Current Status: Common Core in Oklahoma (3/13/2014)

March 12, 2014 was a BUSY day in the Oklahoma Capitol.

HB3399 - a bill to repeal Common Core standards by Speaker of the House Jeff Hickman PASSED OUT OF THE HOUSE last night; 78 AYE to 12 NAY.  This bill repeals Common Core from law and allows 2 years in which to develop standards and tests.  It does not specify standards or testing for the interim.

This is now the only vehicle in the Oklahoma legislature with the possibility to stop Common Core State Standards and associated testing.  

Late Monday evening (2/10), an amendment to SB1764, was filed by two brave Oklahoma Senators, Josh Brecheen and Anthony Sykes via gutting a bill that had already passed out of the Senate Education Committee and inserting new language to stop Common Core.  Before the bill could be heard on the Senate floor, however, another amendment was added late on the evening of the 11th.  This amendment -  eerily similar to that of Indiana - effectively neutered the intent and purpose of that filed on 3/10 by providing 6 months for the State Department of Education to create new college and career ready standards - a veritable impossibility.  

As Chamber of Commerce and Stand For Children (ExpectMore.org) lobbyists moved into overdrive Wednesday, a representative of the Oklahoma Chamber of Commerce sent an email from Secretary of Education and the Workforce, Bob Sommers (an Ohio transplant from Kasich's administration) indicating the amendment would, "...eliminate our ability to engage with national youth organizations such as the FFA", among other consequences.  

ROPE was able to obtain consultation with Emmett McGroarty, an attorney with American Principles Project who has worked with a large number of states in helping to draft Common Core legislation, and determined this - and several other assertions from the email - to be false.

This would prove not enough in the end, however, as Governor Mary Fallin herself was seen on the fourth floor of the Senate, pulling members off the floor into private meetings one by one.  By the end of the day Wednesday, Senators had been silenced and a press release formulated indicating the body wanted to 

"...ensure no rash decisions are made and policy changes are carefully considered and vetted (by the committee process) by all interested parties as to avoid unintended consequences." 

Senator Brecheen noted, 

"We have the assurance of the Senate Education Chairman that a bill that addresses Common Core and passes the House floor will receive a hearing in his committee.  We also have the commitment from Senate Leadership that there will also be a floor vote allowed on that bill if it moves forward."

ROPE's response to the press release follows:

The decision by Senate leadership today to kill SB1764 under the guise the bill could present unintended consequences is laughable at best. Where were the concerns about unintended consequences when the common core were placed into state law in 2010 before they were even available to read in final form? The notion the bill couldn't be heard because it hadn't been properly vetted through committee is the most dishonest, disingenuous comment conceivable. Of course it hadn't. Senators Brecheen and Sykes had to circumvent regular procedure due to the insistence of Senate Education Committee Chair John Ford to hear no bill regarding Common Core in his committee! How was the voice of the people to be heard? How were these brave senators to represent their constituency in the face of a governor who wants nothing more than to protect her chairmanship at the National Governor's Association. Infuriated might possibly sum up my thoughts, but DISGUSTED is probably more accurate.

Though it's anyone's guess as to when HB3399 will be heard in the Senate Education Committee, it will more than likely occur following Oklahoma's candidate filing period April 9-11.  After all, if the two Senate Education Committee members up for re-election draw a primary opponent, the Governor's arm twisting will become all that harder.

The battle lines are clearly drawn - parents, taxpayers and teachers against special interests, Senate leadership and the chairmanship of the NGA.

We expect our Grassroots Day of Activism, Monday, March 17 (St. Patrick's Day), will show our Senate leadership and Governor that our votes count and if they want to get them, they'll STOP COMMON CORE!

Is Oklahoma Education Being Sold to Out Of State Interests?

UPDATE 3/27/14 see bottom of post

As Dorothy chanted "There's no place like home" in reference to Kansas, I feel the same way about Oklahoma.  As a 51 year resident of our fair state, imagine my frustration then, at the following situations occurring in our own Oklahoma education system:

• Last year about this time, we wrote about the fact that numerous FOI'd emails from the State Department of Education (OSDE) indicated that state education policy was being written by Jeb Bush's Foundation for Educational Excellence (FEE)- particularly Oklahoma's NCLB waiver and the A-F grading system.
• We then wrote about Oklahoma's new Secretary of Education and the Workforce, Robert Sommers, a former employee of Governor John Kasich in Ohio who also has ties to FEE.
• John Kraman, the Executive Director of Student Information at the OSDE came to Oklahoma from Washington D.C. where his previous post included working for Achieve, where he was the Lead Research Analyst for development of the Common Core State Standards.
• And now we have Wes Bruce.  Wes has taken over for the 'retiring' Meredith McBee, Assistant Superintendent for Accountability and Assessments. Wes Bruce was formerly the Chief Assessment Officer for the Indiana Department of Education.  Wes also currently chairs the PARCC Technology Committee (Barresi made Oklahoma a member of PARCC) and served on the US Department of Education's technical advisory Committee.  He was the 2006-7 Chair of the Education Information Management Advisory Consortium (EIMAC) for the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).  He chaired the NCES Forum task force on accounting for student exits, dropout and mobility.  Wes previously served as an administrator with South Bend Community School Corporation, and also served 11 years in the Kanawha County Schools of Charleston, West Virginia.  He has a B.A. in psychology from Rice University and a M.S. in computer science from the University of Charleston, West Virginia. 

