Category Archives: Common Core

Tuesday’s Thoughts, June 9, 2015

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Common Box Turtle

It appears the migration has started once again. Several decades ago, in the late ’70s or early ’80s, there was a massive migration of land terrapins, or, as some call them, box turtles.

During that time, I made a business trip to Jeff City driving on US-50. On one two-lane section of the highway, literally thousands of turtles had been killed trying to cross the road. It was so bad that the highway was slick with blood and gore and a number of cars were off the highway onto the shoulders because their drivers had lost control of their vehicles.

In the last week, I’ve seen a number of smaller box turtles crossing the highway. I haven’t hit any but I’ve seen where many turtles didn’t make it across the road. If you see a little bump slowly moving across the highway, give’em a pass. It’ll save you from having to wash your car to remove turtle gore.

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An article appeared on the St Louis Public Radio website late yesterday. The headline reads, “Missouri ranks 10th in high school graduation rate. Is that as good as it sounds?”

The short answer is, “No!” Graduation rates do not equal education rates. From the article, any student, or person filling a seat, can get a high school diploma in Missouri simply by showing up. I had a link once to an article that exposed the Kansas City School district’s failure: 22% of the 2012 KC high school graduates were functionally illiterate. The link is now broken, the article has been blocked. Here’s a link to a page with a graph that supports my older post. You can read my 2012 post on the KC school district here.

The bottom line of the NPR story is that Missouri has increased the number of high school graduates. They’ve done so by dumbing down the curriculum and eliminating any real requirements for graduation…except, perhaps, for that oh-so-important social and community service requirement. This is what state (and federal) control of our schools have wrought.

When phonics was removed as a teaching aid for reading, reading skills dropped. My wife once tutored the daughter of a friend. She had trouble reading. Her school, a public school, used ‘sight’ reading as the method of choice. It turned out, if I remember correctly, the girl was dyslexic.

Finally, her parents removed her from public school and placed her in a private school. It was not an issue of the public school being unable to teach her. They would not because they were confined to one technique that does not work for dyslexic kids. The private school was more interested in results instead of methodology.

An important item frequently overlooked by those who stand with sight reading over phonics is the argument that some words, such as hot, hope, hook, hoot, house, hoist, horse, horizon, honey, hour, honest, can’t be taught by phonics alone. That’s true. The English language is filled with exceptions. That’s why, along with reading, it is important to teach SPELLING!

Spelling, as it was once done, taught those exceptions, spelling taught the proper use of the word, it’s relationship to other words, it’s root(s) and its meaning(s). Spelling is another skill that is being dropped in many public schools. Spelling does not support the goal of passing the standardized tests. Rote memorization, with or without understanding, does.

When ‘No Child Left Behind,’ was introduced, the teachers claimed, rightly so, that the result would be to teach the tests. Remember, the purpose of the Education Mafia is not education but job security. When NCLB was passed, the teacher’s union promptly changed methodology and started teaching the new tests. That choice, teaching the test, has carried over and is institutionalized in Common Core.

Remember, behind every headline, there is a core of truth…and a lie. It’s up to you to discover which is which.

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Dé·jà vu

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Perhaps it isn’t quite a case of dé·jà vu but a repeat a continuing issue in a slightly different form. Yesterday’s post had an article about ‘white privilege’ indoctrination in the St Paul (MN) Schools. Funds had been diverted to pay a California group to the detriment of other needs. Finally, teachers began to rebell. The story was a Drudge headliner yesterday. PJ Media continued with the story today.

Black children are being done a grave disservice. All the racial bigotry they are being deluged with serves no purpose other than to force them to remain in dependency. Actual educational benefits are being sacrificed, purposely perhaps, to further political agendas. As usual, the students are caught in the middle.

The purpose of education is to teach the students how to teach themselves. These children spend ten to twelve years in school and the rest of their lives out-of-school. When school systems no longer provide the necessary skills for students to grow and be productive, the children, students, graduates must acquire those skills alone. They must teach themselves. No one else will.

There is another column on black education today. It, like yesterday’s, does not paint a promising picture for black students.

