News

The October 17th stop on the Florida Department of Education's Listening tour was covered by WUSF before the hearing and afterwards by the Tampa Bay Tribune. FSCCC was quoted in both pieces. Below are some excerpts. Dr. Effrem's prepared remarks are available here.

WUSF - They linked to our list of national expert recommendations about how to move on from Common Core.

Opponents of Common Core say the new list of skills that students must master are moving in the right direction, although they insist more work remains.

Karen Effrem is the executive director of Florida Stop Common Core Coalition. She says this is not just a political exercise.

"There's certainly a political aspect to it," Effrem said. "But people that have followed this all along realize what an educational disaster Common Core has been."

She especially lauded Corcoran's new literature reading list as a step in the right direction. She said her coalition supporters also want to see more phonics and basic math equation skills, sooner.

"It's still a work in progress, but we're heading in that direction," Effrem said. "For instance, in the math requirement, the use of the standard algorithm in Common Core didn't start until fifth grade, which is about two years behind, when it should be [earlier] for high performing countries and states. It's now down to third grade, which is much, much better.

Tampa Tribune

By contrast, some speakers said they would have preferred the state not just adjust the existing benchmarks, but rather dump them completely in favor of the requirements in other states that never adopted Common Core. They pointed to examples such as Minnesota's math standards.

The Common Core, which undergirds the Florida Standards, is an "educational disaster," said Karen Effrem, who leads the Florida Stop Common Core Coalition and called for more work to find developmentally appropriate standards.

Asked if the ongoing revisions would get rid of every last vestige of the Common Core, as the governor has sought, Oliva pointed out that many of the expectations are fundamental and preceded the controversial set of standards. The state will build upon them and sharpen them, and in the end the initiative will differ significantly from the model that Florida adopted in 2010, he said.

There are 3 more meetings on the Listening Tour for the second draft. All meetings are from 5:30 to 6:30 PM with doors opening at 5 PM:

The folowing stops on the Florida Standards Listening Tour for the Florida Department of Education to take public input  on the standards has been released:

The Florida Stop Common Core Coalition is pleased to release nationa expert recommendations to help fullfill Governor Ron Desantis' wonderful Executive order 19-32 to "remove the last vestiges of Common Core in Florida."

The recommendations are available in two forms. First, they are available in stand-alone form as an executive summary  and then in a more extensive document with background information and references. They are divided into recommendations that apply to both math and English standards and then those that are specific to each subject.

The Florida Stop Common Core Coalition is grateful to Dr. Sandra Stotsky, Dr. Mark Bauerlein, and Dr. Duke Pesta for their direct involvement and recommendations on ELA, as well as Dr. Louisa Moats for her seminal work on phonics and literacy education. We are also grateful to Ze'ev Wurman, Dr. Ted Rebarber, and J.R. Wilson for their direct work on the math portion of this document, as well as to Dr. James Milgram for his long and seminal work on math standards as a mathematician across the nation. Finally, we wish to acknowledge Emmett McGroarty's involvement and advice from a policy perspective.

These have been shared with officials at the highest levels of the Department of Education. While we appreciate the ongoing efforts and believe we are being heard, there is some danger of a rebrand repeat. This is most likely due to outside Establishment pro-common core elements that do not want to see this needed change. The survey methods are requiring the public to comment on individual standards using the Common Core/Florida Standards as a baseline, which is exactly what happened in 2014 in Florida and other states. This has resulted in the false impression that the vast majority of parents and teachers want to keep the standards as they are. Analysis by the prominent parental rights in education blog, the Underground Parent and a survey by the Florida Citizens Alliance show that to be far from the case. The survey shows that only 6% want to keep the standards the same.

Please stay involved and make yu voice heard!

Here is a sample of the state and national/international media coverage involving Governor DeSantis' tremendous executive order to end Common Core, revamp testing and boost civics education, including several  involving FSCCC:

Florida Ron DeSantis signed a executive order on January 31st, 2019 to end the use of the Common Core standards in Florida, develop new standards, streamline testing and expand civics teaching. Significantly, Commissioner Corcoran admitted that the current Florida Standards are Common Core rebranded. Here is video of part of the press conference and news coverage, followed by links to other media coverage involving FSCCC: