Common Core Education And More About Federal Government Control

[Ross]

If this is what happens to a simple Federal Government Controlled Lunch Menu
what do you suppose might happen to a complex Federal Government Controlled
Education System?  My guess sauerkraut !

Even though I like sauerkraut it's the gas developed from it that stinks !

Schools Opting
Out of Federal
Lunch Program

A number of U.S. school districts are opting out of the federal school lunch program serving meals that comply with the nutritional standards championed by first lady Michelle Obama.

The reason: Students are choosing not to eat the healthier meals mandated by the Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act that was passed in 2010.

One district opting out of the program is Fort Thomas Independent Schools in Campbell County, Ohio.

"The calorie limitation and types of foods that have to be provided have resulted in the kids just saying, 'I'm not going to eat that,'" Fort Thomas Superintendent Gene Kirchner told the Cincinnati Enquirer.

In many cases, students who are required to take fruit and vegetables with their meals are simply throwing them away.

In Kirchner's district, 166 fewer students bought lunch every day last year and instead brought lunch from home, went to nearby restaurants, or skipped lunch altogether.

That is costing school districts money. If students don't buy lunch, the district loses funds that could pay for textbooks and technology.

Nationwide, 1 million fewer students are choosing a school lunch each day that complies with the nutritional standards, and last year 47 percent of school meal programs reported that their revenues had declined.

"We've seen a lot more schools pop up," said Diane Pratt-Heavner, spokeswomen for the School Nutrition Association. "I've seen stories out of New York, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania."

The Healthy, Hunger-Free Kids Act, considered a key in Michelle Obama's "Let's Move!" campaign to reduce childhood obesity, calls for reduced sodium and fat, and more whole grains, fruits, and vegetables.

"They got rid of all the good food, and it doesn't taste good," one student told an Enquirer reporter on a day when students were required to take green beans or applesauce with their chicken sandwiches.

Most of the green beans were thrown away.

As the Insider Report disclosed last week, the new standards are also having the effect of banning many of the bake sales schools have traditionally relied on to raise funds.

And some schools have banned students from selling Girl Scout cookies during the day.

[Ross]

Homeschool Haters
Hijack
Dictionary.Com
Website

Posted on August 16, 2014 by Gary DeMar

For all their talk about diversity, liberals hate people who believe and act in a way that is different from liberal "values." They hate any competing worldview they can't control, define, and manipulate.

So it's not surprising that many liberals hate homeschooling, charter schools, vouchers, and school choice.

Some countries outlaw homeschooling. Two countries have taken decisive action against homeschoolers that have made the news:

"Among major democratic nations, homeschooling already is banned in Germany, under a Hitler-era law, and in Sweden, where authorities have taken offspring out of their family's arms to crack down on the educational method."

The Romeike family fled Germany in 2008 so they could practice their faith and educate their children in the United States. The Obama administration wanted to deport them while allowing tens of thousands of illegal aliens into the country.

In 2012 a Swedish appeals court terminated the parental rights of a Swedish family for homeschooling their son. Their son was taken from them and the State was granted full custody rights. In 2009, Swedish authorities stopped the Johansson family from leaving the country.

Stalin and Hitler would be proud that their policies live on.

While homeschooling isn't the exclusive domain of evangelical Christians, it is dominated by that group. Homeschool conventions take place all across America with thousands attending.

"North Carolina officials say there has been a huge increase over the past two years in the number of Tar Heel families who have pulled their kids out of public schools and begun educating them at home. The number of homeschools has jumped 27 percent since the 2011-12 school year, NewsObserver.com reports."

So it's not surprising that some disgruntled liberals would go on the attack to discredit homeschooling. Every child pulled out of a government school is one less child that can be indoctrinated in the ways of liberalism.

