September 2016

The Thomas Moore Law Center has created a Common Core resource page that you may find useful: https://www.thomasmore.org/common-core-resource-page/#optout

August 2016

New book on Common Core – A thorough history of Common Core’s background, which has roots that stretch more than a hundred years back. It is an expose of the latest effort by a progressive, autocratic elite to completely transfer all decisions concerning children from parents, teachers and school boards to themselves, and to completely transform America from a nation of responsible, moral, independent human beings endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness to robots and servants of the state. “A MUST read! It’s clear and widely known: Common Core is an educational disaster for America’s kids. The good news is that parents can protect their kids by rejecting Common Core and by learning to embrace academic excellence once again!” – Congressman Michele Bachmann

https://www.amazon.com/Long-War-Common-Core/dp/0692389334/ref=pd_sim_14_2/159-1423917-3345915?ie=UTF8&dpID=51PQdbpTSrL&dpSrc=sims&preST=_AC_UL160_SR104%2C160_&psc=1&refRID=DS2ZMXRY5VA1DD4CE4QJ

Building the Machine – The Common Core Documentary

It’s 39 minutes in length so get a refreshment and sit back and watch and listen: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zjxBClx01jc&feature=youtu.be

March 15, 2016

Getting the Common Core (and Federal) Facts Right

By Neal McCluskey

We’ve been fighting over the Common Core national curriculum standards for years now, and at this point the people who “fact check” ought to know the facts. Also, at this point, I should be doing many other things than laying out basic truths about the Core. Yet here I am, about to fact-check fact-checking by The Seventy Four, an education news and analysis site set up by former television journalist Campbell Brown. Thankfully, I am not alone in having to repeat this Sisyphean chore; AEI’s Rick Hess did the same thing addressing Washington Post fact-checkers yesterday.

Because I have done this so many times before – what follows are relatively quick, clarifications beneath the “facts” the “fact check” missed.

FACT: It was the states — more specifically the Council of Chief State School Officers and National Governors Association — that developed the standards. During the Obama administration, the Education Department has played no specific role in the implementation of those standards, and the classroom curriculum used to meet the broad goals set out in Common Core is created by districts and states, as it always has been. Further, states have made tweaks to the Common Core standards since their initial adoption and, in some cases, have decided to drop the standards entirely.

The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and National Governors Association (NGA) are not states. They are, essentially, professional associations of governors and state superintendents. And they are definitely not legislatures, which much more than governors represent “the people” of their states. So no, it was not “states” that developed the standards.

The CCSSO and NGA explicitly called for federal influence to move states onto common, internationally benchmarked standards – what the Core is supposed to be – writing in the 2008 report Benchmarking for Success that the role of the federal government is to offer “incentives” to get states to use common standards, including offering funding and regulatory relief. See page 7 of the report, and note that the same information was once on the Common Core website but has since been removed.

The Common Core was dropped into a federally dictated system under the No Child Left Behind Act that required accountability based on state standards and tests, so Washington did have a role in overseeing “implementation” of the standards. And since what is tested for accountability purposes is what is supposed to get taught, it is very deceptive to say, simply, curriculum “is created by districts and states.” The curricula states create is supposed to be heavily influenced by Core, and especially the math section pushes specific content. Indeed, the Core calls specifically for instructional “shifts.” Oh, and the federal government selected and funded two consortia of states to create national tests – the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Career (PARCC) and the Smarter-Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) – which the Department of Education, to at least some extent, oversaw.

FACT: States competing for Race to the Top funds in 2009 got more points on their application for the adoption of “internationally benchmarked standards and assessments that prepare students for success in college and the workplace.” Adopting those standards won a state 40 points out of 500 possible, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.Congress has not funded Race to the Top grants in the annual appropriations process for several years, and several states – notably Oklahoma and Indiana – have dropped the Common Core.

The $4.35 billion Race to the Top was the primary lever to coerce states into Core adoption, and it did far more than give 40 out of 500 points for adopting any ol’ “internationally benchmarked standards and assessments.” It came as close to saying Common Core as possible without actually saying Common Core, which, by the way, reporting by the Washington Post’s Lyndsey Layton suggested the Obama administration wanted to do, but was asked not to because the optics would be bad. So instead the regulations said that to get maximum points states would have to adopt standards common to a “majority” of states – a definition only met by the Core – and went to pains to make sure the adoption timelines suited the Core. Read all about it here, with special attention to page 59689. And note that maximum points were 50 for adopting standards and aligned tests, and 70 for doing that and supporting transition to the new standards and tests.

