Why the No Child Left Behind Re-authorization (HR 5) Must Be Defeated

Earlier today I asked you to contact the Senate NOW we must contact the HOUSE.

CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE AND DEMAND A NO VOTE ON HR 5. Capitol Switchboard: 202.224.3121

The following is a non-exhaustive list of fatal problems with HR 5.

1. Although proponents cite the inclusion of new language prohibiting the U.S. Department of Education (USED) from, for example, coercing states into adopting the Common Core national standards:
• That language largely replicates existing protections (see Robert Eitel & Kent Talbert, The Road to a National Curriculum, Pioneer Institute, 81 (2012));
• As with existing protections, the proposed provisions fail to provide an enforcement mechanism for the states and thus depend on the goodwill of USED or congressional action (which was non-existent when USED foisted Common Core on the states);
• HR 5 negates the protections anyway: A stated purpose is for state alignment to the same “college-and-career-ready” standards — language that is code for Common Core. Secs. 1001, 1111. See further discussion below.
2. HR 5 continues the master-servant relationship between USED and the states, requiring state plans and giving the Secretary enormous authority to approve or disapprove them. Secs. 1111(a)(1); 1111(e)(2)(B), (D); 1111(e)(3); 1111(f)(2); 1111(g).
3. Under HR 5, states must submit their state plans to a “peer-review process” before they are presented to the Secretary. This peer-review team, which is appointed by the Secretary, must operate within the highly prescriptive parameters of the federal legislation. Sec. 1111(e)(1)(B).
4. HR 5 extends federal tentacles beyond elementary and secondary schools to preschool (replaces No Child Left Behind’s application to “all public elementary school andsecondary school students” with “all public school students”). Sec. 1111(b)(1)(B), (C).
5. HR 5 considers a state legislature to have waived “the State’s rights and authorities to act inconsistently with any requirement that might be imposed by the Secretary” if the legislature even approves an overall state budget that includes any money from the federal education programs. Sec. 6561(a-b). This will give the federal executive branch a club to pound legislators into submission; state legislators are often part-time, have few, if any, staff, and are working under a time-crunch, as they must, to balance the state-budget.
6. HR 5 requires the alignment of state standards, assessments, and accountability systems to the Common Core.
• The Statement of Purpose in Sec. 1001 of HR 5 is defined using the exact same language as Common Core’s college-and-career-ready: “[T]o graduate from high school prepared for postsecondary education and the workforce without remediation.” (Sec. 1001). It is a requirement in HR 5 that state standards, assessments, and accountability systems align with the statement of purpose in Sec. 1001.
• If the Secretary claims that any part of the plan submitted by the state fails to fulfill the requirements of the Act – that is, that in his opinion, it fails “to [prepare students to] graduate from high school prepared for postsecondary education and the workforce without remediation” – the Secretary can deny the state plan. Sec. 1111(e)(2).
• States will be pressured into keeping the Common Core rather than risk having their plans disapproved for using different standards or aligned assessments.
7. HR 5 does nothing to unravel the Common Core tangle created under Race to the Top and its fetters.
8. HR 5 reinforces the postsecondary/workforce alignment by including it as a requirement for state accountability systems: “demonstrate that the State has developed and is implementing a single, statewide accountability system to ensure that all public school students graduate from high school prepared for postsecondary education and the workforce without the need for remediation.” Sec. 1111(b)(3).
9. The prohibition on the Secretary’s forcing particular standards through the accountability system applies only to accountability systems “developed and implemented in accordance with this paragraph” – that is, systems that meet the Secretary’s definition of preparing students for postsecondary education or the workforce. Sec. 1111(b)(3)(C). Otherwise, the Secretary is not bound by the prohibition. See also the discussion above in par.1.
10. HR 5 prohibits the Secretary only from mandating “specific elements” of academic standards or the accountability system. Sec. 1111(e)(2)(D). This exact language was present in the General Provisions Section of No Child Left Behind when the Secretary forced the states into Common Core. If it didn’t work then, why would it work now? There are no enforcement mechanisms for the states to override the Secretary’s decision — the Feds have the last, and only, say.
11. HR 5 retains federal mandates that children be tested for math and English in each grade 3-8 and for science once in each of the following grade spans: 3-5, 6-9, and 10-12. It also requires that these test scores be used as part of a school’s grade to determine which schools will be identified for interventions, thus continuing the “teach-to-the-test” environment of NCLB. Sec. 1111(b)(3)(B)(i), (ii)(I).
12. HR 5 dictates particular types of testing that are extraordinarily expensive, have a history of failure, and are designed to inject more intrusive psychological data-collection and psychological profiling/manipulation into the assessments. Sec. 1111(b)(2)(B)(viii), (xiv).
13. HR 5 maintains NCLB’s requirement that the state assessment produce not just test scores, but “individual student interpretive, descriptive, and diagnostic reports.” Unlike NCLB, HR 5 requires assessment on behavioral/skills-based standards rather than truly academic standards. The data produced under this language could resemble a psychological profile of the student. Sec. 1111(b)(2)(B)(xi). States in the PARCC or Smarter Balanced assessment consortia are obligated to make those profiles available to USED.
14. HR 5 removes protection against socioemotional profiling in the statewide assessments (eliminating NCLB’s prohibition against including assessment items that “evaluate or assess personal or family beliefs and attitudes”) and fails to protect against other psychological data-gathering in any other federal education program covered by the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
15. HR 5 mandates that schools enforce the requirement that 95% of all their students take the state assessment. This is an attack on parental rights and the Opt-Out movement. Sec. 1111(b)(2)(B)(xiii).
16. HR 5 does nothing to stop the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) from implementing its planned and unconstitutional affective probing of students’ “mindsets,” “grit,” or other psychological traits.
17. HR 5 restructures state government: it creates unelected committees (and prescribes the make-up of those committees) within states to which the state must submit rules and regulations before they become effective. Sec. 1403.
18. HR 4 enshrines in statute the federal practice of using federal money to drive states to change their statutes, regulations and policies. 1403.
19. HR 5 risks, through its portability provision, inserting federal control and Common Core into private schools. Sec. 1128.
20. HR 5 continues NCLB’s limitations on private-school autonomy and religious freedom while participating in Title I services for special education, instruction, counseling, mentoring, , by requiring these services be provided “independent of such private school and of any religious organization” and be “under the control and supervision of such public agency.” Sec. 1120(d)(2)(B).
21. HR 5 relies on an outdated and severely weakened federal privacy law (FERPA). Sec. 1111(i).
22. HR 5 diminishes parental authority to the right to “participate in” – not control — the education of their children. Sec. 1001(3).
23. HR 5 doesn’t eliminate federal programs, it merely consolidates them.
24. HR 5 increases the funding levels of NCLB by $5.3 billion dollars. The 2015 appropriated amount for NCLB was $17.9 billion. HR 5 increases the spending level to $23.2 billion. Sec. 3. (Authorization of Allocations).

