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Parent Organization Seeks to Abolish Common Core, Performance Based Grading and U.S. Dept. of Education
By: David Deschesne
Fort Fairfield Journal, February 28, 2018
PRESQUE ISLE—The Aroostook County Republican Committee recently featured guest speaker, Victoria Bucklin at their monthly meeting held at Presque Isle Inn & Convention Center. She is President of the Maine Chapter of the U.S. Parents Involved in Education (US PIE).
Bucklin, from Knox County, discussed her organization's goals to abolish the U.S. Department of Education and return control of local schools to the local school boards, especially when it comes to deciding whether or not to use curriculum such as the controversial “Common Core” and adopting equally controversial Performance Based grading standards which are replacing the traditional letter grade system. Both of those unpopular programs are being forced upon local schools by the U.S. Department of Education.
“US PIE is a grassroots organization across the country. It was started in 2011 by parents concerned about Common Core State standards,” Bucklin told the Fort Fairfield Journal. “It has grown since then and we realized in order to really change things like Common Core State standards we need to get rid of the federal Department of Education.”
Bucklin says the U.S. Department of education funds about 9 percent of education across the country, but controls 100 percent of the education. “Actually, Maine is not on the good end of it. We only get about 7.5 percent of our education covered by the federal Department of Education. We even get less than the national average.”
Bucklin is a member of her local school board in Appleton, Maine. “I realize, as does my superintendent and principal, that we have no control over curriculum even though constitutionally we’re supposed to.”
“Any of you who work in education realize that the federal government really controls what we teach because of the assessments and the assessments are tied in with the money that we get.”
Last year, a bill was entered in Congress to abolish the U.S. Department of Education as of December 21, 2018. “We are trying to develop a grassroots organization that will do that and we need a great deal of support.”
Bucklin says the reasoning for abolishing the Department of Education - outside of the fact that there is no Constitutional authority for it to even exist in the U.S. Constitution - is they are failing at an increasing rate to teach even the fundamentals of reading and writing to school-age students. She also says the bureaucracy has become too political. “History demonstrates that the Department of Education is not out to improve education, but to extract control.”
Globalists who want to subdue a country know that it's much easier to hi-jack an education system that has a central nexus point, such as the Department of Education, than it is to try to overwhelm thousands of individual school districts across a geographically diverse union like the united States. Bucklin says those control processes were implemented over the years with Clinton's Goals 2000, Bush's No Child Left Behind, and Obama's Race to the Top. “Even the Department of Education in the State of Maine has to admit they have no control over this, it is completely controlled by the federal Department of Education.”
She also says the U.S. DOE is simply not economical. “The Department started in 1980 with a budget of $11 billion. That has since mushroomed to around $300 billion per year.” Bucklin says the way those costs break down is $65-68 billion for administrative costs just to run the Department of Education, $90 billion to maintain their buildings, contract services, supplies, etc., followed by about $150 billion in federally-controlled grants and loans for higher education.
“There's been little to no improvement in the Math and English scores of our students even though we've spent a huge amount of money.”
Bucklin also says the US Department of Education is simply not moral. “I think of a teacher kind of like a doctor, the first principle is to do no harm. Common Core is harming our children in so many ways. I'm on my school board, I volunteer in a bunch of different ways to work with children.” She has even witnessed first-hand the destruction Common Core does to the children and their learning environment. “I arranged with the principal to go into the classroom one day. I was there from 8:30 in the morning till 1:30 in the afternoon and I witnessed three little boys in tears out of frustration because they could not meet the standards. This was K through third grade.”
Bucklin also spoke to the apathy of some parents in their children's' education goals as being instigated and compounded by government intervention. “As you take away control of people's lives then they take less responsibility. So, we tend to, at least in our school system, blame the poor performance of our students on poverty but we never expect the idea that by building these safety nets that take away all responsibility for them being responsible parents they no longer show that responsibility to their children; or, if they do care, they can do nothing. If you walk into your school and complain about how bad Common Core math standards are, there's no control.”
Bucklin says Common Core also puts enormous stress and strain on young students. “They're going to be tested twice a year on standardized tests and if they don't meet proficiency, they can be tested every single day. Think of the pressure that puts on K through third grade children. That is totally outrageous and it all comes from the federal Department of Education.
Another brainchild of the gurus at the U.S. Department of Education that is being foisted upon local schools is the convoluted “Performance Based Education” grading standards that are replacing the traditional letter grades of A through F—which are based upon a maximum score of 100%—with an undefined “Meets Standards” or “Does Not Meet Standards” measuring system that allows for no elucidation of where a child's understanding of the subject matter is in their learning curve. This was done by the feel-good social controllers to allow them to lump the under-performers in with the top performers under a “Meets Standards” label in order for “no child to be left behind.” However, it does nothing for actual understanding and retention of knowledge of subject matter since students are simply trained to barely pass a test with little to no emphasis being place on retention of that knowledge in long-term memory.