Share this:

By Michelle Malkin

Posted with permission from Michelle Malkin; also published at National Review Online. 

 

 

Bureaucrats and big business can’t make you let your kids take their exams.

This is National School Choice Week, but I want to talk about parents’ school choice.  Moms and Dads, you have the inherent right and responsibility to protect your children. You can choose to refuse the top-down Common Core racket of costly standardized tests of dubious academic value, reliability and validity.

Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

I’m reminding you of your right to choose because the spring season of testing tyranny is about to hit the fan. Do you object to the time being taken away from your kids’ classroom learning? Are you alarmed by the intrusive data-sharing and data-mining enabled by assessment-driven special interests? Are you opposed to the usurpation of local control by corporate testing giants and federal lobbyists?

You are not alone, although the testing racketeers are doing everything they can to marginalize you. In Maryland, a mom of a nine-year-old special-needs student is suing her Frederick County school district to assert her parental prerogative. Cindy Rose writes that her school district “says the law requires our children be tested, but could not point to a specific law or regulation” forcing her child to take Common Core–tied tests. Rose’s pre-trial conference is scheduled for February 4.

The vigilant mom warns parents nationwide: “While we are being treated like serfs of the State, Pearson publishing is raking in billions off our children.” And she is not going to just lie down and surrender because some bloviating suits told her “it’s the law.”

Pearson, as I’ve reported extensively, is the multibillion-dollar educational-publishing and educational-testing conglomerate — not to mention a chief corporate sponsor of Jeb Bush’s Fed Ed ventures — that snagged $23 million in contracts to design the first wave of so-called “PARCC” tests.

The Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers raked in $186 million through the federal Race to the Top program to develop the nationalized tests “aligned” to the Common Core standards developed in Beltway backrooms.

As more families, administrators, and teachers realized the classroom and cost burdens that the guinea-pig field-testing scheme would impose, they pressured their states to withdraw. Between 2011 and 2014, the number of states actively signed up for PARCC dropped from 24 (plus the District of Columbia) to ten (plus D.C.). Education researcher Mercedes Schneider reports that the remaining ten are Arkansas, Colorado, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, and Rhode Island.

State legislators and state education boards in Utah, Kansas, Alaska, Iowa, South Carolina, and Alabama have withdrawn from the other federally funded testing consortium, the $180 million tax-subsidized Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, which administered field tests last spring to 3 million students in 23 states.

In New Jersey, the parental opt-out movement is “exploding,” according to activist Jean McTavish. Many superintendents have conceded that “they can’t force a student to take a test,” NJ.com reports.

Last week, Missouri withdrew from PARCC, while parents, administrators, and the school board of the Chicago public schools spurned PARCC in the majority of their 600 schools.

In California, the Pacific Justice Institute offers a privacy-protection opt-out form for parents to submit to school districts at pacificjustice.org. PJI head Brad Dacus advises families to send the notices as certified letters if they get ignored. Then, be prepared to go to court. PJI will help. The Thomas More Law Center in Michigan also offers a student-privacy opt-out form at thomasmore.org.

Don’t let the bureaucratic smokescreens fool you. A federal No Child Left Behind mandate on states to administer assessments is not a mandate on you and your kids to submit to the testing diktats. And the absence of an opt-out law or regulation is not a prohibition on your choice to refuse.

Here in Colorado, the state board of education voted this month to allow districts to opt out of PARCC testing. Parents and activists continue to pressure a state task force — packed with Gates Foundation and edu-tech special-interest-conflicted members — to reduce the testing burden statewide. For those who don’t live in PARCC-waivered districts, it’s important to know your rights and know the spin.

In Colorado Springs, where I have a high-schooler whose district will sacrifice a total of six full academic days for PARCC testing this spring, parents are calling the testing drones’ bluff about losing their accreditation and funding.

“The Colorado Department of Education is threatening schools to ensure that 95 percent of students take these tests,” an El Paso County parents’ watch group reports.

Be assured that MANY parents across Colorado — FAR ABOVE 5 percent in many schools — are refusing the tests, and not one school yet is facing the loss of accreditation, funding, etc. As long as schools can show that they gave a “good faith attempt to get 95 percent to test, they can appeal a loss of accreditation” due to parental refusals to test.

You also have the power to exercise a parental nuclear option: If edu-bullies play hardball and oppose your right to refuse, tell them you’ll have your kid take the test and intentionally answer every question wrong — and that you’ll advise every parent you know to tell their kids to do the same. How’s that for accountability?

Be prepared to push back against threats and ostracism. Find strength in numbers. And always remember: You are your kids’ primary educational provider.

 

——————-

Thank you, Michelle Malkin.

Utah parents:  SAGE testing is Common Core testing.  End of the year SAGE/A.I.R. tests must (by state mandate) be given by schools, but there’s no law that says students or parents have to sit for them.  In fact, by several laws, parents hold the legal authority and freedom to opt out of these tests and anything that the parent does not feel good about.  I advise us to consider opting out of all SAGE related testing and data collections: mid-year (interim) and the SAGE formative tests that Common Core/SAGE “offers” schools.  Opt out of all of it.  Politely, kindly, firmly.

It is time to take a stand against the cartels and politicians who are using our tax dollars and our legislators to make our children their unpaid and disrespected guinea pigs.  It is time to say, politely, “no way” to these secretive, centrally-managed, unviewable, unpiloted  tests that are pushing experimental and controversial academic standards.

Just say no.  Here’s an opt out form.   Or write your own.  You are the parent.  You are the legal authority.  Remember, the  state recognizes that:

(i) a parent has the right, obligation, responsibility, and authority to raise, manage, train, educate, provide for, and reasonably discipline the parent’s children; and

(ii) the state’s role is secondary and supportive to the primary role of a parent.

Share this:

 

Here are several important news/action  items for those concerned about stopping the Common Core “reforms” and restoring freedom in education:

1. Michelle Malkin has joined American Principals Project and others on a letter-signing campaign aimed at governors, insisting that they break free of Common Core.  Read and sign here.

2.  The Utah State Office of Education is permitting people to give public comment on the new common library book standards.

I urge you to comment; the survey takes very, very little time.  Also, send a personal letter to the USOE on this issue, to these addresses for the board:  librarycomments@schools.utah.gov      and    Board@schools.utah.gov

Here is one of the library standards: 1.2.4. Maintain a critical stance by questioning the validity and accuracy of all information. 

This simple little sentence begins with “maintain a critical stance” –implying having good critical thinking skills, but then it veers into idiocy by “questioning the validity and accuracy of ALL information.”

Are children to doubt the existence of any truth?  Yes, according to the state school board’s library standards.

Classical (very pre-common core) education taught children to confidently and logically pursue truth.  But “progressive” education teaches children that there is no truth, no morality, no known anything.  Thus all information is of equal importance and any library book is of equal worth:  reading the rantings of Joe the communist pedophile may be as worthy a way to spend class time as studying what Washington, Einstein and Shakespeare wrote. What a terrible “standard”!

Of course there is truth; and there are facts. Doesn’t our existence on earth depend on the  truth that the earth is a certain, precise, indisputable distance from the sun?  If it were not so, we’d freeze or burn! That library standard has got to go.

Utah Standards for Library Media are posted;  comment  please. (The USOE Web site is hosting the public comment  –before Aug 17, 2014.  Also widen your audience by posting your opinion of the library standards to   librarycomments@schools.utah.gov      and    Board@schools.utah.gov as well as to your local newspapers and radio stations.)

 

3.  Jenni White of Oklahoma’s ROPE has this blog post:  If you do nothing, nothing happens!

4. Governor Herbert has approved government preschool in Utah, and President Obama is pushing for federal preschool for all,  but is anyone questioning the wisdom of such a move?  What are its impacts on the business of private preschools?  What are its impacts on little ones who would stay home with their families if not for the big government push to put them in rigorous preschools? Jonas Himmelstrand’s my favorite opponent of this push.  This Swede has spoken to countless groups in many countries about the disintegration of families, mental health and academic success when government daycare becomes the norm.  He speaks from experience.  Himmelstrand’s voice needs to be more widely heard.  Please read  more here and here.

 

5. If you haven’t already seen them, see these news links, published by Oak Norton at Utahns Against Common Core today:

Pioneer Institute Study Finds That New Technology, Relaxation of Protections Threaten Student Privacy A must read press release: you can also download the full Pioneer Institute study. 

Here’s a relevant clip: “These expansive data structures are intimately connected to the Common Core State Standards Initiative and national testing. Any information from the data initiatives mentioned above that is given to the two federally funded national assessment consortia aligned with the Common Core State Standards will be made available to the USED. The national standards will also create a unified “taxonomy” that facilitates creation of common instructional materials and data-collection technology. Because Common Core focuses not on academic knowledge but rather on “skills” that involve attitudes and dispositions, it paves the way for national assessments and digital platforms that measure such attributes.” http://pioneerinstitute.org/featured/study-new-technology-relaxation-of-protections-threaten-student-privacy/

 

Massachusetts Teachers Association Elects Anti-Common Core President We’ve already had the NY and Chicago teachers unions take anti-CC stances, but for a strong teachers association to join in is a great step. “The Massachusetts Teachers Association (MTA), a union that represents about 110,000 teachers in the Bay State, elected an anti-Common Core president on May 10 in a hotly contested and close election. Barbara Madeloni, a clinical psychologist turned teacher, beat a Brockton teacher by 681 to 584 votes. A proponent of local control, Madeloni opposes high stakes testing and nationalization of educational standards.” http://www.hslda.org/hs/state/ma/201405130.asp

Saber-Rattling on Common Core (Utah) This is why we want legislators who understand Common Core issues. “On Wednesday, education officials climbed Capitol Hill to inform lawmakers of the progress they’re making on implementing the Common Core education system into Utah’s K-12 schools. But the educators were met with an extremely hostile welcome, as Republican lawmakers expressed their animosity towards the Core changes, which have grown increasingly unpopular among conservatives nationwide.”

http://utahpoliticalcapitol.com/2014/05/22/saber-rattling-on-common-core For the audio go here: http://le.utah.gov/asp/interim/Commit.asp?year=2014&com=INTEDU

Conflict: Common Core Testing Company VP Evaluating NCLB Waivers Utah mom Autumn Cook dug this interesting tidbit out showing a Vice-President of AIR (the SAGE test company) was selected to review NCLB waivers. http://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/conflict-common-core-testing-company-vp-evaluating-nclb-waivers/

 

Student-centered or subject-centered education?

This article by Lynn Stoddard in the Standard contains a great story about a mom who noticed what her struggling autistic child was good at, and now, as a 15-year old, the child is being considered for a Nobel prize. For that full story here’s a link (http://themotherlist.com/mother-tore-label-nurtured-sons-hidden-genius/) http://www.standard.net/Opinion/2014/05/08/Student-centered-or-subject-centered-education.html