Recently given to me by someone who shall remain anonymous, the below emails by Utah Lt. Governor Spencer Cox, while not completely accurate on all points, shows that he recognized problems and tried to get the Governor on board with changing Common Core two years ago. Then he shared his old email again this year during the heat of the campaign. I think the Governor even used some lines from this speech when he spoke to the State Board this summer asking them to replace Common Core and help his campaign which was getting hammered over his strong support for Common Core.

Utah Speaker of the House Greg Hughes recently endorsed Dr. Gary Thompson stating “Dr. Gary Thompson is a conservative champion who will support common sense policies for students and protect local control. He is a man of integrity who will be a welcome addition to a new and improved state board of education.”

The Utah Technology council recently put out this slate of candidates they recommend voting for (but don’t directly “endorse”). I agree with all of them but district 13 which I have changed to the school teacher running for office that the UEA didn’t endorse (showing they do NOT represent teachers, they represent their own agenda). He’s opposed to federal intrusion and Common Core. Check out his website below.

District 10: DR. GARY THOMPSON – (Eastern Salt Lake County from I-215 to Draper including parts of Cottonwood Heights & Midvale, Sandy, Draper): (www.vote4drgary.com)
District 11: LISA CUMMINS – (Southwest Salt Lake County including South Jordan, Riverton, Herriman, Bluffdale and Northwest Utah County including Cedar Fort & Fairfield) (www.lisacummins.us)
District 12: ALISA ELLIS – (Orem, Lindon and Summit, Wasatch, Duchesne, Daggett, Uintah Counties) (www.alisa4district12.com).
District 13: SCOTT NEILSON – (Provo, Spanish Fork) (www.ScottforBoard.com)
District 15: MICHELLE BOULTER – (Washington & Iron Counties): (www.electmichelleboulter.com)

It looks to me like there is some strong support for these candidates!!!

Also, in Alpine School District, please vote for Rachel Thacker in seat 4, and Miriam Ellis in seat 6.

*******

From: “Spencer J. Cox”
Date: April 8, 2016 at 8:10:33 AM MDT
Subject: Fwd: Common Core Thoughts

I don’t mean for this to be an “I told you [him] so,” and it’s probably too late to do anything now. However, I found this email from 2 years ago that I wrote as a proposed statement for the Governor to solve the Common Core dilemma. I’m guessing anything we do now will just look too politically motivated. But if we happen to get reelected, we might consider actually doing something about the growing frustration.

Begin forwarded message:

From: Spencer Cox
Date: May 6, 2014 at 10:17:04 AM MDT
To: “Spencer J. Cox”
Subject: Common Core Thoughts

Let me state at the outset, that I firmly believe in the importance of high academic standards in all subject areas for Utah students. We have a proud history of academic standards in Utah that pre-date the common core. Over the past year, I have listened intently to the growing chorus of concern with regards to the adoption of Common Core standards. While there is clearly a great deal of misinformation being disseminated on both sides of this issue, there are legitimate concerns that I share with those opposed to the Common Core. As I have listened, and researched, it has become clear to me that, although well-intentioned, the conflict, discord and divisiveness associated with these standards is doing more harm than good. Unfortunately, we have lost the focus on what matters most–our students and making sure our teachers have the resources and tools necessary to provide a world-class education. As such, today I announce that I am withdrawing my support for Common Core.

In doing so, I wish to reiterate the three main principals that should guide our actions in Utah when it comes to academic standards for our public schools. These principals are:
1) maintaining high academic standards in all subject areas for all our students
2) keeping the federal government out of education decisions in Utah
3) preserving local control of curriculum, materials and instructional practices

In light of this decision, I am proposing a special session of the legislature for a few distinct reasons. First, to give the legislature an opportunity to weigh in on this debate. While the actual decision on Common Core rests with the State Board of Education, I believe that, as elected representatives of the people, we have a duty to weigh in on this critical debate. As such, I would like to give the legislature an opportunity to make their voices heard.