It is true that the Race to the Top pushing Core implementation only happened once – though in multiple phases – but the Obama administration later cemented it by only giving two choices of standards to get waivers out of the most dreaded parts of the No Child Left behind Act: either have standards common to a “significant number of states,” or a public university system certify a state’s own standards as “college- and career-ready.” And all of this happened after states had promised to use the Core in Race to the Top; it would have been tough for state officials to suddenly say they would not use the Core because, well, they only promised to do so for the federal money.

FACT: Federal law already prohibits the government from forcing states to adopt Common Core.

The Every Student Succeeds Act, which Obama signed into law in December, includes 13 references to the Common Core – all limitations on federal power to meddle in curriculum.

Specifically from the law: “No officer or employee of the federal government shall, through grants, contracts, or other cooperative agreements, mandate, direct, or control a state, local education agency, or school’s specific instructional content, academic standards and assessments, curricula, or other program of instruction…including any requirement, direction, or mandate to adopt the Common Core State Standards.”

To the contrary, ESSA specifically protects states’ rights to “enter into a voluntary partnership with another state to develop and implement” challenging academic standards.

This “fact” was invoked to counter promises by Republican presidential candidates to end Common Core if elected. And it is correct that the ESSA singles out the Core as something that cannot be specifically coerced. But, of course, that has already essentially happened, and it is worth noting that federal law has had paper prohibitions against federal influence over curriculum for decades. Precious good they did, not that forcing states to dump the Core would be any more constitutional than the original coercion.

FACT: The federal government already has a limited role in K-12 education. Particularly in the wake of the passage of the Every Student Succeeds Act, the primary federal roles are providing supplemental funds for the education of children in poverty (the Title I program), setting standards for the education of children with disabilities and helping fund those services (the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act), and ensuring children don’t go hungry (the school lunch program, which is run through the Agriculture Department.)

The monetary role is small, too. According to federal data, between 1980 and 2011, between 7 and 13 percent of total annual education funding came from federal sources. And only about half of that funding in 2011 came from the Education Department. Another quarter of that funding came from the Department of Agriculture for the school lunch program. The Defense Department (junior reserve officers’ training program and their own school system for students of military members), Health and Human Services (Head Start pre-school) and about a half-dozen other departments for smaller programs made up the rest.

The federal government has taken on a largely unlimited role in education – everything from funding to coercing curriculum standards – which is why we saw anger on both the left and right spur passage of the ESSA. But it is not clear that the ESSA reduces the federal role to simply providing supplemental funds, standards for children with disabilities, and stopping hunger. The new law requires that states send standard, testing, and accountability plans to Washington for approval; requires uniform statewide testing; and demands interventions in the worst performing schools, among other things. And this is before the regulations – which some groups are pushing to be very prescriptive – have been written.

Oh, the school lunch program? It is also about pushing what Washington deems to be proper nutrition and balanced diets on schools, not just “ensuring children don’t go hungry.”

It is true that the monetary role as a percentage of total spending is kind of small, but roughly ten percent of funding isn’t nothing, and federal funding was in much demand during the nadir of the Great Recession, when Race to the Top was in effect. And it is very hard to be a politician in any state and say, “I’m going to turn down this $100 million, or that $1 billion, because it’s not that big a percentage of our funding.” This is something of which federal politicians are well aware, and spending roughly $80 billion on K-12 is not chump change, even by federal standards.

FACT: Abolishing the federal Education Department would also wipe out the Office of Innovation and Improvement, which oversees the very initiatives Cruz wants to promote: federal efforts to spur more charter schools and magnet schools; the DC Opportunity Scholarship Program, the only federal school voucher program; and the Office of Non-Public Education.

Ironically, after downplaying federal influence in education, The Seventy Four tweaks Presidential candidate Ted Cruz for saying he wants to get rid of the U.S. Department of Education and expand school choice. So while suggesting overall federal spending is kind of puny at 7 to 13 percent of the total, apparently Department of Education spending on charter school grants is too big to kill. But it is only $333 million dollars, or about $147 per charter student. That is a princely 1 percent of what the U.S. spends, on average, per K-12 student. Meanwhile, the DC voucher program is constantly under threat of destruction. And none of these justify keeping the Department which does way, WAY more than these few things.

