By Linda Murphy

It was no surprise, on January 12, 2021, when I read that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce came out openly to join with the other Globalists in urging Congress to take action against President Trump, as reported in The Hill. The Chamber CEO said it was needed “to ensure our Nation’s well-being and security.” The Chamber has now shown its fangs to more of the public. President Trump disrupted their Globalist agenda on several fronts and they want Trump and the whole America First support base to be shut down and prevent another rise of their political power.

Today many Americans can see how people, organizations and corporations in a Global network of money and power have aggressively worked to have centralized control over our economy and virtually all aspects of our life including healthcare, agriculture and education. I have written and spoken for several years about this and how the U.S. Chamber along with many Governors of both parties lined up to support the highly controversial plans for top-down control of K-12th grade public schools.

Now the Globalists’ agenda has been exposed. Every elected official has a duty to examine our State Agencies and Institutions. Oklahoma’s Governor, Governor’s Secretary of Education, Governor’s State School Board, State House members and Senators must look closely at the details involved in Oklahoma’s K-12 education system. It is in their hands to research and understand how the same Globalist agenda that the majority of our state officials say they oppose on the national level continues to operate through the Oklahoma State Department of Education. If they want the truth and seek it, they will find facts that are well documented.

Because of the exposure of the globalists’ plans for the economy, their education agenda can now be understood by many more people. Oklahomans must not allow our children’s’ minds to be used to further their goals with which we do not agree. If you think this is a far-fetched concern then you have not done your homework. Having an open mind to see what you may not have seen before will help you understand how the global plan for education is a powerful enemy….. of our freedom, local control of education and an equal opportunity for a strong academic preparation in K-12th grades. I am inserting some previously published information to help further understanding of how global education plans have become embedded.

The Chamber of Commerce and National Governors Association Global Workforce Plans (2015)

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has a plan for workforce development called “Talent Pipeline” Management. The pipeline starts with “Raw Material” symbolized as “FE,” which stands for a common element in the earth, iron. This raw material (FE) is your child, the student, who is supplied by the parents. Are you willing to supply your child to be the “raw materials” in this system which is planned to centralize control of education, training, jobs and opportunities? What could possibly go wrong with this great plan? The Chamber’s (3.5 min.) video gives you an overview of a part of the planned system: (YouTube - U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Center for Education and Workforce USCCF channel – What is Talent Pipeline Management?)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZMR85Q7oqq0#t=83

This and other big plans for centralizing control of workforce development are moving forward at the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce, in the U.S. Chamber, in global corporations, and at non-profit organizations, as they work together and pour millions of dollars into marketing and lobbying to impose their version of government policies in our K-12th grade schools. They say that we must “align education with the needs of business” and we must make these changes to compete in the global economy to improve our state economy.

Following the Chamber’s shock at their defeat in Oklahoma’s repeal of Common Core Standards in June 2014, the State Chamber of Commerce CEO and President announced a new foundation to gather support for their “Oklahoma Educated Workforce Initiative.” He asserted that the Chamber will stay in the battle for control of what Oklahoma students are taught. He said business is the biggest consumer of education. His rhetoric should not replace the knowledge that our public education system was established for the benefit of individuals, children who become adults, Oklahomans who will live a better and more productive life with a good education. It was not established to serve the profits of business.

National Governors Association

The Chamber’s pipeline corresponds with the National Governors Association’s (NGA)“human capital pipeline.” This is described in the “America Works” initiative introduced by Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin, then Chairman of the NGA, at a press conference in July 2013. “America Works” is the updated version of President Clinton’s “School-to-Work” system (as former Superintendent Barresi acknowledged during our November 2013 debate at the GOP 2nd District meeting).

These plans first emerged in President Clinton’s Administration, following his term as Chairman of the NGA, where he worked out details and gathered major corporate backing. The NGA has long worked hand-in-hand with the Chamber of Commerce and global corporations to set education policy. I attended the NGA meeting for education advisors in Chicago in 1995, where I represented Governor Keating and the state of Oklahoma. In an afternoon session advisors were pressed to agree to the education agenda, which had been developed under Clinton while Chairman of the NGA. I rejected endorsement of the agenda for Oklahoma and was joined by the Governors’ advisors from Virginia and New Hampshire. Nationwide opposition to School-to-Work was high and growing at that time.

Boeing Corporation paid for the Chicago conference and presented their education policy goals. (Oklahoma’s Chamber has a Boeing representative on the board for their Workforce Initiative Foundation.) Marc Tucker with Carnegie Foundation’s National Center for Education and the Economy (NCEE) was also in the Chicago meeting promoting a program, which he described in writing as “cradle to grave” control of education and the economy. He said that employers were more concerned about students’ behaviors and attitudes than their ability to use math and that is incorporated in the plans. NCEE’s blueprint included an extensive student data base for tracking which is now in place in every state under the requirements attached to receiving stimulus money from President Obama.

Marc Tucker wrote to Hillary Clinton back in 1992 (in a now infamous letter found in the Congressional Record) about his anticipation to put in place those plans which they had designed together along with David Rockefeller and Michael Cohen, while Hillary was First Lady of Arkansas. Michael Cohen was with the Clintons in Arkansas and then in Washington D.C. He later became director of the non-profit Achieve, where he worked in 2006-2007 with NGA chairman Janet Napolitano, who was Governor of Arizona. They produced a 2008 report benchmarking education levels of countries under the direction of the international Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). The OECD is a non-governmental organization which is a partner with the United Nations and pledged to Agenda 2030 to quote “Change our World” through “Sustainable Development.”

