We're Not So Jolly About Common Core Clark - Vote NO For Clark Jolley For State Treasurer

Clark Jolley at the Jeb Bush, Foundation for Education Excellence National Summit on Education Reform in Boston, MA with former Oklahoma State Board of Education member Amy Ford. 

Clark Jolley was the lead author of the bill that adopted Obama-pushed Common Core State Standards throughout Oklahoma.

Six Reasons Why The Oklahoma State Legislature Should Ban The Use of SEL - Social Emotional Learning - Through SB1442

 

Last year, the state Legislature - prompted by outcry from parent and taxpayers across the state and the nation - passed HB1775, a rejection of the teaching of tenets tied to Critical Race Theory.

Unfortunately, CRT tenets are still entering classrooms around the state, packaged under the heading of Social Emotional Learning. We are seeking to remove SEL through SB1442 authored by Senator Shane Jett.

Dear Parents, Books Like "The Glass Castles" - And Worse - Have Been In Public Schools For Years - We Need To Get Them Out Now

 

I have to say, I'm more than mildly happy to read that parents have finally discovered the disgusting books being foisted upon their children in public schools and metropolitan libraries all across the nation - including Oklahoma - yes, "of all places" - but I have to say, I'm more than mildly frustrated that we've been trying to alert parents to this phenomena for over 10 years and not gotten much traction.  

New Poll Indicates Only 7% of Oklahomans Would Homeschool. Why Don't The Other 93%?

A recent poll commissioned and published by OCPA (Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs) indicating widespread support of school choice (76%) also included the following information:

“If you could select any type of school in order to obtain the best education for your child or children, and financial costs and transportation were of no concern, what type of school would you select?”

Traditional public school … 46%
Charter school … 9%
Private or parochial school … 34%
Home school … 7%
Don’t know/refused … 4%

The 7% figure surprised me. 

BREAKING NEWS: Oklahoma Representative Kevin Calvey Requests Resignation from Superintendent Hofmeister

Earlier today, I received a letter released to the press by Representative Kevin Calvey (R-82) requesting State Superintendent of Public Instruction, Joy Hofmeister, resign. Here is the text of the letter (which apparently made the Washington Times):

Questions: Drain the swamp? Betsy DeVos? Where do parents come in?

Dear President-Elect Trump,

It's November 24th, and though I run a small farm and am up early every day anyway, I'm up this morning - not readying myself to make Thanksgiving dinner - but writing to you about my frustration over your pick for US Secretary of Education, Betsy DeVos.

We Don't Need Your Corporatist Or Progressive Education - The MIDDLE'S Here To Play!

Joy Pullmann at the Federalist wrote a GREAT piece today on why Michelle Rhee should NOT be named as theSecretary of Education. I loved it so much, I'm doubling down on it. 

No, neither Rhee nor anyone else of her 'ilk' should be appointed as head of DOE. 

In case you don't know - or are somehow new to education policy (or heck - just governance in the United States) - there is no middle ground. NONE. Yes, there is supposed to be a gradient of governance that tends to rest somewhere near the middle of the ideological spectrum (ideally) in EVERY area over our lives the government has usurped, yet - particularly in education - what you really have is this: 

A Chronology Of The Oklahoma Academic Standards Review Process

This last week has been an exciting one in the life of the Oklahoma Academic Standards (OAS).  Here's what you need to know.

• The public began making comment on the new OAS after the release of the first draft in June of 2015.  ROPE also began following the process, writing numerous blogs containing reviews and comments of the OAS throughout the process.   

• OSDE released four drafts of the OAS along with standards experts and community reviews through January 8th, 2016.

Ways In Which Oklahoma's New Standards (OAS) Do Not Conform To CC Repeal Law

or Save Our Standards Part 2

After studying the Oklahoma Academic Standards (OAS) reviews posted on the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) website, I produced a document that listed the consistent issues brought up by reviewers over the course of the four draft standards documents produced by the OAS writing teams.

There were 13 separate standards reviewers outside the OSDE that contributed reviews posted to the OSDE website.**  These are as follows:

It's Vitally Important That Oklahoma Get The Standards Re-Write Process Right - Other States Are Watching

Thursday, January 28th, the final draft of Oklahoma's new academic standards were published on the OSDE website and approved by the State Board of Education. We described our thoughts about the process in a press release, but I wanted to take a few more minutes to expound upon that statement.

Once the Common Core State Standards were repealed from law by HB3399 and the direction of the process for creating new standards was revealed, we have tried our best to stay informed about the proceedings and inform you.

Oklahoma State Board of Education Approves Final Draft of New (Non-Common Core) Educational Standards

Unfortunately, ROPE has a good deal of skepticism regarding the new Oklahoma Educational standards approved by the Board of Education today. Let me be clear here, the new standards were approved by the board just today, so none of us (at ROPE) would have had the opportunity to review them at this point. 

It is important to note, however, that while the OSDE press release contained comments in support for the standards from many quarters, none of these were attributed to the experts that were invited by the Standards Steering Committee last February to consult on the standards writing process.

Progressive/Constructivist Math STINKS ON ICE

Just recently I posted this picture on my Jenni White's Education Page on Facebook. In one day, it had a reach of almost 169 THOUSAND views and it almost 2500 shares. Why? 

Well, I imagine that, no matter how many times the educrats running education today tell us Common Core (Constructivist/Progressive) math is going to make our kids rocket scientists, real moms and dads - once they get settled in for the night helping their kids with the homework they pick up in government (public) schools that use Common Core and/or Constructivist/Progressive math - realize that this idea is crap. Progressive math is not going to help our kids - and their parents - do much of anything except want to bang their heads repeatedly on their desks - or kitchen counters - all across America.

