ROPE/Chaffin Lawsuit Against Stillwater Public Schools - Request For Summary Judgement Heard Today

L. Nancy Blalock, ROPE Treasurer - Maria Seidler, Attorney - Jenni White, ROPE Education Director

This beautiful October morning, Attorney Maria Seidler argued for Summary Judgement in the case of Brice Chaffin and ROPE v Stillwater Public Schools.

Common Core Comment To State School Board From Rope President Jenni White

Remarks to the Board Regarding the Common Core State Standards

Jenni White, President, Restore Oklahoma Public Education

Oklahoma’s legislature passed SB2033, codifying the Common Core State Standards into law in 2010.

Since that time, ROPE has studied this initiative and witnessed what can only generously be called a campaign of misinformation emanate from the State Department of Education regarding the Common Core in Oklahoma.  For instance;

• The idea that Common Core is ‘state led’.  This is a marketing term used to make people believe the standards come from within their states.  They do not.  They were written by several people, including a man named David Coleman – now head of the College Board and responsible for the effort to align the SAT with the Common Core – at a Washington, D.C. non-profit called Student Achievement Partners (http://www.achievethecore.org/about-student-achievement-partners/principles-work)  who gave them to an organization called Achieve, who then passed them on to the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers to sell states in a nationally concerted effort via  their Governors and Superintendents (http://achieve.org/history-achieve ).

• Prior to the Common Core, Oklahoma had PASS standards.  After Dr. Barresi entered the Superintendent’s office, we were given C3 standards – the very term for the national (Common Core) Social Studies standards by the Council of Chief School Officers, who pushed them out for Achieve (http://truthinamericaneducation.com/c3-state-social-studies-standards/ccsso-releases-c3-framework-social-studies-state-standards/).  Since Vision 2020, these standards are now called Oklahoma Academic standards which Dr. Barresi has referred to in her regular newspaper column for 7/19/13 as including, “Oklahoma approved standards in the Common Core for English and math and Oklahoma developed standards in social studies, science and other subjects.”

Brad Henry, however, filed a Race To The Top addendum in 2010 adopting EVERY ‘common core’ standard including Social Studies and Science as found in Chapter 15 Subchapter 4 (http://ok.gov/sde/node/3651) of the Department’s own rules.

If the social studies standards were Oklahoma’s, wouldn’t the Department be breaking its own rules?  Is that why Oklahoma’s Social Studies standards are nearly identical to the C3 Common Core standards put out by the CCSSO (http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2013/06/oklahoma-history-standards-could-very.html )?  Why do they match up exactly in content to those prescribed by the RTT addendum?  Why would David Barton tell us directly – and on a broadcast of Glenn Beck’s The Blaze program – that he had nothing to do with the standards  other than showing up at a meeting – though Dr. Barresi has touted him as having had input.  Why do Oklahoma’s standards and the C3 standards call America a Constitutional Democracy and not a Constitutional Republic as is actually the case? (http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2013/03/a-republic-maam-if-you-can-keep-it.html)

• Why are other Common Core adoptive states such as Pennsylvania and Alabama spontaneously doing the same thing – re-naming their Common Core standards (http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2013/07/does-state-department-of-education.html)

• The Guiding Principles for the Arts posted on the State’s website (http://www.ok.gov/sde/sites/ok.gov.sde/files/CCore%20guidingprinciples-arts.pdf) are Common Core standards written by David Coleman - the man who told a group of computer programmers at a seminar that he went around ‘selling’ the standards to state leaders and had to ‘dupe’ Republicans into buying them by leaving out that President Obama supported them.

• Just this month, Dr. Barresi penned a letter meant for distribution to state superintendents telling them she was removing Oklahoma from PARRC testing, yet a letter written by Georgia’s state superintendent was almost exactly the same (http://restoreoklahomapubliceducation.blogspot.com/2013/07/states-dumping-parrc-is-orchestrated.html)

The Fordham Institute – Common Core proponents - gave both Oklahoma’s PASS in English and Math a grade of B+ and said they were clearer and easier to understand than the Common Core.   

Oklahomans pay state taxes to support Oklahoma public schools NOT organizations and companies OUTSIDE our state who want to put us on a path to nationalized standards predicated on a lie.

Common Core Comment To State School Board From Rope Board Member Julia Seay

 

State School Board Meeting Remarks for July 2013

James Lankford, July 19:  “When the (NCLB) waiver authority is given, now the Department  of Education becomes a National School Board telling each district, each state what they have to do to meet the new requirements that they can literally make up as they go because there is no law or statute that they are behind.  That’s why we desperately need to pass a replacement to that NCLB so states and school districts know how to function within the law, and not just something that changes from year to year based on the whims of the Department of Education or the decisions they bring down this year according to their waiver.”

