Diana Suddreth, a curriculum director at Utah’s State Office of Education, sent out this email this morning in anticipation of HB 342 being presented. It went to “Curriculum Friends” all over the state. In it we clearly see the goals of the USOE. The person who sent it to me included this introductory line and copied several others in her department: “I think we all want this bill to go a different way than Diana and Syd do.”

———————- (bold and italics mine)

From: Suddreth, Diana <Diana.Suddreth@schools.utah.gov>

Date: Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 9:06 AM Subject: HB342

Curriculum Friends,

Just a heads up that today in the House Education Standing Committee HB342 (Powers and Duties of the State Board of Education by Rep. Layton) will be heard.

This bill essentially gives more power to parents over curriculum standards, would prohibit us from adopting any national standards, and would require a revision of our current math and ELA standards.

Go to www.le.utah.gov  to read the bill and find additional information should you want to take any action.  Rep. Layton has promised a substitute that will be softer but as of yet, the original bill is still on the agenda.

Sydnee Dickson, Ed. D.

Director, Teaching and Learning

Utah State Office of Education

801-538-7788

Please note Utah has a very broad public records law.  Most written communication to or from our state employees regarding state business are public records availiable to the public and media upon request. Your email communication may be subject to public disclosure.

—————————-

Well Ms. Dickson, I thought the USOE valued local control and parental input? I thought Common Core wasn’t a set of National standards? Freudian slip? True colors coming out? How dare you try to take power away from parents over what their children are exposed to and the quality of education they receive. The USOE sold us down the river in adopting Common Core for a shot at getting a federal bribe. The USOE is perhaps the most subversive agency in the state.

An open letter to Utah legislators,

HB 131- Utah’s Public Education Modernization Act seeks to put a mobile device into the hands of every K-12 student. Its price tag is conservatively estimated at $200,000 million. Realistic estimates put it significantly higher and point out that costs will be ongoing.

http://www.sltrib.com/sltrib/politics/57543035-90/million-lockhart-education-board.html.csp

This bill injures parental rights, harms the parent/child relationship and endangers taxpayers in the following ways:

1. Injures parental rights by disrespecting the parent’s primary role as educator.

a.         HB 131 imposes a one-size-fits-all, technology approach to learning that ignores the diverse approaches to learning that many Utah parent’s value. This injures the parent’s right to choose a different approach for their child.

b.         Utah parents, who do not want their child to have access to devices during the entire school day and to be required to use those devices for nightly homework, are injured by this bill.

c.         Utah parents who believe that historically proven approaches to classical educations are better than encouraging overuse of technology to “fundamentally change the teaching and learning experience” are also injured by this bill. (Quote from ProjectRed—the group pushing the bill.)

d.         Computer adaptive curricula, while appealing, also have the disadvantage of being changed without parental knowledge. Additionally, student-identifiable data collection becomes almost impossible to police.

2. Harms the Parent/Child Relationship by subordinating the parent’s authority

a.         Eliminates the parent’s right to control their child’s technology use

b.         Elevates the school’s technology policies over the parent’s technology policies (if the child violates family policy, the parent cannot take the technology away   when it is required for homework)

c.         Causes contention in families by altering the school/parent relationship. The parent and child serve the school’s needs for control, rather than the school serving the parent and child’s needs for education.

d.         Creates a power struggle between parents who disagree with technology overuse, schools who require it, and children who are tied to it

3. Makes Utah taxpayers beholden to private interests seeking to dismantle local control of resources

a.         ProjectRED is the group behind HB 131 that is seeking to put a mobile device into every child’s hands. There are questions about ProjectRED’s sponsor Intel, Intel’s relationship with IM Flash and IM’s relationship to legislators supporting HB 131. These relationships should be made transparent to Utah taxpayers.

b.         ProjectRED’s CEO Leslie Wilson said, “Regions and districts MUST consolidate…to recapture funds to reallocate to ed tech.” This edict benefits ProjectRED, and special interests who jump on the technology bandwagon, NOT Utah taxpayers.

c.         Technology is ever-changing. Costs for broken, lost, stolen, or outdated devices cannot be foreseen. Will parents have to pay for broken, lost or stolen devices? Will taxpayers be on the hook for continued upgrades which will further enrich the private interests pushing these policies?

