Repealing Common Core Means Nothing If Oklahoma’s New Academic Standards Are Not Better than Common Core

Restore Oklahoma Public Education (now Reclaim Oklahoma Parent Empowerment) concluded a near five year odyssey dedicated to the task of repealing the Common Core State Standards in our state, when the ink from Governor Fallin’s pen dried on HB3399 in June 2014.  

As directed by the bill, the Oklahoma State Department of Education (OSDE) was to immediately begin the process of creating new educational standards for English/Language Arts and Mathematics to replace the Common Core Standards adopted by the Oklahoma State Board of Education as directed by SB2033 in 2010. The final drafts of the new standards were to be completed by the OSDE in August of 2016 with copies presented to the Oklahoma legislature prior to the February start of that year’s legislative session.

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.

Dr. James Milgram Has Harsh Words For Oklahoma's New Math Standards Draft

James Milgram is a professor emeritus of mathematics at Stanford University. He served on the validation committee for the Common Core mathematics where he did not sign off on the standards. ROPE asked the Standards Writing Committee to include Dr. Milgram in the standards writing process in some way, but his expertise went unused.

The following information was sent to us by Dr. Milgram after asking him to comment on the drafts made available online. 

1) From what I can tell, no one on the Oklahoma Mathematics standards writing committee has a college degree in Mathematics, in particular, no one appears to have a PhD in Mathematics; the committee members all appear to have degrees in Education (some in Math Education). I believe that without degrees in the pure subject of Mathematics, the members of the committee are not fully qualified to write Mathematics standards for the state of Oklahoma.

Agreed. I went somewhat further and checked the qualifications of the 4 members identified as university faculty members. One is a specialist in remediation, something worth having but all three of the others show no evidence of any knowledge of actual mathematics beyond the most elementary – and I mean elementary. Their expertise appears to be focused on no more than the first 2 to 3 grades. Also, nobody on the committee appears to even be qualified to handle things at the level of any high school material past a weak Algebra II course. In fact this draft standards cuts off well before the Common Core math standards, which were, as numerous people have pointed out, themselves far below the expected level of high school mathematics necessary for students wishing to major in technical areas including STEM in a solid four year college or university.

2) In the early grades, the Standards do not specify that students learn, practice, memorize, and be able to demonstrate instant, accurate recall of the basic math facts of addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division up to at least 10s, preferably 12’s or 15’s. This is certainly true. But there are far more problems than just this (as serious as it is). Here is a brief rundown of the first grade standards that were so imprecise - or more likely actually incorrect mathematically - that I couldn’t make sense of them as written.

1.A.1.1, 1.A.1.2: Imprecise to the degree that I can’t understand what they mean. Create and extend repeating or growing patterns etc. On what basis? are the students given rules for how to extend or not. If not, then this has nothing to do with mathematics, and will, later, very negatively impact the liklihood of students being successful in the area.

1.N.1.1 Does this have anything to do with actual mathematics? If so show me the research. Here’s the normal way this goes. One “recognizes” and names the Symbol (e.g., ten frames, arrays, etc) and one might or might not count the number of each, but one does not see the number that these objects are expected to represent.

1.N.1.2 Where did the “in terms of tens and ones” suddenly come from? Students should still be counting, it is almost certainly too early to introduce base ten place value notation.

1.N.1.3 Represent? Come on! Would this committee like to define “represent” and send me a recording of the session. My suspicion is that, at least in mathematical terms, virtually nobody on that committee understands what they are talking about. To be specific, base 2 place value notation is a very natural way of representing numbers, as is base 3 or base 5. Is this what you mean. I hope not! Likewise what do you mean by read and write? I think what you mean is make the English sound for the symbol “5” or the symbol “7”, but this is virtually anti-mathematics. After all, the committee should know that the sounds in Spanish or German for these same symbols are completely different, but mathematically, they represent the same number.

1.N.1.8 Do you really mean “equivalence.” I think not. I think equivalence is far too sophisticated to even talk about before, at earliest, sixth or seventh grade. I think what you really want to say is “equality.” It does not speak well for the competence of this committee to make mistakes like this.

