A new player in town?

Activity this week highlights how EdWatch's combat experience in Saint Paul, multiplied by new national alliances, is already paying dividends on Capitol Hill--even without a Beltway lobbyist on the ground.

EdWatch, along with a coalition of like-minded organizations, is throwing roadblocks in the path of a bill that would establish federal academies to teach civics. They sound great, except that such academies would be unconstitutional. According to EdWatch, "Authority over education is a power reserved to the states. The federal government has no authority to set up federal academies to teach students or teachers. This bill is a violation of our Constitution."

Federal academies would also do an end-run past school boards and parents, teaching curriculum that is not subject to their review. EdWatch has a long-standing objection to the federally-funded curriculum, We The People: The Citizen and the Constitution, and the National History Standards, which would be the foundation of any federal civics academy. EdWatch believes that this federal curriculum "undermines the basic principles of freedom that are set forth in the Declaration of Independence, such as national sovereignty, inalienable rights, and self-evident truth, the 2nd amendment and the 9th and 10th amendments of limited government."

Here's where EdWatch's legislative experience comes in. In a move reminiscent of Profile of Learning intrigues, the original federal civics academies bill, H.R. 1078, The American History and Civics Education Act of 2003, has been resurrected for the current lame duck session as The American History and Civics Education Act of 2004, H.R. 5360. EdWatch caught wind of this and mobilized its members, in concert with other groups including The Liberty Committee, a 501(c)4 lobbying group. Their calls and faxes from across the country resulted in the bill being removed from today's calendar--a temporary but real victory for the bill's opponents. The effort continues; stay tuned.

EdWatch is also supporting House and Senate legislation that would prohibit mandatory mental health screening, using similar tactics with similar success.

Growing lobbying experience, plus an active grassroots network, plus new national alliances, plus a Capitol Hill lobbyist could make EdWatch a player in Congress real soon now. Now imagine for a moment that the Republicans endorse state Senator and EdWatch friend Michele Bachmann (R-Stillwater) against U.S. Senator Mark Dayton in 2006, and she wins. Stranger things have happened, such as the 2000 surprise endorsement win, primary election victory, and general election victory that landed Bachmann (now Assistant Minority Leader) in her Republican Caucus office in the first place.

Education for a free nation

EdWatch! You've just repealed the Profile of Learning and replaced it with knowledge-based academic standards! What are you going to do next?

Judging by who showed up to the group's national conference on the Saturday after Election Day, they're formulating some big plans. The conference had no fewer than ten "co-hosts," ranging from education groups such as Citizens United for Responsible Education from Washington state, Education Policy Center from Virginia, and Texas Standards Reform; to Eagle Forum, Minnesota Family Council, and Freedom 21.

A significant percentage of the conference attendees likewise hailed from outside Minnesota. The Profile is dead, and most of the Minnesotans who crowded past EdWatch conferences and rallies seem content to give the new standards a chance. The next round of legislative battles for more money for K-12 seems more suited to the House and Senate caucuses and the Taxpayers League than to EdWatch.

The conference theme, "Education for a FREE Nation," reflects EdWatch's evolving identity as a national advocate for promoting such traditional ideas as national sovereignty, parental rights, and free markets. EdWatch is developing into a focal point for many other groups concerned with issues such as curriculum, standardized testing, the federalization of education, early childhood education (EdWatch calls it "Baby Ed"), and mandatory mental health screening.

Just as EdWatch was a fixture in the halls, chambers, offices, and tunnels of the Minnesota Capitol complex, to get to the next level they will need a presence on Capitol Hill. They are trying to fund a full-time education lobbyist in Washington, D.C. Even if the effort is not successful this year, EdWatch is already riding a strengthening wave of conservative thought, joining other like-minded grassroots groups across the country.

Outcomes Based Retailing

During the lunch break at the EdWatch conference last week, I went over to the nearby monolithic Ikea store to pick up the small glass shelves that were out of stock when my wife bought a cabinet. I had never been to Ikea before. I discovered that shopping there has all the charm of fighting the crowds at the airport over Thanksgiving weekend to buy a newspaper. It makes Super Target seem cozy by comparison. But my favorite part of the European industrial-tech decor was the sign on the door to the employee areas: "Coworkers Only."

The reason that I haven't gotten around to writing about the conference is that I have been fooling around with getting my photos online for you to see. You can gawk at individual photos or queue them up into a slide show. See what real conservatives look like! Enjoy; more blogging to come next week I promise.

Whither MREdCo?

What ever happened to the Maple River Education Coalition?

First of all, awhile back they renamed themselves EdWatch. The group was founded by the sincere and striking Renee Doyle, parent and former school board member of the Maple River Independent School District #2135 (south of Mankato, Minnesota). EdWatch evolved into a statewide grassroots network of activists that sent one of its own, Michele Bachmann, to the state Senate, toppled the process-oriented Profile of Learning, and helped to fashion knowledge-based academic standards in its place. Their effectiveness at the Capitol earned them respect from legislators and shrill name-calling from their political opponents.

Along the way, the group attracted other conservative Minnesota organizations to their cause, such as the Minnesota Family Council and the Constitution Party of Minnesota. David Thompson, talk show host on AM 1500 KSTP, recently joined their board of directors. EdWatch director Julie Quist is a frequent guest on Joyce Harley's "Education Wednesdays" show on AM 980 KKMS.

Today EdWatch is evolving again, growing and adding alliances nationwide. Proof of their progress was revealed at their first national conference, held last weekend in Bloomington. I was there and will share my observations with you over the next several days. ("Welcome" to the many folks I met at the conference on Saturday.)

John Kerry (1998) for President

Cheri Pierson Yecke discovered that we shared many of John Kerry's views on public education, before we were against them:

Consider these excerpts from a speech Kerry gave on June 16, 1998, at Northeastern University:

"We can't afford to be uncritical apologists for public schools that work for our bureaucrats, but not for our kids."

" ... [T]oo often there are too many teacher unions... which fight for turf when they should be fighting for the tools to succeed... We're left with a system where no one is held responsible for our kids."

"No teacher should have a lock on any job, and it should not take tens of thousands of dollars and years in the courts to let go a teacher who will not or cannot help our kids succeed."

"We are stuck in an ideological cement of our own mixing and because of it, American parents are voting with their feet... Every morning more and more parents -- rich, middle-class, and even the poor -- are driving their sons and daughters to parochial schools where they believe there will be more discipline, more standards and more opportunity."

"Shame on us also for not realizing that there are parents in this country who care little about politics or party, who, today, support vouchers not because they are enamored with private schools, but because they want a choice for their children. They want alternatives -- and seeing none in our rigid system, they are willing and some even desperate to look elsewhere... "

It comes as no surprise that his tune has changed since then. According to Kathleen Kelley, president of a Massachusetts teacher union at the time: "We sat down with him immediately after that speech." What an interesting talk that must have been.

The union again had a "talk" with Kerry last May when he reverted to his 1998 persona, suggesting that he would "establish new systems that reward teachers for excellence in the classroom, including pay based on improvement in student achievement." Kerry again changed his tune.

If the unions hadn't had these "talks" with John Kerry, you would have thought that Tim Pawlenty and Yecke were setting his education reform agenda (and we would have had to consider endorsing him for president)!

I Voted

Let each citizen remember at the moment he is offering his vote that he is not making a present or a compliment to please an individual — or at least that he ought not so to do; but that he is executing one of the most solemn trusts in human society for which he is accountable to God and his country. —Samuel Adams

There were about forty voters in line when I arrived at my precinct polling station this morning around 6:45 am. It was a cold and rainy morning; several voters carried umbrellas. By the time I fed my completed ballot into the ballot machine, there were probably a hundred or more in line.

Please exercise your precious American right to vote today, then explain to your kids what it means to you.

