Even The Girl Scouts Have Gotten On The CCSS Bandwagon

 

Bill Gates Donated $250k To Help Arizona Write Their RTTT Grant In 2009

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which handpicked 15 states for $250,000 each in funding to help them prepare their Race to the Top Fund applications, is going to offer assistance to the remaining 35 states—if they meet eight education reform criteria.

The memo sent by Vicki Phillips outlining the criteria for the funds was sent to the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers.

These were the same two groups that Jan Brewer and former State Superintendent Tom Horne were participants.  The two groups who the Obama Administration and Arne Duncan NEEDED to make the Common Core push appear to be "state-led."

The foundation's initial Chosen 15 were: Arkansas, Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Minnesota, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Texas.

However, Texas never applied.

The Gates Foundation stated that "these states will be targets for further foundation investment provided they continue to follow through on these commitments."

These commitments include:

1. Has your state signed the MOA regarding the Common Core Standards currently being developed by NGA/CCSSO? [Answer must be “yes”]

2. Does your state plan to adopt the common core standards by June 2010 (as currently referenced in the draft RTT guidance)? [Answer must be “yes”]

3. Demonstrate how your state plans to adopt/prioritize the common core standards currently being developed by NGA/CCSSO? [Answers will be scrutinized to assess commitment and viability]

4. Does your state offer an alternative route(s) to teacher certification? [Answer must be “yes”]

5. Does your state grant teacher tenure in fewer than three years? [Answer must be “no” or the state should be able to demonstrate a plan to set a higher bar for tenure]

6. Does your state have policies or grant programs (e.g., TIF grant) in place that encourage the placement of the most effective teachers in schools with most disadvantaged kids (e.g.to campuses undergoing state/fed accountability intervention) [Answer must be “yes” or state must demonstrate commitment and/or plans to put policies in place]

7. Does state have at least six of the DQC’s 10 essential data elements? (Required six: unique student identifier, teacher-student link, student level enrollment data, graduation and dropout data.)

8. Does your state have policies that prohibit the linkage and/or usage of student achievement data in teacher evaluations?


You really CAN buy anything in this world with money.

A Sample Of What "Informational Text" Students Will Use With Common Core

We found a youtube channel for an organization called the Teaching Channel.  It is a "non profit" that has put out videos to help market the new Common Core curriculum.  The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation have donated over $11M to the Teaching Channel since 2011.

Let's take a look at a few of the sample subjects such as the 10th grade topic of European Imperialism in Africa.  Sample text for the project came from an "eye witness book on Africa," an essay by 16th century social reformer (anti-imperialist) Bartolome de las Casas, and excerpts from a novel called "Things Fall Apart" by Chinua Achebe (another anti-colonialist) all of which are recommended as standard text in the Common Core appendix.

Sound a little one-sided? 

As we know, the Common Core Standards will now include about 70% of "informational text" in the curriculum.  By "informational text" we mean one-sided text which will be presented as "fact."  Then, students can participate in panels such as this one with their new-found knowledge of evils of imperialism and colonialism:

Teaching Consultant, Jennifer Apodaca critiqued the teacher's performance and said,

"I think the facts were there, but I think it could have been much more specific.....Maybe you want to say, 'Use these sources.' So, maybe you have to specify like 'You MUST use information from the following documents....' "

Well, now that doesn't sound like it encourages critical thinking.

Another video explains that "What you have to be able to do is show that you can argue based on evidence and show that you can convey complex information clearly."

As you watch the videos, try not to focus too much on the number of misspelled words on the student's papers. Spelling isn't important because kids will always have spell check as a crutch....

The teacher in the above video poses a question to the students about the informational text they read, "How do you know what he is saying is real or not?"

Because.  The informational text is from the New York Times.

This information will certainly prepare students for college and career readiness.


As the teacher said, "There are various sources.  Some are reliable and some are not.  They need to be able to independently determine that."

Of course, the sources that the CCSS recommends will be reliable.

Teachers are encouraged to incorporate the ELA CCSS into other classes such as Social Studies, History, Science and Technical Subjects.  In the following video, the English teacher collaborated with a science teacher who selected articles and text for the students who were to write a persuasive essay on natural disasters.  And by an essay on natural disasters we really mean, whether or not the United States should provide foreign aid to countries that have experienced a disaster.

