Showing posts with label Colorado School Board. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Colorado School Board. Show all posts

Open Letter to Mr. McMinimee: Jeffco Schoolss Superintendent

Dear Mr. McMinimee:


I am a parent with two daughters who attend Jeffco Schools. Yesterday I received the Super
News update from you in my e-mail with some explanation about the closures at Conifer High
School and Standley Lake. As you explained the situation you concluded with this statement,
I’m not going to speculate on why teachers were absent.” This statement has left me confused
about your awareness of what is going on in your organization.

I have a little experience with district and teacher issues. Might I suggest a few reasons why
teachers might have called in sick or taken personal days on the same day?

1. The election of the schools board brought a promise of better fiscal transparency and
stewardship of public funds. However this board has given money to charter schools with
proven records of mismanagement of budgets, and no record of increasing student
achievement. Teachers working in schools that have increased achievement in reading and
math might have felt a little disrespected.

2. After the Board forced Mrs. Stevenson out, the search for your position was a sham.
Thousands of dollars were put into a national search-ironically to replace a nationally recognized
superintendent with a track record of improving student achievement. After taking consecutive
pay cuts and salary freezes for the past few years in an effort to keep the organization fiscally
afloat, teachers might have felt a little disrespected.

Recall of Williams Appears the only measure to stop Obstruction of Education

Just read this article on Chalk Beat Colorado 

I didn't realize that the Jeffco Board Majority was being so obstructive to their student's education. While most of my interest in this area diminished with the AP Censorship, if I was a parent in this district I would be seriously concerned with what I'm hearing. 

This Julie Williams, who apparently has experience as an office manager in a medical office, and no experience or training at all in the field of education -- and after starting all of this because she didn't bother to read the instructions on the AP US History documents, but instead took the word of reactionists and extremist who also didn't read the instructions -- is doing more to disrupt education than anyone I've ever seen (Except perhaps the Governor of Texas). It really feels like she would prefer the schools to be closed. Several times she has been quoted as admiring the latest actions of the department of education in Texas -- which most people look at as a monumental travesty. Here are the instructions these people can't seem to find or read.

http://www.collegeboard.com/html/apcourseaudit/courses/us_history.html

I think Re-Call is in order. If only for this Williams woman who it appears is bent on destruction.

Oh.. and a look at Texas, who Julie Williams seems to be so enamored with..from News Week


...students reading Perfection Learning’s new textbook on American history will think Moses was right up there with John Locke and Charles de Montesquieu in influencing Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and their brethren. What role did Moses supposedly play? The textbook claims he contributed the concept that “a nation needs a written code of behavior.” Forget the biblical ignorance shown in suggesting Moses provided the code for a “nation” rather than for the Jewish people, who had no nation (failing to reach the Promised Land was kind of key to the Book of Deuteronomy). Forget the legal ignorance in suggesting the Constitution had anything to do with a “code of behavior” rather than establishing democratic government and the rights guaranteed to citizens. Forget the historical ignorance in suggesting that the first laws came from Moses when the sixth Amorite king of Babylon established one of the first written set of laws, known as Hammurabi's Code, hundreds of years earlier.
 I shudder every time I think of this... It is sedition and corruption of the highest -- and yet it is happening right now. 

"The "establishment of religion" clause of the First Amendment means at least this: Neither a state nor the Federal Government can set up a church. Neither can pass laws which aid one religion, aid all religions, or prefer one religion to another ... in the words of Jefferson, the [First Amendment] clause against establishment of religion by law was intended to erect 'a wall of separation between church and State' ... That wall must be kept high and impregnable. We could not approve the slightest breach. -- The United States Supreme Court

The article suggests that the publishers created these text books for Texas (under the board's direction) because Texas was such a huge purchaser of school text books (number one in the nation it seems). I think that the rest of the nation should insure that Texas is now their ONLY customer, for being so greedy that the students learning from these text books didn't matter to them at all. 

Seriously publishers.. shame on you. 

The Falsified Controversies Surrounding AP History

I've been posting this message all morning to editors, school board members and any place else I can find. The falsifications and misinformation around the AP History course have spread far and wide over the Internet, with people buying into the claims and propagating the same fictitious information without ever checking the AP US History course to see if any of it is accurate.

None of it is... 



Q: Does AP US History Teach about our Country's Heroes?
A: I don't know. Does your School Teach about our Country's Heroes?
Q: Of COURSE WE DO!
A: Then of course the AP US History teaches about them... since it is taught with your  curriculum. 
Q: (?) oh...but...
A: He lied.
Q: oh...

