Rebuttal to The Common Core Debate - RGJ.com

Letter to the Editor

In response to Mark Robison’s The Common Core Debate

Reno Gazette Journal

22 March 2014

Dear Mr. Robison:

In reading your article, The Common Core Debate, RGJ.com, March 21, 2014, I’ve come to the conclusion that one must need special eye glasses to spot the (proverbial) elephant in the room. I do not hold a Ph.D. I’m not even the brightest person in my own household – just ask my teenagers, but I must be one hell of a game hunter because I spotted the massive elephant sitting in living rooms across the country from the first excited utterance that forty five of our united 50 states coincidentally “adopted” Common Core State Standards at exactly the same time. Mr. Aaron Grossman states, “If you think about it, it is extraordinary that 45 states, despite all their political differences, agreed on something.” This is either the fruition of a statistically- negligible historical event of biblical proportions or there is something much more sinister at play here. I’m thinking the latter.

In your article you cite over fifteen organizations that are in support of the CCSS. What you neglected to mention was the common denominator in the relationship between the organizations’ support and the CCSS is Gates Foundation funding and grants. The receipt of hundreds of thousands and millions upon millions of Gates happy-money negates the sincerity of any support for the CCSS. The margin for bias is too great. The same goes for the Gates funded Scholastic survey.

Moving along, you quote Mr. Grossman again, “Because the federal government wasn’t acting, it was states that rallied and said, ‘We’re going to fix some of these issues,’” In fact, the federal government has been “rallying” for decades. Some cite Mark Tucker’s infamous “Dear Hillary” letter of 1992 as the beginning. Others point to the creation of the unconstitutional Department of Education in the late seventies. There was Bill Clinton’s failed Goals 2000. My point being the federal government has been hard at work trying to usurp the states sovereignty over the education of their citizens for decades. At the very least we can draw a line from Student Achievement Partners, established by none other that David Coleman and his life long pal, Jason Zimba, in 2007, to the begin working on CCSS for Achieve LLC, which then leads us to NGA & CCSSO to Arne Duncan’s 4.35 billion dollar cash-carrot to the joyous coincidence of 45 independent governors signing on for a the Stimulus package (American Recovery Act) – where the Common Core State Standards were hiding.

I’m curious, Mr. Robison, when you say, “Public meetings were held throughout the country four to five years ago on Common Core.” What is your point in that statement? Do you have the public minutes of those meetings? With regard to, “Governor Jim Gibbons put together a blue ribbon panel representing teachers, ... It backed the Common Core standards.” Once again, you neglected to mention that this blue ribbon panel was not convened until Gibbons’ Executive Order of March 15, 2010. The cow was miles from the barn by then as we were already saddled with the standards

in November of 2009. Furthermore, Governor Gibbons’ panel was called on the carpet for the members selected (and those not). Additionally, the fact that the meetings were held behind closed doors (as were the creation of the standards themselves) outside of public scrutiny was questioned in the press.

You cite the Board of Education’s minutes from June of 2010 where it states, “The first draft of the (Common Core standards) came out this spring and they were reviewed by various groups in states with periods for review and comment. A great deal of positive feedback was provided…” I ask you which states, where are the comments, was Nevada one of those states, and if so, where are our comments and from whom? Also, this is a good spot for me to inform you that Dr. Rheault signed a Memorandum of Agreement with the NGA and CCSSO, in May 2009, in which he commits the state of Nevada, “On behalf of Governor Jim Gibbons and the Nevada Department of Education,” to participate in the CCSSI, (presumably as end users). In the agreement it states, “The Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association Centers for Best Practices (NGA Center) shall assume responsibility for coordinating the process that will lead to state adoption of a common core set of standards.” Translation: two non-academic trade organizations create a process by which states will take-on the privately written common standards that these trade organizations had developed (by Achieve LLC).

Continuing on - you state, “Two years ago, Nevada started using the Common Core standards, and they were fully implemented in the current school year.” We are not fully implemented in Southern Nevada. The powers that be may say we are but my guess is that that comment is a more general one in the sense that “on paper” we are fully implemented, reality is another story.

I don’t want to second guess your impetus for the comment that Mr. Eppolito is, “hoping to get enough people worked up through a 40-minute Power Point presentation…” Maybe people should get “worked-up” but like Mr. Eppolito, I, along with many others, are giving presentations, speaking before the Legislative Committee on Education, engaging in discussions and writing open pieces in an effort to enlighten parents and tax payers about what our government has done without our Legislative representation. As concerned and involved citizens I would suggest our efforts be applauded not disparaged.

Regarding the issue of data you quote the Common Core website which states, “Implementing the Common Core State Standards does not require data collection.” That is a factual statement. However, people much brighter than I (again see my teenagers), pointed out the connection between CCSS and the complimentary data mining to me over a year ago. Come with me…in the RTTT application states wishing to apply had to agree to four elements in order to be eligible for any monies. The second element is: Building data systems that measure student growth and success… Therefore, Mr. Robison, you can see that it’s easy to connect the two for the sake of talking points. And, yes, Ms. Osgood is correct that it is “state law” to collect data on students. The concerns of parents today however are now based on such factors as the type of data that will be collected along with the fact that the DofEd changed FERPA so that it is now an “enabling” Act rather than a Protection Act. Moreover, student data could, in the past, be expected to remain within the state, if not, within the district. Unfortunately, we now have contracts (Nevada

MOU with Smarter Balanced Consortia and, in turn, Smarter Balanced has a Cooperative Agreement with the Federal DofEd) in place that allow for a “pipeline” of flow from the student record straight through to the federal government. In the Cooperative Agreement it blatantly demands “The Grantee must provide timely and complete access to any and all data collected at the State level to ED or its designated program monitors, technical assistance providers, or researcher partners, and to GAO, and the auditors conducting the audit required by 34 CFR section 80.26.” This was probably too much information for the Common Core pushers to include on their web page.

I could continue but I’m exhausted from spending my days filling in the constant gaps left by proponents of this national education takeover. With regard to the academic issues I suggest you read Jane Robbins, Dr. Sandra Stotsky, Terrence Moore, Diane Ravitch, Dr. Peg Lusik, and others of their stature for the more egregious flaws in the standards and the testing that is to come.

In closing I believe the Common Core State Standards will fail on its own merit, or lack of merit, that is. We are already witnessing the detrimental effects across the nation. Hopefully, the lesson learned by this massive and expensive run-around the people of the United States is that the next time standards be re-written for school children that they first come from educators, not businessmen, and that the focus be on the beginning of a child’s education, so that it can be built upon from a foundation, rather than starting at the “college and career” end and working backwards.

Respectfully,

Christina Leventis

This letter was published in edited form by the RGJ.com on March 29, 2014

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