Subject: Report on the hearings on Common Core bills SB514 and SB798 held on Wednesday, March 25 Anne Gassels report is pasted below. The chairman of the committee is going to continue the hearing on these bills this coming Wednesday, April 2 at 2:00 to hear more of the opponents. Chairman Pearce gave our side about two hours on Wednesday leaving the opponents around 30 minutes so they will have more time this Wednesday to give their reasons for opposing the bills. Great hearing Wednesday on SB514 and SB798, bills that aim to get rid of Common Core© and restore state sovereignty over education. It is finally sinking in to our legislators that CC is a copyright protected product owned by a private trade association and there is no official path for the public or state governments to petition a private entity to change their product. Thats why common core is an all or nothing proposition. You either like it and take it AS IS or you dont. And once we go down this path there is no turning back. Who would ever even TRY to develop competing standards with all the money and political influence behind CC? This will grant a permanent monopoly to CCSSI and Achieve Inc., on whose board of directors our Governor happens to sit. In addition to representatives of the Missouri Coalition Against Common Core, witnesses spoke on behalf of: School Boards Teachers Parents Special Needs Children Homeschoolers Data professionals The committee heard some powerful testimony from one teacher about the crushing effects of these standards on our youngest learners. That shouldnt be surprising since CCSSI couldnt be bothered to put any early education experts on the development teams and then ignored a letter signed by 500 such experts telling them their standards conflict with compelling new research in cognitive science, neuroscience, child development, and early childhood education about how young children learn, what they need to learn, and how best to teach them in kindergarten and the early grades. This was followed by testimony about the extreme suppression of teachers like her who are concerned about what is best for children and dont like what CC does to them. Lieutenant Governor Kinder, who was there in attendance, responded that his office will be following the two teachers who testified to make sure there is no retribution for them speaking up. I bet we could fill his office with documentation from teachers around the state who have been told they are not to talk about CC by their administration or who have been marginalized if they have. Senator Nieves said the more he looks into this, the more it feels like he is reading a John Grisham novel. Who can blame him when a representative from Thomas Fordham Institute flies in all the way from DC to give three minutes of testimony to stop MO from getting out of CC? When asked why he, with no ties to Missouri, would make such an effort, the witness could only say that he was just so concerned that MO would have low standards. The audience could not keep the giggles under wraps on that one. The room was packed with the bills supporters. Over 1300 witness forms were also submitted. This is clearly no longer a few fringe folks complaining. Documentation submitted to the committee was not personal opinion or commentary. It was fact gleaned mostly from CCSSI and DESE documents. It was a great day. Anne Gassel Missouri Coalition Against Common Core MOAgainstCommonCore
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 13:48:35 +0000
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