Shock Jocks And Politics

"Opie & Anthony" host Anthony Cumia fired over racially-charged tweets
By KEN LOMBARDI CBS NEWS July 4, 2014


Sirius XM has fired "Opie and Anthony" host Anthony Cumia after he went on a Twitter tirade against the black community earlier in the week.

"The decision was made, and Cumia informed, late Thursday, July 3 after careful consideration of his racially-charged and hate-filled remarks on social media," Patrick Reilly, senior vice president, Communications, SiriusXM said in a statement to TheWrap.

"Those remarks and postings are abhorrent to SiriusXM, and his behavior is wholly inconsistent with what SiriusXM represents," said Reilly.

On Wednesday, Cumia wrote roughly a dozen posts on his personal Twitter account, vividly describing an altercation he claims to have had with a black woman in New York's Times Square. Cumia alleged that the woman physically and verbally attacked him while he was taking pictures of the sidewalk, as she was upset over being in some of his shots.

Cumia further claimed that several black men came to her defense and also assaulted him during the incident.

During his profanity-laced description of the events, Cumia referred to the unidentified woman as a "c---" and wrote, "I hope she gets shot."

Among his comments that have been criticized by many as racist, Cumia wrote, "There's a deep seeded problem with violence in the black community" and "It's really open season on white people in this day and age. No recourse. Fight back and you're a racist. The predators know this. Good luck."

It's really open season on white people in this day and age. No recourse. Fight back and you're a racist. The predators know this. Good luck
— Anthony Cumia (@AnthonyCumia) July 2, 2014

There's a deep seeded problem with violence in the black community. Try to address it and you'll be exiled to racistville. But it's real.
— Anthony Cumia (@AnthonyCumia) July 2, 2014

My posts on twitter after I was assaulted were profanity laced indeed but racist? Nope. Why should I afford my attacker any courtesy? Insane
— Anthony Cumia (@AnthonyCumia) July 3, 2014

Following his termination, Cumia took to his Twitter page again to write, "Sirius decided to cave and fire me. Welcome to bizarro world. Fired for s--- that wasn't even on the air & wasn't illegal. So, who's next?"

This isn't the first time the shock-jock has faced controversy. In 1998, Opie and Anthony were fired from a Boston radio station after reporting that then-mayor Thomas Menino had died, causing a near-panic throughout the city.

In 2002, the duo was fired again, this time by New York station WWFS (then known as WNEW) after they encouraged a couple to have sex in Manhattan's St. Patrick's Cathedral.

Sirius XM has yet to comment on what type of future Cumia's partner Opie Hughes will have at the satellite radio station.


Shock jock
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A shock jock is a type of radio broadcaster or disc jockey who entertains listeners or attracts attention using humor and/or melodramatic exaggeration that a notable portion of the listening audience may find offensive. The term is usually used pejoratively to describe provocative or irreverent broadcasters whose mannerisms, statements and actions are typically offensive to many members of the community. It is a popular term, generally not used within the radio industry. A shock jock is considered to be the radio equivalent of the tabloid newspaper, for which entertaining readers is as important as, or more important than, providing factual information. Within the radio industry, a radio station that relies primarily on shock jocks for its programming is said to have a hot talk format.

Confusingly, the term has been used in two broad (but sometimes overlapping) contexts:

1. The radio announcer who deliberately does something outrageous and shocking (e.g., to improve ratings).
2.
2. The political radio announcer who has an emotional outburst in response to a controversial government policy decision.

The idea of an entertainer who breaks taboos or adopts a career role in the realm of the frequently offensive is not a new one. Despite the claims of decency activists, there are few eras of history in which there have not existed blue comedians; notoriously offensive performers (Petronius, Benny Bell, Le Pétomane, Redd Foxx and Lenny Bruce for example). African-American Ralph Waldo Petey Greene (1931–1984), who started broadcasting in 1966, is considered to be the original radio shock jock in the modern era.[1] Petey gave a start to, and influenced, the alleged king of shock jocks such as Howard Stern.

Shock jocks also tend to push the envelope of decency in their market, and may appear to show a lack of regard for communications regulations (e.g., FCC rules in the U.S.) regarding content. But nearly all American broadcasters have strict policies against content that is likely to draw indecency forfeitures, and air personalities are often contractually obligated to avoid broadcasting such content. Indecency fines are, in fact, rarely issued by U.S. regulators—no broadcaster has been issued a forfeiture for indecent content since 2003, although several earlier cases are in appeals court.

Popular envelope-pushing areas for shock jocks include sexual (especially kinky) and/or scatological (toilet humour) topics, or just unabashed innuendo.

Many shock jocks have been fired as a result of such punishments as regulatory fines, loss of advertisers, or simply social and political outrage. On the other hand, it is also not uncommon for such broadcasters to be quickly rehired by another station or network.

Shock jocks in the United States have been censored under additional pressure from the United States government since the introduction of the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act of 2005, which increased the fines on radio stations for violating decency guidelines by nearly 20 times.[2]

Rush Limbaugh is listed as being a “shock jock,” as well. Wikipedia says the following about him:

Rush Hudson Limbaugh III (/ˈlɪmbɔː/, lim-baw; born January 12, 1951) is a conservative American radio talk show host and political commentator. Since he was 16, Limbaugh has worked a series of disc jockey jobs. His talk show began in 1984 at Sacramento radio station KFBK, featuring his ongoing format of political commentary and listener calls. In 1988, Limbaugh began broadcasting his show nationally from radio station WABC in New York City. He currently lives in Palm Beach, Florida, where he broadcasts The Rush Limbaugh Show, the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United States.[1][2]Talkers Magazine in 2012 lists Limbaugh as the most-listened-to talk show host with a weekly audience of 15 million.[3]

In the 1990s, Limbaugh's books The Way Things Ought to Be (1992) and See, I Told You So (1993) made The New York Times Best Seller list. Limbaugh frequently criticizes, in his books and on his show, what he regards as liberalpolicies and politicians, as well as what he perceives as a pervasive liberal biasin major U.S. media. Limbaugh is among the highest paid people in U.S. media, signing a contract in 2008 for $400 million through 2016.[4]

Limbaugh has German ancestry.[6] His family has many lawyers, including his grandfather, father and brother David. His uncle, Stephen N. Limbaugh, Sr. is a federal judge in the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri. His cousin, Stephen N. Limbaugh, Jr., is currently a judge in the same court, appointed by George W. Bush. Rush Limbaugh, Sr., Limbaugh's grandfather was a Missouri prosecutor, judge, special commissioner, member of the Missouri House of Representatives from 1930 until 1932, and longtime president of the Missouri Historical Society.[7] The Federal Courthouse in Cape Girardeau is named for Limbaugh's grandfather, Rush Limbaugh, Sr.

Views

In his first New York Times best seller, Limbaugh describes himself as conservative, and is critical of broadcasters in many media outlets for claiming to be objective. He has criticized political centrists, independents, and moderate conservatives, claiming they are responsible for Democrat Barack Obama's victory over Republican John McCain in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Election and inviting them to leave the Republican party. He calls for the adoption of core conservative philosophies in order to ensure the survival of the Republican party.[60][61][62]

James Rainey of the Los Angeles Times quoted Limbaugh as saying after the 2008 election of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States that the Democrats will "take your 401(k), put it in the Social Security Trust Fund."[63]

African-Americans

Limbaugh has been noted for making controversial race-related statements with regard to African-Americans. He once opined that all newspaper composite pictures of wanted criminals resembled Jesse Jackson, and another time that "the NFLall too often looks like a game between the Bloods and the Crips without any weapons."[64][65] While employed as what he describes as an "insult-radio" DJ, he used a derogatory racial stereotype to characterize a black caller he could not understand, telling the caller to "take that bone out of your nose and call me back."[65] In March 2010, Limbaugh used the similarity of recently resigned Rep. Eric Massa's surname to the slavery-era African-American pronunciation of "master" to make a pun on the possibility that Gov. David Paterson, New York's first African-American governor, would pick Massa's replacement: "Let's assume you're right [caller]. So, David Paterson will become the massa who gets to appoint whoever gets to take Massa's place. So, for the first time in his life, Paterson's gonna be a massa. Interesting, interesting."[66]

Limbaugh has asserted that African-Americans, in contrast with other minority groups, are "left behind" socially because they have been systematically trained from a young age to hate America because of the welfare state.[67]

Capital punishment

Limbaugh supports capital punishment, saying "the only thing cruel about the death penalty is last-minute stays."[68]

Drug abuse

Limbaugh has been an outspoken critic of what he sees as leniency towards criminal drug use in America. On his television show in October 5, 1995, Limbaugh stated, "too many whites are getting away with drug use" and illegal drug trafficking. Limbaugh proposed that the racial disparity in drug enforcement could be fixed if authorities increased detection efforts, conviction rates, and jail time for whites involved in illegal drugs.[69]

Environmental issues

Limbaugh is critical of environmentalism and climate science.[70] He has disputed claims of anthropogenic global warming, and the relationship between CFCs and depletion of the ozone layer, saying the scientific evidence does not support them.[68] Limbaugh has argued against the scientific consensus on climate change saying it is "just a bunch of scientists organized around a political proposition."[71] Limbaugh has used the term "environmentalist wacko" when referring to left-leaning environmental advocates.[72] As a rhetorical device, he has also used the term to refer to more mainstream climate scientists and other environmental scientists and advocates with whom he disagrees.[73]

Limbaugh has written that "there are more acres of forestland in America today than when Columbus discovered the continent in 1492," a claim that is disputed by the United States Forest Service and the American Forestry Association, which state that the precolonial forests have been reduced by about 24 percent or nearly 300 million acres.[74][75]

Feminism

Limbaugh is critical of feminism, saying that "Feminism was established so as to allow unattractive women easier access to the mainstream of society."[76] He also popularized the term "feminazi", referring to about two dozen feminists "to whom the most important thing in life is ensuring that as many abortions as possible occur."[77] He credited his friend Tom Hazlett, a professor of law and economics at George Mason University, with coining the term.[78]

Iraq prisoner abuse

On the Abu Ghraib torture and prisoner abuse scandal, Limbaugh said, "This is no different than what happens at the Skull and Bones initiation ... And we're going to ruin people's lives over it and we're going to hamper our military effort, and then we are going to really hammer them because they had a good time."[79][80]

Obama's policies

On January 16, 2009, Limbaugh commented on the (then-upcoming) Obama presidency, "I hope he fails."[81] Limbaugh later said that he wants to see Obama's policies fail, not the man himself.[82] Speaking of Obama, Limbaugh said, "He's my president, he's a human being, and his ideas and policies are what count for me."[81]

Claims of inaccuracy

Some groups and individuals have criticized Limbaugh's accuracy. The July–August 1994 issue of Extra!, a publication of the progressive group Fairness and Accuracy in Reporting (FAIR), alleges 50 different inaccuracies and distortions in Limbaugh's commentary.[92][93] Others have since joined FAIR in questioning Limbaugh's facts. Comedian Al Franken, who later became a Senator, wrote a satirical book (Rush Limbaugh Is a Big Fat Idiot and Other Observations) in which he accused Limbaugh of distorting facts to serve his own political biases.[94]

Professor Ray Perkins has written a book titled Logic and Mr. Limbaugh: A Dittohead's Guide To Fallacious Reading, which takes "50 examples of logical reasoning from Rush's statements, identifies the logical arguments, and points out fallacies."[95]

Limbaugh has been criticized for inaccuracies by the Environmental Defense Fund. A defense fund report authored byPrinceton University endowed geoscience professor Michael Oppenheimer and professor of biology David Wilcove lists 14 significant scientific facts that, the authors allege, Limbaugh misrepresented in his book The Way Things Ought to Be.[96]The authors conclude that "Rush Limbaugh ... allows his political bias to distort the truth about a whole range of important scientific issues."

