June 13^th Cape Henlopen School Board meeting

Last Thursday, June 13^th, the Cape Henlopen School Board met at Beacon Middle School in Lewes.  The meeting’s main focus, at least for the majority of those in attendance was a presentation followed by discussion and a vote on a proposed resolution asking the State legislature to opt Delaware out of “Common Core”.  This was the 3^rd meeting in the district where Common Core was discussed.  I attended the first meeting where this resolution was first brought up and noted that there appeared to be two Board members in support of the resolution (Jen Burton and Sgt. Brittingham) with the President of the Board, Andy Lewis appearing to be on the fence and both Dr. Posner and Dr. Wilkinson against the measure.  Mr. Prettyman who was not in attendance on the 13^th was noncommittal about the resolution during the first meeting.  The process of passing a measure in the school district is to bring up the measure at 3 consecutive meetings, one to introduce the proposal, one for a presentation on the proposal and the final as a vote on the proposal.  The attendance was good, standing room only and it was soon apparent that the makeup was about ¾ in favor of the resolution and ¼ against it.  The
Board however, would prove to be a much different story.  Once the subject of Common Core was
introduced at the meeting, the presentation presenter took the floor.  Her name was Whitney Neal, a teaching veteran
from Texas with 5 years of experience among all aspects of the student spectrum
and a former Social Studies department head.
She also happens to be the “Director of Grassroots” at
Freedomworks.  Whitney’s presentation
laid out the facts about Common Core, often using language taken directly from
the documents sanctioned by the creators of the system.  She displayed the special interest
connections, the federal government encroachment and the loss of local control
sure to come from Common Core.  The moans,
groans, and gasps from the assembled crowd were audible but unfortunately must
of it seemed lost on the majority of the Board.
After the presentation, the floor was opened to comments.  First up was Maria Evans, who assaulted Ms.
Neal for pointing out the special interest group involvement while being from a
special interest group herself (it wasn’t until the end of her comments that
Maria let it slip that she herself is a special interest group LOBBYIST).  Maria also saw fit to call out the handful of
us who had come from across the state to support the effort by School Board
member Sandi Minard to draw attention to Common Core.  She even made a direct reference to me when she
called out that “we even have people here from as far away as New Castle
County…who have no skin in the game here…”.
Since I did not speak (nor was I planning to) that night but was
mentioned by Maria, I thought that I would take just a moment to explain a few
things.  First of all, Common Core and
Race to the Top are federally funded programs which technically means that
every citizen in the country who pays taxes has “skin in the game” even if it’s
just a little.  Second, Delaware collects
a good chunk of our state tax revenues and applies them to education needs
across our state (contrary to popular belief, local tax revenues don’t even
come close to covering the bill for our schools) so all Delaware residents “have skin in the
game”.  Finally, while it’s true that my
direct family lives in Newark, my parents live in Lewes, as does my sister and
her 4 children who all attend Cape Henlopen schools.  My attendance at the meeting, while in
support of Ms. Minard, was also as a voice for my parents, my sister and my 4
nieces and nephews whose futures I very much care about.  So while you may not THINK that I have “skin
the game” Maria, I assure you, I have my share.
She was followed by a teacher, Ms. Kristin Gray.  Ms. Gray is a highly decorated union representative
and math teacher in the Cape School District who had a prepared attack on Ms.
Neal’s presentation (which was odd since the presentation hadn’t been seen by
anyone in Delaware until that night and these remarks were clearly prepared
ahead of time).  Ms. Gray began with a
theatrical walk through the vocabulary of “Common Core” and the basic gist of
her argument was that people keep addressing Common Core “Curriculum” (even
though Whitney was careful to explain in her presentation that indeed, the discussion
was about the standards) when Common Core State Standards was what she felt
should be discussed.  Her goal was to
separate standards, assessments and curriculum as if you could possibly have
one without the others.  What good are
standards without assessments to measure progress towards them and what good
are standards and assessments if you’re not teaching material that is aligned
to them?  She even praised Jason Zimba,
writer of the Common Core Math Standards as she was citing the rigor of standards
(Zimba told the Massachusetts
Board of Education that the standards weren’t sufficient for access to a four
year University).  It was perhaps the
most disingenuous and convoluted argument in favor of Common Core that I’ve
heard but one that had obviously been prepared ahead of time, likely with some
assistance from her friends at the DSEA who are very much in support of Common
Core and Race to the Top as they stand to make a great deal of money out of the deal.  After Ms. Gray and Maria
had spoken, the remainder of the speakers were largely in favor of calling for
the state to reject Common Core, including Delaware “Mother of the Year” Luann
Reilly who lives just a few miles outside the Cape Henlopen boundaries (and as
Maria Evans’ was heard snorting with disdain, is “a homeschool mom”).  Finally, Larry Mayo read from a late 1800’s
catechism used by American 8^th graders that left even the highly
educated on the Board, at the District staff table and in the audience
scratching their collective heads, proving once again just how far American
education has fallen in the last 125 years. After public comments, the Board
moved to the business of the matter which was a motion to approve a resolution
calling on the state legislature to pull out of Common Core.  Looking back to the first meeting, the crowd
certainly expected a vote on the measure and potentially a close one.  They were disappointed.  The measure was brought to the floor but
there was not even a second for the measure.
The two Board members who had spoken out at the first meeting, Sgt.
Brittingham and Jen Burton, waffled in their retreats from their previous
position.  And Board President Andy Lewis
joined Jen Burton with strikingly similar near tear renditions of their own
family experiences with the new curriculum (which couldn’t exist according to
Common Core supporters since Common Core is just standards).   I sympathized with both of them as I
listened to them describe how their children, who previously struggled and who
now found themselves performing better.
I have a child who has been diagnosed with ADHD and who has struggled
over the years in school and I too have seen an improvement in his test scores
this year.  I have also however, noticed
that there was an awful lot of “review” this year and coverage of core tasks
that he had already covered in previous years.
In addition, I noticed many more accommodations were taking place (like
calculators for math portions so as not to bog down children with the basics of
mathematics).  This might seem like a good idea on its face but it presents challenges that we’ve all faced at one time or
another, like being able to make change when the computerized register breaks
down.  Kids who form solid basic skills
and refine them through their school careers will be able to calculate your
total, subtract from the amount you present and count out the correct amount of
change without much delay while those who’ve been used to calculators for all
that “easy stuff” will reach for YOUR fingers and toes to get the answer.  I’m not suggesting that either Mrs. Burton or
Mr Lewis’ children (or mine for that matter) would necessarily fall into the
latter category but let’s face it, the potential exists.  See, the problem with Common Core (and other
national education reform movements has never been whether kids could succeed,
but rather whether ALL KIDS could be sufficiently challenged to improve.  Inevitably, some will be challenged and some
will be bored when you try to create a one size fits all system.  The question remained, was it the final
report cards and personal experiences of the Board that led them to backpedal
on what had appeared to be a close decision previously?  I’m not so sure.  The DSEA and state Department of Education
have been in a full court press mode to reign in rogue school boards who dare
question Race to the Top and Common Core.
In the Christina School District (where, Maria Evans, I DO have direct
skin in the game), the state Department of Education has cracked down when
board members wisely began asking too many questions about Race to the Top and
its demands.  I’m inclined to believe
that a similar tactic was employed in the Cape District.  The DSEA has dozens of trained Common Core
“salespeople” like Ms. Gray who they call upon in situations where school
boards need to be spoken to.  They know
that school boards by and large defer to the teachers as opposed to the parents
that elect them and at whose pleasure they serve.  My guess is that they used misdirection (such
as: these are standards…not curriculum) and misinformation (one board member
was told that Cape Henlopen School District did not share any data with the state when in fact every district in the state reports data back to the state Department of Education) to sway board members away.  Fair enough if you’re not interested in the truth.  Those of us that are, are still trying to figure out why all this stuff was shoved in the back door while we weren’t paying attention.

