Tech Thursday: The Tough, the Dedicated, the CCSS Warriors

Though you may be a weary anti CC Warrior today, you are STILL a warrior! We’ve miles to go, no matter what our day may hold in our Common Core aligned state of being. Yes, we’ve had some defeats, we’ve also had VICTORIES! Today’s post is dedicated to help you stand firm, stand strong, and stand for our children.

Interspersed between ‘need to know’ news and encouragement, will be JPEGS you can use to text, email, or fax to your Congress members, if you like OR share them on your other anti CCSS social media outlets.

Remember, while HR5, Student Success Act, has been passed—it has only cleared the House of Representatives. It still has a long way to go. While we wait to see what the fate of S1177 will be, we know that, like HR5’s passage, IF Every Child Achieves (S1177) is passed. It will have only passed the Senate. It will have a long way to go.

Our strategy of making a lot of noise in a short amount of time is working! That’s a victory. Consider that S1177 was supposed to be under everyone’s radar. We foiled that (a victory, warriors)! The bill was also supposed to be a ‘sure thing’ and voted on by the this time last week. Guess what? We foiled that, too! That victory allowed us a fabulous 4 day back-to-back daily assault. The daily assault has been not only a blessing, but a brilliant tool. None of us could have pulled this effort off if it had not been for Patriot Journal Network. I pause to say a deep ‘thank you’ to the team at PJNet.

The valuable opt-opt amendment sponsored by Sen. Lee of Utah was defeated, while the more restrictive version by Sen. Isaken of Georgia was passed and will be inserted into Every Child Achieves. If you’re concerned about opting out of high stakes assessments, you now know who’s amendment to be researching.

Also passed was Sen. Tester’s (MT) amendment concerning shifting from assessments like PARCC and SBAC, and go to grade span assessments BUT keep the SBAC/PARCC policies and procedures! If assessments cause your anti CCSS warriors heart to heat up, turn that heat to Congress!!

Sen. Hatch’s (UT) Student Data Privacy Committee was given permission. If you’re concerned about student data and its privacy, you need to know, several pro CCSS groups helped create the amendment Mr. Hatch sponsored. He named them on 7/13/15 during the Senate’s daily business. You can access video archive footage on CSpan2. http://www.c-span.org/networks/?channel=c-span-2 (cable or satellite users) or http://www.senate.gov/floor/ (antenna users)

If you’re a CCSS Warrior concerned with the Career Tracks, Career Clusters, Career Pathways, or the Career and Technical Education portion of the CCSS Machine, you need to know that a purposed intent to leave Workforce based language in BOTH HR5 and S1177 was taken. One Senator extremely on this education/workforce to save children’s lives bandwagon, is Sen. Sanders (as in Bernie). During his speech on the afternoon of the 15th, he sounded exactly like, and his plan mimicked, one I’d researched and seen before. In fact, I’ve published an article with this very video in it months ago. While, I feel that article may be helpful, I’m not linking it today, as I know our time for discussion, can happen anytime. Our time to influence our Congress, is of the utmost importance NOW.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3IIS9hMUvWU&w=560&h=315]

Amendments that haven’t been voted on (as of the writing of this article):
Early PreK Learning (Sen. Murray) This bill is a horrible overreach into not only our children’s lives with CCSS alignment, but the dreaded ‘learn to earn’ phrase has been used in several instances to describe this amendment. Along with this bill is the mindset that college begins at birth!

This is carried out via the Strong Start for America’s Children (this one’s been sitting dormant for about 2 years). This involved the birth through 3 year olds. (remember, before the storm of activity in D.C., I published an article about the “Pint Sized” Common Core. This particular bill would infringe your 4th amendment rights, as well as the usual laws CCSS breaks. Included are home visits (currently going on in some states). If this is an anti CCSS concern, you know where to make some noise!

While not a complete list, you get the idea. Know that all the other areas of education NOT listed above will be slammed with the CCSS Machine filled HR5/S1177. Know that these 2 bills are only 2 pieces of a very big puzzle that will grind away from birth to post graduate schools. The next set of bills connected to the re-writing of ESEA, are the HEA (Higher Education Act) and the CPA (College Promise Act).

FIGHT ON, my fellow warriors against the Core!