FPACC cc coercion_2013_fnl (1)

CC = Conditions + Coercion + Conflict of Interest

Welcome to the new Common Core

fuzzy math

CC = Conditions + Coercion + Conflict of InterestWelcome to the new Common Core fuzzy math.

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The Evidence to Backup the Claim

Administration Plan For Title 1 (ESEA)First, as a condition of receiving access to Title I funds, we will ask all states to put in place a plan to adopt and certify standards that are college and career-ready in reading and math. Once you’ve got those standards in place, you’ll be able to better compete for funds to improve teaching and upgrade curricula.Remarks by the President and the Vice President to the National Governors Association, February 22, 2010

No Child Left Behind And ESEA WaiversFederal overreach?? They circumvented Congress after Congress failed to reauthorize in 2007. NCLB has not been reauthorized to date. The law does not allow waivers in exchange for accepting educational standards.

We also changed the way we do business at the Department of Education. Instead of issuing top-down edicts, we provided incentives for and supports for states districts, schools and local communities to undertake reform themselves, including offering more flexibility to states in the form of waivers from No Child Left Behind... The Obama Record in Education, Secretary Duncan’s Remarks to the Mom Congress, April 30, 2012

Waivers are not a pass on accountability – but a smarter, more focused and fair way to hold ourselves accountable. In exchange for adopting high standards and meaningful systems of teacher support and evaluation...Moving Forward, Staying Focused. Remarks of Arne Duncan, national Press Club, October 2, 2012

To help states, districts and schools that are ready to move forward with education reform, our administration will provide flexibility from the law in exchange for a real commitment to undertake change. The purpose is not to give states and districts a reprieve from accountability, but rather to unleash energy to improve our schools at the local level. President Obama quote in “Obama Administration Sets High Bar for Flexibility from No Child Left Behind in Order to Advance Equity and Support Reform” Press Release, September 23, 2011

“Why deal with pesky Congress when you get to make all the rules?” said Michael Petrilli, executive vice president of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute. The department doesn’t have the authority to declare waivers high-risk, he said, and one of the states should call Duncan’s bluff.http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/arne-duncan-no-child-left-behind-waivers-95818.html

The U.S. Department of Education has invited each State Educational Agency (SEA) to request flexibility regarding specific requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) in exchange for rigorous and comprehensive state-developed plans designed to improve educational outcomes for all students, close achievement gaps, increase equity, and improve the quality of instruction.ELEMENTARY & SECONDARY EDUCATION, ESEA Flexibility http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/esea-flexibility/index.html


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The 4.5 Billion Dollar Carrot In addition to serious concerns we have regarding the Department’s aforementioned coercion of states to opt-in to Common Core standards, many of which were and continue to have serious budgetary issues and specific issues with existing education policies, we have become increasingly concerned over the development of the Common Core standards themselves. Though initially promoted as state-based education standards, Common Core standards, as they have been developed over the last few years, are nothing of the sort. In just one very troubling instance, Common Core standards will replace state-based standardized testing with nationally-based standardized testing, the creation and initial implementation of which will be funded in full by the federal government. The long-term, annual administering of the exams, the cost of which has not been specified by the Department, is to be funded by the states.Letter to Arne Duncan from Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO-03) April 2013.http://dianevann.authorsxpress.com/files/2013/04/Letter-to-Arne-Duncan-from-Congress.pdf

Race To The Top GrantsThat’s why instead of just pouring money into the system that’s not working, we launched a competition called Race to the Top. And to all 50 states -- to governors, to schools districts -- we said, show us the most innovative plans to improve teacher quality and student achievement; we’ll show you the money. We want to provide you more resources, but there’s also got to be a commitment on your part to make the changes that are necessary so that we can see actual results.Remarks by the President on No Child Left Behind Flexibility, September 23, 2011

States are awarded points for their compliance with a rubric of standards on issues like teacher evaluations and the number of charter schools, and applicants compete for a share of the $3.4 billion pool. The program, which began with $4.6 billion in stimulus funds, has been credited with galvanizing almost every state to either make significant changes to education laws, gain support of teacher unions, or to raise education standards across the board—all without distributing a penny in federal money.Education reforms spark ‘quiet revolution’ By ABBY PHILLIP, July 27, 2010http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/40283.html

Obama Administration Plays A Modest Role?The Obama administration is playing a modest role in sparking this quiet revolution through Race to the Top and other reform initiatives that are giving states the incentive to raise standards, improve teacher effectiveness, build data systems, and turn around low-performing schools.The Quiet Revolution, July 26, 2010 http://www.ed.gov/blog/2010/07/the-quiet-revolution/

Quiet Revolution?The development of the Common Core Standards was a closed door process. Parents feel that there was an underlying, well understood, hush and rush to implement.

