Petition to Implement Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) under Protest 2014 Presented by Residents of ___Lamar R-1________ School District

We the following parents and residents of ___Barton___ County and ____Lamar, Mo____sign this petition in an effort to show the school board our support in their collective effort to raise a voice of concern and caution to the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) through a resolution. We encourage the board to use their rights to govern our schools according to the Missouri Statutes. We, the following, stand with the board to oppose the implementation of the CCSSI and thus implement the standards under protest for the following reasons:

I. Whereas CCSSI is Education without Representation:

1. CCSSI was never approved by Congress.

2. CCSSI was never approved by MO State legislators.

3. CCSSI was never formally reviewed and approved by our local school board.

4. CCSSI is thus not a state-led initiative and should not be called such; it was not commissioned by any state legislature, initiated or written by any State School Boards, nor by any local school board. The standards are copyrighted to non-government, trade organizations.

5. The State Board of Education was not authorized by language in the sections of SB 380, the Outstanding Schools Act, to transfer its authority to develop state standards to a non-governmental organization that controls the number and content of the standards

II. Whereas CCSSI is Taxation without Representation:

6. CCSSI is very expensive. Missouri’s Race to the Top application estimated costs to be over $740 million. Individual school districts are committed to paying unknown costs associated with implementing Common Core assessment plans, and purchase of materials, which tax payers and their elected representatives never had any say about and which has not been tested.

III. Whereas CCSSI Violates the Intent of 3 Federal Education Laws to prohibit a federal role in curriculum and assessment development:

7. Department of Education Organizational Act of 1979; the General Education Provision Act and the Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965 that was amended by No Child Left Behind of 2001. In summary, the federal laws as written say, “The Federal Department of Education shall not be involved in developing, supervising, or controlling instructional materials or curriculum.”

a. Be it known that President Obama appropriated $4.35B in the American Recovery and Re-Investment Act to education if governors would adopt a national set of standards. See Missouri’s MOU here: http://www.moagainstcommoncore.com/documents (Nixon MOU for Common Core)

b. Be it known that the Secretary of Education, Arne Duncan, appropriated $360M, to help develop a national standardized testing consortia known as SBAC and PARCC. The SBAC test, sub-contracted under the direction of CTB/McGraw Hill, is scheduled to be issued in MO the spring of 2015. http://dese.mo.gov/divimprove/assess/documents/AssessmentFAQ.pdf

IV. Whereas CCSSI Calls for Extensive, Invasive Data Collection on Students and Teachers:

8. The contract between the SBAC and the USDoE states, “. . . the [SBAC] assessments systems developed with the RTTA grants will assess all students . . . will produce data (including student achievement data and student growth data) that can be used to inform (b) determinations of individual principal and teacher effectiveness for purposes of evaluation (p. 2); . . .Comply with . . . working with the Department to develop a strategy to make student-level data that results from the assessment system available on an ongoing basis for research, including for prospective linking, . . .”

9. Missouri State Fiscal Stability Funds required agreement to the same components as Race to the Top Grant applications including enhancing the state’s longitudinal data system, and encouraging sharing of data systems among states. (See Nixon MOU)

10. MO has no formal restrictions on DESE from populating data systems designed according to the National Data Model of over 400 data points including non-education related information such as religion, voting history, biometric data, etc.

a. Be it known, federal intent to track per federal register: http://missourieducationwatchdog.com/common-core-and-the-federal-governments-announcement-of-intent-to-track-students/

11. The Federal Education Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) was amended by the USDoE in Dec. 2011 to exceed the agency’s statutory authority and thus, allows invasive data collecting on both students and teachers without clear definitions or full control of what “educational interests” do with the data once they have them. http://crazycrawfish.wordpress.com/2013/12/26/ferpa-does-not-protect-student-privacy-and-never-did/

V. Whereas the CCSSI are untested, unproven, introduce age inappropriate learning and change the definition of “college and career ready”.

VI. Whereas the CCSSI assessments (SBAC and PARCC) are high stakes assessments, tying as much as 50% of teacher’s evaluations to test results and using a new accreditation system, MSIP-5, to grade school districts based on assessment results.

Therefore, for all of the above-stated reasons, we the following signatories ask this school board to protest the implementation of CCSSI in our school district and let our teachers be free to use their own tried and true methods and that assessment data be managed as per MO Revised Statute 160.518: