We emailed this info to the St. Tammany Parish School Board and Administration to inform their Oct. 2nd decision regarding Eureka Math.
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The People, LLC has prepared this brief in order to ensure that you are fully informed of the facts when making any decisions on the matter of curriculum and content:
This is Act 532 that was passed regarding the authority of the School Board to choose the curriculum, content and methodology that the schools can use to teach to the standards:
http://www.legis.la.gov/Legis/ViewDocument.aspx?d=913645&n=HB988 Act532
This is video of the testimony of Rep. John Schroder and Ms. Erin Bendily from the LA Dept. of Ed. regarding the Act:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TbzWvJEJo_Y&list=UUZwOigkIXNODGt8MLzrK7fQ
In reviewing the Common Core Standards, we found that they were basically NO DIFFERENT than the Grade Level Expectations that the state had been using prior to the adoption of the Common Core State Standards:
Common Core State Standards took the place of LA's GLEs and there are Important Similarities:
Both the CCSS and the GLEs:
--Were developed under the watchful eye of the CCSSO
(Council of Chief State School Officers)
--Are aligned to the national standards
--Carolyn Sessions was the Project Director for the GLEs and also served on the CCSS Development team
--Nancy Beben was the Supervisor of Secondary Standards for the GLEs and also served on the CCSS Development team
--Of the 1581 CCSS for ELA & Math, 90% are GLEs
--Of the 10% that are reported to not be GLEs, the case can be made that most do exist within the GLEs
--Of the GLEs reported to have been deleted, many have been combined with other GLEs within the CCSS and the case can be made that many of the remainder do exist within the CCSS
WestEd Crosswalk Example: 2nd Grade Math:
We must ask the question: Why wasn't the previously used curriculum and content simply moved to the new location of its corresponding GLE?
It appears to have been totally unnecessary to have thrown out the old curriculum and content when the standards have not really changed. Very few additions (if any) would have been needed and the transition to the "new" standards could have and should have been seamless and painless for the teachers, students and parents of this parish.
It is evident that you, as a board, have the capability of operating within the letter of the law while directing the administration to return to the previous curriculum and content. Statutes require that districts teach to the standards. This should be very possible when using the previous curriculum, content and methodology and should be accomplished with no disruption to or confusion in the classrooms.
One last thing to consider: THE TEST.
Since no one has even seen the PARCC test, we can only go by the results being released from other states that have been teaching Eureka Math---New York being one of these. From this New York Times article, we can see that 70% of their students failed the Math portion of the test. If we are using Eureka in an effort to "beat the test", we definitely should reconsider that strategy:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/08/nyregion/under-new-standards-students-see-sharp-decline-in-test-scores.html?pagewanted=all
"In New York City, 26 percent of students in third through eighth grade passed the tests in English, and 30 percent passed in math, according to the New York State Education Department."
Karen Champagne & Angela Alef
The People, LLC