Statement by
Penelope A. Morrell, State Director
Concerned Women for America of Maine
To Members of the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee
Re. L.D. #1578, “An Act Regarding Educational Standards for Maine Students”
May 10, 2017
Chairs Senator Langley and Representative Kornfield, and distinguished members of the Education and Cultural Affairs Committee, I’m Penny Morrell, State Director of Concerned Women for America (CWA) of Maine.
We support this legislation to rid our state of the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).
Maine adopted CCSS because of misinformation given to the legislature. CCSS is not up to our standards.
Dr. Sandra Stotsky, Professor Emerita at the University of Arkansas served on the national Common Core Validation Committee and refused to sign off on the English language arts standards. She cited poor quality, empty skill sets, the de-emphasis on literature and low reading levels. She is concerned that the reading level that will assume students “college ready” will be seventh grade level.
We recommend that you adopt the standards that have proven themselves. This legislation requires the use of the Massachusetts standards. Massachusetts ranked number one nationally for over ten years using their standards. Why have we adopted experimental standards when we can go with something that has proven results over a ten your period of time?
We need to be independent of federal bureaucracy. We need to stand on our own and make the decisions in education that are best for our kids. The CCSS were developed behind closed doors by a Washington, D.C.-based non-profit group. Supporters of the CCSS claim that the development of the standards was a “state-led” effort, but that simply is not true. Neither state boards of education, state legislators nor local education officials, school leaders, teachers, nor parents were included in the development, evaluation, and adoption of CCSS.
We need to return to the fundamentals of reading, writing and arithmetic that are developmentally appropriate and rich in content.
We urge this committee to vote “Ought to Pass” on L.D. 1578.