Readers beyond a certain age or with a fondness for TV reruns are likely responding to that title with a high-pitched “Say What?” This is one of those seminal posts that ties together the education, social, political, and economic visions for the future. I am using US documents since we do have that pesky US Constitution that vests (or is supposed to) ultimate authority in the individual instead of the state. But the vision works everywhere and actually was kindly laid out in a 2001 book The Global Third Way Debate edited by British sociologist Anthony Giddens but with global participation. Notable US writers included reps from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, the Brookings Institute (now pushing Metropolitanism and the Global Cities Initiative so hard), and the Ford Foundation (financing so much but especially new economics and Global Transition 2012 http://neweconomicsinstitute.org/ last year leading up to the Twentieth Anniversary of the original Rio Summit).
This future vision is premised on an economy “enabled and shaped by government” at the federal level through “macroeconomic (top-down) policy” coupled to “tailored, place-based (bottom-up) economic policy” of the type we saw being developed in Cleveland and NE Ohio as part of the Appreciative Inquiry Green City on a Blue Lake Summit we have already covered and the Project 21 vision originating there. NE Ohio, the Minneapolis-St Paul Area, and Seattle were explicitly the three pilot sites for this “new model for federal and state investment in regions, and so for intergovernmental relations in America’s federalist system” as the 2011 Brookings document described it. No, it is not a federal or economic vision Madison or Jefferson would have supported but it does explain the need to tie the Common Core in education to a broader economic development vision. http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/research/files/papers/2011/4/12-metro-business-muro/1208_metro_summit_business_framing_paper
Every one of the Social Studies 2009 Enduring Understandings I mentioned in the last post would foster a belief that this kind of wholesale political transformation is permitted by a majority consensus in a society. I believe the Concepts laid out in the Next Generation Science Framework are likewise geared to cultivating beliefs that such social and economic change is necessary. As are the Understandings of Consequence videogames we have covered. To be a large part of the equity in credentialing and increased high school graduation rates that are part of the Common Core and associated Metropolitan Business Development visions.
It is no accident that both seek “consortiums of local governments, business and civic organizations, and the private and non-profit sectors to engage in coherent strategic action.” So no more accusing me of being a conspiracy theorist. To the extent we have organized coordination and collusion Brookings has officially pronounced it to be “coherent strategic action.” And it looks just like what the Aspen Institute is now pushing as the Global Fourth Way or Fourth Sector-For Benefit Economy.
The original vision in that Giddens book called all this “a new political economy of the left” which would “become an effective and lasting new political programme which will guide the next generation.” The actual hope was that this would become the global economic and social vision for the entire 21st Century. Something to keep in mind when you hear a sales pitch for skills needed for the 21st Century economy. It really is not supposed to be the vision you have in mind. But virtually all of the major investment banks and huge philanthropies are on board. If you do not believe me take a look at the Board of the Living Cities Initiative or read the theory behind their Integration Initiative. http://www.livingcities.org/integration/theory/
Education policy is in a position to influence the values, attitudes, and beliefs of the next generation and create the “social capital” and “human capital” of the future. Those beliefs and values can be manipulated to believe in “maximizing communicative equality” through dialogues and the sets of “horizontal relationships” cultivated in school. Bonus points for readers who immediately thought of Fostering Learning Communities as the current example of precisely what is being described. In the aggregate it also fits with the Learning Cities we saw UNESCO pushing globally. I gave you the Integration Theory link because it is my belief that Living Cities is the US version of what is being called Learning Cities elsewhere. They seem to function the same. No wonder effective principals are to be Leading Learning Communities. Perfect priming from a young age for a political transformation is a better description of the effective principal of the future. This is the reason and the vision.
So the third way acknowledged it would need “three structural elements, soundly constructed and mutually articulated.” You can contemplate how useful the ability to impose Enduring Understandings and abstract theories to organize beliefs and filter day to day perceptions of life’s experiences will be to people seeking the following:
“moral principles and priorities (the axioms of the programme: ‘what we believe in and where we are going’);
a fully elaborated ideology which convincingly argues and demonstrates in more detail how these principles and priorities can be practically related to the workings of ‘the real world‘, real people and their relationships to each other and the economy; [Gee wouldn’t something like systems thinking, service learning, or the new 3R’s of rigor, relevance, and relationships come in handy?] and
a specification of the practical policies and measures which are required in order to change the society and the economy towards the desirable model of social and economic relationships that has been elaborated. [see above links, any or all for examples].
Think of those three elements as a common core to get total transformation over time. So “North American social scientists” and educators figured out that “if third way thinking successfully integrates the concept of social capital into its understanding of the market economy, this will provide it with its own new, rigorous and practical [emphasis in original] analysis of the economy.” Then all you have to do to get the third way implemented is make this sociological view of the economy and its view of social capital part of education and urban planning degree programs, especially those masters and doctorates for future administrators. Easy Peezy Transformation once attached to federal dollars mandating compliance with this vision. Or do without those federal and NGO dollars that will then flow elsewhere to competing cities or regions.
I am going to provide a longer quote that explains why the cities are so important in any country with elections. It’s where a sizable number of votes are concentrated. Especially if the vision promises equity and benefits dependent voters cannot or will not get for themselves. So in:
“a polity actively nurturing its social capital, the state has to perform a vital partnership and facilitation role in at least two obvious ways. Firstly, it needs to deploy resources to empower disadvantaged individuals: the sick, injured, young, old, poor and poorly-educated, and other groups subject to social exclusion for reasons that are beyond their power to alter, such as their gender or ethnic affiliation. This is to endow them with their citizenship and their liberties [it sounds like what Goodwin Liu called Social Citizenship!], and so enable them to participate with their fellow citizens on an equal status basis, in all the networks and associations through which social capital functions. [This is also why metrowide school districts and busing are so important to this political vision].
Secondly, there is the importance of the locally devolved form of ‘state’: participatory, local self-government in active partnership and responsive negotiation with the communities and businesses whose environment it administers.
