Oklahoma Politics and The Common Core - Part 1

As we approach this upcoming legislative season, we must have a basic understanding of the Oklahoma political waters if we are to understand the possibility of repealing Common Core.


First, let's review the political landscape:
Saturday, January 18, 2014, the Oklahoma GOP State Committee adopted a resolution against Common Core, which included a direction to Floor Leaders of both the House and Senate to schedule any Common Core bills that pass committee for legislative hearing.  Though the National Republican Committee passed a similar resolution and the Oklahoma GOP includes their disdain of the Common Core in their platform, grassroots Republicans, tired of having their protestations appear to fall on deaf ears, packed the Committee meeting until there was standing room only, simply for a chance to make their voices heard on the issue by the majority party.

GOVERNOR FALLIN

• Governor Fallin is head of the National Governor's Association (NGA).  The NGA is partnered with every other private organization funded by the Bill Gates Foundation (CCSSO, Achieve, The National Chamber of Commerce).

• Governor Fallin has her OWN initiative as the NGA Chairman - America Works: Education and Training for Tomorrow's Jobs - which resurrects the School-to-Work model of educating children for jobs.

• Though Fallin produced an Executive Order (2013-40) which addressed Common Core, the document merely served to notify Oklahomans of her resolve to continue use of the Common Core, while offering little more than platitudes to constituents concerned about protection from Federal strings and student data collection.

• According to Pat McGuigan, longtime Oklahoma journalist, Mary Fallin has a 70% approval rating.

• According to Follow The Money, Fallin raised over 4 million dollars for her campaign against Jeri Askins in 2010 and has a bit over 2 million now.  With her new powerful out of state friends (not including her top in state donors, Chesapeake and Devon), her war chest will be amazing.

• Fallin has no Democratic challenger currently, but she does have a PRIMARY Challenger in Randy Brogdon who fought her in 2010, leaving Fallin with 55% of the vote.

SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE T.W. SHANNON

• T.W. Shannon has been the go-to cover boy of nearly every Oklahoma organizational magazine since his election by the House last year, lauded by FOX news and Red State as Oklahoma's "Rising Political Star".

• Landing a speaker birth at CPAC in 2013, fairly well cast in stone T.W.'s meteoric rise as a public figure.

• Though Representative Gus Blackwell had every reason to believe T.W. Shannon would allow a hearing of his early-in-session-2013 bill requesting a task force to study the costs of the Common Core after it sailed through Committee without a single 'no' vote, the bill was not allowed to move to the Floor Calendar Committee.  Later, Shannon allowed Representative Blackwell a House Interim Study that took on all aspects of the Common Core.

• Though early in his tenure Speaker Shannon appeared to ride the rapids of Common Core, he suddenly overturned his kayak and began to swim upstream, Tweeting out and Facebooking messages that pointed to 'federal intrusion' with Common Core and the idea that he was not very comfortable with the initiative after all.

• Late in the session (2013), Shannon worked with Representative Dennis Casey to add anti-Common Core language to a House bill headed for the Senate Budget Committee, over which State Senator Clark Jolley presides. Unfortunately, the actual language of this addition was never made public, and there was some confusion regarding the actual bill to which it was attached.  

SENATE PRESIDENT PRO TEMP BRIAN BINGMAN

• Senator Bingman makes his living in oil and gas.

• Senator Bingman was elected in 2006.  This means he was a senator under the leadership of a Democratic governor while part of a Republican legislative majority.  One could possibly assume a posture of loyalty to current Republican leadership

• Last year, Bingman told Pat McGuigan at Capitol Beat - when asked about the intensity of the fight in the House against the initiative, "The discussion on Common Core has been more ‘elevated’ than in the Senate.” Bingman noted that Senate Education Chairman John Ford supports the Common Core. However, he added, “There are some concerns about implementation and costs.” 

• Recently, at a Chamber of Commerce sponsored legislative breakfast (1/13/2013) Senator Bingman told the crowd that, although he was for Common Core, he didn't want the federal government intervening in the standards.

THE OKLAHOMA HOUSE

• We have worked with House members since 2010 and have some good relationships there.

