***LETTER FROM A DAD*** When I stepped off the plane with my pregnant wife, I was so excited that I would be able to offer my unborn child the American dream. As a European, I had always been fascinated by the catchphrases “Only in America”, “The Land of the Free” and the “American Dream” and I was humbled by the fact that I was actually going to live it, and so were my children. They would get a great education and they could be what they wanted to be, unlike myself who had to choose by the time I was 14 what path I wanted to go down. I remember it being a struggle to make that decision at that age as it was going to be a choice that would determine what future options I had going forward, or as I now see it, what options were no longer available to me. It would take you down a path that was very hard to get off of unless you completely re-schooled yourself, and not many did or were even encouraged to do so. You just accepted it as that is the way it was done and didn’t ask many questions. Not sure much has changed since. Fast forward 8 years, and I now live in fear that my children’s education is heading down the same and to be honest even worse path. Yes, even worse as I actually had a choice at 14, now it looks like that a nameless data analyst in a windowless room in Utah will use my children’s 400+ data points, stick it in a machine that will be spit out a spreadsheet with my children’s name on with what their direction will be. And it looks like that will be before they are even 14 years old and choices will be limited, very limited. I thought the choice of how I wanted to school my children was something that I would be able to control, even if we wanted to homeschool them. When we left Europe in 2005, many of the countries already had had that right eroded by making parents sign documents in which they commit to teach their children along the lines of the United Nations Convention on Children’s Rights. This document also states that government inspectors will decide whether families comply with this and if they feel they do not, after two negative reports a clause in that document kicks in forcing them to send their child to an “official” government accredited school. I believe this undermines the authority of parents and basically transfers parental rights to the state. Common Core I fear will start to erode and then finally consume the thriving homeschooling community by placing an enormous amount of rules and regulations on them; this might even come with inspectors too. Europe has already signed away a lot of rights to the UN, things are not looking much better here at the moment. Although homeschooling is not what I had planned for my children, it is the fact that school choice in the US is under assault that concerns me. Combine that with the changes to FERPA and the planned data mining of our children, I believe my parental rights and choices as a father are already being stripped down. My parents never fought back and slowly but surely more and more government mandates and involvement crept into the system. This country convinced this father that my children are mine to raise and teach how I see fit, not the State’s or the government. Now I am not sure the country’s education leaders have that conviction anymore and we as parents need to remind them that it’s not what they want, it’s what we, the parents, want. When I went to school, I never saw parents get involved with the school, kids were just sent there. The thought of being able to participate in my school community through the PTA excited me. As a father, not an educator, I might actually be able to shape the education in my community and ensure that what was taught was appropriate and met the standards we expected. Working closely with teachers and the administration of the school or even the school district would allow me to feel comfortable that my children’s education would be the best they could get. Now we are faced with an untested, one-sizefits-all model where local involvement is minimized and even marginalized. No input at all into the curriculum of my community. Moving somewhere else won’t even be an option because it will all be the same in the majority of the US. I still have not regretted stepping off that plane as I have grown to love this country and still do believe the catchphrase “only in America” rings true. Now Common Core is looming like a dark cloud over the future leaders of this country, I have seen two kinds of parents, those who fight, and those who flight. This father, who has sworn to protect and cherish his children, is ready to fight. I just wish many more fathers would stand with me, you are sorely missed. This is a fight that both parents should be in, not just the mothers. Glen A. Dalgleish New York
Posted on: Mon, 30 Sep 2013 20:21:23 +0000
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