The Federal Government is clear that they are “phasing out the authority of states” over standards and tests.
ALL they needed to accomplish their goal was: 1. States to voluntarily adopt national standards 2. States to voluntarily align their tests to the standards
We have done both.
Because you have joined in a resolution supporting state sovereignty with the Governor and legislature, I hope you will take seriously your elected responsibility to evaluate the wisdom of joining into the 3-year federal ESEA/NCLB Waiver, as well as your support for ESEA Reauthorization.
Please ask yourselves what will happen to Title 1 schools, and all schools, after the “phase out” is complete.
Why do both the NCLB Flexibility Waivers and the new ESEA Reauthorization mandate district public school closures and the expansion of Charter schools? Could it be legalized plunder? This entire saga has already played out in urban cities like Chicago where Rahm Emanuel and Arne Duncan have welcomed corporate-owned charters with open arms. The result has devastated whole cities and communities. Families are left to struggle when their neighborhood school is shut down because of “low test scores” (which is manufactured crisis, by the way) and no plan is set forth for where children are to go instead. Sure, they can try and get into a charter across town. But, then one sibling gets in and their brothers and sisters don’t. This creates fractured families and fractured communities. Please read the news stories out of Chicago.
SeattleEducation2010 said it best : “The phasing out of Dyett, one of 17 schools that the Board of Education voted to close or turn around last winter, highlights a process being played out across Chicago—the dismantling of neighborhood public schools, the ushering in of corporate-controlled charters and, in many cases, the gentrification of predominately African-American and Latino neighborhoods. Closing schools, like tearing down public housing, has proved an effective way for Chicago’s rich and powerful to push out and further segregate people of color.”
Please read Anita Hoge’s article below and evaluate if we are headed down the right path for Utah. Anita was recently shut out of testifying in Congress against the pending ESEA Reauthorization.
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.
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.
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:
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.
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.
Senator “Let’s-Don’t-Talk-About-Common-Core” LaMar Alexander has proposed a bill to amend ESEA (No Child Left Behind Act) in order “to restore freedom”. The bill is called the “Every Child Ready for College or Career Act of 2015“.
QUESTION 1: Would LaMar’s bill restore “consent of the governed” to education and to student data mining?
Fact 2. There’s a federal testing system comprised of Common Core aligned, synchronized testing partnerships: PARCC, SBAC, and AIR. This violates Constitutional separation of powers since the federal government has no business in state-directed educational affairs such as testing.
Fact 3. There’s a corporate cartel of educational technology and text sellers (Pearson Inc, partnered with Gates/Microsoft, etc) advising the federal testing system. This violates the Constitutional principle of agency; individuals and states are coerced to use certain corporations’ products with federal approval.
QUESTION 3: Would LaMar’s bill restore a diverse exchange of academic ideas to the American textbook and technology market?
QUESTION 4: Would LaMar’s bill create fairness and freedom for non-Common Core aligned education providers?
Fact 5. Because Common Core standards are copyrighted, states (voters, teachers, you and I) don’t get to vote on them. There’s no amendment process for any state to alter Common Core Standards nor the Common Education Data System (CEDS). Federal promotion and partnershipping with those who copyrighted nonamendable standards, violates states’ rights and consent of the governed.
QUESTION 5: Would LaMar’s bill move us away from these chokehold national standards and restore individual agency?
Fact 6. Both Republican and Democratic politicians are hacking at the limbs of the Constitution openly, aiming to phase out the authority of the states and of parents regarding educational authority, privacy and other issues. Aiming to “phase out the authority of states” is blatantly unconstitutional.
QUESTION 6: Would LaMar’s bill stop the Department of Education’s agenda to “phase out state authority”?
Now, to the bill.
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I knew from page one that this was going to be a big, fat two-tongued document because the bill’s purpose statement: “to restore freedom” conflicts with its own title: “TheEvery Child Ready for College or Career Act of 2015“.
This bill by its title and throughout its text cements the Common Core Initiative into federal law without once using the term “Common Core”. How?
