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Nobody has to choose between relying on the proponents of Common Core, or relying on the opponents of Common Core.

To find out what Common Core really is and does to education and to liberty, study for yourself.

These are just a starter batch. There are more!  Some of these are Utah-specific.  If you are in another state, do a related word search to easily find your own.

 

DOCUMENTS:

The Race to the Top Grant Application

The No Child Left Behind Waiver

The State Longitudinal Database System Grant

The lawsuit against the Department of Education

The copyright on Common Core held by CCSSO/NGA

The report entitled “For Each And Every Child” from the Equity and Excellence Commission

The Cooperative Agreements between the Dept. of Education and the testing consortia

The speeches of Secretary Arne Duncan on education

The speeches of President Obama on education

The speeches of the CEA of Pearson Ed, Sir Michael Barber

The speeches of the main funder of Common Core, Bill Gates

The speeches of David Coleman, a noneducator, the architect of the Common Core ELA standards and now promoted to College Board President

The Dept. of Ed report: Promoting Grit, Tenacity and Perserverance

The federal websites such as the EdFacts Exchange,  the Common Education Data Standards, the National Data Collection Model, and the Data Quality Campaign, sites because three of these four ask us to give personally identifiable information on students, from our state database.

The Common Core English and Math standards

The full contract that Utah has signed with the American Institutes for Research (if you can get a copy from the USOE; it is not online yet). Here is AIR’s common core implementation document.

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Here are some explanations of each of the documents, and what you can learn from them.

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The Race to the Top Grant Application  – Utah got points for having a kid-tracking SLDS database system.  Utah got more points for having adopted Common Core.  This was how we got into it.  Despite not winning the grant money, we remained in these systems.

The No Child Left Behind Waiver  – This shows the 15% cap the federal government put on top of the copyrighted, unamendable Common Core standards.

The State Longitudinal Database System Grant  – This is a federally paid-for database that every state in the US now has.  It tracks students within the state.  Aggregated data ion students is sent from this system to the federal EdFacts Exchange.

The lawsuit against the Department of Education  – The Electronic Privacy Information Center has sued the DOE for destroying the previously data-privacy protective federal FERPA. The lawsuit explains which terms were redefined, which agencies now have legal access to the private data of students, and much more.

The copyright on Common Core held by CCSSO/NGA  – The fact that there are “terms of use” and a copyright shows that we have no local control over the standards which are written behind closed doors in D.C.

The report entitled “For Each And Every Child” from the Equity and Excellence Commission – This report was commissioned by Obama.  It reveals that redistribution of wealth is the real reason that Obama wants a national education system.

The Cooperative Agreements between the Dept. of Education and the testing consortia – Even though Utah escaped the SBAC and is not bound by the Cooperative Agreement directly, Utah’s current testing group, A.I.R., works closely with SBAC.  This document shows how clearly the DOE has broken laws like the General Educational Provisions Act and the 10th Amendment.  It mandates the synchronizing of tests and the sharing of data to triangulate the SBAC, PARCC and DOE.

The speeches of Secretary Arne Duncan on education – He seems to believe Common Core was Obama’s idea from the start.

The speeches of President Obama on education – Obama’s goal is total control of everything– teachers, tests, money, and toddlers.

The speeches of the CEA of Pearson Ed, Sir Michael Barber – Barber wants every  school on the globe to have the exact same academic standards and to underpin every standard with environmental propaganda.  He also likes having global data on kids and stresses the term “sustainable reform” which is “irreversible reform”.

The speeches of the main funder of Common Core, Bill Gates – He’s funded Common Core almost completely on his own; he’s partnered with Pearson; he says “we won’t know it works until all the tests and curriculum aligns with the standards” so he’s writing curriculum for us all.

The speeches of David Coleman, a noneducator, the architect of the Common Core ELA standards and now promoted to College Board President –He mocks narrative writing, he’s diminished the percentage of classic literature that’s allowable in the standards, he’s not been elected, he’s never taught school, yet he’s almost singlehandedly destroyed the quality and liberty of an English teacher’s classroom. And as he’s now the College Board President, he’s aligning the SAT to his version of what Common standards should be.  This will hurt colleges.

The Dept. of Ed report: Promoting Grit, Tenacity and Perserverance  – behavioral indicators of students are wanted by the federal government.  It’s all about control.

