Important Concerns With #HB660 – Transition To Personalized Digital Learning

Posted on April 29, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

NCGAEducation bills have stacked up at the NC General Assembly. There are currently over 200 bills related to education that have been filed.

One bill filed is HB 660 – Transition To Personalized Digital Learning.  This bill is being heard at the legislature today.

Over at StopCommonCoreNC.org, there is an article about this bill.  Please, go read it.

The article raises questions about accountability, protection of data, transparency and how much this thing will cost.  This bill expressly directs a public-private partnership venture with no oversight in place.

With regard to cost, do citizens know that E-rate is going to be used to fund this and that will result in direct tax increases? Arguably, E-rate a double-dipping maneuver. Do you, the reader even know what E-rate is?  Get busy reading.

This bill is very “shiny” and by that I mean it’s meant to look like NC is being so innovative and advancing education for kids. I am certain that was the intent, but this bill is so weak on too many fronts — and once again, the parents are being cut right out of the picture.

Some concerns of mine with HB 660:
Note: To clarify; these concerns are with respect to the creation of digital materials in the bill intended for classrooms.

  • There are NO oversight mechanisms or penalties related to them in this bill.
  • There is no mechanism for parents to be able to see what the kid sees or does in the classroom.
  • No mechanism for parents challenging content they do see.
  • No way to tell what data will be collected on the kids when they use this stuff, where it will be stored, how it will be used, what third parties will have access to it or how said data will be protected.
  • There is no mechanism for uniformity of apps or content to be used. Is DPI going to be responsible for the selection of content or the individual LEA? Right now LEAs all over NC use widely varying content from a vast array of sources. How will NC’s ITS (Info Tech) department handle the security of these apps and digital content?

Parents, citizens – WAKE UP.
Read the bill.

Also in the StopCommonCoreNC.org article is a quote from me:

Lady Liberty notes an important point, data privacy and transparency do not appear to be a concern of the GA:

I managed to look through a good number of these 203 bills. To my dismay, not a single bill protecting parental rights with regards to their child’s education, data privacy or transparency in record keeping is in the mix.

I’d like to take a brief moment and say that one bill filed does include a section on parental rights.  This is not an education bill. It is a health bill.

HB 847 is titled Parental Rights and Med. Treatment of Minors. The relevant passage reads:

“§ 115C‑6.  Parents’ fundamental rights.

The liberty of a parent to direct the upbringing, education, and care of his or her child is a fundamental right. Neither the State nor any agency or locality of the State shall infringe on a parent’s fundamental rights to the care, custody, and control of his or her child without demonstrating a compelling State interest and use of the least restrictive means of furthering that compelling State interest. This shall not be construed to apply to a parent’s action or decision that would end life.“

Let me add that Daily Haymaker is not the only one with ‘moles‘ at the legislature.

With regard to HB 847, I have been told a few things about HB 847. Like for instance that yesterday, Rep. Larry Hall objected to this bill being heard on the 28th and that  HB 847 is on the House calendar for TODAY, April 29th, instead.

I also was told that the School Board Association has an objection on this parental rights bill. The School Board Association is objecting to the language that states parents have the fundamental right to “…direct the education of their children.” .

Who the Hell do these people think they are?

Pardon me, but I, as a parent, have the fundamental right to direct anything and everything concerning my child.  To the School Board Association, I’d like to tell them directly to GET OFF MY LAWN.

Today is going to be a busy day on this blog. Please check back for more.

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), EDUCATION, Parental Rights | 1 Comment

Public Comments on Proposed $1.4 Billion Wake Cty Schools Budget (Video)

Posted on April 28, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

On April 21st, the Wake County School board heard public comment on the proposed $1.4 billion dollar Wake school system budget.

Thanks to WCPSS on Twitter, the portion of the video that shows the public comment starts around the 19 minute mark.

Some notes on the public comments are below.  The one item that was repeatedly talked about was ‘extra duty pay’.

