News

A special election primary will be held January 27th of 2015 to replace very pro-Common Core Senator John Thrasher who resigned to become Florida State University president.  There are three candidates in that Republican primary race:

Commissioner of Education Pam Stewart announced the formation of the Keep Florida Learning Committee promised by Governor Scott's re-election campaign in September. Here is a description of the make-up and duties of the committee:

We have updated the table with all of the other addresses and now maps for the remaining meetings through January!

Please find your county's meeting HERE attend if you can. They finish for 2014 one week before Christmas and then start back up January 9th. This is a great way to talk about Common Core without going to Tallahassee!  Thank you!

Many thanks to Hamilton Boone for pulling together this table of legislative delegation meetings remaining before the 2015 session begins. Please do your best to attend the meetings in your area.  We have some addresses and are working to get more, but You may need to contact your own delegation for the specific address of each meeting if you dont find the one you need!  You can use the well organized effort of Lake County Against Common Core as an example.  These meetings are a great way to explain to your legislators about the problems and dangers of Common Core without having to travel all the way to Tallahassee!

Many thanks to our partner organization Lake County Against Common Core, whose parents organized so well and gave impassioned speeches about the dangers and problems about Common Core at the Lake County legislative delegation meeting on December 2nd. Here is a quote from the Daily Commercial article about the event:

"I am here as an infuriated mother of elementary school children and who are demanding to know how this can be fixed," [parent and teacher Jane] Irwin said, addressing Sens. Alan Hays and Dorothy Hukill and Reps. Larry Metz, Jennifer Sullivan and Marlene O'Toole.

"The standards are completely developmentally inappropriate for K through 5. They are fast forwarding skill mastery to unacceptable levels. Forced learning is not natural, it's not lasting and it is certainly not authentic ... There is hardly any logic to the sequence of learning, which the kids are struggling to master, because none of it makes any sense. The math curriculum is convoluted and inefficient, and it appears to be designed for children to fail. And if that is the plan, congratulations, because that is exactly what they are doing," she said.

"There must be a resolution put forth to end the toxic testing system that has become prevalent," Irwin said. "It is shameful that our kids no longer get a well-rounded education that includes the arts on a regular basis in order to pay for those tests. Not to mention the stress, the anxiety and the classroom time that is lost for real authentic learning."

Here is the video of Jane Irwin who is quoted above:

Thanks to Tina Neace who delivered FSCCC's remarks:

Here is the Lake County Against Common Core leader Lory Baxley who wisely discussed Florida replacing Common Core with one of the other best sets of state standards:

Here is parent Christine Magnifico:

Parent provides solutions to fix the problem of toxic-testing in the state of Florida:

Here is Lake County father Brian Hofer:

Here is Stuart Klatte, President of the Lake County Teachers Association:

Here is another mom, Carolyn Van Dyken:

Senator Alan Hayes responded to what he heard with this speech:

Again, we thank Lake County Against Common Core and hold them up as a model for other counties in Florida to speak to their legislators!

Congratulations to the activists in Missouri as a judge there issued a temporary restraining order in the the lawsuit filed  against that state's involvement in SBAC, one of the federally funded, federally controlled Common Core testing consortia. Below is an excerpt from that order as reported by Missouri Education Watchdog:

Sadly, as with many other areas of life, the current administration is seeking to further erode the sovereignty of states to make the decisions that are they are constitutionally empowered to do.  The latest outrage in education is recently released new rules from the Secretary of Education Arne Duncan regarding alternative testing.  The abstract is quite alarming:

The Marion County School Board advanced a resolution on November 19th by a 3-2 vote asking for legislation to allow parents to opt their children out of mandated testing without penalty.  According to the Ocala Star Banner article, Chairwoman Angie Boynton, Nancy Stacy, and Kelli King voted for the resolution, while Bobby James and board vice-chairwoman Carol Ely voted against it.

Here are some of the issues brought up in the resolution as described in the article:

Jenni White, a wonderfull mom, co-founder of Restore Oklahoma Public Education, and the activist leader who was instrumental in the passage of Oklahoma's nation leading Common Core repal bill, debated the Gates funded Fordham Foundation's Michael Petrilli on Common Core on November 11th.  Here is the video. Enjoy!

Many Florida School Board candidates won election or re-election after publicy opposing Common Core (rebranded as the Florida Standards) or opposing the accompanying high stakes testing regime.  FSCCC congratulates these winners and thanks all the candidates who ran on this platform to protect the hearts and minds of our children, as well as all of you for supporting them.  We look forward to working together to remove the scourge of Common Core from Florida and our nation.  Here is the list, which is not complete:

As in 2010, Florida Governor Rick Scott eked out a 1.2 per cent electoral victory on Tuesday over Democrat Charlie Crist and Libertarian Adrian Wyllie.  The governor's very disciplined campaign won by spending tens of millions of dollars on negative ads, the most in Florida history, and focusing on his strengths, the most prominent of which was clearly the economy and his excellent and successful efforts to increase jobs. Scott was also aided by tying Crist to President Obama's deeply unpopular policies

At the same time, the issue of Common Core, on which he was clearly vulnerable, was rarely mentioned openly on the campaign trail.  The issue of testing was brought up in the second debate, but the standards were discussed by the Scott campaign only in the context of yet another review commission in Scott's policy paper on education.  Even Jeb Bush, one of the nation's strongest proponents of Common Core could not mention the standards in the campaign commercial he cut for the current governor in his home state.  When Bush did discuss the standards on the campaign trail, all he did was make matters worse by admitting that the changes to Common Core that became the Florida Standards were "not substantial."  This was similar to the awkward incident where North Carolina U.S. Senate candidate Thom Tillis has to publicly distance himself from Bush at a campaign event.  Clearly, Bush's support of Common Core was a big loser in the 2014 midterms and will be an albatross around his neck should he choose to run for president in 2016. 

FSCCC congratulates Governor Scott, hopes that he will do what he stated in his public and private discussions on this topic, and pledges to work with him and the legislature to remove Common Core from our state to protect our children's lives and futures.

Elsewhere in Florida, dozens of school board candidates and several state legislative candidates or incumbents won election or re-election opposing Common Core and or high stakes testing as a significant part of their platform. Even for a few of the school board candidates, whether winning or losing, who may not have been sincerely and strongly opposed to Common Core, it was clearly the major issue in contested races.  The list of winning school board candidates is below and HERE. FSCCC thanks all those, whether winning or not who stood for the hearts and minds of our children. This is especially true of those who were not victorious like Don Armstrong, Terry Kemple, Dipah Shah, and Chase Basinger who had to deal with significant amounts of support from pro-Common Core or pro-testing forces. The legislative candidates included anti-Common Core champion Rep. Debbie Mayfield, as well as Jennifer Sullivan, and Julio Gonzalez.

And across the nation, Common Core was strongly repudiated in Arizona and Georgia with the elections of Diane Douglas and Richard Woods, respectively as state superintendents.  Both ran on a strong anti-Common Core platform, which significantly boosts the likelihood of repeal efforts in those states. Idaho, South Carolina, Wyoming also elected state superintendents that will be more likely to work against the standards.

It will now be up to all of us to work at every level to remove these academically inferior, developmentally inappropriate, and psychologically manipulative standards from our state.  Thank you for your support.

The Florida Stop Common Core Coalition (FSCCC), an organization of over fifty groups, and Florida Parents RISE, a group of parents from all over the State of Florida, co-founded by the three co-founders and former directors of Florida Parents Against Common Core (FPACC), both of which represent tens of thousands of Floridians, issue the following statement:  
 

Dear Governor Scott,
 
We, the undersigned groups, are aware that you have received a letter from a few groups listing some recommendations for what your campaign might consider to elicit the support of the thousands and thousands of parents and grandparents that are ready to deny your re-election over the Common Core issue. Floridians have come to see the devastating effects of the academically inferior, developmentally inappropriate, and psychologically manipulative Common Core (AKA Florida) Standards and associated tests by the American Institutes for Research on their children and grandchildren. This letter is to further elucidate the key issues, as well as to clarify and expand upon those suggestions.
 
Here is the current situation:

• Standards authors David Coleman admits he was unqualified and Jason Zimba admits that the standards are inadequate for STEM majors at selective universities, while major proponent and funder Bill Gates admits that the results of the Common Core scheme will not be known for ten years.
• The offices of pediatricians and psychologists are overflowing with students that are showing physical and emotional symptoms of profound anxiety and depression because these standards and tests are so developmentally inappropriate, destroying the joy of learning and being tantamount to cognitive child abuse.
• The US Department of Education, The National Association of State Boards of Education, and many other groups and individuals admit that one of the primary purposes of the standards and tests is to psychologically train and profile our children.
• Floridians are furious at being told that Common Core is gone from Florida when only 0.9% of the standards were changed and given a different name, while Commissioner Stewart, Speaker Weatherford, Jeb Bush, and others have all admitted that the changes were insubstantial and or that that was the plan all along. The facts that neither Jeb Bush nor the US Department of Education made any comment or complaint about the state's change to the "Florida Standards" also confirms that there was no real change from Common Core.
• Switching from the PARCC test to the AIR test did not provide significant relief from federal overreach as AIR is developing the computer adaptive testing for SBAC, the other federal testing consortium. In addition, there are serious concerns about our state paying an extra $5 million to field test questions in Utah; their admission to a major behavioral emphasis in testing & research, not academics, including the "social genome project," psychosocial education, social justice, School-to-Work, and GLBT issues; and their involvement in data mining individual Florida students & teachers.
• Parents will also be upset when they find out that the much touted data protection bill only solves collection of 3 out of 400 invasive data points or that their supposed freedom to control curriculum in their districts is non-existent, because curriculum is required to align with Common Core.
• Parents and teachers across the state and nation are stoking grassfires of rebellion to the academically unhelpful, excessive, invasive and expensive high stakes tests that are robbing 40-50% of learning time.
• The conservative grassroots of the Republican Party of Florida is increasingly tired of being ignored, minimized, and dismissed despite many Republican Executive Committees, two committees within the RPOF, the Legislative Affairs Committee as well as many national Republican organizations passing unanimous or near unanimous resolutions against Common Core. This is evidenced by low volunteer turnout.
• The anger and frustration about these facts is evident in polling data showing that two unknown and underfunded candidates received almost twice as many votes as your margin of victory in the 2010 election with full Tea Party support; that despite the $44 million dollars that your campaign has spent on ads against your opponent, you are still slightly behind; and that both you and Charlie Crist are receiving low marks for honesty.

• Bear Witness Central
• Florida Eagle Forum
• The Tea Party Network - a statewide organization of dozens of  Tea Party and patriot groups across Florida

Florida Today published Dr. Effrem's rebuttal to Speaker-Designate Steve Crisafulli's recent op-ed supporting Florida's current very problematic testing scheme:

Supporters and citizens in Collier County, please listen to this radio interview/debate conducted by Drew Steele of 92.5 Fox News in the Fort Meyers/Naples area.  There are definitely clear contrasts on Common Core and high stakes testing between Erika Donalds, a mom, accountant, and activist who has been battling Common Core for at three years and Kathy Ryan, a former educator who seems supports the idea of national standards, but believes that there have been implementation issues.

More evidence that conservative support for a presidential run by Jeb Bush and winning the Republican nomination in general would be very difficult because of Common Core emerged from North Carolina this week. 

Although one can question how sincere he was in calling out Common Core in the primary, given backing by ardent Common Core supporters Bush, Karl Rove, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, and Rove's PAC, we had previously reported that now Republican nominee Thom Tillis had done exactly that in order to win the primary:

In another precedent setting vote, the Lee County School Board voted on September 23rd to opt out of all of the district mandated tests for grades K-5, relieving the parents, teachers, and especially the students of the stress of 68 extra exams. Mandated, high stakes exams beyond the once yearly test starting in third grade are needlessly stressful, developmentally inappropriate and academically unhelpful for informing instruction.

The vote was 3-1 with Don Armstrong, Mary Fischer, and Jeanne Dozier all voting in favor, Cathleen Morgan, in her usual support of the corporate testing crowd, voting against the measure, and board chairman Tom Scott absent due to illness. As reported in the News Press by Emily Atteberry, board member Mary Fischer, who wore red for the vote, called the excessive testing a form of "child abuse."

Anne Gassel and Gretchen Logue, co-founders of our friends, Missouri Coalition Against Common Core joined Fred Sauer in filing a lawsuit against Governor Nixon, Commissioner Nicastro, and others. They argue that the state's payments for the federally funded, federally supervised national tests, SBAC, constitute a violation of the Compact Clause of the US Constitution and numerous other state and federal statutes.
 
Truth in American Education describes the lawsuit this way:

The Greater Florida Consortium of School Boards unanimously passed a resolution against high stakes testing.  After at least two hours of discussion, they rejected the language we reported in our last post about this, including the parental opt-out language that we supported, and went with a simple motion to "Suspend high stakes testing." The details of what this means will still have to be worked out. 

Here are some statements from some of the board members present from the Fort Meyers News Press:

After the Lee County vote and then rescission and the Florida School Boards Association discussion, the tsunami of opposition to high stakes testing continues to gain momentum.  Both the Florida Education Association (FEA) and the Palm Beach County School Board (PBCSB) have recently passed resolutions against the use of high stakes testing for as the sole measure of accountability for our children, teachers, and districts.

The FEA, the largest statewide teachers' union has many grave concerns summarized in the introductory paragraph of their resolution:

1. Supports student assessment, aligned to grade and content-specific standards, administered with minimal disruption of the instructional process and designed to provide prompt and worthwhile data to assist teachers in addressing individual student learning needs;
2. Supports provisions which will give school districts with the flexibility to develop appropriate measures of student success for grades and subjects not assessed by statewide tests;
3. Urges all new assessments be field tested in the State of Florida by representative demographic populations and validated; (Emphasis on original)
4. Urges rejection of any untested assessments for any high stakes purpose including criteria for student promotion or retention, teacher evaluation, or school and district grades and other high stakes decisions until their usefulness and validity is determined;
5. Supports a moratorium on using the incoherent, volatile school grading formula which ill-serves students, parents, teachers, Educational Support Professionals and Florida school communities until such time as a broadly understood and supported system is tested, measured and in position to replace the current system;
6. Supports a less intrusive system of student assessment that provides helpful, timely feedback and does not reduce valuable classroom instructional time;
7. Urges a longer transition time period beginning with kindergarten to realign and revamp the accountability system and regain the trust of students, teachers, parents and Floridians;
8.  Urges adequate state funding for technology infrastructure to ensure that load testing and rectification will precede the implementation of any new assessments with sufficient lead time and resources to correct any deficiencies, and;
9. Urges the Governor of the State of Florida to exercise his executive authority and protect the wellbeing of Florida's students and the legitimacy of Florida's education system by immediately providing a process for public

The courageous efforts of twenty-six veteran Alachua teacher Susan Bowles to risk her job in order to protect her kindergarten students from the losing 6 weeks of precious instructional time taking a computerized test called the FAIR test (Florida Assessment of Instruction in Reading) have paid off.  Today, the superintendent received word from Commissioner Pam Stewart that the FAIR test would no longer be required in grades K-2 in the entire state.  While this is likely a political move to help the governor who is taking significant political heat over Common Core and testing, it is a welcome relief.

As reported by the Gainesville Sun last week, this test used to be given on paper, but now is given online requiring one on one help from the teacher that takes up to an hour per student. The paper inaccurately reported that the test was required "per state law, three times a year" in kindergarten through second grade. The truth is that all kindergarten students are required to be screened in the first thirty days of school. (F.S. 1002.69), but the FAIR test is not mentioned.  This is also contrary to statements made by Dr. Owen Roberts that by law, the FAIR test in particular must be used to screen kindergarten students in the first thirty days.

This issue received coverage by papers across the state including the Tampa Bay Times, the Sarasota Herald Tribune, and across the nation in the Washington Post.

Bowles had significant concerns about the FAIR in regard to the excessive number of tests and the lost instructional time.  However, this email by a reading specialist who requested anonymity and who used to administer the test brings up frightening concerns about the validity, developmental inappropriateness, data collection, data security, and indoctrination of older students with the reading passages:

1. HALT THE IMPLEMENTATION OF COMMON CORE STANDARDS IMMEDIATELY AND REVERT TO THE PREVIOUS FLORIDA SUNSHINE STATE STANDARDS - If, as all the officials and proponents keep saying, that Common Core is so based on the previous standards, then this should not be a problem. A review commission in a year is only more "lipstick on a pig."
2. CANCEL THE AIR CONTRACT - Protect our children from questions field tested in Utah, social engineering, psychological profiling, and data collection that this company is famous for and brags about on their website.
3. DIRECT THE STATE BOARD OF EDUCATION THAT HE APPOINTED TO NOT PUNISH ELECTED SCHOOL BOARDS FOR EXERCISING THEIR RIGHTS UNDER THE FLORIDA CONSTITUTION TO "OPERATE, CONTROL, AND SUPERVISE ALL FREE PUBLIC SCHOOLS WITHIN THE DISTRICT" WITH REGARD TO OPTING OUT OF TESTS.  THE SAME NEEDS TO APPLY TO STUDENTS, TEACHERS, AND PRINCIPALS.

The grave concern about excessive, invasive, ineffective and expensive testing did not stop with Lee County's vote to rescind its opt-out motion.  The anger is so strong that the Florida School Boards Association took up the issue at its September meeting. Although they had an intense discussion about opting out, they ultimately referred the motion to the legislative committee that will vote October 24th and then refer the motion back to the full board during the December meeting to work on more carefully crafting the language.  Here is the language that won approval before being tabled:

• Adopt a comprehensive opt-out policy that would allow parents to have their students excused, without penalty, from statewide standardized or state-required assessments;
• Bring an immediate halt to the practice of using statewide standardized or state-required assessment results for anything other than diagnostic purposes.

• At least four states -- Minnesota, South Carolina, Alaska and Rhode Island -- have repealed or delayed graduation testing requirements.
• Many other jurisdictions, including Texas, Virginia, Oklahoma, North Carolina and New York City, rolled back the number of required exams or reduced their impact.
• Common Core testing consequences were postponed in Oregon, Colorado, Nevada, New Jersey and Washington, D.C.
• High-profile protests including opt-out campaigns, test boycotts, resolutions and other actions took place from Seattle to Providence and from Chicago to southwest Florida.
• Ten more colleges and universities have adopted test-optional admissions.
• Public opinion polls, such as a recent PDK/Gallup survey, "show a majority of Americans agree that standardized tests do not help improve learning and teaching."

In a story also published by the Tampa Bay Times and summarized by NewsMax, The Miami Herald's political reporter Kathleen McGrory highlighted the problems that Governor Scott continues to have about Common Core and the state's bullying tactics forcing Lee County to rescind their historic vote to opt out of testing.

McGrory perpetuates the myth that only Tea Party members oppose the standards, tests, and data collection that  is Common Core, leaving out teachers, administrators, school board members, and even moderate business people mentioned in the Gallup poll she references and who are the people that Scott is supposedly courting for votes. She portrays the governor's dilemma and the rising tsunami of opposition this way:

As we shared in our previous alert and our announcement of the analysis of the misleading legal memo, Lee County Board member Mary Fischer rescinded her vote after being either bullied or mislead about the alleged dire consequences. The entire meeting video is available HERE. Sixty speople spoke in public comments, the maximum allowed by board policy.  It was well over 2:1 against rescinding the vote.  There were many excellent speakers.  Dr. Effrem covered the problems with the legal memo that caused such panic starting at 43:11.

Here is other coverage of the joint FSCCC and Florida Citizens' Alliance press conference and the board meeting:

Photo Credit Florida News Press



 

The legal memo by Lee County School Board attorney Keith Martin was the basis for creating so much hysteria and panic about the consequences for the county opting out of state tests, that Board Member Fischer panicked and called for an emergency meeting to rescind her vote without really looking at the alternatives already provided in statute. Sadly, the memo did not mention any of these alternatives and was therefore highly misleading and deceptive.  Even more sad, is the possibility that other Florida school boards will refrain from exercizing their rights based on incorrect or incomplete information such as this.

Dr. Karen Effrem has produced a point-by-point refutation of that memo that is now available for review.  Here are the summary points:

1. Graduation Issues Alternatives to the federally and state mandated tests and end of course exams already exist in statute that would legally allow graduation with a standard diploma.
2. Course Credits Involving End of Course Exams There are also alternatives listed in statute that allow students or the county to opt out of these exams as well and still receive the credit in courses where 30% of the grade is based on these exams.
3. Third Grade Retention - Florida statute and State Board of Education rule allow third grade students to submit a portfolio or take alternative assessments to avoid mandatory retention.
4. Opportunity Scholarships These are based on the school grading system which in turn is based on the state tests, for which there exist alternatives.  Additionally, with the school grading system in chaos with severe questions about its validity and reliability, the assessments not being counted toward school grades for at least another year and the Florida School Boards Association asking for longer, and very few schools in Lee County meeting the qualifications outlined in statute to qualify for their students to receive opportunity scholarships, a reasonable alternative could easily be developed in policy, rule or legislation.
5. Special Education Funding Alternative assessment possibilities exist in both federal and state statute.
6. Effects on Teachers and Principals The same alternatives available in statute and the same problems with the school grading system described above for students answer the concerns for employees
7. Federal No Child Left Behind Funding & Waivers Besides being a major violation of the Tenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution; provisions of both No Child Left Behind and the waivers are selectively and arbitrarily enforced, the conditional waivers are illegal and the incentivizing of Common Core and the federal assessments through the waivers and Race to the Top are in violation of three federal statutes.
8. State Funding It is not very likely that elected legislators who face constituents seeking relief from the out-of-control testing will sanction other elected officials who are following the Constitutions and listening to their constituents if the appointed State Board refers incomplete and biased information to the legislature about non-compliance.  There are legal, constitutional and political reasons why the State Board of Education would be in error for withholding money from Lee County or any other district that asserts their local autonomy and listens to their constituents.
9. Constitutional and Statutory Violations of Current Testing System These are outlined in our paper, Constitutional and Statutory Violations of Current State and Federally Mandated Student Assessment Program.  These include violations of the Fourth and Tenth Amendments to the US Constitution and Article IX, Section 4(b) of the Florida Constitution; violation of the federal General Education Provisions Act, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, and the Department of Education Organization Act, all of which violate state and local control of educational programs; and violation of Florida statutes regarding implementation of the testing system, technological load testing, and prohibition on practicing psychology or school psychology without a license.

Please help Lee County stand against the jackbooted thuggery of the state & federal governments! Because of the long list of threatened consequences, many of which are not constitutional and some of which are inaccurate, for opting out, board member Mary Fischer, who was the most undecided in the vote to opt out of state testing has asked the superintendent to call a meeting for Tuesday 9/2 at 8:30 AM.  It appears that this meeting was intentionally scheduled by the superintendent at a time after a holiday weekend and in the morning when it will be very difficult for teachers and parents to attend.  Fischer plans to offer a motion to rescind the courageous and historic vote of 8/27.  We must be there to support the board and to show the Establishment that this behavior from Tallahassee, Washington and the corporate bullies is unacceptable.This is a very big ask but if you can be there to speak during the public comment time, rally, and or show support, this would be an important time to do so. Here are the details:

The Florida Stop Common Core Coalition announces a new policy analysis outlining the major state and federal statutory and constitutional flaws with Florida's current federally mandated state standardized testing program.  Written by FSCCC executive director Dr. Karen Effrem who has fifteen years experience analyzing and drafting state and federal education legislation, this analysis covers the following areas:

The following are recommendations or endorsements from activists taken from various Facebook pages with some FSCCC comments:

ALACHUA COUNTY - Information from activists

Kudos to the Palm Beach County School Board who, following in the steps of Lee County, seeks to investigate and strongly consider opting their entire county out of the state's standardized testing regime.  One board member made a particularly important point that while it is great the schools geta reprieve, the students and teachers do not. It is encouraging to see local school boards beginning to assert their sovereignty in this way.

Opting out of testing is one important step, because it protects a child from the data collection and pscyhological profiling that is part of the testing scheme.  It does not protect them, however, from the indoctrination and psychological manipulation that is an inherent part of the standards as admitted by numerous experts and groups:

Here is the video:

According to an article by Gary Fineout of the Associated Press, Governor Rick Scott's latest attempt to quell the rapidly growing rebellion to Common Core and the standards' deceptive re-brand as the Florida Standards will be to announce later today the convening of an "independent committee" to review the standards and potentially make more changes to them.  The governor also wants to have the committee conduct "thorough and comprehensive investigation" about the standardized tests.

Apparently, one large sham exercise where they pretended to care what the people thought was not enough; even though the commissioner, two high education officials, Speaker Weatherford and recently Jeb Bush all admitted were not going to be or were not substantial changes, fooling no one..  Now they are going to go through this song and dance with a panel of experts to do another re-brand like Indiana did that will likely change nothing.

Fineout described the process this way in this article

The movement to opt out of the Common Core aligned AIR tests are gathering tsunami-like force.  These data gathering, psychologically invasive, controversial and expensive tests are being particularly opposed in Lee County.  We recently reported that school board member Don Armstrong publicly declared that he was opting his own children out of the tests at a school board meeting.  The board has since agreed to investigate the possibility of opting the ENTIRE district out of the testing as discussed in this Naples Daily News report:

In a new poll released August 20th, the highly respected Gallup and Phi Delta Kappa organizations found in their annual education poll that people oppose Common Core more as they learn more about it and that distrust of the federal role in education is growing. Here are some of the key findings (Emphasis added in bold italics):

• Last year, almost two-thirds of Americans (62%) had never heard of the Common Core State Standards. Fast-forward to 2014, when asked how much they have heard about the Common Core, most Americans (81%) say they have heard at least a little, and nearly half (47%) said they have heard a great deal or a fair amount about it.
• 60% of Americans oppose requiring teachers in their community to use the Common Core State Standards to guide what they teach, with opposition among Republicans much higher than Democrats.
• For the 33% of Americans who favor the Common Core, the most important reason is because it will help more students learn what they need to know regardless of where they go to school.
• For the 60% of Americans who oppose using the Common Core, their most important reason is that it will limit the flexibility that teachers have to teach what they think is best.
• While most educators believe the new standards are challenging, 40% of Americans disagree, saying the Common Core State Standards are not challenging enough.

"BULLIES" - How I describe the folks who hijacked #supportthecore today to personally attack teachers: http://t.co/iY4E1XYWjn @alliebidwell

-- Michael Petrilli (@MichaelPetrilli) August 12, 2014

#Supporthecore so your kids can REALLY be bullied by bureaucrats who will track them womb-to-tomb & plan their lives 4 them @michaelpetrilli

-- FLStopCCCoalition (@FLCCFighters) August 14, 2014

1. It's tricky when we're so obviously right.
2. You see, we really want to respect our opponents, but it's hard when they're such obvious nitwits.
3. The fact that they're such nitwits has suckered us into just coolly sharing the evidence of our overwhelming rightness.
4. The problem is that all this evidence is too far over everyone's heads, because they're just not as sophisticated as we are.
5. So, we've decided we need to offer more sugar, candy, circuses, and heart-tugging appeals in order to really win this thing.
6. We'd thought push-polling and long-retired Republican governors would suffice, but now we've decided we need a national campaign of cute, smiling kids saying, "I WUV the Common Core!"

As tweeted by John O'Connor of State Impact Florida, former Governor Jeb Bush joined in perpetrating the completely false notion that Common Core is out of the state of Florida:

Bush agrees with Scott's statement that "Common Core is out" in Florida.

-- John O'Connor (@johnroconnor) August 15, 2014
 

Andrew Ujifusa of Education Week's State EdWatch blog and FSCCC entered the conversation:

.@johnroconnor As in, Jeb? That's interesting.

-- StateEdWatch (@StateEdWatch) August 15, 2014

@StateEdWatch it's a close reading of gubernatorial statements on Common Core.

-- John O'Connor (@johnroconnor) August 15, 2014

Clever @johnroconnor, but deception from Bush is disgusting. @StateEdWatch it's a close reading of gubernatorial statements on Common Core.

-- FLStopCCCoalition (@FLCCFighters) August 15, 2014

Bush concedes Florida changes to Common Core were not substantial, but standards are now "Florida-based" and higher.

-- John O'Connor (@johnroconnor) August 15, 2014
 

#Lipstickonapig @johnroconnor Bush concedes FL changes to Common Core were not substantial, but standards are now "Florida-based" & higher.

-- FLStopCCCoalition (@FLCCFighters) August 15, 2014

@johnroconnor How can @JebBush say "CC is out of FL" & then "concede FL changes to #CCSS were not substantial"? #MakesNoSense #StopJebNow

-- FLStopCCCoalition (@FLCCFighters) August 15, 2014

Drew Steele, host of the 92.5 Fox News Daybreak Show, interviewed both incumbent District 30 Senator Lizbeth Benacquisto and challenger Dr. Michael Dreikorn as the August 26th primary approaches.  This is a re-match of the congressional primary in April that Curt Clawson went on to win over Benacquisto, Dr. Paige Kreegel, and Dreikorn.

Although multiple topics were covered, the contrast on Common Core was striking.  Dreikorn (listen to the beginning of the podcast and also at about 10:06) clearly and unequivocally supports the full repeal of Common Core and calls out Benacquisto's sponsorship of SB 1076, the Common Core implementation bill.  We would add that despite co-sponsoring the senate version of the Common Core pause bill, she did not work to get the bill heard despite being majority leader.  Drew also mentioned that there was not a single hearing on any bill to pause or repeal the standards.  Dreikorn said,

• Flip-flopped on Common Core: voted for it now claims to oppose it.
• Arranged to have Rep. Eagle pull the 2^nd Amendment Preservation Bill
• Well known for mud-slinging campaign tactics
• Has repeatedly demonstrated that she puts party leadership wishes above her Constituents and the Constitution through back room deals

• Decisively opposed to Common Core
• Solid answers on our US Constitution survey
• Veteran
• Well prepared on the issues
• Successful executive and small business owner
• Constitutional conservative

At a pivotal point in the hotly contested 3-way Republican August 26th primary in congressional district 9, conservattive and anti-Common Core heroines Michelle Malkin and Dana Loesch who both had prominent roles in We Will Not Conform, have endorsed U.S. Navy veteran Jorge Bonilla for the right to take on Rep. Allen Grayson in November.  Both of these highly influential pundits backed Bonilla by highlighting his service, family ties, and especially his consistent and constitutionally grounded positions. They also both called out the malevolent establishment influence of Jeb Bush. 

