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

Truth or Consequences - Or How Can The Department of Ed Force Your Kids To Take State Tests?

Okay, short answer....the State Department of Education can not force your children to take state tests.  Oh they can give you a long list of reasons for your child to take the state tests and some of these are even punitive, but they can not force your child to do anything against your will as a parent.  At the bottom of the blog I will tell you how and why.  Meanwhile...

I've had numerous questions from people about testing requirements for the state.  I don't know the answers to these questions, nor am I even going to call the Department and ask because I find the entire matter of high states tests disgusting.  I also find them to be completely unhelpful to any child's education to the point of being harmful and fully antithetical to the notion of local education.

First, why are children being forced to test?  A federal law implemented by George W. Bush called No Child Left Behind, a re-authorization of LBJ's Elementary and Secondary Education Act, which was written in 1964.  Since LBJ, every president has taken the original and 're-gifted' it to the American people as though there was some beneficence in the process.

• Because schools could not be trusted to create an environment of educational excellence within their own communities the federal government was 'forced' to step in and take centralized control over education.  
• Because states could get back money they had sent to the Federal Government (for a function that wasn't even theirs to administrate - education) in the form of grants and loans - including Title funds - by kowtowing to this new law, so they did.  
• Because, after all, isn't education all about MONEY and centralized control?

NCLB requires 95% of all public school students be tested in reading and math from 3-8th grade and in science at least once during elementary, middle and high school because taxpayers complained students were not learning anything in school (so, according to the feds, don't complain, you asked for it!) due to poor reading outcomes.  This testing is the primary function of NCLB because of its emphasis on 'accountability'.  Here are the reasons public school students must be tested:

• to determine all students are proficient in math and English by 2014
• to allow schools to provide a report card to parents with a school score based primarily on standardized test test results
• to determine how much of the students lack of student progress falls on the horrible classroom teacher

What does any of this have to do with Oklahoma?  Our legislators and political leaders have decided that the US Department of Education (though many will tell you is unConstitutional) is now so firmly entrenched in the American landscape that they simply cannot do anything about it and must, at all costs, go along to get along.  Yup.  That's about it.  No, we're not all that worried about the fact that we spew rhetoric saying how much we hate the DOE while simultaneously screeching, "BUT WE'LL LOSE OUR WAIVER AND TITLE 1 FUNDS!"

Now, I have heard many, many things about testing here in Oklahoma:

• If my child doesn't pass the test the school won't let them go on to the next grade (3rd grade reading - RSA - although there is a move in the legislature to stop preventing student graduation)
• If my child doesn't take the test and I take them out of school during administration of the test, the school will just test them again when they return to class
• If my child doesn't take the test they won't let them go on to the next grade 
• If my child doesn't take the test the school will get a bad grade on their report and have their money taken away - or be taken over by the OSDE
• My school will be penalized if many students don't take the test

Sadly, all of these have some faint degree of truth as far as I'm given to understand.  Yes, thanks to our state government continuing to recognize the federal DOE and continuing to take money from them for programming, our state is inexorably tied to what the feds say.  Does that comfort you?  It doesn't me.  

Here are my thoughts on the topic and you can take them and/or leave them as you desire:

• Bring your kids home to school or send them to a private school if that is something you are able to do as a family (incidentally, if you are financially equipped to do so but feel ill equipped to teach, please search the internet as there are many, many homeschooling programs out there that nearly anyone can accomplish at home such as the program we use, Classical Conversations)
• Keep your child home and hope that enough parents will join you that the system crashes entirely never to be resurrected because parents have regained control of their schools 
• Keep your child home and simply don't worry about the scare tactics and fearmongering and realize the school will not disappear completely should it make a D or F on its report card; continue to work through our legislature to stop the parental rights usurpation process that our state/nation is continuing and growing
• Keep your child home and work with the school, trying to help them understand that their only accountability is to the parents and students in the community, supporting their decision to allow parents to opt out of any and all testing (this would be my option if my kids were still in public school)
• Keep your child home and tell the school to suck eggs if they are playing the "I don't care about parents, I just care about following orders" card - after all YOU are the parent and there are attorneys out there who specialize in school law and the rights of parents (I would have also used this option!)
• Allow your child to take the tests and don't worry about it
• Allow your child to take the tests and continue to work through our legislature to stop the parental rights usurpation process that our state/nation is continuing and growing