I was granted a Master's Degree in Biology in 1995. Oh, I understood descriptive science wonderfully well (human anatomy, ecology, etc.) - quantitative science (chemistry, physiology) not so much. In fact, I took the Graduate Record Examination 3 separate times in order to get into graduate school. Each time, I blew the top off the English score, but could barely come out with a math score better than a 3rd grader!

It wasn't until I began to school my kids at home (after removing them from public school for many reasons, but mainly because of the 1st grade math my son was doing) that I finally realized WHY. In the 1970's, when I was in middle school, there was a fabulous new fad in public education called, "Open Classroom". Here's an excellent explanation of this concept from the linked article:

In both Britain and the United States, open classrooms contained no whole-class lessons, no standardized tests, and no detailed curriculum. The best of the open classrooms had planned settings where children came in contact with things, books, and one another at “interest centers” and learned at their own pace with the help of the teacher. Teachers structured the classroom and activities for individual students and small work groups. They helped students negotiate each of the reading, math, science, art, and other interest centers on the principle that children learn best when they are interested and see the importance of what they are doing.

Here's how this fabulous concept translated for me; I LEARNED ABSOLUTELY NO MATH IN MIDDLE SCHOOL AT ALL. It floored me how, once I began having to teach middle level math to my kids, I had to teach it to myself first. Fractions and decimals were never part of my mathematical lexicon - EVER - because an educational fad derailed my learning process in my middle grade years. 

Take any standardized test - anywhere. The whole thing is full of fractions and decimals. If you don't learn them, you don't do well on any standardized test. I understand algebra well because I had some great algebra teachers in high school, yet if the algebra had fractional values anywhere at all, I was a big FAIL.

The Open Classroom concept came from Britian - bastion of Constructivist education - and was, of course, embraced by the educational Constructivists/Progressives in America. Without any real consideration of whether or not the process would work, it was foisted upon us unsuspecting students (and their tax paying parents) much to the educational detriment of our generation.

Now, the educational Progressives (unfortunately, most education is now Progressive in nature) have taken over yet again, and this generation's Open Classroom concept is Common Core. Though many states have fought CC and won - like here in Oklahoma - Constructivist math is becoming cemented in place in states all over the nation via large textbook publishers like McGraw-Hill, Pearson, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt etc., who have embraced Constructivist math and are publishing math books (like Everyday Math). 

I warned about this kind of thing - even during an interview with Dana Loesch for Glenn Beck. Here in Oklahoma, though we (ostensibly) have made Common Core illegal, I got a private message from a teacher friend the other day about English books that said,

Hey, Jenni. I am so irritated that I could spit nails. I just got back from a shindig thrown by the publisher HMH because Oklahoma is adopting language arts books next year. They were swearing up and down that their curriculum and books were not common core aligned. However, after a quick thumb through of the reading material, it was obvious to me that the only difference between the Oklahoma books and the Common Core books were that the words "Common Core" were not on the covers of the Oklahoma books. If this is the material we are going to give our students to read, what did we really accomplish by repealing Common Core? Do you have any thoughts or recommendations of other publishing companies that I can have my school look at? Thanks for your input.

Page after page of math worksheets from Constructivist/Progressive math books, being provided to classrooms of students by teachers trained in Construcitivst/Progressive math teaching, have been plastered across the internet showing the ridiculousness of Constructivist/Progressive math. Here is one below. The problem was 5x3. The boy wrote on his paper that 5x3 was essentially 5+5+5, yet he was docked a point because he didn't mention that it was also three, five times. So? That's worth a point? 

The next problem asks the child to construct an array describing 4x6. He does that in a 4 by 6 fashion. Again he's docked a point because he didn't also do the 6 by 4 array.

To be honest, this isn't really the worst of the ones I've seen. The one in this blog report is another that I've seen a number of times. The child is asked to estimate a number but then doesn't get the answer correct when she provides the EXACT answer and not a number rounded to the 10s place.

This stuff is ridiculous and will absolutely make kids frustrated enough to hate the whole mathematical process. 

The idea of Constructivist/Progressive math is that kids must know why they are getting the answer they record on their worksheet in order to be able to learn. The emphasis is on the WHY, not the HOW. Great. I think it's very important for kids to understand why math works. I teach my own kids that in their lessons. I do not, however, expect them to know the why as MORE IMPORTANT than the how, because that's dumb. You're not going to return change to someone at a cash register where you get your first job by explaining that you're subtracting what the customer gave you from the total owed and providing them change back by counting up that discrepancy in reverse. WHO CARES? The person you're giving the change to doesn't give a flip, they just want their money counted back to them so they know you didn't cheat them!

Last year, I put together a video explaining the differences between Constructivist/Progressive education and Traditional education. It's about 45 minutes, but I think it will help confused parents understand the differences among the two types of education and why 'Traditional' education is better, hands down - especially for math.

The bottom line is this: math requires SPECIFIC knowledge of SPECIFIC concepts. Math is a language and in order to speak the language you have to memorize its terminology. Can you imagine speaking Spanish by - instead of memorizing the vocabulary - explaining what every Spanish word means? No one would ever converse! Every student must know 6x5 is 30. Yes, it's good to know why, but why isn't going to solve a problem on an exam, rote memory of the equation 6x5=30 will accomplish that. Math is black and white - 6x5=30 upside down, on the moon or in Zanzabar - that will NEVER change. 

Educational fads like Open Classroom and Common Core are the definition of fadish; "a practice or interest followed for a time with exaggerated zeal :  craze. Educational fads are destroying the ability of our kids to become educated. Traditional methods work. We need to stop spending educational time and resources re-inventing the wheel. If your child's school is using Common Core/Constructivist/Progressive math books, either get them a traditional math tutor after school, or TAKE THEM OUT AND SCHOOL THEM AT HOME. Math is not an experiment. Traditional math is a time-honored, time-tested way to provide students the tools they need to gain knowledge and lead successful lives. Period.

Draft #3 of Oklahoma Educational Standards Released - Neither Stotsky Nor Gray Impressed

Recently, the Oklahoma State Department of Education uploaded draft 3 of the new Oklahoma Educational Standards. There are new things visible on the webpage now besides the standards that appear interesting. Mainly, the inclusion of "external" reviews by several major education reform players: 

The Southern Regional Education Board, The Partnership for 21st Century Learning and the South Central Comprehensive Center. Since the first draft, we have complained that none of the standards reviews have been made public - which is why we began publishing our own - unfortunately, these are all organizations involved in 'education reform' at some level. In fact, we've written papers about the Partnership for 21st Century Learning and the fact that the white papers supporting its mission are steeped in the failed progressive education methods of Dewey. 

The South Central Comprehensive Center has this to say about its funding and mission: The South Central Comprehensive Center (SC3) is part of a national network of centers funded by the U.S. Department of Education (ED) to support the improvement of educational outcomes. If that's not the definition of the Fox Guarding The Hen House, what exactly is? 

Only the Southern Regional Education Board appears to be moderating away from Common Core, but its white paper on College and Career Readiness indicates the need for states to create a 'default high school CURRICULUM' - something that should concern any local control proponent. At any rate,these reviews should be read by the general public with these facts in mind.

Not long after the release of the 3rd draft, Nate Robson of Oklahoma Watch penned a nice article detailing Dr. Sandra Stotsky's thoughts on the new standards which included the statement,

“You’re close to the bottom of the basement, I am sorry to say, because there is no content in them,” said Stotsky. “These are pious statements of academic goals. These are not standards. A standard is a criterion by which you grade something.”

Ouch. Professor Stotsky is now forced to provide basic educational definitions to the Standards Re-Write Committee - not a sterling commendation to say the least - but there is a question here Robson dances around; Why invite three separate 'experts' to testify to the Standards Writing Committee detailing the process for writing excellent educational standards, yet then invite three different ORGANIZATIONS tied to the education establishment to write reviews for the 3rd revision of the standards? Why not just go back to the original sources? It's what Robson did. Maybe that was the unchosen path for a reason. Maybe the department knew the writing committees hadn't been following the expert advice provided the Standards Committee. Maybe they didn't want the experts coming back to salt the ground they'd originally plowed for the OSDE.

The impetus matters not, actually. What matters is that both Stotsky (English) and Gray (Minnesota math) were not generally complementary of the 3rd standards draft to Robson, and this has sad implications for Oklahoma students.

Below are the specific comments provided by Stotsky (Gray's can be found in the Oklahoma Watch article)

1.  Under "Critical Writing"--Most writing standards do not lead to an assessment of the kind of writing done in college or the real world of work.  OK's draft organizes the writing standards under "narrative," "informative," and "argument."  

The “narratives” (most of which is creative writing) are curriculum-relevant chiefly in the early grades and are not desirable in college or the world of work.   "Informative" is fine, but "argument" should be changed to "persuasion" and "opinion" eliminated in the elementary grades.   Only "informative" prepares kids for college and career writing.

More important, why can’t OK require all local school districts to assign and assess a research paper or senior thesis for English and history or science in grade 11 and/or 12 to prepare students in an authentic way for college and career.  That is precisely where authentic research standards, as in the strand in my 2013 document. should be assessed.

2.  The "Critical Reading" standards should NOT be divided into Literary and Informational.  That is pure Common Core and it is very bad for the English curriculum.  The Critical Reading standards should be divided into (1) Fiction, (2) Nonfiction, (3) Poetry, (4) Dramatic Literature), and (5) Classical and Traditional literature.   That's what English teachers have always taught and been trained to teach.

3.  The OK drafting committee must come up with an example of a literary text that could be used (and how) for every single standard so that teachers understand what reading level is required or desirable at every grad level (and what the standard means).  Make it clear these texts are not required; only examples of reading levels.

4.  Get rid of processes for reading and writing in this document.  They are not standards but pedagogy. 

5.  Get this ELA committee to put in Oklahoma-related reading standards at the high school level--grades 11 and 12.   One standard for texts by major authors born in or who wrote about Oklahoma, and one standard for biographies/autobiographies about famous Oklahomans through history.   

Dr. Sandra Stotsky Does Not Believe English Standards First Draft Indicative Of First-Rate ELA Standards

As the October deadline for the finalized Oklahoma educational standards draft looms on the horizon, we've recently published Dr. James Milgram's take on the Oklahoma math standards draft.

Dr. Stotsky, who shared with the Oklahoma Standards Writing Committee her vision of how the Oklahoma standards re-write should begin at the first meeting of the year, February 16, found - like the rest of us who saw her presentation - that the standards re-write process appeared to have deviated from her process by using Oklahoma's original standards as the jumping off point. Though she did not share a comment for each specific standard written, she has shared her overall thoughts about the standards and about the process. Her comments are important and should be taken to heart.

We are aware that Dr. Stotsky sent her comments directly to the State Department of Education, however, we were not made aware of them until recently when I emailed to ask if she'd compiled a file of her comments. This is important information as well. Part of Dr. Stotsky's plan was that all public comment be MADE PUBLICLY so everyone else could see what comments were being made. How many of us have seen any comments other than those we posted by Dr. Milgram? 

