Who sets state law? Well, if you work at the USOE and can get a favorable writeup from an assistant attorney general, then you just run with it and tells schools that’s the law to go by. Legislature, schmedislature.

The last few days have seen a number of crazy things happen so let me try to put things into one place as a reference for parents and legislators that you can share this with.

Parent Heather Gardner opted her children out of tests but the school apparently is relying on an opinion letter from Assistant A.G. Chris Lacombe (below) which the State Office of Education is touting, and forced her child to take a DIBELS test. Here is a quote from an interview Heather did with Libertas Institute. Emphasis mine.

“Last week our school sent us a certified letter informing us that if our children did not participate in some of the tests and computer programs we had opted out of, that we were not welcome on campus—and that if our children came to school, they would be assessed. We were informed we could homeschool and dual enroll our child for part of the day, but that our children would still be assessed, even in subject areas they were not enrolled in.

This past Friday, my 3rd grader came home and informed me that her teacher had pulled her aside, singling her out, and told her that she had to take the DIBELS reading exam. Her classmates had already taken it earlier in the week. She protested and said that her parents didn’t want her taking the test. She refused the teacher’s demand. The teacher overrode her objection, telling her that by law she had to take it.

So you have a 3rd grader—my young daughter—being forced by the school to take a test when her parents have sent in a legal opt out letter. That’s the situation we’ve been put in.”

It appears we need some criminal penalties and terminations attached to school teachers, principals, district officials, and state officials who mess with parental rights, because where there is no penalty for violating the law, there is no law. This teacher went so far over and above the spirit and letter of the law she should be terminated, and unfortunately, she’s not the only teacher. There are numerous stories from around the state of teachers who have cajoled, manipulated, and lied to students to get them to take SAGE and other tests.

SB 122 from last year lets parents opt out of SAGE and other tests. Here’s a link.

http://le.utah.gov/~2014/bills/static/sb0122.html

Here’s where the state is manipulating the law.

86          (9) (a) Upon the written request of a student’s parent or guardian, an LEA shall excuse
87      the student from taking a test that is administered statewide or the National Assessment of
88      Educational Progress.

Note the words “test that is administered statewide.” Judy Park and Jo Ellen Shaeffer at the Utah State Office of Education wrote up a policy paper to interpret the law and then went to Asst. A.G. Chris Lacombe for his approval. Their policy relies on the fact that some tests are optional for schools to choose to use and therefore not officially a “statewide” test.

The letter states that schools can require students to take SAGE interim tests (which are not required by state law), among other tests like DIBELS, ACCESS, UAA, and others.

Here is a copy of their policy letter.

USOE Opt Out Policy 2-2-15-2

Per STATE LAW, parents have a “FUNDAMENTAL LIBERTY INTEREST” IN THE EDUCATION OF THEIR CHILDREN. The law further states that the role of schools is “SECONDARY AND SUPPORTIVE TO THE PRIMARY ROLE OF A PARENT.”

Per SB 122, AKA, THE LAW, parents have the right to opt their child out USING A DOCUMENT OF THEIR OWN CREATION. It’s THEIR WRITTEN REQUEST, not the school’s documentation.

From what I understand, schools in Alpine school district are now taking parents’ documents and stapling them to their own without requiring the parent to sign theirs. KUDOS TO ASD!

Another unfortunate event for one family was to have the school tell them they were dropping their child from honor’s classes because their child was opted out of SAGE tests. Schools MAY NOT drop your child from honors classes into regular classes because your child has opted out. In fact, the law says:

73          (6) (a) An LEA shall reasonably accommodate a parent’s or guardian’s written request
74      to place a student in a specialized class or an advanced course.

Why on earth would opting out negate your ability to have your child in an A/P or honors class?

What’s the big deal about tests? Why is the state so hot to force kids into testing that doesn’t measure anything of value to the children?

Please remember this: Those are your children and these tests aren’t for them, they are compliance tests for the schools.

Why are SAGE tests particularly bad for Charter schools? Charters scored poorly on SAGE exams and in order to show better will have to change their more traditional approach to math instruction, to more constructivist fuzzy methods in order to raise their school grades. It’s a brilliant plan. The people who want curriculum a certain way get it by giving the school a grade and letting them follow the same dumb “I’ve got to get an A” mentality we make kids jump through. It’s taken me decades to understand some of this nonsense. Anyone who doesn’t should read John Taylor Gatto’s book:

Weapons of Mass Instruction: A Schoolteacher’s Journey Through the Dark World of Compulsory Schooling

If you don’t understand what the problem is with these tests, it covers a broad spectrum including behavior tracking (which the publisher of SAGE, A.I.R., specializes in), massive anxiety for students who see things they have never been taught, data collection and loss of privacy, and storage of personal information on computers elsewhere in the country.

This first video is a MUST watch. Mary Calamia, a licensed clinical social worker, testifies about the effects of computer adaptive tests just like SAGE that are being given all over the country to students and what it’s doing to those children.

“Standardized Testing is not Teaching” by Dr. Chris Tienken

Legislatively, Senator Aaron Osmond emailed me stating that these points will be addressed in legislation this session to help clarify the spirit and letter of of last year’s law.

1) A parent is not required to meet with district or school personnel to opt out of any state mandated testing

2) A parent is not required to sign a district or school form to opt out of any state mandated testing (only a written notice to the school from the parent is required).

3) The opt out applies to both formative and summative assessments. (and hopefully interim and anything else a parent deems right)

What to do now:

1) Opt your children out. You can use our form or write your own on a napkin. By law you just have to provide notice.

https://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/action-list/opt-out-forms/ (more resources and another video on this page)

2) Civil disobedience: pull your children out of school on test days. They are your kids. If the school doesn’t seem to want to honor your request, time to yank your kids out and be a parent with a spine.

3) Tell your legislators that you want penalties attached to the law that make it a criminal offense for any state worker to violate parental rights laws.

This is the next step in the federal takeover. Even private schools are about to be nailed. Please read this article on what Lamar Alexander is doing and then take the action below.

http://abcsofdumbdown.blogspot.com/2015/01/alert-esea.html

Then read this one for a list of items from the legislation itself.

http://abcsofdumbdown.blogspot.com/2015/01/lamar-alexanders-re-authorization-of.html

We already know the feds want to phase out the authority of the states. They’ve published it here:

http://www.reginfo.gov/public/do/eAgendaViewRule?pubId=201410&RIN=1810-AB16

ACTION: Contact Mike Lee, Orrin Hatch, and your representative and tell them NO WAY ON Lamar Alexander’s reauthorization of ESEA/NCLB (elementary and secondary education act/ No Child Left Behind). Ask them to DEAUTHORIZE and DEFUND all federal education programs and the Dept. of Education.

http://www.house.gov/representatives/

http://www.senate.gov/general/contact_information/senators_cfm.cfm

Ask them to support David Vitters bill (S 73): “A bill to prohibit the Federal Government from mandating, incentivizing, or coercing States to adopt the Common Core State Standards or any other specific academic standards, instructional content, curricula, assessments, or programs of instruction.”

https://www.govtrack.us/congress/bills/114/s73 (click to track the bill)

The solution to failed government programs is always “we just need a little more control.” That’s incremental socialism and how total government comes about. Total-itarian. Total control.

I would like to invite those who favor Common Core State Standards to answer these questions for me. Thus far (2.5 years+), I have been unable to get sufficient answers to these questions as to provide me any level of assurance that the Utah State Office of Education didn’t simply adopt CCSS for a shot at Race to the Top money (which they didn’t receive). Subsequently, they have proceeded to tell the public we adopted CCSS to get superior standards because CCSS was internationally benchmarked and superior to our Utah standards. This information has never been proven, and in fact, one organization’s analysis proves the contrary.

1) Will you please describe for me what was deficient in our (Fordham) A- rated 2007 Utah math standards which necessitated adopting CCSS?