It’s worth noting not a single one of them asked for a line item breakout of the current Wake budget and spending.  We continue to throw money at education; outcomes do not improve and citizens have no idea how fat the bureaucracy is growing or how deep wasteful spending goes.  But it’s ‘for the children’ so we continue to throw more money without being given a look at where it is really going.

Speaker number one was Patty Williams, who seems to have a history advocating for Wake County Schools. In fact she did an op-ed in the News and Observer. In that op-ed, she cites Horace Mann but fails to note that Mann homeschooled his kids. Key quotes from Williams include “budget is neither extravagant nor impractical”; “time for everyone to pay it forward and support the budget”.

Speaker number two was Renee Ward. She has three kids in school right now, is a PTSA board member and, according to LinkedIn, is ‘principal’ of Air Matters Mold Testing Services. The main thrust of her comments were about raising teacher pay. Ward seems to support the budget.

Speaker number three was Amy Womble. Ms. Womble is a Moral Monday participant and is currently listed as one of the plaintiffs in a lawsuit against Senator Barefoot and Senator Berger regarding the election of the Wake County Board of Commissioner. Womble totally supports the budget and cheerled for the Democrats on the Wake County Commission (WBOC) — the newest four elected to the WBOC are Moral Monday participants as well.

I didn’t catch the name of the fourth speaker. She described herself as a ‘Wake county occupational therapist’. Her comments revolved around salary changes proposed for occupational therapists.  Occupational therapists are employed for kids with IEP’s (Individualized Education Plans). IEP’s, unsurprisingly, seem to  have exploded under Common Core.

The fifth speaker was Deborah (sp?) Phillips. She’s a bus driver and teacher. Phillips talked about living ‘paycheck to paycheck’ and having to choose between ‘senior portraits and caps and gowns’. Medical bills and issues that were costly to their family were used as illustrations of why the budget needs to have wage increases.

The sixth speaker was Diana Bader.  If it’s the same one, Bader is an at-large member of the Wake PTA and an activist tied to an education non-profit turned political, Great Schools In Wake.  Bader brought a prop and told a story about getting rid of bad Blueberries to make better ice cream.  Bader compares our kids to … blueberries you can’t throw away. She pushed teacher pay too. Key quote, “this budget is the start of adequate funding for public education”.

Seventh speaker was Lynn (sp?) Evans. Thanked the board and Superintendent Merrill for the budget because our district has been “on oxygen” since the recession. Evans said this budget doesn’t “get us where we need to be, but might allow us to take off the oxygen mask”.

Eight Speaker was Scott McInnes. He is a basketball coach and a math teacher at Milbrook High. Thanked Merrill for including ‘extra duty’ in the budget. He highlighted finding ‘high quality teachers to fill extra duty positions’ and that extra duty is the “heart and soul of our schools”.

Ninth was Michael Smith, the chair of Wake County Smart Start. Wake County Smart Start focuses on ‘early childhood intervention’.  He supports the Superintendent’s budget as it pertains to preschool services.

Tenth was Donald Tomlinson, president of the Milbrook High boosters club and his comments were mainly directed at altering extra duty pay. Specifically, not to phase in the extra duty pay over five years but to get it going now or over two years. These extra duty positions are ‘not even paid at minimum wage’.

Eleventh was Angela Scioli, a Social Studies teacher from Leesville Road high school. Her comments were very animated and she applauded the election of ‘forward, progressive thinking officials’. She brought a petition with 100 signatures to the meeting in support of the budget. Scioli, a registered Democrat, blames the Republican legislature for Wake’s budget woes.

Twelfth was Clarence Inscore of Milbrook High. Again, the theme was extra duty pay. Thinks it is sad they are losing coaches because they can’t make ends meet.

Thirteenth was Tony Lewis, athletic director at Sanderson High. Again, extra duty pay.

Fourteenth was Beverly Clark. Clark is a former Wake County school board member who resigned in 2009. Comments include ‘this budget is about priorities’, ‘no surrounding state pays their teacher less than North Carolina’. Clark pointed out that Charlotte Mecklenburg’s budget was $388 million more in local supplement than Wake’s for this year. Key quote: “this budget is an essential step, but a bare minimum..”.

