Volunteers are needed to collect signatures before a June 22 deadline to put a question in front of Massachusetts voters in November to put ENDING Common Core and the PARCC tests. The goal is to move Massachusetts forward and restore our pre-Common Core, proven Massachusetts education standards.
We need real education reform. The proposed law would require any new process for developing curriculum include committees of public school teachers, academics from public and private colleges and universities with review committees in language arts, science, technology and math.
An informational meeting will be held on Tuesday, June 14 at 7 PM in the Chicopee Public Library Conference Room on 449 Front St.
Anyone looking for information or to volunteer should visit www.ENDCommonCoreMA.com or contact Dan Allie, Hampden County coordinator at [email protected]
Massachusetts had the highest education standards in the country. Whether you liked MCAS or not, at least you knew what it was, because it took years to implement. How did we end up with Common Core and PARRC in our schools and half of Americans don’t know what it is? In some local schools, 30% of students have opted out of the PARCC exams.
Of the 24 states originally in the PARCC Consortium, only seven states remain. Each state must get itself out of Common Core and PARCC.
Common Core and PARCC represent a crony capitalist takeover of our education system by the federal government and Pearson, a British textbook and assessment monopoly, through funding, testing, data collection, student, teacher and district performance.
Three federal laws prohibit the U.S. Department of Education from directing, supervising or controlling elementary and secondary school curriculum, programs of instruction, instructional materials or standards. Despite this, the federal government awarded a 350 million dollar no bid contract to Pearson to develop curriculum and assessments aligned to the Common Core Standards.
In 2010 states accepted “Race To the Top Funding” on one condition; to accept the Common Core Standards “when they were written” The Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted to adopt Common Core Standards without the knowledge and approval of parents, teachers, local school committees or our state legislature.
Common Core takes teachers, time and resources out of the classroom to administer and prepare for multiple high stakes timed testing. Students are not able to read or write cursive or sign their name. The math curriculum is overly complicated and not age appropriate. Our kids are not learning multiplication tables, stacking numbers for addition or able to read the face of a clock.
Dan Allie
413 455 6186
