Changes are headed to your child\u2019s school — big ones — and they\u2019re not good.<\/p>\n
The federal government has mounted a massive effort to control what students are expected to learn, how they are to be tested, what they will be tested on, and so forth.<\/p>\n
These changes are called \u201ccommon core standards,\u201d but any time the feds try to run anything, it never turns out well. Yet the folks in Washington think they know best what and how to teach kids in your town? Yikes.<\/p>\n
But the changes are afoot. California Schools Chief Tom Torlakson, in a recent announcement, stated that with the state\u2019s budget fiasco averted, education officials can now focus on fully implementing these so-called common core standards. Education leaders\u00a0across the nation\u00a0are taking similar measures.<\/p>\n
As one conservative school board member from Murrieta, a city of about 100,000 people in Southern California, points out: Problem No. 1 is parents don\u2019t even really know it\u2019s happening.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, it\u2019s not on the radar, and that\u2019s what\u2019s scary,\u201d said the Murrieta school board member, Paul Diffley, who helps oversee a K-12 school district with about 22,000 students and two dozen campuses. \u201cI have mentioned this to parents, and they look at me and say, \u2018What is common core?\u2019 \u201d<\/p>\n
Bureaucrats have billed common core standards as a way to align what students learn nationally, so everyone is on the same page so to speak. However, it\u2019s more about the federal government controlling schools and what students are taught.<\/p>\n
Once common core is instituted, \u201cschool boards and local superintendents will be largely meaningless, and what we have to say about curriculum, and what we have to say about the particular needs of particular students, will be meaningless,\u201d Diffley said, adding that\u2019s a big problem.<\/p>\n
\u201cStudents in Murrieta are not the same as students in Compton, students in the Silicon Valley, or students in Mississippi or Louisiana,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The common core academic changes proposed also hurt the learning experience, Diffley said, referring to their emphasis on non-fiction for English classes at the expense of literature and creative writing.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe are going to lose a lot of fiction, where the core of rich vocabulary is learned,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s more, common core math standards eliminate Algebra I in the eighth grade. Instead, it will be taught in ninth grade. Another change pushes division from fifth to sixth grade.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey have an overall lack of rigor,\u201d Diffley said. \u201cIt\u2019s the dumbing-down of education.\u201d<\/p>\n
Among many conservatives who have sounded the alarm against common core, columnist Michelle Malkin earlier this month published a two-part commentary that detailed\u00a0the curriculum’s\u00a0many, many faults. In her columns, Malkin cites a parade of professors who warn these new federal academic standards are subpar, and lists resources for those willing to fight common core\u2019s implementation.<\/p>\n
\u201cSpread the word,\u201d Malkin wrote. \u201cGet informed, and get active.\u201d<\/p>\n
Click here<\/a> to read Malkin\u2019s column.<\/p>\n Click here to Like The College Fix<\/em> on Facebook.<\/a><\/p>\n