FPACC cc coercion_2013_fnl (1)

CC = Conditions + Coercion+
ConflictofInterest
Welcome to the new
Common Core
fuzzy math

CC = Conditions + Coercion+ ConflictofInterest
Welcome to the new Common Core fuzzy math.
2
The Evidence to Backup the Claim
Administration Plan For Title 1 (ESEA)
First, as a condition of receiving access to Title I funds, we will ask all states to put in place a plan to adopt and
certify standards that are college and career-ready in reading and math. Once you’ve got those standards in place,
you’ll be able to better compete for funds to improve teaching and upgrade curricula.
Remarks by the President and the Vice President to the National Governors Association, February 22, 2010
No Child Left Behind And ESEA Waivers
Federal overreach?? They circumvented Congress after Congress failed to reauthorize in 2007. NCLB has not been
reauthorized to date. The law does not allow waivers in exchange for accepting educational standards.
We also changed the way we do business at the Department of Education. Instead of issuing top-down edicts, we
provided incentives for and supports for states districts, schools and local communities to undertake reform
themselves, including offering more flexibility to states in the form of waivers from No Child Left Behind...
The Obama Record in Education, Secretary Duncan’s Remarks to the Mom Congress, April 30, 2012
Waivers are not a pass on accountability – but a smarter, more focused and fair way to hold ourselves accountable.
In exchange for adopting high standards and meaningful systems of teacher support and evaluation...
Moving Forward, Staying Focused. Remarks of Arne Duncan, national Press Club, October 2, 2012
To help states, districts and schools that are ready to move forward with education reform, our administration will
provide flexibility from the law in exchange for a real commitment to undertake change. The purpose is not to give
states and districts a reprieve from accountability, but rather to unleash energy to improve our schools at the local level.
President Obama quote in “Obama Administration Sets High Bar for Flexibility from No Child Left Behind in Order to
Advance Equity and Support Reform” Press Release, September 23, 2011
“Why deal with pesky Congress when you get to make all the rules?” said Michael Petrilli, executive vice president
of the conservative Thomas B. Fordham Institute. The department doesn’t have the authority to declare waivers
high-risk, he said, and one of the states should call Duncan’s bluff.
http://www.politico.com/story/2013/08/arne-duncan-no-child-left-behind-waivers-95818.html
The U.S. Department of Education has invited each State Educational Agency (SEA) to request flexibility
regarding specific requirements of the No Child Left Behind Act of 2001 (NCLB) in exchange for rigorous and
comprehensive state-developed plans designed to improve educational outcomes for all students, close
achievement gaps, increase equity, and improve the quality of instruction.
ELEMENTARY & SECONDARY EDUCATION, ESEA Flexibility
http://www2.ed.gov/policy/elsec/guid/esea-flexibility/index.html

3
The 4.5 Billion Dollar Carrot
In addition to serious concerns we have regarding the Department’s aforementioned coercion of states to opt-in to
Common Core standards, many of which were and continue to have serious budgetary issues and specific issues
with existing education policies, we have become increasingly concerned over the development of the Common Core
standards themselves. Though initially promoted as state-based education standards, Common Core standards,
as they have been developed over the last few years, are nothing of the sort. In just one very troubling instance,
Common Core standards will replace state-based standardized testing with nationally-based standardized testing, the
creation and initial implementation of which will be funded in full by the federal government. The long-term, annual
administering of the exams, the cost of which has not been specified by the Department, is to be funded by the states.
Letter to Arne Duncan from Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO-03) April 2013.
http://dianevann.authorsxpress.com/files/2013/04/Letter-to-Arne-Duncan-from-Congress.pdf
Race To The Top Grants
That’s why instead of just pouring money into the system that’s not working, we launched a competition called Race
to the Top. And to all 50 states -- to governors, to schools districts -- we said, show us the most innovative plans
to improve teacher quality and student achievement; we’ll show you the money. We want to provide you more
resources, but there’s also got to be a commitment on your part to make the changes that are necessary so that we
can see actual results.
Remarks by the President on No Child Left Behind Flexibility, September 23, 2011
States are awarded points for their compliance with a rubric of standards on issues like teacher evaluations and the
number of charter schools, and applicants compete for a share of the $3.4 billion pool. The program, which began
with $4.6 billion in stimulus funds, has been credited with galvanizing almost every state to either make
significant changes to education laws, gain support of teacher unions, or to raise education standards
across the board—all without distributing a penny in federal money.
Education reforms spark ‘quiet revolution’ By ABBY PHILLIP, July 27, 2010
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0710/40283.html
Obama Administration Plays A Modest Role?
The Obama administration is playing a modest role in sparking this quiet revolution through Race to the Top and
other reform initiatives that are giving states the incentive to raise standards, improve teacher effectiveness, build data
systems, and turn around low-performing schools.
The Quiet Revolution, July 26, 2010
http://www.ed.gov/blog/2010/07/the-quiet-revolution/
Quiet Revolution?
The development of the Common Core Standards was a closed door process. Parents feel that there was an
underlying, well understood, hush and rush to implement.
Today in the field of public education, this moment is upon us and I am not the first to say it. From journalists and
educators to politicians and parents _ there is a growing sense that a quiet revolution is underway in our homes and
schools, classrooms and communities.
”The Quiet Revolution: Secretary Arne Dunca’s Remarks at the National Press Club,” July 27, 2010

