Tag Archives: American Principles Project

Pioneer Institute Study: Massachusetts “Eviscerates” Its K-12 History Standards

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The Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education should reject a proposed rewrite of the Massachusetts History and Social Science Curriculum Framework in its entirety and immediately restore the state’s 2003 framework, considered among the strongest in the country, according to a new research paper titled, No Longer a City on a Hill: Massachusetts Degrades Its K-12 History Standards, published by Pioneer Institute.

“The 2018 revision fails to provide effective history education. It must be replaced with a framework that requires much of students but offers them, in return, a share of our common treasure,” wrote the paper’s authors, David Randall, director of research at the National Association of Scholars; Will Fitzhugh, founder of the The Concord Review; and Jane Robbins, senior fellow at the American Principles Project.

The authors argue that the draft of the new framework, released for public comment in January, “eviscerates” the 2003 framework and degrades it in five ways.

  1.  It replaces coherent sequences of American and European history with incoherent fragments.
  2.  It is 50 percent longer than the 2003 framework and presents the standards in “unreadable education-school jargon.”
  3.  It replaces the earlier framework’s full account of our country’s European past and replaces much of it with “the history of politically correct protest movements.”
  4. It allots insufficient time for students to learn European and American history.
  5. It eliminates the already developed 2009 history MCAS assessment and substitutes hollow “expectations” for each grade.

“Each of the 2018 Revision’s failings is sufficient to disqualify it as an adequate standard for K-12 history instruction,” according to the authors. “It should be rejected outright.”

“It’s truly a travesty to see the loss of curriculum standards that helped catapult Massachusetts to national leader in education. First the state replaced its excellent English language arts and math standards with Common Core, and now it discards its stellar history standards in favor of progressive propaganda. This white paper aims to address the heart of these issues and suggest a way the state can reclaim its much lauded educational heritage,” Robbins said in a released statement.

In 2003 the Massachusetts History and Social Science Curriculum Framework was created as part of the Massachusetts Education Reform Act. It contained grade-by-grade standards for core essential learning. While history instruction in K-12 schools has been in decline for decades, according to the authors, history education in Massachusetts has fared better until changes were made in 2009.

In 2009 the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) suspended the history and social science framework. In 2016 the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) introduced a rewrite of the framework, the result of what the authors called “an exercise in progressive educational propaganda and vocational training for how to be a political activist.” The rewrite was approved by BESE and posted for public comment in January 2018.

Along with rejecting the revised standards outright, the authors made several recommendations on ways that DESE could strengthen civics instruction in the state.

These include turning the 2003 framework’s United States Government elective into a required course; endorsing the Civics Education Initiative, already enacted in 15 states, which requires high school students to pass the same test that immigrants applying for U.S. citizenship must pass; and adding a civics component to the MCAS history test.

Video: How Corporations and Big Government Collaborate

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The Heritage Foundation this morning hosted a panel discussion with Emmett McGroarty and Jane Robbins with American Principles Project and Erin Tuttle with Hoosiers Against Common Core to discuss their book Deconstructing the Administrative State: The Fight for Liberty.

Recent congressional hearings on social media regulation are yet another reminder of the seemingly unceasing expansion of the administrative state. In their new book, McGroarty, Robbins, and Tuttle examine the political philosophy and tactics behind this “seismic shift” of power from the people to unaccountable technocrats.

This morning’s panel discussed how corporate America is complicit in this expansion which is something we have noticed with Common Core and the push to replace classical education and the well-rounded education it provides with workforce development and career pathways.

You can watch the entire panel discussion below:

Coalition Calls on Congress to Rewrite FERPA

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Photo credit: Rob Crawley (CC-By-2.0)

On Tuesday, American Principles Project and individuals from more than 100 organizations including Education Liberty Watch and Eagle Forum called on Congress to rewrite the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA). In a letter to the House Education and Workforce Committee, they implored Congress to recognize that citizens have a property interest in their personal data and that Congress should protect that interest.

