This site is written by Christel Lane Swasey. In the photo above, I’m the one on the left. I met Renee Braddy (middle) and Alisa Ellis (right) after I saw their school board presentation on educational freedom, which is the fight against Common core. It is on YouTube: Two Moms Against Common Core. http://youtu.be/Mk0D16mNbp4 . A mutual friend sent me a link to that video, and I watched it over and over, trying to wrap my brain around what these two ladies were saying. That first week, as I researched, horrified, on my own, I could not eat or sleep. I got Alisa and Renee’s contact information and started to research alongside them.
We became Three Moms Against Common Core. Together with a few handfuls of dads, moms, grandparents and teachers we formed Utahns Against Common Core‘s website and petition in 2012. I decided to make this blog to document what I was finding. At that time, in 2012, there was almost nothing about Common Core online anywhere. The little that was there, was from the NGA/CCSSO official sites that created Common Core. We had to dig into original documents, contracts and grants to connect the dots and to see what had really happened. We’re still at it.
We Utahns Against Common Core have been at Utah State School Board meetings, local school board meetings, have spoken about our Common Core concerns to cottage groups, on radio stations, television shows, and at conferences near and far; have had meetings with legislators and with our Governor; have had many rallies and a big symposium. We aren’t alone. There are countless parents/teachers against Common Core in every state. Check out Arkansas, Idaho, Florida, California, New York and Oklahoma’s sites.
We work hard. We don’t have funding; we print fliers, posters and T-shirts out of our home grocery budgets. We are fueled by passion for the things that matter most: God, family, country.
ABOUT ME
I’ve been teaching and writing all my life.
I have a B.A. degree in English and a M.A. degree in Communications, both from Brigham Young University. I earned my teaching credential at California State University San Bernardino. I have a Utah Cactus I.D. and my level II, 1st grade-through-postsecondary Utah teaching credential is valid and up-to-date. In the current stifling atmosphere where one cannot say that one has concerns about Common Core and maintain a job or get hired by a public school, I don’t know if the state office will ever renew my certificate to teach when it comes time, next year. We’ll see.
I am home schooling a seventh grader and a four year old right now, and I teach classes at George Mueller Academy. I taught Basic Composition and Freshman English at Utah Valley University as an adjunct professor (two years), worked as a full time grant writer for a consortium of Utah Valley charter schools (one year); taught third grade at Renaissance Academy in Lehi, Utah, and at Odyssey Charter School in American Fork, Utah (two years) and taught high school English and drama at Colton High School in Colton, California (five years).
The topic of my Master’s thesis, Ethnographic Literary Journalism, which I presented at the International Association of Literary Journalism Studies Conference in 2009 at Northwestern University, Illinois, is relevant to this site. It explains how the imaginative tools of creative, narrative writing, combined with the time-intensive, scientific methods of anthropology can create great literary journalism, or great literary anthropology. Translated, that means that even informational text-writing can be taught without killing a student’s –or a reader’s– imagination. (Full text of thesis is available here: http://contentdm.lib.byu.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/ETD/id/1888 )
That brings me to my main academic concern.
ACADEMIC CONCERNS
Common Core mandates that elementary students read no more than 50% classical/imaginative literature, making room for more and more “informational texts” –and by twelfth grade, the percentage of allowable classic literature is further reduced– to only 30%.
Informational text has, prior to Common Core, been taught in history classes, journalism, science, or other disciplines. Although Common Core’s creators, David Coleman and Susan Pimentel, have stated that the 70%-30% split has been misunderstood, and is to be across all disciplines (not just in English class) it seems that most English teachers didn’t get that memo.
Neither did the Utah State Office of Education, which says that under the new Core, schools will promote “more ‘informational’ text at every age and grade—text that gives information about the world rather than simply telling a story.” That worries me.
Students are being pushed to write technically more than they are being inspired to write creatively. Common Core-aligned assignments focus on increasing “informational” readings and writings, to the exclusion of the kinds of readings and writing assignments that inspire students love to read/write.
My bachelor’s degree is in English literature and my master’s degree in Communications focused on informational texts (ethnographic literary journalism) so I do value both classic and informational texts. Still, the Common Core Initiative’s decreasing of classic/imaginative literature– or, if Pimentel and Coleman are to be believed, the Common Core’s redistribution of the responsibility of teaching English language arts across the subjects and classes –either way, this is a dangerous transformation of American schools.
We become human by passing on our stories. Souls are enlarged by their exposure to the characters, the imagery, the rich vocabulary, and the endless forms of the battle between good and evil, that happen in all classic literature. Classic stories create a love for books and reading that cannot be acquired in any other way. Dickens, Shakespeare, Hugo, Orwell, Dickinson, Whitman, Dostoevsky, Rand, O’Connor, Dahl, Carroll, Marquez, Cisneros, Faulkner, Fitzgerald– where would we be without the gifts of these great writers and their writings?
The sly and subtle change to education made by the Common Core Initiative, that cuts out so much to make room for informational texts, will have the same effect on our educational system and on our children as if Common Core had mandated the destruction of a certain percentage of all classic literature. How much does this differ from book burning in its ultimate effects?
While there are equally serious affonts by the Common Core to students in the diminishment of high quality math, my special passion is English and that’s why I mention it particularly here.
YOU HAD ME AT UNCONSTITUTIONAL
Having said all of this about the academic concerns I hold against Common Core, still, I would never, ever have devoted thousands and thousands of hours to this movement and this blog, without a penny of pay, for the past three years, if academics were the only issue.
The deeper and more vital issue is America’s Constitutional right to representation, which the structure of the Common Core initiative kills.
No teacher, taxpayer, parent or principal has a say in the Common Core initiative. When the creators of the Common Core decide to change it, they will change it. There’s no voting. There’s no amendment process for anyone. That wonderful concept: “the consent of the governed” which the Declaration of Indpendence calls a mark of a just and proper government, goes away. Checks and balances? None. Representation? A vote? None. The two groups that co-created Common Core (thanks to the funding of Bill Gates, a heavy handed “philanthropist”) are: the National Governors Association (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO).
If you think about it… we didn’t elect NGA’s huge membership or staff. We can’t fire anyone at NGA. NGA is not a representative Congress. NGA is not a public institution– it’s a private trade group that happens to have an official-sounding name. That name confuses people. It sounds so governance-y. But it’s not.
As a private club, it’s not subject to transparency laws. It doesn’t even have to allow investigators or media in to the closed-door meetings. No citizen and no board member could ever vote to change what NGA does. Governors themselves can’t even vote to change NGA, unless they are NGA members, which some very smart governors choose not to be. Last time I checked, the governors of South Carolina, Texas, Maine, Alabama, and Indiana were staunchly determined never to join the NGA, or had joined and quit.
Yet NGA makes national policies without due process of proper representation — it has already done so, in the case of Common Core.
Its partner, CCSSO is its twin. CCSSO has not only co-created Common Core, but it also created Common Educational Data Standards (CEDS). The Department of Education is officially partnered with both CCSSO (and with SHEEO, the higher-ed club) in using the CEDS common data standards. When you realize that every state uses these CEDS common data standards, and that every state has a federally paid-for State Longitudinal Database System that is totally interoperable with each other state’s system, you begin to see that a national data bank, using children’s information without parental knowledge or consent, is in place. That’s not just a little bit creepy. That’s 1984-Orwell style creepy. Learn more about the data standards here.
NGA and CCSSO are certainly welcome to exist as private groups, just like any group in a free country. But as national governing bodies? No– that’s unconstitutional governance.
What will it mean in the future, now that most of the United States have chosen to adopt Common Core? Pretend that there were no problems right now with the academic standards at all. What will happen when the NGA/CCSSO alters them, as they’ve promised they will, (see page 3) — and suddenly a majority of states dissent? Where is any recourse? Where’s citizen access to NGA/CCSSO?
The Utah Constitution says that the elected school board should hold the reins, not businessmen at Achieve, Inc., contracted by NGA/CCSSO. But NGA/CCSSO assumed a role as a national governing body over education. And meanwhile, the federal government is enforcing/coercing states to stick with the Common Core using financial grants and contracts over Common Core (aka College and Career Readiness) standards and tests, so that few state education leaders have the financial courage to tell the federal agents to back off our Constitutional rights. Nor do they admit how much they are influenced by an even further removed, even more nonrepresentative entity, the United Nations. Just look at some of the educational goals of the United Nations and see how closely the Common Core Initiative aligns America’s schools to every Agenda 21 compliant detail.
America, we have handed over the keys to the family car. This is bad. This is serious.
And that’s why I’ve made this website.
COMMON CORE 
Thanks for your detailed analysis of the situation created here in Utah by the adoption of the Common Core Initiative. I attended that school board meeting too. It is scarey how naive the school board members are to the dangers of this initiative. I am eager to hear what the attorney general’s response is. I am assuming you will post it.
Thanks for your efforts. You are not alone in this fight.
Kristen Price, state delegate from West Jordan.
Kristen,
Thanks for your comment.
It’s been a month and I’ve heard nothing from the attorney general’s office. I’ve also heard no response to the referenced rebuttal I wrote to the U.S.O.E.’s unreferenced flier (fact v. fiction) about Common Core. It’s strange; the state school board refuses to give evidence for their claims about Common Core, yet they paint those of us who oppose Common Core with actual evidence and facts as the “misinformed” ones.
Well, keep up the good fight. True and free education, state sovereignty, the liberty to amend standards, parental authority and the maintenance of privacy laws –basically, goodness and truth– are on our side. How can we fail?
Christel
Dear
I am Heaven.
I am typing by borrowing Mitsuki’s hands to tell message to you.
The project to establishment of socialist earth government of Heaven and gods has already started from 2012.
You have mission to be responsible to realize our project on ground.
Please read our message.
http://auwa.sakura.ne.jp/forum/index.html
Do your mission.
Time has come you should do your mission in this life.
Thank you for your diligent work on this issue, Cristel. You are a thorough researcher and an articulate explainer. You draw out the true points of contention on this issue. It’s not about standards, it’s about sovereignty, and everything that sovereignty entails. Thanks to your work, I know where to go to research it myself. After reading the SBAC RTT application and grant, and many other documents, I’m with you 100%.
Thanks Christel for all you do to bring the truth to light. We will plug along and keep spreading the word. I enlightened a few people tonight outside of the precinct meetings in Midvale. You are amazing and I really appreciate all of your information. Kristen Price
I found your blog from your post to Ben Swann. I think you need to watch this Youtube video. It is just an hour long.
Charlotte Iserbyt served as Senior Policy Advisor in the Office of Educational Research and Improvement (OERI), U.S. Department of Education, during the first Reagan Administration, where she first blew the whistle on a major technology initiative which would control curriculum in America’s classrooms.
Her website is: http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com/index.html
Thank you, Hall. I’m watching/listening to it right now. It is so important to listen to people like Charlotte. I appreciate your comment.
You might want to take a lot at an article I wrote on my blog “The School Speech Therapist”
http://www.theschoolspeechtherapist.com/core-curriculum-and-the-slp/
The article common core and the SLP generated several comments that you might be interested in. I’ve been in education for over 25 years. The recent changes have not been good so I have little faith this can work. I am also extremely disappointed with my professional group. Common core will basically tell us how to be speech language pathologists, not acceptable and my professional group should be pushing back or at least questioning. Keep this going I am passing your site on to my friends and will highlight it on my blog.
Teresa Sadowski MA/SLP-ccc
You bring up some interesting things in your blog on school speech therapy that I hadn’t known before. The sad thing is that Common Core was adopted with virtually no input from teachers, parents, and local legislators. Now we are all stuck with it, without an amendment process for it, and with so many political mandates that it will drive many good teachers away. I feel the answer is to talk, talk, talk. Call governors. Call state school boards. Tell neighbors and friends and reporters what is really going on. Silence is the killer here.
Teresa,
Thanks for sharing your professional opinion. Too many people just are not aware of the Common Core situation. Parents, grandparents, etc. need to open their eyes and become informed before it’s too late to stop this educational disaster!
You might enjoy this article, highlighted on my blog http://www.costcoconnection.com/connection/201208#pg36 It’s called Teach Your Children Well actually short and quite interesting….and quite sensible. Also commented on in my blog http://www.theschoolspeechtherapist.com/sir-ken-robinson-calls-for-a-revolution-in-education/
Thanks for all the info you give. Hope you/we can make people listen.
Teresa Sadowski
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I, too am an English teacher, and the high school where I work in CT is all about the Common Core. While I don’t know enough about it to support or criticize it, your blog certainly makes we want to know more!
Thanks, Mirror, for writing. Teachers deserve to know so much more than what they are being told by our state boards of education. But we really have to do our own research because the politics behind education have become so one-tracked in the opposite direction of freedom, and in the opposite direction of asking for teacher and parent input, before huge changes are made that affect us all.
I agree… our governor is trying to get rid of tenure & binding arbitration. I’m not a very political person, but we have to stand up for our profession!! I attended a rally for the first time in my life last year & the governor’s bill was modified, for now. Evidently, NJ’s governor said teacher’s salaries should be cut & we should basically be content w/ the pride we get from teaching. I’d like to see our politician’s salaries being cut to match ours & see what they have to say. Continue fighting the good fight & so will I 🙂
The politics of education are not one-tracked, but rather quite polarized. And yes, it does take some research into the issues to see this fact. Everyone has their own agenda and everyone thinks they know how to teach best. But, there are is a lot to learn from the research, not just what others around you know and share.
