Attention educators and Parents! The anti-Common
Core and anti-PARCC bills are going to be debated in the House
Education Committee this Wednesday. This may be your best opportunity to make your concerns known to your legislator about Common Core and PARCC.
In January, this blog encouraged all my
readers to respond to a survey on the Common Core State Standards and
PARCC. The results were as follows: A total of 2,724 readers responded
to the survey. Only 61 respondents, or 2% said that Louisiana should
continue implementing CCSS as has been prescribed by Superintendent
John White with the approval of BESE. 709 respondents, or 26% said
they would prefer that CCSS and PARCC be phased in over a longer
period of time starting with lower elementary grades and progressing
one or two grades each year until it covers all grades. 1,954
respondents, or 72% stated that they would prefer to do away with CCSS and
PARCC and substitute an improved version of GLEs as the standards for
our basic core subjects. Louisiana would implement its own
testing as has been done in the past.
Partly based on these results and my
own opinion, I have written the following email to my State
Representative. He is not on the Education Committee so I am writing to him about general issues involved instead of specific bills.
Dear Representative __________,
I am a retired educator who lives in your district.
It is my understanding that various
bills relative to the Common Core State Standards and the PARCC
testing will be debated in the House Education Committee this week.
We do not know yet what bills on these matters will be sent to the
full House for your vote. Based on a survey I conducted about CCSS
and PARCC in January I would like to recommend the following for your
consideration: Please support any bills that will put a stop to the
PARCC testing which is scheduled to start in Louisiana next school
year. These tests have proven to be unreliable and have failed 70% of
the students who took them last year in New York state. Our students
do not deserve to be subjected to these unfair tests. In addition, I
would like to ask you to vote for any legislation that will remove
Louisiana from participation in the Common Core State Standards. Again, these standards are untested and may not be appropriate for our students. I
and my colleagues would prefer that Louisiana continue to use and
perfect its own standards unique to the needs and preferences of our
educators and parents.
Sincerely,
Michael Deshotels
That email represents my opinion and
that of the great majority of the educators and parents who responded
to my survey. If you feel that Common Core and PARCC are good for
Louisiana, by all means please feel free to write to or call your
legislator to express your opinion. Let's all participate in the
democratic process.
Now here are more details on this
matter that my blog readers will find useful in making their final
decision on this matter:
As a last ditch effort to save
their cherished program, our State Department of Education has
produced a financial analysis claiming that it will cost us millions
if we back out of Common Core now. They know that our cash strapped
legislature is looking for any way to avoid increasing costs to the
state budget so this is now the best argument for keeping the Common
Core.
Common Core and PARCC. It was a real
bargain to get into it but now its going to cost us a fortune to get
out of it! That's the conclusion by our Department
of Education. Don't believe a word of it. All we have gotten from our
LDOE in the last two years since John White took over as Superintendent in our state is pure propaganda. Why
should we believe this latest joke of a financial analysis? State Treasurer, John Kennedy has repeatedly pointed out that our Department of Education has numerous expensive contracts with consultants and companies that could be canceled saving us millions of tax dollars. Our students would not suffer one bit if some of these pork barrel projects were eliminated! That would be more than enough to pay for a return to Louisiana standards.
It totally amazes me that it should cost
Louisiana one penny to simply drop this boondoggle of a program that
only promises to cost us hundreds of millions to implement over the
next few years!
Why do I say hundreds of millions? That's because if we continue this
foolish rat race that is called the Common Core State Standards we
will soon reaffirm what we already know. That is that Louisiana will
rank near the bottom of the PARCC performance ranking compared to
other states. (but wait: we already knew that based on the NAEP test.
We know that we will rank just ahead of
Mississippi because we rank just ahead of Mississippi in student
poverty, which has the greatest influence on these test results.)
But the plan is this: Once our students fail the PARCC test,
we will have to rush to purchase more test prep services and allow
more charter schools and approve more vouchers to allow more students
to escape our “failing schools”. And then even when the students
don't perform any better (or perform worse!) in the charters and voucher
schools, our Superintendent will still find that it is OK because it is soooo
important to give parents choice!
Look at how many were choosing the New Living Word voucher school even though
it was not providing an education and the minister who had appointed himself principal was charging
taxpayers an arm and a leg.