“Personal data collection without consent is an affront to freedom,” said Emmett McGroarty, senior fellow at American Principles Project and co-author of the new book, Deconstructing the Administrative State: The Fight for Liberty. “The federal government has no right or authority to vacuum up mountains of personal data on its citizens without their consent, with only the vague intent to “help” them or others make decisions. This is especially true for children.”

The APP-led coaltion submitted five recommendations for the FERPA rewrite:

  1. Do whatever is possible to decrease the amount of data collected on students, especially social-emotional learning (SEL) data. Collection of such data should be eliminated or at the very least a) not collected without informed opt-in parental consent and b) be treated as medical data.

  2. Treat whatever mental health, social emotional, or behavioral data collected for special-education evaluations or any other related program, such as Positive Behavioral Intervention and Supports (PBIS) or Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS), as medical data that cannot be housed in longitudinal databases.

  3. Use aggregate rather than individual data to the greatest extent possible.

  4. Obtain parental consent if data collected for one purpose is to be repurposed or shared with another federal agency.

  5. Eliminate the current language in FERPA allowing predictive testing.

Read the letter below:

Disclosure: Our editor, Shane Vander Hart, is a signatory of this letter.

Jane Robbins Testifies to House Committee on Education & the Workforce

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Jane Robbins, senior fellow, with American Principles Project was one of four witnesses for the House Committee on Education and the Workforce‘s hearing on “Evidence-Based Policymaking and the Future of Education.”

Robbins and Paul Ohm, a professor at the Georgetown University Law Center, were the only two witnesses who seemed to be concerned with student privacy. The other two witnesses, Dr. Casey Wright, Mississippi’s State Superintendent of Education, and Dr. Neal Franklin, the program director for Innovation Studies with WestEd, were touted the gains that could be made with student data.

You can watch the whole hearing below:

Here are the transcript and video of Robbins’ opening statement to the committee:

Madam Chairman and members of the committee:

My name is Jane Robbins, and I’m with the American Principles Project, which works to restore our nation’s founding principles. Thank you for letting me speak today about protecting privacy when evaluating government programs, especially in the area of education.

The Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking was created to pursue a laudable goal: To help analyze the effectiveness of federal programs. We all certainly agree that public policy should be based on evidence, on facts, not on opinion or dogma. So unbiased scientific research, for example, is vital for policymaking.

But the problem arises when the subjects of the research and analysis are human beings. Each American citizen is endowed with personal dignity and autonomy and therefore deserves respect and deference concerning his or her own personal data. Allowing the government to vacuum up mountains of such data and employ it for whatever purposes it deems useful – without the citizen’s consent, or in many cases even his knowledge – conflicts deeply with this truth about the dignity of persons.

Bear in mind that the analyses contemplated by the Commission go further than merely sharing discrete data points among agencies. They involve creating new information about individuals, via matching data, drawing conclusions, and making predictions about those individuals. So, in essence, the government would have information about a citizen that even he or she doesn’t have.

Our founding principles, which enshrine the consent of the governed, dictate that a citizen’s data belongs to him rather than to the government. If the government or its allied researchers want to use it for purposes other than those for which it was submitted, they should get consent (in the case of pre-K-12 students, parental consent). That’s how things should work in a free society.

Let’s consider a few specific problems. The Commission’s recommendations to improve evidence-building, while well-intentioned and couched in reasonable language, fail to recognize that data turned over by citizens for one purpose can be misused for others. It is always assumed that the data will be used in benevolent ways for the good of the individual who provides it. But especially with respect to the enormous scope of pre-K through college education data, that simply isn’t true.

Literally everything can be linked to education. Data-analysis might study the connection between one’s education and his employment. Or his health. Or his housing choices. Or the number of children he has. Or his political activity. Or whether his suspension from school in 6th grade foreshadows a life of crime. Education technology innovators brag that predictive algorithms can be created, and those algorithms could be used to steer students along some paths or close off others.

And much of this education data is extraordinarily sensitive – for example, data about children’s attitudes, mindsets, and dispositions currently being compiled, unfortunately, as part of so-called “social-emotional learning.” Do we really want this kind of data to be made more easily accessible for “evidence-building” to which we as parents have not consented?

