ROTTEN TO THE (COMMON) CORE

Brought to you by The Communitarian Trap blog at:
http://thecommunitariantrap.blogspot.com/2013/10/rotten-to-common-core.html,
reprinted in full unedited here:

Rotten to the Common Core

by Matt Shipley
Canada Free Press (Bio and Archives)
Used with Permission
Videos and clipart added

Common Core, an education program developed with funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates 

Foundation to improve academic standards in public schools, will fall far short of its stated objective.

Its promoters tout it to be a “state-led effort to establish a single set of clear educational standards 

for English-language arts and mathematics…” to provide teachers, parents and students with a set of 

well defined expectations and “[h]igh standards that are consistent across states…”

Underlying these statements is the proposition public schools are not performing very well or 

completely failing to educate students to a necessary standard.

Based on the fact SAT scores, since 1962, have twice been adjusted downward to artificially depict 

higher scores among students taking the exam but have continued to decline and national literacy 

scores continue to decline as a percentage of the United States population it is difficult to refute 

the dysfunctional public school proposition. Their solution to this very real problem, however, is like 

putting a gangrene infected band aid on a gangrenous open wound.

Common Core is just another Johnny-come-lately, one-size-fits-all national standard that attempts 

to fix a problem created by the original national standard; our public school system.

America’s modern public school system is the manifestation of its founder’s vision, the father of 

American public education, Horace Mann. Horace Mann, a Unitarian Massachusetts school board 

member in the 1840s, wrote twelve annual reports on public education that was to become the 

foundation of every public school in America. Mann [a Freemason] prototyped his “Common Schools” 

in his reports on the Prussian school system.

Prussia was the first European state to institute public schools, from which every other country in 

Europe modeled their public schools. So it is no coincidence Mann modeled his “Common Schools” 

off the ones he observed in Prussia while visiting schools in Europe. Neither is it a coincidence 

Prussia, known for its autocratic and dictatorial society that ultimately unified the other German 

states under its control, would impose an uncompromising uniform standard upon its population.

In his seventh report, Mann ironically claimed, “we do not desire to copy or to study the systems of 

foreign nations, usually so different from our own,” but then he went on to say “surely we may copy 

his [the Prussian school system’s] modes of teaching these elements, without adopting his notions 

of passive obedience to the government[.]” Evidence of Mann’s lack of success in adopting the 

Prussian model without instituting its passive obedience to the government is found in America’s 

modern myopic obedience to the national government.

(YouTube link)

That America has become passively obedient to the national government can be seen throughout the 

20th and the 21st Century in that Americans sit passively by or actively cheer when: Congress passes 

laws violating the Constitution, Presidents exceed their limited authority by issuing orders not 

supported by any law passed by Congress and the Supreme Court, when asked to interpose on behalf 

of we the people, uphold these things through the most ridiculous, convoluted, humanistic and illogical 

arguments a human mind can conjure. One only need compare the grievances listed in the Declaration 

of Independence to similar modern occurrences to see contemporary American society does not have 

the political will of its forefathers.

For America, that was founded on and has celebrated its diversity of ideas, extensive government 

control and standardization of any kind seems counter intuitive. The framers of the Constitution were 

careful to preserve the independence of the States by only delegating finite powers to the national 

government. This allowed the citizens of each State to preserve their cultural diversity and pursue 

their own happiness.

Now, control over students in what and how they learn has been institutionalized in America by Mann 

via public schools. Mann, through his Common School system, was able to undo what so many sacrificed 

in the War of Independence to acquire and the founders carefully guarded in both the Articles of 

Confederation and the Constitution. This centralized control over public school students continues to 

grow and its latest adaptation is the voluntarily imposed Common Core curriculum.

Strips parental oversight of what children should be taught 
Common Core is rotten to the core, because no one can justify its expense by any potential gains in 

scholastic improvement, it strips parental oversight of what children should be taught, and it is a 

one-size-fits-all program that will not serve any child to their maximum potential.

First, according to the Pioneer Institute and the American Principles Project, which conducted a state 

by state comprehensive cost analysis[1] of implementing Common Core, in Pennsylvania alone the extra 

cost of implementation was estimated to be $645 million. As of January 2012, Pennsylvania was set to 

receive only $40 million in Obama’s Race to the Top funds, which were contingent upon adoption of 

Common Core standards, student Longitudinal data collection, and a teacher evaluation program.

 (
(YouTube link) Start at 3:45

Adding this up, for the adoption of a national standard, Pennsylvania might receive up to 6% of the 

extra costs from the government, but will have to foot the bill for over a half a billion dollars on their 

own. None of this makes fiscal sense when considering if Pennsylvania did not adopt any other new 

program their education costs would remain relatively constant.

