The Yuck Factor — What Planned Parenthood Smears, Homophobia, and Middle School Jokes Have in Common

Blood and GutsMedical procedures and research are yucky. Good healthcare means getting over it.

If religious conservatives have their way, reproductive healthcare will be dictated by the same psychology that drives middle school jokes about genitals, dead babies and poop—our instinctive squeamish reaction to things that are disgusting and shocking, especially if they relate to sex. Good thing public health advocates and medical providers have a higher set of priorities.

Each year in America, 650 women die from pregnancy, many leaving behind motherless children. Thousands more survive and thrive only because of “yucky” medical procedures like cesarean sections, hysterectomies, transfusions, and abortions. Given the latest deceptive smear campaign against Planned Parenthood, it appears that religious conservatives would rather some of those women died.

Blood, Guts, and the ‘Yuck Factor’

Most of us have little stomach for tasks, however important, that require cutting people open, removing body parts, or dealing with squishy tissue and bodily fluids. That’s why blood and guts are the stuff of horror movies. That is also why the Religious Right wants our national conversation about family planning to stay focused on “the yuck factor” of abortion surgeries rather than on the chosen lives and flourishing families empowered by well-timed, intentional childbearing.

Disgust evolved as a way to protect us against eating and touching things that might make us sick. Swamp water, decaying flesh, putrid food, feces . . . all of these carry pathogens that our ancestors needed to avoid long before people understood germs. Nature’s way of protecting our species was to make certain sights and smells disgusting. We have a similar instinctive revulsion for human forms that are damaged, disfigured, dying or dead. Our instinctive horror makes a mutilated body riveting.

An image or idea that triggers the yuck factor is “sticky” and viral, meaning it sticks in our brains and we are likely to describe or show it to others. The more disgusting something is, the more it rattles us out of the mindless routine of everyday living and creates a strong memory imprint. That is because paying attention to disgust had—and sometimes still has—survival value. As with every other sensation or emotion that grabs our attention, people have learned to take advantage of that.

Turning Instinct into Financial, Religious or Political Gain

Storytellers long ago figured out how to cash in on the yuck factor, turning disgust into gold at the bookseller or box office. From Homer’s Medusa, to Shakespeare’s witches and their brew, to Stoker’s Dracula, to modern zombie movies, the horror artist compels our attention by playing with gruesome details. Halloween merchants sell slime and goo for haunted houses or fake severed limbs and gashed faces because the instinctive disgust reaction is malleable and doesn’t differentiate between substances and situations that are truly dangerous and those that merely look so.

Religions capitalize on disgust by blurring the difference between cleanliness and godliness—in other words by giving disgust moral and spiritual significance. In the Bible, for example, a woman is spiritually unclean while she is menstruating or after delivering a baby, and people with handicaps including crushed testicles are banned from the holiest part of the temple. In Islam, dogs are spiritually, not just physically dirty. In the Hindu tradition, holy men wear white, and spotless clothes represent spiritual purity. In Western Christianity, white wedding dresses have similar significance.

When disgust gets triggered, people may build a cognitive rationale to explain to themselves or others why the disgusting something is bad for other reasons, layering a veneer of rationalizations on top of what is really a gut feeling.

The boundary between disgust and morality is particularly blurry for self-identified conservatives. Psychologist Jonathan Haidt studies cognitive differences between liberals and conservatives. He found that liberals tend to base moral judgments on questions of harm and equity. Is it fair? Does it hurt anybody? Conservatives value fairness and non-harm too, but they also give moral weight to three other factors: loyalty, purity, and authority. What does my tribe want? Is it disgusting? What do authority figures say? In other words, conservatives are more likely to think something that triggers the yuck feeling is morally wrong, independent of other factors.

Practical and Moral Limitations of Yuck

Disgust works as a reasonably good shortcut to protect us from the dangers it evolved to avert, meaning pathogens and toxins. But even there, it has some real limitations. For example, in Ebola-stricken Africa, culturally-prescribed burial rituals trumped the instinctive aversion to touching dead bodies, which caused the virus to spread. On the other side of the equation, people with non-contagious physical deformities, like the Elephant Man, may face horrible cruelties and rejection.

When it comes to modern medical procedures and emerging technologies like GMO’s, or potable water from sewage, disgust correlates badly or not at all with real risks.

