Comment

Comment by Steve Tikas on March 26, 2013 at 11:10am

Yeah this sounds just like an education only version of Agenda 21 which is all very scary stuff.  As this is directed at our children specially it makes this particularly disturbing.

Comment by Leanne King on March 26, 2013 at 11:02am

I firmly believe that yes, this is a direct feed from Agenda 21.

Comment by Steve Tikas on March 26, 2013 at 10:33am

It sounds like it is related to Agenda 21.  To your knowledge does it have any correlation to it.

I know you are right about them not liking home schooling because that takes away their power to do these types of things.  Even private and charter schools have a large amount of government intrusion into the way they do things which is why I think home schooling is the best option in today's world.

As far as the college test that is not something I'm horribly worried about to be honest.  I'm raising my children to be the owner of the business so the piece of paper that is a college degree doesn't have the same effect.   Of course if they want to go to college I'll support that but it is not all that important to me.

Comment by Leanne King on March 26, 2013 at 9:48am

Steve, CCC is in the Charter Schools as well. Rumor has it that the DOJ and a couple other agencies are going after homeschooling. They do not want homeschooling in any fashion.

There is interesting information related to the college tests as well. That those standards will be changed, if you are not taught CCC you will no doubt fail entry. Lots more to that.

The CCC has never been tested.. BUT DO NOT WORRY

Math and Literature have big issues.

History,

The only way we can fight this is through a major grassroots movement. I am not convinced that many people really understand the implications or the history of the program.. (Bill Gates) We must start asking questions of teacher, principals, our state representatives..We must make noise.

We will link up with others in Florida as well.. But time is critical on this one.  2009 was a while ago. They want fully implementation in 2014..

Comment by Steve Tikas on March 26, 2013 at 9:35am

I'm curious how our ever benevolent government is trying to say this information is necessary for them to have.  Are they trying to say that they are collecting it to help fight terrorism which is the reasoning they use for almost all data mining efforts that they engage in.

I guess this is what happens when you have an entire government full of people that want nothing but to know every possible thing they can about our lives (all in an effort to keep us safe <-- said with as much sarcasm as humanly possible).  One more reason to home-school your children.  I'm sure they will still gather information on them to a degree but it will be much harder for them to know some of these details without them being in the public, or even private, school system.

Comment by Leanne King on March 26, 2013 at 9:34am

Glenn Beck will again have another show dedicated to Common Core. The show will air this Wednesday at 5pm. If you don't have DISH and you are not registered with the Blaze via internet you can sign up for a free 2 week subscription. www.theblaze.com/tv

Comment by Leanne King on March 26, 2013 at 9:31am

Major Problems with Common Core in Florida
The Common Core Standards and related assessments being implemented in Florida have many problems including lack of rigor and transparency; loss of state, local, family, and teacher autonomy, as well as loss of data privacy; and high costs that will be borne by the state and counties analogously to the proposed Medicaid expansion. The citizens of Florida and their elected representatives on county school boards and in the legislature should consider carefully before spending hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars more and irreversibly changing the state’s education system with enormous impact on our children’s future, freedom, the economic health of the state, parental and teacher autonomy and data privacy. (More extensive quotations and references are available on request).

Common Core was chosen and imposed by appointed officials that did so without adequate explanation to or discussion with the parents and citizens of this state or their elected representatives on school boards or in the legislature.

Common Core dilutes the meaning of “college readiness” to be for non-selective community colleges

Common Core has never been used or even tested anywhere

A group that evaluates standards and is a Common Core proponent admitted that Florida’s current standards were near or above the Common Core.

There is no evidence that Common Core will work to improve college and career readiness and considerable expert opinion that it will significantly “dumb down” academics by:
Reducing literary study to only 30%, increasing informational texts like EPA manuals and Federal Reserve reports, and teaching both kinds of texts without cultural or historical context, resulting in decreased vocabulary acquisition, critical thinking skills, and our children graduating from high school reading at only a 7th grade level.

Eliminating or delaying key concepts in mathematics or using untested or failed teaching methods that will result in our eighth grade students being two years behind in math compared to other countries.

There is no evidence that Common Core Standard measure up to those of our international competitors

Federal student privacy protections have been weakened to the point that private individual data like hobbies, career goals, attitudes towards school, and homework completion may be given or sold to private companies like Microsoft without parental consent, resulting lawsuits brought by privacy advocates against the federal government and parents and civil liberties groups against states.

