(Crisis Magazine) -- The education reform known as Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for grades K-12, adopted by forty plus states and more than half of the U.S. dioceses, is designed to produce a universal “work force ready” population prepared to self-identify as “global citizens.” Many education professionals have been critical of CCSS. But even they may not know the philosophical reason why financiers like Bill Gates have bankrolled the Common Core system. The same sources of funding for Common Core in the United States are promoting similar methods and aligned texts world wide through the auspices of the United Nations.
In Crisis, readers learned that Common Core is financed with over $150 million from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The collaboration of the Gates Foundation and the United Nations Educational Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) has been well publicized. In addition, Gates, on behalf of his Microsoft Corporation, signed a 26-page Cooperation Agreement in 2004 between Microsoft and UNESCO to develop a “master curriculum” which included benchmarks and assessments. The agreement stipulates that “UNESCO will explore how to facilitate content development.”