When you receive your parent handbook for your child’s school this year, please check out the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) in the very tiny print. As usual, the devil is in the details. We would like to highlight a few of those details here. First the text of your privacy rights.  …

Common Core Conference in Rapid City, SD August 24, 2013. You can get the registration form here. Speakers: Jane Robbins, J.D. – Jane Robbins is a native of Pendleton, South Carolina, and is a graduate of Harvard Law School and Clemson University. Ms. Robbins is a Senior Fellow at the American Principles Project which was…

August 7, 2013 So, the data mining on our children, has begun and it has gone retroactive. At the Tea Area School District school enrollment fair, this form was presented to parents. I don’t have the form for the upper grades, but was told by a parent that while enrolling her Junior in High School,…

The Common Core Standards are not internationally benchmarked and do not make children college and career ready.  If they had proof that they were internationally benchmarked and prepared students for college and career, they would be shouting it from the roof tops. The teaching methods used with the Common Core have never been tried and…

Common Core in 5 minutes. Dr. Duke Pesta describes what’s wrong with the federalized, one-size-fits-all Common Core standards for American education. Dr. Pesta is academic director of FreedomProject Education and a contributor to The New American. http://www.thenewamerican.com/

Husband, father and grandfather, J.D. Erickson, Sioux Falls, wrote and posted this phenomenal piece about his experience with the Common Core. He has given us permission to publish it here. I Am So Misinformed & Right Wing Conservative NuttyFrom: Sustainability Café by J.D. EricksonIt would appear that I have made a terrible mistake. I came out…

Please listen to this three minute video from Bill Gates who has spent $150 million to develop the Core and corresponding curriculum, and to get lawmakers and business leaders to support it.  Did you catch that? Population Growth – “If we do a really great job on new vaccines, health care and reproductive services, we could lower that…

Would you allow your child to do this? From KELO News SIOUX FALLS, SD  It sounds like a science fiction movie:  identifying students through a scan of the iris of their eyes. But the technology has actually been around for quite awhile and a South Dakota company has found an application for it that is starting…

From the Rapid City Journal:Jack R. Warner, Executive Director and CEO, South Dakota Board of Regents wrote a piece for the Rapid City Journal in which he touts the Common Core as being the way to create a workforce for the 21st Century. You can read Mr. Warner’s article here.Common core standards an economic issue Now…

On Thursday, I had the opportunity to watch a webinar from the Fordham Institute and Democrats for Education Reform. Right out the gate, at minute 3:25, I was surprised at what I heard. Michael Petrelli, Executive VP at Fordham, a strong supporter of the Common Core Standards said, “…using the Common Core as the standards…