NC Common Core Commission Meeting Highlights – 11/13/15

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

Dont mend it end itThe North Carolina Academic Standards Review Commission (ASRC) held its monthly meeting on Friday, November 13th.

Coastal Carolina Taxpayers Association has graciously provided minutes from the meeting. In addition to the minutes, I live Tweeted the meeting.

I believe this commission has done a thorough job and performed the kind of due diligence that will result in substantial changes in their recommendations.

I am certain that in the coming weeks an all out assault will be launched on the commission by local and national level “education non-profits“. This assault will take shape in the form of press releases and op-eds in local media outlets. We’ve already seen a sampling from both Wake Ed Partnership and the Wake County School Board.

It is imperative that parents and the public fight back – write your own letter to the media, comment on articles you see and speak up on social media. The days of business owning the discussion table and all the chairs around it needs to end.

Highlights:

  • NC DPI presented information about the recently released NAEP scores.
  • The Commission also requested and was given NC End of Grade (EOG) and End of Course (EOC) results.
  • Discussion about finalizing the commission’s report which will be given to the State Board of Education and the General Assembly.
  • It was determined a complete draft of the report would be compiled in the coming weeks and would be circulated to the entire commission for comments and review.
  • The commission is expected to vote on the finalized report at the next and final meeting on Friday, December 18th.

Meeting Materials via the ASRC website:

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Academic Standards Review Commission | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

#WCPSS Board Doesn’t Even Know Their Own Rules

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

News and Observer reports that the Wake County School Board protested the General Assembly’s redefining of low-performing schools by abstaining on vote on improvement plans.

Punchline: When they all abstain, the measure passes and none of them knew this.

Excerpt from N&O:

With one board member after another abstaining, school board Chairwoman Christine Kushner asked board attorney Jonathan Blumberg what the legal implications were for an abstention.

Blumberg answered that he can “understand the powerful symbolic message board members are sending by abstaining.” But Blumberg proceeded to read from board policy 1323, which says that every board member must vote unless excused by the majority vote of the remaining members. In addition, failure to vote by a member who is physically present and not excused from voting on the motion shall be recorded as an affirmative vote.

After getting Blumberg’s confirmation that abstaining would be the same as a yes vote, all seven board members present voted to abstain on the motion to approve the plans.

“So the result will be the plans go into place,” Kushner said. “We will be in compliance. The motion will pass with a message.”

Yeah, the message is DERP.

The Wake Board was more than halfway through their non-vote protest and figured out they were actually passing the thing they were protesting. So they smiled and said, ‘yeah! we meant to do that!’

Oh and just a friendly reminder about Wake Board Member Susan Evans:

 

As someone living in this district, I’m frankly horrified at the idea of Susan Evans representing me at the General Assembly.

I’ve had my own run in with Evans at a ‘listening’ forum held by newly hired Superintendent Merrill. Parents could come and speak for 3 minutes. About 20 people showed up. Of that, only about 10 spoke.  They all spoke on Common Core.

I spoke at it and went over time. When the timekeeper tried to shuttle me off, I stopped her and motioned to the non-existent audience — who was going to care if I went over my 3 minutes a bit?

When I sat down, Evans snapped at me that I had been rude and disrespectful. I doubt she expected me to fire right back by telling her “tough” and reminding her that this was the first chance parents had EVER been given in Wake county to talk about Common Core. She glared and I stared. Meh.

Reminder: Evans was involved with the teacher ‘walk in’, that included sending home fliers with little kids containing Union propaganda

Reminder: Evans and Kushner both have been propped up by ‘Great Schools In Wake Coalition’, which tied to WakeUp Wake County.  They’re both pretty much run and directed by leftist Yevonne Brannon.

Reminder:

Via Travis Photo Log http://www.travislongphoto.com/2011/02/07/school-board-in-turmoil/candlelight1-ne-032210-tel/

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), ELECTIONS, NCGA, Wake County School Board | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Wake County Commissioners Raise The Wage! For 75 out of 4,000 Employees. – #ncpol

Posted on November 17, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

Wherein John Burns and Matt Calabria break their arms off patting each other on the back. I’m sure Bully Barber and his merry band of ‘Fight for $15’ folks will be pleased.

 

Via WRAL:

The Wake County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Monday to adopt a policy ensuring county workers earn a “living wage.”

