Should We Do Away with the Department of Education?

The US Department of Education employees approximately 5000 people and has an approximate annual budget of $69 billion. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics there are 57 million elementary and secondary school age children in the United States, of which 8 million are either enrolled in private schools or homeschooled. That leaves 49 million children educated by America’s network of public schools and for whom the Department of Education serves. Does the Department of Education produce $69 billion dollars worth of results for the public school children in America? It produces no curriculum, teacher training, or personalized educational training. So what does it do?

According to the Dept of Ed web site, they have four areas of concentration:
1. Establish policies and administer financial aid,
2. Collect data and oversee research on America’s schools,
3. Identify major issues and problems in education and bring national attention to them,
4. Enforce anti-discrimination in public education.

Since the US constitution does not mention education, but the constitution does state that all powers not mentioned in the constitution are delivered to the individual states. Which is the reason why many Americans believe that the US Department of Education has no constitutional standing and must be dismantled. I believe that it is imperative that we pray on a regular basis for the Department of Education—it will remain only if it serves the best interest of our children and improves the educational quality of our schools.

Prayer for the Mountain of Education during the Month of Tammuz – Linked to the Tribe of Reuben

The month of Tammuz is associated with the tribe of Reuben, who veered from his original intent by committing adultery. Reuben was able to reestablish himself and continue his life with his new redemptive purpose. Our forefathers established schools for the primary purpose of teaching children the Bible. That purpose was abandoned, but as we pray this month, we will pray that God’s redemptive purpose for the Mountain of Education is established in this nation.

• We decree that this month of Tammuz is a month of worship. As ungodliness looms in education, we turn our attention to worship the One True God, who will make Himself known throughout the Mountain of Education.
• We decree that since this is the month to watch our words, we watch our mouths and speak only the best the Lord has for America’s education.
• We say that there is a moral outcry among the leaders of our nation against the “golden calf” that has been built in education. No longer will our children worship idols. We reset, and make adjustments in the Spirit for education to be as our forefathers intended – Godly and moral.
• We speak the redemptive role of education in our nation. We decree that our children are educated intellectually as well as spiritually. They know the Word of God and are led by the Spirit of God.
• We declare shells of deception are broken off Americas schools. Education in America will go to a new redemptive level.
• We decree revelation to Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos and her team. God will give them insight on new ways to improve education. They will implement change in education.
• We call Godly teachers into classrooms across America, who will accept their call and step into God’s redemptive purpose for them and their students. As teachers are selected for the 2018-2019 school year, we call forth instructors at every level of instruction who have the life and light of the living God in their lives.

