GA GOP Passes Resolution Opposing Common Core

GOP official: Party should have taken up Common Core but message was sent: Wrong standards for Georgia 

GOP debate on Common Core avoided By Maureen Downey

Judy Craft is a Gwinnett County resident who served on the State Resolutions Committee at the state GOP convention in Athens this past weekend representing the 7th Congressional District.

She wrote this piece in response to the failure of the GOP convention to take up a resolution opposing the Common Core State Standards. A standoff on the standards, which have the support of Republican Gov. Nathan Deal and state Superintendent John Barge,  was deflected, according to my AJC colleague Jim Galloway, because of a political maneuver
By Judy Craft

On Friday and Saturday, Republican delegates descended on Athens like a herd of elephants.  More than 1,600 voting delegates and several hundred guests came to meet candidates, to hear from elected officials, to vote on party leaders, and to do the work of the party concerning rules and resolutions. I had the honor of serving on the State Resolutions Committee for the 7th Congressional District. The purpose of a resolution is to send messages to elected officials as to what the grassroots wants to be addressed or dealt with.

The latest education topic in the country these days is Common Core.  It was sold quickly, much like Obamacare, in that states had to commit to the national education program before they found out what was in it.

The hottest resolution for the Georgia Republican Party was likewise, Common Core. Eight of 14 Congressional Districts passed resolutions on to the state convention opposing Common Core.  Sen. William Ligon, R-Brunswick, introduced legislation this year, SB 167, to withdraw Georgia from Common Core and the national PAARC testing. 

Here are some of the highlights of the “hottest” Republican resolution sent forward to the state convention.

The resolution described how the Common Core scheme violates the constitutional principle that the control of education is left to the states and the people. Participation required Georgia to adopt common standards in K-12 English language arts and math and to commit to implementing the aligned assessments developed by a consortium of states with federal money, all without the consent of the people exercised through their legislative branch.

With respect to the alleged “rigor” of the Common Core standards, the resolution recognized that “the Common Core Standards have been evaluated by educational experts and were determined to be no better than Georgia’s previous performance standards and according to key members of the Validation Committee, the standards were even inferior.”

The resolution addressed privacy concerns, stating that “The Race to the Top grant conditions also require the collection and sharing of massive amounts of student-level data through the PARCC agreement which violates student privacy.” 

The resolution further recognized that “the push to nationalize standards will inevitably lead to more centralization of education in violation of federalism and local control and violates the spirit of three federal laws” and “will create new tax burdens to pay for enormous unfunded mandates on our state and local school districts.”

Given all these problems, the resolution urged withdrawal from Common Core and the PAARC testing, a more open and transparent process for adopting curriculum standards, and strict limits on collecting and sharing student data.

The resolution concluded by stating appreciation for Gov. Deal’s executive order on May 15th that took a step in this direction.

In the Resolutions Committee, the resolution passed overwhelmingly. Unfortunately, no resolutions were considered on the convention floor.

While the resolution did not receive the time it deserved at the convention, a strong message was sent in Athens. A battle is brewing as the backlash against Common Core grows. Citizens are realizing that Common Core will ultimately control the curriculum of public schools, charter schools, private schools, religious schools, Catholic schools and home schools.  There is one thing we all care about and that is our kids.  This is the very reason that Common Core was the resolution that needed to be discussed when our party came to do business.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

GEORGIA REPUBLICAN ASSEMBLY PASSES RESOLUTION OPPOSING COMMON CORE

ATLANTA, GEORGIA, February 27, 2013 - "The membership of the Georgia Republican Assembly unanimously voted to pass the following resolution regarding the Common Core curriculum", said GRA President Julianne Thompson.

She continued, “This national curriculum will not only result in significantly lowered educational standards, but will erode local and parental control over children’s educations. The power to educate our children is not granted to the federal government by the United States Constitution, and we strongly call on our legislators and our Governor to reject any policies or procedures based on the Common Core Standards Initiative.”

GEORGIA REPUBLICAN ASSEMBLY RESOLUTION OPPOSING
COMMON CORE

WHEREAS, high student performance and closing the achievement gap is fundamentally linked to an overall reform of our public education system through a strong system of accountability and transparency built on state standards; and

WHEREAS, the responsibility for the education of each child of this nation primarily lies with parents, supported by locally elected school boards and state governments; and

WHEREAS, in 2009 and 2010, the State was offered the chance to compete for education funding through the “Race to the Top” program created by the U. S. Department of Education (“ED”); and

WHEREAS, the only way to achieve a score in the competition sufficient to qualify for funding was to agree to “participation in a consortium of States that ... [i]s working toward jointly developing and adopting a common set of K-12 standards...”; and

WHEREAS, the only such “common set of K-12 standards” existent at that time, or since, is known as the Common Core State Standards Initiative (“CCSSI”) and was developed without a grant of authority from any state; and

WHEREAS, the CCSSI standards were released in June 2010, and to meet the ED “Race to the Top” requirements the State had only 60 days to evaluate them and agree to adopt them; and

WHEREAS, local education officials, school leaders, teachers, and parents were not included in the discussion, evaluation and preparation of the CCSSI standards that would affect students in this state; and

WHEREAS, citizens had no opportunity to review and comment on the final version of CCSSI standards, and states were not offered an option to modify those standards before their adoption; and

WHEREAS, no empirical evidence indicates that centralized education standards result in higher student achievement; and

WHEREAS, adoption of the CCSSI standards would force several states to lower the rigor and quality of their standards; and

WHEREAS, the National Assessment of Educational Progress national test already exists and allows comparisons of academic achievement to be made across the states, without the necessity of imposing national standards, curricula, or assessments; and

WHEREAS, imposing a set of national standards is likely to lead to the imposition of a national curriculum and national assessment upon the various states, in violation of the General Education Provisions Act, the Elementary and Secondary Education Act; and the Department of Education Organization Act and

WHEREAS, claims from the Common Core Initiative that the CCSSI standards will not dictate what teachers teach in the classroom are refuted by language in the standards as written; and

WHEREAS, common standards will lessen the ability for local stakeholders to innovate and continue to make improvements over time; and

WHEREAS, when no less than 22 states face budget shortfalls and Race to the Top funding for states is limited, $350 million for consortia to develop new assessments aligned with the CSCSI standards will not cover the entire cost of overhauling state accountability systems, which includes implementation of standards and testing and associated professional development and curriculum restructuring; and

WHEREAS, special interest groups can manipulate the vulnerability of the centralized decision making that governs common standards and lower the standards’ rigor and quality over time to suit their priorities;

NOW, THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED THAT the GEORGIA REPUBLICAN ASSEMBLY calls upon the State of Georgia to reject any policies and procedures that would be incumbent on the state based on the Common Core State Standards Initiative.

Comments:

Georgia Republican Party Delegates passed this resolution to oppose Common Core.  Now it’s time to see if the Georgia Legislature will ignore the resolution or pass a law in January 2014.  Let your legislators know how you want them to address the Resolution Opposing Common Core and the Resolution Opposing Regionalism. They will ignore these if you let them.

Norb Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader