NATIONAL GOVERNORS ASSOCIATION
The first main driving force behind Common Core is the National Governors Association (NGA). Most state governors are members and their dues are paid by tax dollars. This organization provides training and support for governors, as well as lobbying for state issues. NGA also spearheads initiatives like Common Core.
NOTE: The two organizations that the proponents of Common Core point to as the “state led” creators of Common Core, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, are private TRADE ORGANIZATIONS and have no constitutional authority to determine the education standards of our children. These organizations are not subject to any of the laws that our governmental committees are subject to such as open records, financial audits, and open meetings known as the “Sunshine Laws.” See below for a report by Dr. James Milgram (who served on the math standards work group) about how these standards were developed behind closed doors without public oversight
NGA is a key part of Common Core because the organization provides the needed link to state governments and state support to give the impression that this is a constitutional initiative with no federal involvement. With NGA’s help 45 states have signed up to participate in the the Common Core standards.
According to their 2009 financial report, NGA is actually made up of two bodies. There is the association itself, and then there is the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center). NGA Center is the entity involved with Common Core, and actually handles more revenue than the association itself. In 2009 NGA Center had $21,847,764 in assets and had a revenue of $9,942,946, of which $2,412,500 (24 percent) was derived directly from what their financial report refers to as corporate fellows, which is a donor program.
The proponents of Common Core say that the standards ARE state led because they were developed by The National Governors’ Association. Well, perhaps this is true in a way that is very disturbing!
Listen to Sr. Director of Mid-Continental Regional Education Laboratory, Dr. Shirley McCune in the following video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ncWjY7vcy4
She says about education:
#1) Total transformation of our society
#2) Teaching of facts and information (knowledge) is no longer the primary purpose of education
#3) Close connection between economic (sustainable) development and human capitol (human resource labor for a planned economy)
Then there is then Governor Lamar Alexandar (now Tennessee Senator) with this 1989 speech at the NGA conference calling for a “brand new American School”
(NOTE: Alexandar went on to be the Education Secretary at the Dept. of Education and is currently Tennessee State Senator on the Senate Education committee)
He says this new American Schools would be:
1) Year Round School
2) Open from 6 p.m. to 6 p.m.
3) for 3 months old to 18
4) States should perform an “inventory” of babies in their communities.
5) A team of teachers attached to every child all the way through school.
6) Master teachers with special training to raise our children
A group that allowed this kind of rhetoric to be said at their meeting? Is this who we want developing educational standards!
Please see below for transcripts from the 1987 NGA meetings chaired by Bill Clinton. These transcripts are eye-opening. They are clearly more concerned with workers for the manufacturing. They seem to have concerns that we have students who can’t read well enough (non-English speaking especially) to function in the manufacturing plants, and then on the other end of the spectrum… too many with higher ed degrees who don’t WANT to work in the manufacturing. So… what to do about all this? Hummm…. standards! Make sure they read well enough to function as the industrial workers, but not so well that they don’t want to!!! This is the John D. Rockefeller goal of the early 20th century when he started pushing for compulsory government schooling and funding the building of government schools.
National Governor’s Association website (find all annual meetings here with transcripts)
1986-87 NGA Chair Gov. Bill Clinton’s Initiative
Making America Work: Productive People, Productive Policies
March 25, 1986
Transcript from 1987 Winter Meeting with Bill Clinton as chair, you will find on page 12 that the governors unanimously adopted a policy to adopt an INTERNATIONAL EDUCATION POLICY.
On page 26 Lee Iacoccoa shares his concerns with public education: But across town, in our own high schools, we have students who can’t read, can’t write, can’t count, and you can bet on it, they can’t compete. See page 34 of this document to see how those governors seem to be concerned that we aren’t training our students for the “workforce.” They are concerned that the professors of higher ed are telling students to strive for more than the job of working in the manufacturing plants. On page 39: Governor Keen – But one of the things which we are all trying to do in the states, as you know, is really reinvent the school in many ways. On page 40 they start talking about standards needed in education. MR. IACOCCA: You have got to get in early. You’ve got to get in the grammar schools and junior high schools. We have just got to have standards. What business can do is say, “Hey, if you don’t meet some minimum standard like, reading and writing, you ain’t going to make it in this country.” See page 42 with this statement by Governor Sinner (great name!) to Lee Iacoccoa: “But you also made a point about the terrific cost to industry of the disparity between states in these regulations and I wondered, with all the fuss and the furor that we make over states’ rights.…” On page 58: Accordingly, as the principal providers of education in the nation, states must invest in and internationalize their schools. On page 75 Governor Ashcroft rightfully acknowledges the problem with k-12 education preparing students for work: the failure to teach students how to read and write. On page 79: Our schools must do a better job so that we aren’t pumping additional illiterates into the workforce.
Benchmarking for Success report from the National Governors Association