The Tipping Point in Education

There are approximately 4 million teachers in the American public school system and many of whom are believers. The tipping point, or critical mass, for change would be 200 teachers. That’s not a huge number, but the secret is that this number has to be in complete unity. If 200 teachers all prayed in their classrooms, in one day, the results could be astounding. But teachers are trained to remain secular in their classrooms. They walk a daily tightrope to be politically correct and free of offense to any religion.
In the teaching profession, every teacher suffers his or her share of attacks as a usual routine of events. They assign too much homework and parents complain. They don’t stay after school to tutor those who were having trouble learning algebra. (Never mind that they may offer their services at noon for free tutoring every day.) They get in trouble for expecting projects and homework to be turned in on time because, after all, what has a deadline got to do with learning a subject? If the student did the work, why shouldn’t they get credit, even if it was late? The list goes on and on and every teacher who has ever tried to do his or her best has come under attack. These skirmishes erode the soul of teachers leaving them little energy to fight the big battles that change the system.
Teachers live in fear of being fired for praying over a student or even for putting up Christmas decorations in a classroom. They have no strength for losing a job over something as simple as ministering to a child. Getting a teacher to see the big battle when he or she is fighting multiple little battles every day is difficult. That is why we haven’t seen the critical mass we need to see for the change. A unified core mass is what we need and we need it now.
If Christian teachers unified to such an extent that they could define small actions that would change the system, the tipping point could happen. Malcolm Gladwell in his book The Tipping Point: How Little Things Can Make a Big Difference shares his research into what will make changes in society.53 Gladwell proposes that it is the little things that make a big difference.
Liberal educators make claims that our schools are in such a state of decline because we don’t have enough money for education or because our students are economically impoverished. They say that if we just had more money for new curriculum or if we would just make sure that everyone has money, either through welfare or through giving someone a job, that would be the best way to create better schools. But there is another factor involved that Gladwell calls “The Power of Context,” which states that it’s really the little things that matter.
For instance, the crime turnaround in New York City occurred, not because of a huge war on crime, but because of what has become known as the “Broken Windows Theory.” This theory was the brainchild of two criminologists—James Q. Wilson and George Kelling. Wilson and Kelling argued that crime is a result of disorder. If a broken window in a house in a crime-ridden part of town is not repaired, the result is that more criminal elements will be attracted to that neighborhood and the crime rate will rise substantially. There will be more houses with broken windows. Drug dealers will move into the neighborhood and there is a general feeling that the neighborhood is bad and the crime rate skyrockets. Fix the broken windows, Wilson and Kelling said, and the bad elements will abandon the neighborhood. They believed that crime was contagious.
New York City tipped when the police began to issue citations for broken windows, giving owners twenty-four hours to make repairs. Graffiti also was cleaned up within twenty-four hours of when the artful designers had completed their work of art.
What if educational administrators and teachers began to do little things like pray with students, openly display scriptures in their classrooms, or refuse to call Christmas holidays by the secular name winter holidays? The educational system can tip in the direction of being restored back to a Godly system if enough administrators and teachers would aggressively live out their Christian faith.

The Creation of a Perfect storm in Education

Prayer for Protection from DisastersOver the past 20 years, school shootings have almost become common place. Most of the shootings fade into the distant past as a new shooting takes place of the last as the worst in history. How did we get here? What happened in America that over the last two decades school shootings have become common place? Who broke that dam of evil? And more importantly, how do we stop the killings?

Below I’ve listed three historical events that led us to this place:
1. The Theory of Evolution Introduced in Education—In the mid 1850s Herbert Spencer proposed that education should draw on new scientific principles to make teaching more efficient as well as pleasant for the child. He proposed that learning was subject to the same laws that shaped the evolution of human beings from simple organisms could be used to shape the development of each child from the earliest moments in life to adults. Out of these concepts, came a new branch of science called child psychology. New discoveries in child learning techniques should give helpful information on how to be a more discerning and caring parent or teacher. The problem with this new branch of science was that it was founded in Darwinism/evolution. Learning disabilities in children began to take names. Eventually, the medical community came up with a myriad of diagnoses for those disabilities, which leads us to the next issue—that of drugs.
2. Drugs—What came in the 1960s and onwards were a plethora of new drugs on the streets of our cities as well as through the pharmaceutical industries. The street drugs appealed to those who desired to check out of a materialistic culture. The pharmaceutical drugs treated children’s psychological issues as well as learning disabilities. We became a nation that medicated her children.
3. We lost our moral compass. Meanwhile the school curricula was steadily undergoing a major shift with the removal of the God of the Christians from the classrooms. With no concept of a creator and therefore no accountability to a higher power, no value is placed on life. When life is cheap, killing the innocent becomes prevalent. When children who grow up deprived of knowing God as a creator are legally drugged there is a recipe for disaster.

These “winds” are some of the strongest influencers that created a “perfect storm” in our educational system.

The answer lies in prayer, but not just a blanket prayer that says, “our thoughts and prayers are with you.” The answer lies with those who know God and the power of the Name of Jesus. Now is the time for believers to come together in unity, in order to pray targeted, strategic prayers that will turn our educational system and consequently our children back to God. Jesus said, “If you believe, all things are possible to him who believes.” Let’s come together in agreement to take the Mountain of Education!

