ROPE has been closely following the Common Core State Standards
(CCSS) cost issue, since NO ONE in charge of public education in Oklahoma – including
the purse string holders at the state legislature – have been able to tell
Oklahomans what the Common Core will cost Oklahoma taxpayers.
I wrote an article last month that was published in the
American Thinker titled “The
Ed Tech Scam”, to shed light on the fact that the CCSS have become an
unfunded state mandate – specifically in the area of technology requirements.
Yes, the
CCSS lovers say,
“Adopting new materials isn’t really a cost of the Common Core, it’s just a cost in education of providing relevant materials to students that are there anyway.”
However, when you have at least one Oklahoma Superintendent
honestly reporting (to a national education magazine) how pinched he is to get
technology in place prior to the roll out of the Common Core tests, we are
inclined to suspend belief.
"Once you get into a testing situation, you have to be able to support it without interruption," said Mr. Kitchens, who added: "I do not think this is going to be a cheap exercise at all."
As
we’ve reported previously, legislators cemented the Common Core State
Standards into Oklahoma law in order to get Race to the Top funds without even a
cursory review of draft forms of the standards as there were none available at
that time. This would seem a clear
violation of the public trust.
Legislators to taxpayers,
Obviously the trust wasn’t warranted. Currently, fourteen states have some form of legislation against the CCSS. Clearly all is not well in CCSS-land.“Hey guys, you’re responsible for funding these, but we have no idea exactly what’s in them or how much they’ll cost the state or what they’ll do to Oklahoma education, but trust us.”
Indiana recently threw out their Chief For Change (Jeb
Bush/Foundation for Educational Excellence) state Superintendent Tony
Bennett in favor of relatively unknown candidate Glenda Ritz, mainly
because of flap over the cost and effectiveness of the Common Core State
Standards. Directly on the heels of this
upset comes legislation to force the Indiana state legislature to examine
the cost of the Common Core before continuing their implementation.
Tony Bennett has not left the building, however. He now presides over the Florida State Department
of Education, where, interestingly, the Florida
state Board of Education is questioning whether or not the Florida
education juggernaut is ready to roll out and administer the PARCC tests
because of their cost.
Hoosiers have already caught on to the fact that their former State Supe has gone to another state and told Floridians they just can’t afford the reform measures he was deposed for pushing inside their borders. I’m not sure how this could inspire confidence in any Common Core state."One hundred million won't get done everything we need to get done," Barbara Jenkins, superintendent of Orange County schools, told the board.
Then there’s the fact that so much of today’s ‘education
reform’ efforts have been tied to private funding by Bill Gates.
In a clear, well-researched article written for the
Heartland Institute on this topic, Joy
Pullman quotes Betty Peters’ (Alabama State School Board member) concerns,
As often as we have heard the word “accountability” from our Oklahoma State Department of Education, this should be an eye-opener. How in the world can the Council of Chief State School Officers or the National Governor’s Association (architects of the Common Core State Standards, funded in part by the Gates Foundation) be held accountable to Oklahoma taxpayers for education ‘reform’ efforts such as the CCSS? They are all copyrighted so they can’t be modified yet the CCSSO and the NGA have a disclaimer;“A lot of private foundations are making decisions that would normally be left up to a public institution that would be accountable to the taxpayers.”
Then there is the Jeb Bush factor. As information trickles into the public domain reporting the methods in which the Foundation for Educational Excellence writes educational policy through Janet Barresi and other Chiefs for Change, jaws should drop. Why should Oklahoma taxpayers be supporting Florida education reforms – especially those shown not to be as successful as first advertised?“NGA Center and CCSSO do not warrant, endorse, approve or certify the information on this site, nor do they make any representation as to the accuracy, completeness, efficacy, or timeliness of such information. Use of such information is voluntary on your part. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process or service does not constitute or imply endorsement, recommendation or favoring by NGA Center and CCSSO."
