Common Core: Dumbing Down Our Kids to be Good Government Sheeple

Years & years ago, I sipped some of the Kool Aid and bought into the negative view given to people who homeschool their kids. My ex sister in law was going to homeschool her two kids and I thought "Why? They'll be socially stunted by not interacting with other kids all day, making friends and what not, and what makes you think you're a better teacher than a certified public school teacher?". At the time I was married to an elementary teacher with a degree in education and getting a Master's in Literacy. I turned out fine. I was reasonably well-adjusted and intelligent yet was a product of public schools and I guess I thought of homeschooled kids as stunted bumpkins with self-righteous parents.

Now I know better.

A lot of my friends are doing the home school thing, and in truth every home schooled kid I've met the past few years has been exceedingly polite, very well adjusted, socially adept and very good at interacting with adults, and smart as a whip.

But apart from that, I've also become a big fan of homeschooling because the Democrat-controlled teacher unions are more concerned with their paychecks and benefits packages and with churning out barely functioning automatons heavily indoctrinated in Leftist theory, kids who expect free college and wages far above their skill levels, kids who can barely read unless it's to fill out paperwork for government benefits, kids who were taught with insane Common Core Liberal 101 curricula and textbooks re-written to give a Leftist slant to the Constitution and make Conservatives look like racist hate-mongers.

The US Department of Education was started by noted Liberal Failure Jimmy Carter and ever since, billions and billions and billions of dollars have been poured into a bloated bureaucracy that educates no one and has overseen a steady decline in our worldwide educational standing. Last year their budget was about $72 BILLION dollars, and for what?

So they can re-write textbooks to make people like me, responsible gun owners, look like we're batshit cray-cray?


In a textbook approved by Common Core for use by students studying for the Advanced Placement (AP) history exam, the Second Amendment is defined this way: "The Second Amendment: The people have the right to keep and bear arms in a state militia."

Another book that received the Common Core stamp of approval informs students that the Second Amendment “grant[s] citizens the right to bear arms as members of a militia of citizen-soldiers.”  Finally, there is the description of the Second Amendment published in a book approved by Common Core for use in elementary schools. Regarding the Second Amendment, the authors of the book state:

"This amendment states that people have the right to certain weapons, providing that they register them and they have not been in prison."

(Um no. It says :  A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.)

Compare the actual language with the kinder, gentler version above. Notice that "arms" has been changed to "weapons" and that the vital notion of “the right to bear arms” has been lost altogether. And in the other versions, one is led to believe that you can only have weapons if you're in the National Guard, ie: state militia.
See, though, the idea was that an armed citizenry was armed for its own self-protection both from government tyranny within and from foreign invasion without.

But the biggest change isn't what the textbook authors have left out; it is what they added. Nowhere in the original Second Amendment is there any mention of a provision that guns be registered. This is not just a matter of taking liberties with the language of the original document. This is out-and-out perversion.

Not every state requires that firearms be registered. In fact, 44 of them have provisions in their state constitutions that are in principle similar to the Second Amendment. Strangely, it's the states with severe limitations and controls on gun ownership where gun crimes are the most rampant.

Other textbooks are being rewritten to portray the Dear Leader, Barack Hussein Obama, Blessed Be His Name, as some sort of messianic figureand others write his story with anyone opposing him being a racist. This is the typical Liberal Leftist doctrine of playing the race card any time you challenge Obama. If you disagree you're a racist. If you're black and disagree, you're an Uncle Tom.

Good citizens question the government and can spell "litter"

Oh, yes, obey your governmental masters. Screw the individual over the Soviet Kollektiv.

Agree with Saint Barack or you're a racist

And Common Core math is simply incomprehensible. I don't say that from the middle-aged viewpoint of someone who is decades removed from a math classroom. I say it from having no effing idea what this lunacy is about. It's actually okay to get math problems wrong so long as you can explain the thinking process that led you to said wrong answer. What kind of crap is that? Mathematics is a science. An exact science. There's no room for interpretation. Equations equal something. The new ways of coming up with the answer are just over-complicated drivel.

Why do you have to make it more complex?