Do We Really Need More Money for Education?

This semester Oklahoma Educators gave themselves a two-week strike to protest low wages and the general lack of funds for public education in Oklahoma. Teachers in other states across America have already staged strikes or are in the process of planning one. Teachers and their labor union, the NEA, claim they need more money in order to hire and maintain good instructors as well as funds to enrich classroom instruction.

There are excellent instructors who do a great job and certainly deserve above average pay, but classroom problems are beyond the scope of what money can purchase. Our public schools are not servicing the children who come to their classroom, because the problem lies beyond what the schools can do. Will more money assure that our test scores improve? Why should we give more money to those who are unable to produce results that show our children are receiving a decent education? Is more money really the answer?

Recently a friend loaned me a volume of the Harvard Journal of Law and Public Policy. An article in the magazine piqued my interest: “Educating the Disadvantaged – Two Models” by Amy L. Wax. How do we best educate those who are marginal, which would include those students who sporadically attend class or who have no educational stimulus in their homes? Is the answer more money to pay the teachers who serve those students or more money to purchase materials to enhance classroom instruction? No, Ms. Wax gives the answer that educators have known for years: more money does not produce better education.

The answer is fundamental to our society and has been known for almost sixty years. The findings were first published in 1966, by educational researcher, Ms. Wax states, “…in light of James Coleman’s original findings in the 1960s, repeatedly confirmed in the decades since, that a child’s economic, social, and family background – and not school composition and quality – are the most important influences on students’ academic performance. As stated in the Coleman report, “the school appears unable to exert independent influences to make achievement levels less dependent on the child’s background – and this is true within each ethnic group…

It’s the family! The breakdown in American families is at the heart of the failure of our children to learn. We look for better teachers and tax the working public for more money in order to fund a system that is destined for failure because the root cause has not been address. The root of the problem is the breakdown in the American family structure!

It is extremely important that when we pray for education, we include prayer for the families in this country because the family unit is the bedrock of all the cultural mountains that make up our society. As the family goes, so goes our nation.

Teacher Protests: The Vehicle for Humanistic Take Over in Education

The scheduled teacher walk-out on April 2 in Oklahoma is not only about the very real need to increase teacher salaries. It reveals how the leaders behind a humanistic global agenda use these types of crises to further their control in the field of education.
Raising the bar in education is a need and concern across our nation. We watch as test results have declined and mo re and more students graduate without the reading skills or life skills needed to succeed after graduation. However, at the heart of this issue, there is a hidden agenda that many of us miss. It is a behind the scenes take-over of the education of our children to indoctrinate them with humanistic ideology.
Crisis is the Vehicle They Use to Implement Change
In Oklahoma, there is very real need for teacher pay raises. In 2016, the Bureau of Labor Statistics released a report that showed Oklahoma has the lowest average teacher wages in the nation. Those behind the push for a humanistic take over in education have used this crisis to push through their agenda. Here’s how it works.
On March 26, 2018, the Oklahoma Legislature voted to give public school teachers and support staff a raise. Beginning salaries would be increased by $6,000 per year. Yet, that wasn’t enough to avert a planned teacher “walk out” scheduled for April 2, 2018. Why? Because while the amount fell short of their unrealistic request of $10,000 over the next three years. The voices behind the humanistic agenda recognize that in order to completely implement their plan, they must use this imposed crisis to gain control. Their goal from the beginning of the teacher salary issue was not to achieve a raise for the teachers, but to create unrest, division and failure so that they could point blame which would position them for take-over in the mid-term elections.
Where is there a “crisis” in your state’s educational system? It is important to look at who continues to stoke the dissension to keep emotions running high and prevent reconciliation. In the case of the teacher salary issue, we only need to look at those behind the “walk out” —how it was handled and those who support it—which reveal the hidden impetuous behind the continued push for a teacher strike.
Ultimately, this is the battle for control over the sphere of education not only in Oklahoma, but we can see similar battles in almost every state. Crises are fertile ground to stir dissension and dissatisfaction to gain the upper hand. It is a Saul Alinsky tactic – never let a good crisis go to waste and if there is no crisis, create one. Once in position they can continue their goal to promote an ideology of humanism to the students in the classroom and curriculum. And they will do anything to achieve their goal.

