Common Core Education And More About Federal Government Control

[Ross]

School Textbook Attempts
To Rewrite the Second Amendment
in Blatantly
Misleading Way

     By Caroline Schaeffer 

We (should have) learned it in school: The U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights. We should all know how the words go, right?

We know the 2nd Amendment reads: A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.

Well, not according to this textbook, which our friends at Young Cons caught.

Its explanation reads (emphasis added): "This amendment states that people have the right to certain weapons, providing that they register them and have not been in prison."

At least it explains that Americans didn't want to be like the gun-confiscating British. But then it makes up a passage that isn't there about gun registration. Let's take the actual Second Amendment apart:



"A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free state [dependent clause], the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed [independent clause]."

In case that isn't clear enough, there are many quotes clarifying the Second Amendment. Here is one from James Madison, key drafter of the Constitution:


"The right of the people to keep and bear ... arms shall not be infringed. A well regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the best and most natural defense of a free country ..."

The Constitution and the Bill of Rights should be read and taught as they are written. Deviating from the original wording and understanding of the Second Amendment has consequences.

If the Congress wants to pass a Constitutional Amendment to put sensible limitations on weapons that are designed for warfare, then that is a different matter. But let's start with the truth, and then proceed from there.

http://www.ijreview.com/2014/07/156943-school-textbooks-explanation-2nd-amendment-laughably-tragic/

[Ross]

Common Core: A Failed Idea Newly
Cloaked in the Robes of Good Intentions

My name is Alma Ohene-Opare, an alumnus of Brigham Young University (BYU) and a native of Accra, Ghana. Over the past few months, I have followed with much amusement, the nationwide debate for and against the adoption and implementation of the Common Core standards. The arguments have been fierce and passionate on both sides and seem to stem from a universal desire to raise the quality of education in America. The desire is noble. However, this noble desire will not compensate for or mitigate the empirically documentable effects of the failed policy being proposed.

Rotton to the coreCommon Core may be new to America, but to me and the thousands who have migrated to the United States to seek better educational opportunities, it is in large part the reason we came here. If you are wondering what qualifies me to make the assertions I will make in this article, know this; I am one of the few victims of a standardized national education system in Ghana who was lucky enough to escape its impact. I am also a member of the Board of Directors of a private K-12 institution in Accra, Ghana. Golden Sunbeam Montessori School was founded by my mother in 1989 and is currently leading the fight to rid our country of an educational system that has led to the systematic degradation and deterioration of our human capital.

Let's get to the core of my argument; pun intended. What Americans are calling Common Core is eerily similar to my educational experience growing up in Ghana. In Ghana, K-12th grade education was tightly controlled by the Ghana Education Service, an organization similar to the U.S. Department of Education. From curricula to syllabi to standardized testing, the government controlled everything.

Trapped by Standardized Tests

In 9th grade, all students, in order to progress to high school are required to take a standardized exam known as the B.E.C.E, which stands for Basic Education Certification Examination. Depending on the results of the test, each student is assigned by a computer program to a public high school without regard to his or her interests, passions, or ambitions. Each student is then assigned an area of focus for the next three years. Some of the focus areas are General Science, Business Management, General Arts, Visual Arts, Home Economics, Agriculture, etc.

Although things may have changed slightly since I graduated, most students generally did not have a choice as to which area of focus they were assigned. The only way to get a choice was to ace the standardized exam or to call in a favor either through bribery or some other type of corruption. The students who failed miserably were usually those who attended public schools; many of whom dropped out of school entirely.

The process was then repeated at the end of high school with another standardized exam called the W.A.S.S.S.C.E. This exam tested your readiness for college and ultimately determined which course of study you were assigned by the government in college. I did not ace that exam and did not get permission to enter the state run college of my choice. Instead, I went to a private university founded by a former Microsoft employee and was found smart enough to be admitted to BYU a year later as a transfer student, to graduate with a Bachelor degree in Information Technology, and to be hired right out of college as a Program Manager at Microsoft Corporation.

Although the education system in Ghana is not similar in all aspects to Common Core as it is being proposed today, some of the basic tenets are the same. The curriculum was controlled by an external body without input from or accountability to teachers, individual schools, or parents. Some argue that teachers and parents have control in Common Core. It pains me to witness such naivety. That myth has always been an inevitable play by proponents of any centralized system. The goal is to make people think they are in control while nudging them blindly towards a perceived public interest. The truth is simple; the institution that controls the exams, controls the curriculum.

By controlling the standardized exams, each school in Ghana was forced to make passing the exam its primary focus, rather than actual teaching and learning. Hence anything that was deemed outside the purview of the test was cast aside and treated as unimportant. Extra-curricular activities were cut if not totally eliminated and the school day was lengthened to ensure that students had even more time to prepare for the test.

