Common Core to cost Florida hundreds of millions of dollars

It turns out Ed Commissioner Pam Stewart did try to deceive the people of Florida about the price of Common Core

From State Impact: “Our analysis is that there is not additional cost with the implementation of the Common Core State Standards.”

This is how Pam Stewart responded to a question about the cost of Common Core. The key word is additional.

Stewart argued Florida is already spending money on testing, and new Common Core-tied tests are not expected to cost significantly more.

State schools already regularly replace textbooks, she said, so there’s no additional cost to purchase textbooks updated for Common Core.

Florida lawmakers have required half of all instruction be delivered digitally by 2015, so Florida school districts would have to add more computers and expand school Internet networks. New Common Core-tied tests will likely be taken online by most students.

Several outside groups have tried to put a price tag on Common Core. The pro-Core Thomas B. Fordham Institute estimated a business-as-usual approach would cost $12.1 billion nationally while a bare bones approach using open-sourced materials would cost $3 billion nationally. The estimate for Florida ranges from $182.9 million to $780 million.

The anti-Core Pioneer Institute estimates Common Core will cost $15.8 billion in one-time costs and seven years of operational costs, nationally. Pioneer estimates Florida would spend $1.2 billion over the same period.

Many school districts say it’s not even possible to answer this question right now. They don’t know how many computers and how much bandwidth they’ll need for testing – and when — until Florida chooses a test. They don’t know what the 2015 digital instruction mandate will require.

http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2013/10/16/factchecking-tuesdays-common-core-forum/

So even though the estimates vary widely it’s going to cost Florida hundreds of millions of dollars. Either ed commish Stewart is ignorant or a liar, neither of which bode well for Florida.

The incongruity of common core or it turns out it’s not that common after all.

Oy vey only in Florida.

Apparently the leaders of Florida’s education system don’t understand what common means.

From the St. Augustine record: Amid growing political backlash from some conservative groups, the state Board of Education voted Tuesday not to require school districts to use certain education materials crafted as part of a new set of national education standards.

http://staugustine.com/news/florida-news/2013-10-15/state-education-board-rejects-common-core

So no common materials and since we dropped out of the common PARCC, there will be no common test either.

 http://www.tampabay.com/blogs/gradebook/gov-rick-scott-calls-for-florida-to-drop-out-of-

Then I thought the Common core was supposed to be a deep dive into material well not so fast.

From the Florida Center for Investigative Reporting: In Chris Kirchner’s freshman English classes at Miami’s Coral Reef Senior High School, novels like “To Kill a Mockingbird” and “The Great Gatsby” have been squeezed off the syllabus to make room for nonfiction texts including “The Glass Castle” and “How to Re-Imagine the World.” For the first time, students will read only excerpts of classics like “The Odyssey” and “The House on Mango Street” instead of the entire book. And Kirchner will assign less independent reading at home, but will require students to write more essays, and push them to make connections across multiple texts.

“I’m trying to go big with the change and see what works,” says Kirchner, who has taught English in Miami-Dade schools for more than 30 years.

The “change” Kirchner refers to is the introduction of the Common Core: the education standards adopted by Florida along with 44 other states and the District of Columbia. The standards do not constitute a curriculum, but they lay out general education principles and skills students should master at different grade levels. All Florida public school educators are supposed to start adapting their teaching to the new standards this school year; students will be tested on them for the first time in 2015.

http://fcir.org/2013/10/16/florida-common-core-standards/

Hmmm things are looking less and less common

Then there is the notion that we need Common Core so if a student moves form one state to another they will be learning a common lesson. First how did we put a man on the moon without that and second, what the?!? Kids have moved since public schools began and somehow we have survived without blowing the system up.

http://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2013/07/the-crackalackin-crazy-things-that-gary.html

But as the FCFIR points out students in different states may be learning vastly different material.

 So it turns out it’s not that common, we aren’t getting the deep dive promised and its proponents are selling it in my opinion for a pretty dumb reason that doesn’t exist anyways.

The federal government gives Teach for America a gift, thumbs its nose at professional teachers.

Teach for America does the exact opposite of what we know to be best for our students. They take barely trained non education types and plop them down in our neediest schools. There they are supposed to stay for just two years before being replaced by another hobbyist who thinks, I will give teaching a try.

Despite this they are very popular with a lot of our leaders including Democrats who basically spit in the face of professional educators when they endorse or support them. I find people like Obama, Duncan and others just pay lip service to teachers. They want our votes but aren’t really interested in helping and improving the profession.  

