To: BESE Members
From: Terri Timmcke, Kenner, LA
RE: Recommendation to reject the new "Louisiana Standards" in ELA and Math
I urge you to vote "NO" to the adoption of the new "Louisiana Standards" in ELA and Math that have been submitted by the Standards Review Committee. This review was an excellent opportunity to create new standards that are unique to Louisiana and that genuinely address the needs and capabilities of our students. Instead, the seriously flawed Common Core Standards were minimally tweaked without any significant improvements, and in fact, some of the new standards remain inappropriate, weak, and even harmful. This failure to correct obvious deficits in the Common Core Standards is evidence that the Committee exhibited a blatant disregard for the concerns of many citizens, including myself, who attended the August Committee meetings and provided testimony and documentation as to many of these deficits and their abusive and harmful nature.
In addition, I have serious concerns about changes made to Standard L.9-10.3a.
L.9-10.3a: Write and edit work so that it conforms to the guidelines in a style manual (e.g., MLA Handbook, Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association, Turabian’s Manual for Writers) appropriate for the discipline and writing type.
I strongly object to the APA's political agenda and do not want our students to be required to utilize their publications . For Example, on February 17, 2016, the APA formally requested that President Obama abandon our long held provisions for American values and sovereignty in methods used for national defense and the protection of our citizens and suggests that the United States adopt mandates from the United Nations.
The new standard ADDS the Publication Manual of the American Psychological Association (APA) as a recommended resource. While the Manual may be a valid resource on the technical aspects of writing, I strongly object to the APA's obvious political philosophy and agenda and their inclusion of these in the Manual's instructions on " Bias- Free Writing" in Chapter 1. Many of their guidelines reflect a "political correctness" (ie Cultural Marxism) approach to writing which is antithetical to our American belief in free speech. The APA's recommendations :to avoid references to American culture and exceptionalism.....lest it be seen as an effort to characterize our values as superior to others (which they are); to refrain from using words such as "policeman"...... lest it imply that women can't be part of the police force; and to utilize the Guidelines for Psychotherapy with Lesbian, Gay , and Bisexual Clientsas a resource for the "correct" language to use are all efforts to indoctrinate our children with the PC agenda of the APA. See attached.
Since current Louisiana law requires you as a Board to either accept or reject the "new" standards as is, I hope that in light of the above information you will reject them.