Enjoy these other snippets of Common Core lessons put together by the Bill Gates funded Teaching Channel...

Like this English class lesson on child marriage in Afghanistan and learning to feel badly that their median income is $800/year while it is over $40k in the United States without pointing out the reasons why.

Or the fact that there is global warming    climate change...

and more climate change.....

Well, at least these 4th graders are learning the three "R"s......

Ok.  Not Reading, Writing and 'Rithmatic but "Revolution" "Reaction" and "Reform."

THAT'S going to make them college and career ready for sure.

So You Think You Will Be Able To "Opt Out" Of The Common Core Assessments?

Think again.

According to the State Director of the Arizona Board of Education, Vince Yanez, by 2017 the PARCC assessment grade will be incorporated into the students final grade.  Parents will not be able to opt their child out of the assessment without it affecting up to half of their final grade which essentially means, the child will fail the course.

Nudge.

The plan:

And for a little comic relief, here's Ms. Stacey Morley again from the Policy Development & Government Affairs Office at the Arizona Department of Education testifying before the Education Committee about how the tests will be graded...

Ms. Morley joked that when she was in law school, her professor

"was like, 'You don't want me to grade more than five blue books a day.' "

Even Experts Don't Agree With The CCSS

Ze'ev Wurman is a former official in the U.S. Department of Education who is one of several experts who have admitted their concerns about the "rigorous" Common Core Standards.

He said,

The enrollment requirements of four-year state colleges overwhelmingly consist of at least three years of high school mathematics including algebra 1, algebra 2, and geometry, or beyond. Yet Common Core’s “college readiness” definition omits content typically considered part of algebra 2…they do not expect algebra to be taught in grade 8 and instead defer it to high school, reversing the most significant change in mathematics education in America in the last decade, supported by the 2008 recommendations of the National Mathematics Advisory Panel, and contrary to the practice of our international competitors.

Another review of the CCSS came from the Dean of the University of Pennsylvaina's Graduate School of Education, Andrew Porter and his colleagues who concluded:

Those who hope that the Common Core standards represent greater focus for U.S. education will be disappointed by our answers. Only one of our criteria for measuring focus found that the Common Core standards are more focused than current state standards…Some state standards are much more focused and some much less focused than is the Common Core, and this is true for both subjects.

We also used international benchmarking to judge the quality of the Common Core standards, and the results are surprising both for mathematics and for [ELA].… High-performing countries’ emphasis on “perform procedures” runs counter to the widespread call in the United States for a greater emphasis on higher-order cognitive demand.

What about Stanford Professor R. James Milgram, the only professional mathematician on the Common Core Validation Committee who refused to sign off on the CCSS?  He wrote the following about the Standards,

This is where the problem with these standards is most marked. While the difference between these standards and those of the top states at the end of eighth grade is perhaps somewhat more than one year, the difference is more like two years when compared to the expectations of the high achieving countries—particularly most of the nations of East Asia.

And here is what a non-American member of the Validation Committee wrote to the Council of Chief State School Officers when declining to validate the standards:

I cannot in all conscience, endorse statements 2 and 3 [(2) Appropriate in terms of their level of clarity and specificity; (3) Comparable to the expectations of other leading nations] The standards are, in my view, much more detailed, and, as Jim Milgram has pointed out, are in important respects less demanding, than the standards of the leading nations.

Another analysis by University of Southern California professor Morgan Polikoff, found the Common Core mathematics standards,

...similarly repetitive, and hence as unfocused across elementary grades as the state content standards they attempt to replace, with only somewhat less redundancy in the middle grades.

Then there is Professor William McCallum from the University of Arizona.  We mentioned him before as one of the writers for the Common Core Math Standards.

He even said while speaking at the annual conference of mathematics societies in 2010,

While acknowledging the concerns about front-loading demands in early grades, [McCallum] said that the overall standards would not be too high, certainly not in comparison [with] other nations, including East Asia, where math education excels.
 

Mr. Wurman concluded:

 I believe the Common Core marks the cessation of educational standards improvement in the United States. No state has any reason left to aspire for first-rate standards, as all states will be judged by the same mediocre national benchmark enforced by the federal government. Moreover, there are organizations that have reasons to work for lower and less-demanding standards, specifically teachers unions and professional teacher organizations. While they may not admit it, they have a vested interest in lowering the accountability bar for their members. With Common Core, they have a single target to aim for, rather than 50 distributed ones. So give it some time and, as sunset follows sunrise, we will see even those mediocre standards being made less demanding. This will be done in the name of “critical thinking” and “21st-century” skills, and in faraway Washington D.C., well beyond the reach of parents and most states and employers.

CCSS 7th Grade ELA: Cesar Chavez

Is it odd that Google chose to celebrate the birthday of radical community organizer socialist, Cesar Chavez, on Easter Sunday rather than the resurrection of the Savior, Jesus Christ?

Sadly, not really.


So, we felt it was a good time to point out the 7th grade Common Core ELA lesson plan involving Cesar Chavez.   First, the teacher makes a claim and then the student has to read the passage and find supporting evidence for that claim.  Then, they write their completely unbiased and unpolitical summary of the supporting evidence for the claim made by the teacher.

Rich Crandall's Arrogance Is Showing

 

 Or should we say.....ignorance?

Our State Senator, Rich Crandall, responded to a constituents concern about the Common Core State Standards by emailing the following:

It is unfortunate that a few crazy folks have twisted so much what this bill did. There are four instigators (three in Arizona and one in Colorado) who are determined to undo the progress we have made the past five years on higher standards and a replacement for AIMS. I have met with them, so has John Huppenthal, and everyone else associated with Arizona education. No matter what we tell them they will not believe anything we say. They know the United Nations, Intel and Agenda 21 are brainwashing our children, all in the name of corporate profits. We have decided not to waste any more time since their minds are already made up. It doesn’t do any good to engage them because they are so filled with conspiracy theories. Not much more I can tell you. Sorry. If we are going to move to a new exam, whether it is Common Core, ACT, SAT or any other exam, we cannot have a requirement that it be required for high school graduation in its first few years of administration. That is all this bill did was eliminate the requirement that it be a high school graduation requirement and that we do not have to take a national norm referenced exam. It is not related to Common Core but the tin foil crowd will not believe anything John or I tell them.

Rich

 

Bill Gates and fellow billionaire Eli Broad spent $25M to put education front and center during the 2008 presidential election. When people were more interested in making fun of Sarah Palin than focusing on issues, their education effort was sidelined.

"Now Gates and Broad knew they were going to have to engage more directly with the school systems they hoped to change, by either influencing the elected officials and policymakers who ran them or getting their own people seats at the tables where the systemwide decisions were being made."

 

 

It's not a conspiracy if it's spelled out in black and white.  These same companies have already partnered with the United Nations to create a common core in Arab countries and the EU.  Just like they did in the United States.  Does Crandall think that corporations like Microsoft, Intel, and Cisco are developing the massive takeover of our education system for free?

 

But, what does Crandall care?  He did what he was supposed to do in the legislature to ensure that CCSS and the necessary testing was signed, sealed and delivered.

And like a true coward, is now retiring.

 

 

 

 

Alinsky's 5th Rule for Radicals: 

 

"Ridicule is man's most potent weapon."

 

There is no defense.  It's irrational.  It's infuriating.  It also works as a key pressure point to force the enemy into concessions.

 

How Is Common Core Good For Arizona Again?

Why is Arizona so eager to implement the Common Core State Standards?

According to Vince Yanez, Executive Director of the Arizona Board of Education, it was because of Obama's enticing Race to the Top money which States fell all over themselves to get their hands on...thinking nothing of the anchor they would have to carry.

"So, Race to the Top comes along, States now had an incentive to come together to try and build these new set of standards."

Well, that plus Obama made it mandatory for the states who accepted RTTT funds to adopt the CCSS.


And then Mr. Yanez continued with the talking points narrative, courtesy of the leftist Foundations who are pushing for the reform.

"But it WAS, and I want to be VERY CLEAR, it was the STATES that developed these standards.  OUR Board of Education was insistent that we take a leadership role in how those standards were actually put together.  We were very much involved in terms of our teachers, our administrators, our parents in both the ELA standards and Mathematics standards.  In fact, THE lead writer for Mathematics was from the University of Arizona."  (Who happened to donate over $20,000 to democrats and Obama in 2012.  The UofA also happened to receive a generous grant from one of the Foundations who partnered with the Obama Administration in an effort to "equalize" the standards.)

