Republican Governor Susana Martinez is a strong supporter of Common Core and PARCC. She is a follower of the Jeb Bush model of school reform, with ratings and grades for everyone.
Democratic State Senator Linda M. Lopez has introduced legislation to withdraw from Common Core and PARCC. It will be interesting to see if any Republicans are willing to buck the Governor or if any Democrats are willing to stand with the veteran Senator Lopez.
Governor Martinez selected Hanna Skandera as Commissioner of Education, but the Democratic-controlled State Senate has not confirmed her because she has no teaching experience as the law requires. Skandera previously worked for Jeb Bush, and before that for Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger. Skandera is currently leader of Jeb Bush’s Chiefs for Change and a strong supporter of Common Core, VAM, and high-stakes testing.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
It’s obvious that the facts are getting out there and reaching more people who are then joining the fight to safe the democratic public schools against the few billionaire oligarchs who are funding their own mercenary corporate education reform army.
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You are a highly educated and articulate pessimist, and you have basically told me about your pessimism in past posts. I admire all your thoughts, Lloyd. But – not that we are competing at all in ideologies here – do you see how there is hope. . . . . however cautiously looked upon it must be?
People are waking up. We don’t have to have a revolution, although I think it will be an imminent choice if people don’t wake up even more and even faster.
This is a war, no less. But people are fighting. We outnumber them even if their dollars outnumber us. Dollars are inanimate objects; people are not.
I say give this time. We will be fighting probably for 10 years or more, but right will triumph over wrong because the very tenets the over class is claiming are turning out to be untrue. The truth seeks its own level, like water . . . .
I personally think the CCSS needs major tweaking and field testing. To throw it out altogether is only warranted if is is not tweaked and tested by educators and cognitive scientists. But good luck in getting that done because Washington and the NGA are too incompetent, narcissistic, and corrupt.
I do no generally encourage opting out of all tests. But I absolutely encourage parents and stake holders to exercise their civil and constitutional first amendment right and responsibility of advocating for what they believe to be true, pure, and right, and they should act upon their beliefs. They are doing so to protect their children now and their children’s future.
The fight is not over. . . . . put up your dukes . . . .
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We went to see “American Sniper” yesterday. Now, that is putting up your dukes.
:o)
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I do think there is hope, but I don’t agree that this Common Core is worth saving in any form.
However, if this Common Core was totally trashed, and then real educators from the bottom up from every state in the union were involved in creating a totally new common core with 4 million teachers voting on acceptance of the final product when they are done, and then using them as teachers see fit like it’s done Finland, that might work.
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I agree, Lloyd. Every teacher should have had a dominant voice in writing the CCSS.
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CC standards CANNOT be “tweaked”.
The founders intentionally excluded any mechanism for revision, improvement, or change.
Sorry RR, NO TWEAKING allowed.
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I agre, NY Teacher.
I did say they SHOULD be, not that they are going to be. . . but since this may not be allowed by law, as they are proprietary intellectual property owned by a group, it would violate copyright.
I do like the idea of all kids coming out with a uniform excellent education, and whether a common core, ANY common core, would add to that remains to be found. It certainly is not the only or even main factor.
Almost all writers of the CCSS never taught or had been out of the classroom 9 to 15years when they were chosen to begin the drafting . . . .
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I think being too uniform is dangerous. Letting teachers have the freedom to teach without a controlling script introduces individuality to students.
Education Next.org reported that “NEA members lean no further to the left than any other large group of Americans. The national union conducts periodic internal surveys to ascertain member attitudes on a host of issues. These surveys are never made public, and results are tightly controlled, even within the organization. The 2005 NEA survey, consistent with previous results, found that members “are slightly more conservative (50%) than liberal (43%) in political philosophy.”
What that tells us that the average public school student has about 42 different teachers (or more) k to 12. That means those students will be exposed to teachers who are liberal, progressive, moderate, conservative, Tea Party and independent thinkers in addition to whatever their parents think.
If these teachers are monitored by a camera and required to teach rigidly to a script, then the children will only hear what the script writers want them to hear while big brother watches the teachers to make sure they don’t influence the children to think on their own.
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this is a reply to Lloyd’s last comment on the statistical likelihood that my child might be taught by a conservative or a tea-partier… I dont want my child taught by people of conservative, libertarian or tea party persuasions… I want my children taught by progressives…
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As a parent you have a lot of power in requesting the teachers that your child might end up with.
I suggest you meet with the appropriate grade level counselor/administrator at each school—and at every grade level—your child attends and inquire, each year, who those teachers are that are closest to the progressive teacher you want your child to be influenced by.
Scheduling children into classes usually starts before the previous school year ends so don’t wait to make that appointment, and, if you have to, become aggressive and proactively if the cooperation isn’t there—nonviolent of course.
By aggressive, I mean being willing to stand up and address the democratically elected school board and writing letters to local elected state legislators and your local Congressmen, the state’s governor, the state’s Secretary of Education and the state’s two senators to the U.S. Congress. Don’t leave anyone out of your protest if you aren’t not getting the cooperation you want for your child.
There is a lot of truth to the old saying that the squeaky wheel gets the grease.