Scholar's Legislative Honor Roll

For their steadfast advocacy of knowledge-based education on the floor of the Minnesota House of Representatives and in committee hearings, through the Profile of Learning repeal, academic standards creation, and Cheri Pierson Yecke confirmation process, Scholar has named these Representatives to the Minnesota Education Reform News Legislative Honor Roll. We wish them a majority of the votes on Election Day, and look forward to working with them during the 2005 session.

Mark Buesgens (R) 35B
Jeff Johnson (R) 43A
Karen Klinzing (R) 56B
Phil Krinkie (R) 53A
Mark Olson (R) 16B
Marty Seifert (R) 21A
Steve Sviggum (R) 28B
Barb Sykora (R) 33B

Craig's education topics

Craig Westover of the Pioneer Press informed me that he has linked his education and school choice blog entries and columns onto a single page for easy reference. Check it out for some trenchant parent/taxpayer opinions on public education (rather than the parroting of the education establishment's party line that you'll find in other media sources).

Politically incorrect

Craig Westover, a new columnist over at the PiPress, is a breath of fresh air on the Minnesota ed reform scene. Check out his blog coverage of the recent Minnesota Public Radio forum on the so-called education gap:

The MPR meeting was a "town hall" meeting in the same sense that putting both presidential candidates on the same stage is a "debate."

There is no polite way to say it -- there simply was no educational leadership present on the Penumbra Theatre stage last night.

This is the second time I've seen Commissioner Seagren speak, and both times I sensed she was working harder at not being former Commissioner Yecke than she was at setting any kind of an education agenda.

Westover's acute insights and political incorrectness on education issues, coming from a Twin Cities daily newspaper columnist, are surprising and welcome (Education Minnesota and the education elites are probably not so happy with his views). Add his blog to your list to check on a regular basis -- he's on Scholar's blogroll. Now if Cheri Yecke would start an edu-blog, then we'd really have a party.

Total Recall

In the 1990 movie Total Recall, the actor Arnold Schwarzenegger emerges from his disguise as a woman in an incredible (especially for 1990) computer-generated visual effect.

In August 2004, the real Arnold Schwarzenegger, The Governator who saved "Gali-fornia" from Gray Davis, who triumphantly proclaimed "I am a Republican too" at the party's national convention, emerged from his ostensibly Republican guise with an equally startling transformation.

Well, OK, nobody ever considered Schwarzenegger a conservative, but the Schwarzenegger administration's California Performance Review (CPR) has some groups gasping in horror, as if their helmet's face shield suddenly shattered in the thin Martian atmosphere (watch the movie).

The conservative organization Freedom 21 Santa Cruz says in its review of the CPR:

In truth, Governor Schwarzenegger's plan effectively devolves the constitutionally based government of the State of California by creating a series of councils, conservancies and regional governments that will create new political systems, new methods for educating children and a new land use system that pretends to protect nature by limiting human action in order to consolidate economic power within an elite ruling class.

Schwarzenegger himself said in 1990, "My relationship to power and authority is that I'm all for it... People need somebody to watch over them... Ninety-five percent of the people in the world need to be told what to do and how to behave (U.S. News & World Report, November 26, 1990)."

What does education look like in this brave new world?

The CPR plan for education is an example of the Governor's wish to limit California's choice by eliminating representatives elected by the people. Under the CPR, the Governor's Secretary to Education heads a new organization, the Department of Education and Workforce Preparation. This appointee will be granted broad powers to manage the California education system from elementary schools to community colleges.

What does 'workforce preparation' mean? It means government-private partnerships between schools and business; a centrally planned economy; replacing the learning of facts with assessment of attitudes, values and beliefs, and treating children as biological resources of the state to create global collective citizens. This is even more alarming than changing political mechanics. The significant change is about the purpose of education and the premise we hold about the nature and role of children to reach and seek their full potential as human beings.

Socialism may work in The Golden State, but as Governor Tim Pawlenty and his administration roll out his sweeping education proposals, we'll continue to watch for moves in legislation and rule that would put government and business in the driver's seat of public education, to the exclusion of the parents in each ward.