This is little-known story from the Pentagon on 09/11/2001:
During a visit with a fellow chaplain, who happened to be assigned to the Pentagon, I had a chance to hear a first-hand account of an incident that happened right after Flight 77 hit the Pentagon. The chaplain told me what happened at a daycare center near where the impact occurred. This daycare had many children, including infants who were in heavy cribs. The daycare supervisor, looking at all the children they needed to evacuate, was in a panic over what they could do. There were many children, mostly toddlers, as well as the infants that would need to be taken out with the cribs.
There was no time to try to bundle them into carriers and strollers. Just then a young Marine came running into the center and asked what they needed. After hearing what the center director was trying to do, he ran back out into the hallway and disappeared. The director thought, 'well, there we are-on our own.'
About 2 minutes later, that Marine returned with 40 other Marines in tow. Each of them grabbed a crib with a child, and the rest started gathering up toddlers. The director and her staff then helped them take all the children out of the center and down toward the park near the Potomac and the Pentagon. Once they got about 3/4 of a mile outside the building, the Marines stopped in the park, and then did a fabulous thing - they formed a circle with the cribs, which were quite sturdy and heavy, like the covered wagons in the Old West. Inside this circle of cribs, they put the toddlers, to keep them from wandering off. Outside this circle were the 40 Marines, forming a perimeter around the children and waiting for instructions. There they remained until the parents could be notified and come get their children.
The chaplain then said, "I don't think any of us saw nor heard of this on any of the news stories of the day. It was an incredible story of our men there. There wasn't a dry eye in the room. The thought of those Marines and what they did and how fast they reacted; could we expect any less from them? It was one of the most touching stories from the Pentagon.
Let us do our part to protect the children--Please help prevent the nationalizing of education. A vote is set soon for states such as Alabama. Get informed!!
Alert: Nationalizing Education--Vote Set Nov 18th--As one mother has said, "our kids are not for sale".
Last year, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers agreed to sponsor the Common Core State Standards Initiative with help from Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the United States Department of Education (USDE). Goal were to develop common mathematics and English, Language, Arts (ELA) standards that states could supposedly voluntarily adopt. USDE then included adoption of the standards as part of the application for states to qualify for “Race to the Top” education grants. Most states agreed to it even before the standards were published in June.
Here are warnings from Professor Jim Milgram and Professor Sandra who were in the national validation committee forming the standards. In spite of what is being said by others these two were the experts in Math and ELA and here is what they say:
"How can the State Boards of Education make decisions when they haven't even read the standards? Many state's Board Member had never been initiated into what was in these documents. What were the policy issues coming out of these documents and whether these analyses were truly were in a sense legitimate academic analysis...These are very serious issues about what self- government means at the state and local government level."--Sandra Stotsky, professor in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, and holds the 21st Century Chair in Teacher Quality.
"...the requirement to automaticity on their own self- invented algorithms, was one of the political issues that came in at the last moment and it's absolutely crazy. And then there was an entire list of similar ones, that equally made no sense whatsoever in terms of the long term development of children's mathematical capacity." -- Dr. R. James Milgram, professor of Mathematics at Stanford University, member of NASA advisory council.
Bottom line is that CCSS is going to open the door wide to more indoctrination as the English is now going to be more about information and with Kevin Jennings in the USDE that is very troubling. More dumbing down as in the math, children will learn their own way which could be wrong, and then- maybe a couple of years later the right way. What input parents had by going to their school boards will no longer be there. You have til Nov to contact Gov Riley (334) 242-7100 and State Board Chairman Dr. Morton (334) 242-9700 and tell them whether or not you want the Common Core States Standards. The first regional meeting was last Tues in Mobile and only two parents went (most don't know).
See interviews on the podsite with these two professors