So there it is, as fast as I could get it out. No doubt I missed some things. But hopefully this is enough for the fact checkers to get things closer to accurate next time. And now, on to other things…

A Failing Grade for Common Core

According to Professor Kenneth Calvert, Common Core, well-intentioned from the beginning, will utterly fail its students. Rather than raising the educational standard in the United States, it codifies and federally enforces mediocrity. Worse yet, in regulating education the federal government has overstepped its constitutional boundaries, by attempting to control teaching methods, preventing teachers from exercising their craft effectively.

Read more by clicking the link in the title or the picture….

Common Core is Not Education – It’s Indoctrination of Certain Values – Parent’s Values Don’t Matter

Common Core Intentionally Leaves Out Parental Rights and Responsibilities – Your Values Don’t Matter

“The State believes it has the power over the child and supersedes parental authority,” a parent says, “and teachers will see increasing ‘no contact’ behavior from parents”.

The parent asserts: “Freeze parents out of the process in how their schools operate, render them powerless, eventually they get tired of the fight and don’t want to be involved in the educational process for their child or school. Why bother? When they have concerns, they are portrayed as troublemakers and marginalized. It’s easier to send the child to school and turn off the phone. This is not to excuse such behavior…”

This is intentional! They want parents to be too tired and powerless to do anything.

Common Core is just the beginning of trying to strip parental rights and destroy the family unit!

See Also:

National Common Core Standards System

Arizonans Against Common Core

Opt Out AZ: Empowering Parents to Opt out of the AZMerit

Opt Out AZ Facebook

Stop Common Core in Arizona Facebook

Parents and Teachers Against the Common Core Facebook

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October 18th

For those who say the standards are signed off by and supported by the top educators in the U.S.

October 1, 2015

Test Scores under Common Core show that “Proficient” varies by State

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Ohio seems to have taken a page from Lake Wobegon, where all the children are above average.

Last month, state officials releasing an early batch of test scores declared that two-thirds of students at most grade levels were proficient on reading and math tests given last spring under the new Common Core requirements.

Yet similar scores on the same tests meant something quite different in Illinois, where education officials said only about a third of students were on track. And in Massachusetts, typically one of the strongest academic performers, the state said about half of the students who took the same tests as Ohio’s children met expectations.

It all came down to the different labels each state used to describe the exact same scores on the same tests.

“This was exactly the problem that a lot of policy makers and educators were trying to solve,” said Karen Nussle, the executive director of the Collaborative for Student Success, a Common Core advocacy group, “to get a more honest assessment of where kids are and being transparent about that with parents and educators so that we could do something about it.”

The Common Core was devised by experts convened by state education commissioners and governors to set uniform benchmarks for learning. But as it has been put into place, it has faced increasing backlash, both from politicians, who argue that it infringes on states’ independence to determine education policy, and from parents and teachers, who object to the more stringent testing that has come with the new guidelines.

Before the Common Core, each state set its own standards and devised its own tests. Some states made the standardized tests so easy or set passing scores so low that virtually all students were rated proficient even as they scored much lower on federal exams and showed up for college requiring remedial help. Here in Columbus, the school district is still recovering froma scandal in which many principals removed low-performing students from enrollment records in order to improve school ratings.

But as the results from the first Common Core tests have rolled out, education officials again seem to be subtly broadening definitions of success.

“That mentality of saying let’s set proficient at a level where not too many people fail is going to kill us,” said Marc S. Tucker, the president of the National Center on Education and the Economy, a nonprofit think tank. “The global standard of what proficient is keeps moving up.”

Last spring, Ohio, 10 other states and Washington, D.C., used tests devised by the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, or Parcc, one of two groups responsible for creating Common Core tests. Before the grading process began, Parcc convened a group of educators from participating states to set five performance levels. Students scoring at the lowest level “did not yet meet expectations,” according to the Parcc designations, while those at the highest level “exceeded expectations.”

