NATIONAL ISSUES
Common Core Quietly Nationalizing Education
Written on April 16 , 2013 by Tad Cronn Submitted by Tami Combs
All across the United States , schools are falling in line with a federally backed “ progressive ” curriculum that critics fear will only produce generations of know-nothings and ensure America ’ s education system continues to fail its students . The Common Core curriculum , which has been adopted by 46 states , according to the Washington Post , is long on teaching Progressive values and short on teaching accepted facts . The standards are expected to be implemented by 2014 , although some schools have already begun using them . While in its curriculum descriptions Common Core sounds like it includes all the educational necessities , experts who ’ ve examined the actual lessons say that the program “ teaches to the test ” rather than pushing students to achieve individually , and its lessons rely heavily upon liberal interpretations of history , current events and other topics . The Common Core plan also has produced some recent outrages when lessons became public knowledge , such as the class which was assigned to pretend their teacher was a Nazi SS commandant and write a persuasive paper on why Jews are evil . The Common Core State Standards Initiative ( CCSSI ) has been a top project of the Obama Administration since the Man Who Would Be King came into office . Put together with the cooperation of the
National Governors Association ( NGA ), the Council of Chief State School Officers ( CCSSO ) and a nonprofit group called Student Achievement Partners , Common Core has been adopted by states that are hungry for education dollars . President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan both lied publicly about the Common Core curriculum being developed by the states and adopted voluntarily when in fact adoption of the curriculum was tied to granting of federal “ Race to the Top ” dollars . Even though the Department of Education is prohibited by law from prescribing curriculum , it has used the $ 4.3 billion in grants as a carrot and implied in its 2009 Blueprint for Education Reform that the curriculum in the future will be a requirement for states that want Title 1 funding for poor schools . Former Texas State Commissioner of Education Robert Scott has said he was urged to adopt the Common Core program before the standards had even been written . “ Lead architect ” David Coleman is at the center of the controversy . While he ’ s not the only Dr . Frankenstein responsible for this monster , Coleman is certainly the man in charge and representative of the attitude that went into Common Core . Coleman is a Rhodes Scholar progressive with a reputation for peppering his presentations about Common Core with curse words . Or as the Atlantic calls him , “ an utterly romantic believer in the power of the traditional liberal arts .” Many teachers are skeptical about his qualifications . California 2007 State Teacher of the Year Alan Lawrence Sitomer wrote on his blog , “( Coleman ) has zero K – 12 teaching experience . Should we really be learning how to cook from a person who ’ s never been in the kitchen ?” They may have no choice . Not only has Coleman ’ s plan been adopted by almost every state , seemingly under cover of night , but he is taking over as head of the College Board , so his standards may soon become the standards of state colleges and universities , as well . “ I ’ m scared of rewarding bull *** t ,” Coleman said while discussing current educational curricula at a Dela-
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Pono Press , May 2013 , Page 4