Alisa Ellis, parent member of Utah’s Science Standards Review Committee, is calling for an immediate stop to:
1- the USOE’s public comment survey –because USOE has only allowed the public and the parent review committee to see a sterilized, watered down version, rather than a true, full version of the common science standards and appendices that teachers will be using– yet USOE is asking the public to comment in this blind manner;
2- the USOE’s statewide tour, aimed to give parents the impression that they have been given full disclosure of the new science standards. Since the science standards that the public is being shown, upon which the public has been asked to comment, are not the same as the standards that teachers are to be using, nor the same as the standards upon which the parent review committee was asked to work, this tour to present the standards is at best, partially truthful and at worst, a deliberate deception.)
Here’s Alisa’s letter to the state school board:
Board Members,
The public comment period of the proposed science standards needs to stop immediately and be restarted with the correct document. Mr. Scott admitted on Tuesday night that the teachers will not be presented with the draft of standards that the public is being asked to review but with the full version from Achieve’s Next Generation Science Standards. I don’t believe this review falls within the provisions of the law. The law does not say, “present the public with the watered down version because it would be “too overwhelming” for them to see the full version”. This is what was suggested was the reason for not presenting the public with the full version.
The NGSS have many things included besides simply the performance expectations. The full version has clarification statements, assessment boundaries; the full NRC framework with all the cross-walking to the Common Core standards and appendices. It is my right as a parent and citizen to be shown exactly what will be taught to my children.. This is both according to federal law and state law.
Therefore it is my recommendation that the public review period ceases immediately. It is apparent that the power structure is willing to do whatever it takes to push forth their agenda so I would also recommend starting fresh with a new writing and lead team.
Also, board member Dixie Allen claimed at the meeting in Vernal that the standards committee knew all along that the Next Generation Science Standards were being used. Mr. Scott also claimed that the draft given to the parent review committee, of which I am a member, was presented with a draft that cited the NGSS and NRC framework. This is not accurate. I have the copy in front of me and there is no mention of the NGSS standards. In fact, Sarah Young, at our first meeting proudly talked of all the hard work the writing team was putting into writing these “UT science standards” when in fact they were simply reorganizing the format and order of the national science standards.
This board has the desire to improve public relations, but with the deceptive and dishonest way things are presented I worry the gap in public trust is growing wider and wider. Also, as the state office of ed is currently facing a lawsuit for the lack of parental involvement surrounding the adoption of Common Core it would behoove the board to put a stop to the deceptive manner information is fed to the public.
Also, in the Vernal meeting Mr. Scott revealed that the writing team which he renamed the “organizing team” was given 6 sets of standards to pick from.
I am formally requesting the names and titles of the individuals that chose the sets of standards the committee was allowed to choose from.
I am requesting the six sets of standards offered the committee
I am requesting the names and titles of every member of the writing/organizing team (I asked for this last fall)
I am requesting all correspondence between the above requested individuals with staff and board members.
I also became aware today of an implementation guide published by ACHIEVE for the 6-8 grade standards. Here is an excerpt:
Therefore, I am also formally requesting all minutes from meetings and discussions, both with board members and without, surrounding the revision of science standards.
There were cameras present at the December review committee meeting held at the State Capitol. I am requesting a copy of all raw video.
As these requests will benefit the public at large, I am requesting all fees be waived and the process be expedited. I understand that correspondence between individuals will take longer than some of the other requests, I would like to see the committee names and standards immediately while the other information is being gathered.
Further, there was an attempt at the meeting this week to prevent recording of the meeting which would be in direct violation of open meeting laws. There was also an attempt to suggest committee members identities were to be kept private, which is also a direct violation of open meeting laws. Please do everything in your power to stop this practice.
Thank you,
Alisa Ellis
This 7 minute video explains the deception using audio from legislative meetings and board retreats.
This video from the Vernal USOE science standards meeting below shows Mr. Ricky Scott of the USOE with Alisa Ellis asking questions about why the board refused to show the real standards to parents, citing “not overwhelming” parents as a reason for the lack of transparency.
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Please support Alisa’s call for honesty and integrity in the process of setting Utah’s academic standards. Contact the state school board members today, asking for a full disclosure of the actual science standards to the public and an immediate ceasing of the tour and public comment survey as it stands. Include a copy of your letter to your local school board and to your elected representatives in the legislature. Find your senator or representative here.
The Vernal and St. George science standards meetings have passed, but you can still attend the Provo, North Logan, and Salt Lake City meetings. The Utah State Office of Education (USOE) has set them up for parents and teachers to give input or to question the adoption of common, national standards for science for Utah.
Here are the remaining dates and addresses. Please come! You don’t have to be a scientist. You just have to care about defending principles of academic honesty, academic freedom, and preserving our students’ right to debate and discover truth, unfettered to a politically slanted set of science standards.
Wednesday, May 6 Provo School District Office
Location: Professional Development Center
280 West 940 North Provo, Utah 84604
Wednesday, May 13
Cache County School District Office
Location: Professional Development Center
2063 North 1200 East North Logan, Utah 84341
Tuesday, May 19
Salt Lake Center for Science Education (SLCSE)
Location: The Media Center
1400 Goodwin Avenue Salt Lake City, Utah 84116
For a long time, the USOE was pretending that the revisions of Utah’s science standards were not the national, common science standards, (Next-Generation Science Standards or NGSS) and were saying that these new standards were just a revision. Now USOE admits this is actually NGSS, which is created by the same businessmen (at Achieve, Inc.) that wrote Common Core standards for English and math. USOE is defending the upcoming adoption, a facade-dropping that might have something to do with the fact that at least two parents who served on the committee to review Utah’s science standards, Alisa Ellis and Vincent Newberg, have spoken out and have exposed Utah’s adoption of NGSS.
This week, Alisa Ellis posted the following chart, showing that Utah’s “new, revised” science core is the exact same thing as the NGSS standards, word for word, but with renumbering. Vincent has pointed out that the NGSS standards are extremely biased and politically slanted, with “climate change” being presented over fifty times while electricity is mentioned once; with Darwinism presented as if it were settled science while life sciences like in-depth cell structure study, the human respiratory system, and other basic biology concepts being pushed aside in favor of the politicized environmental agenda.
If nobody shows up, speaks up, or posts comments at the USOE’s public comment site (only good for 90 days) then they’ll push forward with this agenda. Please show up and speak up.
After you leave your comments at the USOE’s survey monkey, please copy and paste your comments into an email for the local and state school boards. State email: Board@schools.utah.gov
Alisa Ellis also gave me permission to post her letter here, which went to the state school board. I appreciate her insistence that Mr. Scott, the USOE and the State Board cease censoring public comment. This censorship of the public happened when the public was asked to give comment about the English and math common standards by the Governor last year (two and a half years after Utah had adopted Common Core).
Only standards-specific comments were admitted! This ridiculous censoring practice pretends there are no problems with national standards outside their content. But there are two huge prongs to the pitchfork: content, and control. Trying to limit public comment to content-only issues just ignores the big problem of loss of local control and academic liberty.
Letter from Alisa Ellis:
State Board Members,
I’m writing to encourage you all to attend one of the 4 remaining science meetings that are being held around the state. I was very disappointed to hear that not one elected official was at the meeting in St. George last week. After one mom in attendance wrote to her local school board expressing her disappointment that they weren’t in attendance, a board member told her that they had no idea the meeting was taking place. This is the same story we’re finding across the state.
While it is your job to set the standards, the local boards will have to implement them. Notice should be sent to each local board in the state inviting them to these meetings. I already covered Uintah, Daggett and Duchesne for you.
After enduring years of pushback by citizens that are in-part frustrated by the lack of discussion with parents prior to adoption of Common Core, I expected to see these meetings advertised far and wide to get as many people there as possible. Each district has systems capable of calling or email every parent in the district. Why aren’t these systems being utilized? I sit in disbelief that I, a parent, have to ask friends to help me advertise, email local boards, get on the radio, etc to draw attendance to these meetings. It’s unbelievable. Please stop doing the bare minimum in advertising these events. It doesn’t have to cost money to get the word out.
It is also reprehensible the first meeting was only announced 2 days before.
According to the UT constitution it is the board’s job not the staff of the USOE to set standards. That means the responsibility lies on your heads. I’m tired of the the staff being the ones that shield the elected officials from those that elect them. By not attending these meetings and only listening to Ricky Scott’s report, you will be getting a sanitized/ censored version of public feedback.
Mr. Scott informed attendees that he would only be taking specific criticism and when given specific feedback he didn’t agree with, the citizens felt ignored. I understand the desire by the staff to keep the discussion focused on specific problems with the standards, but that is not the only complaint the public has. As elected officials you don’t get to tell us what we’re allowed to be concerned about. While important, it leaves no room for philosophical complaints. For instance, I see many, many problems with the specific standards but I also 100% do not agree with using a national standard, whether federal or private industry; it is not in line with my vision of education. Children should not be standardized.
Please take some initiative and stop the censoring of comments, unless they disparage individuals by name, or use foul language, etc.
Alisa Ellis
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Fordham Institute rated Utah’s science standards as being higher than the NGSS. So why is the USOE pushing so hard to adopt NGSS?
The biggest and ugliest answer may be that although Utah’s SAGE test, written by American Institutes for Research, already aligns to common core math and English, it doesn’t align with common science standards yet. Since Utah’s AIR/SAGE test is not (for science) yet aligned to the federally synchronized SBAC and PARCC tests, student scores cannot be understood by the overlords in their federal, common Edfacts Data Exchange lens. So the feds are most likely pressuring the USOE to align.
The question is, will parents and teachers just be too busy; will they just roll over; will they let someone else worry about it? Or will they stand up and say no?
Once lost, these freedoms don’t come back.
This video documents the deception history of the USOE and its false promises to legislators to NOT adopt nationalized science standards:
The Utah State School Board —despite last year’s pushback, despite serious concerns of some of the state school board members– is now moving to adopt national, common standards for science. Watch this video to see the documented false promises by the USOE to legislators and local school board members, that Utah would never adopt nationalized science standards; this string of broken promises needs to be exposed and those breaking the promises need to be held accountable by our legislature and governor.
You are invited to the USOE’s public meetings on the subject, to be held statewide for a few weeks, starting TOMORROW.
NGSS are common Science Standards created by businessmen and politicians at Achieve, Inc., aimed to make all students use (and be tested on) the same set of science-related standards nationwide. Achieve, Inc., is the same group that pushed Common Core math and English into being. (So if you didn’t love Common Core, heads up.)
As with Common Core math and English standards, states lose control when they adopt NGSS. Achieve Inc., is private, so it’s not subject to sunshine laws– no transparency. So right or wrong, good or bad, we’ll have no way to even know which scientific theories are being accepted or rejected, or what kind of lobbying monies are determining priorities for learning. We will not be able to affect in any appeal to local boards, what our children will be taught or tested. That power will have gone to the standards copyright holders and corporate test creators. We have no method of un-electing those controllers, no way for our scientists to affect any amendments made in the ever-changing and politically charged future of science.
It is also tragically true that Fordham Institute rated NGSS as inferior to many states’ science standards. Still, many states, including Utah, are adopting NGSS anyway– a sad reminder of recent history, when certain states with prior standards higher than Common Core dropped their standards to be in Common Core. It’s also a sad proof that the claim that “the standards are higher and better for all” was nothing more than a marketing lie, then for English and math, and now for science.
Then come to the meeting. The USOE is calling the new standards “a revision” rather than a wholesale adoption of NGSS standards, in what appears to be an attempt to deceive the people. Parent committee members opposed to the change, including scientist Vincent Newberger, have pointed out that one word– one– was altered from NGSS standards in Utah’s “revision of its own standards” and some NGSS standards were only renumbered, so that the proponents could feel truthful about calling these standards a “revision” of Utah’s prior science standards rather than an adoption of national standards. The USOE’s open meetings are not, supposedly, to promote NGSS but are to promote what USOE calls a “revision of middle school science standards” only.
Parents need to take control of this conversation.
Ask yourself: 1) Is this revision actually an adoption of NGSS? 2) Do I want national science standards in Utah?
Answer one: If you read what parent committee members are testifying, you will conclude that this revision IS an adoption of NGSS.
Answer two: As with Common Core, we must push back against national science standards for two reasons: control of standards (liberty) and content of standards (academics).
CONTROL
Although parent committee members on Utah’s “revision” team testify that the content is global warming-centric, and electricity-dismissive, and testify that the standards present as facts, controversial theories only accepted by certain groups; to me, the enduring issue is control, local power.
If we adopt standards written by an unrepresentative, nonelected, central committee– standards that don’t come with an amendment process for future alterations as scientific theories and studies grow– we give away our personal power.
Even if these standards were unbiased and excellent, we should never, even for one second, consider adopting national/federally promoted standards– because science is ever-changing and ever politically charged. We are foolish to hand away our right to judge, to debate, to control, what we will be teaching our children, and to let unelected, unknown others decide which science topics will be marginalized while others are highlighted in the centrally controlled standards. Would we allow a nontransparent, unelected, distant group to rewrite the U.S. Constitution? Never. Then, why is representation and power concerning laws and policies affecting our children’s knowledge, beliefs and skills any less important?
Representation is nonexistent in NGSS standards adoption, despite the token cherrypicked teacher or professor who gets to contribute ideas to the new standards. Unless there is a written constitution for altering our standards so that we retain true control of what is taught, no federal or national standards should ever, ever be accepted. Adopting centralized standards is giving away the key to the local castle.
Are these just harmless, minimal standards without any teeth or enforcer? Hardly; the enforcement of the science standards is embedded in the nationally aligned tests, tests which carry such intense pressure for schools and students (school grading/shutdown; teacher evaluation/firing) that they have become the bullies of the educational system.
CONTENT
Know this: NGSS are neither neutral nor objective. This explains why pushback against NGSS is so strong in some states, even to the point of lawsuits against state school boards over NGSS. NGSS standards are slanted.
It may come as a surprise that religious freedom is a key complaint against these standards. This was pointed out by plaintiffs in the Kansas lawsuit, which alleged that implementation “will cause the state to infringe on the religious rights of parents, students and taxpayers under the Establishment, Free Exercise, Speech and Equal Protection clauses of the U.S. Constitution.”
The legal complaint stated that “the principal tool of indoctrination is the concealed use of an Orthodoxy known asmethodological naturalism or scientific materialism. It holds that explanations of the cause and nature of natural phenomena may only use natural, material or mechanistic causes, and must assume that supernatural and teleological or design conceptions of nature are invalid. The Orthodoxy is an atheistic faith-based doctrine that has been candidly explained by Richard Lewontin, a prominent geneticist and evolutionary biologist, as follows:
“Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, thatwe are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door.” [Richard Lewontin, Billions and Billions of Demons, 44 N.Y. Rev. of Books 31 (Jan. 9, 1997) (emphasis added)]
So, under NGSS, you can’t teach, as some scientists do, that evolution can exist alongside creationism. Under scientific materialism/methodological naturalism, any “design conception” is invalid.
Below is a list of the upcoming science meetings in Utah, where any citizen may come and ask questions and make comments.
Friends, we need to show up and bring neighbors. If too few Utahns find out and push back, the NGSS standards will slide right in like Common Core for math and English did. Please cancel your other plans. Bring your video cameras if you come. It’s an open, public meeting so recording seems proper and fair. Recording USOE official replies to questions from parents can only encourage accountability from the USOE to the citizens. If you can’t attend one of the meetings in the next weeks, please comment (and ask others to comment) on the USOE’s 90 day public comment survey link.
Before I list the meeting times and dates and cities, I want to share portions of an email sent out from a Washington County, Utah citizen to other citizens of Washington county. I don’t know who wrote this email:
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Washington County Email:
“Washington County was settled by wise men and women who worked hard to make our red desert bloom. They have passed down a wonderful heritage of hard work and love for the land to all who have followed them. We are now reaping the fruits of the careful planning and preservation that has become a way of life to all who make Washington County their home. We desire to pass this heritage along to our children so that the generations to come will continue to be wise stewards of this land that we love.
It is hard to understand why anyone from Washington County would allow their children to be taught a science curriculum that does not align with our value system. Imagine how powerful it would be to teach our children the science behind why our soil is red, how ancient volcanos came to pepper our back yards with basalt rock, what made our sand dunes petrify, why dinosaur footprints can be found in farm land and what makes our sunsets so spectacular. As our children learn the unique science of the environment around them, they will have greater knowledge and appreciation of the diverse environments around the world. They will also come to appreciate the importance of being wise stewards wherever their paths may lead them.
We now have an opportunity to protect our right to teach our children. The Federal Government has incentivized groups to develop the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) and those groups have worked tirelessly to get them implemented in Utah, and all states. Please come and learn more about the NGSS from Vincent Newmeyer, a member of the NGSS review committee. We will be meeting on Thursday, April 23rd at 6:00 P.M. at the St. George Downtown Library (88 W. 100 S. St. George). Mr. Newmeyer is one of the review committee members who have great concerns about the NGSS. These members are generously giving their time to visit communities to warn them about these new federal standards.
Directly following the meeting with Mr. Newmeyer, there will be a public meeting with the State and Local School Boards to discuss these federal standards tied to high-stakes testing onThursday, April 23rd at 7:00 P.M. at the Washington School District Office Board Room at 121 Tabernacle Street in St. George.”
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USOE Public Feedback Meetings
All Meetings are 7 p.m. – 8 p.m.
Thursday, April 23
Washington School District Office
Location: Board Room
121 Tabernacle Street St George, Utah 84770
Note: The main doors will be locked. Access through the front side doors.
Tuesday, April 28
Uintah School District Office
Location: Board Room (Upstairs)
635 West 200 South Vernal, Utah 84078
Wednesday, May 6 Provo School District Office
Location: Professional Development Center
280 West 940 North Provo, Utah 84604
Wednesday, May 13
Cache County School District Office
Location: Professional Development Center
2063 North 1200 East North Logan, Utah 84341
Tuesday, May 19
Salt Lake Center for Science Education (SLCSE)
Location: The Media Center
1400 Goodwin Avenue Salt Lake City, Utah 84116
1.THE TESTS HAVE NEVER BEEN VALIDATED. It is out of the norm for tests to be given to children that never have been validated in a formal, scientific, peer-reviewed way. Professor Tienken of Seton Hall University calls this “dataless decision making“. What does it mean to a mom or dad to hear that no validity report has ever been issued for the SAGE/Common Core tests? It means that the test is as likely to harm as to help any child.
We would not give our children unpiloted, experimental medicine; why would we give them unpiloted, experimental education? –And, did you know that Florida bought/rented the SAGE test from Utah, and now Florida points to Utah students as its guinea pigs? Where was Utah’s parental consent? Is it okay that the youngest, most helpless citizens are compulsory research subjects without the knowledge or consent of their parents?
2. THE STANDARDS (upon which the test is based) HAVE NEVER BEEN VALIDATED. Building a test on the sandy foundation of unvalidated standards –hoping but not having actual evidence on which to base that hope– that the standards are unquestionably legitimate, means that not only the test but the teaching that leads up to it, is experimental, not time-tested. The SAGE evaluates teachers and even grades schools (and will close them) based on test scores from this flawed-upon-flawed (not to mention unrepresentative/unconstitutional) system. Dr. Tienken reminds us that that making policy decisions in this baseless way is “educational malpractice.”
4. THE TESTS ARE SECRETIVE. Parents and teachers may not see test questions, not even years after the test is over. Last year’s leaked screen shots of the test, taken by a student with her cell phone to show her mother, revealed an unpleasing agenda that asked students to question the value of reading (versus playing video games). The student who took the photos was told that she was a cheater, was threatened with expulsion; and the teacher who didn’t notice (or stop) the cell phone photography was threatened with job loss. Members of Utah’s 15-parent SAGE review committee have expressed grave concerns about the quality and content of SAGE, citing “grammar, typos, content, wrong answers, glitches, etc.,” but were never shown whether corrections were made to SAGE, prior to its hasty rollout.
5. TEST ITEM CREATION IS QUESTIONABLE. SAGE questions were written by two groups: a few hand picked Utah educators, and the psychometricians at the testing company, American Institutes for Research (AIR) which is not an academic organization but a behavioral research group. We don’t know why psychometricians were entrusted to write math and English questions. And we don’t know what the percentages are– how many SAGE questions come from educators, and how many from AIR’s psychometricians?
6.THE TEST DISREGARDS ETHICS CODES FOR BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH TESTING. As Dr. Gary Thompson has pointed out, behavioral tests are normally governed by strict codes of ethics and test-giving psychologists lose their licenses to practice if they veer from the codes of ethics.
The Utah State Office of Education claims tests do not collect psychological information, but it seems unreasonable to believe the claim.
Consider:
“Behavioral Indicators” is a phrase that’s been in Utah laws concerning student testing for years. It’s old news. Happily, last month, Sen. Aaron Osmond wrote a bill to remove that language. (Thank you, Senator Osmond.) Time will tell if the new law is respected or enforced.
