Well, Balti-morons, are you missing former State’s Attorney Patricia Jessamy yet?

I’m not sure the state’s attorney we have now, Gregg L. Bernstein, quite cuts the mustard.

Recently a Baltimore Circuit Court judge chided Bernstein’s office for committing a Brady violation in the case of Michael Maurice Johnson, who was found guilty of murdering Phylicia Barnes.

Johnson is guilty no more. The judge ordered that, because of the Brady violation, he be given a new trial.

That was way back in March. Fast forward to this month, when 45-year-old Matthew Hersl was killed after being struck by a car.The details of Hersl’s death are especially tragic. He had worked at City Hall 28 years. He had just left work when the accident occurred.

That accident never had to happen.

According to police, a man was allegedly zooming down I-83 at 100 miles per hour when he took the Pleasant Street exit. Still speeding, he tried to make a left turn when the car careened out of control, allegedly striking a pole and Hersl. The driver was treated for minor injuries then cops sent him on his merry way.

That changed earlier this week when State police, not our BPD, arrested a

43-year-old man named Johnny Johnson and charged him with manslaughter by automobile.

Oh, that’s not all— Johnson is also charged with homicide by motor vehicle while impaired by drugs; driving under the influence of drugs; driving under the influence of a controlled dangerous substance; possession of heroin; possession of cocaine; and possession of drug paraphernalia.

Given all those charges, doesn’t it boggle the mind how cops let the suspect just walk?

But enter Bernstein on Wednesday, April 10, according to a report in The Baltimore Sun, saying that no weapons or drugs were found in the suspect’s car.

On Monday, April 15, state police said drugs were found in the suspect’s car.

This poses quite the dilemma for Bernstein, doesn’t it? We should give him the benefit of the doubt and assume he didn’t lie when he said no drugs were found in the suspect’s car.

Then that means Bernstein was misinformed. Is that really much better? It diminishes not one iota the egg we should all see smeared on his face.

 Hersl’s death— like Barnes’ murder — are both high-profile cases and we have seen Bernstein’s office in recent weeks stumbling in both.

I can’t, for the life of me, imagine Jessamy letting the suspect just walk away without being charged, given the nature of the crime and the fact that we now know drugs were allegedly recovered from the suspect’s car.

Bernstein campaigned as the anti-Jessamy, accusing her of being an incompetent state’s attorney. He rode into office all but dancing on the graves of the seven members of the Dawson family, who died in their home after a drug dealer torched it.

Jessamy never had a Brady violation in a major case on her watch, and she was state’s attorney for over 16 years.

Bernstein’s only been in office a little over a year, and he already has one.

How can he continue to misstep this way, and not be called on it by the local media?

You know the ones I’m talking about. Yes, I am referring to the folks at The Baltimore Sun, where I was previously employed. And I’m also talking about local talk radio show hosts, who dogged Jessamy every chance they got but gave Bernstein a pass in these two latest incidents.

Are these people not paying attention? Is no one watching? Where, in Bernstein’s case, is the sense of moral outrage that was directed at Jessamy?

The topic of education reform brings to mind an endless list of clichés. Take your pick, these many failed attempts to improve education can be described as: pie in the sky, throwing good money after bad, cost and arm and a leg; wishful thinking; and too little too late— to name just a few. Or perhaps worst of all, it’s everyman for himself when it comes to receiving the benefits of education reform measures.

For poor and minority students the creation and implementation of educational programming that ensures academic success as evasive as a diet pill that lets you over-eat and stay slim. However, the lack of past success is no excuse for throwing in the towel (another tired cliché) when our children’s lives can be shortened without access to a good education.

It is not an exaggeration to say the quality and longevity of your child’s life depends upon whether or not they receive a good education. Every year hundreds of young people die needlessly, victims of violence, ignorance, poverty, and a whole host of ailments that are associated with poor decision-making. A closer look at the root cause of these problems can most often be traced back to the lack of early academic success.

Waiting for an over-paid public school administrator, a self-serving politician or well-meaning but, under funded social activist to create education reform guaranteed to secure your child’s future, is in most cases, a useless waste of time.

Clean, safe schools, great teachers and effective academic programming are very expensive. Kids come up short, but not for the lack of money spent. Each year federal, state and local governments pour hundreds of millions of dollars into education. Unfortunately, children are on the wrong end of those generous funding streams.

