Dear Senators, Representatives, Louisiana Core Leaders:
In the past year, we actively supported what was billed as a “Stop Common Core Forum” held in Baton Rouge on Feb. 20, 2014. We now realize that the event could just as easily have been dubbed a "Tax-Funded School Choice Forum," given what we have learned of the panelists' ties to the school choice movement.
It is no secret that Tax-Funded School Choice (charters, vouchers, tax credits, savings accounts) requires the very things that have concerned us: a common core of standards and data driven accountability. It is also no longer a secret that the leaders of the Stop Common Core Movement--American Principles Project and FreedomWorks-- had always planned to use our concerns to create a movement that could be used to further their agenda of "School Choice for All."
http://www.politico.com/story/2014/01/common-core-conservatives-education-101796.html
We have watched as the Anti-Common Core efforts of various national Tax-Funded School Choice lobbying organizations (Heritage Foundation, FreedomWorks, American Principles Project, Family Research Council, CATO Institute, EAGLE Forum, Americans For Prosperity) have resulted in leading citizens across America from one dead end to another. We urge everyone to "cut bait" with respect to these organizations that lead us to simply chant "Stop Common Core"--a chant much too narrow in focus and one which, in the end, will leave us with all the same garbage--just as it has in Indiana:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/04/28/indiana-common-core-replacement_n_5228212.html
In furthering our agenda of restoring representative government; freeing our children from common standards, data collection/sharing, tests that we cannot see; and, ending the state’s practice of placing the fate of teachers, schools, districts and Louisiana's economy on the backs of our children; and, in light of the unfortunate fact that Louisiana Core continues to align itself with a network of Tax-Funded School Choice proponents who work and lobby for the very things we are fighting against, we withdraw our support for “Louisiana Core.” We ask that our names and the names of our organizations be removed from Louisiana Core’s list of sponsors.
We hold no animosity toward any person or group and consider many in this Anti-Common Core Movement to be dear friends. We pray that all will become empowered and enlightened with this simple truth: "The individual Louisiana citizen" is the only stakeholder who should have a voice in Louisiana government. Special interest groups and lobbyists should have no access to our legislators—Nor Do They Speak For Us Or Our Children!
We have come to realize that everything required for Tax-Funded School Choice existed long before Common Core and was created through the work of unelected boards and commissions. Such commissions are currently being pushed as a remedy for Common Core; however, in the honest words of Mr. Scott Richard (Executive Director of the Louisiana School Boards Association), this move to an unelected commission
only serves to strengthen the Common Core State Standards Initiative; therefore, we will never support such legislation:
In order to rid Louisiana of the Common Core State Standards Initiative we must pull it out by its ROOTS:
1) Eliminate tests that no one can see. (LEAP, PARCC, etc.) Our children are currently being “assessed” as “human capital” for a workforce agenda having nothing to do with true education.
2) Eliminate data collecting, tracking, and sharing. There is no need to collect data on children in order to teach them 2 + 2 = 4.
3) Louisiana has the strongest student data privacy law in the nation - ACT 837. Any attempt to "tweak" this bill is a move for Tax-Funded School Choice and against our children's safety and futures.
4) The corrupted accountability system in Louisiana must be abolished. We will do well to remember that government is supposed to be accountable to the people--not the other way around.
5) Eliminate Tax-Funded School Choice. This agenda leaves the “choosing” only to the businesses that own the charter and voucher schools while destroying private schools, traditional neighborhood public schools and homeschools.
Since this agenda is being furthered by both political parties, we ask all legislators to ask yourselves: Do you really intend to populate our educational system with unconstitutional public/private partnerships that answer only to unelected boards--leaving the citizens of this state out of the equation? Do you really favor the very thing over which our American Revolution was fought—Taxation Without Representation??
Thankfully, there are Democrat, Republican and Independent legislators who have been willing to begin the work of returning Louisiana’s educational system to the taxpayers, standing up for the rights of citizens and restoring representative government in our state:
Thank you, Rep. John Bel Edwards (D) and Rep. Kenny Havard (R) for your attempts to slow the Charter School expansion. Thanks also to Rep. Schroder (R) for his sponsorship of laws which provide fines/penalties for violations of the 4th Amendment Rights of public school students, return local control to the districts and acknowledge parental authority in accessing their children’s instructional materials. We extend our thanks, as well, to Rep. Jerome “Dee” Richard (I) who recently expressed his intention to protect our representative government through preservation of our locally Elected school boards.