This whole mess in Colorado with the High School and the Censorship.. it is all based on the false information given to Julie Williams about the AP US History program and framework. Not just her. It was also given to News Week, and it was very convincing, I mean.. why would anyone lie about something like that?

Then... things weren't adding up, and I went to the College Board website and looked the program over. What I discovered in only a few short minutes was that Larry Krieger has mislead everyone, with the intent of forcing the AP to go back to the old format.
Here is why...

Larry Krieger, owner and designer of InsiderPrep, and former AP History teacher, is the influence behind  Julie Williams in Colorado-- who, as she told  Breitbart Texas ..  the proposal they are trying to pass is to preserve US history from the progressive APUSH and it is similar to actions taken by the Texas SBOE.

"Texas passed its resolution against AP US History. In Colorado, people are talking about that," she said. "What does it hurt to look into this? Our students deserve to have the best, appropriate education possible," she added. "Without looking into this, we could be harming our students," she said. She indicated that over the past year "APUSH and a new fifth grade Sex Ed curriculum were slipped into the schools with little public knowledge."

Julie's claim that it was "slipped in" isn't correct, On Sept 10, 2014, the Colorado State Board of Education already discussed the issues that Larry Kieger has been fabricating and propagating regarding the 2014 AP History program. Larry Kieger invited himself into that meeting via telephone conference. The board  listened to arguments for over 90 minutes, and decided it was still acceptable for the State Schools. You can listen to that part of the Board meeting (here)

Texas dropped the AP on the testimony of Larry Krieger
Larry has been doing quite a bit of talking and writing.
Newsweek Interview with Larry Kieger
(my first encounter with this man)

By Krieger's own admission, there is nothing false or misleading or untrue inside the AP material. The College Board has said over and over that this is a Framework design and as such it negates all of these complaints against the AP History program. So let's pull some sheets shall we?

Let's look at the orchestrator of these complaints.

Larry Krieger owns InsiderPrep, which is a business that creates and sells books and materials to help a student prep for the AP classes and tests. -- Well, it did help up until this year. See, Larry's Prep course is based on the old study methods, where memorizing is more important than critical thinking.

The AP History program has changed drastically, in that it is only a Framework now, not a full course like it was in the past. So, there is no ..."series of chronological chapters that match the sequence of topics in the College Board’s official APUSH Course Description booklet." ... Which is how Larry Krieger's program is developed. AP is now a comprehensive, adaptable Framework.

Quote right off the AP Web site :
A new Curriculum Framework Evidence Planner helps teachers customize the framework by specifying the historical content selected for student focus. It can also be provided to students to track the historical evidence examined for each concept and as review for the AP Exam.
Schools and teachers develop their own curriculum for AP courses. Submitting a syllabus to the AP Course Audit ensures teachers have a thorough understanding of AP U.S. History course requirements and are authorized to teach AP.

See that one line? "Schools and teachers develop their own curriculum ..."

Meaning that the framework Can Be fully Right Wing Conservative, going over each of the founding fathers in detail and focusing on the deeds of courageous people... OR ... it could be middle of the road, focusing on the growth of the nation, or it could be both, or neither.

The idea behind this interesting change is -- There are simply too many areas of Local State History (which have been left out of the AP classes) to cover them all. Also, every district assigns a different value of importance to Local State History. There are over 14,000 School Districts in the United States.

David Coleman, now president of the College Board, came up with an idea which addressed this issue, and solved the problem. For 2014, AP created a Framework, instead of a static text design. This new design allows the teachers and districts to create a program suitable for their own use.

A Framework is exactly what it sounds like -- a list of guides regarding what will be on the AP Test -- areas which need to be addressed  by the curriculum. Then there is a Demonstration Curriculum, to guide the teacher in creating her own. This Demonstration Curriculum, is titled very clearly Sample Data, and then SAMPLE Curriculum. For a Demonstration to be useful, a Sample, filed in with Sample Data was required, otherwise you would be looking at blank pages.

Both Larry Kieger's claim and Julie's parroting out into the wind tunnels -- that something is missing -- is silly. It isn't missing ANYTHING. If it has a Left or Right or Conservative or Liberal bend, then it was put there by the school or the teacher, not AP. -- Think of it as Object Programming if you know something about that.

Except, there is a problem... a problem for Larry, anyway. See Larry's Prep and Study course no longer fit the AP History program, because there is no way of telling what the district is going to focus on ahead of time. So there is no Chapter to Chapter.. so basically his Prep courses are useless and no one is going to buy them. So... Larry is out of a job. Apparently he's not that happy about it either (and I have to admit I wouldn't be happy myself... but I wouldn't go around doing what he is doing).

