With the Governor’s signature the implementation of Common Core and related assessments has been paused. The standards cannot go forward without the approval of the legislature. According to House Speaker Jase Bolger that decsion is likely to happen “in the fall.”
“I’ve asked members to go home all summer, to talk to people in the education committee, talk to their citizens, get informed and to be ready to come back to cast a vote, yes or no, in regard to moving forward with Common Core,” Bolger said after the budget signing.
Bolger said the vote could come before the Oct. 1 start of the state’s fiscal year, when the provision blocking funding for the standards in the Michigan Department of Education budget would take effect.
So let’s dedicate the summer to helping our lawmakers “get informed” so that in the fall they’ll be a solid, “NO” vote.
Thanks to Utah Teacher, Christel Swasey for writing and circulating a fact filled op-ed “We’re Not Misinformed; We Know What Common Core Is, And We Reject It.” Hopefully, it will get published in the Salt-Lake Tribune but she has graciously allowed others to use portions for their own op-ed and to help inform their state’s lawmakers.
It’s not “state-led.” The authors of the copyrighted Common Core are private entities, not subject to open meetings, accountability to voters or other proof being state-led. Conditions of the federal ESEA waiver and Race to the Top application show how federally-pushed the Common Core agenda was. Now Obama has announced a tax to pay for Common Core technology in a ConnectEd Initiative, and has announced that he will redesign U.S. high schools.How state-led does that sound?
It’s not academically legitimate. There’s no evidence to back up claims that the standards increase college readiness as they are experimental. The standards were written by D.C. groups who opined that classic literature should be curtailed to favor information texts. These groups felt that basic algorithms should be taught at delayed times. The unvetted ideas, unsupported by academic research, formed Common Core.
It’s not minimalistic
. Proponents call it a set of minimum standards. But a 15% cap was placed over the copyrighted standards by the federal government, limiting Utah from adding much. Worse, the Common Core tests, with teacher evaluations geared to them, act as the ultimate enforcement mechanism.It’s not amendable. The D.C.-based system defines and narrows learning yet has no amendment process.
It’s not protective of privacy. Along with asking us to adopt Common Core, the federal government pushed the State Longitudinal Database Systems (SLDS) which now exist in each state. These give aggregate information to an Edfacts Data Exchange. Although private information gathered by schools, found in an SLDS, is not required to be given to D.C., it is requested. Federal entities request that states share identifiable student information: see the Common Education Data Standards, the Data QualityCampaign, and the National Data Collection Model.
To make matters worse, the Department of Education altered federal regulations in the Family Educational Rights Privacy Act (FERPA) reducing parental consent requirements and redefining “authorized representative,” “directory information” and “education agency” to obliterate privacy.
Click on the above links and learn the truth about Common Core. Once you’re armed with the facts, confidently visit your senator or representative during their in district office hours this summer and in inform them and they ask that he/she vote “no” in the fall. Keep following-up too. We didn’t get this far by keeping silent. The battle will be fierce n the fall but every effort made during the summer months will bring a permanent halt to Common Core in Michigan.