Do you know what the Common Core Curriculum is? Whether you have children or not, unless you live in Alaska, Texas, Nebraska or Virginia, it behooves you to become familiar with it before it kicks in, full-bore, in 2014.
Forty five states have adopted the entire Common Core Curriculum. One might ask why that is so dangerous. After all, Federal standards have been around since Jimmy Carter made the Department of Education a bona fide arm of the federal government in the 1970’s. Simply put, Common Core is the federal government’s takeover of education. As defined, Common Core “standardizes English and Mathematics for grades K-12.” New, national testing occurs in grades 3-8 and again in grade 10 or 11; that has yet to be determined. But what does all that mean? It means that the federal government now decides what children learn. Neither parents nor local school districts will have any say in what is being taught. Education is being nationalized.
Take, for example, the mathematics component of the program. Glyn Wright, Executive Director of Eagle Forum told Fox News: “The math standard focuses on investigative math, which has been shown to be a disaster … With the new math standard in the Common Core, there are no longer absolute truths. So 3 times 4 can now equal 11 so long as a student can effectively explain how they reached that answer.”
Professor James Milgram of Stamford University is the only mathematician on the Common Core Validation Committee. Fox News reports that he refused to validate the math standards:
…there was input from many other sources — including State Departments of Education — that had to be incorporated into the standards … A number of these sources were mainly focused on things like making the standards as non-challenging as possible. Others were focused on making sure their favorite topics were present and handled in the way they liked … it led to a number of “extremely serious failings” in the Common Core.
Professor Milgram summarized: “… the whole thing (is) ‘in large measure a political document’ He advised the state of Texas not to adopt the Common Core standards.”
Texas took Professor Milgram’s advice. Early adherents, such as high rent district, Fairfield, Connecticut, instituted Common Core mathematics last year. Their students’ test scores plummeted as a result. Destroying mathematical certainties in favor of experimental clap-trap doesn’t raise mathematical aptitude in American students. The playing field is not being made level. It is being buried.
Tampering with the English program is even more chilling. Who decides what is appropriate to be taught and what is considered PC to read is now in the hands of the federal government, affecting every aspect of every subject. Joy Pullman, of The Heartland Institute spoke to Breitbart at length. She argued that proponents of Common Core are, as always, trying to fabricate value out of garbage: “…the standards (that) are being used to write the tables of contents for all the textbooks used in K-12 math and English classes … may not technically constitute a curriculum, but it certainly defines what children will be taught, especially when they and their teachers will be judged by performance on national tests that are aligned with these standards.” College acceptance will be based on test results of what the government dictates be taught. SAT’s and ACT’s will be revised, based upon Common Core. And because of that, home-schooled students are not exempt.
Chad Colby, mouthpiece for education of the non-profit Achieve insists that despite “curriculum” appearing in its very description, he must cleave to semantics: “
The common core doesn’t tell you how to teach students …The curriculum will still be at the state level.” Maybe not “how” but, definitely, “what.”
Advocates of the Common Core program are eager to place responsibility for the Common Core Curriculum entirely with the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School. But Common Core is, undeniably, the regime’s baby.
The Lyin’ King’s regime has turned everything it has nationalized into a hot mess. Now, leftist takeover of indoctrination has officially come out of the closet. Joy Pullman cuts through the fertilizer: “People who characterize Common Core as anything other than a national takeover of schooling are either unaware of these sweeping implications or are deliberately hiding this information from the public.”
