Gladstone Republican on Common Core- We need to stand with the moms who are opposed to this

Cape Girardeau official: Those who oppose Common Core Standards haven't read them

I am beginning to see a sameness with all of the statements that have been issued by those who are in favor of Common Core Standards.

-We can't get rid of Common Core because we have spent so much implementing it in our schools

-The people who are criticizing Common Core are ignorant and have not actually read the standards (the implication being, of course, that once you read them, you will love them).

-We are setting our own curriculum. No one else is doing it for us.

-If you are opposed to Common Core, you are one of those paranoid people who think the government is out to get you.

That same attitude is obvious in comments from Cape Girardeau's assistant superintendent in an article in today's Southeast Missourian:

Formative assessments are administered on a frequent basis -- such as daily or weekly -- to ensure students are on track in their learning.

Summative assessments are for the end of a unit, end of a semester or end of a year to make sure students learned what they needed to during those time frames.

(Assistant Superintendent Sherry) Copeland said students are doing much better on the assessments than they have in the past.

"We determine curriculum; we decide what textbooks, if any, we use, [and] what resources we use," Copeland said. Many of those resources are online with the advent of the district's 1:1 initiative at Central High School, where students were given laptops that could be converted into tablets.

That initiative will be moving down to Central Middle School in the fall.

"People who don't understand Common Core and are posting on Facebook and Twitter and really haven't read the standards," Copeland said. "That's concerning to me."

"We are constantly changing and improving as a society and education has to keep up with that. Missouri was right: We want our students to be college and career ready," she said.

It would be hard to fit in any more educational buzzwords in a passage. Districts are spending millions on 1:1 initiatives because Common Core requires that standardized tests be taken online. Even more technology has to be purchased because the tests begin in the lower elementary grades well before keyboarding instruction normally begins. And with the addition of the now-necessary keyboarding classes for elementary students, we are eliminating other instruction that would be far more valuable to them at that age.

The buzz words "college and career ready" are thrown around. Perhaps all of these computers will make it easy to step into the workplace, though I have my doubts, but please stop the nonsense about them making the students college ready. How many colleges and universities do we see that are providing the same kind of technology to all of their students? Not only is it not being done, but for most institutions of higher learning it is not even on the agenda for the distant future.

Cape Girardeau, Joplin, and other schools that have completely immersed themselves in the 1:1 philosophy and are totally changing teaching styles in order to make every lesson about the machines are not preparing the students for college where many of the classes will be done by lecture, a style that is considered disgraceful by the proponents of 21st Century education.

When the Cape Girardeau official talks about constant assessments, she is hitting on another of the problems with Common Core. While it is true that teachers are making assessments all the time and did even in the days before Common Core, this is not what is meant by assessments nowadays.

When it comes to today's educational landscape, everything is about the standardized tests and the testing companies are making a killing off Common Core. The students are being forced to take boring practice standardized tests that not only take away from valuable instructional time and destroy the joy of learning, but they have little educational value. Standardized tests were always meant be just one weapon in the educational arsenal. When everything revolves around them, education suffers. The Joplin R-8 School District, for example, has used McGraw-Hill's Acuity practice tests for years, taking them eight times a year to give the district an idea of where the students are when it comes to preparing for the end-of-the-year tests.

Even worse, I sat in on meetings in which we prepared curriculum based on the Acuity tests. Joplin is not the only school that thought it could game the system by buying practice tests from the company that prepared the annual MAP tests.

Now the entire state is being forced to do this since DESE (the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education) has signed an $18 million contract with McGraw-Hill to not only provide the Common Core annual tests, but also to provide its practice Acuity tests to the entire state.

In other words, we will have all state schools building their curriculum around the tests and the practice tests. Missouri's schools will soon follow Joplin's example and not only have practice tests for the standardized tests, but also practice tests for the practice tests (yes, it happens on a regular basis).

With the Obama Administration's Department of Education basing the awarding of millions of dollars on whether states are implementing Common Core and whether evaluation of teachers is being based on standardized tests, you will not only see a sameness in the curriculum of all schools, despite the protests by Common Core supporters who know so much more than the rest of us, but you will also see more and more teaching to the test because the jobs of teachers and administrators are going to depend on it.

History does not look with kindness on Common Core supporters' argument that it would be horrible to eliminate Common Core because so much money has already been spent to implement it.

Suppose the same thing had been said about the integration of America's schools.

In fact, it was. Those who wanted to maintain the separation of the races in southern schools often cited how much money it was going to cost to change things and how much money had already been spent to build the system they had.

When something is wrong, keeping it because you have already spent so much money doing it, is not an intelligent argument.

Missouri may become second state to dump Common Core

This week the Missouri Senate will begin debating a bill that would require a rewriting of state standards. If the bill passes and is signed by Gov. Jay Nixon, it will make Missouri the second state to drop Common Core Standards:

Now the Senate is scheduled to debate legislation this week that would charge a panel of educators and parents with writing new student performance goals to replace Common Core. The House passed a similar bill earlier this month.

Critics of Common Core said lawmakers should have been consulted on the decision when the State Board of Education adopted the standards. They want Missouri to write its own student benchmarks with involvement from lawmakers.

“There was no open and transparent process,” said Sen. John Lamping, R-Ladue. “I think once Missourians found out they had no say on the adoption of those standards, they now want their own.”

State Board of Education President: Everyone is on board for Common Core Standards

Everyone is on board for Common Core Standards.

That is what you might believe if you were to believe the news release issued this morning by the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). Opposition to Common Core has been broad-based and was presented at Senate committee hearings this week.

That is not the message Education Commissioner Chris Nicastro is selling in the news release, which is printed below, though her name is not mentioned:

More than one hundred educators and business leaders from around the state gathered in the Senate Lounge at the Capitol on Wednesday to show their support for the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) in schools. The Senate Education Committee held the hearing to discuss bills that would prevent implementation of CCSS. The vast majority of Missouri schools have already developed or revised curriculum, selected and adopted new instructional materials and have started using the standards.

“These are the clearest, most concise goals that I’ve seen. My kids are now able to read complex texts, think critically about the content and make arguments based on the author’s viewpoint, not their own opinion,” said Cathy Cartier, a 10th grade English language arts teacher in the Affton school district and the 2012-13 Missouri Teacher of the Year. “The standards do not tell me how to get the kids to reach the standards. I determine curriculum. ”

The witnesses testified that the Common Core standards are more rigorous than existing educational goals in Missouri. "I believe strongly in the importance of increased standards for our children over a sustained period of time," said State Board of Education President Peter Herschend. "Since the Outstanding Schools Act of 1993, each time we have revised standards, we have increased expectations of what students should know and be able to do.”

The overall message from witnesses at the hearing was to stay the course on Common Core.

Two Senate bills, SB 514 and SB 798, would bar the State Board of Education, the Department or school districts from implementing the Common Core standards and would make void any current implementation.

From that news release, you would never guess that Common Core is one of the most controversial issues to ever face Missouri education or that its opponents include people on both ends of the political spectrum and everywhere in between.

Another thing should not be forgotten. It was our tax money that paid for preparing this patently false news release and most likely paid for the people who are so stridently in favor of Common Core.

How Common Core Standards kill creative teaching

The problem with this standardization epidemic that has swept across the nation and brought with it Common Core Standards is that it is forcing an overemphasis on standardized tests and is rapidly eliminating the creativity of classroom teachers, something that has always been a key element in learning.

That subject is addressed in an article in U. S. News and World Report:

To try to live up to the new demands and ensure better test scores, states, districts and schools have purchased resources, materials and scripted curricular modules solely developed for test success. Being lost is the practical wisdom and planned spontaneity necessary to work with 20 to 35 individuals in a classroom. Academic creativity has been drained from degraded and overworked experienced teachers. Uniformity has sucked the life out of teaching and learning.

Good and great teachers leave and are replaced by new and cheap workers more willing to follow fool-proof, factory-like, prescribed lesson plans. In fact, the average teaching tenure has dropped from approximately 15 years of service in 1990 to less than five in 2013.

Imagine your brain surgeon having to "follow the book" while operating on you or lose his job. While you are on the table, he discovers an unforeseen problem that, because of his experience and practical wisdom, calls for a spontaneous change of plan, yet he can't do what he knows will work. You die on the table. So have students. He retires early, frustrated with conditions. So have the best teachers.