Likewise, moral disgust can arise from religious taboo violations, like eating cheese and meat from the same plate, that have little rational relation to humanity’s shared moral core or threats against wellbeing.

Homophobia and the Yuck Factor

For decades, people seeking queer equality found themselves up against the power of the yuck reaction. Any kind of sex that we ourselves don’t find titillating tends to arouse disgust; and so as long as the thought of queer people evoked images of anal sex between two men, the yuck factor created an almost insurmountable barrier to equality. But as a critical mass of queer people came out of the closet and advocates made the fight about families and love, other moral emotions like empathy and a sense of Golden-Rule fairness moved to front and center, and culture shifted.

Some years back I got schooled on disgusting sex by my middle school daughters. I had broached a conversation about their gay uncle and evangelical relatives who would soon be visiting us. I explained the yuck factor and said, “I might think about gay sex and say it’s not my thing, but they might think that its gross and so morally wrong.” One of the girls responded, “First off, Mom, the word isn’t ‘gay’ it’s ‘queer,’ and secondly, you know what kind of sex we think is really disgusting? Parent sex. That’s why we’re so glad you and Dad haven’t had any in 13 years.”

I chose not to enlighten them.

Today when most Americans think about queer people they think about loving couples, two moms or two dads raising kids, extended families, “sweet” members of the church choir, brave young soldiers, elderly partners making medical care decisions, and more—or they think about their own beloved relatives and friends who are queer. Although some members of the Religious Right may alternate between disgust and arousal (and disgust at their own arousal), conservative sects like the Southern Baptists are struggling and failing to keep disgust front and center even for their own members.

Reproductive Empowerment and the Yuck Factor

The culture shift toward equality for queer people, stands in contrast to the stalled progress around reproductive rights and chosen childbearing.

When it comes to reproductive empowerment for women, the Religious Right has been able to make disgust the dominant emotion by keeping the focus on sexual shaming and on abortion procedures, which are medical and messy. Those of us who see well-timed childbearing as fundamental to gender equality and flourishing families have gotten suckered into fighting on their terms.

Consequently, we are not creating the culture shift needed to make intentional childbearing the new normal, with all of the individual and family and community benefits that would bring. Half of U.S. pregnancies are unsought—either mistimed or unwanted—which makes American rates of teen pregnancy and abortion the highest in the developed world. Chosen pregnancy has been stalled around fifty percent for almost fifty years.

Recently, women have been exhorting each other to come out of hiding and talk about their reproductive decisions including abortions. Like queer people, women and allies understand that a culture of secrecy reinforces shame and stigma. We understand that if mothers and grandmothers stay silent, religious conservatives will control the conversation and hence the options available to our daughters, nieces and granddaughters. Several storytelling projects have sprung up to help women or couplesdefy taboos and break the silence, and brave celebrities, including men, are leading the way as they did prior to Roe vs. Wade. High-integrity electeds like Lucy Flores in New Mexico and Wendy Davis in Texas have risked their political careers and told their abortion stories so that other women may one day do the same.

I honor their courage and think their candor is a step forward. And yet, the drama around abortion has so captured center stage that even brave personal stories may inadvertently reinforce the Religious Right’s framing. We talk about the circumstances of an unsought pregnancy and the medical procedure the rather than the life made possible by access to contraception and care. In doing so, we keep the focus right where the power of yuck is the greatest.

Surgery – What’s the moral story?

Through much of this year, I have been consulting with people who want to communicate more effectively about abortion care, and I sometimes use my experience with knee surgery to illustrate how we can move beyond the yuck factor:

Two years ago, I was using a brush mower to clear an overgrown trail. The mower got stuck on a root and, unthinking, I walked around in front of it and yanked without disengaging the three foot blade. As the wheels hit the root and the front of the mower tipped up, my leg slipped under it.

I will be forever grateful to the surgeons who reassembled my kneecap and sewed up the horror movie gashes.

So, what’s the story of my surgery? Well, certainly one could wax eloquent about the gruesome details of the accident or repair. But for me the real story is this: I can walk again, and even run. I can bicycle downtown. I can sit for long periods writing, and afterwards my knees don’t hurt any more than most do at my age. This winter I even got back on cross country skis with my two daughters and husband in Yellowstone and skied to a frozen waterfall.

