Rep. Sinicki resigns from WI Common Core committee citing John Birch Society influence
A man of principle, a Democrat.
http://www.bluecheddar.net/?p=36184
If you listen to that 40 second long YouTube video embedded above, you’ll hear visiting exert Dr. James Milgram – who is from California – stammer about how he doesn’t know who has paid for his passage to the Common Core hearing held in Eau Claire, Wisconsin October 23rd. Right. Later in the hearing it’s revealed that the America Opinion Foundation (AOF), which is an arm of the John Birch Society is close to the John Birch Society, paid his way.
Rep. Sinicki’s letter of resignation from this committee, which I located this morning on Blogging Blue, explains the bigger picture:
This letter is sent to you to tender my resignation from the Assembly Select Committee on Common Core Standards (SCCCS). While I respect my fellow Democrats’ stamina in remaining on the Committee, I believe it is time for me to end an association with what is sadly a deeply biased hearing process, not an objective policy review.
It has become painfully clear that this committee and its activities are occurring at the behest of interested parties outside of this Legislature, and even this state. I believe that this SCCCS is primarily a roadshow, in conjunction with the Republican National Committee (RNC) and its April 2013 resolution, to distract from that party’s recent national failures. The general criticisms of the Common Core Standards here in Wisconsin echo the extreme statements coming out of the RNC, which is a campaign organization, and other Republican sources in Washington, D.C. and around the country.
This extremism about common standards, not to mention public education in general, seems to emanate from the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party. And in turn, they have attracted another extreme and very rich ally in the national John Birch Society (JBS), which is conveniently headquartered here in Wisconsin. Each of the SCCCS’s informational hearings have featured speakers suggested to the SCCCS chairs by the JBS, and whose travel expenses from distant parts of the country have been paid for by the American Opinion Foundation (AOF), a proud arm of the Birch Society. On Wisconsin Eye video of the Eau Claire SCCCS hearing, these invited speakers from other states say, bizarrely, that they don’t know who it was that called and invited them but that, upon arrival, they were handed expense checks issued by AOF (which they then show the committee members). In the meantime, actual Wisconsin educators who have attended the hearings on their own initiative have often been turned away from testifying due to the bulk of attention and time being reserved for invited speakers.
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I cannot in good conscience sit on a committee that has involved the most extreme national interest groups on education in planning and executing official Legislative hearings, all the while completely ignoring the voices of my district. At such time in the future that the Committees decide to start paying attention to the experiences of and often overwhelming support of Common Core standards of the actual teachers, administrators and people of Wisconsin, I would be glad to participate.
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