The Commission recommends that all this data be disclosed only with “approval” to “authorized persons.” But we should ask: Approval of whom? Authorized by whom? There are myriad examples of government employees’ violating statute or policy by misusing or wrongfully disclosing data. And even if the custodians have only good intentions, what they consider appropriate use or disclosure may conflict diametrically with what the affected citizen considers appropriate. Again, this illustrates the necessity for consent.

We should take care to recognize the difference between two concepts that are conflated in the Commission’s report. “Data security” means whether the government can keep data systems from being breached (which the federal government in too many cases has been unable to do). “Data privacy” refers to whether the government has any right to collect and maintain such data in the first place. The federal Privacy Act sets out the Fair Information Principle of data minimization, which is designed to increase security by increasing privacy. A hacker can’t steal what isn’t there.

Another problem with the “evidence-building” mindset is that it assumes an omniscient government will make better decisions than individuals can themselves. But what these analyses are likely to turn up are correlations between some facts and others. And correlations do not equal causation. So, for example, we might end up designing official government policy based on flawed assumptions to “nudge” students into pursuing studies or careers they wouldn’t choose for themselves.

Human beings are not interchangeable. Our country has thrived for centuries without this kind of social engineering, and it’s deeply dangerous to change that now.

In closing, I reiterate my respect for the value of unbiased research as the foundation for policymaking. But speaking for the millions of parents who feel that their concerns about education policy and data privacy have been shunted aside at various levels of government, I urge you to continue the protections that keep their children from being treated as research subjects – without their consent. This might happen in China, but it should not happen here. Thank you.

You can read her longer, written testimony here.

Different committee members asked questions of the panel. Congresswoman Virginia Foxx (R-NC), the committee chair, asked Robbins the first question.

Congressman Brett Guthrie (R-KY) asked Robbins whether there is a balance between gathering useful information and privacy protection that can be found.

She had an exchange with Congressman Rick Allen (R-GA) about data collection and student privacy.

Congressman Tom Garrett, Jr. (R-VA) asked her why couldn’t the federal government pull together all of the metadata already out there.

She discussed the College Transparency Act with Congressman Paul Mitchell (R-MI).

She also explained to Congressman Glenn Thompson (R-PA) why education reformers will ignore evidence when it is negative, like in the case of digital learning.

She discussed longitudinal data systems with Congressman Glenn Grothman (R-WI).

Congressman Lloyd Smucker (R-PA) asked what student data would be ok for schools to collect, and if there was any data ok to share.

(Video) Jane Robbins: What is FEPA?

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Jane Robbins, a senior fellow at American Principles Project, recorded this short video for Red Kudzu explaining what the Foundations of Evidence-Based Policymaking Act (S. 2046) is and what it will do if passed by the U.S. Senate.

The bill is before the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs.

Call the U.S. Capitol Switchboard at 202-224-3121 or use the contact info below and ask them to oppose S. 2046, the Foundations of Evidence-Based Policymaking Act.

Here is the list of the committee members along with their Twitter handles and office phone numbers.

The primary issue with FEPA is that it would create a “unified evidence-building plan” for the entire federal government – in essence, a national database containing data from every federal agency on every citizen.

It Is Too Expensive to Replace Common Core?

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It is too expensive to replace Common Core.

That’s the argument one member of the Utah State Board of Education made last week.

The Salt Lake City Tribune reports:

Utah opponents of the Common Core State Standards may need to foot a $100 million bill if they’re committed to replacing the controversial education benchmarks, according to state school board member Spencer Stokes.

During a Thursday meeting of the school board’s Standards and Assessment Committee, Stokes said it is simply too expensive for Utah to start from scratch on a new set of grade-level standards for mathematics and English education.

“There’s no way on God’s green Earth that the Legislature is going to give us the money needed to create a true Utah core,” Stokes said. “In my mind, that chapter of this debate has closed because there’s no funding for it.”

Stokes’ explanation met resistance from board colleague Lisa Cummins, a member of the advocacy group Utahns Against Common Core.

She said her constituents don’t believe the debate is over and are not satisfied allowing a “socialist program” to be rendered impenetrable by financial constraints.

