Although data collection is not found within the Common Core Standards themselves, other federal initiatives mandate the extensive collection of personal student information, and the two Common Core Assessment Consortia must allow the federal government access to the data. In addition, there are many other data-collection initiatives, some of the begun many years ago before the Obama Administration. Jane Robbins of the American Principles Project explains data collection under the Common Core.

Kindergarten used to be a place to paint pictures, play with clay, make friends, and learn a few social graces. Now it is a place to be assessed and started on the path to be molded into human capital.  What has happened to common sense?

Some teachers are beginning to speak out in defense of their students. Valerie Strauss of the Washington Post writes about a Florida teacher who refused to administer one of the Florida kindergarten assessments, the FAIR test. See the article.

Although she feared she would be fired, she just couldn’t bring herself to subject her students to the assessment. Her gutsy stand led to the principal’s decision to drop the assessment. Read the follow up story.

This trend of early assessments started before the appearance of the Common Core Standards and Assessments. Now that data collection through the Race to the Top and other mandates has become a priority, the assessment machine starts in kindergarten or earlier, giving rise to such non-governmental organizations as the Early Childhood Data Collaborative. The assessments drive the curriculum and facilitate the data collection.  It isn’t even clear whether the assessments reliably or validly measure what they’re supposed to be measuring, or whether constantly assessing students actually improves education. We appreciate people like this brave teacher who speak out against them.

Some students taking Utah’s SAGE assessment this spring experienced what they described as “weird” colors and sounds while taking the math assessment. SAGE is Utah’s new computer adaptive assessment. From interviews with students, it seems that not every student took the version of the assessment that subjected students to the weird colors and strange voices. Some students appeared to be taking a different version.

Washington State also has a computer adaptive assessment. Washington’s assessments are being developed by the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC), one of the two assessment consortia for the Common Core. It is not known yet whether the Washington state assessment resembles the Utah SAGE assessment.

Parents, if your child took the Common Core Assessments this year, please ask him or her to tell you about it. If your child had a similar anxiety-producing experience, please contact the person who produced the video below, and also contact us. Our e-mail is cure@curewashington.org. A sample opt-out form can be found along the top bar of our website.

Please watch the entire video.

On March 24, 2014, Indiana’s Governor Pence signed SB 91 into law replacing the Common Core State Standards with its own Indiana Standards. So what’s the problem?

Somehow, they ended up with new standards that were almost the same as the recently rejected standards.

Indiana wanted to keep their federal waiver from the No Child Left Behind Act’s onerous mandates. To do this, they had to develop “college and career readiness” standards which met the federal guidelines, that is, they had to use the same blueprint to build their Indiana Standards as the blueprint for the Common Core.

Read the article.

The Federal Department of Education has sent a letter to Washington’s Superintendent of Public Instruction removing Washington State’s waiver from some of the No Child Left Behind’s costly requirements……Federal funding for education is like a drug. Let us clear our minds of the notion that federal money is something we absolutely need and remember that before 1965 schools functioned well without it. […]

The Homeschool Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) has produced an excellent video explaining the Common Core. Featured in the video are James Millgram and Sandra Stotsky, the only two content experts on the Common Core Validation Committee. Along with three others validation committee members, they did not sign off on the Common Core State Standards.

Watch the movie.

For more information about the Homeschool Legal Defense Association, see their website.

Back in the days of the WASL, and even before that, parents had the right and ability to opt their children out of assessments, surveys, and other activities. You can still opt out your child from the Smarter Balanced Assessment which assesses the learning of Common Core State Standards.  The Smarter Balanced Assessment, meant to […]

In October 2012, David Coleman, often called the “architect” of the Common Core State Standards, became the president of the College Board which produces the SAT exam. More recently he announced he is  aligning the SAT with the Common Core State Standards. The ACT exam was already aligned with the Common Core State Standards in […]

Pull quotes:

“Consider the recent history of high stakes testing in the state of Washington. We spent more than a decade and a billion dollars on the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL) only to find that the test was deeply flawed…..”

“The truth is that as long as we try to force every kid through a one size fits all system we will never see improvement. No other country in the world is running an education system on the pretense that all students are the same and as long as we pursue that folly we will continue to waste precious resources and fall further behind our competitors.”

Read the commentary by Bob Dean

“Anytime you’ve got a one size fits all attitude regarding education, it’s never good for the students, the parents, or education in general,..”