1.N.2.1 – 1.N.2.3: These three standards together are virtually identical to the single most criticized and ridiculed first grade standard in the Common Core. Please look at both John Stewart’s and Steven Colbert’s discussion of the Common Core mathematics standards for clarification.

1.N.3.1 I don’t know what you can mean here. Using physical models it seems very, very difficult to partition. But it is fairly easy to use physical models to construct polygons from equal pieces. There is a vast difference between partitioning and combining.

1.N.4 This is actually a very good section. The failure to handle coinage is one of the most glaring issues with the Common Core in the early grades.

1.GM.1.1: Probably too advanced for first grade. See my comments above.

1.GM.2.2: As written, total nonsense. Length is absolute, it is the measurement of length that depends on the size of the unit. Get it? There is a distinction between the mathematical concept length, and the particular ways in which one might assign a number to that length.

3) Grade 2.

2.A1.1, 2.A1.2 Same issues as with the corresponding first grade standards.

2.A.2.2 What on earth is “number sense?” What does it mean to say “Introduction to properties, but not mastery of vocabulary.” After all, vocabulary is not mathematics. Properties probably are. The test is whether things change in different languages.

2.N.1.1 “Read, write, discuss, and represent.” Read, write and discuss do not have any mathematical significance. And I think that instead of represent a number you mean the reverse, determine the number that represents the cardinality of a small finite set.

2.N.1.5 “emphasis on understanding how to round instead of memorizing the rules for rounding.” How to round is a sequence of (somewhat arbitrary) rules so this completely confuses me.

2.N.2.1 Amazingly like 1.N.2.1 – 1.N.2.3, and it will and should be soundly criticized.

2.N.2.2 is way too low level for second grade. It is more appropriate for Kindergarten or first grade.

2.N.2.4 seems to be a way of suggestion practice with the standard algorithms for addition and subtraction without mentioning the terms. It would really be simpler to just say “Use the standard algorithms to add and subtract two and three digit numbers.”

2.N.3.1 It might be too soon to introduce fractions. Also, as usual, the committee has reversed the meaning of represent.

Much of grade three appears to be too advanced, comprising material that us usually done in the fourth grade, even in the high achieving countries.

4) In the middle grades, the standards do not emphasize the teaching and learning of standard formulas for the computation of area of various geometric shapes, etc. Instead, the standards seem to emphasize students inventing their own formulas. (Inventing formulas may have value for advanced students after they have learned thoroughly the standard formulas).

This does not bother me so much, though it would be helpful if you were to give me examples of specific standards. Then I could comment more accurately. Overall, I felt that the fifth sixth and seventh grade standards were better than average for the states, though the coverage of ratios and rates (particularly rates) was somewhat skimpy. There should have been much more attention paid to problems involving motion at constant speed and flow at constant rates. This is what is done in the high achieving countries. Moreover, these kinds of problems occur much earlier there than in this country and by sixth grade are far more involved than anything our kids will see at least until pre-calculus.

Of course there are still problems in these grades. For example, look at 7.N.2.3. It has already been pointed out that the rational numbers include integers, fractions, terminating decimals, and, moreover, that every rational number expands as an ultimately periodic infinite decimal. Moreover, every ultimately periodic infinite decimal is a rational number, though this is NOT CLEARLY STATED. But assume this early standard has been fixed so students are expected to understand this characterization of rational numbers.

For fractions ONE HAS THE DEFINITION OF ADDITION (SUBTRACTION) 
a/b ± c/d = (ad ± bc)/bd. And the only known “algorithm” is to apply this definition directly. It is also known that for arbitrary infinite decimals there is not and cannot be any efficient and finite algorithm for any of the 4 basic operations. Thus, we must conclude that 7.N.2.3 is simply incorrect and must be entirely revised.

Also, consider 7.GM.3.1. This purports to give definitions of area and volume. But both are incorrect since it is usually impossible to even exactly fill even a reasonably nice three dimensional region such as a triangular prism with cubes without gaps or overlaps.

