Louisiana Educator: Relentless Drive to Mislead Citizens About Common Core

Louisiana Educator: Relentless Drive to Mislead Citizens About Common Core:

Relentless Drive to Mislead Citizens About Common Core

Superintendent White, the Baton Rouge Advocate, LABI and CABL are pulling out all the stops to sell the Common Core to Louisiana, yet there is not one in the bunch that really knows what it is like to teach to those standards or to get kids ready to pass the PARCC test. These folks are on a crusade to sell us a product they really know little about.

Breaking news: HB 953 passed the House floor Wednesday May 7. This bill would delay the effects of the Common Core testing on school letter grades and teacher evaluations through the 2015-16 school year. White and his allies will surely try to kill this bill in the Senate Education Committee where proponents of Common Core seem to dominate.

The Advocate just printed two more slanted stories, here andhere, suggesting that Republicans and K-12 students think the standards are great. But close inspection of the two surveys reported on does not show any real support for the Common Core. In the first story, only a  minority of the Republicans surveyed say they think the Common Core standards are a good idea, and 40% did not know enough to give an opinion. One of the questions asked found that a significant minority support the standards, but that is only after they are told in the introduction that 75% of teachers believe the Common Core will improve student achievement. 

Our survey on this blog had 71% of our respondents opposed to CCSS and PARCC. I am well aware that a voluntary survey such as we conducted is not considered a scientific survey, but at least the majority of the respondents were educators who were  well versed on the standards because they are actually in the middle of implementing the standards.

The Advocate article reporting on the survey of students taking the sample PARCC test this Spring had the headline: "Students Give High Marks to Common Core Test" yet the press release about the survey results does not indicate whether the students think the test is good or bad. The main issue the students Louisiana Educator: Relentless Drive to Mislead Citizens About Common Core: