How might we integrate the Common Core with the great outdoors? Government has a high percentage of control over Oregon land, so students only have to step outside to be naturealized citizens. Oregon’s No Child Left Inside Act assures longer recess times and doesn’t seem to mind the outside forces controling education. Education for Sustainability wants to take your child for more than a walk.

Students spend time outdoors, interacting with nature by walking, observing, gardening, etc. They feel comfortable being in the outdoors getting dirty, seeing insects and animals, and they begin to develop a naturalist intelligence.¹
US Partnership Sustainable Standard for Grades K-4th grade

One would like to think all parents are well informed of the nature of school reform. Sadly, many parents are not privy to the profound changes and feel intimidated when they do inquire. The true nature of educational jargon either leaves the public guessing or is intentionally left obscured. Aligning (Cross-walking) refers to the purposeful integration of one set of standards into another. The Common Core national standards are not only blatantly deep in critical thinking skills, but were also blatantly designed to be absent in content. The ultimate purpose was to integrate the US Partnership Sustainability Standards for Grades K-12 into the Common Core.
US Partnership standards Version 3 October http://s3.amazonaws.com/usp_site_uploads/resources/123/USP_EFS_standards_V3_10_09.pdf
Common Core State Standards – download
http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards

Apparently, democracy seems to work best when action teams head for a retreat and dutifully review and revise comprehensive documents, some that will affect the very young of our society, while society works to pay the taxes that are granted to the action teams. Democracies are famous for working groups, action teams, taskforces, think tanks and agencies, whose membership is non-accountable to the tax-paying voter. The State of Oregon is a democracy par excellence, a ‘fine demonstration partner’ ² with executive teams, namely the governors, the US Executive Departments and UNESCO. Eleven participants met at the ecofriendly Alsea Retreat, in Oregon, to put the finishing touches on the Oregon Environmental Literacy standards (OELP). Oregon, with the assistance of Zero Waste Alliance and the North American Association for Environmental Education, cross-walked the US Partnership sustainable standards into the Common Core. [link http://www.ode.state.or.us/teachlearn/specialty/alt/eltf-alignment-of-the-el-strands-and-standards-december-2011-%28final%29.pdf!http://www.ode.state.or.us/teachlearn/specialty/alt/eltf-alignment-of-the-el-strands-and-standards-december-2011-%28final%29.pdf]

Democracies are surely efficient and time saving, as Oregon adopted the Common Core State Standards and published the Environmental Literacy Plan in the same month and year – Oct, 2010. Oregon was one of the first states to adopt the NAAEE³ environmental blueprints. They also understood the criteria for an ESD-School early on, as three representatives from Southern Oregon University served on the editorial board for the 7th International JTEFS/BBCC Conference (2009) on ‘Sustainable Development and Culture Education’ at Daugavpils University in Latvia⁴. The “think globally, act locally’ mantra travels long distances, under the radar, quietly spewing its exhaustive designs into our schools and communities.

Criteria for a green schools in Latvia; schools are be ‘community-centres’ and the schools use the community as an arena for genuine action. The primary resources for students abound in their local community. Students appreciate diversity, trust their emotions, work in problem solving teams on local and global issues and are prepared to argue both sides of an issue. Independent democratic minds, able to ‘construct knowledge’, recognize a biased authority are able to set their own goals and criteria, as early as Kindergarten. (see Partnership standards) Sound familiar? Ultimately, students will “become experienced in democratic participatory processes”⁴, imitating the action teams that planted green schools on American soil.

The Oregon Environmental Standards Alignment

Oregon’s Environmental Literacy standards for 6-12 grades “are not meant to replace content standards in reading and writing, but rather to supplement them.” Supplementing is meaningless, as the Common Core requires 70% informational texts for upper grade reading skills and 50% in the elementary. So parents can be assured they are requisite for a sustainable education, at least in Oregon. Remember, sustainable education reaches into the social, economic and environmental realms towards global citizenship.

