Despite the horrific nature of this crime against our children, a June 2014 Poll showed that nearly half of all Americans have never even heard of Common Core. Only one in four Americans said that they had heard “a lot” about it.
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/MSNBC/Sections/A_Politics/14463%20JUNE%20NBC-WSJ%20Poll%20%286-18%20Release%29.pdf
Even those one in four Americans that have heard a lot about Common Core have been badly misinformed about them thanks to a multibillion dollar mass media propaganda campaign paid for by Bill Gates. This misinformation campaign includes a series of “push polls” that have made false statements about Common Core in order to drum up support for Common Core. For example, the poll taken in June 2014 included this misleading question:
“Just to make sure that everyone has the same information, let me describe the Common Core standards in a bit more detail. The Common Core standards are a new set of education standards for English and math that have been set to internationally competitive levels and would be used in every state for students in grades K through 12. Based on this information, do you support or oppose the adoption and implementation of the Common Core standards in your state?”
The above statement is simply a lie. The Common Core standards have NOT been set to internationally competitive standards. No other nation on earth uses standards so high that two thirds of their students are unable to achieve the standards! Despite this obvious attempt to manipulate the public, only one in four people said they “strongly supported” Common Core. One in four strongly oppose it and the remaining half have yet to make up their minds. As is typical of most polls, the average respondent was much more wealthy that the average American with an annual family income of $50,000 to $75,000. Only one in four of the respondents had a child living in their household.
Thankfully, despite all the lies, deceptions, misinformation and push polls, resistance to Common Core standards, Common Core curriculum and Common Core testing by parents and teachers is growing. Despite the fact that we are going up against the richest and most powerful people in the world, who have used four billion dollars in “Race to the Top” blackmail money to corrupt education in 45 States, there are several reasons to believe that parents and teachers are beginning to wake up to the threats facing our kids and our schools.
First, a November 2013 national poll found that 56% of Americans now oppose standardized tests as the primary way to determine how schools, teachers and students are doing. Only one in four still support this insane practice.
http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/lifestyle/education/56_oppose_use_of_standardized_tests_as_chief_measure_of_school_performance
Second, in May 2014, the Chicago Teachers Union voted unanimously for a resolution opposing Common Core. Equally encouraging, polls in Chicago show that the leader of the Chicago Teachers Union is much more popular than the current Ed Reform mayor of Chicago. http://www.substancenews.net/articles.php?page=4967
The above may seem like a joke. But Duncan actually said this. Here is the link.
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/02/19/new-education-secretary-visits-brooklyn-school/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0
Third, a June 2014 poll taken in New York in the wake of the Common Core test disaster of 2013. This poll showed that 82 percent of New Yorkers now oppose Common Core Standards and their associated high stakes tests. In March 2014, the Governor of New York was forced to place a several year hold on Common Core testing in New York. This shows that once kids are harmed by Common Core tests, parents start to wake up. http://wnyt.com/article/stories/s3474870.shtml
Fourth, a national June 2014 poll found parents with school aged children were rapidly turning against Common Core. Only 34% believe the federal government should set education standards for the entire nation. That is an 18-point drop from 52% who supported federal education standards in a November 2013 poll. Meanwhile, parents who oppose Common Core rose from one in four in November 2013 to one on two in June 2014. http://www.rasmussenreports.com/public_content/business/general_business/june_2014/common_core_support_among_those_with_school_age_kids_plummets
Fifth, in July 2014, the National Education Association voted to call for the resignation of US Department of (Corporate) Education and Chief Snake Oil Salesman, Arne Duncan. Similar resolutions had failed in past years, but the passage of this one is an indication that teachers are finally starting to wake up.
Sixth, in August 2014, a national poll found that 60% of the public and 62% of public school parents now oppose Common Core. This same poll showed that 68% of public school parents now oppose high stakes standardized tests as a waste of time and money. This same poll found that Americans preferred their local schools to be controlled by a local school board instead of the federal government by a margin of 4 to 1. http://pdkintl.org/noindex/PDK_Poll_46.pd
Seventh, in August 2014, our home state of Washington became the first State to stand up to Arne Duncan by refusing to implement his phony teacher evaluation program. Arne responded by revoking the NCLB waiver for Washington State. http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/esea-flexibility/index.html
The result of our State standing up to Arne Duncan was that every parent in Washington State received a letter telling them that their local school is a failure. This includes some of the most highly rated schools in the United States! This has sparked almost as much anger in Washington State as the despicable Common Core test results sparked in New York State – as many parents are learning about ed reform scams. Parents in Washington State want to know why their beloved local schools were declared a failure. The research of these parents will hopefully help wake them up to the scam of fake education reform.