“Psychometric census” of Utah students was part of the agreement Utah made with the federal government when it applied for and received a grant to build a longitudinal database to federal specifications, (including federal and international interoperability specifications.) Utah promised in that grant contract to use its Student Strengths Inventory to collect noncognitive data.
The test company, AIR, is a behavioral research company that creates behavioral assessments as its primary mission and focus.
U.S. Dept of Education reports such as “Promoting Grit, Tenacity and Perserverance” promote collection of students’ psychological and belief-based data via tests, encouraging schools to use biometric data collection devices. I have not seen any of these devices being used in Utah schools, but neither have I seen any evidence that the legislature or our State School Board stand opposed to the Dept. of Education’s report or the advice it gives.
The NCES, a federal agency, has a National Data Collection Model which it invites states to follow. Since Utah has no proper legal privacy protections in place, there is nothing stopping us from accepting the invitation to comply with the Model’s suggestions, which include hundreds of data points including intimate and even belief-based points: religious affiliation, nickname, voting status, bus stop times, birthdate, nonschool activities, etc.
7. UTAH’S NEW SCHOOL TURNAROUND LAW WILL SHUT DOWN SCHOOLS OR TAKE THEM OVER –USING SAGE AS JUSTIFICATION. The bell curve of school-grading uses SAGE as its school-measuring stick; when a certain number of schools (regardless of quality) are inevitably labeled “failing” because of their position on that bell curve, they will be turned over to the state, turned into a charter school, or closed. These events will alter lives, because of Utah’s belief in and reliance on the illegitimate SAGE test scores.
8.SAGE TESTS ARE GIVEN ALL YEAR LONG. These are not just end-of-year tests anymore. SAGE tests are summative, formative, interim, and practice (assignment based) tests. The summative (ending) test is given so early in the year that content has not been taught yet. But it gets tested anyway, and teachers/students/schools get negatively judged, anyway.
9. OPTING OUT IS ONE WAY TO PROTEST DATA MINING AND TO MINIMIZE IT. The State Longitudinal Database System (SLDS) collects daily data on every school child without ever asking for parental consent. SLDS collects much more than test-gathered data. The government of Utah will not allow an SLDS opt out. And since SLDS does not have an opt out provision (while SAGE does) it makes sense to minimize the amount of data mining that’s being done on your child by not taking these tests.
10.OPTING OUT OF SAGE FIGHTS EDUCATION WITHOUT REPRESENTATION. The lack of transparency, of fairness, of any shared amendment process or true representation under Common Core and its testing system defies “consent of the governed,” a principle we learned in the Declaration of Independence. “It is the right [and responsibility] of the people to alter or abolish” governments [or educational programs] destructive of life, liberty or the pursuit of happiness –or those that govern without the knowledge of, or consent of, the governed.
I believe that parents now have the right and responsibility to abolish SAGE testing, by refusing to participate.
If you haven’t yet realized that the Utah State Office of Education acts as an unaccountable bully to both the State School Board and to parents/teachers/legislators, please watch this; it is yet more reason to not allow your child to take the SAGE/AIR test, which is a science test as well as English and math:
Beware of Stealth Assessment as SAGE replacement
Please beware, however: The testing opt out movement has grown so huge (outside Utah) that some Utah legislators have decided to hop on the anti-testing bandwagon with an eye toward replacing SAGE with something from which public school parents can never, ever opt out (unless they home school or use private school). That’s called embedded testing, or stealth assessment.
Opt out of SAGE this year; fight Stealth Assessment next year.
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National News Update on Test Opt-Out Movement
provided by Fairtest.org
We’ve pulled together this special edition of our usually-weekly newsclips because of three huge stories that broke in the past several days.
– In New York, more than 173,000 students opted out of the first wave of state testing, at least tripling last year’s boycott level.
– In five states (Colorado, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada and North Dakota) computerized Common Core testing systems collapsed in a replay of the widespread technical problems which plagued Florida exams earlier this spring.
Both major developments further undermine the credibility of judgements about students, teachers and schools made on the basis of standardized exam results.
— And, in Washington DC, the U.S. Senate education committee responded to grassroots pressure for assessment reform by endorsing an overhaul of “No Child Left Behind,” which eliminates most federal sanctions for test scores. The bill does not go far enough to reversing test misuse and overuse, but it is a step in the right direction
Remember that these updates are posted online at: http://fairtest.org/news/other for your reference and for use in Facebook posts, Tweets, weblinks, etc.
Utah’s State Office of Education appears to be, once again, quite secretively rubber-stamping controversial and politically loaded national standards and calling them Utah’s own standards– this time, for science.
The English and math deception happened a few years ago when the USOE did the same thing with the adoption of Common Core’s math and English national standards, calling them “Utah Core Standards”.
This week, when the Utah State School Board meets, it will discuss statewide changes to science standards. They do not openly admit that in fact the Utah draft mirrors the controversial NGSS standards. In fact, the official statement from the State Office of Education states nothing about Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) but the new “Utah” science standards drafts have now been exposed as the very same as the NGSS Standards– by multiple parents who serve on the Utah parent committee for science standards.
