The Statewide Meeting on Common Core in Connecticut

Yesterday I attended this meeting, which was held in Wallingford and hosted by the Stop Common Core in CT Facebook page. There were 26 people present.

The meeting started with a welcome by the owner of that page. There was a sign-in sheet, and folders handed out with CC information contained within (see links below). Time was spent reviewing the contents. An Agenda was included, however the meeting came to order 15 minutes after the Agenda indicated it would.

Keynote speaker, Tom McMorran, 2012 Connecticut High School Principal of the year, was scheduled to speak, according to the Agenda, for 45 minutes on "Major Problems With the Common Core". He spoke for 90 minutes, beginning with a summary of the five main arguments that are offered up on the Common Core:

1. We are falling behind
2. Other countries are outscoring us on international exams
3. Only Common Core State Standards can save us
4. With a mobile society state-level education is hard on transient kids
5. We know what kids will need to know and be able to do in the future

and refuted some of those facts with brief facts of his own:

• If Connecticut were a country it would have scored 13th in the world in testing
• Only 80k of the 50 million United States students cross state borders per year [that's 0.16 percent]
• 40 years ago when Mr. Morran was in school they could not have possibly educated him to be prepared for the internet and tech industries, because no one could see that far ahead. So how can we now say that we know what kids will need to know for the future?

Mr. Morran spent quite a bit of time talking about the reality of international testing, including how the US compares to other countries. Then he spoke to the fact that the real problem in the United States, and notably in Connecticut, is racial disparity, saying "It's not an achievement gap, it's a resource gap".

I have to admit that my mind started wandering during the presentation since this was all material that I am familiar with. I did at one point ask if the slides would be available online somewhere (so I wouldn't have to take as many notes) and Mr. Morran replied that he would make the source material available to the meeting hosts to share. After his talk one attendee asked if he could make his presentation available on youtube since she thought it was awesome and needed to be shared, but that is not likely to happen.

For those who are interested in learning about the realities of the international testing and how the US compares with the rest of the world you can see a great video about it here. It covers much of the information Mr. Morran did, in a succinct 22-minutes.

The 15 minute break that was supposed to have happened at 2:00 actually happened at 2:45 and lasted 30 minutes. There was a lovely spread of crudites and cheeses, and plenty of bottled water.

The next speaker came before us an hour after he had been scheduled to. Mr. William Malchisky is a Management Consultant who spoke about "Brainstorming and Problem Solving". Anticipating that there would not be time for the break-out workshop sessions after he spoke, he decided to focus on one of the workshop topics that had been scheduled: Opting out of state testing.

Mr. Malchinsky brainstormed with the attendees and recorded the information on a blackboard (click image to enlarge.)

The upper left quadrant was all of our Strengths, the bottom left represented our Weaknesses, the upper right was Opportunities, and the lower right represented Threats. After we brainstormed ideas without censure we went back and deleted redundancies and items that were not set in reality.

Interestingly, if you look on that lower right quadrant, you will find that Islam is listed as a threat to preventing us from Opting Out of testing here in Connecticut. I was surprised when it was mentioned during the brainstorming part of the presentation, and downright flabbergasted at the response when I suggested it be removed during the censuring later on. A very verbal and vehement third of the attendees insisted that it remain. Mr. Malchinsky suggested that since it was a point of divisiveness that could derail us from our path, that it be removed, but that loud third of the participants would not have it.

Mr. Malchinsky ended his presentation by stating that we would have to finish up the next time we met. His presentation ended 15 minutes after the time the entire meeting was to have ended.

The items on the Agenda that did not get done were the 30-minute break-out workshops, which were entitled Curriculum Critique, PR/Communications, and Datamining, and a 30-minute time period for Q&As and Plans For Next Meeting.

When the meeting broke up I approached the woman who listed Islam as a threat, and asked her if she could please provide me with some resources to look up. She told me to google "Common Core & Islam". I asked her if she knew the names of any individuals who are in Hartford that are a threat to our ability to opt out of testing, and she said that she did not, but that ISNA, the Islamic Society of North America, is very active in pressing for the Common Core. And was I aware of how much Islam is infiltrating our curriculum?

So after our conversation I left understanding that Islam is not a threat to our ability to opt out of testing, but (supposedly) to opt out of Common Core, and that they are taking over our curriculum. Which is not what the presentation was about.

So all-in-all, for me personally, this four hours was not well spent. I learned nothing new but was reminded that too many people are not willing to put their prejudices and politics aside in order to work well with others for a common cause. And unfortunately this could mean that we are still far away from creating a cohesive force to get this thing dismantled in Connecticut.

Although it is my understanding that the meeting held by State Representative Gail Lavielle on Thursday was well attended.


Handouts included:

• Parent Guide to Common Core and High Stakes Testing
• Wanted: Internationally Benchmarked Standards in English, Mathematics, and Science
• Hemingway too easy for fourth graders!? Common Core’s backward reading list
• Six things the Federal Government did to deprive your child of privacy
• Pulling back the curtain on the Common Core
• New Hampshire parent activist Ann Marie Banfield: How we did it
• Anne Gassel’s Common Core Action List
• Kentucky Parent Files Common Core Lawsuit
• Privacy and Consent Concerns Drive InBloom Lawsuit in New York State
• Former Common Core Proponent (Teacher) Explains the True Basis of CCSS