Please join the nationwide educational discussion group USPEIN@yahoogroups.com We discuss everything about schools including UNESCO’s take over of our schools, and IB as well.
I just linked your website over at Conservative Teachers of America. http://conservativeteachersofamerica.com/ I would love to have any content you want to submit as a guest post on our site.
I live in Provo, how can I get a sign for Kent Parkinson? Actually I’d like 3.
here is a PA common core implementation power point handout you may find interesting.
Click to access Hall_PBIDA2012_AM3.pdf
Interesting to me is that the slide show was put together by 95 Percent Group. Who are they? Why, education marketers, of course! So they’ll tell you how wonderful CCSS is, then they’ll sell you the workbooks, lesson plans, professional development workshops, etc. to help you meet those testing goals!
Yaaaaayyyy!
The North Carolina school system implemented CC here this school year (2012-2013). We are barely into the 3rd Quarter here and already we are seeing trouble. This new curriculum is a disaster for both teachers and students. Not to put to fine a point on it, but I see a lot of sunshine being blown up parents rears coupled with a lot of ‘intervention’ and ‘special resource’ assignment being done…. more so than in the past. I do see a lot of rationalizing and justifying of various jobs that are NOT main classroom teachers. From a parent stand point, I feel like my child is not getting the basics and this new curriculum has more holes than Swiss cheese.
Stay tuned, I am certain I will be blogging about this in the coming weeks.
Please keep me posted on North Carolina’s efforts to get free from Common Core.
Will Do.. I’m going to start poking around a bit.
I’ve begun my series on the common core – first post is here: http://ladyliberty1885.wordpress.com/2013/03/05/the-common-core-train-wreck-part-one/
Lady Liberty 1885, thank you for sharing your link!
You’re welcome! I’m hoping to have a part II up next week. It will be NC specific.
Part II just went up:
http://ladyliberty1885.wordpress.com/2013/03/08/common-core-train-wreck-part-ii-north-carolina-beyond/
Thank you for mentioning our blog (http://ccssimath.blogspot.com). On Jan. 16, 2013, we posted a follow up comment (to a comment by CCSSI co-author William McCallum) on Stephanie Sawyer’s post on Diane Ravitch’s blog (http://dianeravitch.net/2013/01/13/a-math-teacher-on-common-core-standards/) as well.
Is there anything, any place to educate and motivate parents enmasse? Every parent I know is fully aware of the detriment to educational opportunities thanks to standardized testing, AIMS, etc. Common core is the full grown older (and meaner) brother of “No Child Left Behind.” The government got away with pushing their toes into the door crack, and now they plan to boldly take over. It sucks the wind out of me to watch it happen unopposed. Every parent who spends any amount of time with their child knows that this is bad for them! We must organize the parents to be emboldened, to take a stand and say “NO!” We must find a place where parents can talk, organize. Parents have the authority. May I suggest a social media campaign? Lets start with Facebook. We all are on it to watch what our children are doing. Lets start talking. Lets start the fire!
Angie
I’ve only been in the Stop Common Core battle since April 2012. Many people and organizations have been fighting it for years. Pioneer Institute. Heritage Institute. Truth in American Education. Professor Christopher Tienken of Seton Hall University. Professor Mary Grabar of “The Dissident Professor”. BYU Emeritus professor Neil Flinders. Professor Sandra Stotsky (Arkansas). Professor James Milgram (Stanford, Emeritus). And so many more. There are now groups all over, including the more left-leaning “Dump Duncan” organization and Rosa Koire, as well as many right-leaning groups, such as Alabama Republican Women, Eagle Forum, Concerned Women for Georgia, Utahns Against Common Core, Idahoans Against Common Core, R.O.P.E. of Oklahoma, Missouri Education Watchdog, Hoosiers Against Common Core, Gotham Schools of New York, and many, many more.
While I think we all help and support one another, it is the individual speaking with his or her local school board, state school board, local newspapers, local neighbors, that really changes things. It is person to person, face to face, one piece of truth at a time. Thank you so much for leaving a comment.
Hi Christel, you ladies are phenomenal!! Your site has so much information!! Thank you for all the work you do. I recently spoke out at my local school board meeting. Felt discouraged after the meeting. I live in the communist State of Illinois. That should explain my problem. Even though my statement didn’t receive much response from the board I published it in my local paper. I was shocked at the responses for me to stop and what I’m saying can’t possibly be true. I’m speaking again at our school board meeting this week. Dr. Sandra Stotsky will be in my area this Saturday. I’m attending. Thanks again for all you do!!
Its not the government that pushed its way in, its the private corporations. Hmmmm…whats that called when private enterprise takes over public trusts….oh yes, FASCISM!
For those of you looking for the scoop on Common Core or as I refer to it the Great Deception, I am an attorney and a parent who went after this story several years ago when I realized the statutes and regulations never matched the press release.
I started blogging about it last May. Today I took on the links to IB as in all our students globally will fit within the IB Learner Profile. http://www.invisibleserfscollar.com/isnt-it-political-sabotage-to-use-education-to-eliminate-the-assumption-that-students-are-individuals/
You will see that I am full of quotes. I have also tracked the connections to what is going on in higher ed and globally and Agenda 21.
I’m an Ohio resident with 2 children – one in K and one in 1st grade. Our school district is in the process of implementing the Common Core curriculum. So I am trying to educate myself on CCSS, which brought me here. What a great resource! So far, the negatives greatly outweigh the positives (and have much more substance) in the information I’ve read. I wish Ohio had efforts to block implementation like other states. Maybe there’s something in the form a resistance movement that I don’t know about. Just getting started….so much to read.
One thought (because this is the way my mind works): It’s well known that the policy makers/politicians/decision makers in DC all send their children to private schools. I wonder how many of those elite, private schools in VA and MD have voluntarily adopted the Common Core curriculum. If it’s as great as we’re being told, you would think those institutions would be all over it. I have my doubts. I’m not sure if one could even obtain that kind of info, but it would be good to have in “fighting the good fight”. Just a thought.
Buckeye Dad, thank you for your comment. Coincidentally, just today I received an email from another Ohio resident who wants to turn this thing around. There are anti-common core groups with websites now in Idaho, California, Utah, Missouri and Indiana, and I have spoken with people in Arizona and Alabama who are building sites right now for the same purpose. If you want such a site for Ohio, see http://utahnsagainstcommoncore.com and feel free to contact the site for help.
Wake up, Utah! The Common Core is a Progressive agenda that is ready and willing to start brain-washing our students. I am trying to teach through this nonsense! Our district only cares about passing a standardized test. Students and teachers are not individuals or even real people. We are “data, fact-gathering, and statistical numbers” to them. In fact, we were told in our last professional development that these characteristics no longer belong in public education: “individuality, self-sufficiency, creativity, and risk-taking”. Our district, full of good-intentioned progressives, are absolutely giddy about finally destroying these American values. If our Utah politicians actually believe in state-rights, then they certainly need to start acting like it. They are so good at talking the talk and then taking all the Federal money they can get their hands on!
Yep its all about the money, they would sell the whole country down the river to get what they want and not know how it will effect anyone, just like our soon to be ‘government healthcare’ system.
You had me on here until you started progressive-bashing. I am as progressive and liberal as one can be–and fiercely opposed to CC, the privatization of our educational system, and Arne Dunken, as are many other progressives. Seems to me we could accomplish more if we pulled together on this one…you know, strength in numbers.
Unfortunately, progressive indoctrination is already in over 2,000 schools nationwide. Common Core will likely more than double that number. If you would like to view my list of schools, districts and organizations indoctrinating in each state, please let me know. I’m not here to plug my site so you can email me or respond if it’s ok for me to give you the link. I’ve research progressive/communist indoctrination (involving Obama) for 4 years and I’m praying we can all join and help each other – create powerful local movements without our states to take our schools back. God bless you for what you are doing and good luck! There is nothing more important, IMO.
They’re really pushing this scheme here in Montana. Rural citizens here are, for the most part, unaware of any of this. Many of them don’t use the internet or watch tv (not that the media would enlighten them to this nightmare). They’re too busy running ranches, raising families and working jobs to be involved. They know something is very wrong and that Americans are on edge, but they have no idea what we’re facing. One most important rule of war is to know thy enemy. They have no clue. Thank you for your efforts. I’m trying on this end, but it’s a real challenge here.
I forgot to mention that I have been fighting the common core scheme for a while now. Up until today when I found your site, I have been using the STOPCOMMONCORE.COM site. I’m thankful you’re both out here as great resources for us all! Thank You!
Thanks for all of your hard work. I have grandchildren in several states so I would really like the link to the schools and districts you mention. My sister is a teacher in Idaho and she is very alarmed by the tracking system. Thanks again for all you are doing.
Kristen, not sure if you were responding to my comment or not but I do have a list of schools and districts indoctrinating in the U.S. I am still adding to the list (scary since it is soooo long already), but it includes all forms of progressive indoctrination. A couple of paragraphs at the top of the list explain what types of indoctrination, etc. Here is the link – http://danetteclark.wordpress.com/take-it-back/take-it-back-list-of-schools-districts-organizations/
Christel’s site is so crucial too. Common Core will greatly expand indoctrination and give progressive educators even more power and less transparency (because of the move to online curriculums, etc.). The schools I’ve listed have not even touched on Common Core schools/districts yet. So I will need to pull info from this site to add to mine later (I will link to or mention whatiscommoncore though, of course). The more we share info, the better informed and equipped we will all be to fight.
Hello, I am a social studies teacher who is also against the CCSS. My question is about your comments about percentages of you mention of informational text vs. classics. Where do you find these percentages? I have been told that there are recommendations but no actual percentages in the CCSS.
I had the same question as you, and I find it very telling you have received no answer. I have yet to find a single person who uses accurate facts in their fight against common core.
Liz and Michael, I apologize for not seeing these comments earlier. The percentages were pointed out by Dr. Sandra Stotsky, who served on the official Common Core validation committee and refused to sign off on the standards’ academic validity because of their diminishing of classic literature. Her white paper is here: http://www.schoolimprovement.com/docs/PioneerInstitute_CoreELARecommendations.pdf Liz, if there is ever an issue you want to see evidence for, please ask specifically which one it is, and I will be happy to show you what document, grant contract or other artifact shows it to be the case. We are not here to banter opinions. We are here to talk about verifiable truth. It matters very much. Thanks for your comment.
http://www.schoolimprovement.com/docs/PioneerInstitute_CoreELARecommendations.pdf This white paper by Dr. Sandra Stotsky explains that the percentages in Common Core ELA that diminish classic literature come from David Coleman’s misreading of NAEP and the resultant false assumption that cutting out classic literature incrementally is legitimate “college readiness.”
Hi. We in Tennessee have created a website to stop COMMON CORE. We would like you to add our group to your spreadsheet. http://www.tnacc.weebly.com Our group is called Tennessee Against Common Core. Thanks so much for all you do and have done to help us fight Common Core with you. Karen Bracken @karen.bracken@reagan.com
Thank you, Tennessee!
Thank you so much for the information. That is scarey as our school district is on the list.
Kristen, do you want everything I have on your district? I would be happy to do further research also.
Wow! So impressed! I was aware of the issues but had not heard of this terminology “Common Core”. Really looking forward to learning more from you!
Christel,
I am a reporter at KSL Newsradio in Salt Lake City. I am working on a story about the growing standardized testing opt-out movement. I was told you would be good to interview about this. I am at mrichards@ksl.com, or newsroom 801-575-6397.
-Mary Richards
Will someone please, please, please draw attention to the fact that over 100 Dioceses in the Roman Catholic Education System have adopted Common Core Standards.-leaving fewer and fewer school choice options away from Common Core
Here is the National Catholic Educational Association (NCEA) Web site (check out the “What’s New” on front web page):
http://www.ncea.org/
along with the Catholic Common Core Standards Initiative (CCSSI):
http://catholicschoolstandards.org/common-core
We took our children out of the public education system 4 years ago and enrolled them into Catholic Schools to “deprogram” them from the increasingly secular indoctroctrination of public school only to have the Diocese of Pittsburgh adopt the Common Core Standards this year.
1.) Not only did they knowingly embrace the Common Core Secular Curriculum:
http://www.ncea.org/news/pressrelease/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=423&
2.) but they were quite proud of lowering academic standards by 2 notches:
This is an e-mail from the Superintendent of Catholic Schools at the Diocese of Pittsburgh – Dr. Michael Latusek – trying to ease my “concerns”.
Dear Mrs.Shuster,
I am sorry I did not get back to you. The common core pulls together and simplifies the state standards all the states have identified which is one reason you will see why over 100 Diocese have adopted, bringing commonality to all the diocese. The Common Core does not dictate content but stresses skills students should master at each level as they learn the content that is presented to them. If you look at Pennsylvania’s state standards they are a minimal guide at to the skills students should master at each level. If you look at the Pittsburgh Diocese students’ achievement across the diocese you will see that as a Diocese we exceed all those state standard expected levels so they are a non-issue for us. The Common Core is even more generic than the state standards. We use them as minimal bench mark guide for our teachers to reflect upon in their teaching and planning of lessons. We have provided professional development for our teachers on the Common Core and we also provide professional development for our teachers on how infuse the teachings of the Catholic Church in content areas of the curriculum.
I hope this answers some of you questions or concerns.
