Inform, Educate and Motivate!

Letters of response to Barry Erwin, President of the Council for a Better LA, who promotes Common Core Standards

Letters to the editor of the Lake Charles American Press responding to Mr. Erwin's promotion of the Common Core Standards for Louisiana schools.

6/10/13

Education is the future. Parents, students, and educators deserve to know who the planners are. With Common Core, follow the money.

The Gates Foundation provided lavish funding (roughly $25 million) to the Common Core developers, the National Governor's Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, private organizations in Washington, DC. Both the NGA and CCSSO receive state tax dollars from membership dues at about $16,000 per year per state. In 2010 the U.S. Department of Education granted them $330 million in stimulus funds. An action that led some to complain of federal interference in education. Hundreds of closed door meetings followed that led to the standards called Common Core.

From 2009 the Department of Education used legally suspect means to entice the states with Race to the Top grants and No Child Left Behind waivers while imposing the Standards which were not even released until June 2010. This effort has been accompanied by a misleading campaign suggesting the Standards were "state-led" and "voluntary." At present 18 states have opposing legislation pending.

By imposing the Standards and funding the assessments the U.S. Department of Education will determine curriculum. They are violating the General Educational Provisions Act (GEPA Law) and the 10th Amendment which prohibit federal direction, supervision, or control over curriculum. CCSSO/NGA hold copyright and "terms of use" on Common Core. There will be no local control, no opportunity to add content, and no accountability to the states, parents, or educators. We lose state educational sovereignty.

The Electronic Privacy Information Center has sued the DOE for gutting the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. Every state now has the federally funded State Longitudinal Database System which tracks students and sends the data to the federal EdFacts Exchange. The DOE by partnering with the Department of Labor will have a data system capable of tracking students from pre-school into the workforce. The risk of privacy breaches are frightening.

Gates himself admits he's spent $5 billion to promote his "vision" for education and not just in America. Gates' company, Microsoft, signed a cooperative agreement with the United Nations' education branch, UNESCO in 2004. One of the UN Millennial goals is to achieve universal education. It calls for U.S. national education standards.

8/15/13

In response to Barry Erwin's "Give Common Core a Chance" from Sunday Talk:
The Common Core Standards debate is a "hot topic" and should not be reduced to partisanship. Like it's sister program, the stealthy Affordable Care Act, it has little transparency. States, educators, and parents are being blindly coerced into acceptance. Common Core did not emerge from a state-led process in which experts, educators, and parents were represented. The most important "stakeholders," the children, will have their education transformed by people unqualified to do so.

Months after launch of the initiative professional organizations and parent groups objected to the lack of transparency. Identities of drafters were unknown to the public. When names were finally released for the English/Language/Arts standards not one English professor or high-school English teacher was in that group. The lead ELA writers were David Coleman and Susan Pimentel, neither of whom taught English in K-12 or college or had ever drafted standards of education. The initial draft was delayed for 3 months because it was so lacking. Dr. Sandra Stotsky, Professor Emerita, Univ. of Arkansas was on the Validation Committee and refused to sign off. Her comments can be read on-line. A comprehensive video on Common Core by Jane Robbins, a senior fellow at the American Principles Project can also be viewed on-line: http://stopcore.org/video/

Facts:
*The National Governor's Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers are not elected bodies. They are trade organizations.
*Governors are not elected to represent state citizens at a national level.
*22 states are presently re-evaluating acceptance of CCS.
*NGA/CCSSO hold copyright. Standards are not state owned and not
amendable.
*A national data base being set up to track our children's personal information is illegal.
*Common Core is an attempt to nationalize education, centralize power, thereby removing parental voice.
*Plans for a national education curriculum, cradle to career, were circulating for decades. Read education reformer Marc Tucker's 1982 letter to Hillary Clinton outlining plans to "remold the entire American education system." http://www.eagleforum.org/educate/marc_tucker/

Where is the cost analysis for this "fundamental transformation" of our educational system? Somehow, Mr. Erwin, your final words, "things ought to work out just fine," ring hollow.

Additional note: According to the Pioneer Institute, American Principles Project, and the Pacific Research Institute of California aligning state systems to the CCSS in English/Language/Arts and Math will cost the states adopting them nearly $16 Billion over seven years. (http://caffeinatedthoughts.com/2012/02/common-core-state-standards-...)