Fifteenth was Casey Wentz, who is a CPA. He served under Senator Barringer in 2013. His comments centered on Occupational Therapists and the need to retain them. Key quote: “this is not a legislative issue, this is an allocation issue you can impact with your budget”.

Sixteenth was Larry Nilles, NCAE president for Wake County.  Wanted to talk about the last page of the budget packet — then zeroed in on teacher assistant pay. Nilles then predictably  laid blame on the NCGA and launched into politically tied rhetoric. Apparently, the problems like budgeting for cleaning schools in Wake county 5 days a week is the NCGA’s fault.
Key quote: “This isn’t your fault (Wake Board)… The bulk of the responsibility for these problems lies on Jones street and people who have made intentional decisions to underfund our schools.”
Translated: Our membership is shriveling. We need those dues paid to us. Blame the legislature for mismanagement in Wake.
Nilles is a demagogue.

Seventeenth was Linda Elder, a teacher assistant at Fuller elementary. Her comments centered around TA’s and their importance. Without argument TA’s in Kindergarten and in First grade are important.

Eighteenth was Hardin Englehardt, an ‘education evaluation specialist at Marbles Kids Museum with a Teach for America background. She’s also secretary of the Wake County PTA Council. On behalf of that council, she came to support the budget.  She spent time on teacher pay and competitive salaries, as well as praise for pre-k funding.

 

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), EDUCATION, Video, Wake County School Board | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Public Comments on Proposed $1.4 Billion Wake Cty Schools Budget (Video)

#HB673 – “Modify Read to Achieve” In K12 Committee Today

Posted on April 28, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

NCGAThe controversial and ill-implemented Read To Achieve program might be getting a face-list. HB 673 will be heard this morning by the K-12 House Education Committee.

While Republican legislators came up with this idea (courtesy of listening to Jeb Bush), NC’s Department of Public Instruction clearly botched the implementation.

Read to Achieve arguably has admirable intentions, but then again, so did Common Core and look at what a steaming pile that has turned out to be.

Flashback to 2014:

The problem is a political one.  Republican legislators who approved the program are not pleased with the way that Democratic Superintendent of Public Instruction June Atkinson has implemented it.  But conservatives are beginning to blame Republicans, not NC DPI, for Read to Achieve’s implementation problems.
– Dr. Terry Stoops, Republicans have a Read To Achieve Problem

According to the North Carolina House calendar, HB 673 (Modify Read To Achieve) is on the docket to be heard by the House K-12 Education Committee.

The current changes proposed to HB 673 are subtle with changes mostly to definitions, and thus impacting the rest of the law:

  • Dropping the reading portfolio requirements from three to two work examples per standard.
  • Upping the ‘competency’ threshold of a work sample to qualify as proficient from 70% to 80%.
  • “If a parent or guardian does not enroll the student in a reading camp, the parent shall notify the school in which the student is enrolled of any alternative reading interventions or instructional supports that shall be provided to the student to achieve reading proficiency.”

Today’s K-12 Committee calendar:

EDUCATION – K-12 LOB 643 10:00 am
HB 238 Duty-Free Time/Lunch for Teachers.
HB 248 Eliminate NC Final Exam.
HB 484 Home Schoolers Participate in School Sports.
HB 581 Computer Coding Course Elective.
HB 587 School Flexibility Act.
HB 673 Modify Read to Achieve.
HB 687 Public Schools/Testing Schedule.
HB 803 School Performance Scores.

Worth noting is that Senator Tillman has a bill attempting to get rid of PEP’s (Personal Education Plans). One of the core components of Read to Achieve is the PEP.

Remember, Read To Achieve dumps up to 36 mini-tests on 3rd graders, who are already inundated with multiple other tests throughout the year like weekly Common Core assessments, mClass, Case 21 and the Common Core aligned state EOG tests.

The threat of a a kid being held back and being required by law to attend a Summer reading camps if they did not successfully jump through the ridiculous number of reading hoops set by Read to Achieve set off a firestorm with parents.

