Common Core. This is something people need to know about. Just as there are two sides to every story there is another side to this one that is not in general mainstream media. There is a lot of alternative information out there so rather then re-write something that others have already written I will be linking to many sources.
First of all here is the link to the Common Core site. According to this official site the common core standards are not yet adopted by Alaska.
That's the official story but in the background I can see efforts to implement it. This article is just one such example: http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/alaska-board-approves-poorly-understood-teacher-evaluation-plan
Here is one from the Newsminer. The point I'd like to make is Governor Parnell wants to “lead” by pushing for a large percentage of teacher evaluations to be based on students’ progress. Progress tracked in part by as yet to be determined testing (common core tests are still unknown). Teachers, rightly protest, pointing out that students’ lives outside of school are legitimate factors in testing results. Part of common core intent is to track student data in detail (religion, number of dental fillings, associations) for much of their young life. What better way to get acceptance of the intrusive tracking (another feature of common core) of our children then to say it will help protect our teachers from unfair penalties due to the fact that their evaluations are based on 50 percent student progress in achievement?
In case your still not sure common core is on it's way to being implemented in Alaska take a gander at this article: http://www.alaskadispatch.com/article/20130323/anchorages-new-superintendent-shares-vision-area-schools
This is a common core primer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=XrpjiywhSQU
This site has some informative articles: http://spunkyhomeschool.blogspot.com/p/common-core.html
more links to come...