In addition, Michelle Malkin specifically pointed out Bonilla's articulate stance against Common Core.  She pointed out his plan to defund and repeal the intrusive federal program.  She graciously linked to our article Jeb Bush Endorsed Congressional Candidate Woefullly Ignorant of Constitution & Federal Role in Education to contrast Bonilla to his Bush endorsed, pro-Common Core rival Carol Platt:

Lee County, Florida school board member Don Armstrong plans to opt his twin fourth grade children out of the Florida Common Core Assessments as a way to fight against Common Core or as it is deceptively now called here, the Florida Standards.  Here is a news story discussing Armstrong's decision:

Perhaps now that even the Gates-funded, pro Common Core propaganda organ EdWeek describes Florida's standards changes as "Repeal Lite," the officials in the Legislature and Governor Scott's administration will quit trying to insult the intelligence of and deceive the public about the state being "on a different path" and the "Florida Standards" being different than Common Core.  Here is what they said about Florida's efforts:

'Repeal Lite' Strategy Seen

Although there are definitely many more problems with Common Core than its PR (propaganda) efforts, Politico reporter Stephanie Simon did a story about the messaging battles of Common Core and describes the abject failure of the advocates to win over the people.  While we agree with Shane Vander Hart at Truth in American Education that it is not just how Common Core is messaged that is the problem, it is pretty wonderful to see that despite the millions and millions of dollars spent on Common Core, its tests, and yes, the public relations efforts, the more people, especially parents know, the more they oppose it.

Dr. Effrem was interviewed for this story and stated that no amount of PR can fix the problems with Common Core:

Florida Eagle Forum has endorsed Dr. Michael Dreikorn in the District 30 Florida Senate primary against Senator Lizbeth Benacquisto in part due to the Common Core issue. Here is the full statement:

Anti-Common Core activist parents, grandparents, teachers and concerned citizens packed at least 700 theaters across the nation last night to learn about the controversial standards, tests and data collection system and what they could do to stop it.  Glen Beck's We Will Not Conform event provided many ways to fight the behemoth on several fronts.  Beck, pundit and author Michelle Malkin, and historian David Barton led the discussion with activists and experts.

Former Estero, Florida assistant principal Kathleen Jasper who quit her job to fight Common Core was a prominent speaker on the panel.  Randy Osborne of Florida Eagle Forum and FSCCC was in the audience. Florida had the most people in theaters of any state in the nation.

Toluse Olorunnipa of Bloomberg News wrote a story about the fierce criticism that Jeb Bush has been receiving regarding his stubborn and misguided support of Common Core.  He interviewed Dr. Effrem who said:

In a scathing rebuke of the FedEd/corporate crony forces on the Oklahoma State School Board, the state Supreme Court ruled against a lawsuit trying to strike down the state's new law withdrawing from Common Core to develop new standards and tests.  The justices rendered their decision just four hours after hearing the oral arguments in an 8-1 decision.  According to KOCO News quote of the bill's co-author, Rep. Jason Nelson "The Legislature is the supreme law-making authority in the state. Academic standards in Oklahoma have the force and effect of law."  See the video HERE for more details.

Hopefully, whoever is governor next year and the legislature will observe Oklahoma's refreshing efforts to truly invoke state sovereignty and follow their example, instead of using deceit and lipstick on a pig efforts to continue dancing to Jeb Bush's and Pearson's tune.



 

Here is a brief recap of the news we have been following and some new news:

• Arizona Thanks to excellent research by The Cult of Common Core author Brad McQueen, it is clear that a private company, Pearson, was hired by the PARCC testing consortium to develop the federally funded, federally supervised Common Core national tests.  Arizona was forced to drop out of the PARCC consortium, because their superintendent, John Huppenthal, was working with Pearson while working for the state of Arizona; in signing the memorandum of understanding with PARCC, he promised that Arizona would use the PARCC test in defiance of the state's competitive bidding laws; and both PARCC and Pearson submitted bids for the testing contract, essentially giving the federal PARCC test two bids over the single bids submitted by the other four companies involved. Another McQueen article shows emails between Huppenthal and those at PARCC/Pearson that seem to indicate collusion.

• Louisiana - As covered in our report about Louisiana's withdrawal from Common Core and PARCC, based on the research of Mercedes Schneider, State Superintendent John White testified to the Louisiana House that the state had agreed to participate in PARCC development, but not actually use the test. Mercedes Schneider continues to chronicle how White has attempted to skirt the competitive bidding process by tying the PARCC contract to an older sole source or no-bid contract from the Data Recognition Corporation (DRC).  Like the American Institutes for Research (AIR), DRC has also been heavily involved in developing the Common Core tests for the Smarter Balanced Testing Consortium (SBAC); is involved in New York and Ohio, which are PARCC states; has developed the Common Core test for Pennsylvania that pulled out of both PARCC and SBAC; and has combined with other testing and data mining organizations (see below).  Jindal administration officials have notified White that not only are his dealings with PARCC being investigated, but also that his power to spend state funds is suspended pending the audit.

• Florida Despite announcing and allegedly signing the contract with AIR for Florida's Common Core test in March, the contract is nowhere to be seen for review on the state website listing contracts. This is after multiple requests from legislators, FSCCC, other groups and activists during and since the legislative session.  On June 23, I received assurances that a paper version of the contract would be sent, but the DOE official still had no idea when the electronic version would be available. Besides the many problems with AIR that we have chronicled, AIR has joined with DRC to develop the Florida test, as well as the SBAC, Ohio and New York tests.  In addition, there are personnel connections between AIR, The Florida Department of Education, the Minnesota Department of Education and Jeb Bush's Foundation for Excellence in Education (FEE).

• Dr. Christy Hovanetz, was with AIR and directed the value added measures project when AIR received a nearly $4 million 2011 grant from the Florida DOE. (See contract on page 96 of PDF).  She previously had worked for the Florida and Minnesota Departments of Education and is now a full-time senior fellow at FEE.
• Dr. Jon Cohen, executive vice-president and director of AIR's Assessment program, is listed in the Reformer Profiles section of the FEE website.

• Pearson was fined $7.7 million for violating New York law for using its charitable foundation in ventures that assisted the for-profit division and was fined numerous times for at least $19 million due to delayed results for the FCAT.  All told, Pearson had major problems in Florida in 2000, 2002, 2010, 2011, 2012, and 2014. 
• In addition, emails obtained by the group In the Public Interest show lobbying efforts by FEE for legislation that would benefit large donors like Pearson.  This has been reported by numerous outlets, including the Huffington Post and the Tampa Bay Times.

Following Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin and South Carolina Governor Nikki Hayley, Louisiana's Republican Governor Bobby Jindal provides another great example of leadership on the Common Core issue.  On June 18^th, he signed executive orders withdrawing his state from the Common Core standards and the PARCC testing consortium and ordering the development of new standards, a competitive bidding process for new tests that do not involve consrotia, as the PARCC test process was considered to be in violation of Louisiana law, and an audit of the testing contracts.  [The press release, the letter to PARCC and two executive orders are available on the governor's website.]

There are some, including activists from Louisiana, that question whether this is serious or just another political "lipstick on a pig" stunt as has been done in Florida and Indiana. In addition, state Superintendent John White and the Louisiana Department of Education issued a press release stating that Jindal does not have the legal authority to do what he did and that they will proceed with implementing Common Core and PARCC in the 2014-2015 school year.

However, Mercedes Schneider offers excellent analysis as to why the Jindal orders seem to be sincere, substantive and legal:

• According to the Louisiana Constitution, "the Governor may issue an executive order which suspends any rule or regulation adopted by a state department, agency, board or commission within thirty days of adoption." (Article IV, Section 5 of the Louisiana Constitution of 1974, as amended, and La. R.S. 49:970. Emphasis added).  The June 18^th Order BJ 2014 6 then legally nullifies the adoption of PARCC as the Louisiana assessment by the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) that occurred on May 20^th.
• John White testified to the Louisiana legislature in April that there is no contract to purchase the PARCC test, only to participate in development, and "White has produced no contract for Louisiana to purchase PARCC which means that the BESE decision to adopt PARCC on May 20, 2014, is the only formal action taken to tie Louisiana to using PARCC." (Schneider)
• "The second executive order above poses two issues for White: First, he must produce that PARCC MOU for PARCC purchase that he told the House Appropriations Committee doesn't exist. (Either he secretly signed an agreement that he is not willing to publicize which was the case with inBloom or he has no contract to tie Louisiana to purchasing PARCC." (Schneider)
• "Another issue is that White's PARCC spending will be audited. On April 8, 2014, White told the House Appropriations Committee that the state education budget was $55 million short. It is time for White to produce a detailed accounting of his LDOE spending. Starting with PARCC is just fine." (Schneider)
• Jindal states in his letter to PARCC, "I have notified the Council for Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governor's Association (NGA) of Louisiana's termination of participation in the Common Core State Standards Initiative." (Emphasis added.) The letter to CCSSO and NGA is not available for review.
• Finally, Schneider notes, "... Jindal has stated that he removed Louisiana from CCSS, and PARCC is tied to CCSS. Also, Jindal notes that in the competitive bidding process for assessments' he is restricting the search to assessment companies not associated with consortia." This is evidence that he is not just picking another testing firm tied to Common Core as Florida has done with the American Institutes for Research (AIR), which is tied to SBAC, and that he seems serious about ending both Common Core, PARCC, and federally funded and supervised testing consortia in Louisiana.

The Florida Stop Common Core Coalition sends hearty congratulations and kudos to the parents, teachers, activists, legislators and governors of Oklahoma and South Carolina for their fantastic work in passing true Common Core repeal bills.  These bills are not deceptive rebrands such as occurred in Indiana via legislation or here in Florida via executive action.  Their language and circumstances have a lot to teach the Florida Legislature and Governor Scott.

Both bills prevent a rebrand, demand that the new standards are not aligned in any way to Common Core, and require legislative approval, especially if adopting standards from outside groups.  Oklahoma actually reverts to previous standards while the new ones are developed.

