Please read this post by Steven Wolf (in the comments section of this posting) The set of new national education standards known as Common Core is bad for students, bad for teachers and bad for school districts. Have I left anybody out? Oh, and parents: Be vigilant. Where did Common Core come from? Let’s start back in the dark days of early 2009. The country was hurting. U.S. Reps. Dave Obey and Nancy Pelosi drafted a strategy called the American Recovery Act, or what would come to be known as “the stimulus.” Included in the bill was an allocation of $4.35 billion to the Department of Education, led by Secretary Arne Duncan. At the same time, local school districts were anxious because of shrinking tax income and their inability to achieve the expectations of No Child Left Behind. To solve this dilemma, President Barack Obama and Duncan came up with Race to the Top, a set of federal financial incentives for states to implement education reforms. By the summer of 2009, the trap was set. With a room full of governors whose states were starving for money, Obama addressed the National Governors Association, announcing Race to the Top. Here’s the catch: In order for the governors to get their hands on federal dollars and secure waivers from No Child Left Behind, they had to agree to accept Common Core standards and implement Race to the Top policies. Where do we sign? No due diligence, no legislative review; Gov. Jim Doyle and state Department of Public Instruction Superintendent Tony Evers signed up because they wanted the money and the waivers. We’ll worry about Common Core later, they seemed to think, and nobody will notice. Obama was basically saying that if you want the money and the waivers, you have to adopt Common Core. Bribery, coercion, or just gamesmanship, I’ll let you be the judge. But Common Core was always linked to money. Let’s dispel the myth that Common Core is grassroots in its origin. It is a form of centralized control, period. Common Core is an example of the federal government imposing its will on the populace without consent. It was designed by Achieve Inc. and funded by folks like Microsoft’s Bill and Melinda Gates. Achieve’s leadership is composed of several east coast educational pseudo-elitists with an extreme socialist, progressive agenda. Achieve secured several grants from the Department of Education to design the Common Core standards. By getting the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officials to sign on, it gave the feds the cover they needed to make it look like Common Core originated at the state level. Which is a relief, because, you see it’s illegal for the Department of Education to design curriculum! Education has always been one of the last bastions of state’s rights. In Wisconsin, state statute provides the following guidance to citizens: “Each school board shall adopt pupil academic standards in mathematics, science, reading and writing, geography and history.” Local school boards were forced to accept Common Core and its curriculum guidelines — remember, no Common Core, no money! School boards were terrified they would lose federal Title I money. So your school’s standards and much of the curriculum will now come from Washington, D.C., from the Department of Education and its contractors, like Achieve and Pearson Education. Many rank and file teachers are afraid to speak up. Remember Common Core is a cookie cutter; the same Common Core standards apply to failed inner-city schools in Milwaukee as apply to local schools in central Wisconsin. Academic freedom in the classroom will be significantly reduced. Teachers are our most valuable asset, and for those teachers who are blessed with imagination, vision, commitment and motivation, their energy and enthusiasm will be mitigated by an arbitrary curriculum and the preoccupation to “teach to the test” because so much of their performance evaluation is based on the results of new assessments. Yet many teachers are afraid to speak out against Common Core because it could affect their employment and careers. Teachers will be forced to accept the new standards because they have no other choice. Under Common Core, the best intentions of education and career readiness can easily be hijacked into indoctrination and mind control. For parents, it’s time to really get involved. Screen the material your kids bring home. Watch for noticeable drops in performance and grades or changes in behavior. If something doesn’t make sense, talk to your child’s teacher right away. Your child’s future is at stake.
Posted on: Sat, 21 Sep 2013 03:59:08 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015