In my case, school started at 6:00 am and ended as late as 6:00 pm. We attended school on Saturdays. Even when school was out, we still attended school half day. Our lives were consumed with preparation for the standardized test. We all had booklets of past tests going back 15 years. Those who anticipated failing the test registered in advance to retake the test. The value of teachers was measured solely on the performance of their students on the standardized tests. Scammers who purported to know what would appear on the tests duped schools, parents, and teachers alike by selling bogus test questions. Schools with political connections always unanimously aced the tests.

You may wonder why nobody ever tried to change the system. The answer is simple. The government made it impossible by requiring all students who wanted to go to high school or college to take the test. Hence, any time spent trying to change the system meant time taken away from preparing for the test. Parents became completely beholden to the system and would threaten to take the kids to other schools if administrators spent any time not preparing their kids for the test.

A Dearth of Ingenuity and Creativity

Now that you have a sense of how an education system can become trapped in the death spiral of standardized tests, let me interest you with the impact of this system on actual student outcomes. In Ghana, we had a phrase to describe how we felt about standardized tests. We called it "chew and pour, pass and forget." Translated, it means memorize, regurgitate, pass the exam, and forget everything.

Unfortunately that has become reality for many graduates of our educational system. As my father put it in a recent petition to the Ghana Education Service, "the education system in Ghana is akin to an assembly line setup by the government to create employees for an economy largely devoid of innovation, entrepreneurship, originality, or risk taking." Because students never learn to solve problems or think critically for themselves and are largely discouraged from challenging their teachers or the status quo, they are inevitably groomed to maintain the failed traditions of the past while believing they are completely powerless to change anything. The result is that even with an abundance of natural resources, the country in general continues to suffer in the doldrums of socio-economic development without any clear path out of it.

Recently my brother left a well-paying job in the U.S. to return to Ghana to take over my parent's school. He had dreams of changing the system. He imagined students groomed to become innovators and entrepreneurs. He soon learned it was impossible to achieve any of those dreams if the school was to remain subject to the rules, restrictions, and common standards the government had set. The only solution was to completely abandon the system, which he fears would cause parents to withdraw their children from the school. He is now stuck in the limbo of a catch-22 but continues to fight to win students, teachers, and parents over to a new beginning for the education of their children.

In December 2012, I returned to Ghana with my family and had the opportunity to speak to 10th grade students at the school. I gave what I thought was an inspiring speech. I proposed to start an innovation and entrepreneurship club which would employ students to identify and propose solutions to some of the problems facing the country. I promised to provide the capital and resources necessary to support these kids in this new challenge. I ended by asking the kids who were interested to write their names on a piece of paper or email me. It's been more than 18 months since I returned. I have received nothing and I don't blame them. Their parents have paid a large sum of money because they believed our school would help their kids pass the standardized exam. I was not about to distract them from that goal. What a tragedy.

I have personally wondered what makes Africa so uniquely challenged in its attempts at economic development, especially when all the innovations needed to do so are readily available to us. I came to a personal conclusion, which admittedly is not scientific, but captures what I believe to be the elusive culprit. It is contentment with mediocrity and a lack of curiosity to change the status quo. The problem is not inherent in the nature of Africans but rather the imposition of an educational system that burned out the light of innovation and made us content to live on the spoils of the countries brave enough to venture into the glory of the unknown.

America's Mistake

When I came here, many people would ask what the difference was between America and Ghana. I responded that in Ghana, I could dream. In America, I can do.

In writing this article, I am by no means endorsing the current state of public education in the United States. The problem with the system today is that the U.S. government, aided by self-interested unions, has spent decades and billions of dollars trying to return to a system of education that America abandoned a long time ago; a system that has proven a failure in many parts of the world. Common Core is just the latest iteration of the failed system. Like a wise man once said, oh that I were an angel and could have the wish of my heart; to stand on the mountain top to warn against the path you are choosing to take. As an outsider looking in, I recognize one thing that most Americans don't. Because America has been free for so long, many have no sense of what tyranny looks like and how quickly physical and intellectual freedom can be lost on the path paved with good intentions.

I plead with all you well-intentioned but definitely misguided administrators, teachers, and politicians. Raise your heads out of the dust and realize that America is great because America bucked against the status quo. Thinking a standardized and common core curriculum is innovative is like discovering water in the ocean and patting yourself on the back for it. This system is not new. Its greatest success was to create a conforming working class for the industrial revolution. It is not fit for a dynamic 21st century that needs constant innovation and the confidence to create new solutions to the problems that continue to beset and confound the smartest minds in the world.

