A summary of common core and testing.

Has someone incorrectly suggested the common core issue stems solely from testing? While the two are inextricably related, and both damaging and harmful, do not be fooled that the common core itself is benign.

The misery the children experience, former A students, who cry through the homework and class, is not the testing. That’s the common core. The parents inability to help with homework, that is common core. The modules that are horrendously worded, error ridden, and age inappropriate, and the end of text books, that’s the common core. The federal and corporate take over of the classroom for profit and political gain has changed everything.

Until we end the corrupted process that pushed in common core without our permission, all that can be done is to fight back, and to educate on the fallacies and illegalities of this federal and corporate take over. The Federal and corporate plan is to leave us out. The money is riding on our inability to have a say or offer a solution.

It’s not just about the testing when you fight common core, it’s also about this poorly designed, age inappropriate curriculum, that was not developed by educators. Out of the very few educators even consulted during the development of common core, two walked out on the process and refused to sign off.

Who developed common core? A business team. Not educators. Of educators, there were initially two. They saw what common core was and walked off the validation committee. Both now travel the country speaking out against common core.
Their names are James Milgram and Sandra Stotsky. Google them. Here is a head start.

http://hoosiersagainstcommoncore.com/james-milgram-testimony-to-the-indiana-senate-committee/

http://www.uaedreform.org/sandra-stotsky/
http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/marc_tucker/

https://www.thomasmore.org/news/common-core-state-standards-threat-personal-liberty-thomas-law-center-develops-opt-form-parents/

Common core goes against what experts know about the way a child’s mind learns and develops. There is a real problem with the curriculum. It’s not just the math, not just the testing, and not just the implementation, though all three are heinous. Common core has an agenda of putting children into a global marketplace to be college and career ready from birth on. Is this what we want for our children?

Please don’t let your neighbor fool himself into thinking this is about a higher standard or about unifying all schools. That COULD have been done with a genuinely well written curriculum. This is NOT it. And, the pitiful material produced by those NyS hired to cheaply mass produce the “modules” is inexcusable. Dumping it on kids who have no familiarity with it from kindergarten on, yes both of these are an example of the governments shoddy implementing and a complete disregard for the way children learn.

Families have been disrespected. We’ve been called “angry suburban white moms”, our kids have been called “not as smart as we thought,” by Arne Duncan, and we’ve been called “racist” by John King, for challenging him on the “full steam ahead” approach. Parents can no longer help their children, and even if they wanted to, there are no guide books to be had. We are insultingly told that if we are good parents we will go to parent information sessions at the schools to allegedly learn an entire year of math in one night. Are these districts insinuating every parent can not only learn an entire years worth of math in two hours, but also how to teach it? If so, what do we need teachers for? Parents are not masters leveled teachers. Many of the teachers themselves barely comprehend this math. Yet the districts shame the parents for not attending such common core cheer leading sessions where one can “ask the math questions”. How does one ask an entire year of math in a single two hour setting? Preposterous.

Anyone who thinks this is about raising the bar is wrong. For most schools this is a race to the bottom. Anyone who says there are always growing pains and fear of change, is fooling themselves. Research other ed reform, and see how many grassroots movements, for or against, have begun. Find any? Oh yeah, there was that one that ended segregation. That’s it.

The American public is not afraid of A New Curriculum Change. We have seen many and we have assimilated, accommodated, acclimated. They were NOT written by billionaires in A board room. Common core is the result of Big Business married to Big Government. It was not borne from a love of children or a love of learning. It was a Bill Gates plan to make a better global workforce. Drones. In his eye, and in the infamous words of Duncan, “we should be able to look you in the eye in second grade and say, yeah you’re ready for college. Or you’re not.”

We’ve become the laughing stock of intelligent countries. This is the final step in our new oligarchy with Gates at the Healm. Parents are excluded. Material is no longer available for us to help or even see. Then we are chastised for not trying hard enough to teach our kids what the teachers aren’t able to successfully teach in the six hour school day. So the answer from the higher ups? Lengthen the school day and calendar and start school when kids are even younger. They figure this will allow for more time to indoctrinate these kids into being good little drones.

This is why we are a grassroots movement. Parents want better. We demand change. We have been disrespected. We put our trust in NySED and the Feds. We were sold to the highest bidder. No one questioned if EngageNy was the right material to worship all year round, and guess what, the state exams weren’t based on those modules after all. What an embarrassment! Riddled with errors, age inappropriate, EngageNy was an abomination. Yet we were stuck with it and now, lo and behold, the tests were based on Pearson modules instead. Another one for the “oops” file. Pearson gets money for every test these kids take.

Teachers are scared they will lose their jobs, so they teach to the test all year long. Kids cry during the homework and call themselves stupid. They’re made to “sit and stare” when their parents become conscientious objectors of this insanity, to teach the parents a lesson and make them think twice about bucking this diseased system.

This isn’t even addressing the data mining money maker aspect. Even the Feds seem to know they screwed up there.

Your child isn’t getting third grade back. You’re not going to get repaid for the lost time. The sooner this ends, the more we may save these children. Their love of learning is being destroyed. We anticipate More children will be pulled for home or private school than any other year in history.

How much time has been lost? There is no more time to waste. Bill Gates and King and Duncan ask for “ten years to see if this education stuff really works”. Good lord, really? It’s a joke.

Educate your neighbors. The time is now. The children depend on you.

From Anthony Cody, teacher and Ed blogger.

Error #1: The process by which the Common Core standards were developed and adopted was undemocratic.

Error #2: The Common Core Standards violate what we know about how children develop and grow.

Error #3: The Common Core is inspired by a vision market-driven innovation enabled by standardization of curriculum, tests, and ultimately, our children themselves.

Error #4: The Common Core creates a rigid set of performance expectations for every grade level, and results in tightly controlled instructional timelines and curriculum.

Error #5: The Common Core was designed to be implemented through an expanding regime of high stakes tests, which will consume an unhealthy amount of time and money.

Error #6: Proficiency rates on the new Common Core tests have been dramatically lower — by design.

Error #7: Common Core relies on a narrow conception of the purpose of K12 education as “career and college readiness.”

Error #8: The Common Core is associated with an attempt to collect more student and teacher data than ever before.

Error #9: The Common Core is not based on any external evidence, has no research to support it, has never been tested, and worst of all, has no mechanism for correction.

Error #10: The biggest problem of American education and American society is the growing number of children living in poverty.

http://www.livingindialogue.com/pillars-reform-collapsing-reformers-contemplate-defeat/.

For more info, numerous additional articles exist.

http://www.dissentmagazine.org/article/got-dough-how-billionaires-rule-our-schools.

http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/08/27/a-brief-audit-of-bill-gates-common-core-spending/.

http://truthinamericaneducation.com/common-core-state-standards/myths-verses-facts/.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/01/14/Expert-Dr-Sandra-Stotsky-On-Common-Core-We-Are-A-Very-Naive-People.

http://alinahan.wordpress.com/2011/05/11/lets-get-off-the-national-standards-train-2/.

http://stopcommoncorewa.wordpress.com/2014/02/25/fact-sheet-on-common-core-s-developers-writers-validation-committee-and-standards/.

http://dianeravitch.net/2014/04/14/anthony-cody-teachers-it-is-time-to-wake-up-and-fight-back-against-the-machine/.

http://www.rethinkingschools.org/archive/28_02/28_02_karp.shtml.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/post/eight-problems-with-common-core-standards/2012/08/21/821b300a-e4e7-11e1-8f62-58260e3940a0_blog.html.