Delaware Governor, Jack Markell’s administration has proposed “giving” eight million dollars to the struggling Delaware casinos.

And with that sentence we have now entered the insane world of big government.

Insane you say? Why? Well because for the state to give money to the casinos to help them through their current short fall, between revenue and cost, the state first had to take the money from the casinos, at a rate of around 45% of the profits that the casinos manage to take in. When you add in the licensing fees that the state requires the casinos to pay, just to operate, the percentage is much higher.

So the state is not giving the money to the casinos, the state is giving the money, “BACK”, to the casinos. Now if you don’t think that is insane, consider the fact that after giving the eight million dollars back to the casinos, the state will in turn take their 45% cut of future profits again.

The word you are seeking to describe this, is incestuous.

One way to look at this, is that the state of Delaware will give back $8,000,000.  to the casinos, of which, they will then tax at a rate of 45%, for a total of $3,600,000., leaving the casinos with a bailout of actually only $4,400,000., but maybe that is all they need to get back on their feet.

This Markell idea, harkens back to all of the “Too Big To Fail” bailout schemes we have seen from big government in the past. Instead of actually lowering the rate of taxation, which is in large part what is causing the casinos to struggle, the government retains control of the enterprise through manipulation.

Now to further deepen the sense of insanity, let us also consider that we have been told by the Markell administration, and its supporters, that we should build three new casinos in the state of Delaware to offset the loss of revenue to surrounding states.

Excuse my acronym, but WTF?

So, the casinos are struggling because of increased competition from outside the state, not the high rate of taxation by the state, (YEAH RIGHT!), to the point of needing a bailout from the very thug government that steals their revenue every year, and the thug government’s answer is not to lower that high rate of theft, but to build more casinos, i.e. competition, within the state. Shut the front door!

