Oklahomans From All Over The State Visit The Senate Education Committee February 17th

Every year since 2011, a bill to stop the Common Core State Standards has been introduced into the Oklahoma legislature from the House.  Every year, House Common Education Committee Chair, Ann Coody has blocked the bill from a hearing, and every year, Senator John Ford, Chair of the Senate Education Committee, has made it known he would hear no bills relating to a repeal of Common Core in his committee.

In 2014, 7 bills were introduced into the Oklahoma legislature to pause or repeal the Common Core State Standards.  From the beginning of this year's session, citizens have implored Senator Ford to hear these bills yet Senator Ford has remained dogged in his insistence to deny any and all a hearing.

Via an underground email campaign, more than 300 Oklahoma parents, teachers and taxpayers - frustrated at being denied a voice in their government - filled to capacity the committee room in which the Senate Education Committee convened at 9am, and stood 2 and 3 deep in the corridor leading into the chamber, saying nothing - simply holding their signs saying, "HEAR THE BILLS".

These individuals came from ALL ACROSS OKLAHOMA Grady - 24 out of 77 - nearly 1/3 of all Oklahoma counties were at the capitol building for this rally according to our sign up sheets - and NOT ALL PARTICIPANTS signed up.  Many simply took their signs and went on their way.

The counties represented include:

Grady

Tulsa

Canadian

Rogers

McCurtain

Bryan

Comanche

Cleveland

Delaware

Garfield

Oklahoma

Pottawatomie

Washington

Stephens

Ottawa

Canadian

Sequoya

McIntosh

Marshall

Pushmataha

Wagoner

Creek

Woodward

Dewey

Osage

Then, there are the counties represented by our email list that include 25 more:

Lincoln

Logan

Sequoyah

Atoka

Craig

Cherokee

Okfuskee 

Custer

Choctaw

Kay

Seminole

Mayes

Blaine

McClain

Jackson

Payne

Carter

Major

Garvin

Caddo

Haskell

Beckham

Roger Mills

Harper

Pittsburg

That brings the county count to 49.  Forty-nine out of 77 (63%) Oklahoma counties contain residents so concerned about Common Core and the state of our children's education here in Oklahoma that they are willing to receive emails regarding our efforts.

The two Senate-authored Common Core bills are not currently on the agenda for the last Senate Education Committee meeting, Monday, February, 24th.  Three bills still exist on the House side, one of which has passed Committee and is awaiting assignment to the Floor Calendar - the other of which will come before the Common Education Committee on Tuesday, February 25th.

Unfortunately, our Governor, the head of the National Governor's Association, is continuing to push the Common Core and all other education reforms that are NOT local and have NOT been tested prior to being brought to Oklahoma from Florida and Washington, D.C. for use.

In fact, here's an excerpt of a quote Governor Fallin made following this weekend's NGA meeting, 

"The intent of Common Core was to raise academic standards, increase rigor in the classroom and then to measure the results,” Fallin said. “I think that’s a goal that everyone can support and would support, but there’s been a lot of information about Common Core that has not been accurate, whether it’s been on the Internet or there’s been something that’s been published.”

Please continue to contact Governor Fallin and ask her tto STOP Common Core in Oklahoma, or we will be unable to support her come November.  

Also, Senator Brian Bingman is up for re-election in November.  Please ask him to make sure any and all Common Core bills that come from the House get a hearing in committee and on the floor of the Senate.  Our Senators need to REPRESENT the people that elected them and that means going on record with their vote. 

Governor Fallin - Local (405) 521-2342 

Senator Brian Bingman - ProTemp (405) 521-5528,  

Senator Mike Shultz - Floor Leader (assigns the bills to committee) (405) 521-5612

Senator John Ford - Senate Education Committee Chair (405) 521-5634

Open Letter to Oklahoma Senators Brian Bingman and John Ford

Dear Senator Bingman and Senator Ford,

I am writing you today because as a former public school teacher (and now a teacher in my own home school) I understand you desire high academic standards for Oklahoma's students.  I understand you desire Oklahoma to be economically competitive.  I understand you desire students stay in school, graduate and go on to be successful in college or a career.  I also understand you to be Republicans.

Republicans are a group of individuals that come together because of a generally shared ideology.  Historically, Republicans have been the party of smaller government and greater self-discipline; economic freedom and lower taxes; individuality over the collective; and state control over federal control.

