Another day, another News and Observer Common Core fiasco.  John Frank has gotten really skilled at regurgitating talking points instead of actual reporting. Parents have done their homework on Common Core and continue to be ignored by our media. I could pick this latest attempt down line by line, but frankly I don’t have the time to waste. I will hit highlights instead.  This section bothered me:

The House version would prohibit the commission from using the current Common Core standards; the Senate bill would allow the panel to keep the parts it supports. Other minor differences involve the commission’s composition and its role.

Republican Sen. Jerry Tillman of Archdale, a sponsor of the Senate version, said the Senate will push its language, but he anticipates it will reach a deal with the House.

“Why would you tie the hands of a standards commission one way or the other?” he asked. “Why limit what they can do?” – N&O

I’ve met with Senator Tillman. I can only assume this quote was misconstrued or misplaced in the article. He’s stated to me he is working to get Common Core out of NC, “period”.  Related article at Haymaker on this point.

No one wants to limit the commission in any way, however the point of it is to replace Common Core. That would mean that the commission would not be including Common Core, correct? Some standards may look similar, there are cases of that here and there. I have no problem taking good points and crafting them to fit NC. Having said that, Common Core as a set of standards is a sub-basement. We should be looking at penthouses like Massachusetts for English as an example.

The premise that Common Core is better than most state standards is patently false and part of a series of talking points based on a grading report done by the Fordham Institute. That grading report was commission by and paid for by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.  Open your eyes, media. This report has been debunked and called into question in states beyond North Carolina.  Related: “Indiana, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Tennessee have better standards than CC.”

Back to the N&O Article:

House Democrats are worried that the legislation may lead to complications with the grant and other No Child Left Behind standards in place in the state. – N&O

Simply put: Nope.  This is a fear mongering tactic and talking point.  So is this one by Rep. ‘Politicizing‘ Cotham below. The hypocrisy in her statement is epic. No one worried about putting our teachers in flux when they adopted this trainwreck, in fact they threw Common Core on teachers in our state just months before school started:

“There are serious unintended consequences and this puts teachers in a state of flux,” said Rep. Tricia Cotham, a Matthews Democrat, after the vote. – N&O

Cotham thinks she got away with something in her amendment yesterday. We see what she’s doing. Cotham wants to keep Common Core. Even after adding two amendments, she voted the bill down yesterday. In fact, all but three Democrats voted to keep the Common Core nightmare from being removed.

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I left the following 2 comments on the article. One calls out our Governor and the other the News and Observer’s either willful bias or willful ignorance on why June Atkinson and DPI should not be on the Commission to replace the standards.

“They also objected to the creation of the commission within the Department of Administration, under a Republican governor, without any members from the Department of Public Instruction, which is run by Democratic State Superintendent June Atkinson.”

NOR SHOULD THEY BE.
News and Observer? Do some research will ya?

June Atkinson is the president elect of the CCSSO, which is one of the two trade organizations out of Washington DC who created the Common Core and who hold it’s copyright.
Dr. Atkinson signed off on using Common Core as a brand name in our Race To The Top Application months before the actual standards were even released.

The woman has a massive conflict of interest here and has outright called anyone opposing Common Core a liar. Her allegiance is to Common Core, not to a true education for students in North Carolina.

I’m shocked she hasn’t been asked to resign over this, since her actions to funnel Common Core into North Carolina under the radar and enter our state into agreements that leave us prostrate to outside entities surely does not pass the smell test and one has to wonder if it would pass legal muster.

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Nicely biased article again N&O.

“Republican Gov. Pat McCrory and North Carolina business groups also have expressed concern about repealing Common Core, which put in place tougher standards than the ones developed by the state.”

Tougher standards? BULL.
Common Core is a fundamentally flawed experiment with zero proof it does what it claims to do. From start to finish, these standards are out of touch with how children learn. The K-3 standards are positively horrifying and it shows that they were created without a single early education professional. The latter grades math is seriously lacking, sets our kids back and fails STEM students. The English portion relies on subjective and often biased ‘informational’ texts versus classic literature.

Governor McCrory is listening to his Democrat in hiding Aide, Eric Guckian. Guckian has all kinds of connections to Common Core and has a vested interest in making it stick around.

 

McCrory’s Dem Education Aide Has Duncan, Obama Ties http://t.co/doRQm8Pjwj #NCGov #StopCommonCore #CONSnc @ncplotthound

— LL1885 – A.P. Dillon (@LadyLiberty1885) May 23, 2014