This is how it works and what you need to look for:
The National Education Association (NEA) is the largest labor union in the United States with a branch organization in each state. For Oklahoma it is the Oklahoma Education Association (OEA). But if you believe the welfare and education of our students in the pursuit of “reading, writing and arithmetic” through these organizations is their primary goal, think again.
At the 72nd Annual Meeting of the NEA, held in Washington, D.C., in a report titled “Education for the New America,” Willard Givens (who went on to become executive secretary of the NEA in 1935 and served for 17 years) said:
“The major function of the school is the social orientation of the individual. It must seek to give him under-standing of the transition to a new social order.”

This is the mentality and ultimate goal behind the NEA and any of its state related offices in the United States.

Track What is Happening in your State
Always look deeper than your local organizations at who is assisting to promote your state’s educational agenda. Scrutinize mentioned associations like separate non-profits, law firms, and businesses. In Oklahoma, the OEA recently hired a Colorado consulting firm, Harstad Strategic Research, Inc., to work with them to achieve their goals. A closer look at Harstad reveals that their specialty is to get liberals elected to leadership positions as governors, senators, and congressmen as well as to get liberal state campaigns passed. They are a partisan group with a socialist globalist agenda. The OEA also uses the non-profit, Oklahoma Professional Educators, to make public statements that mirror OEA’s views. Often nonprofits are created to “help” by being the political mouthpiece or shield in order for an organization to distance itself from criticism when speaking out on an unpopular issue

What do they really want?
While the goals may sound good by title, after all – who doesn’t want their teachers to be well paid – those goals will be used to gain political support in order to continue to promote a humanistic, globalist, agenda.
In the late 1800s, John Dewey, known as the Father of Modern Education and a prolific writer on the theory of education, began proposing changes that would promote socialism and thereby produce a globalist child prepared for the 21st Century. In 1932, the National Education Association made John Dewey their honorary president adopting his progressive educational reform agenda. Since that time, the NEA has been successful in implementing their plan, but it is not complete. In order for the NEA to achieve a complete takeover of America’s educational system, they must continue to promote socialism. In order to do so, they must obtain control of governing bodies and insert leaders who will be favorable to their agenda. In Oklahoma, where the issue of teacher’s salary is not new, they have pushed hard for it to hit crisis level—a teacher strike—just before the upcoming mid-term elections. By fueling dissension and the argument that current leadership is “out of touch,” the teacher pay raise issue is a perfect vehicle to achieve their goals. The teachers are simply pawns in their playbook.
The goal is for children to be taught social curricula at the expense of their learning basic skills. Samuel Blumenfeld, one of America’s more prolific voices in defense of traditional education referred to Dewey as the man responsible for “dumbing down” America’s children and promoting socialism in our schools – mainly using the NEA. The process of socialism undermined the role of the parents in a child’s education. The perfect example of a program that bypassed parental and local voices is the Common Core curriculum, birthed and initiated as a federal curriculum, voted on by the governors of the states and implemented on the local level with no local or parental choice.

