News behind the news. This picture is me (white spot) standing on the bridge connecting European and North American tectonic plates. It is located in the Reykjanes area of Iceland. By-the-way, this is a color picture.
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Thursday, March 24, 2015 CONTACT: Donna Colorio, 508-450-0104 and dcolorio2014@gmail.com END COMMON CORE MA End Common Core MA’s message to the big money special interests: #RKidsRnot4Sale
End Common Core Massachusetts has a very simple message to the big money special interest groups organizing resistance to the popular End Common Core ballot measure: Our kids are not for sale (#RKidsRnot4Sale).
“Last month, a poll proved that a huge majority of voters support the end of Common Core. It clearly verifies hard-working Massachusetts voters reject giving control of our public education system to the wealthy special interests. They are desperately trying to defeat this measure by pouring in millions to fund phony lawsuits and more phony front groups for Pearson Education and the Gates Foundation. They will soon find out that Our Kids Are Not for Sale and the voters will reject their efforts”, said End Common Core Chairperson Donna Colorio.
Sandra Stotsky, former Senior Associate Commissioner in the Massachusetts Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) notes that “the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education (MBAE) filed a lawsuit against Attorney General Maura Healey in January claiming she didn’t know what she was doing when she approved the language of the ballot question. It looks like they are desperate to stop the voters from voting on this critical issue.”
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation is on record donating a lot of money to the MBAE in 2014 to pay for studies that support the continued use of Common Core. The Gates Foundation has also poured millions of dollars to fund grants for DESE and other Massachusetts special interest groups who support Common Core. Pearson Education is the corporation contracted to create standardized tests like PARCC and MCAS designed to test in English Language Arts and Mathematics. Pearson also publishes textbooks and educational materials aligned to the Common Core Standards, and keeping the standards will mean billions of dollars in profits.
“Right now, the special interests are lining up millions of dollars to fund a campaign where every word, study, report, and so-called statistic is made up and paid for by groups funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. In contrast, End Common Core MA is a grassroot effort led by concerned citizens giving their time and hard earned money to speak truth to power. The super wealthy special interests are using our kids to make billions of dollars every year in testing fees, textbooks, and other classroom materials. The special interests have a lot of money on their side and their goal is to destroy our public education system. But the hard working citizens of Massachusetts will have the truth on their side,” said Colorio.
End Common Core MA is a ballot question committee of citizen activists, teachers, parents, concerned citizens, and elected officials opposed to Common Core’s standards. Go to EndCommonCoreMA.com for more information.
If you read this blog on a regular basis, you are probably aware that I am strongly opposed to Common Core. There are many reasons for this, and I need to review a few before I get to the current article regarding Common Core.
On the Microsoft Web site, a webpage dated April 22, 2014 entitled “Tech Essentials for Testing Success” describes in considerable detail how schools using computer-based, Common Core-aligned tests will now need to spend a bunch of money — on Microsoft products.
…Microsoft additionally advises schools to upgrade “all units” “to a minimum of 1 GB of internal memory” and to make sure their screens and processors are up to snuff. (Wouldn’t you know it: in some cases, “Power Macs are not supported.”) Schools might also need to outlay tax dollars on Internet connections and hardware such as headphones.
The primary purpose of Common Core is not to educate our children–it’s to force schools to buy Microsoft technology. There are billions of dollars at stake here, which brings me to my current story. When schools originally began buying computer products, most schools bought (or were given) Apple products. The students trained on Apple products went on to buy Apple products as adult consumers. That lesson was not lost on Bill Gates at Microsoft.
A lawsuit that aims to prevent Massachusetts voters from weighing in on the controversial Common Core educational standards has backing from people connected to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, a major sponsor of Common Core.
Since 2010, the year the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted to implement Common Core, through last year, the Gates Foundation donated $776,431 to the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education. The Alliance, a strong supporter of Common Core, is currently coordinating the lawsuit, filed last month, to block a citizen initiative that would allow Massachusetts voters in November to decide whether the state continues to use the federally approved Common Core standards or revert to its own pre-Common Core standards.
