Missouri Education Watchdog

Angry Moms are Rising Up Against Common Core

2013-06-12T21:07:00.000-05:00

Anne Gassel, co-editor of Missouri Education Watchdog was quoted in USA Today about her opposition to Common Core. From Include parents in standards debate: Opposing view:

Across America, moms are rising up against the Common Core, national standards for English-language arts and mathematics adopted by 45 states. As Anne Gassel, of Ellisville, Mo., said, "Parents and their legislators were cut out of the loop. Even now we can't get straight answers."

Read more here.

Anne is correct. We are still waiting in Missouri for answers from DESE and their statewide May 2 meetings. Tick tock. The clock on the site (to the right) keeps ticking away. The answers to the questions were to be posted within a week of the meetings.

As Alisa Ellis states in the USA Today article:

Now, parents are waking up. Alisa Ellis, of Heber City, Utah, typifies their resolve: "Administrators want parents like me to step back and be quiet, but we will not. These are my children, and my voice will be heard."

You will be reading one angry and loud mom's account on MEW tomorrow about her attempts to get answers from Missouri politicians, bureaucrats and school officials. It's time to start demanding straight answers from these people who are using our children and our tax money with no accountability.

Lamar Alexander Educational Plans Then (1989) and Now (2013). Same or Different?

2013-06-12T07:15:00.000-05:00

Lamar Alexander's thoughts on revamping No Child Left Behind, 2013 from The Foundry and No Child Left Behind: Alexander Unveils Rewrite:

Senator Lamar Alexander (R–TN), ranking member of the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee, has just introduced a proposal to “fix” No Child Left Behind (NCLB).

While restoring excellence in education will require more than a fix to the bureaucratic law—states should be allowed to opt-out of NCLB entirely—Alexander’s Every Child Ready for College or Career Act would improve upon existing statute in several ways.

Notably, it would allow states to make their Title I dollars portable, giving children the option to use funds at any public school of choice. Title I portability is a good goal, but it should also include the option for children to use their share of funding at a private school of choice as well.

Other improvements to Title I include the elimination of “Adequate Yearly Progress,” the well-intentioned but inappropriate federal goal of universal student proficiency in math and English by the 2014–2015 school year. The proposal maintains the requirement for states to set challenging content and achievement standards (defining levels of content mastery at basic, proficient, and advanced) and retains the requirement for states to test students annually in grades 3–8 and again in high school in math and reading. And it still requires states to make that information available on public report cards.

The proposal also eliminates the Highly Qualified Teacher (HQT) provision, which placed significant emphasis on credentialing, despite little evidence that credentialing improves teacher effectiveness. Under existing statute, the HQT provision mandated that any teacher of a core academic subject be state-certified and hold a bachelor’s degree. In its place, school districts would be encouraged to develop teacher and principal evaluation systems that take student achievement outcomes into account.

Read more here. Upon cursory reading, it sounds good (although the title "Every Child Ready for College or Career Act" should raise warning bells) and a relief from the centralization of education we are currently facing. But as you read it again, it's more of the federal government setting mandates for how schools should use curriculum and funding, and more mandates on teacher certification and testing. Is Alexander just using different words for the same policies? Agreeing if this is good policy or not requires having historical knowledge on politicians and educational movements.

Revisit a MEW article on Lamar Alexander and his words from 1989. From Are Arne Duncan's Educational Reform Plans from a Republican Playbook?:

Lamar Alexander lays out the plan to restructure education at the 11-2-1989 Governors Conference on Education in Wichita, Kansas. The Conference title was "Schools, Goals and the 1990s". As George Bush, Sr's Secretary of Education, he implemented education restructuring as America 2000 that specified creation of the New American Schools Development Corporation. He is currently senior Senator from Tennessee and Conference Chair of the Republican Party.

Transcript of Speech

1989 Governors Conference-Lamar Alexander

.... As far as I know, this is the first state summit following the President's summit, and I think that's a great credit to your governor of the State of Kansas, to be doing that. At least your timing is good!

I would suggest three things:

Number 1: Find out what's really going on because I don't think most people know---- what's going on in schools, how children are growing up, what's really going on in the world.

Number 2: I want to suggest that you create, in Kansas, a brand New American School. Brand New American School.

Number 3: I want to suggest that when you do that, you help that new school develop some new goals and new report cards for itself.

I would go down to the maternity ward of the local hospital, or whatever you call the part of the hospital where the nurses are who are there when the babies are born. Find out how many babies are born out of wedlock, how many babies are born with single parents. Just so you know that!

I would think the Brand New American School would be year-round, open from 6:00 to 6:00.

A second characteristic might be that these schools will serve children from age 3 months old to age 18. That may be a shocking thought to you; but, if you were to do an inventory of every baby in your community and think about what the needs of those babies were for the next four or five years, you might see that those needs might not be served any other way. They have to be served in some way and maybe around the school. Or, if you study a little more, you might go back and think the school might have to serve the pregnant mother of the baby in terms of prenatal healthcare....

...teams of teachers. Albert Shanker suggested that maybe there ought to be a team of teachers attached to a child from the day that child arrives in the school to stay with that child all the way to the 8th grade.

All this would mean there would have to be a very professional corps of teachers, wouldn't it? They'd have to be very, very good because they would have to be dealing with lots of volunteers. We have a big national service feeling in America today. Why aren't those people working in schools? Well, one reason is it's hard to handle volunteers!

So, this team of highly trained principals and teachers would have to have career ladders. They would have to be master teachers. They would be paid $50,000-$60,000-$70,000 a year to create a Brand New American School in every state capital.

The great advantage of that is there wouldn't be all these arguments of whether to do this program, or that program, or which one to do first. You wouldn't do any of them! You would create just one school and you'd give the responsibility to one person who would form one team. You give them one year or so, and if they succeeded, then all the rest of us would want to be in that school, too! Wouldn't we?

Senator Alexander advocated for:

Tracking students from birth

Community schools providing various services other than academics

School open year round

12-hour school days

These ideas from 1989 have been incorporated into Arne Duncan's Race to the Top mandates. Later postings will provide information on how educational policies presented at this 1989 Governor's Conference foreshadowed the elitist takeover of education we currently find ourselves.

You can thank George Bush Sr. for arranging this conference.

So exactly what is Lamar Alexander's underlying belief of educational direction? Is is 2013 or 1989 vintage? Or is the same, just repackaged?

Common Core Tests, FOIAs and Is This the Education You Want for Your Children?

2013-06-11T04:23:00.000-05:00

Reprinted with permission. Parents take note and take action:

Common Core Tests

How are children are being “Dumbed down”

By Jessica Chiong

Recently I requested through an FOI (Freedom of Information Act) to have access to see my Children’s “Secured” tests that are not sent home and are adopted through the CC Standards. A couple days ago I was able to see two of my three children tests. I have a kindergarten, first grade and second grade children. The tests I saw were Kindergarten and First grade. I will start with Kindergarten.

In Kindergarten in just homework alone, I have seen her come home with adding and subtracting, reading and writing, shapes and comprehension. I am fortunate that my daughter is a quick learner and has had no problems with homework in fact she is ahead of most students. But 75% of her classroom is not so lucky and some of them did not know how to use a pencil, speak English among other things. In the Comprehension tests (with prompting and support) she had to Identify characters, settings, and major events of the story.

In one of the tests for Math, they score on a point level. One point if you get half of the question correct. Two points if answered correctly in full. I noticed in her tests that she did not “comply fully” and only received one point. For example the teacher would read aloud to her 2+4=? In this test she had to use a space allotted to draw two cookies, and then draw four more cookies to come up with the answer and then write the equation down after with the answer. My daughter already new what 2+4 was and did not draw the “cookies” and simply wrote out the math sentence and answered six. So because she did not draw the cookies she only received one point and did not pass that question in its entirety. (dumbing down)

Next she was asked to write in number sequence starting 10-20. She was able to do it in the correct order but because her number 7 and number 9 was written in backwards for 17 & 19 she got it wrong. (dumbing down)

On the over all sheet that shows where she was “Core standards” or not “Core standards” they let me take this paper home where it was not an actual test. It is broken down as a graph from Beginning of the year, middle of the year, and the end of the year. Here is the break down of this graph:

· TRC (comprehension)

· FSF (this was not broken down for me)

· LNF (Letter Naming)

· PSF (word sounding out)

· NWF (Nonsense Words)

· TRC (reading) Beginning of year was fiction, Middle of year was Non-Fiction, and End of year is Fiction

All of these tests are done on a one-minute time allotment. The ONLY thing she did not do well in was Nonsense words to sound out like “BIF”. Here we see the dumbing down of making our children read nonsense words and get tested on them. Also for them to realize in Kindergarten the difference between Fiction and Non Fiction books is to me the rigorous part of testing (She was not “Core” in Fiction, but was on “Core” with NON fiction). Each time there is a unit to be taught. There is a Pre-Test, The Actual Test, and then the Post-test. The only test recorded and graded on is the Actual test. I noticed on the tests they were not called Quiz, or test but they are now using the term “Dipstick”

Our school has adopted Common Core standards in their curriculum and are using codes like:

· CCKRF.1.D

· CCKRF.3.A

· CCKRF.2.A

· CCKRF.3

Now onto First Grade, here it was I discovered that I found very alarming and I will discuss it before I go on too what I saw for his tests. The way First Grade is tested is they start at a “Kindergarten level” with homework and testing. Once they have “Mastered” those they then move up to the First grade level. What I saw is that even at the end of the year he has only “mastered” a few out of the “Kindergarten” and has not technically moved up to First grade levels, because he has to “Master” all Kindergarten levels first, so here we are at the end of the year. And my child is technically onto a “Kindergarten” level and will be moving onto Second grade. (Dumbing Down)

Let’s start with Symphony Math, which is what our school uses. And example of the kindergarten level math is this:

· 26+22= (but they are 26 on top and 22 on bottom)

He did not pass this test. Next was a question showing an Ice Cream Cone asking what shapes in the Ice Cream Cone make 3D shapes, this he did Pass.

For Reading, he was read a story, in which he had to answer several questions about the story. For the most part the were easy, except for this one question:

· What is the root word of climbs? (He did not get this right)

· Is this story Fiction or Non-Fiction, or a Poem? (He did not get this right)

Everything else I saw was basically the same thing my kindergarten student is doing including the Nonsense words, but their lists on the yearly report differ. They still show if you are at “Core Goals” or “Strategic” (meaning not core) and of course the part of the testing that is bringing his grades down are the “Nonsense words”

Here is what his report graph states with codes:

· TRC (actual grade or they use “letters” like PC=Far Below, RB=below, C=below, E=Far below, J=Proficient

· LNF (letter naming)

· PSF

· NWF (Nonsense words)

· DORF (reading levels)

Again same thing with the testing for First grade, there is a Pre-Test, Actual test, and a Post-Test. The Actual test is what they are graded on.

So in my opinion the dumbing down is clearly shown in some tests but the fact that my First grader is actually learning on what they call a Kindergarten level is what I find most upsetting. I printed out from my local School Board Website what they list and break down for curriculum. I will post the link on here. But I suggest to better “understand” your school’s curriculum is to go on your school website and take a look around:

· http://acesmathcouncil.wikispaces.com

· http://www.corestandards.org/the-standards

· http://www.corestandards.org/Math/Content/1/OA

· http://www.whschools.org/page.cfm?p=6167

· http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/RF/1

Any questions please feel free to email me at lukychrm77@yahoo.com or visit my two Common Core sites on Facebook

· https://www.facebook.com/groups/390489631065262/?bookmark_t=group

· https://www.facebook.com/StopCommonCoreinCT?bookmark_t=page

Thank you and I hope this will be helpful. Please remember your rights as a parent and contact your local school board and request to see your children’s tests. If you have to use an FOI (Freedom of Information Act) they have the tests in the school locked away. They can’t deny you your rights to see the tests. They just will not allow you to take copies because they are “secured” tests.