Respectfully,
Michael Latusek
He can be reached at :
Michael Latusek – Superintendent
mlausek@diopitt.org
(please note that according to Dr. Latusek “Common Core does not dictate content” but yet they “provide professional development on how to infuse the teachings of the Catholic Church into the content”)
MY EDUCATION OPTIONS ARE NOW OBSOLETE AS I CANNOT HOMESCHOOL- I AM BEGGING THAT THE MEDIA DRAW ATTENTION TO CATHOLIC SCHOOLS EMBRACING AND ADOPTING COMMON CORE STANDARDS ALONG WITH ALL THE SECULAR ENTRAPMENTS. YOU WOULD NOT BELIEVE WHAT IS IN MY SON’S NEW 8TH GRADE SOCIAL STUDIES BOOK!!!!
God Bless
+
Lynnette Shuster
Beaver, PA
Lynette, I am so happy to see your post. I send my kids to Catholic schools for the same reason. Three weeks ago our principal uttered those words to a mom, who then brought it up to me. She was not concerned with it, but I went home and started researching it right away. I am leaving the school I am in now for another school, which is still catholic, however, they are not pressing this as much as my current school. They are adopting though, as most are. I called the diocese of Lansing MI, where I was told that they are coming up there own cirriculum, and not using the federal governments. I sort of felt defeated when talking to many moms aside from a few, NO ONE cared. Oh it is just standards they say. One said…. I talked to a teacher friend of mine and she said its going to be harder, and better for the kids. Someone also mentioned….well who cares if the goverment makes the cirriculum, who makes it now anyways? I guess I decided I was screwed, and would just be there for my kids and be the counter to what they were learning. Im so happy to have found this page. I agree, it does need to be said that Catholic shcools are not a safe haven from this. I have been looking into Lorraine Ozar from Loyola College, it is in Chicago. Read there mission statement. Social Justice is all over the place. Lorraine,as I am understading is now is leading the way for this to be in Catholic schools. She has started CCCII Common Core Catholic Identity.. http://catholicschoolstandards.org/common-core
Anyway, I am in Michigan, and I do know there is a push to get this out. However, anyone got some good advice on how to get this across to the people who have no time or care what is happening. Do you know any contacts in MI that I can connect with to help fight this.
Thanks,
Rachel
Michigan
Lynette,
Thank you so much for posting this. A bomb was dropped on me last week telling me that my daughter’s private, catholic school will adopt CCSS. Now I know where to begin. Thank you so much.
I just found out that our Catholic school in suburbs of Pittsburgh is adopting a new math program that was written for Common Core alignment. I am trying to get answers. No one is responding to me! I emailed the Diocese Asst. Superintendent (who the office directed me too), I have been emailing our principal, and teachers. No real answers. The math program is new and unproven. I have 4 small children – all yet to go through elementary school there. I am so upset.
The PROBLEM is that every parent I tell blows it off! They all say – well, we can only pray. Praying and trusting in God does not mean INACTION!
I am torn though – given that we are paying tuition for this school, do we have a right to question and ask for change? Can’t they just say – “take your money elsewhere”. I don’t know how to handle this and get no response from friends and parents. I am also concered that I may look like a troublemaker if I keep pushing.
Public school is not an option for us – it is liberal and they use EnvisionMath and love Common Core.
Any wisdom, guidance you can give would be helpful. I would love to talk with you to get some ideas.
I agree with you. Praying and trusting in God does not mean inaction. You absolutely have the right to ask for change. Even if you were not in a private school, your tax money and your children entitle you to question everything. You are the responsible party for your children’s education, not the school.
I see lots of options: go to a different private school, change the one you are in by educating the leadership on common core, start your own private school, homeschool, do a co-op with other homeschooling parents, or supplement the learning after school with your own tutor or home school. You can’t worry about the labels they slap on your forehead. They are wearing labels of their own. Just do what is right as soon as you figure out what right is, for you and your children. I have emailed my contact in PA for you.
Christel, your power point presentation is awesome! Is there a way we can adopt part or all of it for use in our state of Florida? I do not have the teaching background that you have so I will have to study up to use it, but we are gaining momentum to Stop Common Core in Florida and your presentation is beautifully and professionally done. With visuals like you have used, the information is much more likely to stay in people’s minds. I am technologically challenged but networking with others who are not, and would appreciate any suggestions you can offer us to help Stop this Orwellian nightmare before the looming deadline for full implementation by 2014! Thanks so much to you and the other moms for your hard work on this project. Time is running out on our Constitutional Republic and we must all be activists now! God bless and keep you.
Thank you for your encouraging words Christel! And I did hear from your PA contact!
Ann
Concerned parents of Butler, Beaver and Northern Allegheny Counties are having a Common Core Informational meeting on
Monday May 20th – 7 pm at the Knights of Columbus in Wexford. The address is 250 Swinderman Road .
Please come and feel free to bring/invite/forward this information to other concerned parents as well.
I also experienced a lack of response from the Diocese of Pittsburgh, unfortunately they are following directions from the National Catholic Education Association (NCEA) who adopted/embraced the Common Core Standards.
to do nothing is not an option – God will not hold us guiltless
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Lynnette Shuster
Beaver PA
Lynette – I received a flyer from a friend who received it at Quigley. I forwarded it on to a group of parents. Hoping to get lots of people there! Thank you!
Ann
Please know that you are not alone here is the website for Pennsylvania against Common Core
http://nopacommoncore.com/
It has a lot of information and action plans
Please sign the petition and forward to your contact list
this website also has a facebook page
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lynnette
Seems like I read about this somewhere else – Catholic Schools and Common Core. Unless Christel wants to post something on this first, I will mention it on my site in the next few days or so.
Rachel, I contacted our Bishop within the Diocese of Pittsburgh and received no response. However a wonderful priest within the Diocese of Pittsburgh sent me the following article “Putting Catholic back in Education” by Dan Burke of The National Catholic Register:
http://www.ncregister.com/blog/dan-burke/putting-the-catholic-back-into-education?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+NCRegisterDailyBlog+National+Catholic+Register#When:2013-03-8%2014:36:01
I have since contacted the author, Dan Burke at register@ewtn.com, and both Bishop Robert Vasa (phawkins@srdiocese.org) and ArchBishop Naumann (contact@archkck.org) whom are mentioned in the article. I did this with the intention of drawing atttention and hopefully public awareness of Catholic Education adopting the very dangerous Common Core Standards/Curriculum. Perhaps others will do the same.
As mentioned before – prayerfully -Catholic Education will reconsider and become a refuge/safe haven for our children away from the Common Core.
In/thru/for Christ
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lynnette
Lynnette, Thank you! I am not going to sit silently either. This week, I am going to reach out to some of the teachers. I am going to push this with the moms I know, to get them to at least research it. I just want people to go deeper than it just being about new standards. The thing that I dont understand, is almost seems like suicide for private schools. I know they teach religion, and the public schools dont. But if we are on the same level, why would I spend all this money for religion classes. Which depends on who is teaching it. It could very well be someone with an agneda who wants your children to think differntly about religion. I am open to my kids learing everything. I feel very strongly that you really dont know where you stand on issues, or what you believe, until you learn it all. From all sides. My son brought home a new dictionary from the a group of ladies that came into the school. It is A Students Dictionary & Animal Gazetteer. They were free from the Kiwanis Club. I started flipping through the book, which is full of GREEN info. Now, I believe in taking care of the planet. However, I have been doing my own research into the Green Movement, and Green Energy. When you dig into that, and see who is behind it, and you see both sides. Well, lets just say lots of Politics is involved. And the people behind it, some of the same people behind COMMON CORE. The definiton of a conservative is AGANIST CHANGE OR INNOVATON…. What? The progressive def is FORWARD THINKER, FAVORING REFORM. WOW! If you or any one reading this does not know what a progressive is, well I really encourage you to dig deep into that one. Lots of prayers that we can open people eyes. Thanks to all of you who are paying attention, and care about our kids future.
Rachel
Rachel,I completely understand the anger about the bias of what is being taught and sometimes the appropriateness of content – my husband and I erroneously thought we escaped this when we enrolled our children into Catholic Schools… We have been in battle with the Diocese about the innappropriate links in our son’s new Social Studies book, ‘America History of Our Nation’ by Prentice Hall/Pearson (purchased this year so as to align to Common Core Standards at the direction of the Diocese of Pittsburgh).
Here are some of the age ,subject and faith innappropriate links from my son’s 8th grade Social Studies book:
•
Milestones in the Gay Rights Movement
•
The American Gay Rights Movement: A Timeline
•
What Is a Civil Union?
•
Being Transgender Today New!
•
U.S. Policies on Same-Sex Marriage
•
International Policies on Same-Sex Marriage
•
A Primer on Same-Sex Marriage, Civil Unions, Domestic Partnerships, and Defense of Marriage Acts
•
Same-Sex Partner Households With Children in the U.S.
•
These Kids Are All Right, Too New!
•
Same-Sex Partner Households by U.S. State
•
Same-Sex Partner Households in U.S. Cities
•
Characteristics of Opposite-sex and Same-sex Couple Households
•
Global Abortion Rates -“Data suggests that the best way to reduce abortion rates is to make contraception more available rather than banning the practice of abortions.”
•
Sexually Transmitted Diseases “Delay having sexual relations as long as possible, as young people tend to be more susceptible to infections.” No mention of abstinence
Instead of removing this book from the classroom (keep in mind this is a Catholic School) – they sent a letter home suggesting that the parents block this link from thier computer.
How do we ,as parents,teach unwavering faith to our children when the very people we place before them to help us with this task compromise these values in the false pretense of tolerence?
God help us!!!
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Lynnette Shuster
Lynette. this is appalling! we are in phila area and are at a catholic private school and having same problems. inappropriate and secretive stuff. do you have ” religious maintenance”? my 8th grader asked for help with it and the first question was asking about astrology and the second was: “what is it called when you worship satan?”
I asked the teacher what it was, were they studying astrology and satan worship, or just what is the context? he said he did not know, and referred me to the religious education head and she could not answer. she only said they came from immaculata college. they are not part of the curriculum of the religious education. it sounds to me like data mining. I still do not know what their purpose is and who they go to. peculiar. I will be looking into it.
anyway, you are not alone.
I asked my son about this and he said no – and told him to tell me if this ever brought up.
Please contact the Diocese and the Bishop and have others do the same.I am pretty sure that the Diocese of Philadelphia has also embraced Common Core and all its secular entrapments (over 100 Dioceses in the US have adopted Common Core).
Keep at them until they respond to why they think it is a wise decision to adopt a secular set of standards/curriculum. Make sure it is in writing so as to show their responses to other parents who unaware that they are paying for the same education that they can get tuition-free in the public school system.
Prayerfully the Diocese of Philadelphia and its Bishop will be much more responsive than the one here in Pittsburgh.
We need to protect our children from the one who is seeking to devour them- sadly our schools are no longer that refuge.
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lynnette
Lynette, can we get in contact with one another? I’d like to chat with you. My daughter attends a private, catholic school in CT. And i have been trying to figure out where this came from and would love to know what you have found out.
Lynette,
Can you give me the name of your son’s SS book, who wrote, etc. I want to see if I can get a copy of it online.. I would truly appreciate it. We are having a meeting with the principal next week and I need all the information that I can get.
Lynette,
Can you be so kind as to give me the ISBN #? I would like to order the book but there are several different books underneath that title and I want to make sure I get the book you mentioned so I can show our principal some of the inappropriate content that is being taught.
Thank you so much..
Yvonne,
ISBN-9780133699463
These links are attached to all the “Biography Quests” within the book.
For example from page 120, If a student wanted to know more about Phillis Wheatley the book directs the student to
PHSchool.com
Web Code: mvd-1044
After the student is on this webpage there are sub-titles on the left hand side that take them into the content mentioned above (via infoplease.com owned by Pearson). That is the danger to all of this – most of the time the teacher/principals/parents have no clue to what our children are viewing at the direction of the textbook chosen by administrators of the school.
We need to be more diligent at all levels when choosing the publisher of textbooks that our children will be using. We need to be able to trust the source and for this reason any textbook published by Pearson and its secular associates(Prentice Hall/Penguin etc) should never be allowed in a faith-based classroom. Unfortunately parents and sometimes even the teachers are left out of the textbook selection process.
I can be reached at shusterjkl@aol.com –
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lynnette
Thank you Lynnette. I appreciate it so very much. I will send you an email to discuss further. Have a great weekend.
I’m looking for someone to speak at a meeting (912 group) on Common Core. Do you have some contacts in Pennsylvania? Thanks in advance.
Lee Ann
Here is contact info from Commonwealth Education Organization (ceopa.org):
Have people contact our office if they want someone to speak. The number of requests are increasing every day.
412 967-9691.
Cheryl Boise
E-mail:
ceb@ceopa.org
Great information!
Hello, I’m about as liberal as the State of Oklahoma will allow, and I don’t agree with Republican’s on, well, just about anything, but I do agree with you on Common core. In fact, I think it’s a coinky-dink that I’ve been researching this very subject all week. You should check out Pearson’s website. It blatantly states that “Governments and universities urged to prepare for an avalanche of change in higher education” whether we like it or not.
http://www.pearson.com/news/2013/march/governments-and-universities-urged-to-prepare-for-an-avalanche-o.html?article=true
And here’s an interesting article…
“It’s extremely unfair for the taxpayer to be paying for additional expenses, such as advertising,” Mr. Wagner said. Much of the public money also goes toward lobbying state officials, an activity that Ronald J. Packard, chief executive of K12, has called a “core competency” of the company.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/13/education/online-schools-score-better-on-wall-street-than-in-classrooms.html?pagewanted=all&_r=1&
As a working single parent, I certainly don’t want my taxes paying for a system that has, so far, shown poor results. I’m afraid that Republican’s and Democrats have been bought off. Just look at AZ, GA, OH, and NJ, who have already sunk a lot of money in the K-12 system….again, than has shown poor results. I’m so sick of profit over people, and now children, I could just spit.