USOE saw no problem with our prior D rated 2002 math standards that made it critical that we improve them in 2007, and they testified against improving them in 2006 to our legislators. Our 2007 standards have been declared better than CCSS by the Fordham Foundation.

2) What research can you show that CCSS was ever internationally benchmarked?

Here is a quote from the American Educational Research Association and contradicts the claims made by the USOE that Common Core was internationally benchmarked.

“International Benchmarking:
Wisconsin’s SEC database contains some information on content standards for other countries. In mathematics, there are data for Finland, Japan, and Singapore on eighth-grade standards; alignments to the U.S. Common Core are .21, .17, and .13, respectively. All three of these countries have higher eighth-grade mathematics achievement levels than does the United States. The content differences that lead to these low levels of alignment for cognitive demand are, for all three countries, a much greater emphasis on ‘perform procedures’ than found in the U.S. Common Core standards. For each country, approximately 75% of the content involves ‘perform procedures,’ whereas in the Common Core standards, the percentage for procedures is 38%.”

It’s even worse for Utah because of the integrated path the USOE chose to implement along with Vermont. They specifically put algebra 1 completion in 9th grade for most students so that Utah will never be on par with states or nations that put a normal path to algebra 1 completion in 8th grade. Here’s a brief writeup Ze’ev Wurman did on CCSS vs. our 2007 standards ( https://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/utah-math-is-not-accelerated-under-common-core/

Here is Dr. David Wright in BYU’s math department pointing out 8 problems with the way the USOE implemented CCSS in Utah. (https://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/dr-david-wright-vs-usoe-8-0-for-dr-wright)

3) What do you have against Utah not having better and proven standards which Fordham says are clearly superior to CCSS and which WERE specifically benchmarked to Singapore and Japan, and why shouldn’t we have adopted these in the first place? (OK, that’s 2 questions)

(ex. CA’s math standards which have a proven track record of dramatically improving math proficiency for all children including socio-economic groups and minorities.) https://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/solution-utah-should-adopt-californias-math-standards

Dr. Gary Thompson spoke at a conference last month in Idaho on testing and data collection in Common Core. Please watch this important video.

I just thought I’d point out that what we’ve been saying for so long is happening right in front of our faces. There is a concerted effort in this country by those who are in positions to wield enormous power, to centralize the education system and bring it under a common roof with their own sentinels at the “Gates” (a little pun for the observant…).

A short time ago we posted this article showing how Arne Duncan is moving to phase out the power of states to set their own standards.

Now the Obama administration is looking to control what’s happening in university colleges of education which has the effect of moving evaluations of teachers and institutions from the state level to the federal level.

“Under the new rules, teachers’ colleges would be ranked based upon how well their teacher graduates do in raising their students’ scores on the Common Core assessments…Instead of teachers’ colleges being evaluated on solid evidence of having taught students a solid knowledge-based foundation, they would be evaluated on a workforce development accountability plan set up by the federal government based upon Common Core Standards.”

Finally, Bill Gates is funding the development of specific curriculum with Pearson to be aligned to Common Core. Recall that Gates video where he says we won’t know if Common Core is successful until standards, curriculum, and assessments are all aligned? It’s all a giant experiment which is now entering the next stage of control.

Those who continue to ridicule and believe that there is no movement toward a national takeover are going to find it harder and harder to make that case. The news just keeps pouring out at a tremendous pace.

This is a must read op-ed. Then please send it to your legislators, and state and local school board members. Ask local schools and district boards to stop all use of the SAGE test in your schools except as required by state law. Ask the state board and lawmakers to completely scrap the use of this test and eliminate it from the state. It is child abuse.

You can find your legislator here: http://le.utah.gov/GIS/findDistrict.jsp

Find your local school board members on your district website.

Charter school people should contact their charter schools and tell them to drop the test or you will homeschool or put your child in a school that respects your authority over your child’s education.

Read the op-ed by teacher Debbie Nichols here:

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865614313/A-teacher7s-opinion-of-the-SAGE-test.html