New Jersey Adopts New Sex-Ed Standards That “Promote Abortion and Push Sex on Kids”

Posted on June 12, 2020 by Peter Watt
  

New Jersey Adopts New Sex-Ed Standards That Promote Abortion and Push Sex on Kids

 STATE   MICAIAH BILGER   JUN 10, 2020   |   12:08PM    TRENTON, NJ

NorthJersey.com reports the board voted 8-4 in favor of the standards last week. The plan for sex education outlines what should be taught at each grade level from kindergarten through 12th grade.

According to the NJ Spotlight, parents repeatedly have spoken out against the changes and held several protests during board hearings.

Several board members also criticized the changes, including Andrew Mulvihill. One of his problems is that the new standards present abortion as a legitimate pregnancy option.

“I don’t think teachers should be telling kids that one of the things you can do if you get pregnant is to have an abortion,” Mulvihill said during a May 3 board meeting. “There are a lot of people who fundamentally believe that is not something that should be taught.”

According to the new plan, by the end of eighth grade, students should be taught about “pregnancy testing, the signs of pregnancy, and pregnancy options, including parenting, abortion, and adoption.”

For high school students, the standards are similar, but the plan adds that students also should be provided with “medically accurate sources of information and local services that provide … pregnancy options (including parenting, abortion, safe haven, adoption, and prenatal care).”

It is not difficult to guess what one of those sources may be. Planned Parenthood, the billion-dollar abortion chain, quickly praised the board’s adoption of the new standards, claiming they were modeled on the “gold standard of sex education.”

SIGN THE PETITION: Stop Infanticide! Stop Abortions Up to Birth!

Many New Jersey parents disagree. Board member Mary Elizabeth Gazi said she has heard from many concerned parents about the sex education changes, according to NJ Spotlight.

“This is personal and I may not be popular for saying it, but I have gotten the message loud and clear from a lot of parents,” Gazi said. “When a student is taught something in school that undermines the core values that a parent is trying to instill, to me that’s a problem. That’s a big problem.”

But State Education Commissioner Lamont Repollet said parents can opt out their children from certain sex education classes, NorthJersey reports. Repollet said local school boards also can choose what curriculum to use.

The state Board of Education wants school districts to implement the new standards by the fall of 2022.

Shawn Hyland, of the Family Policy Alliance of New Jersey, called the board’s decision a “gross failure of responsibility.” He said children are “continually being oversexualized,” and parents are rightfully upset.

“The decision of the NJDOE to adopt age-inappropriate extreme sexual content is a gross failure of responsibility,” Hyland told the local news. “Tragically, schools have become obsessed with graphic sexual lessons and reading assignments that promote unhealthy and risky behaviors.”

His organization is raising awareness that, under state law, parents have the right to opt out their children from any part of health classes.

Monica Cline, a former sex education instructor with Planned Parenthood, told Breitbart that the abortion chain is “cleverly high jacking the injustices of other populations to silence opposition to their sexualized agenda for our youth.”

“As Planned Parenthood, and its children, SIECUS, Answer & Advocates for Youth, slowly oppress our youth with vulgar deceit, they also target parents, families, and people of faith in the hope of alienating and minimizing their role in their children’s lives,” she said. “Parents and leaders must stop the hyper sexualization movement that aims to federally mandate their dangerous standards that objectify and place our children at risk of sexual coercion and life altering health risks.”

Planned Parenthood is the largest abortion group in the United States, aborting more than 340,000 unborn babies every year. The abortion chain also teaches sex education in public schools across the country, and promotes risky sexual behavior to vulnerable young teens at its clinics.

In 2014, Live Action release an undercover video series showing Planned Parenthood employees encouraging young teens to participate in sado-masochistic sexual activities, including gagging, whipping, asphyxiation, shopping at sex stores and viewing pornography.

LifeNews also reported Planned Parenthood’s booklet for HIV-positive youth, “Healthy, Happy and Hot,” tells young people that it is their “human right” to not tell their partner that they have HIV.

The abortion giant also publishes multiple “resources” for children and teenagers concerning sexual activity. These materials claim to provide “age appropriate” sex education to children starting at age 4.

  Since Homeschooling is the norm for the time being, we hope Parents whose children are in the midst of learning to read,  will investigate how Alpha-Phonics can easily be used to teach their children to read at any stage of their reading instruction.  Your Kids can make a lot of headway in only a couple of weeks with this proven program.  Follow the links below to know all about the time-tested (37 + years) Alpha-Phonics program:

WEBSITE      TESTIMONIALS     CATHY DUFFY REVIEW

 

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The Risks of Homeschooling

Posted on June 8, 2020 by Peter Watt

Harvard Prof. Explains why she believes Homeschooling should be BANNED

The Risks of Homeschooling

by ERIN O’DONNELL

MAY-JUNE 2020

Children play outside while a homeschooled child watches through a window

Illustration by Robert Neubecker

A RAPIDLY INCREASING number of American families are opting out of sending their children to school, choosing instead to educate them at home. Homeschooled kids now account for roughly 3 percent to 4 percent of school-age children in the United States, a number equivalent to those attending charter schools, and larger than the number currently in parochial schools.