Why use a picture? It's six. I learned it without boxes and crap, so can your kids.

THERE IS NO SHADED PART you morons

What the hell was wrong with the old way? If it ain't broke...

I solved this without a sentence. My God people, it's simple subtraction.

How many are in each bag you idiots?

A frustrated father posted a subtraction problem from his second-grade son’s math quiz on Facebook recently with a note to the teacher calling it ridiculous.

The problem asks how Jack, a fictional student, miscalculated when he used a number line to find the answer to the subtraction problem 427 – 316. Students are then asked to write a letter to Jack explaining what he did right and what he did wrong.

Critics say the problem takes a simple one-step subtraction problem and turns it into a complex endeavor with a series of unnecessary steps, including counting by 10s and 100s. The father, Jeff Severt, who has a bachelor’s in engineering, has said the problem was particularly difficult for his son, who has autism and attention disorders and trouble with language arts. He said that after spending two frustrating hours going over the earlier pages of his son’s math quiz, he was stumped by the problem himself.

This kid is gonna go far by thinking, not by blindly following.

Because the Democrat-controlled government and the Democrat-controlled teacher unions are looking to create subservient little leeches dependent upon Mother Government for food and housing and free phones and what not in return for votes and union dues. That's why.

Get your kids used to the idea of Obamacare Death Panels by making them be on one.

Yes, teach your kid to be a tree hugger who puts smelts and beetles ahead of people

 

Hailed as a hero by the Left, barely able to speak coherently, unable to read cursive, and calls whites Crackers.

Common Core is Uncommonly Stupid

 

Seriously, if you are able to stay at home and school your kids, I applaud and encourage you. If you can get them out of failing public schools and into something with stringent academic standards, do so. But if you're stuck, like most people,sending your kids to public schools, please stay involved and do your due diligence to keep aware of the rhetoric and propaganda being fed to your kids. Not all public school teachers are progressive socialist liberals owned by the union and the Democrats. Many teachers really do care about teaching kids and preparing them to be productive functioning members of polite society. However the good teachers are outnumbered by the scumbags and are hamstrung by worthless curricula and useless administrators.

The Overeducation of America (by Guest Blogger Paul)

My newest guest blogger returns with a fresh take on going (or not going) to college...
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So this is something that's been bugging me for quite some time now, and people seem to just complain about it instead of facing the reality.

America is over-educating the population. Yes. *OVER* educating.

Some people will see the light immediately. Others? Not so much, so here is where I step in.

Back during the WW2 era and the Baby Boomer generation, the big thing was graduating high school. So many kids dropped out to get jobs and help support the family, and obviously entered the work force immediately. College was something that mainly the wealthy did because they could afford it. Obviously, with the wars, and the high percentage of people who served in the military, the GI Bill enabled many vets to go and get a higher education. This translated into the generation before me and my generation. Parents often said " NO! YOU ARE GOING TO COLLEGE!" And now the late part of my generation (and the generation after) is doing college-level work in HS, and basically post-grad stuff in college.

Woah woah woah woah. Let's back it up.

Back in the day, the Diploma was prestigious, and the Degree was something that was like Biblical.

Then, everyone has a diploma, and its just “Ehhhh, whatever. Degrees are still somewhat important.”

Now, nobody gives a flying f*ck about diplomas, everyone has a degree, and now people are pushing for Masters, and Doctorates.

Do you see the trend?

The American population is simply devaluing these achievements by everyone obtaining them. And the worst part? People who obtain a simple 4 year degree is on average looking at a minimum of becoming $30k in debt. Now let’s say you went out of state or something? That immediately goes to $100k... and a private school like let’s say.... Gustavus Adolphus here in St.Peter, Minnesota… yeah you’re looking at $150k in debt after 4 years. I read one article that said students who attend private universities spend the next 15 years of their life paying off the debt.

Oh, yeah; and they can't find all these jobs they were promised coming out of college, even in a good economy. Why? Because EVERYONE IS JUST AS QUALIFIED.

It's ridiculous. What’s the solution?