In October 2014, a poll of 27,000 teachers in Tennessee found that after three years of bad experiences with the Common Core, 56% of teachers want to abandon it completely. "Support for Common Core among Tennessee teachers has waned so much since last year that a majority now opposes the academic standards.” Just a year earlier, 60% supported Common Core. By October 2014, only 31% still supported Common Core.
http://www.tennessean.com/story/news/education/2014/09/24/common-core-losing-support-tennessee-teachers-survey-finds/16171421/
Some polls have indicated support for Common Core. However, every one of these was a “push poll” that first lied to the public about the advantages and drawbacks of Common Core and then asked for the opinion of the public based upon the assumption that the lies they were told were true! Here is an example of one such push poll taken in Washington State in 2014.
There is no evidence that any of the benefits described in this poll are true. But making these false claims biases the results. Very few parents would support Common Core if they knew the tests would unfairly label 700,000 of our one million school children as failures.
States Leaving Common Core like Rats Deserting a Sinking Ship
In the past couple of years, State after State has dropped out of the Common Core nightmare. Like rats deserting a sinking ship, States have dropped the Common Core Standards or the Common Core tests or both. In September 2010, Arne Duncan awarded $330 million to PARCC ($170 million) and SBAC ($160 million). According to a USDOE press release, 46 States signed up for either or both of the two Common Core testing scams. But given Minnesota's resistance to the assessments, we will list it as one of the five non-adopter States:
2010 PARCC ONLY – 14 States: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, and Tennessee.
2010 SBAC ONLY – 19 States: Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.
2010 BOTH PARCC and SBAC (observers only) – 12 States: Alabama, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, North Dakota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. This meant that PARCC originally had a total of 26 States and SBAC had a total of 31 States.
2010 Never Adopted – 5 States: Alaska, Minnesota, Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia. Only 5 States resisted the propaganda and bribery.
Here is a map of the various States Common Core Tests in 2010.
Both Common Core Testing Scams Have Fallen Apart
The biggest loser has been PARCC – which is a test made by a terrible corporation called Pearson. As of January 2015, of the original 25 States in the PARCC camp, with 31 million students, there are only 10 States that have not yet abandoned the PARCC ship. These remaining states have only 5 million students. So PARCC total test takers have fallen by more than 80%:
PARCC Test down from 26 States to 9 States
A minimum of 15 States is required to get $186 million in federal funding. However, PARCC is now down to 10 States. In December 2014, Congress killed the remaining Race to the Top funding – which was funding both the PARCC and SBAC Common Core tests. It is therefore uncertain what Arne Duncan will do or how PARCC will be funded in the future. The first to leave PARCC was California which switched to SBAC on June 9 2011. This was followed by South Carolina in August 2012. In 2013, Alabama left in February, Pennsylvania left in June, Indiana left in July, Georgia and North Dakota left in August and Florida left in September. In Florida in 2013, a furor erupted when only 27 percent of fourth-graders passed the PARCC writing test. The state Board of Education promptly, and retroactively, lowered the score required to pass the test - and in a flash, the pass rate jumped to 81 percent. So much for the magic of high stakes tests!
In 2014, Oklahoma left in January, Kentucky left in March, Florida left in May, Arizona, Louisiana and Tennessee left in June, New York made “special arrangements” in July. In New York, after two years of public outrage over the PARCC test (that only had about a 33% pass rate), the State legislature voted to delay the consequences of the Common Core test and to set up a different State controlled test. All of the above revolts meant that by the August 2014 deadline to pay Pearson for the 2015 PARCC test, only 9 States were left: AR, CO, IL, MD, MA, NJ, NM, OH, and RI. Delaware and New Hampshire are now both SBAC States. Mississippi pulled out of PARCC in January 2015. Indiana, Oklahoma Louisiana and South Carolina have repealed the Common Core standards altogether. In New Jersey, a bill that would slow down the introduction of the Common Core education standards and the use of test scores in teacher evaluations passed the Assembly Education Committee with unanimous support. So it is likely New Jersey will shortly be out of PARCC. This would drop the number of PARCC States down to 8. The PARCC contract in New Mexico is also in dispute after a Pearson connected “bidding scandal.” If this lawsuit succeeds, PARCC/Pearson would be down to 7 States. Massachusetts has put PARCC on hold. This would drop PARCC to only 6 States.