Then an interesting omission was made by Mr. Yanez. See if you can catch it.

"What most people DON'T know is that while the Common Core was adopted by 46 States, each state that participated was permitted to augment those standards with items that were important to them.  So, in Arizona, we did that.  The CORE of the standards remains the same but at the direction of the State Board, the department did an excellent job of scouring our existing standards, find out items that we felt were important, that we felt added to the rigor and value of the CCSS and the Board did add to both the Math standards and the ELA standards.  So, while there is a CORE that is identical across those 46 states, taken as a whole, they're not completely and totally identical.  Again, states were able to add to them and we did take advantage of that."

If you guessed that he omitted the fact that states in this "State-led" initiative, are only allowed to contribute up to 15% of the curriculum, you would be correct.  


Standards and Assessments:

If all of the "voluntarily" participating states have been allowed to add 15% of their own material, how will this not lead to separate assessment exams for each State?  Doesn't that defeat the purpose of having a "Common" assessment?  Or is that just the bone that states were given to get them to sign up, giving them the illusion that they are in charge, but students won't really be tested on that 15%? 

And what about AIMS?

So, what about the AIMS test for science? 

We don't really believe that the Board of Education will continue to give two separate tests forever.  As Mr. Yanez said about implementing the new Science Standards, "It's a lot to bite off all at once."  It's not a matter of IF but WHEN.  It won't be long before we start to hear that the reason for the implementation of the Next Generation Science Standards is because it doesn't make sense to have two different assessments.

Another component to the assessments is that the test grade will act as a final exam and be averaged in to the student's final grade as opposed to a stand alone score.

The reason for this, according to Mr. Yanez, is that a student may receive good grades in class but then fail an exam like PARCC. Likewise, he said that some students may fail the class but pass the exam.  Huh?  It's hard to imagine that this would be such a regular occurrence that it would require all States to surrender to a federal take-over of the system.  Either you understand the material and PASS, or you don't. 

Why bother giving a PARCC test at all then if we can just issue a regular final exam and have that grade incorporated into the final grade, like we used to do?  And for a lot less money? 
 

What IF a student fails the PARCC?  Can they retake the test?  If so, how will that affect the course grade? 

Logistically, how would this even make sense?

You have two tests.  AIMS for science and PARCC for ELA and math.  PARCC tests will be weighted and averaged into the final ELA and math grades, but the AIMS for science will not.  What about other classes like Social Studies or foreign language?  Is the idea of averaging the two grades together only being done in Arizona or will this be done by ALL of the participating States?    

Cost: 
The technology necessary to implement the PARCC exams will be the next pursuit of the federal government.  Another string that will be attached by the federal government to those states who voluntarily adopt the CCSS.  And it won't be free.

According to Jaime Molera from the Arizona State Board,

"AIMS is a very inexpensive assessment program...The test was given in April and teachers had to wait until the following September for the results. Also, the assessments were only given to certain grades to cut down on cost."

1.  Assuming we had all of the available technology (which we won't until 2017), a PARCC test would cost $15 per student.  Mr. Molera admits that the AIMS test is very inexpensive and to save TAX DOLLARS, is only given in grades 3-8 and again in 10th.   The PARCC exams will be given for all grades K-12 which will obviously incur additional costs to administer.

2.  According to Ms. Stacey Morley from the Policy Development & Government Affairs Office at the Arizona Department of Education, AIMS tests are taken in March or April and the results "aren't in until the end of May."

 

So, which is it?  May or September?

Which leads us to...

 

How will the tests be graded and will it REALLY save time (and money)?

Ms. Morley pointed out that the current AIMS tests require mostly filling in a bubble in conjunction with a small amount of written work for the ELA portion.  The PARCC exams will be more writing which will take longer initially to grade.  That is until computers are capable of reading the answers (assuming they will be able to read the handwriting) and pick out certain key words.  You know, key words like "sustainable" or "renewable energy."

How will this give us the immediate results that

Mr. Yanez stated was a benefit with PARCC? 

 

How can the PARCC scores be averaged with a student's grade if the results aren't in before the end of school?

No plans have been made as to who or what will actually be grading the tests.  Ms. Morley joked that when she was in law school, her professor

 

"was like, 'You don't want me to grade more than five blue books a day.' "

 

There's a vote of confidence for you.