Not a Democrat vs. Republican Issue
This is not about Republicans vs. Democrats. There are both Republicans and Democrats, who are party to this one-world government agenda. There has been much contention in our government on a national level as well as within each state especially in this past year. With confusion and selfish ambition, the enemy has gained ground.
What Can be Done?
It is important to remember that our battle is not with flesh and blood. Our first response must always be in prayer. It is time that we speak up in prayer and speak forth what we want to see accomplished this year in the Mountain of Education. Here are some prayer points nationally. Look into the issues in your state and add them to this list:

• That teachers will not be used as political pawns in a humanistic battle for the minds of our children.
• That teachers will receive fair, just and equitable salaries. That our teachers will cry out to God and that He will deliver them from their oppression. Our teachers will not be a slave to Pharaoh.
• All ungodliness in our state legislatures will be revealed and those who need to go will be replaced by godly men and women who will judge righteously.
• Thank and praise God for the unmasking/revealing of all those who have ungodly agendas for our children and our state.
• That the restrictions that have been placed on our teachers to remove Christian values will revert back to the original intent of our forefathers in which the Bible and biblical principles were part of a child’s educational process not prohibited from their process.

May we be “wise as serpents and harmless as doves” as this battle ensues. We can no longer afford to allow our educational system to be hijacked. We must look at who and what are behind the “solutions” offered. We can no longer sacrifice the well-being of our children and the educational process to those whose agenda is not to train up our children, but to dumb them down and turn them into “better global citizens.”

Prayer for the Mountain of Education During the Month of Iyar

Nancy's Picture of Magnolia Blossom

Prayer for the Mountain of Education During the month of Iyar In 1985, Then President Ronald Reagan appointed William Bennett as the Secretary of Education. While in office, Secretary Bennett actively sought to reform American education. He supported classical education, school vouchers and curriculum reform. He openly criticized schools for their low standards, once referring to the Chicago public school system as “the worst in the nation.” His time at the Department of Education was a window of opportunity to truly reform education. Since Secretary Bennett left office in 1988 we have not had another open window – until now.

Thirty years later we have another opportunity to transform American education with President Trumps’ appointment of Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos. She is a strong supporter of public school reform, charter schools, school vouchers, and curriculum reform. In order to succeed, Secretary DeVos and her team of educators at the Department of Education need a dynamic prayer force behind them. If they succeed, we succeed, our nation will produce better educated children with Godly character and have a knowledge of God.

The month of Iyar (April 16 – May 16) is the second month of the Jewish calendar and is the month of light, healing, transition, and revelation. This is the appropriate time for us to combine our faith decrees with our prayers to see change in the whole culture of the Mountain of Education.

• We decree God’s light will shine on the Department of Education and every school in America. All that is good will be recognized and will grow. Evil will be exposed and extracted.
• Iyar is the month of transition. Our schools in this nation will be transitioned to a new level of increased performance. Ideas that were once impossible will transition to the possible.
• We decree that all people with the intent to advance an agenda separate from God’s education agenda will transition out at every level from the Department of Education in Washington, DC to the local school.
• We decree this is a time for love, forgiving and healing of relationships. Love and forgiving will flow at every level as teachers and administrators work together for the good of America’s children.
• We decree that Secretary DeVos and each member of her team will find his/her place of strength during this time. That strength will silence her enemies.
• We decree healing to America’s children who have suffered for lack of educational opportunities.
• We decree there will be increased revelation in America’s schools and especially at the Department of Education. Secretary DeVos and her team will see clearly how to proceed to make America the best place in the world to educate a child.

 

The Perfect Storm in Education

Over the past two weeks, we have been inundated with the news of school shootings. The most deadly in recent weeks was the shooting on the campus at Ompaqua Community College in Oregon, where 10 people were killed and nine were injured. The US has had an average of one school shooting per week since January 2012 when 20 children were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary. How did we get here? What happened in America that over the last 16 years school shootings have become common place? Who broke that dam of evil? And more importantly, how do we stop the killings? 