“Then they can pay for it,” Stokes responded. “The point is, the Legislature won’t give us the money.”

….

A 2016 report found that comprehensive revision of the Utah’s math and English standards, including the development of new tests and instructional materials and training for educators, could cost up to $38 million for the Utah Board of Education and another $87 million for local school districts.

First, if it will cost $100 million to replace Common Core, how much did it cost the state to implement it in the first place? I don’t recall the Board bemoaning the cost of new standards back then.  I would also love to see a copy of this report the Tribune cites as there was no mention of who conducted the study, nor a link to the report. Since Mr. Stokes is throwing that figure around he needs to state where he’s getting his numbers.

Second, based on a study sponsored by the Pioneer Institute, American Principles Project, The Federalist Society, and Pacific Research Institute in 2012 that pegged Common Core’s cost at $16 billion nationally I don’t think it’s going out on a limb to say Utah spent more to implement Common Core. At least they won’t have to shell out more for broadband which would be a bargain.

Third, how much will it cost Utah, in the long run, to continue with these reforms that have so far have produced no fruit except, at best, a decrease in NAEP scores and increased achievement gaps?

CNN Tracks Trump’s Promise About Common Core

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Education Secretary Betsy DeVos and President Donald Trump at St. Andrew Catholic School in Orlando, FL

CNN launched their Trump promise tracker. They want to see how President Trump has kept his promises. They include his promise to get rid of Common Core.

At a rally held in Grand Rapids, MI after the election he said, “We are going to provide school choice and put an end to Common Core. We are bringing education local.”

They show:

They accurately show no progress has been made toward this promise.

Since he has picked Betsy DeVos as Education Secretary there has been any executive or legislative action on this. President Trump has gone silent on Common Core, and his education secretary has touted that the Every Student Succeds. I’ve pointed this out and now CNN has taken notice.

Terry Schilling, executive director of American Principles Project, made the following observation:

“Generally speaking, President Trump has done a great job keeping his promises in his first two months, but it’s hard not to notice one promise that has been seemingly lost in the shuffle — is getting rid of Common Core and making education local again still a top priority to the Trump Administration?” Schilling said.

“Frustrated by useless standardized testing and low-quality standards that lock children into an inferior education, parents across the country were excited by Trump’s enthusiasm on the campaign trail for ending the Common Core and returning education to local control. These moms and dads still remain hopeful that the Trump team will carry out his promise,” he added.

Time will tell, he’s just a little over half-way in his first 100 days. Fortunately it is not too late for him to act. We just hope to see something tangible soon.

Five Reasons to Oppose NCES Participation in the Int’l Early Learning Study

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Karen Effrem uncovered yet another governmental threat to the privacy of young children and their families – the National Center for Education Statistics’ proposed participation in an International Early Learning Study. Below is the comment on this proposal, submitted to the Federal Register by APP:

American Principles Project (APP) submits this comment in opposition to a proposal by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) to join the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) in conducting the International Early Learning Study (IELS).

As outlined in FR Doc No: 2016-29749, the IELS will focus on “young children and their cognitive and non-cognitive skills and competencies as they transition to primary school,” examining their “social emotional skills as well as cognitive skills; the relationship between children’s early learning and children’s participation in early childhood education and care (ECEC); [and] the role of contextual factors, including children’s individual characteristics and their home backgrounds and experiences, in promoting children’s growth and development . . . .”

In other words, through NCES the federal government intends to compile data about young children’s most personal and sensitive characteristics – their personalities and their “social emotional” development. APP opposes federal participation in this project for the reasons outlined below.

First, the federal government has no constitutional or statutory authority to engage in this research. The Constitution places all responsibility for education with the states and the people, not with the federal government. Especially objectionable is the federal government’s assumption of authority to examine – and perhaps set standards and norms for – young children’s attitudes, mindsets, dispositions, and values. It is difficult to imagine a more inappropriate use of any government resources, much less federal resources.

Second, this proposed study wastes yet more taxpayer money on something (government preschool) that has already been determined, in multiple studies, to be either useless or even harmful to children in the long run.