Which leaves us with the two people who were supposed to convince the committee that this government take-over was so wonderful, and who didn't have all of the answers for themselves.  So here we are, once again, passing something before we know what is in it. 

And we have elected leaders who amid the numerous unanswered questions and concerns, proceeded to vote for the federal government take-over.  There is a reason why Governor Brewer appointed Senators Crandall and Yee and Rep. Goodale to her Ready Arizona CCSS marketing committee.

These foreseeable concerns will naturally lead us to using PARCC for all of the core classes which means if we are going to have a common exam, we need to test the students on common material.

Exit States Rights.  Enter the Next Generation Science Standards.

Rich Crandall Wants You To Know

"We started looking at the Common Core for Arizona over five years ago, long before Race to the Top was even a gleam in Obama's eye.  I was in the original meetings with Jim Zaharis, the Board of Regents, the State Board of Education and several lawmakers back in 2008..."  And that it wasn't just "dreamed up three weekends ago over a couple of beers."

Which means that Senator Crandall wants you to know that he was willing to commit Arizona to a set of standards that hadn't even been written yet.

(FYI:  This will be a long and well-documented entry which will lay the groundwork for our future articles)

The formal announcement to create Common Core wasn't made until July 2009.  Although, it didn't stop those behind the initiative from pressuring states to sign off on an "un-binding" Memo of Understanding even before July in an effort to give the illusion of "state" support.  Including Arizona.


The only way for us to know what REALLY happened behind the scenes here in Arizona, or more specifically, who sold us down the river, is to look at the minutes from the meetings that Senator Crandall claims he attended.

And, of course, find out who is behind the national push for CCSS.

Surely Senator Crandall is fully aware of those who are behind the initiative.  For some who are just learning about this now, here is a quick family history of the groups involved in creating, writing and implementing the "state-led" effort.

1996:  Achieve is born

2001:  Achieve joins with Education Trust, the Fordham Institute (partner with Center for American Progress and Education Reform Now!  One of the trustees is Diane Ratvich, a founder of the Common Core Initiative) and National Alliance of Business to create the American Diploma Project

2004:  ADP releases report "Ready or Not: Creating a High School Diploma that Counts" which identifies a common core in English and math or "benchmarks" that students need for success in college

2005:  ADP is launched in 13 states

2006:  ADP creates the College and Career Ready Policy Institute (Arizona is one of the "lucky" states to be chosen to assist the Institute from September 2008 to December 2009 in developing a state assessment system)

2007:  ADP Assessment Consortium launches to develop common Algebra II assessment...the largest multi-state assessment to date

2008:  Achieve releases "Out of Many, One: Toward Rigorous Common Core Standards From the Ground Up"

2009:  Work begins to develop the Common Core Standards

2010:  Final Common Core Standards are released;  Achieve begins serving  as Project Management Partner for PARCC (Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers)

2011:  Achieve begins managing the "state-led" development of K-12 Next Generation Standards


Partners of the CCRPI include the National Governor's Association, the EducationCouncil , the Data Quality Campaign  and:

Jobs for the Future whose funders include the Bill/Melinda Gates Foundation, George Soro's Open Society, the Joyce Foundation, Annie-Casey Foundation, Corporation for National and Community Service among other donors of leftist, big government, nanny state causes. 

Partners include the National Council of State Legislators (which Crandall is an at-large member.  Rep. Goodale sits on the NCSL Education Committee which is why she introduced HB2047 in the AZ State legislature), the National Governor's Association, the AFL-CIO, Open Society, SEIU, Brookings Institute (funded by Gates and Ford Foundations), National Council of La Raza and the Center for American Progress.


You know, the usual groups one might see involved in writing the standards in a "state-led" effort.

AIMS TASK FORCE

Meeting Minutes

March 11, 2009 (just a couple of weeks after Obama signed the Recovery and Reinvestment Act which included money for Race to the Top)

A presentation was made on the work of the College and Career-Ready Policy Institute (which AZ was a participant) relating to student assessment. This presentation was made by Dr. Karen Nicodemus.

March 25, 2009

The AIMS task force was introduced to a report titled, "Tough Choices or Tough Times" funded almost exclusively by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Annie Casey Foundation, Lumina Foundation and Hewlett Foundation (donates to the United Nations, Tides Foundation, Open Society, and gave $50k to Achieve in 2012). 