On October 14, 2011, Limbaugh questioned the U.S. military initiative against Joseph Kony and his Lord's Resistance Army(LRA), based on the assumption that they were Christians. "They are fighting the Muslims in Sudan. And Obama has sent troops, United States troops to remove them from the battlefield, which means kill them." Upon learning about the accusations leveled against Kony, which included kidnapping whole schools of young children for use as child soldiers, Limbaugh stated that he would research the group.[97][98] The show's written transcript on his website was not changed.[98][99]




The appetite that exists in this country for “shocking” political, racial, religious or sexual bias statements is frightening to me. The fact that Limbaugh's show is “the highest-rated talk-radio program in the United States” is shameful. It shows the intellectual level and moral leanings of a goodly proportion of our citizens. No wonder so many of them are against Common Core being taught in the public schools. Students would be taught to learn a wide range of things so that they can read and think on their own, thus making them less subject to demagoguery and ultra-conservative economic views.

This quotation from the following article on party affiliation statistics is interesting. http://www.people-press.org/2012/08/23/a-closer-look-at-the-parties-in-2012/ “In more than 13,000 interviews conducted so far in 2012, 35% of registered voters identify with the Democratic Party, 28% with the Republican Party and 33% as independents. The share of Democrats has fallen three points since 2008, while the proportion of Republicans has remained steady. Currently, independents lean slightly more toward the Republican Party than the Democratic Party (15% vs. 13%). Four years ago, the reverse was true (13% leaned Democratic, 11% Republican).
Overall, the Democrats now have a five-point lead in party affiliation among registered voters when independents who lean to either party are included (48% to 43%). That is down from a 12-point advantage in 2008 (51% to 39%).” 

Liberals are with the Democratic party, but some who had been middle of the road Democrats are moving toward the right. I blame deep-seated societal racism, increasing poverty among whites and therefore increased fear, the low number of college graduates among the whole population especially in the South, the rise to political power of Evangelical Protestant religion, the drumbeat of uber-patriotism, the genuinely frightening rise in illegal immigration into Texas, embarrassing international events, and the constant onslaught on the public mind by the far right. We are capable of becoming the next Nazi nation if we aren't careful. I pray that doesn't happen. How could we forget the Holocaust? Some people are even denying that it even existed.

Democrats vs. Republicans – College Degrees


http://www.politifact.com/georgia/statements/2012/nov/05/larry-sabato/education-level-tied-voting-tendencies/

The Truth-O-Meter Says:
"The higher the education level, the more likely they are to vote Democratic."
Larry Sabato on Tuesday, October 16th, 2012

With the presidential election upon us this week, PolitiFact Georgia decided to examine a statement about national voting trends.

In a recent Atlanta Journal-Constitution article, political analyst Larry Sabato commented on the constituency of the political parties, particularly among white voters. We already checked part of his statementthat "Virginia’s educational level among whites is higher than Georgia (voters’ educational level)." We rated it true.

In the article, Sabato goes on to explain more of the characteristics of the political parties’ faithful.

"... The higher the education level, the more likely they are to vote Democratic," he said in the story.

We decided to take a closer look to determine whether there were facts to bear this out. And if so, did this claim include voters nationwide? And what about Georgia, where conservative, white voters have been a solid base for the GOP?

We asked Sabato about the basis for his comments. Like his first statement, Sabato used CNN’s 2008 exit polls to substantiate his claim, according to his political analyst and media relations coordinator, Kyle Kondik.

Based on the 2008 exit polls of Georgia, Virginia (where Sabato works) and nationally, whites with a college degree supported Barack Obama at a higher rate than whites without a college degree, Kondik said.

Looking at CNN’s 2008 national election poll of almost 18,000 respondents, 44 percent identified as college graduates. Of those college graduates, Obama had an 8 percentage point advantage over then-Republican presidential nominee John McCain.

Of voters with a postgraduate degree, Obama had an 18-point advantage over McCain.

In Georgia, the GOP maintained a strong foothold. All white voters at each education level -- except of course, white Democrats -- overwhelmingly voted for McCain. The GOP nominee had a 48-point advantage over Obama among Georgia’s white college graduate respondents. At the postgraduate level, the margin between the candidates shrunk, but McCain still beat out Obama by 1 percentage point. (The postgraduate voters were not identified by race.)

The Pew Research Center released data in August 2012 about GOP gains among working-class white voters that found: "Lower-income and less educated whites also have shifted substantially toward the Republican Party since 2008." 

Among whites without a college degree, the GOP now holds a 54 percent to 37 percent advantage among non-college whites, who were split about evenly four years ago. The partisanship of white college graduates, by contrast, has not changed, the analysis found.

Back in March of this year, political scientists and authors of the Monkey Cage blog examined the voting patterns of white voters in America. Their findings also support Sabato’s analysis.

When viewed in the context of educational attainment alone, without also examining income level, the blog authors concluded that high school graduates are more Republican than non-high school graduates. But after that, the groups with more education tended to vote more Democratic. At the very highest education level tabulated in the survey, voters with postgraduate degrees leaned toward the Democrats.

To reach the conclusions, the political scientists (professors at East Coast colleges such as George Washington University and Georgetown) used data from Annenberg pre-election polls for 2000 and 2004 and Pew pre-election polls for 2008. 

With white, highly educated voters being a key demographic for the Democratic Party, political observers, such as conservative columnist Tim Carney of the Washington Examiner, are predicting Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney could carry several swing states if he can sway these voters to the GOP.

But the Democrats seem intent on keeping this voting bloc. Last week the Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning and Engagement (CIRCLE), which conducts research on civic education and on youth voting and political participation, published an analysis of about 1,110 young voters based on their educational experience.

CIRCLE, which is based at Tufts University and was founded in 2001 by a grant from the Pew Charitable Trusts, found that youths with college backgrounds were about three times more likely to have been contacted on behalf of the Obama campaign. The Romney campaign and supporters appeared to have contacted more non-college youths.

In Georgia, the numbers are harder to examine. The secretary of state does not keep statistics on voters’ education levels.

The GOP in the Peach State and in the Deep South in general still has a stronghold on the white voters, regardless of the education level, said Merle Black, a political science professor at Emory University and co-author of the book "The Rise of the Southern Republicans."

"In a state like Virginia where you have a lot of Northern migrants and people coming in from outside the state, things may be different," he said. 

The GOP stronghold in Georgia is evidenced by the overwhelming number of Republicans in power at the state level, as well as the strong support for McCain four years ago and earlypolling data showing support for Romney this year.

Sabato said that "the higher the education level, the more likely [voters] are to vote Democratic." Sabato bases his claim on 2008 exit polls showing this national trend. Several polls and analysis done on data from presidential elections dating back at least a decade support Sabato’s claim. 

Still, looking at data for Georgia, the trend remains for white voters -- regardless of educational level -- to vote Republican. 

For many areas of the country, Sabato’s claim holds true. But in Georgia and the Deep South, the GOP is still firmly in control. We rate Sabato’s statement Mostly True.

THE POLITICS OF COMMON CORE


http://www.usnews.com/news/special-reports/a-guide-to-common-core/articles/2014/03/06/the-politics-of-common-core


The Politics of Common Core
By Allie Bidwell
March 6, 2014

The controversial educational standards have political implications as well.


The longer and deeper you hold a beach ball underneath the water, the more quickly and energetically it pops up to the surface. That's how Rick Hess, a resident scholar and director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, describes the Common Core State Standards' rapid rise into the forefront of political controversy.

[READ: The History of Common Core]

While he says the standards themselves emerged from an "absolutely privately and state-led" effort, proponents of the academic benchmarks shot themselves in the foot and didn't do enough to drive a public conversation about what the standards were and why people should get on board. 

"No one debated it, nobody was really aware of what it meant," Hess says. "This was unusual in that it wasn't at all debated, even though it was big and national in scope, because people were just excited about the chance of being eligible for a chunk of $4 billion." 

DEBATE CLUB: Are the Common Core Standards a Good Idea?]

Hess is referring to an effort supported by the Obama administration in which states could receive Race to the Top funding if they agreed to adopt college- and career-ready standards. While the government did not explicitly name Common Core – or any other set of standards, for that matter – those who agreed to implement Common Core automatically qualified for Race to the Top cash. Some states, such as Virginia and Texas, however, opted to write their own standards rather than adopt Common Core. In doing so, both states were still eligible to apply for Race to the Top funds, although Texas did not submit an application, and Virginia was not awarded any money. 

In a statement, Gov. Rick Perry explained that Texas chose not to apply for Race to the Top funds because the state's application would be penalized "for refusing to commit to adopt national curriculum standards and tests and to incur ongoing costs."

“Texas is on the right path toward improved education, and we would be foolish and irresponsible to place our children’s future in the hands of unelected bureaucrats and special interest groups thousands of miles away in Washington, virtually eliminating parents’ participation in their children’s education,” Perry said in the statement.

State leaders in Kentucky, on the other hand, were so convinced of the merits of Common Core that they adopted them even before the standards were finalized in June 2010. Still, Republicans in that state in January introduced a bill to repeal the standards.

Now, legislators in many states – both blue and red – have begun pushing a flurry of bills to amend, delay or even ditch the standards altogether.