http://truthinamericaneducation.com/common-core-state-standards/states-fighting-back-map/
SBAC Test also losing States like Rats leaving a Sinking Ship
In 2010, SBAC started with 31 states, 17 of which were designated as governing states. As of July 21, 2014, SBAC still lists 22 states on its website. Unlike PARCC, SBAC appears to still be above the 15-state mark for federal funding.
http://www.smarterbalanced.org/
Here is a map of the States from the SBAC website:
According to the SBAC website, the 17 governing States are: CA, CT, DE, HI, ID, ME, MI, MT, NV, NH, ND, OR, SD, VT, WA, WV, and WI. The 3 remaining affiliated Members are IA, NC and WY. This would indicate that SBAC still has 20 States. The map incorrectly shows Missouri. But they are developing their own test for 2016.
In 2012, Utah withdrew from SBAC. In 2013, Pennsylvania opted out in favor of its own test. In December 2013, Kansas jumped ship. Missouri defunded Common Core testing in favor of their own State test. Missouri still owes SBAC $4.2 million for a test it has now disavowed. So there is still a chance it will use the test in 2015 but then get a different test for 2016. Wyoming joined SBAC in late 2010. However, it has decided to not sign the SBAC agreement and will not administer the SBAC test in 2015. So they are effectively opting out. In August 2014, Iowa also withdrew from SBAC. This brings SBAC down to the following 18 States: CA, CT, DE, HI, ID, ME, MI, MT, NV, NC, NH, ND, OR, SD, VT, WA, WV, and WI. North Carolina and Michigan may be the next two States to pull out of SBAC. Combined with the 8 States still actively in PARCC, there will be about 25 States giving the SBAC and PARCC tests in 2015.
http://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2014/12/09/common_core_future_elections_heat_map_1140.html#map
Here is a map of where things likely stand as of January 2015:
Below is a table summarizing all of these changes.
How many kids will take either the SBAC or PARCC test in 2015?
When you combine the New York Pearson test, which is similar to the Pearson PARCC test, it is likely that up to 60 percent of US 50 million students will take the SBAC or PARCC tests in 2015. This would mean 30 million students will be exposed to these toxic unfair “designed to fail” tests in 2015 and that 20 million of these 30 million children will be unfairly labeled as “failure” - including students that would be among the top performing students in the world. Most of these “failures” will be from poor families. There is now a rapidly spreading national revolt against Common Core standards as more folks become more aware of the drawbacks of this scam. There are bills being entered opposing Common Core standards and Common Core tests in nearly every State in the nation.
While the Common Core tests are being rejected, what about the Common Core Standards they are supposed to measure?
While some states are seeking to repeal the standards and replace them with their own in-house standards, others have simply chosen to continue using the Common Core standards, but under another name. Arizona, Florida and Iowa have all renamed the standards as "Arizona's College and Career Ready Standards," the "Next Generation Sunshine State Standards" and "The Iowa Core," respectively. Upon signing the executive order to change the name of Arizona's standards, Gov. Jan Brewer said the move was "reaffirming Arizona's right to set education policy," although the Common Core standards will still be used.
Parents Protest Punitive High Stakes Tests
Clearly, a backlash against high-stakes standardized testing is sweeping through U.S. school districts as parents, teachers, and administrators protest that the exams are unfair, unreliable and unnecessarily punitive. This is not a left vs right issue. It is not a Republican vs. Democrat issue. It is a propaganda vs. truth issue. The closer we get to a billionaire takeover of our public schools, the more parents and teachers are waking up and starting to fight back. Our goal is to give parents and teachers the information they need to fight back and win
What does the future hold for Common Core Blackmail?
Given the reaction of parents to Common Core after test results were announced in Kentucky, New York and Florida during the past two years, and given that Congress recently defunded Arne Duncan's Race to the Top blackmail scheme, it would be reasonable to conclude that Common Core tests and standards will disappear in the next couple of years. As we've explaine, 30 million students in 26 States will be subjected to Common core tests in 2015. 20 million of these students will be falsely and unfairly labeled as “failure” thanks to the inflated Common Core cut scores and manipulated Common Core test questions. This will result in 40 million angry parents – most of whom are also voters.
How will 40 million Upset Parents affect the 2016 Congressional and Presidential Elections?