The War against Black Children

By Bruce Deitrick Price, June 3, 2015

There is a statistic out there that almost half the adults in Detroit are functionally illiterate.  They can’t fill out job applications.  They can’t read the instructions on a pill bottle.

So when we talk about a war against black children, let’s not think first about guns.  Think about the weapon that is doing the most damage.  That would be our public schools.

You cannot have functionality illiterate children at the high school level unless the school system systematically evades teaching those children to read at the elementary school level.  That’s exactly what is happening in cities across America.  This is hardly a natural phenomenon.  It’s caused by the perennial incompetence (some would say malevolence) of our Education Establishment.

A famous book precisely explained in 1955 “Why Johnny Can’t Read.”  You need phonics to teach reading.  Without phonics, you will get illiterate kids.  But our Education Establishment pretends not to hear the news.  Nobody can be that clueless.  They are best understood as a cult that pretends to be oblivious if that will help their agenda.

This is an easy matter for everyone to check.  Just ask any black parents you know who have (or had) children in elementary school.  Go ahead, ask them.  That’s the only way we are going to confront and cure this thing.  Here’s the key question: Did your children bring home lists of sight-words to be memorized?  If that was the method of instruction, then those kids were doomed from the start never to become good readers.  Sight-word lists are the smoking gun, the DNA evidence, the bloody fingerprints proving that the people in charge are not serious about literacy.

Our Education Establishment, in its devotion to a progressive (i.e., leveling) ideology, will apparently stop at nothing to make sure children end up with a mediocre education generally and poor reading skills in particular.  This shabby education falls with particular violence on children from poor families, single-parent families, and generally families that are not well-educated or highly literate.  After all, who will visit the school to defend the child against educational malpractice, which is what most reading instruction is?

So imagine a single mom maybe 25 or 30 years old – no husband, no job, no particular skills, and this mother was herself a victim of bad elementary school education 15 or 20 years before.  She probably cannot read at a high level and isn’t comfortable talking about it.  Most illiterates never recover from that hopeless feeling of inadequacy due to not learning to read.

The column continues on the website. It speaks specifically at the failure of black education and the effects of Common Core in the inner cities. Common Core is not just a black education issue, it is one that effect all students, regardless of race or circumstances, across the nation.
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Tuesday’s Notes: DESE Coup

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The Missouri Legislature passed HB 1490 that required the state of Missouri to create new educational standards. The purpose, while not explicitly stated, was to block the spread of Common Core in Missouri. The first of the meetings of the committee began this week. Attendees were surprised to find the meeting co-opted by the Missouri Department of Education. The Department of Education was purposely not invited to host the meetings by the Legislature. That didn’t stop Governor Jay Nixon from interfering.

One attendee, writing in the American Spring website, reported the initial meeting.

DESE and The Hijacking of HB 1490

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Last Friday, I received confirmation from the Speaker of the Missouri House of Representatives office that I was picked to be a participant on a work group established by HB 1490. This allows for groups of parents and educators to work together to develop standards for our schools. The language of HB 1490 is as follows, as related to the makeup of these work groups:

3. Work group members shall be selected in the following manner:
(1) Two parents of children currently enrolled in grades kindergarten through twelve shall be selected by the president pro tempore of the senate;
(2) Two parents of children currently enrolled in grades kindergarten through twelve shall be selected by the speaker of the house of representatives;
(3) One education professional selected by the state board of education from names submitted to it by the professional teachers’ organizations of the state;
(4) One education professional selected by a statewide association of Missouri school boards;
(5) One education professional selected by the state board of education from names submitted to it by a statewide coalition of school administrators;
(6) Two education professionals selected by the president pro tempore of the senate in addition to the members selected under subdivision (1) of this subsection;
(7) Two education professionals selected by the speaker of the house of representatives in addition to the members selected under subdivision (2) of this subsection;
(8) One education professional selected by the governor;
(9) One education professional selected by the lieutenant governor;
(10) One education professional selected by the commissioner of higher education;
(11) One education professional selected by the state board of education from names submitted to it by nationally-recognized career and technical education student organizations operating in Missouri; and
(12) One education professional selected by the state board of education from names submitted to it by the heads of state-approved baccalaureate-level teacher preparation programs located in Missouri.

