Joy Reid and MSNBC owe the Palin-Heath family a MAJOR apology.

Joy Reid and MSNBC owe the Palin-Heath family a MAJOR apology.

On the Mr. Ed Show, guest host Joy Reid attacked Governor Palin for having Christmas trees in her photos of Christmas. The basis of the attack was Jeremiah chapter 10. Of course, Reid doesn't consider the entire chapter of Jeremiah or the historical context of the chapter, she merely cherry picks a part of the passage that is useful to her argument. She also ignores other salient Bible verses that give Jeremiah's words meaning.

The attack by Reid is based on photos of Palin's childhood used in a Fox special. Thus, this attack wasn't really on Sarah Palin as much as it was an attack on her parents, the Heaths. Gov. Palin, as a child, did not decide her environment, but her parents did. So Reid is really attacking Gov. Palin's parents, even though it was intended as an attack on Governor Palin herself.

So, let's take a look at the attack.



For reasons that I will not belabor, I am EXTREMELY knowledgeable of this section of Jeremiah.  Joy Reid is wrong. She shows that she did not read the verse herself. She did not research it, and she is speaking as someone not well steeped in the history of the scriptures.  Her error comes from ignorance and a lack of serious study of the scriptures.

Now, notice that Reid uses the NIV (the nearly inspired version) and only uses part of the verse. Here is what Reid claims Jeremiah 10:10 says

"For the practices of the peoples are worthless; they cut a tree out of the forest, and a craftsman shapes it with his chisel. They adorn it with silver and gold; they fasten it with hammer and nails so it will not totter. Like a scare crow in a cucumber field, their idols cannot speak; they must be carried because they cannot walk. Do not fear them; they can do no harm nor can they do any good."

Several issues are salient here.

1) First, the passage is not even Jeremiah 10:10, which just shows that Reid didn't actually find the verse herself in the Bible. She is merely reading a script, and has not done any of the work behind the script.  If she had, she would have known that the passage she read was Jeremiah 10: 3-5. The passage she quotes isn't even Jeremiah 10:10. Jeremiah 10:10 in the NIV states,

"But the LORD is the true God; he is the living God, the eternal King. When he is angry, the earth trembles; the nations cannot endure his wrath."


A wise warning to a nation. It would have been useful had Joy Reid read that passage, but she did not. What she read was 3-5, so she doesn't even know what she is reading.

2) Further note the verse that Reid reads refers to  "shapes it with his chisel." Now, I don't know what Joy Reid does with Christmas trees, but in my humble opinion,  I do not believe that most people shape their Christmas tree with a chisel. That is an activity of a carpenter making something out of the tree.  Chisels are used by carpenters to carve the wood or to debark it.  This is a clear reference to someone making an idol, or furniture, or something from the tree. This is not a reference to a decorated Christmas tree.

3) The passage Joy Reid sites is incomplete. The full passage gives the real meaning of the verse. It begins with verse 2-6, and is a very clear reference to a specific group of people. It was not a reference to Christians, because there were no Christians or Christmas trees at that time. In looking at the complete text, that will become obvious. In the King James version it states,

"2 Thus saith the Lord, Learn not the way of the heathen, and be not dismayed at the signs of heaven; for the heathen are dismayed at them.

3 For the customs of the people are vain: for one cutteth a tree out of the forest, the work of the hands of the workman, with the axe.

4 They deck it with silver and with gold; they fasten it with nails and with hammers, that it move not.

5 They are upright as the palm tree, but speak not: they must needs be borne, because they cannot go. Be not afraid of them; for they cannot do evil, neither also is it in them to do good.

6 Forasmuch as there is none like unto thee, O Lord; thou art great, and thy name is great in might."

A close examination of the passage here is very informative and allows the readers to identify who is being referenced in Jeremiah Chapter 10. It begins with "being dismayed at the signs of the heavens." The reference to signs seems more fitting to astrology, or a civilization that relied on astrology, like perhaps the Babylonians, or the Chaldean people, who were about to lay siege to Jerusalem led by this guy named Nebuchadnezzar. Further, notice that type of tree referenced is a palm tree, so these are people of the middle east, or a place where Palm trees grow. They were people who decorate things carved out of wood with gold and silver, using chisels,  nails, hammers  and metal plating on the item Jeremiah is discussing in this passage. Seriously, I don't know many people who hammer and nail a Christmas tree, or chisel a tree.  This sounds more like making a pagan idol or perhaps an ornate chair.


4) The historical context rules out the Jeremiah referencing Christmas anything, from trees to anything else Christmas related. Christmas is Christ's mass. Recall that Christians were not even identified as such during the life of Christ, and they were called followers of "the Way" during the immediate era after the resurrection and regarded as a sect of Judaism. This is long after Jeremiah was alive. He lives long before Jesus Christ, and long before the time of the Maccabees. Mathew 1:17 confirms that there are 14 generations between Jeremiah and Jesus, so there is no way that Jeremiah is speaking to the Christians in that verse.


5) Reid misapplies the historical context of the verses she reads. With  the correct passage identified and the characteristics of the people identified and historical context has been identified, who is Jeremiah talking about?

The passage tells the reader that the people he is referring to a nation that looked to the stars to their fortunes, made idols out wood, plated them with gold, and that they stood upright like a palm tree. The civilization existed 14 generations before the birth of Christ. Is it possible that Jeremiah is referring to the Babylonian-Chaldean people that were outside the gates of the city of Jerusalem attacking them?

Jeremiah is telling them not to be afraid. Recall that Jeremiah was telling the people of Jerusalem to surrender to them and not be afraid of them, but also not to adopt their habits and customs. Jeremiah was writing inside of Jerusalem, as was another prophet of the same time named Habakkuk. Daniel was also alive at the same time, but Daniel was already in Babylonian captivity.

Notice what it says in Habakkuk 2:19, which is often regarded as a companion verse to this passage in Jeremiah. Habakkuk was the son of a Levite writes in   Habakkuk 2:17-19,

"For the violence of Lebanon shall cover thee, and the spoil of beasts, which made them afraid, because of men's blood, and for the violence of the land, of the city, and of all that dwell therein.

 What profiteth the graven image that the maker thereof hath graven it; the molten image, and a teacher of lies, that the maker of his work trusteth therein, to make dumb idols?

Woe unto him that saith to the wood, Awake; to the dumb stone, Arise, it shall teach! Behold, it is laid over with gold and silver, and there is no breath at all in the midst of it."

Or for those who prefer the NIV,

The violence you have done to Lebanon will overwhelm you,
    and your destruction of animals will terrify you.
For you have shed human blood;
    you have destroyed lands and cities and everyone in them.

18 “Of what value is an idol carved by a craftsman?
    Or an image that teaches lies?
For the one who makes it trusts in his own creation;
    he makes idols that cannot speak.
19 Woe to him who says to wood, ‘Come to life!’
    Or to lifeless stone, ‘Wake up!’
Can it give guidance?
    It is covered with gold and silver;
    there is no breath in it.”

There is further confirmation of this in the book of Daniel. There is a discussion in that book of an incident that involves the failure to bow down to an idol when a dulcimer and a sackbut were played. Some guys get tossed into a furnace for their failure to bow to the idol, and they survive the flames.  The reader can find this in Daniel Chapter 3.

Now, there is a chance that Jeremiah was not referring to the Chaldean people. He could have been referring to the Persians. There is an extra-canonical texts called "Bel and the Dragon" that begins with a discussion of an idol believed to be alive. Maybe Jeremiah was referring to Persians? But it is unlikely, because by the time Daniel is with the Persians, Jeremiah is long in Egypt teaching in Alexandria, if he is alive at all. There doesn't seem to be a correspondence between Daniel and Jeremiah at that point.

Whether Jeremiah was referencing Persians or Chaldean people is not certain. What is certain is that Jeremiah was NOT referencing Christians and Christmas trees.

Going back to the original verse in Jeremiah, it is clear that Jeremiah is warning the Jewish people not to learn the ways of the Chaldean-Babylonian people.  The Chaldean people worshiped the stars and constellations, they made idols and plated them with gold and silver. Jeremiah was saying to the Jewish people not to learn the ways of the pagans while they were in captivity, but keep their Jewish faith.

 The reference by Jeremiah is clearly not referring to Christians since there were no Christians at that time and it predates Christ himself by 14 generations. Further, the tradition of a "Christmas Tree" or a yule tree is from Europe, not Africa or the Middle East. It is unlikely that Jeremiah would have had contact with Norseman and followers of Odin, although I won't say it was impossible.Tales of Tea-Tephi notwithstanding, even those tales place Jeremiah's contact with the Irish long after the capture of Jerusalem and long after the reference was written.

Or perhaps Joy Reid is defending the Anglo centered views of Herbert W. Armstrong in her attack on Palin? Is Reid claiming that Jeremiah is Ollam Fodhla? That is the only way that Reid can claim that Jeremiah was referencing Norseman. But even then, one would expect Jeremiah to reference spruce trees, not palm trees.

 If Jeremiah did encounter Norseman, it was likely to have been long after he established the school of the prophets in Egypt after the remnant of the Jews were in captivity by the Chaldean, or Babylonians. The description of the text and the historical context point to Jeremiah referencing idols of the Chaldean-Babylonian time or of the Persians. It is virtually  impossible for it to have been a reference to Christmas trees unless Reid is advocating the Armstrong historic view. Even then, those would be Yule tide logs, not trees celebrating Christ's mass.

Joy Reid owes Governor Palin a major apology. Even more so, she owes the parents of Governor Palin an apology. In every way, Governor Palin has abides by Ephesians 6: 1-2. Palin, in showing those pictures, was paying homage to her parents. She was honoring them, something that seemed to escape Reid.

The next time Joy Reid wants to attack Christmas, she should read some Oliver Cromwell, Hugh Latimer, or Cotton Mathers. They all had cogent Christian arguments against the celebration of December 25th. But the argument Reid poses is historical wrong and reflects the poor scholarship and research of MSNBC.