Indiana, which adopted the standards in 2010, could likely become the first state to completely do away with Common Core. A bill that would prohibit the use of the standards past July 1, and require the State Board of Education to adopt new standards by the same date, passed the House on Feb. 27. 

The bill now heads back to the Senate for final approval before arriving on Republican Gov. Mike Pence's desk. State legislators in April 2013 approved to push the pause button on Common Core implementation, and Pence in his State of the State address gave a strong indication that the state intends to drop the standards completely. 

"Hoosiers have high expectations when it comes to Indiana schools," Pence said. "That's why Indiana decided to take a time-out on national education standards. When it comes to setting standards for schools, I can assure you, Indiana's will be uncommonly high. They will be written by Hoosiers, for Hoosiers, and will be among the best in the nation."

But there has been widespread criticism of the draft of Indiana's newly proposed math and English standards, with many people claiming they're too similar to Common Core.

Kathleen Porter-Magee, senior policy advisor for policy and instruction at the College Board and a policy fellow for the Thomas B. Fordham Institute, says Indiana's proposed standards are less rigorous when compared to both Common Core and Indiana's previous state standards. She adds that in a side-by-side comparison of the draft standards and Common Core, many of the English standards are copied verbatim, and others are tweaked in a way that makes them less clear. 

"Looking at it from afar, it seems like a case where politics was prioritized over getting the content right," Porter-Magee says. "Once you start making compromises for political reasons and not for educational reasons, you can go astray pretty quickly."

Other states, like Connecticut and New York, are seeking to delay the implementation of the standards or stakes linked to the Common Core-aligned tests. New York's Democratic-led Assembly on Mondayintroduced legislation to delay Common Core testing, following a similar move by the New York Board of Regents. Other states, such as Florida and Arizona, have simply renamed the standards as the "Next Generation Sunshine State Standards" and the "Arizona College and Career Ready Standards," respectively.

Even voters are rallying behind the growing opposition to the standards. In Florida, incumbent Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, faces an uphill battle with Common Core opponents who recently claimed they would sit out the Nov. 2014 election unless Scott reverses his stance on the standards.

While they said they would not vote for Scott's Democratic opponent, former governor Charlie Crist, conservative critics of Common Core want Scott to do more of an about-face and reject the standards completely rather than make changes like adding standards for calculus and cursive writing and pulling out of one of the two testing consortia that have created assessments aligned to the standards.

Opposing the standards could also be a winning strategy in the primary race for state superintendent in South Carolina, where legislators have also pushed bills to repeal Common Core and at least six candidates are vying for the GOP nomination. And in New Hampshire, gubernatorial candidate Andrew Hemingway is also embracing an anti-Common Core platform. 

In fact, the controversial standards will be "maybe the biggest question of all" in upcoming elections, according to Sandra Stotsky  a professor emerita at the University of Arkansas, a noted expert in academic standards development and a staunch opponent of Common Core. 

"[It's] not what's going on in Ukraine, and not the Affordable Care Act," Stotsky says. "It's going to be the education of the next generation of Americans in this country and what is going to happen to them as a result of Common Core."

While 45 states, the District of Columbia, and four territories have already adopted Common Core, to opponents of the standards the initiative seems like a stealthy attack on states' rights, pushed by the federal government. 

"People felt like they hadn't been told about it," says the American Enterprise Institute's Hess. "To people who were skeptical, they thought, 'How did you sneak this past everybody?'"

Dane Linn, a vice president of the Business Roundtable who oversees its Education & Workforce Committee and was largely involved in the development of the standards in his previous role with the National Governors Association, says state leaders were involved throughout the process and were strongly encouraged to go back to their communities to spread information about the standards. But Hess says they still fell short, and Stotsky says the development process did not give teachers, parents and state legislators enough input or chance for open comment.

"You have several groups suddenly becoming aware of Common Core – people that had mainly been bypassed in the original adoption of Common Core," Stotsky says. "The grassroots waves that have started across this country are accelerating."

To Hess, a perfect storm of problems transformed the Common Core standards into a political football: a lack of communication, a fear of federal overreach and an oversight of practical problems that would stem from the standards – like schools not being able to upgrade their technology for the computerized tests, and the rollout coinciding with massive reforms to teacher evaluations that now rely heavily on student performance on state tests.

"Frankly, I think the fact that Common Core became so controversial is pretty much a direct result of how ineptly the advocates went ahead pushing this thing," Hess says. "If they had been open and public and transparent and just frank about it with people, I think the Tea Partiers would have figured they had much more important fish to fry."

Strong opposition to the standards, particularly from conservative Tea Party members, could be a reaction to failed attempts to repeal the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, points out Michael Petrilli, executive vice president of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute and a supporter of Common Core. 

"For many Tea Party folks, they are incredibly frustrated that they can't repeal Obamacare or get their states to pull out of it," Petrilli says. "So this is a target where maybe they can blow off some steam. They actually could succeed in getting a state to pull out of the Common Core because it isn't a federal mandate."

While opposition to the standards was smoldering, increased federal support for the educational standards seemed to light the fuse, Petrilli says.  

"In one word, it's Obamacore," Petrilli says. "That is their argument, that this is to education what Obamacare is to health care."

As the issue of Common Core began gaining traction among conservatives, the Republican National Committee succeeded in passing an anti-Common Core resolution in April 2013, saying it  "recognizes the CCSS for what it is – an inappropriate overreach to standardize and control the education of our children so they will conform to a preconceived 'normal.'"

Since then, even staunch supporters of the standards have said that there's a need for adjustment – at least in the implementation.

"When I said that the roll out of these standards were worse than the roll out of Obamacare, that's a real problem, particularly since I'm a big believer in the critical thinking skills that this strategy is supposed to do," says Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.

Weingarten points to the $350 million in federal stimulus funds the Department of Education set aside to support the development of Common Core-aligned assessments through two testing consortia: the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium and the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers. Common Core became controversial for the left, she says, when there appeared to be more of a focus on testing and gathering student data, and less of a focus on teaching.

Likewise, New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a supporter of the standards, has made it clear the rollout has been less than ideal, and that the implementation of testing, as well as the consequences associated with the tests, should be delayed. 

"While the state's new Common Core curriculum is heading in the right direction, testing on it is premature," Cuomo says in a new television ad campaign, according to Newsday. "It creates anxiety and it's just unfair. And their [children's] scores should not be counted against them."

While President Obama continues to make education a priority for his second term, as he demonstrated in both his 2014 State of the Union address and his 2015 budget proposal, advocates of Common Core say the administration's strong support of the initiative could do more harm than good.

"It's imperative at this point for the feds to stay out of it," Petrilli says. "It's now back in the states' hands to implement these things and that's where it belongs, and the feds need to just stay as far away from this as possible."





Background of Common Core




Common Core State Standards Initiative
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Common Core State Standards Initiative is an educational initiative in the United States that details what K-12students should know in English language arts and mathematics at the end of each grade. The initiative is sponsored by theNational Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and seeks to establish consistent educational standards across the states as well as ensure that students graduating from high school are prepared to enter credit-bearing courses at two- or four-year college programs or enter the workforce.[1]
Background[edit]

In the 1990s, the "Standards & Accountability Movement" began in the U.S., as states began writing standards outlining what students were expected to know and be able to do at each grade level, and implementing assessment designed to measure whether students were meeting the standards.[2] As part of this education-reform movement, the nation's governors and corporate leaders founded Achieve, Inc. in 1996 as a bipartisan organization to raise academic standards and graduation requirements, improve assessments, and strengthen accountability in all 50 states.[3] The initial motivation for the development of the Common Core State Standards was part of the American Diploma Project (ADP).[4]
A 2004 report, titled Ready or Not: Creating a High School Diploma That Counts, found that both employers and colleges are demanding more of high school graduates than in the past. According to Achieve, Inc., "current high-school exit expectations fall well short of employer and college demands." The report explained that the major problem currently facing the American school system is that high school graduates were not provided with the skills and knowledge they needed to succeed in college and careers: "While students and their parents may still believe that the diploma reflects adequate preparation for the intellectual demands of adult life, in reality it falls far short of this common-sense goal." The report said that the diploma itself lost its value because graduates could not compete successfully beyond high school, and that the solution to this problem is a common set of rigorous standards.[5]
Development[edit]

In 2009, the NGA convened a group of people to work on developing the standards. This team included David Coleman,William McCallum of the University of Arizona, Phil Daro, and Student Achievement Partners founders Jason Zimba[6] and Susan Pimentel to write standards in the areas of mathematics and literacy.[citation needed] Announced on June 1, 2009,[7]the initiative's stated purpose is to "provide a consistent, clear understanding of what students are expected to learn, so teachers and parents know what they need to do to help them."[8] Additionally, "the standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers", which should place American students in a position in which they can compete in a global economy.[8]

The standards are copyrighted by NGA Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), which controls use of and licenses the standards in order to control derivatives.[9] The NGA Center and CCSSO do this by offering a license to State Departments of Education which use the standards.[10] However, two conditions apply: the use of the standards must be "in support" of the standards, and the waiver only applies if the state has adopted the standards "in whole".

Adoption[edit]

Forty-four of the fifty U.S. states and the District of Columbia are members of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, with the states of Texas, Virginia, Alaska, Nebraska and Indiana not adopting the initiative at a state level.[11] Minnesota has adopted the English Language Arts standards but not the Mathematics standards.[12]

Standards were released for mathematics and English language arts on June 2, 2010, with a majority of states adopting the standards in the subsequent months. (See below for current status.) States were given an incentive to adopt the Common Core Standards through the possibility of competitive federal Race to the Top grants. U.S. President Barack Obama andU.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan announced the Race to the Top competitive grants on July 24, 2009, as a motivator for education reform. To be eligible, states had to adopt "internationally benchmarked standards and assessments that prepare students for success in college and the work place."[13] Though states could adopt other college- and career-ready standards and still be eligible, they were awarded extra points in their Race to the Top applications if they adopted the Common Core standards by August 2, 2010. Forty-one states made the promise in their application.[14][15] Virginia and Texas were two states that chose to write their own college and career-ready standards, and were subsequently eligible for Race to the Top. Development of the Common Core Standards was funded by the governors and state schools chiefs, with additional support from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Pearson Publishing Company, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, and others.[16]

Though the Common Core State Standards do not cover science and social studies content standards, the Next Generation Science Standards are in the process of being developed. They are not directly related to the Common Core, but their content can be cross-connected to the mathematical and English Language Arts standards within the Common Core.[17][18
Assessment[edit]

According to the Common Core State Standards Initiative website, formal assessment is expected to take place in the 2014–2015 school year, which coincides with the projected implementation year for most states.[28] The assessment is being created by two consortiums with different approaches.[29]

The PARCC RttT Assessment Consortium comprises the states of Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, District of Columbia, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Tennessee. Their approach focuses on computer-based "through-course assessments" in each grade together with streamlined end-of-year tests. (PARCC refers to "Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers" and RttT refers to the Race to the Top.)[29]

The second consortium, called the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, comprises 31 states focusing on creating "adaptive online exams". Member states include Alaska, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, South Dakota, U.S. Virgin Islands, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.[29][30]
The final decision of which assessment to use will be determined by individual state education agencies. Both of these leading consortiums are proposing computer-based exams that include fewer selected and constructed response test items, unlike the Standardized Test that has been more common.

