NC Media Quote ‘Just A Teacher’ After Common Core Meeting – #ASRC

Posted on December 20, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

isnt-common-core greatFolks in North Carolina know how Google challenged our media are. Friday’s reporting on the NC Common Core Commission was no exception.

Several outlets cited ‘Teacher Amanda Garrison’ as relieved that Common Core was ‘saved’ and at least one had video of her inaccurately disparaging the Minnesota math standards.

Quote from WNCN:

“It’s not been proven to be any better than what Common Core has to offer,” said Amanda Garrison, a Burke County teacher. “ I am a Common core advocate so I will say that I am against changing our standards for K-8.”

Dear Ms. Garrison, actually yeah – Minnesota does have proof – their test scores.

By the way, there is no proof Common Core is better than Joe Blow standards from Idaho and there never was, no matter what the Fordham Institute said with their Bill Gates funded ‘standards’ scoring report.

At least she was honest and stated up front she’s an advocate of fundamentally flawed and age inappropriate standards.

None of the reports noted that Ms. Garrison is a very politically active and devoted NCAE member — and a rather clueless one at that:

I attended nearly every single ASRC Common Core meeting. I’d never seen Ms. Garrison there before. Perhaps she was, but there’s no evidence that she’s never spoken out until yesterday.

I’m fairly sure  NCAE’s Mark Jewell brought her along to fill that ‘just a teacher’ role for the media. Remember what Jewell said after the first ASRC meeting in September 2014?

They are standards supported by NCAE, the state’s largest teacher advocacy group.

“We’ve got educators who are going to have a voice at the table,” said NCAE Vice President Mark Jewell.

Jewell says there are two NCAE members on the commission and he hopes they’ll help hold the line.

“We hope that the same standards will be used and may be branded with a North Carolina title,” said Jewell.
– ABC11 09/22/14

Two of the commissioners are NCAE members? Would  Jeffrey Isenhour be one of them?

Well, we won’t find that out anytime soon I bet seeing has how the NCAE violated the law and has refused to furnish the NC State Auditor with membership information after multiple requests.

Attorney General Roy Cooper has been silent on this matter since the NCAE endorsed his run for Governor.

Related Reading:

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Academic Standards Review Commission, Common Core, Media Bias, NCAE | Tagged , | 2 Comments

NC Media Confused By Common Core Commission Antics – #ASRC

Posted on December 20, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

accept rejectAs I had predicted, the majority of major North Carolina news media outlets showed up to the final meeting of the NC Common Core Commission meeting on Friday.

I had a chance to speak with a number of them off camera and several of them were confused about how the Commission could vote down the math recommendations when for months they had unanimously said the Common Core math was fatally flawed.

Here are links to the articles from each outlet so far:

While I’ve had my issues with EdNC, the last article article in the list above by EDNC is probably the most accurate portrayal.

Excerpt:

But after a lot of sometimes acrimonious discussion, both of those measures were voted down.

Commission member Jeffrey Isenhour was one of the most vocal critics of adopting the Minnesota standards. He said that they would need an extensive review before adoption could be considered.

“I think in the beginning we didn’t vet and do our work up front with the current standards,” he said. “I think it would be irresponsible on our part to do the same with another set of standards.” He added later, “And I don’t think it’s fair to the Commission, I don’t think it’s fair to students, teachers or anybody in this state to do a wholesale trade from one horse to another horse,” he said.

Commission member Ted Scheik, who chaired the work group that developed the math recommendations, said he would be willing to amend the proposal to clarify that the Minnesota math standards would just be used as a model. But that amendment wasn’t good enough for majority approval.

Isenhour failed to show up for a single session of the teacher listening tour. He also had been laying the groundwork to kill any math recommendations going back to March of this year.

It is very telling that the commission members wouldn’t even allow for the Minnesota math to be used as a model, despite those standards being widely recognized as solid, showing results better than that of North Carolina and very workable for NC to use, as highlighted by this article in the Courier Tribune.

Scheick’s work group decided to go with the Minnesota standards because it found that they are clearer and meet guidelines in a 2008 national report on math education by the National Mathematics Advisory Panel. Minnesota students do better on national assessments, the state commission’s draft report noted.

This year, 53 percent of Minnesota fourth-graders scored at or above “proficient” on the National Assessment of Educational Progress math test, while 44 percent of North Carolina’s fourth-grade students reached that mark.

On the eighth-grade NAEP math test, 48 percent of Minnesota’s students were at or above proficient, while 33 percent of North Carolina’s were.

NAEP scores, which are considered the nation’s report card, dropped nationally this year compared with 2013. There seems to be no connection between Common Core and student performance on this year’s test. 

Minnesota’s fourth-grade scores dropped four points, while North Carolina’s dropped one point, which NAEP considered an insignificant change from 2013. Virginia’s fourth-grade scores were unchanged while Texas saw fourth-grade scores go up two points. Neither state uses Common Core standards.

Eighth-grade math scores were unchanged in Minnesota and Virginia but declined four points in North Carolina and Texas.