This would be a total of 16 members for each of the designated work groups. Notice that nowhere in this language will you find a role for DESE or their designees.

When I arrived at the Capital this morning, I was energized to be a part of the process that would determine the future of our children’s education, while preserving the local control of our school districts set forth in our state Constitution. As a parent in one of the state’s smallest school districts, the opportunity to work with parents and educators to define our State’s path in education is an honor. The responsibility of being appointed to these work groups is one that I definitely felt as I walked through the halls of our State Capital.

As I told the fellow members of our work group (History and Government, K-5), this is the single most important thing I have ever done in my life. I felt a swell of pride when I made that statement, along with a rush of emotion.

It is a responsibility not just to my children, but to all children, and parents, in the state of Missouri.

When I made my way to the Truman Building to meet the members of our work group, I was ready to get about this serious work. Upon arriving, I found myself faced with a reality that was the anti-thesis of what I was expecting and completely contrary to the language in HB 1490.

I walked in to find a small group of people, considerably less than the full 16 member panel clearly defined in HB 1490. Only ten members of our group were assembled. This was the first disappointment of the day.

I was greeted by a ‘facilitator’ when I entered the conference room. This person had assumed the role of leadership over our work group and was flanked by two other representatives from the Missouri Department of Secondary and Elementary education. I was puzzled. DESE, according to HB 1490, was not supposed to be a participant in these work sessions. While they are open to the public (and I encourage anyone who can attend to do so), DESE is not supposed to have a role in these groups. The state legislature went to great lengths to determine who is supposed to participate in these sessions. They did not list DESE in the language above, defining the makeup of these groups.

I didn’t say anything at first. I wasn’t entirely sure what I was witnessing. Soon after I took my seat, it became abundantly clear.

I was witnessing the same assumption of authority by DESE that has become the standard in schools across Missouri. DESE’s ‘facilitator’ was lying in wait to execute a coup of the process set forth by HB 1490, perched behind her Power Point presentation like a Black Widow ready to devour any hapless fly who dissented from DESE’s darling, the Common Core Standards.

The column continues. The DESE packed the room and then used those non-workgroup attendees to ram-rod the meeting to conform to the goals set by the DESE, not the work-group members. Other reports about the session mirror the comments above.

Tension marks Missouri education goals rewrite

By SUMMER BALLENTINE and DAVID A. LIEB, September 22, 2014

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — An effort to rewrite Missouri’s educational standards got off to a tense and sometimes confrontational start Monday as parents and educators opposed to the Common Core guidelines clashed with those reluctant to ditch them.

Under a new Missouri law, eight task forces each comprised of more than a dozen appointees are supposed to recommend new learning benchmarks for public school students to replace the national Common Core guidelines by the 2016-2017 school year.

But not all of the appointees had been named in time for Monday’s initial meetings. Those who were present first argued about whether to actually meet, then about whether officials from the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education should be present, who should take notes, and whether the public should be allowed to watch their work.

More than an hour into its meeting, one task force decided to shut off an education department video camera that had been recording its proceedings.

After resolving issues about how to meet, task force members sparred over the merits of the Common Core standards, which were developed by a national organization of state school officers and the National Governors Association. They are used to gauge students’ progress from grade-to-grade and create consistency between states. But opponents say they were adopted without enough local input.

Missouri is among 45 states to have adopted the Common Core standards but is one of several now backing away from them. Indiana, Oklahoma and South Carolina also have taken steps to rewrite their standards, North Carolina is reviewing its guidelines and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal has suspended his state’s testing contracts in an attempt to halt Common Core standards.

Missouri’s attempt to forge new standards got off to such a shaky start Monday that some wondered whether it ultimately could succeed.

“If they can’t come to a consensus, what do you do at that point?” said Sarah Potter, spokeswoman for the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education. “We’re not really sure.”

There was a clear divide among task force members between Common Core opponents appointed by Republican legislative leaders and supporters of the standards appointed by public education officials.