Education is big business. It is highly profitable to the providers at the expense of its biggest customers, our children. The Washington Post reports that the education sector now represents nearly nine percent of the country’s gross domestic product!

Yet, according to the most recent national reading test, only 38 percent of high school seniors are “proficient” in reading, meaning these students cannot write an essay based on an article that they’ve read. This means our schools have a 62 percent failure rate.

While I am not an economist or business manager, it’s safe to say that very few companies could survive with such a dismal lack of success. Patrick Farenga, who wrote “Teach Your Own: The John Holt Book of Homeschooling,” asks an intriguing question: Are schools a [business] market or a civic institution? Corporate funding and involvement, and how schools respond to it, will be the deciding factor, says Farenga.

His response reveals the complexity of this issue. “School has become big business— not only are countless new educational products on the market, but investors are hot to make money off the schools themselves. The goals of education, however, run far counter to business.”

Other critics point out that, “The school reforms of the past 20 years have been exactly this application of business models and metrics to the learning and lives of children, and the results have been largely disappointing, so why intensify what isn't working? Further, the critics warn that private interests should not influence public school policies, and that the school environment and curricula will shift to accommodate the implicit goals of important corporate supporters.”

In an article titled “Privatizing Public Schools: Big Firms Eyeing Profits From U.S.

K-12 Market,” Stephanie Simon reports the following from a recent gathering of public sector vendors of school supplies and services.

Attendees were told to “Think about the upcoming rollout of new national academic standards for public schools, he urged the crowd. If they're as rigorous as advertised, a huge number of schools will suddenly look really bad, their students testing way behind in reading and math. They'll want help, quick. And private, for-profit vendors selling lesson plans, educational software and student assessments will be right there to provide it. It could get really, really big."

Simon adds, “Investors of all stripes are beginning to sense big profit potential in public education. The K-12 market is tantalizingly huge: The U.S. spends more than $500 billion a year to educate kids from ages five through 18.

Traditionally, public education has been a tough market for private firms to break into— fraught with politics, tangled in bureaucracy and fragmented into tens of thousands of individual schools and school districts from coast to coast.

Now investors are signaling optimism that a golden moment has arrived. 

They are pouring private equity and venture capital into scores of companies that aim to profit by taking over broad swaths of public education.”

Jayne Matthews Hopson, an education writer and mother of three school-aged children believes that “education matters, because only the educated are free.”

It’s easy to take the public library for granted. But parents and families looking for activities that are fun as well as education should take a closer look at the public library’s wide variety of programs and services. The Baltimore’s library’s name says it all— nearly everything at Enoch Pratt Free Library is offered without charge.  While many people believe all good things come at a price this venerable institution is clearly the exception to the rule.

If the 11th Annual Fairy Tale Festival were measured in dollars and cents it would be priceless. Described as an “extravaganza” this month-long FREE literary festival includes opportunities for children to dress up like princes or princesses, create art projects, act out their favorite fairy tales and explore the many literary wonders of the Enoch Pratt Library.

On Sunday April 14, 2013 from 2:00 p.m. to 3:00 p.m. the Central Branch will host a Skype conversation with author Catherynne Valente. Her two loquaciously named novels The Girl Who Circumnavigated Fairyland in a Ship of Her Own Making and The Girl Who Fell Beneath Fairyland and Led the Revels There, describe the adventures of September, an engaging young girl who went to Fairyland, and the characters she meets there.

Technology savvy teens and fairy tale fans of all ages are invited to join in a Skype conversation with the author and learn more about September's journeys. "Fairy food" will be served. FREE!

Throughout the month the Fairy Tale Festival the Enoch Pratt (pardon the pun) branches out with a wide variety of activities and events at its neighborhood libraries. On Monday, April 8  “The Gingerbread Man and The Stinky Cheese Man” was read at the Hamilton branch. Afterwards, kids were able to decorate their own Gingerbread man to enjoy or to take home.

Think you know the story of the Three Little Pigs?  Children 6 to 12 read this classic tale with a new spin at the Hamilton branch on Thursday, April 11.  Then youngsters built their own house to see if it could withstand the huffing and puffing. 

On Saturday, April 13 at 1:00 p.m. bring your aspiring Terrace Howard or Kerry Washington to the Roland Park branch to listen to a fairy tale and they will get the chance act out a favorite role. In addition to sharpening their acting skills, children ages three to 12 can make regal crafts and practice royal manners.