America is desperate to find a solution to a problem that you solved decades ago. Return to originality. Put teachers and parents in charge of the education of their children. Encourage critical thinking that rejects conformity for the sake of some perceived societal benefit. Teach children to solve problems and not just to regurgitate the solutions of generations past. I have been silent too long and have now seized this opportunity to stand up for what I believe, which ironically is something I have learned from my experience in America.

America, I urge you to learn from the mistakes of those around because, like the plaque in my former bishop's office read, "you may not live long enough to make all those mistakes yourself."


Alma Ohene-Opare was born and reared in Ghana, the child of educators who ran a school for 25 years. After graduating from Brigham Young University, Ohene-Opare worked for Microsoft. He is currently a solutions engineer at Hyland Software in Utah and is pursuing an MBA at Western Governor's University.

http://www.eagleforum.org/publications/educate/july14/common-core-a-failed-idea-newly-cloaked-in-the-robes-of-good-intentions.html

[Ross]

Common Core Rejected by States

In June, Oklahoma Gov. Mary Fallin signed legislation that permanently halts the use of Common Core standards, requires the state to temporarily use previous standards, and directs that new standards to be developed will be subject to legislative review. The legislation she signed was overwhelmingly passed in the state's House and Senate on the final day of the 2014 legislative session. Gov. Fallin's action is particularly relevant because she previously supported Common Core and is the Chair of the National Governors Association, one of the two private lobbying organizations at the center of the effort to create Common Core.

Common Core (CC) standards were hastily created in closed meetings and subject to no legislative or public review. Parents, teachers, and citizens must be part of the effort to create improved standards. Fallin said, "We are very capable as Oklahomans of developing our own Oklahoma standards to make sure that our children receive the highest quality education possible in our state." Fallin called Common Core "tainted" and "divisive." She admitted that the state may lose some money because the Obama administration ties federal funding to certain Common Core criteria.

State Superintendent of Education Janet Barresi, a former Common Core proponent, praised the repeal, saying that due to entanglement with the federal government, "Common Core has become too difficult and inflexible."

 

 
The CEO of the Tulsa Regional Chamber of Commerce criticized the legislators and the governor for ditching CC, accusing them of "bending to political hysteria." (AP, 6-6-14) The National Chamber of Commerce has received millions of dollars from the Gates Foundation to promote Common Core.

South Carolina Reviews Common Core

On May 30, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley signed a law that will allow the state to review Common Core, but the standards remain in place for the 2014-15 school year; any changes will be implemented the following year. Critics worry that South Carolina won't get rid of enough of what is wrong with Common Core.

The South Carolina General Assembly must approve any future standards that are not created by the state Dept. of Education, which may guard against a rewrite of Common Core. The state has also withdrawn from the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), one of two federally financed standardized testing organizations.

Louisiana's Struggle

Since the state legislature failed to overturn the use of Common Core in Louisiana schools, Gov. Bobby Jindal is trying to do it on his own. He has called on the state Board of Education to create "Louisiana standards and a Louisiana test." Jindal says use of CC aligned tests supplied by the federally supported Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) is illegal because their use was not put out for bid as required by state law. But state education officials have no intention of creating new standards and have vowed to keep CC standards and testing; they question the governor's authority to put a halt to CC in Louisiana.

How States Can Make Changes

Announcing she signed the bill to halt Common Core in Oklahoma, Gov. Fallin stated: "We cannot ignore the widespread concerns of citizens, parents, educators, and legislators who have expressed fear that adopting Common Core gives up local control of Oklahoma's public schools." (Washington Post, 6-5-14) But those concerns are being ignored in the majority of states. Legislative attempts to halt Common Core have failed in several states. Although Indiana dropped Common Core, the revised standards developed closely follow the rejected standards.

A survey conducted by the Times Union and Siena College found that 82% of New Yorkers want to stop Common Core in their state. Yet, citizens seem powerless to halt it because their government is unresponsive and New York Commissioner of Education John King is unwilling to even consider their concerns.

Amidst seemingly insurmountable obstacles, there is hope for success. Dr. Sandra Stotsky, who was the chief developer of Massachusetts' excellent standards, has outlined ways that Common Core can be dumped by localities, with or without the support of state government. Her complete suggestions are available in her article "Legislative Common Core Remedy No Panacea," posted at the Pioneer Institute website (5-28-14).

Stotsky was a member of the Common Core validation committee and refused to sign off on the standards, which she deems to be seriously flawed. She is also a former member of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel.

Dr. Stotsky offers two plans. One can be used when legislators refuse to act by offering localities the means to replace Common Core. The second plan will work for states where there is legislative support to do away with Common Core. In that case the state legislature would "develop and pass a bill to eliminate the state board and department of education." In both cases, new and improved standards would follow.

