The Springfield Patch has a summation for local and country races here:
In November, retention elections will be held for State Supreme Court
judges Ronald Castille, a Republican from Philadelphia, and Max Baer, a
Democrat from Allegheny County. Expect to see some noise made about that over the summer.
Spy Who Sketched Me
Spy Who Sketched Me — Photographer Celeste Giuliano, who specializes in pin ups, will be joining sketch artist Dr. Sketchy’s Philly for an exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 7 p.m., June 19 entitled “The Spy Who Sketched Me.”
It’s a “pay as you wish” event.