I intend to use this post on Common Core Standards as a building block for an upcoming series on Race to the Top and National Standards in our public school system. If you've never heard of Common Core Standards, don't feel bad, most people haven't and there's a reason for that. It's been primarily discussed behind closed doors and tied to federal funding that is intentionally tied to other bills so that the average person can't find it. If people understood Common Core Standards, the government would be in hot water and they know it. If people understood National Standards, the government would be experiencing something very similar to Egypt's current situation, and they know it. If you've never heard of either of these take overs, listen up. If you live in any of the 50 States, other than Alaska and Texas, your State legislators have already sold you out, but there is still hope. However, you'll have to be willing to fight....and that is the part that worries me. Apathy...the big killer of liberty and equality.
Common Core Standard tenets began as Goals 2000 and was former President Clinton's pet education project. Through loud opposition, Goals 2000 was eventually dead because of the federal intrusion upon education that came with it. However, a rose by any other name is still a rose. Common Core Standards are nothing more than Goals 2000 with a new name and President Obama has no intention of stopping here. Common Core standards were adopted by the afore mentioned states just last year, 2010. They were bribed to do so with federal money. I would even go so far as saying that they were forced to do so during a very difficult economic time and that was intentional.
Common Core Standards stated goal is to "...establish clear and consistent goals for learning that will prepare America’s children for success in college and work." They claim that they are doing this by having common English and Math curriculums taught through-out the United States. They also claim that this is a "state led initiative" and that states governors worked together to create these standards. When did Governors became educational "experts"? When did Governors have the right to determine what schools teach?
Who elected these people to determine "standards" for our children? I don't remember any such discussion, do you? Who elected anyone to take away each state's sovereign right to educate their citizens as they see fit? By taking away state sovereignty in education, we've allowed our children's education to become nothing more than a way for the government to use our children as economic tools. That is NOT education and the primary reason our schools are in such a sad shape...I digress.
Here's the tricky part: National funding is tied to Common Core Standards. Any state who does (did) not adopt these standards, but chooses to opt out and give local governments and parents their Constitutional right to choose curriculums and what their students learn, also forgoes the right to receive federal funding that is "supposedly" set aside specifically for education. So "our" tax money will only be given to "our" children in their educational endeavours if we go the way the Federal government chooses for us? If states choose for their institutionalized learning to be left to the parents, they forgo their own federal educational tax dollars being spent on...well, education. We can all see the slippery slope there, right? Please, tell me you can see the slope!
I also think it's noteworthy that education is NOT mentioned in the Constitution. Our founding fathers understood CLEARLY that Common Standards issued by a federal government meant that the federal government was in charge of what is taught, when it is taught and how it is taught. This program is nothing more than a set-up for National Standards. This is nothing more than the first step in a federal take-over of education. Since federal intrusion, and billions of federal dollars, have been in the public school system, our test scores have dropped dramatically and our graduation rates have plummeted. We won't even bother to cover the massive amounts of illiteracy seen in compulsory schooling. Yet, they are still throwing billions of tax dollars into a system that is not working for the students! THE STUDENTS! That is educations goal. Not the teachers, not the NEA, not the legislators, and not the states. The children's education is what education should be about. Nothing more and nothing less.
Children are not designed to be economic tools. They are not designed to all work the same, nor learn the same. Common Core standards are nothing more than a way to cull the students who would work best for large corporations into one lumped group and be able to recognize them and shape them in whatever way the government sees fit. This is the system that China uses, and one that President Obama is a huge fan of. For more info on that, see here.
National control of curriculum is nothing more than a national control of ideas. Think about that statement and let it sink it. Parents and students are the ones with the most to lose or gain by having a well educated child. Ask yourself what the government has to gain by establishing Common Core or National Standards? Ask yourself to name one program that the government has ever run successfully. It's imperative that this information gets out to the general public, and this little blog can only do so much. Talk about it, look it up, send people here...whatever you have to do to get the word moving.
ALL parents should be concerned about this, but homeschooling families probably more so than most. We have, by definition, exercised our right to educate our children away from government intrusion and teach them in the way they learn best, at a pace they learn best and what they need to know to achieve wisdom and knowledge. We have, by our very definition, dedicated ourselves to raising well-educated children and by all accounts are doing a stellar job pretty much across the board and across all racial, religious, or cultural lines.
National standards will take away our rights, just like it did parents who choose institutionalized schooling, to decide what curriculum we use, what our children are taught, and at what pace they are "allowed" to learn it. We will be required by the federal government to teach whatever they deem worthy of thought. Whatever they deem worthy for our children to learn will be what our children will be taught. If you think getting a teacher, principal, superintendent, or local school board to listen to you is tough, just wait until you have to travel to Washington, D.C. to discuss your child's education....best of luck with that. This alone is reason for all of us to stand up, and fight the good fight.
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