It is especially noteworthy that Governor Mary Fallin of Oklahoma signed such an excellent repeal and replace bill while serving as the chairwoman of the National Governor's Association.  The NGA, which receives 80% of its funding from the federal government, is one of the major developers and proponents of the academically inferior, developmentally inappropriate and psychologically manipulative Common Core standards.  Despite this, her signing statement struck the right tone in a number of areas, mentioning the role of parents and the overreach of the federal government:

The Florida Department of Education renewed its NCLB waiver on June 4^th and twisted itself into knots trying to say that it wasn't really involved in Common Core.  The only problem with that line of reasoning is that it will break the rules of the waiver.
Principle 1 of the waiver is "College- and Career-Ready Expectations for All Students." Principle 1a in that section of the waiver application says, "Adopt College- and Career-Ready Standards."  As can be seen from Florida's document below, states are given the following two choices regarding the standards: 

Shane Vander Hart of Truth in American Education wrote an excellent rebuttal to yet another propaganda piece by the Fordham Institute's Michael Brickman and Michael Petrilli, both paid cheerleaders of Common Core.  This time, they are trying to put forth the silly idea that supporting Common Core is a winning election issue in Republican primaries. 

Vander Hart brings up several great points.  Among them:

• Even strongly establishment candidates that have the backing of pro-Common Core people like Jeb Bush, such as North Carolina US Senate candidate Thom Tillis, or those perceived to be establishment like newly endorsed Minnesota US Senate candidate Mike McFadden, made strong statements against Common Core during their campaigns.
• The number of openly pro-Common Core would-be Republican presidential candidates is rapidly shrinking.  After Bobby Jindal's scathing indictment of Common Core at the Southern Leadership Conference, about the only two major potential presidential Common Core backers are Jeb Bush and Chris Christie.
• Brickman and Petrilli only mentioned the slanted McLaughlin poll commissioned by a pro Common Core group.  They neglected to mention both the Sunshine State News poll from Jeb Bush's home state of Florida and the much more realistic The University of Connecticut national poll , both of which showed significant opposition to Common Core among primary voters.

Aside from Bill Korach's May 22nd and 27th articles in the Report Card supporting Governor Rick Scott's less than accurate statements regarding Florida being out of Common Core, the media has been fairly correct about the situation. Korach quoted the governor as saying the following:

Javier Manjerres of Shark Tank reported on the debate between the candidates for the Republican nomination to take on Democrat Allen Grayson in Congressional District 9 that took place on May 22nd.  The candidates are U.S. Navy veteran Jorge Bonilla, realtor Carol Platt, and Pastor Peter Vivaldi.

Here is how Shark Tank described each candidate:

Allison Neilsen from Sunshine State News did an excellent story quoting the FSCCC press release about Representative Charles Van Zant's brave and truthful attack on the American Institutes for Research blatant promotion of the GLBT agenda.  Kudos to them for being willing to see both sides.

As we just reported, Common Core is having a significant effect in numerous polls and primaries in Florida and around the country.  There are now two new Florida legislative primary challenges where Common Core is a major issue:

The Common Core battle was intense during the 2014 legislative session.  Parents, teachers, and grassroots organizations all over the state banded together to try to make our voices heard.  Sadly, despite the heroic efforts of legislators like Rep. Debbie Mayfield and Senator Greg Evers to just try to pause the Common Core juggernaut, the entrenched interests of the corporate and political elite like Jeb Bush, The Florida Council of 100, The Chamber of Commerce, and Pearson and their willing puppets in Governor Scott, Speaker Weatherford, and Senator Gaetz, rejected, with one slight exception, the voice of the people.  They absolutely refused to even give HB 25 by Mayfield and SB 1316 by Evers a single hearing. Instead, they removed references to Common Core in statute, supported the State Board changing the name to the "Florida Standards" even though they are still 99.1% Common Core, and put forth several bills that were used to try to appease the angry public without changing anything of substance. Here is a recap:

• Continue to inform yourself and others about Common Core, including with our policy analysis and sharing the Building the Machine and Operation Education videos.
• Refuse any type of political support to any politician for any office that has supported Common Core or refused to help its repeal or resistance.
• Support those candidates that truly understand academic excellence, parental rights, data privacy, state sovereignty, and local control.
• Please financially support our efforts.
• Thank you for your prayers and your steadfast and generous support as we continue to fight this critical battle to save the hearts and minds of our precious children and the freedoms that have been purchased at so dear a price.  It is our duty to pass on to our children the heritage of EDUCATION FOR A FREE NATION!

It has been a bad week for the corporate education overlords that seek to impose the academically inferior, developmentally inappropriate, and psychologically manipulative Common Core standards on our children, psychologically profile them via the tests and gather data on them from womb to tomb.  We have already reported on the huge win by genuine anti-Common Core outsider candidate Curt Clawson over the candidate described by Time Magazine and Slate as the Jeb Bush and or GOP establishment candidate.

These corporate marauders are also having to deal with the huge setback that their for-profit data mining scheme, inBloom, has been forced to shut down.  This data collection instrument for supposedly "personalized learning" was going to collect 400 different kinds of student, family, and teacher data all without consent.  inBloom was funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Carnegie Foundation, and Rupert Murdoch's Wireless Generation.  Parents, teachers, and attorneys from all over the nation  have revolted against the unconscionably invasive efforts of these entities to grab their their children's and families' data without their consent to use for profiling and career tracking purposes.

Here is an excerpt from Education Week's technology blog:

After an extremely negative, contentious battle, anti-Common Core businessman and political outsider Curt Clawson handily won the Republican primary in Florida's 19th congressional district. Clawson's main rival, Senate Majority Lizbeth Benacquisto and GOP establishment/ Common Core proponent Jeb Bush choice for the position was within 400 votes of coming in third. As we had previously reported, we believe that Common Core was a significant issue in this campaign.

The totals were as follows:

Endorsements, attacks and other events are rapidly changing in the Republican primary race to replace Congressman Trey Radel. As Javier Manjerres of Shark Tank pointed out in February, Common Core is having a role.  Here is a recap:

Businessman Curt Clawson received the endorsement of former Republican presidential candidate and Congresswoman Michele Bachmann on April 18^th.  Bachmann is the chairwoman of the U.S. House Tea Party Caucus and has an impeccable record of fighting against federal overreach in education since very early in her political career.  She has signed a letter against Common Core and data collection and voted for excellent anti-Common Core legislation in Congress.
 
Curt Clawson also received the endorsement of US Senator Rand Paul on April 14^th.  Their views seeking to eliminate or greatly diminish the federal role in education are quite similar. Clawson continues to be 100% opposed to Common Core.   Paul has clearly stated his opposition to Common Core, signing a letter from Senator Charles Grassley to Appropriations Committee Chairman Tom Harkin against it, as well as authoring legislation to defund the entire US Department of Education.

In addition, Clawson has received the tremendously influential endorsements of both the national and Florida Eagle Forum organizations, The Tea Party Express, and the Tea Party Patriots, all of whom oppose Common Core.

Meanwhile, one of the PACs supporting Senate Majority Leader Lizbeth Benacquisto, the Liberty and Leadership Fund, continues to falsely associate Clawson with a pedophile, despite the fact that the victim's mother said that there was no connection and even after Benacquisto, Paige Kreegel, and Michael Driekorn had promised to stop negative attack ads. This Liberty and Leadership PAC shares the same address as Senator Benacquisto's Alliance for a Strong Economy PAC which also has strong ties to the Republican Party of Florida. One pundit alleged collusion between Liberty and Leadership and other candidates in trying to split the vote among Benacquisto's rivals. Benacquisto continues to deny association with the PAC.

That same Liberty and Leadership ad touted Benacquisto's support by major Common Core proponent, former Florida Governor Jeb Bush.  Benacquisto has also been endorsed by former Governor Mike Huckabee who famously suggested to the Council of Chief State School Officers that states should "Rebrand it, refocus it, but don't retreat."  Florida has taken Huckabee's advice.

Dr. Paige Kreegel  and Dr. Michael Dreikorn  continue to talk about their desire to abolish the US Department of Education, while Benacquisto can only manage to talk about federal block grants still tying states to the federal system and sidestepped questions about supporting a special legislative session on Common Core.

We will continue to provide information by and about the candidates as it becomes available.

Allison Nielsen of Sunshine State News reported on a new poll commissioned by her organization on Common Core.  It contains an important warning for politicians that support Common Core, especially Republicans.

At first glance, the poll shows that support and opposition to Common Core is evenly divided at 43%:

 
(Photo Credit: Sunshine State News)

(Photo Credit: Sunshine State News)

(Photo Credit: Power Point presentation by Matt Gandal to American Association of State Colleges and Universities 12/13 (link no longer functional) as referenced by Missouri Education Watchdog)
 

We now have more stark evidence that the entire Florida effort on the standards has been a lie and a sham since the governor's summit last August.  It is smoking gun evidence that the plan all along was merely an attempt to appease the public and to change the name only.  This is also the reason that the legislative leadership has been so intransigent about even giving HB 25/SB 1316 a hearing.  Florida House Speaker Will Weatherford gave a speech to the Florida Council of 100 on November 24, 2013, during which he talked about education, including about Common Core and the upcoming legislative session. 

Thanks to Vance Jochim of Florida Fiscal Rangers for videoing the Operation Education conference and for these excellent videos.  More will be added as they become available:

You have called, emailed, visited, protested, attended conferences, debates, and forums.  You have looked at both sides of the issue on Common Core.  You have watched these new academically inferior, developmentally inappropriate, and psychologically manipulative standards wreak havoc with your children's academic knowledge and their emotions as they are being set up to fail, emotionally devastated, having the love of leaning be totally destroyed when they are young and then hearing experts say that they will be inadequately prepared for college when they are older.  You have watched programs be cut and teachers laid off in your own districts while mega corporations like Pearson and Microsoft stand to make billions and told by your elected school board that there is nothing they can do, because they are merely puppets on a string to the appointed state school board and appointed commissioner of education.   Yet no one listens.  The legislature has failed you.  They are absolutely refusing to bring forth any bills that will substantively do anything about Common Core. 

Instead, the legislature and Governor Scott are using deceptive tactics and passing bogus bills that are merely meant to placate you into thinking are "doing something."  As many journalists have discussed, Gary Finout of the Associated Press got it absolutely right when he said just yesterday, "Fueled by parents angry over contentious new national education standards called Common Core, the Republican-controlled Florida Legislature is pushing through a series of sweeping changes. But shhh - don't tell anyone this - Common Core isn't really going away in Florida, just the name." Here is a brief overview and recap of these deceptive tactics:

1)  Removing Common Core from Statute in HB 7031/Changing the Name to Florida's Standards/Standards Changes

• All of these efforts are deceptive and "put lipstick on a pig." The press has called these changes "tweaks" and "copy editing."
• Only 98 out of 11,000 standards in Math and English were changed, which means that the "Florida Standards" are still 99.1% Common Core
• The majority of the changes have to do with topics that will not be tested on the national tests that will determine student grade advancement and graduation, district funding, and teacher pay and tenure.
• Department officials proclaimed during and after the public hearing and comment process that the changes to the standards were not going to be significant.
• The Department of Education ignored the vast majority of the 19,000 comments it received, including expert testimony from Professor Sandra Stotsky in English, Ze'ev Wurman in math and Dr. Karen Effrem about developmental inappropriateness and psychological manipulation.

