Nebraska Taxpayers for Freedom Issue Paper: commoncore1.doc. 4-13.
BACKGROUND. Conservatives are legitimately alarmed
about the Obama Administration Common Core curriculum pressed onto our public
schools. The regime heavily pushes this
curricula through its $4.35 billion 2009 Race to the Top education grant
competition bribery. Many states have
embraced Common Core to grab these massive grants. States that accepted its precepts received bonus
points in their applications. This plan
awards points to states that adopt this common set of K-12 standards that are
mostly identical all over America. Obama’s Education Dept. has awarded over
$360 million to 2 liberal groups to create student assessments in Common
Core. Obama herded states into adopting
these standards without time to deliberate on their adequacy, requiring
adoption approved by state education dept. officials, if states want to obtain
federal waivers from the 2002 No Child Left Behind law. If Obama succeeds, states like NE will lose
federal funds by adhering to their own standards, denied access to Race to the
Top federal dollars for refusing Common Core.
VALID CRITICISM. Common Core eradicates local school board
control over the K-12 math and English curricula, substituting a lone,
federally-imposed curricula that applies to public, private, parochial, and
home schools.
Proponents advise that
national standards will improve academic performance; however, these new
standards evidence no proof that they are better than current NE
standards.
No district has tested these
standards, which use unproved instructional methods. These standards base on
unproved ideas and questionable assumptions.
The job of teaching our kids is too important to depend on untested,
common methods pushed by companies that have financial interests in selling textbooks,
technology, and academic assessment but not accountable to parents or
taxpayers. Several private corporations will make huge profits, with less money
reaching classrooms.
Our children will
become guinea pigs.
In Massachusetts,
adopting Common Core meant dumping academic standards regarded as the best in
the nation.
In many states, Common Core
standards are inferior to state standards.
There exists no evidence that a federal curriculum brings high academic
achievement.
France and Denmark boast
national curricula that do not reflect high achievement on international
testing.
Contrarily, both Canada and
Australia use many regional curricula and show better results.
A Brookings Institution study found that
common state standards do little to equalize academic achievement among states.
Instruction
is confusing.
Common Core requires
pupils to explain a math problem before doing the calculation, complicating the
teaching of basic math.
Teachers become
confused with the unfamiliarity of teaching this product.
Students do not learn traditional math, like
multiplication, until a grade or two later. In Common Core math, kids abandon
concrete skills for abstract confusing methodology.
Elementary kids who got “A” grades struggle
to explain how they find answers after using mental math in Common Core and get
lower grades.
These math standards delay
development of key concepts and skills, instructions written at a level
confusing to teachers, students, parents, and administrators.
Math standards not well-organized at the high
school level, several important topics insufficiently covered, and standards
not divided into defined courses. To avoid attention, proponents have focused
only on math and English, aiming to eventually extend Common Core to all
subjects.
Math standards are
inferior.
A math professor, the only
mathematician on the validation committee, refused to sign off on the math
standards, declaring that they would drop many pupils 2 yrs. behind those in
many other nations.
One most tragic
change for English classes is the requirement that 50% or more of readings in
Grades 6-12 come from informational instead of cultural texts.
Such means that curricula will not include
many classic works in American and other literature.
Popular treatises like
Common Sense,
the Gettysburg Address, and
To Kill A Mockingbird are not present, only
on a list of reading suggestions.
No
research tells that college readiness comes from reading informational items in
high school classes.
Conservatives around the country are angry
about the secretive process by which Common Core standards became adopted,
allowing for few or no public hearings, blocked from the legislative process.
The conservative Cato Institute noted that
state lawmakers are surprised when academic curricula become snatched from
their prerogatives.
Common Core defines
contents for all U.S. K-12 math and English texts and defines what our kids
will learn and not learn.
No empirical
validation of standards or metric to monitor intended or unintended
consequences.
No early childhood
teachers or child development experts were included in the K-3 standards
formulation process, because Common Core shocked these professionals.
Standard writers had no background in child
development or early childhood education.
The Joint Statement of Early Childhood Health & Education
Professionals statement criticizing Common Core garnered signatures from over
500 prominent early childhood professionals, like educators, pediatricians,
developmental psychologists, and researchers.
The statement read that Common Core conflicts with new research in cognitive
science, neuroscience, child development, and early childhood education about
how young kids learn, what content they should learn, and the best methods to
teach them in kiddiegarden and early grades.
Common Core pilots are disappointing.
One principal told of his school piloting the assessment, whereby the
failure rate rose dramatically, particularly among slow learners.
COMMON CORE TESTING. After adoption of Common Core curricula, its
standardized testing is approaching fast.
No national standardized test can effectively measure what teachers
teach in each public school system.