Before the official meetings began, about two dozen appointees of Republican legislative leaders met in the House chamber for a strategy session. Among those addressing the group was Mary Byrne, co-founder of the Missouri Coalition Against Common Core, who asserted that the standards violate state law.

In some meetings, members at times spoke over each other. While some pushed to fully abandon Common Core, others sought more of a revision of the standards.

“I get told every day by parents, ‘We’re sitting at the table for hours with tears in our eyes,'” trying to do homework under the Common Core standards, said Brad Noel, of Jackson, a parent representative appointed by House Speaker Tim Jones to the elementary math task force. “A lot of it is, in my opinion, not appropriate.”

But “how do we know Common Core is not going to work? We’re barely into it,” said Ann McCoy, coordinator of the mathematics education program at the University of Central Missouri, appointed by the higher education commissioner. “It’s frustrating to me as an educator to change and change and change.”

James Shuls, a Jones appointee who is an associate professor in educational leadership and policy studies at the University of Missouri-St. Louis, argued that the state doesn’t need detailed standards and should instead adopt minimal requirements, leaving the rest to local districts.

The task forces are to make recommendations by October 2015 to the State Board of Education, which then must gather additional public comment.

The motivation of DESE to sabotage these meetings is their determination to retain central control over the state’s education and education policy. Loose requirements that allow local school boards to determine what is best for their schools lessens the need of state oversight—and calls in question why Missouri needs such a large Education Department…or even if we need a state Department of Education at all. When their rice-bowl is threatened, it is not surprising DESE has acted the why they have. Why, if something isn’t done, these bureaucrats could find themselves out of a job!

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Friday Follies for July 11, 2014

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Missouri Governor Nixon’s veto deadline is approaching. It has passed for some bills, but for those passed near the end of the legislative session, the deadline is July 14, 2014, this coming Monday. If Nixon does not veto any outstanding bill, it automatically passes into law without his signature. That tactic allows Nixon to fence-sit on some issues. He can claim he never signed the bill and the supporters get their bill passed. Neat!

One such bill is SB 656. This bill is an amalgam of several bills that update various gun issues in Missouri. Some of those issues are: allowing teachers to be armed in schools after certification by law enforcement, lowering the CCW age from 21 to 19, younger for those on active duty in the military, explicitly allowing open carry throughout the state superseding any local prohibitions.

I’ve not heard of any movements against this bill since it was passed in the legislature. The libs and gun-grabbers seem to be focusing on Amendment 5 (AKA SJR 36).

The gun-grabbers are attacking Amendment 5 again. They lost a suit in late June on how the amendment appeared on the ballot. The Cole County Judge declared the suit by a St. Louis police chief and a Bloomberg surrogate to be without merit. Now those same libs have appealed their suit to vacate or change the amendment.

The libs proclaim to support choice…as long as they can dictate what those choices are. My choice is to vote YES! on Amendment 5.

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The Louisiana state education board is backing off on their threat to sue Governor Bobby Jindal over Common Core. Jindal is against it, the board is for it. The nation’s education elite is finding support for Common Core sifting through their fingers. Centralized control of education continues to take a beating.

Louisiana School Board May Back Down In Feud With Jindal

10:14 PM 07/10/2014

The state school board of Louisiana, which is on the brink of launching a lawsuit against Gov. Bobby Jindal over his plan to pull the state out of Common Core, indicated Thursday that it may be willing to back down and negotiate.

Rather than use new Common Core-aligned standardized tests created by the multi-state consortium Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), officers with Louisiana’s Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) indicated that they are willing to continue using a modified form of the state’s old LEAP exams for one additional year.

The modified test, said BESE Chairman Chas Roemer, would incorporate some questions from the PARCC exam in order to adhere to a state law requiring that 2015′s standardized tests be comparable to tests used in other states.

The proposal comes one week before a July 17 meeting that has been scheduled between Jindal and state Superintendent John White. It is hoped that the meeting will help forestall a possible lawsuit by BESE against Jindal.

