“South Park”, “Fruit Loops” & SAGE Testing-An Analogy Of U.S. Dept. Of Education Duncan’s Fraud, Deceit & Harm: A Doctor & Father’s Call For Congressional & State Investigative Hearings Into High Stakes Testing Policies & Practices

Dear Community of Fellow Utah Parents:

I’ve been asked to write a simple, summary follow up,  and ethics based call to action in regards to the very detailed, scholarly analysis of the implications of the U.S. Department of Education’s unethical, fraudulent utilization of research as justification for their assessment policies and practices (“Primum Non Nocere: First, Do No Harm”)   (Full Text Research Link).  

Imagine taking your child to your local pediatrician after your little one developed a high fever, profuse vomiting, and could not hold down liquids.  After a short wait, a kind, authoritative medical doctor invites you into his treatment room, and informs you that he has just the right, “rigorous” solution to make your child “play and family ready” in no time.   The anxiety you feel as a parents starts to ebb away as this medical expert starts his examination.    However, you are surprised to to notice that traditional methods are not being utilized to find the exact cause of your child’s illness.   The Board Certified Physician gently directs your weak, sick, child in front of a video monitor, places headphones on his ears, and with a push of a button on T.V. remote, you watch in wonderment (horror?) as your child appears to be watching an episode of Trey Parker’s “South Park”.

The Doctor is busy taking notes for your child’s medical records, and the nurse assistant in the room cues on a video camera to memorialize your child’s emotional reaction to watching the Rated R, cartoon antics of “Kyle”, “Cartman”, and “Stan” ( Portrait of South Park’s Heroes).   After 15 minutes of this rigorous medical examination, your child is returned to the examination table, the Doctor’s electronic medical notes are completed and filed on his “Google Chrome Laptop”, and the video tape of the examination is uploaded on the nurses Apple Ipad which shares a data connection with the Utah Department of Health and the Utah State Office of Education.

With a push of a button, the Doctor prints out his treatment recommendations, which consists of your child having a bowl of “Fruit Loops” (sans milk), three times per day.”

Noticing your sense of disbelieve, the Doctor hands you a copy of “research” which supports his course of treatment, titled, “Recent Medical Advances Supporting The Utilization of Fruit Loops In The Treatment of Vomiting & Nausea In Pediatric Populations: Best Play & Family Ready Practices.”

After arriving home, you and your spouse look inside the fancy looking pamphlet, and decide to look up the references cited as justification for shoving three bowls of Fruit Loops down your increasingly sick kid’s throat.  The peer reviewed medical research cited came from the well respected Medical Journal, “Andrology & Gynecology: Current Research” (http://www.scitechnol.com/andrology-gynecology-current-research.php).

In theory and practice, this is exactly what the U.S. Department of Education has directed our more than willing State Offices of Education across the country to do with our children to determine if they are “career & college ready”.

The entire purpose and scope of the 45 pages sent nationwide last week was to document (not allege) that U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan is demanding, via his recent rule change in special education practices, that our vulnerable, divergent learning students:

1.  Watch “South Park” as part of the next generation of valid testing techniques.

2.  Eat a bowl of Fruit Loops, three times a day, to become career and college ready;

3.  Justified by peer reviewed research cited in a Journal of Gynecology.

The 45 page document, “Primum Non Nocere: First, Do No Harm” (“First Do No Harm”), outlines “8 Statements of Facts” made by the USDOE, all supported by cited peer reviewed research.   I will briefly summarize, in plan terms, some of the Statement of Facts (“Fruit Loops”) cited and supported by U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan:

1. ALL Learning disabled kids can become grade level scholars with nothing but great teaching, and great supports.

2. The new testing is valid for ALL students with ALL learning disabilities.
3. These new test are so good, that we don’t need alternative-modified tests.
4. The ONLY thing reading and math disabled students need to become grade level scholars, are good teachers.
5. These new test are so perfect, and were designed specifically to perfectly measure academic achievement in ALL learning disabled children.
6. States and ground level teachers have denied proper instruction for all divergent learning students; therefore, we no longer need individual States to make special tests, because now special education students will be saved by the new Common Core Standards.

Simply put, the previously cited, 45 page, semi-scholarly work sent out by our child psychology clinic titled ““Primum Non Nocere: First, Do No Harm” (Original Research Link), documents agenda driven, generated testing experimentations on our public school children without obtaining informed consent; as well as potentially psychologically abusive education testing practices, which use aligned, irrelevant research as the foundational justification for altering local educational standards, teaching practices and local education policies.

The “career and college readiness” status of my children in the State of Utah is being tested by the high stakes, Common Core based test called the “SAGE”, produced by “AIR” (American Institute of Research).    Both the SAGE test, and the Federally Government supported test producer AIR have both used the “Fruit Loop” procedure to fraudulently justify giving this experimental test to over 650,000 of Utah’s kids.

SAGE + AIR =

Stop

Agenda

Generated

Experimentation

&

Aligned

Irrelevant

Research

“Stop agenda generated experimentation & Aligned Irrelevant Research” on our nation’s children.

If the U.S. Department of Education’s force feeding of “Fruit Loops”to our public school children (especially with our vulnerable divergent learning and minority children & teens), all justified via the use of “gynecology” research does not justify an immediate Congressional Hearing, I honestly don’t know what the hell else would justify that action.    My four, soon to be five children, are more important, and deserve more attention, than Benghazi, or Hillary Clinton’s alleged misuse of government email servers.

If your State Department of Education, supported by your current Governors, has implemented similar Common Core testing and practices in your State, every parent, teacher, State/Local School Board Member, Superintendent of Public Schools has a moral and ethical obligation to immediately demand a objective investigation to allegations of fraud and deceit that have been alleged.

Confirm…or prove otherwise, but silence is no longer an option.

The apathy in my Utah community is no longer an option.

Not for my kids.

Not for your kids.

Not in your town, and most certainly, not in my great State of Utah.

“carpe diem, quam minimum credula postero“