While some states are working together to create a common, universal assessment based on the Common Core state standards, other states are choosing to work independently or through these two consortiums to develop the assessment.[31] Florida Governor Rick Scott directed his state education board to withdraw from the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers.[32] Georgia withdrew from the consortium test in July 2013 in order to develop its own.[33] Michigan decided not to participate in Smarter Balanced testing.[34] Oklahoma tentatively withdrew from the consortium test in July 2013 due to the technical challenges of online assessment.[35] And Utah withdrew from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium in August 2012.[36]

Response[edit]

The Common Core has drawn support and criticism from political representatives, policy analysts, and educational commentators. Teams of academics and educators from around the United States led the development of the standards, and additional validation teams approved the final standards. The teams drew on public feedback that was solicited throughout the process and that feedback was incorporated into the standards.[37] The Common Core initiative only specifies what students should know at each grade level and describes the skills that they must acquire in order to achieve college or career readiness. Individual school districts are responsible for choosing curricula based on the standards.[37]

In 2012, Tom Loveless of the Brookings Institution called into question whether the standards will have any effect, and said that they "have done little to equalize academic achievement within states".[38] In response to the standards, the libertarianCato Institute claimed that "it is not the least bit paranoid to say the federal government wants a national curriculum,".[38]Some conservatives[who?] have assailed the program as a federal "top-down" takeover of state and local education systems,.[39][40] South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley said her state should not "relinquish control of education to the federal government, neither should we cede it to the consensus of other states,".[39]

Educational analysts from the Thomas B. Fordham Institute determined that the Common Core standards, "are clearly superior to those currently in use in 39 states in math and 37 states in English. For 33 states, the Common Core is superior in both math and reading."[39][41]

The mathematicians Edward Frenkel and Hung-Hsi Wu wrote in 2013 that the mathematical education in the United States is in "deep crisis" caused by the way math is currently taught in schools. Both agree that math textbooks, which are widely adopted across the states, already create "mediocre de facto national standards". The texts, they say, "are often incomprehensible and irrelevant". The Common Core standards address these issues and "level the playing field" for students. They point out that adoption of the Common Core Standards and how best to test students are two separate issues.[42]

A spokesman from ExxonMobil said of Common Core: "It sets very important milestones and standards for educational achievement while at the same time providing those most invested in the outcome – local teachers and administrators – with the flexibility they need to best achieve those results".[43]

The Heritage Foundation argued in 2010 that the Common Core's focus on national standards would do little to fix deeply ingrained problems and incentive structures within the education system.[44] A study by Christopher Tienken, Assistant Professor of Education Administration at Seton Hall University, concluded that there was no relationship between the United States' low score and its economic position.[45][46]

A 2014 Mother Jones article, "We Can Code It", which advocates for adding computer literacy and coding to the K-12 curriculum in the United States, notes that computer science is not incorporated into the Common Core requirements.[47]

Marion Brady, a teacher, and Patrick Murray, an elected member of the school governing board in Bradford, Maine, wrote that Common Core drains initiative from teachers and enforces a "one-size-fits-all" curriculum that ignores cultural differences among classrooms and students.[48][49] Diane Ravitch, former U.S. Assistant Secretary of Education, wrote in her book Reign of Error that the Common Core standards have never been field-tested and that no one knows whether they will improve education.[50] Nicholas Tampio, Assistant Professor of Political Science at Fordham University, said that the standards emphasize rote learning and uniformity over creativity, and fail to recognize differences in learning styles.[51]Michigan State University's Distinguished Professor William Schmidt wrote:

In my view, the Common Core State Standards in Mathematics (CCSSM) unquestionably represent a major change in the way U.S. schools teach mathematics. Rather than a fragmented system in which content is "a mile wide and an inch deep," the new common standards offer the kind of mathematics instruction we see in the top-achieving nations, where students learn to master a few topics each year before moving on to more advanced mathematics. It is my opinion that [a state] will best position its students for success by remaining committed to the Common Core State Standards and focusing their efforts on the implementation of the standards and aligned assessments.[52]

The standards require certain critical content for all students, including: classic myths and stories from around the world, America's Founding Documents, foundational American literature, and Shakespeare.[53] Advancing one Catholic perspective, over one hundred college-level scholars signed a public letter criticizing the Common Core for diminishing the humanities in the educational curriculum: The "Common Core adopts a bottom-line, pragmatic approach to education and the heart of its philosophy is, as far as we can see, that it is a waste of resources to 'over-educate' people,"[54] though the Common Core set only minimum—not maximum—standards. In May 2013, the National Catholic Educational Associationnoted that the standards are a "set of high-quality academic expectations that all students should master by the end of each grade level" and are "not a national curriculum".[55] Mark Naison, Fordham University Professor, and co-founder of theBadass Teachers Association, raised a similar objection: "The liberal critique of Common Core is that this is a huge profit-making enterprise that costs school districts a tremendous amount of money, and pushes out the things kids love about school, like art and music".[56]

As Common Core is implemented in New York, the new tests have been criticized. Some parents have said that the new assessments are too difficult and are causing too much stress, leading to an "opt-out movement" in which parents refuse to let their children take the tests.[57]

Former governor Jeb Bush has said of opponents of the standards that while "criticisms and conspiracy theories are easy attention grabbers", he instead wanted to hear their solutions to the problems in American education.[58]

Early results[edit]

Kentucky was the first to implement the Common Core standards, and local school districts began offering new math and English curricula based on the standard in August 2010. In 2013, Time magazine reported that the high school graduation rate had increased from 80 percent in 2010 to 86 percent in 2013, test scores went up 2 percentage points in the second year of using the Common Core test, and the percentage of students considered to be ready for college or a career, based on a battery of assessments, went up from 34 percent in 2010 to 54 percent in 2013.[59] According to Sarah Butrymowicz from The Atlantic,

"Kentucky's experience over the past three school years suggests it will be a slow and potentially frustrating road ahead for the other states that are using the Common Core. Test scores are still dismal, and state officials have expressed concern that the pace of improvement is not fast enough. Districts have also seen varying success in changing how teachers teach, something that was supposed to change under the new standards."[60]

The Common Core Standards are considered to be more rigorous than the standards they replaced in Kentucky. Kentucky's old standards received a "D" in an analysis by the Thomas B. Fordham Institute. School officials in Kentucky believe it will take several more years to adjust to the new standards, which received an A- in math and a B+ in English from the Fordham Institute.[60][61]

The chart below contains the adoption status of the Common Core Standards as of December 1, 2013.[62] At least 12 states have introduced legislation to repeal the standards.[63] Among the territories of the United States (not listed in the chart below), the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the American Samoa Islands have adopted the standards while Puerto Rico has not adopted the standards. [64] As of June 18, 2014, four states have repealed or are withdrawing from Common Core. Nine additional member states have legislation in some stage of the process that would repeal Common Core participation.[64]

From the chart of states showing the progress of adoption of Common Core, most have adopted the new standards. The following have not: Alaska, Nebraska, South Carolina, Texas and Virginia.




http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/05/07/the-wingnut-war-on-common-core-is-a-plot-to-destroy-public-schools.html

The Wingnut War On Common Core Is A Plot To Destroy Public Schools

The Common Core Standards Initiative has been hotly debated since it was first introduced in 2009. But a new report by the Southern Poverty Law Center shows that conservatives are pushing a radical fact-free agenda that aims to destroy public education as a whole.

There are plenty of rational arguments for why the Common Core State Standards Initiative is not the solution to reforming public education in the United States.

That the program is part of a liberal conspiracy to indoctrinate children and turn them into the homosexual slaves of a future totalitarian global government, is not one of them.

Common Core has been the subject of intense debate since it was first initiated by the National Governor’s Association in 2009. Created with the failures of past test-based standardization attempts—including No Child Left Behind—in mind, Common Core was designed to streamline K-12 education standards across the states and ensure that graduating high school students are sufficiently prepared to enroll in college courses or enter the work force.

Though the standards were quickly embraced by 44 states and the District of Columbia, they’ve sparked a backlash from politicians and education experts on both sides of the political spectrum. In March, Indiana, the first state to adopt the Common Core standards, became the first state to opt out, and just this year, some 100 bills were introduced in state legislatures to stop or slow the program’s requirements. According to a recent study by the University of Connecticut, only 39 percent of Americans have even heard of Common Core, but of those who have, 27 percent think it will not impact the quality of education in their communities and 30 percent say they think it will be detrimental.
Legitimate arguments against Common Core include the fact that the program is overwhelmingly funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation; that the short timeline for implementation is unrealistic and amplifies the high-pressure testing culture of No Child Left Behind; and that, while the program is completely optional, only states that have adopted “internationally benchmarked standards and assessments that prepare students for success in college and the workplace” are eligible for the Obama Administration’s Race to the Top competitive grants—and states that adopted Common Core standards by August 2010 received extra points on their Race to the Top applications. Education policy expert Diane Ravitch opposes Common Core because the standards were developed behind closed doors, without the help of informed, interested parties like early childhood and special education experts, and thrust upon schools before their effectiveness could be tested. Just last month, comedian Louie C.K. got on the anti-Common Core bandwagon, tweeting pictures of the tests his young daughters are practicing for at their New York City public school, calling it “this massive stressball that hangs over the whole school,” and blaming Common Core for making his kids hate math.

But as a new report by the non-profit Southern Poverty Law Center points out, the loudest, angriest voices in the Common Core debate are making a case that is not even remotely based in reality. From the farthest reaches of the Christian right to Conservative pundits and even elected officials, a radical, factless propaganda campaign has been building that, the SPLC suggests, looks poised to take down not only Common Core but the entire institution of public education.

