Contact your reps on Common Core

[farmerbyron]

If you are opposed to common core, now is the time to contact your reps and in particular your state senators to support legislation to remove common core standards. SB 1146 will fight an up hill battle as many of the republican reps still support common core. In particular our own governor may be the biggest obstacle to repeal as she is part of the organization that thinks they came up with common core.

IDK how many of you that have kids but if you do, you have seen a tremendous increase in homework load as well as some questionable lessons. Not to mention the financial strain these new standards are putting on our school districts by requiring the new testing, books, lesson plans, and workbooks all while being funded at the same levels as before. We can solve a lot of budgetary issues and curriculum issues by simply repealing common core and restoring local control.


http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/01/09/Oklahoma-To-Consider-Common-Core-Repeal-Bill

A new bill filed in the Oklahoma state senate would require the Oklahoma State Board of Education “to remove alignment with the K-12 Common Core State Standards Initiative.”
As Truth In American Education reported, Senate Bill 1146, sponsored by state Sen. Eddie Fields (R), would prohibit the State Board of Education from aligning curriculum with the Common Core Standards and halt implementation of the standards in Oklahoma schools.
The proposed legislation was filed following statewide hearings and an interim study that was conducted on the Common Core.
The bill also requires the Board of Education to request the federal government “to change or amend any requirement or agreement which conditions the receipt of federal funding” on adopting Common Core.
According to Isabel Lyman at Heartland.org, Fields states he supports high academic standards but not developmentally inappropriate ones.
“My fourth grade daughter, who is very bright, brought home a Common Core math book that was aimed at the junior or senior high school level,” he said.
In addition, Fields said he is concerned with the loss of localism brought about by the Common Core standards’ drive toward nationalization.
“You can’t compare Oklahoma to Massachusetts,” he said. “The social and economic status of Oklahoma is far different from that of Massachusetts or any other state.”
A spokesman for Oklahoma House Speaker T.W. Shannon (R) said that Shannon, too, “intends to introduce legislation of his own on the issue of Common Core.”
As Heartland.org reports, in 2013, Shannon opposed an initial Common Core repeal in March, but then reversed his opinion in May, proposing a repeal too late during the session to enable it to pass the legislature.
An additional factor is that Oklahoma Republican Gov. Mary Fallin is chair of the National Governor’s Association, one of the groups that helped to create the Common Core standards.
In December, Fallin issued an executive order in support of Common Core. The order also directed the state Secretary of Education to ensure that the federal government would have no input in the formulation of the standards and that the state would be responsible for deciding how to test student performance.
According to a news article on Fallin’s website, the order specifies that all state agencies “will aggressively oppose any future attempt by the federal government to force the state to adopt standards that do not reflect Oklahoma values."
Furthermore, the order states that “Oklahoma Academic Standards will not jeopardize the privacy of any Oklahoma student or citizen,” and that both “local school districts and the Oklahoma State Department of Education shall refrain from collecting or reporting student information in a manner that would violate state or federal privacy laws.”
Oklahoma has not received any federal funding to adopt the Common Core standards.

 

[TerryMiller]

The whole "key" part of this whole thing is getting things back under local control. Back in the late '80's, I was a school board member here in Oklahoma. That was when I learned that when the federal school lunch program was begun that it came with stipulations required by the federal government for certain "requirements" to be met in order to continue to get funding for the program. I wondered then how long it would be before the feds got control of everything. I'm not sure that school board members now are anything more than figure-heads.

For what it's worth, we've lost sight of the call by a previous presidential candidate to do away with the Departments of Energy, Education, and reform the EPA. They have now all become nothing more than regulatory entities that have lost the "vision" of their intended purpose.

 

[Lakenut]

Terry is right on. The schools do whats best for their bank account, not necessarily what is right for kids. The only way I see the state doing away w common core is to find a way to replace and exceede the funding state school districts get from the feds....and offer that money to follow a different curriculum.

 

[CBCollier]

It is sad really. My son is 14 and in 8th grade and I see what this common core has done to the schools. It seems that they are forced to teach to a test and not to the "core" aspects that you should be taught. Just my opinion on what I have been privy to. Needless to say, my wife and I have been reinforcing some of the ways we were taught to do math, English, etc. I really can see the appeal to homeschooling. The only drawback I see to the homeschooling is the social aspect that I think young kids need to have in order to become productive adults.

 

[TwoForFlinching]

We all want whats best for the kids... every student benefits from a million dollar+ sports complex

 

[3inSlugger]

It is sad really. My son is 14 and in 8th grade and I see what this common core has done to the schools. It seems that they are forced to teach to a test and not to the "core" aspects that you should be taught. Just my opinion on what I have been privy to. Needless to say, my wife and I have been reinforcing some of the ways we were taught to do math, English, etc. I really can see the appeal to homeschooling. The only drawback I see to the homeschooling is the social aspect that I think young kids need to have in order to become productive adults.

I'm normal-ish...kinda.

 

[CBCollier]

I'm normal-ish...kinda.

I think there is a big responsibility of the parents that home school their kids to give the kids some way to be social, rather than keep them secluded. That's all I mean. I know people that were home schooled, and quite honestly, I think they had a better education than most.



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[mr ed]

lets repeal it so other countries will get further ahead in education and we can have more uneducated welfare recipients.
my son is in 4th grade and doing 6th grade subjects and getting straight A's. it requires parental involvement which young parents don't want to do.
(takes away their pot smoking & drinking time)

 

[Poke78]

It is sad really. My son is 14 and in 8th grade and I see what this common core has done to the schools. It seems that they are forced to teach to a test and not to the "core" aspects that you should be taught. Just my opinion on what I have been privy to. Needless to say, my wife and I have been reinforcing some of the ways we were taught to do math, English, etc. I really can see the appeal to homeschooling. The only drawback I see to the homeschooling is the social aspect that I think young kids need to have in order to become productive adults.

Here, I googled it for you: https://www.google.com/search?q=soc...-US:IE-Address&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&sourceid=ie7

Many articles on that aspect of homeschooling and the myths surrounding it, your last sentence being among them. I've seen comments on the web from some that if a homeschool parent thinks their child is missing something from the public school experience, they could always go smoke in the bathroom while the kid is in there, "pants" him, steal his lunch money, and give him a "swirly" to ensure he has the full experience.

I'm of two minds about homeschool (HS hereafter) since my kids went to a "good" public school system, the same one from K-12, the youngest graduating in 2004. Generally a good experience but could have been better. Now those kids have one child each and I'm more concerned about schools than ever before. I'm less certain there are "good" public school systems and the impacts of the broader society within the schools concerns me, along with this Common Core train-wreck.

OTOH, I have been able to personally observe some HS kids in general settings and it's easy to pick them out of a group of peers. One was in my son's Boy Scout troop where I was the Scoutmaster. The HS boy did not easily mix with the others on group activities and had difficulty in leadership roles, especially in communication as he had an uncorrected lisp that would have been addressed in PS (wife was a PS speech pathologist for nearly 30 years.)

Another HS boy I've observed is the son of a colleague and has some other challenges that made a regular classroom nearly impossible for all. The choice to HS was to give him the structure and intensive management he needed that PS could not deliver. It's made a significant difference for him and he still gets to socialize through church activities where he's more easily accepted than in a competitive school setting.

 

[tntrex]

The standardized tests are the best thing to happen in our system. We have been waaaay behind most other states tests in the US. I tell my kids all the time tests are upmost importance-anyone that has college education knows the value.
Also
These test expose the weak districts and as well as all the way down to the weak subjects and weak instructors in particular schools. It is what we need.