Those in the middle range, the Parcc group decided, had “approached expectations.” But in Ohio, students who scored in that range were labeled “proficient.” Ohio’s results are based on students — about two-thirds of the total — who took the exams online. Results for students who took the test on paper have not yet been released, but will be scored using the same performance levels.

Lyndazia Ruffin, a fifth grader, last month at West Broad Elementary School in Columbus, Ohio. CreditAndrew Spear for The New York Times

Some teachers see the state’s presentation as misleading. “They shot themselves in the foot by putting it that way,” Kathryne Roston, a fourth-grade teacher at West Broad Elementary School here, said upon seeing how Ohio categorized the test results. “If you look up ‘proficient’ in the dictionary, what does that mean? Does it mean what they are making it mean?”

Officials say their hands were tied by state law. James Wright, the director of the Ohio Department of Education’s Office of Curriculum and Assessment, said the legislature requires the department to designate five performance levels on the standardized tests, with Level 3 labeled “proficient.”

“We’ve been very transparent about which levels we’re talking about,” Mr. Wright said.

He added that parents or teachers can easily look up what proportion of students in the state scored at each of the Parcc levels.

The Common Core has been bedeviled by controversy almost from the start; because of the backlash, a few states have already abandoned the Common Core. Fewer than half of the 40 that adopted it originally are using tests from either of the testing consortia that develop the exams, making it difficult to equate results from different states.

“It may be a little too premature to declare it a failure,” said James A. Peyser, the secretary of education in Massachusetts, where the State Board of Education will vote in November on whether to use the Parcc tests, “but for sure it’s in retreat.”

More confusion is to come. Over the summer, the Ohio legislature voted to abandon the Parcc test and commission a new test developer to devise yet another set of exams. Three other states similarly scrapped the Parcc test after administering it this year, creating an increasingly atomized landscape across the country.

Brae’aun Liggens in an eighth-grade math class at Berwick Alternative K-8 School in Columbus. CreditAndrew Spear for The New York Times

Parents and educators are still complaining about the increased difficulty of the tests, which demand more writing and complex problem solving than earlier exams, causing scores to drop. In New York, which first rolled out Common Core tests three years ago, a precipitous decline in pass rates set off protests.

New laws requiring that teacher evaluations be based partly on student test scores further stoked anxieties, and a growing number of parents, balking at what they view as an oppressive testing culture, have opted their children out of standardized tests altogether. In over 40 districts throughout Ohio, more than 5 percent of students opted out of tests last spring, said Michael Evans and Andrew Saultz, professors of education at Miami University.

Adrienne Dawson, a home health nurse whose 12-year-old son, Adrian Tucker, is in seventh grade at Berwick Alternative K-8 School on the east side of Columbus, said she was daunted by the complexity of sample questions she looked at last spring. “It was a Ph.D. test if you ask me,” she said on a recent morning after she had dropped Adrian off for class.

Despite the pushback, teachers here continue to infuse their lessons with Common Core principles.

In a seventh-grade English class at Berwick recently, Rashaun James had posted this thought, paraphrased from the Common Core: “Gather relevant information from multiple sources and draw conclusions.”

Her teaching methods were more creative than the dry standard suggested. Cordoning off a large space in the middle of the classroom with yellow caution tape, she had faked a crime scene, strewing dirt and gravel from the school garden across a large piece of butcher paper on which she had drawn outlines of two bodies and stamped footprints of shoes dipped in red paint.

Ms. James urged the students to analyze the clues and come up with possible victims, suspects and motives for an ultimate assignment of writing a narrative about the crime.

She was not too concerned how the assignment would affect test performance. In 10 years of teaching, she said, tests changed and policies came and went. The Common Core could “go away tomorrow,” she said.

“But does it make a difference in terms of whether I have a crime scene in my classroom?” she added. “There will always be a crime scene in my classroom.”

Originally posted in the New York Times

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September 28th – A mother makes a plea to her school board

Ark_Mom_CC_Video https://youtu.be/wZEGijN_8R0

A young student tries to explain how to do math using concepts from Common Core

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIz3vASG40g&app=desktop

August 30th

Common Core Math…

August 23rd

Who’s Watching the Kids?

By Mary Anne Marcella and Cort Wrotnowski

Common Core is about more than just a shift in educational standards. The architects of Common Core have always planned to integrate computer technology with Common Core standards under the guise of “closing the digital divide” and “preparing our children for the 21st-century workplace.” They want us to envision “educational equality,” where each student has access to the same technology and resources, including his or her own one-to-one device (one student, one device). These sound like worthwhile goals, but we know better.

