Letter from Dr. Lou Campomenosi--click to read the entire letter. Friday, 10 January, 2014 Dear Friends and Fellow Patriots: Your Alabama Tea Party Conservative Coalition [ATPCC] had another conference this past November to develop our agenda for this year’s legislative session that starts next week and to develop plans for our annual Welcome Back Rally. As you can see from the below flyer, we will meet this Tuesday, 14 January, in Montgomery at 11am-Noon,on the State House Steps, 10 Union Street, Montgomery, AL. Many of you may have seen the flyer and a note similar to this via the ATPCC email list, so, if you have received those already, bear with me, please, because we needed to make sure that as many Patriot individuals/groups as possible are informed about what is going on so we can show a great deal of support at the Rally. Please note: That while I have referenced the ATPCC and am the Chair of the ATPCCs Planning Committee, this analysis represents my views and not necessarily the views of the ATPCC, particularly since I am focusing only on Repealing Common Core while the ATPCC agenda has several parts to it as seen in the Welcome Back Rally flyer at the bottom of this email. THE NEW POLITICAL DYNAMIC THAT WILL LEAD TO REPEAL For those who are hearing about the Rally for the first time and have not read this before, I would ask that you take some time to think about the best ways to gather support for the Rally. Last year we came very close in the senate to having Senator Dick Brewbakers Repeal Common Core [CC] Bill brought out of the Education Committee and brought to a vote. Unfortunately, Senator Bill Holtzclaw’s alternative bill was not tabled in the Committee and then Senator Del Marsh, Senate President Pro Temp, refused to bring the Brewbaker Bill up for a vote--you know the rest of the story. Now, we are facing a critical point in the Repeal CC fight because the longer CC is allowed to continue, the harder it will be to repeal it, especially as they begin to pour more money into the assessment phase which requires a huge[and never costed out!!!] expenditure of money [that we don’t have!!]. Yet, there still is time and there is hope because the dynamics of the debate have changed significantly over the course of the last year and that has brought increased strength to us as we anticipate this session’s start and the forthcoming battle to repeal. There are five reasons it is possible to say we have gained strength: 1) Since, the end of last session, parents and grandparents have become more aware of the dangers of CC and how destructive it really is. This is due in part because they have seen firsthand how bad CC is in reality when their loved ones come home from school bewildered and upset by new ways to “teach” math and are frustrated by the school system’s lack of response to parent’s legitimate concerns [a harbinger of life under bureaucratic rule that we have been warning about since “Day One”!]. 2) Parents and citizens in general also came to a better understanding of what conservative critics have been saying about why CC is a danger because so many ATPCC groups throughout the state beginning last summer held Repeal CC Forums, conducted studies, showed anti-CC films, wrote letters, hit the talk radio circuit and, in general, raised the level of awareness about the dangers posed by Common Core. 3) Linked to their new awareness of CC’s true nature, parents and others saw the outrageous horrors the beginning of Obamacare brought to the nation and in all too many cases to their families, friends and neighbors. All the warnings conservatives like Ted Cruz had been making about Obamacare and the need to defund it, suddenly became true leading to a Great Awakening--now, all the magic from 2008 was shown to be what we had said it was all along--lies to disguise a socialist agenda! Thankfully, we saw that Obamacare reflected badly on all things linked to Obama [note his fall in the polls]—including Common Core! Now, there was a new willingness to listen to Obama’s critics who have been raising similar warnings about “ObamaEd” as they did about Obamacare—our stock shot up! 4) The next reason we have gained broader support is due to what Dr. Thomas Bice, State Superintendent of Education, attempted to do last summer when he overreached in trying to take control of private schools and homeschooling. His move showed the degree to which the people have lost control over the educational process and the willingness of the educational elites [“educrats”] to use whatever levers of power they have to impose their will regardless of what we think about any of it! Note again the warnings we have been giving for five years about the threat to liberty by un-elected bureaucratic elites—Bice’s behavior shows us how true the warning is. All of the above have created a tsunami of resistance to not only the attempt to take over private and home schooling, but also what Bice and his “educrat” cronies have done in shoving Common Core down our throats. 