On Congressman Jim Bridenstine’s Facebook Page, he boldly posts our Common Core is not OK logo with this heading: "The goal of good education should be the pursuit of what is true and just and right and real… not the protection or propagation of what is common. ”Dr. Everett Piper, President of Wesleyan University.  Share if you agree.”  This post received 736 Likes and 361 shares… In social media lingo, it went viral.

Both Senators Coburn and Inhofe signed an official Senatorial letter against Common Core.

Groups such as Heritage Foundation, Americans for Prosperity, Concerned Women of America, David Barton and Wallbuilders, Cato Institute, Family Research Council, Act for America, The Oklahoma Republican Party and the Republican National Committee have come out AGAINST Common Core, even if it is renamed Oklahoma Academic Standards.

Why do we insist on “educating” our children if what is being taught is counter to a productive society?  

Charlotte Iserbyt, former Senior Policy Advisor in the U.S. Department of Education under President Ronald Reagan said that even if the Federal Government wanted to educate children on the 10 Commandments, it is still wrong, because education is NOT the Federal Government’s job. 

For the last 50 years, the Federal Government has interfered with education by offering a pittance of tax dollars, which they take from Oklahomans only to give back if we beg just right and comply with all the strings attached.

If the Standards themselves are not bad enough – and they are -- we have Data Collection on our children to be shared across state lines, then nationally, then globally with “Stakeholders” (a term that can be defined as needed). 

With headlines in the news such as

• Congress, lewd photos and NYC's mayoral race 
• IRS targets conservative groups
• House rejects effort to cut off NSA surveillance program
• Obama's Safe Schools Czar Tied to Lewd Readings for 7th Graders
• Grassley seeks to Defund Common Core

 We do not have to worry about hackers.  The very entity collecting the data is dangerous and corrupt.  Corruption in government is at an all-time high.   For Oklahoma to collect data on students in this climate is insane.  
 

WHY?  What is the rush?  Our children can be sold for a few federal dollars?  Teachers will not teach more effectively by knowing how parents vote or what time a student arrives at his bus stop, or their blood type.  Before you say, “We won’t do that” you should know that the P-20 Council set up by this department burst into laughter when John Kramen said, “Just because the data model is set up to collect that data doesn’t mean they will.”

With state after state trying to pass laws to slow or stop this train wreck, why can we not slow down long enough to examine what we are doing?  What kind of money, either federal OR from “stakeholders,” is worth endangering our children and making them the prey of Big Government and Big Business, and interested private organizations? 

STOP THE LONGITUDINAL DATA SYSTEM and STOP COMMON CORE at least until we have a chance to evaluate the cost, not only to our pocketbooks, but to our children and society.

I have attached a report by the Cato Institute that I believe should be of interest to you.  It speaks to the deception of the implementation of Common Core.   

The drive to impose uniform curriculum standards on the nation’s schools has been one of stealth, and at times, seemingly intentional deception. Most egregious has been the mantra of Common Core proponents that the effort has been “state-led and voluntary,” despite Washington coercing state adoption through the Race to the Top program and No Child Left Behind waivers; standards creators encouraging just such federal “incentives”; and Washington selecting and funding the two groups creating the tests to go with the standards. And now, more than a week after the U.S. Department of Education announced the creation of a “technical review” panel to assess the assessments, it seems increasingly certain that the panel’s work will be done behind closed doors.

(You can find more here:

http://www.cato.org/blog/americans-deserve-know-federal-role-national-tests)

Sincerely,
Julia Seay
Board Member
Restore Oklahoma Public Education

Common Core Comment To State School Board From A Mom

July 25, 2013

Superintendent Barresi and Board Members,

Throughout history, education in the United States has always emphasized local control of schools, standards, curriculum, and testing.  The principle of subsidiarity states that functions which local organizations perform effectively belong more properly to them than to a dominant central organization (Merriam-Webster).  In other words, a matter ought to be handled by the smallest, lowest, or least centralized authority capable of addressing that matter effectively (Wikipedia).

When local control is handed over to a larger, centralized, distant authority, the more likely it is that decisions made by that authority are not in the best interest of those affected by it.  Local control means local involvement. Local involvement ensures the best educational outcome.

Common Core, or the Oklahoma Academic Standards as they are now called, is the opposite of local control. These standards were produced by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers.  These standards are owned and copyrighted by private organizations that are not accountable to the people of Oklahoma.  Not a single elected legislative body has had any input into these standards.  There were no local meetings, public input or debate about these standards prior to their adoption by the Oklahoma state legislature.  Where is the local control?  In addition, it is my understanding that we must adopt and implement Common Core word for word, and can add no more than 15% of the material taught.  Again I ask, where is the local control?