Initially, in order to continue to be eligible for Obama’s “Race to the Top” federal funding, states were obligated to implement a Student Longitudinal Database System (SLDS), used to track students from preschool through college (P20-WIN). Some of us may recall the many reports about measuring 400 data points. This is part of SLDS. Those of us who are paying attention may have assumed that these data points were going to be gathered via the Common Core assessments. Perhaps some of us assumed that “opting out” or refusing the test would keep us safe. Not so fast. Could these one to one devices be another carefully disguised method of software-driven mass surveillance of students? And in what other ways is data being collected? Parents, you need to take a closer look at this.

We are headed back to school, and this year, all across America, more and more classrooms will be filled with children innocently using their iPads or other handheld devices. Children may be playing interactive educational games, doing interactive assignments, and writing stories that can be easily shared with the teacher and other students. These seemingly harmless activities are in fact being used to collect personal and private information without the parents’ consent or knowledge.

Could that educational game be used to measure your child’s mental state? Could those interactive assignments involve morally ambiguous questions that can be used to create a psychological profile of your child? Could that shared story be used to predict violent behavior?

Besides the one-to-one handheld devices, there are other methods of collecting data, such as written school surveys and notes taken by teachers, guidance counselors, and other school officials who may not even realize that every word they type about a student is stored and analyzed. The obvious “personally identifiable information” is being collected, including student tests scores and grades, and also information such as name, address, Social Security number, date of birth, place of birth, and mother’s maiden name. In addition, “sensitive information” is being collected. This data includes political affiliation and beliefs of students and their parents; mental or psychological problems of the students or their families; illegal, anti-social, or self-incriminating behaviors; gun ownership and beliefs about firearms; and legally recognized privileged or analogous relationships such as those of attorneys, doctors, or priests, among many other things.

What our government might do with all this data is a troublesome question.

All of this data from multiple sources (exams, assignments, handheld devices, surveys, conversations with school officials, et al.) now feeds into a larger collection of databases that will be mined for patterns and insights. This data can be accessed and created by the federal government and educational corporations. Parents assume that FERPA (Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act) and COPPA (Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act) provide protection, but too many loopholes exist. COPPA protects only up to the age of 13. FERPA’s privacy protection language was weakened when it was reinterpreted by the U.S. Department of Education to allow greater access by third parties (big business).

There are many yet to be known ways in which this information may be used and abused. Our federal government has extensive plans to use this data for a variety of purposes such as workforce education, shaping student behavior, perhaps forcing compliance to the will of the state, and definitely providing “direction” for our kids in their careers. The data sets on individual students gives government the ability to impose heavy-handed regulations which will direct children’s futures. These handheld devices are the key enabling technology for the marriage of convenience between big government and big business called “public-private partnerships.” Since the government didn’t build the handheld devices, big business provides the ability to collect the student data, while big government provides the regulations that force the collection of the student data.

If you comfort yourself with the belief that this information is desired simply so that companies can market products for your children, for example (as if that weren’t bad enough), think again. This data will be stored forever, and parents will have very, very limited access to it, if any at all. Maybe you think “predicting future violent behavior” is a step in the right direction. What if your kid is flagged because he did something that most of us did growing up, such as draw a picture of a gun?

So who will be watching and analyzing our kids?

National standards plus the universal use of one-on-one devices are sold as “closing the digital divide.” Like every other aspect of Common Core, there is more than meets the eye: these are also necessary pre-conditions for mass surveillance. They are inseparable. This Orwellian vision of “educational equality” enables the kind of mass surveillance that can be characterized only as an educational police state. We the People are watching it happen to our children, and most of us still won’t believe our eyes.

What our government might do with all this data is a troublesome question.

So who will be watching and analyzing our kids?

Mary Anne Marcella is a parent and New York City public school teacher. She cares about her children and her students and wants the best for them. Her opinions are her own. maryannem@optonline.net MaryAnne@maryannemercog

Cort Wrotnowski is a management consultant in biotechnology and president of BioSpark Associates, LLC. Over the last two years he has been fighting Common Core, over-testing, and the assaults on local control in public education.