Second, if parents allow the government or any other entity to dictate how their children must be 

educated or what they must learn, the parents might as well just give their children to the government 

or entity to raise. Even now, parents have limited control over what children are taught in public 

schools and everyone has to pay for public schools whether they have children or not. Common Core 

will add more of the same to an already burdensome tax system through another layer of bureaucracy 

whose standards, if history is any indication, have limited hope of being achieved.

Third, children are not ginger bread men to be cut out of common dough; they are unique individuals 

with unique learning talents, interests and needs. A common standard may fit everyone, but it will not 

fit anyone very well and its results will be as disappointing as the results from the public schools 

system, which the program is intended to fix.

Furthermore, children in America do not belong to any government, community, business, or labor 

consortium. They belong to their parents and to them alone. Parents, therefore, must decide the 

values, morals and information from which their children will most benefit to live in society. To 

abdicate this responsibility is to allow someone else to make decisions that will not always be to the 

benefit of the children or the parents.

Like every other aspect of life, the Bible provides guidance on whose responsibility it is to teach 

children. Any government; national, State, or local that dictates what children must be taught and 

extorts money through taxation to pay for their vision has overstepped the bounds of their biblical 

jurisdiction. Romans 13:3-5 describes the purpose of government: to wield the sword of justice against 

evil doers, but nowhere in the Bible will you find education as one of its functions.

In Proverbs 22:6, one will find the Bible giving responsibility of a child’s education to parents. The Bible 

also states in Proverbs 1:7, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge,” and since public 

schools have completely pushed Christ out of the classroom it is no wonder their academic performance 

has gone with Him.

Mann’s utopian pursuit of standardized universal “free education” was the European totalitarian 

bridgehead into America and it has turned into the coercive failed public school system America has 

today. Like all utopias, the only way to achieve them is through coercion.

This coercion is nearly absent from non-publicly funded schools and these schools most always cost less 

to operate and produce better educational results in nearly every measurable way than their publicly 

funded counterparts. A 1997 study[2] found home schooled children, on the average, outperformed 

their public school counterparts by 30 to 37 percentile points on all subjects. These findings were 

further supported by Dr. Lawrence Rudner who found children that were homeschooled all their school 

aged years had the highest academic achievement.

Since uniformity and top down imposed standards have not worked, the solution to deteriorating 

performance in America’s public schools is simple, return responsibility for education to parents by 

defunding public schools and restoring parents’ right to decide where and how to educate their 

children.

Some may argue defunding public schools would deprive many “under privileged” children of an 

education, but considering what they receive now, it might actually be an improvement. Besides, 

violation of property rights, through taxation for public schools, or any other violation of the rights 

specifically mentioned in the Declaration of Independence is never justified, no matter how noble 

the cause. Additionally, it is an individual’s responsibility to be charitable to the under privileged, 

because when a government does it through taxation it is called theft or extortion, not charity.

Much of the resistance to defunding public schools comes from the fact most people living today, who 

grew up in America, are a product of a public school, have known no other system of education, and 

cannot imagine how another system would work. Those who think this way are oblivious to the fact 

that prior to 1840, all American schools were non-public, biblically based, and produced the founding 

culture, which in turn established the most successful nation in the history of the world. The 

secularized standardization of Common Core, by contrast, is rotten to the core just like the seed of 

“Common Schools” from which it was germinated that produced the culture who voted for the 

politicians America has today. If people were to take the time to compare the results of the two 

systems they too would see for themselves what Mann has done to education.

[1] Pioneer Institute and American Principles Project, National Costs to Aligning States and Localities 

to the Common Core Standards, No 82, February 2012.
[2] Dr. Brian Ray, Strengths of Their Own: Home Schoolers Across America.

Additional Comments: Common Core teaches the ideology of communitarianism, and it is directly 

affiliated with the United Nations. Attempts are going to be made to make Common Core go away, 

but as you will see - it was designed to stay.

The UN Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has a program called “Education for 

All” that includes the same people and same ideas as Common Core. The Global Fund for Education was 

formulated by the UN, “agreed to” by Barack Obama, funded by Bill Gates, and Common Core was 

imposed on the American people through Department of Education (DOE) funding schemes.[3]

It is interesting to note that John Dewey has gotten most of the credit for being the Father of Public 

Education. Perhaps the reason why Horace Mann's contribution isn't as well known is because of the 

connection to Germany.

The article above gives important details on how and why our public school system evolved. Please 

watch the following video, since it will give you the big picture and the end game.


  
(YouTube link)


Additional viewing (Not an endorsement)

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