K-8 Standards Process Not Open and Hardly Transparent

It is now the day of the SBE vote on Finalization of the K-8 standards but Draft 5 can not be found.

The SBE links to the Dana Center in Texas and yet nothing is posted there??
------------------------
Letter #1:
I checked the links again this morning and the current version is still NOT available!! On the day of the vote we still haven't seen this document. Wish we had a time to review it and give you input as to it's "grade" but it looks like we won't have a chance to do so until it's printed and distributed by OSPI.

Marta
------------------------
Letter #2:

A recent letter:

Dear Members of the State Board of Education:

The agenda for your meeting tomorrow afternoon calls for
presentations on and adoption of the K-8 math standards.
The link on your website goes to a website maintained by
the Dana Center, with an indication that a revision was
posted on 4/15/08. When I checked earlier today, this
revision was still not available.

Frankly, I don't understand why the Dana Center has
continued to be involved in the standards definition
process; the Center's contract should have been
terminated after Dana's (and OSPI's) abject failure to
produce what was required by the Legislature last year.
I, along with many others,had hoped that you would
rescue the standards development effort. However,
what I have seen to date, coupled with the continued
involvement of the Dana Center, suggests strongly that
not only has the effort not been rescued, but that the
intent of the Legislature is being subverted.

Clearly there has been inadequate time for public review
and comment on what Dana/OSPI has done. Furthermore, the
proposed standards have not been compared explicitly to
the standards cited as exemplary in the Strategic
Teaching report you received last year. There is no
compelling reason to adopt this part of what is supposed
to be a K-12 document now. Therefore I *urge* you to
delay adoption until:

o A full set of standards is complete;
o They have been compared explicitly to the exemplary
examples;
o The public has been a reasonable opportunity to
review and comment.

Thank you for your consideration in this matter.

Sincerely,

Lloyd B. Embry, Ph.D.
Hunts Point, WA
Parent

----------------------------------