Given how close Congressional and Presidential elections have been in recent years, 40 million upset parents and the issue of Common Core privatization of our public schools could be a major issue in the 2016 elections and opposition to Common Core by either major party could tip the election towards one or the other of the two major political parties. But this assumes that at least one of the parties and their Presidential candidate is wise enough to oppose Common Core. Unfortunately, billionaires have backed both of the likely presidential candidates for the 2016 election – Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton and both candidates support Common Core. Billionaires have been controlling our Presidential elections since at least the 1980s.
Five Presidents all promoting Common Core
Common Core is closely linked to the Reagan testing craze that began in the 1980s and continued with the Bush and Clinton administrations in the 1990s and with the Bush II and Obama administrations after that. There is a direct link from the National Governors Association in 1990 to Achieve in 1996 to the American Diploma Project and No Child Left Behind in 2001 to Student Achievement Partners in 2007 to Common Core and Race to the Top in 2009. It is not just a coincidence that all of the States that were “early adopters” of Common Core were previously part of the American Diploma Project Network (ADP). In fact, there was no difference between ADP and CCSS.
Why did NGA, CCSSO and Achieve insist on writing new national standards when there were already many States that had standards superior to Common Core Standards?
Many commentators had observed that States such as Massachusetts had spent years developing their own State Standards that were written by teachers and had broad acceptance by teachers. So why was Student Achievement Partners contracted to basically re-invent the wheel? Some have claimed new standards were needed so that NGA and CCSSO could own and copyright the Common Core Standards. But this just leads to the question: Why did the billionaires behind NGA and CCSSO feel like they needed to own the standards? The corporate propaganda was that none of the State standards were good enough to get kids “career and college ready.” But this claim is nonsense. Many state Standards had a long track record of getting students career and college ready.
Another common claim is that the billionaires wanted to own the national standards so that they could control the text books and tests associated with these standards – and make money selling these CCSS aligned tests and books. This explanation is slightly more plausible because corporations like Pearson are making billions of dollars on CCSS books and tests. However, the new “CCSS aligned” tests and books are so bad that they are not really aligned to the CCSS standards. So this is only a partial reason for wanting to “own” and control the standards. Our view is that the billionaires want bad standards and bad tests. This is why there was no field testing of the new standards and why the CCSS standards and CCSS aligned books and tests have turned out so bad. It is because they are supposed to be bad. This is also why the Common Core standards are so developmentally inappropriate.
The goal of Common Core has nothing to do with getting students career and college ready. Instead, the goal all along has been to raise the bar of high stakes testing so high that few students can pass the tests. This allows billionaires to falsely label American schools as failures so they can close public schools and replace them with private for profit corporate run schools.
This is a clearly different history than the fake history put out by Bill Gates and the Gates Foundation and the corporate run American fake news media. Common Core did not start after a 2 hour conversation with Bill Gates in 2008. Instead, it was the culmination of a project to destroy and privatize our public schools that began in the early 1980s. Nor were the Common Core standards produced in a few months between 2009 and 2010. Instead, Achieve had been working on these standards for several years via the American Diploma Project. CCSS was in part simply prior State Standards all stirred together by three people who did not know what they were doing. This is what made Common Core standards worse than the prior State standards.
This history of Common Core is clearly different from that being promoted by the corporate media and may be difficult for many Americans to believe. We have all been taught by the corporate media that there was a change from the Republican presidencies of Reagan and Bush One to the Democratic Presidency of Bill Clinton and then back to the Republican presidency of Bush Two followed by the Democratic presidency of Barack Obama. In fact, since 1980, there has been only one party, the billionaire party, that controls the leadership of both the Republican and Democratic parties. Recently George Bush Two referred to Bill Clinton as his “brother by a different mother.” It is looking like 2016 will be another presidential election in which the likely leading candidates of both major parties, Hillary Clinton and Jeb Bush, both support Common Core and High Stakes testing.