Indeed, one is virtually forced to talk about limits when discussing volume and area, but limits are far beyond the expectations for seventh grade, even in the high achieving countries. 7.GM.3.1 needs to be completely rethought and revised.

When we get to Algebra, things start to go south again. But most of the issues I’ve found are also present in the Common Core which appears to be very (probably too) similar. For example, look at PA.N.1.3.

It is also important to note that key topics that are even present in Common Core (which is famously devoid of any discussion of pre-calculus, calculus, as well as a lot of standard material in Algebra II, trigonometry and even geometry) are not present at all in these draft standards. Thus, except for one mention of right triangle trigonometry in the introduction to the Oklahoma Standards for Geometry, there is no discussion of trigonometry at all, and there are only two mentions of rational functions (A2,F.1.8 and A2.F.1.9). 

Likewise the only mention of matrices occurs in A2.N.3.1 - A2.N.3.3, and even the weak discussion of matrices in Common Core is far better than this.

6) To answer the argument that not all students desire to enter STEM majors or elite universities, I suggest that Oklahoma high schools offer three diploma tracks for mathematics:

1) Work-Ready Diploma (students not going to college: minimum of Algebra II).
2) General College-Ready Diploma (students going to community or state colleges: minimum of Pre-Calculus/Trigonometry).
3) Elite College/STEM-Ready Diploma (students desiring to attend elite universities or to enter STEM majors: minimum of Calculus I).

Agreed, but where does this argument appear?

UPDATED! Calling All Green T-Shirts! Oklahoma's New State Educational Standards Are Public - Please Comment

Who could forget the heady days of the Green Shirts as we descended upon the state capitol in droves to stomp out Common Core!? As we said then, eventually our new state standards would be finished and we would ask you to read them and respond with your thoughts, ideas and SPECIFIC comments.

Unfortunately, there is no place set up on the State Department of Education website under the page created for the new standards, to write in comments. Therefore, here's what we would like you to do ASAP. 

Please go to the link to the new standards on the OSDE website. Read as many standards as you feel you can possibly comment on reasonably. Come back to this blog and, using the COMMENTS section, write in anything you would like legislators, the OSDE and the public to know about your thoughts on the new standards.

ALSO PLEASE NOTE: There is a place to make comment on the standards through these links:

Math Standards comments click here
ELA Standards comments click here

The more SPECIFIC the comments, the more helpful they'll be. For example:

Regarding standard K.DP.1. (Apply mathematical actions and processes to collect and organize data to make it useful for interpreting information); it seems less than obvious how we're going to direct KINDERGARTEN students to understand a Venn diagram and also understand graphs and data - even at the very smallest categories. This seems a disproportionately hard topic for this age group. This is concerning because there is no map including tested standards. If a teacher doesn't teach her kindergarten students how to read a Venn Diagram, will she be counted down on her Teacher Assessment or will the child miss a similarly rooted question on an exam (the score for which the teacher is responsible)? Jenni White, President, Restore Oklahoma Public Education.

(Please make sure you list your name and your title if you have one, even if that's "parent" or "teacher") 

Donna Garner, former Department of Education employee under George Bush, and education activist, suggests Oklahomans categorize standards into 5 observations. These are:

1. Knowledge-based (fact based) 
2. Academic
3. Specific for each grade level Pre-K through Grade 12
4. Explicit and clearly worded
5. Grows in depth and complexity from one grade level to the next grade level
6. Measurable with mostly objectively scored test questions

Here are some links to help you check the new Oklahoma standards against the Common Core State Standards:

Common Core State Standards for MathCommon Core State Standards for English/Language ArtsKey Shifts in Mathematics (Common Core)

Here's the link to the text of the bill to stop Common Core; HB3399

If you have any questions, please let me know and I'll do my best to direct your efforts in order to make them most helpful to all interested parties; jenni@RestoreOkPublicEducation.com

Thank you for your efforts in this IMPORTANT endeavor!