Common Core demands a great increase in testing, much more than the
already excessive amount required by No Child Left Behind. NYC will spend over a half billion on
technology, so that its students can take electronically federal tests. Research proves that increasing testing does
not increase achievement. NE school
districts suffer funding squeezes, but Common Core costs billions for new
textbooks, infrastructure like high speed networks, new software for additional
computers, training, consultants, and tests.
COST
TO TAXPAYERS. Adoption is
expensive, and states adopting C
ommon C
ore jump into an assessment quagmire without estimates
on costs. Local school administrators
complain that Obama grants do not cover the requirements, costing much more to
implement all the mandates. The
education establishment likewise complained for years about the unexpected
costs of No Child Left Behind. Common
Core will repeat this expensive lesson in forcing another underfunded ed
mandate on states. NE probably would not
qualify for federal funding now, leaving NE taxpayers to pay the entire
bill.
LEFTIST
CURRICULA. One lesson features a
video titled China Rises, that
praises the virtues of Chinese communism over capitalism. The leftist New York Times co-produced
this propaganda piece. Another lesson
regrets children inability to vote, as they understand global warming and war
better than adults who make world problems worse. Common Core uses UN programs to institute
international curricula. Materials promote “alternative lifestyles,” criticize
capitalism, praise labor unions, redistribution of wealth, radical
environmentalism, and social justice, and debase of Judeo-Christianity. The
liberal progressive school-to-work plan will allow the Obama Regime to put
everything in place to plan for future labor markets. Common Core promotes a model of a command
economy and unlimited federal governance.
Proponents want to control our schools, so that our children will become
conditioned to accept that the federal government has the right to order them
to serve its economic commands.
Government will be the master, not the servant.
ITS FUNDING. Common Core has received funding from the
Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and other leftwing sources.
ITS
SUPPORTERS. The leftwing American Federation of Teachers (AFT)
endorses Common Core. Several creators of Common Core standards have accepted
employment with testing companies that will accrue millions of dollars
developing tests based on the standards they created.
HOME SCHOOLS
UNSAFE. Saxon Math and Math U See
both declared that they will align their curriculum, popular among home
schools, with Common Core.
INVASIVENESS. Conservative
parents object to violation of student privacy by data mining through
assessment means. Common Core creates a student database including test scores,
hobbies, family income, voting status, and health records, a violation of
individual rights and limited government. Data mining includes
using cameras to evaluate kid facial expressions, electronic seat that judges
postures, a pressure-sensitive computer mouse, and a biometric wrap on wrists.
STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION. Board members voted 7-1 (John Sieler
voted with taxpayers) to pay a consultant company $47,000 to compare NE
standards alignment to Common Core, due in October, 2013, a hint that the board
majority will embrace the latter curricula.
The State Board of Education must give final approval of state
curriculum standards and assessments. School districts should not use Common
Core yet, as the state board has not adopted it yet. We urge taxpayers to contact their state
board of education member to pass the following resolution:
Notwithstanding any other statute, the
state board of education shall not adopt, and the NE Dept. of Education shall
not implement, Common Core standards developed by the Common Core Standards
Initiative. Actions pursued to adopt or
implement the Common Core State Standards are void. Common Core State Standards shall not be
adopted or implemented without the approval of the NE Legislature.
LEGISLATURE. Sen. Jim Scheer from Norfolk introduced LB 512,
to order the state to accept Common Core national assessments and allow the
state board of education to proceed with this curricula. We must lobby our
state senators to kill LB 512, then co-sponsor and support legislation to
ban NE from adopting and spending money on all activities relating to Common
Core, like training teachers or buying materials. Also, press them to pass a bill to forbid
sharing of private student information without parental consent.
CONSTITUTIONAL ISSUE. As awareness of this federal education power
grab increases, opposition mounts.
States now realize that accepting Common Core means transferring control
of school curriculum to the Obama Regime.
Only Texas, Alaska, Nebraska, and a few other states are steadfastly
resisting, and others have withdrawn participation or are considering
such.
Common Core violates the U.S.
Constitution and several federal statutes that prohibit federal direction,
control, or supervision of curricula, instruction, and materials in K-12
schools.
This plan is a serious assault
on state sovereignty, a power grab by which the Obama Regime will directly
target school districts.
This federal
intervention will cripple state, local, and parental authority over curricula and
cost states $16 billion in new spending.
TAKE ACTION NOW. We still can stop this dangerous scheme
to nationalize education and indoctrinate our children.
Do not permit nameless, faceless, unelected
and unaccountable bureaucrats to seize control of NE public education.
Contact your state board of education member
and state senator today to stop the progress of Common Core in Nebraska.
Email
netaxpayers@gmail.com for their contact
information.
Research, analysis, and
documentation for this issue paper done by Nebraska
Taxpayers for Freedom, with prior permission granted for its use by other
groups in the NE Conservative Coalition
Network. 4-13. C
