Link To Study Common Core Standards

Please visit www.truthinamericaneducation.org

Awesome site for great info on this very important issue!

Who To Contact About The Common Core Standards

1.  Call you Representative in the US House of Representatives.  Ask them to support Rep John Kline to have hearings and defund this.

2.  Contact your local school board and state board representatives and get them to start thinking about getting out of it--hard but doable.

Here are some points you may want to consider  (these from Allied Women of Alabama):

Don't let the feds grab control of Alabama education

 The standards themselves are the product of working groups set up by the National Governors Association, the Council of Chief State School Officers and other non-profitsfunded primarily by the Gates Foundation, but President Obama made it clear that his administration wants to force adoption.  On February 2/22/2010, he expressed his intent to require states  to adopt national standards to receive Title I funds [See http://youtu.be/OKjkp724j6k].  Thankfully, Congressman John Kline (R-MN), who is expected to chair the House Education Committee in 2011, has stated that he will not authorize such a mandate. "The idea that academic standards would have to be federally approved ... looks like national standards," he said.

The adoption of these standards by a majority of states has been incentivized by $4billion of federal grant money (Race to the Top), for which Alabama applied and was turned down.  Assessments based on these standards are being written by two consortia which are funded by $330 million in federal money.  What the federal government funds, it controls. 

Keep Alabama Curriculum Decisions in Alabama

According to the Alabama Department of Education, our standards are well over 90% in agreement with the national standards.  But such curriculum content experts as Dr. Sandra Stotsky and Dr. Jim Milgram call the CC standards "mediocre" and not college ready standards. Why should we adopt the national standards unless we are also going to submit to national assessments, too?  The assessments will not be ready until 2014 and are expected to guide everything from teachers' lesson plans to final exams. "Parents and the public will see their ability to influence education policies at the local level disappear, most likely forever." [See http://bit.ly/cppnlE]  

Please contact Governor Riley and your State Board of Education Member today to ask them to vote NO on adoption of Common Core Standards on November 18^th.  (Contact information for the State Board)

"The decades-long drive by various administration to federalize education, which seems to be hitting its peak under President Obama's effort to require national standards, is wrong-headed for a myriad of empirical and governance reasons.  It is likely to be a costly failure, with the cost measured not just in terms of dollars, but in the wasted lives of our children."  [See http://bit.ly/cppnlE]


For More Information:

"Washington Doesn't Know Best: The Perils of Federal Control of Education"
October, 2010, Pacific Research Institute, Lance Izumi, J.D. http://bit.ly/cppnlE

The "Common Core" Standards Initiative:  An Effective Reform Tool?
William J. Mathis  July 21, 2010  EPIC  http://bit.ly/aeAFjD

"National Standards Still Don't Make The Grade" 
Pioneer Institute White Paper http://bit.ly/cOPlqj

"Behind the Curtain: Assessing the Case for National Curriculum Standards"
The CATO Institute  http://bit.ly/9ecgJu

Texas Governor Rick Perry on the Danger of National Standards
The Heritage Foundation  http://bit.ly/cwu4R1

For the highest readability, start your letter with a short sentence.

Common Core States Standards-What Is It

The Plan...

Mr. Lou Gerstner's suggestions (He is head of Achieve that was commissioned to write the standards):

Wall Street Journal article Nov 23, 2008-- See Mr. Lou Gerstner suggestion to the president elect Obama:

..."I’m going to suggest is that he convene the 50 governors, and the first thing they do is they abolish the 16,000 school districts we have in the United States. Sixteen thousand school districts are what we’re trying to cram this reform through...

These organizations stand in the way of what we want to do.

Now, the governors could decide, we’ll keep them as advisory, we can keep them as community support, but they will not be involved in the fundamental direction of public education in America. Second, this group of governors will then select 50 school districts, plus I’d say 20 major cities, so we got 70 school districts. Seventy instead of 16,000.

They will within one year develop a national set of standards for math, science, reading and social studies. Twelve months after that they will develop a national testing regime, so that there’ll be one day in America where every third, sixth, ninth and twelfth grader will take a national test against a national curriculum."

Here are some quick links to get you up to speed on this very important issue about our children.

1.  It will not get students college and career ready.  See why Professor Stotsky would not sign off on it.

2.  Who started it?

3.  Kevin Jenning's Dream For Children (founded Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network or Glsen-yet was appointed as Safe Schools Czar by Obama admin)!