AGAIN:

PLEASE

CALL YOUR REPRESENTATIVE AND DEMAND A NO VOTE ON HR 5. Capitol Switchboard: 202.224.3121

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION FROM FLORIDA STOP COMMON CORE COALITION.

WE NEED TO ACT, THESE REWRITES WILL BE THE  CEMENTING  OF COMMON CORE
UNDER NEW NAME
"COLLEGE AND CAREER READY STANDARDS"
LEADING TO TOTAL  
FEDERAL CONTROL OVER EDUCATION IF NOT STOPPED

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RED ALERT! TYRANNICAL NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND REWRITES UP FOR DEBATE IN CONGRESS THIS WEEK - CALL & JOIN TWITTER RALLY!
Just after our nation has celebrated independence from tyranny, the US Congress is planning to expand its iron-fisted control over American education. The Senate is about to begin debate on The Every Child Achieves Act (ECAA - S 1177) (THIS BILL WAS SENT TO YOU EARLIER TODAY TO ACT ON. NOW WE MUST ADDRESS THE HOUSE) -- - and there are more rumors that the House is about to resume debate on the Student Success Act, (SSA - HR 5). These bills are the rewrites to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, currently known as No Child Left Behind.
These bills continue to expand federal control over education and fatally flawed in many ways, almost too numerous to count, including:
•    Cementing in of Common Core under the name of College and Career Ready Standards
•    Continuing federal annual testing mandates
•    Keeping the Secretary of Education in Charge of approving state plans
•    Only sham protection against Common Core because there is no enforcement mechanism for the prohibitions against federal interference with standards
•    No repair for the severely weakened and outdated privacy law (FERPA)
•    Alarming expansion of student psychological profiling, especially in the Senate bill, but also in the House bill that has profound dangers to freedom of thought and conscience.
•    Expansion of federal preschool programs in the Senate bill that imposes "Baby Common Core" standards that are dangerously concentrated on controversial and subjective psychosocial standards involving gender issues and environmentalism, among others
More details on these issues with the bills are available at the following links:
•    General problems with the ECAA, many of which cover the SSA are available from American Principles in Action.
•    Details about the 6 different areas besides the Common Core standards that the federal government is already or planning to psychologically train and assess your children including in preschool is available from Dr. Effrem.
•    Analysis of the concerning expansion of the nanny state federal control over our youngest children is also available from Dr. Effrem.
•    Numerous reasons to support Senator David Vitter's Student Privacy Protection Act  (S 1341).

WHAT YOU CAN DO:  
1.    Join the Twitter rally ANYTIME TODAY at http://patriotjournalist.com/CommonCore.php?v=5&src=Action with thousands of parents opposed to these terrible bills!

2.    Call your members of Congress and strongly urge them to vote NO on the NCLB reauthorization bills - HR 5 and S 1177.

3.    Support a presidential candidate that opposes Common Core and federal control of education, psychological profiling of our students, and expansion of invasive, ineffective federal pre-K programs.

Florida Stop Common Core Coalition, Inc.
116 Cousley Drive SE
Port Charlotte, FL 33952

Thank you for your attention to this issue

God Bless You and May God Bless Our America

I am beginning to suspect all elaborate and special systems of education. They seem to me to be built upon the supposition that every child is a kind of idiot who must be taught to think.
- Anne Sullivan