Smart, kind doctors and allied health professionals gave me an unspeakable gift. Their day-to-day work may get their hands dirty. It may involve goo and guts and it may even produce human remains that get donated for further medical research. But that is the climax of the story only for juvenile thrill seekers. For me as the patient, my children, my husband, and even my community, the real story is the precious gift of a second chance. It is a story about grace and compassion, love and laughter, beauty, and dreams fulfilled.

The same can be said about my abortion and many others.

Far too often, the fight to protect abortion access focuses on the procedure itself or surrounding circumstances, rather than what comes after. As abortion counselor Charlotte Taft has put it, “I wish that we talked about ‘choices’ instead of ‘choice.’ Because when a woman has an abortion, she isn’t choosing the abortion itself, she is choosing an education, or military service, or her loyalty to the family she already has.” Or to the family she will have, when she’s ready.

Rising Above the Juvenile Fascination with Eew and Goo

In the coming months, with Hillary Clinton as the most viable female presidential candidate in American history, Democrats are queuing up a vigorous conversation about family friendly policies, policies that help children to flourish and that allow women to fully participate in our economy and our democracy. Their aspirations include paid maternity and family leave, more flexible work hours that accommodate parenting, affordable childcare, and better wages for working people at the bottom of the income spectrum (mostly women). But this policy agenda has a glaring omission: to fully participate in our economy and democracy, a woman must be able to manage her fertility.

I have said publicly that I am pro-abortion, not just pro-choice, but I also believe that when advocates think about reproductive empowerment, our minds too often jump to abortion. If we want a future in which children get created when couples feel ready, one in which empowered young women and men can invest in their dreams and stack the odds in favor of their kids, abortion care is just one small (and hopefully shrinking) part of the mix.

Abortion may be minor compared to many routine surgeries, but it is still an expensive, invasive medical procedure that can be emotionally and morally complex. Why mitigate harm if we can prevent it? For the price of one abortion, a woman can get a state-of-the-art IUD or implant that drops her annual pregnancy risk below 1 in 500 for up to 12 years. Access to top tier long acting contraceptives like these dramatically dropped the teen pregnancy and abortion rates in Colorado recently. But better birth control is also just one part of reproductive empowerment.

As I view it, people are trying to get from Point A to Point B in their lives; and abortion is like the guardrail that keeps them from going off the cliff when all else fails. Guardrails save lives. We definitely want them there when people need them. But we also want well-designed roads with lines down the middle, and cars with excellent brakes and steering, and well-trained drivers who have a clear idea of where they want to go and how to get there.

On the road of life, we all get by with a little help from our friends, and strangers, and sometimes even professionals. Most of us don’t need to be reminded how icky life can get when thing go wrong. What we do need is people who will be there regardless, who live by Planned Parenthood’s motto: Care. No matter what.

Originally posted at ValerieTarico.com

Four Reasons the Washington Supreme Court is Likely to Call the Legislature Back for a Fourth Special Session

Beginning at 9 am on Tuesday, July 21, 2015, leaders of the State legislature will hold an all day meeting at Room 1 of the Bellevue Public Library to discuss how to convince the Supreme Court not to levy sanctions against them for failing to comply with a 2012 Supreme Court Order to make adequate yearly progress towards fully funding our public schools. If you want to see this hearing in person (or stage a protest), you will need to get their early because the room only holds 135 people. There is also limited parking at the Bellevue library. Sadly, the event is not being televised on TVW.

No one knows for sure what the Supreme Court is actually going to do. But a recent informal survey of legislators found that nearly all of them think that they did not comply with the Supreme Court Order and nearly all of them think that the Supreme Court is going to call them back into a fourth Special Session. One likened the situation to a child who failed to complete their homework assignment and the parent or teacher (the Supreme Court) having no other choice but to force the child to stay in and complete their homework before the child is allowed to go out to play. In this article, we will explain why the Supreme Court is likely to call the legislature back into session and what may happen when they do.

