Dear Academic Standards Review Commission,

The Coastal Carolina Taxpayers Association has been following Common Cores activity
through the legislative process, into this Commissions charge to repeal and replace
Common Core. We have been in attendance at almost all of the monthly ASRC
meetings, and have continued to be active in the replacement process of Common
Core.
We have been supportive of the North Carolina Education Coalition and the North
Carolina Education Plans (NCEP) rewrite of the Math and English Language Arts
standards. As you will recall, this group presented their plan outline to this commission
earlier this year. The NCEP has evolved over the past several months with
improvements based on information gathered during your commission meetings,
preliminary recommendation reports and specific North Carolina perspectives.
We have listened closely to the presentations from others, the review of the draft
recommendations and what the Commissioners have shared as to their personal
preferences on what they are looking for regarding changes to the Common Core. I say
with some pride that the North Carolina Education Plan DOES the things that the
Commissioners have indicated are important to them.
To refresh your minds, the NCEP is a five year plan that uses as its framework, a set of
classical academic standards for Mathematics and the English Language Arts. The
Mathematics standards are based on a selective remodeling of the Minnesota
Mathematics standards, which Dr. James Milgram says are the only set of state
standards that prepare students for a 4 year college. These have been strengthened
and realigned for age and grade appropriateness.
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The English Language Arts (ELA) standards are based on a combination of Sandra
Stotskys framework and the Massachusetts ELA standards from 2001 (used with her
permission). These frameworks have been constructed to complement each other, and
additionally, in grades 9 to 12, critical thinking material is infused. The North Carolina
Education plan recognizes that reading and writing are at the epicenter of reasoning
and learning and are incorporated throughout the standards. The critical thinking
component, which is the centerpiece of the NCEP, is based on the Critical Thinking
Competency standards published by the Foundation for Critical Thinking in Sonoma CA.

I wanted to remind you all of what has been accomplished by volunteers, for free,
without Government intervention for the state of North Carolina, and ask you once
again to keep the North Carolina Education Plan in mind when you are making your
final recommendations to the State Board and to the General Assembly. The latest
version, 2.2 will be available for download on our website,
http://nceducationcoalition.org , before the next ASRC meeting.
Thank you for your consideration,
Kim Fink
Coastal Carolina Taxpayers Association
Public Education Chairman
New Bern NC, 28562
252-633-0191