Next, just as important as the actual educational standards is the PROCESS at which we arrive at those standards. This should be a Utah process and this should be a transparent process. During the last session, the Legislature passed HB342, sponsored by Rep. Layton, which I signed into law. This bill requires the establishment of a standards review committee made up of 7 subject experts including teachers, higher ed faculty, business representatives, along with 10 parents of students currently in public schools. While I believe this is the right concept, today I am proposing legislation to expand of this committee to include….[….] The legislation would further provide direction for this independent to allow for public comment and discourse. If you have a problem with a specific standard, your voice will be heard.

This committee will begin a review of all academic standards, beginning with our math standards, and will make recommendations for improvement in the standards.  Some standards might be removed, some standards might be made more rigorous, and many standards might not be changed at all. I will ask this team to assure that we have rigorous academic standards which will prepare Utah students for entrance into our universities, applied technology colleges, or other specialized training programs without the need for remediation. I will also ask them to report on how the standards are preparing advanced students for placement in accelerated programs in and out of the state. I am inviting parents, teachers, and other members of the general public to submit alternative standards or written suggestions for improvement on the current math and English language arts standards to this team of experts, who will evaluate all suggestions.

Furthermore, the proposed legislation will give the committee the ability to make recommendations regarding implementation of new standards. One of the biggest faults with Common Core has been the unfortunately rushed sometimes shaky implementation in many districts. Too often the problems with implementation have resulted from a lack of available curriculum and a lack of necessary training for our teachers. Because of a significant reduction in professional development days for teachers, it is more difficult than ever for our teachers to understand, prepare for and implement the new standards. I promise to work with the legislature next year to push for an increase in funding for professional development days. We must listen to the concerns and complaints of teachers and administrators who truly understand the needs and difficulties of these critical changes in their classrooms.

I also want to reiterate that, in Utah we take the issue of local control a step further, by requiring that locally-elected school boards and charter schools choose the curriculum, materials, and instructional methods to be used in their schools. As the Governor I will continue to support this local control and will work to shore up state resources for curriculum development at the local level. The State Board of Education is drafting a rule that would require all charter schools and school boards to establish a process for local review and response to curriculum, increasing transparency in this process. This will provide yet another process to ensure that we keep education local.

Two years ago I worked with Sen Margaret Dayton on SB287, which requires Utah to “exit any agreement, contract, memorandum of understanding, or consortium that cedes control of Utah’s core curriculum to any other entity for any reason.” We are currently in complete compliance with this state law, and under my watch we will continue to keep the federal government out of education decisions in Utah. I understand that the State Board of Education is re-evaluating their waiver from the federal No Child Left Behind mandate to confirm that it is also in compliance with this law and look forward to their report. I call upon our congressional delegation to fix and reauthorize No Child Left Behind so that Utah and isn’t forced into the position of having to request a waiver.

In addition to concerns about Common Core, I have also listened to complaints regarding testing in our schools. It is important to note that the new SAGE adaptive testing is NOT tied directly to the Common Core. This testing was first recommended […..] This is a distinctly Utah test, developed in Utah and reviewed in Utah by Utah educators, administrators and parents. I also support the idea of using technology, and computer adaptation, to better assess the knowledge of our students. However, while I believe in the importance of testing and accountability, I share three distinct concerns with testing.

First, the amount of testing. There is rising concern that we have gone from not enough testing to too much testing. Although there is disagreement among experts on this issue, I worry that we might be spending too much of our time testing, and that testing is weighted too heavily in when it comes to evaluating our students and teachers. As such, I will also propose that our independent standards committee also be empowered to evaluate the amount and significance of testing.

Second, I am deeply concerned about the secrecy surrounding this new testing. While I do NOT believe that there are any conspiracies or hidden agendas in the SAGE testing, openness will always be best way to engender trust. If we truly have nothing to hide, then we should stop hiding. While I do not support the wide-release of off all test-questions prior to a test (for obvious reasons), I absolutely believe that students, parents and teachers should have the opportunity to review the questions missed by the student. I call on the State Board to make whatever policy changes are necessary to allow for the release of this information.