Yet Elizabeth Bartholet, Wasserstein public interest professor of law and faculty director of the Law School’s Child Advocacy Program, sees risks for children—and society—in homeschooling, and recommends a presumptive ban on the practice. Homeschooling, she says, not only violates children’s right to a “meaningful education” and their right to be protected from potential child abuse, but may keep them from contributing positively to a democratic society.

“We have an essentially unregulated regime in the area of homeschooling,” Bartholet asserts. All 50 states have laws that make education compulsory, and state constitutions ensure a right to education, “but if you look at the legal regime governing homeschooling, there are very few requirements that parents do anything.” Even apparent requirements such as submitting curricula, or providing evidence that teaching and learning are taking place, she says, aren’t necessarily enforced. Only about a dozen states have rules about the level of education needed by parents who homeschool, she adds. “That means, effectively, that people can homeschool who’ve never gone to school themselves, who don’t read or write themselves.” In another handful of states, parents are not required to register their children as homeschooled; they can simply keep their kids at home.

This practice, Bartholet says, can isolate children. She argues that one benefit of sending children to school at age four or five is that teachers are “mandated reporters,” required to alert authorities to evidence of child abuse or neglect. “Teachers and other school personnel constitute the largest percentage of people who report to Child Protective Services,” she explains, whereas not one of the 50 states requires that homeschooling parents be checked for prior reports of child abuse. Even those convicted of child abuse, she adds, could “still just decide, ‘I’m going to take my kids out of school and keep them at home.’”

As an example, she points to the memoir Educated, by Tara Westover, the daughter of Idaho survivalists who never sent their children to school. Although Westover learned to read, she writes that she received no other formal education at home, but instead spent her teenage years working in her father’s scrap business, where severe injuries were common, and endured abuse by an older brother. Bartholet doesn’t see the book as an isolated case of a family that slipped through the cracks: “That’s what can happen under the system in effect in most of the nation.”

In a paper published recently in the Arizona Law Review, she notes that parents choose homeschooling for an array of reasons. Some find local schools lacking or want to protect their child from bullying. Others do it to give their children the flexibility to pursue sports or other activities at a high level. But surveys of homeschoolers show that a majority of such families (by some estimates, up to 90 percent) are driven by conservative Christian beliefs, and seek to remove their children from mainstream culture. Bartholet notes that some of these parents are “extreme religious ideologues” who question science and promote female subservience and white supremacy.

Children should “grow up exposed to…democratic values, ideas about nondiscrimination and tolerance of other people’s viewpoints.”

She views the absence of regulations ensuring that homeschooled children receive a meaningful education equivalent to that required in public schools as a threat to U.S. democracy. “From the beginning of compulsory education in this country, we have thought of the government as having some right to educate children so that they become active, productive participants in the larger society,” she says. This involves in part giving children the knowledge to eventually get jobs and support themselves. “But it’s also important that children grow up exposed to community values, social values, democratic values, ideas about nondiscrimination and tolerance of other people’s viewpoints,” she says, noting that European countries such as Germany ban homeschooling entirely and that countries such as France require home visits and annual tests.

In the United States, Bartholet says, state legislators have been hesitant to restrict the practice because of the Home Schooling Legal Defense Association, a conservative Christian homeschool advocacy group, which she describes as small, well-organized, and “overwhelmingly powerful politically.” During the last 30 years, activists have worked to dismantle many states’ homeschooling restrictions and have opposed new regulatory efforts. “There’s really no organized political opposition, so they basically get their way,” Bartholet says. A central tenet of this lobby is that parents have absolute rights that prevent the state from intervening to try to safeguard the child’s right to education and protection.

Bartholet maintains that parents should have “very significant rights to raise their children with the beliefs and religious convictions that the parents hold.” But requiring children to attend schools outside the home for six or seven hours a day, she argues, does not unduly limit parents’ influence on a child’s views and ideas. “The issue is, do we think that parents should have 24/7, essentially authoritarian control over their children from ages zero to 18? I think that’s dangerous,” Bartholet says. “I think it’s always dangerous to put powerful people in charge of the powerless, and to give the powerful ones total authority.”

She concedes that in some situations, homeschooling may be justified and effective. “No doubt there are some parents who are motivated and capable of giving an education that’s of a higher quality and as broad in scope as what’s happening in the public school,” she says. But Bartholet believes that if parents want permission to opt out of schools, the burden of proving that their case is justified should fall on parents.

“I think an overwhelming majority of legislators and American people, if they looked at the situation,” Bartholet says, “would conclude that something ought to be done.”

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GEORGIA NAEP SCORES PLUNGING AT HISTORIC RATE SINCE ADOPTION OF COMMON CORE

Posted on June 7, 2020 by Peter Watt
RESEARCH & COMMENTARY: GEORGIA NAEP SCORES PLUNGING AT HISTORIC RATE SINCE ADOPTION OF COMMON CORE
MAY 28, 2020
ByTim Benson

Post-Common Core Scores Declining Where Pre-Common Core Scores Were Increasing

The adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) has led to a “historic” drop in student achievement scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) test, also known as the “Nation’s Report Card,” a new study reports. The poor performance results have been particularly stark in Georgia, which was a national leader in student educational achievement in no small part due to its pre-CCSS statewide curriculum frameworks.