01

Reason #1… Try to Avoid a Statewide Teachers Strike
Some believe that bringing the legislature back into session may be the only way to prevent a statewide teachers strike this fall. Certainly the Supreme Court must be aware that teachers are not happy with the lack of funding. Thousands of teachers staged a series of “rolling walkouts” just a few weeks ago. For those who may not know, despite the fact that Washington is the only state in the nation with a constitution that describes school funding as the “paramount” or most important duty of the state legislature, Washington State has fallen from 11th in the nation in school funding to 47th in the nation in school funding as a percent of income.

02

As a consequence, class sizes in Washington state are among the highest in the nation and struggling students are not getting the help they need to succeed in school.

03

Teachers in Washington State are working harder for less pay than any nearby state. Teachers have been waiting years for the legislature to restore full school funding and lower class sizes. Their patience is wearing thin. They are particularly upset that the 2015 legislature failed to even discuss how to fund Initiative 1351 – the initiative approved by the voters to lower class sizes in all grades. Instead, the legislature continued their policy of giving away about $30 billion per year in tax breaks to the wealthy as their paramount duty. If the Supreme Court fails to act by calling the legislature back into special session, it is likely that teachers will take the matter into their own hands by launching a statewide teachers strike. After years of excuses and broken promises by the state legislature, it would be hard to blame teachers for finally forcing the issue.

04

Of course, parents and kids would be caught in the crossfire if a statewide strike were to occur. But our kids are already victims of extremely overcrowded classes. So many parents are likely to agree with and support the strike. Teachers and parents need hope that school funding might be restored. A Supreme Court order forcing the legislature back into special session in August might give them that hope.

Reason #2… Failure to Restore at least National Average School Funding and National Average Class Sizes
Six years ago, back in 2009, the legislature passed a bill promising to restore national average school funding by the 2018 school year. In 2012, when the Supreme Court ordered the legislature to restore full school funding, the Court ruling specifically ordered the legislature to come up with a plan to provide funding for the legislature’s promise and to make adequate yearly progressive towards this full funding. While the legislature likes to say they have provided more than one billion dollars in additional funding, the truth is that the additional funding barely covers the school funding cuts they have made in recent years. It would take an additional two to three billion dollars per year to provide the funding required by the law the legislature has already passed. While the legislature has taken years to restore one billion dollars in school funding, they took only three days in November 2013 to pass a bill giving Boeing an additional $9 billion in tax breaks – the largest tax break in the history of the world. So the Supreme Court is skeptical of the claim by the legislature that they just can not find the money to fully fund schools.

In September 2014, the Supreme Court found the legislature in “contempt of court” for the first time in state history for failing to come up with a plan to fully fund basic education as it was defined by the legislature back in 2009. The Supreme Court ordered the legislature to come up with a funding plan in the 2015 session or “additional sanctions” might be applied. The legislature did not come up with a funding plan in the 2015 session and thus nearly everyone in the legislature is now expecting “additional sanctions.”

There was only one bill introduced in the 2015 session that would have supplied more than two billion per year to fully fund schools and Initiative 1351. That was Senate Bill 6093 by Senators Chase and McAuliffe which repealed the single largest tax break that benefits mainly billionaires – the intangible property tax break. But the bill did not even get a hearing. There was a bill in the House that would have provided a couple hundred million additional dollars in school funding by adding a capital gains tax. But a vote was never taken on this bill. In addition, it would not have come close to providing the billions needed to restore school funding and fund Initiative 1351.

The House did at least try to come up with yet another committee to study how to fund the public schools with House Bill 2239 – but the Senate refused to consider the bill. (In the interest of full disclosure, I was the one person who spoke against this bill. I said that the legislature needed to stop kicking the can down the road.
http://lawfilesext.leg.wa.gov/biennium/2015-16/Pdf/Bill%20Reports/House/2239-S.E%20HBR%20APH%2015%20E2.pdf

Reason #3… Some Legislators Believe that the “Deal to Get out of Town” was Unconstitutional
The last minute deal to get out of town, also known as House Bill 2266, delayed funding lower class sizes and Initiative 1351 for six more years to the year 2021. This was the bill that caused the 5 am meltdown in the State Senate that forced a Third Special Session after a few brave Senate Democrats refused to vote for it. Their 5 AM speeches are really worth listening to. Senator Frockt openly admitted that “In the past six months, we haven’t even had a discussion about how to fund Initiative 1351.” What Senate Democrats were asking for was to at least have a discussion about how to fully fund our public schools. This video, available from TVW, may become Plaintiffs Exhibit #1 at the next Supreme Court hearing.

While lower class sizes were partially funded for grades 1 through 3, no one in Olympia seriously believes that the benefits of lower class sizes end at the Third Grade. The Supreme Court is not likely believe it either. While House Bill 2266 does save $2 to $3 billion per year by delaying Initiative 1351 and lower class sizes for 6 more years, the problem is that the Supreme Court has made it very clear that the legislature is not allowed to just keep kicking the can down the road. The legislature is also not allowed to delay school funding simply for budgetary reasons and simply to “get out of town.” So the Supreme Court may not like the deal to get out of town and may order the legislature to “come back to town” and find a way to restore full funding for public schools. One legislator said that the lack of progress on school funding by the 2015 legislature was “embarrassing.” Teachers and parents might chose a different adjective.

Reason #4… Failure to Address the Reliance on Local Levies to Fund Schools
The other thing the Supreme Court ordered the legislature to eliminate was the reliance on local property tax levies and local property tax bonds to fund school construction and operation. The problem with using local levies and bonds to build and operate schools is that some school districts, such as the Bellevue School District, are property rich and can pass local operating levies and school construction bonds while other school districts are property poor and cannot pass such levies and bonds. This leads to a two tier system of rich schools and poor schools which violates a section of our state constitution which requires a “uniform” system of public schools.

The legislature did not hold hearings to address the school construction problem – which is a multi-billion dollar problem and getting worse every year it continues to be ignored. But they did at least hold one hearing on how to address the school operating levy violation. The problem is that the Supreme Court ordered the legislature to do more than merely hold a hearing or form a committee on the unconstitutional use of local levies to fund schools. The Supreme Court wanted an actual solution that would stop this practice. The logic is going to be that if the legislature can hold a special session to give billions in tax breaks for Boeing, then they can be ordered to hold a special session to restore school funding an address the local levy problem and come into compliance with the State Constitution.

What is Likely to Happen if there is a Fourth Special Session
As noted above, there are two major problems the legislature has not addressed. The first is a plan to come up with billions of dollars per year to restore school funding to at least the national average. The second is to reduce the reliance on more than one billion dollars per year in local levies to fund basic education. The talk among legislators is that Republicans might have to bite the bullet and agree to the capital gains tax. But in trade, they are likely to demand that Democrats agree to pass a Levy Reduction Bill written by Senator Dammeier of Puyallup.

The Dammeier Property tax bill would “swap” one billion dollars in reduced local levy property taxes for one billion dollars in increases state property taxes. The problem with this bill is that the school districts who would lose one billion dollars are mainly in King County and the school districts who would gain one billion dollars are in the rest of the state. To give you just a couple of examples, the local levy rate in Seattle is 1.31 per thousand and would fall to 1.25 per thousand under the levy swap. But the state levy which is now 2.40 per thousand would rise to 3.83 for a difference of 1.37 per thousand. This would mean that a person with a 400,000 home in Seattle would see their property taxes rise by $548 per year while school funding in Seattle would fall by millions of dollars per year. Bellevue and Mercer Island homeowners would get an added hit to their property taxes of $1.43 per thousand. Issaquah would see their total property tax bill go up by 57 cents per thousand. There is an interesting chart that details exactly how the Dammeier Property Tax Transfer proposal would harm various homeowners around the state. About 60% would see their property taxes go up. 20% would see no change and 20% would see a reduction.
https://app.leg.wa.gov/CMD/Handler.ashx?MethodName=getdocumentcontent&documentId=OXN8YhXiTE0&att=false

In other words, thousands of teachers in Seattle would have to be fired while homeowners in Seattle would see their property taxes skyrocket. You can see why the Dammeier Property Tax Swap would not be popular with Seattle Democrats. But it is real popular with Eastern Washington Republicans. For more information on the drawbacks of the Dammeier Property Tax Bill and how it might actually reduce school funding, see the following article.
http://washingtontaxfairnesscoalition.org/latest-news/15-five-drawbacks-of-dammeier-senate-bill-6109-robbing-peter-to-pay-peter

How Many Billion of Dollars are Already Being Transferred from King County to the Rest of the State?
The Washington State Office of Financial Management has calculated how much each county pays in state taxes and how much each county gets in state tax benefits. If homeowners in King County ever got a look at this chart, a riot might break out. Here is a link to the latest OFM report.
http://www.ofm.wa.gov/fiscal/expenditures_and_revenues/county_expenditures_revenues.pdf

King county tax payers contribute $6.6 billion per year and get back $4.3 billion – a transfer of $2.3 billion per year from King County to the rest of the state – and no one in the other counties even says thank you! The Dammeier Property Tax Swap would raise the outflow from King County to the rest of the state up to more than $3 billion per year.