If it is not insanity to, on the one hand, say that the casinos are struggling because of competition, and on the other, to say the way to offset that competition, is to create more competition, then what is insanity?

The very fact that the creation of casinos in bordering states has lowered the revenue from the Delaware casinos demonstrates what I, and others have said all along, there are just so many gambling dollars out there to be spent, and building new locations will not increase that number.

To build more locations will only increase the cost to the owners and to the state who regulates them. Neither will building more locations increase the tax revenue the state receives, again because the limited number of gambling dollars will simply be spread out over more locations, and with the increased cost of regulating more locations, the state will actually see less of a revenue stream.

The answer is not to increase the number of locations, the answer is not to bail out the casinos with money that was taken from them in the first place. The answer is for the state to get out of this un-holy partnership with what should be a wholly private enterprise.

The state should instead of this 45% racketeering rate of taxation, should tax the casinos at the same rate as any other business, and its only involvement in that business should be to regulate it, the same as bars and liquor stores are regulated.

Finally, imagine how many new small businesses could be helped to start-up with low-interest loans from this $8,000,000. ? Of course, imagine how many small businesses could have been helped with low-interest loans from the $20,000,000. wasted on the Fisker fiasco that the Markell administration perpetrated early on in its first term.  A fiasco that DEDO Director Alan Levin once said that they would do again, even after it had become apparent that Fisker would never produce a single car in the state of Delaware.

The Markell administration and the Democrats that have supported it, have shown no skill or ability to create an environment in which new businesses or jobs can be created, they have however shown the ability to waste tax payer dollars, and this latest “IDEA” to bail out the casinos is but another in that long line of bad choices.

Common Core (also called the Common Core State Standards Initiative) is the latest in a long line of federally backed national education programs.  The concept of creating a national education system, with a single set of standards,  that can be equally applied in Brooklyn, NY; Culver City, CA and Ocala, FL is not new, it stretches back to the 1960’s.  Then, it was Project Talent, in the 90’s we called it Outcome-Based Education, later “Goals 2000”, then No Child Left Behind and now Race to the Top and Common Core have become the flavor of choice of the progressive reformers. Each time one of these “reforms” has been tried, it’s failed to produce the promised results, and each time the individuals promoting these “reforms” learn a little more about how to repackage the same product.  By now, the creators of these “one size fits all” plans have realized that even in today’s more collectivist minded society, people don’t want the federal government digging into their local business and so they have developed a reform plan that sounds local but acts nationally.  What do I mean?

Well, let’s take the name, “Common Core State Standards Initiative”.  It sounds like the states got together and agreed on common standards right?  Well, that’s how the creators describe it but the reality is much different.  The standards were developed and written by a small group brought together by McGraw-Hill Executive David Coleman.  Coleman then used his political and big business connections to rope in two of the world’s richest education reformers and corporations to gather the influence needed to push these standards through the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers.  Once those two organizations were on board, Coleman used the money invested by the Gates and Broad Foundation (Bill Gates and Eli Broad are billionaire education activists from the west coast who combined to donate more than $60 million to the Common Core program) to bring the teachers unions and groups like the PTA on board.  Simultaneously, Broad and Gates connected individuals found themselves in key positions in the Obama Administration (like Joanne Weiss, the Director of Race to the Top who is deeply connected to the Broad Foundation) and Race to the Top was born.  Race to the Top was designed as a program to get states to buy-in to a set of national standards that they likely otherwise would never have agreed to.  States were not involved in writing the standards and while the group did submit the standards to the state boards of education for review and feedback, there’s no evidence that any of the feedback given (of which there is extensive evidence) was considered in the final copyrighted set of standards.  Likewise, the standards are copyrighted by the group that wrote them and states are not allowed to modify or change them although they may add another 15% to the top.