In the decade before the adoption of CCSS throughout most of the United States in 2013, mathematics and reading NAEP scores for both fourth and eighth grade were gradually increasing at a fairly steady rate, states The Common Core Debacle: Results from 2019 NAEP and Other Sources, published by the Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research. This rate of growth had been occurring at roughly the same pace as it had been since before states began launching their own individual curriculum standards in the 1990s, writes author Theodor Rebarber, CEO of the nonprofit education organization Accountability Works.

Many involved in the education industry said they were dissatisfied with this pace of improvement, and they sought to remedy it by pushing states to drop their curriculum standards and adopt a single, national standard, which became Common Core. Promoted heavily by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Obama administration, CCSS was touted as being necessary to improve U.S. academic competitiveness with other nations on international testing, raise NAEP scores, lower the achievement gap between black and Hispanic students and their white and Asian peers, and reduce the same gap among children from low- and high-income families.

Now, a decade after their adoption by most states and six years after their implementation, the Pioneer Institute report makes clear Common Core has had the opposite effect from what was promised. NAEP scores from 2013 to 2019, after the implementation of CCSS, have decreased by a “statistically significant” amount, the study found. Scores for both fourth and eighth grade in reading and math are down, with eighth grade scores decreasing at a rate nearly equal to their rate of growth before the implementation of Common Core.

More frighteningly, the study observes, scores are falling sharpest for low-income black and Hispanic students.

“U.S. students at the top, the 90th percentile, have continued to make gradual improvements that generally maintain the pre-Common Core trend line, ultimately neither helped nor harmed,” Rebarber writes. “But the farther behind students were before Common Core, especially those at the 25th and 10th percentiles, the more significant the achievement decreases have been. These declines appear to have wiped out the gains that lower-performing students made in the decade prior to Common Core.”

Georgia adopted Common Core in 2010 and began implementing them in the fall of 2014. The negative effects were felt almost immediately. In the decade preceding Common Core, when Georgia was utilizing its own standards, fourth grade achievement gain in mathematics on NAEP averaged roughly 1 point annually. Eighth grade scores grew by roughly .9 points annually over the same period. Post-Common Core, however, scores for eighth graders have barely increased at a miniscule rate. More frighteningly, fourth grade scores have actually declined by roughly .4 points annually.

The same effect occurred in reading scores. The Peach State’s fourth grade reading scores grew by nearly one point annually pre-Common Core, but declined by almost one half of a point annually post-Common Core. For eighth graders, reading scores were growing by .8 percent annually before CCSS. However, they have been declining by roughly .4 percent after CCSS implementation.

Rebarber recommends states fully repeal Common Core, but says he realizes this will be a tall order, no matter how far scores decline. As Rebarber succinctly stated, the standards embody the “common curricular assumptions and conventional wisdom of the educational establishment.”

“It is human nature for those who supported a failed strategy to find it difficult to admit a monumental error,” Rebarber writes. “But our most vulnerable students are paying the Alpha-Phonics booksteepest price for this particular error. After six years of digging this hole, the most fervent Common Core advocates seem to believe that we should continue to dig deeper. Instead, we must ensure that reason prevails and a different approach is considered.”

Georgia legislators should dispel Rebarber’s pessimism by admitting their mistake and repealing CCSS at the first opportunity, reverting the Peach State back to its pre-Common Core, high-quality, state academic standards and tests.

The following documents provide more information about Common Core.

The Common Core Debacle: Results from 2019 NAEP and Other Sources
https://pioneerinstitute.org/academic-standards/study-finds-historic-drop-in-national-reading-and-math-scores-since-adoption-of-common-core-curriculum-standards/
This report from the Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research finds U.S. reading and math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and other assessments have seen historic declines since most states implemented national Common Core English and math curriculum standards six years ago. The declines are most acute for the lowest-achieving students, increasing inequality.

After the Fall: Catholic Education Beyond the Common Core
https://www.heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/publications/Pioneer%20CC%20After%20the%20Fall.pdf
This Pioneer Institute report argues that Common Core’s unrelenting focus on skills that transfer directly to the modern work world conflicts with Catholic schools’ academic, spiritual, and moral mission. Catholic schools have traditionally provided a classical liberal-arts education, using lessons from great literature to reinforce moral lessons and educate and inspire students toward a virtuous life and a fuller understanding of the human experience. But Common Core cuts literature, drama, and poetry by more than half compared to the previous Massachusetts standards.  When great literature is included, it’s often only in excerpt form, robbing students of critical context.

Replacing Common Core: Choices and Tradeoffs
https://www.heartland.org/publications-resources/publications/replacing-common-core-choices-and-tradeoffs
In this Policy Brief by The Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast and Research Fellow Joy Pullmann, the authors argue while Common Core standards should be repealed, states face several replacement options, each of which has important trade-offs that must be considered.