Did you know that the phrase College and Career Ready has been repeatedly, federally and corporationally defined in multiple places as only Common Core. (See College and Career Ready definition: the Dept. of Education defines college and career ready standards as “standards common to a significant number of states.” There is one thing that meets that definition. Anytime you see “college and career ready,” run; it equals only the Common Core.
Can a bill claim to restore freedom while it promotes the exact, synonymous term that takes freedom in education away?
On page three I found red flag #2: “Close the achievement gap between high and low performing children“. It’s another way of saying “everyone has to be the same at any cost– even at the price of slowing or dumbing down high achievers.” Posing as fairness, it’s precisely the opposite, as nonsensical as the Handicapper General in Harrison Bergeron. ( The funny, tragic short story of Harrison Bergeron is online if you haven’t read it.)
The bill explains how money must be allocated to ensure that the achievement gap-closing happens. The Harrison Bergeron-ian “fairness” will be enforced with (our) tax dollars in federally set ways.
On page 8 we learn: States will have to create a peer review board with the purpose of promoting “effective implementation of the challenging State academic standards“. A mandated review board will promote implementation of Common Core, the very thing so many hope to eradicate. Note the slickness: later on the same page, it says: “with the goal of supporting State- and local-led innovation”. It’s pleasant sounding, but it’s a lie; one can’t support local innovation while implementing centrally controlled, Common Core standards on a federally mandated review board.
I already don’t want to read the rest of the 379 pages. I’m only on page 8.
Next is a section called “State Plan Determination, Demonstration and Revision” which makes me wonder: why should states demonstrate to the federal government, when education is not in federal jurisdiction? (Calling for “accountability” without authority to make that call should always raise eyebrows. I’m envisioning Emperor Arne being fed grapes while the Constitution is being used as bird cage liner.) This gets worse when the bill says that the Secretary of Education can decline to approve a State plan (pages 8 and 9) and that the Secretary of Education would withhold funds from states who don’t comply. (page 12) This is clearly out of harmony with the bill’s stated purpose “to restore freedom” as well as being out of harmony with the U.S. Constitution.
Page 13: The same standards have to be used throughout the entire state. They have to be aligned with state college standards. (They can’t be lower, but they can’t be any higher, either, than the worst of any state college. They can’t align with any unusually high private university standards.) This control freakishness –and this obvious dumbing down, may succeed in closing that achievement gap but only by harming high achievers, it seems to me.
Page 16: In complete contradiction to pages 8 and 9, this section says that the Secretary has no authority to supervise or direct state standards.
Page 17: Here we go with the assessments. Every state must use standardized tests aligned to the college-and-career-ready standards (Common).
Page 20: Here we go with the data collecting: tests must “produce individual student interpretive, descriptive, and diagnostic reports… include information regarding achievement on assessments… provided… in an understandable and uniform format” [meaning, I am sure: Common Educational Data Standards and SIF interoperability formats, which preclude strong privacy protection].
The data collected must be disaggregated, says the bill, by state and by school using these factors: gender, economic status, race, ethnicity, English proficiency, disability, migratory status, etc., but will not be personally identifiable. (Hmm. On page 20 they just said tests must report on “individual interpretive, descriptive and diagnostic reports.” How is that not personally identifiable?)
On page 34 I’m troubled by this: “achievement gaps between each category of students described“. So they will divide and label student achievement groups by race, by gender, by ability, by economic status, etc. to further identify groups.
On page 35 the bill identifies schools that must be “turned around”.
On page 37 the state assures the federal government that it will participate in the NAEP test for 4th and 8th graders.
On page 39 the bill mandates uniform state report cards.
On page 54 the “Local Educational Agency Plan” mandates identifying students and identifying achievement gaps. The plan also funds HeadStart or other government preschools.
Page 66 tells states how they have to spend any unused money.
Page 99: Grants for Common Tests: The Secretary of Education will give grants to pay for tests and standards, if the states are working in partnership with other states.
Page 101: Summative, interim and formative tests will be developed or improved. (More Common Core testing, more frequently, and more in disguise–as practice or as assignments, rather than traditional end of the year summative tests.)
Page 111: “At risk” students will be indentified, intervened, and reported.
