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The Seattle Times is reporting that the organization developing new Common Core Assessments for Washington State and a number of other states "got cold feet" and have delayed the scheduled test of the test that was supposed to begin Tuesday.
They have informed Washington education officials that the test has been postponed until next Tuesday---March 25.
Here's more information on Washington State, including which schools are affected, and more information on Common Core Standards with helpful links to why some educators, including a math professor at Stanford University, oppose implementation of the Common Core Standards.
The Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium that is responsible for implementing new Standards testing in Washington and other states say they have concerns concerning the trial tests that had been scheduled for this week. They have moved it to next Tuesday.
The Seattle Times says they "got cold feet."
Whatever the reason for the reschedule, this is the path to fully implementing Common Core Standards.
In 2015 these tests will replace the Measurements of Student Progress (MSP) tests for grades 3 through 8 in math and English.
This is a test of the tests and will become a yardstick for one of the most sweeping changes in public or government run education in 30 years.
These trial tests will be conducted in Kent, Highline, Bellevue, Lake Washington, Mukilteo and Edmonds school districts.
The scores from these tests won't count, however, most Washington students will also be excused from taking the usual MSP math and English tests this spring according to the Seattle Times.
Beginning with the class of 2019, Washington students will have to pass the 11th-grade Common Core exams to graduate from high school.
While this change in testing the test is creating much difficulty for teachers who are now scrambling to re-do their daily lesson plans to accommodate the schedule change-----Common Core is creating a firestorm of conflict and concern as it moves ahead in implementing government influenced, top down federalized education.
Common Core implementation will impact every school age child in America and their families. And it will do so on several levels. It will also alter America forever.
Common Core will not only impact "public education," but private and parochial schools as well. It will further secularize the culture and rewrite morality.
The Home School Legal Defense Association has put together this information for all home school and private school families. Please read it.
Common Core Standards has created a firestorm---some strongly advocate it, others strongly oppose.
The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given $2,306,241,786---that's $2.3 billion---to Common Core and related educational programs. Obviously the Gates believe in it.
However, Indiana, one of the first states to adopt it, is trying to get out of the program---or a least "pause" their implementation. It is causing conflict across the state and within the State Legislature. I wrote about it last week.
The same thing is happening in Georgia, with similar conflict.
Interestingly, one of the issues being raised here in Washington by those who would normally be "all in" with the Standards is the fact that many students can't even pass the present standards, so, they say, a great burden is being placed on teachers to change what they do in the classroom to achieve an even higher bar.
The greatest concern and opposition to Common Core Standards does not concern its implementation, it concerns the harm it will do to our kids and our families, and ultimately to our country.
Rather than summarize the following information, I am giving you several links that will lead to a substantial amount of relevant information that I believe can be helpful to parents and families.
The Common Core Standards is massive and complex, but I believe it is absolutely essential that parents and grandparents have an adequate understanding of what it is about, how it impacts your family and how it alters the culture.
I strongly oppose Common Core Standards. Here are some of the reasons:
1. Common Core will negatively impact home schooling families and those families who send the child to private school. It isn't only about public education.
2. Common Core math falls far short of making students "college ready." This is an article written by Dr. James Milgram, professor of math at Stanford University and Emmet McGroaty, author of the book, "Why Common Core is Bad For America".
3. Common Core "dumbs down" education while attempting to create "fairness" and "equality." This link also includes 13 additional links with more information about Common Core.
I think most all of us agree that public education in America is broken.
Its methods are outdated and it has been hi-jacked by secular progressives with an extreme agenda to remake American culture.
I personally believe that the primary responsibility for educating children falls squarely on the family.
"Higher education" is often not higher. It is morally bankrupt and its methodology is deeply flawed.
Consistent with that fundamental belief, we must look at all means of education through that lens.
I believe Common Core Standards moves our culture further from the values upon which our nation was founded and has prospered. Millions of Americans still hold those values. The present government and current leadership in public education do not.
Planned Parenthood, NARAL, and several homosexual advocacy organizations, with unwavering support from the White House, have so infiltrated the educational system and the textbook selection that they have replaced what is "normal" and "natural" with perversion. And it is enforced through political correctness and bogus definitions of "fairness," equality" and "inclusiveness."
This agenda has also penetrated the United States military. Liberty and freedom is regularly challenged and eroded by these same forces.
History gives us a very clear look at the one thread that is found in the activities of every totalitarian leader. They always institute centralized or federalized education. Whomever molds the mind of our children ultimately dominates the population. Even if it takes a couple of generations.
Tyranny is always built upon a dependent citizenry and control of education.
John Stuart Mill in his classic "On Liberty" said there is an "inherent problem with government schools."
Common Core sets the stage to remove what remains of local and parental control of public education, giving ultimately full control to the government. It will take awhile, but it will happen. Textbooks will be required to conform to national standards for the sake of national testing to improve national education scores. This will demand managed outcomes and result in every child becoming the image of the system. And the system will be driven by political correctness, so-called fairness, inclusiveness and equality. And it will be a highly secularized State.
Mill also wrote, "A general State education is a mere contrivance for moulding people to be exactly like one another; and as the mould in which it casts them is that which pleases the predominate power in the government...it establishes a despotism over the mind, leading to a natural tendency to one over the body."
There is a better way. Parents are responsible for their children's education. All assistance to a child's educational process (school, etc.) must be evaluated through that parental responsibility.
God places a very high value on education---so must we. He says this in regard to His laws and principles.
(Deuteronomy 6:7 ESV) "You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise."
Be Informed. Be Bold. Be Pro-Active. Be Prayerful. Be Blessed.