• Many House members - after initially knowing little to nothing about Common Core like an overwhelming majority of legislators all over the country that passed them into law or school code - have become very well-educated on the topic over the years.

• Currently, there appears to be significant support for overturning the measure within this body.

• Representative Ann Coody is still the head of the Common Education Committee.  A bill to repeal the Common Core was filed in the House by Representative Sally Kern in 2011.  Chairman Coody refused to hear it in Common Ed.  Since it wasn't heard, Rep. Kern re-filed the bill in 2012.  AGAIN Rep. Coody refused to allow the bill a hearing, this time saying that since Senator John Ford wouldn't hear it in the Senate Education Committee, there was no reason for her to hear the bill either.

• We can only hope Coody has been enlightened by the number of phone calls this past summer/fall telling her exactly what we've told her the past 3 years.  Will she have been 'enlightened' enough to be willing to at least grant Common Core bills a hearing in her committee?

THE OKLAHOMA SENATE

• We have not worked with members of the Senate as we have with members of the House.  We know most all senators at some level, but we have really good relationships with a much smaller percentage.

• Several Senators can be key here this year.  Senator David Holt (he used to be my senator but is still Lynn's) has always been good to hear us on this issue and take time to discuss our thoughts.  He is on the Education Committee.  Senator Ron Sharp (now my Senator) is also on the Education Committee and, as a former educator, is very much against the Common Core.

• Several influential senators can also be key for proponents.  Though both are term limited, Senator Clark Jolley (head of the Senate Appropriations Committee) and Senator John Ford (head of the Senate Education Committee) are both extremely loyal to both Governor Fallin and State Superintendent Janet Barresi and have both echoed their support for the Common Core on a regular basis - no matter constituent calls to the contrary.  

• Senator Jolley has been heard saying that anyone opposed to Common Core is "smoking crack" and Common Core opponents believe "Obama wrote the Common Core on the grassy knoll".  

• Senator Ford has been credited with saying - even before start of the 2014 session - that he will refuse a hearing for any Common Core bills in the Education Committee.  This is nothing new.  He was extremely vocal about Kern's bill in both 2011 and 2012, saying that, even if the bill should pass a floor vote, he would NEVER hear them in his Committee.

• Dr. Everett Piper, President of Oklahoma Wesleyan University (ranked as #8 by US News and World Report for western regional colleges) has been extremely vocal about his desire to see Common Core go the way of the Dodo.  Oklahoma Wesleyan sits directly in Senator Ford's back yard. 

STATE SUPERINTENDENT JANET BARRESI

• After a first term marked by obfuscation of facts, name-calling, finger-pointing, and an administrative style to rival that of Ho Chi Minh, Dr. Barresi has frustrated, angered and disappointed administrators, teachers and parents alike.  

• Currently, Dr. Barresi has at least 2 primary challenges and 5 or so Democratic opponents.

• Many of the legislators that saw her (the first REPUBLICAN to sit in the Superintendent's seat for 20 years) as the Perseus of the education community, have been so disappointed in her 'reign' that 20 of them have thrown their support behind Republican challenger Joy Hoffmeister.

• Though frequently flaunting her position as a Chief For Change in Jeb Bush's Foundation for Educational Excellence (FEE), an investigation by the Washington Post revealed that Dr. Barresi stamped her name to numerous Oklahoma education 'reform' measures actually written within the FEE in Florida.

So, what does all this mean?  How can we make sense of all this information? I'll get down to brass tacks in Part 2! 

ROPE Response to Gov. Fallin's Executive Order on the Common Core

ROPE Response to Governor Fallin’s Executive Order 2013-40 on the Common Core State Standards

Having just finished reading Executive Order 2013-40[i] ROPE can say the following:

1.       The Governor uses the opening paragraph to re-state her commitment to use public education funds to ‘educate’ students into jobs instead of supporting America’s free enterprise system.  By promoting the idea that public education (tax payers) should train children for jobs instead of businesses providing their own on the job training at their own expense, she is replicating Bill Clinton’s failed School to Work[ii] initiative – but then, that is basically her NGA agenda[iii].

