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