My Education on the Subject of Education

A bulleted list of my grievances about the Common Core Initiative (CCI) in no particular order

* It is ‘common’ and homogenizing – ignoring our nation’s demographic uniqueness

* National standards, national assessments, national curriculum

* I find the language on their own website a little disturbing ( i.e. several uses of the word ‘transform’ – whose vision of ‘transformation’? Certainly not this American Mom’s.)  http://www.ccsso.org/What_We_Do.html

* An abuse of the philosophy that our children ‘belong to all of us’.

* It’s voluntary, but . . .

* The fact that school and learning becomes all about the Test. ( I feel that Mark and Kyle and their fellow class mates missed out on much of the happy passion about History a teacher has because there was no time or space for such uniqueness in a classroom.  With CCI, how can this problem not increase?) 

* There were (and are) federal monetary incentives to adopt this initiative. I do not believe that government should coerce, use incentives, grants, waivers or any other form of manipulation.

 

* The appearance that any teacher, administrator or parent voicing concerns and questions and a desire to understand something about the initiative feel somehow insubordinate and disloyal. This ALONE was, and is, my biggest concern. This ALONE is a large red flag, screaming to be noticed. The lack of transparency, legislation and public discussion/input of something as sweeping and huge as this is, is so un-American to me.

* There has been no open discussion about the sure-to-be-enormous cost to acquire and maintain what we will be required to; no discussions about the cost of training and testing that will be required of us, now that we have voluntarily been coerced into it. How can it not become a huge, unfunded mandate? 

* There will be no one, locally or otherwise, that we can pick up a phone to or personally visit for any kind of input. The power will not be local and there will be a lot of shoulder shrugging and ‘it’s out of my hands’ attitude because it is (out of our hands).

* Too much evidence for me already that these controversial tests and standards may not measure the academic achievement of our students anyway – just their computer skills and ability to endure through a cumbersome task.

I don’t feel honest in pretending not to notice that, as someone else has already expressed, “ . . . our proverbial school shoes have been placed on a nationally, locally and personally regrettable path.”

We signed our names on this petition http://www.utahnsagainstcommoncore.com/