News

Response to the Governor's Executive Order and Letters

September, 2013

 
Governor Rick Scott issued the following documents today in response to the many problems with the Common Core standards, aligned tests, data collection system, and accountability system:

1. A letter to Secretary of Education Arne Duncan terminating the fiscal agent relationship with PARCC;
2. A letter to Florida State Board of Education chairman Gary Chartrand detailing the governor's requests regarding public input on the standards, ceasing use of the national text examplars of the Common Core standards, the termination of the PARCC fiscal agent role, and the selection of a new state assessment; and
3. An executive order detailing parameters to deal with the issues of the assessments, school accountability, teacher evaluations, and data security.

The Florida Stop Common Core Coalition heartily commends the governor's efforts to hear the concerns of Florida parents and citizens about the many problems with the Common Core system of standards, aligned assessments, and data collection.  These include issues regarding quality; state and local control; parental rights; the teaching, testing, and data collection of psychological parameters; and cost.  We thank Governor Scott and look forward to working with him, the legislature, Commissioner Stewart and the State Board of Education to:

1. Make sure that the Common Core standards are changed to become Florida's standards after being reviewed by outside experts and the public with real input so that they truly are rigorous, internationally benchmarked, developmentally appropriate, locally controlled, with parents having a say in standards and curriculum, and do not promote the teaching of psychological attitudes and beliefs;
2. Insure that Florida does not lose control over its assessment again by choosing a national "off the shelf" assessment still aligned to the national standards or federal model curriculum; that Florida completely withdraws from PARCC and not merely its role as fiscal agent; it is truly Florida's assessment based on Florida's standards instead of the national Common Core standards with state comparability already achieved through the National Assessment of Educational Progress; and that any testing of psychological or attitudinal parameters in the academic assessments is strictly prohibited;
3. Change the law to make sure student, family, and teacher privacy is truly protected not only via the data security issues mentioned in the governor's executive order, but that the type of data collected does not include non-academic political, religious, medical, psychological, biometric, or social data.

 
A broad consortium of organizations opposed to Common Core will be holding a press conference on the 22^nd floor of the capitol building at 11:30 AM on Wednesday, September 25^th to discuss these issues and pending legislation.
 
Florida Stop Common Core Coalition
Chrissy Blevio flstopcccoalition@gmail.com  941-737-7743
Florida Parents Against Common Core
Laura Zorc   LauraDZorc@aol.com  772-643-5700

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