In order to jog your memory, Indiana was where Jeb Bush favorite, Tony Benett was State Superintendent until he was fired by Indiana citizens in a snit over his love of Common Core.  He then went on to become Education Commissioner in Jeb Bush's backyard - Florida.  Unfortunately, he had to resign that post after it was found he changed grades of an Indiana charter school to make them look better on the Bush-designed A-F grading system.

March 20, 2014, another new hire was made at the State Department of Education. 

Lisa Chandler is the agency's new assistant superintendent in charge of assessments.  Chandler earned a Master's Degree in Public Policy and Administration from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill. and a Bachelor's Degree from the University of Texas at Austin.  After 20 years at the Texas Education Agency, she worked as a national measurement consultant for Pearson PLC.

Hmmm.  So first, we have Kraman - a previous employee of Achieve - and now Chandler - a previous employee of Pearson (the world's largest textbook company, the world's largest supplier of Common Core-aligned books, ancillaries and testing!).  

As a longtime resident of the state, I'm incensed.  We have no good Oklahoma candidates for these jobs?  Apparently not - since the latest Barresi hire comes from the same revolving door as all the other employees in positions key to implementing Dr. Barresi's NON-LOCAL, NON-OKLAHOMA education reforms that come via Jeb Bush via President Obama.  Nothing to see here.  Business as usual.  Please drive on.

To Heck With Diamonds, Common Core is Forever

ROPE has been closely following the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) cost issue, since NO ONE in charge of public education in Oklahoma – including the purse string holders at the state legislature – have been able to tell Oklahomans what the Common Core will cost Oklahoma taxpayers. 

I wrote an article last month that was published in the American Thinker titled “The Ed Tech Scam”, to shed light on the fact that the CCSS have become an unfunded state mandate – specifically in the area of technology requirements.

Yes, the CCSS lovers say, 

“Adopting new materials isn’t really a cost of the Common Core, it’s just a cost in education of providing relevant materials to students that are there anyway.” 

However, when you have at least one Oklahoma Superintendent honestly reporting (to a national education magazine) how pinched he is to get technology in place prior to the roll out of the Common Core tests, we are inclined to suspend belief.

"Once you get into a testing situation, you have to be able to support it without interruption," said Mr. Kitchens, who added: "I do not think this is going to be a cheap exercise at all."

As we’ve reported previously, legislators cemented the Common Core State Standards into Oklahoma law in order to get Race to the Top funds without even a cursory review of draft forms of the standards as there were none available at that time.  This would seem a clear violation of the public trust. 

Legislators to taxpayers, 

“Hey guys, you’re responsible for funding these, but we have no idea exactly what’s in them or how much they’ll cost the state or what they’ll do to Oklahoma education, but trust us.”

Obviously the trust wasn’t warranted.  Currently, fourteen states have some form of legislation against the CCSS.  Clearly all is not well in CCSS-land.

Indiana recently threw out their Chief For Change (Jeb Bush/Foundation for Educational Excellence) state Superintendent Tony Bennett in favor of relatively unknown candidate Glenda Ritz, mainly because of flap over the cost and effectiveness of the Common Core State Standards.  Directly on the heels of this upset comes legislation to force the Indiana state legislature to examine the cost of the Common Core before continuing their implementation.

Tony Bennett has not left the building, however.   He now presides over the Florida State Department of Education, where, interestingly, the Florida state Board of Education is questioning whether or not the Florida education juggernaut is ready to roll out and administer the PARCC tests because of their cost.

"One hundred million won't get done everything we need to get done," Barbara Jenkins, superintendent of Orange County schools, told the board.

Hoosiers have already caught on to the fact that their former State Supe has gone to another state and told Floridians they just can’t afford the reform measures he was deposed for pushing inside their borders.  I’m not sure how this could inspire confidence in any Common Core state.

 

Then there’s the fact that so much of today’s ‘education reform’ efforts have been tied to private funding by Bill Gates. 

In a clear, well-researched article written for the Heartland Institute on this topic, Joy Pullman quotes Betty Peters’ (Alabama State School Board member) concerns,

“A lot of private foundations are making decisions that would normally be left up to a public institution that would be accountable to the taxpayers.”