According to the SPLC, the most common falsehoods perpetrated by the Common Core conspiracy campaign include the beliefs that the federal government has created a mandatory curriculum for all schools meant to brainwash students with liberal, anti-Christian dogma; that adopting the Common Core standards means states forfeit local control over education to the federal government; and that the government and big businesses are scheming to track students’ personal information from kindergarten to adulthood through Common Core testing.

“Patriot,” Tea Party, other Christian-Right groups—from the small and grassroots to the Koch-affiliated— are dedicating significant amounts of time, money, and manpower to tearing down Common Core, using incendiary rhetoric.
“Public schools have indeed become the most dangerous places in America,” Anita Staver, president of the John Birch Society-affiliated Liberty Counsel wrote in the group’s August, 2013 newsletter. “We cannot stick our head in the sand while our children are held hostage in government indoctrination camps.”

In a letter to Catholic Bishops that was later re-printed in the Catholic magazineCrisis, Phyllis Schlafly, head of the conservative, “pro-family” Eagle Forum,  slammed Common Core standards for “active promotion of gay marriage, and other federal efforts designed to dismantle society.” She declared, “We cannot remain complacent as this administration takes aim at our children.”

“Children are our righteous seed and Satan is after them,” televangelist and Columbus, Ohio megachurch pastor Rod Parsley wrote in the Christian magazine Charisma. “He has turned our public schools into cesspools of godless propaganda where God is publicly mocked and reviled. It is time to take a stand against the devil.”

While each of these claims may seem more ridiculous than the last, the SPLC report urges that they not be dismissed as the bluster of a few rogue nutjobs. Several popular and far-reaching members of the right-wing media are also getting in on the Common Core conspiracy mongering, disseminating these dramatic and unfounded theories into the mainstream.
In 2010, the SPLC says, right-wing talking head Glenn Beck sponsored two anti-Common Core strategizing conferences organized by self-taught (and widely discredited) evangelical historian David Barton. Since then, Beck has continued to take shots at Common Core on his online TV and radio shows atTheBlaze.com.

“It’s about to go federal,” Beck warned, inaccurately, in one video on his site. “This is top down education from the federal government, dictating to local schools what they must teach and how they must teach it.”

Prolific conservative columnist Michelle Malkin has called Common Core a“Trojan Horse,” and a “creepy federal data-mining racket” that supposedly forces school districts and state governments to “pimp out highly personal data on children’s feelings, beliefs, ‘biases,’ and ‘flexibility’ instead of doing their own jobs of imparting knowledge and minding their own business.”

Cal Thomas, one of the most widely syndicated columnists in the country, appears in more than 500 newspapers including USA Today, is aired on over 300 radio shows and is a Fox News commentator. He has been using these platforms to tell his large audience that “a mass exodus from government schools is the only way to preserve the souls and minds of children.”

In a very handy timeline of events, the SPLC illustrates how Christian Right opposition to public schools and the homeschooling movement have grown over the decades since 1948, when the Supreme Court first declared religious instruction in public schools unconstitutional. Six decades after Brown v. Board of Education led to racial integration in schools, minorities now comprise nearly half of all public school students—that’s nearly twice the percentage of 30 years ago and it’s growing. At the same time, public schools across the country are forming Gay-Straight Alliances and in 2013, California passed the nation’s first lawprotecting transgender students from discrimination at school.

As the federal government and the high court have continued to expand the right to public, discrimination-free education to more groups of students, the number of homeschooled students in the U.S. has climbed from about 750,000 in 1995 to between 1.9 million and 2.4 million in 2006.

The latest iteration of the Christian Right’s crusade against secular education is worth paying attention to because, with an identifiable villain like Common Core, groups with enough resources can wield real political and public influence to take down the program and, in effect, damage the public school system as a whole.

According to the SPLC, The American Principles Project, a group founded by leading Christian Right thinker and major LGBT equality opponent Robert George, says it’s spending $500,000 to fight the Common Core, releasing reports and videos on why the program is bad for America, sponsoring anti-Common Core conferences, and sending representatives to several state legislative hearings to testify against implementing the program.

More recognizable, however, are the advocacy groups associated with the conservative billionaire Koch brothers. According to a Politico report from January, the Koch-affiliated non-profit FreedomWorks, which is credited with giving birth to the Tea Party, is blatantly using opposition to Common Core to rally support for private and religious school vouchers and, eventually, to destroy the U.S. Department of Education altogether. Americans for Prosperity, another Koch-backed group, is pushing the anti-Common Core agenda at town hall meetings throughout the states.
David Koch’s history as a Libertarian politician offers some insight as to why arguably two of the country’s most influential political donors might be interested in this fight. He ran for vice president in 1980 on the Libertarian ticket, the year when his party’s platformreportedly called for “complete separation of education and State” and claimed that “Government schools lead to the indoctrination of children and interfere with the free choice of individuals. Government ownership, operation, regulation, and subsidy of schools and colleges should be ended.”’


As the SPLC points out, the vicious campaign against Common Core is already having an impact on politics at the federal level. Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky) and seven other senators have signed on to sponsor legislation to stop federal funding for any aspect of Common Core. U.S. Rep. Jim Bridenstine of Oklahoma has compared Common Core standards to socialism. And potential Republican presidential candidate Jeb Bush has come under fire from the far-right factions of his own party for supporting the program.

The SPLC report’s authors explain exactly how harmful destroying public education would be for the huge swath of the country that cannot afford to homeschool their children or send them to private schools. Without public schools, they write, the 48 percent of K-12 students that come from low-income families will have fewer pathways out of poverty. The 21 percent of students whose parents are immigrants will have less of a chance to assimilate. And children of color, estimated to makeup half of all American children within the next five years, “would be unprepared to make their way in modern society, crippling the economy and ruining chances of being globally competitive.” Essentially, dissolving public education would achieve the exact opposite of the idealistic goals stated by the Common Core Standards Initiative.

In her most recent book Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and the Danger to America’s Public Schools, Diane Ravitch, one of the education field’s most outspoken opponents of Common Core, echoes the SPLC’s fears.
Public education “expanded opportunity to more people, distributed the benefits of knowledge to more people, and strengthened our nation,” Ravitch writes. “When public education is in danger, democracy is jeopardized. We cannot afford that risk.”








http://dianeravitch.net/2013/02/26/why-i-cannot-support-the-common-core-standards/

Diane Ravitch's blog
A site to discuss better education for all

Why I cannot Support The Common Core Standards
February 26, 2013

I have thought long and hard about the Common Core standards.

I have decided that I cannot support them.

In this post, I will explain why.

I have long advocated for voluntary national standards, believing that it would be helpful to states and districts to have general guidelines about what students should know and be able to do as they progress through school.

Such standards, I believe, should be voluntary, not imposed by the federal government; before implemented widely, they should be thoroughly tested to see how they work in real classrooms; and they should be free of any mandates that tell teachers how to teach because there are many ways to be a good teacher, not just one. I envision standards not as a demand for compliance by teachers, but as an aspiration defining what states and districts are expected to do. They should serve as a promise that schools will provide all students the opportunity and resources to learn reading and mathematics, the sciences, the arts, history, literature, civics, geography, and physical education, taught by well-qualified teachers, in schools led by experienced and competent educators.

​For the past two years, I have steadfastly insisted that I was neither for nor against the Common Core standards. I was agnostic. I wanted to see how they worked in practice. I wanted to know, based on evidence, whether or not they improve education and whether they reduce or increase the achievement gaps among different racial and ethnic groups.

After much deliberation, I have come to the conclusion that I can’t wait five or ten years to find out whether test scores go up or down, whether or not schools improve, and whether the kids now far behind are worse off than they are today.

I have come to the conclusion that the Common Core standards effort is fundamentally flawed by the process with which they have been foisted upon the nation.

The Common Core standards have been adopted in 46 states and the District of Columbia without any field test. They are being imposed on the children of this nation despite the fact that no one has any idea how they will affect students, teachers, or schools. We are a nation of guinea pigs, almost all trying an unknown new program at the same time.

Maybe the standards will be great. Maybe they will be a disaster. Maybe they will improve achievement. Maybe they will widen the achievement gaps between haves and have-nots. Maybe they will cause the children who now struggle to give up altogether. Would the Federal Drug Administration approve the use of a drug with no trials, no concern for possible harm or unintended consequences?

President Obama and Secretary Duncan often say that the Common Core standards were developed by the states and voluntarily adopted by them. This is not true.

They were developed by an organization called Achieve and the National Governors Association, both of which were generously funded by the Gates Foundation. There was minimal public engagement in the development of the Common Core. Their creation was neither grassroots nor did it emanate from the states.

​In fact, it was well understood by states that they would not be eligible for Race to the Top funding ($4.35 billion) unless they adopted the Common Core standards. Federal law prohibits the U.S. Department of Education from prescribing any curriculum, but in this case the Department figured out a clever way to evade the letter of the law. Forty-six states and the District of Columbia signed on, not because the Common Core standards were better than their own, but because they wanted a share of the federal cash. In some cases, the Common Core standards really were better than the state standards, but in Massachusetts, for example, the state standards were superior and well tested but were ditched anyway and replaced with the Common Core. The former Texas State Commissioner of Education, Robert Scott, has stated for the record that he was urged to adopt the Common Core standards before they were written.

The flap over fiction vs. informational text further undermined my confidence in the standards. There is no reason for national standards to tell teachers what percentage of their time should be devoted to literature or information. Both can develop the ability to think critically. The claim that the writers of the standards picked their arbitrary ratios because NAEP has similar ratios makes no sense. NAEP gives specifications to test-developers, not to classroom teachers.

I must say too that it was offensive when Joel Klein and Condoleeza Rice issued a report declaring that our nation’s public schools were so terrible that they were a “very grave threat to our national security.” Their antidote to this allegedly desperate situation: the untried Common Core standards plus charters and vouchers.

Another reason I cannot support the Common Core standards is that I am worried that they will cause a precipitous decline in test scores, based on arbitrary cut scores, and this will have a disparate impact on students who are English language learners, students with disabilities, and students who are poor and low-performing. A principal in the Mid-West told me that his school piloted the Common Core assessments and the failure rate rocketed upwards, especially among the students with the highest needs. He said the exams looked like AP exams and were beyond the reach of many students.

When Kentucky piloted the Common Core, proficiency rates dropped by 30 percent. The Chancellor of the New York Board of Regents has already warned that the state should expect a sharp drop in test scores.

What is the purpose of raising the bar so high that many more students fail?

Rick Hess opined that reformers were confident that the Common Core would cause so much dissatisfaction among suburban parents that they would flee their public schools and embrace the reformers’ ideas (charters and vouchers). Rick was appropriately doubtful that suburban parents could be frightened so easily.