4
Validation Of CCSS... Transparent Process??
As a condition of membership, all Validation Committee members had to agree to 10 conditions, among which were the
following:
• Ownership of the Common Core State Standards, including all drafts, copies, reviews, comments, and non-final
versions (collectively, Common Core State Standards), shall reside solely and exclusively with the Council of Chief
State School Officers (“CCSSO”) and the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices (“NGA
Center”).
• I agree to maintain the deliberations, discussions, and work of the Validation Committee, including the content of any
draft or final documents, on a strictly confidential basis and shall not disclose or communicate any information
related to the same, including in summary form, except within the membership of the Validation Committee
and to CCSSO and the NGA Center.
Can This Country Survive Common Core’s College Readiness Level? By: R. James Milgram and Sandra Stotsky,
September 2013 (Members of the CCSS Validation Committee, They did not sign off on the standards)
CCSS Research/Evidence Based?
Proponents of Common Core push the claim that the Core is evidence based.
“While sometimes I’ve been called an architect of their standards, I think their true architecture is evidence,”
Coleman said. “That’s the binding secret of the standards.” Coleman, Zimba and Sue Pimentel, an education
consultant, made sure the standards reflect the skills students need to succeed after high school.
http://forward.com/articles/182587/david-coleman-the-most-influential-education-figur/?p=all#ixzz2f4H3cr9H
But is CCSS really “evidence based”??
The standards have not been validated empirically and no metric has been set to monitor the intended and
unintended consequences they will have on the education system and children (Mathis, 2010). Yet most of the
nation‘s governors, state education leaders, and many education organizations remain committed to the initiative.
When I reviewed that large and growing body of knowledge offered by the NGA, I found that it was not large, and
in fact built mostly on one report, Benchmarking for Success, created by the NGA and the CCSSO, the same
groups that created these standards; Hardly independent research.
AASA Journal of Scholarship and Practice, Vol. 7, No. 4 Winter 2011
http://www.aasa.org/uploadedFiles/Publications/Newsletters/JSP_Winter2011.FINAL.pdf
The Common Core math standards also require that geometry be taught by an experimental method that had
never been used successfully anywhere in the world.
A version of this paper was submitted to the American Legislative Exchange Council by authors Jonathan Butcher
of the Goldwater Institute, goldwaterinstitute.org, Emmett McGroarty of the American Principles Project, american-
principlesproject.org, and Liv Finne of Washington Policy Center, washingtonpolicy.org
http://www.washingtonpolicy.org/publications/notes/why-common-core-bad-america

5
Standards Are Internationally Benchmarked? Not Really...
The play on words is astounding from those that advocate for Common Core. When we get down to it, it’s about
standards that were “informed by” and not officially Internationally benchmarked.
As part of the Common Core State Standards Initiative, Achieve helped collect and analyze standards from a number
of countries. These studies helped inform the choices made by the writers of the common standards. See the Common
Core State Standards Initiative website for examples of how international benchmarking was used to inform the
development of the standards in mathematics and English Language Arts/Literacy.
http://www.achieve.org/international-benchmarking
Myth: The Standards are not internationally benchmarked.
Fact: International benchmarking played a significant role in both sets of standards. In fact, the college and career ready
standards include an appendix listing the evidence that was consulted in drafting the standards and the international
data consulted in the benchmarking process is included in this appendix. More evidence from international sources will
be presented together with the final draft.
Myths About Content and Quality: General
http://www.corestandards.org/about-the-standards/myths-vs-facts
I can tell you that my main objection to Core Standards, and the reason I didn’t sign off on them was that they
did not match up to international expectations. They were at least 2 years behind the practices in the high
achieving countries by 7th grade, and, as a number of people have observed, only require partial understanding
of what would be the content of a normal, solid, course in Algebra I or Geometry. Moreover, they cover very little
of the content of Algebra II, and none of any higher level course… They will not help our children match up to the
students in the top foreign countries…
Statement by James Milgram, the mathematician who served on the Common Core validation committee and
refused to sign off on the standards
Gigot never asked Klein what countries we were supposedly benchmarked to. Nor did the Exxon ad name a country to
which these standards were supposedly benchmarked. Klein wouldn’t have been able to answer, nor could Exxon have
named a country because Common Core’s standards are not internationally benchmarked. Neither the method-
ologically flawed study by William Schmidt of Michigan State University, nor the post-Common Core studies by
David Conley of the University of Oregon, all funded by the Gates Foundation, have shown that Common Core’s
content is close to, never mind equal to, the level of the academic content of the mathematics and English
standards in high-achieving countries. Moreover, Conley’s studies actually contradict the findings of his much earlier
pre-Common Core study showing what college faculty in this country expect of entering freshmen in mathematics and
English.” The next time someone says that Common Core will increase U.S. international competitiveness because the
standards are “internationally benchmarked,” simply ask them what evidence they have. This phrase is misleading mil-
lions of people.
Statement by Professor Sandra Stotsky, served on the Common Core validation committee and refused to sign off
on the standards.
The Joint International Benchmarking Report, the primary source of evidence provided by the NGA and CCSSO,
draws most of its conclusions from one report, The Role of Cognitive Skills in Economic Development (Hanushek &
Woessmann, 2008). The use of that report is troubling because it has several fatal flaws in its logic and methodology.
AASA Journal of Scholarship and Practice, Vol. 7, No. 4 Winter 2011
http://www.aasa.org/uploadedFiles/Publications/Newsletters/JSP_Winter2011.FINAL.pdf

