Name: Len Marciano
Office: State Board of Education, District 4
Party Affiliation: Nonpartisan office
Website: www.marciano4education.com
Twitter: @leonardmarciano
Question: In a 140 characters, introduce yourself as if you are introducing yourself to a neighbor.
Experience: Retired educator with 32 years experience as a teacher and administrator in public education
Question: What’s the most important issue facing state schools right now?
The most important issue that the State Board of Education can deal with immediately has two related parts:
a. Cut the cancer of Common Core from Nevada’s educational environment so that educational decisions can be made locally which will give parents more involvement in their child's education,
and
b. Protect against unauthorized use of students' and parents' information that the excessive Common Core testing forces them to give, and, by eliminating excessive testing, teachers will have more time to teach and children will have more time to learn.
Question: What could you, as a state board member, do to help fix that issue?
The Plan to Stop Common Core
1. Rescind the vote of the State Board of Education to authorize the Common Core Standards.
2. Rescind the vote of the State Board of Education to create curriculum models for K-12 based on those standards.
3. Vote to install the standards used before the advent of Common Core.
4. Vote to create curriculum models for K-12 based on those standards.
5. Vote to adopt the "Gold Standard" of assessment in this country, The National Assessment of Educational Progress, as an immediate replacement for the unproven, unreliable, excessive Common Core tests. Teachers will now have time to teach; children will have more time to learn, and, since the NAEP is given every two years, results can be analyzed and improvement plans can be implemented.
6. Since the State Assembly last session proposed two bills to replace Common Core, work with the state legislature to make the changes permanent by law.
The Plan to Protect against Unauthorized Use of Students' and Parents' Information
1. Before eliminating Common Core and the excessive use of standardized testing that is part of it, the State Board can create a policy of:
a. providing the information parents need to "opt out" of the test, the best method nation-wide to insure personal information is kept private
b. assuring parents no negative impact will occur from the school districts if they choose to "opt out"
c. eliminating personal identifiers on the tests so that only general information is given to the state for the purpose of analysis for improvement
d. use of pencil-and-paper when taking standardized tests rather than computers. Research has shown that pencil-and-paper helps urban students improve their scores as well as helping to cut down on the personal information that computer tests tend to give
2. The State Board must support an amendment to the Nevada Constitution which will allow parents and students to own and control any personal information given in an educational setting.