Movies based on bestselling books are a popular, yet very expensive weekend activity. Why not enjoy a free classic film at the library. Harper Lee's Pulitzer Prize-winning autobiographical novel, “To Kill a Mockingbird” is considered by many film historians to be the best written screenplay. This 1962 Oscar Winning film takes place in a small

Depression-era Alabama town in the 1930s. Lee's story is told through the eyes of six-year-old "Scout" Finch, daughter of Atticus Finch played by Gregory Peck.

Finch, the town lawyer is a wise, quiet man with a great sense of justice who defends a poor, black man accused of rape. This is a must see film for young teens, who may be inspired to read the book and write a story based on a significant event in their lives. The film will be shown at the main library on Saturday April 20, from 10:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m.

For younger children “Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted” will be shown at the Orleans Street Branch on Saturday, April 13 from 2:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.

Alex, Marty, Gloria and Melman are still fighting to get home to their beloved Big Apple. Their journey takes them through Europe where they find the perfect cover: a traveling circus, which they reinvent— Madagascar style.

For directions to the library and a full schedule of special events, visit: www.prattlibrary.org

Jayne Matthews Hopson, an education writer and mother of a son who attends college in Maryland believes education matters because “only the educated are free.” 

During my research on street gangs, one thing became clear: They are the primary source for drug distribution. The crimes conducted by these street gangs on a daily basis also include murder, bribery, extortion, robbery, carjacking, prostitution, human trafficking and money laundering. Some gangs concentrate on some of these crimes but all of them have drug trafficking as their number one activity. This makes them truly a menace to our society.

Yet, we ignore them for the most part. We tend to be blind to their destruction and terror. There are 1.4 million street gang members (2011) and we act like they don’t exist.

There are more than 2.1 million men and women incarcerated and the majority are there for drug related-crimes.

Approximately 650,000 people are released from our prisons each year and at least 52 percent will return within three years for parole violation or some other criminal act.

The cost of housing a state prisoner can be as high as $45,000 per year. Wait, it gets worse! It is so disappointing that when we persuade a company to hire some of our youngsters for on the job training they are unable to pass a drug test. 

During the Katrina rebuilding, we warned potential job applicants that they would be tested for drugs and urged them to become clean. For many it was too late because they were hooked and couldn’t shake it.

Dealing is a very big “business” for many drug dealers and unlike many other sectors in the United States, business is booming.

The gang leaders don’t have a recruiting program; they “draft” top prospects.  One day, my aunt in Los Angeles asked her grandson if he was in the Crips. His reply was, “Grandma, I have no choice; it is Crips or die.”

These young members have quotas to fill. They must push dope and get as many hooked as possible. The Peoria, Illinois Chamber of Commerce once did a job study for black youth ages 18 to 30. The number one employer was the city government; number two was the local utility company and number three was the illegal drug activity. Peoria has a population of approximately 100,000 people. No place of any size is immune from drug trafficking. I could not find credible estimates of how large the illegal drug business is in America but it is at least $250 billion per year. I bet we would be surprised where some of it ends up.

My brothers and sisters, we have an extreme problem that needs urgent fixing. I would like to see black elected officials become more active about addressing this problem. It is my firm belief that withdrawal programs are not the end solution. We need to come

together to do something radically progressive. Nothing that has been tried in the past has improved this “illness.”

The time has come for bold, American style action. The first thing we should do is to legalize drugs. Treat it like liquor and cigarettes by taxing it to the limit and regulate it wisely. The demand for illegally transported drugs will soon dry up and the use of street gangs will be a public danger. We could close many prisons and reduce enforcement officers along with parole and probation officers.

The next thing we need to do is to write new legislation. Organized street gangs are already being broadly prosecuted as racketeering enterprises. The Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act (RICO) should be amended to explicitly include street gangs with certain, severe prosecution of their leadership. Everyone knows who the leaders are and where they live. A good example of this is how authorities are currently going after the street gang MS – 13.

According to the Associated Press, “The Obama administration declared the ultra-violent street gang MS – 13 to be an international criminal group ….The aim is to freeze it out of the U.S. financial system and seize what are estimated to be millions of dollars in criminal profits from drug… and other crimes committed in this country”.

Let’s form a taskforce like the old

“Untouchables.” Make them forfeit their assets, bust up their leadership and strongly police our banking system that plays along with some of the vast money laundering that is taking place. If we follow the money and clean up the inside corruption, we will begin to turn the tide. Imagine our nation becoming a populous of people living productive lives once again.

Right now we are just seeing our cultures and neighborhoods slide into oblivion. It is not something so great that we cannot manage. Some common sense, a lot of courage and a taste of vision could change it around. God bless us!

Harry C. Alford is the co-founder, President/CEO of the National Black Chamber of Commerce. To reach Harry C. Alford, email: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

So, President Obama thinks Kamala Harris of California is the hottest attorney general in the country!

 Put that way, Harris might well be. But let’s change the term “attorney general” to the word “prosecutor.” Then things change a bit.

 The hottest female prosecutor in the country is located just down the road from us, in Prince George’s County. Her name is Angela D. Alsobrooks. Yeah, I said it and I’m glad.

 According to those Americans that consistently have a stick jammed up a certain body part, I’m not even supposed to grace this topic. It’s sexist, or misogynist, or both, you see.

 Obama wasn’t supposed to grace it. He took some heat, right after he made this remark about Harris.

 “She’s brilliant and she’s dedicated; she’s tough. She also happens to be, by far, the best-looking attorney general.”

  Calling Harris “brilliant, dedicated and tough” didn’t even sway the president’s critics. Soon White House spokesman Jay Carney had to issue this Obama apology:

  “They are old friends, good friends and he did not want in any way to diminish the attorney general’s professional accomplishments and her capabilities.”

  Obama DIDN’T diminish Harris’ professional accomplishments and capabilities, but you can’t convince America’s stick-up-the-orifice crowd of that. This bunch would have us believe that there’s no such thing as a good-looking woman.

  The eyes of every heterosexual man— worth being called one— tell us that is a lie. There are good-looking women, and men are going to acknowledge that.

  There are good-looking men, and women are going to acknowledge THAT. Women certainly aren’t going to crow about how they were attracted to a guy because of how smart he was, or because he was kind to kittens and puppies.

  I was quite a bright lad in high school and college, especially in math. And I assure you, never did a girl or a woman walk up to me and tell me that I had bowled her over because of the way I rocked solving differential equations. Never happened. EVER.

  So, knowing full well I’m about to egregiously offend the stick-up-the-orifice crew, I submit that Alsobrooks is the country’s hottest female prosecutor.

   She’s got Harris beaten by at least a mile. It’s no contest.

   Gary Rothstein, a columnist with the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, has nominated Pennsylvania Attorney General Kathleen Kane.

  Sorry, Rothstein. Kane’s not bad, but she’s no Alsobrooks.

  I still remember the first time I saw a picture of Alsobrooks. I was driving from Baltimore-Washington/Thurgood Marshall International Airport down to Lanham in Prince George’s County.

  Coming off the I-495 exit ramp number 20, at Md. 450, I saw the billboard. Alsobrooks was campaigning for the office of attorney general of Prince George’s County, and her photo covered the billboard.

  I stopped my car, gasped, and said the only thing I could say: “GOOD GOOGA MOOGA!”

  Yes, Alsobrooks is just that drop-dead gorgeous. Not that her looks had anything to do with the fact that she won the race for PG state’s attorney in a landslide, getting nearly twice as many votes as her competitor.

  Alsobrooks was the state’s attorney that had to prosecute two members of the Prince George’s County Police Department for the thumping they gave University of Maryland College Park student James McKenna back in March of 2010.

  Such cases can be lose-lose for prosecutors. If they don’t bring charges and prosecute, civilians might hate them. If they charge the cops, police might hate them.

  A jury acquitted— no doubt trying for a best-of-both-worlds approach (or the worst of both worlds) acquitted one cop and convicted the other.

  Funny. I thought I saw them both hand out the same butt whipping.

  However, Alsobrooks showed what kind of prosecutor she will be by taking the cops to trial. Looks aside, she’s what I ultimately look for in a state’s attorney— tough enough to take on the tough cases.

Matthew Heimbach, that eminent Towson University sociologist and criminologist, is quite the cheeky fellow.

Not too long ago Heimbach started a White Student Union chapter on the college campus. Heimbach apparently felt that Towson’s white students are so oppressed, marginalized and discriminated against that a WSU is necessary. That, dear readers, takes cheek.

In late March, Heimbach managed to top himself in the chutzpah department. White Student Union members at Towson, Heimbach declared, would form campus patrols to stem a crime wave perpetrated by black males.  

