Tag Archives: HB323

REFUSE the SAT/ACT/PSAT: Here’s WHY! Oh and the Smarter Balanced too!

Governor Hassan’s Dept. of Ed is proving to be a disaster. Let’s take the Smarter Balanced Assessment debacle as an example. Before the assessment was administered, the NH DoE was looking for an alternative. That’s right, they signed on to a flawed assessment from the beginning and they are now trying to get out of that train wreck.

Last year they tried to force the PACE assessments through the legislature with the help of Rep. Rick Ladd (R). PACE was another unvalidated assessment based on the dumbed down workforce skills called “competencies.” They appeared to be, go from BAD to WORSE. At least with the Smarter Balanced Assessment, parents could refuse to have their children take it. With PACE, that may have been more difficult or even impossible for parents to do.

In the end, HB323 allowed high schools to use the SAT or ACT instead of the Smarter Balanced Assessment for 11th grade. The goal was to get parents to “COMPLY” and have their kids take the standardized assessment. Greedy Superintendents were fearful that funding would be cut off if more students refused to participate. This is a perfect example of funding being more important that your child’s education.

It’s still important to REFUSE to take the new SAT, PSAT or the ACT and here’s why. There are over 800 colleges that take students who have not taken the SAT. STARVE THE BEAST. The College Board is now run by David Coleman, one of the chief architects of Common Core. The SAT will be Common Core aligned in 2016 forcing your kids to submit to another Common Core assessment. The REFUSAL movement seeks to put the College Board out of business. The College Board redesigned the SAT in order to hide the devastating effects of Common Core, however you can already see that by the current SAT.

As of 2016 the new Common Core aligned SAT will make it impossible to determine if Common Core is better or worse.

Now why would that have to do that? Why would they have to hide the truth? Because the truth is not their agenda. If we refuse to support the College Board for just one year they will struggle to stay afloat.

Hiding Common Core’s Damage: New SAT wont allow comparison to prior years’ scores

by DR. SUSAN BERRY7 Sep 2015177
SAT scores this year hit the lowest level in 40 years, even though governments across the U.S. spent hundreds of billions of dollars on education.

However, according to a former Bush administration education advisor, when the new SAT is rolled out next year, the College Board’s changes to the college admissions test will not allow scores from the new version to be compared to those from the past.

This year’s high school students’ SAT scores fell once again, to the lowest level in 40 years. As Breitbart News reported:

A record 1.7 million graduating seniors took the SAT test last year. With a highest possible score this year of 800 on each SAT section, according to the College Board, students scored a worst since 1999 math score of 511, worst since 1972 reading score of 495, and worst writing score since the section was added in 2005.

But Ze’ev Wurman, former senior policy adviser with the U.S. Department of Education under President George W. Bush, tells Breitbart News these disappointing results are still on the old SAT college admissions test.

“Consequently, they represent a trend that does not speak well of the frantic implementation of Common Core that has been taking place around the nation in recent years,” he says.

“Next year the College Board will roll out a major change in the SAT that will make comparisons with past results impossible, and allow Common Core proponents to argue ‘these are different and better tests, so don’t pay attention to past results,’” Wurman states. “We are lucky that this year’s SAT has not changed yet, so the decline is clearly visible and cannot be hidden or denied.”

The College Board president is David Coleman, the so-called “architect” of the Common Core standards.

Wurman reflects on a warning given in 1993 by Zalman Usiskin, one of the founders of reform math:

Let us drop this overstated rhetoric about all the old tests being bad. Those tests were used because they were quite effective in fitting a particular mathematical model of performance – a single number that has some value to predict future performance. Until it can be shown that the alternate assessment techniques do a better job of prediction, let us not knock what is there. The mathematics education community has forgotten that it is poor performance on the old tests that rallied the public behind our desire to change. We cannot pick up the banner but then say the test are no measure of performance. We cannot have it both ways.

“Unfortunately, the first thing reformers do these days is to change the test to obscure the track record,” Wurman asserts.

“Hence the new Common Core tests, hence the ‘re-adjusted’ PSAT and SAT,” he adds. “And more to come, all under the guise of ‘we need to better measure what students know.’ In reality, it is like shooting an arrow and then painting a target around it.”

Wurman has been studying a similar situation regarding the Common Core-aligned statewide tests in California for grades K-12. He and colleague Bill Evers, a research fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution and a former U.S. assistant secretary of education, wrote in an op-ed last week at The Sacramento Bee that the California Department of Education “has been acting in a way that would have made the Soviet government proud.”

The two former members of the California State Academic Standards Commission continued:

The department has maintained a database of the results on the statewide K-12 standardized tests since their inception in 1998. This database allowed parents and reporters to easily see detailed test results from any school and grade level in the state and compare them with any other school or school district. That helped parents to evaluate the quality of their child’s school, helped set district priorities and helped evaluate trends at schools and districts over time. The easy availability of this data was an important part of public school accountability.

