Tag Archives: PARCC

Common Core In Massachusetts

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Below is a press release from End Common Core Massachusetts:

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.

The North Carolina Academic Standards Review Commission

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The North Carolina Academic Standards Review Commission met today in Raleigh, North Carolina, to discuss the Common Core Mathematics Standards.

The Academic Standards Review Commission was established by General Assembly of North Carolina Session 2013 Session Law 2014-78 Senate Bill 812.

Section 2(c) of the Bill states:

SECTION 2.(c) The Commission shall:

(1)    Conduct a comprehensive review of all English Language Arts and Mathematics standards that were adopted by the State Board of Education under G.S. 115C-12(9c) and propose modifications to ensure that those standards meet all of the following criteria:

  1. Increase students’ level of academic achievement.
  2. Meet and reflect North Carolina’s priorities.
  3. Are age-level and developmentally appropriate.
  4. Are understandable to parents and teachers.
  5. Are among the highest standards in the nation.

(2)   As soon as practicable upon convening, and at any time prior to termination, recommend changes and modifications to these academic standards to the State Board of Education.

(3)   Recommend to the State Board of Education assessments aligned to proposed changes and modifications that would also reduce the number of high-stakes assessments administered to public schools.

(4)   Consider the impact on educators, including the need for professional development, when making any of the recommendations required in this section.

The Commission shall assemble content experts to assist it in evaluating the rigor ofacademic standards. The Commission shall also involve interested stakeholders in this processand otherwise ensure that the process is transparent.

Today was the second meeting of the Academic Standards Review Commission I have attended. The last one (last month) dealt with the Common Core Language Arts Standards. Today’s meeting dealt with the Common Core Mathematics Standards. The presentations at both meetings were done by people from the Department of Public Instruction (DPI)(a department that is strongly supporting Common Core). There has been (so far) no discussion of any alternate standards. It was also mentioned in today’s meeting that the Commission does not have any money allocated to it, and thus cannot call any experts who might refute the value of Common Core.

I have never been so disappointed in government. When the North Carolina legislature passed the legislation that created the Commission, they passed it in response to complaints by parents about the Common Core standards (and the curriculum that goes with them). The parents were not looking for a worthless commission that would do nothing but hear from supporters of Common Core, put a rubber stamp on it, and go home. (I do need to say at this point that there were some members of the Commission that were asking genuine questions and were trying to look past the one-sided promotional presentation they were subjected to.)

All in all, the meeting of the Commission was a well-orchestrated and controlled dog and pony show that accomplished nothing except to show the extent to which the North Carolina DPI supports Common Core. I would strongly suggest to the Commission (and to the DPI) that if you truly want to improve the education level of North Carolina students, you study the MCAS  (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System) program instituted in Massachusetts during the early 1990’s. Massachusetts has more than ten years of test scores that show that MCAS works. Common Core has no reliable test scores that show that has actually accomplished anything. Normally, I would never suggest North Carolina follow the example of Massachusetts, but this one time Massachusetts got it right, and they should be listened to. I would also like to note that many of the local school boards in Massachusetts have opted out of Common Core in favor of MCAS.

 

 

An Exercise In Futility

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On July 16, 2014, the North Carolina General Assembly ratified SB812 (follow link for full text). The bill charges the State Board of Education with the task of conducting a comprehensive review of all English Language Arts and Mathematics standards adopted under G.S.115C 12(9c) and propose modifications to ensure that those standards will improve the students’ level of academic achievement, meet and reflect North Carolina’s priorities, and other goals. The law sets up the Academic Standards Review Commission composed of eleven people who are charged with reviewing  current standards and making recommendations. Unfortunately the way the law is written, the Commission is simply going through the Common Core standards line by line (by hearing a presentation of the Department of Public Instruction [DPI], which supports Common Core). There is no objectivity in the presentation, and there is no factual information at this point that indicates Common Core does anything to raise academic standards.

In May of last year, I wrote an article about the introduction of Common Core in Massachusetts. The article cited a Wall Street Journal article detailing the changes in Massachusetts education during the 1990’s. Education in the state was reformed in 1993, and SAT scores rose for thirteen consecutive years. In 2005 Massachusetts scored best in the nation in all grades and categories on the National Assessment of Educational Progress. They have repeated that performance every time they have taken the test.  Massachusetts is doing very well educationally right now.

On October 1 of this year, I wrote another article about Common Core in Massachusetts. The article was about the Lincoln-Sudbury School Board‘s decision to decline a chance to offer the PARCC (Common Core) to students next spring, sharply criticizing the standardized test that could end up replacing the MCAS in the state.

That article quotes a Massachusetts newspaper article that states:

One board member equated the trial run of the exam as making “guinea pigs” out of students, whom he said wouldn’t see any worthwhile benefit from the dozens of hours they would put into practicing for and taking the test.

Lincoln-Sudbury, like all public high schools in Massachusetts, had a choice to administer the PARCC, short for Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, in ninth and 11th grade later this year. The new test, which was introduced in a small pilot roll-out this past spring, was developed by a consortium of states to closely conform to the new Common Core standards adopted by most schools in the nation.