Catherine, thank you for reaffirming the fact that this is not a left/right issue, but an issue of what America is about: due process and voter representation. Common Core is being shoved down our throats and we all need to stand up and say no.
Welcome to communism, everything is being taken over. Our very way of life is being taken over in every sector of our lives, what’s anyone going to be able to do about it, its been such an easy feet to take over everyones lives. We are no longer known as exceptional. We are all walking sheep. They know there is no way out. Democrats and most Republicans are going to have to start seeing the light before this country will change. By then it will be too late. Welcome to socialism!
I have just found out that the school I pay to send my daughter to go to (private, parochial school) will be moving towards these standards. I am so upset by this I don’t know where to begin. I need to fully educate myself about CC is there a website that can be recommended to me? I’m looking for a clear and concise explanation with examples so I can digest all of this fully so when I have a meeting with the school administrators I know what I a talking about. Any help would be truly appreciated. I work day-in and day-out to make sure my children are NOT indoctrinated and right now at this point just feel that the outside forces are too much to endure and fight alone.
Just because a school is using those standards, doesn’t mean they are in any way “indoctrinating” our children. I taught in a Christian private school for years, and I could easily use that syllabus to teach these standards. It’s just subject-verb agreement, grammar, writing standards, much like we’ve always had. There is zero instruction in the CC – that is still incumbent on the teacher to provide the lesson, the content, and the texts. It would be impossible for a school NOT to align in some way with these standards, as they are “common” standards per grade. Ex: Demonstrate command of the conventions of Standard English capitalization, punctuation, and spelling when writing. [L.8.2]
Yvonne,
You might want to go to my PDF report on Common Core in Catholic Schools.
xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/6902/246995915/name/CCCS..pdf
Betsy
Betsy, this is quite a report and very impressive. I will be reading this for sure. I’m curious…is this research you did because you are as disgusted as we are or, I guess what I am asking is, what is your accreditation to this report?
Diane,
I have researched education and topics over the years. Just a private researcher. I wrote
the Report because I was appalled at what was happening to Catholic Education. Here is
my second report which as just been released:
“Catholic Education in America” To Deceive the Elect?”. Here’s the link:
Hello, just started following you blog. I fought against this machine in the early to mid 90’s. At that time, it was called: OUTCOME BASED EDUCATION and SCHOOL TO WORK. I spent two years in two different state capitals, in meetings, in media, in parent groups, in two different schools, etc… trying to defend my children’s right to be individuals. After a long haul and many battles (and the Lord God working on my heart), I pulled my two boys out of first grade. I homeschooled all three of my children, they are all grown now, but I do have grandbabies. The fact that this machine has not lost steam, just changed tracks is heartbreaking to me. I will share your site on my blog, in the hopes that other parents out there might awaken to the dangers that are in store for their children. May God bless the work you are doing!
I shared your blog here: http://teachx3sblog.wordpress.com/2013/03/28/warning/
Hi Christel,, Great info on your blog. You’ve obviously been working at educating the public for quite some time. I just started doing the same thing and have no idea where this will lead, but I feel we have to work hard to expose the Progressive Agenda that is in full implementation right now. So I started a FB page called Parents and Educators Against the Common Core Curriculum in Colorado. https://www.facebook.com/pages/Parents-and-Educators-Against-Common-Core-Curriculum-in-Colorado/369263259855000 I have posted a link to your blog. I hope you don’t mind but if you objection please let me know. I hope you visit the site and contribute any information you think people should know. Kim
Why is BYU independent using common core? I don’t understand.
Ask BYU. I have asked and they have not given me an answer that makes sense. My guess is that they don’t understand yet what Common Core is all about.
Cristel,
You’re obviously a very articulate, intelligent person, and I wholly respect your passion. I have taught in a Christian private school and public schools. I also homeschooled my girls when they were younger, during the summers as an enrichment. I am an English teacher, and I also work at a nearby university. Just a follow-up on your comment about classic literature, I had read several years ago that the CC minimized the classics, that there was a 70% informational text, 30% lit requirement. However, I can tell you that is in no way the case, at least in Alabama. If anything, the classics are emphasized more. I was at a high school last week and walked in 4 upper grade ELA classrooms. In just 20 minutes, I walked in classrooms reading Of Men and Mice, Outsiders, To Kill a Mockingbird, and Chaucer, respectively. Nothing has changed…other than the expectation for higher-order thinking skills.
For the first time, we are asking science and history teachers to embed writing and reading into their curricula, something all good teachers have always done. Doing so addresses many of the informational text standards in the CC.
If the SDE ever told our teachers to replace Shakespeare with almanacs or menus (as I’ve seen some folks claim), I would be leading to pack to revolt.
https://www.facebook.com/groups/theeducationalfreedomcoalition/
they find a way to teach social justice along with every classic book or story, that is what the common core difference is. ” critical thinking”, guided reading, cross curricular projects…. all excuses to direct the study or reading of a text to the ” issues”, race, gender, fairness, evil capitalists, etc. just google the particular book along with common core lesson plan and you will see a scripted day by day direction using all thepedigogical bells and whistles. my kids are reading to kill a mockingbird, racism, rape…. and tom sawyer, racism, the necklace, class envy… its all online. higher order thinking skills are a joke. what exacty are they if the reading is ” guided” and the ” big Idea” is directed? the obvious manipulation of our children by this politcal methodology has been reprted with evidence just google social justice math gatekeepers. also google slave math questions.
That’s just not the case…anywhere that I know of. Nothing is “scripted” at all. I would never teach in a scripted environment, and I know few teachers who would. I’ve read a lot about what you mentioned (before we included the CC standards in our courses of study), and that’s just simply not the case. I’ve taught each of the texts you mentioned, long before the CC, and yes, those themes are present, but so are so many other themes like forgiveness, faith in God, family bonds, overcoming adversity, etc. Those are literary classics and well as must-reads for college. We are moving away from rote memory (content Mon-Thurs, and test of Friday) to higher-order and project-based learning, the kind of learning necessary in college and careers. Personally, I see it as a great move, but I respect your opinion.
there are alot of teachers out there. i have heard the memorized script you seem to be using, but it does not match the reality out here. it sounds like you are a troll, and if you are not why put your dog in this fight?
Thank you for your comments.
@Melissa THESE ARE MY CHILDREN and I DIRECT THEIR FUTURE NOT THE GOVERNMENT! They WILL NOT BE TRACKED like their dones in the sky. I have read your disparaging and berating comments you have made to other posters here and quite frankly don’t want your advice. Do not take this personally as I don’t know you personally but I also don’t have the time to devote to those who want to be manipulated by the government from cradle to grave. I am not raising MY children to have that mind-thought either. I am quite IRATE about what is happening and will direct my energies where I can make progress. We are not from the same mold. Furthermore this is a website for parents AGAINST CCSS. This is not to site to promote the indoctrination of people’s children and CCSS. Perhaps you would do better on a CCSS message board that is controlled by the government or Achieve, Inc.!!!!! . I don’t drink Kool-aid but prefer tea………….
“There is zero instruction in the CC – that is still incumbent on the teacher to provide the lesson, the content, and the texts.” With regards to this comment… Teachers only have 15% freedom with CCSS and cannot DEVIATE from curriculum, so I don’t know where you are getting that there is zero instruction…. 15% is not a lot when you pay $24K (in school taxes because you’re forced to and a private school tuition at the same time).
God Bless…
@Yvonne I don’t want anyone to negatively affect my children’s future either…or track them using their personal info. Although I disagree with many anti-CC remarks, I have never disparaged or berated anyone. That is not who I am or raise my children to be. You must have me confused with someone else. I’m merely stating a different viewpoint. Shouldn’t folks hear what a real teacher in a real CCRS school/district has to say?
The CC is NOT A CURRICULUM; it only provides the backbone in which to create a curriculum. That’s a big misconception. Our teachers have total authority in creating the lessons, selecting the texts, and implementing the instruction. We’ve adopted math and ELA texts recently, where teachers, parents, and stakeholders served on the committees. We WANT everyone involved in our students’ education. Yes, you have drunk the tea….I can easily see that. I am not influenced at all by the government (although I’m likely as conservative as you are). I will only speak to what I know and see every day. It’s possible that some states or school districts dictate what content and how their teachers should teach, but that is not the case everywhere. I would be the first to complain if that happened here.
I’ll take your words to heart and not post again, although I find it really sad that you’ve asked me to do so. It appears that no one wants to hear from teachers who see great things happening through the CCRS (not Race to the Top initiatives). I have felt betrayed by the party to which I’ve long been loyal, and I am not alone in that respect. My voice is not valued. If I had to title myself, “mother” and “teacher” are two words that come to mind. Teaching is my passion; it’s what God called me to do. I would never support something that hurt our children. Just know that.
Blessings to you as well. I will continue to pray that we can come to some sort of agreement.
Bill Gates huge donor for this, he wants these kids to become perm customers and employees of Microsoft, can anyone say China. Live, work, eat all in one place. No wonder Chinese are jumping from their high rise apartments, so they can essemble Apple products all day for pennies. Its going to be too late before anyone can do anything about it !
When people who are literally hell bent on indoctinating our children are behind Common Core and CSCOPE and are hired by CCSSO and NGA to train educators in several states to implement Common Core, AND these indoctrinators’ designs and techniques (that are used nationwide to indoctrinate) are also used in the creation of CSCOPE, don’t expect us to believe there is no ill-will or underlying agenda. And please, Melissa, don’t expect us to believe that some currently unknown ‘requirement’ or catch is not waiting to rear it’s ugly head. These people – THE SAME PEOPLE BEHIND COMMON CORE- have been indoctrinating children for decades and doing their best to fly under the radar. So fogive us if we don’t trust them. It’s nothing personal. It’s just that we can see the writing on the wall and will NOT be fooled.
@Melissa your comments previous comments were an eye opener for me especially the data mining comment along with other statements. Does not matter. You want your children to be a product of the government that is your prerogative. I do not.
As for CCSS not being a curriculum when they tell you what to teach, how to teach it, when to teach and how to apply it without only a 15% of freedom for the teacher.. That is a curriculum that is set… Your comments are literally straight off the talking points of the CCSS website. You do NOT have to be a teacher to comprehend this. If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it’s a duck..
This is a NATIONAL TAKEOVER of the Education. It’s not called Obamacore for nothing..
He alone, who owns the youth, gains the future. — (and we all know who said that!) And this is EXACTLY what they are doing…..
It’s a takeover, but it’s a fusion between government and corporations/billionaires. Wall St. and Silicon Valley are calling education the new gold rush, and they are the ones who fund elections. Common Core is about data mining–collecting data on students and making it available to government agencies as well as selling it to corporations. It’s also about dumbing down the population, and in my opinion cutting us off from our culture. I think that’s why they have practically eliminated literature from the curriculum. Art and music are already gone for the most part.
Another goal they have is to dismantle the public schools and turn them into for-profit charter schools that use low paid, uncredentialed teachers and computer technology in place of teacher student interaction.One of their tools is the Parent Trigger law, which allows 51% of the parents to hand their public school over to a private contractor. Right now they are focusing on poor neighborhoods that don’t have the information or resources to resist. In Adelanto, CA, Michelle Rhee’s group sent a former military man to collect the signatures, and many parents say that they were misled. Right now they are trying to pass parent trigger in Florida.
This school is owned in part by the COO of Facebook, yet it is funded by taxpayers:
http://www.usatoday.com/picture-gallery/news/nation/2012/10/12/a-new-kind-of-elementary-school-rocketship-si-se-puede-academy/1630549/
The problem won’t go away when a different party is in power. Jeb Bush (R), the Walton family who owns Walmart (R), Murdoch (R), Eli Broad (D), Bill Gates(D), Koch Brothers (R), Zuckerberg (D) and the guy who owns Netflix, are all in the school privatization and data mining business. Both parties are involved.
melissa s it is obvious with your “conservative” and “christian” pandering, combined with your scripty talking points and weird vibe that you are a troll. if you love common core, great teach it all you want. why would you be here!
that is what trolls do, alinsky 101. try to act like you are one of us while causing conflict. so moms, trolls are people who persist with conflict and argue on blogs they oppose using tactics such as mirroring or often namecalling. can be employed by opposition to disrupt.
The roll of a troll is to stir up trouble. I’ve been reading all the comments here, and Melissa’s comments (here at least) do not fit into a “troll” m.o.? To have a differing point of view does not make one a troll.
Quite personally…I would love to have a clear conversation about CC without it denigrating into politics. Tell me, is that possible?
might you know how I could contact the Californians Against Common Core folks? I want to offer any assistance I can….seems my state is not very aware of CCS and all the evil of them…but that org. is and I want to help get the word out.