In November 2014, Bill Clinton and George Bush Two joke about whether Hillary will beat Jeb. Either way, whoever wins, the billionaires will win and the corporate assault on our public schools will continue. In a previous chapter, we covered Hillary Clinton's relationship with Marc Tucker and the Walton billionaires in setting up the Goals 2000 Ed Reform scam. Jeb Bush is equally up to his eyeballs in the Ed Reform scam. He has a group called Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE) which has collected over six million dollars from the Gates Foundation to promote Common Core, Charter Schools and other privatization scams. Here is just one of the grants:
Bill Gates also gave Bill Clinton's foundations more than $20 million. Here is just one of the grants:
In short, the billionaire attack on our public schools will continue if either Hillary or Jeb win the 2016 Presidential Election because both candidates represent the billionaires:
Why State Standards are Better than National Standards
The 10th Amendment to the United States Constitution states that any powers not expressly given to the federal government are reserved to the State governments. Because education is not a power given to the federal government, it is a process reserved for the States. This was how Thomas Jefferson and other founders of our nation wanted it to be. They wanted each State to be an experiment in Democracy. They believed in strength through diversity. They opposed rigid national standards. Having different education systems in each State allows parents to have more local control over the education of their children. Encouraging different states to try different curriculum allows us to observe what works versus what does not work. Forcing Texas standards, Texas Curriculum and Texas High Stakes tests on Washington State children deprives Washington State parents of a voice in the education of their children.
There are also numerous federal laws that prohibit the federal government from dictating national standards, national curriculum or national tests on individual states. So Common Core standards, tests and curriculum are clearly not legal. But because Bill Gates and other billionaires believe they are above the law and because they have enough money to bribe our corrupt elected officials, most State legislatures voted to adopt Common Core sight unseen without any analysis or testing to confirm that Common Core standards were better than the previous educational standards that already existed in nearly every State.
Thankfully, some parents and teachers have seen first hand how Common Core texts and tests harm children. These caring parents and teachers have banded together to oppose Common Core. They are starting to put the dots together and realizing that Common Core is part of a much bigger plan to destroy and privatize our public schools.
What about Student Mobility... Don't We Need National Standards to Help Children who move from one state to the next?
One of the most common arguments billionaires use as a reason for imposing national educational standards on all 50 states is that we need national standards and tests for every student in every grade in order to help students who move from one state to another. However, according to a 2011 US Census Report, only 200,000 students move between States every year. This is less than one half of one percent of the 50 million students who attend public schools in the US. Is it right to cause severe harm to 49,800,000 students in order to make schools more uniform for the tiny fraction of students who migrate from one state to another? http://www.census.gov/hhes/migration/data/cps/cps2011.html
Common Core Standards, Curriculum and Tests have already harmed millions of children
As we have shown, the Common Core High Stakes tests have almost nothing to do with the Common Core Curriculum or Common Core standards. Instead, the goal of the new tests is simply to flunk as many kids as possible. In Kentucky in 2012, 60% of 670,000 students failed the new billionaire designed Common Core tests. The total number who failed the test was about 402,000. In New York State in 2013, over 70% of 2.7 million students failed the new high stakes, high failure rate tests. The total number who failed the test was 1.9 million. Thus the total number of students tested so far has been 3.3 million and 2.3 million failed these high failure rate tests. Here is a link to the 2000 page report with the failure rate in New York State broken down by individual school and grade.
http://www.p12.nysed.gov/irs/ela-math/2013/2013ELAandMathemaitcsDistrictandBuildingAggregatesMedia.pdf
Again, the purpose of flunking students is to erode support for public schools and thereby make it easier to close and privatize public schools. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, about 2,000 public schools per year have been closed in the US since the push for privatizing schools began in 2004. This is double the rate of school closures in the 1990s where about 1000 public schools closed every year. These school closures affected the lives of over 300,000 students per year who now live with the guilt that because they failed a test, their school was closed. In ten years, 3 million children have been subjected to losing the school they love.
https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=64
During this same time, the number of privately controlled scandal ridden charter schools rose from under 2,000 schools to more than 5,000 schools – with enrollment skyrocketing from under 500,000 students to nearly 2 million students. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d12/tables/dt12_108.asp
Cradle to Grave Data Tracking of every child
Another harm being inflicted on all students as a result of Common Core standards and Common Core tests is frightening increase in database monitoring of students from “cradle to grave.” On June 9, 2009, Arne Duncan gave a speech in which he explained why he wants to use Common Core tests and standards to track student data from the cradle to the grave: “We need robust data systems to track student achievement and teacher effectiveness... We want to see more states build comprehensive systems that track students from pre-K through college and then link school data to workforce data. We want to know whether Johnny participated in an early learning program and completed college on time and whether those things have any bearing on his earnings as an adult.”
http://www2.ed.gov/news/speeches/2009/06/06082009.html
This problem with high stakes high failure rate Common Core testing is about to get much worse in the Spring of 2015 as over 40 million school children in States around the nation will be subjected to the insanely difficult standards of the two Common Core tests (SBAC and PARCC). One of the goals of public education is to help students learn how to separate deception from truth and reality from myth. Knowledge is the antidote to propaganda. Research is the cure for ignorance. Our goal is to help students, parents and teachers better understand the extent to which we are all being bombarded with weapons of mass deception in a war against our public schools.
Fair Assessment should Help not Harm Students
There has always been testing in public schools. Historically, the tests were developed by teachers. The theory was that an experienced teacher - who had spent the entire year observing a child and knew whether that child had completed their homework and how the child scored on an entire series of tests given throughout the school year – that teacher was in a better position to judge whether a child was ready to move onto the next grade than a “one size fits all” standardized test written by some far away bureaucrat. Some have politely referred to those trying to destroy our public schools as “corporate reformers.” The truth is that the goal of Wall Street billionaires is not to reform public schools but to destroy them. Those involved in this hoax should more accurately be called “corporate raiders.”
The Real Goal of Corporate Raiders
Corporate raiders know their “reforms” have not worked and will not work. Shocking as this may seem, they do not care. In fact, they have deliberately promoted one hoax after another because they want public schools to fail. They want teachers to fail and they want kids to fail. In fact, the new Common Core tests are “designed to fail.”
The reason these corporate raiders want kids to fail is that corporate raiders truly believe in the power of greed, competition and privatization. They see public schools as a giant waste of money. We currently spend $10,000 per child per year in operating public schools and another $4,000 per year in building and repairing schools. Multiply $14,000 per year times 50 million students in our nation's public schools and you get $700 billion dollars per year. According to the National Center for Educational Statistics, 5% of the entire GDP of the United States is spent on public schools. In other words, five cents out of every dollar you earn goes towards the education of our children. Wall Street wants this money transferred from public hands to private hands. They want it all. The only way to stop this evil plan is to fully expose it for what it is – a corporate takeover by corporate raiders.
In the eyes of Wall Street, there is actually a benefit in driving a company (our public schools) out of business prior to the takeover as the stock price or purchase price will be much less if the public values the product (public education) much less. Destroy the brand name of public education and it is easier to take over the business. The only problem with the corporate takeover plan is that public schools have proven to be remarkably resistant to their takeover attempts. Despite all of the attacks on public schools during the past 30 years, student test scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) math and reading tests have actually gone up – to the point that students today are one to two grade levels above what they were 30 years ago.
The success of our public schools creates a real problem for corporate raiders. It is difficult to claim that schools are failing and scores are falling, when student test scores are actually going up and the graduation rate is going up. If you are a corporate raider out to destroy and takeover public schools, what you need is some way to greatly reduce student test scores and thereby artificially increase the number and percentage of students who are “failing.”
As we have now shown, Common Core is a very poorly written set of National learning standards. In fact, it is much more than that. It is the bullet billionaires are firing into the heart of our public schools in order to “prove to parents” that our public schools are a failure and should be privatized and turned over to the billionaires.
What to Put in Place of Common Core?
Instead of Common Core what we really need is common sense. It is common sense that replacing thousands of experienced teachers with poorly trained “TFA” recruits will not help our students. It is common sense that forcing 3rd graders to take high stakes tests knowing they will lose their teacher and maybe even their school should they fail the test is harmful to 3rd graders. It is common sense that tests which fail 70% of the students are simply unfair tests. Thankfully, there is a simple solution to this problem. That solution is to honor the US Constitution and encourage every state to set their own learning standards. Learning standards should be written into clear language that the public can understand.
To see what clarity looks like, read the mathematics standards of Finland. They are clear, concise and jargon free. They explain what students should know. Learning standards should also be transparently and openly reviewed and revised by experts in child development. Children deserve standards that respect their cognitive growth. Equally important is to completely end the barbaric practice of giving high stakes high failure rate tests to young children.
In the next chapter, we will learn about charter schools – the third weapon of mass deception. We will show in the next article that Common Core is the weapon being used to introduce new Common Core tests. What parents need to understand is that these new tests have almost nothing to do with the new Common Core standards. The goal of the new tests is not to raise standards, but simply to sharply lower test scores by any means necessary. This includes asking test questions that are not even part of the Common Core standards. This will give the billionaires the excuse they need to close our public schools and replace them with for profit charter schools – schools run by the billionaires.