Since Every school, indeed every teacher can create her own syllabi, paying attention to areas and focuses of history which are most in line with the state and local focus-- Larry has nothing to sell and his publications are no longer marketable. -- Unless he talks you into believing that the new AP Framework design is somehow bad.

This is very difficult to do, because there is nothing false, misleading or wrong with the facts or the framework. So, he has to go after something with a lot of emotion behind it, something that will cut through logic and distract you away from the very cool idea of putting together your own AP classes -- teaching the AP like you always thought it should be taught.

Thus begins Larry's impassioned propaganda campaign against AP History, where he takes out bits from the examples of the New AP, (A technique known as Cherry Picking), twists some things up to show bias (A technique known as Appeal to fear: exploitation of anxieties or concerns), while presenting Sample Data as the Real Data (A technique known as Disinformation), it is all up to the teacher and the school what to build with the Framework -- and then he begins screaming Leftist Democrat Indoctrination(A technique known as Labeling: use of dysphemistic terms to promote negative reaction), and banging on tables.
If you have the Facts, then negotiate with the facts. If you have the Law, then negotiate with the law. If you have neither, then bang on the tables and scream.
Larry has found new friends. People who are professional propaganda workers, like Jane Robbins, who joins him because she is attempting to discredit Common Core, and David Coleman was the Lead for the Common Core Project. Through Robbins, Larry meets others who are also working to stop Common Core and he bands up with them. Now he is coming to your School to spread these false claims.

The claims are very specific. They are not random. They are from a script which obviously Jane Robbins wrote for him. They are not just a list of items, they are a part of a propaganda method, which, in his book 'Mein Kampf', Adolf Hitler called "The Big Lie." So this is not just Larry coming to tell you a few things at the Board meeting. This is an attack, and it should be greeted like one. Because the Truth is, the AP History Course is exactly what you always wanted it to be.

Again... from the AP History area of the Web Site where you put together your State's AP Curriculum.

The AP® Program unequivocally supports the principle that each individual school must develop its own curriculum for courses labeled “AP.” Rather than mandating any one curriculum for AP courses, the AP Course Audit instead provides each AP teacher with a set of expectations that college and secondary school faculty nationwide have established for college-level courses.

AP teachers are encouraged to develop or maintain their own curriculum that either includes or exceeds each of these expectations; such courses will be authorized to use the “AP” designation. Credit for the success of AP courses belongs to the individual schools and teachers that create powerful, locally designed AP curricula.

The AP U.S. History course should be designed by your school to provide students with a learning experience equivalent to that of an introductory college course sequence in United States history. Your course should provide students with the analytic skills and factual knowledge necessary to deal critically with the topics and materials in U.S. history.

There are no specific curricular prerequisites for students taking AP U.S. History.

All students who are willing and academically prepared to accept the challenge of a rigorous academic curriculum should be considered for admission to AP courses. The College Board encourages the elimination of barriers that restrict access to AP courses for students from ethnic, racial and socioeconomic groups that have been traditionally underrepresented in the AP Program. Schools should make every effort to ensure that their AP classes reflect the diversity of their student population.

High schools offering this exam must provide the exam administration resources described in the AP Coordinator’s Manual.


http://www.collegeboard.com/html/apcourseaudit/courses/us_history.html



I hope this helps you to avoid all of the confusion and fabricated controversy so that you don't wind up like Texas. -- Glenn Hefley










If the Matter was Already Settled..?

According to an article on Chalk Beat, the topic of the AP History program  in Colorado was already discussed by the State Board of Education only a short while ago (Sept 10, 2014) and matter settled. How is it that the Jeffco School Board, and Julie Williams are able to bring this up again? What is the grounds Julie Williams is using to disregard the State Education Board who have already discussed and approved of these lessons, and discuss them again?

The new AP “framework” for U.S. history has become a cause celebre among some conservative critics, who claim it presents a slanted and negative view of American history... 
Board chair Paul Lundeen, a Republican from Monument, last month proposed a resolution criticizing the AP framework and urging the College Board, which runs the AP tests, to delay the new program for a year. (See this Chalkbeat Colorado story for background.)....
...Democrat Elaine Gantz Berman of Denver said, “People are always going to be dissatisfied” with presentations of U.S. history. And after a bit more back and forth between Krieger and Fischer, the board moved on to the next agenda item.

Done. Over. No more Discussion. The matter was settled long before Julie Williams brought this back up. What is the point of the State Education Board settling a matter if the lesser boards are going to continue to ignore the finding, and bicker among themselves?