Republicans have a platform that delineates these shared ideologies at both the state and national levels.  Oklahoma's platform is very specific regarding Education, outlining various methods by which we choose to educate our children.  Among these are;

1. We support curricula that promotes national sovereignty and opposes one-world government and global citizenship.
2. We oppose all un-funded mandates.
3. We believe a public school should protect the privacy of any personal information or data collected by the school on a student or his family and we oppose data mining by a public school.
4. The Federal Department of Education should be eliminated and defunded and its functions transferred to the States. We oppose the imposition of national curricula, testing and teacher certification, Common Core State Standards, and federally mandated programs such as “No Child Left Behind” or “Race to the Top, and PARCC testing.

AND

• We oppose participation by Oklahoma in the Common Core State Standards because it transfers control of local schools, student data and curricula from the local school boards.

So strongly do we as Republicans believe in this last point as documented in our platform, Republican Committee Men and Women from all 50 states came together at their annual meeting and voted for a Resolution repudiating the Common Core State Standards at the national level (April 2013).  Not only was this issue addressed at the national level last spring, but this winter, the State Republican Committee voted for a Resolution repudiating the Common Core State Standards (January 2014).

Quite apparently, the Common Core State Standards are an issue of exceptional interest to Republicans.

Why?  Let's look at the Common Core in direct relation to the pieces of the platform transcribed here, by number.

1.  Please note; on the Common Core State Standards website;

 

Individuals are not only going to compete globally, but whole communities will as well...
 

Quite apparently, American education is bad.  We must look to other countries to tell us how to improve our educational standards, even though no other country in the world has America's unique form of government or level of individual freedom.

2.  The Common Core State Standards were nothing if not an unfunded mandate.  

Agreed to as early as 2009 when Oklahoma took State Fiscal Stabilization Funds (SFSF), Common Core entered state law in 2010 in order to make more competitive our application to the federal government for a Race to the Top grant.  Oklahoma received no money from our RtTT application.  Common Core was not removed from law.  Consequently, every RtTT-related legislative item was left unfunded.

3.  From the very beginning, the Common Core initiative has gone hand in hand with the collection of individual student data.   

Shawn Bay, CEO of eScholar, made this fact very clear at last years' Datapalooza - a conference sponsored by the White House and the US Department of Education in Washington, D.C. - when he made the statement that, "Common Core is the glue that actually ties everything (student data collection) together.”  In fact, Mr. Bay created his company in order to use data to 'manage' student data and track children from school to career and college using the Common Core.  There is simply no way to do this without individual student data - tracking individual students from cradle to career, as Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is familiar with exclaiming.  All one has to do today, is search the words "education" and "datamining" and pages full of articles and papers documenting the use of data collection as an education tool by our federal government.

Though legislators and educators alike have been told that the unprecedented collection of data on school children is to prevent drop outs by following children longitudinally across their education arc, proponents fail to explain how interwoven into the fabric of educational data collection are President Obama's pollsters of the last election, Nate Silver and Dan Wagner - the men who created a  database the likes of which Maxine Waters has referred to as

“...a kind of database that no one has ever seen before in life...[which is] going to be very, very powerful.”

4.   Not only does the Republican party repudiate Common Core, but federal involvement in education as well.

While Governor Fallin's Executive Order addresses federal government intrusion into public education, her statements are equivalent to closing the barn door after the horses have run out.  Why?  Because in 2009, under Governor Brad Henry, the state took State Fiscal Stabilization Funds from the Obama Administration.  Inside the application for SFSF funds, Governor Henry agreed to 

Page 98 of the America Competes Act speaks specifically to what this "Improving Standards Assurance" is.  This is what ROPE calls the Four Pillars Of Education Reform; A State Longitudinal Database, College and Career Ready Standards (Common Core), Turning Around Low Performing Schools and Teacher Accountability Measures.

Essentially, Oklahoma became slave to the federal government for their education 'reform' package for taking millions of dollars in ARRA funds, a great chunk of which simply disappeared.

But that was just the beginning of the Federal strings to Common Core.  After the ARRA funds, there came the Race to the Top (RtTT) application.  Though Oklahoma got no money from that application, we did get Common Core cemented in state law (SB2033) because Oklahoma got 20 points on their RtTT application for providing "A description of the legal process in the State for adopting standards, and the State’s plan, current progress, and time frame for adoption." (pg 53)

Following RtTT, there was the No Child Left Behind Waiver.  Again, in order to get the waiver, Oklahoma had to agree (again) to the Four Pillars of education reform.
Not to be rude, but please, tell me again how Common Core is NOT a federal dictate.  Please tell me again how there are no federal strings, how these standards are 'state led' or how Governor Fallin's EO does anything to actually cut the federal strings to Common Core and Oklahoma's other education 'reforms'.

