EdAction
Maple River Education Coalition PAC
105 Peavey Rd, St 116
Chaska, MN
55318
952-361-4931
http://www.EdAction.org
E-mail
December 12, 2001
A new law that went into effect this year prohibits career tracking for students. The law allows school districts to:
"develop grade-level curricula or provide instruction that introduces students to various careers, but must not require any curriculum, instruction or employment-related activity that obligates an elementary or secondary student to involuntarily select a career, career interest, employment goals, or relate job training." (MN Statute 120B.125)
What does this mean, and why was this passed into law?
Legislators have been reluctant to acknowledge that schools are being rapidly transformed into job training centers with just enough functional literacy required to do the job the students will be certified to do. In many districts around the state (and across the country) schools are guiding elementary students into career pathways by the 8th grade.
Starting in kindergarten (there really is curriculum being widely used for career training for grades K-6), schools train students to believe that work is the only purpose of learning. The new national curriculum is job-training centered, rather than knowledge-based.
The founders of our country recognized that knowledge precedes freedom. Only an educated populace can be free. That is why the early settlers and patriots emphasized learning. Without sufficient knowledge of history, geography, literature and science, people are easily manipulated and restricted. They never discover their own potential or understand the forces that have enslaved people throughout history. A self-governing people must be an educated people, or they become incapable of self-government.
An example of "career tracking" is a curriculum used in some Minnesota middle schools called "The Career Game." Like similar curriculum, it indicates that one's career is "what makes you special." For the record, our Declaration of Independence, the philosophical foundation of the U.S. Constitution, clarifies that we are "created" special, that we are "endowed with certain unalienable rights" because of our being human. Defining our value by our productivity to someone else, whether an employer or the "community," denies and demeans the very foundation of our freedom -- that is, the inherent value of every human life.
"The Career Game" uses a game format for students to list what is important to them, what they enjoy, what they do well, what makes them proud, who they admire, favorite places, things they hang on walls or put on shelves, books they read, games they play and adjectives that describe them. All of these questions and answers are irrelevant to the final "score" however, though 6th - 8th graders would never realize that.
The part of the game that starts adding up a score is the yes or no questions regarding their "interests": fix a car, give a party, follow a recipe, use power tools, put things in order, play with gadgets, wax a car, sell raffle tickets, collect things, follow rules and so on, with 130 such interests in all.
The "interest" answers are color-coded. Upon completion, students add up their yes's and no's for each color, which is supposed to indicate their "career type." With this pseudo-science under their belts, the students may head for the computer, which will suggest jobs for them. Or, they may advance to the "Red Hot Jobs Workbook," which will use their color-codes to recommend jobs and career paths.
If this leaves you alarmed, it should. Career paths are more frequently being required of incoming 9th graders, because students' curriculum is then integrated with the career pathway, and plans for more intense school-at-a-job can be incorporated into their "life plans." The color codes actually have less to do with the final results than meets the eye, however.
Local businesses have been carefully surveyed. The needs of the local business community are being incorporated into the local K-12 classes. The idea is to produce the "supply" of certified entry level workers that the local businesses need. The broader education of the student has taken a back seat.
"Tracking" is producing a supply of pre-trained workers for the needs of business. Keep in mind that the local appointed workforce boards that bring local businesses and schools together are operating under a plan that has been approved and that must comply with the federal Workforce Investment plan. It is federal law.
With that background, it is clear the laws that drive this system must be changed. A broad, liberal arts academic education is being systematically and deliberately eliminated. However, the new, radical education and workforce system relies on parents and business owners being compliant.
- Printout this law. Keep it with you.
- Pay attention to what your children are doing in school. Talk to them. Ask to see what they are using for curriculum. Go down to the school to see it. You have the right to review the entire curriculum your child is receiving.
"Each school district shall have a procedure for a parent, guardian, or an adult student, 18 years of age or older, to review the content of the instructional materials to be provided to a minor child or to an adult student and, if the parent, guardian, or adult student objects to the content, to make reasonable arrangements with school personnel for alternative instruction." (Section 120B.20)
- Refuse to allow your child to participate in surveys that direct them into a career. Challenge your school to provide a liberal arts education that does not train them narrowly in job-skills.
When students are required to create a lifework plan that lays out a career path (no matter the excuse that it may be changed); when students must fill out surveys and assessments that "identify" their "best fit"; or when students must choose 9 -12 grade curriculum based on a particular career path, they are "involuntarily" selecting "a career, career interest, employment goals, or relate job training," – contrary to state statute.
- Find other parents to work with you. You are more effective when you are not alone.
- Include a signed "Parental Informed Consent Notice" in your child's school records that serves notice that you require a five day prior notification of any career survey or assessment being given to your child. It would also serve notice that you refuse permission for your child to participate in these surveys and assessments without your express knowledge and permission.
For those families in the Minneapolis and St. Paul school districts where small learning communities require students to enter one of a small number of career tracks in order to register for classes, you might want to seriously consider hiring an attorney to make this law real for you. Parents in other school districts that provide no other options might consider the same course of action.
Most legislators voted for this law because they did not believe that forcing students into career paths at an early age was actually occurring in our schools. They put this language in statute as a preventative measure. For this reason, any effort on the part of school administration to tell you that this law does not apply should be referred to your state legislators and to us. This may be the session in which lawmakers need to provide serious penalties for violating this statute.
If parents and citizens do not comply with a system being deceitfully forced on them, a system that is eliminating a knowledge-based education for our young people, it becomes very difficult for the bureaucracy to proceed. The bureaucracy is relying on silent complicity.
We in this country are not accustomed to fighting for our freedom. We have taken it for granted. People in most countries of the world long for the opportunities we still have to speak out, to object, to refuse to comply, to become informed and to stand up to what is upon us. It is unthinkable that we would acquiesce with no resistance. Will we silently cooperate as this system is imposed upon our children? Or are we willing to pay the price for freedom? Every citizen and every parent must decide.
If you wish to join us in efforts against this radical new education and workforce system, please contact us. We can use support in distributing this information, in discussing this with people of influence and in financial support.