 

Below I’ve listed three historical events that led us to this place:

  1. The Theory of Evolution Introduced in Education—In the mid 1850s Herbert Spencer proposed that education should draw on new scientific principles to make teaching more efficient as well as pleasant for the child. He proposed that learning was subject to the same laws that shaped the evolution of human beings from simple organisms could be used to shape the development of each child from the earliest moments in life to adults. Out of these concepts, came a new branch of science called child psychology. New discoveries in child learning techniques should give helpful information on how to be a more discerning and caring parent or teacher. The problem with this new branch of science was that it was founded in Darwinism/evolution. Learning disabilities in children began to take names. Eventually, the medical community came up with a myriad of diagnoses for those disabilities, which leads us to the next issue—that of drugs.
  2. Drugs—What came in the 1960s and onwards were a plethora of new drugs on the streets of our cities as well as through the pharmaceutical industries. The street drugs appealed to those who desired to check out of a materialistic culture. The pharmaceutical drugs treated children’s psychological issues as well as learning disabilities. We became a nation that medicated her children.
  3. We Lost our Moral compass Meanwhile the school curricula was steadily undergoing a major shift with the removal of the God of the Christians from the classrooms. With no concept of a creator and therefore no accountability to a higher power, no value is placed on life. When life is cheap, killing the innocent becomes prevalent. When children who grow up deprived of knowing God as a creator are legally drugged there is a recipe for disaster.

These “winds” are some of the strongest influencers that created a “perfect storm” in our educational system.

The answer lies in prayer, but not just a blanket prayer that says, “our thoughts and prayers are with you.” The answer lies with those who know God and the power of the Name of Jesus. Now is the time for believers to come together in unity, in order to pray targeted, strategic prayers that will turn our educational system and consequently our children back to God. Jesus said, “If you believe, all things are possible to him who believes.”  Let’s come together in agreement to take the Mountain of Education!

 

Prayer for Oklahoma Education

This is the Hebrew month of Nissan, the month of Passover! Nissan is the time for redemption, miracles and a time for us to evaluate every political structure with which we are aligned.

With this in mind, I’ve put together some thoughts on the upcoming proposed Oklahoma teacher “walk out” scheduled to take place on April 2, 2018. I ask that you read the overview with discernment and determine to enter into praise so God can reveal His plans for the teachers of Oklahoma.

Teachers across Oklahoma have organized a classroom “walk out” on April 2, 2018, in order to bring pressure on the Oklahoma State Legislature to pass legislation that would give teachers a salary increase of $10,000 per teacher over the next three years. State employees also want higher base salaries and have plans to join the teachers on April 2.

As many of you have already recognized in the Spirit that the “walk out” has more to do with what is happening spiritually in Oklahoma and less to do with actual pay raises. While teachers certainly deserve a pay raise, there are people and organizations that are using this need for a pay increase to promote their globalist, humanistic mindset. They will do anything they can to continue to feed humanism to the students in our classrooms.

Two Organizations to observe and pray about are:

1. The Oklahoma Education Association (OEA) – The OEA is the state office for the National Education Association (NEA – the largest labor union in the US). Recently the OEA hired a Colorado consulting firm, Harstad Strategic Research, Inc. that specializes in getting liberals elected for positions as Governors, Senators, House Representatives, and getting liberal state campaigns passed. There is also a non-profit that is helping OEA to accomplish their goals – The Professional Oklahoma Educators.
2. The Oklahoma Chamber of Commerce – Two newly created Chamber of Commerce backed non-profits that are helping to push the legislature to pass a pay raise are: Step Up Oklahoma and One Voice. The Chamber of Commerce is a humanistic organization that repeatedly pushes its liberal agenda in education. The use the education platform to blame the current OK state legislature for everything going wrong in this state.

What do they really want?
The OEA and the Chamber of Commerce want two things:
1. These two organizations are humanistic and therefore globalists. In order to achieve their purposes, the Oklahoma Legislature must become governing body that aligns with their agenda.
2. They want the children in our state to be taught social curricula at the expense of their learning basic skills. This was John Dewey’s plan that Samuel Blumfiel called “dumbing down” America in order to make them better global citizens.

Unrealistic Request
The OEA and the Chamber of Commerce are both asking for $10,000 per year salary increase implemented over the next three years. With Oklahoma’s budget short-fall, this is unrealistic and will set our governing body up for failure, which is what the enemy wants.