“It’s not 100 percent what the governor wanted and is not 100 percent what BESE wanted,” said Roemer in a conference call with reporters, adding that he was “optimistic” that Jindal would be open to an agreement.

Jindal’s office appears to be holding fast for the time being, however. Kristy Nichols, the governor’s commissioner of administration, told reporters she believed BESE’s plan was unworkable because it relies on contracts the governor maintains are invalid.

Certain aspects of the deal suggest the proposed compromise could simply be smoke and mirrors. Even the original PARCC test plan would have been a mix of national and state questions, since PARCC only produces math and English tests, leaving science and social studies up to individual states.

The proposed plan to maintain the LEAP test could still allow the state to rely on PARCC for most of its English and math questions, indicating that the “compromise” could amount to the PARCC exam under a new name. With Jindal expressing a strong commitment to rooting out any trace of Common Core from the state, even allowing Common Core-derived questions onto a Louisiana-created test could be a significant concession for him.

Jindal, once a supporter of Common Core, has switched sides in the past year and become one of the most prominent Republican critics of the multistate standards, even comparing them to Soviet totalitarianism. He urged both BESE and the Louisiana legislature to pull the state out of PARCC, but when both refused he decided to take action himself, issuing a set of executive orders demanding the state craft new education standards.

Jindal also suspended a contract the state had made to supply the PARCC test next year, claiming that it violated the state’s procurement laws. The PARCC tests, one of two major multi-state exams created to align with Common Core, are considered a key component of the standards’ implementation.

Until Thursday, both BESE and Superintendent White have stood firmly against Jindal’s actions, insisting that his executive orders are illegal and that the state will both proceed with Common Core and the PARCC tests as planned. White in particular has urged BESE to file a lawsuit challenging Jindal’s orders, and last week BESE voted to retain its own legal counsel should such a course of action arise.

The feud has caused sharp divisions between figures who were once allies on the issue of education. Both Jindal and BESE Chairman Roemer are Republicans, while White is an independent who has worked closely with Jindal in defending the state’s school voucher plan from a federal challenge.

The fresh battle between the three has proven to be the most bitter of many Common Core fights across the country in 2014. If Jindal gets his way, Louisiana will be the fourth state to break off from Common Core, following Indiana, South Carolina and Oklahoma.

The problem the BESE found was not philosophical. They backed off because they came to believe they couldn’t win against Jindal’s opposition. So, they decided to take the next best, from their standpoint, step—defer the decision to next year. That tactic always works with politicians.

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A change for two liberals

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http://dailysignal.com/wp-content/uploads/2014-06-10-Gates-Corona.jpgBill Gates and his wife Melinda have an organization, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, that funds a number of charitable and liberal agencies. In the past, they helped fund much of the liberal agenda across the country.

That is changing. A few days ago, they announced their Foundation would no longer fund abortions, alluding in another article that they have never funded abortions. Now, they are dropping support for Common Core.

Gates Advocates Hitting the Brakes on Consequences Associated with Common Core

Brittany Corona / /

Even Bill Gates is starting to have second thoughts about the consequences associated with Common Core.

On Tuesday, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation— the second-largest financial backer of Common Core after the federal government— issued a letter calling for a two-year delay of the full implementation of Common Core, which is set to take effect this 2014-15 school year.

In the letter, Vicki Phillips, the director of education for the Gates Foundation, writes:

“[The] Gates Foundation agrees with those who’ve decided that assessment results should not be taken into account in high-stakes decisions on teacher evaluation or student promotion for the next two years, during this transition [into Common Core]…. It’s valuable for students to take the Common Core-aligned tests without consequences during this period, so that teachers can get familiar with the tests, have a chance to offer their feedback, and get a feel for the students’ successes and challenges.”

The Gates Foundation has financed and promoted Common Core from day one. As the Washington Post’s Lyndsey Layton points out, “The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation didn’t just bankroll the development of what became known as the Common Core State Standards. With more than $200 million, the foundation also built political support across the country, persuading state governments to make systemic and costly changes.”

But the hasty roll-out of Common Core has given even its staunchest proponents pause.

