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Utahns Against Common Core

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“It is one of the happy incidents of the federal system, that a single courageous state may, if its citizens choose, serve as a laboratory; and try novel social and economic experiments without risk to the rest of the country.” -Justice Louis D. Brandeis

Welcome to our website and petition. If you’ve never heard about Common Core, it is an initiative funded by special interests and the federal government with the goal of nationalizing education. You may have heard that these are better standards, or that the standards were created by the states, or that states retain local control over their own standards. This does not match the facts. The evidence shows that Utah has already signed away local control of education to outside entities. It shows that Common Core related initiatives violate state law. It shows that President Obama dangled a seductive carrot in the form of Race to the Top grants to get states to play jackpot with our money and after inserting the million dollar coin came up short. There is still time to right the ship if we act now and get our leaders to take action to reverse this power grab and keep control of our education system.

Please visit the Evidence page to get the full story. Once you understand the facts about Common Core, please return here and sign this petition which will be delivered to the Governor, State School Board, State Superintendent, Attorney General, and Legislators. Then please start contacting them and let them know you want out of Common Core.

If you would like to leave a comment and share your specific experience with Common Core, please visit the comments page.


What some leaders are saying about Common Core.

Common Core could highly impact a parent’s control of their child’s education and really cripple the role of local school districts. One technique in education we have yet to use, having tried all others, is freedom. -Congressman Rob Bishop

Common core is too common for Utah. We do not need regulations from outside of Utah directing our local education efforts. It is imperative that we maintain state supremacy and control of our most important resource – the children of Utah. -Utah Senator Margaret Dayton

Common core has been hijacked by Obama’s Dept of Education robbing Utah of its sovereign right to control education. -Utah Senator Mark B. Madsen

The wisest move all states could make to ensure that students learn to read, understand, and use the English language appropriately before they graduate from high school is first to abandon Common Core’s “standards”. –Dr. Sandra Stotsky, Former Asst Superintendent of MA, Current Professor at Univ. of AR

The proposed Common Core standard is similar in earlier grades but has significantly lower expectations with respect to algebra and geometry than the published standards of other countries. –Dr. Jonathan Goodman, a professor of mathematics at the Courant Institute at New York University

[A state] shouldn’t relinquish control to a consensus of states any more than the federal government.SC Gov. Nikki Haley on why their state is leaving Common Core

PETITION – Over 12,000 Signatures Strong

Based upon the factual evidence documented at www.UtahnsAgainstCommonCore.com I ask the Governor, State Board of Education, and State Superintendent to immediately take the steps necessary to rescind Common Core adoption, SBAC membership, the Race to the Top application, the No Child Left Behind waiver, and all other requirements upon the state that are related to these, and return to the Utah Core standards in use prior to Common Core adoption.

Second, I request the Utah Attorney General in conjunction with the Federalism Subcommittee of the Constitutional Defense Council, to review all documentation related to such applications and contracts as mentioned above to ensure our state sovereignty is held inviolate. I further request that this review of programs, documents, and applications, include an examination to ensure no private or personal information about students is transmitted outside of local schools and districts.

Third, inasmuch as the Utah State Board of Education adopted Common Core State Standards before they were even finalized, failed to perform a cost analysis related to statewide adoption, and failed to hold public meetings where citizens could review the actual standards prior to adoption, I request that a committee be appointed to rewrite Utah’s standards through a well-developed and transparent process that includes numerous public hearings and input from committees that utilizes knowledge-based, academic, clearly worded, grade-level specific, measurable standards from other states as models.

Fourth, give individual schools and districts full local control with the ability to adopt their own high standards, assessments, and research-based curriculum, and recognize that parents have a fundamental liberty interest in the education of their children.

Fifth, I request that a committee of legislators and citizens be formed to develop a 5-year plan to get Utah off all federal funding of education, and if the federal government threatens to pull non-education related funding away from the state as we pursue this course, that this knowledge should be made public and fought with the assistance of the state Attorney General.

Sixth, I ask that the state strengthen privacy laws and make sharing of personal student data with any state or federal entity a crime both for the one disseminating and the recipient who requested personal information.

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Organizations Against Common Core

Republican National Committee
Utah Republican Party
New York State Teachers Union
Chicago Teachers Union
Independent American Party
Heritage Foundation
Freedom Works
Liberty Central
Heartland Institute
Sutherland Institute
Heritage Foundation
CATO Institute
Pioneer Institute
American Principles Project
Davis County 9/12 Group
Utah Eagle Forum
Joyce & Dick Kinmont Family
LDS Home Educators Assn.
American Leadership Fund
Standard of Liberty
Proper Role of Government
United Women’s Forum
Principled Liberty Foundation
Citizens for Strong Families
Freedom for Utah Education
Thomas Jefferson Center for Constitutional Studies
Campaign for Liberty
Libertas Institute
Constitution Party of Utah

Protecting Our Children