Vincent Newmeyer, one of the parents who serves on the parent committee, has given permission to share his response to the revised standards. He says that he is alarmed at the errors and unfitness of these standards for Utah students as well as the deceptiveness of the rewriting committee.
He explains that the Utah rewriting committee appears to be attempting to hide, by renumbering or rearranging, the truth that the new Utah standards are just NGSS standards. He notes:
“Utah’s science standards rewriting committee has removed all but the performance expectations [from national NGSS] and renumbered them. A few performance expectation sequences have been rearranged and one new NGSS standard was inserted. The Performance Expectations are essentially identical to what they were in the previous draft. Again, in the introductory material it is still claimed to be Utah grown standards, perhaps because Brett Moulding from Utah is the chair of the NGSS writing committee. These performance expectations as prepared are only one word different from the published NGSS Performance Expectations –yet again there is no attribution to NGSS.”
He points to the NGSS national science standards guidelines which state: “States… that have adopted or are in the process of adopting the NGSS in whole shall be exempt from this Attribution and Copyright notice provision of this license.” Newmeyer points out that Utah is either in the process of adopting national science standards in whole, or are infringing on copyright. –So, which is it?
Newmeyer goes on: “Though we are just looking at grades 6-8, it is inconceivable that our state would adopt 6-8 (even if slightly modified) and then settle on a totally different standard for other grades, especially when you consider the desire to have a cohesive and progressively building program. So in fact we are not just looking at grades 6-8. We are laying a precedent for the adoption of NGSS for all grades with additional material not even considered.”
Why must we as parents, teachers and scientists, oppose it?
1. Control. Our state loses local control of teaching students what we accept as scientifically important and true, when we adopt NGSS standards rather than using standards we have researched and studied and compiled on our own. We further lose control when we then test students using these national science standards that are aligned to the philosophies (and data mining structures) of the federal agenda.
2. Content. Vincent Newmeyer explains that some of the standards are based on recognized fallacies, and others on controversial assumptions. Failing to properly research and vet these standards publically is unethical and unscientific.
For example, Newmeyer asks us to look at “the newly renumbered but present all along standard number 7.2.2 : “Analyze displays of pictorial data to compare patterns of similarities in the embryological development across multiple species to identify relationships not evident in the fully formed anatomy.” This leads students to favor the Darwinian Evolutionary view –which has solid counterpoints arguing precisely the opposite view. Newmeyer explains that although it is true that we can find similarities in embryos, still “if studied in detail we find differences that completely undermine the whole premise of why they inserted this performance expectation. In the standard they are not looking at the differences.”
Even those who actively defend the Darwinian view of common ancestry who have looked at the data see the weakness of the argument, says Newmeyer. He questions why we want to teach it in Utah as if it were settled science. There are also standards that promote the controversial global warming paradigm, and there are other content problems in the NGSS standards.
Utah’s already using the standardized test developed by American Institutes for Research (SAGE) which includes science, English and math standards aligned to the nationally pushed agenda. So the USOE is not going to want to go in another direction. But it must. If enough parents, teachers and scientists pelter the Utah State School Board and Utah State Office of Education and legislature with firm “NO to NGSS” emails, phone calls and personal visits, they can’t get away with this like they did with Common Core.
A few months ago, a concerned Utah State School Board member contacted every single one of the science teachers who were in her constituency district, asking them how they felt about NGSS. She reported that every single one of them said that they wanted to keep Utah’s current science standards and they rejected NGSS. Every last teacher.
There will be a 90-day comment period. You can also attend and speak up (2 min max) at the state school board meetings if you request time in advance. Please participate.
Also, please share your passion with your legislators. Find your representatives here or click here for the state school board’s email address and all of the Utah senators and representatives.
You can’t blame people– even Congressmen themselves– for not wanting to get involved in the current rewrite of ESEA/NCLB. The hundreds of pages of bill language and amendments are intimidating –and boring.
But boring and intimidating or not, if we believe in “consent by the governed” then, as the governed, we must pay attention. If we ignore what D.C. –mostly without constituent knowledge or input –are rewriting for the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) law also known as the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)– we may regret it.
ESEA/NCLB is such a mangled mess. HR5, this year’s earlier rewrite of NCLB/ESEA, was remarkably stopped in its tracks. But now I’m worried that the new rewrite may not be better. Here’s why.
1.) The U.S. Constitution never gives any authority to the federal government to boss states around in educational matters. Congress does not seem to remember this at all.
The premise of creating or altering a federal education law, in a country governed by the Constitution, is a hopelessly flawed premise. Each state is supposed to be each doing its own separate –not standardized, nor nationalized– education dance. Freedom thrives on distinction and variety and on spreading out the decision making power– not on top-down, heavy handed, one-law-fits-all sameness. So felt the Constitution writers.
Now, the distraction of a debate over NCLB/ESEA manipulates today’s debaters into forgetting that there shouldn’t even be a NCLB/ESEA.
For example, when my toddler doesn’t want to go to bed, I enforce my mandate by distracting his focus: I ask him for input on my mandate: “Do you want to read three stories or four?” “Should we read our bedtime stories in your room or my room?” “Which pajamas do you like the best?” Our family constitution says that parents know best. —Not so in the case of ESEA/NCLB. States are not toddlers and the federal government is not a nanny or a parent –unless we are states united under federal dictatorship rather than a constitutional republic of United States.