In 2007, prior to the implementation of Common Core, Massachusetts was the highest-achieving state in the country. Opponents of Common Core, an unusually bi-partisan group of parents, teachers, education specialists, conservative activists, and anti-testing activists, say that after the state adopted the federally backed standards in 2010, Massachusetts achievement levels started to decline.
End Common Core Massachusetts, the citizens group behind the ballot question, earlier this year garnered enough signatures to advance the measure. But on Jan. 22, ten plaintiffs sued to stop the question from reaching the voters. Plaintiffs include William Walczak who is a director of the Alliance, and Jack Dill, who is on its advisory council.
If Common Core was about improving education, why have the achievement levels in Massachusetts schools started to decline since Common Core was implemented? Common Core is a scam put over on parents and teachers that does nothing to improve the education of our children. I does, however, improve the bottom line profits of Microsoft Corporation. Parents need to begin to work to remove it. I am hoping Massachusetts will be successful with its ballot question, but in other places, school boards need to be pressured to take action against something that is detrimental to our children’s education. If it really was about the children, would any school administrators be supporting something that lowers achievement rather than raises it?
On Monday, Wicked Local Scituate posted a story about teachers in Massachusetts fighting the adoption of Common Core in their state. Scituate is a beautiful town on the Massachusetts coast about 25 miles from Boston. The median income in the town between 2000 and 2011 was slightly over $100,000. In February 2015, the average price of a house in Scituate was $545,000. I mention this just to give you an idea of the town that publishes the paper involved. I should also mention that in Massachusetts the word ‘wicked’ is frequently used as an adjective. Please follow the link above to read the entire article.
The article states a few facts about the pre-Common Core successes of education in Massachusetts and reminds us of the actions of two courageous members of the validation committee who refused to sign off on Common Core:
According to many of its critics, early childhood experts, teachers, parents, and local school committees were barely consulted during the inception of the Common Core and were inadequately represented on its validation committee. The only two educators on the panel, Dr. Sandra Stotsky, perhaps the nation’s preeminent ELA (English Language Arts) specialist (and a former senior associate commissioner in the Massachusetts Department of Education) and Dr. James Milgram, a mathematics professor from Stanford University, refused to sign off on the Common Core validation statement because they did not support the Common Core’s standards or the program itself, on the basis that the Common Core standards were not research-based, rigorous or internationally benchmarked.
The writer of the article gathered his information about Common Core from a friend who is an early childhood expert of 20 years, a private school teacher, and mother of a third-grader, and who was lobbying against Common Core in Massachusetts.
The article reports:
So why did Massachusetts, which in 2007 was nationally ranked in the 90th percentile for student achievement in standardized testing, adopt a curriculum that had little transparency or accountability and choose to rate teachers not by how well they taught their content area, but instead on students’ scores on a test of dubious value? Why did the Commonwealth replace its top-notch English and math standards with the weaker national standards of the Common Core? As far as my friend is concerned, the answer is “Cha-ching!”
In 2010, the Massachusetts education commissioner relied on reports from Achieve Inc., the Thomas Fordham Institute, and the Massachusetts Business Alliance for Education to support and justify a recommendation to adopt the Common Core. These private organizations had one common thread—the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which invested more than $200 million dollars in promoting the Common Core curriculum.
The article goes on to explain some of the other financial dealings related to Common Core.
The article concludes:
There is no regard for individual and collective aptitudes and motivations within a particular classroom, or for the presentation of developmentally appropriate content. Teachers cannot celebrate or assess the different learning styles of their students, because all students must learn and test the same way. We have gone from educator-created content and teaching methods to a state of test takers and test teachers, who are forced to adhere to a one-size fits all model of standardization.
My friend and her allies in the education community are seeking to convince the state’s political leaders to reinstitute the education standards and testing regime, which prevailed prior to the adoption of the Common Core. Time will tell whether those efforts are successful, but their voice is growing louder, and I can’t see them giving up without a fight.
These are the same objections we are hearing from teachers and parents around the country. It is time to fight the moneyed interests that are promoting Common Core and do what is best for our children.
