FREE SPEECH IS PROTECTED IN THE FIRST AMENDMENT

I Am the First Amendment

http://iam1a.com/

Freedom of Speech is in the FIRST AMENDMENT of the U. S. Constitution.

For anyone who is fears bloggers, just remember that 

We're Not America Without the Constitution!

Opinions about issues are protected speech, and neither illegal or taxable.

Three-minute video

When we exercise our Right to Free Speech, we are enforcing the Constitution and helping to keep America FREE!

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country

DISCRIMINATION AGAINST CHRISTIANS

Nearly 200 cities pass laws discriminating against Christians

http://godfatherpolitics.com/12710/nearly-200-cities-pass-laws-discriminating-christians/

Godfather Politics – Dave Jolly – 9/30/2013

Gay activists are successfully getting laws passed in cities around the country that discriminate against Christians.  The laws are called nondiscrimination laws by the LGBT activists pushing through one city council after another.  So far, over 180 cities have passed these so-called nondiscrimination ordinances.

In essence the laws provide special protection to LGBT individuals while at the same time; they place huge restrictions on the religious rights of Christians.  For instance, the San Antonio city council voted 8-3 to pass their ordinance that bans any form of discrimination based upon sexual orientation or gender identity. 

Their ban went so far as to forbid anyone who does not openly accept or support gay rights from conducting any business with the city.  Violating the ordinance is a Class C misdemeanor that could result in a fine of up to $500 per day.

Today, we find nearly 200 cities with nondiscriminatory ordinances.  By the end of the year the number will most likely be well over 200.  It wouldn’t surprise me to see a federal law passed sometime before the end of 2014 that discriminates against Christians and provides the special protection for gays.  If left unchecked, by the end of 2015 we could well see any public show of Christianity to be outlawed because it offends someone somewhere.  No one cares about offending Christians because we’re just lower class citizens anyway.

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country

OBAMA: ARAB SON OF SLAVE OWNERS

The O-Man:  These 398 Words that went Viral

http://www.tothepointnews.com/content/view/3311/44/

To the Point News – Dr. Jack Wheeler – 8/21-2008

Very interesting post - click to read the whole post.

What he isn't, not a genetic drop of, is 'African-American,' the descendant of enslaved Africans brought to America chained in slave ships. He hasn't a single ancestor who was a slave. Instead, his Arab ancestors were slave owners. Slave-trading was the main Arab business in East Africa for centuries until the British ended it. 

Obama is not the descendant of slaves, he is the descendant of slave owners. Thus he makes the perfect Liberal Messiah.

It's something Hillary doesn't understand - how some complete neophyte came out of the blue and stole the Dem nomination from her. Obamamania is beyond politics and reason.

It is a true religious cult, whose adherents reject Christianity yet still believe in Original Sin, transferring it from the evil of being human to the evil of being white.

Thus Obama has become the white liberals' Christ, offering absolution from the Sin of Being White.

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country

OBAMACARE CRONYISM - INCLUDES HIS WIFE

CGI Federal executive spent “Christmas with the Obamas”

http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/28/cgi-federal-executive-spent-christmas-with-the-obamas/

Daily Caller – Patrick Howley – 10/28/2013

Michelle Obama’s relationship with Princeton classmate Toni McCall Townes-Whitley, whose company earned the no-bid contract to design the disastrous Healthcare.Gov Obamacare website, continued after the Obamas moved into the White House.

Townes-Whitley and her husband even enjoyed “Christmas with the Obamas” at the White House in December 2010, according to a Facebook album created by Townes-Whitley.

Although neither Michelle Obama nor Townes-Whitley has discussed their relationship, the Christmas event took place just seven months after Townes-Whitley joined CGI Federal as a senior vice president.

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country

FEDS RAID REPORTER'S FILES ON BOGUS WARRANT

Federal agents pre-dawn raid on reporter’s home raises questions
http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/10/28/federal-agents-pre-dawn-raid-on-reporter-home-raises-questions/
Fox News – Todd Starnes – 10/28/2013

“This really can’t stand,” Hudson told me. “You cannot come into a journalist’s home under false pretenses with a bogus warrant and just waltz out with confidential files.”