There is another solution… Pass Senate Bill 6093
Instead of dumping an even larger property tax burden on homeowners in King County, the legislature should pass Senate Bill 6093 and repeal the property tax break on intangible property that billionaires use to avoid paying their fair share of state property taxes.

06

This bill would not only restore billions of dollars for school funding, but it also eliminates property taxes for nearly all homeowners – saving homeowners all over the state thousands of dollars per year in property taxes – which would allow them to spend more on local businesses to jump start the economy and create hundreds of thousands of urgently needed jobs.

07

To learn more about Senate Bill 6093, go to the following link:
http://washingtontaxfairnesscoalition.org

It is not as easy as one might think to come up with an extra three billion to four dollars per year in school operation and construction funding. For those who think that there may be some other option to come up with the billions of dollars needed to restore funding for public schools, in the next article, we will take a closer look at all 8 ways that taxes can be raised in Washington state. As always, feel free to email me with your questions and comments.

Originally published at Coalition to Protect Our Public Schools

Glen Anderson: Military "Solutions" Are Really the PROBLEM

Glen Anderson: Military “Solutions” Are Really the PROBLEM- a workshop given at Fellowship of Reconciliation of Oregon and Washington’ annual conference at Seabeck, July 4th 2015.

Military ‘Solutions’ Are Really the PROBLEM. Choose humane, sustainable ways for TRUE Security. In our daily lives, we know better than to think violence solves problems, but at the national level the U.S. government routinely threatens and uses military violence all over the world. Militarism makes problems worse, so why does the government keep using militarism? Who benefits from this? We could achieve more profound, holistic “national security” by renouncing violence and promoting peace and fairness. This highly participatory workshop will encourage participants to share their information and insights. Glen Anderson has worked consistently for many issues related to peace, social & economic justice, and nonviolence since the 1960s. He engages people to help them think creatively and organize at the grassroots.

Breaking News! Washington State Democratic Party Progressive Caucus Endorses Bernie Sanders for President of the United States!

On July 11, 2015, the Washington State Democratic Party Progressive Caucus held a special meeting for the purpose of considering an endorsement of Senator Bernie Sanders for President of the United States. Members of the Progressive Caucus, including members from legislative districts and congressional districts all over Washington state, voted unanimously in favor of the endorsement. Delegates of the Washington State Democratic Party to the Democratic Party National Convention will be selected at Precinct Caucus in March 2016. We urge all progressives to attend your local precinct caucus and vote for Bernie Sanders to be the nominee of the Democratic Party for President of the United States. For more information on how you can become a delegate for Bernie and/or help others become delegates for Bernie, visit the following web page.
http://washingtonforberniesanders.com/how-to-become-a-delegate-for-bernie-sandersBernie Sanders is our best hope to restore our democracy and rebuild our economy. Join our campaign and help us help Bernie win here in Washington state.

wa and bernie

The "Poison Pill" and the Carbon Tax

The transportation bill passed by the Washington State Senate contains an infamous “poison pill” provision that would move public transit and other multi-modal funding to the roads account if the state passes a low carbon fuel standard. (See http://www.thestand.org/2015/03/fix-fatal-flaws-in-transportation-package/ for background.)

The poison pill was inserted by State Senate Republicans to please the Koch Brothers and other fossil fuel industry backers of the GOP, as well as to stymie Governor Inslee’s green energy agenda.

Late last month, Governor Inslee agreed to existence of the poison pill as a condition for getting a deal made.

But the state House needs to agree on identical language. So far, some progressive House members are refusing to accept the poison pill, while some Republican House members are refusing to go along with the 11.7 cent rise in the gas tax.  See Solving or At Least Understanding the Gridlock in Olympia for details.

