“Child Abuse by the Federal Government -- How and Who?”
by Donna Garner
4.18.11
To set our public school children up for failure is an example of child abuse; and when the federal government does it, it is still child abuse.
If you are a citizen, taxpayer, and/or a parent and you are desperately concerned about what is being taught to our public school children, you must take a few minutes to listen to this videotape from a legislative public hearing and to read the notes posted below.
One of the people who testified is Dr. Sandra Stotsky who tells about her first-hand experiences as a member of the Validation Committee for the Common Core Standards.
At the same time that the Obama administration has been federalizing the healthcare system, his administration has been federalizing the public schools across this country.
The Obama administration through Sect. of Ed. Arne Duncan and the U. S. Department of Education has mounted a massive effort using Stimulus dollars to pressure all states to participate in Common Core Standards/Race to the Top/national assessments/national database.
In a time of tight budget constraints, please join me in contacting your Congressmen and asking them to cut completely all spending on the Common Core Standards, Race to the Top, national curriculum, national assessments, national teacher evaluation system, and a national database.
THE TRUTH COMES OUT -- TEXAS PUBLIC HEARING
On 4.14.11, various experts testified before the Texas House Sovereignty Committee in support of HB 2923. Among those were Texas Commissioner of Education Robert Scott, Pioneer Institute Executive Director Joe Stergios, and Dr. Sandy Stotsky (Professor of Education Reform, University of Arkansas).
TESTIMONY BY TEXAS COMMISSION OF EDUCATION ROBERT SCOTT
The insightful remarks made by Texas Commissioner of Education Robert Scott start at marker 23.30 - 43.20. Scott has worked for Democrats and for Republicans and has also spent time on Capitol Hill. He pointed out in his testimony these very valid reasons not to support the Common Core Standards:
Even before NCLB became law, there was already a prohibition against the U. S. Department of Education funding curriculum standards, curriculum materials, and assessments. However, because the Common Core Standards were produced with Stimulus funds and not with NCLB funds, the Obama administration has decided that they have not violated federal law. Scott, who is an experienced attorney and an expert on education law, believes the administration is making a fallacious argument.
Scott also said he is troubled by who owns the CCS, who could change them, and how often. He has sought the explicit legislative authority given to the USDOE, yet no one has been able to provide him with that language.
One reason Scott did not want Texas to participate in CCS is that he does not like the idea of the federal government having the authority to establish a teacher evaluation system that will determine which teachers get terminated and which ones get to stay.
Scott feels strongly about the dangers of the national data collection system that is tied to CCS. Student-identifiable data that is used for state programs should not be shipped out to Washington, D. C. on someone’s thumbnail drive where the data could be compromised.
TESTIMONY BY JIM STERGIOS, PIONEER INSTITUTE
Jim Stergios, the Executive Director of Pioneer Institute, makes his very interesting remarks at marker 43.29 - 1:01.00.
TESTIMONY BY DR. SANDRA STOTSKY, MEMBER OF CCS VALIDATION COMMITTEE
Dr. Sandra Stotsky’s testimony is posted at marker 1:01.00 - 1:23.24.
VIDEOLINK TO PUBLIC HEARING
Here is the video link from the Texas House State Sovereignty Committee Meeting:
PROVISIONS IN TEXAS HB 2923
HB 2923 ensures that the state of Texas has sovereignty over its public schools and that for Texas schools to be accredited, they must follow the state-adopted standards, curriculum requirements, and tests.
HB 2923 also states that Texas will not participate in a national database.
HB 2923 would discourage any Texas school district from participating in the national takeover of the public schools by the federal government (i.e., CCS/RTTT).
WRITTEN TESTIMONY OF DR. SANDRA STOTSKY
Testimony for Texas Legislative Hearing on HB 2923 -- April 14, 2011:
Sandra Stotsky, Professor of Education Reform, 21st Century Chair in Teacher Quality, University of Arkansas
I thank Chairman Creighton and the members of his committee for the opportunity to speak in favor of House Bill No. 2923, a bill on state sovereignty over curriculum standards, assessments, and student information.
My professional background: I draw on much state and national experience with K-12 standards, curricula, and assessments. I was the senior associate commissioner in the Massachusetts Department of Education from 1999-2003 where, among other duties, I was in charge of the development or revision of all the state's K-12 standards. I have reviewed all states' English language arts and reading standards for the Fordham Institute in 1997, 2000, and 2005. I co-authored Achieve's American Diploma Project high school exit test standards for English in 2004. I co-authored the 2008 Texas English language arts and reading standards. Appointed by then Secretary of Education Margaret Spellings, I served on the National Mathematics Advisory Panel from 2006-2008. Finally, I served on Common Core's Validation Committee from 2009-2010.