Update: August 23rd – Also shows on the main page:

Originally Posted: 11/17/2014 4:12 pm EST Updated: 01/17/2015 5:59 am EST

Billionaire Bill Gates really wants the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) for “mass” education.

In 2008, two well-positioned individuals asked Gates to pay for “state led” CCSS supposedly “launched in 2009 by state leaders, including governors and state commissioners of education from 48 states, two territories and the District of Columbia.”

One was edupreneur David Coleman, who started the “silent partner” organization at the center of CCSS development, Student Achievement Partners (SAP), with pal Jason Zimba and who has since been promoted to president of one of two testing organizations at the center of CCSS development, College Board. Moreover, Coleman and his SAP co-founder Zimba have connections to US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan dating back to 2002, when Duncan was CEO of Chicago Public Schools (CPS) and Coleman and Zimba’s Grow Network rode the assessment wave created by No Child Left Behind (NCLB). Here is Grow Network’s 2003 contract with CPS.

The other person who asked Gates in 2008 to pay for “2009 state-led” CCSS wasCCSS co-owner organization, Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) President Gene Wilhoit. Wilhoit joined SAP in 2013. Wilhoit is now with the University of Kentucky Center for Innovation in Education (CIE), which Gates paid one million dollars in February 2013 to help launch expressly “to advance implementation of the common core.”

In 2008, Gates agreed to pay, and he continues to do so.But the Core is having its share of resistance.

It needs a Super Support Group.

Enter the Collaborative for Student Success (CFSS), a “grant making” mega-Astroturf group entirely centered on promoting CCSS.

CFSS was featured as an unquestioned authority on Politico‘s November 11, 2014, Morning Education page. Here’s the clip:

COMMON CORE SCORECARD: The Collaborative for Student Success is circulating a memo today arguing that there’s no need for Republican candidates to run away from the Common Core to win over their base. Opponents of the standards may be loud, but they’re not mainstream, the memo argues. The evidence: Just six of the 44 governors in Common Core states have expressed interest in repealing the standards. The collaborative’s executive director, Karen Nussle, counts just four gubernatorial races where Common Core was a factor: Arizona, Colorado, New York and Pennsylvania. She also notes with satisfaction that pro-standards candidates won in all races but Arizona. “These statistics demonstrate quite conclusively that, far from being a political loser, support for the Common Core does not jeopardize a candidate’s political prospects,” Nussle writes. The memo: http://bit.ly/1EmcLX4

According to CFSS Executive Director Karen Nussle’s Linkedin bio, she is a “communications strategist” who once worked for then-Minority Whip, RepublicanNewt Gingrich, and who owns her own communications firm. CFSS has not been around for even a year yet- based on Nussle’s bio, it seems to have been established in January 2014- yet it has already been positioned as an organization worthy of national news for its “memo” cheering Republicans in their support of CCSS.

That’s exactly how grass roots reform works, don’t you know.

As noted on the CFSS “Get the Facts” page, here is the so-called CCSS story:

In 2009, state governors from around the country came together with state school chiefs to discuss education reform. … By early 2010, states began to voluntarily adopt the state standards. …There has been some confusion about Common Core, much of it based on misinformation and a misunderstanding of what Common Core is, and how much local control states retain after they voluntarily adopt the standards.

No mention of Coleman’s dominant role, nor of SAP’s central role, nor of the Coleman-Wilhoit 2008 request that Gates bankroll an arguably-national standards effort that the state governors had not just happened to “come together” to create.

And certainly no mention of the hook that CCSS and its federally-funded assessmentshave become in securing Duncan’s state-led-castrating NCLB waivers.

Such facts would only interfere with the single CFSS mission of selling CCSS.

But where there is a shiny new, turfy CCSS organization, there is Bill.

The bottom of the CFSS home page includes the following statement:

© 2014 Collaborative for Student Success. All Rights Reserved. The Collaborative for Student Success is a project of the New Venture Fund © 2014 [Emphasis added.]

Photos throughout this site courtesy of the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation

CFSS cannot even fake independence from Gates by producing its own website photos.

Indeed, aside from his providing CFSS website photos, guess who is footing the New Venture Fund bill for this CCSS push?