So if you’re doing the constitutional math, I’d say the Obama administration has violated the Hudson family’s first, second and fourth amendment rights.  

“Never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that state police and federal officers would come into my house at 4:30 in the morning to take my files without a federal subpoena,” she said.

It’s really not all that surprising the Obama administration would use a potato gun to trample the constitutional rights of an American citizen.

It’s a perfect tool for shredding potatoes – and the U.S. Constitution.

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country

COMMON CORE'S BIGGEST PROPONENT: TONY EVERS

Wisconsin State Superintendent Tony Evers offers veiled threat to opponents of Common Core

http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/10/wisconsin-state-superintendent-tony-evers-veiled-threat-opponents-common-core/

Freedom Outpost – Karen Schroeder – 10/9/2013

The state of Wisconsin has held three out of four public hearings on Common Core Standards. State Superintendent Tony Evers must be feeling the heat because he offered legislators a veiled threat that any rejection of Common Core Standards may be taken to the Supreme Court. This threat outrages citizens across the state who are trying to protect their right to exercise local control of schools.

Kim Simac,  Wisconsin State Director for Concerned Women for America, Chairperson for Northwoods Patriots, and one of the major community organizers in northern Wisconsin, stated, "Superintendent Evers' threat to jump directly to the Wisconsin Supreme Court should any legislation or decision be made to opt out of CCSS exposes his lack of confidence in the standards themselves. Those supporters of CCSS should have an arsenal of evidence that proves excellence and superiority in the product. Obviously they do not."

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country

COMMON CORE IGNORES PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND SKIPS THE PART ABOUT REWARDS FOR HARD WORK

Common Core teaches second graders to be good union COMRADES

http://finance.townhall.com/columnists/michaelschaus/2013/10/28/common-core-teaches-second-graders-to-be-good-union-comrades-n1732453/page/full

Townhall Finance – Michael Schaus – 10/28/2013

Common Core CONNECT

http://connect.customer.mcgraw-hill.com/products/connect-for-mcconnell-economics-19e/

Income inequality, poverty and discrimination

http://highered.mcgraw-hill.com/sites/0073511447/student_view0/chapter20/

Premium content available for purchase is identified in the left-hand Navigation Menu by the asterisk (*) which precedes the content name. Premium Content on this OLC includes:

1. Digital Study Guide, written by William Walstad
2. Paul Solman Videos (Chapter Content)

After reading this chapter, you should be able to:

1. Explain how income inequality in the United States is measured and described.
2. Discuss the extent and sources of income inequality.
3. Demonstrate how income inequality has changed since 1970.
4. Debate the economic arguments for and against income inequality.
5. Relate how poverty is measured and its incidence by age, gender, ethnicity, and other characteristics.
6. Identify the major components of the income-maintenance program in the United States.
7. Discuss labor market discrimination and how it might affect hiring decisions and wages.

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country

IRS: AMERICANS ARE TIRED OF YOUR BILLION DOLLAR ERRORS

IRS doles out $11.6 billion in erroneous tax credit checks
http://watchdog.org/112104/irs-obamacare-tax/
Watchdog.org – M. D. Kittle – 10/23/2013

During the past decade, the IRS has handed out a minimum of $110 billion in improper EITC payments, and as much as $132 billion. That’s the value of at least 4 ½ federal government shutdowns.

“This is just further evidence of a federal government that is a very broken, very dysfunctional and very inefficient entity,” U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisconsin, told Watchdog.org.

The IRS offered several reasons for the improper payments, not the least of which is the “complexity” of the EITC tax law, “including the need for congressional authorization of math error authority,” according to the audit. Part of the problem, according to a TIGTA official, is that the IRS doesn’t have the authority to correct simple math errors on EITC forms without the benefit of an audit.

Other reasons include:

• Confusion among eligible claimants
• High turnover of eligible claimants
• Unscrupulous tax return preparers
• Downright fraud

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country

WHICH OBAMA IS RESPONSIBLE FOR HEALTHCARE.GOV, BARACK OR MICHELLE?