…Several committee members also bemoaned the PARCC’s potential effect of putting increased emphasis on standardized testing, arguing Lincoln-Sudbury on its own is able to come up with much more effective measures of students’ grasp of learning standards.

No matter how hard the Department of Public Instruction tries to sell it, Common Core is untested. If the Commission is truly concerned about the education of North Carolina students, they will look to other states that have successfully improved the academic achievement levels of their students. I am sure there are many communities in Massachusetts who would be willing and able to help with this task.

Meanwhile, today’s meeting was a biased, self-serving presentation by the Department of Public Instruction–a department that was not interested in changing anything (except possibly the name Common Core). That is unfortunate.

If the parents and grandparents of North Carolina students are truly concerned about their students’ education, they need to get involved very quickly. There will be a meeting next month in which the DPI will do a presentation of the mathematics section of Common Core similar to the one they did today on the English Language Arts section. So far there has been no public examination of any set of standards other than the unproven Common Core standards. If that continues, the students of North Carolina will be the victims of an exercise in futility that accomplished nothing.

 

 

A School Board Doing Its Job

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MetroWest Daily News (Massachusetts) posted an article today about the Lincoln-Sudbury School Board‘s decision to decline a chance to offer the PARCC to students next spring, sharply criticizing the standardized test that could end up replacing the MCAS in the state. The PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) is the testing that is part of the Common Core standards.

The article reports:

One board member equated the trial run of the exam as making “guinea pigs” out of students, whom he said wouldn’t see any worthwhile benefit from the dozens of hours they would put into practicing for and taking the test.

Lincoln-Sudbury, like all public high schools in Massachusetts, had a choice to administer the PARCC, short for Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers, in ninth and 11th grade later this year. The new test, which was introduced in a small pilot roll-out this past spring, was developed by a consortium of states to closely conform to the new Common Core standards adopted by most schools in the nation.

…Several committee members also bemoaned the PARCC’s potential effect of putting increased emphasis on standardized testing, arguing Lincoln-Sudbury on its own is able to come up with much more effective measures of students’ grasp of learning standards.

According to greatschools.org, Lincoln-Sudbury schools are rated a 9 out of 10. The School Board in Lincoln-Sudbury is obviously doing a good job. The median income in the town is $142,614, the median home price is $625,000, and the population is 17,673.

The School Board in the town understands that the Common Core standards have not been tested and there is no proof that they will improve the academic performance of our students. MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System) testing is a proven product that has brought up the level of academic achievement of Massachusetts students. There is no reason to swap something that has proven to be effective for something that is totally untested.

Bobby Jindal On Common Core

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On Wednesday, the Daily Caller posted an article about Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal‘s battle against Common Core. Governor Jindal is fighting Common Core on the grounds that it is a violation of federal law.

The article reports:

In a brief submitted Wednesday as part of a lawsuit against Louisiana’s Board for Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE), Jindal’s attorneys claim that a consortium used to create multistate standardized tests aligned with Common Core was transformed into a cudgel to force states to obey federal edicts on education.

There is nothing in the U.S. Constitution that gives the federal government control over education–that was left to the state and local governments.

The article explains:

“Simply put, PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) is the implementation platform for a carefully orchestrated federal scheme to supervise, direct and control educational curriculum, programs of instruction and instructional materials in direct violation of federal law,” the report argues.

PARCC’s creation, as well as the creation of the Smarter Balanced consortium (which serves the same purpose but has different members), was enabled through grants by the federal government through the Race to the Top program. That federal involvement, Jindal’s team argues, irretrievably taints the organization as well as Common Core more broadly, even though the government was not directly involved with the standards’ creation. The Department of Education Organization Act (DOEA) and other federal laws, they say, explicitly bar the Department of Education from taking actions that increase federal control over education.

“Race to [the] Top…effectively coopted Common Core for the federal government, attempting to accomplish indirectly through economic coercion that which the federal government is prohibited from accomplishing directly,” the brief argues.

Common Core is unconstitutional and does not make a positive contribution to the education of our children. How long will it take state to figure that out? Many of them already have.

Citizens Do Have A Voice

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The North Carolina state legislature has listened to concerned parents and teachers who opposed Common Core.

Lady Liberty 1885 reported the following today:

At the fourth and final meeting of the NC General Assembly’s Common Core study committee, a bill was unveiled that will remove Common Core from the state’s statutes. The bill also calls for a return to North Carolina Standard Course of Study, which will be developed by an academic review commission.

The draft bill is titled “Replace Common Core To Meet NC’s Needs”. The draft number is TLza-24.  Update: Here is the link to the report and draft bill.

Chairman Holloway stated this bill is not intended to just rename Common Core but instead, replace it. The draft bill also leaves the national testing consortiums tied to the Common Core (PARCC, SBAC) in favor of a new assessment instrument to assess student achievement. In addition, the draft bill states, “The State Board shall not acquire or implement such an assessment instrument without the enactment of legislation by the General Assembly authorizing the purchase.”

This is wonderful news. The invasion of privacy included in Common Core, along with the age-inappropriate material and the convoluted approach to mathematics is not a good thing.

Thank you, legislators in North Carolina for listening to the people who elected you.

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