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CALL TO ACTION: Stop the Poorly Designed CBE Pilot (SB1714)

BySuzette

CALL TO ACTION. IMMEDIATE ATTENTION REQUIRED

This Thursday, February 25, 2016, the Florida Senate Appropriations Committee will hear SB/CS1714, the Competency Based Education (CBE) Pilot Study Bill, in its last stop before it hits the Senate Floor.  The companion bill in the House has already been passed.  We have joined a state-wide, bipartisan coalition of grassroots organizations in a Call to Action attempting to stop the passage of this bad bill, which allows the advancement of CBE in four Counties in Florida, with the Commissioner’s ability to spread the program to even more counties, even before any serious public discussion regarding CBE has taken place. (Learn more about CBE here)

At Accountabaloney, we believe this is a poorly designed pilot program and should not be initiated in Florida. Participating districts, and the schools within them, are unlimited in how they can initiate CBE within their systems. By allowing vague descriptions and definitions of the possible CBE programs in each participating county, with few well defined parameters, comparing program effectiveness and attributing that to CBE will be virtually impossible. As currently defined, the results measured will assess little more than test taking skills; hardly the definition of a quality education system. The rapid expansion within and between counties, currently allowed by these bills, could affect millions of Florida’s public school students before the pilot programs’ results have even been tallied. This is NOT the way legitimate pilot studies are designed. Florida’s students are not served by participating as guinea pigs in poorly designed studies.

Florida’s Education Accountability system is still reeling from the rush to implement the Florida Standards and the FSA. Can it withstand another major rushed implementation?

We believe it cannot.

We urge you to join thousands of Floridians and participate in this Call to Action . Please, contact the members of the Senate Appropriations Committee TODAY (their addresses are in the attached blog) . You must take action NOW.

Because of the immediate need for action, consider sending the following to the entire Senate Education Appropriations Committee (benacquisto.lizbeth@flsenate.gov, lee.tom.web@flsenate.gov , flores.anitere.web@flsenate.gov, altman.thad.web@flsenate.gov, gaetz.don.web@flsenate.gov, galvano.bill.web@flsenate.gov, garcia.rene.web@flsenate.gov, grimsley.denise.web@flsenate.gov, hays.alan.web@flsenate.gov, hukill.dorothy.web@flsenate.gov, joyner.arthenia.web@flsenate.gov, latvala.jack.web@flsenate.gov, margolis.gwen.web@flsenate.gov, montford.bill.web@flsenate.gov, negron.joe.web@flsenate.gov, richter.garrett.web@flsenate.gov, ring.jeremy.web@flsenate.gov, smith.chris.web@flsenate.gov):

Vote NO to SB1714! Competency Based Education will be full of daily data collection, and will put our children’s personally identifiable information at risk. I want my children educated by teachers; not data mined and taught by computers.

The pilot study defined in SB1714 is poorly designed and allows the rapid expansion of CBE programs even before data has been collected.  By allowing vague descriptions of CBE programming and measuring little more than test taking skills, the data obtained from these pilot studies will be virtually unusable in the evaluation of quality education programming.

Florida does not need another rushed implementation of a poorly vetted plan to dramatically overhaul our education system.

Vote NO on 1714.

Thank you,

(Name, address, Phone Number)

If you live in Lake, Pinellas, Seminole or Palm Beach counties, the passage of this bill will bring CBE to your schools almost immediately.  Please contact your local representatives, as well as your school board members, and tell them to keep CBE, and it’s accompanying data mining and test prep,  out of your schools.

Call to Action: Competency Based Education

Posted on February 22, 2016 by Site Admin

Senate Bill 1714 and its companion House Bill 1365 will allow changes to state education law to put in place competency based education programs.  Other names for competency-based learning [CBE], include performance-based, proficiency-based, and mastery-based education, as well as “customized” and “personalized” learning.  Definitions of CBE are called “a work in progress,” and include life-long data and socioemotional profiling, a significant emphasis on lower level job skills, and a focus on much more subjective psychosocial, non-academic attributes and skills.

While there may have been positive examples of CBE used in classrooms in the past, the bills that are currently being pushed through the Florida legislature completely change the definition of CBE that most educators are familiar with. The technology component will redefine the role of the teacher from educator to facilitator and significantly minimize human interaction in the learning process. We believe students learn best from face-to-face human interaction.