The Shrinking Private Sector

Research by Hall and Greene show the private sector shrinking in 41 states relative to 2007. The state in worst shape is Nevada, which has a private sector 13% smaller than 2007. My guess? The DOJ's war on gambling.

Kirk Johnson of the New York Times recently wrote a piece describing Governor Palin’s Alaskan legacy as something that Democrats can like. I find the piece troublesome for it leaves out a tremendous amount of information. I am writing to set that record straight. At the outset, I should note that I am writing through the lens of one of the few people in Alaska whom Parnell might regard as an actual “Frienemy.” The term “dear Doctor” has been applied from time to time, I have been a donor, a supporter, and a critic.  I have been deeply disappointed with Parnell on a variety of issues, particularly his deceptive venture into committing Alaska to the Common Core Initiative while denying he has done so. In fact, the only major policy initiative of Governor Parnell that I have supported is the reform of oil taxes, and even that he bungled the marketing miserably.

However, my point at present is to comment on issues surrounding Johnson’s piece with  information  he fails to  present. He paints a picture of Palin based on a man who was incredibly hateful toward Governor Palin, and that is Andrew Halcro.Andrew Halcro's favorite past time is to besmirch the Governor, and he delights in painting her as a leftist socialist wacko. If I was going to ask ANYONE in Alaska about Sarah Palin, the very last person I would talk to is Andrew. A bit of history here is worth noting to understand the history of that resentment.

Governor Murkowski had been elected in an effort to repel from office that horrible evil Governor Tony Knowles. Knowles was without a doubt the worst Governor and a proto-type for Barack Obama, a buddy of George Kaiser and a devoted socialist. Alaskans were desperate to get this man out of office, and Murkowski had agreed to run with Loren Leman grab the governorship. It was a tacit agreement between the populist, the Christian Conservatives and  the GOP establishment. I remember vividly when the deal was struck, and I know the time and place. Murkowski had been what many of us regarded as a good senator. It was tough to lose him, but Alaskans were desperate beyond desperate.

 Murkowski did some good things as governor, and that is deserving of its own op-ed.  We all had high hopes for him, and Alaskans were grateful for an end of the door to door searches, the evening snatch and grab squads, and the goons that preyed upon the people of Alaska with violence and deceit. Murkowski ended that, and I will be forever grateful for that. As time wore on, it became apparent Governor Murkowski was not perfect. For better or worse, Murkowski never grasped the difference between the U.S. Senate and the Governorship. Nowhere was this more evidenced than the DMV. Wait times for simple activities like a title or a license renewal was not a matter of hours, but days. The Governor bought a jet, and the dividend payment to Alaskans dropped to a pittance. The angst on the street was beyond palpable, perhaps more than that felt against Barack Obama today.

If Tony Knowles tapped the fear of every mother in Alaska to political action against him, Frank Murkowski capture the anger of every man against him. Those permanent fund dividend checks go to pay land taxes and top off the tanks that heat Alaskan homes. They are vital to survival. I began to wonder at the time if his name was actually changed to “G-d Damn Murkowski.”

Those among us searching for a replacement for Governor Murkowski initially looked at Andrew Halcro. He was from Anchorage, which was not regarded as a positive thing in the circles I was traveling at the time. However, he was young, good looking, and successful. He presented well, and had some business experience and a few folks rubbed a few dimes together to see what would come of it. He hired consultants to produce a long “ode to Andrew’s Ego” along with air time. I suppose Andrew’s mother liked it, and certainly it was something I would have put together for one of my sons, but honestly, it became apparent that Andrew was a case of a bloated ego on two long legs.

He was the last thing that Alaska needed. He still is.

Support swung to Governor Palin. She was actually qualified, unlike those who believed they were entitled to office by virtue of genetic material or happenstance of birth location. Wasilla thrived under Governor Palin and it was the only part of the state that was doing so. She put the people before her ego, and talked about the people, not herself. Establishment, populist, and Christians gravitated toward Governor Palin and decided that she was the one to propel into office. Andrew never got over it, and he spent her administration blogging hateful commentaries on her and her family. He was mean, vindictive, and a bundle of hate. By the way, that has not changed, but at least he has moved on with his life since she left office. One thing I know about Andrew Halcro,  he never refuses an opportunity to besmirch the name of the lady from Wasilla.

The piece in the New York Times detracts from her legacy. It attempts to align her with socialists would would fashion Alaska into a Norwegian Socialist Paradise that Tony Knowles attempted to create. If anyone has any doubt that this is so, they need only listen to a speech by Hollis French called, “The Very Best Partner” made on the floor of the Alaska Senate in 2012.

In that speech, Hollis French detailed a plan to turn Alaska into a socialist utopia based on the notion that government should control the inner workings of the oil industry like Norway. It harkened back to the Carter era. He claimed Norway uses oil tax revenue to support the state. The problem is that Norway supports its economy on revenue garnered from an EU monopoly LNG contract with the UK, and oil revenues are a small slice of the matter. In other words, the speech, while nice, is based on false assumptions and a political ideology that is so remote from Palin that it is laughable to associate her with it.

These people are in no way aligned with Governor Palin. To use her as a “human shield” for their “backbone” to defend their socialist utopia is despicable. Hollis French would be a return to the very practices of the Knowles Administration, and in no way resembles anything Governor Palin represents. For Andrew Halcro to perpetuate that myth just shows his ignorance and inability to comprehend anything outside the Anchorage bowl.

It is these Alaskan Democrats like Hollis French that Andrew Halcro also attempts to use to besmirch Palin. He is playing off two sides to his own advantage, or so he thinks.  The Times played into his effort to paint Palin as a socialist and dip her in “Hollis French dung.” He believes it vindicates him and perhaps set himself up to run for Govenor. Halcro is hardly the person I would ask about Palin’s legacy. For Governor Palin’s legacy is not ACES, but the philosophy that ACES enshrined. That is her legacy.  That philosophy was never repealed, nor can it be. I rather doubt it could be understood by an elitist like Halcro. What is really her legacy is far greater than a legislative agenda. The agenda was something of the moment that worked in that part of history. The historical circumstances changed that required the policy to change, but the philosophy of Alaskans owning their resources cannot be repealed.

Her legacy is that the government belongs to the people, and that the people decide what is important. It is the idea that the people own the state government, not the federal government, not the oil company, not the unions, not the Tri-laterals, and not the United Nations. Her legacy is that Alaska is owned by the people of Alaska. It is a rejection of colonialism and the assertion of self-determination.

Her notion was that Alaska was a sovereign state owned by the people.  The people chose to be part of  the United States. It was not a colony to be governed by a distant land or exploited by multinationals and state policy should reflect the right of the people and their assertion of the right of statehood detailed in article 4 of the U.S Constitution. That was the Palin Legacy.

Now, many may think that is not much of a legacy. I differ. Alaska has been over-run in its history by those who seek to rape of her resources and repatriate them to distant lands at the detriment of Alaska. The state is replete with enclaves with weak economic linkages to the rest of Alaska. Just forcing these companies to hire Alaskans is an ordeal, for they would rather bring their own people into the state.  These exploiters who have come under various guises, give no thought to the people on the land, to sustenance, to issues of basic survival for the people of the Arctic region. The Russians didn’t care, corporate miners didn’t care, and the oil companies didn’t care, the commercial fisherman didn’t care, and multinational interests didn’t care. Alaskans always seemed to fighting one faction or another over the rights to their coastal areas, land, minerals and air. What Governor Palin asserted was Alaska’s right to her own resources and their right to manage them.

That is not something that anyone can repeal.

Governor Parnell was right to seek changes to ACES through the legislative process. At the time ACES was crafted and passed, Alaska’s major competitors were run by dictators largely in politically risky regions. These nations had tax rates upward of 80%. Most of the oil fields in the lower 48 were no longer in production. At that time, any tax rate under 70% would keep Alaska competitive because while the environment was harsh, there was political stability. At the time that ACES was passed, I was asked what I thought of it, as an economist, by legislators at the time.  I thought it needed some modifications, but I thought that was something that could be addressed later. I thought “later” would be 2015 or 2020, not 2011.  I since have regretted not speaking out more ferociously on that point, for those modifications might have saved the state some heart ache, but it is what it is. My plate was full with family matters at that time, and I had, and continue to have, the utmost faith in Sarah Palin’s judgment on matters. We seldom disagree, and yet we’ve never spoken a word to each other.

 Economic circumstances changed as did the oil industry and that distant someday came much sooner than any of us anticipated. Oil was discovered in North Dakota. Technology changes made old fields in the lower 48 productive. Alaska’s competitors were no longer Saudi Arabia and OPEC, but North Dakota, Texas, Wyoming, and Pennsylvania. These states have similar political freedoms and risks as Alaska, and have lower tax rates and a less harsh environment.  Nobody in their right mind is going to drill for oil in Alaska’s -40 degrees and pay a 70% tax rate when they can do so in North Dakota above zero degrees most of the year at a 15% tax rate.  For Alaskans to remain competitive with their oil, the rate of return for those who produce had to be competitive. For Alaskans to continue to reap the benefits of their resources this tax change, or lease rate change, was necessary. This is a straightforward application of supply side economics, nothing more. It is not a reversal of populist politics, nor is it a repeal of the Palin legacy.

Unlike the Common Core adoption, the oil tax change was not made by executive order. It was done through the legislative process. There were hearings. There was evidence presented. It was not done in a corner in the dark, but in the full light of day. The hearings were on TV and broadcasted on the internet. There was no secrecy here. Alaskans weighed in, and they did so loudly.

