Education Liberty Watch Testimony on SF 1656 – Legislative Approval of Standards

Karen R. Effrem, MD

President – Education Liberty Watch

February 8, 2012

Dear Chairwoman Olson and Members of the Senate Education Committee,

Thank you for your willingness to consider these written comments on SF 1656.  Education Liberty Watch enthusiastically supports SF 1656.  We are grateful to Senator Nelson for sponsoring it and to Senators Michel, Harrington, and Madame Chairwoman as well for their willingness to co-author it.  The list of sponsors speaks to the Minnesota legislature’s long and proud heritage of bipartisan and ideologically diverse opposition to both federal and executive branch interference in education matters.  This fidelity to separation of powers doctrine, state sovereignty, local control, and parental rights is admirable.

As to the merits of the legislation, it has many.

1)      Legally and constitutionally, it is important after the Profile of Learning debacle from 1998-2003, the bureaucracy and unfunded mandates of No Child Left Behind, the unconstitutional and illegal efforts of the Obama administration to go around Congress, the unilateral actions of state departments of education to commit to the federal department of education’s requirements for waivers that include imposition of national standards, and the Race to the Top Process which also required this imposition of a federal curriculum, it is very important for the people’s representatives in the legislature to have a say about these standards and their implementation.

2)      From a fiscal and fiduciary standpoint, the legislature must also weigh in.  Changing standards and the associated assessments is an enormously expensive undertaking.  California has estimated that it will cost $3 billion dollars to develop new assessments that comply with the Common Core National Standards.  While certainly not likely to be that high in Minnesota, there is already much concern about the number, cost and rigor of the myriad of assessments that Minnesota already gives to comply with federal mandates without developing a whole new set for these less than ideal standards.  Given the precarious financial situations of both the Minnesota and federal governments, it is wise to proceed carefully in changing its standards.

3)      And most importantly from the quality perspective, these national standards should not be implemented without much greater scrutiny.  Before the Pawlenty administration imposed the English Common Core Standards without legislative input, they were quite universally panned by experts across the country.  Dr. Sandra Stotsky, who had reviewed Minnesota’s English standards coming off the Profile refused to validate the Common Core standards when they were developed.  The math standards are even worse as witnessed by the opposition to them by Minnesota’s own experts such as Dr. Larry Gray.

Finally, although this legislation deals with K-12 standards, the very same situation is playing out in the pre-K realm with the state department of education attempting to impose statewide preschool standards that have never been reviewed by the legislature to force compliance with the Parent Aware Quality Rating system by bribing or blackmailing poor parents and private childcare programs and preschools with scholarships and Race to the Top grants.  Even if these standards were perfectly academic and non-controversial, which they are not, the imposition of one top-down, government mandated set of standards on all programs – public, private or religious who “volunteer” for this rating system cannot be allowed to stand.

Thank you again for this opportunity to testify.

Suggested Caucus Resolutions

The “Whereas” language is for information purposes in order to guide discussion. The proposed language is in bold font.

1)      Oppose imposition of mandatory state preschool standards on private preschool programs via state and federal funds

Whereas parents, not government, are responsible for raising and educating their preschool children, neither the state nor federal governments have authority to set preschool curriculum standards especially via the executive branch and especially for private and religious institutions;

Whereas the Dayton administration is using state and federal grant programs to impose a single set of preschool curriculum standards on those institutions regardless of parental choice and without legislative review;

Therefore be it resolved that:

We are firmly against the establishment of universal pre-school programs in Minnesota, including the imposition of statewide early childhood standards and curricula via state and federal funding.

2)      Oppose the imposition of national (Common Core) K-12 standards

Whereas, according to the 10^th amendment to the US Constitution, education, since not listed as a power of the federal government, is reserved to states and the people;

Whereas the Common Core National standards are being funded and promoted by federal education programs like Race to the Top and creating a national curriculum that is unconstitutional, violates federal law, is unnecessary and unhelpful for improving national  academic performance, and in many cases are of lower quality than current state standards;

Therefore be it resolved that:

We oppose the adoption of the Common Core national standards and the national tests that accompany them.

3)      Oppose federal and executive branch control of education

Whereas, both the Obama and Dayton administrations are ignoring separation of powers doctrine and implementing various aspects of federal and state education programs, most of which are unconstitutional,  such as No Child Left Behind waivers, Race to the Top, and early childhood scholarships without statutory authority or legislative input;

Therefore be it resolved that:

We oppose reauthorization of the No Child Left Behind Act and until then, Minnesota should opt out.  This also applies to No Child Left Behind waivers, Race to the Top, Head Start, and early childhood scholarships.

4)      Oppose unionization of private businesses and independent contractors

Whereas several states have or attempted to designate individuals like personal care attendants or small independent childcare businesses that care for clients that receive government subsidies for the purposes of unionization and automatically deducting union dues from those subsidies resulting in decreased funds for poor, sick and disabled children and adults;

Therefore, be it resolved that:

We oppose the forced unionization of individuals or businesses whose clients receive government subsidies and the deduction of union dues or fair share fees from those subsidies.

5)      Oppose federal education data tracking from birth.

Whereas, the federal K-12 and early childhood versions of Race to the Top as well as the Stimulus bill all require the states to set up or expand a comprehensive data tracking system of all children from birth on that includes much sensitive family data;

Whereas, the Obama administration has by rule effectively gutted student consent and privacy protection under the Protection of Pupil Rights Amendment;

Therefore, be it resolved that:

We oppose the use of state or federal funds to implement this longitudinal education data system and that our state should opt out.

Dayton DOE Admits Plan to Control Preschool Curriculum via State & Federal Funds

Karen R. Effrem, MD – President

In three different and very significant ways, the Dayton administration has admitted that their ultimate aim is to have the state control the curriculum standards first for those governing all preschool and childcare programs in the state that “volunteer” to become involved in the Parent Aware Quality Rating System (the QRS), the Race to the Top preschool grant program, or the early childhood scholarship program regardless of whether these programs are public, private or religious. This seems to be the foundation for then controlling ALL preschool curriculum. (More on that in future alerts).

Minnesota’s Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge Grant application neatly ties all three situations together. The document unabashedly states (p. 87):

“Minnesota’s Early Learning and Development Standards (called the Early Childhood Indicators of Progress, or ECIPs-see C1) for children birth to five are at the foundation of [Parent] Aware. Parent Aware Program Standards require that instruction and assessment be aligned with the ECIPs and the ratings are built on the ECIPs, which function like a scaffold. For example, ELD Programs must ensure that their staff members are familiar with the ECIPs before earning 1 star, and to reach 3 or 4 stars requires both familiarity with the ECIPs and also alignment of curriculum and assessment with them.” (Emphasis added)

In other words, the Parent Aware QRS, even though “voluntary,” mandates a top-down government run curriculum in order for programs to receive the highest ratings, and therefore all of the financial and policy goodies that accompany those top ratings. Adherence to program standards of the QRS that include curriculum alignment to these standards is then the cornerstone of both the Race to the Top Application and the early childhood scholarships. The quality rating system was the top point garnering criterion on the $500 million Race to the Top application which also requires statewide preschool standards and wide participation by preschool programs, including private and religious ones, which comprise more than 80% of the childcare market in Minnesota. The scholarships were a high priority of some of the lead House education negotiators during the final closed negotiations of the shutdown at the end of the 2011 session. The Dayton Education Department recently and arrogantly reported (January 26th) to the House Education Finance Committee that, despite the lack of statutory authority to use the QRS in distribution of those scholarships, they are going to allow use of scholarship funds only at programs that earn 3 or 4 stars, i.e. that require these standards, and parents may not conscientiously object to these standards if they want a scholarship. Are we seeing a pattern here?

Here is a summary of the problems with this approach:

Continue reading »

Early Learning Race to the Top Nationalizes Preschool

Karen R. Effrem, MD – President

October 19^th was the day that states applying for the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge (RTT-ELC) grant must have turned in their applications.  After banking, health care, the auto industry, K-12 education, and so many other areas of life, the new early childhood Race to the Top initiative is now doing to preschool what has been done in all these other sectors.  The Obama administration is bribing desperately cash starved states with one time federal dollars that have been coerced from those same states  in order to impose the latest version of control from Washington DC.

As did the K-12 version, which we described as Federal Control of Education on Steroids, the Race to the Top Early Learning Challenge continues where the 2007 reauthorization of Head Start (See A Federal Curriculum for Preschoolers) left off.  The RTTT-ELC:  1) Puts Uncle Sam in charge of preschool standards, assessments, and data collection from birth onward; 2) Expands invasive and ineffective home visiting programs; and 3) In addition to the federal takeover of state early childhood programs accomplished in 2007 with the Head Start reauthorization, becomes a de facto government takeover of private childcare via the so-called quality rating and improvement systems (QRIS).  In reverse order here is a brief description of the issues: Continue reading »