Somebody at Dictionary.com thought he or she would undermine homeschooling by taking potshots at it through rewriting some definitions and sentence examples with the word "homeschool."
◾"If you want to keep your kids from reality and turn them into mindless automaton copies of yourself," the site declares, "homeschool them."
◾"If you wish to teach your children such nonsense," another of the sentences declares, "then homeschool where lame propaganda can remain unchallenged."
◾"If she can't find anyone willing to validate her helicopter parenting," lists a third, "she'll homeschool.

Consider government education and the newfangled Common Core. Statist education is one size and one type fits all. Students sit at desks for about 6 hours every day with almost no interaction with teachers and fellow students. In fact, students are to sit still and be quiet. The curriculum must be slavishly followed.

Some topics are forbidden to be discussed in government schools.

Homeschooling is tailored to a child's needs and learning style. There is much more "socialization" going on since most homeschooling families get together with other homeschooling families on a regular basis. Some of the "socialization" that takes place in government schools is less than ideal.

Homeschoolers have no trouble getting into college, even the so-called prestigious colleges and universities, as long as they meet the academic standards.

Do some parents do a poor job homeschooling? Probably. The same is true of governing schooling with its less than stellar graduation rate of around 65 percent.

There's enough information on the internet that will dispel any critic of homeschooling.

The real issue is control. Liberals want people to think like them, and it bugs them when millions of parents say, "Not in our home."

http://godfatherpolitics.com/16685/homeschool-haters-hijack-dictionary-com-website/

[Ross]

Teacher omits 'Under God' from daily Pledge of Allegiance

August 19, 2014
Kyle Olson
Kyle founded Education Action Group in 2007.

Credit: Fox News/Jessica Andrews

AIKEN, S.C. – Secular progressives continue chipping away at the foundation of American exceptionalism. It's not a mistake these sorts of stories continue happening in "conservative" places like South Carolina and Texas.

Fox News reports mother-of-six Jessica Andrews learned her daughter would be reciting the Pledge of Allegiance each day, but when Andrews saw the flyer, words were missing.

I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

"It was like an 'Oh my gosh' type of feeling," Andrews tells Todd Starnes.

"Under God" was gone.

Andrews' daughter is a fourth grader at Chukker Creek Elementary School in the Aiken County School District.

"It's outrageous, to be honest," she tells Starnes. "It seems like the government is doing everything they can to take God out of everything."

The school district reports to Starnes, "This was a single mistake by a very embarrassed and apologetic teacher."

"The teacher failed to proof the paper," the district contends.

Really? What else is the teacher or district officials failing to proofread?
 



After all, there are numerous examples of God – and specifically Christianity – being banned from government schools.

Earlier this year, a Florida teacher told a 12-year-old student to stop reading his Bible during free time.

"I noticed that he has a book – a religious book – in the classroom," the teacher said in a voicemail, tattling to the boy's parents. "He's not permitted to read those books in my classroom."

A Texas teacher ordered a student – this one a second grader – to stop reading her Bible during "read to myself" time.

The school district later clarified the policy to ensure students could read the Bible in school after it was embarrassed in the national media.

But are these just innocent mistakes or something more? And how many "innocent mistakes" aren't caught and continue to be normal practice?

One of two things are happening, as evidenced in the South Carolina case: either there is an intention to omit God from the public square or there is a lack of attentiveness to ensure students are being taught the truth, resulting from human incompetence. It's hard to say which one is worse.

http://eagnews.org/teacher-omits-under-god-from-daily-pledge-of-allegiance/

[Ross]

An app called 2nd Vote tells consumers how companies spend on political causes.

Before opening a new bank account, filling up your tank, shopping for groceries, purchasing a computer, booking a flight or visiting a drug store, you can now find out how those companies are spending on political causes.

Thanks to a free online app called 2nd Vote, consumers have this information at their fingertips for America's most popular brands.

The app, which is available on Google Play and Apple's iTunes, allows instantaneous access to a database that includes more than 400 companies. It's the brainchild of a nonprofit based in Nashville, Tenn., which seeks to help consumers make more informed decisions.

