Are Parents Rights Political? Should Public Schools Prevent Parental Rights Notification?

Recently, a teacher friend of mine took it upon herself to create a booklet out of the Parents Bill of Rights (posted here on the United Opt Out website - thank you Nikki Jones, Oklahoma Coordinator) passed last year into law due in large part to ParentalRights.org Oklahoma Coordinator Tracey Montgomery. 

So excited was she to impart this information to fellow teachers, staff and parents, she took them to school and began to pass them out. Not long afterward, her principal pulled her out of class, told her it was illegal to pass out the booklets and that she was to stop. 

My teacher friend knew this to be an incorrect interpretation of statute, so she asked her principal to cite the law and provide it to her in writing. That evening she received the following email: 

It has come to my attention that you are distributing political information to other teachers.  A complaint was made.  Please stop distributing the material immediately.  The OKCPS AFT Collective Bargaining Agreement states:

Article XII – Political Activity

Section 1:  Teachers’ political activities shall be individual and personal, and the involvement of teachers in any political activities shall be at the sole discretion of the individual teachers.

Section 2:  Teachers’ political activities shall in no way interfere with their obligations or assigned duties during their workday and shall not in any manner be injected into the educational programs of the District.

Section 3:  No action shall be taken with respect to a teacher’s political activities except in the case of a violation of this article.

Refrain from involving other staff members in any political activity that you are personally involved.

Is there anything in this email that refers to handing out a booklet of LAW covering the rights of parents? No. In fact, this email doesn't say that handing out information regarding a state law is illegal. A state law is NOT political. Political activities refer to such things as campaigning, lobbying and/or voting. The Parents Bill of Rights is a law - my teacher friend wasn't lobbying for the bill - it passed last year - nor was she trying to build a campaign for public office or get anyone to vote for the bill - again, it's a LAW.

I had another friend of mine search Oklahoma Statutes to see if this teacher was in violation of any school code (210:20-29-3. Principle I: Commitment to the students and 210:20-29-4. Principle II: Commitment to the profession). We were unable to find anything that would pertain to passing out a law detailing parents rights to parents, teachers and staff at a public school - where, incidentally, many of these rights exist. 

Looking for further information on the topic of "free speech and public schools" I found a document from the Center for Public Education. It says,

Over the years the courts have ruled that school employees are not always free to express their opinions and beliefs. Employees cannot be disciplined or suffer negative consequences for speaking out on matters of “public concern.” Schools can take action, however, when employees go public with strictly personal concerns.

The main U.S. Supreme Court case is Pickering v. Board of Education, which held that freedom of speech—while not absolute—gives employees Constitutional protection if they are speaking about issues of a public nature, rather than those things about which they have a personal stake. Pickering overturned a school district’s decision to fire a teacher for commenting on school expenditures through letters in a local newspaper.

Certainly, providing parents with a law concerning their rights would be considered a matter of "public concern". 

This certainly is a head-scratcher. Why would a public school administration not want parents and staff to have access to information that could only help parents understand their rights and responsibilities!? 

Sadly, we've found over the years as parents have sent us their concerns/complaints about their school/teacher/principal, that school administrators often either don't know the rights of parents, or misrepresent the rights of parents to the point that parents come away with the idea that school officials have more control over the student (child) than the parent. 

It seems a no-brainer that school officials would WANT parents to know their rights - including the rights they have over their child's education within the confines of the school community - but to be fair, schools are more often attuned to the rights of the student than the parent, so maybe there simply isn't enough training in this area and the principal's ignorance on the topic caused confusion.

In the end, I would hope all Oklahomans could agree that a booklet created to enlighten parents, school officials and others about the rights of parents would be a supported activity, not one deserving of formal reprimand. 

Agreeing To Disagree Not Disagreeing To The Death

Today, I participated in a "Capacity Review" for the Oklahoma State Department of Education. May I say first, BOY WAS I HAPPY TO BE ASKED! I'm no prognosticator - I can't see ahead to the end of Supt. Hofmeister's term - but I can tell you that as of now, I'm impressed. It feels so good just to be ASKED for input and not stiff-armed or walked out on, or indirectly called a liar. Going into her new position, it is at least apparent that Mrs. Hofmeister understands the rule, "You get more flies with honey than vinegar". She may not hear or take into consideration a word we said, but again, just indicating interest salves a lot of wounds!