Now you know why Green Cities and Smart Cities and Global Cities just keep popping up. Why the very real Agenda 21 implementers met separately and plan with ICLEI-the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives at the Rio Summit last summer. And had food and wine and a lovely fashion show to boot.
I also think that is why the Asia Society funded an “Educating for Global Competency Workshop” facilitated by worldsavvy in Minnesota on April 30th, a few days ago. And is holding a Statewide Summit on Global Learning next week on May 9, 2013 at St Cloud University in Minnesota. Inviting precisely the public and private groups to be involved in the Metropolitan Business Plan on the new economy. With Tony Jackson from the Asia Society as the keynote speaker.
So on top of being part of the Global Competence push as we have seen and a primary sponsor of the Global Cities Education Network we have covered and apparently tied into the Metropolitanism new economy vision in the US, we have the Pearson Foundation in 2011 highlighting with films the Asia Society’s role in promoting Global Citizenship. http://asiasociety.org/education/international-studies-schools-network/films-documents-how-students-becoming-global-citizen
That’s right. In the name of standardizing academic content from state to state, we are ending up with a toleration for a new model of intergovernmental relations. Plus Global Citizenship beliefs. Plus the third way’s vision for a new political economy after Communism crashed and Welfare States developed a bad name. Based on the general principle of “maximizing communicative equality.”
That would be why Gifted education is going away and why high-performing suburban schools have to be taken down.
Proper Mindsets and Dependent Mediocrity are needed for this vision of the future.
hi Robin,
consensus is the key. because all slogans have multiple meanings they are achieving false consensus. Because nobody knows this fact. while we may think lifelong learning means likeing to read books all your life, to the sloganeers and their third way buddies it is total, clandestine, reformation, transformation. this can be applied to so very many slogans and buzzwords. we call it jargonese. a language understood in truth only by those who are communitiarians . so people go along with it. towns, boroughs, counties all over the country have been victims of this shysterism, this swindlefest. it is epidemic. the green scam, co2 scam, revitalization….. because, hey ” revitalization is good!” words like
vibrant, robust, revitalize, literacy, sustainable development, asset based, engaged… and hundreds more all used to confound and hoodwink the public into some kind of false consensus. which you reveal in your post as the CRUX of their ability to circumvent the constitution.
here is a link to the american planning association that oops! got out.
the central planners gone local were outed with their delphi technique and bs conversations and consensus. so they put this out to their people.
http://www.narlo.org/congamea21.pdf
it illustrates the deception pretty clearly. a group here documented this phenomenon and figured it out and took some of their fire away but they still implemented sustainable development, have multiple partnerships and are trying to lease the school. fishy $$$trail… like a sneaky ghengis khan, they are. while they were working on the local government shift they were also working on the school. now that our US president has his second term, our change agent, whos finger was in every pie, including the third way politician list, ( as a local peon borough councilman, ) well he is MIA now…. hmmm
http://www.citizenreviewonline.org/sept_2001/the_third_way.htm
third way politics is showing up in young adult literature, all over common core. unreal. they are even in the girl scouts now. no right or wrong, moral relativism, do what I say, not what I do.
oh but children, go wild… well as bill ayers said, the author of much of the common core by the by, “… bring the revolution home, kill your parents.”
HERE IS THE LIST see who you know!
this was a Niki Raapana link, now unavailable. She deserves LOADS of credit for her years of research, she saw this before so many,
Current Third Way News:
The DLC is the branch of the Democratic Party called the “new” Democrats. Clinton was a Third Way Communitarian Democrat. Founded in 1990 by Sir Evelyn de Rothschild, Communitarian William Glaston, Al From and Michael Steinhart, the DLC’s goal is to “define the ultimate Third Way.”
The new Third Way Senate Advisory Board was expected to unveil their agenda in early 2005. Now we’re told it’s Going Nowhere — The DLC Sputters to a Halt by Ari Berman in The Nation on March 3, 2005.
The New Democrats promote the communitarian Third Way platform. Here’s their list of change agents across America as of March 3, 2005:
Jim Aldinger, Council Member, Manhattan Beach CA Dede Alpert, State Senator, CA Phil Angelides, State Treasurer, CA Patrice Arent, State Senator, UT David Aronberg, State Senator, FL Toni Atkins, City Councilmember, San Diego CA Loranne Ausley, State Representative, FL Janice Bacon, Morgan County Commissioner, IN Brian Baird, U.S. Representative, WA Thurbert Baker, State Attorney General, GA Brenda Barger, Mayor, Watertown, SD Gonzalo Barrientos, State Senator, TX Viola Baskerville, State Delegate, VA Max Baucus, U.S. Senator, MT Evan Bayh, U.S. Senator, IN Chris Beck, State Representative, OR Ralph Becker, State Representative, UT Marshall Bennett, State Treasurer, MS James Bennett, City Council, St. Petersberg FL Shelley Berkley, U.S. Representative, NV Ethan Berkowitz, House Democratic Leader, AK Barbara Blanchard, County Legislator, Tompkins County NY Patrica M. Blevins, State