The following are real life experiences presented at our Common Core June 18, 2015, General Meeting

BCP Christine Wysocki, Teacher at Schuylkill Valley School gave this presentation
at our June 18, 2015, General Meeting on Common Core I have taught close to 2,000 children over the past 27 years, and I have never seen something as detrimental to our children’s education as Common Core and the required testing that accompanies it. There are many reasons why I feel this way, but I will focus on two of the most alarming: developmentally inappropriateness and for-profit companies
using children as test marketers for future standardized exams. The Pennsylvania Department of Education publishes PSSA ELA Preliminary Item and Scoring Samplers for teachers to use to prepare the students of Pennsylvania for the PSSA tests. The samplers consist of reading selections and questions designed to assess a child’s reading comprehension. While reading through the third-grade sampler, I noticed the poet of Words Free as Confetti was Pat Mora, a poet used in my sixth-grade curriculum. The poem seemed difficult, in my professional opinion, for a third-grade student. I spoke to a third-grade teacher, and she told me that she felt it was too difficult and that her students really struggled with it. As a result, I used an online readability calculator to determine the equivalent grade level of the poem. It was calculated to have a 7.2 grade reading level. Using a 7.2 grade-level poem to instruct a third-grade student is developmentally inappropriate. To say this concerned me is an understatement. I immediately took the poem in the sixth grade ELA item and scoring sampler, The Poem of Stone Soup by Ilya Ben Goldberg, and calculated its grade level. It was calculated to have a 10.1 grade level. A 10.1 grade level equivalency poem used to teach sixth grade students is also developmentally inappropriate. One example of the developmental inappropriateness in mathematics is found in the SAS. (Standards Aligned System) website. This website, run by the Department of Education, provides teachers with materials and resources for teaching PA Common Core. A new PA Core mathematics concept for sixth grade is the box and whisker plot. My colleagues looked for resources on the SAS site to help them teach this concept.
What they found under the sixth-grade resources was a lesson plan entitled “Introduction to Box and Whisker Plots.” The problem was that the lesson was clearly stated for grade levels 9-12. This is not appropriate for sixth grade. When this was brought to my attention, I contacted the Department of Education’s math department. At first, I was told that I was incorrect. Then, I sent the person the website, so he could view it himself. He saw the lesson and told me it was for high school students and not sixth-grade students. When I showed him it was under the sixth grade resource section, he had no answer or explanation. I could go on and on with more examples. These are only three
examples of how developmentally inappropriate PA Core is for our children.

What is equally disturbing is that it appears as though no one realizes there are many developmentally inappropriate resources being recommended to teachers. We cannot afford to have our students subjected to this type of irresponsibility. The other concern is that the PSSA tests are designed to include field test questions. Field test questions are sample questions randomly placed in the tests to determine if they should be used in future standardized tests. This means our children and grandchildren are being used as “test marketers.” This is very advantageous to the testing companies. They are receiving test question data from the students at NO cost to the testing companies, and then they use that information and charge the states millions of dollars to use their required standardized tests. They are gathering FREE test marketing data at the expense of children. The DRC, Data Recognition Corporation, was contacted to answer questions about this and responded that they are not in the position to answer those questions. They suggested contacting the Department of Education. When the Department was contacted, no one was available to answer the questions. What is interesting is that when Larry Wittig, the Chairman of the PA Board of Education, was asked, “Who constructs the test questions and answer choices?” his answer was the DRC. To compound the problem, taxpayers’ money is spent on paying teachers to walk up and down aisles while their students are answering these questions. I would think the taxpayers would rather have the teachers teach and use the time more wisely. In conclusion, I see many problems with the implementation of PA Core that are leading to frustrated students and wasted money. The developmentally inappropriateness and field testing issues are only two of them. Our children’s futures are far too important to let this continue. It is time to go back to teaching well rounded students and utilize
methods that inspire students to love learning.