Here are some websites:
http://www.facebook.com/pages/Stop-Common-Core-in-California/436128033134967
http://cuacc.org/
Write to Senators Boxer and Feinstein and tell them to support Senator Grassley’s effort to defund Common Core.
https://www.feinstein.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/e-mail-me
http://www.boxer.senate.gov/en/contact/policycomments.cfm
Write to Governor Jerry Brown and tell him to opt out of Common Core even if that means returning federal funds:
http://govnews.ca.gov/gov39mail/mail.php
Christel, you may have already seen this. If not, I thought you might be interested – http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/03/13/lawsuit-charges-ed-department-with-violating-student-privacy-rights/
about data collection
We are looking to put our kids in a local Charter school and take them out of the district public education. However, I’m wondering if there is a way to know if the charter school we are looking into is using Common core or not? Do you have any suggestions?
I cannot find a complete list of the 400 data points of the Data mining. I need to get all my facts together for Jefferson County as we are one of 9 states piloting and I happen to be in the county where it will be implemented
I have been following your blog for a few weeks now. I am amazed at all the information you have found.
I am meeting with Cache counties superintendent next week. Because I am fairly new to Common Core, I would love any advise you can send my way.
My district is convinced they still have control over curriculum, where can I find info showing otherwise?
Any advice you can give me or info backed with facts would be appreciated.
Thank you
That’s such an interesting way to approach learning about something–rather than look at all the information out there and come to a reasoned decision, you’d like someone to point you to information that supports an argument that you don’t fully understand. This is what is wrong with America, and if you had read the Common Core, you’d know that this void of critical thinking is exactly what it sets out to eliminate.
@Rachel We have it up on our website: http://www.stopccssinnys.com or http://www.stopcommoncoreinnewyork.com http://stopccssinnys.com/ Go to the tab named “CCSS Links”, its under the heading “Pro Common Core Websites” named “The National Data Model” there you will see the 400 datapoints to be collected on your child and your child and my child, etc. Hope that helps.
I cannot find the right place to make a comment so I’ll put it here. I was attending a College graduation this weekend and was talking to an elementary education major student. I ask her if she was familiar with the term Common Core. She got very excited and told me “oh yes, we do hours and hours of lesson plans etc. and they are all to Commmon Core standards” She was totally pro common core from that conversation with her so…. is there any thing being done at the college level of these young teacher graduating , totally indoctrinated with Common Core?
Sharon, the promoters and marketers of Common Core are funding and visiting teachers’ colleges for that very purpose. If you can think of a way to market the truth to these young teachers, let me know and I’ll help you.
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I am a mom in South Carolina and I need your help I understand you are BIG TIME now, appearing on The Blaze t.v. and such but please I’ve already gotten the school board to do a public open forum on common core, and now I need to fill it and have someone articulate the cons! I just need to be able to have contact with helpful people. Thanks Kayla
South Carolina’s Senator Mike Fair and Governor Nikki Haley are both opposed to Common Core. You are lucky to have such a governor! I will send you an email with some ideas.
Kayla, Sen. Mike Fair wrote back to say he is happy to hear from you. Mike Fair <MikeFair@scsenate.gov
Hi,
I live in Davis School District. Recently we had Judy Park come give her presentation on SAGE testing. When we finally got to answer questions, I asked something that has been bothering me. In light of allegations that it’s possible to glean behavioral tendencies from the testing without the test taker even realizing it, I asked her if the AIR program used to take the test keeps track of every keystroke. So if the student backspaces, changes an answer, etc, is all of that data kept track of. In my mind that can say a lot about the student’s behavior/personality. Indecisiveness, guessing, how fast or slow the student goes, and much more. Anyway, she could not answer my question at the time, but many others there seemed to want an answer. I followed up with her to ask WHO could answer this for me. She told me to email her. I did so and this is the answer I received: “The system is capable of capturing key stroke information, Utah will need to determine if we want to have that information.” In other words, yes. But will Utah use the information is the question they face. To me, the fact that it is capable of keeping track of this data is troubling. It sounds like AIR will have that info no matter if Utah decides to use it or not. It’s out there. And the bigger question is, why would they even need that, if not to glean behaviors?
My question for you is, is anyone aware this is possible? If not, what can be done to shed light on this? How should I respond to her answer to my question?
The authors of this blog have misstated the Common Core’s required split between literary and informational texts.
First, the authors state that language arts classes will be required to read 50/50 split between informational and literary texts in younger grades and gradually change that split to 70/30 by 12th grade.
But on page 5 of the common core standards for language arts where the distribution graphs are displayed, there is also a footnote which states: “The percentages on the table reflect the sum of student reading, not just reading in ELA [English Language Arts] settings. Teachers of senior English classes, for example, are not required to devote 70 percent of reading to informational texts. Rather, 70 percent of student reading across the grade should be informational.” A second footnote states about the writing percentages: “As with reading, the percentages in the table reflect the sum of student writing, not just writing in ELA settings.”
So these are the percentages if you add up ALL the reading a student does for math, biology, geography, history, art, computer skills, etc. and language arts. NOT for English language arts only.
Do the authors of this blog suggest that the current Utah high school curriculum has a higher split for literary texts across ALL subjects? If so, do they have data to back up their claim?
Second, I can find nowhere in the core that states ELA teachers should not use “classics.”
The core provide titles of texts that are examples of the kinds of texts that they feel are appropriate by grade (many of which are “classics”) but expressly state that “The choices [examplar texts listed] should serve as useful guideposts in helping educators select texts of similar complexity, quality, and range for their own classrooms. They expressly do not represent a partial or complete reading list” (appendix B, p2).
This leaves the choice of text to the teachers and local curriculum designers.
There certainly may be many things wrong with the Common Core. But its does nobody any good to misstate what the core actually is.
Thank you for this comment! I am pro common core and get so frustrated when it is misrepresented like it is here on this blog.
Leslie, I am very concerned about truth. Please give me specific evidences with links to where we can study together to learn where “misrepresentation” is happening so that I can correct anything that is not true. Thank you.
All I hear is crickets chirping. Wouldn’t be surprised if some of these are paid trolls.
Here is the link that has everything that Susan said: http://www.corestandards.org/ELA-Literacy/introduction/key-design-consideration
But, I see you haven’t changed what you stated earlier, so I doubt you are interested in facts.
As for the classics, there’s nothing inherently virtuous in books that make someone’s list of “classics.”
Sorry. Ernest Hemmingway is not better for you than Jonathan Stroud. Jane Austen is not better for you than Shannon Hale. Shakespeare is not somehow better for you than Orson Scott Card.
The great themes of life can be found in all sorts of literature. And you don’t need a classic to practice critical thinking.
This isn’t to say we should avoid the classics, but there’s no data to suggest they enrich our lives more than other quality texts.
“Classics” are simply specific books liked by a certain group of people. Nothing more.
Furthermore, forcing kids to read certain titles before they are ready or have interest is a sure-fire way to turn a majority of kids off to reading entirely. Let kids read. Let them sample widely. Suggest texts, but let them choose. Let them develop the joy of reading.
I would much rather my daughters read thousands of pages of literature they’re interested in each year than force them to read two or three “classics” that someone thinks will be good for them but will deaden their love of books.
Hello awesome people. You will definitely want to see our latest article…you see we somehow got a note from Tami Pyfer, even though we are all the way over in NC fighting Common Core.
http://bluehatmovement.wordpress.com/2013/05/30/a-note-from-tami-pyfer/
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Someone needs top go on fox news and set them straight. They posted a one sided view in favor of Common core. Was NOT fair and balanced. I love fox..but this was sooooooooooo wrong. Please get on there and wake them up. They presented a one sided view of how GOOD common core is. So messed up…
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Hi – thank you for all you are doing. We purchased the two DVDs at your booth at Man in the Moon. The “Freedom In Education” DVD was blank. Please let me know where i can obtain another copy or download the material. Thank you.
Sam
Samuel, I am not sure what was on the DVD but you can find out from Utahns Against Common Core. My guess is that it was the Jane Robbins video, which you can watch online: http://youtu.be/coRNJluF2O4 and the three moms’ presentation which you can watch here: http://youtu.be/TYj-HDDrL4w
Just received an email that Utah State Office of Education “Experts” will be conducting our school district’s Opening Institute to teach us all about the Utah Common Core Standards. The majority of my teaching comrades are just accepting the standards saying that they don’t want to “make waves” and “This too shall pass.”
Excellent site. I wish you would change your design to eliminate the dark background. Or, increase your font size. Take a look at this article about website “readability,” http://usabilitygeek.com/make-your-blog-more-readable/. Note especially #2 and #3. There are lots of free WordPress themes that are more readable than this one.
The articles you write are filled with great information. I respectfully ask that when you quote someone or make a statement of fact, that you provide a link for your readers. This will provide additional credibility to each of your statements — and it will make increase the impact when people to take what you have written and forward it on to others… especially when forwarded to those who are current proponents of Common Core.
Thanks for all you are doing!
Cristel
My name is Skip McWilliams. I think we have much to talk about. Please contact me.
Thank you.
Sincerely yours
Skip McWilliams
President, Teacher’s Discovery
Div. American Eagle Co., Inc.
Do the Japanese and Chinese school children and other nations who are outperforming our kids spent a certain percentage on the English and American classics?
I found this website by researching for my daughter.My granddaughter who began her sophomore year in high school just two days ago came home from school in tears, she takes all advanced courses in school including advance Japanese. She is a straight A student, but she has to take Geometry in order to take Algebra II next year. Her teacher advised them she will NOT be teaching geometry, she is teaching common core. My granddaughter stated she does not know how to do this. She wants to LEARN the correct answers, not guess and explain why she thinks her answer is right. The live in the state of Maryland.
I began fighting Goals 2000, way back in my community in the late 1980’s early 1990’s, and even ran for school board and was defeated. I wanted to keep this dumbing down out of our schools. So here we are now 30 years later and Common Core rears its ugly head. I am no longer a mother fighting for her children’s education but moved on to fight for my grand children’s education. I am retired and 60 years old now, but would like to know how I can help in any way to stop this madness. I live in the worst state of the Union, California but am willing to do what I can to help, in any way. In other words put me to good use for our kids.
Peggy, contact Californians United Against Common Core. Angela Weinzinger, Orlean Koehle and Rosa Koire are bipartisan leaders in the group.
You have inspired me. I fel like I am in your shoes 30 years ago now.
I am fighting for my kids education and my mom is 60 and on the school board here. We are fighting it here in south Carolina Dorchester district 2 my mom even went to the Glenn beck seminar in salt lake city and brought back her info to the Orr board members here, but those who are in support of common core are very sneaky in their wording and approach. Very frustrating sincerely Kayla
Probably not, because its our wonderful regime that we have now that put it into place. Monitoring a childs movements, facial expressions, his posture in how he sits while taking a test, this is Nazi Germany, what’s next medical experiments on our children?
I would really like to talk to you about your concerns about the Common Core. I want to share some personal information about me and hope you will respect my privacy: I am not a liberal nor am I a socialist. I have been a very religiously conservative person my entire life. I teach fifth grade – my students are patriotic, respectful, and learn a great deal about US History without the intrusion of socialist texts, materials or agendas. For the past five years, I have taken my class to sing patriotic songs to the veterans at the VA nursing home in Salt Lake City. I now get to present great moments from literary classics because the literacy core allows me to take any source and use it to teach strategies or examples of great writing, concepts of character development or tropes all from my favorite authors: Dickens, Shakespeare, Hugo, Dickinson, Whitman, Dostoevsky, Rand, Dahl, Carroll, and many great poets too. I appreciate having the literacy core because I FINALLY don’t have to teach from the basal reader that was FULL of socialist garbage. Within the core I am free to choose the literature from which I teach literacy strategies and writing, and, take heart, I am choosing well.
My students scored higher this year than they ever have and I attribute that to the way the curriculum is organized. I really hope, if you want to fight the common core, you will please keep the math core intact. This program parses out the responsibilities of each grade and the material and information that needs to be covered for every grade. This means my students come into my class with the best preparation I have ever seen for them to learn the next math concepts I teach them. Math is a series of building blocks – it needs a solid, logical foundation for students to succeed. The first four years of teaching I was presented with at least five different programs, textbooks, mandates, curriculum maps that were nothing but a sickening, frustrating mass of confusion. When I would have students move in, (often I have students who have moved more than ten times by fifth grade) those mobile students would really suffer. In their previous school they might have covered fractions, or they might not have, but they would miss out because, in the past, if we already covered the material, we had to move on. The common core for math gives so many guidelines and logical sequences for teaching mathematics. Now, when I have a new move-in, I can quickly assess what their math levels are, what is the next step in mathematics they need to master, and what are the best ways to present the material. This is a program that has been designed by intelligent, logical mathematicians. I implore you to please consider what I am saying about mathematics.
I would be very happy to talk to you in person or invite you to visit my classroom. We are currently studying the Revolutionary War. I think you would see my devotion to the principles on which our great country was founded.
You did mention the student “tracking” database, the “data mining” on the news which would concern any parent. Perhaps that is where you could place your efforts. Remember, as a teacher, no one is telling me what literature I am to use to teach my students reading and writing strategies. I do prayerfully consider the materials I use.
God bless you for caring and wanting to make things better. I do teach the classics and have found much more freedom because I don’t have to use the basal reader which was replete with socialist comments and stories. I hope and pray that you will please read my comments and prayerfully consider the possibility of refining your protest to focus not on a carefully designed math program designed to take children through logical steps of succession so they can master calculus by high school, but, perhaps, focus on the database, the data mining and student tracking system that sounds very invasive and detrimental.
