FEDS GAINING CONTROL OF CLASSROOMS 

BY DONNA GARNER — 1.8.10

As I have stated many times before, the Common Core Standards package will link national standards to national curricula to national tests to merit pay for teachers based upon students’ test scores.  California (and other states) is doing just this as indicated by the following article.

In essence, the federal government (that is orchestrating behind the scenes the standards writing teams) will be able to control what teachers teach on a daily basis, thus allowing the federal government to implement its multicultural, politically correct, social engineering, social justice agenda into our schools.  This agenda will become more important than the most imperative obligation of schools which is to raise students’ academic achievement.

Phrase it any way you want, but the result is the same: The agenda is for the federal government (The White House/U. S. Dept. of Ed.) to dictate to the public schools what will be taught in every public school in America. 

The Common Core Standards and Race to the Top applications require schools to teach at least 85% of the national standards although no states have seen yet exactly what will be in the standards. The national tests will test that 85%.  Teachers’ pay will be linked to their students’ test scores.  Teachers will teach to the national tests.  Day-to-day instruction will be tied to the national tests.

Schools will purchase curricula linked to the national tests. Textbook and test publishers, vendors, and lobbyists will no longer work with state agencies and hold public hearings where the parents can have input.  Instead, all efforts will be directed to Washington, D. C. where the decisions over every public school classroom will actually be made.  

Texas and Alaska are the only two states who have avoided the trap.  A few states are beginning to figure out the trap and are trying to figure out ways they can sidestep it.  

Some states have carefully looked at the first drafts of the Common Core Standards and do not like what they have seen because they are “dumbed down” from the graduation requirements that are presently in place in their own public schools. 

Unless the Common Core Standards are explicit, measurable, knowledge-based, grade-level-specific, and mainly objectively tested, they will not elevate the academic achievement in our nation’s schools. 

Foggy, mushy, and inexplicit language in the standards will create confusion and the ongoing infusion by money-grubbing vendors of their faddish and fuzzy curricula, education materials, and programs into our schools.  

For the sake of our nation’s youth who do not need to face psychological manipulation each day in their public school classrooms, I hope states can avoid the Common Core Standards trap.  – Donna Garner]

http://www.educationnews.org/ednews_today/23670.html