• It proclaims itself to be "one of the world's largest behavioral and social science research and evaluation organizations."
• The computer adapted tests it will produce will not produce comparable results across a single classroom, much less across the state or nation, because the questions given will vary depending on how a student answers the previous question.
• The organization admits that it is deeply involved in data mining individual Florida student and teacher data across time (longitudinal).  Due to weakening of the federal student data protection law (FERPA) without congressional approval, this is likely done without consent. (See our analysis).
• The company is involved in promoting controversial social issues such as acceptance of the GLBT lifestyle for young children and families.
  • "Adolescents in our research for the Family Acceptance Project (FAP) said they were attracted to another person of the same gender at about age 10.  Some knew they were gay at age 7 or 9."
  • "Bring your child to LGBT organizations or events."
  • "Connect your child with an LGBT adult role model to show them options for the future."
  • "Work to make your congregation supportive of LGBT members, or find a supportive faith community that welcomes your family and LGBT child"

• The so-called student data protection bill allows collection of data based on the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA).
• There is no meaningful protection in FERPA because the law has been so weakened via regulation without congressional approval. 
• There is an entire section of the FERPA regulations titled "99.31 Under what conditions is prior consent not required to disclose information?"
• Thirty-four chief state school officers, including Florida's Pam Stewart, sent a letter to US Secretary of Education Arne Duncan that tried to give the impression that individual student data will not be given to the federal government, when both national testing groups, PARCC and SBAC clearly admit that it will be, and AIR has already admitted that it mines test data on individual students.  A formal response debunking this letter is available HERE.
• There is zero protection against psychological teaching, testing, .or data collection via the standards, curricular assessments or state assessments.

We have it on good authority that there is about to be a new step in the attempt to salvage the reputation of Common Core, Governor Scott's re-election, and Jeb Bush.  The plan is apparently to make a big production of rejecting federal funds for Race to the Top.  This is because we together have made such an issue about this federal grant and the memorandum of understanding that former Governor Charlie Crist and former Commissioner Eric Smith signed condemning the state to the awful Common Core standards and tests. That memorandum required that the state adopt 100% of the Common Core standards with the allowance for addition of 15% of state-specific material.  Florida formally rejected the opportunity to do that in the fall of 2010 just after the appointed State Board of Education adopted them on July 27, 2010 with no explanatory public hearings and while the legislature was not in session. Nothing changed until the minuscule, "copy editing" changes of 98 out of 11,000 or 0.8% were made and adopted in February of this year now to be deceptively called "Florida Standards".

The only problem with this scheme is that it is just more political theater.  Almost the entire grant is expended.  According to the budget documents on the Department of Education website, Florida is in the 3^rd quarter of the final year of its Race to the Top grant, with the funding set to run out in June of this year (2014).  If Florida refuses some part of the contract at this point, the federal government is not going to come after money that is already spent.  Pretending to reject these funds will not change the fact that the so called Florida Standards are still 99.2% Common Core and the SB AC writing, psychologically profiling, data mining, controversial issue promoting, AIR organization will still be writing a Common Core test.  

With all of these lies and deceptions going on, stores are going to run out of lipstick for the pig.  Do not accept this!  Please contact the following officials and tell them you see through this smokescreen and that you want real action to take us out of Common Core like pulling out of the Common Core consortium of states, passing HB 25/SB 1316, real data protection that doesn't rely on FERPA, and protection from psychological testing via the assessments:

Congratulations! Our warning and your phone calls have combined to help put a major roadblock in Senator Gaetz' plan to impose Common Core tests and therefore the standards on private schools.  As we just reported, the House Choice and Innovation Subcommittee defeated an amendment on Mach 18th that would have required voucher students in private schools to take the state tests, which are about to be Common Core tests based on 99.2% of the Common Core (Florida) Standards.  On Thursday, March 20th the  senate author, Bill Galvano (R - Bradenton) pulled the senate bill from consideration in the senate.

Here are his views as reported in the Tampa Tribune:

Although we are very concerned about the actions or lack thereof of the Florida Legislature with regard to Common Core, we also believe it is important to commend good actions.  The House Choice and Innovation Subcommittee heard HB 7099, the house version of the bill that Senator Gaetz wants to use to impose the Common Core aligned state tests that will now be developed by the psychological testing firm American Institutes for Research on private schools for students receiving vouchers. This hearing took place on March 18th. If those tests were required of private voucher students, the end result would be that the Common Core standards would be imposed on private schools as well, because the schools would have to teach to the test and they are not going to teach voucher students one way and the rest of the students another.

True to the information that we have received, the House and its leadership does not share that view with Senator Gaetz.  The subcommittee defeated an amendment brought by Rep. Shervin Jones (D - West Park) that would have required those voucher students to take only the state (Common Core) tests. Several parents and private school administrators gave great speeches about why this would be problematic to these children who are desperately looking for a choice. The amendment was voted down by a voice vote, apparently and sadly on party line.  (See the video here starting at 14:00)

Please thank Chairman Michael Bileca (R - Miami)  for his excellent speech (35:25), and the subcommittees's willingness to protect the private schools as an escape mechanism for Common Core, especially for poor children, who according to math expert Zev Wurman, will be the most harmed by Common Core. While he did not specifically reference Common Core, Chairman Bileca aptly pointed out that requiring the public school tests and therefore the standards would result in the entire private school being required to be taught by the same curriculum and standards (Common Core in 2014 if not stopped) as the public schools for the sake of a few voucher students when the private school students are already tested according to nationally norm referenced tests that provide plenty of accountability.   Please also thank the bill author Rep. Manny Diaz (R - Hialeah)

In addition, please thank Speaker Will Weatherford for so far not agreeing with Senator Gaetz and encourage him to hold firm on this point. Also remind him of all of the children in public schools who will not be able to get a voucher that need protection from Common Core, now deceptively labeled the "Florida Standards" even though they are still 99.2% Common Core.  Please politely urge him to allow hearings on HB 25 to pause Common Core.

Thank you for all you do to protect the hearts and minds of our children!

As we and others  recently reported, the testing company American Institutes for Research (AIR) was the leading candidate to develop the test to replace the FCAT.  They now have been officially chosen. This test will be fully Common Core aligned and will test Common Core despite the "copy editing,"" tweaks," and "minor" changes that the state now deceitfully calls the "Florida Standards."  AIR is developing the test for the Smarter Balanced Testing Consortium (SBAC), who like PARCC is the other federally funded, federally supervised national Common Core testing group of states.  AIR bills itself as "one of the world's largest behavioral and social science research and evaluation organizations"; AIR has also been involved in developing briefs and other information promoting acceptance of the LGBT lifestyle for elementary age school children.

"Commissioner Stewart and the Department of Education have failed Florida.  It is still all Common Core all the time, and the state has chosen a company promoting controversial sexuality and mental health issues to test and profile our children," said Dr. Karen Effrem, executive director of Florida Stop Common Core Coalition, Inc., and president of Education Liberty Watch.  "The State of Florida is not respecting the intelligence of its parents and citizens.  We are not deceived and not amused at this bait and switch effort.  We now can see that our children will be tested by the company working for PARCC's evil twin, SBAC, and that our children will be psychologically profiled by this company that also promotes very controversial issues.  We know that our children's tests will likely include these types of issues and that the test and other data will go to the state, the federal government, and to corporations.  We also realize that our children have no protection even with the current privacy bills in the legislature that rely on federal law (FERPA), because that law has been completely gutted by the Obama administration via regulation, sidestepping Congress."

"This is completely unacceptable. Besides implementing the same deceptive plan discussed at the governor's summit in August, the state has chosen a company that has a significant history of promoting identification of the GLBT lifestyle for children as young as seven years old, among parents and in churches said Randy Osborne, lobbyist for  Florida Eagle Forum. "The governor and legislature need to listen to the public that is outraged and the grassroots of the Republican Party of Florida who have rejected Common Core repeatedly via resolutions at many levels."

FSCCC, Inc. calls on the governor to use his executive power to pull Florida out of the Common Core memorandum of understanding from the Race to the Top agreement signed by Charlie Crist and develop true academic and developmentally appropriate standards in conjunction with early childhood experts and professors of math and English in Florida's college system that will really give students a broad based knowledge to prepare them to follow any path.  We also call on the legislature to stop funding the unsustainable implementation of Common Core, draft real privacy protection that also prohibits psychological testing in the assessments, and not spread the Common Core cancer to private schools.

Congratulations! Your great and diligent work of calling, writing and visiting your legislators is paying off! Another three representatives have signed on to HB 25 by Representative Debbie Mayfield (R-Vero Beach), a bill to pause Common Core!  Please thank via email or phone (contact information is available at the following links) these representatives:

The great crowd


Randy Osborne speaking to the group:



Representative Debbie Mayfield explains the importance to our freedom of getting out of Common Core


Laura Caruso talks about the dangers of Common Core to parental authority:



Dr. Karen Effrem gives an overview of Common Core:



Lobbyists and activists Laura Caruso, Dr. Karen Effrem, Brenda Dickinson, Catherine Baer, and Randy Osborne:

All those that battle Common Core are making themselves heard.  The influential website Politico mentioned the resolution from the Republican Party of Florida Legislative Affairs Committee that heard and was favorably influenced by Dr. Effrem and FSCCC (See our statement and the resolution text).  Here is Politico's discussion of the resolution:

The momentum keeps building! You are doing a fabulous job contacting your representatives! There are 3 new co-sponsors of HB 25 by Rep. Debbie Mayfield for a total of 6! Please THANK Reps. Ray Pilon (Sarasota), Travis Hutson (Elkton), and Matt Caldwell (Lehigh Acres) as well as the earlier co-sponsors, Reps. Charles Van Zant (Keystone Heights), Dane Eagle (Cape Coral), and Doug Broxson (Midway).  To contact your legislators, please go to www.stopcommoncoreflorida.com. Thank you and keep up the great work!