Thanks for your goodness and for your comment. It may very well be that there are many positive things about certain aspects of Common Core, and that’s great that you like them and that others like them. The problem is, you don’t have the right to continue to use them if Common Core changes them. The problem is that we have lost our voice; Common Core is under copyright and only the NGA/CCSSO can change them. So anything you like about Common Core can change, and anything you don’t like, you can’t change. See the helplessness? It will only get tighter and tighter. As Common Core testing rolls out this year, and as common core curricula are being written and adopted by states, not only in English and Math but also soon for Science and Social Studies, less and less autonomy will be permitted in classrooms. I am so grateful for teachers who do their very best and follow their own consciences. I hope you will be allowed to continue to do this. This is what we are all hoping for. But we need the protections in place! We can’t just hope. We have to fortify with action.
This explains the new math… https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Tr1qee-bTZI a must watch… Also — Have you heard of the Wunderlich family from Germany who came here for Assylum? They have been sent back to Germany and now their children are no longer in their possession… Forceably removed – homeschooling is illegal in Germany and they were not permitted to stay here… http://mobile.wnd.com/2013/08/police-storm-homeschool-class-take-children-by-force/
Thank you for this website. I will watch it closely for new posts.
I have posted you information on our website. http://www.conservativejunction.com I was thrilled to find you. My daughter is going to school to be a teacher, and she is so sad at what they are doing to the education system.
My greatest concern with the Common Core is in how math is now being taught. I have a very bright and socially well-adjustel 6th grade daughter who has dyspraxia with a visual processing disability (see http://irlen.com/distortioneffects.php ). The attentional aspects of this disability lower her “working memory” capacity such that she qualifies for accommodations but because many teachers have no knowledge of “best practices” for this disability (and practically every other LD) she rarely has these accommodations implemented in the classroom. Now, the curriculum in math has become almost impossible for even a good teacher who is properly trained in LD to implement any accommodations/to teach the math in a different way for better comprehension. The enemy of dyspraxia and ADD or ADHD and dyslexia is intense, multi-step word problems ( http://www.york.ac.uk/res/wml/index.html ). Also, taking tests on a computer is often very difficult for kids with LD.
How is a a school or a gifted teacher (who knows how to rearrange a particular instructional approach) going to help kids with LD if there is no flexibility in how to teach. Also, this new teaching approach is so far from the math that we, parents have learned (1980s) that we struggle in helping our kids with homework. (I’m speaking as a parent who was consistently on the Dean’s list in college and have a master’s degree and 3.9 GPA) I am in favor of benchmarks needed for each grade but the theoretical “digging deeper into math concepts-approach” is a huge mistake. We are going to lose those kids who have no parental support, live in poor urban areas and kids with LD. We need to teach math for practical living, rote practice is not a bad thing–our kids need to be able to compute the percentage off of an item in a store, hang picture frames from two prongs, figure out their mortgage schedules etc. Then, as kids get into high school , they can explore the abstractions in math and test themselves with the multi-step word problems. My child is only learning that “math stinks…I hate it…I can’t do it so, I don’t care”. Math wasn’t my favorite subject but it never was painful prior to this new approach.
As for English–my daughter’s new Language Arts textbook being aligned with CC (in Florida) is designed to include FCAT practice at the end of each chapter. Everything is about learning how to be a good test-taker and not about being a good learner (as projects and papers can illustrate). We are testing for the optimal performance of the left, frontal cortex and not valuing our creative-minded, imaginative and big picture learners. Thomas Edison and Albert Einstein would surely have bombed in this new system.
I just received my son’s first math test of the new school year. He is in the 2nd grade and was the best math student in his class last year. He came home one day and told me “Mom I’m not so good at math anymore” I was puzzled since he practices and likes math problems more than I ever did. I found out why he feels this way about himself. There were 4 questions on this test and he got them all correct mathematically but he got 3 points per question deducted because his explanation of his strategy wasn’t what the teacher wanted??? WHAT? So instead of an A he received a B eventhough he showed his work and got every single answer correct! I’m one ticked off mama who WILL BE visiting the school board meeting tonight test in hand and ready to talk!!!!
Good luck!
The presentation that you give is disjointed, poorly organized, and a repitition of other people’s opinions ( especially Glenn Beck). I have to wonder if you have ever read the laws and core that you argue against. Local control was shown not to work, no child left behind was shown not to work (or at least not supported), common core hasn’t been given a chance to show if it works or not. Why not work with it and try to change it rather then complain about it?
Also, do not complain about offensive material in the common core if you are going to use a cartoon with “FML” in it. Just another thing that you didn’t know enough about before using it.
Adpetanon, I don’t know what cartoon you are referring to. Please give a link.
I have made it a point to use thousands of actual links to official US Government contracts, other documents, Secretary Duncan speeches, Pearson CEA speeches, Bill Gates speeches, grant contracts, and other unrefutable sources to show what the Common Core agenda really does and is. If you have a specific issue you would like to have a link (evidence) for, please ask. I am happy to provide it, and most likely already have.
I agree with you, that a repetition of others’ opinions is not helpful. (This is what proponents of Common Core do.) I have quoted Dr. Stotsky and Dr. Milgram many times, because they served on the official Common Core validation committee and refused to sign off on the standards’ adequacy. I can’t recall ever quoting Glenn Beck, come to think of it. But I do think he’s a great American. Thanks for your comment.
Here’s an assignment for you
http://constitutionwarrior.wordpress.com/2013/09/12/public-schools-marxist-indoctrination-centers/
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Does Maryland have any groups that are working to stop using common core?
I appreciate learning more about CC ! Thank you!!
Please read the 10/25/13 reports (especially the three below) from the NCES. I believe they destroy the linchpins on which ed reform was built and continues to be. The media is not picking up on these reports.
http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/studies/naep_timss/
http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/studies/2006460.aspx
http://nces.ed.gov/nationsreportcard/pubs/studies/2006461.aspx
Ladies, your website has been invaluable to a group of us in Colorado. We just got off the ground two weeks ago, but we’re already beginning to make progress. While we look at hundreds of sources, your site has been a primary go-to place for us, so thank you. I am wondering what happened to the post called “Support Legitimate Education: Boycott Common Core Businesses.” We were hoping to reference it in a meeting tonight, but the link is broken and I can’t get there using the search function on this site.
Thank you for everything. You’re doing great work.
Aimie Randall
Thank you for this website. I would like to comment that the condition of the typical English classroom, as a result of Common Core, is even worse than you think. In N.C., our evaluations are now tied to test scores, and English I, II, III, and IV tests are 50/50 fiction/non-fiction. My daughter was a Senior last year. The only classic literature she read was Macbeth. She had no Beowulf, no Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, no Canterbury Tales or any medieval literature, no Romantics, no Victorians, no Moderns. They read a book about an autistic child and spent several weeks researching and reading about autism. They watched the movie Food Inc. and spent several weeks reading articles about the conditional of our food supply and the dangers of processed food. I was heart-sick. But we can’t really blame the teachers – not when they are told this is how they must teach and how their students will be tested.
Your right. It’s not the teachers. I would add, it’s not the Common Core as well. It’s how it is being implemented and interpreted by school districts and administrators. The 50/50 fiction/nonfiction reading is supposed to be school-wide, not just in ELA class. ELA teachers should still be teaching all the classic literature while adding some informational text such as essays and memoirs. The bulk of nonfiction/informational reading in school is the responsibility of other content areas: history, science etc. Also, I do agree there is way too much testing but that is not because of Common Core. That started with NCLB testing students every year instead of in key grades (grades 4/6/8/11) as it was done for many years until NCLB.
Great work, Ladies. I am a mother of four (grades, 3,7,9,12) and a high school teacher. I homeschooled my children for years, primarily so they would have time to read good books. Common Core troubles me a great deal. I’m not sure I am in a position to quit teaching (a job I dearly love) to homeschool again. And for now my children enjoy school – the social and extra-curricular parts anyway. Who knows what the next couple of years will bring for our family, but in the meantime, I will keep educating myself and my community about Common Core. I posted a link to your blog on mine. http://whatkidsarereading.wordpress.com/2013/08/15/pros-and-cons-of-the-common-core-standards/
Nothing could be worse for a child’s future success than to hate school. A child who hates school will learn very little and may drop out of school. That could lead to a lifetime of poverty. Sadly, Common Core seems to have caused thousands of children all over the country to hate school.
https://www.facebook.com/CommonCoreChildrenHateSchool?ref=hl has a collection of quotes about kids hating school, and about teachers who have come to hate teaching, due to Common Core. We would like to collect thousands more such stories from parents, teachers, or even from kids themselves. Please visit, Like, and post your own stories.
Children don’t hate school because of Common Core. They hate all the testing which started with NCLB. They hear hear their parents and teachers complaining about CC and this makes them stressed about it too. It’s not Common Core itself. It’s the way it has been implemented too quickly and incorrectly.
Excellent site, I’m sharing it with others. Thank you.
Can anyone tell me where these bullets came from? I need the actual source.
The take-away?
Environmental education will be incorporated in formal education globally.
Any value or attitude held by anyone globally that stands independent to that of the United Nations’ definition of “sustainable education” must change. Current attitudes are unacceptable.
Environmental education will be belief-and-spirituality based.
Environmental education will be integrated into all disciplines, not just science.
PVB, these bullets are recaps (in my words) of what is read at the UN’s Agenda 21 official source which is linked here: https://whatiscommoncore.wordpress.com/2012/09/14/does-u-n-s-education-mandate-push-common-core-in-usa/
Perhaps you already have this site but just found it via Stop C/C in Michigan posting
http://www.theeducationalfreedomcoalition.org/
Your site is an excellent resource and I share it every chance I get.
Prayers for continued success for your work and all Americans who care about our children.
Perhaps there is interest in this. It is a Common Core aligned Pearson math book sold as an accessory to the American Girl doll.
http://politichicks.tv/column/american-girl-goes-common-core/
I came across your site as part of a first step in looking into common core. At this point I have no opinion, but I’m grateful for the extensive information and counterpoint to the government sites that you provide here. The privacy issues raised are quite disturbing.
One note, if I may, to make the site look more professional: Your picture of “3 moms cropped” displays distorted, shrinking or stretching depending on the browser window size. I would sugest that you pick a size well under 1024 pixels wide and remove these lines, which seem to be the culprit:
#header img {
max-width: 100%;
Hi Christel,
Are you free to come and speak to a group of parents regarding Common Core near Salt Lake City?
Yes. I will email.
I believe you should see the information contained in these links. I feel it will give another perspective to the reasoning/purpose behind CC. Perhaps you will think it too conspiratorial however with the evidence of curriculum in front of us today I feel it has credence. this link to a .pdf by CHARLOTTE T. ISERBYT called back to basics reforms written in 1984 with updates in 2004 will give you an even longer view of CC from history. Also available at http://www.deliberatedumbingdown.com. The author is also in this youtube.video (1:15:00) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eKGmd9sBwM
I understand your focus on freedoms and liberties and protection of parents rights and agree completely. I thank you for the work and sharing via this site as I have used it extensively to try and inform everyone I know of the danger of Common Core. (I served 6 yrs on local school board and county parent board in Michigan in the 90s)
I have tried sharing some individual articles via the Facebook “share” links beneath each story but it doesnt seem to work. Any tips on how to share some of these?
Respectfully,
Denice P
Thank you for sharing. I met Charlotte Iserbyt in Maine, and I do plan to read her book.
As for sharing information on Facebook, try taking the URL from the article you want to share, and posting that whole link to Facebook. For some reason, both the Facebook and Twitter shares are not working for some people. I’ve heard this before but don’t know how to fix it.
In your article “What is Achieve, Inc?
there is a statement…
Achieve “provided Common Core ‘boot camp’ to a number of states… to support implementation efforts.”
When I go to the link you provide I get “Page not found”
http://www.achieve.org/AboutAchieve
The new “About Us” info on Achieve has no info about “boot camps”
Can you send me info about these “boot camps”
I live in Colorado and I have suspected that something like this occurred but have not been able to find specific info.
Thanks so much for your help.
Carol K.
Carol, I am sorry it’s gone. I didn’t know that. Many important things that I have linked to in posts have disappeared. I guess I should get screen shots of everything and save everything. I would suggest writing to Achieve and simply asking for the information. Sometimes these groups are willing.
Thanks for all your hard work getting the word out about the CCS. Here is a post I wrote about the effects of the CCS on reading.
http://whatkidsarereading.wordpress.com/2014/02/08/why-we-read-to-children-and-how-common-core-doesnt-get-it/
Hi Christel, just wanted to let you know that the Informed Women’s Network has posted a link to your blog (http://informedwomen.org/resources-2/resources/ ). Common Core is one of the issues we are working on and appreciate the information you’ve shared. My best wishes, Susan Dench (founder and president)
I’m a little concerned about your credibility. You say you are an educator so you should know that Common Core addresses math and ELA standards. Why did you include someone saying Common Core doesn’t address STEM standards on your site? STEM standards would be described through the national science standards, not the CC.
The “M” in STEM stands for math.