(By the way, the budget and transportation package agreed to by the Senate raise taxes on the poor and the middle class, while not raising taxes on the coddled rich.)

But if the poison pill is the only blocker for the progressives, perhaps they should relent, because there’s an excellent alternative that appears not to be subject to the poison pill. The revenue neutral carbon tax promoted by CarbonWA, with bipartisan support, is not a low carbon fuel standard and so apparently wouldn’t trigger the fund transfer.

CarbonWA and its supporters are gathering signatures for initiative I-732 that they hope will appear on the November, 2016 ballot.  There are many reasons why a carbon tax makes more sense than Cap and Trade or a Low Carbon Fuel Standard.

States Leave Common Core SBAC and PARCC Tests like Rats Deserting a Sinking Ship

There are two Common Core high stakes high failure rate tests, called SBAC and PARCC. Both are paid for with more than one hundred million of dollars in tax payer “development funds” but also cost states hundreds of millions of additional dollars every year to administer. Just 5 Originally, there were 45 states signed up for these Common Core tests. In the past couple of years, State after State has dropped out of the Common Core test nightmare like rats deserting a sinking ship. In just the past couple of weeks, Maine abandoned the SBAC ship and Ohio abandoned the PARCC ship. Of the original 45 states, 23 have now dropped out leaving only 22 states left – 15 SBAC states and 7 PARCC states.How the Common Core Test Nightmare Started
In September 2010, Arne Duncan awarded $330 million to PARCC ($170 million) and SBAC ($160 million). According to a USDOE press release, 46 States signed up for either or both of the two Common Core testing scams. But given Minnesota’s resistance to the assessments, we will list it as one of the five non-adopter States:2010 PARCC ONLY – 14 States: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Mexico, New York, Rhode Island, and Tennessee.

2010 SBAC ONLY – 19 States: Connecticut, Hawaii, Idaho, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, Nevada, North Carolina, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, Vermont, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming.

2010 BOTH PARCC and SBAC (observers only) – 12 States: Alabama, Colorado, Delaware, Georgia, Kentucky, North Dakota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, and South Carolina. This meant that PARCC originally had a total of 26 States and SBAC had a total of 31 States.

2010 Never Adopted – 5 States: Alaska, Minnesota, Nebraska, Texas, and Virginia. Only 5 States resisted the propaganda and bribery of the two Common Core tests.

Here is a map of the various States Common Core Tests in 2010.

01

Both Common Core Testing Scams Have Fallen Apart
The biggest loser has been PARCC – which is a test made by a terrible corporation called Pearson. As of January 2015, of the original 25 States in the PARCC camp, with 31 million students, there are only 10 States that have not yet abandoned the PARCC ship. These remaining states have only 5 million students. So PARCC total test takers have fallen by more than 80%:

PARCC Test down from 26 States to just 7 States
A minimum of 15 States is required to get $186 million in federal funding. However, PARCC is now now down to 7 States. In December 2014, Congress killed the remaining Race to the Top funding – which was funding both the PARCC and SBAC Common Core tests. It is therefore uncertain what Arne Duncan will do or how PARCC will be funded in the future. The first to leave PARCC was California which switched to SBAC on June 9 2011. This was followed by South Carolina in August 2012. In 2013, Alabama left in February, Pennsylvania left in June, Indiana left in July, Georgia and North Dakota left in August and Florida left in September. In Florida in 2013, a furor erupted when only 27 percent of fourth-graders passed the PARCC writing test. The state Board of Education promptly, and retroactively, lowered the score required to pass the test – and in a flash, the pass rate jumped to 81 percent. So much for the magic of high stakes tests!

In 2014, Oklahoma left in January, Kentucky left in March, Florida left in May, Arizona, Louisiana and Tennessee left in June, New York made “special arrangements” in July. In New York, after two years of public outrage over the PARCC test (that only had about a 33% pass rate), the State legislature voted to delay the consequences of the Common Core test and to set up a different State controlled test.