Krieger, Robbins and Koch -- To Defile your High School

In answer to :


New College Board US History Framework Defames America
Posted on 18 September 2014.
By Larry Krieger and Jane Robbins

de·fame
diˈfām/
verb
3rd person present: defames
  1. damage the good reputation of (someone); slander or libel.

By Krieger's own admission, there is nothing false or misleading or untrue inside the AP material. So,like the rest of the article -- his Title is designed to create an insult where none exists, and then fan the flames. If you read his article, you will find that he often incites hatred and division without cause or actual fact. His rhetoric is confused, and misleading -- with all the dazzle of a con-man. But we need to keep in mind that Larry Krieger owns InsiderPrep, which is a business that creates and sells books and materials to help a student prep for the AP classes and tests. -- Well, it did. See, Larry's Prep course is based on the old study methods, where memorizing is more important than critical thinking. The AP History program has changed drastically, in that it is only a Framework now, not a full course like it was in the past. So, there is no ...series of chronological chapters that match the sequence of topics in the College Board’s official APUSH Course Description booklet. Which is how Larry Krieger's program is developed. No. Now it is a comprehensive, adaptable Framework.

The Course and Exam Description (.pdf/1.81MB) includes the concept outline, curriculum framework, and sample exam questions. These resources, alongside state and local requirements for American history courses, help teachers build their syllabi. 
A new Curriculum Framework Evidence Planner helps teachers customize the framework by specifying the historical content selected for student focus. It can also be provided to students to track the historical evidence examined for each concept and as review for the AP Exam. 
Schools and teachers develop their own curriculum for AP courses. Submitting a syllabus to the AP Course Audit ensures teachers have a thorough understanding of AP U.S. History course requirements and are authorized to teach AP.

Oops!  Since Every school, indeed every teacher can create her own syllabi, paying attention to areas and focuses of history which are most in line with the state and local focus-- Larry Krieger's chapter by chapter Insider program, is no longer useful.  So Larry has nothing to sell and his publications are no longer marketable. -- Unless he talks you into believing that the new AP Framework design is somehow bad. This is very difficult to do, because there is nothing false, misleading or wrong with the facts or the framework. So, he has to go after something with a lot of emotion behind it, something that will cut through logic and the extra cost of putting together their own AP classes.

Thus begins Larry's impassioned campaign against AP History, where he takes out the examples of the New AP, twists some things up, reads a little too much into what is not really there -- since none of it has to be there, it is all up to the teacher and the school what to build with the Framework -- and begins screaming Leftist Democrats!


To Larry Krieger and Jane Robbins,

After reading your article New College Board US History Framework Defames America, I'm appalled by your actions and your rhetoric. If the student doesn't already know and understand the points of history that you keep harping on, she's not going to be in an AP class, is she? Is there any way -- using any stretch of the imagination -- that a student who is ready for Advance Placement isn't going to know who George Washington was and what he was to our country? Or about the soldiers in WWII? Or about Martin Luther King Jr.? Your arguments are blatant falsehoods.

It is, however, very likely that she will have not been introduced to the full scope of slavery, or to the existence of the Black Panthers. Or to the fact that American citizens who were Japanese were put into camps during WWII, and all of their businesses and lands seized.

Advanced Placement (AP) is a program in the United States and Canada, created by the College Board, which offers college-level curricula and examinations to high school students. American colleges and universities often grant placement and course credit to students who obtain high scores on the examinations.

The College Board collected criteria from 3000+ colleges and universities. Using those combined criteria they created a test. Passing that test fulfills what the 3000+ universities and colleges expected a student to know.  Who gave them the authority?  That question can only be to incite fear, doubt and distrust. It's dishonesty is bitter.

The College Board is a mission-driven not-for-profit organization that connects students to college success and opportunity. 
Founded in 1900, the College Board was created to expand access to higher education. Today, the membership association is made up of over 6,000 of the world’s leading educational institutions and is dedicated to promoting excellence and equity in education.
Each year, the College Board helps more than seven million students prepare for a successful transition to college through programs and services in college readiness and college success — including the SAT and the Advanced Placement Program. The organization also serves the education community through research and advocacy on behalf of students, educators and schools.
You know these facts, and that is the damming part of everything. It is obvious that your intention is not what is best for the students, or the country. Your primary purpose is to cause dissent. You are inciting parents and school boards with meaningless verbiage. City upon the hill?