In closing, here are some really great sources addressing testing:

OkEducationTruths is a great blog from someone involved in public schools.  They have many good posts and one is here: https://okeducationtruths.wordpress.com/tag/opt-outs/

Rob Miller, Principal of Jenks Middle School also has a blog - A View From The Edge.  You can find lots of valuable information there including this post on testing: http://viewfromtheedge.net/?p=3013

This is a video of Nikki Jones, Oklahoma Coordinator for UnitedOptOut.com https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QGzeOyCLGUQ&list=UUffrnW6WlGtduw0C7NXNWKg

Fair Test: http://www.fairtest.org/get-involved/opting-out

5 Things You Should Know About Opting Out:  http://www.takepart.com/article/2011/09/30/opting-kids-out-standardized-tests-5-things-you-should-know

What's The Fight Against Common Core Really All About?

Today I find that Mike Petrilli of the Bill Gates-money-accepting Thomas B. Fordham Institute in Ohio has been a busy bee!  He's not only been banging away at his computer blogging about Indiana and their failed attempt to rid themselves of Common Core, but writing our Governor to explain how important it is for Oklahoma to 'stay the course' and keep the Common Core State Standards in the face of 'opponents' (something he's done more than once).

His article from today, "Common Core: The Day After", was quite enlightening.  Here he scares us into believing it's just too expensive for states to stop utilizing the Common Core - particularly when you factor in all the money that would be lost to bailing states via federal Title 1 funding as states lost their NCLB Waivers.

Reading the article, I became more and more irritated as I began to internalize the notion that this whole Common Core Standards garbage has nothing to do with standards and everything to do with government itself.  As I was telling my friend Emmett McGroarty from the American Principals Project this afternoon, this is an 'us against them' argument.  This is civil rights and class warfare all rolled up into a neat little package wrapped with a complete lack of understanding of the origins of government in our country and tied with a bow of civics ignorance.

My comments on the article, I hope, indicate my full level of frustration:

Here’s what I always find interesting about your defense of Common Core Mike; why do you really care how states other than Ohio educate their kids? What difference does it make to the students in your state what Oklahoma does to educate Oklahoma students? You obviously care enough to continue writing our governor, ‘encouraging’ her to ‘stay the course’, but why?

Ohio – on its own – could create such cherry-on-the-top-of-the-standards-sundae standards, insuring ALL kids in Ohio were so well educated and so workforce competitive that families from across the nation wanted to move to Ohio just so their kids could compete in our fabulous new global economy! You don’t need the rest of the nation to be on board for you to do that!

Oh, wait, I forgot….Ohio can’t be trusted to do that. Ohio, just like every other state in the union must be overseen with a giant educational fly swatter of sorts to make them do the ‘right’ thing by their citizens, parents and students because they cannot do so utilizing their state’s educational devices.

So what’s ‘right’? Maybe we should define what ‘right’ actually is in terms of education. Yes, Fordham (Achieve, CCSSO and NGA) clearly knows what’s ‘right’ for the nation in terms of education, but is it really up to you to create that definition?

Doesn’t it seem at least plausible that people in their own states would best know that definition of a ‘right’ education for their own state? If not, then why have states at all? Why don’t we just open up all borders and allow every state to be ruled by one central government that knows the best definition of ‘right’ for the entire country?

Oh, sorry! I forgot! That’s what we’re on our way to doing now in education (and healthcare…and environmental protection…)! It is becoming obvious, however, that actual, factual, taxpaying citizens don’t like the idea of borderless states, or one large central government. In fact, I’m pretty sure most Oklahomans wouldn’t be super happy about being lumped into any one category with New York city folk. Isn’t that really what we’re seeing right now? The outcry from that notion?