Michelle Obama’s College classmate’s firm built Obamacare website disaster
http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/10/michelle-obamas-college-classmate-toni-townes-whitley-built-obamacare-website/
Freedom Outpost – Dean Garrison – 10/26/2013

First Lady Michelle Obama's Princeton classmate is a top executive at the company that earned the contract to build the failed Obamacare website.

Toni Townes-Whitley, Princeton class of '85, is senior vice president at CGI Federal, which earned the no-bid contract to build the $678 million Obamacare enrollment website at Healthcare.gov. CGI Federal is the U.S. arm of a Canadian company.

Townes-Whitley and her Princeton classmate Michelle Obama are both members of the Association of Black Princeton Alumni.

Toni Townes '85 is a onetime policy analyst with the General Accounting Office and previously served in the Peace Corps in Gabon, West Africa. Her decision to return to work, as an African-American woman, after six years of raising kids was applauded by a Princeton alumni publication in 1998.

Michelle Obama’s Princeton classmate is executive at company that built Obamacare website

http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/25/michelle-obamas-princeton-classmate-is-executive-at-company-that-built-obamacare-website/
Daily Caller – Patrick Howley – 10/26/2013

George Schindler, the president for U.S. and Canada of the Canadian-based CGI Group, CGI Federal’s parent company, became an Obama 2012 campaign donor after his company gained the Obamacare website contract.

As reported by the Washington Examiner in early October, the Department of Health and Human Services reviewed only CGI’s bid for the Obamacare account. CGI was one of 16 companies qualified under the Bush administration to provide certain tech services to the federal government. A senior vice president for the company testified this week before The House Committee on Energy and Commerce that four companies submitted bids, but did not name those companies or explain why only CGI’s bid was considered.

8000 comments!
Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country

SAUL ALINSKY - FULFILLED BY BARACK OBAMA

The Have Nots of Saul Alinsky have become the Haves
http://freedomoutpost.com/2013/10/saul-alinskys-nots-become-haves/
Freedom Outpost – Dr. Robert Owens – 10/26/2013

"We have just concluded the 5th fiscal year since President Obama took office. During those five years, the federal government has spent a total $3.7 trillion on approximately 80 different means-tested poverty and welfare programs. The common feature of means-tested assistance programs is that they are graduated based on a person's income and, in contrast to programs like Social Security or Medicare, they are a free benefit and not paid into by the recipient," says the minority side of the Senate Budget Committee. 

The minority side also states that, "The enormous sum spent on means-tested assistance is nearly five times greater than the combined amount spent on NASA, education, and all federal transportation projects over that time."  And the staggering sum of $3.7 trillion is not even the entire amount spent on federal poverty support, as states contribute more than $200 billion each year primarily in the form of free low-income health care. 

In total, the Census Bureau estimated, 151,014,000 Americans out of a population then estimated to be 306,804,000 received benefits from one or more government programs during the last three months of 2011. Those 151,014,000 beneficiaries equaled 49.2 percent of the population. 

This included 82,457,000 people--or 26.9 percent of the population--who lived in households in which one or more people received Medicaid benefits. 

All these transfer payments impoverish the working middle class who pay the biggest share of their income in taxes and empower those who receive the benefits, often being the same ones who pay no taxes.  Thus the have nots become the haves fulfilling the goal of the Alinsky inspired community organizing program which has become Americas master plan. 

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country

TAX CUTS OR TAX INCREASE? WHAT'S YOUR CHOICE?

Two views:  property tax cuts and complaints

http://watchdog.org/112581/propertytax-republican-democrat/

Watchdog.org – M. D. Kittle – 10/24/2013

Credit:  WATCHDOG.ORG - By Wisconsin Reporter

MADISON – Wisconsin doesn’t see a lot of bipartisan legislation these days.
That’s why it’s so interesting to hear the grousing going on by Democrats over a Republican-led property tax relief bill — a bill most Dems supported. The $100 million package, after all, does something rarely done in Wisconsin: It cuts taxes.
Democrats say the property tax cut is too small, and that not everybody will realize the same relief. True, the package doesn’t spread out relief equally. What Democrats don’t tell you is that they would pay for their plan and other non-property tax initiatives by taking tens of millions of dollars in federal Medicaid money — taxpayer money, of course — that Gov. Scott Walker turned down. Walker has said that he’s not confident that a federal government facing a $17 trillion debt will be able to stand by its financial commitments to the states.
Ah, but everything is politics, it seems, in the deeply divided Badger State.