The result will be:
1. The Oklahoma Legislature will fail
2. The OEA and the Chamber of Commerce will be able to point to the Legislature during an election cycle and cite lack of teacher pay raise, voting records, public statements, and the budget shortfall as reasons why they should not be re-elected.

The people of Oklahoma have voted down past initiatives that would increase taxes for the purpose of increasing teacher pay, because the increased revenue brought in from taxes would not be specified for teacher salaries – they were tied into additional administrative and higher education expenses.

What’s going on in the legislature that would help the enemy?
There are some in the OK legislature who are party to the one-world government agenda, and do not belong in our governing body. Some, both Republican and Democrat, are hirelings. There has been much contention within our government during this legislative session. With confusion and selfish ambition, the enemy has gained ground. Those who are not interested in furthering God’s agenda for our state are unaware that the enemy is crouched at the door poised for an attack.

Prayer and Praise Assignment!
As Nissan is also the time to enter into violent praise and speak forth what we want to see accomplished over this year in the Mountain of Education.

• The teachers in Oklahoma will not be used as political pawns in a humanistic battle for the minds of our children.
• The teachers will receive a fair, just and equitable pay raise!
• All ungodliness in our state legislature will be revealed and those who need to go will be replaced by Godly men and women who will judge righteously for the good of Oklahoma.
• Thank and Praise God for the unmasking/revealing of all those who have ungodly agendas for our children and our state.
• Our teachers will cry out to God and He will deliver them from their oppression. They will not be a slave to Pharaoh.
• Teaching in our state will revert back to the original intent our forefathers had in education – that they will be able to read God’s Word for themselves.

Common Core is Dead!

Did you hear the news that Common Core is Dead? The obituary was rather short, a mere 250 words, not much for such a weighty historical effort, and for the most part, the media paid little, if no, attention. My guess is that they long suspected that Common Core would find its way into the graveyard of programs developed by past US Presidents that did nothing to improve this nation academic test scores. Every President since George H. W. Bush has had a national educational program implemented through the Department of Education: Bill Clinton—Expanding Educational Opportunities; George W. Bush—No Child Left Behind; Barak Obama—Race to the Top which included Common Core. The surprising thing is that none of the federal programs worked!

 

January 18th Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos spoke at a conference hosted by the American Enterprise Institute on “lessons learned”  about school reform specifically during the George W. Bush and Barack Obama administrations. Her conclusion was that the only thing the two Department of Education programs had in common was that they were federal programs. Secretary DeVos said, “Common Core is a disaster, and at the U.S. Department of Education, Common Core is dead.”

 

Many times we pray and we never see the answer to our prayers.  I dedicate this article to the many prayer warriors who have prayed in small home groups for years for America’s schools. Their prayers intensified when Common Core became the . Yes, some of the teaching methods of Common Core were questionable, but teachers know new methods of teaching come and go. It was the clandestine agenda that lingered in the background of Common Core that was more dangerous than teaching methods. The curriculum was produced by globalists who want a moralist society that is easily controlled. They followed the footsteps of Communists like John Dewey who began in the late 1800s and worked diligently (and successfully), in our public schools to produce global citizens for the 21st century.

 

Secretary DeVos’ new plan for education is for the states to exercise control over their individual educational programs, and for more “parental empowerment.” She stated, “Ideally, parent and teacher work together to help a child discover his or her potential and pursue his or her passions.” Her statements do not mention the federal government.

 

Secretary DeVos’ statement on Common Core is a brave move. In her declaration, she stood against the largest, most powerful, and most liberal labor union in the United States, as well as a lot of other liberal educators who will consider her demented. Let’s pray for Secretary DeVos—protection from verbal attacks as well as safety. Also, pray for her to complete her mission to reform American education. Pray for our schools to teach students to grow in the knowledge and the grace of God!