The absolute worst problem with any of your arguments about Common Core, Mike, is that you have no idea about the actual nature of – not only people themselves – but the principals on which this nation was founded.

Yes, you can yammer all day about the importance of education ‘reform’ and how important ‘accountability’ is to this notion of ‘reform’, but the only ones to whom ANY school needs to prove educational relevance and accountability are those parents and students actually served by that school in that community. That was the greatest notion in all the ideals during the creation of America – the fact that no one was going to have the definition of ‘right’ for any state or individual. That the individual first, and then the state, had the best idea of ‘right’.

I find it nothing less than hilarious that, in the course of your Common Core apologetics, you began by saying, “This is ‘state led’”, intimating that states have all the Common Core decision-making process in their laps. Now that citizens, parents – and even students – have said NO to Common Core, your argument must originate from a different level. Now, the states can’t be trusted to make a case against Common Core because we’ll all end up with crummier standards. No matter what, so long as states are saying no to Common Core, you will find the Common Core monster in the closet that offsets that effort.

I love this line: “But it’s clear that many policymakers are under pressure to demonstrate that they are hearing and heeding opponents’ concerns.” I think it pretty much sums up the derision you have for the regular citizen Mike. We’re ‘opponents’ – saboteurs – reactionaries – idiots who are kicking at our leash because we’re simply too stuppid to understand that you really know what’s best for us. Gack.

Maybe it’s not the standards that are the problem here. Maybe it’s the fact that us ‘idiots’ are sick and tired of being told we’re too stupid to make decisions for ourselves and we should just shut up and listen to you and Bill Gates and NGA and Exxon tell us how to run the lives of our own children.

I truly suggest that before you continue down the road with your arguments aimed at nationalizing education (all the while saying you’re not in favor of that), you get a handle on basic civics and US History. Out here in flyover country, we don’t cotton much to being told what to do by city folk and we’re too stupid to think outside the box that holds our Constitution and our Bible. You’ll never get anywhere with us until you do.

Jenni White
Restore Oklahoma Public Education

Is Common Core MEANT to Blow Up the American Educational System?

It is no secret that, for years, public education has suffered poor outcomes.  It is also no real secret as to why, yet this is rarely ever written about.

Let's start by examining ACT scores.  It is easy to see that verbal scores began to plummet during the early 1970's and never recovered.

http://professionals.collegeboard.com/profdownload/CBS%2096%20National.PDF

It's also easy to see the lack of substantial gains in reading during a similar time period according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) -

http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/main2008/2009479.asp

Let's think.  What was happening during the early 1970's other than bell bottoms and muttonchops?  Most probably, the falloff of something that happened in 1965 when the first Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) was signed into law by LBJ.

Because government never shrinks, the ESEA of 1965 that took up only about 30 pages in a typewritten journal and contained 'only' 605 sections, has increased to literally hundreds of electronic web pages and over 9,601 sections today.

What does this situation have to do with education 'reform'?  According to "Federal Compliance Works Against Education Policy Goals"

"...fiscal and administrative requirements often lead to expensive and time-consuming compliance processes that are not related to improving student achievement or school success."

Lindsay Burke reports in "The Dead Hand of Education Reform", that,

"...while the feds provided just 7% of education funding, they accounted for 41% of the paperwork burden imposed on the states..."  

In fact, according to a personal communication from Representative Scott Martin, the House Appropriations and Budget Chair, Oklahoma's federal Title 1 funding amounts to the figures below.

Program Title                                    FY-14 Federal Award

Title I                                                     $148,119,558

Migrant Education                                        13,204

Migrant Education                                  1,507,155

Neglected and Delinquent                      334,901

Migrant Consortium                                    60,000

Title I School Improvement                    247,691

              Total                                                      $150,282,509

And these are just dollars that go to satisfying compliance with ESEA.  What about federal funding applied for and accepted by our State Department of Education (OSDE) for various federal grants and programs - money that grows the OSDE but does not put money into classrooms?  Well, since the State Department of Education is not in compliance with the State's Sunshine Law, it is hard to report a verifiable amount, however I wrote this last year:

The day the A-F rules disapproval passed the Administrative Rules and Government Oversight Committee, Governor Fallin issued a press release supporting the rules and the SDE touted their receipt of nearly 7 million dollars in School Improvement Grants (SIG) to be used for "turning around" schools graded as 'failing' under the NCLB Waiver-prescribed A-F grading system.