Isenhour’s comments here are also ironic.  Isenhour basically admits that Common Core was never vetted in North Carolina, but the 15 months of the Commission’s math group work and research were not good enough. The  man is a hypocrite.

The fact is that Common Core was adopted wholesale by the NC Board of Education days before the standards were released to the public and a full six months after Dr. Atkinson and Governor Perdue put Common Core into the federal Race to The Top grant application.

Related Reading:

Posted in Academic Standards Review Commission, Common Core | Tagged , | 2 Comments

ICYMI – What Matters for Friday, September 18, 2015

Posted on December 19, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

In case you missed it, I spoke to Chad Adams on his radio show yesterday on the Freedom Action Network. There’s a lot of talk about education and Common Core worth listening to before I’m on just after the 27 minute mark. Enjoy!

What Matters for Friday, September 18, 2015

December 18, 2015 

How many videos does it take to explain how to do addition? Well, as Chad explains at the start of the show, if you’re talking about Common Core, at least six. That’s why the Academic Standards Review Commission who has spent a year reviewing Common Core standards for the state’s public schools is recommending scraping the way math is taught. Of course, that also means millions in tax dollars spent to train teachers on the overly complex teaching method will have been wasted.

Next, Chad speaks to LadyLiberty1885, A.P. Dillon. Chad asks A.P. right out of the gate if she is running for office. She says she just doesn’t have the time, but she has considered it. Chad tells her a lot of people probably just gave a collective sigh of relief. They have a great discussion on education – especially why the NCAE won’t release its membership numbers and the latest woes of the Wake County School System.

In the second hour, News14’s Tim Boyum joins Chad. He and Chad discuss the latest two General Assembly members who have said they will not be running for re-election. They also discuss WBTV’s Nick Ochsner’s story on Rep. David Lewis. You gotta’ listen because as Chad says, “it’s always fun when Tim’s on.”

Finally, do you shop online? Chad tells a great story about his Mother and her Christmas shopping habits. It’ll make you laugh and touch your heart at the same time.

Monday we head to Christmastown, U.S.A. for Mayor Monday when we speak to McAdenville Mayor Farrell Buchanan and we get the latest updates on Civitas with President Francis De Luca.

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885) | Comments Off on ICYMI – What Matters for Friday, September 18, 2015

Common Core Commission Blasted By Citizen After Final Meeting – #ASRC

Posted on December 19, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

HypocritesAs I wrote earlier, the NC Academic Standards Review Commission cannibalized one of their own in yesterday’s final meeting.

One citizen fired off a letter to the commission, sarcastically blasting them for the turn of events that took place.

Here’s the letter:
ASRC Commissioners,

I was one of several attendees at the ASRC Event today.  The pro Common Core member of this commission who was the architect of what took place today was brilliant.

First, the order of the meeting to pass all the ELA Sub Committee’s recommendations with unanimous votes.  Of course there was nothing contentious in these recommendations, since the best I can tell, it merely restated the S812 bill expectations of this committee.  The committee met for 15 months to simply send back to the General Assembly a restatement of their assignment?  The General Assembly will no doubt be impressed!  But what happened next was the genius part.  Making what appeared to be a friendly recommendation to improve on the Math Sub Committee’s recommendations in the “Draft” document.  It was even stated, this can only reinforce the Math Sub Committee’s recommendations.  All this took place before the documented recommendations for the math were even allowed to be discussed.  Then witnessing the aggressive attack on Dr. Scheik, whose sub-team did more real work on evaluating standards than the original authors of CCSS, that resulted in failure of all those recommendations to pass the committee vote.  This is when it became crystal clear to me why there was such a push to copy the ELA recommendations to the Math recommendations!  Since none of the math recommendations passed during the voting process, the commission would have had NO math recommendations in their final report.  Absolutely brilliant!

I referenced this as an event in lieu of a meeting, since it was so well orchestrated.  I was impressed by the leadership exhibited in the meeting today by Dr. Scheik, who held to his principals to the bitter end against all odds.  It is disgraceful that this commission would work for 15 months on an assignment to make recommendations and have other members who took no part in the work team, ambush them in this manner.  Real leaders would have done the hard work through the process to develop recommendations of substance, that were acceptable to the majority.  Instead, they just hung around and waited for the opportunity to snipe the work.  With this level of leadership (that includes two State School Board members), it is no surprise to see their steadfast resolve to stay the course on a failed process.

I feel really bad for those commissioners who worked their heart and soul to positively impact the education of our great state of North Carolina, only to have it erased in such a circus event.  I know this was a huge personal sacrifice for those people.

This is far from over since the future of our children is worth fighting for.

Sincerely,

Glenn A. Fink

646 Goose Creek Road

New Bern, NC 28562

Home Ph# – 252-633-0191

Cell Ph# – 252-229-0076

E-mail – finkg@suddenlink.net

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Academic Standards Review Commission, Common Core, EXCLUSIVE | Tagged | 5 Comments

NC Common Core Commission Turns Cannibal; Scuttles Math Recommendations – #ASRC

Posted on December 19, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

Yesterday was the 15th and final meeting of the Academic Standards Review Commission (ASRC).    The general consensus going in was that the ASRC knew the math was pretty bad and needed to be replaced. The English Language Arts (ELA) was  also deficient in many areas and needed fixing.