Senator, DE Marty Block, Community College Trustee, San Diego CA Alice Borodkin, State Representative, CO Lisa Boscola, State Senator, PA Betty Boyd, State Representative, CO David Braddock, State Representative, OK Daniel Brady, State Senator, OH Zach Brandon, City Councilmember, Madison WI Bob Brink, Delegate, VA John Y. Brown, Secretary of State, KY Matt Brown, Secretary of State, RI Don Brown, Jr., City Councilman, Louisville, CO Polly Bukta, State Representative, IA Chuck Burris, Mayor, Stone Mountain, GA Cruz M. Bustamante, Lieutenant Governor, CA Robert Butkin, State Treasurer, OK Thomas Campbell, State Delegate, WV Jane Campbell, Mayor, Cleveland OH Roberto Canchola, Superintendent of Schools, Santa Cruz Co., AZ Maria Cantwell, U.S. Senator, WA Lois Capps, U.S. Representative, CA Russ Carnahan, U.S. Representative, MO Tom Carper, U.S. Senator, DE Adolfo Carrion, Borough President, Bronx NY Jo Carson, State Representative, AR Karen R. Carter, State Representative, LA Ed Case, U.S. Representative, HI Ben Chandler, U.S. Representative, KY Nancy Chard, State Senator, VT Ken Cheuvront, State Senator, AZ Carol Chumney, Council Member, City of Memphis TN Ken Clark, State Representative, AZ Paul Clark, Town Supervisor, West Seneca NY Hillary Clinton, U.S. Senator, NY Martha Coakley, District Attorney, Middlesex County MA Steve Cohn, City Councilmember, Sacramento CA Michael Coleman, Mayor, Columbus, OH Fran Coleman, State Representative, CO Patrick Colwell, State House Majority Leader, ME Kathleen Connell, State Controller, CA Kent Conrad, U.S. Senator, ND Christopher Coons, Council President, New Castle Co., DE Roy A. Cooper III, Attorney General, NC Lou Correa, State Assembly Member, CA Dolores Coulter, Mayor, Barnegat Township NJ Cathy Cox, Secretary of State, GA Joseph Crowley, U.S. Representative, NY Chris Cummiskey, State Senate Assistant Leader , AZ Don Cunningham, Secretary, Department of General Services, PA J. Joseph Curran, Attorney General, MD Lou D’Allesandro, State Senator, NH Richard D’Amato, State Delegate, MD Ruth Damsker, County Commissioner, Montgomery Co., PA Preston Daniels, Mayor, Des Moines IA Jim Davis, U.S. Representative, FL Susan Davis, U.S. Representative, CA Ray Davis, Registrar, Stafford County VA Nadia Davis, School Board Vice President, Santa Ana, CA Artur Davis, U.S. Representative, AL Ryan Deckert, State Senator, OR Rocky Delgadillo, City Attorney, Los Angeles, CA Peter Derby, Trustee, Irvington NY Christopher Dodd, U.S. Senator, CT Byron Dorgan, U.S. Senator, ND Jim Doyle, Governor, WI Doug Duncan, County Executive, Montgomery County MD Joseph Dunn, State Senator, CA Michael Easley, Governor, NC Doug Echols, Mayor, Rock Hill SC W.A. Drew Edmondson, Attorney General, OK Rahm Emanuel, U.S. Representative, IL Eliot Engel, U.S. Representative, NY Bob Etheridge, U.S. Representative, NC Robert Faucheux, State Representative, LA Dianne Feinstein, U.S. Senator, CA John Fernandez, Mayor, Bloomington IN Barry R. Finegold, State Representative, MA Eric Fingerhut, State Senator, OH Michael Finifter, State Delegate, MD Joan Fitz-Gerald, State Senator, CO Michael Fitzgerald, State Treasurer, IA Jamie Fleet, City Councilman, Gettysburg PA Elizabeth G. Flores, Mayor, Laredo, TX Dean Florez, State Assemblymember, CA Romanie Foege, State Representative, IA Harold Ford, Jr. , U.S. Representative, TN Dan Frankel, State Representative, PA Shirley Franklin, Mayor, Atlanta GA John A. Fritchey, State Representative, IL Douglas F. Gansler, State’s Attorney for Montgomery Co., MD Michael Garcia, State Representative, CO Jim D. Garner, State Representative, KS Steven A. Geller, State Senator, FL Allen Jay Gerson, Council Member, New York City NY Gabrielle Giffords, State Senator, AZ Glen D. Gilmore, Mayor, Hamilton NJ Michael Golden, Borough Council Member, Jenkintown PA Jeff Gombosky, State Representative, WA Ron Gonzales, Mayor, San Jose, CA Phil Gordon, City Councilman, Phoenix, AZ Ken Gordon, State Senator, CO Jennifer Granholm, Governor, MI Darlene Green, City Comptroller, St. Louis, MO Ron Greenstein, State Representative, FL James S. Gregory, City Councilman, Bethlehem, PA Wendy Greuel, City Council, Los Angeles CA Daniel Grimes, City Council, Goshen IN Peter C. Groff, State Representative, CO Daniel Grossman, State Senator, CO Ken Guin, Majority Leader, AL Bob Hagedorn, State Senator, CO Karen Hale, State Senator, UT DeAnna Hanna, State Senator, CO Michael J. Hare, Council Member, Wilmington DE Jane Harman, U.S. Representative, CA Jeff Harris, State Representative, MO Patrick Henry Hays, Mayor, North Little Rock, AR Martin J. Heft, First Selectman, Chester CT Robert Henriquez, State Representative, FL Leigh Herington, Senate Democratic Leader, OH Stephanie Herseth, U.S. Representative, SD Thomas Hickner, County Executive, Bay County, MI Brian Higgins, U.S. Representative, NY Richard Hildreth, Mayor, Pacific WA Debra Hilstrom, State Representative, MN Bob Holden, Governor, MO Rush Holt, U.S. Representative, NJ Helen Holton, City Council Member, Baltimore, MD Darlene Hooley, U.S. Representative, OR Sam Hoyt, State Assemblymember, NY Dave Hunt, State Representative, OR Ross Hunter, State Representative, WA Geri Huser, State Representative, IA Daniel Hynes, State Comptroller, IL Jay Inslee, U.S. Representative, WA Thomas Irvin, Commissioner of Agriculture, GA Steve Israel, U.S. Representative, NY Robert Jackson, State Senator, KY Michael Jackson, State Representative, LA Gilda Z. Jacobs, State Senator, MI Wendy Jaquet, State House Minority Leader, ID Nicholas Jellins, Mayor, Menlo Park, CA Douglas Jennings Jr., House Democratic Leader, SC Tim Johnson, U.S. Senator, SD Robin Johnson, Alderman, Monmouth IL Steven B. Jones, State Representative, AR