Yet state bureaucrats have a problem. Students across the state took the new Common Core test earlier this year, and insiders are saying that the results are dismal. So first, the bureaucrats delayed the publication of the results from mid-August (as called for in state law) to Sept. 9.

Then until an about-face last week, they blocked the public from being able to compare the last 15 years of test results with the current Common Core results, obscuring the new low level of performance.

Wurman and Evers describe the situation of California students’ test scores in history and science from several years available for comparison on the state’s website, but not so for math or English – the two areas now covered by the Common Core standards.

Fortunately, as the colleagues note, media inquiries about transparency led to the math and English test data being restored to the state’s website.

The California Department of Education’s behavior, they add, “is all too similar to that of authoritarian governments that excel in hiding information from their people.”

HB323 PASSED the NH Senate: What Lies Ahead?

Yesterday after battling to kill HB323, an amendment (1863s) was introduced by Senator Jeb Bradley​. The Senate then voted to support the amended HB323.

The amended version is a huge improvement over what the NH House passed a short time ago. Remember the original version included language to implement the PACE assessment program. The problems with the PACE program were detailed on the Girard at Large Blog.

We have concerns over what the NH DoE will do if this Bill (as it is amended now) is passed in to law. Will the NH DoE support a local district’s right to choose their own “test”? Will they ONLY fund the assessments they want schools to use? Will Superintendents only use assessments that are paid for by the State/Feds? IF so, that could mean MORE Common Core/Competency Based testing for your schools?

Even with those concerns, it’s important to know that Sen. Bradley’s amendment does provide for the freedom and choice for schools to use the assessment of their choice.

REMEMBER, the voters selected a PRO-Common Core Governor (Hassan) and her DoE is pushing Common Core & Competency Based ed (the Obama education agenda) on all schools in NH.

To fully realize local control in assessments, there may be MORE political battles ahead of us:
1) A possible fight to fund all assessments, even the ones that may not be Common Core aligned.
2) A battle to include funding in your school budget to use achievement tests if the state/feds provide no funding.
3) And finally, it’s important to elect a Governor, Senator and Representatives who are fully committed to fighting Common Core & allowing schools true local control.

There are genuine concerns that Sen. Boutin (33:00) and Sen. John Reagan​ (27:00) brought to the Senate floor and we share their concerns too. It’s unfortunate that we now have to be concerned about what the NH DoE will do with a statute that supports local control in testing.
Will they undermine and work against parents and schools ??

As Senator Reagan acknowledges, the NH DoE cannot be TRUSTED. (27:00)

That’s the state of affairs in New Hampshire under Governor Hassan. There’s no real leadership towards literacy or academic excellence. Her vision is dumbed down workforce training. Her DoE facilitates the Obama agenda and we know that doesn’t elevate the level of excellence in our schools.

This is her legacy in education. Mistrust, dumbed down Common Core standards, flawed Common Core (Smarter Balanced) assessments, parents fighting for their rights, and parents fighting the state for something better.

We’d like to thank all of the good Senators who listened to the many parents who spoke out against HB323 and realized the House version could not move forward as written.

The amended Senate version is a compromise that we are cautiously optimistic about. However this battle does not end here. IT will not end until we make sure our local schools have the ability to test students in a way that parents believe is best for their children. This Bradley Amendment allows for local control in assessments and we appreciate that. But we also acknowledge the sentiments voiced by Senator Reagan that has led us to lose trust in the bureaucrats at the New Hampshire Dept. of Education.

We support the new amended HB323 and if it is signed in to law, we will remain actively engaged in bringing you information that highlights whether the NH DoE will be supportive or work to undermine true local control.

NH Superintendents Working AGAINST PARENTS In Support Of HB323

New Hampshire Superintendents across New Hampshire are actively working against parents in support of HB323.
HB323 has a number of problems including the implementation of the Competency Based Assessments (PACE assessments) and we encourage parents to read these critiques if they are not familiar with this legislation.

Who supports PACE? The same people who stand behind Common Core and refuse to listen to parents in New Hampshire. People like Bill Duncan, (extreme political activist appointed to the NH Board of Ed recently)Chairman Raffio (actively lobbies against parents in support of Common Core) Rep. Rick Ladd (Chair of the House Education Committee) and Sen. Nancy Stiles. (Vice Chair of the Senate Education Committee and vocal supporter of Common Core)

Now we have Superintendents actively lobbying for passage of HB323. Why? Well many of them want to use the SAT as an alternative to the Smarter Balanced Assessment in 11th grade.

Parents might be saying, but that’s not a bad option, and we agree. Why not have options for schools so they can use the best test they feel is right for their students.

However parents need to also ask, what is PREVENTING the schools from offering the SATs now??
The answer: NOTHING.

So why do they need to pass HB323? It’s the $$$$$$$$$$

School districts could offer the SAT to their 11th grade students, they simply have to FUND IT.
The State could fund the SATs in all schools too. There is no need to pass HB323 in order to offer the SATs to high school students.

If you want taxpayer funded SATs then add it to your school’s budget. Do not lobby for the passage of HB323 because then schools are also tied to the PACE assessments.

NO LEGISLATION IS REQUIRED TO DESIGNATE THE SAT’s AS THE STATEWIDE ASSESSMENT FOR GRADE 11 STUDENTS. No legislation was ever required to designate NECAPs or Smarter Balanced as the statewide assessments over the last ten years.
No federal or state funding is at risk.

The PACE assessments come with all kinds of problems and it’s wrong to saddle the NH Senators with that baggage.

Governor Hassan got New Hampshire into the Smarter Balanced Assessment MESS and shows a lack of leadership when it comes to offering schools quality standards and testing materials. PACE is NOT an alternative parents are demanding. There is NO provision to OPT your children OUT of the PACE assessments and for that reason alone, the NH Senate should KILL HB323.

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HB323

Previous posts on PACE: http://stopcommoncorenh.org/sccnh/2015/03/19/oh-my-look-at-whos-assisting-the-teachers-in-the-pace-program/

http://stopcommoncorenh.org/sccnh/2015/04/27/nh-moves-closer-to-full-implementation-of-the-failed-outcome-based-ed-model/

http://stopcommoncorenh.org/sccnh/2015/03/26/more-teaching-less-testing-please/

http://stopcommoncorenh.org/sccnh/2015/03/19/common-core-competency-based-ed-results-in-behavior-change-without-protest/

NH Moves Closer To Full Implementation of the Failed Outcome Based Ed. Model

We’ve exposed the fraud being perpetrated on parents across New Hampshire as the NH DoE continues to sell Competency Based Ed (CBE) as “new and innovative.” Everyone should know by now that CBE is the old rehashed Outcome Based fad from the 1990‘s renamed and being forced upon New Hampshire schools.

The “Competency Based Ed” fad has been called; School-to-Work, 21st Century Skills, Mastery Learning, Standards Based Ed, but we all know it’s Outcome Based Ed. CBE is based on a dumbed down workforce training model that categorizes children as human capital and teachers as facilitators.

The NH Dept.of Ed is doubling down on this model by not only forcing schools to use CBE, but force them to use CBE assessments too. The new PACE assessments are performance based assessments that has the potential of becoming a real problem in some of the core classes.

Let’s look at how CBE works in a math class and highlight the numerous problems we hear from math teachers and parents across NH.
A math teacher would like to teach the children about multiplying fractions. The teacher prefers to use the direct instruction method of teaching because they know the students need to be taught the algorithm. The teacher begins to teach students how to multiply fractions and may then decide to engage the students to use their memory to work through the problems.

That sounds like a logical approach to teaching math and yet under the CBE model, the teacher becomes the facilitator, kids work in groups and a lot of time is spent investigating and collaborating.

This approach to learning math might not be the most efficient way to cover an Algebra I class. However with CBE, the teacher is now forced through the competencies to make sure their students are collaborating while learning math.

1) Parents become frustrated knowing a great deal of time is wasted in group learning.
2) The student who may know math relatively well is often times the one who teaches the other kids in the group. This leaves some parents to question why their child is not receiving the teacher’s salary.
3) Kids often times report a lot of socializing is going on and not much learning.
4) After numerous group activities, parents begin to realize the learning process has been severely slowed down causing their children to begin falling behind their peers in schools that use a more logical approach to teaching.
5) Students often times admit they’re not learning much but hey, the teacher did manage to meet a competency by getting the students to collaborate.

In other words, there isn’t a lot of learning going on under this method because the reformers believe that the “collaboration” workforce skill is more important than learning the academic content.

This is what happens in some of classes that use the CBE model. How do we know this? We’ve been through this for the past 20 years with no real data to prove this model improves academic achievement. The NH DoE has certainly provided no independent data that CBE will improve academic achievement.

That’s one of many examples of how the Obama/Hassan administration is redesigning public education in NH. Not only are they forcing the dumbed down Common Core curriculum on our schools through the Common Core Assessment, they have also forced CBE on our schools too.

Did any NH parents ask for this? NO
Did the teachers in NH ask for this? NO
Did the legislators in NH ask for this? NO

This is all part of the Obama redesign in public education and being facilitated through the Hassan DoE.

NH Families for Education has been a vocal opposition to this entire redesign and has pushed back in an effort to support parents and teachers in NH. They are one of a few organizations that have been in this battle to stop the top-down approach to education and has been supportive of local communities driving the education in their own public schools.

Today NH Families for Education posted an article that included a letter from the U.S. Dept. of Education to NH Commissioner of Ed, Virginia Barry. In the letter it spells out how the Commissioner again, is working to fully implement CBE in our schools. This falls in line with the U.S. Dept. of Ed’s agenda to redesign public education in NH.

You are reminded that the parents, teachers and legislators in NH never asked for this.
You are reminded that this agenda comes from the FEDS.
You are reminded that our own NH DoE is almost fully funded by the Federal Govt.
You are reminded that the NH DoE is facilitating the Obama agenda, NOT the New Hampshire agenda.

We strongly encourage you to read the article and information provided by NH Families for Education.
We also strongly encourage you to read our prior posts on the PACE assessment program being pushed on our local schools.
The parents who refused to let their children take the Smarter Balanced Assessment are at a real risk if HB323 goes through as it’s been presented. There is NO provision to opt your children out of these experimental assessments based on the Outcome Based Education Model.

Knowing the OBE model is all about social engineering and not academics, we can only imagine how bad these assessments will be.

It’s critical that parents have the right to OPT out of those psychometric assessments if parents find the problems in the PACE assessments that they are seeing in the Smarter Balanced Assessments.

It’s unfortunate that the NH DoE lost the trust of many in New Hampshire by signing on to the SBAC with no input from the legislators, parents or teachers in NH.

Everyone is encourage to write to the NH Senators and tell them NO on the PACE assessments. NO on Competency Based Ed and NO to the Obama to redesign our schools. Senators@leg.state.nh.us

It is up to the local communities to decide what standards, curriculum and tests should be used for their students. The NH DoE has proven they are ill-equipped to make these important decisions for our children. We trust the local communities to begin the process of setting standards, choosing quality curriculum and testing students in a way they see fit.

URGENT CALL TO ACTION: NH Parents

Senate Schedule 4/14/2015

1) 9:00 AM 4/14 LOB 103 HB 323, relative to the administration of the statewide assessment program.
Please attend this important hearing on testing and OPPOSE HB323.
If you cannot attend, please send an e-mail to: Senators@leg.state.nh.us

SUMMARY: Why to OPPOSE HB323:
* Cements in Competency Based Assessments through state law
* Doesn’t allow “opt outs” for parents if the assessments prove to be problematic
* Adds MORE testing, does not reduce testing
* Makes it difficult for any new Governor to remove CBE from NH schools
* Further dumbs down education instead of focusing on literacy and academic excellence
* Continues to put the State and Feds in control of curriculum instead of local school boards and parents
* CBE is dumbed down workforce training that focuses on dispositions, attitudes and workforce skills vs literacy
* CBE reduces the child down to “human capital” for the state vs. educating the student to the best of their ability

2) 9:20 AM 4/14 LOB 103 HB 603, relative to student exemption from the statewide assessment.
Please attend this hearing and SUPPORT HB603 or write the NH Senators: Senators@leg.state.nh.us
HB603 Protects a parent’s right to refuse the Smarter Balanced Assessment
Read more here: http://nhfamiliesforeducation.org/content/hb-603-protecting-right-refuse-statewide-testing-smarter-balanced-assessments

URGENT CALL TO ACTION:
Many parents e-mailed and attended the hearing on HB206. HB206 AN ACT relative to non-academic surveys or questionnaires given to students that originally included WRITTEN consent from parents before the school district could survey your children.

An amendment offered by Rep. Terry Wolf (R-Bedford) removed written consent and watered down the Bill.
Many parents testified before the NH SENATE Education Committee asking that written consent be put BACK in via an amendment. That has NOT been done and we are hearing that the Senate Ed. Committee will be IGNORING parents and voting against written consent. This is UNACCEPTABLE to the many parents who showed up to testify in support of parental rights.

PLEASE take your time this weekend to CALL the Senate Chair (John Reagan 603-463-5945) on the Senate Ed Committee. Ask him to LISTEN to the MANY parents who want to be fully informed on these surveys.

Here is a copy of a survey given to students in middle school last year: http://www.girardatlarge.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/Attitudes-Behaviors-Survey-1.pdf

Talking points:
1) Respectfully discuss your concerns about surveys given to children in our schools
2) The Senators received a large number of e-mails from parents requesting written consent from parents
3) This legislation supports local control in education because it’s the parents who will be notified and informed.
4) How can they disregard the large number of parents who showed up to the hearing in support of HB206 WITH a written consent amendment
5) They should not be protecting company profits for survey companies but supporting parental rights

PARENTAL RIGHTS should be upheld by our elected representatives, not undermined!!! CALL TODAY
You can also call this number and leave a message for the Senate Education Committee members: Phone: 271-3091