I know what you are thinking; you have heard my rant before. Well I bring it up again because in the last minute bill to save the nation from default the senate slipped in a provision to help Teach for America. That’s right some senator thought it was okay to risk the fate of the nation in order to help out TFA.

From the Washington Post:   On page 20 of this bill passed by the House, it says:
SEC. 145. Subsection (b) of section 163 of Public 5 Law 111-242, as amended, is further amended by striking 6 ”2013-2014” and inserting ”2015-2016”.

The law that is being amended includes the highly qualified provision, which Teach for America and other school reformers had persuaded legislators to pass a few years ago.

Under No Child Left Behind, all children are supposed to have highly qualified teachers, school districts are supposed to let parents know which teachers are not highly qualified, and these teachers are supposed to be equitably distributed in schools. They aren’t. It turns out that teachers still in training programs are disproportionately concentrated in schools serving low-income students and students of color, the very children who need the very best the teaching profession has to offer. The inequitable distribution of these teachers also has a disproportionate impact on students with disabilities.

It’s not entirely clear who got the provision into the debt deal legislation, but a good bet is Sen. Tom Harkin, the Iowa Democrat who is chairman of the Senate’s education committee and who is a big Teach For America supporter. So is the Obama administration, which has awarded tens of millions of dollars to TFA over the past several years. Administration officials have never offered a public explanation about why someone with five weeks of training should be deemed “highly qualified.”

Congress first approved legislation allowing student teachers and others with little training to be deemed “highly qualified” in late 2010, shortly after the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the definition violated NCLB. In 2011 a coalition of  more than 50 organizations — including education, civil rights, disability, student, parent, and community groups – urged Obama in this letter not to keep the definition, but it did anyway.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/16/the-debt-deals-gift-to-teach-

Once again Washington D.C. insults professional teachers everywhere.

Another Florida official weighs in on charter schools, spoiler she thinks they are great!

This time it is attorney general Pam Bondi. You know the same Bondi that postponed an execution so she could attend a fund raising event and no friends I didn't make that up.  

The school located at Christ the Redeemer Lutheran church (um what?!?) will serve special needs children.

http://tbo.com/northeast-tampa/bondi-lauds-fathers-role-in-helping-special-needs-children-

The day ends in Y, must mean another Florida charter school lets down its district

From the Tampa Times: A brand new charter school beset with management issues, staff defections and student withdrawals also jeopardized student safety this year while keeping key information from the Pinellas school system, district officials say.

Against the district's orders and without its knowledge, University Preparatory Academy hired an unauthorized private bus company to transport students to and from the school — a decision made worse when one of the company's buses crashed in September with more than a dozen of the school's students aboard. Three children were injured.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/pinellas-officials-charter-school-jeopardized-

How are charter schools public schools again?

The nation's students keep getting poorer and poorer. A by state comparison overtime.

To read more click the link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2013/10/17/public-educations-biggest-problem-keeps-getting-worse/

Jeb Bush's foundation being looked at for violating IRS regulations.

And remember a few weeks ago his business partner went to Jail for 12 years.

http://jaxkidsmatter.blogspot.com/2013/09/jeb-bushs-business-partner-gets-12.html

From Mother Jones:
This week, as Bush is back in the limelight in Boston kicking off his foundation's annualeducation reform summit, a New Mexico advocacy group, ProgressNowNM, has filed a complaint with the IRS alleging that Bush's foundation has failed to publicly disclose on its 990 tax forms thousands of dollars it paid to bring public school superintendents, education officials and lawmakers to foundation events where they had private "VIP" meetings with the foundation's for-profit sponsors. Nonprofits are required to disclose payments for public officials' travel and entertainment if it exceeds $1,000. Public records unearthed by the New Mexico group show payments for travel exceeding that amount for several state education officials whose travel wasn't reported on FEE's 990 form.

The complaint alleges that Bush's foundation disguised travel payments for officials as "scholarships" to hide the fact that the nonprofit was basically facilitating lobbying between big corporations and public officials who control local tax dollars. The complaint notes:

The unorthodox manner of these scholarships—and the fact that they are used as a vehicle to meet with for-profit education corporations—further raises suspicions around the Foundation's failure to properly disclose payment of travel expenses in 2010 and 2011. Additionally, it is possible these unreported payments to the government officials may be deemed to provide a private inurement in violation of IRS regulations.

In its complaint, ProgressNowNM notes that New Mexico’s education secretary Hanna Skandera received foundation funds to travel to Washington, DC, to testify before a US House committee on the expansion of "virtual" education in her state. Skandera asked House members to consider providing more flexibility in federal funding to pay for virtual schools. Some of the for-profit providers of those virtual schools—among them the troubled K-12 Inc.—in New Mexico are also donors to FEE. Using tax-exempt funds to subsidize congressional testimony, ProgressNowNM says, is an "apparent violation" of IRS regulations. 

“This tax-exempt organization is serving as a dating service for corporations selling educational products—including virtual schools—to school chiefs responsible for making policies and cutting the checks,” ProgressNowNM's Patrick Davis says in a statement. “Just like [the American Legislative Exchange Council] brought together gun manufacturers with legislators to pass ‘stand your ground’ laws, FEE is using it’s tax-exempt status to hide thousands of dollars it’s using to connect big private education businesses to government policy makers."

To read the entire article click the link: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/10/irs-complaint-filed-against-jeb-bushs-ed-reform-foundation

Gary Chartrand, sacrificing Florida’s integrity is unfortunate but necessary

From the Tampa Times:  Board member Kathleen Shanahan cast the lone vote against the measure, repeating her concerns that artificial grade inflation would undermine the validity of Florida's education accountability system.

"Isn't that sad that we are sitting here voting on something that is going to have no integrity?" she said.
Replied Chairman Gary Chartrand: "It's unfortunate, but I don't see any way around it."

http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/florida-board-of-education-reviews-common-

He is in charge of the whole shebang people. He’s at the top of the heap and he doesn’t see any way around being deceptive to the people of Florida and sacrificing what little integrity we have left.

How about not going to common core until we are ready? How about scrapping the system which is all about punishing instead of helping anyways or how about stepping down and letting somebody who can see around it lead.

A lack of leadership is Florida’s number one education problem and that’s because we put a grocer in charge. He went from top fifty in grocery store news to running our schools and it is really showing.

Did Pam Stewart, Florida education commissioner, lie to the people of Florida?

If you read this exchange published in State Impact you might think so.

For a brief moment, Common Core critic Cindy Skarda challenged education commissioner Pam Stewart about the cost.

“Are there any cost analysis?” Skarda asked.

“I don’t think we’ve done a cost analysis,” Stewart responded.

“Oh really?” Skarda interrupted. “We don’t know what it’s going to cost but we’re going to implement it?”

Volusia County school board member Candace Lankford said the state must make sure it's choosing the right test for Common Core standards.

“Would you like me answer?” Stewart shot back. “The standards were free for us to adopt.”

“For how long?” Skarda cut in again.

“Our standards don’t cost us anything to implement — or to have as standards,” Stewart said, noting the state already pays for teacher training, testing and new textbooks on a regular schedule. “I don’t believe that there’s an additional cost.”

http://stateimpact.npr.org/florida/2013/10/16/supporters-opponents-of-floridas-common-education-standards-have-their-say-in-tampa/

So Common Core is free? It just magically appears? And do we really believe it’s going to just replace what we have in place now?

Let’s take Jacksonville for instance. Here teachers went to week long academies to be trained. Did the money that they cost miraculously appear too?

The truth is common core is going to cost money, probably a lot of money, and Florida hasn’t done a cost analysis yet?!? What the beep friends, we can’t be that backwards can we?

Florida’s education system lacks integrity.

I don’t want to get started about how the powers-that-be never mention how the class size amendment improved our schools preferring to give credit to an A-F system  that has been tweaked into irrelevancy not that it had much credibility in the first place. But now they have really taken the cake.

Yesterday our newest education Commissioner proposed stopping calling common core by its name, because “what we need is rebranding.” Then the board of education voted to keep in place the grade forgiveness plan that has been in place for the last two years. You know the one that doesn’t allow schools to drop more than one letter grade no matter what. Now I think the system is a farce but I am not advocating lying to people.

Board member Kathleen Shanahan put it best, from the Tampa times:  Board member Kathleen Shanahan cast the lone vote against the measure, repeating her concerns that artificial grade inflation would undermine the validity of Florida's education accountability system.

"Isn't that sad that we are sitting here voting on something that is going to have no integrity?" she said.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/education/k12/florida-board-of-education-reviews-common-