Backing up for a moment, it is important to know that various pro-Common Core groups, including WakeEd Partnership, NCAE, SAS, NC Chamber of Commerce, BEST NC,  have been attacking and pressuring the ASRC in the media and behind the scenes. In particular, these groups took aim at the proposed recommendations in math.

Jump ahead now to yesterday’s meeting you might be expecting to hear that after 15 months the ASRC put forth their recommendations and they passed them in a vote. However, that’s not what happened.

To borrow from the math group leader of the ASRC, Dr. Ted Scheik,  this commission ‘kicked the can down the road’.

If you were listening in to the live stream or  were in attendance as I was at yesterday’s meeting, you were witness to a disgusting display as the recommendations were voted on. The harassment was so bad that one of the commission members actually got up, walked out and didn’t come back.

What was so disgusting was the manner in which several members of the commission literally ganged up on Dr. Scheik. Nearly every word of his the two math recommendations he put forth was attacked, questioned and criticized.

At one point Co-Chair Covil had to step in because Dr. Scheickwas clearly being overwhelmed.  Covil remarked along the lines that it was ‘amazing to see the attacks and scrutiny being hurled at Ted Scheik was more than had ever been directed at North Carolina’s Superintendent’.

These commission members acted as if they had not been there for the last 15 months and they willfully ignored the detailed findings Dr. Scheik that they all had access to. It wasn’t a debate or discussion, it was an inquisition.  It was transparent, ham-handed and appalling.

Those same members then voted to kill said math recommendations and insert ‘math’ into the vanilla and non-specific language the commission adopted for the ELA section.

The goal of these commission members hounding Dr. Scheik had one clear purpose  and that was to protect Common Core.

Want to know who those Common Core protecting commission members were?

 Here you go: Jeffrey Isenhour,  Supt. Ann Clark, Dr. Denise Watts, Dr. Laurie McCollum, Dr. Olivia Oxendine, Bill Cobey, Andre Peek.

The most vicious by far was Jeffrey Isenhour — who I know for a fact blew off the teacher listening tour, had barely any  interaction with the math group and has been trying to kill the work of this commission since day one.   Isenhour has been laying the groundwork for some time to reject anything the math team recommended.

Both Cobey and Olivia Oxendine are on the State Board of Education.  Cobey appears to do whatever Supt. Atkinson tells him to. Oxendine’s behavior yesterday was not characteristic for her and very disappointing.

Andre Peek was Governor McCrory’s appointee and I’ve detailed in the past what a fan of Common Core both of them are.

Laurie McCollum was an unknown quantity going in and was hard to read, but showed her true colors yesterday shooting her hand up first to vote down the second math recommendations.

Ann Clark has been the interim Superintendent of Charlotte Mecklenburg schools since Heath Morrison was forced to resign. Don’t let her party affiliation fool you; use your eyes and figure it out.

Denise Watts is also from the Charlotte area and her Project LIFT has connections to Teach For America.

Side note: Katie Lemons apparently voted down the first set regarding Minnesota math, but was clearly conflicted as she voted for the second set of math recommendations.

Watts and Isenhour were picked by Thom Tillis prior to his US Senate run.  Clark and McCollum were picked by Sen. Phil Berger.  See the list here.  Tillis won’t see Common Core come back to him, he’s off in the US Senate now, which leaves Phil Berger holding the bag.

See you soon, Senator Berger!

The local  media is starting to push out their stories – I’ll have more over the next few days.
Stay tuned.

Related Materials:

Related Reading:  NC Common Core Commission Wraps Up 15 Month Investigation

Posted in Academic Standards Review Commission, Common Core, EDUCATION, NCAE | Tagged , | 5 Comments

What They’re Saying About Education In NC – WE 12/18/15 – #NCED

Posted on December 18, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

NCED IconA round up of education news from around the state of North Carolina and beyond.

Highlights: Student growth in Wake county, School choice booming in Wake schools, Common Core Commission’s final meeting, NCAE blows off the law, safety concerns in Wake schools.

REMINDER: Today is the NC Common Core Commission’s final meeting.
It is from 1-5 pm today on the 7th floor of the Department of Public Instruction building in Raleigh. The public is encouraged to attend.
I will be there, live tweeting under hashtag: #ASRC

THE BIG STORY

EDU NEWS

Education activist is Blocked By Former Wake County Board Of Ed Chair

Wake County to lower student enrollment projections
Related:

Family is thankful for the Opportunity Scholarship Program

New UNC System Report Says: We Cheat 
Also: UNC paper classes’ underlying scandal – K-12 failures

Common Core By a New Name and on Steroids, ‘Every Student Succeeds Act’ 

NCSPIN: Fitzsimon Doesn’t Get Why McCrory Would Stand Up For NC Children 

NOT A HOMESCHOOL

Posted in Academic Standards Review Commission, EDUCATION, NC Ed Updates, NCAE, Parental Rights, School Choice, Wake County School Board | Tagged , , , | Comments Off on What They’re Saying About Education In NC – WE 12/18/15 – #NCED