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The School CEO: The truth about the Common Core

By Jeanne Whitmore - | May 11, 2013

A group called Utahns Against Common Core are rallying support for repealing the Common Core in Utah. This article is to refute and explain why their “evidence” is just plain wrong or misguided.

Below are their claims in italic.

1. Utah did not seek out CCI; the initiative was presented as an eligibility enhancement by the U.S. Department of Education in its The Race To The Top grant. Joining the SBAC, too, improved eligibility in the grant application. When Utah agreed to join the CCI and SBAC in 2009, the standards had not yet been written. Utah joined both the CCI and the SBAC to win points toward getting the grant, and although Utah won no money, the extremely expensive and educationally restricting consequences of having agreed to sign up for CCI and SBAC remain.
 

Just because the Federal Department of Education supports the Common Core doesn’t make it evil or bad. Even a broken clock is right twice per day. The Common Core Standards should be evaluated on their own merit and not dismissed because it improved eligibility for a grant.

Utah withdrew from SBAC in August of 2012. So, SBAC does not, in fact, remain. This proves that Utah’s adoption of these measures is completely voluntary and up to Utah.

2. Utah has two new, conflicting sets of educational standards to juggle- the Utah Common Core, to which we currently teach, and the CCSS, to which our tests are being written. Utah is not likely to stick with the Utah Common Core when testing begins based on the federal CCSS in 2014. The appendix to the SBAC states that the tests will be based on the CCSS (federal) standards, and the SBAC project manager, WestEd, has affirmed: ”In order for this [testing] system to have a real impact within a state, the state will need to adopt the Common Core State Standards (i.e., not have two sets of standards.)” -April 2012 statement from WestEd Assessments and Standards Senior Research Associate
 

Yes, we have two sets of standards in Math and English. This would be the case every time we enhance, upgrade, or improve our standards. The Utah Core Standards are always evolving and changing.  While calling for enhanced or improved standards this group also seems to feel that could happen without changing. Whatever Utah did with its standards inevitably we would have to transition.

The new CCS are not that much different than Utah’s current standards. We are not going to start teaching physics in the first grade, for instance. It’s only a matter of moving some small subset of standards up a grade or back a grade.

And of course, the testing system will have to align with what is being taught, that is just common sense.

3. There is no amendment process for the CCSS (federal standards) and withdrawing from the SBAC requires consortium and federal approval (page 12). If we delay the state will be too financially invested and legally entangled to withdraw.
 

First, the CCSS is not a federal, meaning government, standard. The standards are designed and agreed to by the people who sign up for them. As long as Utah is a member of the Common Core Standards Initiative we will have a voice in the standards.

Withdrawing from the SBAC does not require Federal approval. Utah already withdrew based on a vote by the State School Board. See this link for the article. 

4. There has been no cost analysis, legal analysis, legislative input or public input regarding CCI/SBAC.  Implementation of CCI has already begun in Utah schools; full implementation of the initiative and its tests will be completed in the 2014-2015 school year.
 

The Utah State School Board is a public body and is subject to the same open meeting laws as all public bodies in Utah.

Is there a cost to changing standards? Yes, there is, but that would have been the case for any new standard. The alternative would be to never change our standards, which no one is proposing. There are very low cost ways of changing over to the new standards. Teachers can use current text and curriculum and enhancing them with free resources. There are lots of ways to use the web and free resources creatively to enhance classroom teaching. Most teachers know how to do this because it’s what they do all day long.

5. Utah leaders have signed Utah on as a governing member of the SBAC. As a governing member we get one vote out of 21 governing states to influence deviations from the original assessment structure and scope, consortium policy, and consortium governance. Utah can be held hostage by other states.
 

Utah withdrew from SBAC: Reference.

6. The U.S. Department of Education (through the America COMPETES Act, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, and the Race to the Top competition) has required the states to develop massive databases about school children.
 

The America Competes Act was signed into effect by President Bush in 2007. If there was a requirement to create a massive Federal Database of our children in this act, then we should have it by now. There is no such database.  Likewise the ARRA act and the Race to the Top Grant were awarded in 2009, still no massive federal database. In addition, only 12 states received the funds and Utah was not one of those states.