Donald Jones, Council Member, Jefferson Parish LA Patty Judge, Secretary of Agriculture, IA Charlie Justice, State Representative, FL Tim Kaine, Lt. Governor, VA Vera Katz, Mayor, Portland, OR Steve Kelley, Senate Majority Whip, MN Randy Kelly, Mayor, St. Paul, MN Joseph E. Kernan, Governor, IN John Kerry, U.S. Senator, MA Lynn Kessler, State House Democratic Leader, WA Marjorie L. Kilkelly, State Senator, ME Kwame Kilpatrick, Mayor, Detroit, MI Ron Kind, U.S. Representative, WI Victor King, Trustee, Glendale, CA Herb Kohl, U.S. Senator, WI Richard Kriseman, City Councilman, St. Petersburg, FL Annie Kuether, State Representative, KS Rosalind Kurita, State Senator, TN Eric LaFleur, State Representative, LA Mary Landrieu, U.S. Senator, LA Leah Landrum Taylor, Assistant Minority Leader, AZ Patricia Lantz, State Representative, WA Peter Larkin, State Representative, MA Rick Larsen, U.S. Representative, WA John Larson, U.S. Representative, CT David Lemoine, State Representative, ME Joe Lieberman, U.S. Senator, CT Blanche Lincoln, U.S. Senator, AR Duane E. Little, Assessor, Shoshone Co., ID Gary Locke, Governor, WA Charles Love, School Board Chairman, Hamilton Co., TN Frana Araujo Mace, State Representative, CO Alice Madden, State Representative, CO Scott C. Maddox, Mayor, Tallahassee, FL Louis Magazzu, Freeholder, Cumberland County NJ Dannel P. Malloy, Mayor, Stamford, CT Matthew Mangino, District Attorney, Lawrence Co., PA Jennifer Mann, State Representative, PA Steve Marchand, City Councilman, Portsmouth NH Jack Markell, State Treasurer, DE Lisa Tessier Marrache, State Representative, ME Rosemary Marshall, State Representative, CO Barbara Matthews, Assembly Member, Tracy CA Carolyn McCarthy, U.S. Representative, NY Kevin McCarthy, State Representative, IL Kevin McCarthy, State Representative, IA Kenneth McClintock, State Senator, PR Bill McConico, State Representative, MI Matt McCoy, State Senator, IA Sharon McDonald, Commissioner of Revenue, Norfolk, VA Mike McIntyre, U.S. Representative, NC Gregory Meeks, U.S. Representative, NY Jules Mermelstein, Township Commissioner, Upper Dublin, PA Dolores Mertz, State Representative, IA Juanita Millender-McDonald, U.S. Representative, CA Jonathan Miller, State Treasurer, KY Carl Miller, State Representative, CO Tom Miller, Attorney General, IA Doug Milliken, Treasurer, Centennial CO Ruth Ann Minner, Governor, DE Keiffer Mitchell, Jr., City Councilman, Baltimore, MD Dennis Moore, U.S. Representative, KS Richard Moore, State Senator, MA Richard H. Moore, State Treasurer, NC Mike Moore, Attorney General, MS Jim Moran, U.S. Representative, VA John Morrison, State Auditor, MT Eva Moskowitz, City Council Member, New York City, NY Charles A. Murphy, State Representative, MA Pat Murphy, State Representative, IA Ed Murray, State Representative, WA Therese Murray, State Senator, MA Ronnie Musgrove, Governor, MS George Nakano, State Assembly Member, CA Janet Napolitano, Governor, AZ Bill Nelson, U.S. Senator, FL Ben Nelson, U.S. Senator, NE Gavin C. Newsom, Board of Supervisors, San Francisco CA Alice Nichol, State Senator, CO John O. Norquist, Mayor, Milwaukee, WI Michael Nutter, City Councilman, Philadelphia, PA Martin O’Malley, Mayor, Baltimore, MD Michael A. O’Pake, State Senator, PA Barack Obama, U.S. Senator, IL Norman Oliver, City Councilman, Wilmington, DE Marc R. Pacheco, State Senator, MA Alex Padilla, City Councilman, Los Angeles, CA Alfred Park, State Representative, NM Sally Pederson, Lieutenant Governor, IA William Peduto, City Councilmember, Pittsburgh PA David Pepper, City Council, Cincinnati OH Beverly Perdue, Lieutenant Governor, NC Eddie Perez, Mayor, Hartford CT Ed Perlmutter, State Senator, CO Scott Peters, City Councilman, San Diego, CA Bart Peterson, Mayor, Indianapolis IN Janet Peterson, State Representative, IA Anthony Petrucci, County Commissioner, Dauphin Co., PA Terry Phillips, State Senator, CO Gregory Pitoniak, Mayor, Taylor, MI Jeffrey Plale, State Senator, WI Tom Plant, State Representative, CO Margaret Planton, Mayor, Chillicothe, OH Charles Potter Jr., Council Member, Wilmington DE Ray Powell, Commissioner of Public Lands, NM Debra Powell, Mayor, East St. Louis, IL David Price, U.S. Representative, NC Mark Pryor, U.S. Senator, AR Brian Quirk, State Representative, IA David Ragucci, Mayor, Everett, MA Aaron Reardon, Snohomish County Executive, WA Stephen Reed, Mayor, Harrisburg, PA Eric Miller Reeves, State Senator, NC Peggy Reeves, State Senator, CO Ed Rendell, Governor, PA Ann H. Rest, State Senator, MN Joe Rice, Mayor, Glendale, CO Graham Richard, Mayor, Fort Wayne, IN John Richardson, State Representative, ME Elaine Richardson, State Senator, AZ Bill Richardson, Governor, NM John Riggs IV, State Senator, AR Joe Riley, Mayor, Charleston, SC Stacy J. Ritter, State Representative, FL Carroll G. Robinson, City Councilman, Houston, TX Andrew Romanoff, State Representative,, CO T.J. Rooney, State Representative, PA Samuel Rosenberg, State Delegate, MD Laura Ruderman, State Representative, WA John Ryan, Council Member, Barnegat Township NJ Timothy J. Ryan, State Senator, OH Ken Salazar, U.S. Senator, CO Loretta Sanchez, U.S. Representative, CA Sharon Sanders Brooks, State Representative, MO M. Susan Savage, Mayor, Tulsa, OK Adam B. Schiff, U.S. Representative, CA Jefferey Schoenberg, State Senator, IL Dan Schooff, State Assembly Member, WI Allyson Schwartz, U.S. Representative, PA Timothy Scott, Council Member, Carlisle Borough PA David Scott, U.S. Representative, GA Derrick Seaver, State Representative, OH Kathleen Gilligan Sebelius, Governor, KS Eugene M. Sellers, Vermillion Parish Engineer, Lafayette, LA James Shapiro, City Representative, Stamford, CT Ron Sims, County Executive, King County, WA Adam