A Teacher Explains Common Core Data Collection Factually and Creatively

2013-06-08T05:00:00.000-05:00

Connecticut teacher Paul Bogush wrote an article explaining the connection between Common Core and data collection. It is a multi-layered issue and difficult to understand. The puzzlement (and the derision of those thinking there is a connection) of readers on this subject is apparent. I picked this up from twitter:

My time on #stopcommoncore tells me kids will get iris scans? What? #ccss I don't see any standard on retina security. #corespiracy

It's obvious this twitter user believes those who question/want to stop common core propagate conspiracy theories. How do you explain common core and the connection between longitudinal data systems in 140 characters or less? Bogush does a good job explaining why common core and data collection is intertwined both in the article and in his response to a teacher in Sweden asking about how a national system will work in the United States.

You can find A post for the Common Core Lemmings…here. He prefaces the article:

Please realize that despite its length, this post is a quick overview of where the data on your kids’ is going. I would need days to research, edit, and truly understand all the connections in order to produce a refined post. So please take this rough attempt to outline where your kids’ data is going as just that, a rough attempt!

He does a great job trying to make a complicated relationship between corporate entities and the government understandable. It's full of facts. But let's jump to the Swedish teacher's question and his more creative explanation of Common Core standards, data retrieval and the public/private partnership:

Magda

March 17, 2013 at 3:57 am • Reply

Please… Could you, very briefly, tell a foreigner what this CCS is all about? Is it more than just a way to standardize teaching/education with the aim to ensure a “lowest common denominator”? I just don’t get it with all this data collecting you’re talking about.

Here we have a national standard, in the form of a common curriculum and also common syllabi (for pre-school, elementary, secondary and upper secondary respectively)… All schools (public as well as private) must follow these… We also have standardized national test in some subjects… and all grades are public (which means you may find a specific person’s grades if you search for them)…

But as a teacher I am very free to interpret the syllabi, and as long as I don’t leave out any of the “central content” I may choose the ways of teaching as much as I want to – taking into account all the various individuals that my classes consists of and provide for them all

It’s generally considered to be a good way of ensuring that all students get an education as equal as possible – leaving no kid behind… but also ensuring that “high performing” students are challenged and given the opportunity to constantly develop new knowledge and improve their skills.

It’s NOT a way of holding anyone back, or trying to conform our children… in fact teaching, and allowing, our students of all ages to be critical is stated in the national curricula.

So… CCS… please tell me what it’s about – something very different from our Swedish system (which though criticized in many ways still is something the vast majority of teachers want to keep)?
All the best,
Magda

Paul Bogush

March 18, 2013 at 4:07 pm • Reply

Tough one to summarize Magda!

Let’s say Handelsbanken and TeliaSoneradecided decided to give money to non-profit groups who decided to standardize a system to collect data on every Swedish child. Then they needed a way to collect the data so they decided to form other groups with very friendly names that sound like they represent state governments, but are in fact corporate sponsored. Then these groups hire a couple people to tell every Swedish child what they should learn and at what age. Let’s say these same people were behind creating other schools that would undermine public school teachers and public schools. Everything will depend on whether or not a kid passes this test. So schools tell teachers what to teach and how. After the first tests come back and they find out what scores high and low, they will then know what kind of writing scores the highest and teach every kid to write in the same way so that they can get high test scores. The groups behind this are attempting to tie teachers salary to their kids test scores so that they will be even more inclined to teach to the test.

So businesses have created what will be taught, how it will be tested,and therefore how it will be taught. The more we do it, the more money they will make.

The data is collected all along the way to be able to sell more stuff to help kids get higher schools, and I believe more devious things, which I will not write about due to they simply have not happened yet. One example though, lets say you kids score low on a test, but your kids excel in your class. The companies can see this in the data they collect and then you will be called in for grade inflation.

You have to remember that we have states just as large as Sweden. So nationalizing a curriculum can make total sense in a country like Sweden, and many, many others. But with a country as big and diverse and rich and poor as the United States, expecting every kid who is 8 years old to be able to do the same exact thing is a bit crazy.

Now That Data Mining is on the Public's Radar....

2013-06-07T10:26:00.000-05:00

...let's revisit a MEW column on student data mining first published on December 28, 2011 via Emmett McGroarty and Jane Robbins of American Principles Project. From The Department of Education Just Won The Data Jackpot:

Emmett McGroarty, executive director of the Preserve Innocence Initiative of the American Principles Project and Jane Robbins, a senior fellow with the APP, wrote a great opinion piece that was featured in today's New York Post regarding the new access the Federal Dept of Education just granted itself to a wide range of data about your children.

Would it bother you to know that the federal Centers for Disease Control had been shown your daughter’s health records to see how she responded to an STD/teen-pregnancy-prevention program? How about if the federal Department of Education and Department of Labor scrutinized your son’s academic performance to see if he should be “encouraged” to leave high school early to learn a trade? Would you think the government was intruding on your territory as a parent?

The government will have the ability to look at
any data they want to regarding your child.

Under regulations the Obama Department of Education released this month, these scenarios could become reality. The department has taken a giant step toward creating a de facto national student database that will track students by their personal information from preschool through career. Although current federal law prohibits this, the department decided to ignore Congress and, in effect, rewrite the law. Student privacy and parental authority will suffer

How did it happen? Buried within the enormous 2009 stimulus bill were provisions encouraging states to develop data systems for collecting copious information on public-school kids. To qualify for stimulus money, states had to agree to build such systems according to federally dictated standards. So all 50 states either now maintain or are capable of maintaining extensive databases on public-school students.

The administration wants this data to include much more than name, address and test scores. According to the National Data Collection Model, the government should collect information on health-care history, family income and family voting status. In its view, public schools offer a golden opportunity to mine reams of data from a captive audience.

The department’s eagerness to get control of all this information is almost palpable. But current federal law prohibits a nationwide student database and strictly limits disclosure of a student’s personal information. So the department has determined that it can overcome the legal obstacles by simply bypassing Congress and essentially rewriting the federal privacy statute.

Last April, the department proposed regulations that would allow it and other agencies to share a student’s personal information with practically any government agency or even private company, as long as the disclosure could be said to support an evaluation of an “education program,” broadly defined. That’s how the CDC might end up with your daughter’s health records or the Department of Labor with your son’s test scores.

And you’d have no right to object — in fact, you’d probably never even know about the disclosure.

Not surprisingly, these proposed regulations provoked a firestorm of criticism. But on Dec. 2, the Department of Education rejected almost all the criticisms and released the regulations. As of Jan. 3, 2012, interstate and intergovernmental access to your child’s personal information will be practically unlimited. The federal government will have a de facto nationwide database of supposedly confidential student information.

Read more here at the original posting How the Feds are Tracking Your Kids.

One concerning aspect of the re-regulation of FERPA is the data sharing of individual information between federal agencies and private researchers. Would the Federal Bureau of Investigation want your student data? If it did, you wouldn't have any idea it was being shared. It's not illegal anymore to data mine individual student information and share it. Worried yet?

From The Classic Liberal and The Federal Gestapo:

John W. Whitehead, founder and president of The Rutherford Institute, and author of "A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State," examines the FBI's evolution from a mere law enforcement agency to the harbinger of the total surveillance state.

Are These Common Core Aligned Reading Materials Appropriate for 3rd Graders for Content and Message?

2013-06-06T11:16:00.000-05:00

Illustrations from the book “The Librarian of Basra,” among the graphic war texts approved for New York third-graders.

This may be old news to some of you as it is dated March 2013. From nypost.com and New York approves war-oriented reading textbooks for third-grade classrooms:

Tales of war, bombs and abduction — coming to a third-grade classroom near you.

City and state education bureaucrats have given the green light to an English curriculum for elementary schools that includes picture books with startlingly realistic portrayals of war — to be read by 8-year-olds.

They include “The Librarian of Basra,” which contains drawings of fighter planes dropping bombs on a palm-tree-lined Middle Eastern town.

The article details two books approved by the state and districts:

Similarly, “Nasreen’s Secret School” depicts the abduction of a young man from his home in Afghanistan by soldiers and discusses Taliban rules that forbid women to go out in public alone.

“There’s no way in hell that I find it appropriate for third grade, let alone elementary school, on so many levels,” said a Queens elementary-school principal who was shown one of the books by colleagues outside the city.

“We don’t have to bring the message of war with it. We don’t have to bring in guns and bombs,” said the principal. “My assumption is that some person would have read the material and gone over it and approved it, but I don’t know in what world they could have been living.”

The books are part of a new English curriculum created by Expeditionary Learning, a non-profit arm of the group Outward Bound.

The content was commissioned by the state Education Department for grades 3 to 5 as part of New York’s unique bid to adopt a statewide curriculum.

Last month, that curriculum was recommended by the city’s Department of Education as one of two options for students in grades 3 to 5 because it aligns with new national standards known as The Common Core.

Read more here.

Are these books recommended in your community? What are 3rd graders reading in your schools? Will these books make kids globally competitive? Are they emotionally appropriate for this age group? Are they content appropriate? Do they show any political bias?

The "Librarian of Basra" book is indeed on a Common Core aligned list for 3rd grade reading:

~~[PDF]~~

Expeditionary Learning Common Core Curriculum Grade 3-8 ELA ...

elschools.org/commoncoresuccess/assets/EL_TextList_02.pdf‎
4. Module 4. The Hope Chest. Karen Schwabach. One per student. Expeditionary Learning Common Core Curriculum. Grade 3-8 ELA & Literacy: Trade Books ...

The book is about a librarian who saves books as she fears the books would be destroyed in war. What one reviewer wrote on the Amazon review site in 2008 addresses a message that other reviewers did not notice. She states those reviewers did not understand all the facts of this story and she questions the author's point of view and perspective. From amazon.com review:

This review is from: The Librarian of Basra: A True Story from Iraq (Hardcover)
First, I'll name the things I love. As a raving book lover, I appreciate the subject of a librarian who loves books so much that she goes to such great lengths to save them. I love that others have enough respect for the books and the incredibly rich history of Iraq to help her. Like other reviewers, I love the example of this heroic and strong Muslim woman. She was literally saving history. This book has so much going for it.

Unfortunately, I had two giant problems with this book. I just read all currently posted reviews (33 at present). I'm saddened that not one reviewer has pointed out two very significant lines of text on page six. "Government offices are moved into the library. Soldiers with guns wait on the roof." One reviewer who disliked the book's message even said, "If our service men and women did destroy a library, it was either by accident or because it was harboring Saddam's military goons or material." Well, yes, exactly, but somehow everyone who reviewed this book seems to have missed that very important piece of information. The library WAS housing government activity and those cowards knew that their country's books, indeed its very history, would then be in danger. They ran away from the offices in the library and left its contents behind to be bombed. Thankfully, this noble woman was there to save the irreplaceable. Unfortunately, because the author does not elaborate at all on this point, everyone seems to be missing it. Sadly, those most likely to miss the point are children, the intended audience. Many adults have reviewed this book noting how much they personally love it. That's truly wonderful and I feel the same thing about many of my kids' books but this book was, in fact, written for children and it does them a disservice by rushing past an extremely important point. The author had a chance to perfectly emphasize the abundance of courage that Alia Muhammad Baker showed. Originally, she was most likely worried that the library would suffer collateral damage. Indeed, she was worried about the library being lost to "the fires of war" even before the government offices moved in. Once they did, she had to know that the library would be an actual target and that a strike could come at any time once the war began. Her bravery for going back into that building to rescue books time after time even after the bombs started falling becomes even more laudable when viewed in this light. She was in very real danger because of those offices.

Also, I would have liked it depicted that the books were being hidden from looters and vandals. Instead, it was clearly illustrated and stated that they were being hidden from soldiers. The only conclusion that those reading the book can draw is that soldiers would have destroyed the books. "The soldiers leave without searching inside. They do not know that the whole of the library is in my restaurant, thinks Anis." Heartbreaking and infuriating, period. I guess now is the time to mention that my husband is a soldier. My husband, who has personally funded my kids' 500+ book personal library and my ever growing book addiction, is a soldier. The fact that this book about such a noble woman was written and illustrated in such a way that children come away thinking that soldiers are the kind of people who intentionally destroy books is abhorrent to me.

I'm so anti the Iraq war and anti-Bush I have a countdown calendar for his presidency on my kitchen counter. But I am the wife of a soldier and the mother of his three children and I am far too offended by the low points of this book to read it to my kids. Soldiers don't vote to go to war. Presidents order them to go, for better or for worse. Soldiers join the ranks to serve their country and hope that if and when they are ordered into battle that it is for a noble cause. And if the cause is noble, how grateful our country is to have them there. They don't get to pick though. Whether they agree or disagree, off they go without voice. I am my husband's voice tonight and I am offended beyond measure.

For a moment, let's stop talking about politics and start talking about soldiers. Most of them are dads. My particular soldier wept openly when his babies were born, changes diapers and does pigtails like a pro, built a giant sandbox despite his intense distaste for sand, and has tickle fights and reads stories nightly...when he's not on 12-15 month deployments to a country he'd rather he had never set foot in. He probably knows more than 50 of our kids' books by heart, as he has been reading to them since the day they were born. He does voices that would rival the best audio books. He lovingly and perfectly tapes back together books with torn pages or loose binding, a fact of life for favorites. Every week I send a new kids' book from Amazon all the way to his trailer in Iraq, where he videotapes himself reading it. When the kids get their weekly Daddy video and their new book, that's the highlight of their week. Just picture their confusion if I were to read them this book. Now picture the child who doesn't know a soldier. There is no confusion, just the misguided notion that soldiers would have destroyed the books if they had found them.

Please think twice before you read this to your kids. At the very least, be prepared to have a discussion about what the Iraqis perceive to be the American soldiers' intentions versus the reality of what the soldier is really there for. Soldiers don't care if there is a mile-high pile of books behind a door. They're simply hoping there aren't armed combatants ready to take their lives and prevent them from returning home to read their children some bedtime stories.

While many are concerned about the war theme in this book, maybe this reviewer's comments create another concern: author bias and the unfavorable view of soldiers to 3rd graders. If you have children in school using Common Core aligned text, it is imperative to ask for the list in your district and review approved books for content and message.

Here is a lesson plan from the other book mentioned in the nypost.com article, Nasreen's Secret School. Following is a review about the book that I chose because of the age of the reviewer's children and their emotional reaction. Is this appropriate for this age group? Should this be listed as a Common Core aligned reading list for 3rd graders?

This review is from: Nasreen's Secret School: A True Story from Afghanistan (Hardcover)

Customer review from the Amazon Vine™ Program (What's this?)
I selected this book in hopes to give my boys a little bit of exposure to what other children experience in another part of the world. Since my elementary aged child does not like school, I was hoping that it would impart some notion to him that there are kids all over the world who would LOVE to attend school and simply don't have the opportunities like he does. (yeah, I know...the whole I walked 10 miles in the snow to get to school story)

I was pleasantly surprised that both boys, 5 and 8 listened intently to the story but instead of my son being appreciative of the chance to attend school, my boys were both deeply saddened that the main character, Nasreen's parents were missing and that she had to sneak to attend school and was so sad that she never spoke.

I thought that the book was a nice change from the standard children's books that usually read here in the US and perhaps the writing style was due to the translation and the fluidity of both languages being lost in translation but I felt in some areas of the book, the writing was a tad choppy - even for a kid's book and it was written a bit too simple if you will. I am still glad to have had the chance to share it with my kids although when I've offered to read it to them again, they both decline saying that this book makes them too sad.

Privacy Freedom Fighters Honored at EPIC. Senators Rand Paul and Ron Wyden Included as Champions of Freedom.

2013-06-05T15:42:00.000-05:00

Focusing public attention on emerging privacy and civil liberties issues

I was fortunate to attend the Electronic Privacy Information Center's (EPIC) dinner in Washington DC to honor individuals fighting for individual privacy rights. From EPIC’s Champion of Freedom Awards Dinner 2013 Washington, DC:

Join Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) for the annual Champion of Freedom Awards Dinner

2013 Honorees: Sen. Paul Rand (R-KY), Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR), Martha Mendoza of the Associated Press, and Susan Grant of the Consumer Federation of American.

Lifetime Achievement Award to Hon. David Flaherty Author, Professor, Privacy Official, and Advocate.

I was able to meet Senator Paul and give him Missouri Education Watchdog's concerns on privacy issues. Please contact Senators Paul and Wyden and thank them for their concern and work on privacy matters.

**************************************

To: Senator Rand Paul

From: Gretchen Logue and Anne Gassel

            Missouri Education Watchdog and Missouri Coalition Against Common Core

Date: June 3, 2013

RE: Common Core issues and data gathering

***********************************************************************

Dear Senator Paul:

I was here in town to hear you speak and I want to pass on information regarding data gathering and privacy concerns in the public schools. The US Department of Education provided funding for states to set up longitudinal data P20 systems to track individual students from Preschool through age 20 or into the workforce.   Subsequent to setting these data systems up, the USDOEd through the regulatory process changed FERPA which previously provided privacy protection for this data. Those changes now       allow this data to be shared with various Federal agencies and private entities.   As you are aware, EPIC has filed a challenge to this regulatory action.

As it stands, parents have no control to question the gathering of this data or its review on their minor children. There is no process in place to ensure its accuracy. Future policy based on this data becomes highly suspect. In addition, security breaches to this sensitive data can compromise a child’s credit rating before they even have a chance to get a credit card. Inaccurate data can also impact a student’s academic path. Parents are gravely concerned about this situation given the manner personal data was used in the current IRS decisions for non-profit status to certain groups.   Data in the wrong hands can become a weapon.

Enclosed please find several articles about data gathering, educational data systems and the government’s blatant personal disregard for personal privacy:

04.15.13 MEW article on tracking infants from 24 hours old in Illinois via the Illinois Data Warehouse System.

05.26.13 MEW article on teacher advising students of their Constitutional right not to answer questions about their alcohol and drug use which would be tracked individually and revealed to school personnel. The teacher was disciplined for mentioning this refusal should be protected under the 5^th Amendment.

05.21.13 MEW article on the dangers of gathering individual student data from a clinical psychologist. It should be noted that a waiver from HIPAA was granted to the school districts with the changes in the FERPA law.

The Georgetown Law Journal looked at privacy concerns related to government collection of student data. At no point in its review did the Journal make the case that the government had a right to collect the data, only that government had the desire to collect the data. We believe the government has an obligation to demonstrate a right to collection of individual personal data that can impact a child from the day he/she is born.

We appreciate you signing Senator Grassley’s letter and we encourage you to work for legislation to re-establish the original intent of FERPA.   Thank you for your attention to this matter. Please feel free to contact us with any questions.

Gretchen Logue

Anne Gassel

************************************

Please consider a donation to EPIC for the work it does to protect individual privacy concerns.

What Will It Take To Get Answers From DESE?

2013-06-04T09:18:00.003-05:00

Some folks down in the East Newton school district still have questions about Common Core and are willing to do whatever it takes to get answers from DESE. They have scheduled a meeting this month and invited DESE to attend. Here was the first response from DESE.

-----Original Message-----
Sent: Fri, May 31, 2013 2:58 pm
Subject: Letter from DESE in response to our invitation

Dear Bobbi:

Thank you for the invitation to participate in your community meeting at East Newton. I’m sorry I took so long to get back with you as I have been on vacation. I checked with Dr. Cooper, assistant commissioner, to see if the department would be expending more resources on individual community meetings across the state. He indicated that our open meetings were held on May 2nd and we would not be presenting at other meetings at this time. We have an abundance of information on the department’s website at the following link: http://dese.mo.gov/divimprove/curriculum/CommonCoreMeetings.html In addition, on that site are PDF links to the lists of the questions that came out of each of our 8 regional meetings held on May 2, and I am told that it will soon have a link to the answers to all of those questions. If there is information that is not included about which anyone might have additional questions, please feel free to email those questions to me or to the Department atcommunications@dese.mo.gov.

Thank you again for the invitation,

Mike Wutke, Ed.D.
South Central Area Supervisor

Not to be put off so easily, the local organizer promised DESE to do whatever they could to facilitate DESE's attendance, even covering the costs if necessary.

Subject: Common Core Meeting
To: Mike.Wutke@dese.mo.gov, mccrackint@mail.enr6.k12.mo.us

Dear Mr. Wutke,

We are so sorry to hear that you don't have the funds to attend. We would like you to come very much and we would be so happy to pay for expenses so that you could represent DESE at this meeting. Would you please reconsider?

Thank you for posting others' questions on the website but we already have questions, what we are lacking are answers. Since this will be implemented in the fall it is not much help to get answers sometime. This is an important matter affecting our children and their education and we are taking this very seriously and we trust that you take it seriously too. Please either come and/or send a representative, we will have a chair for you. Let us know about the expenses you incur and we will be happy to assist in that matter.

Sincerely,

Bobbi

In fact, the folks in southwest Missouri are so interested in hearing some answers from DESE that at least one individual has volunteered to drive to Jefferson City, pick up the official(s), drive them down, pay for a hotel room and even cover their meals.

Still they await a response from DESE.

The organizers are continuing with their plans for this event to discuss Common Core on June 21st, in the East Newton High School Gymnasium at 7:00 p.m. They are even advertising it on a local radio station. A number of presenters are scheduled to speak including someone from Representative Kurt Bahr's office and the Missouri Coalition Against Common Core. These parents hold out so much hope that DESE will send someone to attend that they plan to have a chair on the dais for DESE. We'll just have to wait and see if there is anyone sitting in it.

http://m.joplinglobe.com/TJG/db_/contentdetail.htm?contentguid=7lqVV0SZ

Welcome to the Classroom of 2021

2013-06-03T08:00:00.000-05:00

After reading this article about tablets in school I couldn’t help but picture the classroom of the future and wonder whether teachers have tried this exercise for themselves.

Welcome to the classroom of 2021

The teacher has loaded the common cartridge for the morning. All the students are sitting at their desks where the new pressure sensitive chairs read how they are sitting and adjust the digital material on the white board to try to keep their attention as long as possible. The camera at the front of the room observes that a student in the back row has stopped watching the white board and is looking at something outside the window. Noting that her student file says her hobby is dancing, the cartridge selects a video from the massive support database that includes some children dancing to continue the lesson. The change is registered as effective as the student is now back to looking towards the front of the classroom.

By 8:45 the class has moved on to reading. Student 165789-F3 is working on her reading assignment on her school assigned tablet. The rest of the students are reading a paragraph about William Jefferson Clinton to fulfill their non-fiction reading requirement. The paragraph talks about how proud he is of his daughter who has just been elected state representative. The passages the software has chosen for 165789-F3 do not include any references to a father as she has never known her father and is unlikely to be able to answer a prompt about one.

In the seat next to her, student 178946-W2 has automatically been added to the school dinner program because the system has noted that his mother lost her job ten weeks ago and has not found new employment. His name is added to the late bus list and his homework adjusted downward because he will not be getting home until later now. His mother’s WIC funds have been adjusted to reflect that she will no longer need to provide this meal for her child. All of this has seamlessly happened in the ether world to her state issued debit card. The teacher gets an alert from the district of this change and tells 178946-W2 of his new schedule. She senses a slight welling of tears when he learns that he will have to be at school for an additional two hours in the afterschool program instead of at home and she promises to stay and get him settled in with the other kids there today. This does not seem to have much of a calming effect on him. Though she knows all kinds of intimate details of his life, she is a relative unknown to him. His only relationship with her is to get suggestions for other websites he can log on to when he is stuck or as someone who can get broken tech fixed.

It’s 9:00 and already the teacher has had to log a tablet repair order and move student 49861-J4 to a different assessment station since the camera on the one he was at stopped working and was unable to complete his weekly formative assessment without knowing when he had turned his face from the screen, bored or frustrated with the questions for even a moment. The teacher is glad the camera is not registering her frustration. This is the 5^th tech repair report she has had to make this week, and it’s only Wednesday.

Little 562890-R3 raises her hand and asks to be allowed to go to the bathroom for the second time today. The teacher sighs but allows her to go. As she walks out the door her student ID registers her move in her student file, triggering a visit to the community counselor in the office be scheduled to make sure there are no physical or emotional problems causing her frequent trips from the classroom. Sensors in the bathroom read her ID and assure that she has made it to the bathroom, how long she is there and log any other IDs that might be in there with her.