In their weekly radio addresses, the Republican governor and state Rep. Janet Bewely, D-Ashland, offer two distinctly different views of the recently passed and signed property tax cut bill. We present them here.

Gov. Scott Walker

TOUGH, BUT PRUDENT: Gov. Scott Walker says a $100 million tax cut is the result of fiscally responsible decisions.

On Sunday, I signed a bill providing $100 million in property tax relief for Wisconsin’s families, farmers, seniors, and small businesses.  With this bill, the typical Wisconsin homeowner will save approximately $680 over four years.

That’s a stark contrast from the path property taxes were on in the past. In the decade before I took office, property taxes on a typical home skyrocketed by 27 percent. Now property taxes on a typical home will have dropped in three consecutive years. We were able to provide this relief because of higher than expected growth in state revenue due to our growing economy and job creation. Also because of our sound management of the state’s finances, the state of Wisconsin spent less money than anticipated in the last fiscal year.
I want to thank Senate Majority Leader Scott Fitzgerald and Assembly Speaker Robin Vos for their leadership, as well as Republicans and Democrats in the Legislature for their overwhelming bipartisan support for this property tax relief.

Families, farmers, seniors and small businesses all across Wisconsin can breathe a sigh of relief for the third year in a row thanks to our tough, but prudent, decisions and this $100 million investment in property tax relief.

Together, we are moving Wisconsin forward.

The governor’s address is here.

Rep. Janet Bewley

Last week the Legislature passed Governor Walker’s so-called property tax relief bill. Lost in all the hype is the fact that the Governor and Republican-controlled legislature are still raising your property taxes. And the little relief the law provides isn’t even being spread around evenly or fairly. The Wisconsin Taxpayers Alliance reports that property taxpayers in 82 school districts will see little or no benefit under the Republican plan.

UNEVEN, UNFAIR: State. Rep. Janet Bewley, D-Ashland, said the Walker property tax cut doesn’t deliver relief evenly or fairly.

For example, taxpayers in the Mercer School District will get a tax cut of $1. That’s not a dollar each – that’s one dollar divided among all the property taxpayers in the district, far short of the mere $13 the average homeowner was told to expect this year. And even if people get some relief under this bill, the average person’s property taxes will still rise in both 2013 and 2014.

Democrats put forward a plan that would have actually cut property taxes and utilized the first dollar credit to ensure all property taxpayers would benefit, but the Republicans said no. Time and time again, common-sense ideas are ignored because they are offered by Democrats.

The Republicans raised property taxes to give tax breaks to unaccountable private voucher schools. They refused federal health care resources that would have saved Wisconsinites money and provided coverage for more people. It is time to put common-sense solutions before partisanship.

The Legislature can do better. Wisconsin families deserve better.

See the address here

Please, feel free to "steal our stuff"! Just remember to credit Watchdog.org.

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country

WISCONSIN COAL PLANTS TO CLOSE BECAUSE OF EPA STRANGULATION

EPA regulation shutter two Wisconsin coal-fired generators

http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/24/epa-regulations-shutter-two-wisconsin-coal-fired-generators/

Daily Caller – Michael Bastasch – 10/24/2013

 

This is a bad week to work at a coal plant. Wisconsin’s Dairyland Power Cooperative announced it will be closing two coal-fired generating units, partly due to regulatory requirements that make it harder to burn coal.

Dairyland will be closing two coal-fired units at its Alma Station by the first quarter of 2015. The coal units have a capacity of 136 megawatts and were built during the Eisenhower administration. The Alma Station once boasted five coal-fired unit, but the first three were shut down in 2011.