Information from the U. S. Department of Education leads one to conclude that our children will be used as psychological guinea pigs having eye movements, movements in their seats, and other parameters monitored by “affective computing ” to see if students have or can develop certain attitudes and behaviors.

Efforts to link Common Core to early childhood standards and will harm young children’s development by pushing them to be in an academic environment too soon, decreasing creativity and spontaneity

An excessive and too early focus on careers will cheat children of a well-rounded education, limit their choices and options, and is a system that has failed in other countries

Linking of Common Core to college entrance exams threaten to push private and home schooled students into the public system.

Much data will also be collected on teachers with pay being tied to test scores and they are concerned about being turned into “widget makers whose primary purpose is to prepare students for testing, not learning.”

Computer adapted testing that will change the difficulty of questions for each student depending on the answer to the previous question, will prevent uniform comparisons between students, much less between states, which was one of the biggest reasons given to change the standards.

Moderate estimates are that Common Core will cost over $1 BILLION to implement with testing costs increasing from about $19 per student to potentially $100/student resulting in unfunded mandates for the counties and state in already tough economic times.

The governor/Department of Education have asked for over $400 million in one year, greater than the total of what Florida spent on the FCAT between 1996 and 2008.

Even Florida’s current education commissioner Tony Bennett admitted during his failed re-election campaign in Indiana that the Obama “administration has an insatiable appetite for federal overreach” showing that these standards harm constitutionally proper state control of education.

The standards are not “state led”, but instead developed by national groups that copyrighted them, demand total adherence to them but refuse to be held liable for any problems or inaccuracies.

Common Core was not “voluntary,” being required for states to be competitive for desperately needed grants during the recession and for flexibility from the heavy-handed rules of No Child Left Behind.

Common Core and its push by the federal government are in violation of three major federal laws that prohibit the government’s involvement in curriculum and standards.

Comment by Leanne King on March 26, 2013 at 9:30am

Issues with Florida SB 878 – Data Warehouse Bill
Karen R. Effrem, MD – President, Education Liberty Watch
Executive Summary – SB 878 is a huge danger to the data privacy of Florida’s children and their families for the following reasons:
1) It is being written to comply with the longitudinal data system requirements of the Stimulus bill in general, the Race to the Top grant program, and the No Child Left Behind waivers so that the state can receive funds, not on behalf of the students of Florida and their families.
2) The bill aligns Florida’s data system with the National Center for Education Statistics National Data Model which contains hundreds of data items on each and every child in the state that include both academic and non-academic data, such as religious and political affiliations, mental health data, medical data, bus stop and bus route description, and even DNA sequence. The federal and state governments have no legal or constitutional right to this amount and detail of information on innocent American citizens, especially since it is being stored without parental consent.
3) Although the bill language strives to make it appear that privacy is protected by the various provisions that rely on the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) passed by Congress to protect student privacy, the Obama administration’s weakening of the law via regulation have created broad exceptions to the requirement to obtain parental consent before releasing individual data that many entities including a “contractor, consultant, volunteer, or other party…” Therefore, this very sensitive, private data will go to outside parties and many government entities without parental consent.
4) The bill combines the K-20 Data Warehouse with the Department of Economic Opportunity’s Wage Record Interchange System so that all of your child’s personal and private data will follow them not only throughout their academic careers, but throughout their work lives as well.
5) The U.S. Department of Education is being sued by the Electronic Privacy Information Center because it has so weakened the FERPA and parents, the PTA and the ACLU in states that are part of the inBloom database that already holds data on millions of children from nine different states, are protesting to education officials seem poised to bring lawsuits in those states. Florida will be open to this kind of legal action if this bill becomes law.
Detailed Analysis -
1) This bill is required for Florida to receive Race to the Top grant funds.
From the Race to the Top regulations:
Priority 4: Invitational Priority--Expansion and Adaptation of Statewide Longitudinal Data Systems.
The Secretary is particularly interested in applications in which the State plans to expand statewide longitudinal data systems to include or integrate data from special education programs, English language learner programs,\1\ early childhood programs, at-risk and dropout prevention programs, and school climate and culture programs, as well as information on student mobility, human resources (i.e., information on teachers, principals, and other staff), school finance, student health, postsecondary education, and other relevant areas, with the purpose of connecting and coordinating all parts of the system to allow important questions related to policy, practice, or overall effectiveness to be asked, answered, and incorporated into effective continuous improvement practices.

