In a totally expected and completely precedented move, the St. Tammany Parish School Board unanimously passed a resolution that they claim denounces Common Core and PARCC testing.
However, after careful review, The People, LLC has found that the resolution actually does much more than that:
The fact that the School Board members include their “stakeholders” in the opening line is of grave concern. Stakeholders in no way should be included as having equal stature to our elected board members. This School Board claims to be against the corporate influence on the Common Core State Standards and even says so in this very resolution. We would expect them to have the same aversion to corporate influence over their own operations.
The board used this resolution to express their commitment to providing a “challenging and relevant curriculum”. “Relevant”? Relevant to what? Is the curriculum relevant to creating a workforce for government-favored businesses? Additionally, the curriculum will lead to “constant improvement” and “high performance” of Louisiana school systems. This statement reveals that the Board and it’s unnamed stakeholders are more concerned with preserving a broken system than truly educating the students. If they were concerned with education, their commitment would be to providing an appropriate and traditionally proven curriculum in order to truly educate students so that they may pursue whatever it is that they decide to pursue in life. (Notice we didn’t say "college" or "career".)
The resolution goes on further to state that “effective instruction must meet the needs of all students allowing every child to learn at expected high levels” which merely means that they believe that our children should be standardized. The only instruction that can meet the needs of all students is instruction designed to accommodate the lowest learning level. “Allowing” our children to be standardized does not soften the reality of what is really happening in our schools.
The resolution then reminds us that the STPSB opposed the CCSS and participation in PARCC and that the Board believes “that the Common Core State Standards are inappropriate overreach based on standards that do not allow for local educational autonomy.” The Board has all the autonomy it needs via Act 532 of the 2014 Legislative Session; however, rather than exercising its autonomy over curriculum, content and methodology, it chose to continue with recommendations of the LDOE.
The resolution states that the CCSS “does not allow deviation from a set of standards that are unproven”. This is confusing, because at least 90% of the CCSS are the same as the previous GLE’s, yet the board did not complain that the GLE’s were unproven.
The members of the STPSB further believe that the PARCC testing “no longer represents a consortium that will benchmark our students performance on a national level based on dwindling membership”. First of all, student performance has always been benchmarked on a national level through the NAEP. Our very own LEAP test is based on the NAEP and the board had no qualms about that assessment. Secondly, the whole purpose of the consortium was to benchmark students on the same national level. So, it appears that the STPSB opposes Louisiana’s participation in PARCC while supporting the whole idea behind the consortium.
The resolution ends with the members requesting that our legislators join them to support removing Louisiana from the CCSS and charging the State Superintendent and BESE with developing, along with stakeholder input, Louisiana Standards. Current Louisiana law charges the Department with developing standards with input of teachers and subject to BESE approval. Notice, that the STPSB does not define “stakeholder input”. So, do they mean an unelected commission? Since Louisiana spent millions on developing the GLE’s, why don’t they just request that we revert back to those?
The board opposes the CCSS because, as they put it, they oppose the federal intrusion; yet, the federal intrusion via the Education Reform Movement's Outcome Based Education as realized in the entire ESEA and its reauthorizations in the form of Goals 2000, NCLB and RTTT is never mentioned.
Through this resolution, the STPSB actually demonstrates its continued support of all of the initiatives that promote high-stakes assessments that no one can see, data-driven accountability, international and national benchmarks, taxpayer-funded school choice, and the whole “Standardization of our Children Movement.”
However, after careful review, The People, LLC has found that the resolution actually does much more than that:
The fact that the School Board members include their “stakeholders” in the opening line is of grave concern. Stakeholders in no way should be included as having equal stature to our elected board members. This School Board claims to be against the corporate influence on the Common Core State Standards and even says so in this very resolution. We would expect them to have the same aversion to corporate influence over their own operations.
The board used this resolution to express their commitment to providing a “challenging and relevant curriculum”. “Relevant”? Relevant to what? Is the curriculum relevant to creating a workforce for government-favored businesses? Additionally, the curriculum will lead to “constant improvement” and “high performance” of Louisiana school systems. This statement reveals that the Board and it’s unnamed stakeholders are more concerned with preserving a broken system than truly educating the students. If they were concerned with education, their commitment would be to providing an appropriate and traditionally proven curriculum in order to truly educate students so that they may pursue whatever it is that they decide to pursue in life. (Notice we didn’t say "college" or "career".)
The resolution goes on further to state that “effective instruction must meet the needs of all students allowing every child to learn at expected high levels” which merely means that they believe that our children should be standardized. The only instruction that can meet the needs of all students is instruction designed to accommodate the lowest learning level. “Allowing” our children to be standardized does not soften the reality of what is really happening in our schools.
The resolution then reminds us that the STPSB opposed the CCSS and participation in PARCC and that the Board believes “that the Common Core State Standards are inappropriate overreach based on standards that do not allow for local educational autonomy.” The Board has all the autonomy it needs via Act 532 of the 2014 Legislative Session; however, rather than exercising its autonomy over curriculum, content and methodology, it chose to continue with recommendations of the LDOE.
The resolution states that the CCSS “does not allow deviation from a set of standards that are unproven”. This is confusing, because at least 90% of the CCSS are the same as the previous GLE’s, yet the board did not complain that the GLE’s were unproven.
The members of the STPSB further believe that the PARCC testing “no longer represents a consortium that will benchmark our students performance on a national level based on dwindling membership”. First of all, student performance has always been benchmarked on a national level through the NAEP. Our very own LEAP test is based on the NAEP and the board had no qualms about that assessment. Secondly, the whole purpose of the consortium was to benchmark students on the same national level. So, it appears that the STPSB opposes Louisiana’s participation in PARCC while supporting the whole idea behind the consortium.
The resolution ends with the members requesting that our legislators join them to support removing Louisiana from the CCSS and charging the State Superintendent and BESE with developing, along with stakeholder input, Louisiana Standards. Current Louisiana law charges the Department with developing standards with input of teachers and subject to BESE approval. Notice, that the STPSB does not define “stakeholder input”. So, do they mean an unelected commission? Since Louisiana spent millions on developing the GLE’s, why don’t they just request that we revert back to those?
The board opposes the CCSS because, as they put it, they oppose the federal intrusion; yet, the federal intrusion via the Education Reform Movement's Outcome Based Education as realized in the entire ESEA and its reauthorizations in the form of Goals 2000, NCLB and RTTT is never mentioned.
Through this resolution, the STPSB actually demonstrates its continued support of all of the initiatives that promote high-stakes assessments that no one can see, data-driven accountability, international and national benchmarks, taxpayer-funded school choice, and the whole “Standardization of our Children Movement.”