Category Archives: Funding

SANBORN Regional School District: SOLD to Nellie Mae

We’ve been warning parents about Nellie Mae’s attempt to buy local control from greedy Superintendents. Just this week local control was SOLD to Nellie Mae.

Sanborn

Remember, Nellie Mae is funded by the Annenberg Foundation. (Think modern day ACORN political activists) The Gates Foundation funds Annenberg. This is how the Feds BUY local control in your schools.

Parents do you have a voice when you see the lousy math curriculum come home with your children? NO
Do you have a voice when everything in class is centered on group learning? NO
Do you have a voice when you get new report cards that make no sense? NO

Why? Because in order to receive this BRIBE, your district administrators had to sign a grant application. In that grant application, your teachers will be told they have to use methods that lower academic achievement (Constructivism or Inquiry based learning)

There are all kinds of strings attached to that $100k and that includes removing power from your local school board members. They wont be able to override bad teaching methods because that power was sold to Nellie Mae.

Nellie Mae is the organization that buys federal control of your schools with your tax dollars along with the oligarch: Gates Foundation.

Ask for a copy of the grant application. Look at what the school is required to do for that BRIBE. Do some research into “student centered” learning. Ask for independent STUDIES that show any academic improvement. (Good luck with that)

Nellie Mae already bought off the Pittsfield schools and look how that turned out.

When parents working in the Pittsfield school district refuse to send their children to the school, that should tell you something.

Parents need to hold greedy administrators accountable for selling off local control. Let your school board members know this is unacceptable.

“Reaching Higher NH,” A pro-Common Core/Anti-Parental Rights Organization

We’ve been asked to dissect political organizations that are popping up in the name of ‘protecting public education.’

WHY? Because many people are figuring out, these organizations are developing for the purpose of carrying out the Federal Common Core reform agenda.

We will start with “Reaching Higher NH” and their mission statement : http://reachinghighernh.org/about-2/our-mission/
(denotes our comments)

Mission Statement:
Objectives
Promote the continued successful adoption and implementation of college and career readiness standards in New Hampshire school districts
(THIS IS CODE FOR COMMON CORE. They changed the name from Common Core to “college and career readiness standards to mislead parents)

Expand personalized learning based on competency-based education.
(Competency Based ed is part of the Federal agenda. It’s the old failed fad that used to be called Outcome Based Education: http://nhfamiliesforeducation.org/content/maine-state-board-education-member-speaks-out-against-competency-based-education)

Support a system of high quality assessment that allows parents, teachers and school administrators to evaluate individual student learning and progress.
(CODE for Common Core/Competency Based Assessments like PACE which was rejected by the New Hampshire legislators http://stopcommoncorenh.org/sccnh/2015/03/19/oh-my-look-at-whos-assisting-the-teachers-in-the-pace-program/ )

Support and promote initiatives that strengthen public education and better educational outcomes for students.
(CODE: Support the Federal reforms that are destroying public education)

Raise public awareness about these issues.
(Part of community organizing involves frequent PR gimmicks)

Work with key stakeholders to educate New Hampshire citizens about these issues.
(Businesses & Union lobbyists, NOT parents or teachers who hate the Federal govt. reforms)

Examples of efforts we support

Access to pre-K for every New Hampshire child, regardless of family economic status.
(This is part of the Obama reform agenda tied to workforce development training. Children/students = human capital http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2013/03/universal-preschools-empty-promises)

Expansion of alternative assessment models.
(Support for the PACE assessments the NH legislators rejected in HB323 http://stopcommoncorenh.org/sccnh/2015/03/19/oh-my-look-at-whos-assisting-the-teachers-in-the-pace-program/)

Efforts of our business, political and education leadership to create new STEM and STEAM career opportunities for our students.
(The Common Core standards do not prepare students for STEM or STEAM http://pioneerinstitute.org/news/lowering-the-bar-how-common-core-math-fails-to-prepare-students-for-stem/)

Advancement of charter schools as partners to our public education system.

