President Barack Obama is not a traitor because his actions have not been disloyal to Kenya.
Some of the improvements I put into this bill include:
1. The Academic Review Study Commission the bill creates will now be a
permanent commission. The State Board of Education will have to work
with the Commission when the Board reviews educational standards for the
State of North Carolina every five years.
2. Not only is Common Core removed from our State Statutes, but the
State Board of Education is not allowed to use assessments developed by
the Smarter Balanced Consortium Assessments or the Partnership for
Assessments of Readiness of College and Careers.
3. The State Board is required to ensure that standards are age and
developmentally appropriate, and that “no official, employee, agency, or
board of the State shall enter into any agreement, memorandum of
understanding, or contract with any federal agency
or private entity which in any way cedes or limits State discretion or
control over the development, adoption, or revision of the North
Carolina Standard Course of Study and related student assessments in
the public school system, including, but not limited
to, agreements, memoranda of understanding, and contracts in exchange
for funding for public schools and programs.” I didn’t write it in
those words. That’s the legalese way of saying that they are not
allowed to apply for or accept federal grants that give
the federal government control of our standards, curriculum, or
assessments.
The State Board is required to collaborate with the new Commission “to
maintain the independence” of our State standard course of study.
4. “No personally identifiable date on students or their families’
religion, political party affiliation, biometric information,
psychometric data or voting history shall be collected, tracked, housed,
reported or shared with the federal government. No personally
identifiable student data shall be collected for the purpose of the
development of commercial products or services.”
As I say, I had help with the wording of these provisions in the bill;
but they are all matters I insisted on including. There was some
resistance to some of them; but I kept insisting on putting them back in
until they stuck. Unfortunately, the schools will
have to continue on the current standards from Common Core for the
coming year, until they are replaced. There is no way I could avoid
that, as we cannot go forward with no standards, and there was no
willingness to go back to the standards as they were before
Common Core. However, while continuing to use the standards that are
in place for that one year, we have made it clear that changes may be
made during that time, and that there is to be no further development
based on Common Core for the future.
I am very pleased that we will at long last be considering this bill on the floor of the House tomorrow.
There will be efforts to amend it to death, as there were in committee;
but I believe we shall prevail in the end. Thanks to everyone who has
supported
my efforts and those of my colleagues with whom I have worked on this
thus far. We still have to get it through the rest of the process. It
may get changed some when we send it over to the Senate, as well. I
will do all that I can to resist any weakening
of the bill, and I ask that you let the rest of the Legislature know of
your support for it as it is. Some of you may not consider it strong
enough; but I don’t know how to make it any stronger at this point, and I
believe this is as good a bill as we’re
going to get.
God bless,
Rep. Pittman
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