Breitbart.com posted an article yesterday about a grassroots group in North Carolina called the North Carolina Academic Freedom Alliance. The group was formed to fight Common Core standards in North Carolina and to suggest the North Carolina Plan as an alternative to the government and big business controlled standards of Common Core.
The article reports:
According to team leader Jerry Egolf of the North Carolina Academic Freedom Alliance, the North Carolina Plan is a set of academic standards that were “chosen from the very best alternatives to Common Core, exceeding those standards by significant measures and having been proven by testing results.”
Egolf informed Breitbart News that he and math standards lead Kathy Young and English Language Arts (ELA) lead Linda Harper developed the Plan over the past five years to meet “critical thinking standards.”
Their research involved reviewing some 3,000 pages of standards to find the “best of the best.” The final product consists of a remodeling of the Minnesota math standards and the 2001 Massachusetts ELA standards.
The article further reports:
“Best of all, the North Carolina Plan is a grassroots development effort that comes at no cost to the schools of our state,” Egolf said. “Other grassroots organizations are welcome to examine our Plan and see if it might fit their needs.”
Egolf admits the North Carolina Plan will need the help of the General Assembly, and notes the opposition “has a lot of money to throw at stopping us.”
The Plan, however, debuted on March 7 at a forum sponsored by the North Carolina Academic Freedom Alliance in New Bern. The event, titled “An Educational Forum for the Replacement of Common Core,” was attended by Freedom Works, Americans for Prosperity, and the John Locke Foundation.
The North Carolina Plan would be the best option for education in North Carolina. The problems with Common Core are too numerous to list here, but they include intrusive information gathering on students and their families, extensive testing that stresses out our children and does not accomplish anything, and material that is not age appropriate for the children. The North Carolina Plan does not have any of these problems and will encourage students to practice critical thinking after they graduate from school, making them more informed and more productive citizens.