Third, I worry about the type of data being collected, the purposes and uses of that data and, critically, the security of that data. While I understand and support the importance of collecting data to improve our education system generally and to respond to the individual education needs of our students, we must be extremely careful in the way we use and store this data. To this end, I have asked Dr. Eric Denna to lead a review of student data collection and protection practices in Utah and issue a report on how we are protecting student privacy and whether or not additional measures need to be taken. Dr. Denna is the director of information technology information services at the University of Utah and previous managed very large information services, such as the worldwide information systems for the LDS church as well as several other large corporations.

Let me conclude by stating that I understand education is a very passionate issue–and it should be. The future of our state and nation depends in a very real way on the education of our children. More than ever, we are competing in a global marketplace and must raise the level of education. We should not be afraid of high standards or hard tests. We can and should expect more of our students, more of our teachers, more of our parents, more of our legislature and more of our governor. I know these changes will not silence all of the critics, but I do hope that we can now take these divisive issues off the table and move forward, together, on the things that really matter.

This morning Jonathan Johnson called on Utah to end SAGE testing. Tonight Governor Herbert called on the state board to get Utah out of Common Core standards and SAGE testing. Dang I love election years!

With Jonathan Johnson defeating Governor Herbert at the GOP convention 55%-45%, largely influenced by Common Core issues, the Governor no doubt had an awakening. I have never doubted the Governor’s intentions to provide a quality education to Utah children, but I still find this move politically opportunistic to try and salvage his chances of being re-elected. Of course, the Governor can make this call knowing he has no authority to actually carry it out. That belongs to the state board…

Having had several discussions with Jonathan Johnson, I know he is fully committed to principles of local control that I’m not sure the governor is committed to at the same level based on his letter. His letter brings out some positives for sure, but I believe it’s time LEA’s (Local Education Agency) had much greater control over their financing, standards, assessments, data collection and privacy, and the state shrunk back in it’s role interfering with local education (and of course the feds are cut out of the picture completely).

In essence, here is what the Governor said:

-Common Core had a poor implementation (Oak: this is the go-to excuse for all failure programs like Investigations math)

-Naturally, he said there is misinformation on the subject, but added for what I think is the first time, that there are legitimate concerns.

-He asks the state board to change out the standards and keep these three principles in mind:
–Maintain high standards in all subject areas
–Keep the feds out of education decisions
–Preserve local control of curriculum, testing, data collection, and instructional practices.

-Make the process public (not something that happened the first time)

-There are shortcomings to the one-size-fits-all approach. We need standards that are flexible to allow a wide variety of curricular decisions by individual school districts.

-Eliminate the SAGE mandate for high school (and evaluate the effectiveness of it in other grade levels)

-“I have eleven grandchildren in Utah public schools. I have seen firsthand the frustration they and their parents have had over an assignment they did not understand and that teachers struggled to teach.”

End of summary.

No doubt this will be nationwide news that Utah’s Governor who has been one of the biggest proponents of Common Core, now wants out. That’s helpful for the entire movement across the country and for that, I’m grateful.

To download a copy of Governor Herbert’s letter, click here.

To see the near immediate response of the state board (ie. at least some of the knew this was happening and prepared this response), click here.

It’s an election year and I think that’s about all the explanation we need to understand a recent political flier from Governor Herbert. The Governor has to be a little worried about his political race this year. His challenger strongly opposes Common Core and its associated agenda, and Governor Herbert has been one of the strongest advocates for Common Core in the country. It therefore takes special nerve to put out a large color mailer where the very first claim on it is:

Lets look at some of Governor Herbert’s past love affair with Common Core.

1) In November 2010, Governor Herbert published an article entitled “Governor’s Education Excellence Commission to Consider Action Items for Strategic Plan.” In this document he stated “Our next step is to put the meat on the bones of our plan and outline the clear steps that will allow us to reach our goal.”  Items three and four of his eight point plan was:

“3) Implementing the Common Core Standards.