“While the same anchor standards are used for all Common Core State standards for Reading, the grade-specific standards are tuned to the reading requirements of environmental literacy”

Language Arts is not a specified discipline in the plan, as it has been integrated across the curriculum. The disciplines listed are science, social studies, health, physical education, civics, technology and essential skills. The essential skills summarize the process skills, but the devil is in the details.
1. Read and comprehend a variety of text
2. Write clearly and accurately
3. Apply mathematics in a variety of settings
4. Listen actively and speak clearly and coherently
5. Think critically and analytically
6. Use technology to learn, live, and work
7. Demonstrate civic and community engagement
8. Demonstrate global literacy
9. Demonstrate personal management and teamwork skills

A proper evaluation of the standards would take more space than this article permits, but there’s no doubt on one score – Oregon’s plan for ‘environmental literacy’ is not the most essential ingredient in the program global literacy is. A perusal of the standards evokes a sense of boredom as reading redundancy doesn’t equate with educational content. Science for K through 8th grade is relegated to the study of the biosphere, earth science, the solar system, life and water cycles (no mention of the carbon cycle), energy and motion, with the foregoing applied to interdependence or systems thinking.

“Science and history/social studies are key to environmental literacy. In history/social studies, for example, students need to be able to analyze, evaluate, and differentiate primary and secondary sources.” (pg. 130)

Analyze the sciences, evaluate history, between primary and secondary resources! Are students not to learn any principles or take any events on face value? The patterns in the standards for science is essentially instilling a sense of how science affects society through resource distribution and training for systems thinking rather than learning scientific principles. Social science/history is transformed into the science of socialism, the “Interconnectedness of People and the Environment” The disciplinary sciences will be presented from a “holistic perspective” to instill the “Habits of a Systems Thinker”. The area of ‘civics’ predisposes students to be agents of change, if not community organizers. If parents are to understand the ‘challenging text’s’ environmental vocabulary why not just publish the Cloud’s indicators or the US Partnership’s terminology in the plan and educate the public first, so they can evaluate it. No, the action teams would rather foist it on children first. Their “Note on range and content of student reading”, has more to do with reading statistical information (elaborate diagrams) than the enrichment of literature, as reading literature would enhance a student’s ability in speaking and writing. Progressives liken the Constitution to a ‘living document’. So too, does Oregon’s Environmental Literacy taskforce.

“This is a living document. As teachers and other educators use the crosswalks and provide feedback, they will be revised. Additionally, it is our intention to update crosswalks as the Oregon Department of Education adopts new standards and continues to define the Essential Skills.”

This affirms the never-ending dynamic process for schools, described by the Office of Educational Research and Improvement. Surely the People’s Democracy of Oregon will lead the states, having an insider’s view of our children’s future from a global perspective. “America’s 30 Years War” by Baliant Vazsonyi, is a seminal work on the close ties between the tactics of political correctness taking root in America and those under totalitarian regimes. The Oregon State Board of Education relinquished all local control of curriculum and how it is taught.

“Nowhere does the battle rage as fiercely as in education. Predictably, the transformation of structure and content in the university filtered down until it had engulfed the entire educational establishment. While every day lip service is paid to the ‘crisis’ and ‘solutions’ are debated everywhere, the true purpose of the commissar state is making excellent progress.”⁵ (pg.232)
1 – Excellence in Environmental Education: Guidelines for Learning (K-12);
North American Association for Environmental Education Publications
ISBN # 1-884008-75-5, Washington D. C.

2 – Title III, Goals 2000; Demonstration Flexibility Partnership Act

3 – North American Association of Environmental Education

4 – ESD (Education for Sustainable Development) Institute for Sustainable
Education/European Union
http://www.iselv.eu/ufiles/1300785502Proceedings_2009_ISE.pdf

5 – America’s Thirty Years War, by Balint Vazsonyi, Regnery Pub; Washington D. C. 1998.