Hi Christel,
I really appreciate your blog! I am a third grade teacher in California. Most teachers here have no idea what is going on. I have been researching how psychometrics is being used to design the SBAC. Psychometrics is the branch of psychology that measures intelligence, aptitude, achievement, and personality traits. It was created by a Soviet psychologist to decide how each student could best serve the state. When I called the SBAC helpline to ask how psychometrics was being used in the new assessments, they started asking for my personal information and said they couldn’t answer those type of questions without my personal information. I hung up while she went to go get her supervisor. I also emailed someone from our state assessment office to ask about all,of the missing ALD’s on the Smarter Balanced website and someone from their office somehow found me within two hours and called my classroom to personally answer my questions. I had only told them my first name and what district I taught in. Unfortunately, they could not answer any of my questions. All they could say was they didn’t know until they did the field test. There seems to me that there is a great deal of secrecy with this test.
Hi –
April 5th is the date of a nationwide anti-common core rally. YOU NEED TO POST INFORMATION ON YOUR MAIN PAGE IN A HUGE BANNER
Thank you for invalidating anything you have posted prior to the Mother shares daughter’s Common Core photos. That post looks like it was written by high school freshman with a chip on their shoulder. Someone said it best when they said,
“I’m not sure where you are looking, but according to the scoring guide I see pictured, the student will be scored on: logical progression of ideas from beginning to end; effective intro and conclusion; appropriate sentence structure; appropriate vocabulary. This seems very logical and appropriate to me. This is NOT an anti-book test as it is portrayed. it asks the students to choose a passage and either refute or defend it in their arguments. Now, I think the passages provided are completely inappropriate, but this is not the horrible, anti-book lesson it is portrayed to be. I, by the way, am AGAINST Common Core, but there are enough genuine flaws over the curriculum that we don’t need to create a bunch of hype by presenting lessons as something they are not. It hurts our credibility as concerned parents, and when articles like this are debunked, takes credibility and focus off the real problems with Common Core”
Go back to stuffing yourselves into pork casings ladies. You have failed. You can no longer host arguments because you have failed to do your research. Much smarter people than you are reading these posts. Perhaps you should add someone to the group who can actually hold an intelligent debate.
Not sure how to get this info that I found to you or if you are already aware of it. > http://www2.ed.gov/policy/fund/guid/humansub/hsr.pdf
Its a publication I found on USDOE site about when Human Subject Research is acceptable. I think this is why HIPPA definitions were amended and specifically pointed to the FERPA paragraph that allowed schools to share personal identifiable information of our kids to 3rd parties without parental consent. I could be wrong. Not certain just a theory of mind. This was published in June 2008. Let me know what you think.
Document gives specific examples of using human subject research in schools. I need to find out if it has been updated or amended, not sure about that.
Anyway just thought y’all would want to know. I’m trying to start up the fight against CCSS in my Mississippi school district.
Ladies, I wish introduce something that is beginning to congeal regarding Common Core so that you may use your broad conduit of communication to others in order to get the word out.
Largely, it is obvious that Common Core is an agenda that is being worked for the purpose of corporate interests and those that will profit from that interest in the government. The most direct form of this interest is the financial gain. Corporate CEO’s have convened in many gatherings already in order to lay down their common strategies for exploitation and in Forbes have openly commented that it is a $500 Billion a year industry in the US alone which they wish to pursue. They have already laid the groundwork to support their interests within the government mandate. Now, we are seeing the manifestation of that exploitation in the retail markets.
Recently, I have seen upon the shelves, in prime position on the front end caps of Office Depot, Common Core products.
I wish to raise your awareness to this and hopefully incite you and others to be on the look out for such at Office Depot and other retailers and join in a vocal boycott of those businesses which are promoting Common Core products.
Wow, what a site. You ladies are amazing. I am a 36 year old soon to be teacher graduating from BYUI and I am amazed at the complete disregard for common core and its issues and the rejecting of all who oppose it. Thank you for what you are doing. I feel I will be deeply involved in this until its over. I was initially focused on the environmental, sustainable development, communist side of Agenda 21 which led me to the link in education. Thank you for the information I will keep passing on what I know to others.
To the three moms – Hello and thank you for your passion and work on this issue! I am just out of college, and was lucky enough to escape state-influenced education for a classical education that covered everything from original Greek texts of the Iliad to Newtonian physics and Aristotelian logic. We were encouraged to do research on our own and to try to get a broader perspective because “Memory is the keystone to identity”. Thus when our history and our rich cultural heritage and traditions are forgotten, our identity becomes diminished and easily manipulated.
What you do here is important – you provide a resource for clarity about the program and its effects on education in the US. While many cannot escape it, they can at least know their enemy and supplement the weakening education system with authentic sources of education in their homes, starting with the great works of literature. This is a great service to the American People.
I’ve been leading a local study group on Common Core from a conservative standpoint (so anti-) since I’ve been very involved with the Tea Party since inception. My part of the study process was on the English standards. After reading thru and watching much of Sandra Stotsky’s comments, as well as others, I have come to a different conclusion that most people here. First let me share my background. I graduated from an excellent CA high school which often got visited by teachers around the world to learn the best of the best. My testing scores placed me in the advanced classes in both English and Math. I studied many of the classics in English from Beowulf to the early 20th century. In Spanish I read Don Quixote and other early classics in the original (its not my native language either). Since then achieved a Masters Degree in Public Health. Off/on throughout my life (now 60 yo), I have kept up with reading the English and foreign classics. Lately I’ve turned more to short stories but I’ve read many of the classic novels on top 100 classics lists.
That is, until last week when I basically went on strike after tackling Dicken’s Bleak House (got only 70 pages into it and stopped never to go back). I decided so many classics are so poorly edited that they could be half the length and still be brilliant — far more so in my humble opinion if they were more concise! Maybe I’m getting impatient in my old age but am sick and tired of long-winded, multi-page diatribes or descriptions (eg C. Dickens, H. Melville and E. Hemingway novels), run-on sentences that cover pages (eg George Eliott), and plain incomprehensible or self-indulgent nonsense (eg J. Joyce, J.D. Salinger, sometimes Sir Scott). Some of these early works were originally short magazine stories that which were later compiled into a novel, but the rhythm is all wrong and lacks a cohesive storyline to follow.
So maybe I’m not smart enough. Maybe I’m too much of an impatient American in expecting an author to get to the frickin’ point and not waste my time meandering down the path for hundreds of pages saying the same thing over and over and over in one way or another. To me there is far too much romance in the classics, not in the writing itself, but in the vaulted, almost religious veneration it holds in academia.
Now, back to CC. Am trying to imagine being a 16 yo again in today’s fast-paced, ultra-electronic age and tackling some of these very ponderous works. Then I try to imagine teaching them NOT to write run-on sentences and NOT submit a 1000 page critique of a long-winded book they were emulating as one of the greatest works in history!
With at least 70% of our students dropping out of college, isn’t there a better way to teach English than just classic literature??? Given our tremendous demographic changes here in CA over the years, just how many of our students are truly college material (would guess at least 50% are more “vocational” types)? I understand Stotsky’s points about writing skills deriving from complex reading material. I also understand we have a dysfunctional fetish in this country about every student going to college, whether they are capable or motivated. In my conversations with young people today I would say they need far more practical speech training (go Toastmasters!!!) then they do classic literature reading. It’s not traditional but far more pragmatic for the workplace. If they want the deep cultural experience of literature, why don’t they do more of it on their own time like me? As an abused taxpayer I want them to have employment skills first — they have an entire lifetime to delve into all the mysteries of the universe and their cultural heritage. I know I’m a pariah here, but let me hear back from someone who has actually read (and hopefully taught) many of these classics like me, not someone who just does it religious lip service! And thanks for reading my long-winded diatribe!!! Sue
Have you read the ELA and Literacy Common Core standards? The standards are college and career ready. They are not all about teaching classic literature. They include reading literature and informational text. It includes text in various mediums in additional to print, such as digital text, video, multimedia and live productions. Also, since the standards to not dictate what materials to use, there are a wealth of materials teachers can find that would motivate any student.
As a parent of a third grader, I would like to inform your organization of our school and our mission. June 13th is the end of our first year in operation and we have done this without state aid, local school district support or any affiliation with the Catholic diocese. If it is possible to spread our information through your articles and social followers it would be greatly appreciated.
Thank you and God Bless,
Phillip Kolodzie
John Paul II is an independent school in Auburn, NY offering preschool through 6th grade classical education. We were started by group of parents inspired to offer an alternative to the common core, a new educational choice. This choice is based on the belief that a solid foundation of basic educational skills in the early years will open a door to the world of learning as children get into higher grades. We have chosen to use a timeless model which is gaining momentum across our country. Classical Liberal Arts Education is a teaching style that responds to the developmental stages of children and teaches them how to think, not what to think. We have also chosen to compliment this curriculum by using a Christian, faith filled and virtue based teaching method to give the school the spirit that allows young people to grow with truth, confidence and thoughtfulness.
The goal of education is to form responsible and productive adults who have the ability to reason through and determine what is true and good, prepared with the work ethic and character to follow and promote it. This is how our country was founded and became a great leader in business, economics, politics, education and progress for many years. The education that gave America the edge was a strong classical education that was offered to many of the leaders of America in the days of mentors and later in the educational system that was developed. This system, however, is now lost in the public setting.
Our commitment to the children and families of our community undeniably comes with a financial cost. Bringing the kind of administrative and teaching skill necessary to implement a truly classical education, requires a fair and respectable salary and the means to purchase the necessary classical and historical literary tools. Bringing this education to a broad range of hard working families, requires an affordable, family friendly tuition. Outside of this tuition, John Paul II does not have a funding source other than the goodness of people’s hearts with the belief that our world needs to form the kind of leaders who have given us the democracy that our country was founded on and the confidence that John Paul II’s educational choice will provide the foundation for this path. We need your support.
Please send donations to:
John Paul II Learning Association
PO Box 1318
Auburn, NY 13021
or visit our website at jp2la.org and go to donation
For a tax deductible donation, please make checks payable to our nonprofit supporting foundation:
Everest Family Club
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Dear 3 Moms
Thank you for your extraordinary site. I refer to it constantly when I am doing research. I wanted to let you know that a major university on the east coast just stated that the SAT and ACT are no longer required for incoming students. The text and a link are below. With all of the college representatives on your site speaking out against common core, is there any movement that you know of to get more colleges and universities to eliminate SAT/ACT as an admission requirement?
Thank you again for all of your hard work.
July 29 (Reuters) – Philadelphia’s Temple University said on Tuesday it will no longer require prospective students to submit a standardized test score when they apply, joining a small but growing group of schools that believe there are other ways to gauge talent.
Temple said it is the first public research university in the United States’ Northeast to broaden its admissions policy in this way. Most U.S. schools still rely on students’ SAT or ACT test scores when choosing whom to admit.
A prospective student’s high-school grade point average, class rank or even his or her “grit, self-determination and self-confidence” may all be better predictors of success in higher education, Temple said in its announcement.
Although applicants can still submit test scores if they choose, they will also be allowed to write short answers to what the school called “self-reflective” questions as an alternative.
Neil Theobald, the school’s president, suggested the move, which will apply to those who apply for fall 2015, will lead to a more diverse student body.
“By giving students more choices, we open doors to more first-generation students and those from underserved communities whose enormous academic promise may be overlooked by conventional measures of achievement,” he said in a statement.
More than 800 four-year colleges and universities in the U.S. do not require applicants to submit either SAT or ACT scores, according to FairTest, a group that advocates for alternatives to standardized testing in university admissions.
Last week, Bryn Mawr College, a private liberal arts college for women not far from Temple in Pennsylvania, also said it will no longer insist on SAT or ACT scores from applicants.
However, Temple said that prospective students who scored highly in their SAT exams should continue to include their scores in their application all the same. (Reporting by Jonathan Allen; Editing by Diane Craft)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/29/temple-university-sat_n_5630259.html
I’m tired of everyone confusing the Common Core standards with testing. I have spent the last 4-5 years learning about the Common Core in ELA and Literacy with experts and have taught using them as well. What is so bad about them? They require reading and writing all types of literature in all forms, include listening and speaking and emphasize consistently raising students’ reading levels to grade-level text complexity. What’s wrong with that? Each state is free to develop their own curriculum, including materials, using the standards as a guide. Everyone seems to be confusing testing and data collection with Common Core standards. They are not the same thing. Big corporations have always been involved in educational testing which ballooned during NCLB. I would like to know how many of those bashing the CC standards have really read them. Fix the testing but keep the Common Core standards.
A while back, there was a lengthy video that connected CC to Obamacare etc that was about an hour long. I had it bookmarked but lost it during a recent rebuild. Do you remeber the post that had that linked? Thanks!
I wasn’t sure where to post this or how to reach you, but I am the girl who went to Hillsdale College and spoke with you at the rally recently. I have a link you might be interested in. I have been looking into homeschooling and have listened to these Hillsdale lectures of late which have helped me understand even more what a true education is and what I want my children to receive. You may want to peruse and listen too – I have learned a lot: http://www.hillsdale.edu/outreach/charter schools/seminars. Also, tuition there is about $11,500 per semester this year. Good students get scholarships based on merit (not race and sex) , and if you do well, the amount of scholarship money will often increase, as it did for me. I cut my tuition amount in half every year I was there, down to around $1,000 for the last year. To compare, the U is $4,000 per semester for a resident and $12,500 for a non-resident. And, the U doesn’t give you anything like a good education. They give poor vocational training coupled with a severely liberal agenda.
