Some spectators at the final NC Common Core Commission meeting took notice when commission member Jeannie Metcalf got up, walked out and did not return.

Her departure was right after the first vote on the first set of math recommendations.  Some of us in the gallery surmised that she left because of Dr. Scheick being given the third degree in a rather ugly and purpose driven way.  We were right.

I asked Mrs. Metcalf what happened and if her leaving was due to what happened to Dr. Scheick during the math recommendations portion of the meeting.  This was her response:

Yes that is right.
First of all I was embarrassed and ashamed for the way Dr. Scheick was being treated. That group had 6 months to “vet” his recommendations.

Secondly my fears that I’d had from the beginning, that we were set up to fail, were quickly being realized. I was furious and wasn’t going to participate any longer in that sham. And McCrory, Tillis and Berger are entirely to blame. NO ONE on this committee should have had any ties to DPI. (June Atkinson signs the paycheck for 5 of the members and she’s the president of the group that gave us common core.)

Andre was the plant for the chamber and the business community who loves common core, plus his wife works for SAS which handles all the testing in NC.

The committee should have been filled with retired educators, parents, public officials who vocally and publicly opposed common core so that from the getgo we’d have been looking for replacements instead of renaming.

The failing fall on those mentioned above. I would have liked to have replaced the ELA standards with Sandra Stoskys and the math standards with James Milgrams. Quick, easy and we’d have had the highest best standards of any state. What a squandered opportunity. And again, this was the intended result FROM THE BEGINNING.

Well, there you have it. Metcalf was so disgusted she got up and walked out.

The Pro-Core powers that be controlled this process,  kept parents off the commission, intimidated the members and and brought pressure to bear at the 11th hour.

It was that pressure which resulted in commission members impugning the character one of their own for the lone purpose of defending a set of line item standards. THINK ABOUT THAT.

So much for ‘state led’?

The only silver lining is that the vanilla and non-specific recommendations the Commission are about to turn in is the equivalent of a rebrand.  It looks like Senator Tillman is going to have to put his money where is mouth is.