Jeb Bush, at a conference of business leaders, confidently predicted that the high failure rates sure to be caused by Common Core would bring about “a rude awakening.” Why so much glee at the prospect of higher failure rates?.

I recently asked a friend who is a strong supporter of the standards why he was so confident that the standards would succeed, absent any real-world validation. His answer: “People I trust say so.” That’s not good enough for me.

Now that David Coleman, the architect of the Common Core standards, has become president of the College Board, we can expect that the SAT will be aligned to the standards. No one will escape their reach, whether they attend public or private school.

Is there not something unseemly about placing the fate and the future of American education in the hands of one man?

I hope for the sake of the nation that the Common Core standards are great and wonderful. I wish they were voluntary, not mandatory. I wish we knew more about how they will affect our most vulnerable students.
But since I do not know the answer to any of the questions that trouble me, I cannot support the Common Core standards.

I will continue to watch and listen. While I cannot support the Common Core standards, I will remain open to new evidence. If the standards help kids, I will say so. If they hurt them, I will say so. I will listen to their advocates and to their critics.

I will encourage my allies to think critically about the standards, to pay attention to how they affect students, and to insist, at least, that they do no harm.

Evolutionary Origin Of Religion – Wikipedia
7/2/2014


This Wikipedia article summarizes the theories of various archaeologists and psychologists on the subject of the earliest origins of religion. I was surprised to see that it has been carried back to chimps and bonobos. I was watching Jane Goodall with her chimps on a documentary when one of the chimps picked up a stick and started hitting a piece of metal, obviously enjoying the clanging sound and jumping around. How far is that from a drum and a dance? The development of the brain and speech have been considered as evidence and even the factor that enables religious thought, and the communal living of chimps, bonobos and humans are thought to be basic to the formation of religion as we know it, which is described in here as "collective religion." "Individual religion" includes meditation and that sense of awe at a beautiful sunset, or perhaps the first prayer of thanks at being rescued from a dangerous situation, and is often a solitary experience. The earliest rock art and cave paintings are also thought to be religious in nature, and a use of symbolism. The ability to pay heed to miraculous or beautiful things in nature is mentioned at one point in this article as being possible to some animals, perhaps. Animals from cats and dogs to monkeys have a sense of humor, especially when the joke is on the human. One of my cats was fond of hiding under the bed and reaching out with his claws out for my bare feet as I walked by.

It seems to me that as soon as humans reach out beyond themselves to wonder how things in nature happen or whether a flower blowing in the wind is actually being moved by an unseen hand -- a deity? These things begin spontaneously in children as they mature and become familiar with their world. The act of listening to someone tell a story is another form of "reaching out," this time to the experiences of another person, and requires imagination to interpret the words into a visual form. Trying to relate to other people could be considered a religious activity, as it unites acquaintances under an umbrella of kinship and even love. These things elevate the inner awareness to a level above the simple actions that we have to perform to survive, and are therefore helpful to our mental health and give us the beginnings of a "philosophy," even though it is basic and rudimentary. Reading this article was a "religious" experience for me, because I have always reached back in time to the earliest points that I can imagine, and I find kinship in the Neanderthal who buried his dead. One description of a Neanderthal burial said that there was a large amount of flower pollens of several kinds in the soil. Did a "primitive" Neanderthal person place a bouquet of flowers on the body of a beloved father? I think we need to walk more humbly in the elevated sense we so often have of ourselves. At any rate, I really enjoyed reading this, and hope you will, too.




Evolutionary origin of religions
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The evolutionary origin of religions theorizes about the emergence of religious behaviorduring the course of human evolution.

Nonhuman religious behaviour[edit]

Humanity’s closest living relatives are common chimpanzees and bonobos. These primates share a common ancestor with humans who lived between four and six million years ago. It is for this reason that chimpanzees and bonobos are viewed as the best available surrogate for this common ancestor. Barbara King argues that while non-human primates are not religious, they do exhibit some traits that would have been necessary for the evolution of religion. These traits include high intelligence, a capacity for symbolic communication, a sense of social norms, realization of "self" and a concept of continuity.[1][2][3] There is inconclusive evidence that Homo neanderthalensis may have buried their dead which is evidence of the use of ritual. The use of burial rituals is evidence of religious activity, but there is no other evidence that religion existed in human culture before humans reached behavioral modernity.[4]
Marc Bekoff, Professor Emeritus of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of Colorado, Boulder, argues that many species grieve death and loss.[5]

Setting the stage for human religion[edit]

Increased brain size

In this set of theories, the religious mind is one consequence of a brain that is large enough to formulate religious and philosophical ideas.[6] During human evolution, the hominid brain tripled in size, peaking 500,000 years ago. Much of the brain's expansion took place in the neocortex. This part of the brain is involved in processing higher order cognitive functions that are connected with human religiosity. The neocortex is associated with self-consciousness, language and emotion[citation needed]. According to Dunbar's theory, the relative neocortex size of any species correlates with the level of social complexity of the particular species. The neocortex size correlates with a number of social variables that include social group size and complexity of mating behaviors. In chimpanzees the neocortex occupies 50% of the brain, whereas in modern humans it occupies 80% of the brain.

Tool use[edit]

Lewis Wolpert argues that causal beliefs that emerged from tool use played a major role in the evolution of belief. The manufacture of complex tools requires creating a mental image of an object which does not exist naturally before actually making the artifact. Furthermore, one must understand how the tool would be used, that requires an understanding ofcausality.[9] Accordingly, the level of sophistication of stone tools is a useful indicator of causal beliefs.[10] Wolpert contends use of tools composed of more than one component, such as hand axes, represents an ability to understand cause and effect. However, recent studies of other primates indicate that causality may not be a uniquely human trait. For example, chimpanzees have been known to escape from pens closed with multiple latches, which was previously thought could only have been figured out by humans who understood causality. Chimpanzees are also known to mourn the dead, and notice things that have only aesthetic value, like sunsets, both of which may be considered to be components of religion or spirituality.[11] The difference between the comprehension of causality by humans and chimpanzees is one of degree. The degree of comprehension in an animal depends upon the size of the prefrontal cortex: the greater the size of the prefrontal cortex the deeper the comprehension.[12]

Development of language[edit]

See also: Origin of language and Myth and religion

Religion requires a system of symbolic communication, such as language, to be transmitted from one individual to another.Philip Lieberman states "human religious thought and moral sense clearly rest on a cognitive-linguistic base".[13] From this premise science writer Nicholas Wade states:
"Like most behaviors that are found in societies throughout the world, religion must have been present in the ancestral human population before the dispersal from Africa 50,000 years ago. Although religious rituals usually involve dance and music, they are also very verbal, since the sacred truths have to be stated. If so, religion, at least in its modern form, cannot pre-date the emergence of language. It has been argued earlier that language attained its modern state shortly before the exodus from Africa. If religion had to await the evolution of modern, articulate language, then it too would have emerged shortly before 50,000 years ago."[14]

Another view distinguishes individual religious belief from collective religious belief. While the former does not require prior development of language, the latter does. The individual human brain has to explain a phenomenon in order to comprehend and relate to it. This activity predates by far the emergence of language and may have caused it. The theory is, belief in the supernatural emerges from hypotheses arbitrarily assumed by individuals to explain natural phenomena that cannot be explained otherwise. The resulting need to share individual hypotheses with others leads eventually to collective religious belief. A socially accepted hypothesis becomes dogmatic backed by social sanction.

Morality and group living[edit]

Main articles: Evolution of morality and Morality § Evolutionary perspectives

Frans de Waal and Barbara King both view human morality as having grown out of primate sociality. Though morality awareness may be a unique human trait, many social animals, such as primates, dolphins and whales, have been known to exhibit pre-moral sentiments. According to Michael Shermer, the following characteristics are shared by humans and other social animals, particularly the great apes:
"attachment and bonding, cooperation and mutual aid, sympathy and empathy, direct and indirect reciprocity, altruism and reciprocal altruism, conflict resolution and peacemaking, deception and deception detection, community concern and caring about what others think about you, and awareness of and response to the social rules of the group".[15]
De Waal contends that all social animals have had to restrain or alter their behavior for group living to be worthwhile. Pre-moral sentiments evolved in primate societies as a method of restraining individual selfishness and building more cooperative groups. For any social species, the benefits of being part of an altruistic group should outweigh the benefits of individualism. For example, lack of group cohesion could make individuals more vulnerable to attack from outsiders. Being part of a group may also improve the chances of finding food. This is evident among animals that hunt in packs to take down large or dangerous prey.

All social animals have hierarchical societies in which each member knows its own place. Social order is maintained by certain rules of expected behavior and dominant group members enforce order through punishment. However, higher order primates also have a sense of reciprocity and fairness. Chimpanzees remember who did them favors and who did them wrong. For example, chimpanzees are more likely to share food with individuals who have previously groomed them.[16] …. Morality may have evolved in these bands of 100 to 200 people as a means of social control, conflict resolution and group solidarity. According to Dr. de Waal, human morality has two extra levels of sophistication that are not found in primate societies. Humans enforce their society’s moral codes much more rigorously with rewards, punishments and reputation building. Humans also apply a degree of judgment and reason not otherwise seen in the animal kingdom. Psychologist Matt J. Rossano argues that religion emerged after morality and built upon morality by expanding the social scrutiny of individual behavior to include supernatural agents. By including ever-watchful ancestors, spirits and gods in the social realm, humans discovered an effective strategy for restraining selfishness and building more cooperative groups.[17]The adaptive value of religion would have enhanced group survival.[18] [19] Rossano is referring here to collective religious belief and the social sanction that institutionalized morality. According to Rossano's teaching, individual religious belief is thus initially epistemological, not ethical, in nature.