Updating New Hampshire’s College and Career Ready science standards with up-to-date, research-based standards.
(Code for : adopting the problematic and dumbed down Next Generation Science Standards http://etcjournal.com/2013/01/22/next-generation-science-standards-fall-flat/)

The U.S. Department of Education Wages War On Teachers and Governor Hassan Does Nothing To Stop It

The Department of Education has proposed a new rule that would link student’s test scores on standardized tests to new teachers’ performance and back to their teacher preparation programs – denying the schools funding if these teachers do not produce the desired testing results.
https://www.federalregister.gov/…/teacher-preparation-issue

The New Hampshire Dept. of Ed. Will STOP BULLYING the Manchester School Districts

Hopefully, the Department will stop bullying the other school districts as well.  
The Department never held a single Public Hearing on the proposed Smarter Balanced Assessments. It’s not surprising that many school board members, principals and teachers are opposed to them, including some in Nashua. 
Read more from NH Families for Education here

From the Manchester Union Leader

Refusing to Administer Smarter Balanced Assessments does NOT Jeopardize State Funding: “[Manchester] School district to receive millions withheld by state”

By TED SIEFER
New Hampshire Union Leader

MANCHESTER – City officials have prevailed upon the state Department of Education to release millions of dollars in federal funds that they say the agency withheld over the school district’s efforts to opt out of the Smarter Balanced assessment test.

Manchester Superintendent Debra Livingston said DOE Commissioner Virginia Barry told her, without elaborating, that the funds would be made available.

“I just got a call that the money is being released,” she said Wednesday. “That was the extent of the conversation.”

Livingston wrote a letter to Barry earlier this month expressing concern that the district had only received $460,000 out of $4.2 million in anticipated federal reimbursements so far this school year.

“The district has received information that the New Hampshire Department of Education (NHDOE) may not be remitting or processing the District’s grant funds/applications over concerns about the District’s anticipated noncompliance with the administration of the Smarter Balanced Assessment,” Livingston wrote. “The District is very concerned that failure to timely remit or process such grant funds/applications could have serious financial consequences for the District and more importantly its students.”

The letter was copied to the governor, top legislative leaders and the state’s entire Congressional delegation.

Barry did not return several phone calls last week.

Livingston wrote the letter at the urging of Mayor Ted Gatsas and with the full support of the school board.

Gatsas has steadfastly maintained that the state DOE assured him the district would be able to implement its own assessment test as part of a broader effort to develop its own curriculum as an alternative to the Common Core State Standards.

The Smarter Balanced test, set to be administered statewide in the spring as the successor to the NECAP test, is aligned with Common Core.

Common Core has been assailed by conservative activists as an attempt by the federal government to impose unsound and ideological standards on local school districts. A growing number of parents and teachers across the country also have criticized the standards and their implementation.

Gatsas said he would insist on getting “in writing” the commitment from the state DOE to release the federal funds to the district.

The decision may weaken one lever of control wielded by the state DOE in the standoff over Smarter Balanced: the roughly $21 million in federal funds the district receives annually to support a wide array of programs aimed at assisting low-income students and struggling schools.

Manchester, the state’s largest school district, is now poised to be one of only a few to not participate in the Smarter Balanced assessment in the spring.

The move is likely to further exacerbate the rift with state education officials, who have long lamented the district’s comparatively poor performance on statewide assessments and higher than average dropout rates.

In place of Smarter Balanced, district officials are considering using an assessment test developed by the Northwest Evaluation Association (NWEA), a Portland, Ore.-based company that has provided consulting services to the district in the past.

“The NWEA is very broad-based,” Livingston said. “It’s very similar to Smarter Balanced.”

At the same time, Livingston said should the district go with a NWEA assessment, some adjustments to the newly implemented Manchester Academic Standards would likely be in order. Test scores could suffer as a result, she said, at least the first time the assessment is administered.

In any case, she said, “Any kind of testing right now is to establish a baseline to see where we’re at.”

tsiefer@unionleader.com

Pittsfield Under Attack by NGOs, Foundations and PR Firms

We bet most of the parents and taxpayers in Pittsfield and Manchester (two Annenberg partners in NH – there is also a Youth Organizers United in Manchester) have no idea they need to deal with a PR Firm created by an NGO/foundation out of UNH (Carsey Institute) to filter their communication to the various school boards.

The legality of this is questionable. The truth of the matter is, these “ideas” are NOT coming from the people or the parents, but from the foundations themselves. Most of the parents in these areas likely have no idea that the law is being overridden and their rights are being usurped.