For those of us who have been to our Capitol and witnessed our legislature being run as the playground for the business lobby/special interests, this has ceased to be about “party.” Witnessing this relentless trampling on the rights with which our children are born has caused us to become laser-focused on one question and one question only:
Which of You Will Honor Your Oath to Defend and Protect Our Constitutions?
Beth Appleton (Baton Rouge)
Amy Dutsch
(Parents & Educators Against Common Core in LA)
Sandra Earles (Denham Springs)
Nikki Gaspard (Covington)
Jenny Klein (Madisonville)
Lydia Romero (Carencro)
Debbie Sachs (Mandeville)
Evelyn Smith
(We The Parents, Anti-Common Core--Vernon Parish)
“National advocacy groups…have found a new cause ripe with political promise: the fight to bring down the Common Core academic standards.”
“The groups are stoking populist anger over the standards — then working to channel that energy into a bold campaign to undercut public schools…”
“Conservative groups say their involvement already has paid dividends in the form of new members and troves of email addresses.”
“But that’s just the start.”
“A draft action plan by the advocacy group FreedomWorks lays out the effort as a series of stepping stones: First, mobilize to strike down the Common Core. Then push to expand school choice by offering parents tax credits or vouchers to help pay tuition at private and religious schools.”
“‘This is going to be a huge campaign,’ said Whitney Neal, the group’s director of grass-roots activism…in partnership with radio host Glenn Beck.”
“Americans for Prosperity…is pressing similar themes in town hall meetings across the country.”
“…measures promoting vouchers and ending teacher tenure on the fall ballot. Increasingly, the issues are being linked to Common Core. Concerned Women for America held a conference that opened with denunciations of Common Core and built to an address by state Sen. Ed Emery, a voucher proponent…”
“The libertarian Show-Me Institute in St. Louis is also fighting Common Core — and sponsoring policy breakfasts in both St. Louis and Kansas City this month on the virtues of expanding school choice.”
“Sean Fieler, the hedge fund manager who chairs the American Principles Project…has directed his organization to spend $500,000 organizing the Common Core opposition and connecting it to his think tank’s long-standing drive for school choice.”
“‘The grass-roots support for this is stronger than for anything else we work on,’ Fieler said. ‘This is an issue with great political promise.’”
“That same political calculation is evident in FreedomWorks’draft plan for an Educational Freedom Campaign.”
“Even the evangelical group Focus on the Family has chimed in with a video that pivots from the perceived dangers of Common Core to the need to push for expanded school choice.”
“The politics of the debate are so tangled that education policy analyst Frederick Hess said he doubts groups like FreedomWorks would be able to mold the opposition into an effective lobbying force for bold goals like expanding vouchers.”
“‘How do you take a whole bunch of disjointed criticism from left and right and use that to mobilize people for a policy agenda?’ said Hess, of the conservative American Enterprise Institute.”
“But strategists leading the fight are convinced it will work.”
“The anti-Common Core movement so far has been about saying ‘no’ to the standards, ‘but at some point soon, we’ll have to define what ‘yes’ is — and school choice is a perfect ‘yes’ for people to galvanize around,’ said Jim Stergios, executive director of the Pioneer Institute, a conservative think tank.”
“Exhibit A: North Carolina, where the wealthy and influential conservative strategist Art Pope funds a think tank that has mobilized strident opposition to Common Core.”
“That think tank, Civitas Institute, also backed a successful drive in the Legislature last year to eliminate teacher tenure and enact a voucher program to pay private school tuition for low-income students.”
“Terry Stoops, who works on education for another Pope-funded advocacy institution, said linking the two issues is helpful and would likely give a boost to voucher legislation in other states.”
“In Kansas, a voucher bill failed to pass in 2012 — but Americans for Prosperity spent the fall holding town halls across the state, in part to prod anti-Common Core activists into pressing the issue anew in the coming months. “‘It’s one of our key talking points,’ said Peggy Venable, AFP’s state policy adviser.”
“As they take up the fight against Common Core, conservative groups are injecting a dash of professionalism into a scrappy mom-and-pop campaign.”
“They have the money to fly prominent Common Core foes to testify before state legislatures and speak at public forums. They’ve helped rookie activists set up websites and recruit allies. They’ve drafted model legislation.”
“Their battle-tested political strategists have even drawn up game plans for key states — including how to secure meetings with key lawmakers and which talking points to stress.”