It bears noting that at a Read To Achieve meeting I attended last year, I counted a possible total of 95 separate assessments given to 3rd graders. When do the teachers teach and are they just teaching to the tests?

Just a reminder, there are over 200 education related bills at the NC General Assembly right now.

Related Reading:

Common Core and Read To Achieve In NC

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), EDUCATION, NC DPI, NC Ed Updates, NCGA | Tagged | Comments Off on #HB673 – “Modify Read to Achieve” In K12 Committee Today

NC Citizens Sound Off On Need For #OptOut

Posted on April 27, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

Over the weekend, I wrote about the fact that perhaps it was time for the #OptOut movement to take shape in North Carolina.

On Saturday, the News and Observer published an article by Mary Nelson of Guilford county. Read it here: Why NC needs an opt-out option for school testing

Excerpt:

At my son’s last Individualized Education Program meeting, considerable time was spent discussing how to help him get through the English Language Arts benchmarks and the End of Grade tests.

It was the consensus of his team that the tests were above his ability. Why should he be required to take tests that are above his ability when we already know what the results will be? The answer: “It’s the law.”

Nelson makes the case that parental rights are being discarded and requirements being forced upon children and their families simply by virtue of a child being in the public school system. This is the same argument about parental rights that I made in my article.

Similar to my arguments and observations, Nelson points out that there is no real policy or procedure for opting out in North Carolina and asserts her parental right to make decisions for her child over that of the state:

North Carolina does not have a procedure for officially opting out of state tests. But as my son’s mother, I have a constitutional right to make important educational decisions for him. While schools are required by state law to administer the tests, no law can force a child to pick up a pencil and start filling in bubbles. Like a growing number of parents around the state, I wrote a letter explaining that we would refuse to take the test.

Every parent of a school aged child in North Carolina should read the whole article.

A letter related to nelson’s article has been shared with me, from Gerald Egolf. The title is Why North Carolina Needs to Repeal and Replace Common Core.  Common Core is driving testing and North Carolina EOG’s are aligned to the standards.

Egolf is a member of the NC Education Coalition; a citizen coalition formed to truly replace Common Core.  

With his permission, I have reprinted his letter below. The text is unaltered except for addressing formatting issues to make it readable for a blog medium.

Why North Carolina Needs to Repeal and Replace Common Core

By Gerald Egolf
April 26, 2015

As a parent and grandparent, I can empathize with Mary Nelson and wish that our education system would be more accommodating to children with special needs, whatever they might be. Although my grandsons are healthy and fairly normal, the younger of the two is very smart and needs to be placed far ahead of his peers, especially in reading, writing, and science.

Unfortunately, like Mary’s son, he is part of the “masses” that our current educational system is content to address, and has been held back so that his classmates don’t feel inferior (he does not attend school in NC).

This is what we get when big government and big business run our school systems. Under the Common Core State Standards, combined with other big government programs that bribe states to take their “dollars for doing,” parents are being removed from the process. Mary’s experience with the testing is all too familiar with many other parents who wish to opt out of testing for their children.

Have you tried to help your son or daughter with their homework recently? Using Mary’s analogy, it is like they are now doing their homework in Greek, when you are only conversant in Latin and Germanic languages.

If you think that home schooling gets you a pass from all of this testing, please think again. Someone who believes in conspiracies would think the government is plotting to remove us from our children’s lives completely.

Now, let’s consider the good news. A grass-roots effort across the country is working to get the Common Core mess repealed and replaced in their respective states. There are many states that have realized their errors and have reversed course to remove the standards and return to a more sensible and effective way of educating their children.

Here in our state, the North Carolina Academic Freedom Alliance is developing a five-year strategic plan for removing Common Core and replacing it with a much better approach. The North Carolina Plan is a critical thinking-based set of standards that fosters reading and writing across the curriculum and all grades.

It is based on a set of standards that are the “best of the best”, using the strongest and most effective standards from around the country and the world as a framework. While the children come first in our strategy, teachers are also given a great deal of our attention.