4. Expanding computer-adaptive, formative assessments based on the Common Core and implementing college- and career- ready assessments such as the ACT cadre of tests.”

2) In February 2014, Governor Herbert was asked by The Blaze about Common Core and stated:

“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.”

Once you became governor, it was YOUR pen that sealed the deal by signing us onto the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium which agreed to fully implement Common Core and other federal education agenda items. YOUR signature Governor that “[certified] that as a Governing State [we are] fully committed to the application and will support its implementation.”

Then in 2011, YOU signed the State Fiscal Stabilization Fund Application which obligated Utah’s support for four major federal reforms. This is the heart of Common Core. It’s never been just about standards although you and the state office of education have tried to make it that. It’s a much wider net.

The four reforms you signed us onto in this document include redistribution of teachers, setting up massive database tracking on students, adopting Common Core standards and assessments, and putting “turnaround” experts in schools so in time, every school will be reshaped by “experts” instead of teachers and parents.

Governor Herbert also signed the Race to the Top Application Assurances for both phase 1 and 2, promising to implement the four federal reforms listed above. Phase 2 was just to tweak our application and increase our chances at getting money from this federal lottery.

Frankly, I’m surprised anyone believes Common Core was state led anymore. Except for the constant parroting of that lie by the education establishment and those who fail to actually do their homework, Common Core would have died already.

Here’s just a couple of pieces of the pie.  David Coleman was one of the chief architects of Common Core itself. In 2008, he helped convince Bill Gates to bankroll this effort, and then began the major effort to convince the governors that they should sign on. Listen to David say it himself, and how Common Core was created by a few people in a room on a napkin.

Our own Utah State Office of Education didn’t even know who was on the drafting committee of the original standards when they were being drafted back in 2009-10!

The standards weren’t state-led, they were Gates-led. Bill Gates’ Foundation gave tens of millions of dollars to the NGA and CCSSO to get them to come together on common standards and then a secretive committee wrote the standards. Why was Bill interested in this? He’s openly stated it. Big business opportunities exist when you standardize. It was never about standards. It always included assessments, and yes, curriculum would be forthcoming as Bill Gates stated in 2009, otherwise we would never know if the standards would work.

Then this would unleash huge market forces (translation: big players like Pearson, McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin, would demolish and put the small players out of business leaving them to rake in billions of dollars as those with monopoly power always do). Watch Bill state it himself back in 2009. Local control of curriculum? Not so much when the now small group of publishers align their texts to the standards and assessments (and now the college entrance exams, CLEP, AP, and GED).

Finally, even the feds have now admitted they coerced the states into adoption.

3) On April 6, 2014, Governor Herbert appeared on Red Meat Radio and made this statement:

“Now I recognize that there’s a lot of misunderstanding out there, and some of that’s in part because people think we’re involved in the Common Core, and the difference between that and the Utah core, and we think there’s some kind of a federal overreach here, and that’s an exaggeration.”

So in a classic move under pressure, the Governor sought to play a name game. Lets not call it Common Core anymore because that’s a hot potato that the state superintendent already admitted included federal pressure… Lets call it Utah Core and pretend they’re different.

Just a few months earlier in February 2014, I had an email exchange with State Superintendent Martell Menlove. This was his response to this name game. (underlining mine)

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

Utah adopted the national Common Core standards two days after they were made public, exactly as written.

4) Now to the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) which Governor Herbert crows about how wonderful it is for releasing us from the restrictive No Child Left Behind. This is the bill that Obama’s Secretary of Education Arne Duncan said:

“I’m stunned. at how much better it ended up than either [House or Senate] bill going into conference. I had a Democratic congressman say to me that it’s a miracle — he’s literally never seen anything like it…

…if you look at the substance of what is there . . . embedded in the law are the values that we’ve promoted and proposed forever. The core of our agenda from Day One, that’s all in there – early childhood, high standards [i.e.,Common Core], not turning a blind eye when things are bad. For the first time in our nation’s history, that’s the letter of the law.”