5) This is a two part final reason: A. When Dean Young, the Tea Party candidate for the 1st Congressional District seat, took 48% of the votes in the runoff election against Bradley Byrne, it sent shock waves through the political establishment--uh, oh, these people are for real after all! The fact that so much outside money from establishment sources came from out of the state to help defeat Dean is an indication of just how fearful the state power brokers are of the grassroots which wants conservative principles and values to rule, not business as usual. Political translation: It is an election year, so do these elected officials who want their jobs back really want to battle an enraged and organized citizenry by caving in to the special interests and not repealing CC? Stay tuned, well find out soon! B. Linked to grassroots anger over CC, we saw that SBOE member, Mary Scott Hunter, who had become the face and voice of CC support, was censured for her support of CC by the Madison County GOP Executive Committee. This was certainly a step in the right direction and another signal to elected officials that the grassroots opposition to CC is real! Politically, the visible corruption in Montgomery, of which CC is a large part, has created a mounting crescendo of outrage, fueled by the Alabama Tea Party Conservative Coalition and certain reporters such as Charlie Britt, challenging Speaker of the House Mike Hubbard’s legitimacy to remain in office due to his abuse of power and the perception of wrongdoing so antithetical to the principles that brought the GOP to power in 2010. Closely linked to that is the growing grassroots rejection and splintering within the GOP Right-Wing versus the GOP Establishment over what former Governor Bob Riley and his crony Hubbard have created: a “good-old-boy political system based on control of money to win elections and co-opt all internal opposition thereby creating an unprincipled approach to politics that the Tea Party and other Conservative groups totally reject—what Hubbard and Riley have done is no different from Huey Long and the Chicago Daley Machine and our own former powerful Democrats who held power for 134 years. While Hubbard has not yet been indicted for criminal wrongdoing, there is a nagging suspicion that since he is the subject of a criminal investigation by the State Attorney General’s office led by a serious investigator, Matt Hart, who is looking into Hubbard’s questionable activities as Speaker and when he was the Chair of the Alabama Republican Party, Hubbard’s days may be numbered—perhaps where there is smoke, there is fire. THE REAL STORY BEHIND COMMON CORE AND WHY CONSERVATIVES REJECT IT While Riley’s role in the good-old-boy network may not have risen to the point of hostility now seen as a result of recent revelations, Riley has always been the target of conservative outrage over his imposing Common Core as a lame duck [even then, Governor-elect Bentley asked Riley to not adopt CC for that very “lame duck” reason!], because in part, Alabama standards had been judged as A- in Math and B+ in English—the old adage “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”—somehow got lost in the debate! Did you ever stop to think why Riley pressed so hard to adopt CC? Particularly if all the data points were showing that Alabama’s educational policies over the last decade were starting to see real and substantial progress? Could it be that Riley and his friends wanted Bill Gates’ support [money] and the only way to ensure that was to have Gates’s ideologically driven pet project, Common Core, be brought to Alabama by Riley? It seems to me that is the only answer that makes any sense--keep reading to see why . As bad as what Riley did in forcing adoption of CC, the story was far worse when you look carefully at what internal problems existed with Common Core [in addition to some petty details that did not bother the CC crowd like the fact that trying to mandate a one-size-fits-all program for the Nation was ahistorical, unconstitutional, and in violation of the Department of Educations enabling legislation!] For starters, consider that Common Core was NEVER field tested—it was drawn up, supposedly put through a validation process that included two eminent experts, Dr. Sandra Stotsky, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas and former Senior Associate Commissioner of Education in Massachusetts, who wrote their highly acclaimed English standards and Dr. R. James Milgram, Emeritus Professor, Department of Mathematics, Stanford University, and member of the National Board for Education Sciences, who was instrumental in developing California’s excellent Math standards. Critically, something important happened during the validation process: both of these experienced experts in English and Math respectively, who were assigned to validate the CC standards in these two areas in late 2009, refused to certify the English and Math standards because they were inferior. Additionally, supporters of CC who kept saying that CC was “Internationally Benchmarked,” found their claims under direct attack by CC critics who said it was not true and that there was no proof to the claim [CC finally took that claim from their website!]. On top of those two issues that should have been show stoppers in a rational world, conservative critics also raised concerns along the lines of state sovereignty being lost because CC would cede control of state education to the federal government. CC supporters said this was a red-herring issue designed to scare people, but the facts contradicted the CC crowd because the agreement signed by the state forced the state to accept everything CC demanded with no changes possible because CC was copyrighted--it was all or nothing and now we see teachers and parents lamenting the fact that there is no flexibility to deal with when real world problems pop up that always exist in the classroom--too bad, CC rules. With all of those criticisms, did that stop CC? NO! By early 2010, CC was blessed [note again: never piloted and having two experts refusing to certify the standards!] and on its way and by November 2010, Former Governor Bob Riley had it passed by our State Board of Education [SBOE]. If all of those facts did not give our State Board of Education reason to pause in the rush to implement CC, it is reasonable to ask what is going on here? Well, ask we did! And, as you may recall, in 2011, we were able to have a Rescind Common Core Resolution brought for a vote in the State Board of Education during a period of time when Governor Bentley was in charge of the SBOE because a new superintendent had not yet been selected. That resolution failed because four supposedly “conservative” Republicans [one such, Mary Scott Hunter, who ran for her seat in 2010 opposed to CC and for “conservative family values”]voted with the two Democrats and defeated the efforts of the Governor, and true conservatives, Stephanie Bell and Betty Peters. As a side note: the state GOP leaders wonder why the Tea Party and other Conservative groups find it difficult to trust the GOP! As bad as what was seen taking place in the SBOE, one would have thought that our GOP legislators, flush with victory and power and brandishing their “conservative” beliefs in 2010, would have taken a hard look at CC. But, despite the rising chorus of conservative concern for what CC really meant to our state educational system[thanks to Eunie Smith and Eagle Forum], that was not the case. Here it is fair to say that they cannot hide from their own responsibility for not having taken a more aggressive look at CC in general, but especially where the money was going to come from to pay for all of the new approaches imposed by CC—particularly when the state finances were suffering due to the recession [recall that in 2012 they had to ram through a Constitutional Amendment to allow them to borrow $437m from the Alabama Trust Fund to balance the budget--FISCAL CONSERVATIVES INDEED!!]. But no, even the fact that a cost analysis was never done to see what expenses would be involved to go forward with CC, our supposedly “fiscal conservatives” failed to raise any red flags to challenge what was taking place. Even over the next two years, when financial issues were continuously raised by various ATPCC members [For instance, in 2011, our Tea Party met with Senator Trip Pittman and he said he would have language written into the state Education Budget to not fund CC--others have followed suit every year lobbying for the same remedy to no avail], the Education Budget did not defund CC AS PROMISED—shame on all of them for being such “useful idiots” to their political masters! THE PATH TO REPEALING CC The most important thing we can do now is to ask a question that undermines the legitimacy of what Riley and his cronies did: “Who follows a process such as this where state control of education is given to an outside entity [the federal government], where inferior standards are