Our Plan advocates better teacher training and preparation in order to properly teach critical thinking as well as using their subject matter expertise. One of our biggest goals is to convince the General Assembly to reinstate teachers’ in-service training days so that they may attend workshops, conferences, and the like to receive this training.

Teachers are the best, and most effective, agents in bringing positive change to the classroom. We firmly believe that a stronger set of standards and a better trained cadre of teachers can lift the learning levels of our students dramatically.

When the standards used for our framework were in place (and some still are, those states having refused Common Core-see Minnesota Math) have been used pre-Common Core, students in those programs led the nation and the world in scoring. Why were they not promulgated, instead of something far less effective and costly?

Finally, parents will be able to once more help their children with homework and see their constitutional responsibilities restored. They will be once more responsible for their children’s education.

Testing would be less intrusive and more localized, used by teachers to evaluate their students, not for the government to use in a “global” marketplace.

Please contact your local Representatives and Senators and ask them to repeal Common Core and to support The North Carolina Plan, an in-state plan for North Carolina students, teachers, and parents.
Thank you.

Gerald Egolf
Development Lead, The North Carolina Plan
North Carolina Academic Freedom Alliance

 

 

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Common Core, NCGA, Parental Rights, Testing | Tagged , | 1 Comment

Duke Report Drives False Narrative That Charter Schools Cause Segregation

Posted on April 27, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

Here is the latest narrative being pushed in an attempt to stem the exodus from public schools into charter schools: “White parents in North Carolina are using charter schools to secede from the education system.”

Got that? Choosing the best educational option for your child is ‘seceding’ from the “education system.”

The Duke University report discussed in the above article wants you to know that if you’re white and put your kid in a charter school, you’re adding to segregation; Moreover, you’re doing it on purpose. The subtext here is that by choosing a charter school, these parents are racists.

The choice to move kids to a charter school couldn’t possibly have anything to do with parents being fed up with the failing public school system, increasing data collection, high stakes tests or Common Core.

Nah, it’s about race and segregation. It’s also about protectionism.

One would like to think at Duke these ‘researchers’ would know that correlation doesn’t imply causation.

Homeschooling in North Carolina is exploding, are those parents engaging in segregation too?

Narrative keanuAfter reviewing it myself, it would appear that those involved in this report did a lot of assuming, inference making and editorialized their results.

It is worth mentioning none of these three actually have an education degree or background, they are all economic and public policy wonks.

Clodfelter is a “Z. Smith Reynolds Professor”.  (Helen F. Ladd, Charles T. Clotfelter, John B. Holbein)

This Duke report goes beyond the pale and is an example of Shutuppery and narrative driving. This ‘report’ doesn’t stand up to scrutiny and the push back has begun.

President Darrell Allison, who is President of Parents for Educational Freedom in North Carolina, hit back. WatchDog.org reported:

“The fact is that public charter schools enroll a greater percentage of black students than traditional schools,” said Allison.

“During the 2013-14 academic year, black students comprised 30 percent of public charter school enrollment and 26 percent of the traditional public school student population,” he said.

He added that the liberalization of rules surrounding charter schools has caused a huge increase in enrollment for children across all race groups, a point overlooked by the study’s authors.

“Since the cap was lifted on public charter schools in our state in 2011, we have seen a 20 percent increase in black students enrolled in public charter schools along with a 21 percent increase in white students enrolled – a mere 1 percent difference,” Allison stated on his organization’s website.

Coincidentally, this ‘report’ comes out a related lawsuit is being heard by the North Carolina Supreme Court.

This suit was filed by a collection of groups in North Carolina that are suing to block minority and low-income students from obtaining ‘Opportunity Scholarships’.

These scholarships would allow them to attend the school of their choice, including charter schools and are strongly favored by the public.  This suit is arguably a significant variable ignored in the Duke report.

