Did you know that the Common Core, once fully implemented will require children take high stakes assessments three times per year? 

According to Governor Daugaard, on January 11, 2012, “This system will not just test students at the end of the year and measure them against an arbitrary bar instead we will test students at the beginning of the year in the middle of the year and again at the end of the year.”(link)

So these questions need to be asked and answered; “Why were we subjecting our children to arbitrary testing? If we were testing against an arbitrary bar before, what are we testing against under the Common Core?” 

The following is from an email I received from Dr. Schopp, referring to the Common Core Assessment.  

“Again, I want to reiterate that the assessment we are giving is one that we are deeply involved with. We have received Federal funds for assessment for the past 13 years since No Child Left Behind. We have used it to create the South Dakota Dakota STEP.”

So the South Dakota Department of Education used federal funds, to create a test, for our children that measured their knowledge against an arbitrary bar. This raises many questions. Why are we spending our hard earned dollars on a department that created a test for each child to take every year, that, according to Governor Daugaard, was arbitrary. It calls into question the credibility of the state of South Dakota and the education policies it “voluntarily” chooses to implement. 

How are we to believe that the South Dakota Department of Education, who created an arbitrary test, with federal funding, and now wants to test our children three times per year, using standards that are an academic experiment, have the best interest of our children at heart.  Nothing they say changes the Common Core’s experimental nature. There’s no empirical testing that’s ever been done, no pilot study, no proof that these standards and the accompanying assessments are academically an improvement. 

And when these public servants are questioned about their policies, instead of offering the proof that the standards are researched based, they tell us we are misinformed. 

Government, both at the national and state level, needs to get out of education. Control of what and how our children are taught needs to be given back to parents and communities. Parents are the experts on their children.