To read the balance of this article please click here

The Publishers of ALPHA-PHONICS hope its Blog Followers will find this article of benefit.  They also hope any Parents who want to teach their OWN children to become excellent readers will take a moment to learn why ALPHA-PHONICS has worked so well for over 37 years for so many Parents (Tens of thousands).  It is no-nonsense, no bells & whistles, inexpensive,  simple, fast, effective……IT WORKS !!  See Below:

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A Looming Financial Meltdown For America’s Schools

Posted on June 5, 2020 by Peter Watt

SPECIAL SERIES

The Coronavirus Crisis

A Looming Financial Meltdown For America’s Schools

Heard on Morning Edition

 

LA Johnson/NPR

Austin Beutner looked haggard, his face a curtain of worry lines. The superintendent of the second-largest school district in the nation sat at a desk last week delivering a video address to Los Angeles families. But he began with a stark message clearly meant for another audience:

Lawmakers in Sacramento and Washington, D.C.

“Cuts to funding at schools will forever impact the lives of children,” Beutner said less than a week after California’s governor called for emergency cuts in education spending. The harm children face from these cuts, Beutner warned, “is just as real a threat to them as is the coronavirus.”

Similar alarms are sounding in districts across the country. With the nation’s attention still fixed on the COVID-19 health crisis, school leaders are warning of a financial meltdown that could devastate many districts and set back an entire generation of students.

Closed Schools Are Creating More Trauma For Students

“I think we’re about to see a school funding crisis unlike anything we have ever seen in modern history,” warns Rebecca Sibilia, the CEO of EdBuild, a school finance advocacy organization. “We are looking at devastation that we could not have imagined … a year ago.”

“Really shocking declines”

Schools receive nearly half of their funding from state coffers. But with businesses shuttered in response to the pandemic and the unemployment rate already nearing 15% — well above its 10% peak during the Great Recession — state income and sales tax revenues are crashing.

For April, the first full month of the coronavirus lockdowns, states are now reporting “really shocking declines” in tax revenues, says Michael Leachman at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. Some states have lost “as much as 25% or a third of their revenues compared to the previous year in the same month,” Leachman says.

And unlike the federal government, most state governments are required to balance their budgets. The result: Many governors and state lawmakers are now racing to implement deep cuts, including to school funding.

In early May, for example, Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine unveiled $300 million in K-12 budget cuts — and that’s just through June 30, when the current fiscal year ends. In Cleveland schools, according to Cleveland.com, that amounts to about $100 less per student with the possibility of more cuts in the new fiscal year.

A few days earlier, Georgia’s governor asked state education leaders to prepare for a 14% cut in funding starting in July. And in Michigan, a top Republican in the state Senate warned superintendents they could see their school funding slashed by as much as 25%.

In many states, these cuts will hit vulnerable, low-income communities the hardest. That’s because of how America funds education. On average, the bulk of a school’s resources comes from a roughly even split between state and local funding, the latter largely from local property taxes.

School Money

School Money

But differences in property wealth between districts have created decades-old disparities that many states have tried to alleviate with additional state money. As a result, “when state funding starts to drop,” says Michael Griffith at the Learning Policy Institute, “what we see is a separation between the haves and have-nots.”

NPR ED

For Many Schools The Recession Never Ended

Staff cuts, for example, have already skyrocketed.

“We know that in April, school districts nationally furloughed or laid off nearly half a million workers,” says Leachman at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities. “That is an astonishing number. It’s many more than lost their jobs through the entirety of the Great Recession. It’s all happened in one month.”

Leachman says many of those affected have been bus drivers and school staff who were laid off as schools closed their doors for the remainder of the academic year. A lot of them obviously hope to return. “But, given the collapse in state revenues, it’s likely that unless the federal government steps in … many of these workers will never get their jobs back.”

Griffith estimates that if states slash education spending by 15%, schools could be forced to shed more than 300,000 teaching positions — almost 10% of the national K-12 teacher force.

Other school budget experts are singing a similar refrain, as are district leaders such as Austin Beutner, who warned in his video address that schools would need the same emergency infusion of resources that hospitals and many businesses have already gotten.

“We’re looking at the same challenge in public education, and we need the same full-throated response,” Beutner said.

Thus far, Congress has offered just a whisper.

Little bipartisan appetite for more spending

CORONAVIRUS LIVE UPDATES

So far, though, Congress has shown little bipartisan appetite for more school spending. In mid-May, House Democrats passed the HEROES Act, which would provide K-12 schools with an additional $60 billion, but House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, R-Calif., dismissed the move, saying, “this is a political messaging bill that has no chance of becoming law.”

  Since Homeschooling is the norm for the time being, we hope Parents whose children are in the midst of learning to read,  will investigate how Alpha-Phonics can easily be used to teach their children to read at any stage of their reading instruction.  Your Kids can make a lot of headway in only a couple of weeks with this proven program.  Follow the links below to know all about the time-tested (37 + years) Alpha-Phonics program:

WEBSITE      TESTIMONIALS     CATHY DUFFY REVIEW

 

OTHER REVIEWS     AWARDS      HOW TO ORDER

 Po

 

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‘Virtual church’ – has it lost its luster already?

Posted on June 4, 2020 by Peter Watt

‘Virtual church’ – has it lost its luster already?

Monday, June 1, 2020   Steve Jordahl (OneNewsNow.com)

online study or worshipCongregations were enthusiastic about online church services when the pandemic hit – but a respected “faith and culture” polling group reports the novelty seems to have worn off.

It wasn’t unusual in March and April for churches to report they had more viewers watching their online services than they had in-person attenders prior to the COVID pandemic. But now it’s the beginning of June, and according to the Barna Group almost half of churchgoers haven’t watched even one online service in the last month.

“Over the last four weeks it feels like the novelty has been wearing off of digital church,” says Barna president Dave Kinnaman. “There has been a decline in attendance and engagement.” (See related article)

And the Barna leader says it gets worse: a third of those who are watching are doing some virtual “church shopping” – that is, they’re not watching their own church online.

Hundreds, if not thousands of churches opened up on Sunday (May 31) – some against state and local restrictions. And while the energy and excitement of coming back to church may be high at first, Kinnaman suggests that may fade as well.

Kinnaman

“I think that things are not going to be going back to the same kind of normal that we had,” he offers. “First, the psychological impact is pretty significant – people are hesitant to come back.”

And according to a recent related poll of thousands of church leaders facilitated by the leadership firm Gloo, a quarter of churchgoers say they may stay home until a vaccine is found – which could be months, if not a year or more away.

That said, Kinnaman says local churches may want to coordinate their reopening to build a little momentum.

“We should try to do what other churches in the community are doing,” he says of local churches, “where we’re not trying to be a Lone Ranger and open up too quickly or open up in ways that put people at risk – but we’re also not too slow in opening up.”

While the Barna survey shows declining viewer interest in online church services, OneNewsNow reported in early May about a young Kansas pastor who argues churches need to keep their services online to stay relevant and remain an influential resource in their communities.

 We hope Parents  will investigate how Alpha-Phonics can easily be used to teach their children to read at any stage of their reading instruction.  Your Kids can make a lot of headway in only a couple of weeks with this proven program.  Follow the links below to know all about the time-tested (37 + years) Alpha-Phonics program:

 

WEBSITE      TESTIMONIALS     CATHY DUFFY REVIEW

 

OTHER REVIEWS         HOW TO ORDER    

 
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Schools telling Parents they can’t withdraw their kids to homeschool

Posted on June 3, 2020 by Peter Watt

Loss of funding behind anti-homeschooling attitude

Monday, June 1, 2020   |Bob Kellogg (OneNewsNow.com)

cash 100-dollar billWith most public schools ending the school year in lockdown because of the coronavirus pandemic, Fox News reports that parents in several states want to homeschool now and perhaps in the future. But some school systems are resistant to that.

Schools in several states are telling parents they cannot withdraw their children from public schools to homeschool instead, but Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA) attorney T.J. Schmidt says they do not have a legal leg to stand on.

“They absolutely cannot prevent a parent from withdrawing a child,” he tells OneNewsNow. “Obviously a parent does have that fundamental right to direct, control the upbringing and education of their children. And certainly when it comes into the realm of education, a parent has the freedom to choose.”

Schmidt believes there are several reasons some school officials are resisting this development – fear of losing funding being a big one.

Schmidt

“If there is a rash of people pulling out to homeschool … they are going to be potentially losing future revenue,” the attorney explains. “So I don’t think it’s as much the revenue concern for the end of this school year, but definitely I think there is a concern from some school officials about possible funding levels for next year.”

Schmidt adds, though, that in his experience, when school officials are contacted on this sort of matter, they are responsive in correcting the problems.

The Publishers of ALPHA-PHONICS hope its Blog Followers will find this article of benefit.  They also hope any Parents who want to teach their OWN children to become excellent readers will take a moment to learn why ALPHA-PHONICS has worked so well for over 37 years for so many Parents (Tens of thousands).  It is no-nonsense, no bells & whistles, inexpensive,  simple, fast, effective……IT WORKS !!  See Below:

HOMEPAGE     TESTIMONIALS     CATHY DUFFY REVIEW

MORE REVIEWS     AWARDS      HOW TO ORDER

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Common Core Fails in Illinois

Posted on June 2, 2020 by Peter Watt

RESEARCH & COMMENTARY: ILLINOIS’ NAEP SCORES TAKE WRONG TURN AFTER ADOPTION OF COMMON CORE

MAY 29, 2020
By Tim Benson

Post-Common Core Scores Declining Where Pre-Common Core Scores Were Increasing

Alpha-Phonics Blog Editor Note: Our last Post explained how Common Core has lowered Reading and Math scores in Massachusetts.  This story, also from The Heartland Institute, tells the same story for Illinois.  In the future will present articles on several other major states also telling the sad story about their test scores resulting from Common Core.