It’s certainly Heimbach’s right to feel as paranoid as he wants about any racial or ethnic group when it comes to violent crime. But has the guy been watching the news lately?

Let’s all refresh Mr. Heimbach’s memory, shall we?

Aurora, Colo.

Newtown, Conn., Sandy Hook

Elementary School

Midland, City, Ala.

Glenn Rose, Texas

Oak Creek, Wisc.

Colorado Springs, Colo.

Tucson, Ariz.

There are names associated with all these places, so let’s jump start Heimbach’s memory with those as well.

 James Holmes

 Adam Lanza

Jimmy Lee Dykes

Eddie Ray Routh

Wade Michael Page

Evan Ebel

Jared Loughner

For the past couple of years, Heimbach has apparently been quaking in his boots at the thought of black guys and crime, so much so that he can’t remember any of these names. So let’s clue Heimbach in on what these guys were accused of.

 Holmes: charged in the shooting deaths of 12 people and the wounding of 58 others in a theater complex last summer.

Lanza: the mastermind behind the Newtown massacre, which left 20 school children dead. Lanza also gunned down six adult staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School. Before he went on his shooting spree, Lanza fatally shot his mother, Nancy Lanza. Twenty-seven bodies too late, Adam Lanza finally took his own life.

Dykes: fatally shot a school bus driver and kidnapped a 6-year-old boy. Dykes held the boy for at least a week before a SWAT team finally took him out.

Routh: fatally shot two veterans at a shooting range.

Page: went on a shooting rampage at a Sikh temple that left six dead and four wounded.

Ebel: allegedly a member of the white supremacist prison gang called the 211 Crew, Ebel is suspected of fatally shooting Tom Clements, the director of Colorado’s department of corrections, at his home. Ebel is also suspected of fatally shooting pizza delivery guy Nathan Leon in Denver this past March 18.

Loughner: killed six and wounded 13, including Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, in January of 2011.

Heimbach has claimed that one of the reasons he started the White Student Union was to promote “white pride.” Since all the guys named are white, I have to wonder if Heimbach is beaming with pride.

At least two of the white guys – Ebel and Page – were suspected of having links with white supremacist groups, the original white pride guys. If Heimbach can get over his feelings of victimization and persecution, he’d realize just why it is that people are alarmed when someone starts a group based on “white pride.”

“White pride” has led to some very dead bodies, many of them white.

If Heimbach wants us all to have a discussion about crime and race, then we should oblige him. But let’s make our starting point the question I’ve been asking for years.

Repeat: I’ve been asking this FOR YEARS. Not since Aurora. Not since Newtown. I mean, literally, for years.

In the overwhelming majority of these cases that involve mass shootings, the perpetrator is a white guy. On occasion you might get an Asian guy or a Latino guy. There have even been a few black mass shooters.

Colin Ferguson, who shot up a Long Island Railroad train 20 years ago, is black. And let’s not forget what race John Allen Muhammad and Lee Boyd Malvo belonged to.

But, as a rule, most mass shooters have been white. And almost all have been male. So many, in fact, that I can’t remember the name of a female mass shooter.

If Heimbach knows anything, he knows this: he and other white students at Towson have more to fear from some white guy gone nut job than those black guys described in the crime reports Heimbach relishes reading.

Households earning $160,000 would probably identify themselves as middle class, yet a quick breakdown of U.S. incomes shows just how far from the middle they are.

How much should you earn to be considered middle class? To be considered rich? Pinning down clear numbers is more complicated than you might think. During his presidential campaign, Mitt Romney stirred controversy when he grouped households earning $250,000 with the middle class. Rich and poor are relative terms, and our judgment of these categories is often informed by feeling, not fact.

For example, households earning $160,000 would probably identify themselves as middle class, yet a quick breakdown of U.S. incomes shows just how far from the middle they are. The bottom 20 percent, a large portion of which falls below the poverty threshold, earns $0–$17,500. The second lowest quintile makes $17,500–$33,400. If your household takes in $60,000 a year, you’re making more than 60 percent of the country does. Overall, the median household income in the U.S. as of 2011 is roughly $50,054, according to the U.S. Census.

So where would a household with an income of $160,000 fit in all this? It would rank in the top 10 percent, tripling the median household income and earning more than 90 percent of all households. And if you’re earning $250,000, you’re even better off — you’re among the top 4 percent of all earners in the U.S. Which begs the question: if you’re doing better than the vast majority of your peers, aren’t you rich, not middle class? 

