New Hampshire State Rep. Mel Myler (D) complained to the state House Education Committee Tuesday that he was “tired of receiving emails that are misinformed, that have wrong information in them” from parents and his constituents opposed to Common Core.
The committee was considering SB 101, a bill that would prohibit “the department of education and the state board of education from implementing the Common Core standards in any school or school district in this state.”
As reported by Stop Common Core New Hampshire, the measure has already passed the state Senate, and parents, who overwhelmingly support SB 101, had mobilized an email campaign to state House Education Committee members.
Myler said:
I will also say, too, that I’m tired of receiving emails that are misinformed, that have wrong information in them. Much of the information that has come forward has been answered. Now, some don’t like the answers, but those are the answers. And, frankly, I don’t think this bill is going to stop those emails from coming forth. I’ve checked with my schools; they are deeply engaged in Common Core, they are doing the testing, there is no problem. Change is difficult. It is not easy to move from one strand to another strand, but I am convinced that the strand we are moving in now is much deeper than what we’ve had before. It’s challenging students; there’s no question about that. It’s challenging parents. But in the world we live in today, and the access to information that we have today, what we’ve had in the past is not going to meet the demands of the future. So, that’s why I’m going to vote against this…
Myler retired from his executive staff position with the National Education Association (NEA) in 2008, after serving the nation’s largest teachers’ union at the local, state, and national level. He was the executive director of the NEA New Hampshire for 21 years prior to being elected to the state legislature.
A tone similar to Myler’s was heard in the Granite State a year ago when HB 1508, a bill that would terminate the state’s participation in the Common Core standards, was brought before the House Education Committee. New Hampshire Commissioner Virginia Barry said the following about parents opposed to the Common Core:
Thousands of teachers, leaders, parents, and school boards have committed to improving standards in public education. These stakeholders are confused by how a small, loud group of misinformed individuals continue to distort information regarding Common Core State standards. Make no mistake, these standards raise the bar in our state with regard to teaching and learning. They have been studied, analyzed, reviewed, and now are part of a common language in teaching. I find it shocking that any discussion focused on raising standards and improving teaching and learning could get so much negative attention…
A petition to abolish the Common Core standards in New Hampshire currently has nearly 1,500 signatures to date.
Myler’s and Barry’s claims of the proven rigor of the Common Core standards have no merit, since no independent validation studies have been performed on the standards. The only comparisons between Common Core and the various state standards were conducted by the pro-Common Core and Gates Foundation-funded Thomas B. Fordham Institute.
As former senior policy adviser with the U.S. Department of Education under President George W. Bush, Ze’ev Wurman, wrote:
Common Core standards were never validated before being published, and every serious piece of research that has analyzed them since found them lacking. Much of the Common Core is experimental and a rehash of the failed 1989 NCTM standards that brought America to its knees in mathematical achievement. Parents are justified in their complaints about the strange and meaningless homework their children are bringing home, and they should distrust educators who uncritically praise them. More likely than not, those educators themselves have little experience and have been sold a bill of goods by Common Core’s Washington, D.C. promoters.
Most recently, the Brookings Institution’s 2015 Brown Center Report suggests that any positive impact from the Common Core standards on students’ academic progress may either be negligible or indeterminable for years to come.
The study reports that states that implemented the Common Core ELA standards gained an overall advantage of only 1.51 points on the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP) exam over states that did not adopt them.
“The optimism of CCSS supporters is understandable, but a one and a half point NAEP gain might be as good as it gets for CCSS,” the study concluded.
Last year’s Brown Center Report found that states whose math standards were less like Common Core performed better on the NAEP than those that had standards more like Common Core.
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