"Conservatives need to have this information so they can hold companies accountable," Chris Walker, executive director of 2ndVote, told The Daily Signal.  "Companies will listen, and listen very quickly and act in a meaningful way if as customers they redirect how their money is spent. The status quo is that conservatives have not engaged on this, so we can't be surprised when all the corporate activity goes toward the left."

With a new school year starting in many states this week, 2nd Vote just rolled out an additional feature that allows parents, teachers and other concerned citizens to identify companies that support Common Core national education standards.

Education experts, including The Heritage Foundation's Lindsey Burke, have argued Common Core is advancing a "top-down" approach to education that empowers federal bureaucrats with the ability to dictate standards while marginalizing the role of parents, teachers and taxpayers at the local level.

There is also a growing body of evidence that suggests Common Core's instructional methods and learning techniques are less than effective. A study from the Pioneer Institute, for example, found that Common Core's mathematics curriculum left American students two grade levels behind their international counterparts.

"What we want to do is connect the dots for conservatives in terms of how their money is being spent and to show which companies are promoting something they don't support," Walker said, adding:


Education was a natural next step for us and that's why we decided to take a look at Common Core. We want high standards, but local control is better. We are in global economy and have a lot of competition from companies that are trying to beat us so we need high standards. But when you federalize and centralize education, you diminish the importance of the 50 states as laboratories. This is where the best ideas come from.

2nd Vote, which launched last October, is built around a team of "old campaign opposition researchers" who pour through tax filings, public statements and financial records of political contributions as a way of tracking corporate activity, Walker explained.

Companies are then ranked on a scale of one to five, with one being the most liberal and five being the most conservative. 2nd Vote describes each of the ranked positions as follows:
1.Liberal: Direct donations to liberal organizations, such as pro-abortion groups or gun control groups. Having liberal values in the company's main business platform.
2.Lean Liberal: Third-party donations to groups that support or fund liberal organizations causes, matching gifts to liberal organizations or causes, or any indirect support to liberal organizations or causes.
3.Neutral: Absence of any support of liberal organizations or causes. A company can also score neutral if they equally support liberal and conservative causes.
4.Lean Conservative: Third-party donations to groups that support conservative organizations or causes, matching gifts to conservative causes or groups, or any indirect support for conservative organizations or causes.
5.Conservative: Direct funding to conservative groups, such as pro-life groups and pro-2nd Amendment groups. Having conservative values in the company's main business platform.

So far, 2nd Vote has identified more than two dozen corporations supporting Common Core, either directly or indirectly. They include major banks, energy companies, technology companies, multinational retail stores, office supply stores, drug stores and at least one major airline. Among the companies identified by 2nd Vote are:
•Apple
•Bank of America
•Coca-Cola
•ConocoPhillips
•CVS Caremark
•Dell
•ExxonMobile
•General Electric
•Intel
•Microsoft
•Pfizer
•State Farm
•United Airlines
•Verizon
•Walmart
•Walgreens
•Xerox

Walker sees an opportunity for conservatives to break through on education policy. There's a certain "inconsistency" in the corporate position that could be exploited, he suggests.

Bank of America, for example, belongs to the Business Roundtable, which supports both Common Core and school choice initiatives. Bank of America also donates to the Center for American Progress, which issued a report in favor of Common Core standards and described school vouchers as a "weapon" conservatives are using to destroy the public school system.

"These positions are in conflict," Walker said.

Bank of America spokesman T.J. Crawford denied the bank had taken a position on Common Core when reached by The Daily Signal.

In addition to Common Core, 2nd Vote provides conservatives with insight into corporate funding on five other issues: life, marriage, Second Amendment, corporate welfare and environmentalism.

Walker said:


We want to provide information and help people to make informed decisions and to have it be profitable for companies to be engaged with conservatives. We want to provide a positive incentive not a negative force. By operating together in large numbers, and using the app, we can affect meaningful changes and help our ideas get the attention they deserve

http://dailysignal.com/2014/08/25/bank-supporting-common-core-theres-now-app-thatll-tell/?utm_source=heritagefoundation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=morningbell&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRonvqvIZKXonjHpfsX56O4kWqa%2BlMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4ARcZnI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFQrLBMa1ozrgOWxU%3D

[Ross]

Many kids are heading back to public school this week, and so begins fall and spring semesters. You have entrusted the government to give your child a good curriculum and a teaching staff you can count on. But what happens when the school staff is equipped with a big list of employees, but not necessarily a big crop of teachers focused on your child?

Even though the Obama Administration proposes spending $25 billion specifically to "provide support for hundreds of thousands of education jobs" in order to "keep teachers in the classroom," research by both Heritage and The Fordham Institute reveal alarming numbers: only half of education jobs belong to teachers.

Heritage's education policy expert Lindsey Burke says "school districts should trim bureaucracy and work on long-term reform options for better targeting taxpayer resources," instead of putting taxpayers on the hook for more federal spending.

Check out the numbers in the four charts below.

1. The charts proving only half of education jobs are teachers:

2. The chart that proves how much education staffing has outpaced student enrollment:

3. The chart showing the farther a school is from a city, the more non-teaching staff it has:

http://dailysignal.com/2014/08/25/4-charts-every-mom-kids-going-back-school-see/?utm_source=heritagefoundation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=morningbell&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRonvqvIZKXonjHpfsX56O4kWqa%2BlMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4ARcZnI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFQrLBMa1ozrgOWxU%3D

[Ross]

Michigan teacher
compares Ferguson looting
to the Boston Tea Party,
cites
'white privilege'

August 25, 2014

FERGUSON, Mo. – Activist teachers are already spinning yarns in their classrooms to score political points in the shooting death of Ferguson, Missouri teen Michael Brown.

The unidentified Selma, Alabama teacher who was suspended for having students reenact the shooting isn't the only one.

Mike Kaechele, a Grand Rapids, Michigan teacher says the incident, as well as resulting looting and rioting, are a good reminder that "institutional racism has always been" in America.

He writes on his "Concrete Classroom" blog:

The tragic event of the killing of MIchael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri have led to protests and rioting against police brutality. It brings to the surface (again) the institutional racism that has always been in our country. I think white privilege causes some to look at Ferguson as an excuse for criminal activity rather than a political protest. William Chamberlain tweeted a comment about the looting comparing it to the Boston Tea Party.

So "white privilege" causes people to look at the looting as "criminal activity" as opposed to a "political protest"?

Kaechele created this image and posted it on his website.
 



The teacher offered several questions to be asked, including:

*What are the similarities between the events?
*Why did the people in Boston dress up as Native Americans?
*What stereotypes does that show?
*What is institutional racism and how should it be addressed?
*Why is the image on the right called a "party"?
*The event on the right has been mythologized and treated as action by heroes. Do you think the event on the left will be?

Innocent small business owners – who have nothing to do with the police nor the incident – themselves were victimized by criminals who saw the teen's death as an excuse to steal and destroy.

"John Zisser of Zisser Tire and Auto Services told the Business Journal that damage and inventory loss could top $100,000. He was able to open his doors after replacing broken windows with plywood board and hanging up a 'Now Open' banner," the Washington Times reports.

It's unclear whether Kaechele's desired conclusion by students is that the events are, indeed, nothing like each other. But given his rhetoric about "white privilege" and "institutional racism," he probably sees some moral equivalence.

http://eagnews.org/teacher-compares-ferguson-looting-to-the-boston-tea-party/

[Ross]

Good For Jindal

Jindal Challenges Obama's
"Unlawful Coercion"
into Common Core

Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal (R) filed a lawsuit in federal court yesterday against the Obama Administration over its use of federal funding and waivers from No Child Left Behind (NCLB) to incentivize states to adopt Common Core national standards and tests.

Jindal contends that these actions put states on "a path toward a national curriculum." The lawsuit charges that


through regulatory and rule making authority, Defendants have constructed a scheme that effectively forces States down a path toward a national curriculum by requiring, as a condition of funding under the President's Race to the Top [RTTT] programs, that States join "consortia of states" and agree to adopt a common set of content standards and to implement the assessment protocols and policies created by that consortium, all under the direction of the United States Department of Education [DOE]. It is impossible to square the executive actions at issue with settled Congressional authority or the Tenth Amendment.

The complaint also notes that the DOE "has tethered NCLB waivers and other ESEA [Elementary and Secondary Education Act] [grant] conditions to the RTTT program objectives of Common Core standards and assessments, thus coercing States to participate in the objectionable RTTT conditions under the threat of more onerous conditions and/or the loss of funding under ESEA and NCLB."

Analysis conducted in 2012 by former DOE officials came to a similar conclusion: "The Department has simply paid others to do that which it is forbidden to do. This tactic should not inoculate the Department against the curriculum prohibitions imposed by Congress" (emphasis added).

The DOE granted ESEA waivers to states such as Louisiana under the condition that they meet a variety of new requirements concocted by the DOE. And, pursuant to Section 9401 of the law, codified at 20 U.S. Code § 7861, the Secretary of Education is to waive "any statutory or regulatory requirement" of the ESEA (now known as No Child Left Behind) when a state requests a waiver.

The problem is that rather than wait for states to request waivers if they were unable to meet certain requirements, the Obama Administration actively encouraged non-compliance by developing an ESEA Flexibility program, the details of which were announced in September 2011. This program represented what the Congressional Research Service (CRS) described as "a fundamental redesign of key elements of the ESEA." The program encouraged states to apply for waivers, insulating them from NCLB sanctions for failure to meet achievement benchmarks.

In order to receive a waiver, however, states were required to adopt standards common to a "significant number" of states (as the CRS report says, "presumably the Common Core State Standards") or college-and-career readiness standards approved by a state's Institute of Higher Education network.

Critics of Common Core have long argued that Common Core national standards and tests will inevitably strengthen federal power over education while weakening schools' direct accountability to parents and taxpayers. They're also more likely to result in standardizing mediocrity rather than establishing standards of excellence—something that has become more evident as states compare Common Core to the previously excellent standards in place in states such as Massachusetts and Indiana.

Moreover, this might not be legal—something the Governor's lawsuit highlights. The waiver scheme might violate a number of statutes. The waiver program appears to encourage noncompliance. Furthermore, there are provisions in three federal laws that explicitly prohibit federal direction of curriculum: the General Education Provisions Act, the Department of Education Organization Act, and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.

The federal government will likely argue that it is simply directing "standards" and not "curricula," but this is something for a federal court to decide. The government will also likely argue that it is barely involved at all, because it is only directing compliance with those standards set up by a "significant number of states." Yet the federal government has been quite involved in this process, not least by facilitating state development of Common Core and then essentially conditioning waivers on adopting Common Core. The extent of federal involvement is also something for a federal court to decide.

There are also serious constitutional questions. In Jindal's view, even if (and it's a big "if") one presumes that federal law authorizes the President the waiver authority he claims, that federal law might be invalid under the Tenth Amendment to the extent it authorizes the "commandeering" of state law in the field of education. In the 2012 Obamacare case, Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the majority, struck down the Medicaid expansion component of the law because, in the Court's opinion, the "retroactive" imposition of onerous new conditions on federal grants in that case was tantamount to holding a "gun to the head" of states. Such a "gun to the head" might be unconstitutional.

Kudos to Governor Jindal for pushing back against this misguided federal overreach.

http://dailysignal.com/2014/08/28/jindal-challenges-obamas-unlawful-coercion-common-core/?utm_source=heritagefoundation&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=morningbell&mkt_tok=3RkMMJWWfF9wsRonva7NZKXonjHpfsX56O4kWqa%2BlMI%2F0ER3fOvrPUfGjI4DTMdmI%2BSLDwEYGJlv6SgFQrLBMa1ozrgOWxU%3D

[Ross]

We now have a smart
exit strategy from
Common Core

September 1, 2014

  Pioneer Institute is an independent, non-partisan, privately funded research organization that seeks to improve the quality of life in Massachusetts through civic discourse and intellectually rigorous, data-driven public policy solutions based on free market principles, individual liberty and responsibility, and the ideal of effective, limited and accountable government.

BOSTON – Rick Hess and Mike McShane back in the spring wrote in the National Review Online that, "At the end of March, Indiana became the first state to repeal the Common Core standards. The aftermath has not been pretty."

And they were right. Hess and McShane noted:

Critics have raised valid concerns but failed to put forward a
notion of what happens next. This is a problem. Common Core
adoption meant that Indiana schools set in place not only new
reading and math standards but also new tests, curricula,
instructional materials, and teaching strategies. And the abrupt
shift could be a train wreck for students and educators.

Already back in 2011, Lindsey Burke of the Heritage Foundation and a few others had tried to map out a strategy for states to exit Common Core.

For some states it has proven difficult to figure out. Back in 2011 Burke laid out some sensible markers:
•Determine how the decision was made to cede the state's standard-setting authority and use that discovery process to determine the best way to reverse course.
•Prohibit new spending for standards implementation.

But by the time the wave of "repeal and replace" legislation began with Indiana, much more granular "exit strategies" were possible.  As Dr. Sandra Stotsky noted in a Breitbart blog, she had made available for free alternate, high-quality ELA standards and also advised state officials on the kind of robust public process that would more likely lead to world-class standards in Indiana.  For political reasons that only Governor Pence might be able to explain, the state chose a rushed, Common Core-lite strategy. Stotsky provided more detail on the utter failure to develop higher quality state standards in pieces here, here, and elsewhere.

So what's a state to do? Well, a lot has changed since Burke and others began thinking through how to repeal and replace the Core.  Here are some facts:
•At this point, most states have already spent the dollars they received through Race to the Top (RttT) for Common Core implementation.  In most cases the RttT funding for Common Core implementation (mainly for such things as professional development) was only a third to a fourth of the total RttT grant.  In Massachusetts case, we received $250 million from the feds, but a lot of it went to districts with little definition, some went for implementation of federally influenced teacher evaluations, and some went for Common Core.  Assuming between $75 million and $100 million went to Common Core in the Bay State, that only constituted a small fraction of the total cost to get to the place where the standards and tests can even be administered. A 2011 Pioneer study, which focused on the cost of textbooks, technology, assessments and professional development pegged the cost to the country at $16 billion and to Massachusetts alone at $355 million.
•Many states, including Florida, California and it seems Massachusetts, just to provide a few examples, have run up against technology costs that far exceed what state education officials implied or explicitly disclosed in the past.  In Florida, two years ago when Tony Bennett was Commissioner of Education, there was much debate because of discussion of the need for an additional $400 million for technology alone.  In Massachusetts, we are seeing overrides at the local level to pay for technology, and there have been quiet discussion about the possibility of using the state's School Building Authority funding (which is for, ahem, buildings) to fund technology, which is an expense that can be capitalized.  That conversation with the SBA has led nowhere to date. Thankfully.
•The Common Core-aligned "consortia" tests, PARCC and SBAC, have lost market share – and how!  PARCC has gone from 25 participating states to 13 nominal states participating.  I say nominal because Louisiana and other states that are chafing to get out of PARCC are included in PARCC's list of 13 friendly states.  With the loss of market share – fewer students participating – the cost of the test must necessarily go up on a per student basis.  Maybe Pearson, PARCC's preferred (and in some states no-bid) contractor, will be able to hold the line on the pricing in the short term, but that will be a loss leader for them, and the long-term pricing is anything but known.

