UnitED For Florida Children

We don’t have time to play these games!

I can’t say you weren’t warned.

By Laura McCrary
Founder, United for FL Children

Parents, I Cannot Protect Your Children –    I will do my best. But my best isn’t good enough – and I think that is the point I really want to make here…”  ~ (Peggy Robertson)

I am going to be blunt here.  If parents don’t wake up and take a stand right now, this year, we will only have ourselves to blame.  Ask yourself this.  How do you see education in four to six years?  I can promise you it won’t be the friendly teacher driven classrooms we are seeing today.  Changes are being made from the top down right now as you are reading this, and it isn’t pretty.  It is called Competency Based Education (also known as Competency Based Learning, Outcome Based Education, Personalized Learning, and Performance Based Education to name a few).

In theory, the idea behind Competency Based Education (CBE) isn’t all bad.  According to the Kentucky Department of Education, CBE is “a method that focuses on mastering specific skills or standards rather than completing course work over a specific period of time.”  However, the people who are voting this in, did not take minorities, English Language Learners, and ESE students into account.   In fact ,they were not thinking about the children at all.  CBE is a corporate driven movement by a vast network of foundations, think tanks, and governmental groups.

The following excerpt was taken from Peter Greene’s blog Curmudgucation, titled Selling Competency Based Education:

“This was bad enough when it was the focus of a once-a-year Big Standardized Test. But look at what Pearson envisions as its “Balanced Assessment System.” Their system features six types of assessment, including formative of which they say “This happens every day!” Yes, it’s all assessment, all the time.”

Yes, that is daily testing they are talking about. And, we think the yearly tests are bad!

The achievement gap will grow tremendously, and the need for qualified teachers will come to an end. How do you feel about the primary teacher being a computer program, tracking your child’s progress on every standard all day long?  So, you say that can never happen?  We will always need teachers in the classroom, and a computer will never take over the teacher’s job.  Hmmm…

This article  states,

“Desperate school leaders are already having to turn to unqualified staff to take lessons. As the teacher shortage and the pupil increase take hold, this will only get worse, creating a pincer movement that has the classroom teacher in its sights.”

The result will be that teachers will be phased out of the classroom, replaced not by technology but by default. And while there is no doubt that technology will have a crucial role to play in the classroom of the future, if this is the way forward then we need to go into it not with our eyes shut, but fully aware of what it means for our children.”

Let’s look at this from another perspective.

RE: Data Mining and Competency Based Education –   Our children’s personally identifiable information.

Not even the U.S. Department of Education can keep our children’s information safe.  The U.S. Dept. of Education is a prime target of Data Breeches. Please tell me now. Do you trust the state and the district with our children’s personal information with the programs that are in place in your district? If you are not concerned, then go about your business. However, I strongly urge everyone to start watching what is going on here.

Quote: “We don’t have time to play these games.”

This map is from 2014 of states that are already participating in Competency Based Education. The states colored in red mean advanced stages; blue developing; green emerging; and striped have select districts participating.

Here is a partial list of some of the states that are in the advanced phase of CBE:

Colorado
Kentucky
Iowa
New Hampshire
Ohio
Oregon
Hawaii

I will end with a quote from Peggy Robertson, 

“Now, some might say I exaggerate, but I promise, I don’t. Test prep and common core curriculum come in many disguises. Publishers and those who write this curriculum are slick at embedding test prep into the curriculum. They are slick at trying to convince teachers and the public that this is good for children.”

I cannot say you were not warned.  We must put an end to this now. Who will join me?   We are announcing a call to action within the next week, so please stay tuned!

Please join us at United for Florida Children, by liking and following our page, or by joining our Facebook group.

More articles related to Competency Based Education:

Concerns About Competency Based Education, by Dr. Karen Effrem

Gates: Funding Reform for Longer Than You Think, by Emily Talmage

COMPETENCY BASED EDUCATION: Destroying Public Schools One Profitable Data Point at a Time, by Sue Kingery Woltanski

CBE Online is Neither Personalized Nor Higher-Order Thinking!, by Nancy Bailey

Breaking Down the Walls for CBE, by Peter Greene

Competency Based Learning, Online Education and Lamar Alexander’s ESEA Revisions, by Morna McDermott

CBE & The Data Bottleneck, by Peter Greene

“Parents, I cannot protect your children. I must be honest in telling you that the war is alive and well in our classrooms, and children are being harmed every day. What is happening is evil, cruel and abusive. Refuse the tests and deny the corporations the profit, deny the district, state and federal government your child’s data (which they can share with corporations), deny the publishing companies the opportunity to create more common core products.  Without the data, the profit ends and we have an opportunity to reclaim our public schools, our profession. We have an opportunity to do what is right for all children.  I am done smiling and saying, I am doing my best. I’m not.”  ~Peggy Robertson