A textbook company sales executive exposed in a Project Veritas undercover video revealing the Common Core initiative’s political bias and anti-American agenda, sent Breitbart News a “cease and desist” demand over our reporting on the investigation, claiming she has been terminated from her job.
On Friday, Kim Koerber, a sales consultant with National Geographic and a former executive for textbook publishing giant Pearson Education, a Common Core textbook publisher, sent Breitbart News the following:
CEASE AND DESIST ORDER:
You are hereby directed to immediately remove the January 21st article titled “Former Pearson Exec reveals anti-American Agenda in Common Core” from your website and other places it may be located. I was videotaped without my knowledge, and this misrepresents what I said that day.
This article has caused me to be terminated from my job. I have a lawyer, and if it is not immediately removed, I will persist in legal action.
I expect to hear from you immediately regarding this order.
Breitbart News telephoned and emailed National Geographic on Tuesday in an attempt to confirm Koerber’s claim that she was terminated, but was informed that the offices of National Geographic are closed – presumably due to the east coast snowstorm.
Breitbart News will continue to cover events surrounding the progressive influence on American education, one of the important socio-economic issues in the 2016 presidential race.
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) terminated Dianne Barrow and Amelia Petties after previous Project Veritas videos were released that featured these employees discussing the importance of profits over education for textbook publishers involved in Common Core curricula. HMH issued a statement justifying its actions:
HMH will not tolerate behavior and conduct that contradicts our values and commitment to learning. As stated previously, the comments captured in these videos do not reflect the views of HMH and the commitment of our over 4,000 employees who dedicate their lives to serving teachers and students every day. The individuals who made these statements are no longer with the company.
The most recent video, featuring Koerber released on January 21, was quickly reported by Breitbart News and other media outlets and is part of a series about the Common Core education initiative produced by Project Veritas.
“We’ve released three Common Core videos and employment of three textbook sales executives have been terminated,” said Project Veritas president James O’Keefe in a statement to Breitbart News. “We can continue to expose this whole rotten system until they have no one left standing, but hopefully this will provide enough motivation for the political class to finally take action to end this crony system behind Common Core forever.”
In the video, Koerber – formerly an employee of textbook giant Pearson Education – reveals the anti-American agenda behind both the Common Core initiative and the revised Advanced Placement U.S. History framework.
The so-called “architect” of the Common Core standards is David Coleman, who later became – and is currently – the president of the College Board, which administers the Advanced Placement program.
In the video, Koerber complains about conservatives, saying, “conservative voters are afraid of everything.” She also says, “People that are not educated, Fox TV viewers think that Common Core comes from the educated liberal groups and that’s why they are against it. They don’t know anything about it. They think it’s liberal so they’re against it.”
Koerber goes on to explain that those behind both Common Core and the new AP U.S. History framework have attempted to minimize the Constitution and remove Christianity from the core concepts, stressing the importance of teaching about Islam.
“The dead white guys did not create this country,” she says, referring to the Founders. “They [presumably conservatives] want to talk about those dead white guys.”
In the video, Koerber also expresses disdain for the Second Amendment: “Damn the Second Amendment. I don’t think personal handguns need to be on anyone except the government, the police. What is the purpose of having a gun?”
In her discussion of the thinking behind the Common Core and the AP U.S. History framework, Koerber confirms concerns of many parents and conservatives that Common Core was created with a particular ideology in mind, one that values increasing the size and scope of government and special interest groups over student education.
In essence, Common Core is a public/private partnership between elites in both the education and political world at a time the states have already greatly relinquished to the federal government their constitutional right to set their own education policy. The Project Veritas investigation demonstrates how easily special interest groups can secure their wants at the expense of children.
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