Well, employers will always take experience over some fancy degree. If there is a guy who has a proven 10-year track record, and some kid who is fresh out of college, I'm sorry but I'm taking the proven guy because he's been on the battlefield before.

I have a friend who got a job at the electric company. They pay him $12.00 an hour to go to school for training, then he does 15 hours a week as an apprentice. When everything is done he will make $20.00 an hour. Oh yeah; and he won't have debt. The best thing in today's world is to find a vocation, train yourself, and get experience.

I've heard stories of people who turn down $35k a year jobs because they feel they are worth more with their 4 year degree. To me, that’s S-T-U-P-I-D-I-T-Y.

So you may ask "Well, Paul, what are you doing with your life that's so great?"

I have not been to college. I simply graduated high school in the top 10% of my class and have been living on my own ever since. I live in Minneapolis and I absolutely love everything about it. I'm single. I'm 21. I have a great living situation, and quite frankly I can't complain. My bills are paid. Oh yeah, and I don't have tens of thousands of dollars of debt because of the Over-Education system.

I think I'm doing quite alright.

More witty input from Steve:

I’ve said before that college wasn’t worth the money I crapped away on it. Half the people I know who went to college right after high school had no clue what they even wanted to study let alone what career path they wanted to take. So, in the Holy Name Of Being a Well Rounded Student, they spend their first couple years at a cost of several thousand dollars, pissing about exploring majors and taking “required core classes” like Sociology 101 and Psych 101, receiving touchy-feely politically-correct left-wing indoctrination until they figure out what they THINK they wanna do with their lives. A vast preponderance of the people I know with degrees don’t work in the field they studied in.

For entirely too many kids, college is just them pissing away their parents’ money whilst partying and screwing, and making connections to get jobs later on; the degree is just superfluous cake icing. They stay in school for degree level after degree level till they’ve put off the real world for as long as they could milk it and leave with a doctorate in Art Appreciation.

Next thing you know, they become a parasitical flea occupying Wall Street.

wut kollidge lernt me

Whilst flipping through the radio stations in search (vainly) of non-suck entertainment, I came across a commercial advertising this tutoring system designed to prepare your kids to get into the best colleges. It got me to thinking…what makes a college a “good school” or one of “the best schools”?

Seemingly, the main criterion for being a Good School is a hefty price tag.

Last time I checked, a school must be accredited in order to operate and to bestow a degree upon its graduates. And since all these schools receive the same accreditations, in my eyes that makes all of these schools equal. I mean, a BA in Communications from Boston University is the same BA degree that you can get from the College of Charleston. You can have a degree from Harvard Law and still be a shitty lawyer, while a really great attorney could just as easily have a degree from the University of Maine.

Personally, I hated college. I started college at the ripe old age of 24, after loafing for 2 years after a 4-year enlistment in the US Army. I chose to major in Criminal Justice, since I’d been a Military Policeman. To me it made sense; go with what I knew. Little did I realize that I’d be so bored sitting in classes with immature, unworldly 18 year olds who cared for nothing more than partying, cheap beer, and even cheaper dope that I’d come to hate college as a waste of my time and money. I also hated the System, too, for many, many myriad reasons. Aside from learning how to plan out 24-hour patrol coverage by precincts in my Police Management II course, and how to write a brief on a legal precedent in Constitutional Law, my course load was a joke, full of shitty filler classes that they claimed were required, but were really just designed to take my money and fill the university’s coffers. A basic math refresher course, a useless English class on creative written expression that saw me getting graded A+ on FIRST DRAFTS (let alone a finished project), a dry-as-toast Technical Writing course that the professor swore would make us able to write grants to scam money to fund our world travels, and a speech course that turned an entire class against me because I was already adept at public speaking and they could barely form a coherent sentence on paper, let alone memorize it.

So what did I learn in college?