As an educator, I can assure you that there has been no request for any student identifiable information from the school to report to the Federal Government.

All grants from the State of Utah and the Federal Government require some form of reporting of how money was spent and how students were served. This is not new to these grants. This reporting is always summary data and is presented in the form of  a report not loaded into a database.

If Utahans don’t want Federal intrusion into Utah schools it’s quite simple to do that, just stop requesting and taking the Federal money.

7. The Common Core initiative represents an overreach of federal power into personal privacy as well as into state educational autonomy. There will be personal student information collected via the centralized testing-data collection, accessible to the Executive Branch. SBAC assessments’ inclusion of  psychometric testing for database profiling purposes and is a violation of Utah law per code section 53A-13-302.
 

Utah is not part of the SBAC so there will be no psychometric testing. The Common Core initiative has nothing to do with collecting information about students. It is just a list of standards in reading and math.

If Utah doesn’t want federal involvement in Utah schools, then Utah should stop asking for and receiving money from the Federal Government.

8. Both of the CCI’s testing arms (SBAC and PARCC) must coordinate tests and share information “across consortia” as well as giving the U.S. Department of Education phone responses, written status updates and access to information “on an ongoing basis.” Data will be triangulated with control, oversight and centralization by the Executive Branch (U.S. Dept. of Education). “Cooperative Agreement between the U.S. DOE and the SBAC”
 

Utah is not part of the SBAC and has contracted with a completely different testing group. The contract to purchase the new testing service was an open competitive grant subject to the rules and regulations as any other public purchase.

Further, testing is not in any way linked to the implementation of the Common Core Standards. Proof?: All students in 3 – 12th grade are being testing on the new Common Core Standards in Math and English right now all across Utah. They are being tested using the same Utah, home grown, Utah created, testing system we have always used in the past.

The link above is between the State of Washington and the DOE and does not have anything to do with Utah.

9. The Department of Education has eviscerated the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) by issuing new regulations that allow nonconsensual tracking and sharing of this personal data with other federal agencies, with government agencies in other states, and with private entities.
 

As a school administrator I can tell you that there has been no information promulgated to Utah Schools of any change to FERPA.   I believe this statement to be completely false.  As of today, May 5th 2013 the US Department of Education page on FERPA has the following statement:

FERPA generally prohibits the improper disclosure of personally identifiable information derived from education records. Thus, information that an official obtained through personal knowledge or observation, or has heard orally from others, is not protected under FERPA. This remains applicable even if education records exist which contain that information, unless the official had an official role in making a determination that generated a protected education record.
 

The Department of Education can’t change legislation by Congress. Only Congress can change legislation.  If the Department of Education is changing rules and regulations regarding FERPA then Utah should sue them and have it changed back. But attaching the Common Core because of what the Department of Education may or may not have done regarding privacy laws is completely non-sensical. One has nothing to do with the other.

10. Utah has ceded her voice and educational sovereignty because Utah’s top educational leaders are persuaded that having standards and testing in common with other states matters more than holding onto the state’s right to raise standards sky-high. To Utah education leaders, the right to soar seems a freedom not worth fighting for, and maintaining state educational sovereignty is not a priority. In an April 2012 statement from the Utah State Office of Education’s legal department: ” The whole point is to get to a place where there is a ‘common core’ – that would mean the same standards for all the states that adopt it.  If the states had the freedom to ‘disagree’ and ‘change’ them, I guess they would no longer be ‘common’.”
 

Utah also has agreed to standard weights and measures and the width of railroad tracks and other standards that exist across the country. Does this mean that Utah has ceded its sovereignty over how many ounces are in a pound and how many inches are in a feet? Utah didn’t cede its sovereignty because it can withdraw from the Common Core Standards at any time, just like it withdrew from SBAC.

Frankly, Utah cedes its sovereignty every time it takes a dollar from the Federal Government, not by agreeing to be part of a completely voluntary non-government controlled program.

