Urgent Action Alert: No "Third Draft"

		Social Studies Academic Standards


Main Social Studies Science Updates		February 15, 2004 Urgent Action Alert: No "Third Draft" Please call House legislators NOW. Tell them: Accept the proposed social studies standards as submitted by the citizens' writing committees. Don't undermine the standards development process. \ No "third draft." EdWatch callers are always respectful, polite and firm. Background: EdWatch has learned that the proposed social studies standards have been rewritten behind closed doors by House Republican education leaders. EdWatch has good reason to believe that the changes being made will basically gut the work of the properly constituted academic standards committees. To provide cover for the terrible changes being made, citizens are being lied to and are being told that the changes are merely "technical." EdWatch has good reason to believe that most of the changes being made are not technical. They are substantive changes that give us the old Profile of Learning standards all over again! We cannot sit back and let six years of progress go down the drain. We followed the committee process in writing the new standards from beginning to end. We know what the education radicals want but could not get in the open committee process. The education radicals can only get their way by working behind closed doors. This is what they want from the third and subsequent drafts: They want more emphasis on globalist themes so that students think of themselves as "world citizens" instead of as United States citizens. They want less recognition of nations so that students are less likely to see the importance of the United States as an independent country. They want to elevate the status of the Supreme Court so that students won't question the new role of the courts in making law and rewriting the Constitution. They want to define the role our courts as "interpreting the constitution" when the actual role of the courts is primarily to settle disputes based on law. They want fewer requirements for knowledge and more requirements for "process." They want "process-based," not "knowledge-based" standards. · They want to add negative observations about Christianity. · They want to add negative details about the United States. They don't want pro-American standards. They want our standards to be anti-American. · They want private property rights to be controversial so that deep ecology can dispense with property rights. They want to add requirements for things like the New Deal and FDR but they won't include the most popular President of the 20th century, Ronald Reagan. They want to add School-to-Work to the standards so that all education becomes vocational. In other words, the behind-closed-doors crowd wants to give us repackaged Profile of Learning standards all over again. What is going on? The standards writing committees were properly chosen. They were created by the legislature last year. They did their work in the open. They conducted numerous hearings all over the state. Everyone had the opportunity to give their view. It was a democratic process properly conduct. The result was a compromise, but it was a reasonable compromise. Now it is all being destroyed behind closed doors. If the committees' work is undermined, everything they did will be lost. The committees' exhaustive work will be gutted and replaced with the old, radical Profile standards. We cannot let this happen. We haven't come this far to lose everything now, but that is exactly what will happen if we do not act. The unveiling of this travesty is officially scheduled for this Tuesday morning and is now called the "presentation of the third draft." Most members of the House Education committee have been left totally in the dark. The "third draft" won't be "released" until Monday afternoon, less than 24 hours before Tuesday's hearing, making it difficult for other legislators, parents or citizens to review the changes and talk to their legislators before they are dropped on the legislative committee. When: TUESDAY, February 17, 2004 8:15 AM Room: 200 State Office Building Presentation of the third draft of the Social Studies Standards. Come if you are able to come. If any substantive changes are made to the committees' work, then all of the standards will be up for grabs. They will then all be rewritten behind closed doors. That is the only way the radicals can get their way. Tell the legislators that the fair and free public process has worked. Ask them not to mess with the standards which have been written by the citizens of Minnesota. Ask them to not give the opening for the standards to be destroyed in the dead of night during conference committee. Call the members of the House Education Committee: For a complete listing, see: house.leg.state.mn.us Rep. Barb Sykora, Chair of the House Education Policy Committee (651) 296-4315 e-mail Rep. Alice Seagren, Chair of the House Education Finance Committee (651) 296-7803 e-mail Your own House Member Not sure who represents you? Go to: leg.state.mn.us Or phone: (651) 296-2146 or 1 (800) 657-3550 Call House legislators NOW. Tell them: 1. Accept the proposed social studies standards as written by the citizen's committees. 2. Don't undermine the standards development process. 3. No "third draft." Thank you for making this effort on behalf of all the work that has been done to repeal the Profile of Learning. We don't want the Profile standards back!
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