He also said:

“We were intentionally quiet on the bill — they asked us specifically not to praise it — and to let it get through,” he explained. “And so we went into radio silence and then talked about it after the fact…. Our goal was to get this bill passed — intentionally silent on the many, many good aspects of the bill…. We were very strategically quiet on good stuff.”…

So Arne Duncan and the Obama administration got everything they ever wanted, by staying quiet as Republicans played themselves into their hands. Deft Arne. This should actually be of great concern to people since Arne also wants to “phase out the authority of the states,” in dealing with the disadvantaged, and is a big fan of increasing the length of the school day and week.

In fact, after ESSA passed, the Whitehouse released a document stating: “Not only does ESSA cement progress already made, it embraces much of the vision the Administration has outlined for education policy since 2009.”

ESSA’s text was released just a couple days before the vote, naturally. You wouldn’t want people reading something that size before voting on it. After a massive effort by Alyson Williams and a few dozen parents to dissect it in a day, they got that information to our congressional delegation and all four House members and Senator Mike Lee voted against this bill. Yet Governor Herbert said this about ESSA:

“This is a significant step in the right direction in our work to ensure state control of education policy. This bill reinforces that accountability and responsibility for K-12 education rests with the states. It is a clear example of cooperative federalism, which is a core tenant of this association. It emphasizes that states and localities have the freedom to provide students the world-class education they deserve.”

So what is this significant step in the right direction the governor sees?

Click on this link to go to a text comparison of some federal requirements under NCLB and ESSA. They are essentially the same.

We got rid of Annual Yearly Progress under NCLB, but what else happened? The federal secretary of education now has the ability to VETO our state education plans (The [federal] secretary shall ‘‘(vi) have the authority to disapprove a State plan”). Testing actually increases under ESSA.

We also got these very troubling additions in ESSA.

Private Schools

(B) OMBUDSMAN.—To help ensure such equity for such private school children, teachers, and other educational personnel, the State educational agency involved shall designate an ombudsman to monitor and enforce the requirements of this part.’’ (pg. 71)

What? Private schools now get government monitors?!?! Yes.

Family plans

ESSA allows states to use funds to “support programs that reach parents and family members at home [and] in the community.”(pg. 69) The Federal Department of HHS and Education have put together a draft implementation document to show how they recommend this be implemented. Here’s one blogger’s analysis of this plan and below are quotes.

“Implement[s] a vision for family engagement that begins prenatally and continues across settings and throughout a child’s developmental and educational experiences” (Page 5)
See “parenting interventions” (pg. 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 16)
ESSA allows states to use funds to “support programs that reach parents and family members at home [and] in the community.” (https://www.congress.gov/114/bills/s1177/BILLS-114s1177enr.pdf, Pg. 69)
States shall “become active participants in the development, implementation, and review of school-parent compacts, family engagement in education policies, and school planning and improvement;” (IBID, pg. 218)
Provides grants to turn elementary and secondary schools into “Full-Service Community Schools”  with “Pipeline Services” that provide “a continuum of coordinated supports, services, and opportunities for children from birth through… career attainment”, including family health services. (IBID pg. 222, 223, 229)”

What? Family engagement plans with parenting interventions?!?! Yes!
The state is an active participant in a new school-parent compact?!?! Yes!
PRENATAL development tracking through career attainment?!?!?! Yes!
Reducing parents from primarily responsible for their children’s education to a stakeholder in partnership with the state and educators?!?!?!?! Yes!

Governor, which part of this is that “significant step in the right direction” you mentioned above?

Oh thank you, thank you, thank you, Governor Herbert, Senator Hatch, and the other politicians asleep at the wheel who don’t read bills before you pass or evangelize them. Wait… or DID you actually read it??? Maybe you have so fully embraced federal education policies that you value these new interventions???