Mrs. Hofmeister was good to create a specific transparency policy about the Standards Re-Write Committee meetings, but we've seen no such document pertaining to the draft comments. If everyone who wanted to was able to see the comments made by the public could do so, maybe there would be patterns that emerge that others could see. How could this not be helpful? When the final standards are completed, if one (or more) of the patterns aren't addressed by the committee, it would be good to know why not, if for no other reason than simple public transparency.

Dr. Stotsky's comments follow:

I'm glad to hear that the committee has an English prof from an Oklahoma U and that high school English teachers are on the drafting committee.  I don't think that the first draft it came up with is a helpful start for a first-rate set of ELA standards.  I am told that the blueprint or model the committee began with was the old set of OK ELA standards.   The organization of that draft isn't useful for what needs to be done to provide non-Common Core standards.  Right now, what you have is very close to being compatible with Common Core and a Common Core-based test.  OK kids deserve better.

I strongly recommend that the drafting committee use the original CA (1998) standards or the Indiana 2006 standards, or the 2013 standards I put together based on the first-rate 2001 MA ELA standards.  In math, OK should simply adopt what MN worked out, and use the test that MN uses.
It would not set the committee back in time if it does what I suggested for ELA. I suggested simply going through most of the k-8 standards one by one to accept or leave out for OK.  These other standards have been vetted many times over, are worded properly for standards, and were considered first-rate by many pairs of eyes.  No need to re-invent the wheel or struggle to figure out developmental progressions from grade to grade, which is a problem with the way that the committee is now working.  It is not productive to work in 3 educational level groups, if the basic outline is as weak as the old OK outline was.

The only educational level that OK committee members, especially the high school English teachers and the English professor, might change if my advice were followed would be the literature standards in 9-12.  Here, the only changes to make might be to add one or two standards requiring OK high school students to read historically and culturally important works by authors who lived in Oklahoma or wrote about Oklahoma.   The rest of the ELA standards would give OK a first-rate set of standards that are NOT Common Core, but are demanding and first-rate.  That is what OK wants for its kids.  

Here's the rub: while HB3399 says that Oklahoma's standards should be created by Oklahomans for Oklahomans, that doesn't mean we shouldn't avail ourselves of great standards already in use in another state - as Dr. Stotsky points out. Why, if Oklahoma's standards weren't as good as the ones Stotsky points to, are we not using these as a starting point and then tweaking as needed? Not a single person I know of who worked hard to stop Common Core in Oklahoma ever wanted Oklahoma's standards to be sub par, or somehow not as good as Massachusetts simply because they needed to be crafted in our state.

Let's not follow the letter of the law so closely we make the mistake of denying Oklahoma students access to truly great, proven standards just because they're from another state. So long as they aren't the Common Core, or a set of standards pushed by the feds through grant programs or other incentives; so long as parents can petition the state if they find something about them objectionable, there's no reason to be pharisees. Goodness, if we're really concerned about following the law, there wouldn't be schools teaching the Common Core right now, but we've been told there are. 

Oklahoma needs to have really good educational standards, period. Let's, as Dr. Stotsky says, use the ones she wrote, or California's (etc.) and add to them. Let's make providing a floor for academic excellence in Oklahoma our TOP priority.

Remembering Oklahoma Labor Commissioner Mark Costello

During the 2010 Oklahoma elections, ROPE supported Mark Costello for Labor Commissioner because Mark was a small business entrepreneur, having founded American Computer and Telephone (AMCAT) in 1991, which he sold in 2007, after which he started USA Digital Communications. Mark knew business and understood labor issues. Who else better to run the Department of Labor?

Following the election, Julia, Lynn and I would often run into Mark while at the Capitol lobbying or at a Republican event and we grew to know him personally. I laugh because, for probably the first year we knew him, he knew me as 'Janet'. He'd come across the room sometimes with a big smile on his face, hand extended, to say, "Hello Janet!" I'll never forget that. I'd correct him with a laugh, he'd laugh with me, and we'd assure one another that one day he'd get it right'. I loved that about him - he was just a regular guy - a regular guy who seemed happy to see you and enjoy the company of others.

Often, we'd see Mark someplace we were speaking about Common Core and eventually we began to have conversations about the issue. Not only as Labor Commissioner, but as an employer, Mark had become genuinely concerned that Common Core was not 'OK' for the future of Oklahoma businesses. As an entrepreneur himself, I believe he really understood the necessity for students to get an education well-rounded enough to allow them to develop their creativity - creativity which can easily become initiative; a foundation of entrepreneurial spirit. An education not dictated by a 'common' set of educational standards, but one that would help foster the individuality of all kids.

Last year, as the fight against Common Core was coming to a crescendo, Mark penned an op-ed against Common Core read by many thousands of people, that we all believe helped turn the tide in our favor. In it, he penned the following paragraph

Common Core is to education what Obamacare is to health, a centralized government process that strips local control away from parents, teachers, and school boards. Why the push by large non-profits to establish national education standards? Some have asserted the concept of “mass production” will lower per unit costs. In other words, the God given individual qualities and talents of each child will be restructured by a nationalized production process guided from a top down political structure.

He didn't write these words because we asked him to, he wrote them because he believed them. 

After having had the sheer pleasure of knowing Mark socially for the past five years, I can attest that he was not only a true conservative - one who didn't simply spout the dictionary definition, but possessed a real working understanding of the concept - but an unapologetic Christian as well. When he spoke out for school choice and against Common Core, it wasn't simply out of a concern that Oklahoma would squelch the entrepreneurial spirit in our youngest citizens, but that students would not be allowed to follow their God-given talents and abilities to the best degree without the broadest form of educational possibility. 

Words cannot possibly give due the sadness we all feel at Mark's passing. He was a wonderful man of whom we have many fond memories, but he was also a boundless force for good in this state. He will be missed many times over throughout many circles, countless groups and among many individuals all across Oklahoma.

Our continued and constant thoughts and prayers go out to his wife Cathy and all their children for peace at this tragic time. 

Thank you Mark Costello for your life, your service, your leadership, your tireless fight for right and your friendship to so many. From what I knew of Mark, the words of Shakespeare (Hamlet, Act 5, Scene 2) would be appreciated here and so I will close:

We defy augury. There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow. If it be now, ’tis not to come. If it be not to come, it will be now. If it be not now, yet it will come—the readiness is all. Since no man of aught he leaves knows, what is ’t to leave betimes? Let be.

Daily Oklahoman Finds Reasons For 'Optimism' In New Academic Standards - Predicts "Critics" Will Exhibit Misplaced Criticism

Reason for optimism in drafts of Oklahoma academic standards was published today in the Daily Oklahoman (DO) online. After reading their short assessment, however, I couldn't help but feel the need to comment on just a few things.

The author cites Nate Robson's recent Oklahoma Watch article, "Beyond Common Core: First Drafts Of New Standards" written several days ago as his 'reason for optimism'.

Robson says the drafts, "in some ways go beyond the current standards and the now-repealed Common Core goals". He also remarks they "don't appear to resemble Common Core State Standards" but doesn't explain what reasoning or comparison research provided the basis for this statement. Later in his article, however, he also reports

We've had concerns about the transparency of the standards development process from the beginning. That this issue was reported by Mr. Robson - THAT should have caught the eye of the DO - especially because transparency has been somewhat of a mantra from the OSDE since HB3399 became law.

Another point; not to throw Robson under the bus, but it is important who views the documents. For example, I have seen parts of the standards and I have a few comments, but I was a science teacher. I truly wouldn't know what was appropriate scope and sequence for either math or language arts, consequently, I don't feel qualified to make many specific comments.

Hang on for a shock here! I DO AGREE with the DO that "higher standards tend to have similarities, regardless of authorship". I actually think we here at ROPE (and the teachers we have called on to help us with our review of the standards) are smart enough to discern this for ourselves, yet the DO doesn't see it that way. In fact, the writer asserts that any overlap between Common Core and the re-written Oklahoma standards will "be denounced as a back-door invitation for federal intrusion" by 'critics' we can only assume to be ROPE.

I also STRENUOUSLY disagree with this paragraph:

WHAT?

Yes, there was much opposition centered around the developmental inappropriateness of many Common Core standards. That does NOT in any way mean that these critics - including ROPE - thought the bar was being raised too high! Developmental appropriateness should NEVER be equated to concepts a student has to stretch to reach. No one wants students so bored in the classroom they have but to stare into space like pet rocks! Most educators worth their salt WANT students to be challenged - to have to strain their brain to understand difficult concepts. That is NOT the same as not being able to understand a difficult concept because your brain isn't programmed to be able to assimilate it yet! Suffice it to say, a 6-year-old cannot interpret a Venn diagram, yet new standard K.DP.1 has preK kids applying "mathematical actions and processes to collect and organize data to make it useful for interpreting information". That's not a 'high bar' that's a nonsensical bar.

I'm not going to attempt to further tease out the differences between a high bar and an unattainable goal, however. I'm going to let our friend Donita Brown - an early childhood educator for over 20 years - explain this concept.

As the editorial comes to a close, the DO again unmasks its disdain for democracy when it sneers at legislators who, it says, "can rewrite the standards at will, regardless of what academic experts recommend". The DO writer continues to practice Proverbs 17:28 by announcing that his premise for such a notion is the near-rejection of the Oklahoma science standards by the legislature in 2014.

Just like the other Oklahoma standards about which we've complained, the Oklahoma science standards are simply copies of a national model - in this case, the Next Generation Science Standards. I feel certain legislators appropriately balked due to hesitation over opening another can of 'nationalized standards', especially when theories - such as Global Warming (which in the giant FAIL it became has now been re-named Climate Change in order to continue forcing private change from public offices) - were taught as outright fact.

Certainly, no one who is involved in, or follows ROPE, wants watered-down standards to further dumb-down Oklahoma's student population. Intimating such is simply ridiculous. We join the DO in hoping "this new round of standards-writing increases academic rigor and fuels improved student performance". That said, we know the Oklahoman will join us in our criticisms then - if, once we have reviewed the standards to the fullest extent possible - we determine that the recommendations of the academic experts who testified before the Standards Re-Write Committe (such as Dr. Sandra Stotsky and Dr. Larry Gray) have not been followed to great degree.

Oklahoma deserves better for its students, teachers and parents than a regurgitation of developmentally inappropriate, difficult, vague standards - on that, we can agree.

On A Personal Note....

From 2008 until 2014, I spent huge chunks of time reading, studying, writing, lobbying and posting to social media about issues surrounding government - particularly public education and Common Core. 

Last year, as readers of this blog well remember, Oklahoma legislators were persuaded to STOP Common Core. Following this seeming victory, a large group of educationally-associated organizations (whom you might have thought would have the students/parents best interest in mind) spent tens of thousands of dollars to convince the Governor to veto the bill. Fortunately, the Governor signed the bill, only to have several members of the Oklahoma State Board of Education sue to reinstate Common Core based upon an incorrect interpretation of the Oklahoma Constitution. After the bill was found to be Constitutional by the Oklahoma Supreme Court, the next challenge became how to stop individual schools from using Common Core anyway. 

As it turned out, there was no real enforcement mechanism in the original law to stop Common Core in Oklahoma (HB3399), as I have subsequently found is the case with many, many laws written by Oklahoma legislators. This meant that the only way to make schools comply became a convoluted process of involving one's district attorney and the local school board - a labored task the vast majority of disgruntled individuals chose not to pursue. As far as ROPE is aware to date, no district attorney filed charges against any school district in Oklahoma for utilizing Common Core though state law prevented them from doing so. So much for state law being the final word on Common Core. 

Though all of us involved in the stop Common Core fight in Oklahoma knew there was much more to the process of stopping Common Core (and the persistent federal overreach into public education) than passing a single law, it became almost immediately clear how far we still had to go. By October, I had written a blog detailing Seven Reasons Why Common Core Repeal In Oklahoma Isn't. Every day there seemed something new on the horizon to thwart our efforts. It became very discouraging to have worked so hard to seemingly accomplish so much only to find a very small dent had been made in the task of restoring local control of education and putting parents back in charge of their children's educations.

During the years we fought Common Core, I often became discouraged. I would complain bitterly when our efforts seemed futile and all of us threatened to quit more than once, but something always drove my personal efforts forward. As a Christian, I believe that impetus was God. I literally felt compelled to continue the fight no matter how discouraged I/we became and I firmly believe I was right because shortly after our 'win', I began feeling pulled away from ROPE and my work there.

Unlike most of my middle-aged counterparts, my husband David and I not only have a 32-year-old married daughter, but 3 kids (13, almost 13 and 10) still at home who are home-educated. Over the last three years I've not only homeschooled the kids while working ROPE issues, I've added poultry farming and working our homestead's very large garden to the schedule. Unfortunately, it got to the point where something had to give. Also unfortunately, this was most often my time with the kids; dropping them off at Mimi's or various friends homes while I traveled to the Capitol or across the state making presentations. Obviously, this was neither an optimal nor a tenable situation.

Last fall, Lynn (Habluetzel, ROPE's Vice-President) and I made the decision that I would sit back this year while she and our friend Ralph Crawford (now running for State Representative!) took over the lobbying efforts at the Capitol. I would still continue to write and research as I could, but for the most part, I would concentrate on home matters. 

Since that time, I've been astonished at how busy I've been. I've tried valiantly to set aside time for reading, research and writing, but it's been harder and harder as the months go by. In fact, it makes me feel a bit guilty in retrospect. If I've been THIS busy with home matters since November, how much was my family getting shortchanged by my constant physical and mental absences (yes, I was home, but saying, "Just a minute, Sam" 12 times because I 'needed' to finish a blog didn't count as actual mom availability)? 

Now able to look back over several months of 'absence', I can make a number of observations with surety:

• It took HOURS AND HOURS AND HOURS to research and piece together information before writing anything of substance about policies, laws or initiatives; I'd wake up scouring my email, Facebook posts and education journals for information and go to bed late into the night writing about what I'd read. It didn't take long to realize that the public education establishment and Federal government are BOMBARDING the public with more and more and more programming, laws, initiatives and policies so hard and so fast that NO ONE CAN KEEP UP. I'm certain it's meant to be this way because it's easy for government to do anything they want when no one can keep watch. This was part of the reason we'd be disheartened so often - we simply COULDN'T KEEP UP with every law and every initiative and every program being churned out by the government and the state education establishment.
• Public Education (in any state) has so much concurrent jurisdiction that there is no way for any school to rise above the reporting required for so many different policies, procedures; regulations and laws. The education of children has long since past being the real reason public schools operate. Now, public schools exist to be arms of the state, recording data on children in order to justify yet another expensive program to cure every ill only destined to fail because the real issue stifling public education and sucking away parental rights and local control - concurrent jurisdiction - was never even considered in the equation. 
• The federal government has ZERO Constitutional authority in state education, yet elected officials and State Department of Education employees either have no clue what the Constitution says, have no backbone to stand against their edicts and/or don't care about the Constitution because they just want whatever money comes with "fill-in-the-blank" program in order to make it sound as though they have the right to force kids to take tests and tell parents they're in charge of their child's education.
• IT DOESN'T MATTER WHO YOU VOTE FOR, THE STATUS QUO WILL ALWAYS BE THE STATUS QUO. This was a tough one for me and I didn't figure this out until just last year. It doesn't matter for whom you vote, the bureaucracy/staff set up by the predecessor of the office will, many times, still be in place, virtually ensuring the change for which you voted will never come. Here it's important to remember that, many, MANY employees of the state are brought in by department heads or appointed by elected officials. Regular voting taxpayers have absolutely no say in their hiring, yet these people persist in their jobs carrying forward the ideals and programs of elected officials past. Oklahoma's State Longitudinal Database is run by such an individual though our new superintendent is well aware of our concerns.
• It matters not how much you study, how many other researchers or individuals agree, or how much other work has proven you right, statists will always believe they know better than 'the people' how best to run their lives and govern in that direction. If you have the unmitigated gall to object to that philosophy, you'll be called a "tin foil hat", marginalized, ridiculed and/or ignored. The only way to affect real change is to bring hundreds of people to the Capitol with you dressed in big ugly green shirts and even then the results are iffy.
• Parents, for the most part, seem to care less what is happening to their kids. Parents have jobs, they have lives, they are single mothers and dads just scraping by - whatever the reason - by and large, parents let their schools get away with murder without uttering even the slightest whimper. When you try and bring their attention to all the bad stuff happening in public education today, it's NOT IN MY SCHOOL, it's always somewhere else. Even if they do get it and try to do something about it, the layers and layers of bureaucracy tie them up to the point that many finally either just throw up their hands and pull their kids out or give up and take it. 
• Without a large majority of parents willing to educate themselves on the state and central government Constitutions, their parental rights and options outside of public school, NOTHING WILL CHANGE. One or two people can't 'fix it' for everyone else. It takes a long sustained effort by many to create real change in the system and if people aren't interested in affecting their government, NOTHING WILL BE EFFECTED. 