Today in the field of public education, this moment is upon us and I am not the first to say it. From journalists and educators to politicians and parents _ there is a growing sense that a quiet revolution is underway in our homes and schools, classrooms and communities.”The Quiet Revolution: Secretary Arne Dunca’s Remarks at the National Press Club,” July 27, 2010


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Validation Of CCSS... Transparent Process?? As a condition of membership, all Validation Committee members had to agree to 10 conditions, among which were the following:

• OwnershipoftheCommonCoreStateStandards,includingalldrafts,copies,reviews,comments,andnon-final versions(collectively,CommonCoreStateStandards),shall reside solely and exclusively with the Council of Chief State School Officers (“CCSSO”) and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (“NGA Center”).

• Iagreetomaintainthedeliberations,discussions,andworkoftheValidationCommittee,includingthecontentofany draft or final documents, on a strictly confidential basis and shall not disclose or communicate any information related to the same, including in summary form, except within the membership of the Validation Committee and to CCSSO and the NGA Center.Can This Country Survive Common Core’s College Readiness Level? By: R. James Milgram and Sandra Stotsky, September 2013 (Members of the CCSS Validation Committee, They did not sign off on the standards)

CCSS Research/Evidence Based?Proponents of Common Core push the claim that the Core is evidence based.

“While sometimes I’ve been called an architect of their standards, I think their true architecture is evidence,” Colemansaid.“That’sthebindingsecretofthestandards.”Coleman,ZimbaandSuePimentel,aneducation consultant, made sure the standards reflect the skills students need to succeed after high school.http://forward.com/articles/182587/david-coleman-the-most-influential-education-figur/?p=all#ixzz2f4H3cr9H

But is CCSS really “evidence based”??

The standards have not been validated empirically and no metric has been set to monitor the intended and unintended consequences they will have on the education system and children (Mathis, 2010). Yet most of the nation‘s governors, state education leaders, and many education organizations remain committed to the initiative.

When I reviewed that large and growing body of knowledge offered by the NGA, I found that it was not large, and in fact built mostly on one report, Benchmarking for Success, created by the NGA and the CCSSO, the same groups that created these standards; Hardly independent research.AASA Journal of Scholarship and Practice, Vol. 7, No. 4 Winter 2011http://www.aasa.org/uploadedFiles/Publications/Newsletters/JSP_Winter2011.FINAL.pdf

The Common Core math standards also require that geometry be taught by an experimental method that had never been used successfully anywhere in the world.A version of this paper was submitted to the American Legislative Exchange Council by authors Jonathan Butcher of the Goldwater Institute, goldwaterinstitute.org, Emmett McGroarty of the American Principles Project, american-principlesproject.org, and Liv Finne of Washington Policy Center, washingtonpolicy.org http://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/notes/why-common-core-bad-america


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Standards Are Internationally Benchmarked? Not Really... The play on words is astounding from those that advocate for Common Core. When we get down to it, it’s about standards that were “informed by” and not officially Internationally benchmarked.

AspartoftheCommonCoreStateStandardsInitiative,Achievehelpedcollectandanalyzestandardsfromanumberofcountries.Thesestudieshelpedinformthechoicesmadebythewritersofthecommonstandards.SeetheCommonCoreStateStandardsInitiativewebsiteforexamplesofhowinternationalbenchmarkingwasused to inform the development of the standards in mathematics and English Language Arts/Literacy.http://www.achieve.org/international-benchmarking

Myth:TheStandardsarenotinternationallybenchmarked.Fact: International benchmarking played a significant role in both sets of standards. In fact, the college and career ready standards include an appendix listing the evidence that was consulted in drafting the standards and the international data consulted in the benchmarking process is included in this appendix. More evidence from international sources will be presented together with the final draft.Myths About Content and Quality: General http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/myths-vs-facts

I can tell you that my main objection to Core Standards, and the reason I didn’t sign off on them was that they did not match up to international expectations. They were at least 2 years behind the practices in the high achieving countries by 7th grade, and, as a number of people have observed, only require partial understanding of what would be the content of a normal, solid, course in Algebra I or Geometry. Moreover, they cover very little of the content of Algebra II, and none of any higher level course… They will not help our children match up to the students in the top foreign countries…Statement by James Milgram, the mathematician who served on the Common Core validation committee and refused to sign off on the standards

Gigot never asked Klein what countries we were supposedly benchmarked to. Nor did the Exxon ad name a country to which these standards were supposedly benchmarked. Klein wouldn’t have been able to answer, nor could Exxon have named a country because Common Core’s standards are not internationally benchmarked. Neither the method-ologically flawed study by William Schmidt of Michigan State University, nor the post-Common Core studies by David Conley of the University of Oregon, all funded by the Gates Foundation, have shown that Common Core’s content is close to, never mind equal to, the level of the academic content of the mathematics and English standards in high-achieving countries. Moreover, Conley’s studies actually contradict the findings of his much earlier pre-Common Core study showing what college faculty in this country expect of entering freshmen in mathematics and English.”ThenexttimesomeonesaysthatCommonCorewillincreaseU.S.internationalcompetitivenessbecausethestandards are “internationally benchmarked,” simply ask them what evidence they have. This phrase is misleading mil-lions of people.Statement by Professor Sandra Stotsky, served on the Common Core validation committee and refused to sign off on the standards.