Why I Choose To School My Children At Home And Why I Think You Should Too

by Jenni White

"Mom, are you going to check my paper?"  Sam, my youngest, is sitting next to me doing math right now, but because I'm attempting to write a blog, I ask him to hold on a minute.  Don't worry, he'll ask again in 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...

"Ok...let's look..." I answer, swinging away from my keyboard.

Obviously, I did not choose to homeschool my children so that I could get more done for ROPE.  I'm sure homeschooling and peace and quiet can be synonymous, but I don't find that often in the White house anymore.

It's not always been this way.  My kids haven't always been homeschooled.

In fact, when my husband David and I had our first son, Coleman (we also have a married daughter, Bryna, 31) he and I left our little self-remodeled 50's bungalow for a bigger house in the neighborhood where I grew up - so he could attend a 'Blue Ribbon' public school - we never even considered anything else.

Coleman - and our adopted daughter Betty - started half-day kindergarten at that little school in 2007 and I was irritated they were only going a half day.  It made no sense to me that other schools had full day kindergarten and mine had only half.  I joined PTA, went to every Kindergarten presentation, helped them with their reading every evening and enjoyed both kids' teachers tremendously.

In 2008, the school offered full year kindergarten and by 2009, I was standing in line so Sam, could be in half-day pre-k.

During the end of 2008, something began to change in me.  Until this time, I was a pretty typical stay-at-home mom; cleaning house, making meals, doing laundry and very involved in my church.  I did have a home business I began in 2003 named for the son we lost between Coleman and Sam (MarshallsMemories), and I scrap-booked and made jewelry in my 'off' hours, selling my wares mainly on Etsy.com, but other than that, nothing remarkable.

Though I had voted in nearly every election since I was 18, I had never really been involved in 'politics'.

I registered Republican at 18 (I adored Ronald Reagan) and, excepting a fall from the wagon with Clinton's first term, I found Republican ideals more suited to my own.  Voting was one thing; researching a candidate's voting record or background, another.  That had never been on my radar screen, yet toward the middle of '08, I began researching then-presidential candidate Barrack Obama and became concerned about what I found. Never before much interested in America's form of government, civics or history, I suddenly wanted to know as much as I could about as much as I could.  The more I found out about Communism, Marxism and America's Republican form of government, the more I became convinced public schools had, by and large, simply quit teaching the fundamentals of American history and government.

One thing led to another with my research and by 2010, a friend (Julie McKenzie) and I had started ROPE as a way to shed light on the fact that American students were graduating high school with little to no education in the founding of our country and the science of civics. In fact, ROPE's first stab at legislation was to make sure kids were reading American foundational documents.  From there, we began studying public school funding and many, many other topics relating to the education of our youth across Oklahoma and America.

Interestingly, I spent the first several years of my career as ROPE president, researching and writing about public school issues after dutifully seeing my kids off to school.  In fact, I remember complaining bitterly when school was canceled for snow or cold, or there was an assembly.  My property taxes were going to pay for this school to be open, why wasn't it?  My kids needed to be in school, not sitting around home watching TV.

I knew there were parents out there who schooled their kids at home yet I thought them only slightly sane.  Why would anyone bring their kids home for school?  How were they going to get a good education?  Parents weren't teachers for Pete's sake, what parent thought they could adequately educate a child for college by keeping him home?  Even having been a teacher - even with a Master's Degree in Biology - this thought was anathema.  I was fairly certain homeschooled kids did little but run around their neighborhoods during regular school hours, driving their scooters in front of cars like a homeschool family that moved (briefly) into our neighborhood.  How in the world did these kids make friends?  Who was around to hang out with during the day?  None of this made any sense to me.