2.       Paragraph two reiterates the position of the Oklahoma Constitution[iv] on public education.

3.       The third paragraph amounts to cherry-picked phrases from Title 70[v] (Oklahoma school law) containing the buzzwords/phrases our Governor and other school ‘reform’ leaders enjoy messaging[vi], such as ‘critical thinking’, ‘literacy’ and ‘core curriculum’.  She also claims here that Oklahomans had a say in the development of the Standards.  Two members of the CCSS Committee, Dr. Sandra Stotsky[vii] and Dr. James Milgram[viii] have both testified that the standards Committee was nothing but a rubber stamp for Student Achievement Partners[ix] (the private organization with whom NGA contracted to create the standards, written by David Coleman, Susan Pimentel and Jason Zimba – all of whom but Zimba are non-educators).  If national educational experts had no input, how did Oklahomans?

4.       The Governor uses paragraph four to acknowledge that the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are listed by name in Title 70 – in other words, it is LAW that Oklahoma students be educated with Common Core State Standards.  She also states the standards were developed through the National Governor’s Association[x] (NGA - for which she is currently Chair) and the Council of Chief State School Officers[xi] (CCSSO).  She does not mention these organizations are PRIVATE, DUES-PAID organizations in no way responsible to individual citizens – in essence, she admits the standards were created outside the bounds of representative government.  She also does not acknowledge our legislature passed Common Core into law (SB2033[xii]) before the Standards were available to read.

5.       In paragraph 5, Governor Fallin first says Oklahoma has not received FEDERAL funding to adopt CCSS.  True.  Oklahoma, via Brad Henry, adopted ALL CCSS[xiii] in order to be more competitive on its Race to the Top Grant, yet didn’t get a grant.  Incidentally, the RTTT grant specified the use of what ROPE calls the Four Pillars of Americas Education Takeover[xiv] (referred to in Oklahoma’s federal NCLB waiver as, Principle 1-4);

a.       College and Career Ready Standards (aka Common Core, since only those were available at the time of application)

b.      State Longitudinal Database System

c.       Teacher and School Accountability Measures (A-F/TLE)

d.      Turning Around Low Performing Schools

This is the point at which ROPE finds major cause for concern.  Janet Barresi (State Superintendent) and Mary Fallin applied for a No Child Left Behind Waiver[xv].  Inside that waiver, the federal government specifies that NCLB recipients must use all four of the Pillars (Principles) just described.  Consequently, when the Governor says, “Additionally, Oklahoma has not received any federal directive regarding implementation of curricular standards, core curriculum, or Common Core State Standards”, she is apparently insincere, or ignorant, of what constitutes a federal directive.  Yet, she goes on to use the federal government as the specter for directing Bob Sommers (until very recently an Ohio resident), Secretary of Education and The Workforce (a position that serves ‘at will’ of the Governor, not the people) to protect Oklahomans from federal intrusion into public education by

1.       Making sure the public is fooled into thinking Oklahoma has its own standards[xvi] and NOT the Common Core by giving the CCSS the title of Oklahoma Academic Standards.

2.       Making sure every aspect of CCSS is followed by every school for every student in Oklahoma in order for them to become better workers for the companies Oklahoma woos to the state.

She then makes two fairly illogical statements:

1.       Oklahomans (including BUSINESES) will have input into the Common Core ‘assessments’.

2.       That the development of Oklahoma Academic Standards will CONTINUE to be done in a transparent manner.

a.       This statement makes Governor Fallin appear to be ignorant of the ‘assessment’ process in Oklahoma.  Our Department of Education has a signed contract with Measured Progress to provide Oklahoma’s Common Core testing.

In addition to its partnerships with states, the company has worked with the Race to the Top consortia on initiatives ranging from item development to systems architecture. Measured Progress is applying its test development experience to provide a secure item bank for Oklahoma…[xvii]

MP is an out of state contractor.  Even their website announcement indicates nothing about involving Oklahomans in the process.  