If there was any “failure” on the part of the Palin administration, it was the failure to extend this philosophy to other sectors and fully reclaim Alaska for its citizens. There was hope that Parnell would follow through on this. Sadly, Sean Parnell has proved himself to be more a son of Frank Murkowski than an extension of the Palin agenda. He is the very big government Republican that we threw out with Murkowski. Alaskans had hoped he would use action, not words, to protect the state from federal overreach as he promised. Sadly, he has become an enforcer of federal overreach in action and full of words to deny it or justify it.  If I had to give past Alaskan governors a single word, it would be Hickel-vision, Knowles-evil, Murkowsi-hope, Palin-faith, and Parnell-betrayal. There can be no doubt that a proper populist can beat Parnell, particularly since he is cavorting with that evil Tony Knowles and we all know it. The question is who will it be, and can a man or woman be found to do the job? 

However, that populist replacement cannot be found in the person of Andrew Halcro. Andrew is for Andrew and that is all. In the event that might have changed, I watched him recently on the Education Task Force. It was nothing more than apologetics for the old order and him defending his past legislative service. It was Andrew for Andrew and nothing more.

Sorry, New York Times, but you missed the mark on this one. Palin is no socialist, even if Halcro wants to make that case. Besides, to consider Halcro an Alaskan is absolutely ludicrous. Yes, he has an Alaskan address and yes, his body is here, but his mind in somewhere in Seattle. He married a Planned Parenthood activist. He has never held a gun, or so he claims. He also claims to own a pair of jeans, but no one has seen him in them.He might have gone north of the Alaska range a few times to visit the Chamber of Commerce, but generally trips outside of Anchorage are beneath him.  There is no evidence he has ever fished, hunted, or eaten food that did not come from a grocery store. He is like a military wife condemned to Alaska who hides in the Anchorage bowl for fear that the sap of a tree or some wild flower might touch him. Next time, the Times might want to ask someone who is actually an Alaskan.

A White Grandmother's Snarky View of the AMA Awards

Common Core Makes Parental Choice Legislation Irrelevant in Alaska

There are a lot of Alaskans under the impression that school choice legislation will allow families to avoid the common core. Sadly, these folks are mistaken, and are actually hurting efforts to drive common core out of Alaska. They are in denial of what is happening and need to get their heads out of the Parental Choice issue and look at the Common Core issue as a precursor to Parental Choice legislation.

There are two prominent Senators who have been remarkably silent on the matter. They are busy beating the drums of Parental Choice. Sadly, it is a wasted effort, and perhaps counter productive to their efforts.

At the present time, under Alaska Law, I may send my children to any school I choose. In addition, I can home school. As a home school parent, I can choose to accept funds or not. If I accept funds via enrollment in a correspondence program, I must then take the children for testing. The state signed an agreement with Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC). This is the Common Core test and the tests are based on the Common Core standards publically licensed by CCSSO and the NGA-Best Practices. According to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act Flexibility Waiver (ESEA) for funding from the federal government to Alaska, teacher pay and retention will be based on the SBAC scores. Thus, teachers have an economic interest in ignoring anything that is not common core.

The undecided question is will parental instruction delivery be evaluated via SBAC tests too?  Will the data set that is imposed on the teachers be imposed on parents too?

Under Alaska's law as they exist today, I can take my child to a private school too. I can choose. I don't need a new law for me to make that choice.

The issue in Alaska is that private schools cannot get state funds if they are religious institutions. However, there is nothing to preclude several churches from operating private schools and accept no state funds. The question that has arisen is the use of state funds for private religious schools. Once a school or institution accepts public money, they will be obligated to administer the SBAC test, teach the Common Core, and evaluate teachers with Alaska's new Race Based Annual Measurable Outcomes for pay and retention of teachers.

For example, under the pre-SBAC system, private schools typically gave the Iowa Test of Basic Skills. I am not aware of any private schools that gave the High School Qualifying Examination. Any schools that did accept money, if they became eligible, would then have to give that exam and any other exam mandated by the acceptance of state money.

At the present time, religious schools are not obligated to give the SBAC test, and I suspect most of them will not. Those who homeschool without state money are also not obligated to administer the SBAC test. However, those schools that accept public funds will be so obligated to do so. That means they will be obligated to teach the common core, for that is what will be tested. Assuming that the state also enforces the Annual Measurable Outcomes (AMO) as a condition of accepting funds, private schools would then also be obligated to fire their entire staff if minority student test scores did not met the expected test achievement results.

The SBAC test will have ramification for the curriculum offered by these schools. Some of these schools believe they can teach the common core through religious readings. That is true, this can be done. However, given that the English Language Arts (ELA) have science literacy examples that mandate the teaching of man-made global warming, accepting public funds could be a deal breakers.  I suspect when they see the strings attached, they will opt out of state funds.  But if they do accept funds, they will be no different than the public schools as far as testing and curriculum is concerned.

Thus, the whole matter of parental choice will be irrelevant.

There are data set implications and varieties of other issues, but a valid discussion requires first acknowledging the major obstacle to any choice education is the system recently adopted.   Parental Choice is moot as long as the current standards and assessment are in place. The first step toward parental choice is getting the state out of the SBAC agreement.

One last tidbit is the whole notion of standards in Alaska. Prior to 2012, the state had Grade Level Expectations, but not standards.  There is a difference. Expectations suggest a direction, and a minimal level of achievement, a desired outcome. It suggests a bare minimum, but but does not define the middle ground or the upper limits. In contrast, standards suggest nothing, but require an outcome, and it has with it the force of the state. With standards, everything is the same, and everyone is identical. The upper and lower band are maintained within the strict guidelines of quality control confidence intervals. While this is fine for canned corn, it is a cruel thing to contain the human spirit within prescribed quality control guidelines. How is American Exceptionalism served by these standards?

It is easy to be lulled into thinking, "Oh, I don't accept money, so this doesn't affect me."

Indeed, I was recently on a radio show and followed an Alaskan who has a private school. She does not accept state funding. Parents pay the full freight of education costs. However, she teaches the Common Core because “she follows what the public school does.” While I think that defeats the purpose of the private school, the reality remains that is what she does to keep clients. She believes that parents want the common core. Is it true? I don't think so, and that could be why she is having a hard time getting clients. While I would do things very differently, the reality is what it is. That is the world of the common core, everything is the same for everyone no matter how big or how small.

Those who homeschool without state funds are at risk. The State of Alaska’s shiny new longitudinal database is a model for the rest of the United States.  Alaska Department of Education and Early Development is the fiscal agent on this monolithic grant and the Alaska Commission on Post-Secondary Education runs the database. Indeed, it is a prominent entry on their web page.  So, if your child does not attend school because you homeschool without state dollars, SBAC can come find you because they will see entries for the child in the PFD data. Since the state signed an agreement to comply with their data requests, you can bet that their “P20 Counselors” will be going around getting information on home school child and trying to compel families to provide it.  It is going on now in Wisconsin. How long before this happens in Alaska?

Indeed, if you have a resume on file with Alaska Job Services and don’t have any children, you have a P20 too.  It includes employment data and all sorts of things nobody has any business knowing.  It is reported in disaggregated form.  By disaggregated, I mean at the individual level; not how many people over the age of 40 does what occupation, but specifically who does what. The disaggregation was a requirement of the grant. That data is transmitted to the federal government and they are then allowed to make this data available to anyone they deem appropriate.

For regular people who go to work and have their children in school, what does this mean? It means your child’s teacher could well have access to sensitive data about that child’s adult associations. Your child's teacher will know your political affiliation. Will they be graded more harshly if the teacher notices mom and dad have a voting preference they disagree with? How about a science teacher who finds a child's parents has religious views of which they disapprove?

Thanks, Governor Parnell for that delightful twist on state education policy (not). It is nice to know that the State of Alaska wants to compete in the snooping business and assist the federal government.

 I, for one, am NOT a happy camper about this. There were “Chinese Walls” between these data sets for a reason. To integrate them is an enormous invasion of Alaska’s privacy.  My granddaughter’s teacher should NEVER have access to MY employment data, or even my grades if I was a college student. Yet, if I choose to participate in Alaska’s economy in a monetized way, that information will be available to her teacher, along with my religious preferences and political affiliation. While I am obviously very vocal about my political preferences, it is for me to chose to make them known, not for others to snoop about and discern them. That is wrong, and a far bigger issue that the school choice issue that the Alaska Senate plans to focus on.

As long as the Smarter Balanced Consortium is running the show, and as long as these standards are in place, and as long as this P20 database is available on a disaggregated level, any talk of Parental Choice is irrelevant. All the choices are spam, spam, spam, or spam.

 As long as this data set exists in a disaggregated way, EVERY Alaskan’s privacy is jeopardized. The data set is integral to the implementation of the common core, but Alaska had it in place without the Common Core. It needs to looked at by the legislature. 

Parental Choice does not fix this. Get the common core out standards and SBAC out of the state and put education back in the hands of parents.  Put the Chinese Walls back between the data sets. Stop implementing the Obama Agenda.  Then the discussion on school choice will be meaningful. 

Twelve Facts That Governor Parnell Can't Avoid

August 9, 2013

 Dear Governor Parnell:

 I appreciate your response yesterday to issues raised in my public letter back in June of this year. I know in 2009 that you rejected the Common Core, continuing in the tradition of Governor Palin and the others who rejected the Race To the Top. If I had I thought you supported the Common Core, I would never have lent my time, money, and efforts toward your election in 2010.

That is why I was so shocked that you not only entered the SBAC agreement in April of this year, but allowed the arranged affairs that led to the adoption of the common core. Further, Mike Hanley’s announcement came AFTER the legislature gaveled out for the year. This is key, because the Alaska Constitution, upheld in  Moore vs State of Alaska states that the State Legislature, NOT the Alaska Department of Education and Early Development (AKDEED) and NOT the local school districts that determine education policy in the state of Alaska. A change this vast should have gone to the legislature. Yet, the past three Committee Chairs of Education in the Alaska State House have told me that nothing regarding this came before their committees.


Pulling out documents from 2009 will not save you from culpability in this matter. Your record in education policy since 2010, including the adoption of the Common Core by ASD,  speaks for itself. 