Our state adopted these standards before they were even completed.  That makes as much sense as when Nancy Pelosi said, when referring to the Affordable Care Act, “We have to pass it to see what’s in it.”  I know the legislature had not read the standards before adopting them, but I ask, have any of you?  We are implementing a program that no one has read and that has not been field-tested.  We are drastically changing the way we educate in Oklahoma, and no one knows what the impact will be on our children.

If our state no longer has control over education, neither will the parents in our state.  This clearly violates the right of parents to direct the education of their children.

A quote from Thomas Jefferson seems quite appropriate here: “Were we directed from Washington when to sow and when to reap, we should all want for bread.”

Please don’t give away our local control.

Respectfully submitted,

LeAnn 
Edmond, Oklahoma

Help. No really...HELP!

Because the senate blocked the only bill to stop the Common Core in Oklahoma this session (HB1719 - through an addendum written by Representative Dennis Casey that was never even added to the bill on the state legislature website!), we MUST continue our fight against Common Core through the rest of the summer months.

Unfortunately, we've come to believe that it's possible T.W. Shannon is NOT really against the Common Core and the many legislative shenanigans going on at the end of this last legislative session regarding Common Core were because he - and other Republicans - were attempting to pacify the electorate rather than do the right thing for Oklahoma. 

I would like to think this untrue, but okaying language for a bill that accidentally gets into a Senate appropriations committee whose chair (Clark Jolley) is a HUGE Common Core proponent with only a week left to go in the session only to have the chair block the bill only then to introduce the HR on the House floor at the 11th hour...well, one's imagination does not have to make a Yoga-like stretch to see that constituents/parents/taxpayers definitely could have been manipulated.

Sadly, ROPE would not be surprised to find this true.  In an era in which Republicans hold the majority in BOTH houses of the legislature in our state Capitol, Oklahoma again leads the nation in state government spending; a trend started 10 years ago with common education spending alone up $74 million. 

How can you NOT help but think that a number of our Oklahoma Republican law makers are simply taking the tax dollars of hard working Oklahomans in one hand while taking money from special interest groups such as the Chamber of Commerce with the other; doing their bidding at the expense of REPRESENTATIVE government, all to secure funding and political clout for their next campaign.

Truly, enough is enough.

 

We can't affect the legislature right now as they are not in session.  The state School Board, however, meets monthly.  Many of you may have read our blog about us being denied comment at the last state School Board meeting.

Last month, we were told by Chief of Staff Joel Robison that we would be allowed to speak THIS MONTH, at the meeting on JULY 25! 

We are asking you to please come and help us FLOOD the tiny room in which the meetings are held.  WE MUST MAKE AN IMPACT!  If we're going to win this battle, WE MUST SHOW UP.  We know you are out there, we know there are THOUSANDS of you with us, but no one else will know unless you SHOW UP.

Please, be at the Oliver Hodge Building (the one northeast of the capitol on the Capitol Complex on Lincoln) on the first floor.  Go in the northwest facing door, walk passed the secretary's office door and turn right at the next.  Go all the way down the hall to the meeting room.  Outside the door, there will be a table.  Sign in for public comment, indicating Common Core.  You MUST be there NO LATER THAN 9:15 to sign in and speak.  You will only have 3 minutes to speak, so I suggest you type up your thoughts (bring some copies to hand out to the media) in order to say all you feel you need to say.

I know this isn't fun.  I know there are things you'd rather do.  Consider it "taking one for the team"!  We ask you to sign up and commit to coming.  You can do that here.

Please remember, Dr. Barresi gave our state board members a contract to sign very early on in her tenure, promising to uphold every one of her education 'reform' measures.  All but one (Joy Hoffmeister, who has since resigned) did.   

Since that time, the Common Core State Standards have been re-named in what can only be an attempt to fool the taxpaying public and Dr. Barresi has withdrawn from PARRC, only to say she will continue to use CTB/McGraw Hill through which the state will develop its own Common Core tests.

It is IMPERATIVE the Board hear the thoughts of parents, teachers and taxpayers on this issue.  WE NEED YOU TO BE THERE.

Now, if you are concerned about what to say, there are ANY NUMBER of pieces of literature you can find on our blog, or Scribd account - or on our Facebook page - about which to opine against the infringement on our state's educational liberty.  If you are still stumped by the end of next week, email me and I will be happy to help you out.  Remember, this isn't about ROPE - this is about Oklahoma's KIDS - our STUDENTS.  Let's do what we can to give them the LOCALLY inspired tools to help them do whatever they want in life!