The meeting of the group in which I was placed (I assume we were the 'parent' group) was this morning at 8:00am. Other than having to leave the kids Home Alone (insert face of Macaulay Culkin here!) from 7:30am to 10:00am, it was no trouble and the facilitator shepherded the meeting diligently, allowing the seven of us to be excused in just about an hour.

Our group contained representatives from PTA, Oklahoma Central PLAC, Stand For Children, VOICE, Oklahoma Parents/Educators for Public Education and a Sand Springs Teacher also coordinator of Parents and Teachers. Several of these groups clashed with ROPE over Common Core last year and others have been frustrated by our support for Education Savings Accounts/school choice this year. Consequently, I have to admit once the group assembled, I began to hear the Sesame Street classic, "One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others" playing in my head while I wondered how and where the conversation would go.

In the end, I appreciated hearing what others had to say in response to the questions posed by the facilitator, and agreed with a number of the opinions provided. In fact, I re-learned a valuable lesson; oftentimes people have more in common than not, it's finding common ground that's often hard.

Sadly, finding common ground has been made more difficult in just the last decade due to many factors culminating in political polarity unseen since possibly the sixties and the Vietnam War. Today, Americans at large seem to believe that even the slightest disagreement should be handled as Gladiators fighting to the death in the Colosseum. In fact, numerous research and articles such as, "Torn Apart: 11 Charts That Show How Americans Are More Divided, Partisan, And Ideological Than Ever Before" by Business Insider, recount this nationwide trend.

There also appears to be a general degradation of basic social skills I blame in large part on social media. In the 'old days' of my youth, until the dawn of 'texting' and email, we'd actually call people on the phone or meet face to face to discuss possibly divisive issues. Voice to ear, or face to face, it's much harder to launch into an emotion-filled, intellectually-deflated tirade, than when you let your fingers do the walking across an impersonal keyboard to a 'send' button.

I've found myself on the receiving end of unpleasant remarks from time to time over politics and opinion. Though I don't enjoy it, I attempt not to go tit-for-tat because I'm a mouth - I freely (and frequently) state my opinion - so it seems fair that if someone somewhere doesn't agree, that person has the same right as I to their own view. It seems at cross purposes to return unpleasantries with someone for their opinion when taking that path will inevitably lead to a dead end. Writing something akin to "Your mother wears combat boots" in all caps in a social media forum - or even within the confines of an email - does nothing but alienate the person on the receiving end, effectively shutting down discussion that could lead to some kind of common understanding on some level.

Everyone who reads this blog knows I self-identify as Conservative. I've very little patience for big government/bureaucratic solutions to any situation that can't be addressed on some level through personal control and/or a non-profit organization. When I first awakened politically, I considered anyone with a "D" after their name on their voter registration, the "enemy". Then I found Pat Caddell. Then I found Dr. John Thompson. Then I began to digest the fact that people are people, not the sum total of their political thought.

I remember meeting Dr. Thompson outside the Committee room at the Capitol where anti-Common Core activists/teachers/parents were testifying against the standards in 2013. He walked over to me and introduced himself as a "liberal Democrat who doesn't like Common Core". I was still in political 'stiff arm' mode with those on the 'other side of the fence' so it took me some time to find listening mode on my hearing aid, but once I did, I realized a number of things: 1. He was a really nice guy 2. He was incredibly knowledgeable about a number of issues and I gained new perspective listening to him 3. We had more things in common than I would have ever thought before actually TALKING to him, and 4. When we don't agree, I think we can do so civilly with the idea we don't dislike each other personally, we just don't agree on a specific issue.

The only cure for my deeply-rooted small government/social values bend will be the shaking off of my mortal coil. I'm not going to suddenly adopt a different internal compass to agree with someone on a point with which I simply can't agree philosophically. That doesn't mean I'm unwilling to find common ground where I can with others who don't share my political/social values.