Let these facts be brought to light:

 1) While Commissioner Le Doux is mentioned in the letter you have submitted as evidence of your rejection of the common core in 2009,  you dismissed Le Doux in 2010 and brought Mike Hanley on board as Commissioner of Education. He is the brother of Mark Hanley, Chief Lobbyist for Anadarko Petroleum. Anadarko is a proud sponsor of the common core through the Business Roundtable.

 2) The state of Alaska, either through AK DEED or through UA, did hire Achieve, Inc . in 2010 to facilitate Alaska's acceptance of the Common Core Standards. Achieve put together a list of stakeholders, the teachers and the like with the aim of building support for the Common Core initiative and were consulted in every step of the process. This is detailed in a letter from Patrick Gamble to Arne Duncan.  at the behest of YOUR COMMISSIONER.

Quoting from that correspondence

“…Alaska Department of Education and Early Development Staff coordinated with Achieve, Inc in the initial planning stages, of the standards revision process in 2010. Staff from Achieve reviewed Alaska’s revision plan and provided feedback via phone conversations and teleconferences. Achieve provided critical guidance for consideration of appropriate stakeholders, identifying key decision makers, and process-specific tasks, which Alaska incorporated into the review.”

3) The meeting facilitators Dr. Brian Gong and Dr. Karen Hess, mentioned in the Gamble letter in (2) have a background in psychology. They work for the National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment, Inc (NCIEA) . NCIEA has worked hand in glove with SBAC, as evidenced in New Hampshire In particular, Dr. Karen Hess works closely with Dr. Linda Darling Hammond, the Senior Advisor of SBAC as evidence on page 2 of this document from SBAC.

4) The meetings followed the procedures outlined in the Achieve Implementation document on page 20. The scoring guide from teachers is still in archive form.

5) The Alaska Department of Education’s meeting minutes for December 15-16, 2011 note that the Common Core Standards were the basis of the Alaska standards, and that there would be a publicity campaign around the roll out of those standards to convince Alaskans that these standards were “Alaskan made. “ I refer you to page 3, 4A1 How much money is being spent on this publicity campaign, Governor?

 6) The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSSO) issued memos on the “draft” standards and the “final” standards showing they were quite close to the Common Core. Indeed, it is noted that the literary selections were scrapped and replaced with informational texts, and that math standards were stripped of math table memorization and other features of the Alaska Math Grade Level Expectations, that bore NO RESEMBLANCE to the Common Core before they were morphed on AK DEED’s Server into the Common Core.


7) Scott Norton, Strategic Initiative Director of the CCSSO, wrote on January 22, 2013 that

“…analysis showed that the final Alaska ELA and Math Standards track nearly exactly with the Common Core, employing the same structure and language used in the CCSS, with nearly all the CCSS being used verbatim in the Alaska Standards.”

8) SBAC’s own analysis of Alaska’s Standards states that your Commissioner had to prove that Alaska’s standards were substantially identical to enter the agreement with SBAC. In addition, Shane Vander Hart of Truth in Education also concluded the same thing. There are also numerous blogs by educators in Alaska on the issue, most notably Peak 5390 that detail the word for word alignment of the Common Core standards and Alaska's Standards.

 9) AK DEED ran workshops in Fairbanks on implementing the Common Core. They were by “invitation only.” They were only “scrubbed” after I called your office to inquire why in-service training on the common core (allegedly for Anchorage Teachers according to FNSBSD) was being held in Fairbanks.

 10) It is your signature on the SBAC Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that was placed on the document TWO DAYS after your office assured me that Alaska would never adopt the Common Core.  That MOU REQUIRED the adoption of the Common Core Standards. Calling them "College and Career Ready" is simply using the Race To the Top definition of the Common Core.

11) Carolee Adams, President of the Eagle Forum in New Jersey, detailed the relationship between William Ayers (of terrorist fame) and SBAC. As someone who follows the Eagle Forum, I would be quite surprised if you were not aware of the numerous statements by that organization on the common core. Start at the 4:27 mark below

   

You should have been well aware that Linda Darling Hammond is best friends with William Ayers, and is a radical in a way that Mr. Ayers could only aspire to achieve. She is the Senior Advisor and “mojo” of SBAC , Next Gen, and CSCOPE. Earlier versions of Alaska's standards are called  Next Generation standards, a specific term used for the NGSS standards that teach man-made global warming as fact and adopted by SBAC.


12) It was your executive order that allowed the PFD Data to be integrated into the P-20 Database. It was your administration that contributed $1.6 million of the state of Alaska’s money to the development of the P-20 database through the Alaska Commission on Post-Secondary Education.This P-20 database is a key component of the common core, and includes 400 points of data on things from bus stop times, parent’s religion and voting patterns, and a dearth of other intrusive details.


 Governor Parnell, you own this. I am NOT in the habit of defending Mark Begich. Indeed, he can assure you that I excoriate him at every opportunity.  He was not even smart enough to have a valid question for General Hamm at his confirmation hearings for AFRICOM.  Yet, you expect me to believe that Begich is responsible for the implementation of the common core in Alaska? Based on a letter from Mark Begich in 2009?


Please indicate where Mark Begich’s signature is on these documents, for I cannot find them. Of the Alaska officials, I only see your signature and Mike Hanley’s signature, Patrick Gamble's signature, and a few other minor officials.


I also noticed  in Patrick Gamble's letter that the University of Alaska’s Center for Education Policy Research is validating the results for the Common Core in Alaska. I noticed that the Gates Foundation has contributed heavily to the University of Alaska Anchorage. Given the enormous financial investment of the Gates foundation in the Common Core, isn't the university’s objectivity compromised by these wonderful donations? Isn't this a violation of academic integrity and a bit of quid pro quo?


This happened on your watch, Governor Parnell.  I warned repeatedly about the past education debacle in 2005 in the waning days of Governor Murkowski, and yet, I find that the very man responsible for that debacle is the 2nd in charge in AK DEED.

The Common Core books are arriving at the schools, and already there are community meetings regarding them. I am getting quite a few calls.

What will you do Governor? How will you take this back?  Were you going to let the local school boards and teachers and legislators bear the brunt of the backlash? If so, what was the point of electing a Republican majority?  So that the party could wear this?  I think not.

As every school child knows, "He who denied it, applied it." You need to clean house in a serious way, Governor.


 Respectfully,


 Barbara Haney, Ph.D.

PS: The letter from Patrick Gamble was part of the ESEA Flexibility document. Senator Murkowski took credit for securing these funds for Alaska on her Facebook page. That is something a wee beyond Mark Begich's senatorial rank.

So Can You Do The Same For Alaska's Children?

Thank you Governor Parnell for nullifying the Federal intrusion into gun laws and indefinite detention. Can you please do it for Alaska's children too?  The data mining requirements of these tests are not trivial. SBAC wants broadband to COLLECT data, not to deliver content.

Please Governor Parnell, you signed Alaska into Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. You still have time to pull out of this. Please Governor, save Alaska's children from Federal over-reach.

Reject the Common Core Assessments. 

Far More Expensive Than Previously Posted

In a prior post, I pointed out that the internet and other technology requirements for participation in the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) would lead to significant cost increases for the State of Alaska. I had previously estimated this would lead, at the very least, a doubling of Alaska's Education budget. That estimate was based on the data requirements for the older broadband requirements of SBAC, and not the newer requirements that they will be issuing.

These new requirements are quite significant. I spent a bit of time researching them.

Andrew Dyrli Hermeling, expects the data requirements to be 1 Gig mbps per 1,000 students by 2016, and that is beyond the NBPs plan. The new requirements were discussed in an article published by the State education Technology Association.  Schools have three years to meet them.

This is huge. This is technology that is beyond the National Broadband Policy (NBPs). Alaska is struggling to implement the 2010 policy, and that cost would be enormous. The technology that Hermeling intends to impose on Alaska is beyond what Anchorage has available. In fact, it is only available in 11 places in the United States, and none of them are anywhere near Alaska. In places like Morristown, TN, this service is currently offered for $849.00 a month to residential subscribers.

Goodness only knows how much this would cost in Alaska.

Alaska can have the Common Core without SBAC. It can form a consortium with the University of Alaska Fairbanks or it can tell the Federal Government to fly a kite.  Really, expecting rural communities to invests their money on high speed data lines rather than meeting other needs is ridiculous.

I am not against Broadband or high speed internet. But I think Alaskans should have a conversation about what is in the best interest of their children. I think there needs to be honest and open discussion about what the state is doing.  This is something Alaskans should be deciding, not a distant group of technical experts who think they know what is best for Alaskans.

My prior estimates were very low. Our state is dipping into the reserve fund. Where is the money for this madness going to come from? Why is it that Mike Hanley gets to decide the matters, rather than Alaskans?

Call the Governor TODAY. Get Alaska out of SBAC. You can also tweet Governor Parnell at @GovSeanParnell

Note: an earlier draft on this topic is at  http://stopalaskacommoncore.com/?p=93 

Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortia's Broadband Requirements Could Double Alaska's Education Budget

http://www.fcc.gov/maps/broadband-availability-alaska

Alaska's decision to enter into an agreement with Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium is probably one of the most disastrous fiscal decisions ever made by any Alaskan Governor. A seemingly innocent signature to implement a set of standards, curricula, and tests, has set rural Alaskan education in the middle of the costly and contentious battle over our National Broadband Policy (NBPs). The reasons is that the "consortia" that Alaska signed on with, Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), has data needs that are on par with the broadband requirements of the NBPs. In essence, this requires that each school site have broadband access.  While "broadband" is often used rather loosely, the data requirements for meeting the broadband criteria in the NBPs is fairly close to what SBAC requires. So this map is a fairly good approximation of the ability of Alaskan communities to meet this requirement.