As a Christian, I had also come to believe that my Christian children could be salt and light to nonbelievers at their school.  Why would I even think of removing my kids from public school when they could be leading others to Jesus within the confines of the school room walls?*

Throughout the years, I was active in PTA at the school.  I tried to attend every meeting I could and did what I could to help out with PTA functions.  One day at a PTA meeting, I spoke up and asked why we were raising so much money for the school (we had 10's of thousands in the school PTA account).  I was told it was for the school's computer lab and to pay for a new gymnasium that we could use during the week and rent out for basketball games/practice on the weekends.  Once, when I opined that elementary kids didn't really need to learn how to operate computers, I had the immediate and distinct notion I had broached the unbroachable.  It was clear these kids MUST have computer time or they would fall behind their peers at other schools - did I want our kids to be computer illiterate?  I had just read research indicating that electronics for elementary-aged kids can prevent them from focusing by shortening their attention span, so I shared this.  Clearly, no one in the room was interested.

After studying traditional math (in comparison to the Common Core) I shared - at another meeting - that our school should NOT be using Everyday math, but instead adopt Saxon or Singapore texts.  This revelation was met with disinterest in the least and consternation at worst.  For a number of months I tried to get other parents/teachers on board with the idea, but our Principal finally put the hex on the idea by reporting that the school couldn't afford the textbooks.  PTA, of course, needed their money for a computer lab and gymnasium.  It was then I realized that even math illiterate kids can get on the computer and play roundball, and maybe my ideals about education weren't those of my fellow parents or school.

No matter how many children you have, no two will be alike.  I have four, and while none of them are carbon copies of one another, I managed to get a more introverted boy and a girl and a boy and a girl who love going and doing and being right in the middle of everything.  Coleman is one of my introverts.  From a young age that kid would sit by himself, perfectly content building Lego's or drawing, so I shouldn't have been surprised when during the middle of a VERY TOUGH 3rd grade year (lots of bullying and an overbearing teacher who didn't like my son much), he came to me crying and begging me to homeschool him.

What?  He was just having a reaction to the year, I was sure, yet even after he was moved to another class to try and make it easier for him to learn, he would regularly beg me to keep him home for fourth grade.  Two things happened fairly quickly near the end of that year; a homeschooling mom joined the ROPE board and she began sharing personal experiences about her homeschooling, and Coleman fell face first off the swings, and was made to sit in the office with his face so swollen he could barely open his eyes until they finally got around to calling me. That was it.  Though I wasn't sure how the whole schooling the kid at home would work, I decided to take on the challenge and my husband reluctantly agreed.

If I hadn't been seen as the bizarre white-haired White lady at that school before, I was by the first day of school 2010-2011.  I enrolled Sam and Betty in 1st and 4th grades respectively, while submitting a letter to the office that I would be schooling Coleman at home and signing up for another year of PTA - this time with the intention of running for President.**

I began Coleman in Classical Conversations that year.  One day a week I went to an Edmond church 'campus' where kids of all ages and stages came together to learn all sorts of facts about all sorts of things.  In the morning, Coleman had Foundations (the facts portion of the curriculum) and in the afternoon he had Essentials of the English Language where he learned to diagram sentences and write essays.  At home during the week while his siblings were in school, Coleman would study his facts, practice his English assignments and write a paper on a different topic each week.  I added Saxon math and had him read and outline a junior classic book every couple of weeks.  Though I suspect both David and I thought he would soon tire of the self-paced work and lack of friendship, he blossomed, and I learned more about traditional (classical) education vs the progressive education taught in most public schools today.

ROPE had just taken on Common Core and I was speaking and writing and lobbying frequently at this point.  Disinterested with the idea of hanging with Mimi or Grandmama during many of my outings, he chose to come along to the Capitol, to meetings - wherever I was headed - and he had a blast (most times!).

Meanwhile, I was still following what the other two were doing in public school, but by now my eyes had fully opened and I was beginning to see the light.  The assignments Betty brought home from school made my new blog (begun in July of 2011) several times, as did school newsletters and other items.  Her fourth grade teacher and I did not see eye-to-eye and her deeply progressive, rude, student teacher nearly caused my husband apoplexy after a meeting scheduled to discuss some of her more interesting worksheets on Global Warming and Native Americans.

First grade wasn't treating Sam any better.  His teacher should never have been responsible for an elementary classroom.  She was, if anything, more equipped to muscle around teen children - she had absolutely no empathy and seemed to have cared less for little ones in general.  Certainly a Common Core apologist, she was proud to tell me that our school was an early adopter of the standards, knowing the state would force the issue the following school year.  During his tenure in her first grade class, he learned to spell words like Kapok Tree (thanks to the chapter on rain forest deforestation) while learning nearly zero English grammar mechanics for spelling (i before e except after c, etc.).  Even today, that kid can spell very, very little no matter how hard I have tried to teach him by phonemes.  Then there was the math.  Oh my word.  Though my child could easily be classified ADD, I have no doubt in my mind that his math experiences in first grade are what set him back at least two grades and made him absolutely detest the subject.  The fact that he can't sit still and concentrate doesn't make him hate math, it just makes him hate sitting down for any length of time.

By the end of 4th and 1st grades in public school while homeschooling one simultaneously, I had simply gotten to the point where I had zero compunction about removing the other two kids lock stock and barrel from public school and pulling them onto the CC campus with Coleman.  I'm sure the school was absolutely ecstatic to see me go, and we were just as pleased to leave.

And there you have it.  The genesis of the White family homeschool experience.

Today, we're still with Classical, but we're now at a campus well outside the city, near the little town where we've moved to start a farm.  Apparently, once you jump off one conveyor belt, it's becomes easier to jump off the rest (packaged food vs fresh food, internet news vs Big Media news, classic shows on Netflix vs commercial television - we've jumped off them all).  Sadly, as I look back, I see how brainwashed Americans - especially mothers - have become.  We women bought into that 'bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan' mentality back in the '70's and now we have no qualms dropping off even our youngest children to be raised by someone other than ourselves during the day while we are at work.

I did the math one day.  Did you know that each year your child/children are in school, you are allowing someone other than yourself to influence your children 1,190 hours = 50 days = 14% of a year?  Did you know that every year our state/federal government want your children to be in school MORE hours and MORE days?  How many can you lose and expect your child to graduate high school (let alone college) comfortable with your set of values?

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that homeschooling is the panacea for producing 'perfect' people (how about that for alliteration!?) - there is no formula for perfection and there is only One that was - I'm simply saying that the more you influence your child, the less someone else is influencing your child.

Neither am I saying that all homeschools produce excellent results, or are done for the right reasons or should be held up as education models for all to see.  I am saying, however, that more parents are equipped to homeschool than are.  I'm saying that more parents can homeschool than think they can.  I'm saying many parents don't even entertain the option because they think themselves ill-equipped.

Over twenty years ago when people like my friends, former state representative George Faught and his wife Becky, began homeschooling their children - in the days when people in IGA would call the truant officer because Becky had her kids in the store while she shopped - there were very few resources for parents that wanted to homeschool.  This isn't the case today.  Today there are wonderful online resources (not K12 or other online schools associated with state public schools) such as Freedom Project Education, and others such as Sonlight and A Beka that can provide excellent road maps to an excellent education for ANY parent, regardless of educational background.

As I've said many times in many different venues, God blessed you with your children.  He gave them to you to raise, not to a school or a teacher.  We are admonished to "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Proverbs 22:6), and that admonition is for parents directly, not through teachers or schools indirectly.  Though I in no way mean to embarrass or anger parents who choose to send their children to public schools, or the many teachers who bring their wonderful values with them into the classroom to provide the best education they can for each child, I think it is important to think on these things and listen to our hearts.  Could God be calling you to homeschool?  If He is, step out and follow His lead - He will bless you in your efforts.  If God is not calling you to homeschool, make sure to take time with your children when they are at home - indoctrinate them in your worldview - watch carefully the items that come home - stay in contact with your child/children's teacher/s - make public education work for your family.

No matter what, be sensitive to your kids and keep them under your wing as long as possible.  They are only little a short while and after that, your influence wanes.  Although I will continue to fight for public education (and so should we all), until parents can return to the position of authority in their child's education within the system, as many of us as can, should be out of it.  The system won't change on its own, and a wheel deprived of cogs won't work and must be re-built, or demolished back to step one.  Let's stay engaged and committed to restoring public education, but let's not throw our kids in the deep end of the pool to dog paddle as we do.



