Sunday, July 17, 2011

A TEA Party view on education reform

This morning I got an from Puma, Puma by Design with a link to a blog emailed to her from The TEA Party Nation. Titled; Florida Sells the Souls of Its Public School Students for $63 Each

by Dr. Rich Swier

As some of you know Puma doesn't mince words, her comment about the article was simple and direct "Aren't our children worth more than this crap"

They are Puma, That;s why you and Sandra fight so hard for them,

The originianal link Puma sent required a membership to read the entire artcle, but I found it also posted on TEA Book, I'll use that link.

Dr. Swier's blog is an indication others have started to see what Sandra and others who have been watching have seen for a long time, Education Reform, in the form of Race To The Top is nothing more than an expensive power grab by Washington, that local tax payers end up paying for.. Unlike readers of Grumpy and Sandra's Grumpy Educators, Dr Swier may not yet realize there's some big money lobbying for the program, and how much the people behind the lobbying effort, Bill Gates and others stand to profit with semi monopolies should RTTT go fully into affect.

From what I've seen and read so far Dr Swier lives in Sarasota Florida, he's a retired Army Lt Colonel with a Doctorate in Education, and a vocal bipartisan critic of government stupidity on all levels who has attracted the attention of some of the far left hate groups.. His credentials seem solid to me

Florida Sells the Souls of Its Public School Students for $63 Each. Dr Rich Swier

Have you heard something about a national education initiative titled: Race to the Top (RTTT)? Well this initiative was created from whole cloth by President Obama’s Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. Just as Obamacare is a federal takeover of our health care system, RTTT is the federal takeover of our public education system.
The U.S. Department of Education created the Race to the Top program under the Stimulus Bill (American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, or ARRA) in early 2009. With a federal grant of $4.35 billion, Arne Duncan had a very large "carrot" to lure the states to enter into a competition for these funds in the name of "education reform".
Henry W. Burke and Donna Garner wrote a column in Education News titled, “The Race to the Top Scheme”. According to Henry and Donna:
“Let’s pose a question. If you wanted to ‘sell’ something that a number of people did not need, how would you do it? You might try setting up a contest where everyone competes for a significant financial prize. After all, Americans love to compete, especially when money goes to the winner.


Here are the contest details: The competitors are strapped for cash; the competitors must give up some of their prized possessions in order to qualify; and the game organizers do not announce all of the rules until the game is well underway. How fair does this sound?”
“This is exactly what Barack Obama and U. S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan have done with Common Core Standards (CCS) and Race to the Top (RTTT),” say Henry and Donna.

You can read the rest here

http://teabook.org/profiles/blogs/florida-sells-the-souls-of-its?id=5555135%3ABlogPost%3A242836&page=1#first_comment

For over a year Sanda has been asking me where the Tea Party was. I'm not sure how many times she's asked "I'sn't keeping local control and fighting expensive expansion of Government what the TEA Party"s supposed to be all about?" At one point I told her she was more TEA Party than the TEA Party seems to be, I couldn't think of any other answer. Her comeback was are maybe they're just all Republicans.

BTW; You'r local legislator might like to see the last line of Dr, Swier's blog, that's what email's for.

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7 comments:

  1. Well done Grumpy. I children are too good for the shennannigans being played by those in Washington, D.C. and the educational system.

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  2. The Feds will always go after those most vulnerable. The only way that would ever change is giving 8 year olds the right to vote. Highly doubt they would have done any worse than the 18-30 year olds.

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  3. Thanks Puma, really appreciate the tip. DC needs to keep out of the Shennannigans, out countries education system was at it's best, before they got heavily involved.. Health Education and Welfare used to be one Cabinet Slot and it probably had less employees than Education has now

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  4. Leaving the name of this poster off this quote since it was part of a comment in response to the letter which I posted on FB.
    "So his point is marginally correct but if the FEA, the School Districts, and the rank and file teachers aren't doing anything serious to counteract this, why in the hell should the tea parties?"

    The full context below, but to me it indicates how misinformed the public is in general on the complexities of ed reform initiatives. Blogs such as Grumpy fill in huge gaps of facts.

    "The moment teachers failed Charlie I wasn't wasting any energy at all standing in front of the tsunami that was SB736 (apologies to Japan). Which, given that I took on Don Gaetz directly on SB6, was a bitter pill to swallow. Just think....Rubio didn't get 50% of the vote, Scott barely beat Sink...what might have happened if the FEA decided not to split the endorsement between Crist and someone with a (D) after his name. So his point is marginally correct but if the FEA, the School Districts, and the rank and file teachers aren't doing anything serious to counteract this, why in the hell should the tea parties?"

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  5. Sandr, it you're talking about Henry, sounds like a case of sour grapes.. or he could be caught in the middle of something internal and being defensive.

    The teachers unions and the media were bashing the TEA Party, I know how that works from the way some treated me on the Orlando Sentinel Education page this year.. they didn't need or want any help from conservaties. Sounds like Henry hit the same wall and gave up.

    The writer I referenced in the respective blogs we posted today never mentioned the TEA Party, he did mention the GOP

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  6. The placement of the blog on a TEA Party publication suggests that Race to the Top concerns may be widening. These federal Ed reform initiatives are complex and not immediately understood. The numbers of people who have had access to the facts are growing, largely due to blogging. You make an important point that Scott signed the bill- he promised he would.

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  7. I had read this Tea Party view on Education Reform and i am impressed by this awesome tea party.

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