MAY 29, 2020

The adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) has led to a “historic” drop in student achievement scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) test, also known as the “Nation’s Report Card,” a new study reports. The poor performance results have been particularly stark in Illinois.

In the decade before the adoption of CCSS throughout most of the United States in 2013, mathematics and reading NAEP scores for both fourth and eighth grade were gradually increasing at a fairly steady rate, states The Common Core Debacle: Results from 2019 NAEP and Other Sources, published by the Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research. This rate of growth had been occurring at roughly the same pace as it had been since before states began launching their own individual curriculum standards in the 1990s, writes author Theodor Rebarber, CEO of the nonprofit education organization Accountability Works.

Many involved in the education industry said they were dissatisfied with this pace of improvement, and they sought to remedy it by pushing states to drop their curriculum standards and adopt a single, national standard, which became Common Core. Promoted heavily by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Obama administration, CCSS was touted as being necessary to improve U.S. academic competitiveness with other nations on international testing, raise NAEP scores, lower the achievement gap between black and Hispanic students and their white and Asian peers, and reduce the same gap among children from low- and high-income families.

Now, a decade after their adoption by most states and six years after their implementation, the Pioneer Institute report makes clear Common Core has had the opposite effect from what was promised. NAEP scores from 2013 to 2019, after the implementation of CCSS, have decreased by a “statistically significant” amount, the study found. Scores for both fourth and eighth grade in reading and math are down, with eighth grade scores decreasing at a rate nearly equal to their rate of growth before the implementation of Common Core.

More frighteningly, the study observes, scores are falling sharpest for low-income black and Hispanic students.

“U.S. students at the top, the 90th percentile, have continued to make gradual improvements that generally maintain the pre-Common Core trend line, ultimately neither helped nor harmed,” Rebarber writes. “But the farther behind students were before Common Core, especially those at the 25th and 10th percentiles, the more significant the achievement decreases have been. These declines appear to have wiped out the gains that lower-performing students made in the decade prior to Common Core.”

Illinois adopted Common Core in 2010 and began implementing them in the fall of 2013. The negative effects were felt almost immediately. In the decade preceding Common Core, when Illinois was utilizing its own standards, fourth grade achievement gain in mathematics on NAEP averaged roughly .6 points annually. Eighth grade scores grew by over .75 points annually over the same period. Post-Common Core, however, scores for fourth graders have declined by .25 points annually and eighth grade scores have declined by roughly .4 points annually.

The same effect occurred in reading scores. Illinois’ fourth grade reading scores grew by .25 points annually pre-Common Core, but declined by a tenth of a point annually post-Common Core. For eighth graders, reading scores were relatively stagnant in the last pre-Common Core decade, but post-Common Core implementation they have been declining by roughly .3 points.

Rebarber recommends states fully repeal Common Core, but says he realizes this will be a tall order, no matter how far scores decline. As Rebarber succinctly stated, the standards embody the “common curricular assumptions and conventional wisdom of the educational establishment.”

“It is human nature for those who supported a failed strategy to find it difficult to admit a monumental error,” Rebarber writes. “But our most vulnerable students are paying the steepest price for this particular error. After six years of digging this hole, the most fervent Common Core advocates seem to believe that we should continue to dig deeper. Instead, we must ensure that reason prevails and a different approach is considered.”

Illinois legislators should dispel Rebarber’s pessimism by admitting their mistake and repealing CCSS at the first opportunity, and should develop new state benchmarks modeled on Massachusetts’ highly-respected pre-Common Core standards.

The following documents provide more information about Common Core.

The Common Core Debacle: Results from 2019 NAEP and Other Sources
https://pioneerinstitute.org/academic-standards/study-finds-historic-drop-in-national-reading-and-math-scores-since-adoption-of-common-core-curriculum-standards/
This report from the Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research finds U.S. reading and math scores on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) and other assessments have seen historic declines since most states implemented national Common Core English and math curriculum standards six years ago. The declines are most acute for the lowest-achieving students, increasing inequality.

To read the balance of this story please CLICK HERE

 It is ironic that now with many new pandemic-forced homeschoolers crying out for help with what is a whole new world for them, that the Harvard Professor is calling for the elimination of homeschooling.  Since Homeschooling is the norm for the time being, we hope Parents whose children are in the midst of learning to read,  will investigate how Alpha-Phonics can easily be used to teach their children to read at any stage of their reading instruction.  Your Kids can make a lot of headway in only a couple of weeks with this proven program.  Follow the links below to know all about the time-tested (37 + years) Alpha-Phonics program:

WEBSITE      TESTIMONIALS     CATHY DUFFY REVIEW

 

OTHER REVIEWS     AWARDS      HOW TO ORDER

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COMMON CORE IS CAUSING MASSACHUSETTS NAEP SCORES TO DECLINE AT HISTORIC RATE

Posted on May 29, 2020 by Peter Watt

 

RESEARCH & COMMENTARY: COMMON CORE IS CAUSING MASSACHUSETTS NAEP SCORES TO DECLINE AT HISTORIC RATE

MAY 26, 2020
ByTim Benson

Post-Common Core Scores Declining At Same Rate Pre-Common Core Scores Were Increasing

The adoption of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) has led to a “historic” drop in student achievement scores on the National Assessment of Education Progress (NAEP) test, also known as the “Nation’s Report Card,” a new study reports. The poor performance results have been particularly stark in Massachusetts, which was a national leader in student educational achievement in no small part due to its pre-CCSS statewide curriculum frameworks.

In the decade before the adoption of CCSS throughout most of the United States in 2013, mathematics and reading NAEP scores for both fourth and eighth grade were gradually increasing at a fairly steady rate, states The Common Core Debacle: Results from 2019 NAEP and Other Sources, published by the Pioneer Institute for Public Policy Research. This rate of growth had been occurring at roughly the same pace as it had been since before states began launching their own individual curriculum standards in the 1990s, writes author Theodor Rebarber, CEO of the nonprofit education organization Accountability Works.

Many involved in the education industry said they were dissatisfied with this pace of improvement, and they sought to remedy it by pushing states to drop their curriculum standards and adopt a single, national standard, which became Common Core. Promoted heavily by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Obama administration, CCSS was touted as being necessary to improve U.S. academic competitiveness with other nations on international testing, raise NAEP scores, lower the achievement gap between black and Hispanic students and their white and Asian peers, and reduce the same gap among children from low- and high-income families.

Now, a decade after their adoption by most states and six years after their implementation, the Pioneer Institute report makes clear Common Core has had the opposite effect from what was promised. NAEP scores from 2013 to 2019, after the implementation of CCSS, have decreased by a “statistically significant” amount, the study found. Scores for both fourth and eighth grade in reading and math are down, with eighth grade scores decreasing at a rate nearly equal to their rate of growth before the implementation of Common Core.

More frighteningly, the study observes, scores are falling sharpest for low-income black and Hispanic students.

“U.S. students at the top, the 90th percentile, have continued to make gradual improvements that generally maintain the pre-Common Core trend line, ultimately neither helped nor harmed,” Rebarber writes. “But the farther behind students were before Common Core, especially those at the 25th and 10th percentiles, the more significant the achievement decreases have been. These declines appear to have wiped out the gains that lower-performing students made in the decade prior to Common Core.”

Massachusetts adopted Common Core in 2010 and began implementing them in the fall of 2013. The negative effects were felt almost immediately. In the decade preceding Common Core, when Massachusetts implemented on its own standards, fourth grade achievement gain in mathematics on NAEP averaged roughly 1.1 points annually. Eighth grade scores grew by roughly 1.3 points annually over the same period. Post-Common Core, however, scores for fourth graders have declined by nearly one point annually and scores for eighth graders declined by more than one point annually.

The same effect occurred in reading scores. The commonwealth’s fourth grade reading scores grew by roughly half a point annually pre-Common Core, but declined by almost one quarter of a point annually post-Common Core. For eighth graders, reading scores were growing by .4 percent annually before CCSS. However, they have been declining by roughly .6 percent after CCSS implementation.

Rebarber recommends states fully repeal Common Core, but says he realizes this will be a tall order, no matter how far scores decline. As Rebarber succinctly stated, the standards embody the “common curricular assumptions and conventional wisdom of the educational establishment.”

“It is human nature for those who supported a failed strategy to find it difficult to admit a monumental error,” Rebarber writes. “But our most vulnerable students are paying the steepest price for this particular error. After six years of digging this hole, the most fervent Common Core advocates seem to believe that we should continue to dig deeper. Instead, we must ensure that reason prevails and a different approach is considered.”

Massachusetts policymakers should dispel Rebarber’s pessimism by repealing CCSS at the first opportunity and revert the commonwealth back to its pre-Common Core, high-quality, state academic standards and tests.

Alpha-Phonics Blog Editor Note:

For more detail on this story CLICK HERE.

Nothing in this Research & Commentary is intended to influence the passage of legislation, and it does not necessarily represent the views of The Heartland Institute. For further information on this subject, visit School Reform News, The Heartland Institute’s website, and PolicyBot, Heartland’s free online research database.

We hope Parents  will investigate how Alpha-Phonics can easily be used to teach their children to read at any stage of their reading instruction.  Your Kids can make a lot of headway in only a couple of weeks with this proven program.  Follow the links below to know all about the time-tested (37 + years) Alpha-Phonics program:

 

WEBSITE      TESTIMONIALS     CATHY DUFFY REVIEW

 

OTHER REVIEWS         HOW TO ORDER    

 

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Thanks to phonics [Alpha-Phonics] from Australia and Las Vegas

Posted on May 28, 2020 by Peter Watt

 

     Some recent comments about Alpha-Phonics:

Letter To The Editor: The Australian  Surry Hills, NSW  Since: 1824  Circulation: 2,394,000  An Australia  National paper:

 

“Thanks to phonics”

There were no “wars” over reading in the 1970s (“Reading wars hit home”, 23/5). The experts “knew” the best way of teaching was to read aloud to children every day, so they would pick up reading naturally.