TheJointInternationalBenchmarkingReport,theprimarysourceofevidenceprovidedbytheNGAandCCSSO, draws most of its conclusions from one report, The Role of Cognitive Skills in Economic Development (Hanushek & Woessmann, 2008). The use of that report is troubling because it has several fatal flaws in its logic and methodology.AASA Journal of Scholarship and Practice, Vol. 7, No. 4 Winter 2011http://www.aasa.org/uploadedFiles/Publications/Newsletters/JSP_Winter2011.FINAL.pdf


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State Led??? How can a “public license” about standards that are supposed to be state-led, be owned by two private, lobbying, non-for-profits that are Washington based??? So it’s free to use, but you can’t change it? How does this reinforce the notion that this was state-led? Why would any state agree to a standard that they have no way to modify?? If states need to adapt the standards to more appropriately address their population of students, they can’t??? Also, were the governors active participants in the process or just an “informed” group.

THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS ARE PROVIDED UNDER THE TERMS OF THIS PUBLIC LICENSE. THE COMMONCORESTATESTANDARDSAREPROTECTEDBYCOPYRIGHTAND/OROTHERAPPLICABLELAW.ANY USE OF THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS OTHER THAN AS AUTHORIZED UNDER THIS LICENSE OR COPYRIGHT LAW IS PROHIBITED.

ANYPERSONWHOEXERCISESANYRIGHTSTOTHECOMMONCORESTATESTANDARDSTHEREBYACCEPTSANDAGREESTOBEBOUNDBYTHETERMSOFTHISLICENSE.THERIGHTSCONTAINEDHEREINAREGRANTEDINCONSIDERATIONOFACCEPTANCEOFSUCHTERMSANDCONDITIONS.

License Grant:

The NGA Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) hereby grant a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to copy, publish, distribute, and display the Common Core State Standards for purposes that support the Common Core State Standards Initiative. These uses may involve theCommonCoreStateStandardsasawholeorselectedexcerptsorportions.http://www.corestandards.org/public-license

If this were truly state led, there would be no need to validate this claim. Evidence has shown that there is a lot of room for interpretation as to whether Common Core was state-led or not.

And for less than 1 percent of what we spend on education each year, Race to the Top, under Arne’s leadership, has led states across the country to raise their standards for teaching and learning. And, by the way, these standards that we’re talking about -- these high standards that we’re talking about were not developed here in Washington. They were developed by Republican and Democratic governors throughout the country -- essentially as a peer group, a peer review system where everybody traded best practices and said, here’s what seems to work, and let’s hold all of our schools to these high standards. And since that Race to the Top has been launched, we’ve seen what’s pos-sible when reform isn’t just a top-down mandate but the work of local teachers and principals and school boards and communities working together to develop better standards.Remarks by the President on No Child Left Behind Flexibility, September 23, 2011

Remember the NGA? Don’t let the name fool you. Is seems as though the governors in the NGA really did not play a role in the development or approval of the standards, they were merely “informed.” I consider this fact critical in proving that the standards were not state-led.

The standards are evidence- and research-based, informed by the most effective models from states and countries across the globe, include rigorous content, and demand the application of knowledge through high-order skills.NGA, Issue Brief, Trends in State Implementation of the Common Core State Standards: Educator Effectivenesswww.nga.org/files/live/sites/NGA/files/pdf/1210TrendsInStateBrief.pdf


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NGA (National Governors Association)Let us not forget that the NGA, along with the CCSSO, holds the copyright for the ELA and MATH standards.

AccordingtothelatestIRS990formfortheNGA’sCenterforBestPractices,thenonprofitarmofNGAthatshares“acommon pool of cash and investments” in 2010 received 80 percent of its $14.8 million annual income from taxpayers. Tax documents also show that back in 2004, the earliest available documents traced, NGA received $31 million from taxpayers. Tax funding has made up most of NGA’s income every year in between.

Despite its heavy tax support, NGA is not required to make meetings, votes, and materials public like government bod-ies, and it has not done so for its work on Common Core.

NGA is a private trade organization whose actions have no legal binding on states. Governors do vote during NGA’stwoannualmeetingstoexpresssharedpriorities,formerVirginiaGov.GeorgeAllen(R)toldSchoolReformNews,but “by the time they vote on a position the [resolutions] get watered down so much any objections are already accommodated. It’s unlike legislatures, with committee hearings and votes.”