Page 117: If there is failure to reach consensus, the Secretary of Education is empowered to act on his own with the “alternative process” that “if Secretary determines that a negotiated rulemaking process is unnecessary...” he simply tells Congress (not asks, tells) –and then he does his own thing, allowing for public comment afterward, and then, finally, makes it an official regulation. I hope people are reading this.
Page 135: Here the states are told the conditions by which they will make subgrants to schools and to teachers.
Page 145: This fulfils Arne Duncan’s dream of replacing family with school as the centerpiece of life and community, “providing programs that…extend the school day, school week, or school year calendar.” Remember what the Secretary Duncan said in his Charlie Rose interview? This is his one minute video:
Page 153: “Secretary may waive” requirements. So this may be a Congressionally vetted law, but it’s more of a suggestion than a hard and fast law, always subject to the whims of the Secretary. This is repeated on page 224: “The Secretary may waive any statutory or regulatory requirement… with respect to charter schools.. if.. Secretary determines that granting such a waiver will promote the purposes...”
Page 163: Grant recipients must provide data to the federal Secretary of Education.
Page 226: On Charter Schools: “support the opening of… replication of… charter schools… expansion of high quality charter schools”.
Page 229: “A description of how the State will actively monitor and hold authorized public chartering agencies accountable… including… revoking the authority of an authorized chartering agency based on the performance of the charter school… in areas of student achievement… and compliance”.
Page 249: The Secretary of Education can take money out of the charter school’s reserve account if the grant wasn’t used in “carrying out the purposes” of the Secretary.
[On and on and on the bill rambles about charter school expansion and federal controls on the charter schools. Endless pages are devoted to charter schools. Why the increased interest of the federal government in supporting charter schools? Because charter schools don’t have elected school boards. The ruling bodies of charter schools are appointed, not elected. In some places, philanthropists and huge corporations are administering charter schools –with zero accountability to any parent or any voter. This is education without representation! This is why the Obama Administration is pushing to identify and “turn around” “low performing” public schools and turn them into voter-untouchable institutions of the cartels and governments who benefit from that kind of power.] I happen to have one child who attends a charter school and I know from personal experience that the board is under no obligation to listen to any parent, and no parent can vote a board member out. You’re just lucky if the board happens to be made of people with whom you share values and goals for children.]
Page 268 talks about using magnet schools to desegregate “students of different racial backgrounds”. I don’t agree with redistribution by government force of anything– not money, not teachers, not not principals, not standards, and not students of different races. But the Department of education does.
Page 276 “State Innovation and Flexibility“: think about the way that title rations liberty. What would the founding fathers say about the federal government creating a document with a section heading titled like that? States are allowed to have some innovation? Some flexibility? Those are sub-particles of a rationed freedom, not freedom at all.
Page 297: “Indian, Native Hawaiian, Alaska Native Education” – This part has me confused. Someone please comment below if you understand it. Why would the federal government spend pages and pages and pages outlining different rules for these specific minority groups? Not just a few— a LOT of pages.
Page 369: “Participation by private school children and teachers” – By definition, private school children and their teachers are to be left completely alone by the government; that’s what private means. Why is this federal law taking the effort and time to mention them? If, according to page 92, the Title One funds follow the private school child to his/her school, then the government will be taking reports, data mining, and putting out mandates as well.
The answer to each of my six questions, from the top, is “no”.
The stated purpose of the bill is “to restore freedom”. Does this happen? No.
The bill –without even using the term “Common Core” a single time, works to cement Common Core. It supports more common tests and emboldens the collectors of both academic and nonacademic personal student data (without parental consent), will intrude on private schools; and decreases representative school decision making by replacing a large number of public schools with no-elected-board, no-vote-allowed, charter schools; all under the banner of equitably meeting student needs and “closing an achievement gap.”
Please do something positive: tell your senators and reps to help push an actual freedom-granting bill in education.
I learned with gratitude today from Utah’s Mia Love that she is working with Rep. Joe Wilson on a bill “to allow states to opt out of Common Core without being penalized.” Support Mia Love. Write to her. Rep. Wilson, too. Please call other Congressmen and ask them to work with her and support her.
David Vitters’ bill, too, sounds a thousand times more honest than Alexander’s ESEA “Every Child College and Career Ready Act of 2015″.