With this letter, the Gates Foundation now joins the American Federation for Teachers, the National Education Association and the United Federation for Teachers in calling for a moratorium on the consequences attached to test scores and teacher evaluations in Common Core.

“You think Obamacare implementation is bad. The implementation of Common Core is far worse,” said AFT President Randi Weingarten last November after AFT called for a pause on Common Core implementation.

Although Gates and the teachers unions are not opposed to national standards, their pushback against the stakes associated with the Common Core national tests reveals the natural result of such centralization: it further distances the most important stakeholders—parents and teachers— from the educational decision-making process.

As University of Arkansas Professor Jay Greene argues:

“Supporters say states, districts and individual schools would be free to surpass the national standards, just not fall below them. But testing would constrain what was taught and when…. States would be penalized with lower scores on the national test if they taught subjects at a different time and in a different manner than what Common Core requires.”

Children are unique, with unique learning needs. It’s why one size does not fit all in education.

A moratorium will do nothing to solve the problem of teacher-preparedness with Common Core. The problem lies with the push for centralized educational standards.

But there is good news. Opposition to this centralization of education continues to mount as the consequences of adopting Common Core become more evident. To date, 17 states have either withdrawn from the testing consortia or paused implementation—including three that have exited Common Core fully.

Bill Gates is no dummy. He may have little formal education (he was a college dropout,) but he is enough of a businessman to build a multi-billion dollar business and make himself one of the wealthiest men on the planet. I would suspect one of his motivations for this change in direction is one of profit and loss. Are the gains/losses of the project, abortion and Common Core, worth the money being spent? It appears that Bill Gates view of that balance sheet is, “No, they aren’t worth the money being spent. End funding.”

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Recap: MO 2014 Legislative Session – Successes and Failures

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All in all, the view for the 2014 Legislative session is one of failure. When push came to shove, the ‘Pub leadership caved to the dems and unions. The influence of union money was obvious. Right-to-Work never got out of the chute and Paycheck Protection fared little better.

The ‘Pubs hold veto-proof majorities in the House and the Senate. They could, if they really wanted, push any bill through the Legislature and then override Nixon’s veto? Proof? They did just that for the Tax Cut Bill, SB509. But the rest? Once again, the team of Tom Dempsey (R-St. Charles) and Ron Richard (R-Joplin), controlling the Senate, betrayed the conservatives of Missouri.

Here’s a quick breakdown of some of the bills:

Tax Reform, SB509. Passed, veto overridden. The legislation will cut Missouri’s top individual income tax rate for the first time in almost 100 years and make the state the third to enact a special deduction for business income reported on personal tax returns. — ABC News.

COMMON CORE, HB1490. Passed, pending Nixon’s signature or veto. This bill requires the Missouri Department of Education to write new guidelines for student achievement standards for English, math, science and history. New goals would replace Common Core Standards being pushed by the US Department of Education. This bill did not block Common Core but does place a one-year moratorium while new standards are written.

“It’s a step in the right direction.” — Breitbart.

Pending Nixon’s signature or veto…

Abortion, HB1307. Extends the 24 hour waiting period for an abortion to 72 hours. This makes Missouri only the 3rd state, after Utah and North Dakota, to impose a 3-day waiting period. Read more here.

Early Voting, SB892. Allows early voting during the six working days prior to an election. The period is only for Monday through Friday of the prior week and the Monday before the election, during normal working hours and does NOT allow voting on the weekend.

In addition, “Lawmakers on May 5 granted final approval to legislation that would move Missouri’s future presidential primary elections from February to March starting in 2016. The bill, SB 892, passed 25-7 in the Senate and 101-47 in the House of the Representatives. The bill now awaits action by Gov. Jay Nixon.”

“The legislation was prompted by national Republican and Democratic party rules that prohibit all but certain states from holding their presidential primaries prior to March. Under SB 892, the Missouri’s 2016 presidential primary would take place on March 15. The primary would be held on Feb. 2, 2016, under existing law.” — Capitol Report.