The Common Core Diva is a friend. Her blog is informative and detailed. I have attended Common Core meetings, but do not have the knowledge of how the program works that the Diva does. The following is directly taken from her blog (with her permission).
Post secondary ed reform is set to be ‘reauthorized’. You can bet your sweet backside CCSS will be there in the form of CTE.
Common Core for the Workforce is present through Career Tech Education. This isn’t new news for those of us fighting the CCSS. However, were you aware that there’s a push to reauthorize the Higher Education Act? By doing so, you can bet CCSS via CTE will be there.
The Higher Ed Act:
Originally written in 1965, under Pres. Johnson domestic agenda for America called “The Great Society”. It was to increase amounts of federal aid universities and colleges received. The Act was to also increase student aid to get into institutions of higher education. It also established a national teacher corps program.
The HEA (as the Higher Education Act can be referred to) has been reauthorized several times. The updates to the law have been many and wide reaching. Much of what your students and mine fill out on their FASFA forms is tied up in this law.
Most notable in what I’ve been able to find in researching is the 1998 versrion known as “Gear Up” If reauthorized, this would be the 3rd time. As always, the CCSS is buried. Where would it be found? Perkins funding, those Titles funding programs, work study programs, apprenticeships, and probably more. We’ll get to the particulars in a bit. But first, what does “Gear Up” stand for? “Gaining Early Awareness and Readiness for Undergraduate Programs”. Remember, this was started in 1998. Before CCSS. But how ironic that we have so much ‘readiness’ rhetoric in modern education.
The 2008 Workforce/Education ‘Marriage’:
According to the Center for Law and Social Policy’s document highlighting the changes to HEA, here’s the one that joined education and businesses (think P3s, or public-private partnerships), “Creates Business Workforce Partnerships for Job Skill Training in High Growth Occupations or Industries. Colleges often lack the “venture capital” to start up new, credit-bearing programs that can respond to business workforce needs because state funding and federal financial aid typically only flow after students are enrolled in programs. This grant program funds partnerships of colleges, employers, and, where applicable, labor representatives to expand or create credit-bearing college programs responsive to business workforce needs, adapt college offerings to workers’ schedules, expand worksite learning opportunities, and purchase equipment related to such academic or job training programs. The grants are targeted toward programs serving nontraditional students, such as working adults, and can be used to create for-credit career pathways (Section 803).”
Other items which supported this ‘marriage’? TRIO and Bridges from Jobs to Careers. If you don’t know much about TRIO, here’s what the U.S. Dept. of Ed. has to say about it, “The history of TRIO is progressive. It began with Upward Bound, which emerged out of the Economic Opportunity Act of 1964 in response to the administration’s War on Poverty. In 1965, Talent Search, the second outreach program, was created as part of the Higher Education Act. In 1968, Student Support Services, which was originally known as Special Services for Disadvantaged Students, was authorized by the Higher Education Amendments and became the third in a series of educational opportunity programs. By the late 1960’s, the term “TRIO” was coined to describe these federal programs. If you don’t know much about Bridges from Jobs to Careers, it basically was a federal program which awarded competing higher education institutions grant money. There were mandatory requirements for use of the funding. In our current educational panaroma, each state appears to have some sort of bridge/work program. I didn’t find all 50 states in my general search, but I did find several states which are proudly open for business, so to speak.
While CLASP is still somewhat fresh on our minds, let’s see what more current ed/jobs efforts they’ve been up to.
Here’s a screen shot from their website that plainly has “Career Pathways” displayed. It also states ‘low income’ and ‘disadvantaged’. With some of the sweeping changes embedded in HR5, who is classified as ‘disadvantaged’ and ‘low income’ could drastically change to include almost every student!
You definitely will want to enlarge this screen shot.
The Gates Foundation has a firm grasp on CLASP.
There’s no question in my mind how much CLASP is tied into the Gates Foundation and is helping direct the policies of this nation. How utterly disgusting. If you want more information about them, see: http://www.clasp.org/issues/postsecondary Oh, and one more nugget of truth the WIOA (Workforce Investment and Opportunity Act) which has 21 embedded CCSS, CTE, and/or Career Pathways in it will take effect July 2015.