You know it: Bill Gates- to the tune of $10.3 million for “comprehensive and targeted communications”:

New Venture Fund
——————————————————————————–

Date: May 2014

Purpose: to support the successful implementation of the Common Core State Standards and related assessments through comprehensive and targeted communications and advocacy in key states and the District of Columbia [Emphasis added.]

Amount: $10,300,300

“Comprehensive and targeted communications” apparently includes Republican politicians following the November 4, 2014, elections. On November 11, 2014, CFSS issued this memo to “interested parties.” Here is an excerpt:

Even amidst a Republican wave, candidates elected to statewide governing positions largely resisted pressure to call for repeal of the Standards:

– 86% of Governors in pro-Common Core states have not expressed interest in repealing the Standards (38 of 44 Governors)
– 90% of state Superintendents in Common Core states have not taken steps to repeal the Standards (40 of 44 Superintendents)
– Among the 44 states with Common Core on the books, only six Governors and three State Superintendents have sought to repeal it

Target the Republicans. Be sure that they feel secure in supporting CCSS.

Never mind that the CCSS assessments have yet to hit most of the nation.

Never mind that CCSS cheerleader, Republican Jeb Bush is considering a 2016 presidential run- one that will follow the 2014-15 federally-funded, CCSS-consortium-assessment implementation deadline as such is entangled with Obama-Duncan Race to the Top (RTTT)- and one that could well discolor any previous Republican love affair for CCSS- especially since Republican resistance to CCSS appears to focus on federal overreach into state education affairs.

The CFSS memo does not discuss the as-of-yet looming CCSS assessments to be encountered in most CCSS states during the 2014-15 school year.

An aside: There are some who insist that CCSS can (and should) be divorced from the assessments. However, CCSS was never intended to exist without its high-stakes assessments.Here is a question:

If CCSS is so safe, why is Gates paying CFSS $10.3 million to “target communications” on the issue?

He must still be unsure his CCSS purchase is actually in his Gates-monogrammed bag.

There is another Gates money layer to the CFSS story.

Numerous CFSS “partners” are already Gates-funded organizations, many withfunding earmarked for pushing CCSS: Military Child Education Coalition, Stand for Children, Student Achievement Partners, State Collaborative on Reforming Education(Tennessee), US Chamber of Commerce Foundation, Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education (study), National PTA, Educators for Excellence, Prichard Committee for Academic Excellence, and the Thomas B. Fordham Institute.

Note that two strategic “partners” on this list are Coleman-founded Student Achievement Partners (SAP), which solely exists to promote CCSS, and Thomas B. Fordham Institute, “expert” promoters of CCSS nationwide.

A number of other CFSS “partners” include business organizations- a hallmark of“economically driven education reform,” or the insistence that the chief purpose of education is to serve business.

And you thought education had a loftier purpose.

The CFSS “about” page offers more details about other CCSS-friendly “philanthropy” supporting CFSS:

The Collaborative is supported by both regional and national foundations, including: Carnegie Corporation of New York, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Helios Education Foundation, Leona M. and Harry B. Helmsley Charitable Trust, William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Lumina Foundation, and the Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Foundation. Other funders may soon be joining this important effort.[Emphasis added’]

More “funders may soon” push “state led” CCSS via this CCSS “grant making” machine. How novel in this age of Astroturf.

Though no Astroturfers could beat out Bill for his unrelenting, CCSS money-spew, a word on both Hewlett and Helmsley is surely in order:

First Hewlett: Like Gates, Hewlett also wants CCSS to drive public education in a manner unprecedented by any other set of “standards.” In October 2014, a Hewlett-funded, pro-CCSS group released a “report” modeling a CCSS-centered “new accountability” for states willing to take the CCSS-centric bait.

Former CCSSO President Gene Wilhoit is part of this Hewlett-funded group.

CCSS has turned out to be the economic gift that keeps on giving for the likes of CCSS insiders such as Wilhoit and Coleman.

Politico offers none of this fiscally-spider-webbed background on the amply-funded and -connected CFSS. Astounding.

As for Helmsley: In January 2014, Helmsley divided $1.6 million between both national teachers unions, the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA) so that teachers could “review” items produced by the two federally-funded CCSS testing consortia, Smarter Balanced and PARCC, and also train other teachers on how to allow these tests to drive classroom instruction.