To develop new English Language Arts standards, Stotsky suggests states or localities use as blueprints either the pre-Common Core California standards or her own ELA standards that are based on the former, excellent Massachusetts ELA standards (that were dropped in favor of Common Core). Stotsky recommends new math standards should be chosen in consultation with high school mathematics teachers and based on the standards of either Minnesota, California 1997, Indiana 2006, or Massachusetts 2000. (Minnesota never adopted CC math standards, although they accepted those for ELA).

Refusal to administer any Common Core-aligned state tests, like SBAC and PARCC, on the grounds that they are incompatible with locally adopted standards, is a critical component of Stotsky's proposals. She claims that state or federal money can't be withheld "because there is no state statute in any state requiring local districts to take tests that are incompatible with locally adopted, official standards and curriculum."

Stotsky says that even when states reject the federally supported national standards, "it is crucial for local school boards to also vote to eliminate Common Core's standards and any curriculum developed to address them." She maintains that "this will prevent the imposition of a federally imposed Common Core-aligned test at the local level — another possible end-run around state legislatures."

Sandra Stotsky's plan offers hope that more states and localities can replace the controversial and flawed Common Core with new standards that are as good as schoolchildren deserve.

http://www.eagleforum.org/publications/educate/july14/common-core-rejected-by-states.html

[Ross]

Legislative Common Core Remedy No Panacea

28 May 2014

The next phase of the Great Game to control the minds of the next generation of Americans has just begun. Oklahoma is the most recent state to try to eliminate the academic malignancies entailed by Common Core.  Many Oklahomans deserve credit for the bill Governor Fallin may sign this week, especially Jenni White, an energetic mother of six. But there will be no end to the Gates Foundation's effort to impose weak secondary school standards on this country in the name of ending "white privilege" (the motivation acknowledged by New Hampshire teacher David Pook at a Cornerstone Institute debate two weeks ago), rather than to strengthen secondary school coursework for all students with academically rigorous and internationally benchmarked standards.

The following steps could be taken at the local level to make sure that state boards of education, commissioners, or departments of education don't select people for drafting a new set of state standards who are committed to Common Core. Despite any legislative oversight that may be built into bills to eliminate Common Core, states trying to extricate themselves from Common Core may yet experience a version of Governor Pence's strategy in Indiana.

The Pence strategy was designed to ensure that committee members selected by his education policy advisor (Claire Fiddian-Green), the Indiana Board of Education, Commissioner of Education Glenda Ritz, and the Indiana Department of Education replaced the existing version of Common Core's standards with a dumbed-down version of them (yes, that is possible), instead of with internationally benchmarked and rigorous academic standards similar to the standards Indiana had in 2006.

To avoid that possibility, here are possible steps for local school boards to take, depending on existing state law and what the legislature has passed:

1. Local school boards vote to eliminate Common Core's standards in their school district. This is as far as Oklahoma needs to go right now.  In other states, parents and others may need to petition their local school boards to do this.

2.  Local school boards then need to vote to adopt/develop new and stronger standards in ELA and math for their district. For this to happen, school boards must authorize their superintendent and teaching staff in ELA and math to use as working blueprints the old California or my (free) ELA standards (based on the former Massachusetts ELA standards) and a set of math standards chosen by their high school mathematics staff (they could come from Minnesota, California 1997, Indiana 2006, or Massachusetts 2000). It is crucial to start with a non-Common Core blueprint or organizational outline in order to prevent development of a version of Common Core (as in Indiana or Manchester, New Hampshire) called "the floor" or the "Common Core floor." There is apt to be nothing above the floor to be taught.  Even if there is, it won't be tested.

3.  Local school boards then need to vote to direct their superintendent, all school administrators, and all teachers to adjust their K-12 curriculum to address the new standards.  (New standards development and curriculum re-adjustment needs to be done in a matter of months, not years.)

4.  THEN, local school boards can refuse to administer any Common Core-aligned state tests on the grounds that they are incompatible with their locally adopted, approved, official standards and curriculum. No state or federal money can be legally withheld because there is NO state statute in any state requiring local districts to take tests that are incompatible with locally adopted, official standards and curriculum. Local school boards can do whatever state law does not explicitly require or forbid.

If there is disagreement on the matter by a state commissioner or department of education, let the matter head to the State Supreme Court for hearings.  Parents must argue for the right to have their own legally elected school board members and state legislators decide on policies for their local schools.

5. Plan B: The state legislature develops and passes a bill to eliminate the state board and department of education. It may need to keep the chief state school officer to satisfy ESEA requirements.  Let USED send Congressionally-appropriated Title I funds directly to local school districts after a re-authorization of NCLB that allows this possibility.

While Oklahoma's bill wisely requires a return to the state's previous standards and tests during the interim, it is crucial for local school boards to also vote to eliminate Common Core's standards and any curriculum developed to address them.  This will prevent the imposition of a federally-imposed Common Core-aligned test at the local level—another possible end-run around state legislatures.

A different version of this article appeared at Breitbart News under the title of "Local School Districts Should Eliminate Common Core and Adopt Stronger Standards."

http://pioneerinstitute.org/blog/legislative-common-core-remedy-no-panacea/


A little learning, indeed, may be a dangerous thing, but the want of learning is a calamity to any people. 
- Frederick Douglass

Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. 
- Emma Lazarus

Europe was created by history. America was created by philosophy. 
- Margaret Thatcher

Millions of individuals making their own decisions in the marketplace will always allocate resources better than any centralized government planning process.
- Ronald Reagan

They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
- Benjamin Franklin

Socialism is a philosophy of failure, the creed of ignorance, and the gospel of envy.
- Winston Churchill

The strongest principle of growth lies in human choice.
- George Eliot

Do not put such unlimited power into the hands of husbands. Remember all men would be tyrants if they could. 
- Abigail Adams

I am proudest of Pioneer's success helping to create so many charter schools and of our annual Better Government Competition, which has been copied by think tanks in eight other states as well as Canada, Great Britain, and Argentina.
- Lovett C. 'Pete' Peters, Founder of Pioneer Institute

[Ross]

If a college core class can teach this kind of rubbish
what might Common Core be capable of? Ross would like to know what you think!

Exclusive: Ohio State Core Class Teaches
Christians are Dumber
than Atheists

Kaitlyn Schallhorn
Reporter

Jul 24, 2014 at 11:37 AM EDT

•Psychology 1100 is a general education requirement class.

•The question was part of an online homework quiz.

•Quizzes are oftentimes created by a teacher's assistant, according to an OSU employee.

An Ohio State University (OSU) class has apparently determined another fundamental difference between Christians and atheists: their IQ points.

An online quiz from the school's Psychology 1100 class, provided to Campus Reform via tip, asked students to pick which scenario they found most likely given that "Theo has an IQ of 100 and Aine has an IQ of 125."

The correct answer? "Aine is an atheist, while Theo is a Christian."

According to a student in the class who wished to remain anonymous, the question was a part of an online homework quiz. Students were required to complete a certain amount of quizzes throughout the course but were encouraged to finish all of them in order to prep for the final exam.

"I understand that colleges have a liberal spin on things so it didn't surprise me to see the question, which is a sad thing," the student told Campus Reform in a phone interview. "But how can you really measure which religion has a higher IQ?"

Psychology 1100 is a general education requirement class which can primarily be taught by an undergraduate teacher's assistant.

While the student said the quizzes were based on the textbook used in class, an OSU employee in the psychology department who wished to remain nameless said quizzes are oftentimes created by the teacher's assistant.

The employee added that the psychology department is "very open to talking with students" if they are worried about grading or a question on an exam.

OSU explicitly prohibits discrimination on campus against any individual based on "age, ancestry, color, disability, gender identity or expression, genetic information, military status, national origin, race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, HIV status, or veteran status," according to the university's policy.

"Colleges will tolerate pretty much any religion other than Christianity," the OSU student said. "If colleges really want to give everyone a fair shot, they should stay away from making comments about any religion."

Dr. Mike Adams, an outspoken conservative Christian professor at the University of North Carolina, said "every group is protected from offensive speech on campus except for conservative Christians."

Adams also added that applying this principle to other types of groups would be taboo on college campuses.

"So would it be permissible to force blacks to take a class teaching that blacks would have a lower IQ than white people?" he said in an interview with Campus Reform.

This isn't the first time a researcher has used psychology to suggest those with more social conservative or even religious values have lower IQ scores. A 2011 study published in Psychological Science claimed that "lower general intelligence...in childhood predicts greater racism in adulthood, and this effect was largely mediated via conservative ideology."

"When science arose, it arose in the West and it did so in Christian nations. It did so because Christianity—with its assumptions about an orderly universe and its emphasis on obtaining knowledge as a cultural value—[was] necessary for science to develop and to flourish," Adams said. "That anti-Christian bigots use science to attack Christianity is more than Pharisaic hypocrisy. It is deeply ingrained institutional bigotry."

OSU declined to comment to Campus Reform for this story.

http://www.campusreform.org/?ID=5789

[Ross]

[Ross]

Why should teachers that can't teach be protected by tenure?
Why should any employee that doesn't perform need to be protected by tenure?
Isn't that just wrong?
Isn't it just a very expensive option?

On heels of big lawsuits, teacher tenure looms as a likely 2016 presidential issue

Published August 03, 2014

FILE: Jan. 27, 2014: California public school students suing the state to abolish its teacher tenure laws, at a press conference in Los Angeles.AP

Teacher tenure looms as a likely hot-button issue in the 2016 presidential races, with several potential GOP candidates in clear opposition to the policy and Democrats largely silent as they try to balance calls for reform and much-needed teachers union support.

Former Florida GOP Gov. Jeb Bush, a favorite among the Republican establishment for the White House job, recently voiced his support for a class-action lawsuit in New York against teacher tenure that was filed Monday. Weeks earlier, a California judge, in a similar case, struck down tenure for the state's public school teachers, ruling in favor of the plaintiffs.

"There will be no equality in education until we transition to a system that prioritizes academic achievement for children over job security for adults," Bush, chairman of the Foundation for Excellence in Education, said after the New York suit was filed.

The suit essentially challenges the three big concerns about tenure: school districts having to lay off the most senior teachers last, tenure eligibility after only three years and a system that makes firing a teacher nearly impossible.

"When ineffective teachers are allowed to remain in the classroom because of union protections and antiquated laws, it is not only a disservice to students but also to the many wonderful teachers dedicated to excellence in education," Bush said.

Jessica Levinson, a political analyst and professor at Loyola Law School in Los Angeles, argues that tenure could at the very least be part of the 2016 debate, considering the country's public education system in general is "always a talking point."

Moreover, she argues, Americans continue to wrestle with the difficult question: "How do we give our kids a good education while retaining the best people and getting rid of the bad ones?"

Two top-tier, potential Democratic candidates for the White House -- former first lady Hillary Clinton and Vice President Joe Biden -- have made no public statements on the tenure issue, based on research by Fox News of the past 15 years. However, Biden, who is married to a teacher, has spoken often about the importance of teachers.

Besides Bush, two Republican governors in 2012 signed legislation to limit tenure.

Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal's legislation in large part made it harder for teachers to achieve tenure and reworked the appeals process for firings. In February, a judge ruled the tenure-review process was unconstitutional.

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, another potential GOP White House 2016 candidate, signed legislation that made it more difficult for public school teachers to achieving tenure and easier to fire under-performing ones.

The new law essentially makes teachers work under a mentor for a year; work four years, not three, to become eligible for tenure; and get high evaluation marks in two consecutive years.

However, Christie failed to achieve what the California suit did and the most recent New York suit attempts to do -- end the "last in, first out" policy in which school districts are required to lay off teachers by seniority, not merit.

The governor's office did not respond to a request for comment.

The bill arrived on Christie's desk with unanimous support from a Democrat-controlled legislature -- largely unusual considering Democrats have in recent decades relied to winning elections with the influence, money and grassroots efforts of teachers unions.

Still, they face a sizable electorate -- particularly in older, larger cities – unhappy about the quality of public education and looking at alternatives such as charter schools.

"Liberals and Democrats typically understand that teachers unions will support them," Levinson said earlier this week. "But it's definitely a difficult situation for them. They have to thread the needle... Republicans never thought they would get that support."

The Obama administration issued a carefully worded response to the California judge's June 10 ruling in which he agreed with the plaintiffs that low-income students are disproportionately impacted by tenure.

"Equal opportunities for learning must include the equal opportunity to be taught by a great teacher," said Education Secretary Arne Duncan. "The students who brought this lawsuit are, unfortunately, just nine out of millions of young people in America who are disadvantaged by laws, practices and systems that fail to identify and support our best teachers and match them with our neediest students."

Duncan also said the court decision was a "mandate to fix these problems" but never mentioned tenure.

Still, he drew the ire of the American Federation of Teachers, a major teachers union.

"We needed your leadership," union President Randi Weingarten told Duncan in a July 10 letter. "But instead, you added to the polarization. And teachers across the country are wondering why the secretary of education thinks that stripping them of their due process is the way to help all children succeed."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/08/03/on-heels-big-lawsuits-teacher-tenure-looms-key-2016-presidential-issue/?intcmp=trending

[Ross]

Education /commentary

Ohio Could Be Next State to
Buck Common Core

Lindsey Burke 

The Buckeye State could become the next state to buck Common Core. Leadership in the Ohio House announced hearings on the national standards and tests are slated to begin Aug. 12, and the state could consider a potential withdrawal from Common Core later this year.

Rep. Matt Huffman, R-Lima, told the Columbus Dispatch the August hearings would focus on efforts to exit Common Core and develop new Ohio-driven standards that incorporate proven, high-quality standards such as those established in Massachusetts.

If Ohio withdraws, it would become the fifth state to exit Common Core, following Indiana, Louisiana, South Carolina and Oklahoma. Other states have downgraded their involvement in the standards or the associated national test, and four states abstained from adopting the standards from the beginning. If Ohio exits, nearly one fifth of states would be non-participants in Common Core.