Vitters’ bill (S73) is “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 )
—But LaMar Alexander’s ESEA? No.
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End of Christel’s Article. Here’s an action item someone posted to Facebook.
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Dr. Sandra Stotsky has been challenged to explain how Common Core is built into the re-authorization of ESEA. “Very simple,” she states.”The bill builds in Common Core in a clever way–by putting the “Plan” for academic content standards in each state in the hands of its DoE. Moreover, not only does it put control of the “Plan” into a state’s department of education, it also excludes development and review of the “Plan” by academic experts at the college level. Very clever language contributed probably by Fordham.”
The Bill states, “…peer review teams shall reflect a balanced representation of individuals who— (I) have practical experience in the classroom, school administration, or State or local government; and (II) have been a direct employee of a school, local educational agency, or State educational agency…”
People who care about the security and defense of this country need to contact:
Let them know you don’t want any bill re-authorizing ESEA at all. We want ESEA sunsetted after extensive national public discussion of how to educate low-income children without damaging them further and all of public education K-20 at the same time.
Until Feb. 2 Alexander has an email set up for feedback: FIXINGNCLB@HELP.SENATE.GOV Request repeal of ESEA/NCLB….it cannot be fixed.
PLEASE SHARE IT.
Sen. Roberts’ bill won’t do a thing to get at ESEA. The problems are in the re-authorization of ESEA. Very cleverly hidden.
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.
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.
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.”
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 am gravely concerned about the “emergency vote” that was taken by the board last month, which decreased the amount of student data privacy protections that were previously in place, in order to cater to corporate education vendors, and in order to align with unlawful federal regulatory changes to federal FERPA– which harmed parental rights and student privacy, giving third party vendors unwarranted trust and access to student data. Where were the student advocates and parent testifiers, when the corporate testifiers had their day to speak and to influence this board?
I request that the “emergency vote” be immediately dismissed as unethical and unlawful, because it aligns exactly with the unethical and unlawful alterations that the Dept. of Education has made to family privacy rights without Congressional approval. I request that a deep and probing study be taken on this weighty issue prior to a vote. Allowing vendors this easy data-access aligns with the abuses of the Department of Education, and are not in harmony with vital principles of individual rights, family rights, and freedom from essentially handing oversight of education and student records to unelected vendors.
Christel Swasey
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(I’ll keep you posted.)
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Utah Rep. Jake Anderegg
Why I wrote the letter?
I compared the student privacy protection bill that Utah Representative Jake Anderegg is running right now, with the summary of a recent public hearing –in which corporate education vendors pushed for decreased student privacy and for increased student data sharing. I realized that the fight is truly going on right now in Utah. Most people don’t know the fight is on; it doesn’t make news headlines, though it should. So few people speaking up. And the board assumes it’s okay with all of us to keep loosening and loosening student data protections.
Should students and families maintain individual rights over student data privacy or not?
Which side are you on?
Have we as an informed electorate, as neighbors, and families and friends, discussed what happens when students and families do –or do not– have data privacy protection? These are weighty matters with long term consequences.
The board’s having had a seemingly quick and one-sided “hearing” followed by an “emergency vote” seems hasty and even dangerous.
Let’s think and talk and debate thoroughly before we automatically align with corporate agendas. Let’s ask ourselves how these alignments and their possible unintended consequences may affect our children in the long term.
Both the bill and the summary report are wordy and un-reader-friendly, true. But we can’t know what side to support if we don’t study it out. So here are the links and abbreviated screenshots –of the two sides– to get started.
Anderegg’s privacy protection bill calls for increased privacy protections, particularly in reference to third party vendors:
The corporate education vendors call for decreased privacy protections. They say that the former provision that a school/district was to be the only entity authorized to collect and store school records is “overly restrictive and does not allow Third Party Ventors to collect and access records…. the rule does not reflect the actual practice”.
