By Linda Murphy

Janet Barresi was elected in 2010 on a platform agreeable to Oklahomans. They liked her promises of Local Control and Academic Standards with assurances of parent and teacher involvement in all aspects of education reform. Barresi described herself as the founder of two successful charter schools, which were locally controlled with parent and teacher involvement. When elected as the first Republican State Superintendent chosen by the people of the state, all seemed well. Voters knew what they wanted and that is what they got……… or so they thought.

Today Barresi is being exposed as a heavy-handed progressive and her record proves it. Upon taking the reins of authority as the Chief State School Officer for Oklahoma, she didn't hesitate to go lockstep in line with the Big Government, Big Business, Progressive education agenda that was laid out before her. One of her first moves was to hire Joel Robinson, a top administrator at the Oklahoma Education Association (OEA), while telling her conservative supporters she would put a stop to the heavy OEA-Union influence at the Oklahoma State Department of Education.

She immediately joined in the Federal Department of Education and U.S. Chamber of Commerce's global corporate controlled education agenda with a stated goal of producing a "workforce" to compete internationally. This is a heavy top-down control system which eliminates the local control Barresi promised. Central to the system is testing/assessments which will drive the curriculum, student advancement, student graduation, school report cards, teacher evaluations and administrator's evaluations.

Barresi quickly joined a 22-state consortium developing Common Core testing/assessments. She sits on the Executive Board of the consortium, Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, (PARCC) where she oversees "day-to-day" operation, according to their documents. PARCC is a non-profit organization and is NOT accountable to the public. What a slap in the face to voters who believed Barresi when she said she would bring more accountability.

On May 21, 2013, Barresi, along the other "Chiefs for Change" (who are Jeb Bush's handpicked School Chiefs) wrote a letter to President Obama's Secretary of Education Arne Duncan. They criticized Duncan, according to their documents on-line, "In response to the call for a moratorium on accountability related to the Common Core State Standards by some in the education community." In Oklahoma and across the nation, mile-long lists of testing problems and concerns have erupted into a backlash.

The Federal Department of Education backed off of their "full-speed-ahead" position and Jeb Bush's group of Chiefs, including Barresi, pushed Duncan to take it back. Barresi demanded that Schools, Administrators, Teachers and Students be "accountable" in her words while she and other chiefs are revamping our entire state education system through non-profit organizations that are NOT accountable to the public. (http://chiefsforchange.org/chiefs-for-change-an-open-letter-of-support-for-common-core/)

Then on July 1, 201, Barresi did a 180-degree about face and announced she is pulling out of PARCC testing for 2014 - 2015. Clearly the heat is being felt by Janet Barresi as more and more Oklahomans on all sides of the political spectrum find out what is happening in Common Core testing, technology requirements and the big picture of the entire Common Core transformation of education.

After that announcement she sent out word that she is staying in PARCC but delaying testing. We won't be fooled into thinking this has changed her agenda. Elections are coming in November 2014, so like her Washington D.C. allies, "hot topics" are being pushed back. Common Core and its central control through testing/assessments has not been "sold" to enough people and the political pressuring is mounting.

Barresi's education agenda has opened the door to usher in progressive education philosophy found throughout the Common Core State Standards, Testing/Assessments and Curriculum produced to align with them. Philosophy, beliefs and ideas from political progressives have for years been rejected by most Oklahoma local school boards, parents and teachers who have been able to filter the curriculum through their own judgment and discernment. Now under Common Core, our teachers are being moved into a restricted role as mere "facilitators" of the system being developed.

Did Janet Barresi at any point explain to the public all of the component parts of the Common Core System which is transforming the education system across our entire state? Has she divulged how the newly developed State Longitudinal Data System (SLDS) will collect, store, analyze and use a wide range of personal and private information on students and teachers?

President Obama on June 1, 2013, announced an initiative to give all schools higher level technology. According to the Huffington Post he wants "teachers to have an ability to assess learning hour-by-hour and day-by-day,"… "The move to digitize classrooms comes just in time for states that are slated to implement assessments tied to the Common Core, a set of learning standards adopted by most U.S. states. The tests tied to the Core are primarily digital, a situation that poses a problem for rural schools that don't have the computers or the bandwidth to test entire classes at once." So Barresi's recent statement that we don't have the technology needed for testing fits hand-in-glove with the President's plans which he expects to pay for with an increase in our telephone bills through E-Rate. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/06/obama-connected_n_3392817.html)

Janet Barresi is in the company of and is pushing the same agenda as President Obama, Bill Gates, Bill Ayres, Arne Duncan, Carnegie Foundation, U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Linda Darling-Hammond. Professor Mary Grabar, known as the Dissident Professor (www.dissidentprof.com) helps citizens see behind the curtains into the developing Common Core curriculum and corresponding test items. For example, Grabar reports that the speeches of Malcolm X are sanctioned as "original source" documents and replace some of the space in traditional curriculum given to documents written by American Founding Fathers. This is only the tip of the iceberg.

These people are progressives with an agenda that makes Oklahomans livid when they find out about it. Janet Barresi still has many people fooled, mainly Republicans, but that won't last because the facts are overwhelming and with today's communication and technology, the truth cannot be hidden forever.

This progressive agenda, which Barresi has endorsed, has only just begun. It is forcing Oklahoma schools to implement changes in teacher training and evaluations to align them with the Common Core philosophy now. This Fall, as schools gear up for a new year, a new level of the multi-year "roll-out" of Baress's agenda is due to bulldoze its way through our schools. Let's all do our homework and know what is being implemented so we can stop it before it goes any further.

Linda Murphy was a candidate for State Superintendent in 1994, receiving 49.5% of the vote. She was Appointed Secretary of Education by Governor Keating. She has served as Education Advisor for the Governor, Deputy Commissioner of Labor for Workforce Education and Training, Optometric Extension Program Foundation Representative, and served on the Governor's School-to-Work Council, State Job Training Coordinating Council, and the Commission on Status of Women. She is an educator certified for 25 years and awarded by Liberty Optical and Optometric Association for work with visually related learning problems. She is also an examiner for Structure of the Intellect. She may be contacted at: lindalearn1@yahoo.com