CURE promotes academic excellence for children in Washington State by researching educational issues, such as Career Pathways (School-to-Work), No Child Left Behind, Certificate of Academic Achievement, Performance-Based Education (also known as Standards-based Education or OBE-Outcome Based Education), data-collection, and assessments. In the last few years these programs and policies have been brought together under the federal Race to the Top initiative of which the Common Core State Standards are the most well-known component.

We offer the articles, essays, and commentaries on this website to help you understand what is happening in education today.

We are glad that recently many new parent and citizen groups have sprung up in almost every state, with similar goals of becoming informed and then informing others of education problems which urgently need repair. Some of the new groups even have similar names. Our group has been active since the mid 1990’s. We work independently of any other group, but we are happy to share information, ideas, and encouragement with the other groups, and we may cooperate on certain projects or issues.

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Bill Summary for Selected Bills of the 2025 Legislative Session

See selected bills which are being considered in this 2025 Washington State legislative session. (Please click on the the heading and scroll down)

The curious case of the stolen school bond campaign signs.

School bond elections are normally uneventful, if not actually boring, but this year’s North Kitsap School District bond election has taken an unexpected twist. A citizen group opposing the bond measure set up “vote no” signs around the community; however, the signs were stolen and kept having to be replaced. Through some careful planning and some detective work, the citizen group caught a suspect on camera, and the suspect is the Superintendent of the North Kitsap School District. Kitsap county law enforcement are investigating, and the story is still unfolding.

Read the news story here.

Washington State Dept. of Health decides no COVID19 shot required for students

In a press release on April 13, 2022, the Washington State Department of Health announced that receiving the COVID 19 shot would not be a requirement for students to attend school. Parents have lobbied heavily against the requirement during  the last few weeks, contacting both the Health Department’s Technical Advisory Group, and the Board of Health itself. There have also been numerous demonstrations and rallies against requiring the COVID19 shot for students.

We thank the State Board of Health for this decision. We appreciate, even more, the action of involved parents who made their opinions known, and who also provided the health department officials with research, scientific information, and explanations of personal experiences with the COVID19 shots.

We stress, however, that we citizens who uphold parents’ rights are not done. Past experience shows that we cannot go back to complacency but must maintain our vigilance. The virus will return, or there will be some other catalyst. The state will prepare to take other actions encroaching upon parents’ rights, and citizens and parents must be ready to make their opinions known again.

Here is the announcement:

“Statement from the Washington State Department of Health

OLYMPIA – Today, the Washington State Board of Health (SBOH) voted not to include COVID-19 in the state’s immunization requirements for school entry at this time. As stated in today’s SBOH meeting, the Washington State Department of Health (DOH) supports the recommendation of the SBOH’s technical advisory group (TAG) and thanks the TAG for its thorough and methodical and transparent review of this matter over several months. During today’s SBOH discussion, it was made clear that both DOH and SBOH continue to support COVID-19 vaccines as being safe and effective, and particularly protective against severe illness, hospitalization, and death. Staying up to date with COVID-19 vaccine recommendations is the best way to protect community members against COVID-19. DOH continues to remind community members to help protect our schools, educators, and students by urging everyone to continue to do their part by getting vaccinated and boosted, if eligible. DOH reminds people to wear a mask if needed, stay home and get tested if they feel sick, and follow isolation recommendations if they test positive. COVID-19 is increasing in some communities, and we must still actively work to prevent its spread. This statement was originally attributed to the Secretary of Health, and it should be attributed to the Washington State Department of Health instead. The DOH website is your source for a healthy dose of information. Find us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. Sign up for the DOH blog, Public Health Connection.”

Attorney General Merrick Garland, Department of Justice, and Homeland Security vs Parents

The COVID19 virus has brought us unexpected blessings with respect to education. With lessons being given to students “remotely” at home, parents have been able to find out what is actually being taught, and many are not pleased. Some parents have become involved and have shown up at school board meetings to complain about what they have been seeing – racist attitudes taught under the guise of “equity, diversity, and inclusion”, gender confusing messages embedded in lessons, and concepts which go against traditional American beliefs. Parents have even seen strange things subjects such as math and the required readings that contain anti-family, anti-faith messages.  So, “Just what ARE the blessings?” you may ask.

Read more….

CRT and DEI – What are they teaching?

So much of what the education elites do is couched in misleading language. The current uproar about “CRT”- Critical Race Theory, also known as “DEI”- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, is just another example. Recently the Washington State Legislature passed a law requiring school staff and school board members to be trained in Critical Race Theory, but it does not mention CRT anywhere in the bill. Instead the bill refers to “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion” and “cultural competency”.  When parents in Washington state complain to their school boards about CRT being taught in their district, school boards have been known to respond with, “Oh no, we’re not teaching CRT.”
Read more…

A Case for REAL Math Teaching

     Math abilities of US public school students were mediocre even before the introduction of Common Core math in 2010. This is, in large part, due to the constructivist method of teaching math used since the 1990s.  Administrators think this method leads to “equity”, but it actually makes matters worse.  Ted Nutting, retired Seattle high school math teacher, explains the problems of this math teaching method in the following commentary.
Read more…

Washington’s Comprehensive Sexual Health Education Law Is Not Healthy and Is Bad Law

Parents are concerned about the new Comprehensive Sexual Health Education law passed in Olympia this March, and they should be.  The standards are heavily influenced by SIECUS (Sexuality Information and Education Council of the US) which was founded in 1964 by Dr. Mary Calderone, the Medical Director for Planned Parenthood Federation of America. The many contradictions embodied in the bill reflect the contradictory thinking of the proponents of the bill and the developers of the curricula.
Read more…

Government Nannies at Your Door

“We’re from the Government and we’re here to help you.”

Do those words give you a warm, fuzzy feeling? The sponsors of the “Welcome to Washington Baby Act” think so. “A welcome hug from the State of Washington,” is how one Legislative Aide described the bill. The bill in the House of Representatives is HB 1771 and the companion bill in the Senate is SB 5683. It would establish a universal home visiting program for families of newborns. There are many disturbing aspects to this bill.
Read more.

SEL: “Social Emotional Learning” or “Something Evil Lurks” ?

Social Emotional Learning is an increasing focus of schools and school legislation. The “experts” believe that they can improve students’ academic performance, peer relationships, outlook on life — everything– by embedding social emotional learning into each day’s activities and lessons. After all, that’s what schools are for, right? To treat the “whole child?”

This is a dangerous trend. The influences at schools – peer pressure, conflicting values presented in the curricula, the selective presentation of controversial issues–already serve to distance children from their parents. Now the education elites plan to assess children’s social emotional state- sometimes through stealth assessments,  and on the basis of that data-mining they can personalize a curriculum to “help” the children’s psyches.

Please see the article from the blog Curmudgucation:

Does Social Emotional Learning Belong in School? 

We thank our friends from Truth in American Education for bringing it to our attention.