And, in case those reasons just don’t seem good enough to legislators, let’s identify one more problem with HB 131.

The goal to regionalize local school districts and reallocate state’s funds into technology is part of President Obama’s regional equity movement—the movement to reform education by redistributing wealth.

Here’s a partial history:

President Obama delivered his State of the Union address on January 12, 2013. He touted Phase I and announced Phase 2 of his Blueprint to fundamentally transform America’s education system.

He said, “Four years ago we started Race to the Top to develop smarter curricula and higher standards.” (Common Core Standards – Phase I)

Then, he said, “Tonight, I’m announcing a new challenge to REDESIGN America’s schools so they better equip graduates for a high-tech economy.” (Resource Redistribution – Phase 2)

Utah’s State Board jumped right onto Phase 1’s Common Core, and now Utah’s State Legislature is enacting Phase 2 under the guise of House Bill 131.

The day after the President’s speech, his Equity and Excellence Commission, housed in the US Department of Education, issued a report entitled, For Each and Every Child. It said, “We present a bold new vision of the Federal Role in education….The time has come for the Federal Government to REDESIGN AND REFORM THE FUNDING of our nation’s public schools.”

Many of the players behind this federal push are simply profiteers. Please do not fundamentally alter parental rights and put Utah taxpayers in jeopardy.

Sincerely,

JaKell Sullivan

Pamela Smith has put together a fantastic video explaining exactly how your child’s personally identifiable information is at serious risk under Common Core.

Common Core Standards’ architect David Coleman, and his group Student Achievement partners, have created a text complexity metric designed to assess the progression of text complexity in student reading.[1]  The goal of this new metric is to elevate informational text above great and proven literary works. Hillsdale College History Professor, Dr. Terrence Moore detailed in his book, “Story-Killers: A Common Sense Case Against the Common Core” how the English language arts are being destroyed by this new metric which calls for “range” in texts.[2] “Range”, as Dr. Moore identifies, is code for requiring modern day, unproven and politically biased authors to be read in accelerated rates as compared to great and proven literary authors. Dr. Moore points out that this flawed Common Core reading metric actually calls for the Grapes of Wrath to be read in SECOND GRADE!!!, while a George Clooney article would be considered a “complex text” to be read in 11th grade.

In Appendix A of the Common Core Standards we find that seven reading metric companies participated in a Student Achievement Partners’ study which helped them all align their metrics to the guidelines of the Common Core creators. Page 4 of Appendix A reads, “Each of the measures has realigned its ranges to match the Standards’ text complexity grade bands and has adjusted upward its trajectory of reading comprehension development through the grades to indicate that all students should be reading at the college and career readiness level by no later than the end of high school.”

Do English teachers need a metric aligned to Common Core (which apparently most reading metric tools now are) in order to understand at what levels their students are in reading? Utah’s HB 417 assumes that they do.[3]

Utah’s HB 417 wants to spend $1 million Utah tax dollars to provide a new technology tool that will use the Common Core aligned Lexile reading metric for assessing English standards. The bill calls for the State Board, on or before July 1, 2014, to select one or more technology providers, through a request for proposals process, to provide licenses for a tool for students in grades 4-12.

HB 417  “enables student reading ability to be reported as a Lexile measure; uses Lexile measures to match reading materials and exercises to the comprehension level of readers.

Is it any coincidence that MetaMetrics, the company that created the Lexile Framework for Reading received a 3-year grant from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation?[4]

Or, that Student Achievement Partners is mostly funded by Gates?[5]

Is it any coincidence that Utah’s State School Board is being directed to use a Lexile provider for English Language Arts? What company will Utah choose?

It doesn’t really matter. They’re all the same. And, as more and more bills in Utah’s legislature are simply fulfilling the Obama administration’s goals for centralizing curriculum and data collection, we are losing all autonomy and agency in teaching and learning….

