As Americans, we had better revisit what the Bill of Rights means to our country's future, because the individual protections that the Bill of Rights provides each of us are in real jeopardy. There has been a slow creep by our legislative, judicial, and executive branches to erode these protections in favor of administrative rules and regulations that instead protect the growth and continuity of government.

The federal government has gone so far beyond what was originally intended for our republic that there will be no stopping it from the top down. The only hope we have to preserve our future as an open society is to get involved in our local county and city governments, including our school districts, where we can fully participate, oversee, and influence the politicians and bureaucrats who are our friends, family, and neighbors.

Common Core is the new national education initiative of curriculum and standards that were developed by two private trade groups, in cooperation with Achieve, Inc., with the majority of funding provided by the federal government. Additional financial assistance came from the Bill & Melinda Gates and Eli & Edythe Broad foundations, which contributed $60 million, and General Electric, which gave $18 million. The two trade groups' names - the National Governors Association and the Chief Council of State School Officers - mislead the public into falsely thinking Common Core was developed by each states' elected representatives.

Rather, the entire curriculum is privately owned and copyrighted, giving sole control over its content to a small cadre of developers, who will also reap massive profits for manufacturing all new Common Core-approved textbooks, training materials for teachers, and national-testing components that will dwarf previous testing practices in America. These no-bid contracts are worth billions to private and quasi-public corporations, such as Pearson, Core One Press, and Achieve.

Governor Terry Branstad on October 3 unveiled a 10-year plan to transform Iowa's education system that would end promoting third-graders who read poorly, change the pay system for teachers, and require students to pass end-of-course exams to graduate.

"Instead of spending all of our time fighting over the issues of the past, we really want to focus on the things that will ... systemically reform and improve Iowa's education system," said Branstad, who added that earlier debates over ending state-funded preschool and zero-percent allowable growth in school funding will not be revisited.

"This is a plan for the next decade," said Iowa Department of Education Director Jason Glass, who noted that the plan is intended to be a comprehensive package and should not be viewed as a list of options to be cherry-picked. "This plan ... should be the blueprint for where our resources now and in the future go into education."

But Democrats were skeptical, especially because Branstad and Glass declined to set a price tag for the proposal and don't plan to do so until shortly before the legislature reconvenes in January.

An August 28 article at the privacy-rights Web site Pogo Was Right argues that schools are "grooming youth to passively accept a surveillance state where they have no expectation of privacy anywhere." Privacy violations include "surveilling students in their bedrooms via webcam, ... random drug or locker searches, strip-searching, ... lowering the standard for searching students to 'reasonable suspicion' from 'probable cause,' [and] disciplining students for conduct outside of school hours ... ."

"No expectation of privacy anywhere" is becoming literally true. The schools are grooming kids not only for the public surveillance state, but also for the private surveillance states of their employers. By the time the human resources graduate from 12 years of factory processing, they will accept it as normal to be kept under constant surveillance -- "for your own safety," of course -- by authority figures. But they won't just accept it from Homeland Security ("if you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear"). They'll also accept as "normal" a work situation in which an employer can make them pee in cups at any time, without notice, or track their online behavior even when they're away from work.

This is just part of what rogue educator John Taylor Gatto calls the "real curriculum" of public education ("The Seven-Lesson Schoolteacher," 1992). The real curriculum includes the lesson that the way to advancement, in any area of life, is to find out what will please the authority figure behind the desk, then do it. It includes the lesson that the important tasks in life are those assigned to us by authority figures -- the schoolteacher, the college instructor, the boss -- and that self-assigned tasks in pursuit of our own goals are to be trivialized as "hobbies" or "recreation."

At the beginning the school year, in a chemistry class at St. Ambrose University, Professor Margaret Legg offered students the option to buy a less-expensive e-book instead of the usual physical textbook. No one opted for the digital version.

Kelsey Berg, a sophomore majoring in biology, said she had already bought the hardcover edition. Had the e-book been offered before she bought it, Berg said she still wouldn't have purchased it. "I don't like reading on a computer. It's hard to concentrate," she said, adding that it wasn't worth the cost, either, because one can't sell an e-book back.