To conclude our meeting today, our facilitator asked what we could do to support the Department of Ed - how we could support the new Superintendent. I think I voiced the notion that I would when I could and I wouldn't when I couldn't, but that was okay. Disagreeing doesn't mean I 'hate' the Department or the Superintendent, it simply means I don't agree. I also pointed out that most of us in the room wouldn't agree on a number of issues, but that debate was healthy and fostering civil discussion opened doors to understanding. It does. We just need to be sure we're agreeing to disagree, not disagreeing to the death.

Guest Post: Dr. John Thompson on ACT Cut Scores and Other Issues

GUEST POST BY DR. JOHN THOMPSON: ACT: Cut Scores and Other Issues

A recurring suggestion by good people is the proposal that the ACT replace Oklahoma’s EOIs. While I don’t think that’s a good idea, I’d like to limit this email to a couple of ways of keeping such a policy from dramatically increasing the dropout rate.

The problem is setting an ACT cut score that is high enough to be politically viable, but low enough to prevent an explosion in the dropout rate. 

I’m basing this on data provided by the ACT to Sen. Ford’s interim committee in October 2009, and it is my understanding that the ACT routinely reissues up-to-date charts with this data. Back then, 30% of eligible Oklahoma students were excluded because they didn’t take the ACT, and a disproportionate number of them would be unable to pass such a test. 

The ACT material showed that 16% of Oklahomans failed to get a 14 on an ACT. If the cut score was set at 15 then 22% would fail. If it took a 16 to pass an exit exam, then 28% would fail. Add those numbers to those in the 30% who don’t take ACT (which includes disproportionately high numbers of poor, urban kids of color) and who wouldn’t pass it, and you can see the potential disaster. 

Of course, with an administration (like that of Joy Hofmeister) that has the trust of educators, some of these problems might be addressed, quietly, and a less dangerous set of rules might be possible. But, such solutions might not be possible. (And, I've seen to pattern where policy people and educators juice each other up, pushing standards higher and higher until the targets are clearly impossible.)

That leads me back to the suggestion I made previously; I just believe that the ACT possibility makes this proposal deserve a higher priority.  The law currently allows for portfolios as an alternative option, even though that path is largely spurned and stigmatized. The better path would be to make the portfolio/project option a normative and equally respected course for graduation. 

Please think of what we would want for children who fail their EOIs if they were our own children. In poor schools, those children are subjected to repeated remediation and test prep. They basically lose the chance to have a holistic high school experience, and they lose their senior year to a focus on retaking EOIs. If they were our children, would we want a choice between an unflinching focus on passing the EOIs to a portfolio that builds on their strengths? 

I understand that money is short. Urban districts could divert the resources that have been devoted to “EOI Boot Camps,” and other remediation to project-based efforts to meet graduation requirements. That would require leadership from the State, and I believe most districts would trust the Hofmeister administration on this. But, I would also offer encouragement in terms of funding for the portfolio route.  

This week, alone, I spoke with both a Tea Party education leader and a “No Excuses” charter school leader, and we found ourselves in agreement that high-quality portfolios should become a common and respected path to graduation and parents should be free to choose that path without their children being stigmatized. I believe this could be a very popular, common sense policy that would enjoy the support of all stakeholders.

Senate Education Bills Scheduled for February 9, 2015

We're going to try and do a legislative update every week where we post the bills being heard in the Oklahoma House and Senate along with comments we might have on the bill. We can't delve into each and every bill - we just don't have the manpower - but we read what we can. There are also some we can assess right off the bat just by the title. In general, if the bill mandates local schools to add a program, we should ask for a NO vote. Only local parents should request a program or class. Please take the time to contact your House and Senate member to ask for a NO vote on those particular bills. If we have no comments in red, we either support the bill or don't have enough information to comment. Thank you!

Senate Education Committee 2/09/15

SB 18 -Loveless- task force to study admin ed costs

SB 29 - Brecheen- OSDE provide written notice of expiring teacher license

SB 50 - Smalley-lowers grade level to participate in AG courses to 6

SB 68 - Holt- allows more charters in lg cities with districts of 5000 or more-sponsored by the city

NO SB 136-Stanislawski- changing governance over online charters to " Statewide Virtual Charter School Board",and  "Negotiate and enter into contracts with supplemental online course providers"; (Charter schools are public schools and as such need to be under the purview of the OSDE!)

SB 171-Loveless-  "Flexibility for Rural Education Act of 2015"- strikes cap limit language from original charter bill -any district, tech center or college could sponsor a charter

SB 177-Halligan - increasing the income cap for eligibility from $50000 to $55000 for OHLAP;

SB 262-Paddack-Oklahoma Department of Labor, shall make available to school districts information regarding workplace safety training for grades seven through twelve. Such information shall include the Oklahoma Department of Labor's "Youth @ Work Talking Safety: A Safety and Health Curriculum for Young Workers".

NO SB 285 -Ford- aligning pre K standards to new standards The Constitution of Oklahoma does NOT specify that children should be educated until 8! We should not be perpetuating educational standards for children we have no business formally educating developmentally, and according to our Constitution.

SB 301-Loveless- allowing the State Board of Education to suspend or deny teacher certification upon certain findings- crimes

SB 302- Loveless-more Indian charters- located within the former reservation or treaty area boundaries of the tribe on property held in trust by the Bureau of Indian Affairs of the United States Department of the Interior for the benefit of the tribe

NO SB 303 Shaw/Denney - adding "age-appropriate child sexual abuse and assault awareness training - parents may opt out and will be given written notice – (STOP mandating things to the schools! Plus, once this is in school, it will be hard for parents to stop the program)

SB414 Brinkley-listing eligible schools ( religious schools) for OHLAP

NO SB 504 Jolley-- a nonprofit university offering online, competency based degree programs to be eligible OHLAP recipients (Our tax money should not be sent out of state)

SB 505Stanislawski- created in the State Treasury a revolving fund for the Statewide Virtual Charter
School Board to be designated the "Statewide Virtual Charter School Board Revolving Fund",issued by the State Treasurer against claims filed as prescribed by law with the Director of the Office of Management and Enterprise Services for approval and payment

SB 711-Sparks - forward info on teacher dismissal to OSDE

SB 763- Bass-provide foster kids guardians info on OHLAP, and eligibility

ACT Is Not The Way...

Because there will never be a legislative session begin without some kind of liberty emergency (apparently; see here and here), we're starting right away with a considerable threat to our state sovereignty brought about by a challenge to HB3399 - the bill to stop Common Core in Oklahoma.

The threat results from a kind of two-prong legislative approach. One comes from Senator John Ford through his bill SB707 and Senator Clark Jolley's bill SB784.

Senator Ford's bill says this (Section 2B1, page 4, lines 22-24)

The subject matter standards and corresponding student assessments for English Language Arts and Mathematics shall be solely approved and controlled by the state through the State Board of Education, and the corresponding student assessments for English Language Arts and Mathematics shall be solely approved by the state through the State Board of Education.

When reading a bill, understand that crossed-through text is being DELETED and underlined text is being ADDED. So what does this bill now do? The worst possible thing it could do - it puts into place the ability to use Common Core-aligned tests by removing the "corresponding student assessments" language present in the original bill. Now, standards do not have to CORRESPOND to the tests. We specifically asked for this language as whatever is TESTED is TAUGHT. We believed that if we tied the standards to the tests and the standards COULDN'T be Common Core, than neither could the tests. Ford's bill detaches the standards from the tests. This will allow Common Core-aligned tests back into use though the Common Core standards have been removed by law.

Senator Jolley's bill says this (Section 1B, lines 14-22)

Prior to the 2017-2018 school year, the State Board of Education shall consider and review a standards-based system of assessment that monitors progress toward college and career readiness for grades three through ten. Should the system of assessments align with eighty percent (80%) of the standards adopted pursuant to Section 11-103.6a of this title, the State Board of Education shall be authorized to use the system of assessments in lieu of the assessments otherwise required by this section. 

This is a problem for this reason: if Ford's bill passes, any Common Core-aligned test may be used by the state to test students. If it doesn't pass, Jolley's bill says that tests only have to be 80% aligned to standards.

So?

Enter the ACT. For months and months we have heard school administrators (and a few legislators) say they wanted to do away with EOI's and use the ACT. The argument has extended to the notion that we should do away with other K-12 tests and use the ACT because it is "college and career ready" and could be used to make sure students are on track to graduate as early as 3rd grade. Obviously, the high school tests could be used as an exit exam of sorts as it is taken by thousands of students prior to graduation in order to use the results on college entrance applications.