Did that money go into the classroom?  No, it went to satisfy the mechanics of a program (SIG) demanded by the Obama Administration in the Waiver - one of the Four Pillars of Education reform we have outlined before.  In addition, Dr. Barresi also applied for and accepted a State Longitudinal Database grant in order to satisfy another of the Pillars.

Obviously, our state (like many in the nation) spent a lot of time writing and administrating federal grants to help subscribe to the federal government's notion of what state education should be.  So heavy handed has the federal government become in Education, that U.S. Senator Lamar Alexander recently lamented,

...the United States Department of Education has become so congested with federal mandates that it has actually become, in effect, a national school board.  States must come to Washington for approval of their plans to educate their students.

Part of this phenomena is simply 'big government creep', however, I have begun to believe this is more serious.

Though many do not like to compare Health Care Reform with Education Reform, there are several parallels:

• Health Care Reform was a completely top down, univited usurpation of one's individual right to choose how best to medically care for themselves via a federal law full of moving parts.
• Education Reform (Common Core, School Turnaround, Teacher-Leader Effectiveness, State Longitudinal Database System) was a completely top down usurpation of parental rights to choose the education best for their children via state-invited federal interventions such as No Child Left Behind, Race to the Top, No Child Left Behind Waivers and State Fiscal Stabilization grants.
• Health Care Reform requires lots and lots and lots of data.
• Education Reform requires lots and lots and lots of data.

That said, there are those who believe "ObamaCare" was made to be so difficult to navigate in an effort to crash America's current health care system.  The thought here is that if it becomes too hard to get health insurance, the public will clamor for SINGLE PAYER and just let the government handle the whole ball of wax - none of these silly exchanges - no, we'll just move America over to the same side of the abacus as England and Canada and nationalize health care.  After all, we're of socialist stock (eye roll).

I believe this is exactly what is happening to public education in America today when I look at the recent history of education 'reform'.

• First; you claim America education is failing.
• Second; from the start, you act as the hand of benevolence by reaching out to states in their time of monetary need with 'free' money to keep education programs running (State Fiscal Stabilization Funds) where you hook states into a four pillared education reform system that includes national standards and state longitudinal databases.
• Third; you play on America's competitive spirit by offering states a grant where you can Race to the Top of education accountability and results, providing money through a program that continues to perpetuate the four pillars of education reform.
• Fourth; you do NOT re-authorize the existing ESEA, but instead, go around Congress completely to create waivers for the worst parts of the law (such as the part where ALL children must be 'proficient' in English/LA and Math by 2014).  This, in essences creates your own ala cart law menu that keeps states hooked into the all-important four pillars, but also adds something called "accountability measures" for schools such as Third Grade Reading Retention programs, A-F grading scales and teacher accountability measures.
• Fifth; you spend 6 years selling the plan to legislators while managing the whole scheme from behind the curtain of private, non-profit organizations within which taxpayers have no representation, propping up the system with huge infusions of cash from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and big business such as Exxon/Mobile and 'happy to help' players such as the US Chamber of Commerce.
• Sixth; after you have states on their nationalized educational track through your promoted "pillars", you scare states into keeping all their 'accountability' measures by threatening their Title 1 funding.  Though states/districts have no idea what will really happen to them if they don't go along, states take the waivers and in exacting the instructions, districts self-destruct trying to figure out how to keep pressing the bar for their money like a lab rat for its pellet. *Teachers are afraid of having test scores held against them to the point of losing their jobs so they turn on administration.  *Administrators turn on parents who are told they must implement 'reform' measures and that they can't opt out of state tests the A-F grading system utilizes scores to create school grades (page 9) without forcing complete ruination of their school; 