The policy would increase the minimum wage paid by the county to full-time workers to $13.50 an hour. About 75 of the county’s 4,000 employees earn less than that now, with some making as little as $11.08 an hour.

[…]

The pay raises, which go into effect Dec. 1, will total about $93,000. Officials said departments would be able to absorb the extra expense.

The horror of being paid “as little as $11.08″… when the minimum wage is $7.25.

That wage was for what jobs again? Oh right, the article doesn’t really mention that. In fact, the article doesn’t say what many of these jobs are or how long the employee has had said job, except for one:

Kim Furino has worked at the Wake County Animal Shelter for two years and earns $11.85 an hour to feed animals and clean cages.

I get the argument that better pay makes for happier, more productive workers. That’s a no brainer. But not so much here. Furino gets $11.85 to feed animals and clean cages and has done that for two years. I can see how that extra $1.65 will help Furino want to come to work more? MoreWithFourNotOneCentBackWBOC14

I’m sorry if I sound crass here, but this entire thing just walks, talks and smells like a Moral Monday PR stunt.

I think it would be interesting for the Wake County Board of Commissioners to really put our money where their mouth is.

They could do that by letting the public see what each of these 75 positions are, how long the employee has been in that position, the starting salary and the increase they will get?

You know, TRANSPARENCY?

Wait, there’s one more tidbit:

The pay raises, which go into effect Dec. 1, will total about $93,000. Officials said departments would be able to absorb the extra expense.

Really? Wake has just under $100k hanging around waiting to be ‘absorbed’?

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Moral Monday, POLITICS NC | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Report: 44 Syrian Refugees Already Here, Possible 270 More Coming – #ncpol

Posted on November 16, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

Dan Way at Carolina Journal notes that 44 Syrian refugees are already in North Carolina, with a potential 270 more to come:

Excerpt below is from the article and contains comments from Governor McCrory’s office; emphasis added is mine:

CJ asked the Governor’s Office if it had any security concerns about the Syrian refugees, given that ISIS has said it would make sure militant jihadists would be part of the Syrian refugee exodus.

“Prior to being given refugee status, an extensive security screening is conducted on each individual” by the U.S. Department of State, Department of Homeland Security, and participation from multiple U.S. government security agencies, the Governor’s Office responded.

“Syrians relocated to North Carolina has been quite small (44),” a statement from the Governor’s Office said in response to the CJ records request.

“This is in part due to the small number admitted into the USA,” which was fewer than 2,000 in the federal fiscal year spanning Oct. 1, 2014 through Sept. 30, 2015, the statement said.

“It is not anticipated that there will be a large increase in the number of arrivals in [North Carolina],” the statement said. “While an exact number is not known, less than 270 is anticipated.” That projection is based on a document from the White House setting a nationwide ceiling of 10,000 refugees from Syria as a country of origin.

Even so. Refugee Council USA, a coalition of global humanitarian aid groups helping displaced Syrians, wants the U.S. to accept at least 65,000 Syrian refugees, and some Democratic senators have urged President Obama to grant that request, calling 10,000 “an unacceptably low number.”

It is uncertain where the 44 Syrians have been relocated in North Carolina, according to the Governor’s Office.

“The N.C. State Refugee Office does not track ethnic groups by specific locality,” the statement said. However, overall refugee numbers going to a specific county are tracked. The statement did not account for how all refugees could be tabulated by locality without knowing the numbers for individual nationalities.

Well, I feel better don’t you?  We know they’re here and generally where they are, but we don’t track them.

Action ButtonWhat kind of screening? The same kind that allowed a Syrian refugee using a fake passport to pass through Greece and then on to Paris?

I would suggest people use the email portal for sending Governor McCrory their concerns.

 

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Pat McCrory | Tagged | 1 Comment

A #CCSSO President’s Term Coming To A Close

Posted on November 16, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

In 2014, the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) announced their new president-elect:

 

 

A year later, with her Presidency coming to an end, Atkinson is now the longest-serving K-12 Educrat in the nation. Atkinson intends to run for state superintendent again, extending her reign. Lucky North Carolina.

Most had suspected that with Common Core bursting into flames that Atkinson would not be entering the race, but yet she has.  Glutton for punishment? Control freak? No Golden parachute? Just can’t give up? Who knows.