In addition, CBE will allow a massive increase in the amount of personal student data collected and shared both in our public schools and with the Department of Labor. Currently, education is the 4th largest industry and the most data mined industry in America.  The amount of data collected from students and shared by CBE vendor programs (including very subjective psychosocial data), can be one million times more than what is currently collected and shared on Facebook users. One education technology CEO bragged that their company picks up five to ten million data points from Pearson Common Core education curriculum per student per day.  There has been little to no formal discussion regarding the impact of expanding these pilot programs, and this bill gives the Florida Commissioner of Education the ability to expand it to every county, even before any results are reported.

National proponents of Competency Based Education have argued that these programs will eventually allow states to get rid of the statewide standardized assessment, which sounds great until you realize the goal is to replace tests like the FSA with daily, individual, data collection via computer programs.*

If you live in Lake, Pinellas, Palm Beach or Seminole County, you are part of the pilot program and this bill will bring CBE to your schools immediately.  For all other counties, it will be fully implemented within five years.

Other very serious problems with this bill and these programs include:
(Detailed quotes and references for these assertions are available here)

  1. These programs emphasize lower level job skills and social emotional skills at the cost of academic knowledge while diminishing the role of teachers and harming the student-teacher interaction.
  2. Gates Foundation-funded programs and technology education programs such as this in general have a long track record of failure and high cost.
  3. There is information showing Gates funding for only two (Lake and Pinellas) of the four counties covered in the bill. This means that the counties (Palm Beach and Seminole) or state taxpayers will likely have to pay for this experiment. The most recent Gates-funded experiment in Hillsborough County was a disaster, and ended up costing taxpayers millions.
  4. The language of the bill will ensure district-wide implementation of CBE before the results of the pilot are completed.
  5. There is no language about parental consent or pulling out of the five year program if students, parents, schools or districts change their minds or the program fails before the pilot ends. 

CALL TO ACTION!

The bill has already passed in the House, and is now being considered in the Senate.   We have just learned that the bill will likely be heard in the full Senate Appropriations Committee which will be meeting on Thursday, February 25th from 10 AM to 5 PM.  It is imperative we take action now. Please e-mail and call the Senators on the Florida Senate Committee on Appropriates (information below) immediately and tell them to vote no to SB1714!  Competency Based Education will be full of daily data collection, and will put our children’s personally identifiable information at risk.

Very important!  In addition to contacting these Senators, please contact your local school boards and superintendents and let them know you want your children educated by teachers; not data mined and taught by computers.  When you send your email, feel free to include a link to this blog post as well as the additional links below.

CS/SB 1714: Competency-based Innovation Pilot Program
GENERAL BILL by Education Pre-K – 12 ; Brandes
https://www.flsenate.gov/Session/Bill/2016/1714

Florida Sentate -Committee on Appropriations – Members

Copy and paste these emails addresses to send a bulk email:

benacquisto.lizbeth@flsenate.gov, lee.tom.web@flsenate.gov , flores.anitere.web@flsenate.gov,  altman.thad.web@flsenate.gov,   gaetz.don.web@flsenate.gov,  galvano.bill.web@flsenate.gov,   garcia.rene.web@flsenate.gov,   grimsley.denise.web@flsenate.gov, hays.alan.web@flsenate.gov, hukill.dorothy.web@flsenate.gov,  joyner.arthenia.web@flsenate.gov,  latvala.jack.web@flsenate.gov,  margolis.gwen.web@flsenate.gov,  montford.bill.web@flsenate.gov,     negron.joe.web@flsenate.gov,  richter.garrett.web@flsenate.gov,   ring.jeremy.web@flsenate.gov,  smith.chris.web@flsenate.gov

Chair: Senator Tom Lee (R)
E-mail – lee.tom.web@flsenate.gov
District Office – (813) 653-7061
Tallahassee Office – (850) 487-5024

Vice Chair: Senator Lizbeth Benacquisto (R)
E-mail – benacquisto.lizbeth@flsenate.gov
District Office – (239) 338-2570
Tallahassee Office – (850) 487-5030

Senator Thad Altman (R)
Twitter: @SenatorAltman
E-mail – altman.thad.web@flsenate.gov
District Office – (321) 868-2132
Tallahassee Office – (850) 487-5016

