Here’s another reason to vote Saturday:
BESE will just be more of the same – or worse – if the billionaires win
LFT President calls out The Advocate on Common Core editorial
LFT President Steve Monaghan has chided the editors of The Advocate for an editorial challenging the widespread belief that Common Core standards were implemented poorly and with inadequate resources, by the State Department of Education.
The Advocate cited a claim by The Council for a Better Louisiana that the shoddy launch of Common Core standards was the fault of local school systems, and not the Department of Education or Board of Elementary and Secondary Education.
“It’s easy to blame the state for failing implementation,” said The Advocate. “That’s convenient, but it dodges the fact that it is local districts and schools who were in charge of implementation, and got years of notice that new standards would be required.” Monaghan was quick to set the record straight.
“Try as The Advocate might to cover the Common Core controversies with a fig leaf,” Monaghan wrote in this editorial reply, “the fact remains that the new standards were implemented so poorly and unevenly as to guarantee the suspicions and cognitive dissonance that still haunt Common Core today.”
Six candidates for seats on the state board have agreed that “the standards were poorly implemented by the state, not by teachers, local schools or school boards but by the Louisiana Department of Education,” Monaghan wrote.
Giving a short history lesson, Monaghan reminded The Advocate that, “As soon as the new standards were approved by the state board in 2010, those who steered the ship turned their attention away from Common Core and sailed away and on to vouchers, the radical expansion of charter schools and a teacher evaluation revamp that promises to be in perpetual revision.”
The state’s promises to provide support, resources and curricula were quickly broken.
As an example, Monaghan wrote, “As school opened in 2013, some districts reported that they were instructed to go online and copy the New York state math curriculum. Math teachers struggled to learn in just a few days an entirely new teaching system.”
“It’s not the fault of kids, their parents, our teachers or school districts,” Monaghan wrote. “Common Core has become a controversy because those in charge chose ‘all of the above’ as their answer to everything and ‘none of the above’ in regard to their responsibilities.”
In conclusion, Monaghan urged readers to become informed and vote.
Billionaires still bent on buying BESE
Out-of-state billionaires are spending millions of dollars to stack BESE even further in favor of the bogus reforms inflicted on our state by Bobby Jindal, John White and their corporate sponsors. Please visit http://www.itstimelouisiana.com/ to learn which candidates truly support public education.
How much are the billionaires spending on BESE races?
How many out-of-state billionaires are spending millions to buy our state board of education, and who are they spending it on? (HINT: It’s a lot!) Elizabeth Jeffers has the full story here.