Even so, NGA has not released what, if any, resolution 2009’s governors voted on to authorize its subsequent Common Core work. Neither has it released the vote tally.

When other journalists have asked NGA about governors who want no part in NGA, spokesmen have responded by essentially saying governors cannot choose to leave. When Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) pulled out of NGA in 2012, telling the Bangor Daily News, “I get no value out of those meetings. They are too politically correct and everybody is lovey-dovey and no decisions are ever made,” NGA’s communications director responded by saying all governors are NGA members even if they don’t pay dues.‘State-Led’ Common Core Pushed by Federally Funded Nonprofit, By: Joy Pullman, Heartland Institute , April 24, 2013 http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2013/04/24/state-led-common-core-pushed-federally-funded-nonprofithttps://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2011/237/391/2011-237391796-08582ffa-9.pdf

CCSSO (National Governors Association)PreviousSchoolReformNewsreportshaverevealedstateandfederaltaxmoneyprovideapproximatelyhalfof CCSSO’soperatingfunds,andthatBillandMelindaGatesFoundationmoneyhas been intimately involved in this behind-closed-doors process. ‘State-Led’ Common Core Pushed by Federally Funded Nonprofit, By: Joy Pullman, Heartland Institute , April 24, 2013 http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2013/04/24/state-led-common-core-pushed-federally-funded-nonprofit

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Federal Government Overseeing/Funding CC Aligned TestingInSeptember2010,aspartoftheAmericanRecoveryandReinvestmentActof2009(ARRA),the U.S. Department of Education (Department) funded two consortia of states to develop next-generation assessments through the Race to the Top Assessment (RTTA) program: the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC) and the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC).Race to the Top Assessment Program Review Guide as of August 2011http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop-assessment/review-guide.pdf

As part of continuing efforts to support states in their development of the next generation of assessments, the U.S. Department of Education will hold a Race to the Top Assessment Technical Review Process.InSeptember2010,the Department provided funding to two consortia of states, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College andCareers(PARCC)andtheSmarterBalancedAssessmentConsortium(SmarterBalanced),todevelopnewcom-prehensive assessment systems to measure whether students have the knowledge and skills necessary to be ready for college and the workforce.

The Technical Review is one component of the Department’s Race to the Top Assessment program review. The program review is the overall method by which the Department provides oversight of and support for the consortia. The Technical Review will be combined with other components, including on-going, but at least monthly, conversations between the Department and the grantee; on-site program reviews by Department staff; stock take meetings with the consortium and senior leaders in the Department; and the annual performance report. RACE TO THE TOP TECHNICAL REVIEW, March 2013 Announcing a Technical Review for the Consortia of States Developing Next-Generation Assessment Systems http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop-assessment/performance.html

Federal Government Playing A Part In Curriculum Development?PARCC, for example, will be developing curriculum frameworks and ways to share great lesson plans. The SMARTER Balanced Assessment coalition will develop instructional modules and professional learning communities to support teachers in understanding and using assessment results. They will involve teachers not just in writing and reviewing test items but in scoring assessments--especially complex performance tasks.Beyond the Bubble Tests: The Next Generation of Assessments -- Secretary Arne Duncan’s Remarks to State Leaders at Achieve’s American Diploma Project Leadership Team MeetingSeptember 2, 2010

Throughtheseawards,whichuseassessmentstolinktheCommonCorestandardsofCCSSIwiththedevelopmentofcurricula and instructional materials, PARCC and SBAC (as grantees of the Department) enable the Department to do indirectly that which federal law forbids. The assessment systems that PARCC and SBAC develop and leverage with federal funds, together with their hands- on assistance in implementing the CCSS in substantially all the states, will direct large swaths of state K- 12 curricula, programs of instruction, and instructional materials, as well as heavily influence the remainder.

The language used by both consortia in their supplemental funding materials leaves no question about theirintentions to use federal funds to develop curricular and instructional materials based on the CCSS.Robert S. Eitel & Kent D. Talbert, The Road to a National Curriculum, PIONEER INSTITUTE, no. 81, p. 15 (Feb.2012).



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A Curriculum That Will Eventually Align To TestingIt’s only a matter of time when the curriculum will be developed to align the tests developed. Tests which are overseen by the Federal government.

When the tests are aligned to the common standards, the curriculum will line up as well—and that will unleash powerful market forces in the service of better teaching. For the first time, there will be a large base of customers eager to buy products that can help every kid learn and every teacher get better. Imagine having the people who create electrifying video games applying their intelligence to online tools that pull kids in and make algebra fun.Bill Gates - National Conference of State Legislatures, July 21, 2009

Conflict Of Interest?In Michigan, here is what representative Tom McMillin had to say two days ago, in response to testimony from Chester Finn, of the Fordham Institute, which can be counted among the architects of test-driven reform.