In addition to their excellent recent story on the dangers of Common Core data mining, international news website, WorldNetDaily has been doing an in-depth series on the many problems with Common Core.  Authored by Florida educator, author, and researcher Dr. Karen Gushta three articles have been published so far with the fourth set to be released very soon.

In Part 1 - Kids distraught under 'botched' ObamaCore - Gushta show examples of some of the horrific examples of curriculum that are tied to the standards and discussed the origins of the standards from federal program incentives to the states like Race to the Top and No Child Left Behind waivers.  She also interviews or quotes national experts like math expert Ze'ev Wurman, validation committee member and math professor emeritus James Milgram, and English standards expert Dr. Sandra Stotsky. Finally, she discusses the infusion of money from the Bill and Melinda Gate Foundation.

In Part 2 - Obama program making these people filthy rich:  Only ones 'who are not going to profit and thrive are children' - the author discusses the money trail including the Bush Family, quotes Dr. Effrem's Florida testimony on psychological manipulation in the standards, and interviews other national experts.  Here are some excerpts:

[A]s new assessment systems are developed to reflect the new [Common Core State Standards Initiative] standards ... A sustained program of research and development will be required to create assessments that are capable of measuring cognitive, intrapersonal, and interpersonal skills.

The Florida Stop Common Core Coalition, Inc. (FSCCC), a grassroots organization of over forty state and national groups representing hundreds of thousands of Florida parents and citizens is very pleased to announce that the Legislative Affairs Committee of the Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) has unanimously endorsed a resolution in opposition to Common Core and its deceptive new name, The Next Generation Sunshine State Standards.

The Legislative Affairs Committee was convened by Chairman Lenny Curry after an overwhelming show of support for the anti-common core resolutions at the January 2014 Annual meeting of the RPOF.  The anti-Common Core resolutions were passed by the State Committeemen/Committeewomen's Caucus and the REC Chairmen's Caucus at the RPOF annual meeting. (See our report here).  The Legislative Affairs Committee met all day on February 22^nd and heard information from both sides of the debate, including from Dr. Karen Effrem of FSCCC.  They came to the conclusions in these documents, which were sent to us by numerous people from within the party:








"It was an honor to participate in this fair and impartial discussion of this critically important topic," said Dr. Karen Effrem, president of Education Liberty Watch and executive director of FSCCC, Inc. We congratulate the committee on their well-reasoned conclusions.  This letter and resolution combined with the filing of a Senate companion to HB 25 and the legislative actions against Common Core across the nation continue to show the cascading momentum against this intrusive, dangerous, and expensive system."

"After reviewing the evidence, it is clear that there are many problems from the constitutional, academic, developmental, expense, and political standpoints with the Common Core system," said Eric Miller, RPOF State Committeeman from Martin County and a member of the committee.  "We look forward to working with Governor Scott and the elected Republicans in the legislature to do the right thing for the children of Florida and for the Republican Party."

We are grateful to Senator Alan Hays and Senate Majority Leader Lizbeth Benaquisto for their co-sponsorship of SB 1316, the companion to Rep, Debbie Mayfield's anti-Common Core bill, HB 25.  We are asking you to thank these co-sponsors, ask your own legislators to co-sponsor these bills and ask for hearings.  Senator Benaquisto is in an especially good position to help on that front. We completely agree with, support, and ask you to join us and FSCCC partner Florida Eagle Forum in the specifics of this effort laid out in this email from them:

Thank you all VERY much for your active involvement.  Senator Greg Evers has taken the principled, courageous, and bold stand against the cancer that is Common Core.  We have received confirmation from the Senate that he has filed SB 1316 at 9:52 AM, the identical companion to HB 25, the anti-Common Core bill authored by Rep. Debbie Mayfield. Please call and thank him at his District Office: (850) 595-0213 or his Tallahassee Office: (850) 487-5002 for his courageous stand!

Not content with destroying academic education for Florida's public school children by continuing to impose the academically inferior, developmentally inappropriate, and psychologically manipulative Common Core standards on them, Senate President Don Gaetz, is now setting his sights on 70,000 private school students as well.  Gaetz, who has infamously and derisively mocked the parents and citizens of Florida who oppose Common Core, is determined to require that students who receive vouchers and attend private schools take the public school Common Core aligned tests.  Because private schools do not have the resources to teach voucher students one way and the rest of their students another way, this will effectively mandate Common Core in the private schools that accept vouchers in order to pass these tests.

Here are excerpts from the Orlando Sentinel article declaring Gaetz's intentions:

Alison Neilsen of Sunshine State News did an important story on the potential political dangers to Governor Rick Scott's re-election bid after his education department and appointed state board of education put through the deceptive "lipstick on a pig" standards changes and name change.  Here is an excerpt:

Many media outlets covered the hearing protest and rally.  Thank you to all who attended.  For every one of you that came, there were hundreds or even thousands that wanted to be there but could not.  Here is a sampling of some of the media coverage:

State stands by Common Core education standards

State education leaders stood by Common Core on Tuesday, voting unanimously to keep the controversial academic benchmarks for public schools despite the objections of dozens of opponents.

Protesters carrying signs that read "Stop Common Core" and "Rotten to the Core" held a rally outside the Orange County school district's headquarters, where the State Board of Education met.
 

They then filed inside and spoke during a sometimes testy, nearly three-hour public hearing, where some compared the standards with the Hitler Youth and communism...

...They also included dropping the name Common Core in favor of "Florida Standards," a broader term that recognizes the state has academic benchmarks in other subjects, too, including science and social studies, Education Commissioner Pam Stewart said.

But the name change annoyed critics.

"Changing the name is merely a bait-and-switch," said Karen Effrem of the Florida Stop Common Core Coalition.

The new standards already are in place in the earliest grades and are to be in all grades by next school year. By 2015, Florida also plans to retire most of the Florida Comprehensive Assessment Test and replace it with a new series of tests aligned with Common Core.
 

State Education Board approves Common Core tweaks during heated meeting
Department of Education approves Common Core changes at Orlando meeting
Florida Common Core changes approved despite parent concerns
State Board Tweaks Standards Despite Objections

Good morning, my name is Karen Effrem, I am a wife and mother of three trained as a pediatrician.  I am president of Education Liberty Watch and co-founder of the Florida Stop Common Core Coalition a group of over 40 state and national organizations representing hundreds of thousands of Florida citizens.  We are here today to protest the sham changes being made to the Common Core standards.
Removing references to Common Core in statute does not remove   from the Common Core system.

Making cosmetic or what the commissioner herself characterized as "minor changes" does not fix the problems with Common Core.
Not only are these standards untried and unproven as Laura just stated, they are as developmentally inappropriate and psychologically manipulative as before these changes. The federal department of education, the Council of Chief State School Officers, and many other organizations and individuals admit that a main purpose of Common Core is to teach and test psychological and behavioral parameters instead of academics.

The commissioner and department ignored much specific documentation by renowned experts about these and other problems with individual standards

Changing the name to the Florida Standards or the Next Generation Sunshine State Standards is merely a bait and switch tactic attempting to ease political pressure from parents and citizens that are outraged at what Common Core is doing to their children, to teachers, and to local control.

All five of the testing companies bidding for Florida's testing contract plus PARCC, of which Florida is still a member, are offering tests that are fully Common Core aligned.  Several of these companies openly admit that they test psychological parameters in their standardized tests.  PARCC is federally funded and supervised.

Those standards were developed by five major architects that never taught in a K-12 classroom, admit they were not qualified, and that these standards are not adequate for a selective four year university.  Two of the nation's greatest Common Core proponents, Bill Gates and Chester Finn, admit the standards are a giant experiment.

Despite the letter from Commissioner Stewart and the 33 other chief state school officers to Arne Duncan, individual student test data will still go to the federal  government as a result of contracts and the weakening of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act via regulation.
In short, nothing has changed.  The people of Florida, especially parents, are not deceived and they are not amused.

The Department spokespeople are saying that the process for dealing with the standards is winding down, but we are here to say that we are just getting started.  We are here today to announce a major campaign with materials, a website landing page and the ability for citizens to call and write their elected officials in one simple fashion at stopcommoncoreflorida.com.  In addition, we will soon be announcing legislation and events and every other means at our disposal to show that we will not submit our children to this national system with all of its academic and emotional harm.

Even the proponents admit that when people hear the pro and con arguments to common Core, support for Common Core drops substantially.  We are here to say that we will continue to make the opposing arguments.  This, and other polling data shows that politicians who continue to support Common Core will see their support erode.  They need to be aware of this as this election season begins. Thank you.

Sunshine State News reporter Allison Neilsen reported on that site's blog about our planned participation in the protest  and press conference on 2/18 as the appointed state board of education likely approves the very minor changes made to the standards in an effort to calm the rising furor over the untested, developmentally inappropriate, and psychologically manipulative Common Core standards.

The Florida Stop Common Core Coalition, a grassroots group of over 40 state and national organizations representing hundreds of thousands of Floridians, will participate in the press conference scheduled for 8 AM on February 18th before the appointed State Board of Education votes to adopt the sham changes to the Common Core standards.  FSCCC will have a major announcement in response.

TIME:
7:30 Rally
8:00 AM Press Conference

LOCATION:

• office@flstopcccoalition.org 

Dr. Effrem did an interview on February 13th with Gayle Ruzicka, president of Utah Eagle Forum describing the dangers of early childhood programs that form the "cradle" part of the "cradle to career" continuum of government control and indoctrination of our children pushed through Race to the Top and the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge grants from the federal government. The podcast of that interview is available for listening and there are many other resources containing information on the lack of effectiveness and harm that these programs cause in the Common Core Nanny State section of this site,

Florida Senate Majority Leader Lizbeth Benaquisto, now a candidate for the congressional seat in District 19 vacated by the resignation of Rep. Trey Radel, did an interview on the Drew Steele Show (www.925foxnews.com) about her candidacy on February 5^th.  This state senator, who was endorsed by Jeb Bush during her last election, completely evaded questions about whether she supported getting rid of the Common Core standards system. Instead she played into the deceptive Common Core cover-up game perpetrated by the establishment by talking about "Florida standards, Florida assessments and Florida curriculum."    Here is an excerpt from the Common Core exchange that started at 8:40:

As we reported yesterday, the House K-12 Subcommittee met yesterday to vote out a bill that expunges the term "Common Core" from statute in a transparent attempt to diffuse the political backlash that these national standards have caused without really changing them.  Rep. Hunt called it "putting lipstick on a pig" and we concur.