Smith, U.S. Representative, WA Malcolm A. Smith, State Senator, NY Tyrone Smith, Water Basin Municipal Water District Board Member, Carson CA Rod Smith, State Senator, FL James Smith, House Democratic Leader, SC Eleanor Sobel, State Representative, FL Andrew Spano, County Executive, Westchester Co., NY Carol Spielman, County Board Member, Lake County IL Eliot Spitzer, Attorney General, NY Debbie Stabenow, U.S. Senator, MI Greg Stanton, City Councilman, Phoenix, AZ Gregory R. Stevens, State Representative, IA Larry Stone, Assessor, Santa Clara County, CA Peter Sullivan, State Representative, NH Christopher Travis Swanson, Kern County School Board Member, Tehachapi, CA Daryl Sweeney, Mayor, Carson, CA Harvey D. Tallackson, State Senator, ND Abel J. Tapia, State Representative, CO Ellen Tauscher, U.S. Representative, CA Charleta B. Tavares, City Council Member, Columbus, OH Mark Taylor, Lieutenant Governor, GA Paul Tessier, State Representative, ME William C. Thompson Jr., Comptroller, New York City NY Michael L. Thurmond, State Labor Commissioner, GA Lois Tochtrop, State Representative, CO Charles F. Tooley, Mayor, Billings, MT Tom Udall, U.S. Representative, NM John Unger II, State Senator, WV George Van Til, Surveyor, Lake County IN Tracy Vance, Vice Chairman, Lee Co., IA Juan Vargas, State Assemblymember, CA Jennifer Veiga, State Representative, CO Val Vigil, State Representative, CO Michael Vilarreal, State Representative, TX Tom Vilsack, Governor, IA Val D. Vincent, State Representative, VT Peter Voros, Mayor, Pittsgrove Township NJ Lewis J. Wallace, State Representative, CT Mark Warner, Governor, VA Steven Warnstadt, State Representative, IA Jonathan Weinzapfel, State Representative, IN Jack Weiss, City Council, Los Angeles CA Peggy M. Welch, State Representative, IN Patrick D. Welch, State Senator, IL Steve Westly, State Controller, CA Michael J. Wildes, Mayor, Englewood NJ Anthony Williams, Mayor, Washington, DC J.D. Williams, State Controller, ID Constance Williams, State Senator, PA Earnest Williams, City Councilman, St. Petersburg, FL Suzanne Williams, State Representative, CO Sue Windels, State Senator, CO Philip Wise, State Representative, IA Cathy Woolard, Council President, Atlanta GA David Wu, U.S. Representative, OR David Yassky, City Councilmember, Brooklyn NY Caprice Young, President of the Board of LAUSD, Los Angeles CA
The New American Foundation Asset Building Program explains the importance of gathering asset’s data. The new Senate Third Way committee links to four organizations. The DLC, Brookings Institute, the PPI, and this one. Mapping and Mobilizing Community Assets is a communitarian program for house to house datagathering by neighborhood associations.
this info is no longer available the link but I saved it, its old but good!
Wow Mom. That is some list.
For new readers, although Agenda 21 has come into the story, it is not because I went looking for an Agenda 21 angle. I had never heard of it but had as a result of my education work been invited to some regional planning programs and Competitiveness councils. I immediately recognized I was listening to economic planning and that the business interests tended to be nominally private like insurance companies or hospital chains or defense contractors. Where government and its regulator arms were the customers or set up the business parameters.
The Green Growth recognition came from seeing that there had to be a connection between UNESCO and Cambridge Education given the policies Cambridge was pushing on schools whereever it went. Then discovering they were a sub of UK Mott MacDonald, the UN and OECD’s favorite builder and heavy contractor around the world. That eventually caused me to read further on the March 2012 Planet Under Pressure conference in London. Where I learned about the Belmont Challenge. It also turned out that PuP was a Human Dimensions conference on how to stealthily gain implementation but that is something I only came across a few months ago. It does explain why I found those conference policy briefs so on point and alarming.
So it was after PuP that I started looking into Agenda 21 just a bit. Then a reader on the West Coast heard Rosa Koire speak and said she knows this Agenda 21 like you know education. Since I knew my story was about more than education I looked into Rosa’s work and read about ICLEI and saw how it fit into the economic vision.
When Amitai Etzioni’s name came up as I was following up on the April 2012 push to impose Positive Behavior Intervention social and emotional curricula on all students under federal disabilities Response to Intervention, I came across Niki’s work as she had written about him as being part of the Communitarian Network, It was a reminder that I was dealing with a lot of moving parts but they had a consistent function and direction once assembled.
My job at this blog with the help of commenters who have obviously been wondering about these things longer than me is to lay out the pertinent details as they impact education and to explain that function and direction.
But as with most things I did not go looking. I simply recognized what I was seeing and its implications. And its forebears.
Robin
This is probably a naïve question, but with respect to regionalism and the NGO’s—because they essentially trample on the sovereignty of townships, counties, states, even countries, isn’t there a legal way to swiftly eliminate them?
Tax laws would be my choice as it is hard not to see what the NGOs and foundations are doing as political advocacy. Plus they are encouraging the continued growth of an avaricious state and then they get to avoid paying the costs to sustain it. Nice racket to get grants from the government but pay nothing to support its costs.