Many college students are embracing digital and open-source textbooks, which are accessed through computers and digital readers such as Amazon's Kindle. For some, it provides a more convenient way to carry multiple textbooks. Beyond being easier on students' backs, e-books are also better for the environment, because no natural resources are used in the production or transportation of a physical book.

But the major selling point is a lower cost compared to new textbooks. Textbooks cost an average of $900 per semester, according to the federal Government Accountability Office. The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) has been advocating for reducing the prices of textbooks, which they say have risen faster than the rate of inflation in the past several years.

Although e-books are often 50 percent less expensive than unused print editions of textbooks, the cost evaluation isn't quite so clear-cut. In many cases, there's little or no cost savings to students in the long run.

And some people, like Berg, resist e-books for other reasons.

A classroom in the 'new' Longfellow

Students stepping into Longfellow Elementary in Rock Island this school year will notice physical changes: a new media center and library, a new cafeteria, and a renovation that has added four new classrooms. But a more important change will be the school's new formal partnership with Augustana College.

The relationship will bring a liberal-arts-based curriculum to Longfellow - a contrast to the No Child Left Behind-forced shift in primary education that emphasizes reading and math skills to the exclusion of other subjects. Though the content of the curriculum will still conform to district standards, the way that content is presented will change: The focus will move to collaboration among students, small-group and individualized instruction, interdisciplinary learning, thematic teaching that attempts to make the coursework relevant, and the fine arts.

A No Child Left Behind-influenced curriculum "doesn't have anything to do with creative problem-solving, imagination, collaboration - all of these skills we need to survive in the next millennium," said Pat Shea, an assistant professor of education at Augustana who was part of the planning team for Longfellow. "If we don't get those things taught, it doesn't matter how many facts we know. ... We are so off-target about what it means to be an educated person, and I think we as educators have the first line of responsibility to start speaking to that."

GEAR UP Incentive Grants Help Raise Student College Aspiration and Preparation Levels in Iowa

Des Moines, IA., March 11, 2009 - More than 5,400 Iowa middle school students and their families have been given an opportunity to participate in a federal program that promotes student academic success.  The Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Program (GEAR UP) is a federal grant that promotes state and community partnerships to help low-income and minority middle and high school students succeed in planning, preparing and paying for college.  Students eligible to participate in the program will receive scholarships that can be used to pay education expenses at the college of their choice.  Iowa was one of seven states to be awarded a new state GEAR UP grant in 2008 and will receive $2.8 million annually for a total of six years.

GEAR UP Iowa, administered by the Iowa College Student Aid Commission (Iowa College Aid), will provide resources and services to 31 Iowa schools.  The 2008-2009 7th grade students in the Davenport School District, attending JB Young, Frank L. Smart, Williams, and Wood middle schools will receive year-round support in areas such as:

  • Early and ongoing academic planning, counseling, and assessment.
  • Tutoring and mentoring for academic improvement.
  • Information sessions on college admissions and financial aid.
  • Career exposure, job shadowing, and college field trips.
  • Outreach activities that encourage increased involvement for parents and families.
  • Increased access to after-school and support programs.
The program follows the students as they progress from 7th grade to 12th grade.  Upon graduation, each eligible student is guaranteed a portion of the $16.8 million reserved to award college scholarships.  "GEAR UP Iowa will provide life-changing opportunities for many Iowa middle school students," stated Karen Misjak, executive director of Iowa College Aid.  "This program offers scholarships to those most in need of assistance and at risk of not attending college.  GEAR UP Iowa provides the resources to help students succeed academically and allows them to focus and expand on their life goals."
GEAR UP Iowa relies on a network of service organizations, schools, colleges, and community members to assist in providing the components needed in building a strong GEAR UP program.  Iowa College Aid's GEAR UP representatives look forward to developing relationships with the 31 selected schools and their communities.  More information about the GEAR UP Iowa program is available at Iowa College Aid's website at www.iowacollegeaid.gov or by contacting a GEAR UP Iowa representative at 877-272-4456.