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    I am beginning to be opposed to the Common Core concept.

    Too many secrets and behind the scenes decisions and funding.

    I prefer communities and states taking charge of the education system, rather than letting Harvard grads and others, will little input from elsewhere, making all the decisions.

    My daughter is now using a Common Core textbook to learn geometry...I have never seen such a confusing presentation of what I understand to be straightforward mathematical concepts before in my life.

    One of the goalks of Common Core is to make topics more relevant to kids, but these efforts, that I clearly see being attempted in the geometry book, muddy the waters and get in the way of a clear description of the basic concepts that need to be learned.

    've had to lead my daughter through the maze of confusion on more than one occasion with regard to this particular book. I would imagine that other folks like me who are beginning to be opposed to Common Core based on direct experience with these books are coming to the conclusion that this federally led top-down approach is flawed precisely because it is a one-size-fits-all program that overreaches in its attempt to stimulate rather than to simply set out the rules and let teachers add the motivation and the context of why this stuff needs to be learned in the first place.


    • Keith, I don't know much about Common Core but I looked at it because I've been having problems understanding my granddaughter's third and now fourth grade homework problems, which she gets in lose printed worksheets (no book yet, apparently). So prompted by your comment I took a quick look at what wikipedia has to say.

      As it turns out my state is a non-member so probably isn't using Common Core. But what I read is that it is a set of standards. Could it be that this is another case of confusing the what with the how? I am not against standards, at least against standards that tell you what to teach and against which to measure performance which is all that Common Core seems to be.

      The key then is how that is converted into texbooks, teaching materials, and teaching itself. Do you know who is responsible for that? At what level? Are we looking at a problem of implementation rather than of the objective itself? I am curious.




        My understanding is that local school districts get hundreds of thousands of federal dollars to implement these standards for math and humanities. According to the developers of the math curricula, the emphasis now is not on numbers and formulas, but on real world examples and practical applications. But as I've seen in my daughter's geometry book, what she needs to solve the practical problems is nearly hidden in the rest of the materials...the book seems to try to teach them to run before it gives them enough to learn to walk.

        There are many reports that students who were A and B students are now in the D and F range because of the misguided efforts.

        Like healthcare, when the masterminds get involved, the unintended consequences of their top-down approach are often ignored and minimized until real world experiences begin to show them the errors of their ways. Parents and local teachers, not far off state educators (with big money grants using borrowed Chinese money). should be making the decisions that are best for their communities.

        My more pessimistic side believes that this whole Common Core "issue" is just a subterfuge to somehow blame the local education system for what these big global companies say are the reason that they can't hire American workers. Rather than admit that what they are really after is cheap foreign labor, and that the federal government has nearly regulated entrepreneurship at the small and medium business level out of existence, they can come in with Common Core Standards and change the narrative and blame the victims...the American people for implementing sub-par textbooks for convenient for them.

        I read one story where so many students were failing in math, that parents took things into their own hands and began teaching their kids math collectively from home, and then sending them in an hour after the bell rang at the high school to learn everything else...You gotta do what you gotta do!


    • I hear you Keith, I too find the same with the problems my granddaughter gets. I have difficulty understanding them myself and keep wondering whether I missed something. But I don't blame the standards, I blame whoever wrote the problems.

      Yes, poor materials is one of the unintended consequences of willy-nilly changes, wherein people or the legislators just focus on the WHATS but ignore the HOWS. The HOW of any change requires a lot of testing before you get it right.

      I've been reading further on how ObamaCare came about and what commonalities it really has with Romneycare in Massachusetts. In the process I came across the Swiss system and how supposedly both the Romney and the Obama plans are based on it. The problems set in when legislators start making "improvements" and by the time they finish they end up with a Rube Goldberg machine that doesn't work or works very poorly.

      That may be what is happening to Common Core. With stuff like that my experience was that a lot of thought went into the WHAT but the HOW was delegated to amateurs and pretty much ignored.

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        Thanks for the Michelle Malkin links. I have been following her efforts to expose Common Core for what it is -- a method of coordinated socialist indoctrination and control rather than the state-of-the-art education system it purports to be -- since January of this year.

        You provided us with the best resource to learn about Common Core's realities. Michelle Malkin is the leader of the movement to educate parents, teachers and everyone on this critical issue. We are all in your debt. Kudos!

        3 Recommendations



    I recall your discussing your daughter months ago. She graduated from FSU and became a teacher. When you said she had died, I posted an emotional message to you. I thought of her and you yesterday.

    You and I are perpetually at loggerheads. But often I look for things that unite us (no joke!). I watched the Heisman Trophy award ceremonies on ESPN last night and realized we both will be rooting for FSU in the BCS championship game -- thanks to your daughter.

