Straight A Students Being Held Back a Grade for Refusing to Take Common Core Standardized TestsBy Melissa Dykes Parents who opted their kids out of Floridas standardized state tests at the end of the year as an act of civil disobedience are now being told their children, despite some having straight As, are going to be held back a grade as punishment once again proving that Americas public school system is not about educating smart future leaders of tomorrow, but dumbing kids down and forcing them to obey and conform. Via The Orlando Sentinel: The parents, part of the opt out movement opposed to high-stakes testing, are furious. They are convinced school districts are not following state law and are instead retaliating against families who refused to take part in the Florida Standards Assessments. They did so as an act of civil disobedience to protest what they view as the states over-reliance on an unproven standardized test. Theres no reason for a third grader with straight As to be retained, said parent Rhonda Nickerson, whose 9-year-old daughter may be barred from fourth grade at a Seminole County elementary school. What are they going to do with her in third grade again? Rhondas daughters report card shows straight As but also reads Student Retained in Grade 3. Makes sense right? What is the goal of school again? Sounds like shes being set up to get in trouble out of boredom for a year, then be labeled in her permanent file as one of those smart troublemaker throwaway kids for the rest of her public education career. Its force by the government as government grows incredibly large and far more dangerous, the Independent Sentinel reports. Florida is not the only state penalizing kids for not taking unproven standardized government tests. WND reports that at least a dozen students in Greenville, South Carolina were officially disciplined for refusal to obey because they would not take the new standardized ACT test. Parents told the newspaper their kids were pressured by school officials in front of their classmates to take the tests. When they refused, they were removed from class and taken to another room, where the principal again pressured them. Ultimately, they were accused in an official discipline referral of refusal to obey, the parents told the newspaper. Refusal to obey. Wow. Is the ACT even required unless a student is going to go to college? The school must be getting some kind of kickback. The biggest argument against what many parents see as the excessive standardized testing that has been put in place nationally ever since No Child Left Behind began is that these tests are high-stakes for the children and the teachers and, ultimately, unproven. Simply put, these tests are not evidence-based. Neither is Common Core. The whole thing is a giant social engineering experiment which treats American students like lab rats. As previously reported, some kids have gotten so stressed out over these high-stakes, mind-melting tests that they literally wet themselves and throw up while having to take them. Independent journalist Dave Hodges summed Common Core up nicely: Common Core is a simply a regurgitation of Blooms Taxonomy combined with some very clever propaganda interwoven into the fabric of every course which embraces social justice, collectivism, the eventual deindustrialization of America through the acceptance of climate change theories, and the resulting carbon taxes and cap and trade policies which will follow. For the people at the top who put such a system in place, it is working to create generation after generation of just the kind of gullible, obedient citizens an authoritarian system wants to control. Just look around. Our public education system is producing a nation of politically correct whiners who shrink from critical thought, trusting everything their government and mainstream media tells them, and crying for microaggression-free safe spaces at the slightest hint that someone disagrees with their politically correct position on anything. The public education system in this country is doing exactly what it is meant to do adjust children to accept a maladjusted society, no questions asked. As professor Patrick Deneen wrote, We have fallen into the bad and unquestioned habit of thinking that our educational system is broken, but it is working on all cylinders. What our educational system aims to produce is cultural amnesia, a wholesale lack of curiosity, history-less free agents, and educational goals composed of content-free processes and unexamined buzz-words like critical thinking, diversity, ways of knowing, social justice, and cultural competence. Our education system produces solipsistic, self-contained selves whose only public commitment is an absence of commitment to a public, a common culture, a shared history. They are perfectly hollowed vessels, receptive and obedient, without any real obligations or devotions. They wont fight against anyone, because thats not seemly, but they wont fight for anyone or anything either Image Credit: The Tenth Amendment Center Melissa Dykes is a writer, researcher, and analyst for The Daily Sheeple and a co-creator of Truthstream Media with Aaron Dykes, a site that offers teleprompter-free, unscripted analysis of The Matrix we find ourselves living in. Melissa also co-founded Nutritional Anarchy with Daisy Luther of The Organic Prepper, a site focused on resistance through food self-sufficiency. Wake the flock up! This is their reward for participating in public school. When are these people going to learn? Remove your kids from these indoctrination