Now, someone from AK DEED will say that I am making up things and that this "test" does not require broadband. Well, then why does their tool for assessing technological readiness for K-12 say "Broadband Assessment Tool?" Consider the recent article written by  Andrew Dyrli Hermeling, the technology guru at SBAC to  State Educational Technology Directors Association (SETDA).  In that article, he stated that 100 mbps per 1,000 students was the broadband standard schools needed. He would know, since he works with states on bandwidth issues for SBAC.

National Broadband Policy's requirements in 2010 are close to what SBAC's computers require. The NBPs has sharper definitions on data in and out, but for all practical purposes, they are the same. You don't have to take my word for it, search for yourself.

Therefore,  the map above can be viewed as a good indicator of Alaska's ability to meet the bandwidth requirements of SBAC. The dark green dots meet the NBPS criteria for broadband, which is not far off from what SBAC indicates is needed.  It would appear that broadband is available in small region in South Central Alaska. I assume that is Anchorage. If you enlarge the map, it looks like there is a dark green dot in the central portion, and going out on a limb, as say that is Fairbanks.The light green areas did not have it available, but it was technically possible to hook those communities up in 2010 with "minimal investment." It may be some of those areas now have something close to broadband today.  The tan areas did not have any access. The white areas are listed as unpopulated by NBPS, but that is probably not what Alaskans regard as unpopulated.

 The map above is the most recent map (2010) I could find on broadband availability in Alaska. But it is now 2013. There have been some minor gains in broadband availability along the coast of Alaska based on grants given by the Federal Government in 2011. While there have been manpower reports filed for the number of jobs created, there does not seem to be any indication of how operational these locations are; but let's be gracious and say they are operating near the standard.

That leaves considering the "other areas." Quite a bit, but certainly not all of this area would fall under tribal considerations. It would seem there is quite a bit of discussion about the NBPs in those tribal areas. There is a somewhat contentious appeal to a decision made by the Federal Communications Commission regarding Annette Island that was filed in May of 2013 which stated 500 unserved census blocks were being excluded from broadband access considerations. I may not understand all the technical terms or legal issues, but I suspect that 500 unserved census blocks excluded means that 500 communities will not have access to broadband capabilities in the near future. It looks like there are plenty of filings on the matter. It doesn't appear to be something readily resolved.


That has serious fiscal ramifications for Alaska's ability to meet the requirements of the SBAC.

In addressing the NBPS, ACS gave a presentation on the costs of meeting broadband requirements in rural Alaska in 2011. While market forces are a fluid in some markets, in large scale utilities like cable and internet tend to have large fixed costs associated with them. ACS, on page 10 of their presentation,  indicated that satellite backhaul is the most cost effective method for delivering broadband access in rural Alaska. (This is 4 G on your cell phone). Of course, the FCC doesn't want satellite backhaul, they want fiber optic cable. Further, satellite backhaul also tends to have high operating costs in Alaska due to weather, geography, and a variety of other matters. According to ACS, it costs 100 thousand per month per site to operate these sites.

Now, let's keep in mind that this test isn't one month of broadband. Commissioner Hanley clearly intents to have both formative (intermittent) and summative (end of the year) assessments for Alaska's students. This is not a one time end-of-year test, despite what Hanley claims. His own presentation to educators on June 7, 2013 indicated this.  As evidenced from his presentation notes, Hanley also fully intends to use the curriculum, despite whatever claims he is making verbally that only the test will be used. That means 9 months of broadband, or $900,000 per school site.

This isn't like the Test of Adult Basic Education (TABE) where the test is stored on a local disk or hard drive and the results are transmitted. This is not like that at all. If anyone in Alaska would know that, it is me. I worked on the REAL grant and am quite familiar with the TABE. This is not like that at all.  This is delivered on-line; the test responds to responses of the student.  This is not a static test like the TABE. Each time the test is offered it is unique and no two students have the same test.

At $900,000 per site across 20 schools, that is $18,000,000. That is just for primarily native schools; we are not even discussing the lack of broadband along the "road" communities, (i.e. communities that have access to the road system), which are the tan areas on the map. This isn't even discussing the green areas on the map. Further, recall that the Molly Hooch ensures that each village has its own school if there are students. So if there are a few or 20 children in the village, there must be a school, the broadband has to be available.

Realistically, there are 50 school districts or Educational Service Areas (ESAs) in the parlance of the Race To The Top language. Two of these ESAs have broadband, but not uniformly. So, just because an ESA has a school located where there is broadband, doesn't mean the whole district has it.  If only one site in each district has to have broadband, we can assume that the kids can be bused into broadband labs for the purposes of tests. But that isn't very satisfactory.  Still, our $18,000,000 cited above becomes $45,000,000. Certainly, Yukon-Kukok has several sites alone, and that is one district.  For our purposes here of getting an informal estimate, I've assumed they are one site. That means, my estimate is quite low.

Alaska DEED's budget has been around $1 billion. The entire number of "sites" have not been accounted yet, and the cost of just providing the broadband is almost half of DEED's budget. In fact, there has been no personnel, no books, no school lunches, no building maintenance, and no other function of DEED except providing broadband.  We haven't bought a computer with 1 gig of processing, the Microsoft 7 operating platform (also required by SBAC), paid a teacher, trained a teacher, included school lunches, funded OCS, or heated the classrooms yet. Even if some benefactor, like Bill Gates, provided all the satellite backhaul equipment, computers, and software for free, the operating cost of the backhaul rates won't change. Those are recurring operating costs, not construction costs. I am not even going to try to guess the installation of satellite backhaul, electricity, and wiring. In my estimate, I've assumed the "good fairy" or some do-gooder is giving it to the state, that electricity is free,  and it is being installed by volunteers, which are all very unlikely assumption.

Don't forget, that Andrew Dyrli Hermeling, expects the data requirements to be 1 Gig mbps per 1,000 students by 2016, and that is beyond the NBPs plan. So, even if some schools meet the current requirement, none of them within another three years.


Indeed, this is sounding suspiciously similar to what  Ethan Berkowitz proposed in his bid for the Governorship in 2010.  I don't recall him winning.

Is the state of Alaska going to double DEED's budget for these new operating costs?

Now, who is going to pay for this broadband? Is it expected that the local communities pay for it, or is the state paying for this? It seems to me that if local communities are expected to pay for it, then they should have had a voice in deciding the matter.  There can be no doubt that if each community is expected to pay for the cost of broadband, then they will have to raise the one tax most communities operate on: property taxes. During the 2010 election, I estimated that property taxes would have to increase 25% to pay for the Berkowitz proposal; however, I suppose this could also be met through a reduction in other services like emergency services, closing recreational facilities, or curtailing other governmental functions.

That doesn't seem like a good solution. Nor does this plan look anything like what a fiscally sound governor would do in the face of declining oil tax revenue.

But never fear; the good people at SBAC have an Architecture Review Board! I'm sure that will generate a hefty consulting fee for the state to find out what I am telling them for free here. Too bad Commissioner Hanley rejected the Pioneer Institute's findings out of hand; he would have seen that fairly urban areas in California have been reeling from the cost of SBAC's requirements and the flight of property owners in California to escape taxes escalating so high that Bill Maher has said that liberals could lose him.

I usually forecast numbers, not people. The math on this couldn't be more clear. I can see a lot of borough assembly meetings with people furious and furious assemblymen blaming property tax increases on Governor Parnell and Commissioner Hanley. I see a lot of angry people of all racial, ethnic, and cultural backgrounds and income classes.

You thought this was about taxes and oil? Ha! Nope, this is about expenditures driven to meet Barack Obama's Educational dreams.

The governor recently said he might dip into the Constitutional Budget Reserve, and even the Alaska Permanent Fund's earnings reserve to meet huge budget shortfalls next year.

Read more here: http://www.adn.com/2013/06/13/2937258/compass-sign-up-to-repeal-th-oil.html#storylink=cpy

I see an end Permanent Fund Dividend program and an income tax in if the above statement is a trend.  

And there hasn't even been a discussion yet of the curriculum content and the meanings of terms like "adaptive technology."  They don't mean what you think they mean.  They mean what the American Institute of Research says they mean.

The optics on this do not look good for Governor Parnell. He should withdraw from SBAC and find a different path in the Race To The Top. Stand-up like Governor Perry and tell the federal government no. Channel your inner Irishman and tell them to bugger off.   

The Parnell Deception: Education Standards & Policy

There are people under the impression that Alaska's Common Core Standards are not the same as the other states, or that it is some "Uniquely Alaska College and Career Ready" set of standards. There is tremendous effort on the part of a few people to distance the Alaska Common Core Standards (College, Career, and Cultural Standards) from the Federal ones listed in the Race To The Top (RTTT). The definition of College and Career Ready standards is, according to the Federal Government, the Common Core.

 Was this the only path Alaska could have taken? No. The state could have taken different paths. Alaska could have went to court and fought this on constitutional grounds. It didn't. Why? Governor Parnell could have stood with Governor Perry who outlawed the Common Core and CScope in his state. Parnell had the legislature to do it, too.  He could have stood strong with the Governor of Michigan who defunded the Common Core, with Nikki Haley who suspended Common Core, and with the Lt. Governor of North Carolina who also suspended implementation. It could have found company in Indiana, Alabama, and Utah as being independent of the consortia.  Sadly, he did not.

I guess federal overreach is acceptable in education, but not in health care and guns.

Alternatively, Alaska could have formed standards and a consortium in the state with the University of Alaska system instead of using Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC).  Why didn't they do that? Good question, one that should be asked of Commissioner Hanley and the University of Alaska Board of Regents. Actually, just cut to the chase and ask the Governor.