    FSU Freshman QB, Jameis Winston ( only 19) won the Heisman in a landslide, and became the youngest player ever to achieve this feat. Which segues to your concern about the rich white boy (16)from Ft. Worth, TX, who will do no jail time after his lawyer argued the "affluenza" defense in his drunk-driving killing of four innocent people.

    This kid's sentence was a travesty of justice. It sickened me. The message is that if you have money, you can get away murder. Jameis Winston, a black kid from an average family with a huge earnings potential in the NFL-- now increased by his Heisman -- had rape charges against him dropped by the state last week.

    Not knowing the merits of the white female's allegations against Jameis, I can't comment on the state attorney's decision. But I have to mention that the lead prosecutor in the case is a graduate of FSU and a board member.

    Jameis was key to FSU's undefeated season. He was the leading candidate to win the Heisman. Criminal charges would have jeopardized Winston's future. They would have also meant millions in lost revenues for the FSU football program.

    Could this be a case where a black teen accused of rape by a white girl was given a break based on race? Or was money behind dropping the charges? I believe money and privilege, not race, halted the legal process. But all I have is speculative inferences. Not evidence.

    Regarding PPACA, the facts belie your claims. Obama lied about the number of policies that would be cancelled because of PPACA's requirements. He rolled-out the enrollment website knowing that it wouldn't work. He did it out of hubris, to meet his timeline.

    Worse, while the sign-up part of the site is now working at 75%, the back-end of the system still can't transmit people data to insurance company computers to identify the insured -- and won't be ready to process their payments for months. So the number of uninsured has now increased by tens of millions, with no relief in sight.

    This is a catastrophe. There are people carrying PPACA cards that can't be honored -- they are invalid. People lost their plans and doctors -- for what? So that millions more can carry a useless health-card that will be accepted nowhere. The previously uninsured think they got coverage, but there will be less doctors and hospitals to treat them, so they have a card that puts them on waiting lists for doctors who may never see them.

    Those who had plans they liked will now sign up for pricier policies that may won't be honored for months. So when they need care they will go to the ER -- and the ER interventions that PPACA sought to end will grow -- exponentially.

    Each of us is conceived with a seed of mortality that can't be surgically removed. It grows until it kills us, hopefully after a long life that honors the incredible, temporary privilege of living. I wish from my aching heart that your daughter were alive. But we are, as W.B. Yeats harshly put it, souls "fastened to a dying animal."

    Obama views us all as dying animals who deserve only the care he chooses for us dummies. He and libs are superior. We are mere numbers. I would have wanted far better than PPACA for your daughter -- and am certain you would too, if you follow facts, not lies.

    May the Lord have her in His Glory...and may He always bless you and your loved ones, as well as all of us -- Obama et al. included.

    5 Recommendations



      There isn't much of similarity in the cases. Winston used bad judgement in picking up the women and having sex with her as he did not apparently know her before the "encounter". However, Winston did not receive any breaks in this case. It was apparently timed by the accuser's attorney to coincide with the end of football season and perhaps interfere with Bowl season.

      But that's not the worst of it. According to ESPN, the prosecutors office released the substance of the case against Winston. The accuser said she had being "doing shots" at a Tallahassee bar with friends and left the bar with Winston in a cab. She didn't remember much after that by her account. She did not remember the actual encounter but only remembers being dropped off at a street corner by someone driving a scooter.. When she reported the rape she initially described the man as being between 5'9 and 5'11. Winston is 6'4". She had no physical injuries. And lastly both the DNA of Winston and her boyfriend were found by the rape kit.

      I do not condone any serious assault and had this women been harmed then Winston should be held accountable. But the woman doesn't remember being harmed , there were no physical damage and she could not identify Winston. She apparently had sex with not only Winston but her boyfriend. Rape is a serious crime with a serious penalty. But that means there must be convincing evidence of the crime. In this case there was virtually no evidence of a rape but only that a women had had sex. Winston didn't get a break. he received justice. This is progress because had this happened 50 years ago he might not have survived.

      I appreciate your sentiments about my daughter as I did when i first informed the forum of her death. She attended a school in Texas. I have another daughter that finished at FSU. I did not bring up her death to gain sympathy for me or my position. I only mentioned it again because it had come up in a discussion with a guy that I know from the fitness center I attend.

      He had mentioned that his stepson had come down with a mental illness that had been successfully treated because he was married to French woman and lived in France. He said that they had moved back to the States and that his stepson had problems getting treatment and staying on his meds.

      Like I told Xavier, if the program is that bad it will be panned by the people. And when you reported that Unions were against the ACA, that wasn't entirely true. They were not against the ACA. In fact they were all for it. But since some of their constituents were covered with inferior employment provided insurance, they wanted the ability to have their members sign up for the ACA. So rather than judge a program before it has even started, I prefer to wait and see what happens. My guess is that like social security and medicare, the program will prove extremely popular after a tweak here and there. But attacking the program before it has a chance to help or hurt anyone is a waster of time.


      • Greg said...


        Greg, how do you propose that it be tweaked here and there if it is not analyzed for performance like I try to do? Is it my fault that it appears to have some very major structural and operational flaws?

        For a very long time I've pointed out that there is a tendency on the part of people in government to emphasize the WHAT and ignore the HOW. We saw how the website is a disaster in large part because there wasn't a project manager and integrator that could pull the whole together.

        Any manager will tell you that project management is fundamental, and the bigger the challenge, the higher up in the organization it has to be and the more authority is required for that project manager. That said, please tell me who has been managing the PPACA from its design phases and through implementation? Name me the full time project manager, and I am not referring to the website, I am referring to the whole reform effort.

        Already in May 2010, David Cutler wrote a memo to Larry Summers, special assistant to the President, expressing great alarm that there wasn't such a project manager, at least not a competent project manager with the required authority.

        I suggest you read the memo, and it's not about the website, it is about the overall program,



    "That this House is concerned that the persecution of Christians is increasing in the 21st Century; notes that there are reports that one Christian is killed every 11 minutes somewhere on earth for their faith; further notes that Christianity is the most persecuted religion globally; bears in mind that the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion is a human right stated in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights; and calls on the Government to do more both in its foreign policy and through its aid work to defend and support people of Christian faith."

    -- UK Parliament resolution at the end of a recent floor debate on the topic of Christian persecution in the world.



    There are laws to deny polygamy - Nuns wear gold rings and are married to one person that should be outlawed, and all of those gold rings should be collected, melted down, sold and the profits go to Planned parenthood that respects the commandment: Honor thy mother and father.

    When Catholic clergy marry, ban abortions, and pass a federal law to incarcerate pedophiles.

    Happy Hanukkah, Happy kwanza, and someone wrap little baby Jesus in a wool blanket ... for his days are numbered and soon he will appear on an 8 foot cross which changes into a 30 foot cross blood, tied, nails the whole works ... Jesus the Jew, and his Mother Mary a Jewess required to watch ... totally a symbol of hatred .... don't you think ... or don't you think.




    I just talked to a friend of mine who is kind in the know on these sort of things. Apparently not only was Winston innocent but he may have been kind of a victim. Apparently the reports that Winston did not know the girl were untrue. According to my source ,Winston not only knew the girl but they were "involved". Winston has a girlfriend that attended an out of town University. The accuser was his "girlfriend" while the real girlfriend was not there.

    On the night of the alleged rape, Winston's real girlfriend came to town which prompted him to have the accuser taken away on a moped. The accuser was vexed at her treatment and told a relative who happened to be an attorney (who according to my source is an alumnus of Florida and you know what kind of rivalry those schools have). The relative came up with the "rape" charge based on what the accuser told her about how she had been treated and that she was apparently drunk.

    However, the accuser lied when she said that she did not know who Winston was as apparently there are Facebook photos of her and Winston in "flagrant delicto" on other occasions. Winston appears to have been more of a victim of a "woman's scorn" than some sort of sexual predator. He used bad judgment in carrying on multiple relationships and treating the accuser the way he did because his real girlfriend was in town. But that did not warrant a rape charge and it appears that Winston was treated fairly. This didn't have to turn out that way as I am aware of a high school football player who is was or stlll in jail because of statutory rape when both he and the girl were under age and the sex was consensual. The case happened in the south and it basically ruined the life of a African American teenager who was being recruited to play major college football.

    1 Recommendation



      My own research into the facts of this case corroborates your account entirely. The girl's story was full of holes and inconsistencies. She was wiped-out drunk. Jameis gave a statement to police that was confirmed by the accounts of his two friends who were in the apartment at the time of the alleged rape. Justice was served when the state declined to prosecute the star athlete.

      Whenever someone tells self-serving lies for personal gain, they always get caught. This girl is a good example of hurful lies spinning out control. A better one, however, is your beloved Obama.

      Jameis could have become an innocent victim of a malicious liar. Sadly, all Americans are now innocent victims of another malicious liar. I hope you will apply your sound investigation and analysis in the Winston case to the far more serious case of Obama's lies about his rape of our national health care system.

