Parents of high school students in Montgomery County School District in Maryland were outraged recently by a survey given to sophomores under the new Common Core education standards.
The survey asked numerous intrusive questions that a school has no business asking students.
Among them were questions like “what is your sexual orientation,” “what’s your religion,” “what’s your parents’ political affiliation” and “should assault rifles be banned?”
Angry parents notified the news website The Blaze about the survey, and shortly after a Blaze reporter began to ask about it, the survey disappeared from the Poolesville High School website.
According to The Blaze story, school officials at first denied such a survey existed, then when they were presented with evidence that it was on a school website, they denied that students were not given the right to opt out. When presented with evidence to the contrary, the district apparently took down the survey. Eventually, the district’s public information officer admitted the survey had been on the site, but insisted that it was a student project, not something put together by teachers.
It appears that students presented with the survey had to log in with their usernames to a school support site called Edline, where they filled out the blanks and multiple choice questions on the survey.
In addition to the questions mentioned above, the survey also asked who was to blame for the government shutdown and how students felt about Obamacare. There was also this question: “If President Obama were Caucasian how much more or less criticism do you think he would he receive?”
The school district’s line on the survey is that it was created by students in a government class who were studying polls, and that the survey was strictly voluntary. According to parents, however, students in at least one class were told to take out their smart phones, log in to Edline and take the survey. Reportedly, one student who refused was “forced” by the teacher to comply.
The district also maintains that students taking the survey were anonymous, but a system operator who spoke with The Blaze on condition her real name not be used said it would be impossible for students to remain anonymous if they logged in to the Edline system.
At least one parent has claimed to have direct knowledge that the survey was not a voluntary student project but an assignment and that most of the questions were written by one teacher.
This is just the latest in a string of outrages from “Common Core-compliant” schools. The nationwide push for a uniform curriculum is fast becoming the education system’s Obamacare.
Although the federal government is prohibited by law from creating a national curriculum, the Obama Administration has gotten around the law by pawning the job off on the National Governors Association. The NGA in turn pawned off the job on a private firm, which dumped it on the desk of a fellow named David Coleman, who has never been a classroom teacher.
To make things even scarier, Coleman is now the president of the College Board and has promised to rewrite the SAT that most students take to get into college so that it conforms to Common Core. The story in the rumor mill says that the plan is then to have Coleman start writing standards for the nation’s colleges.
There is a lot to criticize about the Common Core mold being forced on students, but one of the most pernicious aspects is the gathering of student information. This isn’t the first intrusive survey that has surfaced under this program, which is an Obama Administration program, no matter how they try to disguise it.
It won’t be the last outrage to come out of this program, either.