For instance, when our daughter was in K – 12, I did not hesitate to contact one of her public school principals to get action when I felt it was necessary and when the principal was hesitant to cooperate, I threatened—and meant it—going to the school board and writing all those letters. For me, it worked and I never had to address an elected school board but I only had to do this twice.
Remember this, administrators, at least in California, don’t have the same due process protections that teachers have and can easily lose their job and even have their contract cancelled with an early buy out—I saw it happen at least twice when I was teaching. For this reason, administrators tend to work with parents because they don’t want that noisy wheel squeaking in front of the elected school board.
:o)
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Robert,
“I do like the idea of all kids coming out with a uniform excellent education,. . . ”
If I may correct that to: “I do like the idea of all kids coming out with an excellent education. . . ”
Uniform, absolutely not!! (and I know you know that children do not come in standard/uniform sizes).
Duane
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Duane,
I think a child who grow up with a quality education graduates from high school a proficient reader—not intermediate, basic or below basic—who loves to read books and reads about 10 annually. In other words, an avid reader.
The results of standardized tests will never achieve this goal. To achieve this goal, children must be introduced to books as early as age 2, and their parents must be part of the process.
In addition, proficient and avid readers are automatically life-long learners even if they never go to college.
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I support Senator Lopez.
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I support Senator Lopez and this bill.
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It’s great that a Democratic state senator is proposing this. Many people still think only right wing Republicans want to eliminate Common Core.
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Strange bedfellows, progressives and conservatives, but whatever reason, these unfair tests need to go! The Common Core is huge waste of money and time.
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“Broken Eggs”
Common Core upon the wall
Common Core about to fall
All of Bill’s dollars and all of Bill’s men
Can not put Core together again
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Love it.
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“A lie cannot live”. -MLK.jr. I’m waiting for school reform to die. It’s been a long, slow death.
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Laureen, please don’t wait for it to die. I appeal to your noble side and ask that you fight it along side with the rest of us and slay it.
Simply use the truth of inequality as your weapon . . . .
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“…but the Democratic-controlled State Senate has not confirmed her because she has no teaching experience as the law requires.”
^^^ Isn’t this the point at which they go behind locked doors at midnight or on a holiday and pass new laws so she can be confirmed? Isn’t that how the lawless pigs do it?
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That’s what happened in Utah. Until two years ago, it was required that the state superintendent be a licensed teacher. That was revoke by the state legislature, and now we have a superintendent with no education experience, except talking a high poverty district, of which he was a board member, into taking him as their superintendent. He managed to run 40% of the teachers out in three years, and now he’s in charge of all of us.
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Skandera, as you know, is not a license Teacher or School Administrator at any level. Never taught a day in a classroom. Does not have the skills needed to manage a classroom full of student eager learn.
By NM Constitution a person must be a fully qualified School Administrator to hold the position of Secretary of Education. Governor Martinez was well aware of that Skandera did not meet these Constitutional requirements.
Skandera is running off Teachers and School Administrators left and right. Experience Teachers are retiring early or moving to other states to work. Classroom Teachers are telling their students not to consider attending NM Colleges of Education in order to fulfill their desires to be a Teacher.
Skandera has demoralized, belittled, disrespected, and ignored our Professional Educators since the first day she took office. Skandera is destroying NM Public Education in NM so she can satisfy her big corporate friends and her buddy Jeb Bush.
It is time NM legislators stand up with enough intestinal fortitude to force Governor Martinez to fire Skandera. But that would mean Governor Martinez would have to have the same level of intestinal fortitude to do so.
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It is about time New Mexico gets on the dump Common Core bandwagon. Other state legislatures and governors have already jumped ship when it comes to the totally unproven tax wasting educational disasters. Senator Lopez has been the lead NOT to confirm Secretary of Education Designee Skandera and now she is lead on getting rid of Common Core. Let’s just hope the major of legislators have the intestinal fortitude to support her actions. Of course, Governor Martinez will probably veto any bill that gets rid of Common Core. Martinez would not be able to go up against all the big corporates and donors who supported her election as Governor and who are at the same time pushing Common Core and privatization of public schools. Martinez has to think about her future at the end of these next four years and not the students of New Mexico who she will leave behind without a second thought.
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I agree that we must abandon Common Core as it is today, however, if we don’t have a replacement, we are spitting into the wind.This can not be about abandoning issues like accountability totally. It’s about fair accountability on an even playing field for educators and kids.
It’s about taking kids from where they are to their future on their pathway to success where failure is a positive thing and the child’s next best teacher, where education is not cheapened by a narrow scope but broadened to be a stepping stone for a child’s future
Too much to write here so I did it in a book which is available today for pre sale. Go to http://www.wholechildreform.com
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C’mon, if New Mexico had the common core when Jesse Pinkman and Tuco Salamanca were in school they would have turned out fine.
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Who?
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I support Senator Lopez and this bill.We NEED OUR STUDENTS TO PREVAIL NOT FAIL.
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It’s about time! I supported Senator Lopez in her gubernatorial bid. Unfortunately, she lost out to name recognition. You go, Senator!
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You are doing a great job Senator Lopez.
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