At around minute 26, McMillin points out that Chester Finn’s colleague at the Fordham Institute, Michael Petrilli, had stated that after Arne Duncan hired four Gates Foundation staffers to high level positions in the Department of Educa-tion, “the Gates Foundation’s agenda has become the country’s agenda in education.” Finn said he disagreed, however he acknowledged that “the Gates Foundation paid for the development of the Common Core standards. There’s no disputing that.

McMillin responded: And they also paid $6 million to Fordham (Institute) and then you guys evaluate the Common Core standards and decide if they’re any good or not. Don’t you see a real conflict there, when Fordham gets $6 million, and then they’re told to turn around and say Gates’ project is a great thing?

Finn: I have no idea where you got the $6 million figure from. McMillin: From the Gates Foundation web site.

Finn: Approximately three times too large in terms of any actual receipts that Fordham has gotten. We are evaluating the implementation of Common Core standards with Gates dollars, and that’s in the early stages ‘cause implementation is only just beginning. The Gates Foundation had nothing whatsoever to do with our original 2010 evaluation of the stan-dards themselves. We were not receiving any funds from Gates for that purpose at that time. Anybody that knows me and the Fordham track record knows we are not influenced by our funders.Lawmakers Begin to Connect the Dots Between Gates and Common Core, Education Week, By: ANTHONY CODY AUG 30, 2013 http://mobile.edweek.org/c.jsp?DISPATCHED=true&cid=25983841&item=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.ed-week.org%2Fteachers%2Fliving-in-dialogue%2F2013%2F08%2Flawmakers_begin_to_connect_the.html%3Fcmp%3DSOC-SHR-FB

Waivers For Bill & Melinda Gates FoundationThe Gates Foundation’s agenda has become the country’s agenda in education,” Michael Petrilli, vice president of the ThomasB.FordhamInstitute,toldthePugetSoundBusinessJournalin2009 after four Gates employees moved to the U.S. Department of Education. Two US DOE transfers from Gates received Obama administration waivers from its conflict of interest policy banning lobbyists from becoming high-ranking federal employees.Education Policies Led by Gates, Not States? By: Joy Pullman, Heartland Institute, February 11, 2013 http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2013/02/11/education-policies-led-gates-not-states



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Is This A Rational For Dumbing Down The Standards?“We were surprised how little math is used in first-year community college courses, and what is used is mostly middle school math,” said Phil Daro, co-chair of the study’s Mathematics Panel and co-director in the develop-ment of the Common Core State Standards for mathematics. “Our system makes no sense for these students: even though so many students have a shaky understanding of the middle school mathematics they really need, high school courses spend most of these students’ time on topics not needed for their college programs.”

“The reading skills of our high school graduates are so low that most community college instructors do not expect their studentstobeabletoreadattheleveloftheirtextbooks,”saidCatherineSnow,co-chairofthestudy’sEnglishPanelandPatriciaAlbjergGrahamProfessorofEducationattheHarvardGraduateSchoolofEducation.“Theirwritingskillsare so low that instructors rarely ask their students to write very much outside of their English composition classes, and, when they do, the writing they are asked to do is not very demanding.”Press Relase from the National Center on Education and the Economy, May 7, 2013 What Does It Really Mean to Be College and Work Ready? The Mathematics and English Literacy Required of First Year Community College Students High Schools Fail to Teach What Graduates Need to Succeed in Community Colleges, Instead Teaching What They Don’t Need

Why Are Institutions of Higher Learning Not Really Weighing in?Higher-education analysts who aren’t on board, forced to compete with the din of Gates-financed advocacy and journalism, find themselves shut out of the conversation. Academic researchers who have spent years studying higher education see their expertise bypassed as Gates moves aggressively to develop strategies for reform. The hidden hand of these foundations, felt indirectly through grantees like Complete College America and Jobs for the Future, is pushing new state efforts to tie colleges’ budgets to metrics like graduation rates.

