By Brandon Moseley
Alabama Political Reporter
On Tuesday, conservative activists gathered in Montgomery to welcome back the state legislators and demand that the state adopt a more conservative agenda in 2013. High on their list of demands is that the legislature defunding the Common Core Standards written by education bureaucrats in Washington and adopted by the Alabama School Board at the urging of President Barack H. Obama.
Ken Freeman with the Alliance for Citizen’s rights told the crowd that Common Core was an effort to brainwash children. Freeman said that 13 years of public education and common core standards would transform children into liberals. Freeman told parents that their children, “Won’t want to know you. They won’t know any mother but mother earth. They will know no father but the fatherland, and they will know no God but government.”
Alabama State Senator Dick Brewbaker (R) from Montgomery has sponsored a bill which would defund the Common Core Standards that have been adopted by the Alabama State School Board over the objections of many conservatives, including Governor Robert Bentley (R). Alabama and 44 other states have adopted the Common Core Curriculum at the urging of the Obama (D) Administration. Sen. Brewbaker addressed the crowd, “Even if you thought the standards are good you should still oppose the common core if you support limited government. This is not the time to concede control of education to people in Washington.” Sen. Brewbaker’s bill would defund education standards that are not developed in Alabama. The bill is being handled in the House by Representative Jim Barton (R) from Mobile.
Elois Zeanah, the President of Alabama Republican Woman asked the gathered crowd, “Do you like freedom? Our best defense against federal government is state government. Zeanah said that repealing Common Core standards would overturn the federal takeover of education and would return education freedom to the parents and to the state.
Zeanah said, “Would you drop off your children or grandchildren off at school if your teacher was Barack Obama? It might as well be Barack Obama.” Zeanah said that under Common Core students won’t learn Alabama values they will learn leftist propaganda. “The state legislature is our last line of defense.”
President Zeanah said that there were four reasons to overturn Common Core Standards: Common core creates a federal government database that will follow your children from kindergarten to retirement, it dumbs down education, parents and states will lose rights, it will cost millions of $$s we don’t have, and it will annihilate competition and would trap parents and students in that curriculum.
Alabama Eagle Forum wrote of the common core standards: “We also support state and local control over education. The movement towards a common core curriculum is effectively turning over control of what is taught in our classrooms to a national entity and ultimately to the federal government. This will make it more difficult for parents or teachers who have problems or issues to address them. The State Board of Education currently has a process for writing Courses of Study, which provides for input from parents, teachers and others across the state. The Fordham Institute has ranked Alabama’s standards equal to or better than the proposed Common Core in each subject.”
The Alabama Republican Party Executive Committee overwhelmingly passed a resolution urging that the state legislature repeal the adoption of the common core standards in Alabama at the recent ALGOP Winter meeting.
Forty five states including Alabama have adopted the Common Core Curriculum advocated by President Barack Obama and many national groups.