In addition, the NCLB waiver the governor signed specifies PARCC tests - the consortium of PARCC having been funded in large part by the federal government (Please note, C3 is the first attempt at the State Department of Education changing the names of the standards in hope of confusing the public): 

How will Oklahoma assess the Oklahoma C3 Standards?
Oklahoma will assess the Oklahoma C3 Standards through state assessments aligned to the standards and through a partnership with other states that have adopted the Common Core State Standards. This partnership, known as PARCC, will develop tests in English Language Arts and Mathematics. The PARCC tests will be administered for the first time during the 2014-2015 school year. Other content areas will continue to be assessed through state assessments. (Page 3, point B-3)

b.      Next is the notion that implementation of Common Core was EVER a transparent process.  Common Core was adopted before those voting on it could read the Standards themselves[xviii].  How is that transparent?  ROPE and others have been shut out of public comment[xix] at the state school board meetings and, as the largest grassroots-based education watchdog with the most formal research on the topic in the state of Oklahoma (an organization comprised of active Republican women), we have never been granted a meeting with our governor even after 3 formal written requests.  In addition, we have been summarily dismissed by our State Superintendent during one face-to-face meeting and then again publicly.  For years, many legislators knew nothing about the Common Core at all.  Today, there are even teachers that know very little about the Common Core and have gotten very little, if any, training in the Standards themselves.  Consequently, this statement can be considered little more than messaging.

The last portion of the EO is the most contradictory and frustrating. 

1.       Statements 1 and 2 are essentially a re-statement of fact.

2.       In statement 3, Governor Fallin says schools can adopt additional assessments.  Why would they do this?  The state-mandated tests eat up so much classroom time per year no teacher/principal/district would have either the money or time to devote to such an effort.

3.       Statement 4 indicates the Governor’s lack of understanding about Common Core specifically, or teaching in general.  There is no way possible for anyone anywhere to be able to oversee all the curricula available in the public marketplace with a Common Core stamp on the front.  Already, ROPE has documented many, many instances of curricula violating parents’ values and sensibilities[xx].  How in the world is this going to happen?  We’re not told.  Is she going to appoint a new Curriculum Sherriff who will go out and check each and every lesson before it’s implemented in the classroom? 

4.       Number 5 is another major concern.  The Governor states, “The Oklahoma Academic Standards will not jeopardize the privacy of any Oklahoma student or citizen.”  How can that be when Governor Fallin signed Janet Barresi’s application for a $5 MILLION dollar State Longitudinal Database[xxi] grant from the US Department of Education?  Does the Governor honestly have no idea how disengenuos it sounds when she decrys federal involvement in education while applying for and taking federal education assistance?  There is so much data collection via the Federal Government[xxii] for ESEA Titles 1-9, SLDS, the NCLB waiver, Safe and Drug Free Schools and Communities programs and others, there is no possible way our governor could make any such promise, period.

5.       Another wrong-headed claim brings the whole EO home.  Homeschools ARE affected by the Common Core.  One has only to visit Mardel, where many homeschool families purchase curriculum, and see the many books with “Common Core Aligned” stamps on them to understand the scope of this statement.  Not only that, but the SAT and ACT are being aligned with the Common Core as we speak (David Coleman moved from Student Achievement Partners to the College Board in order to do just that[xxiii]).  Many homeschooled students take these tests prior to graduation from their program of study.  If that doesn’t drive the point home enough, please read Andrew Pudwa’s statement[xxiv] from the final Common Core Interim Study for the House Administrative Rules Committee under Representative Gus Blackwell.  In part, he says;

In fact, CCSSI is a huge windfall for education publishers, since most districts in most states are being forced to replace their existing texts with CCSSI conforming texts, and any differentiations by state standards have been superseded by the Common Core standards. This, of course, makes it even harder for small publishers such as myself to keep a toehold in the public education market. Again, centralization and standardization eclipses initiative and creativity; we are not only up against the marketing and PR juggernaut of the big players, we now have to jump through ridiculous hoops to show that what we do—and have always done—not only builds basic writing skills better than most anything out there, but somehow “meets or exceeds” the Common Core standards.

