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IL House Bill 306 - Opt Out of State Assessments
Synopsis As Introduced
Amends the School Code. With respect to the administration of State assessments, provides that a student is not required to take a particular State assessment if that student’s parent or guardian requests, in writing, that the student be excused from taking the State assessment. Requires the State Board of Education, by rule, to (i) determine the form of the request, (ii) ensure that no student, teacher, school, or school district is negatively impacted, through grades or evaluations, due to a student being excused from taking a State assessment, and (iii) ensure that students who are excused from taking a State assessment are offered supervised instructional or enrichment opportunities during the time the State assessment is being administered. Effective immediately.
More information HERE
IL House Bill 131 - Opt Out of State Assessments
Synopsis As Introduced
Amends the School Code. With respect to the administration of State assessments, prohibits the State Board of Education from assessing any student whose parent or guardian has requested that the student not be assessed. Requires the State Board to develop a form that allows for such requests, which form must be distributed by school districts to their students. Effective immediately.
More information HERE
Find your Illinois Senator and Rep:
Search by address: http://capwiz.com/nea/il/directory/statedir.tt?state=IL&lvl=state&action=myreps_form
Search with Maps: http://www.elections.il.gov/DistrictLocator/DistrictOfficialSearchByAddress.aspx?NavLink=1
Contact your state representatives to voice your concerns about Common Core. Additionally, you should contact the members of the education committees. If you live in the district of one of the committee members, you are a key to stopping Common Core.
Illinois Education Committees
Illinois House:
Elementary & Secondary Education: School Curriculum & Policies Committee
Appropriations-Elementary & Secondary Education Committee - Members
Federal Legislation
Common Core was ‘promoted’ by the federal government under the authority of the expired Elementary and Secondary Act (ESEA) often referred to as the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB.) This legislation was originally passed in 1965 to address educational inequalities experienced by minorities and low income children. Presidents have used this act as the authority by which the federal government has pushed federally led education reform measures. This act has not been reauthorized since 2008 and congress is currently in the process of reauthorization. Why must we reauthorize ESEA/NCLB? Best case scenario would be to sunset it!
CALL OUR SENATORS!
Senate bill 182: Learning Opportunities Created At Local Level Act or the LOCAL Level Act
Expresses the sense of Congress that state and local prerogatives over elementary and secondary education need to be preserved.
Amends the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 (ESEA) to prohibit any federal officer or employee from directly or indirectly, through grants, contracts, or other cooperative agreements under the ESEA:
- mandating, directing, or controlling a state’s, local educational agency’s (LEA’s), or school’s specific instructional content, academic standards, assessments, curriculum, or program of instruction;
- incentivizing such an entity’s adoption of any specific instructional content, academic standards, assessments, curriculum, or program of instruction;
- mandating a state or any subdivision thereof to spend any funds or incur any costs not paid for under the ESEA; or
- conditioning the availability of financial support on a state’s, LEA’s, or school’s adoption of any specific instructional content, academic standards, assessments, curriculum, or program of instruction, even if such conditions are specified under any other Act.
Prohibits any funds provided to the Department of Education under the ESEA from being used by the Department directly or indirectly, through grants, contracts, or other cooperative agreements, to endorse, approve, develop, require, or sanction any elementary or secondary school curriculum.
Prohibits conditioning any state’s receipt of ESEA assistance on the approval or certification of its academic standards by the federal government.
Includes in the prohibition against the use of ESEA funds on federally sponsored testing and testing materials such use on any assessment or testing materials aligned to the Common Core State Standards or any other academic standards common to a significant number of states. Prohibits the use of Race to the Top funds, provided under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, on such aligned assessment or testing materials.
Related Legislation and Bills
NOTE: There was never a specific Common Core bill; it was adopted by the Department of Education as New Illinois Learning Standards in 2010 as a condition of applying for the Race to the Top Funds.
SB 1828 - P-20 Longitudinal Education Data System Act: http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/publicacts/96/096-0107.htm
Student Record Act: http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=1006&ChapterID=17
Unfunded Common Core Mandates: http://ilga.gov/legislation/billstatus.asp?DocNum=2357&GAID=12&GA=98&DocTypeID=HB&LegID=74137&SessionID=85
Full School Code: http://www.ilga.gov/legislation/ilcs/ilcs3.asp?ActID=1005&ChapterID=17
Illinois Board of Education: New Illinois Learning Standards incorporating the Common Core page: http://www.isbe.net/common_core/
Illinois Board of Education Administrative Rules: http://www.isbe.state.il.us/rules/archive/
Please check the names of the Illinois State Reps. It is not Dwayne Kay, it is Dwight.
Thanks for the correction. Sorry about the typo.
Email every member or your IL State Legislature in your district this video.
It is a mother in Kansas who destroys common core math in 4 minutes. It is a must watch!
This video gave me goose bumps! Thank you Karen for your willingness to address this problem. I am a mother of two and my oldest is in 6th grade. The math homework is so confusing and not even realistic! I too would divide that problem you just gave and found the answer. This is how real life math works! How do we get it out of our schools??? My son is failing in math and part of it is due to the way they are teaching. How would anyone think that this makes sense? I am disgusted and disappointed all at the same time that this was even an idea in the first place. I want it out of the schools. I want our children to learn the normal way how to add, subtract, multiply and divide. Please tell me what I can do to help remove this awful Common Core.
Kari
I to would like to see this removed. I have a child that failed last year because of this and this year already is failing again. My child gets so frustrated with math. I have tried everything. I don’t think this is fair to the child. What can we do to remove it? It needs to go back to the way it was. Who do we turn to? What do we do? I do not like watching him fail. Some one please help!!!
This common core is plain and simple garbage! I watched this video and I say kudos to that mother who is concerned about their child working these math problems. Getting the right answer is what this should be about, not the abstract characteristics about how they came to a certain conclusion. We need to get this stuff out of our schools in Illinois. Is there any progress that can be cited at this point or is this a lost cause already. I have a child in 5th grade and he sits at night doing math homework and having to solve problems that take forever to write out. LIke the rest of the comments I have read, is there anything we can do at this point and will school boards listen to us as parents. I think the parents are the ones who know best how our children need to be taught. Parents need to take back school boards and vote those candidates who best serve our purposes into the positions and remove those who don’t.
Don’t try and reverse common core, vote the liberals out that are forcing it on everyone. The trick is to vote out the liberals that are pushing Bill Gates and his rich friends agenda.
Stop this Common Core math nonsense!!!!!! Immediately!! We do not need it and feel like it is being forced upon our schools and children.
Now that this stupid Common Core is in place is there a Sample Letter to Senator and Representative to withdraw this crap from our schools? I’d sure appreciate some help. I’m an electrical engineer with a Masters Degree specialized in RF/Microwave Design Engineering and been in the industry for over 15 years now! So I know a thing or two about Math and Science and Engineering and Technology, and this Math Common Core CRAP is not going to help our children follow in our footsteps and make a better America! If America is leading the world now, they can expect America to lag the world!! America is already not even in the top 50 countries in Math and Science in their Educational Systems! Now they want to make it part of the bottom 50?! What the heck are these people thinking? I saw the list of people who put this crap together! More than half of them have nothing to do with childhood education and are clueless to early child development!! Bravo America for going backwards instead of forwards!!! Bravo for becoming worse than third world countries in education!! Bravo!! Oh, and would appreciate the help with a new angle for the Sample Letter to Senator… Thanks!!