4.  Marc Tucker's Agenda (He is head of one of the testing consortium)

5.  Suggestions on what to do and who to contact for your state

6.  Troubling Statistics on our Children and this agenda

7.  Latest interview on Common Core Standards with insights to the agenda and the cost for Alabama.

For more information (as much as we know) and interviews that will shine the light on this horrible attack on the children--see below:

 The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)  in partnership with Achieve, ACT and the College Board partnered (with a jump start from Bill Gates) for the Common Core Standards States Initiative or CCSSI.

The hope to develop “common core of standards that are internationally benchmarked, aligned with work and post-secondary education expectations, and inclusive of the higher order skills that students need…”

All throughout are glowing remarks about it from Governors and most specially this administration. However, one Governor--Rick Perry speaks on the big and long term implications (amongst the many Gov. with hopes of getting grant $$ to help their ailing budgets ). Below are some links to interview from the other side with valid concerns (most specially the right of parents).

Most prominent are the perspective from Professor Jim Milgram and Professor Sandra Stotsky who were in the national validation committee as part of the development of the common core standards.

 Majority of the states agreed to the common core states standards as part of their application to get "race to the top" grants--even before the standards were published in June.  And these are just some of the problems they see--will we listen?

"How can the State Boards of Education make decisions when they haven't even read the standards? Many state's Board Member had never been initiated into what was in these documents.  What were the policy issues coming out of these documents and whether these analyses were truly were in a sense legitimate academic analysis-- a really serious issue of uninformed Boards of Education in this country which they would never do on most other issues.  These are very serious issues about what self- government means at the state and local government level."--Sandra Stotsky,  professor in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, and holds the 21st Century Chair in Teacher Quality.

Link to full explanation why Mrs. Sandra Stotsky could not endorse the common core standards

"...the requirement to automaticity on their own self- invented algorithms was one of the political issues that came in at the last moment and it's  absolutely crazy.  And then there was an entire list of similar ones, that equally made no sense whatsoever in terms of the long term development of children's mathematical capacity." --  Dr. R. James Milgram, professor of mathematics at Stanford University.

Since they were on the inside and have such impeccable outstanding background--their knowledge is truly worth listening to and these are their interviews for you to hear them yourself.

Part I-- with Betty Peters and Penny Wolcott (same as above picture link)

Part II--with Betty Peters, Penny Wolcott, Donna Garner and Beth Schultz

Part III --with Dawn Wildman of the California Tea Party and Wayne Wood, retired teacher

More Interviews to give you more perspectives:

Part IV--with Betty Peters, Beth Schultz, Audrey Buffington, and Anne Marie Banfield 

Part V--with Donna Garner, Sue Neuwein, Margaret Dobbs, Wanda McDonald and Pastor Mary Shellnut

 More links worth reading (we will keep posting more daily):

 Anne Marie Banfield

Beth Schultz

Jamie Gass

Phyllis Schlafly

Judge Roy Moore (Unconstitutionality of Common Core Standards

Common Sense on Common Core 

CCSS-Petition Against Another Attempt At Nationalizing--This Time Public Education

 Obama's Attempts At Nationalizing Health Care, Immigration and now Public Education! 

Two expert who were in the National Validation Committee of the common course standards on English Language Arts (ELA) and Math speaks out.

Sandra Stotsky,  currently a professor in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas was appointed by Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings to serve on the National Mathematics Advisory Panel in 2006.  Also she served as Senior Associate Commissioner in the Massachusetts Department of Education from 99-03.   She is raising concerns about the voice parents and local schools and the teachers will have about the actual curriculum in their local schools.  She sees very serious issues in the common core standards about what self- government means at the state and local government level.  

Dr. Jim Milgram, professor of Mathematics, Stanford is one of the four main authors of the California Mathematics Standards. He says there are two separate requirements for all the algorithm (process for problem solving).   Students are going to learn their own way of doing things (self-invented)-- many of which are wrong --then learn the standard algorithm a year or two later.  The net effect in terms of learning is that they know neither approach very well.  The quality of what is being taught is very troubling to him and that we are behind international benchmarks!

Donna Garner, retired teacher,activist and  experienced in writing standards for Texas wants us to think about the implications of these national standards.   National standards →National tests → National curriculum → Teachers’ salaries tied to students’ test scores →Teachers teaching to the test each and every day → National indoctrination of our public school children → National database ..... ... Believe it or don't.

In light of this and many other concerns, we the undersigned petition our Governor and State Board of Education to remove our state (_______________) from the move toward implementing the Common Core States Standards.  Losing  local controls through our local school boards is unacceptable no matter the good intentions.  Our Constitutional right over our children's education cannot be infringed upon. 

(Copy and Pass On--get signatures and take it to your state Governor)

Signature(s)                                                                                                           Address