Letter sent to my sons school to get him out of the prep drills for SBAC: Last year I opted my son JJ de Graffenried out of the SBAC testing. I plan to opt him out this year as well. In the meantime I would like to ask that he not participate in the practice drills as these exercises possess no purpose absent participation in the SBAC testing. I would like to request instead that he still be marked absent but be given another useful task to perform such as reading a novel. I am requesting further that he not log into the computers utilized for the tests. My deep opposition to Common Core Standards and Curriculum stems from the following issues: INVALID PROCESS INVALID COMMITTEE INVALID STANDARDS QUESTIONABLE GOALS MASSIVE CORRUPTION First the CCSS violate the recognized protocol for writing standards as established by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) “Essential Requirements”. Furthermore the CCSS were adopted outside of the legislative process in a questionable bid to compete for Race to the Top funding. It was the governor’s education committee and not the state legislature that passed the standards. Parents were given no opportunity to review the CCSS and to register their concerns. The composition of the 2010 Validation Committee is highly disturbing. With no representation from parents, BOEs or secondary teachers, this committee was comprised largely of representatives from the very testing companies who stand to make huge profits. In fact, both committee members Dr. Sandra Stotsky and Dr. James Milgram, internationally known content experts in their fields, refused to sign off on the academic quality of the Common Core Standards. Worse still, all committee members were required to sign a “confidentiality agreement” banning all discussion from their service on the Validation Committee. Because the CCSS are owned by private corporations there are no minutes or supporting documentation available to the public. The value of these standards is highly questionable. The English Language Arts (ELA) standards were written by Common Core “architects” David Coleman and Sue Pimentel. Neither “expert” had ever taught English. Meanwhile all the critiques by Dr. Stotski, an an experienced educator in both K-12 and higher education, were dismissed. So basically our children are being subjected to standards written by unqualified people with no teaching experience developed by an invalid committee with strong ties to the testing industry. In fact, the adoption of the CCSS does harm to our children. In 2010 five hundred child development experts warned the writers that the standards prescribed inappropriate practices that inhibit learning: direct instruction, inappropriate academic content and testing. CC exacerbates these developmentally inappropriate practices on the rise since NCLB. Most disturbing is the impact of all this high stress testing on our children. Since the prefrontal cortex is not developed in most people until the late teens and 20s, the stress engages the limbic system, the center for fear. This stress hinders and stunts the development of the prefrontal cortex, the center for abstract, critical thought to the point of never functioning properly. Because my son JJ suffers from performance anxiety as part of his autism profile this inappropriate focus on testing can have an even more pronounced adverse effect on his brain development. As a special needs child he cannot possibly receive any benefit from this one size fits all approach to education. The testing environment stands in direct opposition to his particular learning style and skill set. In short I am objecting to my child’s taking assessments that waste valuable teaching time. These tests cannot possibly provide an accurate assessment of my child’s academic performance when the process pushes him to disassociate due to stress and boredom. These assessments don’t motivate students to learn; they kill the spirit of students wanting to learn. The more schools emphasize assessment, the more students drop out. Finally, CCSS are unconstitutional. This federal mandate is imposed on local schools that under are supposed to be under local control. The standards were never approved by state legislature. The federal government has no constitutional authority to set goals and write curriculum. In fact, CT statute 10-4 enumerates powers for the State Board of Ed allowing it to set curriculum guidelines for a local school district to follow voluntarily. Finally, and most significantly for my son JJ, the CCSS violate our state special needs law. Given these objections and my understanding of my legal rights to opt my son out of the testing process, I would be most grateful if you could allow JJ to use his time in another more rewarding activity on the days set aside for both drilling and testing for SBAC. I would also be interested in pursuing this issue further for the sake of all of our children. I fear the institution of these damaging practices on our children will have a devastating effect on our country’s cultural and industrial development.
Posted on: Thu, 23 Oct 2014 13:33:17 +0000
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