At issue is the fact that while Walker proposed defunding the Common Core-aligned Smarter Balanced exam in his budget, the new “Badger Exam” that replaces it will also be aligned with the controversial standards, making it unlikely that many local school districts would opt for non-Common Core standards.
The House’s version of the redo, known as the Student Success Act (H.R. 5), was pulled from the House floor by GOP leadership in late February after it was determined the measure lacked sufficient support. Grassroots parents’ groups – many that have been fighting against the Common Core standards in their states – voiced their concerns that the Student Success Act still required excessive federal intrusion into the right of states to set their own education policies.
Following a year of technology problems and complaints from angry parents, Ohio has become the latest state to dump the federally-funded PARCC Common Core test consortium.
Walker, a likely 2016 contender, has recently affirmed what has been true of Wisconsin school districts all along – that they can choose their own standards. To his credit, he has also proposed defunding the Smarter Balanced test, a product of one of the federally funded, interstate Common Core test consortia. Grassroots parents groups, however, say Walker’s proposed new state exam – called the “Badger Exam,” is also aligned with the Common Core standards.
Jindal has heard the complaints of many parents in his state and has said that as a parent himself he could see the difficulties his own son was having with Common Core math. Ultimately, he unveiled an aggressive plan to eliminate Common Core in Louisiana, one that exposed how the state board of education and department of education can attempt to work around government rules and the state legislature in order to meet its own goals.
The vice president of content and scoring management at Pearson North America agreed to a comparison of the training for scorers of the Common Core tests to how a restaurant chain monitors its employees’ work.
The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) announced Monday that it has joined in filing a lawsuit against the governor of North Dakota and other officials that claims the state’s participation in one of the federally funded interstate Common Core test consortia and the implementation of the Common Core standards is unconstitutional and violates federal laws that ban federal control of public schools and curriculum.
It’s been a rough first week on the trail for Jeb Bush. First, protesters — from the left and the right — greeted Bush in New Hampshire. Then, opponents of the Common Core standards protested their state’s former governor in Tampa Friday at the Hillsborough County Republican Lincoln Day dinner.
“[I]f graders around the country complain publicly that the new tests are not being handled fairly or competently,” Education Columnist Jay Mathews warns, “the debate will become more serious, and one of America’s most ambitious school reforms will be in jeopardy.”
Republican leaders seem poised to resume attempts to convince the conservative base of their party that the bill will reduce federal involvement in education and return it to the states and localities.
The authors observe that regardless of the decision in Jindal’s case, state and local school boards are facing significant challenges in “the collapsing morale and educational achievement of their students,” and need to consider their own legal path to rid themselves of the Common Core boondoggle.
Christie said he signed his state’s Race to the Top application for federal funds in exchange for adopting the Common Core standards because his state needed the money, an admission many other governors are likely hesitant to make in light of the huge outcry from parents across the country against the standards and their associated testing and data collection.
U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan asked for advice via his private email account from Jeb Bush about how to respond to concerns about Common Core from current Florida Gov. Rick Scott.
The Louisiana lawmaker who has led the fight against Common Core for several years in his state says the final deal agreed to in the legislature “gives us everything we asked for” and proves that “passionate” engagement by citizens is what makes the difference.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker came out fighting for school vouchers Monday at a national conference of education reform advocates, where Walker said vouchers are a “moral and economic imperative.”
Louisiana lawmakers and parents who oppose Common Core are supporting a plan they say would ultimately rid the state of the controversial education initiative. However, Republican Gov. Bobby Jindal has “concerns” about the legislation.
The obvious question is: If Bush believes education should be decided at the state-level, why does he insist other states do what he did as Florida’s governor?
GOP 2016 candidate Mike Huckabee’s photo appears among a list of political, education and business leaders who support the Common Core standards in a book provided to state lawmakers by the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry.
Gov. Maggie Hassan (D) of New Hampshire has vetoed a bill that would have prohibited the state’s Department of Education and the State Board of Education from implementing the Common Core standards in any school or school district in the state.
With hundreds of thousands of parents refusing the Common Core-aligned tests for their children, Wall Street Journal contributor Jason Riley says the “soccer mom” opt-out movement has the momentum and is determined to win its fight.
Colleges in six states will use the Smarter Balanced Common Core-aligned test for placement to determine that students are “college-ready” and do not need to take remedial classes, but a former U.S. Education Department official told Breitbart News the decision to use the test was forced on the colleges by their state legislatures.
As parents of thousands of students across the nation are refusing the standardized tests aligned with the Common Core standards, state education officials are digging in their heels and attempting to use authority and, in some cases, intimidation to keep test participation rates up and parents in line.
Louisiana grassroots activists tell Breitbart News they warned a member of former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee’s team last week that his name was listed on a pro-Common Core PAC’s website as a supporter of the “Unicorns Are Not Real” campaign, an effort to ridicule opponents of the controversial standards.
A group of Common Core supporters resorting to mocking parents and other opponents of the boondoggle education initiative is studded with likely GOP presidential candidates, establishment Republican governors, top corporations, and the primary private funder of Common Core himself–Bill Gates.
As parents have continued to opt their children out of the testing aligned with the Common Core standards by the thousands in some states, in others, the testing has been halted entirely due to numerous technological glitches, leaving some state education officials worried their federal funding could be at stake as a result of low participation rates in the mandated tests.
