Please do not support the SB403! I am an Instructional Coach in an Alabama public school. I have 20 years experience in education. I have three of my own children currently attending public school and hundreds of children in my local school for whom I want a quality education. When the Alabama State Department of Education created the College and Career Ready Standards(CCRS) they utilized the Common Core Standards so that our students would not be disadvantaged when competing with students from other states. Our ALSDE did not give up their power to establish what our students need, nor did they abort the right to tailor the standards to our individual state. The decision to incorporate the Common Core standards into our CCRS was the best way to prepare our students for their own post-secondary college or career within, and outside, of our state. Our previous standards were outdated, causing parents to pay thousands of dollars toward remedial college courses. The previous standards did not prepare our students for the next level of education. CCRS is NOT a federal mandate, nor will our student performance data be submitted to the federal government. Those are fear tactics to distract decision makers from the truth.
My school has successfully implemented the new College and Career Ready Standards for Mathematics this year. Our students' performance on problem solving and application has drastically improved from previous years. The CCRS helped our teachers make that happen. My faculty and I have completed an exhaustive search through the College and Career Ready Standards Reading Language Arts this spring in preparation for implementation next year. We are excited about the new standards for our students.
I am overwhelmed with frustration at the amount of misinformation and propaganda with which our political leaders are being bombarded. I assure you, I have read every single CCRS Kindergarten through 12th grade! I have looked very closely at the interpretation and lesson implementation. THERE ARE NOTHING BUT QUALITY EDUCATION STANDARDS LISTED. The document establishes the Anchor Standards for our graduates, then maps out the pathway from kindergarten to ensure their success by 12th grade. There are NO political slants, liberal/conservative twists, democrat/republican viewpoints, nor are there any methods of indoctrinating our students anywhere in the document. Please follow the links below. CCRS is not a form of nationalizing education, yet it does enable our students to be competitive nationally.
Notice, these links are the actual CCRS documents, not an organization's interpretation or misrepresentation of the document! These pdf documents are what the teachers will be using! I will be glad to sit down with any political leader, WITH THE ACTUAL DOCUMENT, and search for what the propaganda is claiming. IT'S NOT THERE!!!
The CCRS opponents, regardless of their passion and motives, are deceiving our decision makers. Please read the CCRS document that is on the ALSDE site. That will be what our teachers implement, nothing more, nothing less! You will NOT find any evidence to support the opposition's claims. If you find something I haven't, PLEASE CALL ME!!! Help me understand why our leaders would be against educational standards that will help Alabama students progress. More importantly, please help all educators understand why our leaders are so vulnerable to fear tactics. Our state has an institution specifically designed to assess and adjust our educational system for the betterment of our citizens. To undermine that process is much more damaging to Alabama schools than stifling quality standards alone.
I plead with you to protect what the Alabama State Department of Education has created for guiding our teachers, administrators and school systems to deliver quality education. CCRS is the vehicle to enable our students to excel now and in their future. My children and the parents of the students within my school plead with you to maintain the CCRS.
Sincerely,
Connie Stancil
Ed.S. Elementary Education
NBCT Certified Literacy-Reading Language Arts
No comments:
Post a Comment