A corporate-reform-friendly byproduct of this Helmsley-funded effort is that it enables test-driven reformers to advertise that teachers were “involved” in the two CCSS testing consortia.Nice, huh?

Now, one of the best “facts” on the CFSS site is the hologram of “educator” support for CCSS. CFSS lists five national organizations as implied proof positive of teacher practitioner support for CCSS:

There is great support for the Common Core State Standards among educators – from the National Network of State Teachers of the Year, the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards, the National Education Association and the American Federation of Teachers…

No mention that CCSS part-owner, Gates-funded CCSSO sponsors the State Teachers of the Year; no mention of the Gates money paid to both the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) and the National Education Association (NEA) expressly for CCSS; no mention that Gates dished out dough to the National Board for Professional Teaching Standards for other issues so much so that NBPTS handed him the keynote spot at its March 2014 conference. (In 2010, AFT also handed over a keynote to Gates.)

Of the above five named organizations, only the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics (NCTM) appears to be free of ties to Gates Foundation money. However, let us avoid making the CFSS-induced assumption that since NCTM endorses CCSS, so do the majority of American public school math teachers.

All that CFSS existence has proved yet again is that CCSS is top-down, manufactured “reform.” And where there is manufactured reform, there must be “communications strategist”-led, manufactured support.

It’s all in the sale. Just ask Bill.

Originally posted 11-12-14 at deutsch29.wordpress.com

Update: July 29th

Update: July 22nd

Here are links to some YouTube video’s that share some powerful examples of the challenges with Common Core. They vary in length from 5 to 8 minutes. The complete program is just over 2 hours if you want to spend the time. Without further ado here are some links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0LZ_7Spjvho&feature=youtu.be

https://youtu.be/u3XcckJ3yTk

https://youtu.be/Si-kx5-MKSE

Update: July 21st – This was posted on the main page and reposted here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coRNJluF2O4&list=PLWqL2Og4ICdvllViIJu00MBc15yaXp2UH

Update July 12th

This article is 2 years old but the facts they cite are still true today. It’s a bit of a long read but it does a good job outlining the objections those against Common Core have.

http://blogs.edweek.org/teachers/living-in-dialogue/2013/11/common_core_standards_ten_colo.html

Update July 9, 2015

This article provides details about the states that have dropped out of Common Core testing.

http://coalitiontoprotectourpublicschools.org/states-leave-common-core-sbac-and-parcc-tests-like-rats-deserting-a-sinking-ship

Update: June 22nd

Ever wonder what the connection between Bill Gates and Common Core is? This link takes you to a story published in the Washington Post. It takes a few minutes to read but it will give you some history and help you understand what money can buy: http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/how-bill-gates-pulled-off-the-swift-common-core-revolution/2014/06/07/a830e32e-ec34-11e3-9f5c-9075d5508f0a_story.html

Update: June 17th

I found a series of video’s on YouTube in which a mother in Arkansas went in front of her local school board and shared her thoughts. Please take the time to watch and listen:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ef68OpQ2Lww Part 1: 6:39

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aSaD5mtclnk Part 2: 7:56

_____________________________________________________________

Are you aware of Common Core and the SBAC testing?

States have been abandoning the PARCC and SBAC testing consortia in droves. When the consortia started, PARCC had 26 members while Smarter Balanced (SBAC) had 31. Now SBAC is down to 18 and PARCC is down to ten states plus the District of Columbia. This is, in a sense, even more critical than rejecting Common Core because the test is the only thing that actually enforces the standards.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/06/07/hes-dead-jim-why-common-core-is-a-goner-and-just-doesnt-know-it-yet/

Here is a link to an article written by an educator about the reading materials for 11th grade. These materials are the basis for the Common Core testing. The article is VERY long but if you can work your way through it the information should be helpful: http://www.nas.org/articles/experiencing_common_core

Here is an example of the “new math” under Common Core:

Do you have an opinion or questions?

I’ve spent nearly a year digging into it and have some grave concerns. I’ve met with several of the current school board members as well as the Superintendent and his deputy along with some of their key people.

Here is an independent review of common core: Common_Core_Topic_Papers

I would love to hear what you think.

Just came across this article on the “New Science” that may be coming to Common Core:

http://insider.foxnews.com/2015/05/29/climate-change-indoctrination-13-states-adopt-common-core-science-lessons

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