The report gives recommendations on what the government should fund such as universal early childhood education, equality of pay, and creating more equality and fairness between poor schools and wealthy schools. 

ARIZONA BOARD OF EDUCATION

Meeting Minutes

May 18, 2009

This is the first discussion at an Arizona Board of Education meeting about the Common Core Initiative.  This took place two months before the formal announcement by Obama's Education Secretary, Arne Duncan.

Dr. Butterfield who made the presentation in front of the Board stated that the CCSSO and the NGA Center for Best Practices had been working together to build support and relationships to create the "condition necessary to embark on common core standards as an initiative."  The initiative would include rigorous content skills and be internationally benchmarked.  Dr. Butterfield said that the states participating in the initiative were REQUIRED to have signatures of approval from the Governor and the Chief State School Officer.  At the time, forty states had expressed interest in participating and at least 15 states had officially registered.


 December 7, 2009

The presenter, Deputy Associate Superintendent Cheryl Lebo, stated that one of the main goals of the initiative is to equalize some of the access to educational excellence.  48 states and 3 territories have signed on to the Common Core Standards Initiative leg by the NGA Center and CCSS.  This work will affect 43.5 million students which is about 87% of the student population.

Ms. Lebo claimed that Common Core was being developed based on research and evidence from leading national organizations and high-performing states and counties.  CCSSO and the NGA Center in partnership with ACT have established the common core development, advisory process and validation process.  Public comment was scheduled to begin in December and the work to be finalized in the fall of 2010.


Ms. Lebo stated the following would be requirements for state adoption:
1.  It would be voluntary, however, there is a condition of RTTT funding
2.  Adoption would need to be in its entirety or in its entirety with up to an additional 15% added (so, states can only have 15% input in a "state-led" curriculum)
3.  Upon adoption, the organizations will encourage consortia of states in the development of assessments and curricular materials.

Benefits of adoption:
Eligible to receive RTTT funding
Eligible to apply for $350M grant for assessments
THEN it benefits students, parents and teachers


January 25, 2010

Supt. Horne signed the "non-binding" MOU (Memo of Understanding) for the assessment portion of the CCSS.

Ms. Lebo provided the Board with a time-line for the CCSS work. 

Mr. Jaime Molera stated he was not in favor of the process and was concerned for long-term outcome.  Supt. Horne stated the Board will have the authority to approve or disapprove the state standards.

(which is actually not true as those states who accepted RTTT funding were REQUIRED to sign up for the CCSS)

Remember, the standards still have not been finalized.

February 22, 2010

The ADE is committed to supporting, establishing and implementing standards and has developed an implementation plan to transition to the CCSS.

Standards still have not been completed.

June 28, 2010

Final presentation for the CCSS was given by one of the writers, University of Arizona Professor, Dr. McCallum.  The public would have 30 days to make additions to the 15% allowed by the state (in this "state-led" initiative).

The Board was asked to formally adopt the CCSS with a reminder that all states involved in Race to the Top were required to adopt the CCSS by August 2nd.

Board member Mr. Thomas Tyree moved to adopt the standards.  Diane Ortiz-Parsons seconded.

The Governor, Board member Dr. Balentine and Supt. Horne also signed an MOU on the PARCC assessment portion of CCSS.  Because Arizona was one of the first states to join the consortium, these states would be the only ones who would qualify for grant funding. 

Arizona would be a governing member of the consortium and the two voting members would be Dr. Vicki Balentine and RICH CRANDALL.   



We've shown you how CCSS was able to be implemented in our state, no thanks to our state "leaders", now let's see who is behind Common Core and how its tentacles even made its way into our state in the first place.


While the push for a common standard among the states began in the mid 1990's, the Common Core Initiative itself began in early 2008 by New York University research professor Diane Ravitch and Antonia Cortese with the American Federation of Teachers (an affiliate of the AFL-CIO).  The Common Core Initiative was a project that received a majority of their funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

In April 2008, the AFT began yet another push to adopt a national common standard for every grade and in every subject.

If Senator Crandall is proud to say that he has been behind the Common Core Initiative for the last five years, then he must not have a problem with the fact that it was pushed by the AFL-CIO and funded by the leftist Gates Foundation

And....

he certainly must be aware of the people who ended up writing the curriculum.  

They are just the people one might expect to see writing curriculum standards for our public schools.

