We’ve offered numerous articles and info on how corrupt the new Common Core assessments (Smarter Balanced Assessment) are and why parents should “REFUSE” to allow their children to take it.
The Common Core assessments are not achievement tests and parents would be wise to have their children tested outside the public schools using an actual achievement test. Some suggestions: Iowa Basic Skills Test, Stanford Achievement Test, or the California Achievement Test. Make sure they are NOT Common Core aligned.
The Smarter Balanced Assessment is a psychometric assessment that will assess a child’s values, attitudes, beliefs, etc. The questions are phrased in a way that gives the test makers feedback, not on actual academic achievement, but more on a student’s attitude towards a particular subject.
Not only should parents be concerned about this corrupted assessment, but teachers should be equally concerned. Tying a teacher’s evaluation to these corrupted assessments is part of the federal reform. Some states have lost their No Child Left Behind Waiver if they refused to target their teachers with this kind of evaluation.
The L.A. Times reported “Students Matter” filed a lawsuit against 13 school districts in an attempt to tie a teacher’s evaluation to the standardized test.
So who is going after the teachers? STUDENTS MATTER. Who sits on the Advisory Board for “Students Matter”?
Students Matter Advisory Board
Russlynn Ali
Russlynn Ali was appointed assistant secretary for civil rights at the U.S. Department of Education by President Barack Obama. As assistant secretary, Ali is U.S. Secretary of Education Duncan’s primary adviser on civil rights and is responsible for enforcing U.S. civil rights laws as they pertain to education—ensuring the nation’s schools, colleges and universities receiving federal funding do not engage in discriminatory conduct. Prior to joining the department, Ali served as vice president of the Education Trust in Washington, D.C., and as the founding executive director of the Education Trust—West in Oakland, Calif., since 2001. Where she advocated for public school students in California focusing on achievement and opportunity gaps separating low-income African-American and Latino students from their peers; worked with school districts to improve curriculum and instructional quality at high-poverty and high-minority public schools; and designed, field-tested and implemented comprehensive audit tools that examined inequities in schools and districts.
Previously, Ali was a teacher, served as the liaison for the president of the Children’s Defense Fund, as assistant director of policy and research at the Broad Foundation, and as chief of staff to the president of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Board of Education. She has also taught at the University of Southern California Law Center and the University of California at Davis.
In the legal field, Ali was an attorney at Bird, Marella, Boxer and Wolpert, deputy co-director and counsel at the Advancement Project at English, Munger & Rice, and an attorney at Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton, all in Los Angeles. Ali is a member of the California State Bar. Ali received her J.D. from Northwestern University School of Law. She received her bachelor’s degree in law and society from the American University.
Common Core is not just about inferior academic standards, data collection on children and faulty assessments, one of the key components is to target teachers.
When the Federal reforms prove to be faulty, isn’t it interesting that the same federal bureaucratic system that brings us problems in education, continue to be the ones who want to fix it? And yet these same bureaucrats are never held accountable for the problems they inflict upon our schools and children.