Of course, it would also be good to ask why the Alaska Administrator's Coaching Project (AACP) and the other teacher mentor projects are being conducted via the University of Maine rather than the University of Alaska? Maybe it is because West ED, in Massachusetts, who has the grant for these coaching projects, wants to keep the program under the radar? The same West ED that implements these "College and Career Ready Standards" for SBAC is the same one that guides the operation of AACP, that "coaches" administrators into these programs. Under the Obama Administration the AACP program has been aimed at mentoring administrators through Common Core implementation. Keeping the credits in Maine keeps the program on the "down-low" & has decidedly kept the project out of the public purview. It has certainly kept most of the money flowing to other institutions of higher education out of Alaska rather than  the University of Alaska System. While forming an in-state consortium would have also kept the control in the state, it would have cut West Ed and some of the other "consultants" out of the money, wouldn't it? Thousands of dollars would be flowing to the University of Alaska rather than to these consultants....

Ah, but  I digress; back to the actual standards that Alaska adopted.

The reason the Commissioner is shunning the use of the term "Common Core" and using the "College and Career Ready" language of the Race to the Top is because he is hiding what he is doing. Maybe he is ashamed that he did it? Maybe he afraid of the backlash? Maybe he thinks Alaskans are ignorant? Certainly the Alaska Department of Education is going way out of its way to point out that these are "Alaska's" standards, and that "We own them."

 Hogwash. We could have if it had been done with the University of Alaska; but not by joining the consortia.

Alaska didn't want to call their standards "Common Core" but wanted to call them "College and Career Ready" and claim them as their own standards rather than the federal ones. It was the "appearance" of not having the Federal Common Core standards, but still having them.

It also means that the elusive 200 Alaskans who allegedly wrote these standards probably had tea and crumpets as they read the Federal Standards. Or was it wine and cheese? Or did they meet at all?  How much tax payer money was spent on that?

In joining the consortia, each state can vary the content standards as much as 15%, but no more than that. This isn't something I "made up" in my wee little brain, this is part of the RTTT. In the Ed Week article, Eddie Arnold, a spokesman for SBAC said that any state seeking to enter by calling their standards College and Career Ready

"must demonstrate that its own standards are "substantially identical to standards adopted by all states across the consortium and that any additional content standards do not comprise more than 15 percent of the state's total standards for that content area."

Therefore, for the state to argue that their standards are not the federal standards is an exercise in futility, and an insult to the intellectual capabilities of every Alaskan.


Governor Parnell, at the urging of Commissioner Hanley or on his own, entered Alaska into SBAC. They could not admit Alaska into the consortia unless they adopted standards identical to the  Common Core Standards from RTTT. The SBAC has a Memorandum of Understanding with US DOE; it has governing rules based on its own Memorandum Of Understanding (aka contract) with US DOE. These rules can be found here.

These are the rules that bind all members of SBAC. If you read the document, look at #2 under A  at the top of the page.4. Adopting the Federal Common Core from the Race to the Top is a Precondition of entering the Smarter Balanced Consortium. For those with a mobile device, here is the screenshot

 Even worse, the Ed Week article clearly states that the state had been seeking membership in one of these consortia for over one year. As it turns out, Alaska originally tried to join PARCC. Why that did not materialize is unclear. What is clear is that the Parnell administration has been shopping consortia membership for over a year. In an article in Ed Week  of April 23, 2013 details Alaska's acceptance into SBAC and their history in consortia shopping. As the article states,

The other consortium, PARCC, which Alaska had also approached last year about potential membership, conveyed to the state that its Memorandum of Understanding requires that a state adopt a "common set of college and career ready standards," according to PARCC spokesman Chad Colby.

Given all the PARCC in-service grants that flew out the legislative door from the economic development committee under the guise of STEM, I am not surprised. I had thought to write that off as a product of the bi-partisan majority, but not any more. This is Parnell's and he owns it.

What surprises me is that Governor Parnell's people lied. This is a man who ran on a faith and freedom style campaign. He lied, or he instructed his people to do so, I'm not sure which. Rather than stating a position and defending it on its merits, he lied.  They had every intent to enter into the RTTT consortia.

What is even more sad, is the insistence by Dr. McCauley, Commissioner Hanley, and Rep. Tammie Wilson that these are "Alaska's" standards that were written by 200 Alaskans. They may have been copied, but they are identical to the federal standards. It is factually false to continue the claim that these are uniquely Alaskan Standards. They had to prove they were identical to the Federal Standards to get into SBAC. Thus any creative component here is from the spin, not the standards.

Commissioner Hanley even went so far to imply that he was part of the team that wrote the common core at the meeting in Wasilla on June 2, 2013. There were only 5 writers of the Federal Common Core.  The prime author is a man named David Coleman.   He recently married, and so when you watch him talk, he is playing with his ring in a very distracted way in this clip. (He has remarkable wedding pictures, and I encourage folks to google them).  Or you can go to David Coleman's entire 50 minute talk on May 31 where he describes writing the standards on the back of a napkin, or you can enjoy the significantly shorter clip below.

              .  

 Or you can read this analysis of the Alaska Standards in Math and ELA compared to the Federal Standards at the Truth in American Education website. The standards are word for word the same, with very little variation. The writer of that blog also provides links to the Alaska and Federal  standards.  You can check their similarity for yourself.  Just be advised, that the State of Alaska hit the landscape button on their standards before it went into an Adobe file. This was probably to make it more difficult to compare the standards.

It is bad enough Governor Parnell adopted these standards. But to listen to DEED knowingly say factually false information and to mislead the State House legislature is despicable. It is an insult to Alaska. To knowingly repeat factually false talking points is bad enough, but to claim you own them just makes you look like a fool and insults the intellect of honest, hardworking Alaskans.

Gov. Sarah Palin had it right on the Race to the Top.

What else is Parnell covering up?

A shorter version of this blog is at http://www.teapartynation.com/profiles/blogs/gov-sean-parnell-deception-in-education-policy-1?xg_source=msg_appr_blogpost

An Open Letter to Governor Parnell Requesting Withdrawal from SBAC

Dear Governor Parnell:

 Never in my wildest dreams did I expect you to implement the Common Core Curriculum from the Race to the Top program in this state. I thought you would take the high road as Governor Palin and Governor Perry did. Sadly, you chose the low road of capitulation and appeasement to a federal government out of control. To say I am disappointed would be an understatement. What happened to the Governor who sued the Federal Government on Obama Care? The Race to the Top created "Consortia" are clearly unconstitutional and violates other Federal Statutes.


I am requesting that you remove the state of Alaska from Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC)   and keep Alaska independent of both SBAC and the Partnership for Assessing College and Career Readiness (PARCC). I am  asking you publicly.  I do not ask this for myself. My children are grown.  I ask this for Alaska’s citizens,  voters, taxpayers, parents,  and the future generations of Alaskans. I ask it to preserve Alaska as America's a northern bastion of freedom.

In March  of 2013 when I discovered Teacher in Service Worshops  on the Common Core in Fairbanks announced on the State of Alaska DEED website, I called your office to ask if the Common Core had been adopted by the state of Alaska. Your office staff researched the matter and assured me on April 2, or 3rd, by telephone that the state of Alaska had not, nor did it plan to, implement the Common Core, but if local districts decided to do so there was little the Governor's office could do. Yet, on April 4th, your office signed the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with SBAC. The words "Common Core" were struck out, the Race to the Top Definition  of the Common Core (College and Career Ready Standards) replaced them.  That is very disingenuous. In fact, it is like saying you don’t use a pencil, but a graphite filled writing device. It is the same thing, according the Race To The Top (RTTT) definitions, Governor.  I may have been born at night, but it wasn’t last night.

These "consortia" are not vendors or clubs. They are a new form of government that  violate federal law, the 10th Amendment of the US Constitution, and Article 4 of the US Constitution. Article 4 of the US Constitution  guarantees a Republican form of government. There are no elected officials in the new super-structure of government.   Alaska has no elected representative in this new government structure. Article 4 section 4 of the US Constitution clearly says, "The United States shall guarantee to every state in this union a republican form of government..."  Because this entity known as a consortium can collect revenue from the state and has governing authority and lacks elected representatives from the state of Alaska, I would argue it is in fact a new form of government that violates the guarantee.

There was no legislative approval of this agreement. There was no citizen referendum that allowed you to enter this agreement.   1) you lack the authority to enter into the agreement, 2) it runs counter to everything upon which you campaigned, 3) cannot be supported by the Republicans and Independents in the state that elected you,  4) it conflicts with the other infrastructure improvements that you have established in your legislative agenda, and 5) there are several fiscal uncertainties in this agreement  that are not known and are not clearly delineated in the agreement nor were they fully considered by Commissioner Hanley. Of course, nothing with Commissioner Hanley has been followed the process, including his appointment.

Entering into a binding agreement with the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) is not within your authority as Governor. SBAC is not merely a vendor agreement; it is an agreement that says the State of Alaska will obey the rules of the governing states of the consortium and the members of the executive board. (lines 6 &7 counting from the bottom of page 3, MOU).   According to what the consortium asserts and you signed, Alaska cannot even exit the agreement without their approval once you move forward with it (p. 12). In fact, given my study of the document it would seem that the only way the state can exit is if the test is not rigorous enough, because of supplemental documents in the file. Indeed, I will be commenting on the exit provisions in the days ahead. Further, these MOUs come in stages, and I have seen stage 2 MOUs with other states, so I am well aware of what is coming down the trail.  I've seen the back of this dog, Governor, and I don't like the view. I don't think other Alaskans will either.  Alaska still has a narrow band of time to withdraw. I urge you to do so.

This agreement is contrary to everything you have campaigned on.  By your signature on that document, the state of Alaska has been placed under the authority of governing states and an executive committee that was not elected by anyone in any state (p. 11, MOU). The people who sit on the governing board of SBAC who are so left of Alaskans that it would make Sen. French look like a Tea Party candidate.  Indeed, one member, Linda Darling Hammond, is so far to the left that Senate Democrats in 2009 told then President –Elect Obama not to nominate her for Secretary of Education because she could not survive confirmation.  This is a woman who was Barack Obama’s campaign adviser. Linda Darling Hammond’s radicalism is something William Ayers can only aspire to and never achieve, for he can never be a sweet grandmotherly figure who can spout Marxist concepts in the same way that Julie Andrews singing about her favorite things. They sound perfectly reasonable until you think it through.

