» Common Core

Portland school board member offers resolution for 3-year Common Core moratorium

Posted on April 24, 2014 by Julie Woestehoff

From Deb Mayer, leader of PAA affiliate Oregon Save Our Schools: Oregon Save Our Schools and other interested parties, with PPS school board member Steve Buel at the helm, has put together a resolution calling for a three-year moratorium on CC$$ in Oregon. Here’s the article in today’s Oregonian and the statement from Buel below, followed by the resolution, which Deb suggests could be used as a model by other communities. COMMON CORE PPS RESOLUTION Here is the copy of … →

Why have national Hispanic organizations been silent on the common core testing’s negative effects on ELLs & Hispanic students?

Posted on April 10, 2014 by Julie Woestehoff

By Maria de Lourdes Pérez Ramírez, MA, President, Founder, HispanEduca, Inc. After a follower asked me if I knew of any legal action submitted or was pending against the common core standards’ testing to ELLs, I embarked on a search. I asked, emailed and called Hispanic national organizations. Unfortunately, not even national Latino/Hispanic advocacy organizations such as LULAC, NALEO, MALDEF, and others have undertaken a legal action against common core testing for ELLs. In fact, also unfortunately, most of these … →

Georgia opts out of PARCC

Posted on August 1, 2013 by Julie Woestehoff

By Kimberly Brooks, leader of PAA-Atlanta/GA/Atlanta Public Schools News in Georgia applauds the success of delaying/opt-out of the PARCC consortium-designed Common Core assessments. While I believe that this article deserves recognition, there is much more work to be done. For starters, the Georgia Department of Education has yet to be composed of a staff that would accommodate such a great responsibility. From the Iowa Test of Basic Skills when I was younger and the Georgia Graduation Test to the EOCT … →

Take it from parents: teenagers are people, not data points

Posted on May 9, 2013 by Julie Woestehoff

A Blog Post by Wendy Lecker, Sarah Darer Littman and Jonathan Pelto, members of PAA-Connecticut. Ask any parent, high school student or teacher- 11th grade is hell. Aside from the heavy course-load, juniors have to suffer through a litany of standardized tests- and these ones count: SATs, SAT subject tests, ACTs, APs. Could anyone make junior year any worse? Why yes! Thank President Obama, Secretary Duncan, and Governor Malloy, Commissioner Pryor, the State Board of Education and Connecticut’s esteemed legislators. … →

Stotsky: Coleman’s 50/50 mandate for literary/informational texts

Posted on June 11, 2012 by admin

The following was written Sandra Stotsky, one of the primary authors of the highly-regarded Massachusetts standards for English Language Arts.  Here is an earlier piece by Stotsky on the Common Core standards. It is amazing that one badly informed person could single-handedly alter and weaken the entire public school curriculum in this country, without any public discussion.  Indeed, David Coleman, author of the Common Core standards in English Language Arts, had no trouble imposing his personal preferences on a document … →

Stotsky: Coleman's 50/50 mandate for literary/informational texts

Posted on June 11, 2012 by admin

The following was written Sandra Stotsky, one of the primary authors of the highly-regarded Massachusetts standards for English Language Arts.  Here is an earlier piece by Stotsky on the Common Core standards. It is amazing that one badly informed person could single-handedly alter and weaken the entire public school curriculum in this country, without any public discussion.  Indeed, David Coleman, author of the Common Core standards in English Language Arts, had no trouble imposing his personal preferences on a document … →