The Common Core State Standards may have initially been accepted when many states agreed to adopt the education initiative in 2010, but the years haven’t necessarily been kind to the education standards -- and five years later, many of its fiercest critics are not backing down from their demands to repeal the standards entirely.
Disgruntled by the lack of response from Gov. Rick Scott and the Florida Department of Education, Florida Parents Against Common Core is ready to make their voice heard in one of the most important states for 2016, and they plan on starting at the very top of the political chain to eradicate Common Core once and for all.
The group, started by four mothers, has quickly become one of the largest organizations against CCSS in Florida, and they’re not afraid to make big moves to
“Florida Parents Against Common Core parents are committed to alleviating the source, the root, the insidious virus of the massively abusive accountability structure - Common Core Standards,” wrote FPACC.
FPACC plans on reaching out to all presidential candidates before the Florida primary, asking all candidates to pledge to end the federal implementation of Common Core if they are elected president.
“Federal coercion combined with state legislature collusion have destroyed meaningful and necessary local control by developing a structural system where co-dependency of mandates, data, funding, waivers, standards, curriculum, and assessments are currently inexplicably & irrevocably tied between local and federal governments,” wrote FPACC.
FPACC’s concerns resonate deeply, especially with conservatives nationwide. Nearly all Republican presidential candidates have distanced themselves from the standards, placing themselves further and further away from an issue many potential voters just aren’t fond of.
Those concerns have trickled down in other states, especially in Florida, which currently uses a Common Core-aligned set of standards to teach its students.
Much of the criticisms against the Common Core-aligned Florida Standards have come from parents, who have expressed deep concerns over the testing process drawn out for the state’s new assessment, the Florida Standards Assessment.
“For parents, testing and assessments, particularly the non-validated and improperly implemented Florida Standards Assessment, institute an environment of punishment versus an environment nurturing learning.” wrote FPACC. “For teachers, unreasonable and out-of-balance accountability measures, focused almost exclusively on student assessment scores, encourage an already acknowledged faulty methodology of ‘teaching to the test.’”
Criticisms of the test erupted early on in the process, with many saying the FSA was improperly implemented and was too rushed to actually be a valid way to test Florida students’ academic achievements. Those criticisms only grew louder after the FSA was riddled with a series of technical glitches which left many students unable to take the test statewide.
Those glitches furthered hesitations from parents who wanted to stop their children from taking the test, beginning a statewide “opt out” movement which has gathered incredible traction over recent months.
Since the standards’ inception, anti-CCSS groups have had fiery exchanges over getting rid of the standards, taking particular aim at the Obama administration as well as the Bush administration for pushing forward with the standards.
“You might say that the Obama administration is lamenting the past 13 years of federal policy, which mandated annual testing, and made test scores the determinative factor in the evaluation of teachers, principals and schools,” wrote education historian Diane Ravitch after the Obama administration acknowledged there was to much testing in the U.S.
But for Ravitch, the Obama administration’s accouncement just couldn’t cut the mustard.
“In short, the Bush-Obama policies have been a disaster,” she said. “This is a classic case of too little, too late.”
State anti-CCSS have urged state lawmakers and state education officials to do more to address concerns that the standards might not be in the best interests of students.
Tailoring standards for each student should be of the utmost importance, say the groups.
“Let’s treat each child like an individual, not with a cookie-cutter one-size-fits-all approach to learning,” wrote FPACC.