In closing, it is not too late to stop Common Core in Oklahoma, but any or all of the seven bills currently on file this legislative session must be heard.  Yes, it is true - many districts have spent millions of dollars on Common Core implementation.  This situation isn't untenable.  If Common Core is removed from law (and the testing that supports it put on moratorium until a better alternative than the current, expensive, Common Core aligned tests are decided upon), it would be possible for districts to truly exhibit the local control so many Oklahomans covet.  Some schools would most assuredly move forward with their implementation of Common Core, but others, seeking to please and appease their district parents, could scrap it and find something that worked better for that school, the students, the parents and the district.

Please allow any or all of these bills a hearing in committee and permit them to be moved to the Senate floor. One of the beauties of America's truly unique government is that Representatives, chosen by the people, have the voice of the people in their seat of government.  The people can't have a voice, if their representatives do not give them one by blocking bills from committees hence further discussion and vote.  Please allow the Oklahoma State Senate to represent its people.

Thank you for your time and patience

Blessings,
Jenni White
President
Restore Oklahoma Public Education



IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS FOR REFERENCE:

America Competes Act:  http://arpa-e.energy.gov/sites/default/files/documents/PL-110-69.pdf

Oklahoma's SFSF Application:  http://www2.ed.gov/programs/statestabilization/stateapps/ok.pdf

Oklahoma's No Child Left Behind Waiver Application:  http://ok.gov/sde/sites/ok.gov.sde/files/ESEA-FlexAmend8-12.pdf

Oklahoma's Race to The Top Application:  http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop/phase1-applications/oklahoma.pdf

Governor Fallin's Executive Order 2013-40:  http://arpa-e.energy.gov/sites/default/files/documents/PL-110-69.pdf

A Brief Conversation With John Ford

Yesterday, I got a rather large surprise when I retrieved a call from Senator John Ford on my voice mail.  Of course I returned the call immediately.  He had been kind enough to call and ask whether or not he could pass on my cell phone number to a reporter from OETA in Tulsa, who was doing a story on Common Core.

I told him I appreciated his call, and certainly he could give out my number.  Now, mind you, we have never been able to say anything unkind about Senator Ford on a personal level.  He has never been unkind to us.  In fact, he has invited us into his office to discuss Common Core and was perfectly kind during that time (and times I've seen him outside his office - like at Sam's!).  He is not mean or ugly - or even really dismissive - he has just made it always painfully clear that he would not hear any bills relating to Common Core.

This, is OBVIOUSLY frustrating.  Truly, if Senator Ford were ugly, or obnoxious about it, one could gather that this kind of intractability was due to personal, political gain, or payback (ie; I am loyal to the governor and she'll be loyal to me if I tow the line).  Yet, Senator Ford is cordial nearly to a fault.

Of course, there was no way I was not going to pepper the Senator with questions while I had him on the phone, so - very courteously and in an almost playful tone - I got in several questions.  I am going to share those and the answers with you.

1.  How do you like your cookie bouquets Senator?

They are very nice, but I am giving them to the Pages.  (He went on to explain that they get a lot of cookies - like on Homeschool day - and he just can't eat them all.)

2.  But are you getting the message Senator?

I am hearing the message.

3.  So, are you going to hear the Common Core bills this session?  It truly stifles Representative government when the bills cannot even get a hearing.

You are welcome to come talk to me about this any time.

4.  So you'd like us to come into the office?

You are welcome in my office any time.

Now, I'm old and have 50 things going on at one time and I was in the car with two of the kids when I had this conversation, so I'm sure there was a bit more to it than this, but this was the bottom line.

Truly, if he had four heads and screamed at me (like another Senator I know), I could really feel much freer to dig into the guy, but he doesn't do that!  It's probably more frustrating because of this.  This is - by all appearance - a very nice man...WHY WON'T HE HEAR THE BILLS?  He wouldn't give an answer.  I just literally can't get my brain around this.  The Senate may not pass the bills off the floor, but WHY NOT HEAR THE BILLS?

Continue to watch for information from those in your area that are leaders on this issue.  We will not give up.  We can be as persistent as Senator Ford can be cordial!  We MUST stop Common Core in Oklahoma!  Continue the calls, do whatever it takes, but for Heaven's sake, BE KIND!

*Kudos go out to Owasso's Kristal Piccolet for the whole cookie bouquet idea!  Great thinking out of the box!  At least he's having to think about it even if he gives them away!