6
State Led???
How can a “public license” about standards that are supposed to be state-led, be owned by two private, lobbying,
non-for-profits that are Washington based??? So it’s free to use, but you can’t change it? How does this reinforce
the notion that this was state-led? Why would any state agree to a standard that they have no way to modify?? If
states need to adapt the standards to more appropriately address their population of students, they can’t??? Also,
were the governors active participants in the process or just an “informed” group.
THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS ARE PROVIDED UNDER THE TERMS OF THIS PUBLIC LICENSE. THE
COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS ARE PROTECTED BY COPYRIGHT AND/OR OTHER APPLICABLE LAW. ANY
USE OF THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS OTHER THAN AS AUTHORIZED UNDER THIS LICENSE OR
COPYRIGHT LAW IS PROHIBITED.
ANY PERSON WHO EXERCISES ANY RIGHTS TO THE COMMON CORE STATE STANDARDS THEREBY ACCEPTS
AND AGREES TO BE BOUND BY THE TERMS OF THIS LICENSE. THE RIGHTS CONTAINED HEREIN ARE GRANTED
IN CONSIDERATION OF ACCEPTANCE OF SUCH TERMS AND CONDITIONS.
License Grant:
The NGA Center for Best Practices (NGA Center) and the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) hereby
grant a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to copy, publish, distribute, and display the Common Core
State Standards for purposes that support the Common Core State Standards Initiative. These uses may involve
the Common Core State Standards as a whole or selected excerpts or portions.
http://www.corestandards.org/public-license
If this were truly state led, there would be no need to validate this claim. Evidence has shown that there is a lot of
room for interpretation as to whether Common Core was state-led or not.
And for less than 1 percent of what we spend on education each year, Race to the Top, under Arne’s leadership, has led
states across the country to raise their standards for teaching and learning. And, by the way, these standards that
we’re talking about -- these high standards that we’re talking about were not developed here in Washington.
They were developed by Republican and Democratic governors throughout the country -- essentially as a peer
group, a peer review system where everybody traded best practices and said, here’s what seems to work, and let’s hold
all of our schools to these high standards. And since that Race to the Top has been launched, we’ve seen what’s pos-
sible when reform isn’t just a top-down mandate but the work of local teachers and principals and school boards and
communities working together to develop better standards.
Remarks by the President on No Child Left Behind Flexibility, September 23, 2011
Remember the NGA? Don’t let the name fool you. Is seems as though the governors in the NGA really did not play
a role in the development or approval of the standards, they were merely “informed.” I consider this fact critical in
proving that the standards were not state-led.
The standards are evidence- and research-based, informed by the most effective models from states and countries
across the globe, include rigorous content, and demand the application of knowledge through high-order skills.
NGA, Issue Brief, Trends in State Implementation of the Common Core State Standards: Educator Effectiveness
www.nga.org/files/live/sites/NGA/files/pdf/1210TrendsInStateBrief.pdf