This is from the UK but it applies all over the world. http://bogpaper.com/2013/05/01/russell-taylor-in-praise-of-ukip/ I saw it linked on an Australian blog that was doing an Amen.
Love the lone about “conscience being a perk of prosperity.” It fits with how often I am reading that we must have equality in the 21st century. That people must learn to continue to produce while sharing with the less fortunate. We already do share and Americans especially are terribly generous. But no one is talking of the damage of creating social citizenship where just showing up and being born entitles you to almost as much as the productive. Europe has learned the terrible disincentves of the Welfare State and the US wants to emulate while Europe merely renames?
I should not be reading World Bank economists being feted by Brookings to give lectures as part of their Metropolitanism work where I trace back to a 2010 book saying that the demise of the USSR really showed it was capitalism that did not work. It was not a reflection on socialism. Really? No wonder these Statist schemers are so determined to control the thought structures used to filter daily experience.
And Lynn Erickson actually had the nerve to say the US Constitution and the Federalist Papers were about our shared beliefs. No, I would say they are documents entitling us not to HAVE shared beliefs if we do not wish.
Common Understanding. Shared Beliefs. Consensus. Collective interpretation. Mutual vision.
Gag. It’s almost enough to make you want to be a hermit or Anchoress.
Then someone should go after them on taxes and try to take them all out at once (legally). Should it drag on and on, at least it brings it to the awareness of the public. People would be pretty mad if they knew of the plans that others were making for their own private property.
I watched one of Rosa Koire’s You Tube videos where she brought her video camera into a visioning meeting in SF. It was nearly a riot. But the well-healed Communitarian elites sat patiently waiting, chomping on hors d’oeuvres, for the predetermined consensus to be validated. They love a fixed game—one that offers them the ‘zing of moral superiority.’ Great article by Russell Taylor.
In terms of professional development and continuous improvement it always struck me that there was never an attempt to deepen teachers’ content knowledge, the focus is always on how to frame the smallest bits of content so that kids can understand it – and pass a test. There’s a big emphasis today, at least locally, on these ‘content enhancement’ techniques – the work of Wiggins, Erickson, Jenkins, and so forth. I always felt that you’d get the biggest bang for you buck (in terms of PD) if you focused on improving the depth of the teachers knowledge – say for instance by studying advanced levels of Latin, Greek, calculus, law, art, music, etc. Rather PD is obsessed with the magnification of a miniature premise. The policy for the teachers as for the students – no one should stand out or be different. So today we have a no-content vision (and program) of continuous improvement.
Because the continuous improvement is to be the changed values, attitudes, and beliefs and thus behavior of the child. Because of the political transformation benefit of making education about that. What Dewey Called Social Reconstruction and others have sought ways to put into effect.
I have mentioned Spence Rogers and PEAK. You have teachers who love the idea of an emotional, dialogical classroom about real world problems and you have teachers stunned they are being asked to attend training sessions where they are to stand and chant about all kids learning.
And I have never forgotten Willard Daggett’s quote that “relevance makes rigor possible.” The idea that you can relate personally helps to find the essence of the relationship that if focused on can be changed.
So we end up with graduates who know little but are primed to change the world. Away from what brought prosperity to what very well may not work at all. Unless you are part of the nomenklatura class.
I remember last April when I first saw that continuous improvement was tied to positive behavior. Because I had sat in meetings where school board members believed and assumed it was a term about knowledge. Lightbulb moment.
Yes, yes, yes. I didn’t get my graduate degree till I was 41, in ’91, and as I had spent the previous 10 years as an teacher’s ass’t, and then back into college and subbing in my school, primarily, I was a kool-aid baby in public education from the start. I had fallen back in love with math, my ESE teacher/bosses had always asked me to teach the students their math lessons since I was more comfortable with math than they seemed to be ??? I wanted to teach my math love to kids, many of whom were math haters my middle school. That does make me content oriented but for the good of my students, as I had learned to hate my math instructors and math in school like they had. And I went to Catholic elem and h.s. in the 60s.
By the time I started my first PD as a new teacher, even as an adult in my early 40s, I lapped it all up. My central Florida county was very ag-oriented, not a lot of college grads back then, and slow to catch up with the Ed trends in the rest of America. Thank God.
But as I honed my craft teaching Alg 1 Hon to some of the best minds in the county in an attempt at Pre-Pre IB filtering, all I wanted to learn at PD classes was more math, more ways, using tech only when it advanced the lesson, no projects for the sake of projects, but from about 2000 on that was to be no more. Just methods, games, modeling, group-work, think-pair-share, LEQs, EQs, graphic organizers, scaffolding for the Zone of Proximal Development, learning maps for every skill or concept taught, pages upon pages of lesson plans with Pre-during-post questions each day, professional learning communities not departments, no teams, Rigor Relevance and Relationships, not regarding content but methods and feelings and groupthink for one and all. I was in desperate need of time to do more teaching, because for all of the so called planning days, PD was taking up most of them. And for what? It just made me retire early. A colleague who retired a month before I did, had to beg to be released from PD training in her final months, and this after 40 years teaching, in PR, NY, and Florida. Can you spell waste of money?
But Tina, if you had stayed on you could have been pushing project-based learning like this http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2013/05/arc-of-history/
As a history major if it is not false facts and misstatements of the meaning of terms with an overarching theme, it is characterizing physical role playing activity as “learning history.”
And the PD is stunningly expensive in many instances with Willard Daggett and Spence Rogers billing about $4000 a day according to news reports I have found that are uncontradicted.
Same for Guided Reading and Reading Recovery training at Ohio State. Hugely expensive. All taxpayer money.
FISH! Philosophy.
Kagan stuff.
“Think-pair-share,”
“Thumbs-up, Thumbs Down”
Grotesque. But I do admire the entrepreneurship of the creators – to think of the millions those guys made throwing fish around.
On another note, it was interesting your pointing out that the reason cities are important in countries with elections is because that’s where a large number of votes are centered. What a manipulation. That’s a democratic way to deal with the bitter clingers.
Finally, last post you were talking about enduring understanding and the 10 C’s came up. Similarly the six IB trans-disciplinary themes have always struck me as pretty strange:
• Who we are
• Where we are in place and time
• How we express ourselves
• How the world works
• How we organize ourselves
• Sharing the planet
This gives me a bad feeling. To think that the answers to these can be installed into the minds of kids, like an operating system (of a-priori misunderstandings) upon which they process all of their subsequent life experiences – that’s pretty devious.
It would give you even more of a bad feeling if you had seen the reformed curricula in Korea, Hong Kong, Japan, and Australia and it is all these same broad themes and a rejection of knowledge of the past. All happening over the last 10 years. Here’s a post where I pointed out the similarities between what Australia is getting and what we have except Australia has it all in one place. The Wellbeing Frameworks. But with CASEL and Nel Noddings from the US as advisors. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/if-education-transforms-values-and-feelings-and-beliefs-to-control-behaviors-are-we-free/
It all makes sense in the context of UNESCO seeking to change the prevailing belief system in the West and its values and how the typical person perceives what they encounter day to day.
But it is an organized effort in part because the accreditation agencies are the invisible hand pushing K-12 and higher ed. And the international assessments were always seen as a means to get countries to emulate each other’s practices in education without recognizing what was really being assessed. I have the books from when IEA was originally set up and they are downright confessional. Plus Benjamin Bloom who basically developed OBE with the help of his friend and mentor Ralph Tyler was involved with IEA from the get go as well.
Did you know IB was originally set up with Ford Foundation funding? That was in one of the IEA books by the Swedish co-creator. OECD is also very active in pushing ed policy and practices without pointing out it is all in pursuit of a Scandinavian vision of how society should be structured. Which the Nordic countries need for others to adopt so they are not uncompetitive on exports. Everyone needs to be equally burdened.
When I was doing research on Ehrlich and the MAHB lots of Nordic info came out.
It is quite devious but remember because of the nature of these degree programs few have to really understand. As the UK prof said when she tied all this activity theory and rejection of a fact/reality emphasis to Hegel, few of the advocates for these theories and practices are familiar with the history of what they are pushing. And she is a fan of Hegel.
Another confessional book from 1988 arrived in today’s mail. Published in the UK. So our mounds of evidence just keep increasing. Something for me to read while it rains tomorrow.
Thanks for pointing out that the accrediting agencies are the invisible hand directing K-12 and University education. I really knew nothing about that. So with or without CCSSI we’re still going to get this push for ecological, social, and economic transformation via the requirements of the accrediting agencies? If you could point me in the right direction I’d love to read more on this. Who has to answer to them? And how do they answer?
Would they have had any influence on say the NGSS Framework – I’m thinking of the 7 crosscutting concepts that seem to guide the pedagogy in the direction of systems thinking?
Internationally the process is called Quality Assurance and it is UNESCO’s vision but the accreditors are the enforcers. Accreditation and accountability are actually compliance vehicles much like the teacher evals will be to comply with the Vygotskyian social interactive classroom.
I have A LOT of info on this. Remember I have said CCSSI is really a catch-all for what was desired anyway? An excuse? Here’s an old post that I actually had school board members from all over contact me and thank me for figuring out what they had been told they could not tell. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/who-is-really-in-charge-the-school-board-the-super-the-accreditors-or-unesco/
http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/credential-inflation-how-reforming-higher-ed-with-learner-outcomes-can-damage-all-degrees/ concerns higher ed. Only time in my life I got bounced OFF a server while researching was on UNESCO and the accreditors and what they were requiring as part of what is called globally the Bologna Process.
And the accreditors answer to no one. In Georgia and Connecticut elected school boards are told that their only real authority is financial monitoring and hiring and firing Supers. After that they are professionals and in charge. Which is when having an Educational Leadership degree where you became credentialed to implement Vygotskyian psychology to change the child and Marxian devt theory to change the child and Deweyan Quality Learning and Growth to change the child means they are there to change the child.
Robin, to say the obvious, until recently at least the nordic countries were quite homogeneous societies. We are far more heterogeneous, and with the recent immigration there, they are becoming more heterogeneous too.
That increases the burden imposed by the requirement that the curriculum be attainable by All Students.
I am skeptical that the nordic countries will be able to continue this approach themselves, given their new student demographics.
David,
They are skeptical too. I actually get a fair amount of traffic from those countries. Yesterday I had a search from Denmark.
The model we are switching to now they switched to after World War 2. It is always tied to a formal move to a social welfare state. School becomes about equalizing and changing mindsets. Which is exactly the language I am seeing. Repeatedly.
Yes all those countries have been inundated with an unassimilated immigration wave that is destabilizing those countries in ways that is too infrequently written about. I usually read all of Bruce Bawer’s posts over at Front Page.
I think that the more math you know the more trouble you would have with these nonsense methodologies. I am a math geek and, well, I could never do it. I just want to show the kids how it works and carry them along so they can do it too. To tell them how it works just right so that their understanding will be a solid foundation for the next 10 years of math courses. To show them something cool and surprising so that they see that this is great stuff and they should follow me.
But on the other hand, I confess to a certain willingness to let some kids go by the wayside. If they can’t learn it, they can’t. Rather than pretending they are learning it by changing what is taught into something I do not recognize as math. And I recognize that to the new deciders, my attitude is unacceptable. Just as I regard them as unacceptable.
On a good note, our district is strapped for cash so they had to cut out a lot of stuff for next year. One thing they did was to cut out 50% of PD. Slash! For all of my complaints, I think I have much to be thankful for, being in a district that is resisting the new brainwashing.
You are talking about classical education. A big no no to know to much. The idea is exactly to atitude change to act, and to act on issues that further the dialectic, keep the votes going to the correct operators, those from the list and beyond.
That post of Nikki’s she caught back in 2005 or so an their is nary a trace of it i could find. Like Nikki i fell into this by accident. Unreal stuff.