centers!!! Parents need to sue the school for child abuse or somesuch. A nice class action against this unjust punishment of kids needs to stop. No due process either in keeping straight A kids down a year. Oh yes, this is a win in court all day long. The courts and legal system are designed to prevent Justice, so suing isnt the answer. Removing children from public education is the only way to save them. Much easier to sue them for specifically being advanced to the next grade (specific performance.) This costs the school nothing, so they should be much more willing to grant it. Adults who still send children to public education are pretty much getting what they deserve. This is Animal Farm Brave New World et alepitomized in the existential present this is the dictatorial action of a totalitarian stasi police state playing Wack-a-Mole with our precious innocent children especially vulnerable to mandatory vaccines Kommon Kores mind-fuk specious indoctrinated inculcation of their dumbed-down programmed Edukashun.. because of our heavy dependence on govnt benefits!after they stole all of our wealth that is insidiously withheld until were forced to capitulate to this neo-fascist neocon NWO nightmare. in order to eat with a roof over our headseg: 1930s Russia Germany reappearing once again (imo) .Im sorry to do this and I hate myself for writing this comment but I just felt like you needed this criticism I get embarrassed reading your comments. You try so hard to sound intellectual by piling polysyllabic words all over on top of each other. Why the existential present? Why is it not just the present? Having to do with existence? Specious indoctrinated inculcation? Specious doesnt fit or add anything to the description of common core and indoctrinate and inculcate are synonymsAnd all this Edukashun and Kommon Kore stuff is boring. I dont get why people make use of whatever you would call that. I agree with you that our government is corrupt and horrible and all that but I have read so many comments of yours like this that just screamLook at me and how smart I ambut seem more likeI just went through my dictionary looking for big words to throw around so everyone will think me intelligent. Heres some big words for yaVerbosity..loquaciousness..prolixityredundance..Maybe you get drunk at night and start writing this nonsense and it seems like youre killing it at the time but then it turns out like this..I dont knowIf it was just this one comment I would never have written my criticism but its every post I see that you put on here that is written in this exact same manner. I guess I just got tired of seeing this and thought that I could be of some help. I am not sure how the answer was achieved. Looks like total confusion to make the kids think they are too stupid to get it. Common core is communistic and should be shoved up the backside of who ever brought this to the table. Wow, Gwenethso youre saying that top one is the actual content of the kids worksheet and not a joke? If so, that alone shows what serious, serious trouble we are in. And the bottom one, again, not a joke? If not, it is clearly meant to scramble kids brains. Scary indeed. Theyre asking math questions based on criminal actions in language arts class????? Somethings snapped if they allow these types of questions, there is something seriously wrong with their thinking processes to think such questions would be appropriate for students AND that math somehow belongs in language studies. And why is Gang/ Crew included on the sheet to be filled out? Are they pretending they are in/ running a gang? WTF? Common Core is simply an updated part of Education 2000, a global plan to dumb down all the kids of the world so they would be good little slaves as adults. This way they will meekly serve the 1 world corporate government until they are no longer needed and can be killed. . dude, the common core test is literally what sets the grade in school. LITERALLY. What most of the other assignments do, even if you get straight As on them, is a) to teach for the test and b) give kids an idea of where theyre gonna place in the actual testing. Without taking the test these kids have no official score. What did people THINK would happen? Why would you put your kids future on the line for the sake of a political statement? So if the kid tests 2 grade levels above the average, is she skipped 2 grades? I dont think so. Maximilien Robespierre: In Europe it is known as Common Purpose . I took a modern mathematics test and it was full of this stuff . The young examiner was astonished that I knew multiplication tables I had learnt by heart nearly 50 years ago. So you have straight A students Does this test need to be passed? When in high school my English teacher told me not to bother taking the final because even if I flunked it I would still get an A. Is this similar to the old intelligence tests that had you fill in the oval with a number 2 pencil? We didnt have to pass those tests. We had to take them, but were told that there was no grading. Heck, one time I got them all wrong and had to take the test over. Take the test already. fill in the wrong oval. Again, the emphasis is solely on matters which do not relate to merit or ability. This is mass confusion. This is indoctrination. More and more schools have no participation by parents. Where are the PTAs? More and more schools force conforming lesson plans on all teachers, so no teacher can deviate. The math problem set forth above for Common Core is insanity. If you wanted to make sure no one understood simple math, thats 