(If it does not reflect the actual practice, that is because federal agents have been unethically altering what Congress held the sole right to alter: Federal FERPA privacy law. Do we in Utah want to align with federal abuses, in order to cater to education vendors? Sure, the vendors testify that it’s a great idea. It makes their businesses run better. But the board ought to place the needs and rights of students and their families above corporate education vendors. Who is advocating for individual privacy rights for children at the corporate level? Nobody. The businesses want that data, and they don’t want to be inconvenienced by parental or student rights.)
Here’s the link to that report (and the first two pages, screenshots).
Here’s my “explain it to a fourth grader” summary of the situation: “When the government lets business people run the schools, the business people want to store records of what students do, so the government says OK. It is not good because the voters lose power over their rights. Voters can change the laws of government and can un-elect those we’ve elected to govern schools, but we cannot influence what business people do nor who gets to run businesses, by our vote. We have no control over them. That gives them control over us and over our records/privacy rights. We need to keep control of ourselves, our children, and our privacy rights. We should not give business people power over our schools, no matter how nice they are. “
You really must check out the link below and download the 187 page, single spaced, one item per line list of everything the feds are going to collect on kindergarteners and first graders. The list is unbelievably long on things you won’t believe unless you read it. The partial list below just can’t do it justice till you see the document.
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If a parent wants psychologists, researchers, doctors or businessmen studying his/her child, and the parents gives written consent, I have no problem with that.
I do have a very big problem with researchers, businessmen, politicians and others studying children without parental consent or knowledge. That’s 1984-style creepy. That’s government believing it’s bigger and more valid than those who created it.
The NCES, also known as the National Center for Educational Statistics, a federal branch, is so hungry for data on kindergarteners (and on everyone else, for that matter, that it worries me. People aren’t aware of what NCES is aiming to do. Nobody’s fighting in a meaningful way to protect children’s and family privacy rights. Federal FERPA laws that were supposed to protect student and family rights were shredded a few years ago. Data is the new oil, the new gold, those who want the data are desperate to get it, and they are getting it.
What are they getting?
If you click on this link, you will find a pdf with 187 PAGES of data points that NCES plans to collect on our kindergarteners. That’s not 187 points of data, but 187 pages of points of data. Medical data. Home data. Racial data. Academic data. Behavioral data. Data on children’s weight, household marriages, poverty levels, cohabiations, occupations, motivation levels, game playing, number of books in the home— everything. Click on this link and see the PDF for the whole list.
Here’s a tiny sample:
190 TEACHER REPORT EXTERN PROB BEHAVIORS 194 X1 TEACHER REPORT INTERN PROB BEHAVIORS 200 X1 TEACHER REPORT ATTENTIONAL FOCUS 204 X1 TEACHER REPORT INHIBITORY CONTROL 226 X3 HEIGHT MEASUREMENT PRESENT 228 X3 WEIGHT MEASUREMENT PRESENT 230 X1 CHILD COMPOSITE BMI 302 X12 PARENT 1 EDUCATION LEVEL (IMPUTED) 305 X1 PARENT 1 EMPLOYMENT STATUS 307 X1 PARENT 1 OCCUPATION 309 X1 AVG PRESTIGE SCR FOR PAR 1 OCCUPATION (IMPUTED) 335 X1 NUMBER IN HOUSEHOLD AGED <18 338 X1 NUMBER IN HOUSEHOLD AGED 18+ 345 X1 # HOURS SPENT IN NONPARENTAL CARE NOW 353 X2 INCOME CATEGORY (IMPUTED) 356 X12 POVERTY LEVEL 358 X2 ADULT’S FOOD SECURITY RAW SCORE 363 X4 ADULT’S FOOD SECURITY STATUS 368 CHILD’S FOOD SECURITY STATUS 374 X2 HOUSEHOLD FOOD SECURITY STATUS 380 X12 MOTHER MARRIED AT TIME OF BIRTH 387 X1 PUBLIC OR PRIVATE SCHOOL (How would they get this data from a private school?) 