Commissioner Hanley has stated that Alaska is an advisory state and says that Alaska will be advising the Consortia. However, the particulars of the agreement state just the opposite; Alaska will be “ADVISED” by the Consortium and the Governing States such as California, Oregon, and Washington.  You do realize, Governor, that Governing states govern and that advisory states are the ones governed?

This is what you did in exchange for the No Child Left Behind waiver (NCLB).  Read the document you signed carefully. This document states that Alaska will  abide by the rules and decisions of the consortium.  While I am an economist and not a lawyer, I do not see how you can possibly have the authority to sign over Alaska’s sovereignty in education or other matters unilaterally.  I find no provision in the Alaska Constitution or in any of Alaska’s laws that enable you to do so. Indeed, I find plenty in AS 01.10 to preclude you from such an agreement.   Certainly such an act would require at least legislative review; I would think that it would require some sort of change in our State Constitution.  Indeed, I think it would require a revocation of our statehood charter. Alaska has fought long to overcome the vestiges of colonialism with respect to its position in the United States. Your own Lt. Governor has lamented that officials would sometimes meet with him during his ASRC days with a flag showing only 48 stars in the office. To place Alaska under the jurisdiction of other states is simply not something I would have ever expected from your administration and validates the colonial notions held about our state by those distant officials. 

Where is the representation of parents, taxpayers, and teachers in this agreement?  Where was their voice considered? Nowhere, sir. This is education without representation, governance without representation, and yes taxation without representation. This is everything the American Revolution was fought against, pure and simple.

In essence, signing that agreement removed the 49^th Star and essentially placed the state as a non-state.   That star was Ted Steven’s gift to Alaska. How dare you, sir. It is a significant affront to those who have supported you most. Your signature on that document makes all the shenanigans of the Alaska Republican Party leadership to appear trivial, which is why I did not attend the SCC meeting and made up some other excuse not to be in Homer. Governor, your signature on that document has done greater damage to our statehood than any other prior action of any other prior Alaskan Governor. It gives the federal government and a board of regional governing states complete control over Alaska’s education policy. The person who is a senior adviser to UNESCO's Institute on International Economic Planning is Linda Darling Hammond is the same Linda Darling Hammond who is the senior adviser to SBAC, not some other person by the same name.  You have de facto placed this state under her direct control. Have you even listened to her views? Children belong to everyone?  Early childhood education to begin at 3 months of age? This is everything you campaigned against, or so I thought.

The fiscal enormities of this decision are staggering and the philosophical shift is vast and should have been fully vetted before the state legislature and the people of this state. My own questions to the commissioner in regard to the fiscal questions this decision have been posted anonymously here. They were not posted there by me, but nevertheless they are now out there. They deserved an answer then and they still deserve an answer.

The people of this state are worthy of an open and honest dialogue on the issue of educational standards.  This cannot happen when the very officials who are charged by you to implement these standards perpetuate narratives and talking points that are, at best, misleading. In some cases, their “facts” are factually false.  Dr. McCauley words on this topic sounds more like Susan Rice on Benghazi than something I would have expected from your administration. Even worse, their very disposition in discussing and relating to the public is one of that of nobleman toward peasants.  The citizens of Alaska are not serfs, Alaska is not a colony, and we are worthy of an honest and open dialogue as citizens in a way that is  not cloaked in the superiority of pretentiousness of unelected bureaucrats.


Dr. McCauley and Commissioner Hanley continue to repeat the mantra “these are not the Federal Common Core.” That was the same approach used in Utah to implement SBAC, and it failed.  They claim 200 educators, university officials and business leaders wrote these standards. I looked at the authors of the documents. I know a few of these people. They are not 200, but 9. This document does not reflect their parlance or literary style.   Further, if these standards were written by Alaskans as your DEED staff say, then how did they write the exact same words as the Federal Standards? This isn’t just “my word.” Others have examined these standards and arrived at the same conclusion.  Calling these standards in their entirety uniquely Alaskan is factually false.  Each state has 15% of “uniqueness.” That is all Alaska received was a 15% variance. Look at the links provided by the Truth in Education website. 

Lets take a moment to gander into the language of these documents. Do you expect me to believe that any Alaskan Math teacher accepts  "Mathematically proficient students start by explaining to themselves the meaning of a problem and looking for entry points to its solution" page 19  over knowing their math tables in the elementary grades? Let's compare that statement with p. 6 of the Federal Standards that state, "Mathematically proficient students start by explaining to themselves the meaning of a problem and looking for entry points to its solution."  Do I really have to publish grade by grade sentence by sentence analysis?  These are the exact same words. Did DEED think that if they used landscape in the PDF that no one would know?

Here is why it matters:  if a student put down 2 + 2 =5 under the current system of teaching math, that student would find a nice big red check mark next to the answer. But under the new Common Core standards, a plausible explanation allows a lie to become truth. Process and explanation matter but answers do not. This is unacceptable in the field of mathematics by any reasonable standard even in North Pole, Alaska.

There is a reason, Governor, that Lech Walesa chose 2 + 2 = 4 as the symbol of the Polish resistance to the Soviet Union. Ah, but I suppose future Alaskan students will never know Orwell, will they?  So much literature is striped out of the  Federal Common Core ELA standards, and  the Alaska ELA standards,   No, they will be busy reading Ho Che Min in 5th grade rather than George Washington and they will be reading executive orders and Microsoft training manuals in the 6th grade, just as has occurred in other states.

I assure you Governor, when an Alaskan employer hires an Alaskan, they don't want to hear why the wrong answer might be right. Alaskan employers do not want Hegelian dialect cloaked in the language of "deeper understanding."  They want the right answer. They need to know their math facts without taking off their socks. These standards in no way reflect the manpower studies of the department of labor, unless the category "radical Marxist revolutionary" is now the new description of a government bureaucrat.

How is interpreting spread sheets math?  While I am not against STEM, there should be a solid teaching of mathematics. STEM may be worthy of their own standards, but they cannot possibly be a replacement for solving the problem without technology.  Will spelling now be taught with a spell checker?

Further, if these new Alaska Standards are indeed uniquely Alaskan, why are we using the assessment tool for the Race To The Top Standards? Shouldn't there be a uniquely Alaskan test for these uniquely Alaskan standards? Given that pay, promotion, and tenure will be based on these assessments, do you think the “Alaskan” part of the standards will win the classroom or the Federal “Race to the Top” component?  Do you think Alaskans didn’t see what happened in Utah when their state claimed to have a “Utah” version of the Common Core and claimed “it was only an assessment” that grew to a total buy in?

 It became clear by the end of the first week of June what the intent was with this program. Commissioner Hanley assured me that only the end of the year assessment would be used. He repeated this assurance at a June 2, 2013 meeting in Wasilla by the House Education Committee. However, if you compare this to his June 8, 2013 presentation, he very clearly has documents on his agenda from SBAC that make it obvious that he plans to “sell” the curriculum to the school districts. He does plan for formative (throughout the year) and end of the year assessments to be used, and he is angling to entice districts into the curriculum. Because the document is quite long, I thought I would save you computing time and put the documents here.  It is pretty clear that he fully intends for a total implementation.

I am still wondering why taxpayers, voters, and parents were not consulted in these standards.  Do you plan to be re-elected by “stakeholders” rather than “voters?”  Is policy by your administration now undertaken by “stakeholders” and the voters be damned? If you can’t "Choose Respect" for the voters, how can you then expect people to “Choose Respect” in other matters?  Your leadership, or lack of it, sets the tone on these matters.

Let's compare this to how  past governors wrote standards.

When Gov. Hickel assembled people to write standards in the Alaska 2000 document which pre-dated NCLB, the collection of people was quite large. The English teachers did not write the math standards; there were diverse groups from each discipline from across the state.  All who were writing standards were doing so in their field.  As I recall, the corpus of the Social Studies committee were teachers, parents, voters, and I was one of the few academics on it. Copies of various drafts could be found in various schools for discussion and comment. These committees received comment from the public and received comments from them on various proposals.  Previously when I had been engaged in a similar process in another state, the experience was similar.

The process followed by you,  Governor Parnell is the same that was followed by Gov. Knowles. A small group of technocrats gathering to write what they think they know best hiding behind a small citizen panel. Thus, I was totally shocked to see the small group of people writing the standards across all the discipline areas! I see no evidence of "Alaska generated" standards and all the fingerprints of the Obama Administration are all over these standards. To me, it would appear that the race to the top criteria were given to the group and they were allowed to restate a few things. That is the truth of what happened, and to suggest it was alternatively so is very disingenuous.

Surely you recognize the governing structure of SBAC as an Agenda 21 board?  Certainly your AG advised you of the number of boroughs and communities in the state that have laws making the implementation of Agenda 21 illegal? Certainly you have read  the GOP Platform rejecting Agenda 21?  Are you aware of the Alaska Republican party platform that rejects the implementation of Agenda 21? It is in 2 item H.

The Alaska Republican Party platform specifically speaks against excessive federal control on education. How about III item C on Education which states:

We support local control of public education provided it does not limit competition or parental choice. We oppose all federal control of or influence on education. We support the parental right to have access to all educational information reaching their child.

The Common Core that you, Governor Parnell, signed Alaska into is anti-choice and is most federally intrusive program of all! Even worse, you signed the state up with the one version of the Common Core that parents can't readily avoid. Parental Choice?  The choices that parents will have reminds one of a Monty Python skit on Spam, you can get baked beans and spam or  eggs and spam, but all the choices include Spam.  This is NOT what Alaskans who support "Parental Choice" had in their minds.

How will these families regard the pledge to be "Good Without God?"  How will you explain this to Pastor Prevo or Pastor Duffet or any of the other clergy in this state who have supported you through faith and freedom, right to life, and parent choices? How will this go with your traditional base?