Guns, SJ36 and SB656. SJR 36 passed 122-31 in the House of Representatives and 23-8 in the Senate. It is a Constitutional Amendment, that would, “declare the right to keep and bear arms to be ‘unalienable,’ meaning it is a universal right that isn’t subject to restriction. The measure also would repeal existing language that says the constitutional right to bear arms ‘shall not justify the wearing of concealed weapons.’ ” Because it goes before voters, it bypasses Gov. Jay Nixon and isn’t subject to veto.

SB656 Allows specially trained teachers and administrators to carry concealed weapons in public schools and lowers the age to get a concealed gun permit to 19 from 21.

Failed to pass…

Paper Ballots, SB623. “Establishes the paper ballot as the official ballot and requires audits before election certification” — Missouri Precinct Project Newsletter. Failed in committee.

Property Rights (Anti-Agenda 21),HB 1647. “Prohibits the state and political subdivisions from implementing policies affecting property rights and from entering into certain relationships with organizations” — Missouri Precinct Project Newsletter. Failed in committee.

Second Amendment Preservation Act, HB1439. A collection of individual bills to expand guns laws in Missouri, impose state regulation on the enforcement of federal acts and regulations deemed to violate the US 2nd Amendment and impose restrictions on employment for federal agents and employees who attempt to enforce Federal regulations that violate the 2nd Amendment. A poison-pill amendment was added that effectively killed the bill. The ‘Pub House conference committee added the poison-pill amendment and then blocked further action until the legislative session ended. Failed in committee.

Voter ID, HJR47. Asks voters to approve to a constitutional amendment allowing a requirement that voters show government-issued photo identification at the polls. Passed the House but not the Senate. HJR47. Failed in committee. — Missouri Precinct Project Newsletter.

Yes, there was one significant success in the passage of the Tax Cut bill. Overall, however, this legislative session must be viewed as a failure. With over whelming numbers, the ‘Pubs in the Legislature, with a few exceptions, showed once again they were spineless and ineffectual.

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Points for Politicians

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St. Patrick's Day Parade

St. Patrick’s Day Parade

Mrs. Crucis and I had a great weekend. Locally, a number of small towns and cities had St. Patrick’s Day parades on Saturday. Kansas City will have theirs today.

KC used to have theirs on Saturday, too, but the ‘purists’ complained. So now, KC has theirs on the 17th, a workday, disrupting traffic, blocking a number of major thoroughfares, filling parking lots leaving regular employees without spaces, and giving the unmotivated an excuse to skip work, watch the parade, drink and get drunk. It’s an annual affair in KC.

“You’re against the Irish!” some will say. No, I’m half Scots-Irish. My grandmother was born outside Dublin, my grandfather was born in Edinburgh, Scotland. I’m not against Irish, I’m against the stereotypical drunken Irishman.

J_Bondon_StPaddyParade

Jack Bondon, MO District 55

There is another significance with St. Patrick’s Day. It’s the beginning of the political campaign season, the first big event for the pols to parade before their constituents to make their names known.  Mrs. Crucis and I walked in the parade Saturday to support a friend who is running for State Representative. The parade was in his state district, and, he asked me to walk for him. I will be walking in support for other candidates in the future when more parades and cities festivals are scheduled.

Local elections are the entry levels for politicians. For some, it is running for city council. For others, it may be running for county or state office. But there is one thing many have in common—it’s their first step into the political arena; how can they stand out from their opposition?

I am no political campaign strategist. I’m just an observer. I’ve seen tactics that work, and don’t work. First tip to politicians: Don’t lie to the people. You will be caught sooner or later. Don’t pretend to be what you aren’t.

Case in point. A state representative in another part of Missouri ran, in the last election, as a conservative, supporting a number of conservative issues like the 2nd Amendment. Last year, the Legislature passed a bill that included a number of items to support the 2nd Amendment and expand self-defense and gun rights in Missouri. Despite all his talk, his campaign promises, when push came to shove, this representative’s support wavered. He stood in the background and did not support his fellow conservatives. He’s up for reelection. This time, last I was told, he faces a number of primary opponents.