5) I can’t leave this article without correcting something else. As I’ve been at some of the meet the candidate events, the Governor and his crew are still touting how the state attorney general issued a report on Common Core that says implementation didn’t cede state authority. For a more complete analysis of that report, read Christel Swasey’s write up here.

Three things came out of this report which the Governor and staff fail to ever bring up. The report states that:

1. Utah’s math and ELA core, were in fact Common Core, something the Governor kept denying. (see point 3 above)
2. The US Dept. of Education (by imposing waiver conditions and pushing states to adopt federally approved standards) “has infringed upon local and state authority over public education” and that Utah and other states “consented to this infringement through federal coercion.” (emphasis mine)
   
3. The report correctly said that “Utah has the legal ability to repeal” Common Core.

Mr. Governor, may I bring your attention to point 2 again?

As for point 3, the governor is exactly right that we didn’t cede state authority. We just don’t exercise the necessary leadership to get us out of this mess because Governor Herbert is the current president of the National Governor’s Association (NGA) which created Common Core with Bill Gate’s money and withdrawing could prove embarrassing and start a bigger chain reaction among states. Governor, you also promised that math and ELA would be the only Common Core subjects Utah would adopt, but now we’ve adopted the Common Core science standards as well.

I encourage you all to read Christel’s full write-up because there are several things the report got wrong. Also realize that it was the Governor’s office that chose the questions the Attorney General was to answer. There are a host of other questions we wanted to have addressed that weren’t.

6) I just received Governor Herbert’s “Open Letter” on Common Core so I have to add a comment about one of the Governor’s claims here. He says:

“I signed into law SB 287 – a bill that makes it illegal for the federal government to have any control.”

No it doesn’t. No law in our state makes it “illegal” for the federal government to have “any control.” They get all the control we cede to them, and we most certainly have. They dictate flexibility requirements, and as noted above there are numerous controls they possess including veto power over our education plans.

Governor Herbert, at Senator Dayton’s request, I drafted that bill (2012 SB 287) you’re referring to. It was to be our *get out of jail free card,* and it’s largely worthless as you signed it. It doesn’t do what you’re suggesting. Oh it sort of did when I drafted it, where I listed off a bunch of triggers that said if any of these things happen, Utah “shall exit” that federal agreement. Unfortunately by the time it reached your pen, it said, “may exit.” Toothless and spineless thanks to interference from some who were nervous we might actually stand up to the federal government. If it did what you actually suggest, why haven’t you utilized it and showed the feds you mean business since some of those triggers have been pulled?

7) Someone just reminded me about this one. In 2013, 65.5% of state delegates voted for a resolution calling on the Governor, legislature, and state board to get us out of the Common Core agenda. The Governor has just ignored this completely.

In conclusion, any talk of the Common Core standards being “just standards” or “state-led” is an abominable lie. These standards were masterminded by a small secretive group with an agenda. For more information on that agenda, Please read the following articles.

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

https://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/feds-will-control-curriculum-competency-and-credentialing/

https://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/agenda/

This article constitutes an attempt to set the record straight. I agree with many of the things the Governor has done the past several years and applaud his efforts in blocking funding to Planned Parenthood, signing the parental rights and opt-out bill that Senator Osmond ran, and many other things. This is not meant to be a personal attack on the Governor himself, but he invites a rebuttal when he infers certain things in his advertising and openly states partial facts. His campaign statements do not reflect a reality of events that are well known nationwide, and even in his own Common Core history.

For what it’s worth I have had a number of conversations with Jonathan Johnson, currently running for Governor against Gary Herbert. I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to have a real conversation about education issues with Jonathan, send him further information, and have him actually read it and get back to me and others with specific thoughts on what we sent him. We might not always agree 100% of the time, but he’s actually put in the time and effort to understand a different point of view. In the past we have tried to discuss issues with Governor Herbert but his reply was always, “talk to my education advisor,” (who also happens to support Common Core in a huge way).  As a result of my experience and communications with Jonathan Johnson, I personally endorse him in his bid to become governor. Here are some other important reasons why I support hiring JJ.