I did this for my first child, but it didn’t work. After two years of schooling, he still couldn’t read. In desperation, my husband sat with our son for 10 minutes each evening and taught him how to sound letters and blend them together. We didn’t know it was called “synthetic phonics” then, but it worked. He went on to gain a PhD.

Nowadays there are many resources to help parents, but I especially like the Alpha-Phonics workbook. It proceeds at the child’s pace, blending short vowels with simple consonants, eventually covering all combinations. By the end of the book the child can decode any word, providing a firm foundation for all future study.

–Roslyn Phillips, Tea Tree Gully, SA, Australia  May 2020

“I used this book in teaching my children to read…so much that the book was falling apart. Loved it. Would recommend for any parent to use.”             

JC,  Las Vegas    June 14, 2019

 We hope Parents  will investigate how Alpha-Phonics can easily be used to teach their children to read at any stage of their reading instruction.  Your Kids can make a lot of headway in only a couple of weeks with this proven program.  Follow the links below to know all about the time-tested (37 + years) Alpha-Phonics program:

 

WEBSITE      TESTIMONIALS     CATHY DUFFY REVIEW

 

OTHER REVIEWS         HOW TO ORDER    

 P

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A UCLA lecturer has joined other higher education instructors calling to ban homeschooling..

Posted on May 27, 2020 by Peter Watt
​‘I’m Stalin’: UCLA ‘libertarian Antichrist’ wants to ban homeschooling, charter schools
Celine RyanCorrespondent Editor@celinedryan
  • A UCLA lecturer has joined other higher education instructors calling to ban homeschooling..
  • “I’m for banning home and charter schools, mandating taxes from rich areas be spent on education in poor areas and raising the salaries of teachers everywhere.”

 

A UCLA lecturer says he wants to ban both homeschooling and charter schools and has no problem being characterized as “authoritarian,” or as Joseph Stalin himself, for saying so.

Shaiel Ben-Ephraim, who goes by “Professor Professorson” on Twitter, took to the social media platform to join the recent chorus of higher education elites in their calls to ban homeschooling.

“So, apparently I have to embrace my new role as the libertarian Antichrist.”    

[RELATED: Harvard prof wants government to ban ‘authoritarian’ practice of homeschooling]

Professor Stalin 🌐🇮🇱@shaielb

I’m for banning home and charter schools, mandating taxes from rich areas be spent on education in poor areas and raising the salaries of teachers everywhere. I want the less fortunate in this country to have a chance at great education. If that makes me authoritarian, I’m Stalin

213

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As the government’s response to the coronavirus crisis caused many Americans to homeschool their previously public-schooled children, Harvard Law professor Elizabeth Barholet came out with a call to place a ban on what she called the “authoritarian” practice of homeschooling.

Bartholet’s comments sparked outrage from the homeschool community and school choice advocates, but the professor has since doubled down on her comments. At the time of Bartholet’s original statements, Reason Foundation Director of School Choice Corey DeAngelis told Campus Reform that this statement from Bartholet is “beyond parody,” adding, “it’s unbelievable she doesn’t realize that using government force to ban homeschooling is the definition of authoritarianism.”

But Ben-Ephraim doesn’t mind being accused of authoritarianism in the name of banning school choice, in fact, he says he embraces it.

[RELATED: Anti-homeschool Harvard prof thumbs her nose at ‘conservative Christians’]

The radical left will stop at nothing to intimidate conservative students on college campuses. You can help expose them. Find out more »

Professor Stalin 🌐🇮🇱@shaielb

So, apparently I have to embrace my new role as the libertarian Antichrist. Please provide me with statist talking points. https://twitter.com/shaielb/status/1264721576190066689 …

Professor Stalin 🌐🇮🇱@shaielb

When did I become the libertarian Antichrist? I even have the Cato Institute after me. Should I embrace this role, or nah?

14

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See Professor Stalin 🌐🇮🇱‘s other Tweets

Ben-Ephraim seemed to revel in the backlash from his tweet, sending out several subsequent tweets referencing “libertarians” that he says he angered, at one point even dubbing himself the “libertarian Antichrist.”

In a statement to Campus Reform, Ben-Ephraim  doubled down on his statements, stating clearly “I firmly believe that the public school system should be strengthened even at the expense of parent choice.”

“The reason being that it is a human right to have access to good education, regardless of means.,” he reasoned. “In order to achieve this, I believe that all of us, as a society should give our all to strengthen the public school system. Instead of opting out through alternatives, our tax money and efforts should be out into a system containing everyone and benefiting everyone. If everyone was invested in our system, rich and poor, everyone would pull together to improve it.

Follow the author of this article on Twitter: @celinedryan

  Since Homeschooling is the norm for the time being, we hope Parents whose children are in the midst of learning to read,  will want to find out how Alpha-Phonics can easily be used to teach children to read at any level of their learning to read journey.  Kids can make a lot of headway in only a couple of weeks with this proven program.  Follow the links below to know all about the time-tested (37 + years) Alpha-Phonics program:

WEBSITE          TESTIMONIALS           CATHY DUFFY REVIEW

OTHER REVIEWS          AWARDS          HOW TO ORDER

 P

 

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