The 2015 Push:
If you’ve not already had to run away from your computer screaming after the bombshells from above, know that Washington is hard at work as we speak plotting even more reform. To this end, refer back to the opening screen shot you saw. It’s at the very top of the page. What I want you to find is the phrase about the 4 pillars of action to be taken in reauthorizing HEA. I’ll include the PDF file, but here’s a quick summary:
Point #1: empowering family decision making; Point #2: Simplifying and improving student aid; Point #3: promoting innovation, access, and completion (of what isn’t clarified upfront); and Point #4: insuring strong accountability and a limited federal role.
Drawbacks to the points include more data tracking/mining via the Integrated PostSecondary Education Data System (IPEDS); the federal agencies streamlining information families can access to cause less confusion; more robust financial literacy; having the U.S. Dept. of Ed create a higher education rating system; strengthening federal financial aid; streamlining student debt repayment plans to better serve taxpayers; making the Pell Grant flexible; possible federal interference in the ‘innovation, access, and completion’ point ( I strongly believe you should read and assimilate the information directly from the source); increasing the push for more digital learning; increasing the competency-based outcomes for students; more federal assistance for those with the lowest incomes; ramping up teaching preparedness via federal programs and/or influence; and, a possible move to make accreditation entities become more rigorous when it comes to post secondary education institutions. For all the details and for your research: hea_whitepaper
To learn more about the government entity overseeing all interested parties into post-secondary education and data collection, see:https://nces.ed.gov/npec/ (*Note: be sure to look at the Research/Development Board Members. Note which institutions or organizations they represent)
To access the National Post Secondary Education Policy Cooperative’s “Student Success” pdf (which includes public policy, alignment, and more), ewell_report
More You May Want to Know:
The original screen shot showed that an upcoming hearing would be taking place to discuss not only all I’ve shared with you, but even more. Involved in the hearing will be federal budget, plans, and workforce. You’ll want to listen to the entire thing. This hearing actually took place yesterday, March 18th. I can tell you from the opening remarks, at least one U.S. Congress member wasn’t a fan. Here’s a screen shot from Twitter taken from the Ed/Workforce feed:
The Common Core State Standards call for kindergartners to learn how to read, but a new report by early childhood experts says that forcing some kids to read before they are ready could be harmful.
Two organizations that advocate for early childhood education — Defending the Early Years and Alliance for Childhood — issued the report titled “Reading in Kindergarten: Little to Gain and Much to Lose.” It says there is no evidence to support a widespread belief in the United States that children must read in prekindergarten or kindergarten to become strong readers and achieve academic success.
I think most of us would agree that we want our children to become strong readers and achieve academic success. I think most of us would also agree that there are some children who might actually be ready to read by kindergarten. However, not all children are ready to read by Kindergarten, and are we ready to accept the damage that we will do to those children in the name of Common Core?
Here are some of the findings of the report cited above:
Many children are not developmentally ready to read in kindergarten, yet the Common Core State Standards require them to do just that. This is leading to inappropriate classroom practices.
No research documents long-term gains from learning to read in kindergarten.
Research shows greater gains from play-based programs than from preschools and kindergartens with a more academic focus.
Children learn through playful, hands-on experiences with materials, the natural world, and engaging, caring adults.
Active, play-based experiences in language-rich environments help children develop their ideas about symbols, oral language and the printed word — all vital components of reading.
We are setting unrealistic reading goals and frequently using inappropriate methods to accomplish them.
Please follow the link above to the article to read the rest of the findings.
It is becoming very obvious that the people who designed Common Core did not allow for individual students or their individual personalities and development.
On September 27, 2013, The Washington Post quoted Bill Gates, the money and force promoting Common Core as saying, “It would be great if our education stuff worked, but we won’t know for probably a decade.”
Are you willing to gamble your children’s future on something that is not only untried, but may also be harmful to your children?
Today’s Daily Caller posted a story about the relationship between Bill Gates and Common Core. Common Core is the federal takeover of education heavily funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates. The Foundation has spent over $200 million in an effort to push the Common Core Standards Initiative in the last couple years.
