Category Archives: Reference

16 year old takes down Common Core

October 14, 2013 Oak Norton 4 Comments

Wow, this 16 year old in Arkansas does a great job taking down Common Core. He shows the copyright on these standards and he’s got video of the Jason Zimba testimony from the MA board meeting where he admits to Sandra Stotsky (a member of the board) that Common Core’s “college and career readiness” won’t prepare students for selective colleges. He then goes into PARCC, one of the 2 federally funded assessment consortia. He then this in to Achieve and how they want a data system (didn’t mention or maybe know that Achieve was funded by Bill Gates). Then he shows how New York and Kentucky did after a year of Common Core, on content tests, bombing, and plays the audio from the superintendent of a school district who sent an audio message out to parents announcing Common Core is hurting their children. He shows federal database website that says it’s a federally mandated database that all states will submit student information to the federal Dept. of Ed. He shows how PARCC has signed an agreement with the feds to turn over data, (and mentions SBAC signed the same agreement which is what Utah exited last year, only to sign an agreement with AIR in January, the official SBAC partner. We need to know what AIR has signed with the feds). He shows a video clip of a man talking about pulling data from everywhere in order to “make this system work” and “this is the glue that holds everything together”. Then this man shows a slide showing a path to being a plumber or a doctor. The 16 year old then explains the colorful chart the guy showed that all the standards can be fit to specific career paths so they can tell from the computerized tests what your child would be good at and can direct their career path. He then rips into Pearson showing how they purchased education companies, sometimes at 2 times the value of the company, in order to take out competitors, so that McGraw-Hill, Houghton Mifflin, and Pearson, control nearly all the education market. This is a great presentation.

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Common Core standards are just the tip of the iceberg

October 14, 2013 Oak Norton Leave a comment

Prepared by Alyson Williams, this is an excellent little Prezi presentation on what people don’t typically see that is related to Common Core.

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Parents Launch Executive Order to Stop Common Core and to Stop Student Data Mining

October 10, 2013 Christel Swasey 4 Comments

This week, a group of Florida parents, supported by parents and educators nationwide, released an executive order, demanding an end to Common Core and the parentally unauthorized student data mining that’s taking place in every state.

As parents, we claim the privilege of directing our childrens’ educations, free from SLDS (state longitudinal database tracking systems), free from Common Core-aligned testing, standards, or “model” curriculum; free from private trade group EIMAC/CCSSO data collection, free from federal micromanagement, free from federal “accountability”; free from the both student and teacher data mining and tracking that is offensive to individual liberty and to Constitutional, local control.

As parents and teachers, we claim the privilege outlined in the Declaration of Independence that government is by consent of the governed. We, the governed, have not been asked nor have we approved these unvetted standards and systems. Therefore, any governance of children or school staff under the Common Core agenda is simply invalid.

Why: The promises of the promoters of the Common Core Standards do not add up. The evidence is overwhelming, and increases daily, that the Common Core agenda damages where it claims to serve; yet those who push back against the Common Core agenda are disrespected by school boards and in hearings around the nation. This is outrageous. We are the children’s parents; children are not the government’s human capital” despite what the Department of Education repeatedly claims.

Along with the executive order, parents have issued a longer, referenced document that explains the reasoning behind the executive order. This document is entitled “Welcome to the Common Core Fuzzy Math: Common Core Equals Conditions Plus Coercion Plus Conflict of Interest.”

Please pass this message along.

Here is a partial list of all the parent-educator groups working to fight the federal-and-corporate partnered machine of Common Core.

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Lowering the Bar: Pioneer Institute Whitepaper

October 2, 2013 Oak Norton Leave a comment

Pioneer Institute has released a new White Paper by R. James Milgram and Sandra Stotsky entitled “Lowering the Bar: How Common Core Math Fails to Prepare High School Students for STEM.” The purpose of this paper is to explain what the level of college readiness in Common Core’s mathematics standards is and what this level means for the high school mathematics and science curriculum, post-secondary education, and mathematics-dependent professional programs.

Among the topics covered is an extensive expose on Jason Zimba’s (one of the 3 math standards authors) statements regarding his definition and explanation of college and career readiness from 2010 when the standards were released, to what he now says he meant back then. Members of our State Board of Education are under the impression that Jason’s 2013 statements are accurate representations of what he meant back in 2010, but looking at the full text of what he said back then, it’s totally clear what he was talking about.

You can download the white paper here:

http://pioneerinstitute.org/download/lowering-the-bar-how-common-core-math-fails-to-prepare-high-school-students-for-stem/

Here’s a snippet:

To verify the accuracy of the official minutes
of the March 2010 meeting, the authors of
this paper obtained a copy of the official
recording of the meeting. Its sound quality
is excellent. Zimba’s exact comment in his
initial presentation was: “We have agreement
to the extent that it’s a fuzzy definition, that
the minimally college-ready student is a
student who passed Algebra II.”

Stotsky (a member of the state board at the
time) later asked him to clarify what he meant.
Zimba stated: “In my original remarks, I
didn’t make that point strongly enough or
signal the agreement that we have on this—
the definition of college readiness. I think it’s
a fair critique that it’s a minimal definition of
college readiness.”

Stotsky remarked at this point “for some
colleges,” and Zimba responded by stating:
“Well, for the colleges most kids go to, but
not for the colleges most parents aspire to.”
Stotsky then asked “Not for STEM? Not
for international competitiveness?” Zimba
responded “Not only not for STEM, it’s also
not for selective colleges. For example, for
UC Berkeley, whether you are going to be an
engineer or not, you’d better have precalculus
to get into UC Berkeley.”

Stotsky then said: “Right, but we have to
think of the engineering colleges and the
scientific pathway.”

Zimba added “That’s true, I think the third
pathway [a pathway that does not exist in
the final version. See Section V for further
discussion] goes a lot towards that. But your
issue is broader than that.”8

Stotsky agreed saying “I’m not just thinking
about selective colleges. There’s a much
broader question here. Zimba then added
“That’s right. It’s both, I think, in the sense of
being clear about what this college readiness
does and doesn’t get you, and that’s the big
subject.”

Stotsky then summarized her objections
to this minimalist definition by explaining
that a set of standards labeled as making
students college-ready when the readiness
level applies only to a certain type of college
and to a low level of mathematical expertise
wouldn’t command much international
respect in areas like technology, economics,
and business. Zimba appeared to agree as he
then said “OK. Thank you.”

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The Exodus, opting out of Common Core assessments and data collection

September 10, 2013 Oak Norton 32 Comments

This is a post to share with all your friends and neighbors. Not everyone is going to do this, but we n