Tag Archives: North Carolina Plan

Common Core In North Carolina

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Yesterday the Academic Standards Review Commission (ASRC) met in Raleigh. Jerry Egolf presented the North Carolina Plan (an alternative to Common Core which is less expensive than Common Core and has its origins in the Greensboro Plan). The North Carolina Plan would bring our schools up to some of the highest standards in the nation–it includes parts of the Greensboro Plan, Massachusetts (before Common Core), Minnesota’s math programs, and California (before Common Core). It would be a wonderful alternative to Common Core.

Lady Liberty posted the following on her blog about the meeting:

Yesterday was the June meeting of the Academic Standards Review Commission (ASRC), which is tasked at reviewing the Common Core standards in order to give replacement recommendations to the State Board of Education at the end of this year.

Local media was on hand for yesterday’s event, as it included public comment from parents. Well, it was supposed to be parents. Near the end, the NC PTA President, Donald Dunn, jumped in.

Dunn’s comments were a series of pro-Core talking points; one in particular on Military families “needing the Common Core” has been thoroughly debunked. Time Warner Cable news covered the introduction of the NC Plan, which is a full set of free standards based on the best of the best state and international standards available. Time Warner Cable new also interviewed NC parent, Amy Wilmoth:

“Amy Wilmoth attended with her son Reeves.

She made the decision in February to pull her 9-year-old son from Mangum Elementary School in favor of a home school online curriculum with Liberty University; however, they remain conflicted.

“We wanna send him back to the public school system. My husband and I both are products of the public school system. But it was a very different environment then. We were able to learn and teachers had the ability to teach the children as they saw fit to teach then, and I see that missing in our school system,” said Wilmoth.”

I attended the event and also spoke as a parent of a Wake county student. Around 15 parents spoke; only three spoke in support of the standards. I’ll have more on this testimony from the supporters once I compile my notes and finish some research on some of the attendees.

I live-tweeted the event, which can be read on Storify.

North Carolina Parents And Grandparents Continue To Fight Common Core

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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.