The plant’s operators say the decision was not taken light.

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country

SEC. SEBELIUS HAS INSURANCE, JUST NOT OBAMACARE

Sebelius:  Obama did not know about Obamacare website glitches

http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2013/10/22/sebelius_obama_did_not_know_about_obamacare_website_glitches.html

Real Clear Politics – 10/22/2013

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country

DEFAULT IS A CHOICE

Two obvious facts on the debt ceiling showdown

http://consultingbyrpm.com/blog/2013/10/two-obvious-facts-on-the-debt-ceiling.html

Consulting BYRPM – Robert P. Murphy – 10/92-13

Click the link to view the graphs - money comes into the U. S. Treasury.
Then decisions must be made to allocate those funds.

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country

COMMON CORE PUBLIC HEARING TESTIMONY

Common Core Testimony – Public Hearing – 10/3/2013

http://advocatesforacademicfreedom.blogspot.com/

Advocates for Academic Freedom – Karen Schroeder – 10/3/2013

Karen Schroeder’s testimony in Madison, WI is presented and refers to numerous handouts.

English Language Arts Curriculum Framework for American Public Schools:  A Model - FOR USE BY ANY STATE OR SCHOOL DISTRICT WITHOUT CHARGE - Sandra Stotsky – Professor Emerita, Univ. of Arkansas – February 2013 – 83-page PDF - http://alscw.org/news/wp-content/uploads/2013/05/2013_ELA_Curriculum_Framework.pdf

PIRLS 2011:  Reading achievement of U.S. Fourth-Grade students in an international context

http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/pubsinfo.asp?pubid=2013010rev

She also posts her responses to legislator questions at the hearings – scroll down.

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country

DIANNE FEINSTEIN TO PROFIT AT TAXPAYER EXPENSE

Going Postal

http://www.snopes.com/politics/business/blum.asp

Snopes - TRUE

That company is CRI and it belongs to a man named Richard Blum.   Richard Blum is the husband of Senator Dianne Feinstein and is shown with her in the picture above. (Most voters and many of the government people who approved the deal have not made the connection between the two because they have different last names).

Senator Feinstein and her husband stand to make a fortune (EST at between $950 million and $1.1 billion!!) from these transactions. His company is the sole real estate on the sale. CRI will be making a minimum of 3% and as much as 6% commission on each and every sale.  All of the properties that are being sold are all fully paid for. They were purchased with U.S. taxpayers dollars.

 

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country

MSNBC RANT ON POOR ECONOMY

News anchor completely loses it on camera because of everything that’s wrong with America

http://daily.represent.us/news-anchor-completely-loses-it-on-camera-because-of-everything-thats-wrong-with-america/

Us Daily Represent.US – 7/17/2013

5-minute video

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country

OBAMACARE: 109 AGENCY-WRITTEN REGULATIONS

11,588,500 words:  Obamacare regs 30X as long as law

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/penny-starr/11588500-words-obamacare-regs-30x-long-law

CNS News – Penny Starr – 10/14/2013

 

(CNSNews.com) -- Bureaucracies in the Obama Administration have thus far published approximately 11,588,500 words of final Obamacare regulations, while there are only 381,517 words in the Obamacare law itself.

That means unelected federal officials have now written 30 words of regulations for each word in the law.

What is commonly known as the Obamacare law includes both the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act (HCERA). Since these bills were signed into law by President Barack Obama in March 2010, various agencies in the administration have published 109 final regulations spelling out how they are to be implemented.

For each word actually in the Obamacare law that Congress enacted, the Obama administration has written 30 more words in regulations indicating how it will be enforced.

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country

COMMON CORE'S COMPETITION HAS REAL RESULTS

Top public schools demand more than Common Core

http://watchdog.org/111120/top-public-schools-demand-more-than-common-core-2/

Watchdog.org – Joy Pullmann – 10/17/2013

Permission was granted by WatchDog to “steal our stuff."  The entire article is unedited.

The best U.S. public schools — including those with high numbers of poor and minority kids — require more of students than state standards and Common Core, and school leaders attribute their success partly to these high expectations.