Those were just a few of the things I've learned about public education. These are some things I've learned about life:

• You can't turn back time - the time I have with my kids can't be 'refunded' at an ATM - and who wants to leave middle schoolers without CONSTANT supervision anyway?
• My kids will only be receptive to my leadership for a short amount of time and then I've lost the ability to affect their lives in truly meaningful ways. 
• I didn't realize how much time I actually devoted to ROPE until I started devoting more time to the kids, house and farm. Looking back, I have no idea (other than the hand of God) how I was actually able to keep my home, or farm, or ANYTHING together while working simultaneously.
• You can't 'fix it' for everyone else. There need to be MANY others willing to put in just as much time on a coordinated effort in order to create real change in the system.

And so, there you have it. Sadly, I am fully and completely convinced that our system of public education - in fact our whole system of bloated anti-Constitutional government - will finally, eventually, collapse under its own weight and I'm simply unwilling to sacrifice anymore huge chunks of my family's life to propping up these failed systems. Does that mean I'll quit writing, researching and activism? No, but I'll do what I can fit around my family's schedule now - as should you - but until more people wake up to what's going on, I've got turkeys that need feeding and kids that need learning, first.

ACT A Wolf In Sheep's Clothing?

Though ROPE wants to see an end to the practice of EOI's altogether, unfortunately (and as usual it appears, sadly) ROPE does NOT agree with the Oklahoma Public School Education Establishment (aka #OKlaEd). Recently, Jason James, a member of the #OKlaEd community posted a blog singing the praises of the ACT - for a second time.

I'm not going to cover all the different reasons why we disagree - five are written on the meme and we've written/published four separate blogs detailing our reasoning and outlining the research undergirding those reasons (1. 2. 3. 4) - so there's simply no point to bang our shoe.

Beyond our studied, researched reasons, however, lies another, less quantifiable concern about ACT.

Most everyone who reads this blog or knows anything about ROPE has read about the organizations that attempted to override the will of the taxpaying public and cement Common Core State Standards here in Oklahoma last year. Of those, we've written exclusively (and often) about Stand For Children, the Chamber of Commerce (national, state and city), and CCOSA to name a few (to find these, just search the blog using those key words).  Just recently, these groups - and other pro-CC organizations - have joined together as a coalition (as they did against CC) to push for the adoption of the ACT.

This flyer was sent out to both legislators and individuals very recently. For the most part, the groups listed on the flyer pushed to keep Common Core in Oklahoma law. The groups listed are PRIVATE organizations sustained by PRIVATE donations and dues that lobby for public policy in some capacity, utilizing these resources.  

Here's the rub; though these groups may use their collective voice and money to lobby the legislature, our government is "By the PEOPLE, of the PEOPLE, for the PEOPLE". I fact, if our elected officials were to respond solely to the 'collective voice', we'd not be a Representative Republic, we'd be a socialist republic instead. This is absolutely true, yet I've heard the disdain echoed in the voices of coalition members following last year's Common Core defeat as they wondered aloud why the legislature 'listened' to 'the people' instead of their 'group/s'.

If I sound frustrated here, it's because I am. So often, organizations and groups with considerably more money than individual tax paying citizens for whom the government is to work, drive public policy for that reason alone. This is maddening because especially in public education today, these groups don't represent PARENTS, STUDENTS or TAXPAYERS, but 'systems' designed to perpetuate themselves at all cost to taxpayers and parents whether it works for them or not. Here's the crazy thing - these groups aren't independent entities at all. Half the groups represented on this flyer are made up of members from the other groups! In fact, there's so much political incest among these groups that their gene pool is more like a puddle. Get this:

• Oklahoma School Boards Association (OSSBA); membership consists of state school board members and superintendents
• Cooperative Council of Oklahoma School Administrators (CCOSA); comprised of 5 separate associations (Oklahoma Association of School Administrators, Oklahoma Association of Secondary School Principals, Oklahoma Association of Elementary School Principals, Oklahoma Middle Level Educators Association, Oklahoma Directors of Special Services), supported by Renaissance Learning, Scholastic and CTB/McGraw Hill, to name a few. Ryan Owens is listed as the Executive Director.
• United Suburban Schools Association (USSA), run by superintendents for independent school districts with more than 3000 students. (Shawn Hime listed as legislative Assistant - Ryan Owens listed as Executive Director) Supported in part by Renaissance Learning.
• Oklahoma Business and Education Coalition (OBEC); Executive Board includes Kaiser, all three Chambers, and Inasmuch
• Oklahoma PTA; a blog I wrote about PTA
• Oklahoma Education Association (OEA); has their own coalition comprised of most of the members listed on the flyer
• Stand For Children; Government Affairs Director Gwendolyn Caldwell has worked for the Oklahoma State Chamber previously, Great numbers of issues have surfaced with stand from misrepresenting signatures on a petition to funneling dark money into political campaigns. In fact, the Oklahoma GOP voted for a resolution condemning Stand for Children due to their poor business practices.