This session in Oklahoma, Senator Clark Jolley has drafted a
bill (SB447)
which will usher in yet another new education ‘reform’ measure. MORE new tests! Yes, Oklahoma has chosen to believe the CCSSO’s
verdict that most students will fail the PARCC ‘assessments’ when they are
to be instituted in 2014.
Certainly, Oklahoma’s public school students cannot fail
these tests with so much riding on them (the A-F school designation for
one). Consequently, not only is Senator
Jolley advocating that we must buy another set of tests (formative tests) to be
given up to four times per year before the summative PARCC tests come on line,
but that we should support this plan by cementing it into law – as with all
other Race to the Top education reforms Oklahoma is currently implementing –
without RTT funds.
Why must these tests be written into law? Every teacher gives (or should give) formative tests over content
taught – something akin to chapter tests.
These allow teachers to see whether or not students are ‘getting it’ in
time to re-teach or re-direct learning to improve concept understanding. Certainly, this type of testing is better
than summative (high stakes)
type testing, but why should Oklahoma teachers have another law to follow?
Oklahoma teachers have enough on their plate
without being mandated to follow another type of test. Even formative tests can be misused in such a
way as to force teachers to teach to the test and isn’t that all PARCC tests
are doing?
It has come to my attention this week that a company called Bellwether Education Partners supplies
this type of “transitional national achievement test”. I did a little research on Bellwether and found
they work with such organizations as Chiefs for Change and the Bill and Melinda
Gates Foundation. We know Dr. Barresi is
a Chief for Change. One must wonder if
there is a connection here as with the other education ‘reforms’ to
which she’s been linked. Again,
Oklahoma should not be implementing education ‘reforms’ simply because they are
being done elsewhere or because another foundation is willing to ‘help’
Oklahoma with their implementation.
From what source is the money going to materialize to pay
for these new tests? We haven’t even
figured out how to pay for the PARCC tests.
It must be taxpayer funded – all government is. Maybe
that’s why Dr. Barresi has asked for a whopping $75 to $100 million in extra
funding for next year. The press release
sent out by her office lauding Senator Halligan and Senator Ford – from whom
the funding requests were submitted – quotes Senator
Ford as saying,
Why are you asking taxpayers to fund these reforms AFTER you enacted them into LAW Senator Ford? Why should taxpayers be jumping up and down to fund ‘reforms we’ve already enacted’ when they haven’t originated in Oklahoma, were never read by those who enacted them, never had any functional testing demonstrating their efficacy and have been shown not to work in Florida from where they did originate? Certainly, taxpayers deserve an answer to that question.“We have three areas in education we must address, including statutory requirements to fund programs such as medical benefits, additional appropriations to pay for reforms we’ve already enacted, and additional funding at the local level that school boards can use to address specific needs in their individual districts,” said Ford, R-Bartlesville.
In closing, several interesting polls have come out recently
regarding the Common Core.
“conducts an anonymous survey of a small group of key education influential (policymakers, though leaders, and association heads) to get their thoughts and commentary about the context of the current debate and possible outcomes.”
Their
survey for February 2013 that polled ‘insiders’ on the Common Core show that
support for PARCC testing is falling. In
addition, 87% of respondents say they expect more states to drop out of the
Common Core Assessment Consortia (like
Alabama and Utah),
“as they start to get a fuller picture for the implementation costs of assessments and professional development and get very unhappy about what they have signed up for in a budget constrained environment.”
77% of respondents
believe schools will not have enough bandwidth to meet the Consortia’s
recommended specifications in time for the tests to come on line.
The 2013 MetLife Survey
of the American Teacher, shows that only a maximum of 24% of teachers and
principals either believed the Common Core would improve student achievement or
prepare students for college and the workforce (page
76).
So why are we doing this ed 'reform' thing again?
I get the sneaky
suspicion it’s not about kids…
Great post. Sometimes this feels like a giant whack-a-mole, where the players looking to manipulate the system to make a buck keep popping up in different places wearing different disguises. The good news is we have dozens of hammers across the country watching for them.
ReplyDeleteWhack-a-mole is right!
ReplyDelete