• Schools are expected to test 100 percent of eligible students enrolled in that school during the testing window for every OSTP exam for which they are eligible, regardless of FAY status. 
• Schools that do not test a sufficient percentage of eligible students will be penalized as follows (all percentages are rounded to the nearest whole number): 
• The school’s Overall Letter Grade will be reduced by one whole letter grade if fewer than 95 percent of all eligible test records have valid scores. 
• The school’s Overall Letter Grade will automatically be reduced to an “F” if fewer than 90 percent of all eligible test records have valid scores.

• Seventh; you collect lots and lots of data by digitizing the Common Core State Standards states had to take to get an RTT or Waiver, then, you pay two testing "consortia" to create digital online test questions that will align so perfectly that everyone who looks at the scores will be able to tell which standard the students got right and wrong on their exam.  Since we so admire the European system of everything including schooling, can't you believe this will imagine an end result that sounds like, "Sorry Johnny, you can't be an engineer because you missed several math-related test questions indicating you are not engineer material."  You also collect all kinds of miscellaneous data for federal programming such as the "Safe and Drug Free Schools" that includes very detailed information on discipline incidents (that, by the way, don't just fall off the internet when your child needs a clean record for college and career applications!).  You then use this information against schools when they decide they are dumb enough to come crawling back for more money and or 'waivers' from existing unconstitutional federal education laws to further put the screws on them to get what you want.

Unfortunately, we are now so fully entrenched in the idea that the federal Department of Education has power over the states that the Secretary of Education seems to believe it too - pulling Washington state's NCLB waiver as though he had the power to create a waiver from existing law in the first place - as though he wasn't somehow picking and choosing among states to beat first with his government stick.  

Until enough participants in the House and Senate decide they've had enough of unconstitutional government, this won't change soon.  Maybe that's why homeschool is growing by leaps and bounds.

No Common Core, No Measured Progress During Re-Write of State Standards

There has been great controversy over the Common Core State Standards, but when did this controversy begin?  I think that's a very important question to ask.  Those of us who oppose the standards have been called everything from "conspiracy theorists" to "fringe groups".  Why such name calling?

In 2011, ROPE wrote it's first paper outlining the Common Core State Standards and the history that had lead up to their installation in state law in 2010 through SB2033.  We have learned many things about the initiative since then, but with over 100 citations, there is a lot of information there to provide a corroboration of our concerns.

When we began following the Common Core in 2010, very few parents we spoke with had ever heard of them - they had never even been mentioned in their school.  It's important to point out here that neither had a large number of lawmakers when we went to them to explain our thoughts on the initiative.  ROPE's Facebook page, when started in 2010, had fewer than 200 "likes" and fewer than 100 weekly page views.  Today, we have nearly 4K "likes" with weekly page views exceeding 60K some weeks.  Is that simply because we've been out there since 2010, or is that because parents are finally seeing the fruits of the Common Core as it becomes instituted in their schools and their children have had to navigate this system?

The more parents who see the work their children are doing in school under the Common Core - and the associated testing - the more parents are awakening to the idea that, no matter their protests, teachers and administrators tell them they have no control to address their concerns.  In fact, the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan has ascribed complaints to,

"...white suburban moms who - all of a sudden - their child isn't as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn't quite as good as they thought they were."

I have been a classroom teacher.  So was my mother.  One of the biggest struggles in our careers was the fact that underperforming kids were allowed to move forward by every administration for which we worked.  In fact, I was called a racist (which, if you know me is hysterical!) by a parent because her basketball player son was flunking my Environmental Biology class though the kid put his feet up on the desk and slept nearly the entire class period.  Did the principal stand up for me and force the kid to complete the class with a passing grade?  No.  The child was removed from my class because his mother was upset and he was a star basketball player and the principal didn't want a confrontation with the parent.

