Common Core Talking Points A Parent’s Guide

Created by Bill Adamsky and UOO Administrators

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Surprisingly, the majority of people who are for CCSS

are not educators.

The Common Core State Standards, or CCSS, are a new set of learning goals, or “standards” being

adopted by most states, and that all students in public schools are expected to meet.

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WHAT IS CCSS?

The Common Core State Standards, or

CCSS, are a new set of learning goals, or

“standards” being adopted by most

states, and that all students in public

schools are expected to meet. Tied to

these standards are a series of high-

stakes assessments, which will be

administered several times every year to

all students, beginning in grade 3.

Currently, standards exist for only

English/Language Arts and mathematics.

Common Core standards and

assessments for other disciplines including

science, social studies, and art are

expected to be completed in the near

future.

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WHO WANTS IT?

Surprisingly, the majority of people who

are for CCSS are not educators.

Politicians, policy makers, billionaire

investors, corporations, and supporters of

the privatization of public education,

such as Jeb Bush and Michelle Rhee all

embrace CCSS. At first, 46 states agreed

to adopt CCSS, but recently a number of

states are withdrawing, and a growing

number of voices from both sides of the

political aisle are making their concerns

and dissatisfaction with the

implementation of CCSS known.

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What’s wrong with the CCSS?

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CCSS undermine a crucial pillar of

Democracy: control of public schools by locally-elected

school boards and puts more power into the hands of

the federal government whose policies are dictated by

private corporate interests such as textbook and testing

companies. Voices of teachers, communities, parents,

and students have been all but erased from the

decision-making process.

At the heart of CCSS is high-stakes testing. A

vast majority of parents already agree that too much

emphasis is being placed on standardized testing in

public schools to determine grade promotion and

teacher evaluations. Given the “high stakes” CCSS

increases not just the amount of test, but time spent on

“test-prep” in our classrooms at the expense of real and

valuable learning experiences.

Contrary to what proponents claim, educators

had little input in the development of CCSS. Of the

sixty “founding fathers” of CCSS, only one is an

educator. The rest are politicians, Wall Street investors,

and corporate CEO’s who have their own agenda for

public education.

CCSS has never been piloted nor tested prior

to being thrust upon classrooms across the country.

There is no evidence or research to support the quality

of these standards for providing effective and

meaningful instruction. CCSS sets up students,

teachers, and schools for failure. CCSS architects freely

admit that the tests are more difficult and schools

should expect scores to drop. Some CC standards have

already proven to be developmentally inappropriate for

the younger grades, leaving many students as young as

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6 feeling like “failures” already.

CCSS drains money out of already cash-

strapped districts. Schools that don’t have the

technological resources necessary to support the

“required” online assessments attached to CCSS will

have to dig into their own pockets to upgrade. These

kinds of expenses tend to be covered by cutting arts

education, sports and extracurricular, and after-school

programs.

CCSS is the central pipeline pushing other

education reform policies that harm public schools.

The anticipated lower test scores for example will open

to door to more ludicrous claims by the reform leaders

that our schools are “failing”, which in turn will lead to

increased teacher lay-offs. Temporary workers will

replace teachers with little to no experiences such as

teach for America graduates or computerized

“learning” portals.

Our public schools will be closed, or “turned

around,” and replaced by charters that are often run by

for-profit entities with no accountability to the

communities or children they serve. Attached to CCSS

are new forms of online data collection (via the new

assessments) to be warehoused by third party private

companies like and funded in large part by Bill Gates.

For example, inBloom (contracting with many states

such as NY) will be collecting 400 points of private data

on every child. These corporations cannot guarantee

the security of this private student data, and has never

made clear precisely how they will use it.

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WHAT CAN I DO?

Parents and educators possess the most crucial voices in the

opposition of CCSS. Here are three steps you can take

Resist. Opt your children out of any and all state standardized

tests. United Opt Out has guides for all fifty states. What happens

to your child in a public school classroom is up to you, the parent.

Do not let any school administrator tell you different.

Enlist. Educate your neighbors about CCSS. Use social media to

spread your message. Host local meetings. Bring this to your local

PTA or other parent group. Get as many parents on your side as

possible.

Inform. Present ideas to your child’s teacher and school

administrator alternative assessments that you demand which can

replace the tests to determine your child level of proficiency in a

given subject. See United Opt Out’s “Portfolio Letter” as an

example.

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Persist. You may receive some requests from teachers, principals,

even other parents to “tow the line” and go along. You will hear that

your child’s school will lose funding if you opt out. You might hear that

it will harm the performance evaluation of your child’s teacher. You

may even hear that your child will be kept back or punished. Do not let

this sort of rhetoric dissuade you. While some legal precedent exists in

some states to attach the tests to some of these things, more often, it’s

myth and empty threats. KNOW the FACTS about your RIGHTS in

your state or district. Be prepared and informed. See the United Opt

Out “Get Tough” guide for handling some of these issues. See “Who

Manufactured the Common Core” in the toolkit for information

regarding corporate interest in CCSS.

Stand up for your child and your school. Deny them the data. Deny

them the money better spent on your child’s school. Opt out every year

until this madness ends.

United Opt Out National http://unitedoptout.com

@unitedoptout