What those facts tell me are the following three things:
1.The feds can no longer hold out the possibility of punishing states that received RttT funding for the Core.  The states long ago spent the stimulus money.
2.Second, the states have been saddled with a significant unfunded mandate.  States and localities fund 90% of educational services, so if there are costs that go beyond the original sum received through the RttT for Common Core, then states and localities will be on the hook for them.
3.The future costs of staying with Common Core are unpredictable – and therefore at this point it is more prudent from a budgetary perspective to transition from the Core and the Core-aligned tests.



There are further considerations and experiences that finally allow states to trace out a clear path out from the Core.

Indiana's repeal and replace bill showed how not to extricate a state from the Core.  Governor Pence demonstrated little interest in policy or in educational quality; nor did he evince a clear vision of truly public process.  The truncated effort to develop new "Indiana" standards led to an inside job led by proponents of the Core, it started with the Core as a foundational document, and it ended up with a product even worse than the Core, as Stotsky among others clearly demonstrated.

Oklahoma and South Carolina have taken a different path, and they are trying to build new state-led standards with real public processes.  Oklahoma had the benefit of state standards that were in fact of higher quality than the Core.  They are therefore going back to the drawing board and using the Oklahoma standards as a foundation stone.  South Carolina has the benefit of very strong US History standards, but do not have strong ELA and math standards to draft off of.

That's where Ohio comes in.  Learning from Indiana's disastrous effort and the good efforts in Oklahoma and South Carolina, Ohio's HB597 is a huge step forward in that it not only rejects Common Core's mediocre offerings, but it provides on an interim basis Massachusetts' nation-leading standards as the new foundation to draft off of in developing new Ohio standards.  The Massachusetts' standards go into place for two years as Ohio educators, businesses, scholars and parents put their heads together in a truly public process—and develop, we hope, even better standards than what Massachusetts had.

And there are several points to be made in favor of states quickly adopting the MA standards for a two-year interim period while developing their own first-rate standards.

First, two years is ample time to engage local communities and constituencies in the kind of public process that upholds the public trust and also can gain the level of teacher buy-in that will help make new standards effective guidance.  No such buy-in is possible with Common Core because of its lack of a public process.
 



Second, the interim adoption of the Massachusetts standards is a cost-effective exit strategy for Ohio and other states.  The fact is that Common Core requires lots of professional development, because there are pedagogical strategies embedded in the Core standards.  A couple of examples will suffice: Some of the early grad math requires multiple approaches rather than standard algorithms.  The high school geometry standards insist on the use of an experimental method that has not been used successfully in Western high schools.  Early grade ELA includes more non-fiction than teachers have used in the past; across the board, there are non-fiction offerings that fall outside the traditional teacher preparation and likely background of English teachers.

On the other hand, Massachusetts standards will require minimal professional development.  None at the high school level because the standards reflect the disciplinary background of teachers in English, mathematics, science, and history/U.S. Government.  Continuing PD will be needed in reading in K-6 because of the inadequacy of reading methods courses in many schools of education and in some professional development.  As Stotsky noted years ago, the Massachusetts standards were developed with teachers' backgrounds in mind.  There is not the insistence on new methods and fads.  English teachers, most of whom came out of English lit majors are likely to be pretty comfortable teaching a greater amount of literature rather than jamming in lots of non-fiction extracts.  As a result, costs for professional development will be much, much lower.

Third, the organization and clarity of the Massachusetts standards not only can be implemented as interim standards very easily and without lots of professional development, but they also lend themselves to greater ease of understanding to teachers and district officials.  In short, they will serve more effectively as a framework for Ohio's development of new, higher-quality standards.

As for the prohibition of PARCC embedded in Ohio HB597, well, that is just smart.  There is no predictability as to whether PARCC will survive and, if it does, at what price point.  The Massachusetts assessment, MCAS, is a known entity.  It's been "tested" and proven over a decade.  And, as I noted to the Ohio Rules and Reference Committee, the fact is that PARCC is on its last legs.  Why stick with a sinking ship?  (It is useful to note that there are free test items available from 2001 to 2011 on the Massachusetts Education Department's website.)

