Citizen Presses School Board on Common Core

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Citizen John Williamson pressed the Gilmer School Board on Common Core educational standards last night during the board’s June meeting. His remarks were made during the public comments part of the meeting, so in accordance with board policy board members were not permitted to respond. Williamson, though, requested the questions be answered soon in a correspondence.

Early in his comments Williamson noted the standards have raised a lot of attention around the state, primarily, he said, due to the deep suspicion of anything the federal government is involved in. This comment alone is controversial. Opponents say Common Core is a federal initiative aimed at a Marxist re-education of the public education system, while supporters, like educators and some superintendents, say it is not.

“There’s even a conspiracy theory,”

Williamson said,

“The federal government (through Common Core) is going to turn our schools into a socialist-Marxist re-education program.”

He called the theory an emotional response, adding that he is looking for what he called a grassroots response and reaction to Common Core from the board. Later in his remarks he asked if superintendents and board members were allowed to give their opinion on the topic. But, Williamson had other, more pointed questions.

“What would our students lose if Georgia did not participate in Common Core Curriculum?”

The authority to accept or reject the standards still seems ambiguous. On behalf of the state Governor Sonny Purdue accepted to adopt the federal Race-to-the-Top program, of which Common Core is a part. Then, on May 15th, Deal signed an executive order seemingly rejecting Common Core, or at least in principle.

“No educational standards shall be imposed on Georgia by the federal government,”

it states, and,

“That all decisions regarding curriculum and instruction shall be made at the local level.”

This seems a lucid rejection of any federal curriculum, such as Common Core.

During an April presentation in Pickens County, Americans for Prosperity Communications Director Joel Foster said Common Core was part of President Obama’s Race to the Top Education Initiative and, thus is tied to federal funding. He said that Georgia received almost $400 million in the Race-to-the-Top deal, but said research shows it will cost $585 million to implement the program.

Following the signing of Deal’s executive order, FYN via email asked the governor’s office if this order would affect education funding. The governor’s office did not respond. On May 20th, Superintendent Dorsey responded to our question about the executive order, saying he has not received any official communications from the state DOE on Deal’s statements.

“We are funded by the state to teach state approved courses with designated curriculums of which some are Common Core based,”

Dorsey said in an email to FYN.

“Unless the state sends us official changes in the state curriculum, we are obligated to it.”

Then-Pickens Superintendent Ben Desper said he feels it does not have much if any impact on Race-to-the-Top Funding and that some see the order as an attempt to placate political critics.

“It will be interesting to see if the executive order is enough to satisfy the critics of the common core movement,”

Desper said in a May 17th statement. Fannin County Superintendent Mark Henson also said he did not think it would affect funding and denied it was a federal initiative.

One of the main purposes of Deal’s executive order appears to be the prevention of students’ information to be used in a national database:

“No personally identifiable data on students and/or their families, religion, political party affiliation, biometric information, psychometric data and/or voting history shall be collected, tracked, housed, reported or shared with the federal government,”

it states. The executive order was signed prior to recent the recent IRS scandal, where the IRS admitted targeting conservative groups based on their political beliefs during the 2012 presidential election cycle.

Williamson also wanted know what national standards are available to replace the PARCC assessment, which is a guidebook for the implementation of Common Core. He also wanted to know what funding the county would lose if it rejected Common Core. These questions remain to be answered.

Bound by policy, the board could not respond, but Williamson expects to hear a response at a later date.

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