[1] http://www.corestandards.org/assets/E0813_Appendix_A_New_Research_on_Text_Complexity.pdf
[2] http://www.amazon.com/The-Story-Killers-Common-Sense-Against-Common/dp/1493623370
[3] http://le.utah.gov/~2014/bills/static/HB0417.html
[4] http://s3.amazonaws.com/metametricsinc-media/filer/2013/02/13/corporate_capabilities.pdf
[5] http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/a-brief-audit-of-bill-gates-common-core-spending/

Additional points to consider regarding David Coleman and his role in centralizing data collection in America’s education system:

• He worked with McKinsey & Co.—the international, “big data” powerhouse—which plans to acquire and then merge SBAC and PARCC, the two federally funded testing groups for Common Core, in 2014. (Utah’s testing agent, American Institutes for Research is partnered with SBAC and plans to eventually use SBAC’s test items).

http://www.in.gov/edroundtable/files/2-Presenter_Bios_8-3-10.pdf

http://www.publicschoolshakedown.org/the-global-powerhouse-designing-our-ed-reform-landscape-mckinsey-and-co

• His New York based data company, the Grow Network, was paid a $2.2 million contract to produce data studies for the Chicago Annenberg Challenge (CAC). The Grow Network’s objective was to “produce data to tell parents and teachers what test scores mean.” At that time, President Obama (then Senator Obama) was sitting on the CAC Board which paid for the contract and US Secretary of Education, Arne Ducan was Chicago’s State Superintendent.

http://www.catalyst-chicago.org/news/2005/08/18/grow-network-tells-teachers-parents-what-test-scores-mean

• He was hired to be the architect of Common Core Standards

http://time100.time.com/2013/04/18/time-100/slide/david-coleman/

• His group, Student Achievement Partners managed to change all independent reading metrics to the requirements of the Common Core. One of those is Lexile—required in Utah’s House Bill 417. At this link, Lexile explains how they “integrated their measures into Obama’s Race to the Top Assessment Program application.”

https://www.lexile.com/using-lexile/lexile-measures-and-the-ccssi/state-consortia/

• He was appointed to be the new head of the College Board. The College Board has shifted its mission—they are now desiging curriculum and  curriculum frameworks and hiring Obama campaign data experts to decide who gets to attend college by accessing massive amounts of student data through curriculum platforms and tests. The GED, PSAT, AP Tests, SAT & ACT are all being aligned to Common Core.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/02/02/Obama-s-Re-Election-Team-Invited-By-Common-Core-Architect-David-Coleman-To-Collect-Student-Data-On-Poor-and-Latino-Low-Hanging-Fruit

• See “College Board’s Curricular Coup” – A Nine-Part Series on how David Coleman and the College Board are dismantling the idea of American exceptionalism in America’s curricula and tests.

http://education-curriculum-reform-government-schools.org/w/2014/01/new-college-board-us-history-takeover-american-exceptionalism-out-flaws-in-part-1/

Someone emailed me about this article which appeared on The Blaze yesterday.

U.S. Education Secretary: Common Core Isn’t Headed Toward National Curriculum Status

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/02/23/u-s-education-secretary-common-core-isnt-headed-toward-national-curriculum-status/

In it, Gov. Herbert is quoted as saying:

Utah Gov. Gary Herbert, a Republican, supports the concept but said his state is cautious about federal encroachment.

“Common Core was designed initially by the states,” Herbert told TheBlaze. “It’s really just a common goal. It predates my time. Governors were upset about the progress of education. We’re falling behind. So states simply said, ‘Why don’t we have a common goal on language arts and math, and whoever you are in this country, when it comes to getting a high school diploma, you have some kind of minimal proficiency?’ That aspect of it was good.”

“We certainly don’t want to have the government overreaching and dictating to the states, certainly not to Utah, about our methodology, how we’re going to do it, what our textbooks are, what our testing is going to be,” Herbert said.

“In fact in Utah, we’ve passed a law to say that can’t happen. We have a law that says if any of this federal overreach somehow gets into our system, we are mandated to get out of it. I think our education, our state school board, our education leaders, we’ve always controlled our own curriculum, we’ve always controlled our own textbooks and testing. We’ll continue to do that in Utah.”