Pearson, the Great Briton based educational services company which
helped control the development of the PARCC test and designs all
sorts of software, and test prep materials designed for the PARCC
will be extorting millions from Louisiana for both the testing and
the test prep materials. Microsoft, boss Bill Gates who spent two
billion dollars funding the development and selling of the Common Core stands
to reap billions from services related to the Common Core.
Apple will be selling us thousands of Ipads preloaded with test prep
materials. Some companies will be selling us virtual courses that
will take our MFP dollars so that some students can pretend to study common core at
home using virtual courses with our tax dollars. Meanwhile our public
schools will be laying off teachers and cutting salaries and benefits
so they can afford to keep up with all the other states in buying
more Common Core prep materials. This is all about the corporate takeover of public education! None of this will make our students
better citizens, nor will it prepare them better for the workforce or make
them better “human capitol”.
I just want to remind my readers that none of this Common Core
material was tested in the classroom by real teachers. None of it is
known to make students smarter or better because it is just a theory
that has barely been tried with real students. None of the executives
of the big companies like Exxon-Mobil who have endorsed Common
Core have any idea what the standards are. (
See this Advocate story) They have never even read
the standards. I have read the standards and find them confusing,
ambiguous, non-specific and not at all appropriate for many of our
students. But what do I know? I've just devoted my whole life to the
teaching profession! The leaders of big business support them
because they were told by Bill Gates that these standards were more
“rigorous” and that they would make their potential employees
better and more efficient workers. But no one has the slightest idea
whether that will happen because this system is just now being tested
on our kids where students are simply being treated as guinea pigs
and the teachers will be blamed if this latest hair brained program does not
work.
Readers, this may be your best chance to have your voice heard by our
legislators.
Send an email now to the members of the House
Education Committee (Just click on this link) to get the
Representative who represents your Parish giving him/her your
recommendations on Common Core and PARCC. (If you click on an individual's name you can get his email and office phone #)
Here are the bills that are scheduled for the House Education
Committee this Wednesday, April 2:
HB 163 by Burns,
HB 558 by Henry, and
HB 996 by Schroeder would
prohibit the use of the PARCC test and continues LEAP instead.
HB 988 by Schroder allows the State DOE and BESE to continue setting
statewide content standards but permits local school boards to
develop and implement their own curriculum content and methodology
instead of that which is recommended by the LDOE.
HB 381 by Geymann creates a Louisiana Standards Commission to replace
CCSS with state standards.
HB 1054 by Richard requires the teachers in all public schools and
voucher schools to take the CCSS tests (this is really the PARCC test
for Louisiana) prior to administering these tests to students.
Here's the deal:
- If
you want to stop using Common Core standards and PARCC testing in our schools
and if you want the state to use a special commission made up of
state educators and parents to set standards, to be implemented only
after approval by both Houses of the Legislature, you should ask
your State Representative to vote for HB 381 by Geymann. This bill
would provide for assessments based on the new standards which would
no longer need to be based on national standards. Special
education students would be allowed to take an alternate
assessment.
If
you want to stop Louisiana from using the PARCC test, and to remove
the language in the law that now requires us to use national
standards in our K-12 schools, you should ask your State
Representative to vote for either HB 163 or HB 558 or HB 996. These
bills however as they are presently written would not necessarily prevent our LDOE and BESE from adopting
changes to our GLEs that would possibly mirror the CCSS.
If
you are willing to let the State DOE and BESE to continue setting
standards including the implementation of the Common Core but you
want your local school system to have more flexibility on curriculum
and methodology you should ask your State Representative to vote for
HB 988 by Schroeder.
I
honestly don't know what to tell you about the Richard bill (HB
1054) which would require teachers
to take the PARCC before the students do and then would inform the legislature of teacher opinions about the test. I think the bill might accomplish more if it required the legislature and BESE members to
take the PARCC before we even consider giving it to our students.
Look what happened in New York where 70% of the students failed
PARCC!
No
matter what you believe about the Common Core standards and the
PARCC test, if you don't express your opinion and ask your legislator
to vote your way, then you probably deserve what will happen to you
as Louisiana continues on the path to full implementation and testing
of CCSS. Don't complain if you don't exercise
your democratic rights!