Finally, there is that small detail called quality.  School systems will have a head start in using first-rate standards by orienting themselves to the Massachusetts standards.
So, Ohio Representatives Matt Huffman and Andrew Thompson may not only have given Ohioans hope, they may have traced out the core elements of a positive agenda that can replace the Core.  And that's important.  In about 25 states, it is not enough for state officials and activists to say no to Common Core.  Those states had poor quality standards before the Core and getting rid of it will not lead to higher achievement by their students.  Instead, they need to have an exit strategy that says no to the Core and yes to world-class standards.

Adoption on an interim basis of Massachusetts' standards is a great innovation.  Importantly, Huffman and Thompson are not saying that they want to replace the Core with Massachusetts' standards.  They are saying that the Massachusetts standards are in interim step – a great framework that Ohioans will need to make their own.  They should.  This country was built on a federalist impulse – the idea of competitive federalism.  We want states to have different standards, to test what works and what doesn't.  States competing to be the best is a true Race to the Top.  That's a virtuous cycle and very different from the feds' RttT, which was more like a race to comply with federal definitions of what "innovation" means.

http://eagnews.org/we-now-have-a-smart-exit-strategy-from-common-core/

[Ross]

The Emperor's New Clothes

National Assessments Based on Weak "College and Career Readiness Standards" Author(s): Sandra Stotsky and Ze'ev Wurman — Publication date: 2010-05-20 Category: Education Abstract: During the past year, academic experts, educators, and policy makers have waged a confusing and largely invisible war over the content and quality of Common Core's proposed high school exit and grade-level standards. Some critics see little or no value to national standards, explaining why local or state control is necessary for real innovations in education and why "one size doesn't fit all" applies as strongly to the school curriculum as it does to the clothing industry. On the other hand, some supporters believe so strongly in the idea of national standards that they appear willing to accept Common Core's standards no matter how inferior they may be to the best sets of state or international standards so long as they are better than most states' standards. In contrast, others who believe that national standards may have value have found earlier drafts incapable of making American students competitive with those in the highest-achieving countries. No one knows whether Common Core's standards will raise student achievement in all performance categories, simply preserve an unacceptable academic status quo, or actually reduce the percentage of high-achieving high school students in states that adopt them.

Down Load Paper Here: http://pioneerinstitute.org/?wpdmdl=30&;

[Ross]

The fight over the
Common Core
Academic Standards

The fight over the Common Core academic standards is so polarized, with so few points of agreement, that if the Gershwins were alive today they could rewrite their lyrics as "You like po-TAY-toe, I

When Dr. James Milgram, a mathematician, who was asked to review the Common Core Standards in mathematics states that the adoption of these standards would be detrimental I think we should calmly listen to what he has to say:

"During a Friday conference call sponsored by Texas-based Women on the Wall, Stanford mathematician and former member of the Common Core Validation Committee Dr. James Milgram, told listeners that if the controversial standards are not repealed, America's place as a competitor in the technology industry will ultimately be severely undermined."

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/09/01/Common-Core-Blockbuster-Mathematician-Dr-Jim-Milgram-Warns-Common-Core-Will-Destroy-America-s-Standing-in-Technology

As for the Core Common Core Standards in literature Dr. Thomas Moore of Hillsdale College has written in his book, The Myth Killers:

"...Either the authors of the Common Core are hopelessly naïve or they think that we are hopelessly naïve. It must be one or the other. The Common Core, as it is written, encourages superficiality in reading and bias in thought. Either there exists no coherent philosophy of education governing the arrangement of texts within the document, or there does exist a coherent philosophy: that of obscuring the high, powerful truths about virtue, freedom, suffering, and happiness found in great works of Western literature...(Chapter 5)"

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/01/18/Hillsdale-College-Professor-Terrence-Moore-Common-Core-Superficial-Biased-Embarrassingly-Dumb

So rather than being a matter of incivility this is really a matter of should these unproven standards beforced across the board on all of the children of this country. Just because someone is well-meaning does not mean they are right.