These terms are also influenced by a multitude of other factors such as geography and lifestyle — money doesn’t go as far in expensive coastal areas such as New York City or San Francisco. And if you live in an affluent neighborhood of multimillionaires where you feel pressured to spend more to fit in, $250,000 might not feel like enough. But even accounting for such adjustments, it’s clear that these six-figure incomes represent an elite minority — not the broad-based majority.

 Defining the middle class is a crucial step toward creating a fair tax system that evens the playing field for struggling American families. As of 2011, the income gap between the rich and poor is the widest it’s been in four decades, and the poverty rate has remained at a near 20-year high. Median household incomes among the bottom 80 percent fell 1.7 percent last year while the top 1 percent saw their earnings rise by 5.5 percent. Incredibly, the top 1 percent of the country (earning $506,553 or more) captured 93 percent of the country’s income growth in 2010.

 We shouldn’t lose sight of our fight to stem the growing concentration of wealth at the very top. But we must also understand that no matter what our income, spending more than we make will always ensure that we’re poor. Unsustainable spending, ballooning debts, and lack of savings always leave you one paycheck away from financial disaster. That’s why developing a sound financial budget should be a part of everyone’s plan, whether you’re part of the top or bottom five percent.

True wealth isn’t defined by fancy cars or designer clothes — it comes from living within your means and creating a savings plan that leaves you in a position of financial strength and security for years to come.   

Race to the Top is a $4.35 billion competitive federal grant program that provides a financial reward to states that develop and implement programs which create the conditions for significant educational improvement by closing achievement gaps, increasing high school graduation rates and college preparedness.

Adoption of standards and assessments that prepare students to succeed in college and the workplace in order to compete in the global economy is one of the fund’s four education reform areas.

While Maryland did not apply for the first round of funding, it does intend to compete this June. To bolster the state’s efforts the Common Core State Standards Initiative (CCSSI) was formed by the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO) and the National Governors Association (NGA).

The CCSSI is in the process of creating a set of grade-by-grade voluntary state standards for what students should know in English/language arts, math, and eventually science.

 Critics of the concept of common core standards are concerned that curriculum may be “dumbed down” to meet the academic needs of a student population that grows more diverse each year. Supporters believe it is the best way to ensure uniformity and academic accountability.  

To provide an overview of the program and help parents make an informed decision on the merits of a common core curriculum the CCSSI provides answers to the following frequently asked questions:

What are educational standards?

 Educational standards help teachers ensure their students have the skills and knowledge they need to be successful by providing clear goals for student learning.

 Who leads the Common Core State Standards Initiative?

The nation’s governors and education commissioners, through their representative organizations the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers led the development of the Common Core State Standards and continue to lead the initiative. Teachers, parents, school administrators and experts from across the country together with state leaders provided input into the development of the standards.

 Why is the Common Core State Standards Initiative important?

 High standards that are consistent across states provide teachers, parents, and students with a set of clear expectations that are aligned to the expectations in college and careers. The standards promote equity by ensuring all students, no matter where they live, are well prepared with the skills and knowledge necessary to collaborate and compete with their peers in the United States and abroad.

Unlike previous state standards, which were unique to every state in the country, the Common Core State Standards enable collaboration between states on a range of tools and policies, including:

the development of textbooks, digital media, and other teaching materials aligned to the standards;

and the development and implementation of common comprehensive assessment systems to measure student performance annually that will replace existing state testing systems; and

changes needed to help support educators and schools in teaching to the new standards.

How do the Common Core State Standards compare to previous state standards?

The Common Core State Standards were written by building on the best and highest state standards in existence in the U.S., examining the expectations of other high performing countries around the world, and careful study of the research and literature available on what students need to know and be able to do to be successful in college and careers.

No state in the country was asked to lower their expectations for their students in adopting the Common Core. The standards are evidence-based, aligned with college and work expectations, include rigorous content and skills, and are informed by other top performing countries. They were developed in consultation with teachers and parents from across the country so they are also realistic and practical for the classroom.

Will there be tests based on the Common Core State Standards?

Yes. States that adopted the Common Core State Standards are currently collaborating to develop common assessments that will be aligned to the standards and replace existing end of year state assessments. These assessments will be available in the 2014-2015 school year.

Next week- Part II Common Core Standards

Jayne Matthews Hopson is an education writer and mother of a son attending college. She believes education matters because “only the educated are free.”