This is for all of you. Download free. Enjoy
https://itunes.apple.com/us/book/silent-majority/id585417283?ls=1
Hi Christel I am a student at Dixie State University and I have been asked to write an essay in my communications class about an interview that I completed (either by email or by phone) about a topic of conversation in Utah. I was hoping you would be willing to help me out. Here are the questions.
1-Those who are in favor of common core say that international benchmarks will improve US rankings on the world stage. Which will better prepare our students for the business world. How do you feel about that.
2-How do you feel about the claim that states will be able to better compare the standardized test results?
3-What is your opinion about the common core statement that the cost for the schools will decrease in the areas of test development, scoring and reporting on account that they will all be standardized nationally?
4-How do you feel about those who support common core?
I would appreciate any help you can give me. Thank you
Hi Christel, I am currently running for School Committee. Would it be okay for me to cut and paste some of this info onto my website (not yet published). Please let me know. Thanks
Of course!
http://www.newswithviews.com/Hoge/anita113.htm
We need to support this…. Let’s protect our children in every way possible. http://www.parentalrights.org/
Important to separate the state of Utah from Common Core Initiative. CC does not provide curriculum, your school district is in charge of that. If you are concerned with data mining, don;t use Schoology or about 100 other programs used by the school as they publish that they are selling the data.
If you are against CC because you prefer the old way of teaching so be it but we need to do something as not being ranked in the top ten in the nation os scary –
Hi Christel,
My name is Luis and I am reaching out from CBS News. Hoping to speak to you regarding the Common Core. Please let me know what a good way to contact you is. My email address is GiraldoL@cbsnews.com. Thanks.
Christel, you seem to be a common core lightening rod at the moment. Here’s something you might get riled up about on the math side. The guy Achieve, Inc. hired to be the chair of the math standards development, Phil Daro, has no degrees in math whatsoever, just a BA in English from Berkeley (1966) and was in charge of the writing of the disastrous whole math “Mathematics Framework for California Public Schools” in 1992, the very document that ignited what has become to be known as The Math Wars. Here’s a proud link to what his other employer, Pearson, had to say about him in 2011:
“Quote: Pearson School CEO Peter Cohen: “Phil was a key architect of the Common Core State Standards and fully understands what they mean for our classroom educators. Like our complete cadre of Common Core experts, Phil is at-the-ready to assist teachers with this complex transition. We see this webinar as one venue through which we can support our educators and provide free resources to make their jobs just a little bit easier.”
http://www.pearsoned.com/news/pearson-hosts-free-webinar-on-common-core-state-standards-for-mathematics/
With only a minor in math (he apparently went through stages of majoring in physics, then math, before settling on English) he wouldn’t be hired to teach math in most high schools, yet he was tapped to architect the nation’s K-12 math curriculum despite the “mathematical nothingness” and failure in multiple math ventures in the past, not only the Framework disaster that ended with the wretched MathLand in my son’s first grade class. One has to wonder about the competence of Achieve Inc and the other 501c3’s (the governor’s trade group and the state ed officials trade group), not to mention the competence of Gates Foundation functionaries that enabled such a disaster with their $200 million (according to the Washington Post) that rattled around Washington DC on its way down the drain.
Common Core Math is Phil Daro Math. It was a disaster in 1995 when Frameworks curriculums hit the classrooms, and all the crazy stories about weird CCSS math lessons are right out of California of the ’90’s. This is Whole Math part deux.
Hello,
I am in a music group that recently wrote and recorded a song about some of the problems with recent education reform and how it affects our children. The song is called “Rotten To The Core” and here is a link to a video featuring the song: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tm2o4_IIT_U
I hope you enjoy the song – feel free to share it with anyone you think might enjoy hearing it!
Thanks,
-Lee-
Hello,
I am a Japanese and have read a recent article “Why Do Americans Stink at Math?” in the NY Times, which contains a lot of stories in Japan.
However, unfortunately I have to say that the account of Japanese education in the article is very misleading. So I wrote the author a letter and published it as below:
Big Doubts on the NY Times article “Why Do Americans Stink at Math?”
http://jukuyobiko.blogspot.jp/2014/08/big-doubts-on-ny-times-article-why-do.html
Although this may not be directly related to the common core issue, I hope you will not be carried away by the misleading report.
Thanks,
-Manabu-
Christel,
Up here in Davis County, I am repeatedly being told that SAGE is not common core, and that Utah educators have written the tests, and that it’s not being defined by anything/one at the federal level. Could you please help me understand these statements and their truthfulness?
thanks,
day
Christel,
I’m very happy you guys are gathering all this data. I want to share a couple of ideas that I think will help you help the cause.
1) This site has lots of great info. However, it’s all buried in the blogs. This forces someone new to this, like me, to try to piece things together. And it makes it difficult to share with others.
You can remedy this by creating a couple of pages that give an introduction to the topic. These would appear in your menu bar so that someone new could quickly see that’s where to go to get the introduction. Some pages that I think would be helpful are:
-1. Summary (a concise executive summary of what the core is and the key issues, e.g., one-size-fits-all issues, removal of local control, etc. Not a monster post, but a summary)
-2. No say (which details how this started, why we lose local control, why that matters, and what you suggest instead)
-3. No evidence (how none of this has been tested, why that matters, and what you suggest instead)
-4. One size fits all? (why one-size-fits-all is an issue when we look at states and student learning paths, e.g., what’s appropriate for someone who wants to be a computer engineer isn’t the same for someone who wants to be a farmer and why we should be seeking to create multiple paths for our students, not just one)
-5. Math (the issues with math, what you suggest instead)
-6. Language Arts (the issues with the LA objectives, what you suggest instead)
-7. Science (ditto)
-8. Data Collection (the issues of data collection, what you suggest instead)
-9. Utah (status of Common Core in Utah)
I would number them so folks have a clear progression. The key is that these evergreen pages will give folks who come to your site an introduction AND help with search engines.
2) Your current WordPress theme is a bit hard to read. First, because the font is small. Second, because you have blue on blue on blue. You will make it easier to read on more people if you change those two things 🙂
3) You current theme it appears is not mobile-friendly. Google has stated it will start dropping such sites from its search results. You don’t want your message to go unheard. If you need more information about this, I can connect you with the person who maintains the theme for my WordPress site and he can explain what this is about and what you’d need to do to change it.
I just posted this and wanted to make you aware of it. https://tultican.wordpress.com/2015/08/23/response-to-dianne-feinstein/
Is there a better way to send you some materials?
I am so glad that I found your step by step, website. I am appalled and sick over what is taking place in this country. I live in NV and NEED to do something. Any advice would be greatly appreciated. CC is Unconstitutional, as well as dangerous. It must be stopped.
Moms, although I love the information you provide and have visited many times over the past few years, I find a cannot read it. The white on blue hurts my eyes to the point i find it easier to select all and paste in to a word processing program. Please change your color selection. As a graphic artist and long time mom activist I can tell you a traditional black on white website will not only look more processional but give you more readability and credibility.
You don’t really need to post this, I just couldn’t find another way to reach you. Good luck and Good Work
People have many different opinions about Common Core, especially in math. I recognize that everyone has the right to share their viewpoints, and would like to share my own. I am an elementary school teacher. Several years before implementation of Common Core, I started looking at the math standards ans trying to make sense of them. They were new and different from what I was used to, so they seemed foreign to me. So, I started studying, reading, and researching. I earned a Master’s degree in Mathematics Education. Last year, I implemented Common Core math with my class for the first time, and here’s what I found. It was struggle, yes. It took work, yes. We made mistakes, yes. But, what happened was amazing. My students became the greatest class of mathematicians that I have ever had- by far! Instead of relying on a set of algorithms to do the math thinking for them, and using them to get a number, my students learned how to think and reason about math themselves. They learned to mentally manipulate numbers. They learned to represent complex math concepts using pictures and algebra. They learned how to apply their own understanding to new math situations. In short, they actually became mathematicians. I am in awe of what my students were able to achieve last year, and they were as well. This year, one of my students wrote on her Christmas Card to me, “Math used to be so boring, but now it is so fun. Thank you.” Having seen where Common Core math can take my students, I would never go back to the old way. it just wouldn’t be fair to my students.
I am in PA, and following you warriors against common core and amazed and greatful for people like you. Here in PA, we have a small group working with a Senator to pass a Student Privacy Bill, that would stop the data mining on all information not related to education, and that too, to advise parents of any information extracted from your child, but in a nutshell…to stop the data mining, standardized testing frenzy, and all the standardized nonsense, and stop common core. I know it’s an uphill battle, but we are all ready to push forward, and hope the Senator, that is against common core, has the stamina, political will and will stick by his word to fight with us.
Here in PA, it’s out of control. When I went to opt my daughter out is a program called Naviance, “a lot of people never even heard of, the school not only threatened me, but my high honor roll daughter, stating her grades would suffer, that she is in a holding pattern with her education, that she would not be able to move on to the 10th grade, not get letters of recommendations for college, that is, if she even gets into college if we did not comply with the Naviance program. Naviance makes you set up an account, makes you take a personality test, or one could argue, and has, a psychological exam, which I find outrageous, makes you put all your college acceptance and rejection letters on the Naviance profile for all colleges to see where you were rejected from. Read the privacy notice for Naviance, how by using it in any fashion, shares your kids info with third parties that they have no control over, have no control or responsibility of what happens to your kids data if the third party goes bankrupt or merges, follows your kids IP address to know where and how long your kid visits what online sites, for how long, how often, etc… Just read privacy statement, and you will see. My concerns over the privacy statement were met with, ” well, your child goes on social media, it’s no different” um, yes it is, because my daughter does not put personal info online, but now the school gets to make that choice for me?
The school also weighs you in gym, does BMI, and the info is always wrong, calling most kids overweight or obese. They are instituting the heart monitors next year from what I hear, so if your kids heart does not raise to a certain level, they get bad grade in gym, that you are not working hard enough, or if heart rate too high, you get a letter stating to bring your kid to a doctor. Co start surveys, evaluations asking intrusive personal questions that get worse wth each grade. Where does the line get drawn on privacy and parental rights, because when I tried to opt her out, not only did the school threaten my kids high honor roll grades, but when she mentioned opting out for religious reasons, they said she could not, that she would need to prove her religion, show where the conflict it…literally point to the page in the book where the conflict of religion and the Naviance program is. The teacher that my daughter got along with great, after opting her out was mean to her, and even after I opted her out, the school didn’t care and for 2 days kept giving her Naviance assignments, saying do it or get a zero. When my daughter stated she was opted out, they still sad, do it or get a zero. I emailed every board of education person and representative in the state. The school was furious, and to make a long story short, even called the police on me. I tried to get a copy of their complaint, but was told by police I need a subpoena. So, again, who doesn’t think we are losing out parental rights. When does the line get drawn? From speaking to other parents, they seem to accept the schools wonderful pitch and don’t seem to care. I am literally the only one in the school, to my knowledge, that has ever had a problem with common core, Naviance, data mining, etc.. I am a army of one, and it’s very hard. I thank goodness I am in with a group, beit out of our school district, but in PA, that have helped me, guided me, and now working hard to try to get a Student Privacy Bill passed regarding data mining of our kids. Wish us luck. Next year, I am opting my daughter out of Naviance yet again, against the gym weigh in, BMI, as the results are always wrong, and upset my kid, the gym heart monitors, and going to see about getting my kids student ID made anonymous. If successful, I think a Student Privacy Act Bull could be amazing, at least a step in the right direction. Any thoughts? Thank you for reading my very long comment. -t
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Is there a,traditional math book for 8th grade? We are having a hard time with Math-please help!
All of America is going to the dogs. This is horrible. Thank you for your blog. DO you think any of this trans gender mentality comes from this group?
Christel,
I know this thread is at least 4 years old. My kids were reared up in the South and did a pretty good job. I commend the teachers down there in the tree schools that they attended. However with our third child we are now in the North and Common Core is really being pushed more and more everyday. I really do not like it at all. Trying to help a third header and she has been in school up here since kindergarten. I don’t call it K5 like they do. It is Kindergarten not K5 as they do. Now that she is in third grade it is getting worse and worse with common core.
I asked her teacher why is no other homework beside English and Math. That is all that she has had since Kindergarden. She told me that they are mandated by the school Board of Education and by the Federal Government to do this instead of the traditional learning that most of us older generation that common core was not even thought of. I think that we did a pretty good job at keeping up with the tech world around us. Me and several other teachers do not agree with the system at all. But they are not allowed to voice their opinions at all in fear of being written up or risk loosing their jobs. And I was told that there were some students in her class who should not have passed due to them not wanting to learn or missing more days of class than they were expected to miss. She had to pass them any way due to big brother and the Federal funds. This to me is setting the child up for failure later down the road when it comes to getting a job or doing some task. I teach mine the same way as I was taught. Get a pencil and paper and figure it out with her step by step. Her teacher agrees with me but is not allowed to teach that manner. She told me when at home teach her the same as we were taught in school. Yes I have flash cards for addition, subtraction, division, and multiply. My 8 yr old tells me this is easier than the way they do it in school. Her teacher also had told me she is doing better than some of the other students in class. You can not change the good old fashion way of learning. Sure you can add to it but don’t add to much to take away to much of it to where it has been stripped and are forced to learn one way to get the Federal Dollars. Also brings me to a point why are we paying local taxes for schools if the government gives them federal funding. That is double the funding and should be a neck of a lot of better education than what it already is. I might have missed the whole point here. If so please let me know or anyone else here please let me know.