As often as we have heard the word “accountability” from our Oklahoma State Department of Education, this should be an eye-opener.  How in the world can the Council of Chief State School Officers or the National Governor’s Association (architects of the Common Core State Standards, funded in part by the Gates Foundation) be held accountable to Oklahoma taxpayers for education ‘reform’ efforts such as the CCSS?  They are all copyrighted so they can’t be modified yet the CCSSO and the NGA have a disclaimer;

“NGA Center and CCSSO do not warrant, endorse, approve or certify the information on this site, nor do they make any representation as to the accuracy, completeness, efficacy, or timeliness of such information. Use of such information is voluntary on your part. Reference herein to any specific commercial product, process or service does not constitute or imply endorsement, recommendation or favoring by NGA Center and CCSSO."

Then there is the Jeb Bush factor.  As information trickles into the public domain reporting the methods in which the Foundation for Educational Excellence writes educational policy through Janet Barresi and other Chiefs for Change, jaws should drop.  Why should Oklahoma taxpayers be supporting Florida education reforms – especially those shown not to be as successful as first advertised?  
 

This session in Oklahoma, Senator Clark Jolley has drafted a bill (SB447) which will usher in yet another new education ‘reform’ measure.  MORE new tests!  Yes, Oklahoma has chosen to believe the CCSSO’s verdict that most students will fail the PARCC ‘assessments’ when they are to be instituted in 2014.  

Certainly, Oklahoma’s public school students cannot fail these tests with so much riding on them (the A-F school designation for one).  Consequently, not only is Senator Jolley advocating that we must buy another set of tests (formative tests) to be given up to four times per year before the summative PARCC tests come on line, but that we should support this plan by cementing it into law – as with all other Race to the Top education reforms Oklahoma is currently implementing – without RTT funds.   

Why must these tests be written into law?  Every teacher gives (or should give) formative tests over content taught – something akin to chapter tests.  These allow teachers to see whether or not students are ‘getting it’ in time to re-teach or re-direct learning to improve concept understanding.  Certainly, this type of testing is better than summative (high stakes) type testing, but why should Oklahoma teachers have another law to follow?  

Oklahoma teachers have enough on their plate without being mandated to follow another type of test.  Even formative tests can be misused in such a way as to force teachers to teach to the test and isn’t that all PARCC tests are doing?

It has come to my attention this week that a company called Bellwether Education Partners supplies this type of “transitional national achievement test”.  I did a little research on Bellwether and found they work with such organizations as Chiefs for Change and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  We know Dr. Barresi is a Chief for Change.  One must wonder if there is a connection here as with the other education ‘reforms’ to which she’s been linked.  Again, Oklahoma should not be implementing education ‘reforms’ simply because they are being done elsewhere or because another foundation is willing to ‘help’ Oklahoma with their implementation.

From what source is the money going to materialize to pay for these new tests?  We haven’t even figured out how to pay for the PARCC tests.  It must be taxpayer funded – all government is.   Maybe that’s why Dr. Barresi has asked for a whopping $75 to $100 million in extra funding for next year.  The press release sent out by her office lauding Senator Halligan and Senator Ford – from whom the funding requests were submitted – quotes Senator Ford as saying,

“We have three areas in education we must address, including statutory requirements to fund programs such as medical benefits, additional appropriations to pay for reforms we’ve already enacted, and additional funding at the local level that school boards can use to address specific needs in their individual districts,” said Ford, R-Bartlesville.

Why are you asking taxpayers to fund these reforms AFTER you enacted them into LAW Senator Ford?  Why should taxpayers be jumping up and down to fund ‘reforms we’ve already enacted’ when they haven’t originated in Oklahoma, were never read by those who enacted them, never had any functional testing demonstrating their efficacy and have been shown not to work in Florida from where they did originate?  Certainly, taxpayers deserve an answer to that question. 

 

In closing, several interesting polls have come out recently regarding the Common Core.

Whiteboard Advisors, Education Insider 

“conducts an anonymous survey of a small group of key education influential (policymakers, though leaders, and association heads) to get their thoughts and commentary about the context of the current debate and possible outcomes.”   

Their survey for February 2013 that polled ‘insiders’ on the Common Core show that support for PARCC testing is falling.  In addition, 87% of respondents say they expect more states to drop out of the Common Core Assessment Consortia (like Alabama and Utah),

“as they start to get a fuller picture for the implementation costs of assessments and professional development and get very unhappy about what they have signed up for in a budget constrained environment.” 

77% of respondents believe schools will not have enough bandwidth to meet the Consortia’s recommended specifications in time for the tests to come on line.

The 2013 MetLife Survey of the American Teacher, shows that only a maximum of 24% of teachers and principals either believed the Common Core would improve student achievement or prepare students for college and the workforce (page 76).   

So why are we doing this ed 'reform' thing again?

I get the sneaky suspicion it’s not about kids…