being adopted, TO ADD INSULT TO INJURY, ON TOP OF NEVER BEING FIELD TESTED, and, where no one knows how much it will cost?” Short answer: A CABAL OF SCHEMERS that are only concerned for their own benefit would do that. And now we get to the old, cynical political aphorism used to understand political decisions: follow the money. Here is where we can see the logic of everything that Bob Riley and his co-conspirators did in this shameful process that finally has been illuminated by so many patriots to the point where the stench of corruption has at last brought Alabamians from all walks of life, races, religions, parents and grandparent, teachers and administrators, preachers and priests to finally say: ENOUGH! CORRUPTION MUST STOP NOW! AND, I WOULD ARGUE, THAT YOU HAVE TO HELP STOP IT BY BECOMING ENGAGED IN THIS FIGHT! AS WE SAY NO TO THE CORRUPTION WE SEE AROUND US,WE ALSO REJECT BUREAUCRATIC CONTROL OF EDUCATION FROM WASHINGTON OR MONTGOMERY—WE WANT TO ENSURE LOCAL CONTROL OF OUR EDUCATION,ENSURE THAT PRO-AMERICAN AND CHRISTAIN VALUES ARE TAUGHT, AND ENSURE WE REACH HIGHER LEVELS OF ACHIEVEMENT FOR ALL OF OUR STUDENTS, RICH AND POOR AND OF ALL RACES! Please note that in all of this discussion, there has not been ONE politician who has come out and said ENOUGH with us. Yes, there are some who are supporting repeal and other bills and mouthing the same old platitudes, but where is the outrage from our leaders who have allowed the Riley-Hubbard Machine to dominate them? I believe the “Great Awakening” brought on by Obamacare has spilled over into our Repeal CC debate and it is politically explosive if we make it so--it may even awaken the go-along-to-get-along crowd in the legislature to take stock and revolt against such a corrupt and pathetic group of so-called leaders. Now is the time for them to clean up their mess, but will we see anyone with the courage to stand up and do it? We can hope. And now, that is our challenge and our opportunity. For the first time in the history of our annual Rally, we have reached out to a variety of groups who have similar interests and values as we do [2d Amendment groups, Catholic Schools, Christian School Organizations, Home School Groups, and Anti-Common Core groups]. It is our hope that by doing this, we’ll be able to mobilize enough people to have a large, supportive crowd at the Rally that will send a signal to the legislators that we are determined to pass Repeal of Common Core and the other items on the ATPCC agenda and, since this is an election year, they will be in electoral peril if they CAVE ON REPEAL this year—pretty simple message. But it takes all of us to carry it out to its fullest! PLEASE GET INVOLVED! Join us on the 14th and press your elected officials to Repeal CC! Aux Barricades mes Ami!. To the Barricades my Friends! If not us, who?; If not now, when? Thanks for taking the time to read this long article—I hope that it helps in a better understanding of why we want CC repealed and will bring you and many others out to the Rally on Tuesday! Best wishes for a Happy New Year! Lou Please note: If there is inclement weather that would hinder or prevent an outdoor Rally, our plan is to spend as much time as possible indoors lobbying our elected officials—show up anyway! As we get closer to the start of the session, Id like to ask everyone to do a few things that will be very helpful to Repealing CC: Ø Contact as many people in your circle of influence, some of whom may be part of the groups we are reaching out to and urge them to contact their elected representatives and go to the Rally: 2d Amendment groups, Catholic Schools, Christian School Organizations, Home School Groups, and Anti-Common Core groups. Alabama Tea Party/Conservative Coalition Welcome Back Rally Tuesday, January 14, 2014 11:00am-Noon State House Steps, 10 Union Street, Montgomery, AL Everyone is invited to attend a Rally in support of Alabama Tea Party/Conservative Coalition # 1 Issue: Repeal Common Core/Save Christian Education/Protect Home School Education Key Note Speaker: Dr. John Killian Other speakers: Senators Beason, Brewbaker and Pittman; Rep MikeBall; Patriots—Dr. Lou Campomenosi,Don Casey, Cheryl Ciamarra, Ken Freeman, Becky Gerritson,—More TBA! Make posters (no sticks allowed) Use LARGE PRINT to read at distance. 1. Pass Beason and Brewbaker Bills: Repeal Common Core/ Save Christian Education/ Protect Home School Education 2. Pass Alabama Informed Voter Act 3. Repeal 1990’s Constitutional Convention Bill 4. Pass “ Initiative & Referendum COMMON SENSE CAMPAIGN, SPANISH FORT, AL Contact us at [email protected] Office phone: 251-626-7808
Posted on: Sat, 11 Jan 2014 19:07:18 +0000