Parents and Teachers Object to Common Core

The media are currently filled with reports of students in the U.S. scoring poorly on international tests. The Program for International Student Assessment, which compares 15-year-olds in most industrialized countries, reports that American students dropped from 25th to 31st in math, 11th to 21st in reading and 20th to 24th in science. The solution consistently offered for these low rankings is to spend more money on schooling. But numerous studies examining the billions of dollars we've spent on education in the last decade show that money has not improved the performance of U.S. students, and higher-scoring foreign countries spend far less per pupil than we do.

Now we are told we need a new national system called Common Core State Standards Initiative, and it has provoked a grassroots uprising. Parents don't want federal control or a federal curriculum, and teachers don't like the CC tests.

Common Core advocates loudly proclaim there isn't any CC curriculum, saying there are only standards, which local schools can use to write their own curriculums. But the CC tests (usually called assessments) are the mechanism of federal control over curriculum because teachers must teach to the test.

As states are beginning to implement Common Core, parents and teachers are discovering many things they don't like. An Oak Forest, Ill., high school government class required students and their parents to fill out questionnaires that identified their positions on controversial political issues so they could place themselves on a "political spectrum."

The best way to describe the left-wing bias of this curriculum is to quote some of the questions students are asked, all of which are ideologically slanted. Students are instructed to "put a check in front of each statement with which you agree."

Here are two of the pro-big government statements: "The government has an obligation to regulate businesses in order to preserve the environment for future generations" and "Unregulated free enterprise benefits the rich at the expense of the poor."

Two more slanted statements are: "The government should guarantee medical care for all citizens" and "The federal government should guarantee the rights of homosexuals."

Common Core then requires students to self-identify their political philosophies: "I consider myself A. liberal, B. conservative, C. don't know."

Here is one of the "outcomes" specified as the objective of this biased survey: "Students will be familiar with: 1. Fascism as an historical example of a reactionary group. 2. American Revolution as an historical example of a revolutionary viewpoint."

After students check the statements with which they agree, they're given a so-called performance task to "conduct a political spectrum interview with someone 40 years or older" using this same survey.

It's no wonder parents are upset about this assignment, which asks for information that is none of the school's business. This survey, published by the Center for Learning, is from a textbook entitled "U.S. Government 2." It is part of the Common Core curriculum used by Oak Forest High School.

The Common Core-approved history textbook, "The American Experience," published by Prentice Hall, gives an account of World War II the "greatest generation" would not recognize. World War II is presented primarily with photos of the devastation experienced by Hiroshima and text from John Hersey's article "Hiroshima."

The Washington Post published a letter from a Delaware teacher who is highly critical of Common Core because she was instructed "to teach the curriculum word-for-word." Also, she must "stop teaching for six weeks in the spring to make sure our students pass that test."

New Mexico Sen. Tim Keller described in a recent editorial the complaints he hears from parents who "stress deep objection to the continuing trend of out-of-state, for-profit testing companies' intrusion into the classroom." There's just too much testing driven by those with a nefarious "incentive to make the case for more testing."

Of course, tests are important to measure performance. But Common Core tests are a big moneymaking industry and used by the Obama administration to control the content of the curriculum.

And some of the tests sound downright ridiculous. Here is how a New York City high school principal reported one question on a Common Core first-grade math test: "Take a look at question No. 1, which shows students five pennies, under which it says 'part I know,' and then a full coffee cup labeled with a '6' and, under it, the word, 'Whole.' Students are asked to find 'the missing part' from a list of four numbers. My assistant principal for mathematics was not sure what the question was asking. How could pennies be part of a cup?"

It would be far classier of you to say you hope there is not an issue here, but you would like to look into it to be sure that is the case.

Instead it’s like you WANT it to be an issue... so you can feel good about criticizing.

That is going to blow back spiritually at you... just like it did here. All it needs is a person of integrity to answer you.

I stated that the whole establishment is in the game to enrich their bank accounts.

You accused me of having a liberal outlook and being skin deep.

I gave you a specific example.

You babbled something about something and accused me of being shallow.

Clearly you aren’t participating in the discussion. I lived with a lot of potheads in the dorm in college like that.

BTW, you are aware that Jeb Bush is a BIG supporter of Commie Core. Right?

I’m sure he’s only thinking of our best interests. Well, and his bank account too.

“You have not traced any proof that this is bad.”

Proof that corruption is bad? Proof that passing legislation designed to enrich your own family at the expense of the taxpayers is bad?

Really?

Moneychangers. All.

You are energetically committing the fallacy of petitio principii. (Latin for “assuming the initial point.”)

Because you say it is corrupt, it must be so.

Color me unconvinced, and you sound like you are just flattering yourself with your supposed superiority.

Clearly you aren’t participating in the discussion.

Why yes I was... I spoke to one example of a problem. It could be a matter of the teachers assuming they can wing it and not actually giving serious attention to the pedagogy model.

The better approach would be to simply get Federal funding out of the picture. It does not need to be there. It is a false economy. Let private charity help suffering school systems if they need help.

Now see, I said something constructive. All you wanted to do was to tear down.

It’s a new pedagogy model.

Other than hideous, value-free exercises, which are already a problem and might just be getting pulled into this new paradigm, maybe there’s nothing inherently unintelligent about it. It might in fact be smarter than most teachers and parents are able to keep up with. And that could be a handicap because after all, we don’t want schoolwork that needs a specially tutored elite to teach it. That would divide parents from kids. Maybe the current “Common Core” is too clever by half.

Forget red herrings. Is it wise? It will not be, if parents will have trouble tutoring their progeny along with it. If good models are needed, what is working now in homeschooling might be those models.

Common Core, as a real group, starts out in 2007 as a 501-type organization. Prior to that? It’s a shadow group of sorts who held some meeting a couple of times a year. The group tends to lead back to Chicago in the late 1990s. Several of the bigger players of the group, were working for non-profits or foundations in the late 90’s.

It would appear, that they saw the window of opportunity opening under the Bush era, and took advantage of a “core issue” under the Bush administration. Everybody from conservative blocks...were complaining over poor education...so this group emerges with a mythical method of fixing it.

The solution? A script. Someone writes a script and a teacher repeats the scripted words, period. If you can’t read the script or are too dynamic in your style....you’d best find an exit and leave.

If you notice....the one math expert on their committee of the Common Core leadership....never signed off on the issued product. You can’t find any math experts who proudly say it’s a big step in the right direction. Most math experts are negative and don’t support the agenda.

My humble guess is that we will use this for a decade, and come to realize that any idiot can recite the script...and we’ve hired up fifty thousand dimwits with useless degrees who are now teaching across America. Based on the theme, I would imagine that we could hire Peruvian university graduates with degrees in goat-ology to teach American kids English and French literature....all by script.

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