Shawn McGrew: We have to be proud of what Bright Futures has accomplished

In an interview with KZRG from earlier in the week, Joplin R-8 Board of Education candidate Shawn McGrew says we need to be focused on "maintaining our best and brightest teachers," but never acknowledges that there is a teacher turnover problem in the district.

The same approach is used with a question on the financial problems facing the district. McGrew notes that it is important to make sure the students have the technology they need and that some of the older buldings in the district be brought up to date, but never acknowledges that the district has a money problem.

On the subject of Common Core Standards, McGrew says he has some concerns about them, including data collection and making sure that all schools have the technology to deal with the online testing Common Core requires. He does not say, however, how he feels about Common Core.

McGrew does get specific about the effect of Bright Futures on the Joplin school district. McGrew, who has been deeply involved with the program, noted the difference it has made to R-8 students, and that the program has expanded to include 22 districts in six states.

"We have to be very proud of what we have accomplished."

R-8 Board member Randy Steele to KZRG: We have overspent

In the course of this interview with KZRG, incumbent Joplin R-8 Board of Education member Randy Steele says that one of the biggest problems facing the school district is its dwindling reserves. "We have overspent," Steele said. Unfortunately, KZRG never asks the follow-up questions- How have you overspent? How much have your overspent? Steele also brings up the problem of hanging on to good teachers, but KZRG does not ask why more than 200 teachers have left the district in the past two years. From what I am hearing, there will be at least another 100 leaving this year and the new Joplin High School will most likely be filled with new, inexperienced teachers.
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Jasper Common Core resolution to be delivered to Missouri Legislature Tuesday

A resolution expressing concern with Common Core Standards, passed 7-0 Thursday night by the Jasper R-5 Board of Education will be hand delivered to the Missouri Legislature Tuesday.

Jasper became only the second school district in the state, following East Newton, to pass such a resolution.

The resolution reads as follows:

On Thursday February 27, 2014 the Jasper R5 Board of Education voted on a resolution regarding Missouri’s implementation of the Common Core State Standards.

Whereas, our concerns are similar to the resolution from the East Newton R6 Board of Education regarding the a fore mentioned standards, we wish to add our voice of concern to theirs.

Whereas, we recognize that MSIP 5 (Missouri School Improvement Plan) puts in to place the four assurances that will make it difficult for Missouri schools to retain local control and

Whereas, we the Jasper R5 Board of Education feel the CCSS initiative, MSIP 5 and the SBAC assessments must be addressed through legislative action, we petition the legislature to address concerns with all due diligence, to avoid further detriment to Missouri schools and local control.

Therefore, we petition the Missouri State Legislature to discontinue funding programs in association with Common Core State Standards Initiative/Missouri’s Learning Standards and any other alliance that promotes standards and assessments aligned to them and petition a return to the statutes that allow curricular frameworks and assessments that align to Missouri statutes outlined in the East Newton R6 resolution.

THEREFORE, BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that a copy of this resolution shall be delivered to the Governor, State Senate and House leadership, the State Education Chairs and the Legislature for executive and legislative action.

This resolution was adopted by the Board of Education
School District of Jasper, R-5.

Jasper Board of Education passes resolution expressing Common Core concerns

A second southwest Missouri school district has joined the fight against the way Common Core Standards are being implemented.

At its meeting Thursday night, the Jasper R-5 Board of Education passed a resolution substantially the same as the one passed a few months ago by the East Newton R-6 Board of Education.

East Newton was the first school district in Missouri to express concerns about Common Core.

The board issued the following news release:

The Jasper School Board passed a resolution at its February 27, 2014 meeting requesting that Missouri’s elected officials re-evaluate adoption of the statewide Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

The resolution states that: “Our concerns are similar to the resolution from the East Newton R6 Board of Education… We wish to add our voice of concern to theirs.”

 The resolution asks the Missouri legislature to discontinue funding programs in association with the CCSS Initiative/Missouri’s Core — and any other alliances that promote standards and assessments aligned to them.


Many of the questions surrounding the concerns address local control, proposed data collected on individual students and federal education oversight for local schools. This is the second such resolution in the state.

Video- Common Core panel discussion held at Lincoln Days in Springfield

Springfield area educators like Common Core (at least on camera)

The educators who speak in favor of Common Core Standards in this video are administrators, not classroom teachers.

Video- EN Board President: Mark Knight on Common Core: It's a huge fight

Mike Moon: This is what will happen when Jay Nixon is impeached

Rep. Mike Moon, R-Ash Grove, begins talking about his resolution to impeach Gov. Jay Nixon about halfway through this video. After that, Moon offers his thoughts on Common Core Standards

Transcript- EN Board member Frencken: Common Core takes education out of local hands

(East Newton R-6 Board member Lawrence Frencken delivered the following statement Thursday to the Elementary and Secondary Education Committee, during a hearing on HB 1490,  The bill would prevent the implementation of  Common Core Standards.)


I believe—we at the East Newton School Board understand our commitment to the community that elected us. We understand that our small rural community has no lobbying group to represent them. I believe—our community also understands that DESE has an extremely large and powerful group with which to lobby our elected officials though NSBA, MSBA, School Administration, Teachers and even our own children possibly because of the fact that School Boards are backing away from their responsibly to the community and relinquishing that power to the Superintendents who feel more bound by DESE than the school community they represent.

Common core should never have been put into schools without public knowledge and without the legislature even knowing about it. Our legislature represent us the people, the community, the public who voted them into office. We did not vote for anyone on DESE! And any organization used for informational purposes to our elected officials need that information presented back to them and the public for evaluation before implementation.

We need to learn more about “transformational education,” called the “lifeblood” of Common Core.
Will taking educational oversight out of the hands of school boards and states and giving it to the federal government really be as effective as advertised?

Sandra Stotsky, professor emerita at the University of Arkansas, actually sat on the Common Core Validation Committee, but eventually refused to validate the standards, because, she said, the math standards fail to prepare students for college-level math classes and the English standards take classic literature study off the rich menu for young minds in favor of more bland and ineffective “informational” texts and disconnected excerpts. “We are a very naive people, everyone was willing to believe that the Common Core standards are ‘rigorous,’ ‘competitive,’ ‘internationally benchmarked’

and ‘research-based.’ They are not.” “I know the Common Core buzz words, from ‘deeper learning’ and ‘critical thinking’ to ‘fewer, clearer, and higher standards.’ It all sounds impressive, but I’m worried that the students who study under these standards won’t receive anywhere near the quality of education that children in the U.S. did even a few years ago.”

Let’s have a look at Common Core Appendix B, for example, which states that “the following text samples primarily serve to exemplify the level of complexity and quality the standards required. … The choices should serve as useful guideposts in helping educators select texts of similar complexity, quality and range for their own classrooms.”

One of the exemplars is Toni Morrison novel “The Bluest Eye,” which is a disturbing tale of a daughter being raped by her father and then being befriended by a pedophile. Even more disturbing, the book portrays the rape scene from the viewpoint of the rapist.

Another exemplar text, listed for ninth graders is “Mother of Monsters,” a story in which a mother displays the virtue of “individuality” by intentionally deforming her own unborn children while pregnant.
Teachers in Newburgh, N.Y., where the Common Core exemplar “Black Swan Green” was scheduled to be used, pushed their district to return 6,000 copies of the book to the publisher, complaining that it contained “passages using inappropriate language and visual imagery that most people would consider pornographic.”

“Monopoly in education is a problem that makes it available for capture by special interest groups.”
Despite the criticism, however, more and more Common Core-influenced reforms are being created.
David Coleman, the “architect” of the Common Core Standards Initiative, has since become president of the College Board, which designs the SAT and Advanced Placement, or AP, tests – and the Common Core influence is already being seen, for example, in the College Board’s AP History Framework.
William Korach, publisher of The Report Card, broke down some of the clear political bias in the Framework, which will become mandatory for schools in the fall of 2014.

* You will not see Alexis de Tocqueville anywhere in these materials
* There’s nothing about the Pilgrims coming to America for religious freedom – it’s not discussed. … All they say is the British colonies ‘established racial rigid hierarchy.’
* There’s hardly anything at all about the Declaration of Independence, one sentence on it and no explanation.
* There’s one phrase on Washington.
* There’s none of the ideals motivating the Revolution … no discussion that we believe our rights come from God and not the Crown …
* No mention at all of Thomas Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Madison or Patrick Henry. … ‘Give me liberty or give me death’ – it’s not there.

“Instead of [portraying] Manifest Destiny as the idea of to taking the blessings of liberty to all peoples,” the new History Framework claims the move West was “‘built on the ideas of white racial and cultural superiority.’”

“There’s no discussion of free market, world-changing inventions – no Edison, no Vanderbilt, no Carnegie, no Rockefeller. No benefit in this history from electricity, railroads, steel or energy,” Korach discovered, “but there is [mandated] discussion of the Sierra Club, the Department of the Interior and [labor and community organizer] Mother Jones.”


Casey Luskin of the Discovery Institute also told about the Next Generation Science Standards, or NGSS, which he called, “just as wicked and ugly as her evil stepsister, [the Common Core].”


The New York Times, Luskin said, reported the “NGSS is meant to do for science what Common Core does for English and math.” Luskin added “And there’s no need for conspiracy theories,”. “The New York Times elites openly admit NGSS was created to push evolution and global warming.”



Common Core standards are not an entirely new initiative foisted upon schools, but the latest in a long line of federal encroachments upon what has since 1789 had been considered the domain of the states. Goals 2000, for example, expanded the federal government’s role in education, which only increased with No Child Left Behind, which increased again with the Race to the Top initiative.


With Common Core, however, the federal takeover of public education is virtually complete. And that --- may just be the wakeup call Americans needed before it’s too late.

Parents who turned a deaf ear to previous fads in education are now rising up, coming out of the woodwork to say, ‘Stop! We are not putting up with Common Core!


A bunch of academic elites in D.C. are going to fix everything for us? I don’t think so!
It’s a Trojan Horse strategy for capturing the minds of future generations……..

I close with this statement made by Brigadier General Steve Richie on value, life, freedom---
The real mission of business, government, civilians and military.
Protect and preserve on environment, a climate, a system, a way of life where people can be free to reach their full potential.

Ed Emery: We must speak the truth about Common Core Standards

In his latest report, Sen. Ed Emery, R-Lamar, concludes his thoughts on Common Core Standards.

In our upside-down world where the U.S. Court of Appeals tells parents that the right to control what their children learn “does not extend past the threshold of the school door,” it is time for parents to consider whether they trust the government to take charge of their children’s direction. It’s time for the parents to take back control and once again be the ultimate voice of their children’s destination. Every decision has a destination, and it is not the government’s right to determine where that is for our children.

Last week, the Capitol report was about issues of concern with the current imposition of Common Core State Standards (CCSS). This week’s report focuses on the bigger picture of where the CCSS are leading our students and state.

Video- Rep. Bahr on Common Core: Your legislators are listening

Video- Sen. John Lamping: No more important issue than Common Core

Ed Emery at rally: Why I oppose Common Core Standards

The effect of Common Core: Kids don't want to go to school any more

The image that supporters of Common Core Standards have tried to portray is that those who oppose the standards are a bunch of right wing zealots.

While I would dispute that characterization of conservative opponents of Common Core, it is not just the conservative side that is rising up in opposition.

An article in today's New York Times describes the growing opposition from the left:

But the newest chorus of complaints is coming from one of the most liberal states, and one of the earliest champions of the standards: New York. And that is causing supporters of the Common Core to shudder.

Carol Burris, an acclaimed high school principal on Long Island, calls the Common Core a “disaster.”

“We see kids,” she said, “they don’t want to go to school anymore.”

Leaders of both parties in the New York Legislature want to rethink how the state uses the Common Core.

The statewide teachers’ union withdrew its support for the standards last month until “major course corrections” took place.

Cape Girardeau parent group opposed to Common Core Standards

The battle against Common Core Standards continues to spread across the state.

Today's Cape Girardeau Southeast Missourian has a story about a new parent group forming to battle Common Core Standards and to restore local control of schools.

The effort is also expanding into Sikeston and Chaffee, according to the article.