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