But Evan, they’re just “standards” right?  So what?  There’s a couple of concerns with ANY federal intervention, especially “just standards”.  I’ll explain.  First of all, there’s MUCH more involved here than JUST standards, even though most of the proponents will do their absolute best to convince you otherwise (including a rather flamboyant though completely wrong teacher at the Cape School Board meeting on June 13th).  After all, what are “standards”?  Webster’s says that they are, “something set up and established by authority as a rule for the measure of quantity, weight, extent, value or quality. “  Well, how can you judge the quality of standards without a test or assessment?  You can’t, which is why the federal government isn’t just supporting standards, they’ve also allocated money ($360 million) to create assessments to measure those standards.  Two different consortia
(PARCC and SBAC) have been established to create a new series of assessments
designed to gauge a student’s progress toward grasping “Common Core”
standards.  These, “Common Core aligned
assessments” will replace the old testing systems as the new form of
standardized testing that we keep hearing is such a negative impact on student
learning (teaching to the tests is always cited as the reason for such poor
performance).  Of course, now that you
have a nationally developed set of standards and a national assessment system,
you can’t keep using the same curriculum.
Obviously
the new standards are an improvement over the current standards so it must them
mean that the curriculum will have to be “aligned” to meet the standards which
are evaluated by the assessments.  Second,
let’s assume for a moment that this is JUST about standards and not the
assessments that you need to measure progress towards the standards or the curriculum
that you need to ensure that students meet the standards and pass the
assessments.  The question then becomes,
are these standards rigorous?  Have they
been validated?  Is there evidence that
they work?  The answer to all of those
questions, by any objective viewpoint is no.
Leading educators in the English Language Arts and Mathematics fields
who were on the validation committee for Common Core refused to sign off on
them because there were no examples showing that they actually worked.  Dr. Sandra Stotsky (who developed the
standards for Massachusetts that are some of the best in the nation) refused to
sign off on Common Core and said, “I kept asking for information on the research base for the English
Language Arts standards that were being developed… and I couldn’t get any
information at all. There was no evidence from any kind of research that a
stress on informational reading and writing would prepare students better for
college level work than an emphasis on… complex literary texts.”  Likewise, one of the head writers of the math
standards, Jason Zimba, told the Massachusetts Board
of Education that the Common Core Standards were only acceptable for entrance into a nonselective community college, not a four year university and represented the very bottom of what should be expected.  Ze’ev Wurman, a math validation committee member who refused to sign off on Common Core Standards said “In terms of college readiness, its content is far below what is presently expected for college eligibility, which will create unreasonable expectations by parents and pressure on state universities to admit underprepared students.”

Conservatives need to focus. There is all this fake outrage about the President’s African trip and the cost. Where was the outrage when former Pres. Bush went to the African continent twice, and First lady Laura Bush went five times, including taking the girls and going on a safari as well. These are good will trips that all presidents take, and yes it is a perk of the office for the family as well. Instead of conservatives feigning outrage, maybe we should focus on the facts that the economy is still growing at far too slow a pace, that unemployment is still far too high, and that President Obama cannot run for re-election and all of this focus on his African trip is wasted. We conservatives are counting pennies as the nation is bleeding trillions. The petty finger-pointing on this one makes conservatives look foolish. Stick to taxes, jobs, the economy, and the scandals, and work to elect the most conservative person possible. The good news is that the president is term limited.

Another event was organized to allow elected officials to come into the community and meet with the voters. It was only a few months ago that a similar event was staged in Bridgeville, this time it was held at Abbott’s Grille in Milford.

To broaden the number of people who could see this it was broadcast by Catch it Live .com, which is the project of Jim Weller and Collin Walls, the event was a joint effort of Catch It Live and Delaware Right, in an effort to improve the communication between elected officials and the voters.

While this event was slightly more formal than the one in Bridgeville, it was still meant to be casual.

It was moderated by Jack Riddle who is the Vice-president of The Community Bank, and he did a fine job on introducing the participants and giving some background on each.

The media was also represented in this event by radio talk show host Dan Gaffney from Delaware 105.9, and Doug Denision from the Wilmington News Journal, these two asked the questions of the officials.

The elected officials present included Rep. Ruth Briggs-King (R), Sen. Gary Simpson (R), Rep. John Atkins (D), and Rep. Dave Wilson (R).

The main topics covered were education, transportation, public safety, agriculture and of course jobs.

All who participated were respectful and friendly and we all left with a better idea of some of the real challenges facing the state when it comes to passing a budget.

The night was topped off with Sussex Clerk of the Peace John Brady (D) and former gubernatorial candidate Jeff Cragg (R) doing a round-up section for Catch It Live.com.

I would like to say that I personally think Rep. Dave Wilson had the best moment of the night when the topic drifted from jobs in general to talking about the Markell administration’s complete failure in the Fisker deal.

Rep. Wilson pointed out that in his opinion the state of Delaware would be far better off if in his words, the state wouldn’t, “put all its eggs in one basket”, when it comes to helping to create new jobs. He feels that instead of dumping millions of tax dollars into one big company, which if it fails, the state loses all of the money and creates no jobs, it would be better to create an environment where twenty of thirty small companies can start-up, and if even two or three percent, even if fifty percent fail, you still have created new companies and new jobs and helped to grow the economy.

Rep. Wilson was the only elected official of the night to receive a spontaneous applauds for this view.

The event was about and hour and a half long and I would most likely miss something important if I tried to re-cap the entire night so here is the video. Pay special attention near the end when all of the officials comment on their opinions about the amount of social issues being passed this session, such as gay marriage and gun laws.

Delaware Right and Catch it Live would like to thank all who participated, and we hope that in the future we can replicate these events all over the state, not just in Sussex County. We can accomplish more by communicating than we can by shouting.

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