(1) Diversity among people allows for a variety of ways in which God may be honored. (2) Acts of kindness by the rich toward the poor - and a spirit of obedience by the poor toward the rich - further manifest the spirit of ideal public life. (3) Common need among individuals with different qualities is necessary to society.
...soe the way to drawe men to the workes of mercy is not by force of Argument from the goodness or necessity of the worke for though this course may enforce a rationall minde to some present Act of mercy as is frequent in experience, yet it cannot worke such a habit in a Soule as shall make it prompt upon all occasions to produce the same effect but by frameing these affeccions of love in the hearte which will as naturally bring forthe the other, as any cause doth produce the effect.
"History will not judge our endeavors—and a government cannot be selected—merely on the basis of color or creed or even party affiliation. Neither will competence and loyalty and stature, while essential to the utmost, suffice in times such as these. For of those to whom much is given, much is required... " -- JFK

I read your examples in the News Week. It was like listening to con-man, or a fortune teller.  as you stretched your illogical explanations to fit across the test questions and 'wrong answers' to make a drum to beat on. You are not a teacher. Teachers care about their student's future. You only care about your past. You offer only  a scam, and you are spreading fear and intolerance where none exists.

This part really gave me a laugh:
To his continued horror, Manifest Destiny suffered the same fate as the Founders. An idea Krieger taught for years as “the belief that America had a mission to spread democracy and new technology across the continent” was described in the framework as “built on a belief in white racial superiority and a sense of American cultural superiority.”
Which from the outset Manifest Destiny—vast in program, in its sense of continentalism—was slight in support. It lacked national, sectional, or party following commensurate with its magnitude. The reason was it did not reflect the national spirit. The thesis that it embodied nationalism, found in much historical writing, is backed by little real supporting evidence In 1845 John L. O'Sullivan coined the term "manifest destiny" in reference to a growing conviction that the United States was preordained by God to expand throughout North America and exercise hegemony over its neighbors. In the United States Magazine and Democratic Review (July–August 1845, p. 5) he argued for "the fulfillment of our manifest destiny to overspread the continent allotted by Providence for the free development of our yearly multiplying millions.

O'Sullivan's original conception of manifest destiny was not a call for territorial expansion by force. He believed that the expansion of U.S.-style democracy was inevitable, and would happen without military involvement as whites (or "Anglo-Saxons") emigrated to new regions. O'Sullivan  described the agency of Manifest Destiny as a "irresistible army of Anglo-Saxon emigration," supported the Confederacy and the idea that slavery was the only way for whites and blacks to live together. I'd say the current AP characterization is pretty accurate.

So.. what part of "built on a belief in white racial superiority and a sense of American cultural superiority" is mis-represented? It sounds more like you have been teaching this wrong to hundreds of students for your whole career, and now you wish to compound that misguided definition even further.
They also disagreed with the College Board over how children should learn, with Krieger and his allies preferring a curriculum based on memorizing facts to one based on critical thinking.
I'm not going to even try to make that statement anything other than it is -- robot non-thinkers are your goal. But I forget. You aren't a historian, you are a high school teacher. You are not an expert in education, or someone qualified to actually judge a full curriculum. You are only qualified to follow one, and from all that you have said, you aren't very good at that either.

Your partner, Jane Robbins, has used this statement several times:
Defenses of the College Board's revised Advanced Placement U.S. History (APUSH) Curriculum Framework have ranged from "it's a balanced document" to "teachers will have flexibility" to "what's wrong with a leftist slant?" None of these defenses should be acceptable.
Except she's lying. Flat out lying, like she does many times in her writing. "What's wrong with a leftist slant" is never said by the College Board. The Framework can just as easily be used to create a Far Right Conservative course. Again,your statement is only there to incite, to cause anger about something that doesn't exist. Also, just because you don't like the answer "teachers will have flexibility" does not make it invalid or unacceptable, and having you say this over and over, doesn't make it any more valid.

Heartland Institute is the hand puppets of the Koch brothers. That's all this is -- another Koch brother propaganda machine. Their goal, which they have stated proudly, several times, is the removal of the Department of Education, and to push publish schools out of existence. More here. This alteration you are promoting is designed to diminish the ability of public schools so that they become ineffectual.

You are making this a political agenda, when it has nothing to do with politics. The College Board is not a government agency. They are a business. A business which is offering students a step up into college. They are professionals who gathered the criteria and made the program to fit that criteria.

History will remember this: the propaganda, the Koch brothers, you and the false front businesses and groups you have created. That list of people you have in this article? I've researched them all. I'm amazed they haven't run you out of the state.

The students will remember this, and they will not remember you kindly, when they achieve no credit, no placement and arrive to college unprepared.


Where the Wild Things Are...

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