Common Core ExposedBy Rog Lucido

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Common Core ExposedBy Rog Lucido

(References are below each slide in the edit mode-hit Esc)

Introduction• Public schools are ripe for take over. If

corporations can control the content, they can use our free tax dollars for their profit. Schools will manufacture students to become obedient workers rather than free thinkers.

• The Common Core Standards movement is nothing more than the mechanism that circumvents public scrutiny in creating a false need: “competition in the global economy”

• This false need forces a solution that best fits a corporate vision rather

than the hopes, dreams & aspirations of students.

Who made up the Common Core

Standards?• Contrary to proponents’ claims, the

Common Core Initiative is not 'state‐led,' but rather the Common Core (CC) standards were created and funded by special interests. States had little to no input.

• Common Core evolved from a drive by the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers with funding from, among others, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Corporate funding of CC• In 2007, the Bill and Melinda Gates

Foundation and the Eli Broad Foundation partnered and pledged $60 million to create what’s now known as Common Core.

• Gates Foundation has invested more than $160 million in the CC Standards.

• National Governors Association, along with several national corporations, created

Achieve- the main driving force behind creating the Common

Core. • Achieve’s financial contributors

include AT&T, Boeing, Chevron, Cisco, IBM and Prudential.

Don’t be fooled: CC not ‘common’• Four states never adopted the CC: Alaska,

Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia. Minnesota rejected the math standards.

• States that dropped out of CC testing: Florida, Georgia, Kansas, Kentucky, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania ,Utah…so far.

• New York has postponed CC until 2022. Many others are considering dropping or postponing.

• Conservatives and liberals increasingly are voicing similar concerns: one-size-fits-all approach, , CC creates a de facto national curriculum,

• CC puts too much emphasis on standardized tests and undermine teacher autonomy.

Federal Collusion• In 1994 when President Clinton

introduced Education Goals 2000 he was forced to include language that forbade the creation of national standards.

• The federal government has coerced states into accepting the CC standards, by requiring ‘Adopting standards and assessments that prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace and to compete in the global economy’ for the 4.35 billion Race to the Top

funding and No Child Left Behind waivers. (Same language as CC

stds.)

Key provisions of CC standards

• The federal government (you and I) is funding the creation of the tests that will be aligned with CC and what's on the tests will dictate what's taught in the classroom.

• A state must accept the CC standards word for word. It may add 15% content but may not subtract anything. Whatever is added will not be included on the common core tests.

Response• Emmett McGroarty, executive director of

American Principles in Action said states were "herded" into adopting the standards with no time to deliberate on their worth.

• Former Texas education commissioner, Robert Scott said,” I realized that this initiative which had been constantly portrayed as state-led and voluntary was really about control from some education reform groups who candidly admit their real goal here is to create a national marketplace for education products and services.”

What is the Quality of the Common Core ELA Standards?• Common Core’s standards make a

coherent K-12 ELA curriculum unattainable.

• Unlike standards that point to the general cultural or literary knowledge (as well as the generic thinking and language skills) needed at each grade level, Common Core’s “anchor” and grade level standards not only provide no intellectual base or structure for a curriculum, they actually prevent

one from emerging.

Why does ELA focus on “informational text”:non-fiction?• As you grow up in this world you realize

people really don’t give a shit about what you feel or what you think. --David Coleman at NY State DOE presentation, April 2011

• Coleman is billed as “a leading author and architect of the Common Core”.

• Schools will need to deemphasize fiction and obliterate any semblance of reader response. No feelings, no imaginations, no speculations: Just the facts, kid.

What is the Quality of the Common Core Math Standards?• By grade 8 their mathematics standards are a year or two behind the National Mathematics

Advisory Panel’s recommendations, leading states, and our international competitors.

• ..for Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II, the content of Common Core’s standards for these three basic courses shows low academic expectations for its definition of“college readiness.”

• Overall, Common Core’s preparation for Algebra I falls a year or two behind the standards in California and high achieving

nations.

Does the quality of the CC Standards matter?

• From 2003 to 2009, states with terrific standards raised their National Assessment of Educational Progress scores by roughly the same margin as states with awful ones.

• States with bad standards have succeeded in making NAEP gains that are statistically indistinguishable from those of states with good standards. How can that be if good standards are necessary? This indicates one thing: Focusing on standards does not lead to greater student gains.

So, are more challenging standards the solution? Obviously not.• Local control of schools is the solution.• The farther away a decision is made from

those it affects, the worse that decision is. Local control fosters local involvement.

• There were no local meetings, public input or debate about Common Core.

• Common Core is the opposite of local control. "Top down" standards, curriculum & testing ensures less local involvement.

• States were seduced with disinformation and false promises of benefits to students.

Is student mobility a reason for having

Common Core Standards?

What evidence is there that CC will increase America’s domestic or global academic ‘competitiveness’?• No evidence exists! Nations with centralized

(common) standards generally tend to perform no better or worse on international tests than those without.

• New Jersey and Arkansas have low quality content standards on both the Fordham Foundation and on the AFT scales, but scores comparably to Mass. and Calif. respectively on NAEP 2000-2007gains. Better standards Greater score gains.

What evidence is there that CC will increase America’s global economic competitiveness?

• No studies support a true causal relationship between national standards and economic competitiveness.

• Research shows that national economic competitiveness is

influenced far more by economic decisions than by test scores.

What is important fallout from the CC Standards?

• Testing done at the end of the school year will be expanded to include all subjects that can be tested and more grade levels….This means about a 20-fold increase over NCLB.

• CC will not make your children ready for college or a career. The future needs passionate, creative, collaborative innovators and entrepreneurs, not compliant, uniform test takers.

• CC will not help disadvantaged children do better either because the real problem is poverty, not standards.

What about the CC tests?

Will the CC standards really prepare students for college?• Its definition of "college readiness" is

below what is currently required to enter most four-year state colleges.

• Independent reviews have found its standards to be below those in the highest-performing countries and below those in states rated as having the best academic standards.

• CC will not prepare American high school students for authentic

college-level coursework. 

Who will really gain from CC? • In sum, CC has been developed by

political and corporate leaders without expertise or experience in education.

• Top-down, standards-driven education de-professionalizes teachers, devalues the field of education, and reduces students to passive learners.

• And commercial interests, not students, will gain from implementing CC. This is the most damning lie of all behind CC, and thus needed reform will not be addressed.

What can you do when CC comes into your community?• Corporate and education supporters

require data to ‘inform their decisions’. • Ask local school boards/administrators for

data showing CC will prepare students for college and the workplace- THERE ISN’T ANY.

• Ask local school boards/administrators for data that shows CC will prepare students to compete in the global economy-THERE ISN’T ANY. They can’t give you data, so refuse to give them data- OPT STUDENTS OUT OF CC TESTING.