Sorry robin to put that in
but i felt it was a list not to
be lost. People need to
know who in their state to
email about their loyalties to
unesco et al.
Rock on Robin
Madmommy,
Thank you very much for that list!
I have no children but I am very irate over what is being done to our kids – turning them into good little slaves.
I have traced a lot of this back to the Fabians who started the London School of Economics. UNESCO was Julian Huxely’s baby. Huxely was into Eugenics and a Fabian. Anthony Giddens was head of the London School of Economics and a Fabian. John Dewey was a founding member of the American Fabian Society. Tony Blair is a Fabian….
This is an excellent example of the mind set of the Fabians
Shaw was a founding member of the Fabian Society. (Never read these writtngs of his in school do you?)
We see this ‘Fabian’ concept alive and well in the UK today.
Some 7,800 people die during winter because they can’t afford to heat their homes properly…That works out at 65 deaths a day.
Four patients die thirsty or starving EVERY DAY on our hospital wards show damning new statistics
NHS millions for controversial care pathway: The majority of NHS hospitals in England are being given financial rewards for placing terminally-ill patients on a controversial “pathway” to death…
Top doctor’s chilling claim: The NHS kills off 130,000 elderly patients every year: Professor says doctors use ‘death pathway’ to euthenasia of the elderly, Around 29 per cent of patients that die in hospital are on controversial ‘care pathway’
Now sick babies go on death pathway: Doctor’s haunting testimony reveals how children are put on end-of-life plan
Children placed on controversial ‘death pathway’…The Liverpool Care Pathway, under which medication, nutrition and fluids can be withdrawn, is being used on young patients as well as severely-disabled new born babies, it has been revealed…
A bit more on the Fabians can be deduced from the Stained Glass Window designed by George Bernard Shaw.
THE STAINED GLASS WINDOW FROM THE FABIAN SOCIETY ” …The window was purchased by the Webb Memorial Trust and now is on loan to the LSE where it is displayed in the schools Shaw Library. In April of 2006, the window was officially unvieled by a ceremony attended by British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who is a member of the Fabian Society.”
More on the Fabians:
THE HISTORY OF THE FABIAN SOCIETY (Pro-Fabian website)
Centurean2\’s Weblog: THE CITY OF LONDON & THE FABIAN SOCIETY: HISTORY & CURRENT PLANS has a lot on the history and manipulation by the Fabian Society.
KEYNES AT HARVARD: Economic Deception (Another Fabian)
Stuart Chase: Fabian Socialist, Economist, Advisor to FDR, and author of a book called “The New Deal”
FABIAN SOCIETY 65th ANNUAL REPORT For the Year Ending 31st March, 1948
The Fabian Philosophy of the American Civil Liberties Union
You can not separate the Fabians from the Eugenics movement:
Global Warming, Eugenics and the Fabians
Eugenics: the skeleton that rattles loudest in the left’s closet
The eugenics movement Britain wants to forget
How eugenics poisoned the welfare state
The Life and Legacy of Julian Huxley
The Dark Roots of EUGENICS By Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D.
Margaret Sanger, Founder of Planned Parenthood, In Her Own Words: “The most merciful thing that a large family does to one of its infant members is to kill it.”
Why is Royal Society hosting pro-eugenics conference?
If you look at WIKI’s “Alumni of the London School of Economics” you find the likes of David Rockefeller, the Kennedy brothers, George Soros and princes and politicians from all over the world.
A good example of an Alumni of LSE is Robert J. Shapiro. He was principal economic adviser to Bill Clinton, co-founder of the Progressive Policy Institute, and an associate editor of U.S. News & World report. Shapiro currently serves as an adviser to the International Monetary Fund, the Director of the Globalization Initiative of NDN, and Chair of the Climate Task Force.
Gail,
Michael Jacobs, the then Director of the Fabian Society, was on the list of contributors of essays to The Global Third Way Debate I wrote about in this post.
It was called “The Environment, Modernity and the Third Way.” This is how it starts:
“One of the striking features of environmentalism–and this is true as much of the discourse of sustainable development, as of its utopian forebears–is its value-driven nature. Environmental literature tends to start with an analysis of present and predicted environmental degradation; but the next move is nearly always normative–that is to say, value-based–description of what the world should instead be like.”
I’ll stop the quote for a minute to point out that is precisely what creativity and critical thinking as they are actually defined urge and values are a central target of the Common Core and all that data collection to show Growth in terms of change. Jacobs goes on a few sentences later in what could be the anthem for Transformational Outcomes Based Education or the Common Core implementation I have been tracking:
“There is of course nothing wrong with such expressions of idealism; but what frequently seems to be missing is the sense of movement which might take us from the present world to the desired better one.”
Gulp. Except that kind of pie in the sky sentiment is present all through the Common Core and the related social, political, and economic visions.
Here’s another line I marked because it could be the anthem for the education and regional and Green Energy whatever the costs initiatives. “Political action is therefore not about halting the present dynamic, but of shaping and moulding it: neither simply accepting the present order, nor wishing to reverse it, but of finding the limits of its possible forms.”
Which is of course much easier to do if the typical student and then adult has little relevant accurate knowledge of what worked in the past and why or the ability to seek out such info on their own because they are a fluent reader and a logical thinker. Capable of defying the herd once they establish their knowledge base.
Then Jacobs goes on to point out the need for an “active industrial policy” led by the Government and centered around the environment and regional clusters “in particula sectors, linking higher education institutions and venture capital funds with emerging firms.”
Sound familiar? Then “the environmental agenda goes to the heart of economic and industrial policy, and must become part of it.”
So the Fabians actively envisioned in the UK and pushed the precise agenda we are now seeing and implementing here in the US. No wonder the US became Sir Michael Barber’s busy client.
I will have an LSE link in the next post. A UK prof links all these activity theories coning to the ed classroom as student-centered learning to Hegel. When I crosschecked to see what had become of her she now had a faculty position at LSE.
Robin my comment got booted into the ether. please fish it out.