From Florida’s Race to the Top application:
The Governor or his/her authorized representative assures that the State will comply with all of
the accountability, transparency, and reporting requirements that apply to the Race to the Top
program, including the following:
• For each year of the program, the State will submit a report to the Secretary, at such time and in such manner as the Secretary may require, that describes:
o the State’s progress in reducing inequities in the distribution of highly qualified
teachers, implementing a State longitudinal data system, and developing and
implementing valid and reliable assessment…

2) SB 878 aligns Florida’s data system with the hundreds of data items including many that are non-academic in the National Center for Education Statistics data elements list:
“To promote adoption of a common set of data elements identified by the National Center for Education Statistics to support the effective exchange of data within and across states. (Lines 115-117)”

The Data Elements from the NCES include:
Religious Affiliation
Bus Route, Bus Stop, and Arrival Time
At Risk Status
Disease, Illness, or Health Condition
Religious Affiliation
Voting Status
The U.S. regulations associated with the Federal Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) say that the definition of biometric data includes:
“Biometric record,” as used in the definition of “personally identifiable information,” means a record of one or more measurable biological or behavioral characteristics that can be
used for automated recognition of an individual. Examples include fingerprints; retina and iris patterns; voiceprints; DNA sequence; facial characteristics; and handwriting.” (Emphasis added)
To think that the federal government or a private corporation would have access to this type of sensitive data should make everyone think long and hard about allowing this bill to pass.

3) SB 878 uses the phrase “organizations or authorized representatives” at least twelve times in the body of the bill. Because of the significant weakening of FERPA regulations that occurred in 2011, there are many people who have access to a student and their family’s sensitive individually identifiable information described above. Here is the definition of authorized representative in the federal regulations:
“Authorized representative means any entity or individual designated by a State or local educational authority or an agency headed by an official listed in § 99.31(a)(3) to conduct—with respect to Federal- or State-supported education programs—any audit or evaluation, or any compliance or enforcement activity in connection with Federal legal requirements that relate to these programs.”

Then, in the list of exceptions under which schools will release you and your family’s sensitive personally identifiable information, it lists all of the parties that act as authorized representatives or school officials
§ 99.31 Under what conditions is prior consent not required to disclose information?
(a) An educational agency or institution may disclose personally identifiable information from an education record of a student without the consent required by § 99.30 if the disclosure meets one or more of the following conditions:
(1)(i)(A) The disclosure is to other school officials, including teachers, within the agency or institution whom the agency or institution has determined to have legitimate educational interests.
(B) A contractor, consultant, volunteer, or other party to whom an agency or institution has outsourced institutional services or functions may be considered a school official under this paragraph provided that the outside party…(Emphasis added)

4) Lines 247-251 say, “The commissioner shall collaborate with the executive director of the Department of Economic Opportunity to develop procedures for the ability to tie student-level data to student and workforce outcome data contained in the Wage Record Interchange System.” This means that all of your child’s personal and private data will follow them not only throughout their academic careers, but throughout their work lives as well.

5) Although SB 878 does a good job of protecting data for the web portal that is available to the public by requiring the data to be “redacted or aggregated, or the confidentiality otherwise protected by de-identification, anonymization, or any combination thereof (Lines 272-274),” there is nowhere near that type of protection available in the “A self-service, restricted access component of the K-20 data warehouse, called the “Research Engine” (Lines 275-6). The problems with this include:

a) The system provides individually identifiable data, including all of the very personal data and more described above, without limitation of any kind (lines 295-297)
b) The data may be accessed at the “department’s headquarters or by other secure means as agreed upon in writing by the parties (Lines 298-299),” which means that your child’s data could be floating on the internet on lots of different servers. Once it is passed on, security is far from assured.
c) Even though the bill requires the researchers to make sure that their data request “falls within permissible uses authorized by FERPA and does not further a commercial, trade, or profit interest” (Lines 306-307), as explained above FERPA is so weakened, that any private company or potentially individual “volunteers” who may have an axe to grind, will be able to get hold of that data.
d) The written agreement requires the data requestor to list the “FERPA exception relied upon to obtain education records of students which may contain students’ personally identifiable information (Lines 316-318).” However, as we have seen, FERPA has been so weakened that the list of exceptions is alarmingly large.
e) Even though there is a requirement to limit “the use of education records of students which contain students’ personally identifiable information to meet only the purpose stated in the written agreement (Lines 323-326),” the problem is that there are no limitations about what kind of data and how they may be used in the written agreement.
f) Even though the bill requires prohibitions on access to this data by people not authorized in the written agreement (Lines 330-334) there are not really any significant limitations about how the agreement is written in the first place and there is no limit to the number of people that may be allowed access in the written agreement.