7
NGA (National Governors Association)
Let us not forget that the NGA, along with the CCSSO, holds the copyright for the ELA and MATH standards.
According to the latest IRS 990 form for the NGA’s Center for Best Practices, the nonprofit arm of NGA that shares “a
common pool of cash and investments” in 2010 received 80 percent of its $14.8 million annual income from
taxpayers. Tax documents also show that back in 2004, the earliest available documents traced, NGA received
$31 million from taxpayers. Tax funding has made up most of NGA’s income every year in between.
Despite its heavy tax support, NGA is not required to make meetings, votes, and materials public like government bod-
ies, and it has not done so for its work on Common Core.
NGA is a private trade organization whose actions have no legal binding on states. Governors do vote during
NGA’s two annual meetings to express shared priorities, former Virginia Gov. George Allen (R) told School Reform News,
but “by the time they vote on a position the [resolutions] get watered down so much any objections are already
accommodated. It’s unlike legislatures, with committee hearings and votes.”
Even so, NGA has not released what, if any, resolution 2009’s governors voted on to authorize its subsequent
Common Core work. Neither has it released the vote tally.
When other journalists have asked NGA about governors who want no part in NGA, spokesmen have responded
by essentially saying governors cannot choose to leave. When Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) pulled out of NGA in
2012, telling the Bangor Daily News, “I get no value out of those meetings. They are too politically correct and
everybody is lovey-dovey and no decisions are ever made,” NGA’s communications director responded by saying
all governors are NGA members even if they don’t pay dues.
‘State-Led’ Common Core Pushed by Federally Funded Nonprofit, By: Joy Pullman, Heartland Institute ,
April 24, 2013
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2013/04/24/state-led-common-core-pushed-federally-funded-nonprofit
https://www.guidestar.org/FinDocuments/2011/237/391/2011-237391796-08582ffa-9.pdf
CCSSO (National Governors Association)
Previous School Reform News reports have revealed state and federal tax money provide approximately half of
CCSSO’s operating funds, and that Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation money has been intimately involved in this
behind-closed-doors process.
‘State-Led’ Common Core Pushed by Federally Funded Nonprofit, By: Joy Pullman, Heartland Institute ,
April 24, 2013
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2013/04/24/state-led-common-core-pushed-federally-funded-nonprofit
.

8
Federal Government Overseeing/Funding CC Aligned Testing
In September 2010, as part of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (ARRA), the U.S. Department of
Education (Department) funded two consortia of states to develop next-generation assessments through the
Race to the Top Assessment (RTTA) program: the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and
Careers (PARCC) and the SMARTER Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC).
Race to the Top Assessment Program Review Guide as of August 2011
http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop-assessment/review-guide.pdf
As part of continuing efforts to support states in their development of the next generation of assessments, the U.S.
Department of Education will hold a Race to the Top Assessment Technical Review Process. In September 2010,
the Department provided funding to two consortia of states, the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College
and Careers (PARCC) and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (Smarter Balanced), to develop new com-
prehensive assessment systems to measure whether students have the knowledge and skills necessary to be ready for
college and the workforce.
The Technical Review is one component of the Department’s Race to the Top Assessment program review. The
program review is the overall method by which the Department provides oversight of and support for the consortia.
The Technical Review will be combined with other components, including on-going, but at least monthly,
conversations between the Department and the grantee; on-site program reviews by Department staff; stock
take meetings with the consortium and senior leaders in the Department; and the annual performance report.
RACE TO THE TOP TECHNICAL REVIEW, March 2013
Announcing a Technical Review for the Consortia of States Developing Next-Generation Assessment Systems
http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop-assessment/performance.html
Federal Government Playing A Part In Curriculum Development?
PARCC, for example, will be developing curriculum frameworks and ways to share great lesson plans. The
SMARTER Balanced Assessment coalition will develop instructional modules and professional learning
communities to support teachers in understanding and using assessment results. They will involve teachers
not just in writing and reviewing test items but in scoring assessments--especially complex performance tasks.
Beyond the Bubble Tests: The Next Generation of Assessments -- Secretary Arne Duncan’s Remarks to State
Leaders at Achieve’s American Diploma Project Leadership Team Meeting
September 2, 2010
Through these awards, which use assessments to link the Common Core standards of CCSSI with the development of
curricula and instructional materials, PARCC and SBAC (as grantees of the Department) enable the Department
to do indirectly that which federal law forbids. The assessment systems that PARCC and SBAC develop and
leverage with federal funds, together with their hands-on assistance in implementing the CCSS in substantially
all the states, will direct large swaths of state K-12 curricula, programs of instruction, and instructional
materials, as well as heavily influence the remainder.
The language used by both consortia in their supplemental funding materials leaves no question about their
intentions to use federal funds to develop curricular and instructional materials based on the CCSS.
Robert S. Eitel Kent D. Talbert, The Road to a National Curriculum, PIONEER INSTITUTE, no. 81, p. 15
(Feb.2012).