I will speak to the following points:
1. The mediocre quality of Common Core's English language arts/reading standards, especially in grades 6-12, and what its lack of international benchmarking means.
2. The high academic quality of Texas's 2008 English language arts/reading standards.
3. The non-transparent process that was used to develop Common Core's standards.
4. The non-transparent process now being used to develop a national curriculum and national tests based on Common Core's standards by the two testing consortia funded by the U.S. D.E.
COMMON CORE’S LACK OF COLLEGE READINESS FOR ELAR
Point One: Common Core’s “college readiness” standards for English language arts and reading do not aim for a level of achievement that signifies readiness for authentic college-level work. They point to no more than readiness for a high school diploma (and possibly not even that, depending on where the cut score is set).
Despite claims to the contrary, the Common Core are not internationally benchmarked. States adopting Common Core’s standards will damage the academic integrity of both their post-secondary institutions and their high schools precisely because Common Core's standards do not strengthen the high school curriculum and cannot reduce the current amount of post-secondary remedial coursework in a legitimate way.
In fact, the Common Core standards may lead to reduced enrollment in advanced high school courses and to weakened post-secondary coursework because Common Core's "college readiness" ELA/R standards are designed to enable a large number of high school students to be declared "college ready" and to enroll in post-secondary institutions that will have to place them in credit-bearing courses. These institutions will then likely be under pressure from the USDE to retain these students in order to increase college graduation rates.
TEXAS’ NEW ENGLISH / LANGUAGE ARTS / READING STANDARDS
Point Two: To avoid the charge of bias, I draw on Fordham's own 2010 review of Texas's 2008 English language arts/reading standards. Fordham gave the Texas standards A- and Common Core's ELA standards B+. Here is Fordham's overall judgment:
"Texas’s ELA standards are more clearly written, better presented, and logically organized than the Common Core standards. The Texas standards include expectations that more thoroughly address the comprehension and analysis of literary and non-literary text than Common Core, including helpful, detailed standards that outline genre-specific content and rhetorical techniques. In addition, Texas has prioritized writing genres by grade level. Grade: A-"
QUALIFICATIONS FOR WRITERS OF COMMON CORE STANDARDS
Point Three: After the Common Core Initiative was launched in early 2009, the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers never explained to the public what the qualifications were for membership on the standards-writing committees or how it would justify the specific standards they created. Most important, it never explained why Common Core's high school exit standards were equal to college admission requirements without qualification, even though this country's wide ranging post-secondary institutions use a variety of criteria for admission.
Eventually responding to the many charges of a lack of transparency, the names of the 24 members of the “Standards Development Work Group” were revealed in a July 1, 2009 news release. The vast majority, it appeared, work for testing companies. Not only did CCSSI give no rationale for the composition of this Work Group, it gave no rationale for the people it put on the two three-member teams in charge of writing the grade-level standards.
STOTSKY’S EXPERIENCES ON COMMON CORE VALIDATION COMMITTEE
Another seemingly important committee, a Validation Committee, was set up with great fanfare on September 24, 2009. The 25 members of this group were described as a group of national and international experts who would ensure that Common Core's standards were internationally benchmarked and supported by a body of research evidence.
Even though several of us regularly asked to examine this supposed body of research evidence, it became clear why our requests were ignored. In December 2009, the Parent Teacher Association, indicated the real role of this committee--more like that of a rubber stamp. The PTA predicted that: "both sets of standards will be approved simultaneously in February 2010 by members of the Validation Committee." Why did it think so? Why did the Gates Foundation think so, too? Vicki Phillips and Carina Wong published an article in the February 2010 issue of Phi Delta Kappan talking about Common Core's standards as if they had already been approved. The final version of these standards didn't come out until June 2010.
After submitting many detailed critiques from October 2009 to May 2010 in a futile effort to remedy the basic deficiencies of Common Core's English/reading standards, I, along with four other members of the Validation Committee, declined to sign off on the final version.
NATIONAL CURRICULUM AND ASSESSMENTS
Point Four: Both testing consortia, funded by the USDE, are currently developing curriculum frameworks, models, and guides, as well as instructional materials, behind closed doors, with no public procedures for the selection of curriculum developers, for public comment and further revision, and for final public approval if what the USDE and these testing consortia are doing is constitutional and legal. Below are excerpts from the two testing consortia’s approved applications that show clearly their intentions to develop a national curriculum. In addition, the Albert Shanker Institute issued a "manifesto" in March applauding Common Core's goals and quality and urging the development of a national curriculum based on its standards. Among the signers is the president of the Fordham Institute.
QUOTES FROM ONE ASSESSMENT CONSORTIUM -- SMARTER
According to the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium's application to the USDE in June 2010, it intends to:
“interpret or translate [Common Core’s] standards before they can be used effectively for
assessment or instruction” [SMARTER Balanced Proposal. Page 34]
– “translate the standards into content/curricular frameworks, test maps, and item/performance
event specifications to provide assessment specificity and to clarify the connections between
instructional processes and assessment outcomes.” [SMARTER Proposal, page 35]
– provide “a clear definition of the specific grade-level content skills and knowledge that the
assessment is intended to measure” [SMARTER Balanced Proposal, page 48]
– “convene key stakeholders and content specialists to develop assessment frameworks that
precisely lay out the content and cognitive demands that define college- and career-readiness for each grade level.” [SMARTER Balanced Proposal, page74]
– “develop cognitive models for the domains of ELA and mathematics that specify the content
elements and relationships reflecting the sequence of learning that students would need to
achieve college and career-readiness” [SMARTER Balanced Proposal, page 76]
QUOTES FROM SECOND ASSESSMENT CONSORTIUM -- PARCC
Similarly, the June 10 application from the other testing consortium funded by the USDE, the Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC), is planning to:
– “unpack the standards to a finer grain size as necessary to determine which standards are best measured through the various components … To do this, the Partnership will engage lead
members of the CCSS writing teams … and the content teams from each state, assessment
experts and teachers from Partnership states.” [PARCC Proposal, page 174]
– “develop challenging performance tasks and innovative, computer-enhanced items … [that] will send a strong, clear signal to educators about the kinds of instruction and types of performances needed for students to demonstrate college and career readiness.” [PARCC Proposal, page 7]
– ”develop model curriculum frameworks that teachers can use to plan instruction and gain a
deep understanding of the CCSS, and released items and tasks that teachers can use for ongoing formative assessment.” [PARCC Proposal, page 57]
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From Donna Garner - 4.18.11
FOLLOWING ARE STATEMENTS TAKEN FROM MY NOTES OF THE 4.15.11 HEARING
States typically pay 90% of their own education costs. Why give the federal government, which pays only 10%, complete control over a state’s public schools?
Common Core Standards (CCS) completely de-emphasize the teaching of the great pieces of literature.
Texas’ new English / Language Arts / Reading standards (adopted in May 2008) are the best in the entire United States.
Math Professor Jim Milgram believes the new Math framework and standards presently being developed in Texas may become the best in the country.
CCS do not have discreet standards for courses such as Algebra I, Geometry, and Algebra II. CCS “blends math.” Where is the empirical research to show that teaching “blended math” courses will produce well-prepared math and science graduates?
CCS have not been internationally benchmarked, and there is nothing to prove that students who are taught the CCS will be competitive wth students from other countries.
By the time Texas’ Social Studies standards were adopted in 2010, the Texas State Board of Education had had five public hearings during eighteen months of intense public input. The CCS had no public hearings in Congress nor anywhere else. No votes were ever taken on the CCS by Congress.
Under pressure from concerned citizens, the DOE finally established a short public comment period on the CCS; but nobody has been allowed to see the actual feedback submitted by the public.
A member of the CCS Validation Committee attempted to establish an interchange with a CCS draft writer and was told such exchanges were prohibited.
When the Texas Education Agency looked at the fiscal note to implement the CCS in Texas, it would have cost $3 Billion extra dollars; and Texas would have had to dump its own standards, tests, and accountability system that have taken years and millions of dollars to develop.
The CCS will allow one monolithic vendor to get the entire federal contract.
The writers of the national assessments (SMARTER and PARCC consortia) cannot develop test items unless there is well-defined curriculum content by grade level in the CCS; and there is not. Therefore, the two consortia are struggling because they have been forced to produce curriculum content first before they can possibly begin to develop the actual assessments. This means that these two assessment consortia (funded by the federal government) will be telling local teachers not just what to teach but how and when. The entire assessment package is required under the DOE contract to be ready by 2014-15.
Since 2009, there have been at least 230 data breaches in America. CCS requires a national database of personal information on all public school students, families, and educators. A national database would be a sure target for data mining and for security breaches.
Using its CCS national database, would the federal government try to nudge students into certain career pathways?
Donna Garner