There are rare few teachers I've spoken with who haven't had this happen to them.  Classroom teachers - by and large - want kids to learn the material and move on.  Principals and superintendents, however - by and large - seem to be more concerned about rocking the boat with parents and as such, tend to throw teachers under the bus.

Obviously, there is enough blame in the system to go around for ill-prepared high school graduates.

Why do these factors - which could all be addressed separately by the community/district - force the state into an entirely new set of standards meant to be tested to the nth degree in order to keep students and teachers accountable?  Why do principals and superintendents not need such accountability?  Oh, that's right, they have CCOSA. (Yes, and teachers have OEA/NEA/AFT - again, enough blame to go around.)

In the face of the current blame-game environment, why should Oklahoma continue to use PASS during the interim in which new standards are being developed?

• 1.  The CCSS were not to be fully implemented until the 2014-1015 school year.  Some schools have fully integrated with the standards, but many have not.  Why should schools not yet in CCSS alignment continue moving toward CCSS use, if it has been agreed the CCSS will be repealed from law and new standards written?

• 2.  Though districts have spent a good deal of money on teacher training and technology in preparation for the CCSS, these investments will continue to yield benefits to schools and students outside that realm.  How could this be considered wasted effort?

• 3.  Oklahoma has made consistent gains in the number of students graduating high school and in overall math and reading scores from 2003 to 2011 - utilizing PASS, not CCSS.  CCSS were untested and untried prior to adoption in Oklahoma.  Why continue standards with no idea how students will fare when we have many years of data that indicate gains in student achievement under PASS?

• 4.  The Thomas B. Fordham Institute graded every state's standards against CCSS.  Oklahoma received nearly identical grades for PASS as Common Core(English/LA B+/Common Core B+:  Math B+/Common Core A-).  It is important to note that Thomas B. Fordham was given millions of dollars by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to support the Common Core.  Dr. Sandra Stotsky has testified that, because of this, Fordham altered its evaluation scheme to make the Common Core look better.  What then does that say about the rigor of PASS?

• 5.  The testing company, Measured Progress, contracted by the State Department of Education to test for next year's implementation of the CCSS is a sub-contractor to PARCC - the testing consortia given federal (ARRA) funds to develop CCSS assessments.  Why would we continue a 35 million dollar testing contract to assess CCSS when we will not be using CCSS in the classroom?

• 6.  It is our understanding that Oklahoma owns the PASS-aligned test bank created by the previous vendor, CTB/McGraw Hill.  Returning to these tests (with PAPER AND PENCIL not computers) in the interim could only be substantially cheaper than creating an entirely new test for two years during which new standards would be written which would also require new tests.  If implementation of CCSS will be halted, why not return a substantial portion of the 35 million to the classroom where it is better utilized?

• 7.  Individual student results collected from CCSS-aligned assessments are mapped with the digital CCSS database creating a personally identifiable record of each individual student's abilities in each tested Common Core standard.  Without tracking each individual student via a longitudinal database, Oklahoma has been gaining ground over the last 10 years.  Why collect such specific data for each individual student predicated on the notion it will improve student readiness for college and career?  How can this notion be corroborated? 

• 8.  When Oklahoma applied for its No Child Left Behind Waiver, we took the option of CCSS because the standards had been placed into state law and adopted by the state School Board in 2010/2011.  There was a second option (B); that of creating our own standards and having them certified by a "network of institutions of higher education (IHE)" in the state (page 15).  In fact, the Waiver itself tells us (page 17),

• "As our State transitions to the CCSS, our generational commitment to the 1991 Administrative Code can serve as a legacy to remind us that college-, career-, and citizen-ready learning standards have long been at the core of what Oklahomans expect for their children." (210:35-3-61, effective 5-17-9)

• The Waiver acknowledges the PASS (present in 1991) were college and career ready standards.  It would be easy, therefore, to negotiate Oklahoma's waiver retention based on this, and the Thomas B. Fordham PASS/CCSS comparison.  If PASS/CCSS are really not substantially different, how could they not qualify as "college and career ready" per the Waiver?

I will be writing more on this topic later, but please, study up.  We'll need your help soon.