Colleges have two easy ways to raise graduation rates. They can make passing so easy that no one will fail. Or they can restrict admission to those who are unlikely to fail. If aid is tied to success, critics worry, that may preclude institutions from giving a chance to marginal students who might benefit from college and fare quite well. (Those misgivings are familiar to Mr. Gates, whose call for linking aid to completion included this proviso: “without creamingthemost-preparedstudentsandwithoutsacrificingquality.”)The Gates Effect. The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation has spent $472-million (so far) on higher education. Why many in academe are not writing thank-you notes. By Marc Parry, Kelly Field, and Beckie Supiano, J uly 14, 2013

College And Career Ready? How Is It Defined?The concept of college readiness is minimal and focuses on non-selective colleges.” Jason Zimba, Minutes of the Regular Meeting of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, March 23, 2010

The enrollment requirements of four-year state colleges overwhelmingly consist of at least three years of high school mathematics including algebra 1, algebra 2, and geometry, or beyond. Yet Common Core’s “college readiness” definition omits content typically considered part of algebra 2…they do not expect algebra to be taught in grade 8 and instead defer it to high school, reversing the most significant change in mathematics education in America in the last decade, supported by the 2008 recommendations of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, and contrary to the practice of our international competitors.Statement by Mathematician Ze’ev Wurman, a former official in the U.S. Department of Education



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Concerns From A Member Of The CCSS Validation Committee.If the CCSS has the potential to do some good, it has at least equal potential to distort curriculum and instruction. My concerns fall into four areas: (1) the separate emphasis on foundational skills, (2) the grade-by-grade standards, (3) the lack of a developmental model for writing, and (4) issues of implementation.

IhavealreadymentionedmanyofmyconcernsabouthowtheCCSSmaybeimplemented—concerns about distorting the curriculum in English language arts to include more informational text than the standards actually intended; concern about trivial curricular progressions across grades; and concerns about an emphasis on supporting skills and strategies outside of the social and disciplinary contexts that give them meaning and im-portance. Having said all of that, my greatest concern is in the evolution of the assessments that are being de-veloped to accompany the standards. The CCSS have been billed as providing voluntary state standards, but the policy choices that have followed their publication suggest they are more federal than state, and only voluntary if a state is willing to give up considerable resources. TheRacetotheTopcompetitionincludedadoptionofCCSSasoneofitsmajorevaluationcriteria;andtheUSDepartmentofEducationhasawardedsome$330milliontosupporttwoindependent test development consortia: the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (http://www.parcconline.org/)andtheSmarterBalancedAssessmentConsortium(http://www.smarterbalanced.org/).Common Core State Standards: The Promise and the Peril in a National Palimpsest by Arthur Applebee(Member of the Common Core Validation Committee. HE SIGNED OFF ON THE STANDARDS.)

Rigor??While acknowledging the concerns about front-loading demands in early grades, [McCallum] said that the overall stan-dards would not be too high, certainly not in comparison [with] other nations, including East Asia, where math education excels.Professor William McCallum, one of the three main writers of the Common Core mathematics standards, speaking at the annual conference of mathematics societies in 2010http://educationnext.org/the-common-core-math-standards/

Sincethecalculusstubswerenotinthefinalversion,andasmallnumberoftheadvanced(+)standardsintrigonometryremain as the only indication of anything between an algebra II course and a calculus course, Common Core’s standards clearly cannot help to prepare students for STEM areas.

Zimba is quoted as saying: “If you want to take calculus your freshman year in college, you will need to take more mathematics than is in the Common Core.Can This Country Survive Common Core’s College Readiness Level? By: R. James Milgram and Sandra Stotsky, September 2013

Do We Know For Sure That The Standards Will Live Up To Expectations?

“It would be great if our education stuff worked, but that we won’t know for probably a decade.”Bill Gates, Hour-long interview, Harvard University, September 21, 2013http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBHJ-8Bch4E&feature=player_embedded



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Social Justice? …and remember that the reason we have standards is because of the social justice agenda to make sure all kids get enough math to have a decent opportunity.” “Correct answers are essential, but they’re part of the process, they’re not the product. The product is the math the kids will walk away with in their heads.Phil Daro, one of the lead math writershttp://bvsd.org/curriculum/math/Instructional%20Materials%20Adoption/Frequently%20Asked%20Questions%20for%20Connected%20Math%20Program%203.pdf

I believe that education is the civil rights issue of our generation. And if you care about promoting opportunity and reducing inequality, the classroom is the place to start. Great teaching is about so much more than education; it is a daily fight for social justice.Secretary Arne Duncan, October 9, 2009 http://www.ed.gov/blog/2011/08/education-is-social-justice/

The Process Is More Important Than Getting Correct Answers? Pedagogy trumps curriculum. Or more precisely, pedagogy is curriculum, because what matters ishow things are taught, rather than what is taught.Dylan Wiliam, assessment expert and on Common Core Validation Committee

How Much Differentiation Will Be Allowed In The Curriculum? The standards mandate “certain critical types of content for all students, including classic myths and stories from aroundtheworld,foundationalU.S.documents,seminalworksofAmericanliterature,andthewritingsofShakespeare,”saytheNGAandtheCCSSOontheinitiative’swebsite(2010),but states, districts, and schools make the remaining content decisions.Coming to Terms with Common Core Standards, December 2010 | Volume 16 | Number 4

Kids As Guinea Pigs??When the two consortia roll out their new assessments in the 2014-15 school year, they will be a work in progress. I’m sure not everything will go according to schedule. There will be glitches. There will be mistakes. But we cannot let the perfect become the enemy of the good.Choosing the Right Battles: Remarks and a ConversationRemarks of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to the American Educational Research Association Annual Meeting, San Francisco, California, April 30m, 2013http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/choosing-right-battles-remarks-and-conversation

Thestandard’smethodofgeometrywastested50yearsagointheSovietUnionandwasquicklythrownout,neverto be tried anywhere else in the world. That is until now. The Common Core standards are said to prescribe improved methods of teaching; for example, it calls for teaching similar and congruent triangles using “rigid method,” an experimental teaching method that has never been successfully used in K-12 education. I don’t know about you, but I am not okay with our children being used as guinea pigs.Common Core: What’s Behind the Curtain? Friday, September 13, 2013 by LORI ANDERSON



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What About Kids That Are “Not Common” (ESE and Gifted)??TheadoptionoftheCommonCoreStateStandards(CCSS)willhavesignificantimplicationsforteachers.TheCCSScalls for general education teachers to recognize and address student learning differences, and incorporate rigorous content and application of knowledge through higher-order thinking skills. Despite the obvious connection to the field ofgiftededucation,thenatureofadvancedworkbeyondtheCCSSisnotaddressed.Infact,theauthorsoftheCCSSstate, “The Standards do not define the nature of advanced work for students who meet the Standards prior to the end of high school.(CommonCoreEnglishLanguageArtsStandards,p.6)”

AlthoughtheCCSSareconsideredtobemorerigorousthanmostcurrentstatestandards, they fall short in meeting the specific needs of gifted learners, and if held strictly to the standard, could actually limit learning. To over-come this pitfall, it is imperative that gifted educators create a full range of supports for high-ability learners through differentiated curriculum, instruction, and assessments.http://www.nagc.org/CommonCoreStateStandards.aspx

Supportersofthecommoncorestandardsstressthattheirformationandadoptionisjustthebeginningofalongjourneytoward higher levels of student achievement. There are dozens of unanswered questions regarding how these standards will be maintained, updated, and assessed. Some of the pressing questions regarding next steps include:• Howshouldspecialpopulationsbetakenintoaccount?• Howshouldschoolsapplystandardstostudentsofdifferentskilllevels?Coming to Terms with Common Core Standards, December 2010 | Volume 16 | Number 4 http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/policy-priorities/vol16/issue4/full/Coming-to-Terms-with-Common-Core-Standards.aspx

Standards-Based IEP Is A Contradiction Of Terms!Common Core requires that IEPs be ‘standards based’ – It is a contradiction in terms for an INDIVIDUALIZED Education Plan to be STANDARDIZED to meet Common Core at grade level. What happens to gifted special needs kids?

Under IDEA, instruction is individualized based on the student’s needs. That’s why it is especially important that the knowledge and experience of professionals and parents are also considered when deciding how to teach a student withdisabilities. Professionals and parents should know about instructional practices and interventions that have been shown by research to be most effective. These research-based practices should then be matched with a student’s unique needsand skills when developing a student’s Individualized Education Program (IEP). It is important to record what works so that evidence can emerge over time that offers new insights into teaching and learning for students with disabilities. Evidence-BasedPracticesatSchool:AGuideforParents,©2011,PACERCenterhttp://www.parentcenternetwork.org/assets/files/national/Handouts/ALL-68.pdf

CCSS As A Violation Of IDEA??It is truly questionable if Common Core State Standards are evidenced based.

Both the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) require that schools use programs, curricula, and practices based on “scientifically-based research” “to the extent practicable.” This means that whenever possible, the educational interventions being used must be strongly supported by evidence from well-conducted research studies.Evidence-BasedPracticesatSchool:AGuideforParents,©2011,PACERCenterhttp://www.parentcenternetwork.org/assets/files/national/Handouts/ALL-68.pdf



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FERPA (Family Educational Rights And Privacy Act) We always try to do our best to provide very clear guidance and try and strike that balance between absolutely maintainingprivacy,butalsoasmuchaswecan,absolutetransparency.Wheredistrictsorschoolsare—I’mnot sayingtheyare—but if they’re sort of hiding behind FERPA and not sharing simple information, we’re happy to try and assist there.September 4, 2013 Arne Duncan Conference call organized by the Education Writers Association

Asyouknow,theFamilyEducationalRightsandPrivacyAct(FERPA)wassignedintolawin1974,guaranteeing parental access to student education records and limiting their disclosure to third parties. FERPA was intended to address parents’ growing privacy concerns and grant parental access to the information schools use to make decisions that impact their children.

Once again circumventing Congress, in 2011 your agency took regulatory action to alter definitions within FERPA. With the technological advances that have occurred in recent years, changes to FERPA deserve the full scrutiny of the legislative process more so than ever before. Letter to Arne Duncan from Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO-03) April 2013.

Data Mining The grantee must provide timely and complete access to any and all data collected at the state level to ED (U.S.EducationDepartment)...”National Testing Organizations, Cooperative agreement between the U.S. Department of Education and PARCC/SBAC

The common denominator for all of these policy decisions was that they were informed by data. I am a deep believer in the power of data to drive our decisions. Data gives us the road map to reform. It tells us where we are, where we need to go, and who is most at risk.

And finally, we need robust data systems to track student achievement and teacher effectiveness.

Usually, fire walls are set up for our protection. They prevent hackers from getting into our computers and they block our children from visiting inappropriate Web sites. But these state fire walls don’t help us. They hurt all of us. They impede our ability to serve students and better understand how we can improve American education.

And, hopefully, some day, we can track children from preschool to high school and from high school to college and college to career. We must track high growth children in classrooms to their great teachers and great teachers to their schools of education.

We want to see more states build comprehensive systems that track students from pre-K through college and then link school data to workforce data. We want to know whether Johnny participated in an early learning program and completed college on time and whether those things have any bearing on his earnings as an adult.Robust Data Gives Us The Road map to ReformSecretary Arne Duncan Addresses the Fourth Annual IES Research Conference, June 8, 2009


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School Choice Redefined... Who Benefits From Choice? MichaelPetrelli,ExecutiveVPatFordham,astrongsupporteroftheCommonCoreStandardssaid,“...usingthe Common Core as the standards and then the Common Core assessments as the measures of whether or not schools are getting kids where they need to be, that that works and it makes a lot of sense. It’s based on a hypothesis, the hypothesis being that if students do well against those standards and do well on the Common Core tests, ...that the hypothesis is that then the students will be able to go on and do well in college or go on and get a good paying job. And I think that hypothesis makes sense. We can’t prove it right now. But I think it all makes sense.”

He goes on to say, “Some schools of choice should be able to opt out. Common Core may not be a good fit. Schools that are going to be on the far progressive end of the spectrum, who say we just don’t believe in testing as a measure of what kids are going to be able to do. An example would be High Tech High, California. Their kids don’t test well on state tests, but college going and college graduates are through the roof. There are some very high performing schools, such as very affluent suburban schools and other magnet, private or charter schools that should notbeforcedtoadopttheCCSS,itwillnotbeagoodfitforthem.Iworryaboutmakinggoodschoolslookbad.”Michael Petrelli, Common Core Supporter Says The Common Core is a Hypothesis Posted by Mary Scheel-Buysse at Saturday, July 27, 2013http://www.sdagainstcommoncore.com/2013/07/michael-petrelli-common-core-supporter.html

Hypocrisy??? The Sidwell Friends School (Where Obama Sends His Kids To) And The Students At High Tech High (Funded By The Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation) Do Not Align With CCSS??StudentsatHighTechHigh,acharterschoolinCalifornia,fundedbytheBillandMelindaGatesFoundation,“donotdowellonstatetests,buttheircollegegoingandcollegegraduationratesarethroughtheroof.”Whatisthat?Statetest results have nothing to do with college going and college graduation rates? The Bill and Melinda Gates funded Common Core Standards, are not a benchmark, by which the Bill and Melinda Gates funded charter school, High Tech High, should be judged? We know that Sidwell Friends, the affluent private school the Obama girls attend, will not be adopting or even aligning to the Common Core. Sowhyshouldmychildrenandgrandchildrenbyjudgedby the Common Core and it’s assessments?David Coleman, the Most Influential Education Figure You’ve Never Heard Of Common Core Author Is Redesigning the SATs and AP Program, By Joy Resmovits, Published The Jewish Daily Forward, August 25, 2013 http://forward.com/articles/182587/david-coleman-the-most-influential-education-figur/?p=all#ixzz2fCjdw5vz

We’ve shown you the evidence. Common Core just does not add up.

It’s just NOT the right answer for our kids!

We urge all to get involved and to understand Common Core

and how it will affect your children. Ask questions,

talk with friends & teachers, read articles, and get connected to

facebook groups that are actively talking about Common Core.

Now more than ever, we need to be actively involved in what is

going on in our kids’ education. Common Core will fundamentally

change the way we educate our children...

and begin to strip away at the rights we parents and children have.

It has been said that the far left and far right in the Common Core battle

are radicals and those in the center are the ones with Common sense...

I see it quite differently.

The far left and right are the ones that are AWAKE, the center

has not yet woken up!! The evidence shows it’s not about common sense,

but about keeping the wool over the eyes of those in the center.

Information is power. Use it.

By: SAL & concerned parents from across the nationOctober 2013

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