I am certain you are aware that the Republican National Committee unanimously passed a resolution rejecting the Common Core Assessments at their Hollywood meetings in April of 2013. Certainly Governor, must not expect Republican groups to contribute to your re-election campaign after you proceeded with an agreement that is in direct contradiction to the Republican National Committee Resolutions, the National Republican Women, and the Alaska Republican Party Platform?

I am confident you understand that in 2011, the National Federation of Women unanimously passed a resolution rejecting the Common Core and its ASSESSMENTS. Certainly you do not expect local Republican Women organizations to donate to your campaign or support you when you have engaged in an act that is a flagrant disregard of their platform?  Or do you intend to allow the debate on SB 21 drown out the debate on your new, radical education policy? Is that the agreement you have with Senate Democrats and former Governor Knowles?  That the debate on SB21 and this whole recall movement is ginned up to hide what you are doing in Education Policy?

The nation knows that Exxon Mobile wrote a letter reminding the Governor of Pennsylvania of their philanthropic contributions recently to the Governor of Pennsylvania when that state began a reconsideration of their implementation of the Common Core at the behest of Senate Democrats in that state. Of course, I am certain that you have enough backbone to stand up to Exxon Mobile’s desire to have the Common Core implemented? For I know that SB21 was based on supply side economics and not crony capitalism. For, if you were to implement the Common Core curriculum based on the word of Exxon Mobile, that would certainly make SB21 look like crony capitalism rather than an application of supply side economics.  Clearly, Republicans across the state of Alaska would get behind a governor who was implementing supply side economics. I supported it because I felt circumstances had changed that were to the underlying policy assumptions of ACES. However, many would greatly distance themselves from a candidate, even an incumbent who once served with Governor Palin, who was engaged in crony capitalism. Beyond bad optics, it would then lend credibility to all of the allegations of Senate Democrats in the oil tax debate, and that would make the road to re-election road rather bumpy.

Of course, even without Exxon Mobile, parents may well see this program as crony capitalism. Even in New York where the test is being protested by teachers and parents, the Common Core is being perceived as a sell out to Pearson Testing.

Certainly,  any governor of any state who implemented the Common Core could never claim the high ground on limited government. The facts are out there in a rather straightforward way. $300 per student assessment is the real figure quoted by SBAC to several states; there is no “Alaska” discount sir, and the contract you signed doesn’t specify cost.  Clearly,  any governor who intended to introduce a curriculum or assessment that enshrines concepts of collectivism, man-made climate change, alternate family structures, two-spiritness, Israeli occupation of Palestine, along with uncertain math algorithms would find themselves with stiff resistance in 2014. Such a candidate could not call themselves conservative or a candidate of family values! Furthermore, you cannot possibly expect Alaska Natives to willingly participate in this madnessunder the guise of “culturally appropriate” standards?

 Have you actually read Linda Darling Hammond’s work and teacher training manuals? Have you not seen Lev  Vygotsky’s writings and methodology all over her teacher training materials? Have you actually read Vygotsky’s work?  Or even a translation of it? Well, I have read some of it. Do you realize what Lev Vygotsky believed for personal freedom?

  ‘Only in community therefore, is personal freedom possible.’

How does this philosophy enshrine the works of Adam Smith, John Locke, any of the American founding fathers? You will find additional snippets of it here.

 Do you think Alaskans don’t know that Lev Vygotsky was behind both the Czar education of uniformity and oppression, and later Stalin’s psychometric indoctrination architecture of the Cultural Revolution? From your vast knowledge of history, you certainly recall that Vygotsky’s methods were applied by Chairman Mao in the Great Leap Forward, as well as in the reeducation techniques employed by North Korea and Cuba? You realize Vygotsky’s theories are fully implanted in the teacher training and in the data mining? Do you honestly believe that Vygotsky's name is being made synonymous with the Common Core is an accident?  Do you think Linda Darling Hammond and William Ayers are unaware of the totality of Lev Vygotsky's work beyond childhood learning theory?

Do you think Alaska Natives, or Alaska’s large populations of Koreans, Russians, and Cubans have forgotten how their fared under that system of education?  As for Alaska Natives, you might fool those up on the Chandalar (I hope not), but you won’t fool those in other Alaskan communities where the legendary acts of cultural oppression at the hands of Russian educators are alive in their cultural history?  Calling it “cultural common core” is an insult to every Native Alaskan and Alaskan Native, and quite frankly, every American.  There is only one culture in the common core, and I dare say it is neither an Alaska’s culture, nor America’s culture. Just because there are a few math units on beading and knitting doesn’t make it Alaska Native. The devil is not just in the details here; if you think it is, then you are willingly ignorant of what is going on here.

In addition, this agreement requires a revenue stream, referred to as “fees” in the document and I would consider it a tax. Have you read the page 19 of  the Strategy on Educational Equity & Excellence written by Linda Darling Hammond which was the blue print for this program?  She clearly plans on dictating how states finance education. They characterized the Race to the Top as MODEST EXPENDITURE.  These modest expenditures has set other states reeling from their fiscal impacts!

 I honestly don’t know how you intend to fund this program in the face of declining oil revenue. Clearly, you must have been aware of the fiscal provisions of this program. They have no revenue from RTTT after 2014 and have stated they plan to be self financing by then. So you signed us into a consortium that sets policy and will receive revenue ran by an executive committee who believes in income redistribution? This doesn't sound like a consortium, but a government entity.  I suspect you may have misunderstood exactly what you signed.

Certainly you understand that taxing and spending are functions of the legislature. Therefore, how could you possibly entertain the idea of undertaking a program with such a large, uncertain fiscal note without legislative approval? Furthermore, since it is clear that property taxes in every borough of the state will have to increase to pay for this program, shouldn't the borough governments been consulted? After all, we are talking about a test that was estimated to cost $300 per student in Vermont in 2010, and probably more so now based on the CRESST study performed for SBAC that cited escalating costs!

Nowhere is there any sort of delineation of costs that will upgrade the rather substantial upgrades in data wire, computer hardware, software that are associated with the test alone. After all, do you think Microsoft is funding this to sell Apple's platform? How large of a contract to Cisco will there be?  This program has placed California on the brink of bankruptcy and has so bled the state of Washington that they can no longer afford to maintain their infrastructure.   There is no way, from a fiscal perspective, that the state can implement this program and engage in the sort of infrastructure improvements upon which you campaigned unless you plan for boroughs to raise property taxes by at least 25%. No where is this more obvious than in the state of Michigan, an SBAC Governing State, which defunded the Common Core this week to pay for infrastructure. If Econ One is advising you that you can, then they have not fully researched the matter and considered the lack of fiber optics capabilities beyond the road system.

Another revealing aspect of Linda Darling Hammond's goals lies on page 21 of her Strategy on Educational Equity & Excellence . "...we must also have policies and practices that develop, select and fairly distribute a highly effective teacher workforce to all schools."  Excuse me Governor, this sounds like SBAC, through the state will be deciding which teachers can teach.  This sounds like education planning.  How would any member of a bargaining unit appeal a decision by SBAC that orders a teacher to move from Fairbanks to say, some village on the slope against their will? With whom would a teacher file a grievance? Is that addressed in current collective bargaining contracts? Teachers are often spouses and parents that have lives that extend beyond the classroom. A decision on where a teacher teaches could have profound impacts on these public servants's personal lives and on other aspects in a community.

Governor, this “grand experiment” is not just a fiscal disaster in the making; we are talking about people’s lives. We are talking about the lives of children and families. We are talking about people’s careers as educators. The citizens of this state are not just mere objects, but people. The optics in this matter are not good and the winds of change are blowing counter to these "consortia." I truly believe that Governor Palin had it right on the Race to the Top. I believe staying on the path to the RTTT will lead to higher property taxes, a significant erosion of the state’s permanent fund, and possibly the implementation of a state income tax. It will bleed money out of the state rather than to our own institutions of higher education.  It will put Alaska’s students two years behind as it has in every other state, and will obliterate math education in this state. It will institutionalize the agenda of Barack Obama's collectivist approach. This is a decision that will echo throughout history, and it is a future generation that will pay the price.

Please, Governor, I implore you, withdraw the state from SBAC while you still can. Follow Governor Perry’s lead. If you do not have the intestinal fortitude to do so, then look to Utah, Alabama, Michigan, Indiana, North Carolina, and South Carolina for ideas.  If you are feeling particularly brave, I have a solution.  While you are at it, clean up DEED. You have people there who do not serve you well, and they serve the people of this state even worse. 

I thought better of you.

Sincerely,

Barbara Haney, Ph.D.

A modest request of Governor Parnell: http://t.co/NxO4Y7itJt #tcot #againstCommonCore #pjnet #greta @SarahPalin

— 147DegreesWest (@147DW) June 15, 2013

Dr. Barbara Haney has lived in Alaska since June 8, 1991. She served as the Director of the Center for Economic Education at the University of Alaska Fairbanks until 1996. In addition, she worked on the Alaska 2000 project under Governor Hickle and worked with Galena City schools when the Air Force base shut down to find other options to maintain the school district. She was a charter member of IDEA and worked actively with homeschool groups in Alaska to issues related to homeschool legislation. Dr. Haney has served on a variety of advisory boards and political campaigns. She currently works as an occasional consultant on economic issues to various groups and on matters related to social media in national markets. Dr. Haney also serves as Chairman of District 2 Republicans, Vice Chairman of Golden Heart GOP, and as Vice Chairman of Interior Alaska Conservative Coalition.  She is a member of the North Pole Republican Women and serves on the Steering Committee on the Statewide Teleconference, which is a non-partisan forum on public policy in Alaska.  Prior to Alaska, Dr. Haney served as a faculty member at Washington State University, Eastern Illinois University, and University of Notre Dame. She can be reached at BarbaraHaney100@gmail.com