All of the above revolts meant that by the August 2014 deadline to pay Pearson for the 2015 PARCC test, only 10 States were left: AR, CO, IL, MD, MA, NJ, NM, OH, and RI. Mississippi withdrew from PARCC in January 2015 and will soon be out of Common Core. Delaware and New Hampshire are now both SBAC States. Indiana, Oklahoma Louisiana and South Carolina have repealed the Common Core standards altogether. In New Jersey, a bill that would slow down the introduction of the Common Core education standards and the use of test scores in teacher evaluations passed the Assembly Education Committee with unanimous support. So it is likely New Jersey will shortly be out of PARCC. This would drop the number of PARCC States down to 8. The PARCC contract in New Mexico is also in dispute after a Pearson connected “bidding scandal.” If this lawsuit succeeds, PARCC/Pearson would be down to 7 States. Massachusetts has put PARCC on hold with a 2 year phase in. This would drop PARCC to only 6 States. In July 2015, Ohio pulled out of PARCC meaning PARCC may soon be down to only 5 states.

SBAC Test also losing States like Rats leaving a Sinking Ship
In 2010, SBAC started with 31 states, 17 of which were designated as governing states. As of July 21, 2014, SBAC still lists 22 states on its website. Unlike PARCC, SBAC appears to still be above the 15-state mark for federal funding. However, if it loses one or two more states in will fall below this crucial mark. According to the SBAC website, the 17 governing States are: CA, CT, DE, HI, ID, ME, MI, MT, NV, NH, ND, OR, SD, VT, WA, WV, and WI. The 3 remaining affiliated Members are IA, NC and WY. This would indicate that SBAC still has 20 States. The map incorrectly shows Missouri. But they are developing their own test for 2016.

In 2012, Utah withdrew from SBAC. In 2013, Pennsylvania opted out in favor of its own test. In December 2013, Kansas jumped ship. Missouri defunded Common Core testing in favor of their own State test. Wyoming joined SBAC in late 2010. However, it has decided to not sign the SBAC agreement and will not administer the SBAC test in 2015. So they are effectively opting out. In August 2014, Iowa also withdrew from SBAC. This brings SBAC down to the following 18 States: CA, CT, DE, HI, ID, ME, MI, MT, NV, NC, NH, ND, OR, SD, VT, WA, WV, and WI. Since then, North Carolina and Michigan pulled out of SBAC and moved to their own STATE tests dropping the SBAC total to 16 states. Then in June 2015, Maine pulled out of SBAC dropping the total SBAC states to 15.

Combined with the 7 States still actively in PARCC, there will be about 22 States giving the SBAC and PARCC tests in 2016.

Here are a couple of websites trying to keep track of all of these changes:
http://www.realcleareducation.com/articles/2014/12/09/common_core_future_elections_heat_map_1140.html#map

http://media.cleveland.com/plain_dealer_metro/other/Test%20roundup%20from%20Education%20Commission%20of%20the%20states.pdf

After all of these changes, here is a map of where things likely stand as of July 2015:

02

Below is a table summarizing all of these changes for States A through M.

03

Below is a table summarizing all of these changes for States N through Z.

04

Test option key:
SBAC Computer only CC test
PARCC Computer or Paper CC test
ACT Aspire test
AAI Achievement Assessment Institute Univeristy of Kansas
AIR American Institute for Research
PREP Pearson’s Ridiculously Expensive Program
STATE State Designed and Administered Test
RFP Request for Proposal. Trying to decide what test to use next.

Opposition from Parents and Teachers Drives the Rebellion
Ohio is a good example of why states are opting out of the Common Core tests. A poll of parents and teachers taken after the 2015 Common Core PARCC test found overwhelming opposition to the test. Specifically, over 90% of parents and teachers oppose the massive amount of time Common Core tests take away from actual learning. Here are the results of a recent Ohio poll:

Teachers: Do you think the time that was required to administer the new PARCC assessments (ELA and math) was appropriate?

05

Parents: Do you think the time that was required to administer the new PARCC assessments (ELA and math) was appropriate?

06

On July 1, 2015, the Washington State Superintendent of Public Instruction announced that more than 50,000 Juniors had failed the SBAC math test – despite the fact that Washington students are among the highest achieving students in the world on both national and international math tests!

The Central Committees of both the Washington State Republican and Democratic Party have already passed resolutions by overwhelming margins opposing Common Core and the SBAC test. The only question left is ifthe Washington state legislature will wake up and jump ship before the SBAC test boat sinks completely. 

Originally published at Coalition to Protect Our Public Schools.