      2 Recommendations



    This is not entirely true. In the murky world of government contracting, there are only a small group of companies that gain the ability to bid on a contract. A lot of commercial companies will not become government contractors because of what must be disclosed to the government in terms of cost information so that the government believes that it is getting a good deal. So the same cast of characters end up bidding on government work.

    The other thing is that contractors rarely make any money on the initial contract but get the lion share of their profits from so called "follow on" work. It would not be surprising to me that the firm that flubbed the website underbid the initial contract knowing that the follow on work to "fix" the website would be coming. There are many outfits that could have done a much better job and I know that is true because of the successes of the state exchanges. Also, if the code on the federal site was so fatally flawed, it would not have been so easily fixed. There is no way that flawed code could have been turned around so rapidly (30 days?) on a job as complex as Healthcare,gov.

    Rather a few bricks were left out the initial installation which were cemented in when the follow on work was requested.



    Well isn't this boring, though I did think Bradley's comment a good one.
    So for those of us who care not about "IT project maxims" or like me, don't even know what it is, here's my aside.



    One last aside before I call it a night, because it is a really big world in which the ACA is but a glitch itself.



    One LAST last aside before I call it a night, because I want it read with a fresh mind and a cup of coffee.
    Be sure to watch the clip at the end of the page and ask yourself one question, "why have I not seen this before?".

    You might doubt the article, but you can't doubt the video, and it speaks volumes.




    Hello #1/Jimbo!

    Re your post to my BFF here & the exchanges that followed:

    "...In deference to you[my BFF], I tried to have conversations with Jim Harvey again..." --- As I view it, you're not interested in "conversations" that challenge your scripted Ailes' FNC Orchestra Pit Theory Kabuki Theater distract & deceive talking points that ultimately perpetuate the Plutocratic Corporatist Status Quo. When contested, countered &/or refuted, you default to your patented BS hyperbole ad hominem style attacks, sans any rational rebuttal simply because you have none. It ain't Rocket Science #1. The most "conversation" you have on these pages is w/yourself(aka your other two TB personae), metaphorically high five-ing & patting each other on the back for whomever parrots their assigned propaganda most flawlessly as scripted. You Bet'cha Jimbo, Carry On! X;{

    Translation: You're just talking to yourself, patting yourself on the back, praising your own efforts, propping up your overseers' illusions in the hope they throw you a token bone for your efforts. Masquerading as a man w/a reason... Surely Heaven waits for you in all its Objectivist glory #1. :-$

    Parroting the same ole nonsense over & over under the assumption that the more times you repeat it, the more folks will fall for it despite the absurdity it is & short of that, keep 'em thoroughly distracted from the crony, corrupt massive wealth extraction/redistribution from society as a whole to the Plutocratic Corporatist Status Quo few, that began in earnest under the guise of "Trickle-Down Economics" & is now coming to a head, that even your Pope is calling out. The latest in Trickle-Down Economics :-!

    And ya already know how I regard such absurdity #1, where reason & rationale are shouted down & drowned out by incessant BS hyperbole ad hominem style 'Bot attacks: THE MORE ABSURD THE BETTER. >:D< There's no reasoning w/the Ailes' Troll-Bot Orchestra Pit Theory absurdity game do nothing obstructionism, better to take it to its ultimate conclusion, showing it for what it is. Get to the LCD where it can't be broken down any further or refuted/rebutted, which automatically triggers the BS hyperbole ad hominem style attacks. Then mock & reflect them back on ya for the nonsense they are. Sure, it's a dirty job, but in your & your alternate 'Bot personae cases, I'm willing to do it pro bono just for the opportunity to study & probe the depths & non-awareness of the illusion & dirty deeds done dirt cheap. :-$ Do you get paid equally per post #1, aliases & all, or do ya get dinged for #2's posts? >:-}

    I have the advantage & luxury of not having to hide my M.O., which I just shared w/you, as you must do practicing Ailes' art of deception, which when challenged, ultimately reduces you/your aliases to patented BS hyperbole ad hominem style attacks reflexively screaming Commie! Socialist! Statist! Marxist! He's not one of us! Puke Bucket! Hitler! Goebbels! Benghazi! Death Panels! Etc. upon arriving at the LCD where you have no other rebuttal options. My BFF would luv to see you counter my assertions here in a coherent, reasoned & rational fashion, but both you & I know that's not possible. If it were, you would never have adopted your BS hyperbole ad hominem attack style in the first place. Which routinely gives away your lack of substance & seriousness. Like I said, this is not Rocket Science Jimbo, Keithfersan, X-Man, or whatever label you wish to operate & advance Ailes' FNC Kabuki Theater distract & deceive talking points under. All one & the same, makes no difference to me. >:D< Religious Freedom for Corporatists! Uh-Oh! Sharia Law! <:-|


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