Back in the classroom the children have gathered for the morning math lesson. Today they will be covering shapes, whole numbers through 12, angles, fractions (denominator only), and some idea of the area of a circle. The lesson requires them to draw a truck reflecting these concepts, talk among their group and agree on which part of the truck best represents the angle and the denominator. The teacher goes around the classroom with her tablet and marks off the elements of the preset rubric designed for this assignment for each student. She is glad she has this tool as she is not sure herself how to explain how we know the area of a circle to second graders who only know the bottom part of 22/7th.

She notices that the group in the front of the classroom has already completed the assignment. No surprise there. Student 498615-J4 is part of that group and has secretly been getting supplemental lessons after school. That information isn’t in the system so she can’t accuse his parents directly, but there seems to be no other way he could be so advanced in his skills compared to the other students. Even if she had proof she wouldn’t say anything because he is helping her keep her job with his scores on the assessments. The other students are happy that 498615-J4 is part of their group. They always get good scores when they agree to his answers.

The teacher graduated in 2018. Her degree in global studies made her a great candidate for teaching. She wishes she had more credit hours in statistics though, which would help her make sense of her classroom and the daily reports she receives about her students. It is hard for her to imagine the olden days when teachers, like Mrs. Jones down the hall in 5^th grade, didn’t have all the SES data on their students to help them in the classroom. How in the world would you pick the right lesson cartridge from the network if you didn’t know things like how many single children you had or which ones slower progression might be due to low birth weight?

Mrs. Jones has just announced she is retiring at the end of this year. She, at age 36, is one of the oldest teachers in the school. Unlike some of her predecessors she is not moving on to an administrative role. She seems kind of wistful about it all. At lunch, she joins the younger teachers less and less in their conversations about which website has the best digital master teachers and what the latest glitch in software has been. There was a time when Mrs. Jones talked more, tried to engage the other teachers in exploring other curriculum materials, questioned whether what they were doing was right for the children. That was before the closed door meetings with district administrators. Since then, Mrs. Jones has said little to the other teachers. When asked what she plans to do after she leaves, she has vaguely suggested something with homeschooling although it is unclear how much longer that will even be legal. Nonetheless, she appears to be looking forward to leaving the public school.

If they haven't already, teachers really should be thinking about the future education reformers have envisioned for them.

Can the Left and the Right Find Enough Common Ground to Work Against Common Core?

2013-06-02T12:39:00.000-05:00

An thought provoking article by Anthony Cody asking Is the Tea Party Right About the Common Core? appeared in Education Week:

Yesterday's Washington Post carried a banner story about growing Tea Party opposition to the Common Core. We learn that across the country, Tea Party activists have been organizing around opposition to the Common Core, and have succeeded in blocking or delaying the standards in at least nine states.

There has been a contemptuous reaction from the highest levels of our educational system. Arne Duncan has implied that opponents are tin-foil hatted paranoids: "It's not a black helicopter ploy and we're not trying to get inside people's minds and brains," he said last week. A week before he responded to questions at Capital Hill, saying "Let's not get caught up in hysteria and drama." And of course corporate-funded conservatives like Jeb Bush, and the Fordham Institute are still on board all the way.

The problem they have is that the substance of the Tea Party criticism of Common Core standards is solid. And it aligns pretty well with what many of us a bit more to the left have been saying for years. Let's take the arguments, as presented by this Washington Post article and elsewhere, and check them out.

Should Police Departments Offer Iris Scans for Children?

2013-06-02T08:26:00.000-05:00

Mexico launches national ID cards for children

From Granby police offer iris scans under child identification program sponsored by Hampshire County Sheriff's department:

Over the next couple of months, parents will be able to have their children's irises scanned under a child identification program sponsored by the Hampshire County Sheriff's Department.

Police Chief Alan P. Wishart Jr. said consent forms to participate in the program are being distributed through the schools and can also be obtained at the Police Department.

"Like fingerprinting, it is another way to identify children in case of abduction," Wishart said.

Iris scanning was scheduled to be done at a recent Passport to Safety program at the Granby Junior Senior High School, but there was a conflict in scheduling, Wishart said. The scans would become part of a national database.

Here are a couple of questions: Should scanning be done on children and these records become part of a national database? What agency (private or public) is maintaining the database? Should parents ask more questions on exactly where these records will be stored and who/what agency has access to them and for what purpose? Are these scans available to be shared with various federal agencies for their purposes? Will private companies have access to these scans?

A teacher comments:

"My goal is to try to collaborate with community program providers," she said. Gail M. Ouimet, kindergarten teacher and coordinator, said the safety event was made possible with a couple of grants.

From an earlier masslive.com article Passport to Safety event planned for families in Granby on iris scanning planned to take place in the school:

(The event) is made possible with a grant from the state Department of Early Education and Care of the state Executive Office of Education to Granby through the Holyoke Chicopee Springfield Head Start.

Parents were upset that iris scans were done on their children without their knowledge in Polk County Florida. Is the issue that permission was not obtained? Do most parents want their children's biometric information in a national data base and have no issue with the retrieval as long as permission is granted? Do parents know (or are concerned) where that information is going and who/how it will be used?

Maybe the iris scans from Granby will be incorporated into a database similar to the "Baby Talk" data set crafted by Illinois. The Illinois State Board is implementing the compilation of data first on Head Start babies and data gathering will expand each year to include more children. Who knows where all this data is going on our children and how it will be used?

Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is:

Logue, G (June 2013). "Should Police Departments Offer Iris Scans for Children?". Retrieved (date) from the Missouri Education Watchdog site: http://www.missourieducationwatchdog.com/

Will Your Child's Iris Scans Head for the Clouds....Like the Army's?

2013-06-01T10:52:00.000-05:00


What is the Learning Registry gathering and sharing?

Why is the Department of Defense partially funding the Learning Registry?

The practice of iris scans being taken on children for "bus information and safety" was confirmed by the Polk County Board of Education. These scans were performed and parental consent was not asked for nor given before the scans took place. The company has assured parents the information has been destroyed but how does a parent know if this is true? If information is sent to the cloud or stored elsewhere electronically, is it ever eliminated completely? Who/what has access to this student biometric information? Is there a digital footprint (or eye scan) student dossier hovering somewhere?

Gathering of biometric information and storing it in the cloud is not confined to the education industry. The Army is also utilizing iris scans for data. From Army’s Fingerprint and Iris Databases Head for the Cloud:

The next time U.S. soldiers snap a picture of your eye or scan your face, they’re likely to store all that personal, physical data in the cloud.

The Army’s Intelligence command recently awarded a sole-source contract to bring the classified Defense Cross-Domain Analytical Capability, a database storing various kinds of security-relevant information the Army collects, onto the proverbial “cloud” of distributed servers and networks. Among the focuses of the project: “integrating Biometrics into the cloud,” according to a description of the contract.

The effort “involves the Entity management and tracking system for Biometrics/Human Terrain Facial recognition capability (photos, video) and edge-to-Cloud Enterprise Messaging (Corps/Division Node to/from Handheld,” says the Army Intelligence and Security Command. “Human Terrain” refers to an Army program in Iraq and Afghanistan that sought to map unfamiliar tribal networks and other social structures. Integrating that into an intelligence database is a major shift, but more on that in a second.

"Human Terrain" might be an apt name for tracking students as well. Student iris scans and fingerprinting provides unique identifiers for students ostensibly for safety and speed of lunch lines. But how else could biometric information be used in the future? Could it be used for intelligence purposes or for other tracking purposes? Could students be part of a "targeting cycle" in the future?

...the military is into biometrics in a big way. It’s created and maintained biometrics databases containing literally millions of iris and fingerprint scans from Iraqis and Afghans. The Iraq database has outlasted the Iraq war: it resides permanently at U.S. Central Command in Tampa.

Evidently unsatisfied with the clunky ViewFinder-esque mobile tools for collecting biometric data in the field, in February the Pentagon inked a $3 million research deal with California’s AOptix to check out its smartphone-based biometric identifier, built on an iPhone and iOS. Then there’s all the Pentagon’s additional research into identifying people by the unique pungencies of their body odor and the ways they walk.

It’s worth noting that the architects of the Army’s star-crossed “human terrain” mapping, a much-criticized attempt at warzone anthropology, swore up and down that their interviews with tribal leaders had nothing to do with gathering intelligence. That distinction had much to do with the distaste many anthropologists had with working alongside the military, but architects Montgomery McFate and Steve Fondacaro said they weren’t spying because they weren’t part of the military’s “targeting cycle.”

“[G]iven the vast collection and reporting effort that supports lethal targeting, using HTS [the Human Terrain System] to fulfill this function would be redundant and duplicative,” they wrote in 2012. (.PDF) “Whereas [human intelligence] requires highly specific information about individuals in order to capture or kill, social science, as practiced in HTS, seeks broad contextual information for nonlethal purposes.”

The biometric information for the Army identifies adversaries but using this information for social science purposes requires broad contextual information to be valid. Think about the combining of student iris scans/fingerprints/ healthcare information with educational/personal information data tracking. Will the 400 plus points National Education Data Model data set be combined with student biometric information?

Does this Army scanning and fingerprinting align itself with the educational practice of student tracking? There is a relationship between the Learning Registry and the Department of Defense:

The Learning Registry is a joint effort of the Department of Education and the Department of Defense, with support of the White House and numerous federal agencies, non-profit organizations, international organizations and private companies.

Key members of the collaboration are:

The Advanced Distributed Learning Initiative (ADL) from Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness (OUSD P&R)

The Office of Educational Technology at the US Department of Education

This effort, begun in 2010, is creating a set of technical protocols as a platform for innovation by content authors and aggregators. Applications built to harness the power of harvesting and analyzing the Learning Registry data will allow educators to quickly find content specific to their unique needs. The Learning Registry will store more than traditional descriptive data (metadata)--it will also allow sharing of ratings, comments, downloads, standards alignment, etc.
This effort has been driven by a call for increased openness, sharing and use of digital learning resources as described in both the National Education Technology Plan and National Broadband Plan. The specifications have been developed to support learning organizations from across all education sectors.

What is the Learning Registry?

The Learning Registry is a new approach to capturing, sharing, and analyzing learning resource data to broaden the usefulness of digital content to benefit educators and learners.

The Learning Registry is not a website or repository… it's not a search engine… and it's not a replacement for the excellent sources of online learning content that already exist…

The Learning Registry is an open source technical system designed to facilitate the exchange of data behind the scenes, and an open community of resource creators, publishers, curators, and consumers who are collaborating to broadly share resources, as well as information about how those resources are used by educators in diverse learning environments across the Web.

Is this why FERPA regulations needed to be changed by Arne Duncan? If the Department of Defense is contributing to an educational system of data gathering, wouldn't the DOD want access to determine the effectiveness of the system? Do you think it would also want access to the data? Will your child's data eventually be stored at the US Central Command in Tampa? Did parents ever give consent for any of this biometric information be taken from their children?

Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is:
Logue, G (June 2013). "Will Your Child's Iris Scans Head for the Clouds...Like the Army's?". Retrieved (date) from the Missouri Education Watchdog site: http://www.missourieducationwatchdog.com/

My Conversation with Glenn Beck on Data Retrieval. Just Remember The Wizard of Oz.

2013-05-31T18:07:00.000-05:00

I had a great time yesterday meeting with others from around the nation and talking about how to halt the implementation of Common Core. About thirty people met in Dallas at Glenn Beck's studio, brainstormed for several hours, and were guests/audience members on the television show following our meeting.

The main topic was the data mining (and use of the data) done via Common Core. An interesting question on the show came when Beck played Devil's Advocate and asked "whatever could be wrong with gathering data on your child? We (the government) can help so much more if we have your child's information". This was similar to the question Representative Margo McNeill asked me in the Missouri House hearing on SB210. She asked, "what is your worst case scenario with the data gathering?"

Aside from the fact that a government official makes the assumption that government has the right to take personal information from a citizen for its purposes, my response to her, and to Beck's question is very simple. Look at the IRS scandal. Certain groups/people were targeted by the IRS based on their data. This data gathering identified certain groups/people for government inquiry and scrutiny. Tax-exempt status was withheld for many of these groups/people because of their data.

The same scenario is a real possibility for targeting specific groups of students (or individual students) for government reasons, whatever those reasons may be. Whether you think these reasons are valid or not, the government has the power to grant or deny favored status to individuals/groups based on whatever it deems appropriate. We've seen it happen in the IRS. It's not just speculation.

I was able to meet Beck after the show and chatted with him about how to answer his Devil's Advocate question. (It was an honor meeting him and I am very appreciative of his efforts to help in the anti-CCSS effort). It's a simple answer (in the form of a question) to those who ask why you would ever resist invasive data mining. Based on your data set, you may be asked this "Glinda" question:

Are you a "good witch" or "bad witch"?

Your data can determine if you are a government targeted subgroup or not. Your answer will depend on which wizard is inhabiting 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue and if you are a "good witch" or a "bad witch". Data sets and the mining of those data sets will determine if you align yourself with that administration's beliefs. If not (whether you are on the left or the right), get ready for the possible scrutiny of federal agencies and/or a presidential administration. We've seen how data was used by the IRS for its own purposes and the resulting marginalization of certain people/groups. Why would the Department of Education (or any other federal agency receiving DOEd data) be any different?

Please note: The information in this post is copyrighted. The proper citation is:

Logue, G (May 2013). "My Conversation with Glenn Beck on Data Retrieval. Just Remember The Wizard of Oz". Retrieved (date) from the Missouri Education Watchdog site: http://www.missourieducationwatchdog.com/

Glenn Beck On Common Core

2013-05-31T10:16:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, The Blaze TV brought together experts from across the country to discuss Common Core. The thirty people assembled in his audience included legislators, citizen activists, grassroots groups, messaging experts and historical experts like MEW editor Gretchen Logue. You can watch the episode on Roku with a Blaze subscription or on-line here on a free trial if you are not a subscriber.

The show focused on the data collection, public private partnership and the lack of local control for education if the structure established with Common Core is allowed to remain.

The stories of citizen activists, like one from Tennessee in this audience, are evidence that something is seriously wrong with Common Core. It is now going into cloak and dagger mode.
A mother in the audience heard about CC, did some of her own research, asked her child's third grade teacher some questions and shared her concerns with other parents she knew from her child's class. She was called into the principals office and told that she should not use her email lists to discuss CC. She said the principal "hoped I wasn't starting some sort of grass roots movement. Whether this was good or bad, the teachers and she work for the state (emphasis added)and that's their priorty so they are going to implement it no matter how good or bad it is. That's their job and that's what they need to do. I was told I am not to talk to any of the teachers about their opinion on common core and what they think." She got the impression from the school administrator that they were afraid to tell what they really thought about CC for fear of losing their jobs.

Yet we are still expected to believe this is a state led effort that involved input from parents, teachers and administrators in its development!?

The Missouri Coalition Against Common Core continues its efforts to educate the public on Common Core; where it came from, who its architects and promoters are and what their vision for k-12 education in this country is, what promoters claim CC will do vs. what it actually will do and why this is not good policy for primary education.

That teachers, who are required to use only research based curriculum, are being forced to teach standards that have no research base is evidence that the system is out of whack. That school personnel think they have the right or authority to dictate to parents who they can talk to about what is beyond the pale. If this sort of attitude towards the people who have pooled their money to hire these staff to teach their children goes unchecked now, parents will have absolutely NO say in their child's education ever again unless they pull out of public schools. Common Core may be providing one good thing. It is shining a light on the systematic destruction of parental authority happening in our public schools.

What is going on with special education?

2013-05-30T08:06:00.002-05:00

Something is happening with special education. Seemingly random reports are coming in, from parents with children who receive special services from school, showing that those services are changing. Is this part of a bigger picture?

In one district they are consolidating IEP's for third and fourth graders because they are switching to a "standardized" IEP report. Even teachers are unclear where this "standardized" report form is coming from.

In another district a mother was told her special needs child no longer qualified for the summer program at school, one that he had attended every year previously without the parent even having to request it. The mother might have been content to accept the school's determination that her child no longer showed signs of skill loss following a break, but then she talked to other special needs parents. It turned out all fifteen children who had been approved for this program before were suddenly "advanced" to no longer needing it.

A mother in North Carolina petitioned her public school to opt her autistic child out of standardized testing. She believed the frustration of not being able to pass the test would spur her child into self-harming behavior. Through the entire chain of authority, all the way up to the superintendent, her request was denied citing federal mandates in No Child Left Behind. Her child would have to take the test, one that he would assuredly fail. That's an interesting requirement in a climate where children's test scores have consequences well beyond the child's academic assessment.

Below is a post from Blue Hat Movement with a video of this particular mom. From Update and Video: NC Mother of Autistic Child Fights EOG’s:

"What is particularly onerous about her situation is that the school, School Board and Superintendent are going so far out of their way to force her Autistic son to take this test. No offense meant, but Michelle has guaranteed me that her son cannot pass any version of a state EOG. They are essentially forcing her son to take a test that he will fail. This is in light of the fact that his school year has been filled with success. Michelle went to some lengths to describe to me how many victories there have been for her son this year. She describes many of them in the video. I am sharing this video for two reasons. Michelle personally asked me to do what I could to expose what is happening. Secondly, this situation truly calls into the light and exaggerates just how misguided testing has become under NCLB and CCS. Standardized Testing hurts teachers. It reduces the hard work and efforts of your child’s teacher into an assessment designed by people who will NEVER meet either your child or their teacher. All the amazing things that happened in that classroom…like they have for Michelle’s son, deserve credit. But with a standardized test, there is none. The way the Common Core is set up, all that good stuff gets thrown under the school bus. Testing is all that seems to count. This is a slap in the face of how hard teachers work.

In fact, under CCS, standardized tests that are scored low, actually count against teachers. Under Standard 6, teachers are being tested and given a grade based upon how their student’s performed."

It appears, from this video, that this district's interpretation of the requirements of NCLB differ from other districts. Who is right? I'd like to think that these administrators would be more reasonable and exempt this child if they felt the decision was entirely up to them. Where does a parent go to fight a local district's interpretation/implementation of a federal mandate? What would be the incentive to measure the degree to which a special needs child's performance is below that of his/her peers? It is times like these when the words of Linda Darling Hammond and Arne Duncan haunt me: Educational Equity, Redistribution of Resources, Reducing the Performance Gap. What is on the horizon for parents of special needs children?

Florida School Board Confirms They Have Ok'd Iris Scan Without Parental Permission

2013-05-29T13:51:00.001-05:00

What would you do if you found out your school scanned your child's iris for the all critical purpose of enabling your child not to have to "carry an identification card?" Parents in Florida are answering that question today.

A mother in Florida posted last week on Facebook that she thought her third grader had been scanned at school, but she could get no confirmation of that, that is until today when she received this letter from the school board.

In case you couldn't read it, it reads in part,

"The program is called Eye Swipe-nano. It is a safe non-invasive iris reader. It simply takes a picture of the iris, which is unique to every individual. The Eye Swipe-nano is an ideal replacement for the card based system since your child will not have to be responsible for carrying an identification card. With this program, we will be able to identify when and where a student gets on the bus, when they arrive at their school location, when and what bus the student boards and disembarks in the afternoon. This is an effort to further enhance the safety of our students."

Oh, well as long as its non-invasive on the collection part I guess I won't worry that you now have a way to track my child's every location without chipping them. All you need is one of those fancy iris readers that apparently can be installed anywhere. And of course, you have now given my child's uniquely identifiable feature to a private company without my permission. Those companies are never subject to federal requests to turn over data, like say Google or AT&T were.

And who decided this high tech privacy invading solution was needed? That's right, the transportation department. Given yesterday's story of a 6 year old boy who was suspended for having a plastic gun the size of a quarter on the bus, I wonder how long parents will continue to allow their children to ride the bus.

Schools regularly operate on the principle of "It is easier to ask forgiveness later than to ask permission beforehand." (Parkway wrist monitors) This culture must be stopped and it's up to parents to stop it. Do not take any government agent's assurance that they will never abuse the privilege of having access to this data. Say it with me, "No data collection on my child without my permission."

Parent Refuses Permission for Child to take Part in Field Testing for Pearson

2013-05-29T08:17:00.001-05:00

Another brave parent stands up to the standardized test industry. From buffalo news. com and ‘Field tests’ raise concerns that school tests are now a corporate product:

A new packet of shrink-wrapped state tests will arrive at hundreds of elementary and middle schools across the region this week.

But these 40-minute tests given in early June won’t count for students or teachers. They’ll test whether a private contractor, Pearson Education, hit the mark when it developed multiple-choice questions for state exams.

It’s exactly the kind of class time parents such as Daniel Kasprzak think could be better spent.

...Pearson is a giant in the education and publishing fields. It publishes the Financial Times and prints books through the Penguin Group. Its education arm, Pearson Education, writes textbooks, sells school curriculum and designs tests taken by millions of children across the country. During the last decade, it has become one of the largest education companies in the world.

“Its primary agenda is deriving profits for shareholders,” said Robert Schaeffer, public education director of FairTest, a national advocacy group that opposes high-stakes testing. “Back in the day, the exams were made primarily by state and public employees who presumably had as their top priority improving the quality of public education.”

The 40-minute field tests, which will be conducted in 220 schools in Erie and Niagara counties in early June, have prompted questions from some parents at Hillview Elementary School in Lancaster, said Principal Kathleen Carroll Knauth.

“We still have another set of tests to do,” said Knauth, who announced last month that she would take an early retirement in protest of the increased student testing and new teacher-evaluation systems. “And I’ve had a few express concerns about that: ‘Why are they using my child for field tests, my child as a guinea pig?’ ”

Read more here.

Pearson controls upwards of 40% of the education market through all their recent acquisitions. Their future control of education looks even brighter. This is from a BC Teacher's Federation report from 2012:

"Pearson ’s approach to the education business can be understood by examining a recent controversy in which it found itself embroiled. The company moved decisively into the testing business well before its recent spate of acquisitions. Along with other testing companies, Pearson grew fat feasting on the mandatory testing required under George W. Bush’s No Child Left Behind , and fatter still under Barack Obama’s Race to the Top . Pearson became a leader in testing as it did in so many other education businesses, by purchasing industry leaders. It bought National Computer Systems, the leading provider of test - scoring services, for an astonishing $2.5 billion US, in July 2000. 5 Several months later George W. Bush was elected president on an education — read “testing” — platform. Just days after the election, a NCS - Pearson executive displayed a quote from Bush calling for state testing and individual school report cards and announced to a ballroom - full of Wall Street analysts, “This almost reads like our business plan.” 6 In 2007, perhaps anticipating Barack Obama’s reliance on testing as his major education policy, Pearson purchased Harcourt Assessment, one of the two leading producers of tests administered at the state level and owner of the Stanford Achievement Test (SAT) , for $635 million."

Pearson was intimately involved in the development of the Common Core Standards, was first to market with textbooks aligned to CCS and now has a controlling share of the standardized test market for CCS. The state's lame assertion that districts are free to choose whatever curriculum they want is proven false by this story.

Last week, the New York Post and Daily News reported that the Pearson-developed New York State ELA sixth- and eighth-grade assessments included passages that were also in a Pearson-created, “Common Core–aligned” ELA curriculum. This meant that students in schools that purchased and used instructional materials from Pearson had an enormous advantage over those who didn’t....

After all, if you were a New York principal and learned that Pearson included passages from their curriculum on the state test—the results of which are used to inform everything from student to teacher to school accountability—whose curriculum would you buy?

So when the school tells you that your child HAS to take the standardized test, keep in mind this Tonawanda parent observation, “Basically, we have our children as child labor determining and enhancing the product for Pearson."

Is it time to opt your child out of high stakes testing (and Common Core assessments)? Have you joined the Blue Hat movement?

“The school day schedule is highly regimented and leaves very little breathing room. Teachers have been told that they are not allowed to include any activity unless it has documented proof of its educational benefit. For example, no art or craft projects that do not specifically relate to the curriculum (like decorating the classroom for holidays); no buddy reading (older students spending time reading with younger students); no silent reading time. The principal called these activities “fluff”.

Can Teachers Really Be Creative and Innovative when Teaching to the Test? Do They Really Have that Much Magic?

2013-05-28T07:06:00.000-05:00

The video of Ellie Rubenstein, a Highland Park School District (Lincoln Elementary School) teacher who resigned because of the increased time taken on standardized testing, has created new debate on the role of teachers. Rubenstein offers her statement on what it's like to teach today in the classroom. From the Daily Mail:

The former teacher says: 'Raising students' test scores on standardized tests is now the only goal, and in order to achieve it the creativity, flexibility and spontaneity that create authentic learning environments have been eliminated.

'Everything I love about teaching is extinct,' she continued.

'...over the past 15 years, I've experienced the depressing, gradual downfall and misdirection of communication that has slowly eaten away at my love of teaching.'

She adds that she now feels like she is now 'not being allowed to do anything meaningful' but is 'instead forced to act as as cog in a wheel that is turning in the wrong direction.'

What happened in the last 15 years? Could it include the adoption/implementation of the Bush/Kennedy No Child Left Behind act, the mandates focusing on increased standardized testing and the withholding of federal funding if benchmarks aren't reached? Did you know Common Core standards have been described as "NCLB on steroids"? If this teacher feels like a "cog in a wheel", imagine how the students feel in these mandated education scripts.

Be sure to read comments on the video from other teachers.

What is the school's response? From chicagotribune.com:

District administrators blamed the moves on a negative work environment at Lincoln Elementary School, but parents weren't convinced.

"If that's the case, I can't believe I learned about it just now," said David Seidman, parent of two Lincoln School students, before evoking a famous speech by the building's namesake to say administrators had created a environment of mistrust in the larger school community.

"This house is very much divided, and I don't know how it's going to stand again," Seidman said.

The parents' anger was stoked when Lincoln School fourth-grade teacher Ellie Rubenstein posted a video Tuesday on YouTube to air her grievances and publicly resign. She and three other Lincoln School educators were recently told they would be transferred to other schools next year. One of the transfers was voluntary, and three were involuntary, according to officials.

North Shore School District 112 Superintendent David Behlow said Lincoln School's working environment needed improvement, noting the building has had three principals in the last four years.

Behlow said many of Rubenstein's comments in the video "were inaccurate, misleading and, in many cases, factually wrong."

"Our teachers are encouraged to be creative and innovative and to exercise their own craft and magic in classrooms every day," Behlow said.

Read more here.

What is the truth? We aren't privy to know confidential work/performance information to determine who is being most truthful. However, the last comment by Behlow makes me believe the teacher has more credibility. Teachers can't possibly "be creative and innovative and to exercise their own craft and magic in classrooms every day" in the current NCLB requirements and upcoming Common Core mandates. Mandates are inflexible and opposed to creativity and innovation and it would take a lot of magic to work around them. No teacher has that amount of magic to accomplish that craft.

The Stop Common Core Argument: There is no one "common" path or yellow brick road to educational excellence.

2013-05-27T08:33:00.000-05:00

CCSS proponents would have you to believe the standards will create an educational utopia and nudge us to a better place. Let's look at the facts. They may lead to a wizard who promises a lot but in reality, it's just rhetoric.

Follow the educational reform yellow brick road! We now have standards that will make our kids college and career ready! STEM jobs will surface because our students will now know science and math! Common Core will enable students to be ready for 21st century jobs! Don't worry that the proponents don't list exactly what those 21st jobs are. No, no, listen to the CCSS proponents and education will morph from black and white film technology into technicolor.

Common sense would tell you if a salesperson tells you about a product and how fantastic it is, but has no proof of what he/she is selling is an actual item (such as a list of 21st century jobs), you wouldn't pay for that product. It would be similar to giving money to a shyster who insists he/she has a product that will work but can't show you the product he/she promises will produce the effects promised.

It's the same for the CCSS claims. They are not researched based and cannot be backed up by data. For a program that relies on "data driven" results, CCSS proponents don't have any of those "data driven" research facts to back up their theories. CCSS is nothing but a massive stimulus program tied up with fancy language (rigorous, college/career ready, 21st century, global workforce, etc) to bamboozle taxpayers and legislators to buy into an educational program that appears to help students be successful.

It's nothing but a shell game. From Forbes and Dear High School Graduate: Everything You've Been Told Is False:

When I graduated from Omaha Creighton Prep High School back in 1977, my fellow grads and I entered a benign, forgiving, if U.S.-hegemonic, economic order where one could find paid work — albeit of a blue collar variety — just by completing high school. A world where even a C student was guaranteed some kind of white-collar employment just by earning a college degree; any kind of degree, with any kind of major, from a wide variety of public or private institutions.

High School Graduates of the Class of 2013, those days are over. Not only are there not a plethora of decent-paying jobs just waiting for you upon graduation, there are structural changes afoot in the U.S. economy making your human labor “incidental.”

...No doubt you’ve been told that more — and better targeted — skill sets are the expensive answer to your job predicament. At least that’s what the increasingly desperate education industry – and their lax-loan lackeys in the Obama Department of Education – want you to believe. Unfortunately, as authors Kenneth Gray and Edwin Herr note, only 21% of all jobs in the U.S. require a bachelor’s degree or higher. In addition, according to economist and professor Peter Morici, “more than half of recent graduates are working” in an occupation “that does not require a college education.”

...Moreover, even if you pursue a degree in a field that requires a college diploma, the fast-evolving global marketplace may still determine in a few years time that those “in-demand” skills you studied so hard to accrue are suddenly superfluous. Economists call this commoditization. And just as it happened with website designers and A & R hacks in the early 2000s, and lawyers and journalists in the late 2000s, commoditization could quickly transform today’s in-vogue STEM fields too. Especially when one considers that for every two U.S. students that graduate with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math) degrees, only one is deployed in a STEM job.

Read more here.

From a reader and a response from the author:

Business_Owner 2 days ago

Auto repair, plumbing repair, electrical repair, air conditioning repair, heating system repair, home repair, roofing repair …. There are probably others but everyone should get the point. There are a LOT of jobs that don’t require a college degree and pay good money.

My business is a repair business. I primarily sharpen and repair beauty, barber and groomer tools along with sewing and upholstr scissors. I also sharpen knives, axes, hatchets, lawn mower blades, shovels, manual hedge trimers, loppers, most anything with a smooth edge. Add to this list some veterinary tools and livestock clipper blades.
I am also a hair stylist specializing in razor hair cuts for men.

At either of my “businesses” I regularly make 20$ an hour.

I have no college degree and I didn’t play sports in High School. I was too busy with a lawn care, attic and basement cleaning service.

James Marshall Crotty, Contributor 2 days ago

Amen. We are not all destined to be, nor happy being, software developers, robotics engineers, or whatever STEM field du jour is being pushed these days. We need to steer each young person down a path that makes sense for each of them. Fulfillment in work can happen through so many different fields, most of which do not require a four-year college degree. Thank you.

So, the questions are: why are we cheerleading Common Core standards to make everyone common when commonality is what we should be avoiding? Why are we preparing students for jobs when the CCSS folks don't even know what those jobs are? If only 21% of jobs require a bachelor's degree, why are we pushing students into college?

Those are the questions to ask in your school board meetings, to your superintendents, your legislators and in social media postings. Why won't CCSS proponents deal with the facts instead of theories? Do you believe this is about education or something else? But "pay no attention to that man behind the curtain". Just as the Wizard of Oz had to step up to the plate and explain his proclamations, it's time for the CCSS group to do the same. It's too bad this isn't a movie and we can walk away from this suspension of reality.

Teacher Advises Students of their Constitutional Rights. He Now Faces Possible Disciplinary Action.

2013-05-26T06:30:00.000-05:00

A teacher is in trouble after advising students of their Constitutional rights before they were to complete a school survey. From the dailyherald.com:

A Batavia High School (Illinois) teacher's fans are rallying to support him as he faces possible discipline for advising students of their Constitutional rights before taking a school survey on their behavior.

Students and parents have praised his ability to interest reluctant students in history and current affairs.

But John Dryden said he's not the point. He wants people to focus on the issue he raised: Whether school officials considered that students could incriminate themselves with their answers to the survey that included questions about drug and alcohol use.

Dryden, a social studies teacher, told some of his students April 18 that they had a 5th Amendment right to not incriminate themselves by answering questions on the survey, which had each student's name printed on it.

The survey is part of measuring how students meet the social-emotional learning standards set by the state. It is the first year Batavia has administered such a survey.

Here is information about the social-emotional learning standards set by Illinois from Illinois Children's Mental Health Partnership:

Social and Emotional Learning (SEL) is defined as ”the process through which children enhance their ability to integrate thinking, feeling, and behaving to achieve important life tasks. Those competent in SEL are able to recognize and manage their emotions, establish healthy relationships, set positive goals, meet personal and social needs, and make responsible and ethical decisions. (Elias et al, 1997; Payton et al, 2000.) Considered within a traditional school context, SEL underscores the necessity to attend to a child’s social and emotional development in order to maximize that child’s opportunity to succeed in school. The research is clear that SEL has a significantly positive impact on children’s attitudes, behaviors and school performance

In 2003, Illinois’ state government passed the Children’s Mental Health Act, which legislated that all school districts create policies that address children’s social and emotional development; and that the State Board of Education (ISBE) develop social and emotional learning standards and mandate their implementation in all public schools. With this Act, Illinois became the first state to recognize – through legislation – the importance of social and emotional development to children’s ability to achieve academic success.

The SEL Standards were created and approved in 2005. Two years later the Illinois Children’s Mental Health Partnership (ICMHP) joined with the Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), the Collaborative for Academic, Social and Emotional Learning (CASEL), and the Illinois Violence Prevention Authority (IVPA) to begin implementing the statewide (Social and Emotional Learning) SEL Standards Professional Development Project (Project), through two grant programs. With this funding, a statewide Cadre of professionals was developed to train and work with school districts to implement the Standards.

Batavia bought its mental health survey from Multi-Health Systems which declined to give a copy for review. You can review a survey given to high school students by the Center of Disease Control to many schools around the country here which asks questions on drug, alcohol and tobacco use, as does the one from Multi-Health Systems:

The (Multi-Health) survey asked about drug, alcohol and tobacco use, and emotions, according to Brad Newkirk, chief academic officer.

The results were to be reviewed by school officials, including social workers, counselors and psychologists.

The survey was not a diagnostic tool, but a "screener" to figure out which students might need specific help, Newkirk said.

Do you know what else the Illinois State Board of Education is part of? The ISBE is a partner of the Illinois Data Warehouse System (ILDS). ILDS has data elements ready to be implemented and collected data will be supplied by schools to ILDS. These data sets will be able to be used in other states when data sharing is allowed across state lines. This can be done because of the adoption and implementation of Common Core standards. They can be shared as the standards (academic and otherwise) are commonly coded for easy tracking. From the Illinois Longitudinal Data System Project:

The Illinois State Board of Education (ISBE), along with our Education Partners, is now actively moving forward with the design and development of the state-wide Illinois Longitudinal Data System (ILDS). The system, when fully deployed, will provide data to help to track the outcomes of Illinois students as they progress from Pre-K through Postsecondary education, and as they enter the workforce. Longitudinal data supports an in-depth, comprehensive view of students’ progress and will ultimately help guide policymakers on where to invest time and energy to most effectively improve student achievement in our State.

The ILDS is defined by Public Act 96-0107 and enabled through federal funding, and instructs the State Board of Education to link student test scores, length of enrollment and graduation records over time. The system also will connect students to career planning and resources, with the potential to facilitate the application process for financial aid and records for transfer students.

ILDS will serve a large stakeholder group, including:

·         Illinois State Board of Education

·         Local Education Authorities

·         Regional offices of education and intermediate service centers

·         Parents and other members of the general public

·         State Legislatures

·         News media

·         Research organizations

·         Postsecondary Institutions

·         State workforce and higher education agencies

·         Education Partners

Do you think your state will create its own unique data retrieval standards set or will it align its data standards to Illinois? Common core is the necessary element in implementing data sharing. Data sharing requires commonly coded data sets which will enable the ILDS to capture and track student information. Here is the tie in with Common Core standards, the data set from the National Education Data Model and the two assessment consortia which includes the other states tying into the ILDS (page 8):

This Reform Agenda is aligned with a national Reform Agenda that builds off No Child Left Behind, national Common Core academic standards, National Education Data Model (NEDM) and Common Data Standards (CDS), two national Assessment Consortia, and a new national network of next generation learning environments.

