My Turn: Five reasons to oppose the Common Core By Rep. JANE CORMIER For the Monitor Monday, September 23, 2013 (Published in print: Tuesday, September 24, 2013) Common Core is a national school standard curriculum backed by Microsoft’s Bill Gates and other progressive educational groups. While Common Core pretends to put children’s learning first, it is really an attempt to nationalize education placing each child into a government-backed education system. Everything in Common Core is geared toward building and serving a progressive society and identifying the individual within that society. Common Core is about the “collective” not the “individual.” Here are a few reasons to not support Common Core: 1. Assessment drives this program, and assessments are all computerized. This expensive undertaking will come to our communities via rising tax bills. 2. While officials will tell you it is a “rigorous” program, many in the teaching field, at all levels, say the math and English components are significantly lower than today’s educational standards. In fact, two members of the original task force who put Common Core into place have since taken to traveling the United States voicing their opposition. They refused to sign off on Common Core specifically because it lowered the bar of education of our youth. 3. Informational texts will overtake literature in the English component – students will be instructed/taught as cogs in a government-managed machine. This is not a good thing for developing our children’s independent thinking skills. Information texts may teach a “skill” but they do not teach a multi-dimensional approach of learning. 4. Assessments and teaching will include “data collection,” which has some real privacy issues. Collecting personalized information on both behavioral and academic criteria on our children and making that data available to federal, state and outside contractors is a serious breach of expectations of privacy and the law. If anyone tells you this is not part of Common Core they are simply not informed – it is indeed a significant part of this progressive movement in education. 5. There are no fewer than three federal statues which prohibit a nationalized curriculum. Our country has a system which prohibits top-down education. We have local school boards who are accountable to the voters. We should allow the school boards to assist in the process of determining a school’s curriculum at the local level. This concept is turned upside down with the implementation of Common Core. I invite you to look at truthineducation. On this site you will see Stop the Common Core Video Series. Much information is offered at this site. The Alton School Board deserves kudos for standing for local control in education. We will work together to bring a higher standard of learning to our students in Alton. Together – in Alton. Not from Washington. (State Rep. Jane Cormier is a Republican from Alton.) Alot of Debate on this Topic What does COOS7 have to say??
Posted on: Tue, 24 Sep 2013 14:36:26 +0000
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