Evolutionary psychology of religion[edit]

Main article: Evolutionary psychology of religion

There is general agreement among cognitive scientists that religion is an outgrowth of brain architecture that evolved early in human history. However, there is disagreement on the exact mechanisms that drove the evolution of the religious mind. The two main schools of thought hold that either religion evolved due to natural selection and has selective advantage, or that religion is an evolutionary byproduct of other mental adaptations.[20] Stephen Jay Gould, for example, believed that religion was an exaptation or a spandrel, in other words that religion evolved as byproduct of psychological mechanisms that evolved for other reasons.[21][22][23]

Such mechanisms may include the ability to infer the presence of organisms that might do harm (agent detection), the ability to come up with causal narratives for natural events (etiology), and the ability to recognize that other people have minds of their own with their own beliefs, desires and intentions (theory of mind). These three adaptations (among others) allow human beings to imagine purposeful agents behind many observations that could not readily be explained otherwise, e.g. thunder, lightning, movement of planets, complexity of life, etc.[24] The emergence of collective religious belief identified the agents as deities that standardized the explanation.
Some scholars have suggested that religion is genetically "hardwired" into the human condition. One controversial hypothesis, the God gene hypothesis, states that some variants of a specific gene, the VMAT2 gene, predispose to spirituality.[25]

Another view is based on the concept of the triune brain: the reptilian brain, the limbic system, and the neocortex, proposed by Paul D. MacLean. Collective religious belief draws upon the emotions of love, fear, and gregariousness and is deeply embedded in the limbic system through sociobiological conditioning and social sanction. Individual religious belief utilizes reason based in the neocortex and often varies from collective religion. The limbic system is much older in evolutionary terms than the neocortex and is, therefore, stronger than it much in the same way as the reptilian is stronger than both the limbic system and the neocortex. Reason is pre-empted by emotional drives. The religious feeling in a congregation is emotionally different from individual spirituality even though the congregation is composed of individuals. Belonging to a collective religion is culturally more important than individual spirituality though the two often go hand in hand. This is one of the reasons why religious debates are likely to be inconclusive.[citation needed]

Yet another view is that the behaviour of people who participate in a religion makes them feel better and this improves their fitness, so that there is a genetic selection in favor of people who are willing to believe in religion. Specifically, rituals, beliefs, and the social contact typical of religious groups may serve to calm the mind (for example by reducing ambiguity and the uncertainty due to complexity) and allow it to function better when under stress.[26] This would allow religion to be used as a powerful survival mechanism, particularly in facilitating the evolution of hierarchies of warriors, which if true, may be why many modern religions tend to promote fertility and kinship.

Still another view is that human religion was a product of an increase in dopaminergic functions in the human brain and a general intellectual expansion beginning around 80 kya. [27][28] Dopamine promotes an emphasis on distant space and time, which is critical for the establishment of religious experience.[29] While the earliest shamanic cave paintings date back around 40 kya, the use of ochre for rock art predates this and there is clear evidence for abstract thinking along the coast of South Africa by 80 kya.

Prehistoric evidence of religion[edit]

See also: Paleolithic religion and Prehistoric religion

When humans first became religious remains unknown, but there is credible evidence of religious behavior from the Middle Paleolithic era (300–500 thousand years ago)[citation needed] and possibly earlier.
Paleolithic burials[edit]

The earliest evidence of religious thought is based on the ritual treatment of the dead. Most animals display only a casual interest in the dead of their own species.[30] Ritual burial thus represents a significant change in human behavior. Ritual burials represent an awareness of life and death and a possible belief in the afterlife. Philip Lieberman states "burials with grave goods clearly signify religious practices and concern for the dead that transcends daily life."[13]

The earliest evidence for treatment of the dead comes from Atapuerca in Spain. At this location the bones of 30 individuals believed to be Homo heidelbergensis have been found in a pit.[31] Neanderthals are also contenders for the first hominids to intentionally bury the dead. They may have placed corpses into shallow graves along with stone tools and animal bones. The presence of these grave goods may indicate an emotional connection with the deceased and possibly a belief in the afterlife. Neanderthal burial sites include Shanidar in Iraq and Krapina in Croatia and Kebara Cave in Israel.[32][33][33][34]

The earliest known burial of modern humans is from a cave in Israel located at Qafzeh. Human remains have been dated to 100,000 years ago. Human skeletons were found stained with red ochre. A variety of grave goods were found at the burial site. The mandible of a wild boar was found placed in the arms of one of the skeletons.[35] Philip Lieberman states:
"Burial rituals incorporating grave goods may have been invented by the anatomically modern hominids who emigrated from Africa to the Middle East roughly 100,000 years ago".[35]
Matt Rossano suggests that the period in between 80,000–60,000 years after humans retreated from the Levant to Africa was a crucial period in the evolution of religion.[36]

The use of symbolism[edit]

The use of symbolism in religion is a universal established phenomenon. Archeologist Steven Mithen contends that it is common for religious practices to involve the creation of images and symbols to represent supernatural beings and ideas. Because supernatural beings violate the principles of the natural world, there will always be difficulty in communicating and sharing supernatural concepts with others. This problem can be overcome by anchoring these supernatural beings in material form through representational art. When translated into material form, supernatural concepts become easier to communicate and understand.[37] Due to the association of art and religion, evidence of symbolism in the fossil record is indicative of a mind capable of religious thoughts. Art and symbolism demonstrates a capacity for abstract thought and imagination necessary to construct religious ideas. Wentzel van Huyssteen states that the translation of the non-visible through symbolism enabled early human ancestors to hold beliefs in abstract terms.[38]

Some of the earliest evidence of symbolic behavior is associated with Middle Stone Age sites in Africa. From at least 100,000 years ago, there is evidence of the use of pigments such as red ochre. Pigments are of little practical use to hunter gatherers, thus evidence of their use is interpreted as symbolic or for ritual purposes. Among extant hunter gatherer populations around the world, red ochre is still used extensively for ritual purposes. It has been argued that it is universal among human cultures for the color red to represent blood, sex, life and death.[39]
The use of red ochre as a proxy for symbolism is often criticized as being too indirect. Some scientists, such as Richard Klein and Steven Mithen, only recognize unambiguous forms of art as representative of abstract ideas. Upper paleolithic cave art provides some of the most unambiguous evidence of religious thought from the paleolithic. Cave paintings atChauvet depict creatures that are half human and half animal.

Origins of organized religion[edit]

See also: Neolithic religion

Organized religion traces its roots to the neolithic revolution that began 11,000 years ago in the Near East but may have occurred independently in several other locations around the world. The invention of agriculture transformed many human societies from a hunter-gatherer lifestyle to a sedentary lifestyle. The consequences of the neolithic revolution included a population explosion and an acceleration in the pace of technological development. The transition from foraging bands to states and empires precipitated more specialized and developed forms of religion that reflected the new social and political environment. While bands and small tribes possess supernatural beliefs, these beliefs do not serve to justify a central authority, justify transfer of wealth or maintain peace between unrelated individuals. Organized religion emerged as a means of providing social and economic stability through the following ways:
Justifying the central authority, which in turn possessed the right to collect taxes in return for providing social and security services.

Bands and tribes consist of small number of related individuals. However, states and nations are composed of many thousands of unrelated individuals. Jared Diamond argues that organized religion served to provide a bond between unrelated individuals who would otherwise be more prone to enmity. In his book Guns, Germs, and Steel he argues that the leading cause of death among hunter-gatherer societies is murder.[40]
Religions that revolved around moralizing gods may have facilitated the rise of large, cooperative groups of unrelated individuals.[41]

The states born out of the Neolithic revolution, such as those of Ancient Egypt and Mesopotamia, were theocracies with chiefs, kings and emperors playing dual roles of political and spiritual leaders.[15] Anthropologists have found that virtually all state societies and chiefdoms from around the world have been found to justify political power through divine authority. This suggests that political authority co-opts collective religious belief to bolster itself.

Invention of writing[edit]

See also: History of writing

Following the neolithic revolution, the pace of technological development (cultural evolution) intensified due to the invention of writing 5000 years ago. Symbols that became words later on made effective communication of ideas possible. Printing invented only over a thousand years ago increased the speed of communication exponentially and became the main spring of cultural evolution. Writing is thought to have been first invented in either Sumeria or Ancient Egypt and was initially used for accounting. Soon after, writing was used to record myth. The first religious texts mark the beginning of religious history. The Pyramid Texts from ancient Egypt are one of the oldest known religious texts in the world, dating to between 2400–2300 BCE.[42][43][44] Writing played a major role in sustaining and spreading organized religion. In pre-literate societies, religious ideas were based on an oral tradition, the contents of which were articulated by shamans and remained limited to the collective memories of the society's inhabitants. With the advent of writing, information that was not easy to remember could easily be stored in sacred texts that were maintained by a select group (clergy). Humans could store and process large amounts of information with writing that otherwise would have been forgotten. Writing therefore enabled religions to develop coherent and comprehensive doctrinal systems that remained independent of time and place.[45] Writing also brought a measure of objectivity to human knowledge. Formulation of thoughts in words and the requirement for validation made mutual exchange of ideas and the sifting of generally acceptable from not acceptable ideas possible. The generally acceptable ideas became objective knowledge reflecting the continuously evolving framework of human awareness of reality that Karl Popper calls 'verisimilitude' – a stage on the human journey to truth.[46]

Islamic Takeover In The US?



European Court Upholds France's Burqa Ban – NPR
by KRISHNADEV CALAMUR
July 01, 2014

The European Court of Human Rights has upheld France's ban on face-covering veils, in a closely watched case that was brought by a Muslim woman who said the law violated her freedom of religion.

The French-born woman, who is in her mid-20s, was not named. She said she wore the burqa and niqab in accordance with her faith and convictions. And, she said, she was not pressured by her family to dress in this way. The woman said that the French ban on the veils was discriminatory, and violated her privacy and freedom of religion and expression. She lodged her complaint with the Strasbourg, France-based court in 2011, soon after the French law went into effect.

But on Tuesday the court ruled that France's ban was legitimate because it was "proportionate to the aim pursued, namely the preservation of the conditions of 'living together' " of all French citizens.

The French law is controversial (partly because the country has Europe's largest Muslim population), and Tuesday's decision is likely to be no less so. As Eleanor Beardsley reported on All Things Considered last year, the law has sparked protests and violence.

Under the law, women wearing the face-covering veil can be fined up to 150 euros (about $200) and/or be made to attend a class on citizenship. Critics say the ban targets Muslims and Islam.




An unnamed Islamic French-born woman complained to the European Court On Human Rights that a new law banning the Burqa in France restricted her religious freedom and privacy. “But on Tuesday the court ruled that France's ban was legitimate because it was 'proportionate to the aim pursued, namely the preservation of the conditions of 'living
together' of all French citizens.”

Yesterday, by coincidence, I happened to receive an email which purported to be a letter by a Christian woman from an Islamic background that portrayed modern Islam's repression of women and other things under the Sharia Law. It included the fear that Islamic people want to move to Western countries in large enough numbers, along with having children there, with the goal of becoming a majority in all countries and politically taking over the governments, substituting Sharia Law for Western.