Third, experts in child development and mental health have warned that such standards and assessments of young children are highly subjective, especially when implemented by untrained teachers. Even worse is the possibility – or probability – that these unreliable assessments will be included in children’s permanent dossiers that are maintained in the state longitudinal databases (creation of which was incentivized by the federal government).

Fourth, participation in this international study, with its resulting compilation of highly personal student data, will threaten the privacy of young children and their families. The regulatory gutting of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) means that personally identifiable student data can now be disclosed to almost anyone in the world if the disclosure is rationalized by “evaluation” of an “education program.” So the unreliable assessments of children’s social and emotional states can be made available to an international organization (and presumably to agencies in the other participating countries) without even providing notice to parents, much less obtaining their consent. The inappropriateness of this should be self-evident.

Fifth, the federal government has proven itself incapable of securing the education data it already has. In late 2015 a hearing of the House Committee on Government Oversight and Reform revealed the shocking lack of student-data security throughout the U.S. Department of Education (USED). The problems encompass both lax controls over the people allowed access to sensitive data, as well as outdated technology and inadequate security to prevent unauthorized access.

The findings of the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) and the General Accounting Office illustrate why the federal government should not get its hands on any additional student data, especially such sensitive data as would be reported by the IELS:

  • Of the 97,000 account/users with access to student information (government employees and contractors), fewer than 20 percent have undergone a background check to receive a security clearance.
  • The security mechanisms protecting that data are grossly inadequate. As one OIG witness testified, “During our testing . . . OIG testers were able to gain full access to the Department’s network and our access went undetected by Dell [the vendor] and the Department’s Office of the Chief Information Officer.”
  • USED ignored repeated warnings from OIG that its information systems are vulnerable to security threats.

That the federal government should now consider adding to its data warehouse the extremely sensitive data of young children and their families is the height of arrogance and recklessness.

And finally, if data-security is this bad in the U.S. federal bureaucracy, it may be as bad or even worse in the other countries with which the data might be shared. American citizens should not have to worry that their children’s most personal data is circulating around the globe, with perhaps minimal protection.

For these reasons APP opposes participation by NCES in the International Early Learning Study and urges the new Administration to cancel this project.

Frank Cannon: Betsy DeVos Would Be a Jeb-Like Pick for Secretary of Education

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Betsy DeVos speaks at the 2016 American Federation for Children Policy Summit.

Betsy DeVos speaks at the 2016 American Federation for Children Policy Summit.

American Principles Project’s President Frank Cannon released a statement about the speculation that school choice advocate and GOP donor Betsy DeVos.

From the very beginning of his campaign, President-elect Donald Trump promised an end to the failed Common Core standards. He repeatedly assured parents across the heartland that he intended to return power over education to local schools.

“It is puzzling, then, to see reports that the Trump transition team is considering an establishment, pro-Common Core Secretary of Education – this would not qualify as ‘draining the swamp’ – and it seems to fly in the face of what Trump has stated on education policy up to this point.

“President-elect Trump rightly slammed Governor Jeb Bush for his support of Common Core on the campaign trail. Betsy DeVos would be a very Jeb-like pick, and the idea that Trump would appoint a Common Core apologist as Secretary of Education seems unlikely. We remain hopeful that Trump will pick a Secretary of Education who will return control over education to parents and local school districts – someone like Bill Evers, Sandra Stotsky, or Larry Arnn – and not someone who will simply rebrand and repackage the failed Common Core standards that were so thoroughly rejected by voters in both the GOP primary and in the November election.

DeVos is a Common Core supporter who was active in supporting pro-Common Core candidates in Michigan. She also serves on the board of Foundation for Education Excellence founded by former Florida Governor Jeb Bush (R-FL) that also has been a cheerleader of the Common Core State Standards.

Emmett McGroarty Testifies on Student Data Collection

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Emmett McGroarty, education director at American Principles Project, testified today before the U.S. Commission on Evidence-Based Policymaking about student data collection.

You can watch his testimony below (it should be queued up, but if not go to 2:45:48).