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State Board of Education members voted 5-2 Friday to support a bill that would break Colorado’s ties with Common Core and shrink testing requirements if passed. Board Chair Marcia Neal of Grand Junction voted with fellow Republican board members Steve Durham, Pam Mazanec and Debora Scheffel, and Democrat Val Flores, to pass a resolution in support of House Bill 1125. Democrats Angelika Schroeder and Jane Goff voted against the resolution. House Bill 1125 proposes repealing existing state law that binds Colorado to a consortium of states that test students using Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers (PARCC)...

Michael Petrilli of the Thomas B. Fordham Institute has nine question for Common Core opponents, which I would like to answer with eight questions of my own. First, Mr. Petrilli: 1. Do you mean that you oppose the Common Core standards themselves? All of them? Even the ones related to addition and subtraction? Phonics? Studying the nation’s founding documents? Or just some of them? Which ones, in particular, do you oppose? Have you actually read the standards? 2. Or do you mean that you oppose the role that the federal government played in coercing states to adopt the Common Core?...

THE FDLE POLITICAL WEAPON The accusations of using the FDLE as a political weapon against opponents of the Governor Scott administration may not be limited to the incident involving interim Orange County Clerk of Courts Colleen Reilly. It appears another case involving retaliation, document suppression, conspiracy and unlawful imprisonment of a Grand Jury Foreman Whistleblower may have occurred as local and state officials, including Governor Rick Scott, were accused of bribery for the implementation of Common Core just before Gov. Scott’s re-election in November. Introduction Corruption in our state, county, and local governments goes very deep and wide. According to...

No amount of false bravado, professorial sounding outrage or political denials can erase the truth about Common Core Dr. William J. (Bill) Bennett, former Secretary of Education under President Ronald Reagan from 1986 to 1988, advocates for Common Core in a CNN op-ed published on Dec. 2, 2014, and as recently as Feb. 1, 2015, in a televised debate with Texas Governor Greg Abbott. In his CNN op-ed, Dr. Bennett concludes that because America “offers no better alternative”, we should accept Common Core. His argument dovetails closely with establishment Republican and Democrat ideology; one imbedded with flawed logic, compounded falsehoods...

<p>A California Democrat has proposed a bill that would raise the state’s minimum smoking age from 18 to 21 in an effort to keep cigarettes out of the hands of teenagers.</p> <p>State Sen. Ed Hernandez introduced Senate Bill 151, which would make California the first state in the country to raise the minimum smoking age to 21. Similar proposals have previously failed in New Jersey, Utah, Colorado and Maryland.</p>

The Common Core education standards are not advancing as supporters of them had hoped and the Obama Administration that promoted them bears much of the blame, according to a journal of the education establishment. “Common Core has an image problem,” Kathleen Vail writes in the American School Board Journal. “The set of academic standards in math and language arts were embraced by 43 states and the District of Columbia in record time. States and individual school districts have been spending time, e¬ffort, and money to implement the standards.” “As those efforts go on, states have begun to pull out of...

WHAT IS SLDS? The STATE LONGITUDINAL DATABASE SYSTEM, is a comprehensive database compiled ON EACH CHILD. This data is not aggregate data, it is linked specifically to the child. DATA that is collected will FOLLOW THE CHILD through to their adult years and BEYOND. In fact, that is the PURPOSE of the SLDS, to provide a database that “grows” along with the child into their CAREER YEARS. The Workforce Data Quality Initiative’s Mission Statement from the United States Department of Labor’s website reads: “The long-term Workforce Data Quality Initiative and SLDS goal for States is to use their longitudinal data...

On Fox New Channel’s “Fox News Sunday,” conservative radio host Bill Bennett and Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX) had a friendly but heated debate about the controversial Common Core educational standards program.

A rather expensive development has surfaced on the way to installing Common Core in California’s hundreds of school districts statewide. Officials have figured out that the big government initiative could collectively cost districts $1 billion every year to set up a new statewide testing system supporting the new curriculum. The question is, who’s going to pay for it? According to the Santa Ana School District, the state, not the district, should foot the bill. Santa Ana along with three other school districts submitted a class action complaint, demanding that California pay for the “next generation” Smarter Balanced Assessments based on...

California-school mind control: grades for “Gratitude” By Jon Rappoport January 30, 2015 http://www.nomorefakenews.com The Sacramento Bee has the story. 1/27/15, “Grit and gratitude join reading, writing and arithmetic on report cards,” by Loretta Kalb: “Across the state, report cards are undergoing a sea change in how students are measured for academic performance. Where teachers once graded students [only] on traditional math or English skills, they now judge attributes such as grit, gratitude or being sensitive to others…Districts are changing their report cards to reflect the new Common Core State Standards…” “…when it comes to attributes such as grit or being...

Condoleezza Rice has a new position in education. Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush tapped the former secretary of state last Thursday to take over as chair of the Foundation for Excellence in Education. “I cannot overstate Dr. Rice’s international and national accomplishments and vast intellect and bold vision she brings to our ambitious work in reform,” said Bush on Rice’s appointment. Rice, who is currently a professor at Stanford University, already has close ties with the Bush family. She served as secretary of state during the administration of Bush’s brother, George W. Bush, and has served on the board of...

Common Core-aligned report cards are now grading students based on their “sensitivity to others,” as well as “grit” and “gratitude” across California. Instead of having standard grades based on students’ proficiency in classes alone, these “detailed reports” now report whether students are sensitive and assigns them a grade. At Harry Dewey Fundamental Elementary School, for grit, gratitude, and sensitivity toward others, students will now receive one of four possible grades: “A for almost always, O for often, S for sometimes, and R for rarely.” Other districts, such as Sacramento City Unified, have a similar grading scheme, but is a scale...

WINDSOR HEIGHTS, Iowa — When former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee walked into Walnut Creek Church here on Sunday night, fresh off his gleaming navy-blue bus, he was greeted by the crowd of suburban evangelicals as a visiting celebrity rather than a 2016 presidential candidate. Waiting in line to get their copies of the Republican’s latest book signed, a handful of the attendees shared recollections of Huckabee’s spunky 2008 bid for the White House, when he won the Iowa caucuses and seven more states before bowing out. But most of the conversations focused on Fox News, where Huckabee had been perched...

Executive SummaryEarly Learning and Student Success Immediate Steps Create early learning collaboratives in every county in the state Adopt a state-wide public engagement initiative (annual summit) Long Range Steps Provide opportunity for all 0-5 to participate in full year educational experiences Adopt pre-k - 3 non-graded education model for children ages 4-8 Teaching and Learning Immediate Steps Develop challenging curricula (common core state standards may be basis for robust curricula). Culture, Climate, and Organizational Efficacy Long Range Steps Establish each school as the center or hub of the community it serves Financial Resources Immediate Steps Initiate process for evaluating local...

This is National School Choice Week, but I want to talk about parents’ school testing choice. Moms and dads, you have the inherent right and responsibility to protect your children. You can choose to refuse the top-down Common Core racket of costly standardized tests of dubious academic value, reliability and validity. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. I’m reminding you of your right to choose because the spring season of testing tyranny is about to hit the fan. Do you object to the time being taken away from your kids’ classroom learning? Are you alarmed by the intrusive data-sharing and...

This is National School Choice Week, but I want to talk about parents' school testing choice. Moms and dads, you have the inherent right and responsibility to protect your children. You can choose to refuse the top-down Common Core racket of costly standardized tests of dubious academic value, reliability and validity. Don't let anyone tell you otherwise. I'm reminding you of your right to choose because the spring season of testing tyranny is about to hit the fan. Do you object to the time being taken away from your kids' classroom learning? Are you alarmed by the intrusive data-sharing and...

U.S. Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Fla., announced on Monday he was a co-sponsor of U.S. Rep. Joe Wilson’s, R-SC, “Local Control of Education Act” which would stop the Obama administration from making states “adopt a specific curriculum, and would void any previous federal requirements established for states that have already adopted Common Core.” Rooney explained why he was backing the bill on Monday. “The federal government has no constitutional business setting the curriculum for a teacher in a Florida classroom,” Rooney said. “If states, of their own volition, want to adopt a certain set of standards, then that’s their prerogative. I...

This week, events around the country will highlight the importance of parental control of education as part of National School Choice Week. This year's events should attract more attention than prior years because of the growing rebellion against centralized education sparked by the federal Common Core curriculum. The movement against Common Core has the potential to change American education. However, anti-Common Core activists must not be misled by politicians promoting "reforms" of the federal education bureaucracy, or legislation ending Common Core while leaving all other federal education programs intact. The only way to protect American children from future Common Core-like...

When the radicals start defending “standards,” that’s when you have to become suspicious—of the standards. That is the case with Obama’s federalized education plan called Common Core. Perhaps there is no clearer sign than when Mother Jones mocks alarms raised about Common Core’s national tests and student data tracking that will eliminate local control, and effectively, private and home schooling. When Linda Darling-Hammond, close pal of Bill Ayers, is in charge of developing tests, beware! As I noted in my “Dissident Prof” post, the defenders of Common Core need to look at the reality, look at the money trail, look...

How was it that 48 governors entered Race-to-the-Top without knowing outcomes? It was one of the many “crises” exploited by the Obama administration. While the public was focused on a series of radical moves coming in rapid-fire succession, like the health care bill and proposed trials and imprisonment of 9/11 terrorists on domestic soil, governors, worried about keeping school doors open, signed on. Many politicians and pundits praised Obama on this singular issue, repeating the official rhetoric about raising standards. It stands to reason, though, that education policies would be consistent with Obama’s agenda. After all, one of his most...