University of Arkansas professor emerita Sandra Stotsky recently detailed exactly how states and local school districts can reclaim their standards-setting autonomy. She suggests, among other recommendations, states that want to leave Common Core establish steering committees that include university-level content-matter experts, allow for a public comment period, include feedback from teachers and provide for an external review of the new standards.

Ohio can do better than Common Core. Although its prior state standards had significant room for improvement, it could re-adopt those standards and improve on them by taking from the best of other states, such as Massachusetts and California, and learning from classical curriculum schools such as the Great Hearts charter academies in Arizona.

As it reclaims control of the content taught in local schools, Ohio should look at growing school choice options to create the kind of flexibility that enables individual talent to flourish.

Home to five school choice programs, Ohio is no stranger to choice in education. Ohio families currently have access to a scholarship program for income-eligible kindergarten children to attend a private school of choice, a voucher option for children with special needs, the Autism Scholarship Program, the Ohio Ed Choice program, which offers private-school scholarships to children in chronically underperforming public schools, and the Cleveland Scholarship Program. Talk to the families participating in these options, and you're likely to hear stories of how the type of educational customization they're able to provide for their children through school choice has been life-changing. It's the type of customization and choice one-size-fits-all national standards and tests will never foster.

School choice has seen tremendous growth over the past decade, as Heritage recently detailed in the newly released 2014 Index of Culture and Opportunity. Over the past ten years, charter school enrollment increased by 1.2 million students, and the number of students utilizing private school choice options like vouchers and tax credit scholarships increased by 218,000 over the same time period.

This growth holds the promise of connecting more students with learning options that match their unique needs. As students head back to school this fall, choice—not standardization—should greet them.

http://dailysignal.com/2014/08/06/ohio-next-state-buck-common-core/?utm_source=heritagefoundation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=morningbell&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRonuK%2FPZKXonjHpfsX56O4kWqa%2BlMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4AScRjI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFQrLBMa1ozrgOWxU%3D

[Ross]

 

Cogs in the Machine:
Big Data,
Common Core,
and
National Testing

May 2014 A Pioneer Institute White Paper by Emmett McGroarty, Joy Pullmann, and Jane Robbins New technology allows advocates for education as workforce development to accomplish what has long been out of their reach: the collection of data on every child, beginning with preschool or even earlier, and using that data to track the child throughout his/her academic career and his/her progression through the workforce. This paper explores the many initiatives that the federal government has worked with private entities to design and encourage states to participate in, in order to increase the collection and sharing of student data, while relaxing privacy protections. The authors offer recommendations to protect student privacy, including urging parents to ask what kinds of information are being collected on digital-learning platforms and whether the software will record data about their children's behaviors and attitudes rather than just academic knowledge. If parents object to such data-collection, they should opt out. The authors also urge state lawmakers to pass student privacy laws, and they recommend that Congress correct the 2013 relaxation of FERPA.

http://pioneerinstitute.org/download/cogs-in-the-machine-big-data-common-core-and-national-testing/

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

What Wakefield, NH's
School Board
Is Doing to Ensure a First-Rate Education
for All Its Students

As state legislatures begin to pick up steam in their efforts to get rid of the Common Core octopus, with its many hidden tentacles reaching into the entire curriculum (under the guise of "literacy" standards), Common Core advocates have come up with a new ploy to ward off efforts to repeal Common Core and put first-rate standards in their place. It takes too long and costs too much money, Common Core advocates are now saying, to come up with another set of standards for ELA and math.  Here is what was in a newsletter put out by the Office for Education Policy at the University of Arkansas.

States that drop Common Core standards under the gun for replacing them: States that drop the Common Core State Standards face the prospect of less time to create new academic standards, and under intense political pressure. Generally, states have years to review content standards and make major changes if state school board members, those usually charged with ultimate approval of content standards, and others feel it's necessary. The process usually involves lengthy discussions, drafts, and revisions overseen by teachers at each grade level, as well as content-area experts and others who try to ensure the standards connect across grade levels.   (OEP Web Links, July 16, 2014).

This is a bogus claim, since nothing like this process took place with the excessively speedy development of Common Core's standards, violating every civic procedure in place for a state's own standards but with no complaints by any state board of education or governor.  Any state or local school district can come up with a first-class set of college and career-ready standards in ELA and math in a matter of minutes.  Many states already had them: MA, CA, Indiana in 2006, Georgia, for example. They weren't perfect, but they were far better than what Common Core has offered the 45 plus states now stuck with its low expectations and Common Core's hidden strings.