Closing thoughts;

1.        2014 is an election year and elected officials tend to desire re-election.  There is also a long-standing habit of artificiality that accompanies this activity (a chicken in every pot?).

2.       Common Core has been an issue in many elections across the country – including Indiana, where State School Superintendent and Jeb Bush Chief for Change, Tony Bennett was ousted by a candidate against Common Core.

3.       An Executive Order preventing federal intrusion into an initiative we have been told repeatedly isn’t federal in nature in the first place to seemingly pacify the public, fits the model of tone deaf government officials attempting to quash public dissent in order to continue bad public policy that serves their needs and not that of the public at large.

4.       Mary Fallin is Chairman of the NGA.  How can this not influence her stance on Common Core?

5.       Mary Fallin is a Republican, yet she has turned her back on the Republican National Committee and the Oklahoma Republican Platform in her dogged persistence of the Common Core.

6.       Oklahomans should continue in their dogged persistence to stop Common Core in Oklahoma, making it clear that a candidate FOR Common Core, simply can’t win.

FOOTNOTES

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[i] Governor Mary Fallin, Executive Order, 2013-40; https://www.sos.ok.gov/documents/executive/917.pdf

[ii] School to Work; http://www.eagleforum.org/psr/1997/apr97/psrapr97.html

[iii] America Works; http://nga.org/cms/sites/ci/home/1314/index.html

[iv] Oklahoma State Constitution; http://oklegal.onenet.net/okcon/

[v] Title 70 School law; http://www.ok.gov/sde/education-law-book

[vi] Common Core Stepford Wives; http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2012/05/common-core-stepford-wives.html

[vii] Common Core’s Invalid Validation Committee; http://educationresourcesconsortium.com/2013/10/15/dr-sandra-stotsky-common-cores-invalid-validation-committee/

[viii] Professor James Milgram rejects the adoption of Common Core standards…  http://mathexperts-qa.blogspot.com/2011/04/prof-r-james-milgram-rejects-adoption.html

[ix] Student Achievement Partners; http://achievethecore.org/about-us

[x] National Governor’s Association; http://www.nga.org/cms/home.html

[xi] Council of Chief State School Officers; http://www.ccsso.org/

[xii] SB2033; http://www.scribd.com/doc/93232739/Sb2033-Engrossed-Version-of-School-Reform-Bill

[xiii] Race to the Top Addendum; http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/phase2-applications/amendments/oklahoma.pdf

[xiv] Race to the Top Fund; http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/index.html

[xv] Oklahoma’s Approved NCLB Waiver; http://ok.gov/sde/sites/ok.gov.sde/files/ESEA-FAQ.pdf

[xvi] Does the State Department of Education Think Oklahomans are Stupid? http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2013/07/does-state-department-of-education.html

[xvii] Measured Progress; http://www.measuredprogress.org/ok-sde-chooses-measured-progress

[xviii] Achieve, history; http://achieve.org/history-achieve

[xix] Oklahoma State Department of Education Prevents Comment; http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2013/06/oklahoma-state-department-of-education.html

[xx] Testimonies of parents and teachers for Oklahoma Common Core Interim Study 11/5/2013; http://www.scribd.com/collections/4384797/Testimonies-From-Parents-Teachers-Oklahoma-Common-Core-Interim-Study-11-5-2013

[xxi] Oklahoma’s State Longitudinal Database Grant; http://ok.gov/sde/state-longitudinal-data-system-grant

[xxii] YouTube video of Student Privacy Testimony – Common Core Interim Study Fall, 2013; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hwM7VNLkynI&feature=share&list=UUffrnW6WlGtduw0C7NXNWKg&index=11

[xxiii] College Board to Make Changes To SAT; http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/college-board-to-make-changes-to-sat/2013/02/26/fb332bc4-8063-11e2-b99e-6baf4ebe42df_story.html

[xxiv] Statement of Andrew Pudwa for Common Core Interim Study; http://www.scribd.com/doc/181696903/Written-Testimony-of-Andrew-Pudewa-to-Common-Core-Interim-OK

Edit in the first paragraph 12/7/13
Added section on PARCC 12/10/13