Here's the problem with ACT. It is Common Core aligned. Yes, ACT has a number of products - not just one test - but apparently, they are if not fully aligned, somewhat aligned to Common Core. I have done all kinds of internet searches on "ACT Common Core Aligned" and found numerous articles substantiating this claim.

ACT says, about its ACT Aspire product (under features),

• Alignment with Common Core State Standards and ACT College Readiness Benchmarks

Now, again, there are many other ACT products, but from researching their website and from reading articles about their new 'direction', it is clear that ACT products are either fully aligned or somewhat aligned.

ACT reviews the ACT College and Career Readiness Standards regularly as part of an ongoing validity process. That process, which includes analysis of the results of the 2012 ACT National Curriculum Survey^®, showed us there was a need to reformat our standards to reflect more of the language of the many sets of college and career readiness standards being used by states (of which the Common Core State Standards are one).

It's nearly impossible to say how much aligned ACT is with Common Core anymore, because the URL on their website that addresses Common Core (https://www.act.org/commoncore/) is not viewable. I found it inside an article, (HB5 and The Path To Common Core) while searching (as I mentioned above) and was surprised when I couldn't view it in my web browser.

Thank goodness I take LOTS of screenshots since all of these pages have been scrubbed from the ACT website:

 In addition, an article in the Daily Signal (Common Core: Homeschoolers Face New Questions on College Admissions) says,

In 2010, the ACT also released "The Alignment of Common Core and ACT's College and Career Readiness System" which offers assurance that the "ACT pledges to work with other stakeholders to develop strategies and solutions that maximize the coverage of the Common Core State Standards to meet the needs of states, districts, schools and students."

Please note, when you click on the link provided in the article, it goes to a broken link on the ACT website.

Bob Lang, the Director of the Wisconson Legislative Fiscal Bureau, in a document the subject of which was tagged, "2013 Act 20 Fiscal Estimate of Implementation or Rejection of Common Core Standards" writes,

According to ACT and the College Board, both the ACT and SAT, as well as the PSAT and Advanced Placement tests, align to a large degree with the common core.

And so it goes. ACT - just like SAT - will now test Common Core Standards. Certainly, this was one reason ROPE opposed the Common Core in the FIRST place - alignment of states to one set of standards tends to (and does) restrict heterogeneity so that everything from curricula to tests become sodden with "Common Core State Standards"-aligned material.

It seems reasonable here to assume that, as David Coleman (the author of Common Core) moved to the College Board from Student Achievement Partners (a division of Achieve) and began aligning the SAT (and AP courses) with the Common Core, ACT felt it had to "Join Or Die". It began diligently aligning the ACT to the Common Core to keep pace with its competitor. Once the roar of parental voices against Common Core became a din, ACT began re-thinking its move to alignment. Unable to completely re-write their tests again (a very expensive proposition) they simply, quietly, removed many of the red arrows pointing to the change in test structure for those looking at their product.

Consequently, while ACT may not appear as aligned to Common Core as SAT, the signs, statements and indications are all there that alignment has been made. This may be the exact reason for the wording of Senator Jolley's bill - 20% alignment to Common Core may be all that's necessary to pull Common Core back into Oklahoma. After all, we've not yet created Oklahoma's standards. Having the ability to use a Common Core aligned test already in STATE LAW, could it be out of the realm of possibility that Oklahoma's new standards could fall in line?

Here's the most important part of this post (possibly!). There are OTHER testing companies out there that provide tests geared toward state specifications - as well as out-of-the-box tests - that are NOT aligned to Common Core. Two of these are the Iowa Tests and the Stanford Tests. Both of these companies should be solicited to present their products before the state board. It could only serve to educate Board members, administrators and parents as to the other possibilities in the testing world.

Superintendent Hofmeister has started off her tenure well. We certainly intend to continue supporting her and working with her to the best of our abilities, we just believe research isn't a bad thing, and providing that research in order to help inform decisions can't be a bad thing either.

MORE:
Adding a few more links with information indicating ACT is Common Core aligned.

Standardized Testing in Alabama and Nationwide Thomas Rains, Policy Director December 2013

Student's Scores Low Under New State Test

College and Career Prep To Start In The Third Grade