Senator Anitere Flores (R)
Twitter: @Senator_Flores
E-mail – flores.anitere.web@flsenate.gov
District Office – (305) 270-6550
Tallahassee Office – (850) 487-5037

Senator Don Gaetz (R)
E-mail – gaetz.don.web@flsenate.gov
District Office – (850) 897-5747
Tallahassee Office – (850) 487-5001

Senator Bill Galvano (R)
E-mail – galvano.bill.web@flsenate.gov
District Office – (941) 741-3401
Tallahassee Office – (850) 487-5026

Senator Rene Garcia (R)
E-mail – garcia.rene.web@flsenate.gov
District Office – (305) 364-3100
Tallahassee Office – (850) 487-5038

Senator Denise Grimsley (R)
E-mail – grimsley.denise.web@flsenate.gov
District Office – (863) 386-6016
Tallahassee Office – (850) 487-5021

Senator Alan Hays (R)
E-mail – hays.alan.web@flsenate.gov
District Office – (352) 742-6441
Tallahassee Office – (850) 487-5011

Senator Dorothy L.  Hukill (R)
E-mail – hukill.dorothy.web@flsenate.gov
District Office – (386) 304-7630
Tallahassee Office – (850) 487-5008

Senator Arthenia L.  Joyner (D)
E-mail – joyner.arthenia.web@flsenate.gov
District Office – (813) 233-4277
Tallahassee Office – (850) 487-5019

Senator Jack Latvala (R)
E-mail – latvala.jack.web@flsenate.gov
District Office – (727) 793-2797
Tallahassee Office – (850) 487-5020

Senator Gwen Margolis (D)
E-mail – margolis.gwen.web@flsenate.gov
District Office – (305) 571-5777
Tallahassee Office – (850) 487-5035

Senator Bill Montford (D)
E-mail – montford.bill.web@flsenate.gov
District Office – (850) 487-5003
Tallahassee Office – Same as District office

Senator Joe Negron (R)
E-mail – negron.joe.web@flsenate.gov
District Office – (772) 219-1665
Tallahassee Office – (850) 487-5032

Senator Garrett Richter (R)
E-mail – richter.garrett.web@flsenate.gov
District Office – (239) 417-6205
Tallahassee Office – (850) 487-5023

Senator Jeremy Ring (D)
E-mail – ring.jeremy.web@flsenate.gov
District Office – (954) 917-1392
Tallahassee Office – (850) 487-5029

Senator David Simmons (R)
E-mail – simmons.david.web@flsenate.gov
District Office – (407) 262-7578
Tallahassee Office – (850) 487-5010

Senator Christopher L.  Smith (D)
E-mail – smith.chris.web@flsenate.gov
District Office – (954) 321-2705
Tallahassee Office – (850) 487-5031

Recommended Reading

http://www.flstopcccoalition.org/files/E7DA713C-13D6-4D28-93CA-D376DFA759E6–40BE074B-D2E8-438F-AFCF-7194E326A218/specific-concerns-related-to-sb-1714-and-cbe-cost-quality-and-choice.pdf

https://accountabaloney.wordpress.com/2016/01/26/competency-based-education-destroying-public-schools-one-profitable-data-point-at-a-time/

https://unitedforflchildren.com/2016/02/18/competency-based-education/

http://www.flstopcccoalition.org/blog/concerns-about-competency-based-education.htm

http://dianeravitch.net/2016/02/21/eric-brandon-robot-teachers-for-the-masses/

https://www.alec.org/model-policy/digital-teaching-and-learning-plan/

http://www.competencyworks.org/

This Call to Action is supported by the following grassroots organizations/groups:

Accountabaloney
Broward BATs
Common Core Discussion Group – Florida
Florida Stop Common Core Coalition
Florida BATs 
FLParentsRISE
FLParentsRISE – Pinellas/Pasco Chapter
Fund Education Now
Lake County Against Common Core
Minimize Testing Maximize Learning
National BATs
Opt Out Leon
Opt Out Pinellas
Opt Out St. Lucie
Out Opt Florida Network
Tea Party Network
Uncommon to Our Core – Florida
United for Florida Children

*The original call to action has been edited to reflect the withdrawal of Representative Smith’s Amendment #045043, which suggested CBE in Florida would eventually replace the FSA.

CBE

 

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