1. All they cared about was whether you paid your bill on time.
2. Unless you were an athlete helping the school make money, you were a second-class citizen.
3. If you were on the “commuter campus” taking a 2-year degree program and not a 4-year money-maker, you were forgotten about.
4. If you lived off-campus and weren’t paying exorbitant rates to live in a concrete-walled dorm cave and using a meal plan to eat shitty cafeteria food, you didn’t matter. Sorry kids, but after 4 years of barracks life and Army chow, there was no way in Hell I was gonna live on campus.
5. My education was obsolete the second I took a final exam. When I tried to sell back an overpriced textbook at the end of the semester and was told that the book was obsolete, I then asked if my education was also obsolete and could I please be refunded my money for the course? That garnered a seriously dirty look from The System.
6. One of my “research” papers fetched an easy 20 bucks for about an hour’s worth of work. Would have been 30 minutes but I had to dumb-down my writing to match the girl who paid me to do it.

How many people do you know actually use their degrees? I know a guy with a degree in business management who has a CDL to drive a fire truck in his volunteer department and operates a robotic machine in a paper mill making toilet paper. Another friend has a degree in electrical engineering and drives a milk truck. Another person I know has a degree in elementary education and has never taught, instead staying home and squirting out babies to avoid working. I knew a girl in the Army with a degree in Political Science who drove trucks all day transporting M-1 Abrams tanks around Germany.

When I was in high school everyone thought that going to college was the end-all, be-all. Well, 20+ years ago, not everyone could afford college and having a higher education was a big deal, and it generally was a boon to getting a higher-paying job. Somehow that all changed about the time I ended high school. Now, so many people have degrees that there’s a huge (and I mean MASSIVE) surplus of recent college grads with degrees that they can’t get jobs in because of the competition for the few jobs available. Fully 25% of Americans have a degree by the time they’re 25, according to some sources. A university degree was a rarity in the United States as recently as the 1940s — only 10 percent of Americans had even gone to college and 75 percent hadn’t even finished high school. And those lucky or privileged enough to attend university actually left school with real knowledge and skills.

Nowadays, you have guys with Masters Degrees working at Wendy’s. Sure, certain professions require a degree, such as being an attorney or a doctor, but again, most people I know with business degrees or ones in English Lit or History are doing nothing even remotely close to what they studied for several many thousands of dollars. Money well-spent, indeed. And I won't even talk about Art History. I’m not saying don’t go to college. But don’t think that college is gonna solve everything or guarantee you a decent job, either. Go for the right reasons, and go with open eyes as to how bad the system is gonna screw you.

President George W. Bush has a history degree from Yale and an MBA from Harvard, and yet, well to listen to him you’d think he dropped out of junior high. Jeffrey Skilling has a degree in applied sciences from Southern Methodist University and during his admissions interview for Harvard Business School, he was asked if he was smart, to which he famously replied, "I'm fucking smart." Skilling earned his MBA from Harvard in 1979, graduating in the top five percent of his class. It seemed to have turned out well, since he is currently doing 24 years for screwing hundreds of his Enron employees out of millions of dollars. Pretty fucking smart, Jeff.

A 2005 study by the U.S. Department of Education showed that only 25% of college graduates were “proficiently literate,” that is, “using printed and written information to function in society, to achieve one’s goals, and to develop one’s knowledge and potential.” So 75% of today’s college graduates are just sitting in certain classes for a certain amount of time, and paying an ass of money for a piece of paper that says they’re smart, when they can barely read & write literate English.

I dropped out of college carrying a 3.67 GPA. That's pretty much an A average. I recently wrote a term paper for a dear friend who needed a hand with a pain in the ass professor, and never having taken the course in question and not having stepped foot in a classroom since about 1995, my paper got my friend an A. Not bad for a rusty old dropout, if you ask me. Some of the smartest people I know and with whom I carry on the most intellectual conversations are also college dropouts. My buddies John and Chris are, like me, college dropouts, and I’d put their intellects up against just about anybody’s.

Einstein sucked at math. Bill Gates is a college dropout and it looks like he kinda did okay for himself. Richard Branson, who owns the rest of the universe that Gates doesn’t, dropped outta high school, not even college. Other notable dropouts include Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, Henry Ford, Steve Jobs, Michael Dell, and a guy named Anton van Leeuwenhoek, a Dutch guy who was the first microbiologist and who discovered little things via his microscopes like bacteria, blood cells, and sperm cells.

It seems I’m in pretty decent company after all.