Originally posted in:
Alabama Education News
February 2013 · Issue II · page 2
MYTH: Parents
will lose control of their children’s K-12 education under the
Common Core State Standards Initiative.
FACT: There is no change in parental control from Alabama’s previous
standards to the College- and Career-Ready
Standards based
on the Common Core. Input is encouraged by
parents and
other stakeholders throughout the process of
determining and
adopting standards.
MYTH: Most
parents remain unaware of the specific details of the Common
Core State Standards.
FACT: All of Alabama’s standards, adopted two years ago, can be
accessed and read by anyone on the Alabama State
Department of Education Website:
www.alsde.edu/html/CoursesOfStudy.asp. Public
hearings were
held throughout the state before adoption by the
State Board of
Education.
MYTH: Education
decisions in states with the Common Core will ultimately
be mandated by unaccountable bureaucrats and special interests in
Washington, D.C.
FACT: According to the Alabama State Board of Education’s
resolution adopting the standards on November 18,
2010, the
SBOE remains the “sole and exclusive entity
vested with
authority" over Alabama’s public schools.
MYTH: The
Common Core invades students’ privacy by requiring the
collection of personal information, which will be shared with the
federal government and private organizations without parents’
permission, and it requires that students be tracked from
preschool
through their careers with data that will become part of a
national
database.
FACT: The Alabama College- and Career-Ready Standards, as well as
the Common Core State Standards, are only
academic
standards for each grade in math and English.
Neither set of
standards mandates any type of data collection.
The state of
Alabama has no reporting requirements associated
with its
involvement with the Common Core State Standards
Initiative
as it is not a Race to the Top state, not a
participant in the Race
to the Top funded assessment consortia, nor a
recipient of the
federally funded longitudinal data system grant.
MYTH: The
U.S. Department of Education is funding the development of
national curriculum guidelines, modes, and materials, which
creates
a national curriculum.
FACT: Many organizations are creating various instructional materials
for teachers to access, just like they always
have. Local
systems retain control of their curricula.
MYTH: The
U.S. Department of Education is funding the creation of national
assessments based on the Common Core standards, which creates
a national testing system.
FACT: States can voluntarily select their own assessments. Alabama
is not involved in the consortia helping to guide
assessment
creation. Alabama has chosen to work with ACT, an
existing
college- and career-readiness test provider.
MYTH: The
U.S. Department of Education is violating federal laws that prohibit
any federal direction, control, or supervision of curricula,
programs of
instruction, and instructional materials in the elementary and
secondary
schools, and this is an invasion of states’ rights.
FACT: None of this is based in fact. Each school system in Alabama
retains complete authority to develop its own
curriculum, without
fear of reprisal from the government. Lesson
plans and daily
curriculum are created by local teachers and
administrators.
MYTH: The
Common Core de-emphasizes classical literature and American
history and will replace literary works about Western Civilization
with
informational texts such as executive orders and work manuals,
which
will further diminish students’ knowledge of the moral,
historical, and
cultural foundations of our country.
FACT: Students will spend more time reading informational texts, but in
science and history classes. The new standards
actually
encourage teachers to use historical documents
like the
Constitution and Federalist Papers. The majority
of texts students
will study in English class will still include
novels, short stories,
poems, and plays.
MYTH: The
Common Core violates the founding principle that parents and
states, not federal government, control local education.
FACT: According to the Alabama State Board of Education’s November 18,
2010, resolution adopting the standards, the SBOE
remains the
“sole and exclusive entity vested with authority”
regarding
Alabama’s public schools. Public hearings were
held throughout
the state before adoption by the State Board of
Education.
MYTH: Implementation
of the Common Core will cost Alabama taxpayers
many millions of dollars to revamp state education systems.
FACT: Alabama adopts new standards every six years. Funding for the
adoption and selection of related materials is
included in
Education Trust Fund budget.
MYTH: Alabama
taxpayers had no voice or vote in adoption of the new state
standards. The Legislature needs to protect its citizens against
an
overzealous federal government and keep education decisions local
by
protecting state education sovereignty.
FACT: State Board of Education members are popularly elected
representatives of the citizens of Alabama. The
SBOE held
public hearings regarding the standards’ adoption
in 2010.
The resolution adopting the standards maintains
the SBOE is
the “sole and exclusive entity vested with
authority” regarding
Alabama’s public schools.
MYTH: The
Alabama College- and Career-Ready Standards and the Common
Core violate the 1974 Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act
(FERPA) by requiring the collection and sharing of non-academic
information on students.
FACT: Alabama’s College- and Career-Ready Standards are academic
standards that say nothing about collection of
student or teacher
data or information. Regardless, all student and
teacher data is
already protected by FERPA.