Emily Talmage of Save Maine Schools says goodby (and don’t come back) to the federally-funded Common Core assessments called SBAC (Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium).
It is not a fond farewell.
She writes:
“SBAC, you will not be missed – but rest assured that we will not forget you.
“We will not forget how many hours you took from children so that they could take part in your failed testing experiment.
“We will not forget the way you set our children up to fail – confusing them with strange, multi-part directions that even adults could not decipher; giving them reading passages written for students well beyond their grade level; requiring them to manipulate complicated computer interfaces to answer your questions…
“We will not forget how hard some parents had to fight to protect their children from your nonsense.
“We will not forget the way you hid your profit-seeking makers behind non-profit organizations.
“We will not forget how very expensive you were.”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on Crazy Normal – the Classroom Exposé.
Congratulations to the citizens of Maine for using common sense and scruples to guide their decisions. May they lead other states in throwing off the data driven yoke of standardized testing. Let’s hope they don’t embrace some other way to sort and rank.
So how do they feel about the Common core?
Wish this was nationwide.
Sent from my iPad
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What’s it being replaced with?
How is SBAC surviving with all of the states leaving? Who is footing the bill? Is it CA because it’s at UCLA?
See Mercedes Schneider’s blog: https://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2015/06/22/bill-gates-common-core-spending-an-update/
Bill Gates’ Common Core Spending– An Update
Reblogged this on Exceptional Delaware and commented:
And another state leaves the Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium. Will Delaware be the last, or are there other states more desperate than us?
The fundamental assumption, children’s time is not worth much, so the testing system can use it wastefully. Water is precious in CA. Children’s time is precious. Let the testing companies pay for the time, or go home, to stupidland.
Republican Paul LePage, Maine’s governor, is an acolyte of Jeb! and has imported the worst of FEE’s practice to Downeast. Despite Jeb!, LePage and his entourage are anti Common Core, from the right side of the spectrum, so no SBAC for ME. Makes for interesting times.
Then there’s this: “Source: LePage stopped payment to charter school upon learning of Eves hiring”(Eves is the Democratic House Speaker)
http://bangordailynews.com/2015/06/25/politics/source-lepage-stopped-payment-to-charter-school-upon-learning-of-house-speaker-mark-eves-hiring/?ref=relatedSidebar
And this:
“AUGUSTA, Maine — A day after Gov. Paul LePage told a group of high school students that he would ‘like to shoot’ a Bangor Daily News cartoonist, a top advocate for expanding passenger rail to Lewiston-Auburn said that LePage earlier this month said state lawmakers from Lewiston should be ’rounded up and executed in the public square.’ ”
And finally:
“AUGUSTA, Maine — Six lawmakers said Thursday they will attempt to launch impeachment proceedings against Republican Gov. Paul LePage for his alleged role in pushing Democratic House Speaker Mark Eves out of a new job at Good Will-Hinckley School.”
Guess Chris Christie is a role model, too.
CL, Christie may be a role model but he apparently thinks NJ should have PARCC test but not CCSS??
You are soooo right!!These people have been making kids puke over these trashy tests.Its downright sickening to see how these people watch our kids turn into darn lab rats!!!!!