Here are some specific issues with his statements:

1) Common Core was not initially designed by the states. The common national standards movement has been around for decades. David Coleman, architect of Common Core, has clearly stated that he went around convincing governor’s to sign on. This was done long before the states got involved.

https://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/the-common-core-lie/

2) Minimal proficiency is one thing, but due to the amount of testing and tying this to teacher performance, Common Core is maximum standards, not minimal. Teachers don’t have time to do anything else. I spoke with a teacher this weekend who supports Common Core, and said she no longer has time to teach her elementary students history or art or read to them because of all the stuff she has to cover. The amount of testing has doubled and there is no time to individualize education for her students. She said all the teachers in her school are frustrated by this, and she SUPPORTS Common Core.

3) The law: SB 287 is what the Governor is referring to. I’m well familiar with this law because I wrote the draft. I put specific triggers in the bill that if any of a number of things happened, this bill mandated that “Utah shall exit Common Core.” When it got introduced, the language had mysteriously been change from “shall exit” to “may exit,” supposedly by the governor’s office request.  The teeth had been removed from the bill and now it is essentially inert. Instead of “This is Utah and if you do that we’re gone!,” it’s “Yeah, so what, we might exit if we really feel like it.”  Here’s a link to the bill. Line 53 is the neutered line.

http://le.utah.gov/~2012/bills/sbillenr/SB0287.htm

This letter was sent to Dr. Menlove on 2/17/2014. His reply is below along with my reply. Don’t ever let someone tell you that the Utah core differs from Common Core. Math and ELA standards are Common Core. Dr. Menlove acknowledges this below.

———————

Dr. Menlove,

I received an interesting email today. Evidently someone was at the capitol last week and heard you state in a meeting several times that the Utah Core has nothing to do with the national Common Core. Is this correct? I am sure this person misheard what you said because I can’t imagine why on earth would you ever state something like that? I am well aware that Utah adopted Common Core and then renamed it Utah core to try and deflect criticism, but I don’t know how openly USOE officials are disavowing any relation to CCSS. The only difference in the standards that I am aware of is that after 8 months of pressing the USOE and state board to restore cursive writing into the standards, they were added as part of the 15% additional standards we are allowed to have. Can you please explain what else makes the Utah core different from the national Common Core or is the ESEA Flexibility Waiver that Utah filed with the Feds inaccurate in the statements the USOE represented to the Federal department? I tend to put a lot more weight in source documents than I do in verbal assurances and I just want to make sure we are on the same page. I will gladly post your response online so everyone is clear on how the USOE views Utah’s Common Core adoption.

CCSS=Common Core State Standards for any who might not know the acronym.

What I see in the ESEA Flexibility Waiver to get Utah out from No Child Left Behind are the following items (and after jotting these down I quit because there were so many references to CCSS and I’m short on time tonight):

Pg. 21, “The USBE adopted the CCSS in June 2010 along with a statewide implementation timeline. Letters were sent to school district superintendents and charter directors regarding the adoption and timeline; making it clear that all LEAs would be expected to adopt the standards within the given timeline.”

Pg. 22, “Implementation efforts after the USBE adoption in 2010 were focused on communication and gathering stakeholder input. A website (http://www.schools.utah.gov/core/) was assembled providing information for parents and educators to assist in understanding the new CCSS. The following activities were the focus of our first year efforts.

• Communicate reasons for adopting CCSS to stakeholders

• Gather stakeholder input about CCSS adoption and implementation plans

…

Pg. 23 “The English language arts crosswalks follow the pattern of showing where the new standard is found in the current core and then reverses this process; showing the current standard in the new core.” (Oak note: this seems to very clearly be stating that the Utah core was being replaced by the new CCSS)

Pg. 30, “An important development is the onslaught of requests from various states, including Race to the Top states, to help them craft professional development in their states to better implement the Common Core Standards.”

Pg. 34, “Promises to Keep includes the 4th Promise: Requiring effective assessment to inform high quality instruction and accountability. With that promise in mind, Utah’s current assessment system is being adjusted to support Utah teachers as they begin the instructional transition to the CCSS prior to the administration of a fully aligned assessment system. Pilot items will be included on the summative assessment aligned to the common core and the results made available to schools but not counted in scoring.”… “In addition, Utah’s online formative assessment system’s item bank has been aligned to the common core and new common core items are being written.”

Pg. 87 is from the August 10, 2010 State Board Meeting minutes and contains this paragraph.

Pg. 91 from the same board minutes:

Pg. 127, “B. The Board shall use the Effective Teaching Standards and Educational Leadership Standards to direct and ensure the implementation of the Utah Common Core Standards.”