The next new fad is “Restorative Justice”.

http://www.pittsfieldlistens.org/index.php/component/content/article/20-blog/33-ccs-scl-101

Previous nonsense. “Student Centered Learning” (or, letting the inmates run the asylum).

http://www.pittsfieldlistens.org/index.php/component/content/article/20-blog/33-ccs-scl-101

Pittsfield Listens: How to LOWER Academic Achievement in the School

Recently we exposed the FRAUD perpetrated by our own Governor Hassan as she praised the Pittsfield School District.   We suggest you read the article and do your own research.  We would suggest asking the many parents in Pittsfield who refuse to put their kids in the public school.  Including employees who work for the district but refuse to send their own kids to the school.

A Community Organizing Group (think ACORN) is fully engaged in pushing Obama’s high school redesign in the district.  They’ve participated in community meetings where hardly any residents show up.  They use the Delphi Technique to manipulate consensus among those who think they are actually contributing their opinions.

BELOW is the latest post from Pittsfield Listens.  You will notice they continue to PUSH “STUDENT CENTERED LEARNING” which has lowered academic achievement in cores subjects like math and science.  You will notice they don’t mention that to parents who attend.

Remember, Obama promised in his State of the Union Address to ‘redesign’ our public schools.  His Secretary of Education has even laid out that plan on the US DOE’s web site.

Did the parents in Pittsfield ask for this?  NO  This is a complete TOP-DOWN transformation to Outcome Based Education (OBE) with Common Core (CCSS).

This is how to erode local control.

Pittsfield follows the Feds (NOT parents) and was bought off by the Nellie Mae Foundation (think ACORN) through their Grants.  Nellie Mae Grants push failed teaching methods:  Student Centered Learning aka…Constructivism where teachers = facilitators.

We encourage Pittsfield parents to stop paying for this nonsense and start pushing back.  This is smoke and mirrors and your children are paying the price.

Obama’s redesign has nothing to do with academic achievement or literacy.  This is Workforce Training and it’s helpful to know how they are trying to fool parents into thinking this is good.

Outcome Based Education has failed repeatedly.  Progressives think if they just keep re-naming it (Competency Based Ed in NH) and re-selling it, maybe it will work the next time.

As we can see in Pittsfield, that’s not happening.  Nellie Mae and Pittsfield Listens are simply facilitators of Obama’s redesign but it is a dumbed down workforce training redesign from the Obama Admin.   Pittsfield Listens should be run out of town.  Nellie Mae Grants should be read by every parent and taxpayer in Pittsfield and then rejected.  Read the documents and look at what you had to sell in order to get the Nellie Mae money: Teaching methods that LOWER academic achievement.  (see links below for sources)

Student-Centered Learning 101 at the October Community Connection

Posted October 21

‘Education is not the filling of a pail, but the lighting of a fire.’ -William Butler Yeats.

On Thursday October 9, Pittsfield Listens and the Pittsfield School District co-hosted a Community Connection on Student-Centered Learning 101, where community members joined to learn about SCL and how it has positively impacted Pittsfield Middle High School and the greater community.

The evening began with an open reception and dinner, with the opportunity to look at photos, articles, videos and handouts on Pittsfield Middle High School’s re-design and Pittsfield Listens’ community engagement efforts.  We opened the evening together in a circle with a round of introductions- where we learned we were joined by students, parents, staff, superintendent from a district in Massachusetts, home school parent, and community members with no connection to the school except a desire to learn more about the buzz about what’s happening with the redesign in the Pittsfield Schools. Read More…

Additional Parent Sources:
 http://www.cogtech.usc.edu/publications/kirschner_Sweller_Clark.pdf

Beware the Facilitators

Coming soon to Laconia will be PR firm NH Listens-trained facilitators who will help “steer” your discussions during sessions intended to consider YOUR concerns and wishes for their public school system.

“LACONIA — The Strategic Planning Committee of the School Board is targeting October 18 as a day for school “stakeholders” to come together and provide their individual thoughts about the School District’s goals for the next five to seven years.

Committee members said last night that they would be sending invitations to a wide variety of individuals in Laconia, including business owners and leaders, parents, politicians, as well as former students and local college administrators, for their input into Laconia’s education goals.”

Some disagreed that a facilitator should be used. As we know from the Granite State Future program, NH Listens is anything but “neutral”.

Read more: School Board aims to get public involved in developing its new strategic plan

In Conway, there is a survey online that residents can take to express their concerns.