457 F1 PARENT INTERVIEW DISPOSITION CODE 473 F1 PARENT INTERVIEW WORK AREA 521 F1 SCHOOL CENSUS TRACT CODE 525P1 HOME CENSUS TRACT CODE 585 C1 ACQ025 INTERRUPTION DURING ASSESSMENT 587 C1 ACQ035 DISRUPTIONS DURING ASSESSMENT 601 C1 ACQ075 CHILD’S MOTIVATION LEVEL 602 C1 ACQ080 CHILD’S COOPERATION 603 C1 ACQ085 CHILD’S ATTENTION LEVEL 1269 P1 FSQ200 CURRENT MARITAL STATUS 1316 P1 HEQ010A HOW OFTEN YOU TELL STORIES 1317 P1 HEQ010B HOW OFTEN YOU ALL SING SONGS 1318 P1 HEQ010C HOW OFTEN YOU HELP CHD DO ART 1319 P1 HEQ010D HOW OFTEN CHILD DOES CHORES 1320 P1 HEQ010E HOW OFTEN YOU ALL PLAY GAMES 1321 P1 HEQ010F HOW OFTEN YOU TALK ABT NATURE 1329 P1 HEQ040 HOW MANY BOOKS CHILD HAS …These types of very personal questions keep going until 1332 1333 P1 CCQ010 NOW HAS CARE FROM RELATIVE 1334 P1 CCQ015 EVER HAD CARE FROM RELATIVE 1354 P1 CCQ085 # OF DAYS/WK OF REL CARE 1355 P1 CCQ090 # OF HRS/WK OF REL CARE 1356 P1 CCQ092 CHARGE FOR RELATIVE CARE 1451 P1 CHQ085 COMPLICATIONS TO BIRTH/DELIVRY 1470P1 CHQ095 EVER HAD EAR INFECTION 1471P1 CHQ096 EVER HAD EAR ACHE 1510P1 CHQ330 SCALE OF CHILDS HEALTH 1511 P1 SSQ010J KEEP WORKING TO FINISH 1516 P1 SSQ010X CREATIVE IN WORK OR PLAY 1519 P1 MHQ025B YEAR WHEN RESP-BIOPAR MARRIED (When parents were married) 1521 P1 MHQ035A MNTH RESBIOMOM-DAD START COHAB
So many times, ugly education and data reform sites/pages “disappear” from the internet after people start pointing them out. So, in case that happens again, I have also copied and pasted (below) a list of restricted data that is now available from this link: http://nces.ed.gov/pubsearch/licenses.asp –and I’m going to screen shot and paste the link of the Kindergarten and First Grade data file, that led to this list, below.
The sad fact seems to be that we, as a group of people, have so much confidence in other human beings that we do not search out for ourselves what is really going on, and we do not demand that our children’s data be protected.
We are in a state of blind self-security, trusting our children’s destinies to the hands of data-hungry strangers with reckless confidence. We have to be smarter than this, more protective than this!
If you do not know why so much data sharing is a bad idea, please, for starters, read the book 1984. It’s free.
If you want to study more about what is now actually being collected via schools’ State Longitudinal Database Systems, read the linked posts I’ve written previously here and here.
Dr. Peg Luksik (bio below) gave this great presentation on Common Core assessments at an October 2014 conference.
39:15: “Common Core isn’t just flawed in what they teach our children; it’s flawed in how they test our children. It makes it so that the results can match what the Dept of Education wants them to match. If I can manipulate where you succeed and where you fail, I can be sure that you are going to go into the Workforce place that I have chosen for you. Common Core Assessment system allows that manipulation to occur.”
Dr. Peg Luksik is a Pennsylvania teacher with over 35 years of experience in both special education and elementary education. She has taught at every level from pre-school to college in regular classrooms, resource centers, self-contained special education classes, and in alternative educational settings. She has trained teachers in curriculum and classroom management, written and evaluated curricula, authored several books on education issues, and hosted a nationally syndicated television program dealing with education in America. She founded a program to assist low-income single mothers complete their educations which was recognized by President Reagan and named as a National Point of Light by President George Bush. Peg served as an advisor to President Reagan’s Commission on the Family and worked for the U.S. Department of Education, where her task was to review and evaluate education reform initiatives. Peg was a founding board member of the Pennsylvania Family Institute and the Pennsylvania Leadership Conference. Most importantly, Peg and Jim, her husband of 35 years, have raised 6 wonderful children and are now proud grandparents.
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/
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)
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.
“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.