AtkinsonPresElectThe CCSSO is one of the two D.C. trade groups which hold the copyright on the Common Core. To date, the media in North Carolina has largely ignored Dr. Atkinson’s CCSSO presidency and the clear conflict of interest is poses as the state has entered into a review of the Common Core Standards.

Let us remember the millions the CCSSO has been given by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to promote the foundation’s Education Agenda items. The Gates foundation practically bankrolls the CCSSO’s operations.

 

Since 2011, the CCSSO has received grants to push Common Core in the amounts of $4,000,000, $1,958,500, $799,825, $1,100,000, and $9,388,911.  

In 2009, $3,185,750 was given to the CCSSO by Gates to ‘to partner with federal, state, public, and private interests to develop common, open, longitudinal data standards’. This goes hand in hand with the Statewide Longitudinal Database Systems (SLDS) states were encouraged to develop prior to Common Core. These SLDS’s were required by the Race To The Top grants.

The CCSSO received an additional grant for $743,331  to create and prop up the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC).  The SBAC received somewhere around $175 million from the U.S. Department of Education. Lawsuits against the SBAC have cropped up in multiple states, most citing the consortium violates the Compact Clause.

NC’s Department of Public Instruction (DPI), under the direction of Dr. Atkinson, would obligate North Carolina to use the SBAC test by entering into the consortium — that is until the legislature figured out what she did and wisely choked off state funding for it.

View the NC SBAC Memorandum of Understanding. Note that the May 10, 2014 MOU is signed and dated by Dr. Atkinson and the Chair of the NC Board of Education before the Common Core was released to the public on June 10th, 2010.

North Carolina entered the SBAC as a Governing state, but is currently just an affiliate. There are questions surrounding how and why that happened.

The SBAC test would have cost North Carolina triple what it was currently spending on assessments.  DPI ran an SBAC field test anyway. Where the money came from for that field test is another unanswered question.

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Common Core, June Atkinson | Tagged , , | Comments Off on A #CCSSO President’s Term Coming To A Close

#DM7 Article: When Snowflakes Melt

Posted on November 15, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

This is a repost of my weekly column at Da Tech Guy: When Snowflakes Melt.

By A.P. Dillon

There are a lot of stories running about the latest GOP debate, this is not one of them. Well, not really.  I want to talk about when snowflakes melt.

Everyone knows snowflakes melt. Temperatures change and ice turns to water. This is a basic truth. Even the littlest child knows this – most experience it first hand when they catch one on their tongue.

At the debate this week, we saw two snowflakes melt by their own words. We’ve been told no two snowflakes are the same, yet these two candidates disprove that notion. This debate proved that John Kasich and Jeb Bush’s time in this election cycle snow flurry is over. They melted.

Switching gears slightly, melting is what is going on in Missouri and at Yale. Snowflakes of another kind are finding out their own special ‘truth’ is melting, yet the students at these institutions seem unaware they are the ones actually responsible for their own melting.

As these special student snowflakes melt, what is left is a puddle that exposes what they were made up of. So far, that’s been unsubstantiated claims of ‘poop swastiksa’ and false statements about the KKK.

Newsflash: There is no ‘safe space’ for snowflakes. They fall from the sky, land and melt.

I’d like to quote a bit from Professor Mike Adams, a criminology professor at UNC Wilmington.  Adams employs reality as a heat source to aspiring new snowflakes.

“Let’s get something straight right now. You have no right to be unoffended. You have a right to be offended with regularity. It is the price you pay for living in a free society. If you don’t understand that you are confused and dangerously so.”
– Mike Adams via Townhall, Get Out of  My Class and Leave America

Do read the whole thing.

I’ve printed it out to read to my children when they are older. Some might call that extreme or an overreaction, but I don’t. Given the increasing trend of social issues being promoted over actual academics in our K-12 system right now coupled with the Democrats actually running campaigns on social issues,  it would be foolish to think the special snowflake showers are going away anytime soon.

DM7 small LL1885A.P. Dillon resides in the Triangle area of North Carolina and is the founder of LadyLiberty1885.com.
Her current and past writing can also be found at IJ Review, StopCommonCoreNC.org, Heartland.org and Watchdog Wire NC.
Catch her on Twitter: @LadyLiberty1885

 

 

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), EDUCATION, ELECTIONS | Tagged | 1 Comment