CAN IT BE BETTER: The Common Core lists what its creators think students should know in K-12 math and English. Forty-five states agreed to it under pressure from the Obama administration in 2010. The Core calls itself “rigorous” and “internationally benchmarked,” but investigation into actually rigorous and internationally competitive standards within the United States casts doubt on these claims.

The Common Core lists what its creators think students should know in K-12 math and English. Forty-five states agreed to it under pressure from the Obama administration in 2010. The Core calls itself “rigorous” and “internationally benchmarked,” but investigation into actually rigorous and internationally competitive standards within the United States casts doubt on these claims.

High-achieving public schools tend to take two approaches to producing outstanding results, said Florian Hild, principal of Ridgeview Classical Charter School in Fort Collins, Colo.. Ridgeview is on the U.S. News and World Report’s gold list of top schools in the country, and ranks second-best high school in the state.

“You can be top by playing the testing game better than all of the other public schools,” he said. “What other schools do is look at that as a side effect of a serious education. So if our students, our ninth graders can read Thucydides and Homer and Virgil, whatever the state test asks them to do, they can do.”

A look at what some of America’s best public schools teach children indicates that Common Core is more of an afterthought than a guide to high-quality instruction.

Best schools in the world

BASIS charter schools are a network that began in Arizona, where their first two schools consistently rate in the top 10 on several national rankings. Children attending BASIS encounter math books two or three grades above theirs — fifth graders take seventh grade pre-algebra, and so forth.

“I would describe our curriculum as competitive with the best schools in the world,” said Mary Riner, a Washington, D.C., mother who lobbied to bring BASIS to her city. She is now its director of external relations. “We really are looking to close the global achievement gap.”
The Global Report Card from the George W. Bush Institute is one of many markers demonstrating that even the top U.S. school districts are mediocre compared to international peers.

“We call a school high-performing if 80 percent of kids can read at grade level,” Riner said, with disdain. “Our kids are years behind kids in Canada and Finland and Shanghai.”
To graduate from BASIS, students must take a minimum of six Advanced Placement exams, four in core subjects. Every student takes AP Calculus. The average student takes 10 AP exams, and 90 percent pass. Its Arizona schools operate on $6,500 per-pupil funding.
‘Crap thrown into school’

Riner sought BASIS for her children because she became annoyed with “the crap thrown into school to make it fun.” Her fifth-grade daughter’s Latin homework, for example, was coloring Latin words.

“It excites students to know more than their parents, and to have this knowledge and be able to think about it… That is rewarding. And that is fun. And that is what we’re trying to achieve, not this therapy kind of fake, shallow, immediate gratification,” she said, passionately.
To achieve a challenging academic environment, BASIS hires teachers who are experts in their field, most with content-based master’s degrees. Most teachers have majored in education, not a content subject. BASIS teachers work together to create a multi-grade syllabus, then have freedom to teach the material they’ve decided using their own style.
“We don’t even look at state standards,” Riner said. “That’s the last thing we do. State standards are there because we have to be in compliance. We finish the Common Core by the ninth grade… Literally what we are using are world standards.”

Poor children, rich standards

BASIS schools have been criticized for offering a curriculum many children can’t keep up with. A third of their DC students are eligible for federal free and reduced-price lunch, a proxy for poverty. Other charter school brands specifically target hard-to-educate children from broken homes, and they hold students to higher standards than typical public schools, too.
Knowledge Is Power Program (KIPP) charter schools are renowned for doing what many say is impossible. More than 86 percent of KIPP students live in poverty, and 95 percent are black or Latino. More than 93 percent of KIPP middle school students have graduated high school, and more than 83 percent of KIPP alumni have gone to college, according to KIPP.
“The state sets the academic objectives for the children, and (KIPP schools) extend those objectives because our job is not just to take them to college but to get them through college so they are successful and happy,” said Alma Salman, principal of KIPP’s Houston elementary.

To prepare for being a KIPP principal, Salman visited top public and private schools around the country. She said she saw what they expected of children, and although those expectations are higher than state standards, she wanted her students to have the best.
“The state says by the end of the school year the kindergarteners should be reading on level four, for example. We want our children to be reading at level six,” she said. “We read a lot more books to them and expose them to a lot more literature and phonics.”

Similarly, Texas expects kindergarteners to be able to count from one to 20. KIPP Houston teaches kindergarteners to count to 100. Common Core asks the same, but it does not introduce kindergarteners to ordinal numbers (first, second, etc.), time and calendars, or graphs. KIPP Houston does.

Like BASIS, KIPP teachers meet together across grade levels each year to plan lessons and make sure each subject and grade fits well with the next.

College prep for needy kids

Also in Houston, 11 YES Prep charter schools also aim to lift disadvantaged children. Two of their high schools rank in the top 100 nationally, and in the top 20 in the state, according to US News & World Report. Its students are 97 percent Latino and black, and 79 percent low-income. All its students graduate and attend college.

Teachers write YES Prep’s curriculum and thrice-yearly internal exams, said Jason Bernal, YES Prep’s president. In hiring teachers, YES Prep considers grades, experience, and administers a behavior assessment to see if the teacher will fit the school culture.
Then, candidates give a sample lesson in front of the principal and school leader they would work with. New teachers participate in a two-week intensive training, and all receive personal coaching and group professional development every week. YES Prep looks for “perfection, leadership, (and) rebound time,” Bernal said. The school also pays for performance rather than awarding tenure for longevity.

“It took 15 years to develop the curriculum and tests the schools use now. The schools’ curriculum development team started with AP exams and worked backwards to define what students will learn in each grade,” said Jennifer Hines, a YES PREP senior vice president: “We built 100 percent of our curriculum.” Each summer, they revisit curriculum.

“We’re using AP as a proxy for what kids should know, and it’s admittedly a blunt instrument but we’ve found it to be at least consistent and fairly good,” she said.

State education standards “are somewhat helpful” but not extremely specific in outlining what should be different in each grade, especially in language arts, she said, “also when we’re talking about skills, not content, in science and social studies.. So if we are teaching a rigorous set of expectations and ensuring students are mastering them, we do not need to teach explicitly to the state assessments. And we will ensure we cover state standards, but that’s a small proportion of what we’re doing.”

In short, she said, education standards “are a starting point for us.”

Liberal arts and Core Knowledge

State and national education benchmarks are more of an afterthought for schools that attempt to immerse children in time-tested education styles, such as the classical liberal arts. Colorado’s Ridgeview largely follows the Core Knowledge sequence in grades K-8. Core Knowledge outlines what a coalition of researchers have decided is essential content for preK-8, initiated by retired University of Virginia professor and literacy expert E.D. Hirsch. For high school, Ridgeview teachers write and revise their own curriculum.

Like the other school leaders School Reform News interviewed, Hild said his most important task was finding and improving excellent teachers who know and love their subject.
“We have a curriculum which we will teach, but we want to hire adults who are self-respecting intellectuals, and you can’t tell a self-respecting individual that the Colorado state standards will determine how we teach the American revolution,” Hild said. “That has to be determined by the individual teacher. They will cover the same material, but they have to own it.”

While large portions of state standards and Common Core focus on content-empty skills, Core Knowledge builds its curriculum recommendations based on Hirsch’s and other research showing that knowledge builds on knowledge, and so do academic skills. It is extremely specific.

Core Knowledge, for example, recommends children begin learning about money in kindergarten, while Common Core introduces money in the second grade. Core Knowledge would introduce fractions in first grade, while Common Core does so in third grade. Core Knowledge also expects children to be proficient in multiplication and division by third and fourth grade, while Common Core expects this by fifth and sixth.

While Hirsch and his foundation have endorsed Common Core, they also have said it does not sufficiently outline a good curriculum.

For this reason, a number of Core Knowledge schools, like Ridgeview, have rejected Common Core. Hirsch agrees Common Core does not outline the essential content children need for a good education. Instead, the introduction to Common Core encourages “a content-rich curriculum,” which he hopes will have more schools reaching beyond Common Core into Core Knowledge.

“Education has to do with human beings trying to grow as moral and intellectual beings, and if you regiment it you denigrate the ideals of education,” Hild said. “We don’t worry about the state tests and the Colorado state standards or the Common Core standards. We worry about the integrity of our curriculum and the implementation of a serious classical education.”

Please, feel free to "steal our stuff"! Just remember to credit http://Watchdog.org

Joy Pullman is a research fellow of The Heartland Institute and managing editor of School Reform News.Contact her at jpullmann@heartland.org.

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country

TONY EVERS' TESTIMONY WAS INCORRECT

http://www.thewheelerreport.com/wheeler_docs/files/1016will.pdf

The Wheeler Report

Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty – 10/16/2013

WI DPI Superintendent Tony Evers testified during the first public hearing on Common Core. 

This three-page PDF responds to and disputes Mr. Evers’ claim that he is acting in a constitutional manner regarding Common Core.

Print out this letter and take to your own local school board meetings.

Bookmark the site.

Forward to your school board members.

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S “NORMAL” IS UNAMERICAN

The Architect of Destruction

http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/scott/130301

Renew America – Maureen Scott – 3/1/2013

"Obama comes from a community organizer background where it's us against them. But that's not who we are. And that's not the position the leader of our Nation should take." – Dr. Benjamin Carson

Obama appears to be a tormented man who is filled with resentment, anger, and disdain for anyone of an opinion or view other than his. He acts in the most hateful, spiteful, malevolent, vindictive ways in order to manipulate and maintain power and control over others. Perhaps because, as a child, he grew up around family members and mentors who instilled him with an abiding bitterness toward the U.S. That bitterness seems not to have left him.

It is not the color of his skin that is a problem – for anyone in America. Rather it is the blackness that fills his soul and the hollowness in his heart where there should be abiding pride and love for this country.

Rather Obama was separated from all of these experiences.

He doesn't really understand us and what it means to be an American.

His opinions were formed by those who either envied us or wanted him to devalue the United States and the traditions and patriotism that unite us.

Obama has promoted the degeneration of peace, civility, and quality of cooperation between us. He thrives on tearing us down, rather than building us up. He is the Architect of the decline of America, and the epitome of a Demagogue.

© Maureen Scott

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country

CONTINUING RESOLUTION - HOW WISCONSIN VOTED

HR 2775 – Continuing Appropriations Resolution, 2013 – Voting Record - HOUSE

http://votesmart.org/bill/votes/46251#.UmA4iVOFfmI

WI	1	Rep.  Paul  D.  Ryan	Republican	Nay
WI	2	Rep.  Mark  Pocan	Democratic	Yea
WI	3	Rep.  Ronald  James  'Ron'  Kind	Democratic	Yea
WI	4	Rep.  Gwendolynne  S.  'Gwen'  Moore	Democratic	Yea
WI	5	Rep.  Frank  James  'Jim'  Sensenbrenner  Jr.	Republican	Nay
WI	6	Rep.  Thomas  E.  'Tom'  Petri	Republican	Nay
WI	7	Rep.  Sean  Duffy	Republican	Nay
WI	8	Rep.  Reid  J.  Ribble	Republican	Yea

Hr 2775 – Continuing appropriations Resolution, 2041 – Voting Record - SENATE

http://votesmart.org/bill/votes/46250?s=vote#.UmA4IVOFfmI

WI	Jr	Sen.  Tammy  Baldwin	Democratic	Yea
WI	Sr	Sen.  Ron  Johnson	Republican	Nay

Click this link for a thorough explanation of what really happened.

http://www.govtrack.us/congress/votes/113-2013/h550

Congress passed a bill to end the shutdown and raise the debt ceiling late 10/16/2013:

Senate Cloture | Senate Final Vote | House Vote

The Senate used H.R. 2775 as a “vehicle” for passage, meaning the Senate took an already-passed unrelated House bill, replaced its text, and sent the revised bill back to the House for a final vote.

Northwoods Patriots - Standing up for Faith, Family, Country