g) Lines 398-405 state that entities wanting to do research under the regulations described by FERPA will have access to the data. As we have seen, because the exceptions listed in FERPA are so broad, there is little to no comfort provided to families seeking to prevent their children’s data from falling into the hands of corporations and multiple government entities.
h) Lines 418-422 of the bill say, “Access to the Research Engine is not conditioned upon or limited to studies, audits, or evaluations that support the research agenda, interests, or priorities of the State Board of Education, the commissioner, or the department”. This basically means that anyone that makes a request to the Department of Education combined with the broad exceptions now in FERPA will get access to your child’s and family’s private data.
i) Lines 423-428 list the authorized representatives who have access to the data “include the Executive Office of the Governor, the Florida Legislature, the Florida Auditor General, the Office of Program Policy Analysis and Government Accountability, the Florida district school boards, Florida College System institutions, and Florida state universities or entities approved by the Department of Education.” As we have seen with the FERPA exception, those entities approved by the Department of Education can include “contractors,” “consultants,” and “volunteers”.

Comment by Leanne King on March 26, 2013 at 9:29am

More on Common Core

Major Problems with Common Core in Florida
The Common Core Standards and related assessments being implemented in Florida have many problems including lack of rigor and transparency; loss of state, local, family, and teacher autonomy, as well as loss of data privacy; and high costs that will be borne by the state and counties analogously to the proposed Medicaid expansion. The citizens of Florida and their elected representatives on county school boards and in the legislature should consider carefully before spending hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars more and irreversibly changing the state’s education system with enormous impact on our children’s future, freedom, the economic health of the state, parental and teacher autonomy and data privacy. (Footnotes and more extensive quotations are available on request).

Lack of Academic Rigor
Although the Thomas Fordham Institute is a strong Common Core proponent, their grading scale found that Florida’s current standards were near or above the level of the Common Core. Why should so much be spent to change them?
Subject Common Core Grade Florida Grade
Mathematics A- A
English Language Arts B+ B
The standards define college readiness as being the same for 4-year, 2-year, and vocational colleges
Despite claims by Commissioner Tony Bennett and proponents that the standards are “internationally benchmarked,” repeated data requests by members of the Common Core validation committees were ignored
English (Much more detail available on request)
• High school level, “college ready” standards actually at 6th to 8th grade level
• Chief architects, David Coleman (now head of College Board) and Susan Pimentel, have had no experience teaching English or reading at any grade level from K-12
• According to experts the standards are described as empty skill sets; significant reduction in literary study leading “to fewer opportunities for students to acquire the general academic vocabulary needed for college work;” and the division of reading standards leading to completely incoherent literature curriculum in grades 6-12
• Texts being taught without historical context – e.g. Animal Farm and the Gettysburg Address
Mathematics (Much more detail available on request)
• Chief architects, Professors William McCallum and Jason Zimba, have never taught mathematics at any grade level from K-12
• According to experts, Common Core removes the mathematical concepts that are critical for four year college readiness, STEM careers, international competitiveness, and are major delays and steps backwards from the most highly rated state standards and those of other countries.
Florida Not Ready for Implementation - Florida, the state leader of PARCC, the 22 state testing consortium, admits that the state is not ready to implement Common Core. Education Commissioner Tony Bennett said within the next few months his staff will devise a "Plan B" in case implementation cannot proceed as planned by 2015.
Testing and Costs
Because computer adapted testing will change the difficulty of questions for each student depending on the answer to the previous question, there will be no uniform testing standard so that there cannot be uniform comparison between students, much less between states.
Florida $1,024,163,000 (projected cost for testing, technology, textbooks, and professional development) - $905,838,000 (grants received) = $118,325,000 (costs to FL taxpayers)
Given that Tony Bennett and the SBOE are asking for $400 million in one year to implement assessments equivalent to what the Florida has already spent on the FCAT between 1998 and 2008, that $118 billion amount might well be low and will serve as a huge unfunded mandate to already strapped county districts.
South Carolina Senator Mike Fair cites data that testing cost will increase from $12/student to $100/student in that state which is a member of the other testing consortium called SBAC. Both PARCC & SBAC require multiple computerized assessments during one school year. Florida’s testing cost for the FCAT in 2008, the most recent year available, was $19.44 per student
All states in each of the large testing consortia (PARCC, of which Florida is a part, and SBAC) must agree on cut scores and the test item banks despite wide disparities in education philosophy, attainment, and funding
Without enough computer equipment and IT staff to allow every student to take multiple tests every year, students will have to rotate through computer labs creating less than uniform administration for students as well as major test security problems.
Student Data Collection
The Electronic Information Privacy Center is suing the U.S. Department of Education over the weakening via regulation of FERPA (Family Education Rights and Privacy Act) passed by Congress to prevent the use of student level data without consent in the state longitudinal data systems required for Race to the Top.
A new database tracks learning disabilities, test scores, attendance, as well as student hobbies, career goals, attitudes toward school, even homework completion. Federal Department of Education officials say that the “database project complies with privacy laws. Schools do not need parental consent to share student records with any “school official” who has a “legitimate educational interest,” according to the Department of Education. The department defines “school official” to include private companies hired by the school, so long as they use the data only for the purposes spelled out in their contracts.”
Information from the U. S. Department of Education leads one to conclude that our children will be used as psychological guinea pigs:
Conclusion 10: There are important opportunities to leverage new and emerging advances in technology (e.g., educational data mining, affective computing, online resources, tools for teachers) to develop unprecedented approaches for a wide range of students.
Recommendation 10: Researchers should work closely with technology developers to continue to explore how to integrate best practices into new and emerging digital learning environments that are well positioned to promote grit, tenacity, and perseverance, and key psychological resources (mindsets, learning strategies, and effortful control) for a range of purposes.
Loss of State Sovereignty & Local Control - Despite claims by proponents very little about Common Core is voluntary or state led. The U.S. Constitution is silent on the matter of education. Education is not an enumerated power of the federal government, therefore according to the tenth amendment; education is to be controlled by the state and the people. The implementation of Common Core and the No Child Left Behind waivers is making state legislators irrelevant, except to write the checks.
• Not “State Led” - States were required to adopt the standards verbatim. Many states did so before they were even finished. They could have added up to 15% of their own material, but not deleted anything or made any amendments. This additional 15% will not be included on national tests developed by PARCC and SBAC. Standards are copyrighted by Achieve, The National Governor’s Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers, who deny any responsibility or liability for their accuracy, and demand that the standards must be used for “for purposes that support the Common Core State Standards Initiative.”

Comment by Leanne King on March 26, 2013 at 9:27am

If you are a social media buff.. here are additional links to leave messages

Here's the social media accounts for the members of the Education Committee in the Florida legislature:

 

Senator John Legg

Facebook - No page available

Twitter - https://twitter.com/SenatorJohnLegg

 

Senator Bill Montford:

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/BillMontford

Twitter - Not available

 

Senator Lizbeth Benacquisto

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/LBenacquisto

Twitter - https://twitter.com/lizbethkb

Florida Majority Leader - Twitter: https://twitter.com/FLSenateGOP

Florida Majority Leader - Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FLSenateGOP

 

Senator Jeff Brandes

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Elect-Jeff-Brandes/134657143212726

Twitter - https://twitter.com/JeffreyBrandes

 

Senator Dwight Bullard

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/DBullardFL

Twitter - https://twitter.com/DwightBullard

 

Senator Bill Galvano

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pages/Bill-Galvano/273081612760817

Twitter - https://twitter.com/BillGalvano

 

Senator Maria Lorts Sachs

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/Maria.Lorts.Sachs

Twitter - https://twitter.com/MariaSachs

 

Senator David Simmons

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/pages/David-Simmons-Republican-for-Florida...

Twitter - Not found

 

Senator Kelli Stargel

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/KelliStargel2012

Twitter - https://twitter.com/kellistargel