ELA

1.  Jim Patterson - Lead writer

Mr. Patterson is the lead content specialist for the English and reading portions of the EXPLORE, PLAN and ACT tests and has worked on the development of ACT's College Readiness Standards.  He will help to adapt the CCSS to the college entrance exams.

2.  Susan Pimentel - Director of Standards Works and Achieve

In 1999, Ms. Pimentel authored the book, "Raising the Standard:  A Eight-Step Guide For Schools And Communities."  In the book she writes about laying the groundwork for lasting school reform because genuine, long-lasting reform grows from the grass-roots.  She lists organizations that can help "guide" the standards such as Achieve and the American Federation of Teachers (AFL-CIO).

She said, "Ours is a society that thrives on change....Reform is hard work"

Ms. Pimentel donated over $22,000 to Democrats in 2012 (mostly to Obama's campaign).  Significantly more than the $4000 donations she made in 2008.

3.  David Coleman - With Student Achievement Partners. 

Mr. Coleman founded the GROW Network which was later acquired by McGraw-Hill.  Last year, GE made an $18M donation to SAP which is odd since  Obama gave GE a big bailout.

Mr. Coleman donated $15,000 to the Obama campaign in 2012.


MATH

1.  Bill McCallum - Lead writer/Professor at the University of Arizona

Mr. McCallum has donated thousands of dollars since 2008 to Democrats including the Obama campaign, the DNC, Moveon.org and Gabby Giffords.  He also made a $100 donation to Randy Parraz's Citizens for a Better Arizona during the 2011 recall effort against Arizona Senate President, Russell Pearce.

2.  Jason Zimba - With the Center for Advancement of Public Action (CAPA)

Mr. Zimba worked alongside David Coleman with the GROW Network.  Also, CAPA is a non-profit that started in 1991 and is all about "Equity and Accountability."  Bennington College in VT has a new CAPA curriculum which focuses on human rights, transformation, education, social change, and community organizing.

Mr. Zimba donated $1000 to Obama's campaign in 2012 and $2300 in 2008.

3.  Phil Daro - Fellow and Board Member with Noyce Foundation (founded in memory of Dr. Robert Noyce, co-founder of Intel)

Between 2010 - 2011 the Noyce Foundation gave $500,000 in grants to Achieve, the National Research Council and the National Governor's Association for Best Practices...groups directly involved with Common Core.

Did you catch that?  One of the main writers of Common Core sits on a board who donated $500,000 to the groups who, at the same time, were out pushing CCSS across the country. 

Mr. Daro also donated to Obama in 2012.


Surely Senator Crandall had to have been aware...

He must also know that Governor Brewer appointed former Intel CEO, Dr. Craig Barrett, to chair her newly created Ready Council designed to market   implement Common Core in Arizona.  Which means that Senator Crandall probably doesn't have a problem with Dr. Barrett also being the Chairman of Achieve, the non-profit organization who is helping implement the assessment of Common Core and the same organization that received a significant amount of money from those who wrote the standards in this "state-led" effort. (see the Foundation donors above)


Perhaps Senator Crandall, Governor Brewer and Supt. Horne heard the speech by Obama's Education Secretary, Arne Duncan, in June 2009 when he spoke about the CCSS to the National Governor's Association,

"This is your opportunity to be bold. To be creative. To think big and push hard on the kinds of reform that we know will create FUNDAMENTAL and LASTING CHANGE...

So, while this effort is being led at the state level, as it should be, (wink wink) it is absolutely a NATIONAL challenge that we must meet together or we will compromise our COLLECTIVE future.

There's never been this much money on the table and there may never again be....

We will continue everything in our power to fulfill your COLLECTIVE VISION of great schools, producing great citizens and great do-ers."

We'll post Mr. Duncan's full text in another entry and show you how "state-led" this effort really was....


Apparently, Sentor Crandall wants us to know that for the last five years, he has been working side-by-side not only with leftist organizations, but with a radical federal administration whose goal is to fundamentally transform our educational system and destroy anything that resembles the 10th amendment along the way. 

And he sits on our state's Senate Education Committee? 

Before Senator Crandall and others in the State Senate cast their vote for HB2047, perhaps they should speak to one of the original founders of the Common Core Initiative, Diane Ravitch, because she would tell them why she now OPPOSES it.