James Call of The Florida Current did another excellent story on yesterday's events quoting Randy Osborne and accurately titling his piece covering the hearing as leaving opponents with a "perception of deception."  Here is an excerpt:

 

The House K-12 Subcommittee, chaired by Rep. Janet Adkins (R-Fernandina Beach), met today to vote on a committee bill that strikes about three dozen references to Common Core in state statute and works to change the name to Florida's standards. 
Media coverage about this deceptive tactic started last week with an excellent article by James Call of The Florida Current who compared the move to expunging Winston Smith's life from the public record in Orwell's 1984.  Allison Neilsen of Sunshine State News also wrote a great article.

Randy Osborne, director of education for coalition partner Florida Eagle Forum; Catherine Baer, chairwoman of coalition partner Tea Party Network; and Meredith Mears, co-founder of FPACC, all gave excellent testimony.  They spoke about how deceptive this maneuver is, how many people across this state and nation oppose Common Core, and that parents are very angry.  (See hearing video starting at 10:00)

Randy also covered the fact that despite assurances from Commissioner Stewart and state chiefs, individual data is still going to the federal government.  (See the analysis by Dr. Karen Effrem and the national statement calling this out signed by eight national and thirty-four state groups in twenty-eight states)

Chairwoman Adkins then proceeded to try to shirk the responsibility of the elected legislators to their constituents to manage the funds and oversee the policy of the Department of Education.  She had the temerity to say that it was only the appointed State Board of Education's responsibility to set the standards and that the committee has no role in the standards policy.  (See video at 20:59).  It was shocking to hear an elected official so totally abdicate her and the committee's role to appointed bureaucrats in the state and federal governments.

Some good statements were made by Representatives Charles Hood (R-Daytona Beach Shores 22:57) and Karen Castor-Dentel (D-Maitland 21:57), expressing concern.  Rep. Hood actually used the phrase "lipstick on a pig." However, no one on the committee actually was willing to stop this pig lipstick application bill, and it passed unanimously. 

This type of dishonest maneuver will only fuel the growing outrage over Common Core.  Legislators who ignore, or worse yet, deceive, their constituents do so at their own political peril

Two excellent articles have been written in the last several days showing that the press and the public are not buying the name changes and superficial changes to the standards. Both extensively quoted FSCCC.

James Call of the The Florida Current used a literary illusion to 1984 to illustrate the legislature's transparent attempt to alleviate the pressure from angry constituents:

We the undersigned organizations, representing millions of families and teachers across the nation, issue the following statement in response to the January 23rd, 2014 letter by thirty-four chief state school officers, including Florida Commissioner Pam Stewart, to U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan regarding student data privacy:

Approximately 150 people attended a rally against and a forum about Common Core in Melbourne on January 27th.  The forum panel consisted of Representative Debbie Mayfield, (R-Indian River), author of HB 25, a bill to pause implementation of Common Core.  Also on the panel were strategist Randy Osborne of Acclaim Strategies and Florida Eagle Forum, and Dr. Karen Effrem, president of Education Liberty Watch and co-founder of FSCCC.

Here are some excerpts from coverage by Florida Today of the well-attended event  hosted by the Republican Liberty Caucus of East Central Florida, led by Chairman Bob White:

WorldNetDaily, the major national and international website did an in-depth article about the dangerous Common Core linked psychological manipulation and data mining.  They interviewed Dr. Karen Effrem, president of Education Liberty Watch,  and Jane Robbins of the American Principles Project.  Here are some excerpts:

Commissioner Pam Stewart will be presenting the cosmetic changes for the Common Core standards to the State Board of Education today in Miami Lakes. However, tweaks and name changes will not remove Florida from this oppressive takeover of that which is to be left to the states and the people.  The Florida Stop Common Core Coalition opposes the effort by the Florida Department of Education and the State Board of Education to override the will of hundreds of thousands of Floridians that want to protect their children from this massive takeover of our education system.    As our analysis shows, it is abundantly clear even to the press that the changes to the standards are "minor" and that the rebranding of the Common Core standards to "Florida's Standards" is politically motivated.  The commissioner has testified to the Senate Education Committee that the copyright limitations are immaterial and that the changes are so insignificant that they will not affect curriculum which is required to be Common Core aligned nor the assessments. The testing, however, is the heart of the issue.  The tests are the enforcement mechanism of these national  curriculum standards.  These tests are either going to be the federally funded and supervised PARCC or SBAC tests or some other Common Core aligned national test.  Individual student test scores will be combined with highly personal student and family data to create academic and psychological profiles of students that will be available to the federal government, researchers, and corporations due to the weakening of the federal student privacy law  (FERPA).  The test scores and resulting profile will follow a student for life and will determine grade advancement, graduation, teacher pay and tenure, and district funding.

We urge our supporters to contact Governor Scott at (850) 717-9337 or by email, as well as their representatives and senators and let them know that these bait and switch tactics are unacceptable.  Florida must pull out of the Common Core system and protect the academic future and privacy of our children by developing true Florida standards and tests and pulling out of the federally linked state longitudinal data systems.

Commissioner Stewart and the Florida Department of Education released the long awaited revisions to the Common Core standards on January 13^th just hours before two thirty minute public conference calls/workshops.  The standards revisions and conference call recordings may be accessed on the Governor's summit page buried deep within the DOE website.

The link for comments is hidden on a different webpage having to do with the rulemaking involved with the standards and there is no clear deadline as to whether the comments have to be in.  Is it by the time the commissioner presents the proposed changes to the State Board of Education on January 21^st or when the board votes on them on February 18^th? This seems to be more evidence that public comment is not really wanted.

While the department is to be commended for adding cursive writing back to the standards, Commissioner Stewart admitted before the Senate Education Committee that the changes are minor. Pam Stewart said, "With the total, spread over K-12, of being 40-some changes, I don't think would have a serious impact on each grade level"

The press has noted that the changes are merely cosmetic.  John O'Connor of State Impact titled his article, Despite Changes, Florida Still Keeping The Core of Common Standards, and calls the changes "copy editing."

Kathleen McGrory of the Miami Herald's Naked Politics blog also brings up the concern that FSCCC has raised about the copyright issue, noting the 15% rule and the questions brought up by the Council of 100.  In her January 8^th senate testimony Pam Stewart mentioned a letter which she has been referencing since October but has yet to produce from the Council of Chief State School Officers saying that Florida is not bound by the 15% rule.  However, an official from Achieve gets to the crux of the issue: 

FSCCC, as well as grassroots Republican leaders have been making important statements this week in the press about the Florida Department of Education's admission regarding how minor the changes in the standards really are and the effort to change the name from Common Core to Florida's Standards.  Here is a sampling of the media coverage of the standards revision release and the reaction to it:

Dr. Karen Effrem testified on January 14th to the Missouri State Board of Education about the developmental inappropriateness and psychological manipulation and testing of the Common Core standards.  This was previously scheduled weeks before the hurried announcement of the Common Core public hearings that took place only a few hours after the release of the minor and cosmetic changes to Florida's Common Core nightmare.

St. Louis Public Radio covered the testimony that also included excellent testimony by Dr. Mary Byrne, a brilliant and dedicated special education teacher and leader of the Missouri Coalition Against Common Core also testifying against the standards and Cheryl Oldham of the Chamber of Commerce offering the same tired talking points without data about why Common Core should be fully implemented. Here are some excerpts from the article:

Governor Scott in his speech at the Republican Party of Florida Annual meeting acknowledged that there is "passion" about Common Core.  He made the following assurances with our questions below each one:

1. "Here's what we're going to assure: These are Florida standards, not some national standards put on Florida students. These are our standards."

2. The governor said there would also be a "'data-security bill' to make sure there is no unnecessary information collected from our students."

3. Governor Scott also said, "We also have legislation that codifies that curriculum is to be controlled locally. I believe we're headed in the right direction."

The Florida GOP grassroots rebellion against Common Core continued and intensified at the Republican Party of Florida (RPOF) annual meeting in Orlando over the weekend.  Thanks to the great efforts of Randy Osborne, Marion County chairman of the Republican Executive Committee (REC), Bill Paterson, St. Lucie County chairman, Representative Debbie Mayfield and activists all over the state, two important resolutions against Common Core were passed.  Despite numerous poor arguments and parliamentary efforts to table or otherwise suppress them, both the REC chairman's caucus and the state committeeman/committeewoman's caucus passed them by commanding majorities. 

Unfortunately, the party leadership cared not a whit about the sentiments of the representatives of GOP activists that make up the heart and soul of the Republican Party in Florida.  Chairman Lenny Curry would not allow a vote by the full executive board or during the general meeting on the resolutions.  Instead, he deep-sixed them in the legislative committee.  Although he said, "I'm going to make sure the party's legislative affairs committee works with the Legislature," given that the membership of that committee is unknown and Curry's past record of suppressing dissent, we see it is far more likely that nothing will be done about the issue until the next meeting of the RPOF in May AFTER the legislative session.

The rules committee meeting was closed on Friday apparently to be able to discuss how to prevent the resolutions from going anywhere or to block any efforts to bring them up in the executive committee on Saturday.  Activists were left to chant outside the room, "Stop Common Core! Open the Door!"  There was such fear and trembling about any discussion on Common Core or efforts to pass a resolution in the general annual meeting on Saturday, not a single vote on any issue was allowed.  Instead, the members were subjected to three hours of long-winded speeches.  These pronouncements from on high included the absurd notion that the party is only there to elect Republicans and not to take any positions on issues.  Both Governor Scott and Senator Tom Lee, while trying to say that they have heard the concerns about Common Core, then proceeded to refer people with questions or concerns to the very same elected officials and bureaucrats that have ridiculed or ignored the cries of the citizens against this monstrosity. These include state school board member John Colon who first came to one of Dr. Effrem's presentations and wouldn't even identify himself or his position and couldn't even defend the standards. Later in the summer, he called people that opposed Common Core "whackos" and "crazy" during an RPOF conference call.  Senator Lee extolled the virtues of Senate President Don Gaetz as someone who "really cares about education," conveniently forgetting that Gaetz was quoted as saying: