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"Common Core" And The All-Too-Common Tendencies Of Heavy-Handed Government
Townhall.com ^ | May 5, 2013 | Austin Hill

Posted on 05/05/2013 6:28:53 AM PDT by Kaslin

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To: TontoKowalski

You are referring to the simple standards themselves, when you say they don’t dictate content, but that is not how they are necessarily implemented at the state level.


41 posted on 05/05/2013 1:37:36 PM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: TontoKowalski

Here is an example of the common core at the state level, as implemented in MA. Note that the actual texts are specified at the state level:

http://www.doe.mass.edu/candi/commoncore/


42 posted on 05/05/2013 1:40:15 PM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: TontoKowalski
Comparing me to an abortion provider crossed that line.

I totally agree, but believe me when I tell you that you are not the first, nor will you be the last. Even those of us who are not teachers, but disagree with her position have been often so compared.

Personally, I appreciated your take on this particular situation regarding Common Core. Your students are fortunate. As a parent, I am happy to say your attitude reminds me of most of the math and science teacher my daughter has or has had - even though Common Core has not been implemented in my state. Thank you for caring so much about your students.

43 posted on 05/05/2013 2:18:03 PM PDT by Gabz (Democrats for Voldemort.)
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To: HawkHogan
Conservatives do not cooperate with organizations that **force** children ( by way of police threat) into an environment that teaches children to think and reason godlessly. In every government classroom this is, indeed, the situation. How could it possibly be otherwise? The child must think godlessly just to cooperate with the government mandated godless worldview.

Conservatives work to shut down such abominations. They **rescue** children from this horror.

Conservatives do not establish, uphold, cooperate with, or assist in the operation of any institution in which children would risk learning to be comfortable with socialism. That **is** the risk in a socialist-entitlement government K-12 school. The child risks learning that the voting that takes money from his neighbor to give him socialist schooling can take money from his neighbor for **lots*** of goodles.

Conservatives work to shut down abominations of this sort. They warn others about the danger. They **rescue** children from this abomination.

As for abortion, the fact is that the chances of a child remaining faithful in his faith 2 years after graduating from a socialist-entitlement government high school is about 15%, and these are children who come from **highly** active evangelical families. The statistics must be much worse for less committed families.

So? Which is worse? An aborted body where the infant soul flies directed to the arms of Jesus, or an aborted soul condemned for an eternity?

If Christian teachers **really**really** really*** cared about kids they wouldn't be cooperating with evil.

Yes, there is a limited role for Christian teachers in the government schools, however they would be quickly fired. They would be warning the parents of every child in every classroom to remove their child. They would be opposing vocally the very existence of the institution and warning other teachers of the damage they are doing to the children and to our nation.

Many say, “Well,..Some children may not get an education!” My response is that NO education is better than government forced godlessness. Illiteracy and innumeracy can be fixed. Many illiterate and innumerate government school graduates are fixing it as adults as I type this message. But...An eternally lost soul can not be fixed. And...If the nation loses its freedom it likely will not be fixed for centuries.

44 posted on 05/05/2013 3:15:12 PM PDT by wintertime
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To: cripplecreek; St_Thomas_Aquinas

Political withdrawal from public schools is already a failure.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

Well...I see your point. Fix what you can within the corrupt and evil system. It is like giving flea powder to a concentration camp victim. Yes, there may be some relief from the pain.

However....The solution is to work toward the complete shut down of this **EVIL** abomination. Forced attendance at godless, Marxist controlled, and socialist-entitlement indoctrination camps is an abomination. It is evil for the child. It is evil to use police threat to force citizens to pay for it.


45 posted on 05/05/2013 3:23:49 PM PDT by wintertime
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To: TontoKowalski
and a person is revealed to be a nut.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^

First they ignore you, then they laugh at you ( call you a “nut”), then they fight you, then you win.” Mahatma Ghandi.

Government socialist-entitlement schooling is losing its legitimacy, and so are the government functionaries who open the door on this abomination and feed its poison to the children every day.

46 posted on 05/05/2013 3:28:01 PM PDT by wintertime
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To: St_Thomas_Aquinas

Regarding vouchers:

I would prefer to see tax credits.


