Tag Archives: Common Core

Larry Burkett Was Right–About A Lot of Things

Posted on August 28, 2019 by David E Smith
If you remember the late, great financial teacher Larry Burkett, your life is likely the better for it. I worked with Larry for several years in his Gainesville, Georgia headquarters of Christian Financial Concepts (and continued to work for the organization from home for many years after my children started coming along). In my mind, he ranks right up there with some of our Founding Fathers in his wisdom, love for this country, and amazing foresight in economic and political issues.
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Common Core: School Test Scores Are Nosediving

Posted on December 13, 2017 by David E Smith
In 2013 Michael Cohen of Achieve, Inc. (an organization integral to developing and marketing the Common Core national standards) testified in New York that Common Core is a long-term education experiment on our children: “The full effects… won’t be seen until an entire cohort of students, from kindergarten through high school graduation, has been effectively exposed to Common Core teaching.” Four years later we may not be seeing the full effects, but heaven help us when we get there.
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Decentralizing Education in America

Posted on November 27, 2017 by David E Smith
American education has become more and more centralized over the past 100 years. While this consolidation is associated with a great deal of expense, there has been little evidence that it has improved outcomes. Instead, the evidence points to, but does not yet prove, that decentralizing education offers more benefits, first in outcomes, and second in lower cost.
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Every 12 Years: A Review of the Book ‘Saving K-12’ (Part One)

Posted on November 17, 2017 by David E Smith
Every 12 years another set of children progress through America’s government-run school system. Those that graduated this past spring started twelve years before that as first-graders in 2005. In 2005 I had the honor of serving as the president of the Family Taxpayers Foundation (FTF), a non-profit focusing chiefly on school reform -- both curriculum and finance…a to z, soup to nuts.
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Most College Students Think America Invented Slavery

Posted on November 2, 2016 by David E Smith
For 11 years, Professor Duke Pesta gave quizzes to his students at the beginning of the school year to test their knowledge on basic facts about American history and Western culture. The most surprising result from his 11-year experiment? Students’ overwhelming belief that slavery began in the United States and was almost exclusively an American phenomenon, he said.
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Homeschooling, the Feds, and You

Posted on October 17, 2016 by David E Smith
Recently, US Secretary of Education John King, while speaking at a press conference, remarked that although some homeschool situations are just fine, in general, “Students who are homeschooled are not getting kind of the rapid instructional experience they would get in school.”
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2 Special IFI Forums With Dr. Duke Pesta

Posted on August 20, 2016 by David E Smith
We have scheduled to bring in Dr. Duke Pesta, a nationally renown expert on the dangers of Common Core, to head up special forums in Springfield and Collinsville.
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Common Core: the Trojan Horse for Federalized Education Control

Posted on April 1, 2016 by David E Smith
Education in America was originally the province of parents and churches. "Homeschooling" was the norm from colonial times through the mid-1800's, and a classic education was the model.
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Order Bulk Voter Guides Now

Posted on January 18, 2016 by David E Smith

We are currently taking orders for our 2016 Primary Election Voter Guide. The non-partisan IFI Voter Guide helps voters know more about the positions of candidates who are seeking their vote on March 15, 2016. It will also soon be available online at www.illinoisfamily.org.

There will be a limited number printed and when they are gone, we won’t be printing more. SO PLACE YOUR BULK ORDER SOON!

Take ACTION: To pre-order a bulk order click HERE. You can also call the IFI office at (708) 781-9328.

Suggested Donation: $25 for 100.

Are you registered to vote?

Have you moved? …

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SURPRISE! Thousand-Page Education-Funding Bill Passes U.S. House

Posted on December 3, 2015 by David E Smith

A 1,061-page rewrite of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA), which is better known as No Child Left Behind (NCLB), suddenly popped up in the House on Monday and was voted on late Wednesday, passing 359-64. All 64 “no” votes were cast by Republicans.

At over 1,000 pages, S. 1177, the Every Child Achieves Act (ECAA) [also known as the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA)], like Obamacare, was too lengthy to read and digest in just two days, and yet House Republicans rammed it forward despite Paul Ryan’s prior assurances that as House speaker he would provide …

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Common Core: Beyond Rote

Posted on October 1, 2014 by David E Smith
As we’ve noted before, when proponents of the Obama Administration’s Common Core education reforms try to make the case for the program, they often end up giving material to its opponents.
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Dumbed-Down Common Core

Posted on March 12, 2014 by David E Smith
Big name Republicans and putative conservatives signing onto the Obama Administration’s Common Core education reforms in the belief that they will raise standards in public schools may want to entertain the possibility that they will actually lower them.
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National Takeover of School Curriculum

Posted on February 27, 2014 by David E Smith
Many people said Ho-Hum when Barack Obama threatened to change any law with his pen or phone, and even used that power to personally alter Obamacare and the welfare law, and to “legislate” the Dream Act that Congress refused to pass. But Americans are rising up by the tens of thousands to stop Common Core...
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Concerns About Common Core (Part 1)

Posted on August 27, 2013 by David E Smith

Most Americans have heard the term Common Core Standards (CCS), but many have little idea what those standards are, who created them, or what is troubling about those standards, which are a significant step in the movement toward nationalizing public education. What’s remarkable is that this governmental overreach is managing to achieve the nearly impossible: unify the political left and right. Even the extreme leftwing Wisconsin-based Rethinking Schools says that the process by which these standards were developed involved “‘too little honest conversation and too little democracy.’” CCS with their yawn-inducing name are anything but innocuous. Americans best turn off …

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