*I learned subsequently (through an experience with my daughter), that few young children can withstand the pressure of their peers or put aside their desire to please their teacher with enough force or consistency to keep the worldview imparted to them by their parents.  As strong as we like to think our children are in the Lord, until they've been able to understand and articulate their Christian worldview well enough to attain apologist status, kids will more than likely adapt to the worldview espoused by their peers/teachers.  Children should never be sacrificed on the altar of evangelism and sadly, this is often the case when Christian children are left to defend their faiths inside secular schools.

** I was told I would not be allowed to run for PTA president because I was "too political".  Yes, it's true.  There you have it.  If PTA weren't an arm of NEA and the ultimate in everything political, I wouldn't have laughed so hard I nearly wet my pants, yet that's exactly what I did.

This Week is Important in the Life Of HB3399 and the Death of Common Core in Oklahoma

*(For purposes of continuity, I will use the term Common Core though in Oklahoma these standards have been renamed Oklahoma Academic Standards)

Now that Senate bills have been cleared from the House calendar, it is time to go back to HB3399.  We must stay on this bill and get it through the process - and there is still process to go.  It still needs to be heard by the House, have the Senate amendments voted down and sent to conference committee.  There, we need to convince the committee of the following things:

BILL ITSELF:

• need 2 years to create standards to prevent copy and paste of Common Core back as happened in Indiana
• legislature must decide upon educational standards during standards re-write period - in Indiana, Gov. Pence hired Sujie Shin - from federally funded WestEd and responsible for assisting states in aligning their standards to Common Core - to oversee the process.  Our Governor and Superintendent both have a history of appointing/hiring those from the organizations responsible for promoting/creating Common Core and other national education reforms.  

STANDARDS DURING INTERIM MUST BE PASS

• Recent analyses of ELA and Mathematics PASS against Common Core show PASS the better set of standards:

• Sandra Stotsky chose 20 attributes across 4 major categories of comparison:  PASS were better than CC for 50%, CC was better than PASS for 15% and PASS and CC tied for 35%.
• Ze've Worman reviewed PASS and CC mathematics standards and concluded, "One can argue whether they are slightly weaker or stronger in specific areas, yet all those who seriously studied both agree they are of similar strength.  The big difference is that Oklahoam can modify and improve its PASS but it cannot modify the Common Core."

• According to school code, 210:15-4-3. Adoption and Implementation of Common Core State standards, Common Core was to be instituted in public schools year 2014-15, however, there is a caveat.  (a) (4) says, "...The Priority Academic Student Skills shall remain as the assessed standards until such time that full implementation of the Common Core State Standards are required and common assessments aligned to those standards are available." 

• Common Core tests are being developed, but have hit snags, causing concern of proper readiness by next school year.  ""Both consortia will have tests in 2014-2015 that will be better than almost all existing state tests, if not all. Neither will be as good as promised in their response to the department's [request for proposals]," said Scott Marion, an associate director at the Dover, N.H.-based National Center for the Improvement of Educational Assessment, which advises both consortia. "But if they can survive until 2018, '19, '20, they actually might have something pretty good that comes close to living up to their promises."

• Oklahoma will not put their Title 1 funding at risk through a loss of their NCLB waiver (though it shouldn't have been sought in the first place if our Governor and Superintendent truly believe their anti-Federal Department of Education rhetoric) by returning to PASS

• If Oklahoma's PASS are as good as they have been graded by the Fordham Institute (paid by the Bill Gates Foundation to institute the study in an effort to push Common Core) - a fact now verified by outside sources - Oklahoma has an excellent argument as to why we would return to our previous standards.  PASS is more 'college and career ready' than CC.
• At this time, the OSDE is currently undergoing modifications to its NCLB waiver.  Obviously, that is an option. 
• Even a cursory review of Oklahoma's NCLB Waiver shows that our waiver was granted based upon an 'assurance' (promise) we would utilize Common Core.  There was another option, however - that of having institutes of higher learning certify the standards as 'college and career ready'.  Seeing as how our standards are better even than the Common Core, it wouldn't appear hard to make this happen. 