47 posted on 05/05/2013 3:29:59 PM PDT by wintertime
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To: wintertime

So your plan instead is to withdraw from public schooling entirely? That strategy certainly has worked well for the media, entertainment, and universities. Where are the children of non-conservatives going to receive any conservative impact if we just withdraw from every entity and seclude ourselves from the world? Not everyone has the option of private school (I did), and not everyone has the option of home schooling. Your philosophy basically writes off one enormous entity. You would prefer for all conservatives to withdraw completely from these biased entities, instead of trying to make an impact in whichever way they can...

That’s bad strategy...

I’m glad you’ve equated some of my relatives, some very strong pro lifers, with abortionists though... it’s always good to paint your fellow conservatives as the enemy, based on their profession.


48 posted on 05/05/2013 3:51:03 PM PDT by HawkHogan
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To: HawkHogan
Get used to it.

Government schooling and the people who run them have lost their legitimacy. Those running the government abomination camps ( misnamed “schools”) are in good company. Many large seemingly intractable institutions have quickly gone from legitimate to illegitimate. Some examples that come to mind are the Reformation, the American Revolution, slavery, Jim Crow, the fall of the Iron Curtain.

49 posted on 05/05/2013 4:12:50 PM PDT by wintertime
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To: HawkHogan

There are entire counties and whole states where, if Christians and conservatives removed their children from the godless socialist-entitlement K-12 schools the entire corrupt system would immediately collapse.


50 posted on 05/05/2013 4:14:44 PM PDT by wintertime
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To: 9YearLurker
You are referring to the simple standards themselves, when you say they don’t dictate content, but that is not how they are necessarily implemented at the state level.

I see what you are saying. However, not in any way endorsing the concept, I have to point out that any state could have always done this, regardless of how which standards they were using.

Massachusetts had state standards before Common Core. All that has been done with their adoption has been to make their standards the same as Connecticut, Rhode Island,... and most other states. I think 40 states have adopted Common Core.

AS you point out, and as I have pointed out, the standards themselves are not the problem, it's the texts and methodologies used to implement them. And those are left to state/district. In my case, it's an individual teacher decision, although the teachers in my district share ideas and resources sometimes.

Being in the middle of the transition, so far I haven't seen it as that big a deal. I will say that the teach-gnashing and hissy-fitting I've seen has been from teachers who aren't good at their craft anyway, and their main concern is how test scores will impact their evaluations. It's not a perfect system, but I believe in some accountability for teachers.

51 posted on 05/05/2013 4:40:08 PM PDT by TontoKowalski
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To: 9YearLurker
Here is an example of the common core at the state level, as implemented in MA. Note that the actual texts are specified at the state level:

Oh, Dear Lord in Heaven. How did they manage to take straightforward concepts and mangle them into these crazy documents?

I skimmed the English standards, because they tend to be the most open to liberal manipulation. They do "suggest" appropriate texts to tie to standards. This isn't anything new.

At the bottom of the link you provided, the previous standards are also provided... and they, too, specify the texts.

I'm not familiar with all the "suggested" works, but I was somewhat surprised to see the likes of Thomas Paine, Jefferson, Patrick Henry. The literature also included "Little Women" and similar classics of literature that most would deem non-objectionable.

Still, the whole document is an exercise in micro-management. Some consulting firm charged them a fortune for it.

52 posted on 05/05/2013 6:19:36 PM PDT by TontoKowalski
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To: ExTexasRedhead; Kaslin

We lost the schools long ago. I have 10 grandchildren, and they’re products of the nashunel skool system now.

All I can do is offer to take them to the range for some shooting-skills time ....................................................... FRegards


53 posted on 05/05/2013 6:31:38 PM PDT by gonzo ( Buy more ammo, dammit! You should already have the firearms ... FRegards)
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To: TontoKowalski

I do believe the standards themselves are a problem. It is an end run around a federal law not to have nationalized standards, and then the English requirement that half of all texts be nonliterary and informational and not considering of outside material is not only an unnecessary assault on students having exposure to good writing: it is a setup for propagandizing on a level that hasn’t existed previously.

That is a major problem IMO, but we can of course simply agree to disagree.


54 posted on 05/06/2013 1:52:28 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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To: TontoKowalski

Here’s another article that skewers the Common Core as more federal dumbing down:

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/344897/why-there-s-backlash-against-common-core-lindsey-m-burke/page/0/1

That is, no one in MA should want their schools lowered to the level of those in MS.


55 posted on 05/06/2013 3:57:28 AM PDT by 9YearLurker
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