Arizona Says Nope To NAEP Expansion

[Harry Mathews]

6-29-16 Arizonans Against Common Core

Common Core Fighters,

"American Principles Project joined Liberty Counsel and dozens of other organizations and individuals from across the United States [this week] in objecting to proposed illegal changes to the National Assessment of Educational Progress (NAEP)."

"The objectionable proposal comes from the National Assessment Governing Board (NAGB), which is NAEP s governing authority. NAGB has announced that NAEP will expand beyond assessing students academic content knowledge to include subjective, non-cognitive, socio-emotional parameters. Such factors will include grit, desire for learning, and school climate the assessment of which will potentially allow the government to determine and possibly reshape children s moral and religious beliefs about controversial social issues." 

Jane Robbins, senior fellow at American Principles Project, released the following statement:

We believe, along with Liberty Counsel and other signatories, that this expansion of NAEP will not only violate federal law but also possibly expose students to negative consequences of having their most sensitive personal information subjectively determined collected and maintained in unsecured government databases. Even without federal statutes prohibiting such action, this overreach would invade parental sovereignty over the education and moral direction of children.

American Principles Project urges Congress to protect children by halting this illegal expansion of NAEP. (https://americanprinciplesproject.org/education/8385/)

From an Arizona Daily Independent article today, yours truly from Arizonans Against Common Core and members of the Mommy Lobby in Arizona stated, "Parents are fed up with the over-reach of Federal and State Governments through questionable standards and testing. Testing our children has become big business laden with profit stemming from the rich personal data that tests collect. Now, the NAEP, (The Nation's Report Card) is being hi-jacked to measure non-academic skills. It is absolutely unacceptable to test our students on non-cognitive attributes such as mindset, grit, perseverance, attitudes, and beliefs. These items are beyond the scope of any content standards and are frankly out of bounds for the school setting. Will positive attitudes towards one political party, a policy, or values give a better score? Will the NAEP over time shape the values of our kids? Parent's didn't give NAEP the authority to sit in judgement to assess subjective values and beliefs of our children." (https://arizonadailyindependent.com/2016/06/29/arizona-parents-say-...)

My advice to all parents is to "Opt Out AZ" of the NAEP and AzMERIT assessments! Urge your Congressmen to protect our children from this illegal data collection now under the NAEP assessment!

For our precious children,

-Jennifer Reynolds
http://arizonansagainstcommoncore.com/