So again, can you please once and for all verify for everyone that Utah is in fact using the Common Core State Standards developed through the non-governmental private organizations, NGA and CCSSO? Will you please make sure your people are well aware of this?

Sincerely,

Oak Norton

———————

Mr. Norton,

The Utah State Board of Education adopted the Common Core State Standards as Utah Core Standards in Math and English/Language Arts.  I do not believe I have said anything contrary to this.  If I have, I apologize.

Thanks for seeking this clarification.

As noted previously, I continue to be willing to meet with you at your convenience to hear your concerns.

Sincerely,

Martell Menlove

———————-

Thank you for acknowledging this. Either you or some of the individuals in the USOE seem to be contradicting this, perhaps inadvertently, and declaring to legislators and the public that the Utah core is somehow different from the Common Core State Standards. I appreciate you acknowledging they are the same.

Oak

———————-

The Utah Core Standards and the Common Core State Standards are not the same.   The Utah Core Standards are much broader and contain standards for subjects other than Math and English/Language Arts.  Additionally, as you have noted, we have added cursive writing to the Utah Core Standards.

Martell

———————–

Right, the total Utah core includes subjects beyond Common Core because we haven’t adopted Common Core for those subjects, but for math and ELA which we have adopted, they are identical aside from us adding cursive to the standards.

Oak

————————

One thing I think there is also some confusion on is that apparently, you or others have represented that we are not bound to the Common Core standards we’ve adopted. Clearly our ESEA waiver application to free us from NCLB states that we are. We agreed in the document that we “agree to accept all of the standards as they are written” and we will use it as our framework and only add up to 15% more. Do you disagree with what we sent the feds in this application?

Oak

———————–

I am not sure where you find these statement in our ESEA waiver application.   I do not believe they are included in the sections of the waiver that you noted in your email.   Can you point to me where they are found?

What I do find in the ESEA waiver on page 21 is a statement by Supt. Shumway and contained in a letter dated Mach 5, 2012 in which Supt Shumway stated, “On behalf of the Board, I assert its right to complete control of Utah’s learning standards in all areas of our public education curriculum.”   Also on page 21 of the EASE waiver is reference to a letter dated March 16, 2012 from Secretary of Education Arne Duncan stating that “states, not the federal government, have the sole right to set learning standards.”

Martell

———————–

Sorry, I should have included a link for you. This is the ESEA waiver we filed, correct? The page numbers and statements below are all related to this document (clicking the link will load a pdf file).

http://www.schools.utah.gov/data/Educational-Data/Accountability-School-Performance/Utah-ESEA-Flexibility-Request.aspx

As for Sup. Shumway’s letter, that holds no legal weight. Declaring a belief in the face of a contract is meaningless.

Arne Duncan’s statement is correct. We have every right as a state to set standards. However, we set them in concrete through the contracts we have entered into.

Oak———————–

Awaiting reply 2/18/14

Problem 1: Don’t scroll down for the answer yet on how to solve this. Try to figure out the correct answer.

Problem 1 solution:  Get one of the values to 10 and then add the remaining number to get the total. So for example, you would say, “I have 8 here and 6 here. To get the 8 to 10 I would add 2. That means I have to subtract 2 from the 6 so it’s 4. So I have 10 and 4 which add to 14.”

Very intuitive, no? Try another.

Problem 2: Don’t scroll down for the answer.

I told you not to scroll down for the answer. Welcome to constructivist math.

Memorizing basic facts is evil and too tedious for children. This will no doubt build a deeper understanding as children struggle to understand math.

Dr. Gary Thompson and Ed Flint should have no problem supporting themselves in the future.

Here’s a few comments from the UACC Facebook page. Unfortunately, Utah’s infatuation with constructivist math isn’t going to stop till Common Core is replaced with quality math standards.

Don’t miss the success story of one parent using Alpine’s opt out form in her own school district. You have the right as a parent to opt your child out of the SAGE tests. Nobody can force your child to take those tests…except if you sign a contract to do it. Watch out for some charters who made parents sign on that their children will take the exams so the school won’t risk losing funding. Big brother wants your data, or else you don’t get the feds’ money.

