Below is a press release that went out for the #StopCommonCore Twitter Rally to be held tomorrow from 12:00p-2:00p (EDT). The tweet chat link is http://tinyurl.com/ca9vqtq
Parent-Led Reform and Truth in American Education Take to Twitter to #StopCommonCore
More Than 100 Groups and Individuals Have Joined Tuesday’s Twitter Rally
Parent-Led Reform (@ParentLedReform) will host, in partnership with Truth in American Education (@TruthinAmEd), a #StopCommonCore Twitter Rally on Tuesday, April 16, 2013 from 12:00p-2:00p (EST). They will be joined by more than 100 groups and individuals for this first-time event. Parents, teachers and grassroots activists are concerned about the nationalization of education standards, data collecting, and subpar education expectations thrust upon our children by education bureaucrats and special interest groups through the Common Core State Standards Initiative.
The #StopCommonCore Twitter Rally will feature a panel of experts:
- Emmett McGroarty the executive director of the Preserve Innocence Imitative with American Principles Project (will use the @approject twitter handle)
- Joy Pullmann (@joypullmann) – Research Fellow with the Heartland Institute and Editor of School Reform News.
- Ben DeGrow (@ediswatching) education policy analyst at The Independence Institute
- James Shuls (@shulsie) an education policy analyst at the Show-Me Institute
- Shane Vander Hart (@shanevanderhart) editor-in-chief of CaffeinatedThoughts.com; Advocate, blogger & social media manager for Truth In American Education. (Will use @TruthinAmEd)
Truth In American Education’s spokesperson, Shane Vander Hart, said, “As taxpayers, parents and concerned citizens, we believe that proper respect for the American people requires that major educational changes be subject to an open and public discussion prior to approval and implementation, not the other way around. So we are taking to Twitter to express our concern about the Common Core State Standards.”
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Truth in American Education (https://truthinamericaneducation.com) is a national, non-partisan group of concerned parents and citizens. We view educational issues from different perspectives; however, we are in agreement, that the promotion and implementation of elements of the Race to the Top (RTTT) policies are misguided and harmful. The Common Core State Standards (CCSS), CCSS assessments, and state longitudinal data systems development along with associated privacy issues are being implemented nationwide with insufficient research-based evidence and insufficient public examination and discourse.
ParentLedReform.org (http://parentledreform.org) is a multi-issue organization that projects parental power into education reform.
Here is a companion press release from Parent Led Reform:
Parent Led Reform Hosts National Rally via Twitter to #Stopcommoncore Standards
A large collaboration of organizations that oppose nationalization of education hold online rally to stop Common Core Standards.
Colorado, April 13, 2012: Parent Led Reform, a multi-issue organization that projects parental power into education reform, is hosting a rally via Twitter Tuesday April 16th at 10 am MST. The #Stopcommoncore Twitter Rally is a collaborative project in partnership with Truth In American Education, and designed to share the research diligently collected by parents and citizens concerned about the government’s push for national common standards in education.
“We oppose a lock-step approach to education that takes the focus away from the student and decisions away from the parent,” says Karin Piper, Executive Director of ParentLedReform.org. “Parent Led Reform is impressed with the voluminous and detailed research Truth in American Education has collected regarding the pitfalls of Common Core Standards, and honored to serve as a partner by moderating the rally via social media. “
The #Stopcommoncore Twitter Rally features a panel of experts who are planning on answering questions by the moderator, as well as taking live questions from Twitter users across the nation. The panelists are Shane Vander Hart (Truth in American Education), James Shuls (Show-Me Institute) Joy Pullmann (Heartland Institute), Ben DeGrow (Independence Institute), Emmett McGroarty (American Principles Project).
· #Stopcommoncore Twotter Rally Tuesday April 16 at 10 am MST, Noon EST via: http://tinyurl.com/ca9vqtq
As I have noted elsewhere, nothing good will come of the standards. In part, because they are the first big wave of government control of education in America. While they are touted as something states may or may not choose to adopt, so much money is glued to the standards that it would be–for most states–financially problematic to reject them and the pieces of silver that would follow. Already IT corporations are developing methods of assessment of those things they feel are important to assess. Those assessments will frame the public debate about what is and is not important for the students in our classes to learn. Already in some states newspapers publish the names of teachers whose students fail to meet some value-added statistic that means something only to the statisticians who, like now-failed Wall Street bankers, conjured it out of the ether.
The centralized control of education allows for the consolidation of power into fewer and fewer hands. History shows us that when people allow a central authority to control its right to learn and even what it may learn, those people will not long possess the freedom to learn.
We should not acquiesce to the continued escalation of this testing culture.
Dan S.
Anyone who still believes that government control of education must have been asleep when Obamacare was passed……..and then Dodd/Frank.