Massachusetts’ educational success is attributed to decades of expert local standard development. Since 2005, students have led in national testing in all subjects and grades, and rank high internationally. In 2010, Massachusetts abandoned its tested and proven math and English standards in favor of new, national Common Core (CC) standards, sight unseen. What did we get in return for jettisoning billions of taxpayer dollars and jeopardizing a 17-year successful education investment? $250 million in Race to the Top federal funding over four years (a paltry 33 cents per student per day). Future costs to implement science and history are unfunded.
Grassroots opposition to CC skyrocketed nationally as parents and educators learned more. Five adopting states have since repealed and dozens are legislatively challenging its merits. In Massachusetts, a petition drive is underway, requiring 65,000 signatures to bring the question of CC to a 2016 ballot vote.
Flawed from conception, CC was developed top down, behind closed doors, by a convergence of three DC associations. Privately owned and copyrighted, CC must be followed exactly, but schools may add 15 percent. Standards were written swiftly (in six months) in 2009 but no meeting minutes exist to document the research, rubrics and benchmarking utilized. Within a year, 46 states adopted CC without assessing its strengths and weakness. Developers convinced Bill Gates to use his influence and money ($200 million) to persuade groups to support CC before it was even written. This process contrasts sharply with the years long, democratic due process applied when Massachusetts developed its gold standards.
Five-hundred early childhood specialists warned that K-3 standards were developmentally inappropriate. Its “one size fits all” blueprint strangleholds teachers, especially special education. Regulations and increased testing dictated by the PARCC exam take time away from teaching. Teacher evaluation are based on student test performance. All concerns were ignored. CC standards are accompanied by instructional material, books and tests, which all drive curriculum. David Coleman, architect of CC, now presides over College Board where he aligned the SAT and AP’s to CC. This changes the college admission process and may influence private, religious and home school curriculum.
About 20 percent of CC validation committee members refused to support the standards. Two, Drs. Sandra Stotsky (creator of Massachusetts pre-CC standards) and James Milgram, dissented because CC lacked research and international benchmarking. Stotsky states, “Common core writers were not qualified to draft standards; the validation committee was useless, intending to serve as window dressing to rubber stamp, not improve, standards.”
Validation committee members had to sign a confidentiality clause that prohibited them from ever revealing what was discussed by the committee.
Massachusetts abdicated its leadership role and has the most to lose. We won’t know for 10 years if CC is successful. Signing the petition gives voice to those left out of the discussion, local teachers, parents and taxpayers. Let’s get DC bureaucracies and corporations out of our schools and restore local control of education standards. For more information visit www.endcommoncorema.com.
Melanie Rothstein
Longmeadow
