Parents are getting creative about how they are showing their displeasure towards the Common Core, and the would-be supporters of it. Those of us who oppose the Core realize these corporation and organizations have very little grasp of what is contained in the Core. They are supporting the “idea” of the Core. I can actually understand and relate to that. At first the idea sounded reasonable enough to me and I required a lot of proof from folks I already trusted and worked with on many other educational projects. I spent many months listening, really listening; to both sides and trying to see if there was a middle ground. It wasn’t until I researched what was actually in it, saw how it was actually implemented (or not), learned about the lack of qualifications of the creators, learned that the international benchmarking was a myth made up to sound impressive, saw the tragically negative impact on children and their families, and heard the debunking of numerous myths and misrepresentations from the mouths of experienced and qualified educators not paid to spout unsupported platitudes, that I realized just how wrong and hostile Common Core has transformed the education landscape. Many companies supporting the Core were assured by other companies, educational leaders and politicians, donors, and wealthy stockholders like the Walton Family and Bill Gates (who created the Core) that the Core is the greatest thing for education since the pencil and chalkboard and computer. These companies have accepted on blind faith and trust that this will prepare students to run their cash registers, work in their factories, run their printing presses, and engineer their products and make a stronger country for us all. It’s a laudable goal (for the most part and from their perspective.)

The problem is . . . it’s all a lie.

First of all, claiming the Core can do all this is a ginormous unproven assertion. (You might as well throw in that it can cure Cancer and bring World Peace too.) These “standards” or jumbled and comma spliced “skills” as the only English Language Arts evaluator of Common Core, Dr. Sandra Stotsky, recently explained at a local Common Core Summit held in Baton Rouge on the 20^th of February, were never field tested, never tried out on anyone, ever, before they were forced upon all children everywhere in every setting (public and private schools) Frankly, I can’t imagine any successful company banking an entire generation of their workers on an untested decades long retraining program.

This leads me to my second point. Most companies that did not invest time and money in Common Core, or who are not hoping to make fists full of cash off the Common Core in the form of textbooks, tests, and training and tutoring programs, or educational software, have no idea what’s actually in these national “standards.”

I understand.

I really do.

But ignorance is not a defense (legal or moral) once you have been informed.

To that end I encourage all of you to inform these companies of what Common Core means to you, and what it will come to mean to their business (or lack thereof) if they keep blindly supporting what is essentially a corporately driven confiscation and retooling of our taxpayer funded educational system, of our children’s educations, for their own Human Capital needs and profit driven agendas. Below is an example of how one mom informed a company on the list of supporters I will provide to you and update as we pick them off or stubbornly dig their feet in. (Those will face a more coordinated boycott and negative publicity campaign at a later date.)

Without further ado, here is one of what I hope will be many success stories in the near future. Well done, Debbie. You have made many of us proud with this act.

Hi All,

Oh – I am laughing!!  I had the best time today!  I walked into Chase Bank armed with information on Common Core (list of all the businesses sponsoring CC, the Parent’s Beware Flier, a picture of the Stop Common Core Billboard on my phone( less than 6 blocks from the bank).

I asked to meet with an officer of the bank.  I told her how satisfied I was with Chase [bank], but that I could not support a bank that is supporting/promoting CC.  I explained to her how they are gathering all the health information, etc. on the children and how they could potentially profile children for future job interviews, etc. She had no idea.  I also explained to her how damaging the curriculum is.

When I told her that this information on companies promoting /supporting Common Core was given to me yesterday at a forum with @ 400 people in Baton Rouge and that this information was being put on Face Book – she immediately walked back with the papers and showed it to the manager who then wanted to know which Face Book this was posted too!

I then told her that I would be happy to come back and bank at Chase when they send me a letter that they are no longer supporting/promoting Common Core.  I also told her that the rest of my family will be pulling their money out of Chase as well.  She thanked me and told me that she had a son in the 4th grade and that she was going to look into this.

The irony is that I do not have a Face Book, so those of you who do, please post and if you (or your spouse) do not feel comfortable posting a particular company on your Face Book – just delete that one company and post the rest.   I know of at least one person who is alerting his company to this bad press.  Many companies want to shut this type of bad press down before it gets out of hand.  Politicians are pushing this on our kids because corporations are pushing this on them.  Remember – who are big donors to political campaigns?  Who are referring to our children as human capital to be used( cheap labor) in their work force?

Resource Bank and Parish National Bank both have teachers connected to presidents and past presidents of these local banks.  I know Resource has recently expanded from St. Tammany to the South Shore.  Be sure and tell these institutions why you are transferring your money there.  I resent the attachment with an updated list of all the businesses to boycott. 

Have A Great Week End!

Debbie Sachs

To learn more please refer to Dr. Mercedes Schneider’s post: http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/nga-corporate-fellowsproviding-governors-ideas-that-work/

Link to pdf with details on Boycott and list of companies to target for their support of Common Core: tuna fish and common core2

My kids belong themselves and to me; not to you, or your community, or any company