All a state or local district has to do (and it takes only a matter of weeks, not years) is adopt wholesale once highly-rated standards and ask high school English teachers to tweak the high school literature standards to reflect state or regional authors and works. Good math standards should be similar across states (to paraphrase Tolstoy, all happy marriages are similar), and there is no need for any appointed group to diddle with good math standards right now.

A state board of education could immediately post the standards proposed by a revision committee for a two-week public comment period (the same two-week period allowed for Common Core's standards) and adopt them in less than a month, at little or no cost to the taxpayers in the state.

Local districts are already beginning to do this since they have had the legal authority for hundreds of years to adopt and implement whatever standards they wish.  That is what plucky little Wakefield, New Hampshire's school board did last spring.  Its board decided to adopt the old Massachusetts ELA and math standards (after all, they had an empirical record of effectiveness, unlike Common Core's) and is already implementing them.  The Wakefield school board, school administrators, teachers, and parents all seem to be working together to implement a far more demanding academic curriculum than will be in place in most other New Hampshire communities this coming year, as suggested by our two and one/half hour discussion on July 15, 2014.   Their kids will become better readers and writers even if state-sponsored Common Core-based tests use test items that won't show it.



But Wakefield will face a new hurdle next year. What happens when an appointed state board of education, backed by a commissioner of education, tells a district that it must use a Common Core-based test?  And the local board refuses to do so, on the grounds that a Common Core-based test is incompatible with its locally supported and legally approved school curriculum, based on locally adopted standards that are far superior to Common Core's? And that the local board has more trust in local teacher-made tests than in the unknown quality of a Common Core-based test that scores students' Open Responses elsewhere, possibly by a computer? We don't know.

The statutory issue may have to be adjudicated by a state court. Let such a case proceed.  There are pro bono lawyers in the country to help local parents make the case that they should decide what they want their kids taught by means of their elected school boards, not Bill Gates and his minions on a state board of education.

Pioneer Institute Statement on Senate Charter School Cap Lift Vote


The Senate Turns Back the Clock

Today, the Massachusetts State Senate voted against S2262, a bill to lift the cap on charter school enrollment in the state's lowest-performing public school districts.

The Senate bill would have tied charter school expansion to full funding of reimbursement to sending districts. Under the bill, charter schools would have been responsible for 50 percent of extended day and extended year transportation costs. The Senate also filed dozens of amendments to the bill, which, with few exceptions, would have imposed unrealistic, harmful, and petty regulations on charter schools.

The Senate gets a low grade for the quality of the debate and a failing grade for the misrepresentations made about charter schools. Senator Barry Finegold said it best when he noted that we know what works, what's working in Lawrence and around the state to bridge the achievement gaps, and it is charter public schools.

Massachusetts charters are the most successful public schools in the country at closing achievement gaps among low-income and minority students, largely because they have flexibility from state regulations in exchange for more school autonomy.

A 2013 Stanford University study found that Massachusetts charter students gain an additional month and a half of learning in English and two and a half months in math each year compared with traditional public schools.
Massachusetts charter schools enroll over 32,000 students, while over 40,000 are on waiting lists. In Boston, 7,000 students attend charters, while 15,000 are waitlisted.

A recent vote by the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education to change the way school district performance is calculated will impact which districts are considered to be in the bottom 10 percent, reducing the number of students eligible to attend charter schools.

The 2014 Senate seems bent on returning education debates back to 1992. Massachusetts has benefitted too much from the 1993 Education Reform Act to turn back the clock.

http://pioneerinstitute.org/schoolhouse/

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

So where does the West Elk School District Stand on Common Core?

[Ross]

Cursive isn't part of Common Core is it?

Boy, 12, Wants To Bring Cursive Handwriting Back Into School Systems
Posted: Aug 11, 2014 9:00 AM CDT
Updated: Aug 11, 2014 9:08 AM CDT

Cursive writing may be making a comeback.

A young Nashville boy is joining a movement to bring it back to the school systems.

12-year-old John Boyle began his cursive writing crusade after a teacher corrected his school work in cursive.

He did not recognize the handwriting so he asked his mom and she began to teach him cursive.

"Right now, I think it's way too premature to eliminate cursive from the public schools," said John's mom, Kem Schmalzer.

State Rep. Sheila Butt, of Columbia, has since gotten involved and wants cursive writing to be returned to schools.

"Turned out to be a great thing, and I think of lot of people got on board and realized this was a good thing for the kids in Tennessee," said Rep. Butt

With the use of computers in schools, many school districts have eliminated it as part of their curriculum, but some Tennessee lawmakers say it's still an important skill.

Tennessee's state board of education has received preliminary approval to implement cursive writing into the state's new curriculum for second grade.

A final vote will come this fall.

http://www.myfoxphilly.com/story/26248078/boy-12-wants-to-bring-cursive-handwriting-back-into-school-systems