• Oklahoma Educated Workforce Initiative; State Chamber and Oklahoma Works Initiative (this 'initiative' is dark as to supporters - it does say the Department of Labor funds their site)
• Oklahoma Central PLAC; private membership nonpartisan organization
• Oklahoma Public School Resource Center; Funded by George Kaiser (of EduCare and ObamaCare fame), Inasmuch Foundation, Walton Foundation and Schusterman Foundation
• Organization of Rural Elementary Schools; members are all rural elementary schools in the state
• Organization of Rural Oklahoma Schools; membership contains a group of 400 or so rural Oklahoma schools
• State Chamber of Oklahoma; created the Oklahoma Educated Workforce initiative
• Greater Oklahoma City Chamber; formed the ExpectMore coalition to push Common Core - included OBEC, Stand, Schusterman, PTA
• Tulsa Regional Chamber

Shocking really, when you put it all out there for everyone to see. These organizations are formed in order to advance public policy, period - to make laws that benefit their organizations. In order to advance public policy, they form coalitions with one another to make themselves look bigger in number than they are. This technique works well initially because when you look at them individually, it looks as though there are a lot of different entities. Only when you research them do you find out they're the same people/organizations creating new coalitions under different names, the magic dissipates.

So why do we consider it important to really study those organizations supporting ACT? Because when you look below the surface, you find them to be essentially the same groups that pushed Common Core; groups that organize together in order to influence public policy in a way that benefits them - not necessarily the public. Public education is NOT for the perpetuation of jobs, it's for educating children in a way that will allow them to grow and develop and become mature adults that can excel in any vocation they choose - not jobs picked for them by the Labor Department or businesses looking to fill vacancies. 

ACT is not the panacea described by the OKlaEd community. Putting anything into law without any real study as to consequences (like Common Core), is a set up for failure. Let's wait for Oklahoma's new educational standards to be developed before we move on. It only makes sense.

Legislative Update As Bills Cross Between House and Senate

I'm sad to say, but, as hard as we tried to stay on top of the education bills this year, we just couldn't do it!  There are ALWAYS too many of them and this year wasn't an exception.  Here is the list of just House Education bills for this year in case you want to peruse them and check me up on my definition of too many!  So please forgive our consistent updates.

At any rate, if you'll remember, we started the 2015 legislative session with the goals of:

1. Trying to stop the grading of teachers via surveys and high stakes testing better known as TLE. 
2. Upgrading school choice in Oklahoma to include ALL those who would like to participate. We believe the way to do this is through the establishment of Education Savings Accounts.
3. Continuing to fight for privacy protection for students from data collection.

1.  Our concern with TLE (beyond the idea that it adds another layer to what teachers are already mandated to do), is that TLE measures were built to test Common Core standards. So far, it appears that the quantitative portion of TLE will be put on hold for at least two years and the qualitative portion will be changed slightly as well.

2.  Education Savings Accounts were represented this session in the form of a bill by Representative Jason Nelson (HB2003) and another by Senator Clark Jolley (SB609).  HB2003 was heard in the Common Education Committee where it received a 9 to 9 vote and was killed.  SB609 was pulled from consideration this session before it reached the floor for a vote by the author, due to pressure to kill the bill in the Senate.  I don't want to get into a discussion about this issue, but I will say that it was very disappointing to see such emotional, untrue and mean/rude commentaries by many in the education establishment.  Though there are many issues to work through, it saddens me to hear people who say they care about the education of children, present such illogical arguments to turn the tide of public opinion.

3.  This year, HB1989 was slightly changed (HB2049) in order to create district-level data protection for students.  The bill has passed the House and has crossed to the Senate.

MOVING FORWARD
Unfortunately, we've had a fight on our hands we didn't expect - that of a repeal (in essence) of HB3399 (the bill to kill Common Core in Oklahoma) by way of SB707, a bill by Senator John Ford.  We've written numerous blogs about this issue so I won't go into detail here, but I will say that the bill is DELIBERATELY being messaged as a bill ONLY to stop End Of Instruction (EOI) exams by such organizations as Stand For Children, the Oklahoma State Chamber, COSSA, the OSSBA, individual school administrators and others.  The only reason I can think this might happen is because there is specific intent to change the wording in HB3399 to untie the tests from the standards in order to bring in an off-the-shelf test - namely ACT - to serve as a single EOI.  Don't forget, these are the same organizations that worked against us so vehemently to keep Common Core and that alone should present a RED FLAG.  It's also interesting here to note that another of Senator Ford's bills - SB708 did the same thing proponents of ditching EOI's wanted, yet it got zero discussion - another RED FLAG.

We've said it before and we'll say it again, we are FINE with removing the EOI's - it wasn't long ago that a high school student had only to complete his course of instruction with C's and above to graduate high school - PERIOD.  The problem comes in when we try to test other than Oklahoma standards - especially when we haven't even gotten them written yet - though we do now have a process to develop these approved by the State Board on Friday (March 12th) and that is very good news.

In fact, in an interesting twist, previous Common Core proponent, Andrew Spiropoulus actually penned an op-ed for the Journal Record pointing the finger at the ACT as a way to bring back Common Core, so if we're wearing tin foil hats over this one, well, you get the picture.

Enter HB1622.  This bill by Representative David Derby, would phase out EOI testing over time, (a very important step simply because education policy of late consists of rushing headlong into situations that later have to be rectified by passing more laws)  substituting them with ONE graduation test that can be both criterion- and norm-referenced as well as include our own Oklahoma standards.  This is a much better plan that doesn't involve gutting the Common Core repeal from last year.

Please stay tuned as we continue to move forward through the legislative process.  We may have to bring out those green shirts again if we can't seem to be heard on this very important issue - dust them off and be ready.  In the meantime we'll let you know something as soon as we know it.

UPDATE: 3/16/15 SB707 was passed by the Common Education Committee 11/4 with an amendment provided by Jason Nelson that puts back INTO the bill the phrase that was taken out. Though there is no record of the amendment at the time of this posting, it should be available by tomorrow morning.