Rebecca L. writes:

Here’s a real life anecdote:
My second grader missed almost half of his double digit addition problems on several consecutive math assignments. I sat down with him and had him do a problem for me that he missed: 37 + 26. Rather than efficiently do the problem, he rewrote it as 30+20, added those, and added 7+9 (an error in rewriting). Then he added those two sums to get his final (wrong) answer. THIS IS INSANITY. Will he do the same method for an eight digit addition problem? If they won’t use the common core math to solve multi digit problems, why are they wasting time teaching this method?

The best part is, I showed him in ten seconds how to “carry”. It is so simple to explain: This is the tens column, put the tens part of the number in the tens column. The look on his face was priceless when he realized how quickly he could solve addition problems without so many extra steps. He finished both assignments quickly and I am now confident in his ability to add. I had him add two six digit numbers and- he got it right! The first time! Without “creating” five additional steps to solve the problem.

It is frustrating to me to add unnecessary steps and make math unnecessarily tedious. It’s a fun subject! Let’s focus on mastery of a subject, rather than just focusing on “attempting” to find a solution to a math problem.

Pam W. writes:

I was appalled when I saw my 7th grade granddaughter’s math book (Common Core identified) at the beginning of the year and saw that they still had these kids drawing pictures — circles or x’s or whatever — to solve problems. We need to go back to math taught the traditional way.

Cathy D. writes:

If possible, please send me a resource site to help assist me in how to be able to refuse the math and reading common core that is being forced upon my son along with his other subjects. They are impossible to master! My son already struggles due to the lack of educating due to no child left behind! There is so much he has not learned and is in the 7th grade. But much he has also retained and mastered with the basic academic subjects. Under extreme concern for his education, I placed him in the K-12 homeschool program. They have also implemented the Common Core expecting my son to pass those lessons/tests for a student they also placed in the special ed program years ago. It is a daily fear my son will never be able to reach the learning and education required to maintain a job or career. I find it hard to assist and help as his learning coach when I myself can’t understand the work or assignment. Please tell me what I can do to get my son the education he deserves. Thank you, Ms. D

(For those of you in a similar situation to Cathy, you can consider dual-enrollment and teach your child at home with quality materials you understand and can teach. You can also get help at learning centers that thrive off curriculum that is not aligned to Common Core. Sylvan, Mathnasium, and others are places to check.)

Patricia J. writes:

I thought I’d share a positive today: We did our taxes last night (NOT the positive part!), and the lady who does our taxes every year also teaches Jr. High math (all grades) in the Weber School District. She hates CC, and mentioned that Utah is the only state NOT integrated with other states, and that leaves us without textbooks because no publisher wants to write math books for just Utah, and that makes CC even MORE difficult to teach. I told her that Alpine just released an opt-out form for SAGE, and she perked up. She said “I’m in charge of SAGE for my school, and I haven’t heard this.” I told her I copied the sentence from Alpine’s opt-out form letter and made my own for my 3 children (in K, 4th and 8th grades). She looked surprised and said, “I didn’t know you could do that!” I told her that I didn’t know if it was an option in our District but I did it anyway and my 8th grader’s VP called to ask only whether I wanted to pick her up during testing or go to an office to do work while others tested, no fuss. She said, “I need that form! I just might have to hand these out to my students!” I told her where to look on your website, and she said she would definitely be using it. I told her that my 8th grader’s VP told me that 95% of their students have to take SAGE testing in order to get federal funding, so if we can JUST get 6% to opt out, we’d make a HUGE difference! She said she would start telling parents she knew that opting out was an option, because most don’t even know that it can be done! We need to just make up a general opt-out form for SAGE and pass it around to get the word out. We’re making a difference, guys, we just need to TALK about our OPTIONS!

(Get Alpine’s form at this link. You can’t get it on their own website yet: https://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/alpine-offers-common-core-test-opt-out/)

I’ve received so many emails this week it’s hard to keep track of everything. I decided to just put a bunch of the unique articles here as a hodge-podge. Enjoy! Or maybe “Don’t Panic” would be more appropriate, especially if it was typed in large, friendly letters…

Governor appoints Tami Pyfer, Common Core Proponent, to be education advisor

http://www.deseretnews.com/article/865595473/Herberts-new-education-adviser-says-shes-terrified-and-having-a-ball.html

Common Core Rebranding Effort

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rebranding-common-core

We’ve already seen this in Utah early on where the USOE started lying to people by saying “we don’t have Common Core, we have the Utah Core.” It’s pretty blatant around the country.

