Greater Charleston Parents Involved in Education: What You Need To Know

Background

In 2009, the US Department of Education (USED) offered $4.35 million in Stimulus funds to coerce states into adopting the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) by tying their adoption to Race to the Top grants. Forty-five states and the District of Columbia adopted CCSS in early 2010 without legislative review of the standards or cost estimates.
At the behest and direction of the US Department of Education, two DC-based trade groups, the National Governors Assn. (NGA) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), hired Achieve, Inc. to write the standards.
The implementation of CCSS is the Federal government’s un-constitutional intrusion into the states’ rights and responsibility to educate their children. CCSS violates three federal laws prohibiting the USED from directing, supervising or controlling the country’s education system.

CCSS establishes a nationalized, one-size-fits-all approach to education consisting of “empty skill sets that weaken the basis of literary and cultural knowledge.” according to Dr. Sandra Stotsky, English Language Arts Professor, University of Arkansas, who was invited to join the CCSS Validation Committee but refused to sign-off on the standards. ELA Standards: CCSS mandates that 25% of reading material for kindergarteners, rising to 70% for high school seniors, must be comprised of informational texts in place of classic, creative literature. Dr. Stotsky predicts, “the reading level deemed sufficient for high school graduation will be at about the 7th grade level.”
According to Dr. James Milgram, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics, Stanford University, and a member of the CCSS Validation Committee who also refused to sign off on the standards, “By 8th grade, CCSS will place our students about two years behind those of the highest-achieving countries.” Math Standards: CCSS postpones Algebra I from 8th grade to 9th grade, making it exceptionally difficult for most students to reach calculus in high school, as expected by elite universities.

In order to receive Race to the Top Stimulus money, states must build massive data bases to track a student’s P-20W (pre-K through age 20/workforce-ready) years. As many as 3,000 data points will be collected not only on students but also on their families, including:

Students: Test scores, health history, disciplinary record, developmental assessments, Social Security Number
Parents: Hourly rate of pay, employer type, family’s insurance status/voting status/religious affiliation.

Common Core guts the protections of FERPA (Family Education Rights and Privacy Act of 1974) by authorizing schools to share student-sensitive data and family preferences with education consultants, vendors and governmental agencies for data mining and career path determination of students from a very early age.

There is no defined system for governance of CCSS in the future. CCSS is owned and copyrighted by two un-elected agencies, the NGA and CCSSO. Parents, teachers, taxpayers and state legislators have no ability to correct/remove elements of CCSS that aren’t working for our children.
David Coleman, President of the College Board and an early architect of CCSS, is aligning the SAT to conform to CCSS. As a result, students in private or home schools won’t be able to opt-out of CCSS if they wish to attend college.

Education entrepreneurs and purveyors of computers, testing software, new CC text books, and teaching tools, such as wireless skin-conductance wristbands, a pressure-sensitive computer mouse, facial expression cameras and posture analysis chairs, will enjoy a vast new market for their products.
Is it any wonder that the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, GE Foundation, Pearson Textbooks, Jeb Bush’s Excellence in Education Foundation, Neil Bush’s Ignite! Learning software firm and Google are the most vocal supporters of CCSS?

CCSS is slated to be operational in South Carolina schools by the 2014-15 school year. Fourteen states have legislation pending to defund CCSS or put its implementation on hold, pending further review. Concerned citizens in South Carolina need to urge our state legislators to enact similar legislation.
The mission of Greater Charleston Parents Involved in Education (GCPIE) is to educate the citizens of our state about CCSS and to put pressure on our legislators to defeat CCSS and its agenda for our children.

Please join South Carolina Parents Involved in Education at scpie.org.