The ILDS document details its purpose on tracking students for supplying the workforce. From http://www.isbe.net/ILDS/pdf/ildsdac_meeting_120810_1.pdf:

The State Core Model is a common technical reference model for states implementing state longitudinal data systems (SLDS). It was developed by CCSSO as part of the Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) adoption work with funding from the Gates Foundation.

The Model includes early childhood (EC), elementary and secondary (K12), post-secondary (PS), and workforce (WF) elements, known collectively as “P20,” and establishes comparability between sectors and between states.

What sort of data does it require? Here's a partial list showing the expansion of aggregate data into personal and individual data for its needed elements (beginning on page 36):

**********************************

Collect attitudes toward debt acquisition

Collect sources used, if any, for information on applying to and paying for college

Collect media used in student's household (newspapers, TV, cable, radio, internet, etc)

Collect unique student identifier

Collect remedial coursework taken in postsecondary programs

Collect number of hours students worked each week

Collect whether students live on or off-campus or with their parents

Collect number of credit cards and average total balance

Collect information on the need to work while in college

Collect hours enrolled in college

What data do we have that our expenditure for student support personnel are making a difference in attitude, behaviors, and achievement of students K-12? (How do you measure the success of open houses? Other parent involvement programs?? How are nurses, counselors, etc., being used?

What data do we have that the expenditures for teacher assistants/paraprofessionals are making a difference in student achievement?

What data do we have that expenditures for arts, music and PE are making a difference in academic achievement?

************************************

Behavior and attitude tracking information is necessary for the ILDS to gather for completing student data sets. Now you might understand why the school was a bit upset with John Dryden informing his students supplying this information might not be constitutional and impinged on their 5th Amendment rights. The school doesn't worry about constitutional rights. It's worried about the data gathering for the data system as mandated by Common Core state standards.

DESE Stifling More Debate About Common Core?

2013-05-24T12:53:00.000-05:00

DESE doesn't like answering questions.

That was evident in the May 2 statewide meetings that were designed to be "informational" only. DESE representatives were clear to the attendees that answers were not to be forthcoming but could be found within a week on its website.

The answers still aren't there and the clock keeps ticking.

Has DESE blocked James Shuls of Show-Me Institute for wanting to have an "old-fashioned" debate on the merits of Common Core?

From More Evidence of DESE Stifling Debate About Common Core?:

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On May 3, I sent a tweet to the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) and Commissioner of Education, Chris Nicastro. In the tweet I wrote, “I’m willing to have a good ‘ol fashion debate on the merits of #CommonCore. Missourians deserve that.” Apparently, state education officials aren’t interested in a true debate about Common Core, because I am now blocked from accessing the DESE Twitter page.

The tweet was sent the day after DESE officials hosted eight meetings throughout the state regarding the Common Core. Each meeting was conducted in the same way. The moderators read from scripts and refused to allow open dialogue. At the meeting in Springfield, the moderator can be heard telling the audience that they are “welcome to go ahead and leave” if they didn’t like how the meeting was being conducted.

I attended the meeting at Lindbergh, which was halted when citizens demanded to be heard.

Many people’s take-a-way from these meetings was that DESE was not interested in a true debate of the issue; they were more interested in controlling the message.

I have sent an email request to the commissioner and the head of the DESE communications department asking to be unblocked and to be told why my account had been blocked in the first place.

We shall see what they say. For now, it seems like just another example of the department trying to stifle debate about the Common Core.

**********************************************

Send this article to your state senator and representative. Since SB210 did not pass due to a filibuster threat, DESE is not being held accountable to any taxpayer or legislator on Common Core questions on cost or data retrieval.

Why would a state agency funded by taxpayer dollars be allowed to block a taxpayer and educational writer/researcher from DESE's twitter account? Is this because he asked for a debate on Common Core? Ask your legislators this question. If indeed this blocking has to do with Shuls' request for a debate, this is the height of bureaucratic arrogance.

If Common Core is so wonderful, why does DESE want to quash any serious discussion/questions about it? Why didn't most Missourians learn about CCSS when the Governor and the Commissioner signed on to the adoption of them in 2009? I guess you could tweet DESE and ask those questions but you may be blocked as well.

You gotta love government transparency. It instills such trust in those bureaucrats in charge of educating your children.

Call the Common Core Bullies Out. Just Say No to Standardized Testing.

2013-05-24T08:15:00.000-05:00

gra·tu·i·tous (gr-t-ts, -ty-)adj.

1. Given or granted without return or recompense; unearned.

2. Given or received without cost or obligation; free.

Is public education gratuitous or forced?

Is the Blue Hat movement the beginning of the doom of Common Core? Below is a story of a student's refusal to take the North Carolina's state test to protest standardized testing and the coming Common Core assessments.

You will discover and learn about the enormous bureaucracy strangling public schools. You will learn about the bullying tactics of school administrators and lawyers. What is the state's responsibility in the providing of education? Is it to adhere to standardized testing and federal mandates? In the last House hearing for SB210, Ron Calzone testified to what Missouri had to provide constitutionally in education. From the Missouri Constitution:

Section 1(a). A general diffusion of knowledge and intelligence being essential to the preservation of the rights and liberties of the people, the general assembly shall establish and maintain free public schools for the gratuitous instruction of all persons in this state within ages not in excess of twenty-one years as prescribed by law.

Read the rest of the education section here. What is missing from the Constitution? There is no legal adherence of children/parents to take standardized testing and the withholding of free public education for a student if he/she refuses to take such testing. There is no Federal law on taking standardized testing either, so the threat of withholding education from citizens based on testing refusal may very well be illegal.

Parents, this is how Common Core will begin to be defeated. Be part of the Blue Hat movement started by this student and father. Refuse to be part of the problem, instead, be part of the solution. Don't be bullied by CCSS bullies. Use those "anti-bullying" lessons mandated in curricula to your advantage and push back on the bureaucratic bullies on the school, district, state and national levels. It is your decision on the educational direction for your child, not a bureaucrat who needs your child to test for AYP measures, financial remuneration from the Federal government based on test results or data gathered for other reporting purposes.

Read the comments after the article. Contact the ACLU if you have stories of your student being denied a free public education because of opting out of standardized testing. When standardized testing is not used to track student progress but is used for federal funding formulas, teacher/principal evaluations and data gathering, it is time for students to refuse to participate. From one of the comments:

I’m not against standardized testing when it’s used strictly for evaluative purposes. In fact, testing can be quite helpful in identifying learning disabilities and be the first step in getting a child much need intervention services. I’m against standardized testing when it’s used for promotional purposes that wind up being punitive. It’s an insult to the teaching profession because it’s essentially taking the power of evaluating a student out of the teachers’ and principals’ hands…the very people who spend countless hours every school year with our children and know them much better than a ridiculous 3 hour test could.

It's time for parents to reclaim their educational decision making power.

From Opting Out-Updated:

**********************************************

Zoe and I had quite an adventure today. Watch the video below for details.

In essence though, she was told that she is not able to attend school unless she is willing to take the test. More to come on this as things develop.

Update and Timeline:

March 2013-Zoe and I form a crazy notion to start a national campaign to do something about the teach to the test standards.

April 2013-We decide it will start with a Youtube based revolution. We call it the Blue Hat Movement. We make a little website…and shoot some video content but decide that we are not ready yet to make a final one. We also choose a date for a nationwide rally date for a boycott. Zoe also says that “if we really want to make a statement, then I would like to opt out of taking the state tests this school year.” I tell her that this kind of idea is way too big and discourage it. But I do call the County Test Coordinator for Chapel Hill Public Schools. I am told that though they must discourage her from not testing…she will not be harangued and will proceed to the next grade with no repercussions.

May 2013-Zoe becomes pretty much dead set on not taking the MSL’s at the least. Her mom and I sign on. Her mom even sets a meeting with the school principal. The meeting never happens but Zoe’s mom is told that there will not be any negative side effects of Zoe not testing.

May 13, 2013-Tomorrow is the first MSL and I email her teachers a friendly note, even though they already know that she is opting out. The note, verbatim, is below:

“Zoe will not be participating in the MSLs this school year, and we wanted you to both know why, so you are not caught off guard when the test day arrives.

Her choice, which her mother and I both support, stems from quite a lot of research. In essence, not doing the MSL is an act of civil disobedience. It is a well thought out plan. Zoe feels, as do I, that the Common Core Standards, Obama’s Race to the Top, Standardized Testing, and Pearson Publishing are essentially harming education in our country.

Zoe basically just does not want to be a part of a system that doesn’t leave teachers free to teach in ways that they see fit from the start. We would really love for McDougle’s administrators and teaching staff to support Zoe in her efforts to “vote” for a better form of education in our schools. Change must start somewhere. And as long as we keep giving kids these tests, that we do not wish to be giving them, nothing changes. Zoe has just decided to be a part of the change now.

Please do let me know what activity she can do while the other students are taking the test. She will be armed with many books to read and does not wish to be a distraction to the other students during test time.

Also please note that I already have spoken with the County Test Coordinator based out of the Lincoln Center and he is apprised of the situation.

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me via email or call me at _______.”

*****************************************

Read the principal's response (via the school district's lawyer) here. Pay attention to this section:

I must also remind you that if she’s absent on test day and returns to school this year, we must test her when she returns.
I don’t have the latitude to not administer the test, regardless of the parents’ feelings on the matter.

I understand your concerns, but Zoe is hurting the teachers and our school by not testing. You may withdraw her if you want to protest the test.”

Parents, is this the gratuitous public education envisioned by the writers of the Missouri Constitution? Did they believe the free education offered was to have students/parents avail themselves of educational opportunity or was the participation in education a collective experience that had to do with school funding and teacher evaluations?

It's time to say no. It's time to call the bullies out. There is no law in Missouri (check your state) or federal law compelling your students to be a collective lug nut in the education machine.

Binoculars or Common Core. Which Choice Will Allow Creativity to Flourish and Allow School Districts to Operate on Budget?

2013-05-23T14:19:00.000-05:00

The video "Give Your Kids Binoculars and Get Out of the Way" with Neil deGrasse Tyson contains advice on how to get kids interested in science.

Spoiler Alert. It has NOTHING to do with the implementation/adoption of Common Core standards or more federal involvement in education. He believes parents (and maybe teachers, too?) should be getting "out of the way" and encouraging children's curiosity. He contends children create disorder in the lives of the adults around them and what do adults do? They stifle the child's curiosity.

Will Common Core will help kids explore and feed their curiosity...or just put them in a common box like everybody else?

From the video transcript:

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Neil deGrasse Tyson: I'm often asked by parents what advice can I give them to help get kids interested in science? And I have only one bit of advice. Get out of their way. Kids are born curious. Period. I don’t care about your economic background. I don’t care what town you’re born in, what city, what country. If you’re a child, you are curious about your environment. You’re overturning rocks. You’re plucking leaves off of trees and petals off of flowers, looking inside, and you’re doing things that create disorder in the lives of the adults around you.

And so then so what do adults do? They say, “Don’t pluck the petals off the flowers. I just spent money on that. Don’t play with the egg. It might break. Don’t....” Everything is a don’t. We spend the first year teaching them to walk and talk and the rest of their lives telling them to shut up and sit down.

So you get out of their way. And you know what you do? You put things in their midst that help them explore. Help ‘em explore. Why don’t you get a pair of binoculars, just leave it there one day? Watch ‘em pick it up. And watch ‘em look around. They’ll do all kinds of things with it.

For me at age 11, I had a pair of binoculars and looked up to the moon, and the moon wasn’t just bigger, it was better. There were mountains and valleys and craters and shadows. And it came alive. Not the full moon because there are no shadows cast when the moon is full; got to wait for it to be half moon or crescent moon, and look at the edge between light and dark with a simple pair of binoculars.

I was transformed by picking up a pair of binoculars and looking up, and that’s hard to do for a city kid because when you look up you just see buildings -- and really your first thought is to look in people’s windows. So to look out of the space -- out of living space -- and look up to the sky, binoculars go far, literally and figuratively. That’s what got me started on the universe. It might get some kids you know started the same way.

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I guess buying binoculars would be too expensive for school districts to buy. Oh, no, wait. Kirkwood School District decided it needed iPads for all their students to the cost of almost $2 Million by 2015. How long will these iPads be appropriate before they are outdated due to new technology? From kirkwood.patch.com:

With an estimated total of roughly $1.8 million for the cost of the project, the first phase will cost $325,000. The price includes an iPad Mini, a case and basic applications on the device. Students in 3rd grade and higher will be able to take the iPads home.

