Anti-Common Core Coalition Puts Heat on Rick Scott, Pam Stewart

Florida Stop Common Core Coalition is putting pressure on Gov. Rick Scott and Pam Stewart over its disappointment about statements from Stewart on Florida's educational standards. On Friday,theFlorida Stop Common Core Coalition, a statewide coalition representing dozens of organizations and hundreds of thousands of Floridaparents and citizens,sent a letter to the governor with copies to Commissioner Stewart, Board of Education Chairman Gary Chartrand, and the Legislature. The letter expressed disappointment over recent statements made by Stewart and the set hearings that would allow members of the public to give their input on Florida's education standards.

"Despite repeatedassurances from your office that these hearings would be open and transparent and a good-faith effort to really changethe standards, it appears that the citizens of Florida are going to be played once again," read the letterto the governor.

In its letter, the FSCCC pointed to several reasons why the scheduled public hearings wouldn't be able to adequately gather public input on Florida's academic standards. Stewart made statements to the press that although there will be public hearings on the standards, she expects them to change very little. FSCCC also raised concerns that parents will only have three minutes to raise their concerns about education standards, "forcing them to wade through hundreds ofpages of standards documents and become pedagogical experts in order to advocate for their children."

The length of the hearings was also raised as an issue for FSCCC, who said three hours per hearing just won't give the public and experts enough time to testify about potential flaws of the standards or raise concerns about data privacy and testing.

Co-founder of the FSCCC, Dr. Karen Effrem, warned Scott about the potential backlash of coming to a predetermined outcome before members of the public were allowed to give their input on the standards

"If you really want the things you put in your order and letters to happen and be effective, the hearings truly need to be open and transparent. You need to stop supporting the corporate interests that are manipulating Floridas education system for their profit at the expense of our children," read the letter. "And you need to see that Representative Mayfields bill, HB 25, is faithfully carrying out the concepts that you say you wanted in those documents. Otherwise, be prepared for a major backlash."

Common Core State Standards are set to be fully implemented in Florida's schools by the 2014-2015 school year.