Should we actually stoop to discuss their questions such as this one? “Should Title I dollars follow low-income children to schools of their choice, or should they go to poor schools?” The taking and redistributing of state taxpayers’ money to education in the first place is unconstitutional, to me. Discussion about it seems wrong-headed since it’s falsely appropriated money. It’s unconstitutionally appropriated money. It’s “legalized” plunder by the government, at the people.
If you happen to approve of that– if there’s a socialist within you that can go along with it– know this: Obama’s blueprint for education reform shows his intent in a 2011 press release: “Under President Obama’s Blueprint for Reform of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act [ESEA], the Title I comparability provision would be revised to ensure that state and local funding levels are distributed equitablybetween Title I and non-Title I schools.” (Obama doesn’t seem to be the “charitable socialist” helping the poor but a noncharitable socialist bent on forcing the states to force equality, instead.) Please comment below if you see this differently.
Failure to remember and honor the rights and rules of the Constitution is one very serious problem. The second reason for the manged mess is also very sobering– it’s dishonesty (by some) and failure to detect and call out that dishonesty (by others).
2.) Dishonesty and deliberate lengthiness makes bill discussion difficult.
During this year’s first rewrite and push of NCLB/ESEA, called HR5, which failed recently, we saw honest-to-goodness grassroots conservatives, arms linked with grassroots liberals, saying NO to Congress’ HR5 and crying out: “The talking points aren’t true.”
Sadly, it seems that legislators really don’t make time for reading bills. True, bills and their amendments are as long as Dostoevsky novels minus the interesting dramas, yet legislators pass them (or not) only depending on other legislators or on lists of bill-talking-points to decide how they’ll vote. A misleading or outright dishonest set of talking points can get a bill passed. This madness must stop. It’s like taking a pill when even the pharmacists and doctors haven’t read the ingredient list.
Congressmen should be defending us with deep research –and with the knowledge that standing on the Constitution, they have power.
I want NCLB/ESEA to be repealed entirely. But if it’s not repealed, then I want a SERIOUS rewrite.
I want to see and hear my Utah representatives, Mike Lee, Mia Love, Orrin Hatch, Rob Bishop and Jason Chaffetz, standing in ESEA discussion meetings in D.C. saying:
“We just remembered that our nation’s supreme law for education is the U.S. Constitution and we’re sticking with that. So taxes for education will be staying inside the state. Utah won’t be complying with rules about, nor asking for, Title I monies –because our state taxpayers will be keeping the taxes locally, not sending them to D.C. and we’ll be deciding locally where our own tax dollars go.”
I want to hear them saying:
“If we allow the writing of any federal education law at all, it will be only to reinforce Constitutional rights, to reclaim individual rights and to stop big government encroachment. “
I want to hear them saying:
“Individual privacy matters. So we won’t allow the collective State Longitudinal Database System (created by all fifty states’ individuals SLDS’s) to be used by corporations partnered with the government, nor by the federal government itself in its Edfacts Data Exchange. We won’t allow national Common Educational Data Standards (CEDS) nor SLDS systems to bind student privacy rights. We won’t use a national Common Core of standards nor data mining tags.”
I want to hear them saying:
“Teachers are professionals. Government should keep its snoopy unwanted nose out of the business of professionals who are accountable to the parents and principals whom they serve, and to the local taxpayers who support them– not to Big Government.”
I want to hear them saying:
“Under no condition will private schools, their standards or their data ever, ever be “accountable” to anyone other than the parents who pay for them and the teachers who work there. Period, end of story.”
I want to hear them saying:
“Regional Educational Laboratories and Centers for School Turnaround, as branches of the federal network of an unconstitutional management of education, will no longer be funded by American tax dollars nor supported by federal government policy.”
I want to hear them saying:
“Children and their parents are the most important core of society. They are not “human capital” to be inventoried, surveyed, tested, guided, used and controlled by a government nor its corporate partners. Every family has the right to opt out of government’s databases.”
Please contact your local and D.C. representatives. Tell them what you want in the ESEA/NCLB rewrite. Make your influence strong. Because we frankly outnumber them.
This week in Florida, senators are speaking up against the Common Core testing and “accountability” systems.
In the video below, Florida’s Senator Lee’s states:
“I’m done with the testing program in the state of Florida; I’m done with the “accountability” system. Whoever those people are out there from whatever foundation they may be from, whatever testing groups they may be supporting: I’m over you. You’ve lost my confidence… You’re so married to this system, you don’t have a shred of common sense left…. As this has progressed, it has become a behemoth… We are now complicit in this problem… I hear the people supporting this system telling me that it’s so important to them that we maintain the bureaucracy that we hold this system up as so sacrosanct and so inflexible…
I just want to send a message… go find somebody else to talk to ’cause I’m done with you.
And I hope the folks over at the Dept. of Education understand that it takes a good long while to get me fed up, but I’m there. “
Senator Alan Hayes also stood up and spoke against the ed reform machine that’s hurting children. Senator Hayes’ admission here is that he realizes that he has been part of the problem, and now he regrets the mess that’s been made. He said that the intentions of ed reforms were honorable but the results are not good.
COMMON CORE 
The Vernal and St. George science standards meetings have passed, but you can still attend the Provo, North Logan, and Salt Lake City meetings. The Utah State Office of Education (USOE) has set them up for parents and teachers to give input or to question the adoption of common, national standards for science for Utah.