What wasn't mentioned in this article was the move to use iPads is part of Common Core implementation. For approximately 5,000 students in the district, the cost comes out to $360.00 per iPad. A good pair of binoculars cost less than that and they don't have software that becomes obsolete in a few years. But binoculars aren't part of Smarter Balanced Assessment Common Core technology requirements, are they? How much will new applications cost the district? How much insurance will KSD parents have to pay for 3rd graders who have trouble locating their coats much less an iPad? Did KSD understand that the iPads are only one part of required technology by SBAC?

From Smarter Balanced Releases Technology Strategy Framework and System Requirements Specifications:

This framework provides two levels of technology specifications: minimum requirements for existing devices and recommended guidelines for new purchases. Students using technology that meets only the minimum specifications may experience periods of slowness during the assessment, while technology consistent with the recommended guidelines will likely result in a more fluid testing experience.

In addition to the hardware and bandwidth requirements, eligible devices must also have a 10” class screen, a mechanical keyboard, headphones, wired or wireless Internet access, and administrative tools to temporarily disable features, functionalities, and applications that could present a security risk during test administration. The technology specifications apply only to the Smarter Balanced assessments and should not be considered minimum specifications to support instruction, which may require additional technology.

Is there any more hardware, bandwith, device, other technological expenses the district will need to incur for Common Core implementation? How much additional money is needed to support instruction? These are questions to ask the district at the June 4 Common Core meeting in Kirkwood and if there is a bond increase wanted by the district, how much this increase is due to Common Core implementation.

Those binoculars are sounding better and better. They are cheaper and are student directed as opposed to the top down standardized consortia owned standards and assessments.

Details on Kirkwood School District meeting:

06/04/13
North Kirkwood Middle School Library, 11287 Manchester Road
6:00pm - 7:30pm

Dr. Williams, superintendent of schools, is hosting a school/community conversation on Tuesday, June 4 from 6-7:30 p.m. in the North Kirkwood Middle School Library, 11287 Manchester Road. Dr. Williams and administrative services team will answer questions and listen to suggestions from the school community. The community is encouraged to attend.

The IRS, DESE and Sergeant Schultz: Complete Lack of Accountability.

2013-05-23T07:35:00.000-05:00

Do you remember "Hogan's Heroes"? Sergeant Schultz was known for his "I see nothing, I know nothing" response to issues around him. This is similar to Lois Lerner's refusal to testify in Congressional hearings about what happened at IRS, even as she stated she did nothing wrong. If she didn't do anything wrong, then why wouldn't she talk to Congressmen and women trying to determine exactly how and why the IRS targeted specific groups requesting tax exempt status?

Like the IRS, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is taxpayer funded. DESE makes decisions that impacts taxpayers, children and teachers while using money allocated by the state legislature and federal agencies. The IRS and DESE should answer to the people funding their existence, but they have something in common: they don't want to answer your questions, believe they are above having to be accountable for their actions and will deflect or refuse to answer questions by taxpayers and legislators.

The tragedy for Missouri citizens and legislators is that SB210 did not pass this past legislative session. Missouri SB210 would have provided a venue for citizens to find out:

the educational direction/development for Missouri children
the money it will cost taxpayers for this educational direction/development (taxpayers never had the opportunity to either for or against this plan)
who, what, why data will be gathered on children without parental permission/knowledge
where this data will be used

Since SB210 was withdrawn at the threat of a filibuster, citizens will now have to wait another year for their chance to ask these questions if a similar bill is filed. DESE attempted to pass off the statewide May 2 meetings as fact finding for citizens but they were really a waste of time for anyone looking for serious answers to serious questions. These meetings were scripted and no speaker had the authority to answer questions. In retrospect, why did people take their time to attend these meetings? They were a total waste of time.

Why did Lois Lerner attend a congressional hearing to announce that she would not answer any questions and then walk out? Why did Chris Nicastro speak for "informational purposes" to SB210 in the legislative hearing that had absolutely nothing to do with the bill? The bill was to address concerns about cost and data collection, both of which she touched on briefly, but she never did answer direct questions to these issues.

Lois Lerner was allowed to walk out of a hearing, and Chris Nicastro was allowed to hijack the SB210 hearing to deliver her speech on why CCSS would transform Missouri education. "Don't worry, be happy"....legislators and taxpayers. Don't worry that certain groups are targeted by the IRS and don't worry that CCSS is unfunded, unresearched and your child's data will be given to various federal agencies and third parties without your knowledge or permission.

Bureaucrats are doing what they want with your money, setting the rules and not being held accountable to legislative bodies or taxapyers. SB210 could have shed some light on the Common Core adoption and implementation in Missouri. Do you or the legislators REALLY think DESE is EVER going to truthfully answer the questions posed to them in the May 2 meetings?

The clock is ticking without DESE providing answers to May 2 questions (these answers were to be posted within a week after the meetings). You should be getting very angry at this obfuscation from national and state bureaucrats thumbing their noses at you. Watch the clock (posted on the website) ticking up the days DESE doesn't answer the questions you have. Who holds the IRS and DESE accountable? Why is DESE allowed to spend money it doesn't have on educational theories with no research/data to prove it will work? Why is personal data gathered on your family and your child without your knowledge or permission?

Since Missouri citizens don't have a venue to ask the appointed commissioner of education these questions, Nicastro sent in a video of herself for DESE's "informational" meetings. She dodged questions when questioned by legislators and sent her lackeys (who don't have the authority to answer questions) to the "informational" DESE meetings to impart talking points to taxpayers. She knows nothing, tells legislators "look at the DESE website for the answers" in hearings (to the questions they didn't ask), or she just won't bother to answer your questions at all (as evidenced by the DESE website where it still says answers "coming soon" to May 2 meeting questions). Is the commissioner channeling Sergeant Schultz and Lois Lerner?

"I See Nothing, I Know Nothing"

"I Did Nothing Wrong."

A complete lack of accountability

Here's the link for DESE's videos on Common Core. These speakers "know nothing" either on the cost of the standards or the data gathered on students. They don't answer the questions taxpayers are asking but keep telling us DESE is a transparent agency. There is no accountability from the IRS or DESE to taxpayers and/or legislators to the questions they ask. And the clock keeps ticking and not one bureaucrat is responsible for the answers.

Sign the petition to rid Missouri of Common Core standards. We haven't stopped fighting to make DESE responsible to the taxpayers, legislators and students. Pre-filing bills begins on December 1. Join us. Make your voice heard. Watch Lois Lerner's IRS response and you understand how the adoption/implementation of Common Core has occurred during the last 3-1/2 years in Missouri. No one is responsible for (the governor, the commissioner and the State Board of Education) or apparently concerned about the cost, loss of local control, the run around of the legislative process and invasive data retrieval on individual students, teachers and principals. It's time to hold these officials accountable.

Teacher Reports on Her Common Core Experience in the Classroom

2013-05-22T08:38:00.000-05:00

Received via email:

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I just got a first-hand, super-dose of the Common Core. For two days last week I (substitute) taught in an Idaho elementary school that is implementing the Common Core curriculum. It was horrible! I've taught at this school before, and it wasn't like this then. I couldn't believe the way they micro-managed every move the kids made, even on the playground. The principle was marching up and down the halls like a little general. And the way they had taught the kids math was absurd! I’ve read about Common Core, and I have been concerned. But this experience "inspired" me to take a deeper look. I went on youtube, and lo and behold there was a quote from Idaho’s own Tom Luna on Glenn Beck. Here's the link to that, and a second one.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NdhR6_C0C00

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7hp9NUzn5oY

Missouri Coalition Against Common Core

http://www.moagainstcommoncore.com/

I am sending these three links to the parents of every Idaho school-age child I know. This is for real. Feel free to use my story, if you like. We've got to get it out of Idaho before the parents have no more say in what is being taught in their schools, and Common Core ruins the lives of their kids!

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If you have more teacher stories about Common Core, pass them along and we'll let people know how these non-researched/fact based standards, assessments and curricula are playing out in real life with teachers, students and principals.

Missouri Education Watchdog

Angry Moms are Rising Up Against Common Core

Lamar Alexander Educational Plans Then (1989) and Now (2013). Same or Different?

Common Core Tests, FOIAs and Is This the Education You Want for Your Children?

A Teacher Explains Common Core Data Collection Factually and Creatively

Now That Data Mining is on the Public's Radar....

Are These Common Core Aligned Reading Materials Appropriate for 3rd Graders for Content and Message?

Expeditionary Learning Common Core Curriculum Grade 3-8 ELA ...

Privacy Freedom Fighters Honored at EPIC. Senators Rand Paul and Ron Wyden Included as Champions of Freedom.

What Will It Take To Get Answers From DESE?

Welcome to the Classroom of 2021

Can the Left and the Right Find Enough Common Ground to Work Against Common Core?

Should Police Departments Offer Iris Scans for Children?

Will Your Child's Iris Scans Head for the Clouds....Like the Army's?

My Conversation with Glenn Beck on Data Retrieval. Just Remember The Wizard of Oz.

Glenn Beck On Common Core

What is going on with special education?

Florida School Board Confirms They Have Ok'd Iris Scan Without Parental Permission

Parent Refuses Permission for Child to take Part in Field Testing for Pearson

Can Teachers Really Be Creative and Innovative when Teaching to the Test? Do They Really Have that Much Magic?

The Stop Common Core Argument: There is no one "common" path or yellow brick road to educational excellence.

Teacher Advises Students of their Constitutional Rights. He Now Faces Possible Disciplinary Action.

DESE Stifling More Debate About Common Core?

Call the Common Core Bullies Out. Just Say No to Standardized Testing.

Binoculars or Common Core. Which Choice Will Allow Creativity to Flourish and Allow School Districts to Operate on Budget?

06/04/13
North Kirkwood Middle School Library, 11287 Manchester Road
6:00pm - 7:30pm

The IRS, DESE and Sergeant Schultz: Complete Lack of Accountability.

Teacher Reports on Her Common Core Experience in the Classroom

Missouri Education Watchdog

Angry Moms are Rising Up Against Common Core

Lamar Alexander Educational Plans Then (1989) and Now (2013). Same or Different?

Common Core Tests, FOIAs and Is This the Education You Want for Your Children?

A Teacher Explains Common Core Data Collection Factually and Creatively

Now That Data Mining is on the Public's Radar....

Are These Common Core Aligned Reading Materials Appropriate for 3rd Graders for Content and Message?

Expeditionary Learning Common Core Curriculum Grade 3-8 ELA ...

Privacy Freedom Fighters Honored at EPIC. Senators Rand Paul and Ron Wyden Included as Champions of Freedom.

What Will It Take To Get Answers From DESE?

Welcome to the Classroom of 2021

Can the Left and the Right Find Enough Common Ground to Work Against Common Core?

Should Police Departments Offer Iris Scans for Children?

Will Your Child's Iris Scans Head for the Clouds....Like the Army's?

My Conversation with Glenn Beck on Data Retrieval. Just Remember The Wizard of Oz.

Glenn Beck On Common Core

What is going on with special education?

Florida School Board Confirms They Have Ok'd Iris Scan Without Parental Permission

Parent Refuses Permission for Child to take Part in Field Testing for Pearson

Can Teachers Really Be Creative and Innovative when Teaching to the Test? Do They Really Have that Much Magic?

The Stop Common Core Argument: There is no one "common" path or yellow brick road to educational excellence.

Teacher Advises Students of their Constitutional Rights. He Now Faces Possible Disciplinary Action.

DESE Stifling More Debate About Common Core?

Call the Common Core Bullies Out. Just Say No to Standardized Testing.

Binoculars or Common Core. Which Choice Will Allow Creativity to Flourish and Allow School Districts to Operate on Budget?

06/04/13 North Kirkwood Middle School Library, 11287 Manchester Road 6:00pm - 7:30pm

The IRS, DESE and Sergeant Schultz: Complete Lack of Accountability.

Teacher Reports on Her Common Core Experience in the Classroom

06/04/13
North Kirkwood Middle School Library, 11287 Manchester Road
6:00pm - 7:30pm