Massachusetts

Deliberately deceiving the public on Common Core

Deliberately deceiving the public on Common Core

Sandra Stotsky

On Nov. 17, 2015, the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education voted not to move forward with the PARCC test (a national Common Core-based test) and instead to adopt a "hybrid" test called MCAS 2.0. Although it was widely reported that Massachusetts had dumped Common Core, the move by the Board was, in fact, a deliberate effort to make the public believe that the state had scrapped the controversial national standards in favor of the state's own superior pre-Common Core standards.

Nobody – not the Board, the Commissioner, nor the Secretary of Education – mentioned that the hybrid test will have to be based on Common Core because of the Board's 2010 vote to dump the state's own standards in mathematics and English Language Arts and make Common Core's standards the state's official standards in these two subjects.

What my Down syndrome son has taught me
Blogs

What my Down syndrome son has taught me

Jean Pollock

I have to admit that, despite the fact that I was aware that my baby might have Down syndrome, it was still a surprise for me when he was born with it. I had refused the amniocentesis tests because I knew that there could be a potential risk for the unborn child (if he happened to move at the wrong moment and get hit by the needle, for example) and I generally live by a "better safe than sorry" attitude.

Being a mother of nine children (ages 25 through 2) already taught me that facing reality is necessary for day-to-day survival, so it didn't cross my mind to be "in denial" about the possibility of having a "retarded" child. One can also probably figure that, having that many children I must be some sort of a traditional Catholic, which would lead one to also deduce that I would believe that God not only has a Plan, but that He will provide what is needed – temporal, emotional and spiritual. All this is true.

Read More