The federal websites such as the EdFacts Exchange, the Common Education Data Standards, the National Data Collection Model, and the Data Quality Campaign, sites because three of these four ask us to give personally identifiable information on students, from our state database.  -The first link shows what we already give to the federal government; the others show what the federal government is requesting that we share, which does include intimate, personally identifiable information.

The Common Core English and Math standards – These are the actual standards.

The full contract that Utah has signed with the American Institutes for Research (if you can get a copy from the USOE; it is not online yet). Here is AIR’s common core implementation document.  – This shows that AIR is not an academic testing group but a behavioral research institute.  Parents and teachers may not see the test questions.

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• There are a ton of open governmental meetings that people don’t really know about, and thus few attend them.
• Here’s one: November 13th at 12:30 you– all of you– all of us, are invited to an open committee meeting at the Utah Senate Building, Olmstead room. The Federalism Subcommittee will be discussing whatever’s on their agenda.  I’ve politely requested that Common Core will be.
• Because there is such a thing as a legislative Federalism Subcommittee for Utah, (who knew?) and because its purpose it is to make sure the feds don’t step on the state’s toes and/or siphon off our sovereignty under the Constitution, I wrote to them today to ask them to study Common Core a little bit more closely.
• I wrote:

Dear Representative Noel, Senator Niederhauser, Representative King, Lt. Governor Greg Bell, Dep. Attorney General Swallow and Senator Romero,

I’m writing to ask you, as members of the Federalism Subcommittee council, to place a federal action for evaluation on the state agenda for the upcoming meeting November 13, 2012 at 12:30 p.m. to be held in the Olmstead Room in the Utah Senate Building.

“In accordance with Section 63C-4-107, the Federalism Subcommittee shall evaluate a federal law submitted to the Federalism Subcommittee by a council member.”  Utah Code Ann. §63C-4-106(2).

There is a lot of solid research available about Common Core, its origins, authors, copyright, nonamendability, unpiloted and unverified claims, and the ways in which the Obama Administration has hijacked it, an initiative that started as a state-led initiative, but has become a federally-pushed agenda tied to the No Child Left Behind waivers and also tied to the State Longitudinal Database System, the P-20 tracking system, and ultimately, now appears to be becoming a form of federal citizen surveillance –under the guise of educational research and reforms.

No fight deserves our attention more than the fight against nationalized education via Common Core.

Our state’s top lawyers at the Utah State Office of Education have not probed this issue, and have not even analyzed it as an issue of federalism.  We have not even had a hearing (even teachers are being turned away by the USOE who want to speak out on this subject) because Common Core has become so controversial and so hotly defended by those who introduced it to our state.

I am happy to share the research that national thinktanks, elite institutes, and even my Utah friends and I have found, including the Dept. of Education’s current lawsuit (led by the Electronic Privacy Information Center) due to Dept. of Ed FERPA overstep; the Dept. of Education’s Cooperative Agreement which micromanages education against G.E.P.A. law and against the provisions of the U.S. Constitution; including the “data mashing” programs of Utah’s John Brandt and the federal chief of staff, Joanne Weiss; and emails from the USOE that confirm the end of student privacy has come due to this network of “education reforms” that are radically transforming our state’s educational system without a vote and without public knowledge.

I will be out of state on November 13th, but as it is an open meeting, and as there are thousands of Utahns who feel as I do and who have signed a petition against Common Core at http://Utahnsagainstcommoncore.com I feel sure you will be well supported as you evaluate this initiative and its implications for state sovereignty.

Thank you for your consideration.

Christel Swasey

Heber City

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In a white house press release Obama gave two years ago, we find:

“Today, the Obama Administration announced new efforts to promote college- and career-ready standards…  The President and Secretary Duncan applauded Governors for their efforts to work together in a state-led consortium… to develop and implement common reading and math standards that build toward college- and career-readiness.”  http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/president-obama-calls-new-steps-prepare-america-s-children-success-college-and-care

So, Obama “applauds” the non-governmental organizations (NGA and CCSSO) for the supposedly “state-led” program, while announcing his own Obama Administration’s “efforts to promote college- and career-ready standards” via ESEA.  So who is really behind it?  Obama or the states?

Actually, both.  –But only because the states never had a chance to vote on it.  The whole thing was done using non-governmental groups.  Very sneaky.  Very.

Some of you are thinking: ” I didn’t see the word “common core” in the announcement.”  –So why am I using “Common Core” as a synonymn with “College-and-career ready standards”?

 Because that’s what the White House does.

If  you go to the U.S. Department of Education’s own “Definitions Page” you will find this definition:

 College- and career-ready standards:  Content standards for kindergarten through 12th grade that build towards college- and career-ready graduation requirements (as defined in this document) by the time of high school graduation.  A State’s college- and career-ready standards must be either (1) standards that are common to a significant number of States; or (2) standards that are approved by a State network of institutions of higher education, which must certify that students who meet the standards will not need remedial course work at the postsecondary level.   http://www.ed.gov/race-top/district-competition/definitions

Common with a significant number of states?!  There is no other set of common standards that many states share.  It’s only Common Core.

And it’s totally unAmerican because it’s education without representation. We didn’t vote for nor can we repeal the members of the CCSSO/NGA, who hold the common core copyright.

We can’t amend the standards like we can a legitimate American law; they’re under CCSSO/NGA copyright.  And we can’t adjust Common Core to suit us, more than the mandated 15% maximum.  So if we want to teach our high school seniors using 100% classic literature, we may not do it.  The Common Core says they can only have 30% classic literature.  The rest has to be info-text.  Our state can add 15%, bringing it to 45% max.  See how we are bound?  Where is the liberty in that?  Where is the feeling of American innovation and freedom in our educational system?

It is so, so wrong.  

So many misrepresentations continue.  Even our own dear Utah State School Board and Utah State Office of Education and Wasatch School District websites continue to post –as if they were true– “facts” about Common Core.  That aren’t true.   http://www.schools.utah.gov/fsp/College-and-Career-Ready/Meetings/2012-Spriing-Directors/Common-Core-FACTS—Brenda-Hales.aspx

I beg you, if you don’t know much about Common Core yet, to read the following and do the research for yourself.

1.  Look at the dates we adopted Common Core.  Then look at the dates the Common Core was written– we never saw it before we signed up!

2.  Look at the copyright page for NGA/CCSSO on the common standards. It says “no claims to the contrary shall be made” right after it claims to be the sole developer and owner of the standards.  Yet proponents say teachers and states came up with them.

3.  Look at the 15% cap set on innovation in the waiver application for ESEA (No Child Left Behind waiver).

4. Look at the U.S. Constitution. Where does it say that the President has authority to promote Common education?

5. Look at G.E.P.A. law.  (General Educational Provisions Act.)  It specifically excludes the federal government from supervising, directing or ruling over educational systems in any way.  ALL THEY CAN DO IS PAY FOR IT.  States run it.  Period.

6. Look at the online “Cooperative Agreement between the Dept. of Education and SBAC”. It uses mandatory language that forces both testing consortia to synchronize testing.  It uses mandatory language that forces the consortia to share data with the federal government “on an ongoing basis.”  Triangulating educational consortia under the feds’ direction and supervision  is ILLEGAL.  It takes away local control.

7. Look at the official Common Core Validation Committee Members’ reviews of Common Core.  Google Sandra Stotsky and James Milgram.  They refused to call the standards adequate for education.

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Dear School Board, Superintendent Shumway and Governor Herbert,

I am writing to express my gratitude to those who were instrumental in yesterday’s vote to reverse Utah’s membership in the SBAC testing consortium.  It was a heroic moment and America is watching.

Early on, when I read the Cooperative Agreement between the SBAC and the Department of Education, I was horrified to see that it required  SBAC members to expose student data to the federal government “on an ongoing basis, subject to applicable privacy laws,” and I knew that the Dept. of Education had changed privacy FERPA regulations to make that data easy to access.

I had also been horrified by the micromanagement the Dept. of Education planned to do, in demanding that PARCC and SBAC synchronize tests “across consortia,” effectively nationalizing education under the triangulation of those two consortia with the Dept. of Education.  Also, in writing to WestEd, the SBAC’s test writing project manager, I had found out that “In order for this [testing] system to have a real impact within a state, the state will need to adopt the Common Core State Standards (i.e., not have two sets of standards.)” -April 2012 statement from WestEd Assessments and Standards Senior Research Associate Christyan Mitchell, Ph.D.

This meant that the 15% additional content which the Dept. of Education was permitting states to add to their local version of Common Core, would have been meaningless in the context of the tests.  Teachers would not have been motivated to teach that extra 15% of unique Utah content, since there would be such pressure to conform to the high-stakes, competitive tests.  Now they are freed from that pressure and can teach students, not teach for others.

