Parents call Blackfoot School Board to action

Emilee Murdoch spoke at length at the Blackfoot School District 91 School Board meeting about the harms of the new Common Core Standards.

Murdoch had many people supporting her as she discussed the renaming of theSmarter Balanced Assessment Consortium (SBAC) to Idaho Standardized Assessment Test (ISAT) 2.0. Murdoch said the test is the SBAC, and renaming it is misleading.

Murdoch said parents should be active in their child’s education, and knowing that these high-stake assessments can affect teacher pay, licenses and student health. She said there are no proven benefits and many harms.

Murdoch also said parents have rights when it comes to their children’s education, and called into legal question the experimental tests done in the Spring of 2013. She compared it to any type of experiment, where you should have approval of the test subjects, and a child’s education is not something to experiment on.

“I hope that they will recognize parents rights to refuse the test,” Murdoch said. “That’s a legislative action that we’re hopefully going to be working on in the next legislative session.”

Murdoch asked the school board to speak out against the Common Core standards and asked them to make the community’s displeasure known during their next regional school board meeting.

After Murdoch finished speaking, school board treasurer Mary Jo Marlow told those in the room if they do want to get informed, take a look at the stance of the two women, Sherry Ybarra and Jana Jones, running for the Superintendent of Public Instruction.