The article explains one possible motive for the expenditure:
On the Microsoft Web site, a webpage dated April 22, 2014 entitled “Tech Essentials for Testing Success” describes in considerable detail how schools using computer-based, Common Core-aligned tests will now need to spend a bunch of money — on Microsoft products.
“Ready or not,” Microsoft warns, “testing for the State Standards is about to become a reality for schools in 45 states, Washington, D.C., and four US territories. That means a switch to online testing beginning the spring of 2015.”
Later on comes the sales pitch:
For many schools, time is running out. In a report issued by Smarter Balanced in 2012, it found that 56.1 percent of K–12 schools reporting were still running on aging Windows XP, which had an end of service (EOS) date of April 8, 2014. In the face of this looming cutoff of support, it’s recommended by IT professionals to migrate to the new Windows as soon as possible.
Microsoft additionally advises schools to upgrade “all units” “to a minimum of 1 GB of internal memory” and to make sure their screens and processors are up to snuff. (Wouldn’t you know it: in some cases, “Power Macs are not supported.”) Schools might also need to outlay tax dollars on Internet connections and hardware such as headphones.
Notice that “Power Macs are not supported.” If the government were not involved in this, they would be charging Microsoft with monopoly. As usual, if you want to know what Common Core is about, follow the money.
This was the company that was going to compile large amounts of information on students.
The article reports:
The strategy driving inBloom had been to create a huge database connecting local school districts and state education bureaucracies with behemoth education companies.
To accomplish this goal, the nonprofit had hoped to provide a smorgasbord of data about students. What homework are they doing? What tests are they assigned? What are their test scores? Their specific learning disabilities? Their disciplinary records? Their skin colors? Their names? Their addresses?
The Atlanta-based company had originally signed up nine states for the database. It planned to charge school districts between $2 and $5 per student for the privilege of participating in the student data collection scheme.
The intrusive data collection of student information was not the only surprise in Common Core. (also note that the school systems would be paying for the privilege of having their students’ privacy violated) Upon investigating the curriculum which is aligned to Common Core, parents found lessons that were age inappropriate, lessons that were historically inaccurate and slanted, and literature for junior high reading that bordered on pornographic.
A few states are already are already responding to parental concern about Common Core and are backing away from using the standards and curriculum. Hopefully all states will move in that direction and then move to set up standards that work for them.
Today I attended a public meeting of a joint legislative committee in North Carolina that is studying Common Core and will likely make recommendations on its implementation in the state. The Common Core State Standards Initiative is a set of standards for K-12 in English and Math. It will later include Science and Social Studies. It is a top down program coming from Washington, D.C., that is copyrighted and not tailored to meet the needs of each individual state. The Common Core program is heavily funded by the Bill Gates Foundation.
There were sixty speakers at the meeting and another forty or fifty in the audience listening to the arguments. Generally speaking, those who supported Common Core spoke of the need for educational standards. I don’t think anyone would dispute that educational standards are needed–the question is whether those standards will be handled locally or handed down from Washington, D.C.
The arguments against Common Core were varied. Some people argued that the dictation of educational standards from Washington, D. C. was unconstitutional. Other speakers expressed concern about the amount of data that will be collected on the students in the Common Core program and what will be done with that data. There was a serious question as to whether privacy rights of students and parents will be protected.
The most convincing argument against Common Core came from parents of children in kindergarten through grade three. Those parents were nearly in tears as they described the impact Common Core was having on their children–the children hate school and are suffering anxiety attacks due to the pressure of constant testing. The children are also being asked to understand concepts that are not age-appropriate to them.
Two other objections to Common Core were that the program has not been tested and that no one has put a specific price tag on the cost of implementing and maintaining the program.
After listening to the statements made this morning, I can only conclude that it would be unwise to implement a set of academic standards without adequately testing them or knowing how much they would cost. I would strongly suggest that the State of North Carolina set its own academic standards by observing other states that have been successful in doing this. Massachusetts (before Common Core) is a very good example of a state that greatly improved its academic standards without any help from the federal government. This is probably the only time I will ever suggest that North Carolina follow the example of Massachusetts, but this is the one time Massachusetts has set a good example.
