Basic Flyer For All States On Common Core 101 for Parents, Grandparents, Educators

Print handout for all who care about children.  Danger! Danger!

Wolf In Sheep's Clothing

Race To The Top Applications for Federal Dollars were issued on Nov '09 and states Dept. of Ed signed on Jan '10 to Common Core State Standards aka CCSS (what is to be taught your children) before final draft came out in March '10  (and without approval from legislatures.) The CCSS are copyrighted and can't be changed by states (only allowed to add up to 15%).

Copyright:  This website and all content on this website, including in particular the Common Core State Standards, are the property of NGA Center and CCSSO, and NGA Center and CCSSO retain all right, title, and interest in and to the same.  Read more on their site

The NGA Center for Best Practices is the only policy research and development firm that directly serves the nation’s governors by developing innovative solutions to today’s most pressing public policy challenges.  See Page 6 on their site.

Please hand-out and send emails to awaken parents and all concerned for the children!!!

See Wording of NCLB Waiver Request (See the term Common Core State Standards.  Some Sup says these are their state's standards but here you see they are Common Core):  E S E A F L E X I B I L I T Y–R E Q U E S T F O R W  I N D O W 3 U . S . D E P A R T M E N T O F  ED U C A T I O N iii  June 7, 2012  INTRODUCTION

The U.S. Department of Education (Department) is offering each State educational agency (SEA) the opportunity to request flexibility on behalf of itself, ... This voluntary opportunity will provide educators and State and local leaders with flexibility regarding specific requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB)...Prior to submitting this request, Alabama teachers, leaders, college and university faculty, and lay citizens reviewed the Alabama standards and the Common Core State Standards and compiled the best of both into the Alabama College-and Career-Ready Standards for Mathematics and English Language Arts,

 Remember:  Common Core State Standards are copyrighted-not owned by the state . "Compiled the best of both" means the copyrighted Common Core State Standards plus the state's specific standards(up to 15% and which will not be tested).No changes can by made by the states. There will no longer be the recourse for parents to help effect change through their school board.  Please study and learn of the loss of parental input; the emphasis on testing, data gathering and psycho-analysis.  Repeal Common Core while you can!  It is worse than you think as the developers of Tx CSCOPE helped develop Common Core!!!  This is so bad RNC just passed an Anti-Common Core Resolution!

Waiting For Superman--The Other Side Voicing Concern Against CCSSI

Emergency Alert(as one mother has said-Our Kids Are Not For Sale Not Even In This Drastic Economy. ) Many states signed on in hopes of getting education dollars.  It is time to see the truth--this common standards or national standards--will take away parental input at the local shool boards!!!

There is a need for better schools--without a question--but getting our governors to go along with the common core standards is not the way to go as Waiting For Superman closes with that suggestion.

The National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO)  with Achieve, ACT and the College Board partnered (with a jump start from Bill Gates) for the Common Core Standards States Initiative or CCSSI.

It is supposed to get our kids college and career ready which is a wonderful goal but there are strings attached which should not be there--one very glaring is the fact that many parents will lost their voice through their local school boards as to what will be taught their children--as the common core standards will be set nationally.

Here are some info and links from the other side with valid concerns (most specially the right of parents).

Most prominent are the perspective from Professor Jim Milgram and Professor Sandra Stotsky who were in the national validation committee of the common core standards.  Most states agreed to these standards as part of their application for "race to the top" grants--even before the standards were published in June.

"How can the State Boards of Education make decisions when they haven't even read the standards? Many state's Board Member had never been initiated into what was in these documents.  What were the policy issues coming out of these documents and whether these analyses were truly were in a sense legitimate academic analysis-- a really serious issue of uninformed Boards of Education in this country which they would never do on most other issues.  These are very serious issues about what self- government means at the state and local government level."--Sandra Stotsky,  professor in the Department of Education Reform at the University of Arkansas, and holds the 21st Century Chair in Teacher Quality.

"There are two separate automacity requirements for all of the algorithms--one is their own construction and then the other is the standard algorithm.  Standard Algorithm always come a year or two later and so these students are going to learn their own way of doing things many of which are incorrect and then they're going to learn the standard algorithm and they're going to get totally confused.  The net effect in terms of learning is that they know neither approach verywell.  The second set of things-- the requirement to automaticity on their own self- invented algorithms was one of the political issues that came in at the last moment and it's  absolutely crazy.  And then there was an entire list of similar ones, that equally made no sense whatsoever in terms of the long term development of children's mathematical capacity." --  Dr. R. James Milgram, professor of mathematics at Stanford University.

Since they were on the inside and have such impeccable outstanding background--their knowledge is truly worth listening to and these are their interviews for you to hear them yourself.

Part I-- with Betty Peters

Part II--with Betty Peters, Penny Wolcott, Donna Garner and Beth Schultz

Part III --with Dawn Wildman of the California Tea Party and Wayne Wood, retired teacher

More Interviews to give you more perspectives:

Part IV--with Betty Peters, Beth Schultz, Audrey Buffington, and Anne Marie Banfield 

Part V--with Donna Garner, Sue Neuwein, Margaret Dobbs, Wanda McDonald and Pastor Mary Shellnut

More links worth reading (we will keep posting more daily):

Common Sense on Common Core

Anne Marie Banfield

Beth Schultz

Jamie Gass