It was an attempt to pass along the fear that some people have of having Islamic people within their borders, and was quite inflamatory. The fact that some Islamic people in France have tried to overthrow a French law that is, I'm sure, aimed at prohibiting the infiltration of Sharia Law into France, shows that they are indeed trying to resist merging with the larger French culture. What has frightened me about Islamic groups in Western countries is the occurrence of at least two news reports of “honor killings” by Islamic immigrant men within the US, and in France within the last ten years or so there have been riots in Islamic immigrant neighborhoods there. I sympathize with France in this instance, because I do think that the anti-feminist traditions and strong opposition to other religions which exist currently in so many Islamic nations are poisonous to freedom in general, such as our religious freedoms, and women's rights in particular, wherever they are allowed to take hold.

I didn't pass that email on to my mailing list because I think we already have enough cultural prejudices in this country, and the development of witch hunts over religion is one of the greatest evils on earth wherever it has occurred. After 9/11 a non-Muslim Sikh was shot in the street in an American city for wearing a turban. Europe was full of such things in the 1600s and 1700s, and that's why so many people left Europe at that time for America. The state of Pennsylvania in particular offered complete freedom of religion before we were a nation, and then it was written as a basic precept into the Constitution of the new United States. Freedom from a state religion of any kind is one of our most important liberties in this country. Indeed the lack of freedom even to think my own thoughts would be abhorrent. Nothing stops intellectual progress like a closed-minded viewpoint.

People with a mindset to overturn this principle and put something as hideous as Sharia Law into its place are a basic danger if they should become too populous, too controlling or refuse to adapt to Western ways, but those very groups are allowed to maintain their beliefs here under our constitution. That is as it should be, because the rule of freedom is more important. Any group, however, that becomes a threat, such as fostering jihadism within our very borders, will certainly be combated strongly by our Homeland Security and FBI. Freedom of religion does not include the right to overthrow the US government. That will especially be true now that ISIS (now called the Islamic State) has openly threatened the US and Western targets abroad. I'm not against Islam, per se, because many Islamic people are peaceful; but all radical and politically motivated religious groups are by their nature enemies of the US, and a genuine threat to peace. I'm waiting with some tension to see what happens in Iraq and that target area of ISIS expansionism. Just as a case in point, please see this conservative description of Hamtramck, MI, a city that according to this article has been taken over by radical Islamists. Then see the Wikipedia articles for balance.


http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/zieve/070111
January 11, 2007
Michigan: the Islamic capital of the US
By Sher Zieve

As of 2005, Michigan held the largest and still growing Muslim population in the United States and the second largest Arab population outside of the Middle East. Outside of Muslim-run countries, Paris — which still experiences nightly vehicle torchings and mayhem in its Islamic neighborhoods — has the largest. It is estimated that eight million Muslims now live in the US and their numbers are continuing to grow. Islam is now the second-largest religious body in the United States and is said to be its fastest growing religious movement.

Although hundreds of long-time residents of Hamtramck, MI protested the city allowing the five-times-per-day Muslim call to prayer to be broadcast over Hamtramck's loudspeakers, the city council voted unanimously in April 2004 to allow it. Prior to the city council making its decision, public input from any citizens (except Muslims) had not been allowed. This continues today. Hamtramck resident Bob Golen was outraged by the city council's actions and said: "So they had made up their mind before any public meeting and it's been five-nothing ever since. This is only the beginning. They're going to use Hamtramck as a precedent. This is coming to your town, to the town down the road, and to the [next] town down the road." Golen added that, after the city council voted to allow the calls to prayer, one of the city councilmen said that he was "proud to set a precedent in this country."
Note: The most dangerous element of this "precedent" appears to be a US city council making a unilateral decision. No input from non-Muslim US citizen-residents was required — or permitted. Sound a bit like Shari'a law (which requires only Islamic clerics to make decisions) to you? It should. Only one-third of Hamtramck's population is Muslim. However, it is the group that appears to now wield the proverbial sword when and where its religious practices are involved. Hamtramck's Christians and Jews need not waste their time protesting, as this pro-Muslim (to the exclusion of other religions?) city council now firmly appears to be in control of matters relating to Islam.

Zieve, acknowledges that he is a conservative Republican, who do tend to have an opposition to all religions except Christianity, but if this article is factually correct, it does appear to be a case of Muslims moving into a small US town and taking over politically rather than “blending in.” Zieve is quoted here: “It has been said before and I'll say it again: Certainly, not all Muslims are terrorists. But, easily, 90+% of all current terrorists are Muslims. The bed has been made and the only decision that currently appears available is if we choose to lie in it.”


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hamtramck,_Michigan

Over the past thirty years, a large number of immigrants from the Middle East (especially Yemen) and South Asia (especially Bangladesh) have moved to the city. As of the 2010 American Community Survey, the city's foreign born population stood at 41.1%,[9] making it Michigan's most internationally diverse city (see more at Demographics below). The population was 43,355 in the 1950 Census, and 18,372 in 1990.
In 1997, the Utne Reader named Hamtramck one of "the 15 hippest neighborhoods in the U.S. and Canada" in part for its punk and alternative music scene, its Buddhist temple, its cultural diversity, and its laid back blue-collar neighborhoods.[19]And in May 2003, Maxim Blender selected Hamtramck as the second "Most Rock N' Roll City" in the U.S., behindWilliamsburg in Brooklyn, New York City. Hamtramck is home of several of Michigan's most distinguished music venues.
In January 2004, members of the Al-Islah Islamic Center requested permission to use loudspeakers for the purpose of broadcasting the Islamic call to prayer. This request set off a contentious debate in the city, about the noise that would be caused by the call to prayer, eventually garnering national attention.[20] Ultimately, Hamtramck amended its noise ordinance in July 2004 regulating all religious sounds.[21]
From the 1990 Census to the 2000 Census the city's population increased by 25%. Sally Howell, author of "Competing for Muslims: New Strategies for Urban Renewal in Detroit", wrote that this was "overwhelmingly" due to immigration from majority Muslim countries.[35]
From 1990 to 2000, of all of the municipalities in Wayne, Oakland, and Macomb counties, Hamtramck had the highest percentage growth in the Asian population. It had 222 Asians according to the 1990 U.S. Census and 2,382 according to the 2000 U.S. Census, an increase by 973%.[36]
In the 2000s a Bengali mosque named the Al-Islah Jamee Masjid wanted permission to broadcast the adhan, the Islamic call to prayer, from loudspeakers outside of the mosque and requested this permission from the city government. It was one of the newer mosques in Hamtramck. Sally Howell, author of "Competing for Muslims: New Strategies for Urban Renewal in Detroit", wrote that the request "brought to a head simmering Islamophobic sentiments" in Hamtramck.[47] Muslims and interfaith activists supported the mosque. Some anti-Muslim activists, including some from other states including Kentucky and Ohio, participated in the controversy.[47] Howell added that the controversy, through an "international media storm", gave "a cathartic test of the "freedoms" we were said to be "fighting for" in Afghanistan and Iraq" to the remainder of the United States.[47] In 2004 the city council voted unanimously to allow mosques to broadcast the adhan on public streets, making it one of the few U.S. cities to allow this to occur. Some individuals had strongly objected to the allowing of the adhan.[51]


Dearborn, Michigan
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

As of the 2010 census, it had a population of 98,153.[5.... Dearborn residents are primarily of European or Middle Eastern heritage. German, Polish, Irish and Italian are the primary European ethnicities. Middle Eastern ancestries make up the largest ethnic grouping with Lebanese, Yemeni, Iraqi, Syrian and Palestinian groups present. The Arab American National Museum (AANM) opened in Dearborn in 2005, the first museum in the world devoted to Arab-American history and culture. Most of the Arab-Americans in Dearborn and the Detroit area are ethnic Lebanese, who immigrated in the early twentieth century to work in the auto industry, like many immigrants to the area. They have been joined by more recent Arab immigrants from other nations. The city's population includes 40,000 Arab Americans.[18] Ethnic Arabs own many shops and businesses, offering services in both English and Arabic.[19] In the 2010 census, Arab Americans comprised 40% of Dearborn's population; many have been in the city for several generations. The city has the largest proportion of Arab Americans in the United States.[20] As of 2006 Dearborn also has the largestLebanese American population in the United States.[21]
The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Detroit previously operated the St. Alphonsus Elementary School in Dearborn. In 2005 the archdiocese announced that the school would close.[31]
Free speech controversy
Four members of the Christian group "Acts 17 Apologetics" were arrested and prosecuted for breach of the peace in 2010 because they were walking around the annual Arab-American Festival talking to people at the festival about Christianity.[38]All the charges, except one of failure to obey a police order, were thrown out by a jury.[39] During the festival, four other people from Apologetics were blocked from handing out Arabic-English copies of the Gospel of John on a public street. Police ordered them to stop filming the incident, to provide identification, and to move at least five blocks from the border of the fair.[40]
A Tea Party Senatorial candidate in Nevada, Sharron Angle, suggested that Dearborn was contributing to a non-widespread "militant terrorist situation,"[38][41] and said that the city was enforcing Islamic law.[38] Angle was sharply criticized by the Mayor Jack O'Reilly, who called her comments "shameful."[38] "He said they were based on distorted Tea Party accounts of the arrest of members of an anti-Islam group at an Arab festival."[38] Angle was defeated in the election by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.
Preacher Terry Jones planned a protest in 2011 outside the Islamic Center of America. Local authorities required him either to post a $45,000 "peace bond" to cover Dearborn's cost if Jones was attacked by extremists or to go to trial. Jones contested that requirement, and the jury voted on April 22 to require the posting of a $1 "peace bond", but Jones and his co-pastor Wayne Sapp continued to refuse to pay. They were held briefly in jail, while claiming violation of First Amendmentrights. That night Jones was released by the court.[42] The ACLU had filed an amicus brief in support of Jones's protest plans.[43]
Terry Jones led a rally at City Hall and then planned to speak at the annual Festival on June 18, 2011, but on his way there he was blocked by protesters, six of whom were arrested. Police said they did not have enough officers present to maintain safety.[48] Christian missionaries accompanied Jones with their own signs of protest; they were alleged by festivalgoers and protesters to have yelled insults at Arabs, Muslims, Islam, and Catholics.[49]
On April 7, 2012 Terry Jones led a protest in front of the Islamic Center of America, Dearborn, speaking about Islam and Free Speech. The mosque was placed on lock down. 30 police cars were there to block traffic and prevent a counter protest.[50]



These conflicts in Michigan over America allowing local changes in response to the Islamic religion seems to be coming mainly from the very conservative elements of the population. In neither city were there anti-american riots or threats. It's more about cultural blending and ethnic enclaves. I think it's not really a new process in the US. If these people became threatening in any way, I would feel differently, but in this case it doesn't look frightening to me.