I am extremely relieved to find that we have reclaimed our independence in the realm of testing and in the realm of easy federal access to student data collected via tests.  But I am still concerned that the federally paid-for state longitudinal database system (SLDS) and the P-20 student tracking systems will be available to the federal government and marketers, since our Utah Technology leader, John Brandt, who is a chair member of CCSSO and a member of NCES, the research arm of the Dept. of Education, has published the fact that our data can be shared with state agencies and at the federal level.  Also, Chief of Staff of the Dept. of Education Joanne Weiss made a statement recently that she is mashing data systems on the federal level, and is releasing reports to “help” states to use SLDS systems to mash data as well.  These things trouble me.  I hope you are aware of them and are taking steps to fortify our citizens’ privacy rights against federal intrusion which can easily invade in these other ways –other than the SBAC test data collection method, which we seem to be freed from.

–Or are we?  Attendees at yesterday’s State School Board meeting have informed me that there is school board talk of purchasing SBAC tests anyway, regardless of the conflict of interest issue.  This, even now that we’ve cut membership ties with SBAC.  If our board votes to use SBAC tests, we will hardly be better off than if we had not taken the step of cutting off membership ties.  Our childrens’ data would then still be collected by SBAC, and we know from the Cooperative Agreement that the SBAC will triangulate tests and data collected with the federal government.  We must cut all ties with SBAC, including purchasing or using SBAC or PARCC written tests.

On Sept. 6th, the ESEA flexibility waiver window ends.  I have asked a question but have not received a response:  does that Sept. 6th deadline mean that after Sept. 6th, Utah’s option to write her own standards, ends?

We need legitimately high, not spottily or for just some grades/topics, occasionally high, standards.  We need standards like those Massachusetts had before that state caved to political pressure to lower standards in adopting Common Core.  Massachusetts tested as an independent nation and was among the very top.  Massachusetts’ standards were the highest in the USA.  Then Common Core took them down to the middle of the road.  Does Utah really want that?  If so, why?  Is it Superintendent Shumway’s board membership in CCSSO and SBAC that is driving these decisions?  Or is it what’s really the highest possible standards for our children and teachers?

Political and money-making pressures are pushing Utah to stay aligned with Common Core, while attempting to obscure the truth:  that Common Core is not rigorous enough.  It does not solve our very real educational problems.

First, it blurs excellence and sub-par into a common standard that is mediocre.  Stanford University Professor Michael Kirst assessed the standards and said that “My concern is the assertion in the draft that the standards for college and career readiness are essentially the same. This implies the answer is yes to the question of whether the same standards are appropriate for 4 year universities, 2 year colleges, and technical colleges. The burden of proof for this assertion rests with CCSSO/NGA, and the case is not proven from the evidence presented”.

Dr. Bill Evers, Hoover Institute scholar and professor at Stanford, said that the “Asian Tigers” countries keep Algebra I in 8th grade, as Utah’s prior standards had them; but Common Core retards Algebra I to 9th grade.

Dr. James Milgram, the only math professor on the Common Core Validation Committee, refused to sign off that the standards were adequate.  Dr. Sandra Stotsky, the head English professor on the same committee, also refused to sign off on the standards.  She said they did not represent a coherent, legitimate pre-college program and she opposed slashing classic literature and narrative writing, as 99% of all English teachers –and parents– would surely agree.

Importantly, the NCLB/ESEA waiver allows two ways to fulfull the “college readiness” requirement.  1) States can use Common Core.  Or 2)states can write their own standards, using University approval as a benchmark.  If we choose option 2, by Sept. 6th, 2012, then we can write our own standards, using what’s best out of common core, building up to a better standard set by Massachusetts, led by the very professor who created Massachusetts’ superior standards— for free!

    Dr. Sandra Stotsky has promised Utah that if we pull out of Common Core and want help in developing our own ELA standards (better than what we used to have), she will help write them, for free.   She worked on the excellent, (Common Core-Less) Texas standards in 2007-2008, contracted with StandardsWork.

Dr. Alan Manning, of BYU, who is opposed on academic grounds and on grounds of lost liberty, to Common Core, would be a great resource for writing Utah’s standards, as well.

Please contact Dr. Stotstky and Dr. Manning about the possibilities of creating superior standards for Utah.

Thank you sincerely for your continued work on educational issues in Utah.

Christel Swasey

Heber City