Here are the remaining dates and addresses. Please come! You don’t have to be a scientist. You just have to care about defending principles of academic honesty, academic freedom, and preserving our students’ right to debate and discover truth, unfettered to a politically slanted set of science standards.
Wednesday, May 6
Provo School District Office
Location: Professional Development Center
280 West 940 North
Provo, Utah 84604
Wednesday, May 13
Cache County School District Office
Location: Professional Development Center
2063 North 1200 East
North Logan, Utah 84341
Tuesday, May 19
Salt Lake Center for Science Education (SLCSE)
Location: The Media Center
1400 Goodwin Avenue
Salt Lake City, Utah 84116
For a long time, the USOE was pretending that the revisions of Utah’s science standards were not the national, common science standards, (Next-Generation Science Standards or NGSS) and were saying that these new standards were just a revision. Now USOE admits this is actually NGSS, which is created by the same businessmen (at Achieve, Inc.) that wrote Common Core standards for English and math. USOE is defending the upcoming adoption, a facade-dropping that might have something to do with the fact that at least two parents who served on the committee to review Utah’s science standards, Alisa Ellis and Vincent Newberg, have spoken out and have exposed Utah’s adoption of NGSS.
This week, Alisa Ellis posted the following chart, showing that Utah’s “new, revised” science core is the exact same thing as the NGSS standards, word for word, but with renumbering. Vincent has pointed out that the NGSS standards are extremely biased and politically slanted, with “climate change” being presented over fifty times while electricity is mentioned once; with Darwinism presented as if it were settled science while life sciences like in-depth cell structure study, the human respiratory system, and other basic biology concepts being pushed aside in favor of the politicized environmental agenda.
If nobody shows up, speaks up, or posts comments at the USOE’s public comment site (only good for 90 days) then they’ll push forward with this agenda. Please show up and speak up.
After you leave your comments at the USOE’s survey monkey, please copy and paste your comments into an email for the local and state school boards. State email: Board@schools.utah.gov
Alisa Ellis also gave me permission to post her letter here, which went to the state school board. I appreciate her insistence that Mr. Scott, the USOE and the State Board cease censoring public comment. This censorship of the public happened when the public was asked to give comment about the English and math common standards by the Governor last year (two and a half years after Utah had adopted Common Core).
Only standards-specific comments were admitted! This ridiculous censoring practice pretends there are no problems with national standards outside their content. But there are two huge prongs to the pitchfork: content, and control. Trying to limit public comment to content-only issues just ignores the big problem of loss of local control and academic liberty.
Letter from Alisa Ellis:
State Board Members,
I’m writing to encourage you all to attend one of the 4 remaining science meetings that are being held around the state. I was very disappointed to hear that not one elected official was at the meeting in St. George last week. After one mom in attendance wrote to her local school board expressing her disappointment that they weren’t in attendance, a board member told her that they had no idea the meeting was taking place. This is the same story we’re finding across the state.
While it is your job to set the standards, the local boards will have to implement them. Notice should be sent to each local board in the state inviting them to these meetings. I already covered Uintah, Daggett and Duchesne for you.
After enduring years of pushback by citizens that are in-part frustrated by the lack of discussion with parents prior to adoption of Common Core, I expected to see these meetings advertised far and wide to get as many people there as possible. Each district has systems capable of calling or email every parent in the district. Why aren’t these systems being utilized? I sit in disbelief that I, a parent, have to ask friends to help me advertise, email local boards, get on the radio, etc to draw attendance to these meetings. It’s unbelievable. Please stop doing the bare minimum in advertising these events. It doesn’t have to cost money to get the word out.
It is also reprehensible the first meeting was only announced 2 days before.
According to the UT constitution it is the board’s job not the staff of the USOE to set standards. That means the responsibility lies on your heads. I’m tired of the the staff being the ones that shield the elected officials from those that elect them. By not attending these meetings and only listening to Ricky Scott’s report, you will be getting a sanitized/ censored version of public feedback.
Mr. Scott informed attendees that he would only be taking specific criticism and when given specific feedback he didn’t agree with, the citizens felt ignored. I understand the desire by the staff to keep the discussion focused on specific problems with the standards, but that is not the only complaint the public has. As elected officials you don’t get to tell us what we’re allowed to be concerned about. While important, it leaves no room for philosophical complaints. For instance, I see many, many problems with the specific standards but I also 100% do not agree with using a national standard, whether federal or private industry; it is not in line with my vision of education. Children should not be standardized.
Please take some initiative and stop the censoring of comments, unless they disparage individuals by name, or use foul language, etc.
Alisa Ellis
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Fordham Institute rated Utah’s science standards as being higher than the NGSS. So why is the USOE pushing so hard to adopt NGSS?
The biggest and ugliest answer may be that although Utah’s SAGE test, written by American Institutes for Research, already aligns to common core math and English, it doesn’t align with common science standards yet. Since Utah’s AIR/SAGE test is not (for science) yet aligned to the federally synchronized SBAC and PARCC tests, student scores cannot be understood by the overlords in their federal, common Edfacts Data Exchange lens. So the feds are most likely pressuring the USOE to align.
The question is, will parents and teachers just be too busy; will they just roll over; will they let someone else worry about it? Or will they stand up and say no?
Once lost, these freedoms don’t come back.
This video documents the deception history of the USOE and its false promises to legislators to NOT adopt nationalized science standards:
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