11. The effort to nationalize and centralize education results in severe loss of state control of education and pushes states into a minimalist, common set of standards.  Dr. Sandra Stotsky, an official member of the CCSS Validation Committee, refused to sign off on the adequacy of the standards and testified that “Common Core has yet to provide a solid evidentiary base for its minimalist conceptualization of college readiness-and for equating college readiness with career readiness. Moreover…it had no evidence on both issues.”
 

Ask a Utah educator if the standards are better than what Utah has now. I believe they are. Naming one person who disagrees with them is hardly an argument. We can move to this set of standards which are more precise and higher than what we have now, then work to improve on them. Deciding to stay where we are is not an option because most people agree we need better written and higher standards.

12. The Common Core standards are experimental, expensive, controversial, and have not been piloted.
 

This is not actual evidence, it is more of a statement of opinion. We are not trying out a new vaccine for stupidity, we are just moving from our current standards to a slightly better one.

13. Common Core standards are not considered among the best standards in the nation, and there are clearly superior standards.  Additionally, the CCI robs states of the sovereign right to raise state standards in the future. There’s no provision for  amending the CCSS federal standards, were we to choose to still remain bound by them.
 

They may not be the best standards, but we can’t allow perfection to be the enemy of the good. We can choose to remove ourselves from the Common Core Initiative at any time. The new standards are better than what we have now. Let’s move from strength to strength and then work on improving the standards through the completely voluntary and state based standards organization over time.

14. The Common Core English standards reduce the study of literature in favor of informational texts designed to train children in a school-to-work agenda. The unsophisticated composition of those selected to write the Common Core Standards and the lack of transparency about the standards-writing process also raises concerns.
 

Not true. The English texts are a wonderful collection of classical literature. The literature collection is not even part of the Standards, it is only a suggested reading list. States can adopt their own reading list. Also, some of the informational texts include: The Declaration of Independence, The Constitution of the United States, etc.

15. CCSS states a goal to promote “career and college ready standards,” a euphemism for “school-to-work” programs, diluting individual choice by directing children where to go and what to learn. They make no distinction between 2-year, 4-year or vocational standards.
 

Untrue. The Common Core Standards is only a list of what children should have learned by grade level in reading and math. No part of the Common Core Standards directs children on how to lead their lives. If anything it increases the standards so that children will have more choices.   

16. Common Core has not proven to be state-led nor strictly voluntary; the U.S. Department of Education Secretary rages against states who reject the Common Core Initiative.
 

The fact that states have voluntarily not agreed to the common core seems to invalidate your argument. If states can pull out of it, then I think by definition it is voluntary.

17.  The Common Core Initiative, far from being state-designed, is the product of the U.S. Department of Education funding and directing special interest groups (NGA, CCSSO, NCEE, Achieve, Inc., WestEd, and others) via federal grants.
 

Let’s evaluate the Common Core Standards on their own merit, not based on conspiracy theories. If you don’t like the Federal Department of Education, then work to abolish it or stop receiving the funding.

The Common Core Initiative is a product of the State Governors Association belief in the need for common state education standards to assist students and families.

18.  The Common Core Initiative violates fundamental laws that protect states’ independence. The Federal Government’s creation of national curricular materials, through contractors, and its control and oversight of testing and data collection, and its tests written to federal, nationalized standards, are in violation of three existing laws: NCLB, the Department of Education Organization Act, and the General Education Provisions Act; States have a responsibility to protect the balance of powers granted in the Constitution.
 

The Common Core Standards in no way tell states or Agencies what curriculum or texts to use. I am the founder of a charter school. Implementation of the Common Core standards did not require us to change the texts we are using. Utah children are being taught the Common Core standards right now in Math and English. As far as I am award there was not a massive overhaul of texts and curriculum to accommodate that change.

19.  Transparency and  public debate about Common Core are lacking.  Utah educational leaders have a responsibility to encourage public discussion and lively debate about Common Core, because the initiative will impact children, taxpayers and teachers for a long time to come.
 

It seems like we are debating it right now.

””Jeanne Whitmore is the founder and CEO of American Fork charter school Aristotle Academy and an education columnist for the American Fork Citizen. You can learn more about Aristotle Academy at aristotleacademyk8.org or on Facebook. 

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