What is the lesson for politicians in this example? The pol I described above was all talk. He claimed he supported gun rights. After his failure to support those claims, opponents began to investigate his background. What did they find? This so-called 2nd Amendment supporter did not own any firearms. He didn’t have a CCW certificate. He did not hunt. He did not subscribe to any of the more popular organizations like the NRA, GOA, 2nd Amendment Foundation, or JPFO. So how could he really claim to support the 2nd Amendment? He couldn’t. I expect he will be out of office come January, deposed in the primary.

Who is supporting you is also critical. Opensecrets.org will show who financed incumbents. When you see who is financing your opponent, make sure YOUR supporters are those whom you would be proud to acknowledge.

In the last election, a state representative decided to run for an open State Senator seat. He ran as a conservative…until it came to unions and Right to Work. A major source of his funding and support came from unions. His major opponent was well known for supporting Right to Work…as were ‘Pubs in general. The candidate couldn’t support some of the issues that his party did. In the end, he lost the primary. He could not distinguish himself, as a ‘Pub, from democrats.

How can you separate the RINOs from the real conservatives? See if they get union funding. The unions fund liberals, democrats, and RINOs. If a ‘Pubbie takes union money, he’s sold his soul. Don’t vote for him, he’ll betray you when it counts.

The opposite is also true. In the last election cycle, a friend ran for office on the democrat ticket. He refused union money. Strangely, the promised funding from other democrat organizations failed to appear. Democrats commonly use unions to launder campaign money. It’s the democrat way.

Some campaign strategists say that funding is the major point in winning elections. Those who raise the most money, wins. Often, that is the case. However, you must also have core principles and be consistent with them. How often have we been sold a political product only to discover that product was an empty suit who had no principles other than to gain political power? John Boehner and Mitch McConnell are excellent examples. In Missouri, Chris Koster started his political life as a ‘Pub county prosecutor. Then he turned his coat to be a democrat to run for Attorney General.

It’s the ‘buts’ that lose elections. In the last election cycle, the state senatorial candidate mentioned above, lost because of a ‘but.’ “I’m a conservative,” he said, “but…not for Right-to-Work.” Others have said, “I’m for the 2nd Amendment, but…only for hunting.”

If you claim to be conservative, you can’t be a partial conservative. The time for fence sitters is over. The nation and the states are heading for a crisis and it’s time for taking sides. Candidates can no longer say they are fiscal conservatives but not social conservatives. The two are irrevocably linked. You principles cannot shift in the wind of political events. You can’t be against Obamacare and then vote to allow funding—as did many ‘Pubs in Congress a few weeks ago. They think we’ll forget. We won’t. The time for allow such hypocrisy has ended.

You cannot claim to support smaller government, reducing welfare, lowering taxes while advocating for open immigration and amnesty for illegals. The whole world does NOT have a right to live here, usurping the heritage built by our parents and ancestors and existing on the largess of those who built this country. The excuse, “they do jobs our citizens won’t,” is a lie. The truth is that illegals undermine state economies across the country taking work from citizens while contributing nothing back to those same economies in taxes.

Politicians, establish your core principles and stand by them. There are as many critical issues at the local level as there are at the national level, such as Common Core in Education, Sustainability, a relabeling of Agenda 21, that attacks our property rights, to ponzi-scheme TIF arrangements that bankrupts cities when the promised revenue never arrives. In fact, if you do a bit of Google research, you will find strong connections between Sustainability, TIF financing and local governments, and the educational failure of Common Core.

So, politicians, be sure where you stand, what you support and what your opponents do or don’t support. All will provide issues to separate you from the herd, make yourself known to the electorate and find common ground with them while separating those voters from your opponents.

Now go, be that fiscal and social conservative you say you are, support your local towns and cities, end Common Core and make your local school board responsible and accountable for education—don’t let them shift the blame to the state or the feds, end the ‘Sustainability’ fraud the curtails property rights and allows government to seize your property because they say you aren’t using it properly, support the 2nd Amendment and halt the wave of statist attempts to disarm the people of this nation.

Be aware, that in the end, it is these issues and more that are the conservative core and it is the 2nd Amendment that preserves the Constitution and liberty for all…not for just a few elitists.

Go…and win!

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