Below is week 4’s call to action

I just wanted to encourage you all with some more good news:

On Monday, Dec 9th, five of us are going to have a sit down with the Governor to present to him our concerns and our petition of over 900 signatures! (If you haven’t signed the petition yet or haven’t told all your friends to do so, go to wyomingcitizensopposingcommoncore.com) In Indiana, a petition was given to the Governor with less signatures than we have collected, and their legislature ended up repealing common core. So, that is great news!
Thanks for all your efforts and please consider taking the action prescribed below.

Call to Action – Week 4

Dear Wyoming Citizen,

We hope you had a wonderful Thanksgiving. The Select Committee on Statewide Education Accountability has only one more meeting (Dec 10th) before the budget session starts in February. This means we only have until December 9th to let them know that we do not support the Smarter Balanced Assessment and we would like them to keep it from being implemented in Wyoming.
One More Email Needs To Be Sent To The Committee

– We encourage you to put “One More Concern with SBAC” in the subject line of your
email. (Consider other options like, “New Problem with SBAC”, or, “Another Concern
with SBAC” so recipients won’t think it is a form email.

– Copy and paste the committee emails into the “To” field (see emails below)
– Copy and paste the full legislature and governor into the “CC” field
– Pick from the list of Smarter Balanced Assessment concerns to include in your short
letter (we suggest picking one concern from the four options)

Four New Points of Concern (These are different concerns than previously sent)

1) From the Memo of Understanding between WY and SBAC: “[WY] agrees to . . .
identify and implement a plan to address barriers in State Law, statute, regulation or
policy to implementing the proposed assessment system and to addressing any such
barriers prior to full implementation of the summative assessment components of the
system”

Problem: In other words, if SBAC contradicts current state laws or practices, WY
agrees to eliminate such barriers so SBAC can be implemented. In Wyoming’s case,
four such changes would have to be made in order to adopt SBAC, thus substituting
Wyoming control with national control.

Source: http://wyomingcitizensopposingcommoncore.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/SBAC-Governing-MOUWY–
July-20131.pdf (page 14) See W.S. 21-2-304(a)(v)(E), W.S. 21-2-304(a)(v)(B), W.S. 21-2-204 (c) (ii) (A) (III), W.S. 21-2-204 (c) (iii)(iv)

2) From the cooperative agreement between the US Dept of Ed and SBAC: “[SBAC] must provide timely and complete access to any and all data collected at the State
level to [the US Dept of Ed].”

Problem: If WY adopts SBAC, and SBAC is bound to share data with the US Dept of
Ed, WY would be binding themselves to the sharing of student data with the federal
government.
Source: http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop-assessment/sbac-cooperative-agreement.pdf

3) Wyoming does not have a representative on the Executive Committee of the
SBAC, which is charged with the task of oversight of the Smarter Balanced
Assessment System.

Problem: WY’s voice in SBAC is so small it will not make a difference, but we
would still be bound to follow SBAC’s decisions. We lose sovereignty over
education.
Source: http://www.smarterbalanced.org/about/executive-committee/

4) From the SBAC Governance Structure Document, to exit the SBAC, Wyoming
would need federal approval: “Step 5. Upon approval of the request, the Project
Management Partner will then submit a change of membership to the USED for
approval”

Problem: If WY wanted out of SBAC we would have to get approval from the US
Dept of Ed. If the federal government doesn’t want us to leave SBAC, we can’t. Not
only does WY lose control in SBAC but we can’t remedy the situation by leaving
SBAC.
Source: http://wyomingcitizensopposingcommoncore.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/09/SBACGoverning–
MOU-WY-July-20131.pdf (page 12)

If you haven’t yet signed the Letter To The Governor:
If you haven’t already signed the letter to Governor Mead, please do so now and ask your spouse and friends to sign it, too. The deadline is December 8th.
http://wyomingcitizensopposingcommoncore.com/letter-governor/

Thank you for taking the time to write! Feel free to pass this ~~email~~ [post] on to other concerned Wyoming citizens and encourage them to write in.
Sincerely,
Wyoming Citizens Opposing Common Core
www.wyomingcitizensopposingcommoncore.com

Select Committee:
Jim.Anderson.SD02@wyoleg.gov, Hank.Coe@wyoleg.gov,
Bill.Landen@wyoleg.gov, Phil.Nicholas@wyoleg.gov, Chris.Rothfuss@wyoleg.gov,
steve.harshman@wyoleg.gov, Mike.Madden@wyoleg.gov, Tim.Stubson@wyoleg.gov,
Matt.Teeters@wyoleg.gov, Mary.Throne@wyoleg.gov