Oh and by the way…

Related Reading

#AmplifyChoice: Dr. Terry Stoops On NC Charter Schools

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), EDUCATION | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

#DM7 Article: The Common Core War Of Unicorns and Crawfish

Posted on April 26, 2015 by A.P. Dillon

This is a reposting of my weekly Da Tech Guy column:  The Common Core War Of Unicorns and Crawfish

There is an article in the Advocate concerning the Unicorns which was published after I wrote this article. It is well worth your time: Quin Hillyer: Unicorns have far more substance than Core supporters

By A.P. Dillon

If you’ve followed the Common Core debate over the last two to three years, one thing has been clear: Supporters of the standards can be relied on to mock opponents.

The display of ‘new tone‘, or shutuppery as I call it, has been very visible.

ArneDuncan war on moms memeExamples range from the Secretary of Education and his ‘white suburban moms‘ slam to a legislator hinting that opponents need tin foil hats and wanting to budget for “two rolls of high density aluminum to create headgear designed to deflect drone and/or black helicopter mind reading and control technology.”   

One of my favorites is Governor John Kasich claiming that opposition is ‘just a runaway internet campaign’.

This brings me to the war of the Unicorns and Crawfish playing out in Louisiana.

The Advocate reported; emphasis added:

Using stuffed pink unicorns to dispel what they call myths about Common Core, officials of a group that backs the standards said Wednesday that they are launching a marketing campaign to defeat legislative efforts to repeal the overhaul.

The push is led by the Alliance for Better Classrooms political action committee, or ABC PAC.

The same group, with Baton Rouge contractor Lane Grigsby as one of its leaders, played a key role in the 2011 races for the state Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

Organizers of the effort have distributed stuffed pink or white unicorns to state lawmakers that include tags that say “Unicorns are not real. And neither are most of the things you’ve heard about Common Core State Standards.”

Why pink unicorns?

Shane Vander Hart of Truth In American Education gave advocates the idea — as a joke.

Vander Hart wrote, “I’d like to point out I actually made this suggestion as some friendly PR advice for Common Core advocates when they were really struggling at the time not knowing exactly where to burn all of that Gates money.”

It is worth noting who is getting behind Alliance for Better Classrooms’s Unicorn campaign. High profile ‘Republicans’ like Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee, and Gov. Terry Branstad (R-IA).  Breitbart reported:

A group of Common Core supporters resorting to mocking parents and other opponents of the boondoggle education initiative is studded with likely GOP presidential candidates, establishment Republican governors, top corporations, and the primary private funder of Common Core himself–Bill Gates.

As parents by the thousands are opting their children out of the Common Core-aligned tests throughout the country, and many states are besieged by massive technological glitches that are preventing the tests from being administered at all, pro-Common Core headliners like Jeb Bush, Mike Huckabee, and Gov. Terry Branstad (R-IA) have joined together as a group called “Unicorns Are Not Real.”

Funded by PAC Alliance for Better Classrooms, the group purports to ridicule opponents of the unproven Common Core standards with the theme that “most of the things you’ve heard about Common Core” are not real, either.

By the way Bloomberg dumped $100k into Alliance for Better Classrooms in 2011 in an attempt to influence three runoff races for the Louisiana Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.

While mocking and ridicule by supporters has been consistent, so it the reaction of opponents. They refuse to lay down and take it.

 

In response to the Unicorns, opponents to the Common Core punching back twice as hard.  The Advocate reported:

Not to be outdone by pink unicorns, Common Core opponents Wednesday distributed stuffed red crawfish to state lawmakers in arguing that the academic standards are riddled with problems.

“Our campaign is that crawfish are real and so are the problems with Common Core,” said Amy Lemoine, who lives in Lafayette.

“Parents across the state as well as educators have done their homework, done our research,” Lemoine said. “We have come across some real problems with Common Core based on facts, research, expert opinions. We just want our legislators to have those facts presented to them.”

[…]

Backers of the crawfish campaign said that, unlike the unicorn movement, theirs does not rely on the support of big companies.

“This is not professional,” Lemoine said. “This is moms. We have pulled our talents together.”

“This is moms.” BOOM!
Yes, this is moms.
And dads, grandparents, students and teachers. And the majority of us vote.

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, Watchdog Wire NC

Posted in A.P. Dillon (LL1885), Common Core | Comments Off on #DM7 Article: The Common Core War Of Unicorns and Crawfish