9
A Curriculum That Will Eventually Align To Testing
It’s only a matter of time when the curriculum will be developed to align the tests developed. Tests which are
overseen by the Federal government.
When the tests are aligned to the common standards, the curriculum will line up as well—and that will unleash
powerful market forces in the service of better teaching. For the first time, there will be a large base of customers
eager to buy products that can help every kid learn and every teacher get better. Imagine having the people who create
electrifying video games applying their intelligence to online tools that pull kids in and make algebra fun.
Bill Gates - National Conference of State Legislatures, July 21, 2009
Conflict Of Interest?
In Michigan, here is what representative Tom McMillin had to say two days ago, in response to testimony from Chester
Finn, of the Fordham Institute, which can be counted among the architects of test-driven reform.
At around minute 26, McMillin points out that Chester Finn’s colleague at the Fordham Institute, Michael Petrilli, had
stated that after Arne Duncan hired four Gates Foundation staffers to high level positions in the Department of Educa-
tion, “the Gates Foundation’s agenda has become the country’s agenda in education.” Finn said he disagreed, however
he acknowledged that “the Gates Foundation paid for the development of the Common Core standards. There’s
no disputing that.
McMillin responded: And they also paid $6 million to Fordham (Institute) and then you guys evaluate the Common
Core standards and decide if they’re any good or not. Don’t you see a real conflict there, when Fordham gets $6
million, and then they’re told to turn around and say Gates’ project is a great thing?
Finn: I have no idea where you got the $6 million figure from.
McMillin: From the Gates Foundation web site.
Finn: Approximately three times too large in terms of any actual receipts that Fordham has gotten. We are evaluating the
implementation of Common Core standards with Gates dollars, and that’s in the early stages ‘cause implementation is
only just beginning. The Gates Foundation had nothing whatsoever to do with our original 2010 evaluation of the stan-
dards themselves. We were not receiving any funds from Gates for that purpose at that time. Anybody that knows me
and the Fordham track record knows we are not influenced by our funders.
Lawmakers Begin to Connect the Dots Between Gates and Common Core, Education Week,
By: ANTHONY CODY AUG 30, 2013
http://mobile.edweek.org/c.jsp?DISPATCHED=truecid=25983841item=http%3A%2F%2Fblogs.ed-
week.org%2Fteachers%2Fliving-in-dialogue%2F2013%2F08%2Flawmakers_begin_to_connect_the.
html%3Fcmp%3DSOC-SHR-FB
Waivers For Bill Melinda Gates Foundation
The Gates Foundation’s agenda has become the country’s agenda in education,” Michael Petrilli, vice president of the
Thomas B. Fordham Institute, told the Puget Sound Business Journal in 2009 after four Gates employees moved to
the U.S. Department of Education. Two US DOE transfers from Gates received Obama administration waivers
from its conflict of interest policy banning lobbyists from becoming high-ranking federal employees.
Education Policies Led by Gates, Not States? By: Joy Pullman, Heartland Institute, February 11, 2013
http://news.heartland.org/newspaper-article/2013/02/11/education-policies-led-gates-not-states

10
Is This A Rational For Dumbing Down The Standards?
“We were surprised how little math is used in first-year community college courses, and what is used is mostly
middle school math,” said Phil Daro, co-chair of the study’s Mathematics Panel and co-director in the develop-
ment of the Common Core State Standards for mathematics. “Our system makes no sense for these students: even
though so many students have a shaky understanding of the middle school mathematics they really need, high school
courses spend most of these students’ time on topics not needed for their college programs.”
“The reading skills of our high school graduates are so low that most community college instructors do not expect their
students to be able to read at the level of their textbooks,” said Catherine Snow, co-chair of the study’s English Panel
and Patricia Albjerg Graham Professor of Education at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. “Their writing skills
are so low that instructors rarely ask their students to write very much outside of their English composition classes, and,
when they do, the writing they are asked to do is not very demanding.”
Press Relase from the National Center on Education and the Economy, May 7, 2013
What Does It Really Mean to Be College and Work Ready? The Mathematics and English Literacy Required of First
Year Community College Students High Schools Fail to Teach What Graduates Need to Succeed in Community
Colleges, Instead Teaching What They Don’t Need
WhyAre Institutions of Higher Learning Not ReallyWeighing in?
Higher-education analysts who aren’t on board, forced to compete with the din of Gates-financed advocacy and
journalism, find themselves shut out of the conversation. Academic researchers who have spent years studying
higher education see their expertise bypassed as Gates moves aggressively to develop strategies for reform. The
hidden hand of these foundations, felt indirectly through grantees like Complete College America and Jobs for
the Future, is pushing new state efforts to tie colleges’ budgets to metrics like graduation rates.
Colleges have two easy ways to raise graduation rates. They can make passing so easy that no one will fail.
Or they can restrict admission to those who are unlikely to fail. If aid is tied to success, critics worry, that may
preclude institutions from giving a chance to marginal students who might benefit from college and fare quite
well. (Those misgivings are familiar to Mr. Gates, whose call for linking aid to completion included this proviso: “without
creaming the most-prepared students and without sacrificing quality.”)
The Gates Effect. The Bill Melinda Gates Foundation has spent $472-million (so far) on higher education. Why
many in academe are not writing thank-you notes. By Marc Parry, Kelly Field, and Beckie Supiano, J uly 14, 2013
College And Career Ready? How Is It Defined?
The concept of college readiness is minimal and focuses on non-selective colleges.”
Jason Zimba, Minutes of the Regular Meeting of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education,
March 23, 2010
The enrollment requirements of four-year state colleges overwhelmingly consist of at least three years of high school
mathematics including algebra 1, algebra 2, and geometry, or beyond. Yet Common Core’s “college readiness”
definition omits content typically considered part of algebra 2…they do not expect algebra to be taught in grade
8 and instead defer it to high school, reversing the most significant change in mathematics education in America
in the last decade, supported by the 2008 recommendations of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, and
contrary to the practice of our international competitors.
Statement by Mathematician Ze’ev Wurman, a former official in the U.S. Department of Education

11
Concerns From A Member Of The CCSS Validation Committee.
If the CCSS has the potential to do some good, it has at least equal potential to distort curriculum and
instruction. My concerns fall into four areas: (1) the separate emphasis on foundational skills, (2) the
grade-by-grade standards, (3) the lack of a developmental model for writing, and (4) issues of implementation.
I have already mentioned many of my concerns about how the CCSS may be implemented—concerns about
distorting the curriculum in English language arts to include more informational text than the standards actually
intended; concern about trivial curricular progressions across grades; and concerns about an emphasis on
supporting skills and strategies outside of the social and disciplinary contexts that give them meaning and im-
portance. Having said all of that, my greatest concern is in the evolution of the assessments that are being de-
veloped to accompany the standards. The CCSS have been billed as providing voluntary state standards, but the
policy choices that have followed their publication suggest they are more federal than state, and only voluntary if
a state is willing to give up considerable resources. The Race to the Top competition included adoption of CCSS as
one of its major evaluation criteria; and the US Department of Education has awarded some $330 million to support two
independent test development consortia: the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers
(http://www.parcconline.org/) and the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (http://www.smarterbalanced.org/).
Common Core State Standards: The Promise and the Peril in a National Palimpsest by Arthur Applebee
(Member of the Common Core Validation Committee. HE SIGNED OFF ON THE STANDARDS.)
Rigor??
While acknowledging the concerns about front-loading demands in early grades, [McCallum] said that the overall stan-
dards would not be too high, certainly not in comparison [with] other nations, including East Asia, where math
education excels.
Professor William McCallum, one of the three main writers of the Common Core mathematics standards, speaking
at the annual conference of mathematics societies in 2010
http://educationnext.org/the-common-core-math-standards/
Since the calculus stubs were not in the final version, and a small number of the advanced (+) standards in trigonometry
remain as the only indication of anything between an algebra II course and a calculus course, Common Core’s
standards clearly cannot help to prepare students for STEM areas.
Zimba is quoted as saying: “If you want to take calculus your freshman year in college, you will need to take more
mathematics than is in the Common Core.
Can This Country Survive Common Core’s College Readiness Level?
By: R. James Milgram and Sandra Stotsky, September 2013
Do We Know For Sure That The Standards Will Live Up
To Expectations?
“It would be great if our education stuff worked, but that we won’t know for probably a decade.”
Bill Gates, Hour-long interview, Harvard University, September 21, 2013
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBHJ-8Bch4Efeature=player_embedded

12
Social Justice?
…and remember that the reason we have standards is because of the social justice agenda to make sure all kids
get enough math to have a decent opportunity.” “Correct answers are essential, but they’re part of the process, they’re
not the product. The product is the math the kids will walk away with in their heads.
Phil Daro, one of the lead math writers
http://bvsd.org/curriculum/math/Instructional%20Materials%20Adoption/Frequently%20Asked%20Questions%20
for%20Connected%20Math%20Program%203.pdf
I believe that education is the civil rights issue of our generation. And if you care about promoting opportunity and
reducing inequality, the classroom is the place to start. Great teaching is about so much more than education; it is a
daily fight for social justice.
Secretary Arne Duncan, October 9, 2009
http://www.ed.gov/blog/2011/08/education-is-social-justice/
The Process Is More Important Than Getting Correct Answers?
Pedagogy trumps curriculum. Or more precisely, pedagogy is curriculum, because what matters is
how things are taught, rather than what is taught.
Dylan Wiliam, assessment expert and on Common Core Validation Committee
How Much Differentiation Will Be Allowed In The Curriculum?
The standards mandate “certain critical types of content for all students, including classic myths and stories from
around the world, foundational U.S. documents, seminal works of American literature, and the writings of Shakespeare,”
say the NGA and the CCSSO on the initiative’s website (2010), but states, districts, and schools make the remaining
content decisions.
Coming to Terms with Common Core Standards, December 2010 | Volume 16 | Number 4
Kids As Guinea Pigs??
When the two consortia roll out their new assessments in the 2014-15 school year, they will be a work in progress. I’m
sure not everything will go according to schedule. There will be glitches. There will be mistakes. But we cannot let the
perfect become the enemy of the good.
Choosing the Right Battles: Remarks and a Conversation
Remarks of U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan to the American Educational Research Association Annual
Meeting, San Francisco, California, April 30m, 2013
http://www.ed.gov/news/speeches/choosing-right-battles-remarks-and-conversation
The standard’s method of geometry was tested 50 years ago in the Soviet Union and was quickly thrown out, never
to be tried anywhere else in the world. That is until now. The Common Core standards are said to prescribe improved
methods of teaching; for example, it calls for teaching similar and congruent triangles using “rigid method,” an
experimental teaching method that has never been successfully used in K-12 education. I don’t know about you, but I
am not okay with our children being used as guinea pigs.
Common Core: What’s Behind the Curtain? Friday, September 13, 2013 by LORI ANDERSON

13
What About Kids That Are “Not Common” (ESE and Gifted)??
The adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) will have significant implications for teachers. The CCSS
calls for general education teachers to recognize and address student learning differences, and incorporate rigorous
content and application of knowledge through higher-order thinking skills. Despite the obvious connection to the field
of gifted education, the nature of advanced work beyond the CCSS is not addressed. In fact, the authors of the CCSS
state, “The Standards do not define the nature of advanced work for students who meet the Standards prior to
the end of high school. (Common Core English Language Arts Standards, p. 6)”
Although the CCSS are considered to be more rigorous than most current state standards, they fall short in meeting
the specific needs of gifted learners, and if held strictly to the standard, could actually limit learning. To over-
come this pitfall, it is imperative that gifted educators create a full range of supports for high-ability learners through
differentiated curriculum, instruction, and assessments.
http://www.nagc.org/CommonCoreStateStandards.aspx
Supporters of the common core standards stress that their formation and adoption is just the beginning of a long journey
toward higher levels of student achievement. There are dozens of unanswered questions regarding how these standards
will be maintained, updated, and assessed. Some of the pressing questions regarding next steps include:
• How should special populations be taken into account?
• How should schools apply standards to students of different skill levels?
Coming to Terms with Common Core Standards, December 2010 | Volume 16 | Number 4
http://www.ascd.org/publications/newsletters/policy-priorities/vol16/issue4/full/Coming-to-Terms-with-Common-
Core-Standards.aspx
Standards-Based IEP Is A Contradiction Of Terms!
Common Core requires that IEPs be ‘standards based’ – It is a contradiction in terms for an INDIVIDUALIZED
Education Plan to be STANDARDIZED to meet Common Core at grade level. What happens to gifted special needs
kids?
Under IDEA, instruction is individualized based on the student’s needs. That’s why it is especially important that the
knowledge and experience of professionals and parents are also considered when deciding how to teach a student with
disabilities. Professionals and parents should know about instructional practices and interventions that have been shown by
research to be most effective. These research-based practices should then be matched with a student’s unique needs
and skills when developing a student’s Individualized Education Program (IEP). It is important to record what works so
that evidence can emerge over time that offers new insights into teaching and learning for students with disabilities.
Evidence-Based Practices at School: A Guide for Parents, ©2011, PACER Center
http://www.parentcenternetwork.org/assets/files/national/Handouts/ALL-68.pdf
CCSS As A Violation Of IDEA??
It is truly questionable if Common Core State Standards are evidenced based.
Both the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act (IDEA) and Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)
require that schools use programs, curricula, and practices based on “scientifically-based research” “to the
extent practicable.” This means that whenever possible, the educational interventions being used must be strongly
supported by evidence from well-conducted research studies.
Evidence-Based Practices at School: A Guide for Parents, ©2011, PACER Center
http://www.parentcenternetwork.org/assets/files/national/Handouts/ALL-68.pdf

14
FERPA (Family Educational Rights And Privacy Act)
We always try to do our best to provide very clear guidance and try and strike that balance between absolutely
maintaining privacy, but also as much as we can, absolute transparency. Where districts or schools are — I’m not
saying they are — but if they’re sort of hiding behind FERPA and not sharing simple information, we’re happy
to try and assist there.
September 4, 2013 Arne Duncan Conference call organized by the Education Writers Association
As you know, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) was signed into law in 1974, guaranteeing
parental access to student education records and limiting their disclosure to third parties. FERPA was intended to
address parents’ growing privacy concerns and grant parental access to the information schools use to make
decisions that impact their children.
Once again circumventing Congress, in 2011 your agency took regulatory action to alter definitions within
FERPA. With the technological advances that have occurred in recent years, changes to FERPA deserve the full scrutiny
of the legislative process more so than ever before.
Letter to Arne Duncan from Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer (MO-03) April 2013.
Data Mining
The grantee must provide timely and complete access to any and all data collected at the state level to ED
(U.S. Education Department)...”
National Testing Organizations, Cooperative agreement between the U.S. Department of Education and PARCC/
SBAC
The common denominator for all of these policy decisions was that they were informed by data. I am a deep
believer in the power of data to drive our decisions. Data gives us the road map to reform. It tells us where we are,
where we need to go, and who is most at risk.
And finally, we need robust data systems to track student achievement and teacher effectiveness.
Usually, fire walls are set up for our protection. They prevent hackers from getting into our computers and they
block our children from visiting inappropriate Web sites. But these state fire walls don’t help us. They hurt all
of us. They impede our ability to serve students and better understand how we can improve American education.
And, hopefully, some day, we can track children from preschool to high school and from high school to college and
college to career. We must track high growth children in classrooms to their great teachers and great teachers to their
schools of education.
We want to see more states build comprehensive systems that track students from pre-K through college and
then link school data to workforce data. We want to know whether Johnny participated in an early learning program
and completed college on time and whether those things have any bearing on his earnings as an adult.
Robust Data Gives Us The Road map to Reform
Secretary Arne Duncan Addresses the Fourth Annual IES Research Conference, June 8, 2009

15
School Choice Redefined... Who Benefits From Choice?
Michael Petrelli, Executive VP at Fordham, a strong supporter of the Common Core Standards said, “...using the
Common Core as the standards and then the Common Core assessments as the measures of whether or not schools
are getting kids where they need to be, that that works and it makes a lot of sense. It’s based on a hypothesis, the
hypothesis being that if students do well against those standards and do well on the Common Core tests, ...that
the hypothesis is that then the students will be able to go on and do well in college or go on and get a good
paying job. And I think that hypothesis makes sense. We can’t prove it right now. But I think it all makes sense.”
He goes on to say, “Some schools of choice should be able to opt out. Common Core may not be a good fit.
Schools that are going to be on the far progressive end of the spectrum, who say we just don’t believe in testing
as a measure of what kids are going to be able to do. An example would be High Tech High, California. Their kids
don’t test well on state tests, but college going and college graduates are through the roof. There are some very high
performing schools, such as very affluent suburban schools and other magnet, private or charter schools that should
not be forced to adopt the CCSS, it will not be a good fit for them. I worry about making good schools look bad.”
Michael Petrelli, Common Core Supporter Says The Common Core is a Hypothesis
Posted by Mary Scheel-Buysse at Saturday, July 27, 2013
http://www.sdagainstcommoncore.com/2013/07/michael-petrelli-common-core-supporter.html
Hypocrisy??? The Sidwell Friends School (Where Obama
Sends His Kids To) And The Students At High Tech High
(Funded By The Bill And Melinda Gates Foundation) Do Not
Align With CCSS??
Students at High Tech High, a charter school in California, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, “do not
do well on state tests, but their college going and college graduation rates are through the roof.” What is that? State
test results have nothing to do with college going and college graduation rates? The Bill and Melinda Gates funded
Common Core Standards, are not a benchmark, by which the Bill and Melinda Gates funded charter school, High
Tech High, should be judged? We know that Sidwell Friends, the affluent private school the Obama girls attend,
will not be adopting or even aligning to the Common Core. So why should my children and grandchildren by judged
by the Common Core and it’s assessments?
David Coleman, the Most Influential Education Figure You’ve Never Heard Of Common Core Author Is Redesigning
the SATs and AP Program, By Joy Resmovits, Published The Jewish Daily Forward, August 25, 2013
http://forward.com/articles/182587/david-coleman-the-most-influential-education-figur/?p=all#ixzz2fCjdw5vz

We’veshownyoutheevidence.
CommonCore justdoesnotaddup.
It’s just NOT the right
answer for our kids!
We urge all to get involved and to understand Common Core
and how it will affect your children. Ask questions,
talk with friends teachers, read articles, and get connected to
facebook groups that are actively talking about Common Core.
Now more than ever, we need to be actively involved in what is
going on in our kids’ education. Common Core will fundamentally
change the way we educate our children...
and begin to strip away at the rights we parents and children have.
It has been said that the far left and far right in the Common Core battle
are radicals and those in the center are the ones with Common sense...
I see it quite differently.
The far left and right are the ones that are AWAKE, the center
has not yet woken up!! The evidence shows it’s not about common sense,
but about keeping the wool over the eyes of those in the center.
Information is power. Use it.
By: SAL concerned parents from across the nation
October 2013

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