Thursday, May 22, 2014

Open Wide, It's the Common Core

I have been in education for twenty five years and I've seen programs and mandates come and go. Goals 2000, No Child Left Behind and now the Common Core are the last three. The more more I come in contact with the Common Core, the less I like it. 

The Common Core is the current administrations educational initiative that demonstrates both the ineptitude of the federal government and the manipulation of those who wish to "change America".   

I was just involved with the online "Smarter Balanced" testing. We were the test group to help iron out the kinks. If it wasn't for the fact that our school is blessed with some great problem solvers we'd still be trying to access the test online. When something gets shoved down my throat I generally don't like the taste and I can definitely say I can see a myriad of problems on the horizon. 

The idea of a centralized federal department of education, the U.S. Department of Education has got to be one of the biggest scams and waste of money every perpetrated on the American public. Just the fact that taxpayers send money to the federal government is a loss of money. It's a loss because some bureaucrat must be payed and the office they sit in must be rented. That much will NEVER see a student, a school or a teacher.  

Let's not even mention the ridiculous idea that said bureaucrat then decides who should receive how much of the tax they paid back into their local school system. It's like a bully who takes someones lunch and then teases them by holding it up and making them jump for it. Does the phrase "redistribution of wealth" ring a bell to anyone? 

I read this article by a fellow teacher who was part of the so called teacher input group. Give it a read and share any experiences you might have had.

http://www.theblaze.com/blog/2014/05/22/a-scathing-interview-with-a-5th-grade-teacher-who-was-in-the-room-when-common-core-was-being-created/