TESTING MUST BE CTB/McGRAW HILL PASS TEST BANK WITH PAPER AND PENCIL

• Measured Progress is a subcontractor to Education Testing Services for PARCC - if we continue with MP, we continue with PARCC and the federal strings that come through the RTT funding of PARCC.  Our Governor has issued an Executive Order prohibiting a breach in student privacy with the Common Core.
• Student privacy is a very large issue with computerized tests and federally-funded, Common Core-aligned testing

• MP's contract specifically refers to FERPA when citing student privacy.  FERPA was changed in 2012 at the request of Arne Duncan so that personal student data can be shared at least 11 different ways without parental consent. 
• The other concern is the fact that CC standards have been digitized and uploaded into a database corresponding directly with test questions.  This allows data to be collected down to the exact standard a child missed on a test.  This then, can allow the type of European style education in which students are divided into college and career tracks.
• Certainly the computerized method utilized for this testing has been unsuccessful two years in a row.  Third time's a charm?

CLOSING:

As soon as we know the names of the legislators (both House and Senate) who will be placed on the Conference Committee, we will post their names and contact information.  It will be of ULTIMATE importance to our cause that you read this information, understand it and regurgitate it back to these men and women.  The only way we can STOP Common Core, is to STOP it NOW and not continue on in the interim period while new standards are designed.

Here is the reason we fight:

If Congress… may establish teachers in every State, county, and parish, and pay them out of the public Treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union… I would venture to declare it as my opinion… it would subvert the very foundation and transmute the very nature of the limited Government established by the people of America…James Madison, 1792

LITERATURE CITED:

Pence OKs Education Standards for Indiana; Hit as Common Core Remix, Alicia M. Cohen,

 http://blog.heritage.org/2014/04/22/indiana-education-standards-common-core-trojan-horse/

Hoosiers Process Run By DC Insider, Erin Tuttle, http://hoosiersagainstcommoncore.com/hoosier-process-led-dc-insider/

Is Oklahoma Education Being Sold To Out Of State Interests? Jenni White, http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2014/02/is-oklahoma-education-being-sold-to-out.html

Comparison of PASS to Common Core in English Language Arts - Sandra Stotsky.  Sandra Stotsky.  http://www.scribd.com/doc/220284871/Comparison-of-PASS-to-Common-Core-in-English-Language-Arts-Sandra-Stotsky

Comparison of PASS to Common Core in Mathematics - Ze'ev Worman.  Ze'ev Worman. http://www.scribd.com/doc/220283197/Comparison-of-PASS-to-Common-Core-in-Mathematics-Ze-ev-Worman

Oklahoma School Code 210:15-4-3. http://www.oar.state.ok.us/viewhtml/210_15-4-3.htm

Oklahoma's ESEA Flexibility Request. 2012.  http://ok.gov/sde/sites/ok.gov.sde/files/ESEA-FlexAmend8-12.pdf

Vision, Reality Collide in Common Core Tests. EdWeek. http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2014/04/23/29cc-promises.h33.html

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Thomas B. Fordham funding. http://www.gatesfoundation.org/search#q/k=thomas%20fordham%20institute

Accountability and Assessments page. ESEA Accountability Addendum. http://ok.gov/sde/accountability-assessments

To PARCC or Not To PARCC - That Is The Question. Jenni White.  http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2014/04/parcc-or-not-to-parcc-that-is-question.html

Executive Order 2014-40.  Governor Fallin.  https://www.sos.ok.gov/documents/executive/917.pdf

You Can't Always Get What You Want. Jenni White. http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2013/06/you-cant-always-get-what-you-want.html

Common Core State Standards Developers and Publishers.  Common Core State Standards Initiative. http://www.corestandards.org/developers-and-publishers/

Track My Progress.  Website.  http://www.trackmyprogress.com/overview/

Glitch shuts down state testing for second time.  KOCO.com  http://www.koco.com/news/Glitch-shuts-down-state-testing-for-second-time/25591396