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer (R) used an executive order to strip the name “Common Core” from the state’s new math and reading standards for public schools. In the Hawkeye State, the same standards are now called “The Iowa Core.” And in Florida, lawmakers want to delete “Common Core” from official documents and replace it with the cheerier-sounding “Next Generation Sunshine State Standards.”

In the face of growing opposition to the Common Core State Standards – a set of K-12 educational guidelines adopted by most of the country – officials in a handful of states are worried that the brand is already tainted. They’re keeping the standards but slapping on fresh names they hope will have greater public appeal.

At a recent meeting of the Council of Chief State School Officers, one of the organizations that helped create the standards, former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee (R) urged state education leaders to ditch the “Common Core” name, noting that it had become “toxic.”

“Rebrand it, refocus it, but don’t retreat,” said Huckabee, now the host of a Fox News talk show and a supporter of the standards.

David Coleman, President of the College Board, Architect of Common Core, loves that data

David Coleman, architect of Common Core, identifies the Common Core data collection policy as positive because of all the data mining they can do to make decisions from, including development of its economic justice project, the Access to Rigor Campaign.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/02/02/Obama-s-Re-Election-Team-Invited-By-Common-Core-Architect-David-Coleman-To-Collect-Student-Data-On-Poor-and-Latino-Low-Hanging-Fruit

Tracking & Classifying Our Children From Pre-K To College

As time goes on, more people are waking up. This time from New York’s implementation of the P20-W database which Utah already has.
http://politicaloutcast.com/2014/01/tracking-classifying-children-pre-k-college/#xQ1Go1i63mmIyvqg.99

Common Core State Standards and Autistic Students—The Shoe Doesn’t Fit

http://www.nancyebailey.com/2014/01/23/common-core-state-standards-and-autistic-students-the-shoe-doesnt-fit/

Diane Ravitch: Everything you need to know about Common Core

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/01/18/everything-you-need-to-know-about-common-core-ravitch/

The Core of Common Core Exposed by Cherilyn Eagar

http://cherilyneagar.com/2014/01/core-common-core-exposed/

The push for more school has arrived

This article says how staying in school longer is a key to good health!

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/staying-longer-at-school-key-to-good-health/story-fni0fiyv-1226816134432

This one says the normal school day is insufficient to properly implement Common Core. Sort of reminds me of the “if we just had a little more control we could fully implement [fill in the blank] correctly.”

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/time_and_learning/2014/01/expanding_school_time_can_help_implement_common_core_says_report.html

“The children belong to all of us”

Gotta love this clip. I find it fascinating that so many pro-Common Core people promote the lie that people against Common Core don’t want standards. It’s those “fringe voices about federalism and states’ rights” that are driving the anti-Common Core movement. Listen to Mr. Harvard spew forth one lie after another.

Principal Tim Farley speaks out

“I think the standards are developmentally inappropriate especially at the younger grades”

“I’d like to see Common Core eliminated from the schools and let the professionals make those decisions.”

http://youtu.be/zpI7IWY-zco

Senator Lindsay Graham to introduce a bill to stop national curriculum

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/01/31/senate-resolution-to-tackle-common-cores-threat-of-national-curriculum/

Calls to Curb Common Core in Tennessee Legislature

http://www.fox17.com/news/features/top-stories/stories/calls-curb-common-core-tn-19336.shtml

Kentucky is pulling out of PARCC which drops PARCC states down to 17

http://blogs.edweek.org/edweek/curriculum/2014/01/kentucky_withdraws_from_parcc_.html?cmp=ENL-EU-NEWS2

New Hampshire schools struggling with SBAC assessments. Teachers and principals complain.

http://www.nashuatelegraph.com/news/1027308-469/nashua-middle-school-principal-outlines-serious-concerns.html

Kansas senator running bill to keep education local and stop the feds from forcing education standards on the states.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/02/01/Kansas-Sen-Roberts-Proposes-Bill-to-Feds-in-Education-Over-Common-Core