The NGA report is entitled, Benchmarking for Success: Ensuring U.S. Students Receive a World-Class Education, and states: “We are living in a world without borders. To meet the realities of the 21st century global economy and maintain America’s competitive edge into the future, we need students who are prepared to compete not only with their American peers, but with students from all across the globe for the jobs of tomorrow. States have voluntarily taken the lead in developing standards-based education, but policymakers lack a critical tool for moving forward-international benchmarking. This report is intended to help states take the next steps toward ensuring that American students receive a world-class education that positions them to compete and innovate in the 21st century.”

A world without borders? What about sovereignty? This statement (goal?) is right in line with the ideology of the revisionists’ history that says America is NOT exceptional and we need to admit it. In fact we need to repay and repair all damage done from our first days as a nation. In other words redistribute wealth. To acknowledge our American exceptionalism sets us apart and that causes those who embrace globalism to be very distressed so the “old school” thinking must be eradicated to accept the “world without borders.”

NGA Chairman, Napolitano led America’s governors in receiving an official endorsement of globalist ideology in the benchmarking report that helped give “official” sanction to a nationwide promotion to reform public education to train a global workforce. At the same time, Michael Cohen and others at Achieve, including David Coleman were hard at work writing the Common Core State Standard. Common Core was marketed as simply a set of “state led” standards but they are more accurately identified as a component of the system being built for the global workforce. They are coded and set in a framework with a limited number of items to be taught and measured for each student’s skills file. They were written by a panel that set outcome goals for what they decided businesses want in workers then they wrote backward from those goals. These standards are aimed at aligning education with business and were never about improving what we have traditionally expected to be goals for academic achievement for all students. David Coleman now heads the national organization College Board, which developed the very controversial AP History Standards that are full of anti-American revisionism, staying true to his course in transforming education.

In June 2014, while the NGA was chaired by Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin, HB 3399 was passed by our legislature to repeal the NGA created Common Core Standards from state law, sending an important message nationwide. The repeal of the standards was fought hard by the Oklahoma State Chamber of Commerce who urged our state legislators and governor to ignore the concerns of the citizens and listen to the Chamber which knew best. They even distributed a brochure that falsely claimed Kentucky had greatly improved their student scores in one year using Common Core, but different scoring methods were used each year creating a false picture.

Global Workforce Training in Communist China

Global workforce plans, as stated earlier, are directly tied to the OECD and its Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the international test which is used to make comparisons between countries. The education system which is often rated #1 on PISA is Shanghai China. There are many troubling problems with these comparisons, but a quite simple and obvious one is that China does not educate all students and America does. China is a communist country and most people know that. It shouldn’t be surprising that Oklahomans were disturbed to hear our State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister recently took a trip to China with education officers from seven other states and their organization, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), to learn methods being used in that country.

China’s methods for teacher training and evaluation were highlighted on that trip. Teacher training and evaluations are two of the components of the comprehensive system changes that we are concerned with in Oklahoma. Teachers are being trained to be moderators, to work in groups rather than independently and in a narrow compliance system. This is what China does very well. Their teachers are closely scrutinized by other teachers in their Professional Learning Community (PLC), a small cell group which works collectively. American teachers are accustomed to having the freedom to teach according to their own professional determination.

Common Core Nationalized Testing vs Oklahoma Standards Testing

In the spring 2015 legislative session, State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister, the State Chamber of Commerce and Gates funded organizations like Stand for Children put legislation forward to implement a new testing system even before our new standards were finished. Instead of following the intent of the law which gives our state and local schools control over each part of the education process, the Chamber and Hofmeister have a plan for testing which would once again tie Oklahoma to the Common Core Standards in 3-8th grades and sort students into college bound and job training categories in high school.

What they promote is a new system of testing but it carries the old familiar name of the “ACT.” That sounds great. It sounds like using the ACT testing will get all the students ready for college with high level academics, but that is not the case. ACT’s 3-8th grade “Aspire” is actually the product of a recent partnership with Pearson Corporation based in Europe. Pearson is the world’s largest testing and curriculum vendor and highly controversial. Pearson is in partnership with the Federal Department of Education in writing test questions for the Common Core tests developed by the two Federally funded and highly controversial state testing consortia called Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for Careers and College (PARCC) and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC). These test providers all work in conjunction, even as they compete for contracts, in building the pipeline for the global workforce.

So where are we today in Oklahoma? Through the policies and plans implemented at the State Department of Education …. Oklahoma is still following this globalist agenda! See my last article published in the Oklahoma Constitution for more information; “Global non-profit Cognia has Contract for Oklahoma 3rd-8th Grade Testing”

Linda Murphy was Oklahoma Governor Keating’s Education Advisor, Deputy Commissioner of Labor for Workforce Education and Training, Administrator of the Eastern Oklahoma Department of Labor, Member of the State Job Training Coordinating Council, and the Governor’s School-to-Work Council. She was a candidate for State Superintendent of Public Instruction in 1994, 1998 and 2018. Murphy was appointed by Governor Keating as Secretary of Education but denied confirmation by the majority Democrat Education Committee, following her 49.5% statewide vote in 1994. She also served on the Governor’s Commission on the Status of Women. You may contact Linda at: lindalearn1@yahoo.com