By Josh Weizel – Editorial Editor

The Common Core program is a set of national education standards enacted in the 2009 Stimulus Package. The standards were part of a national initiative to raise the bar and raise expectations in our education system. There has been a lot of controversy caused by the Common Core program which could, if left to the government, mandate certain standards in individual states – such as Connecticut.

So what are the problems with Common Core? What is the problem with having standards and high expectations in education? Common Core advocates make valid and true points about a need to have higher expectations in our educational system, but what they fail to realize is that a “one-size fits all” approach to education is not needed.

What education policies like No Child Left Behind and Common Core fail to do is teach and inspire creativity. In our education system, the focus has been on narrow math and reading tests instead of teaching the whole child. Why is the emphasis not on history and geography like it used to be? Where is the emphasis on creativity and the individual strengths of the child? As English teacher Jermaine Chaffine said, “(Common Core) is too scripted and does not trust the students to direct any of their own learning, and presents a narrow and shallow view of education.”

Despite what advocates argue about the Common Core program, the goal of teaching children is for them to learn how to think creatively. In reality, Common Core is doing the opposite because students are not required to ask or answer higher thinking questions anymore. Instead of questions like “What are the causes of the Civil War?,” Common Core asks narrow questions within a particular reading. How can there be an effective education system without teaching kids and adolescents the wider importance of topics they read and not just a narrow view of education? Maybe this is because the true goal of the Common Core advocates is not to teach kids how to think, but instead how to not have an independent mind and to teach them what to think.

The problem is that the Common Core program is run by those in the government who have an extreme left wing agenda. This is not just another Tea Party conspiracy; the evidence is overwhelming. If this program is not dominated by an agenda, then why is it that the AP U.S. History Exam leaves out all mention of the Founding Fathers unless describing them as bigots, sexists and racists? Stanley Kurtz, a commentator for the National Review, addressed this issue in a recent editorial when he wrote, “The Constitution can be studied as an example of colonists’ belief in the superiority of their own culture, for instance. But any teacher who presents a full unit on the principles of the American Constitution taught in the traditional sense would be severely disadvantaging his students. So while asking some minor flexibility on details, the new AP U.S. History Exam framework efficiently forces teachers to train students in a leftist, blame-America first reading of history while omitting traditional treatments of our founding principles.”

Is it really moral and right for a school system to promote a certain political agenda even while believing that political belief is amoral? Should we want children to think for themselves and develop their own minds? The Common Core Standards will not improve student performance in academics. There is no proof that these standards work and they have not been tested and fully evaluated. How can we trust educational standards that were not written by entirely teachers who teach and know the needs of students, but instead written by bureaucrats? How can we trust educational standards that were pushed through Congress and that nobody in Congress read? How can we trust educational standards that did not have consent of parents at all?

Under Common Core, English teachers will reduce the amount of time they teach literature to 50 percent, a number which drops to 30 percent in high school. Do we really want an educational system where children will not be required to read classics like Oliver Twist, Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes? We already have an education system that has been so dumbed down by political correctness that if students were to open a page of Huckleberry Finn they would not be able to understand its theme and significance. Would students even be able to understand any book written in the 19th century?

Another unanswered question about the Common Core standards is why, under Common Core, schools will collect so much data on individual students. The data being collected on students has nothing to do with education. In order to educate students, why is it necessary to collect data on their family income range and religious affiliation? What does this information have to do with educating our children? The real goal of Common Core is not to educate our children. The real goal is control. The goal of Common Core is to control the minds of our children at a young age so they cannot desire freedom and liberty.

As Frederick Douglas famously said, “Knowledge makes a man unfit to be a slave.” The more our educational standards are dumbed down, the easier it is for a growing government to enslave its citizens. Should the federal government really tell teachers that they must teach in a certain way? Teachers pursue education not so they can be government clerks and robots. They go into teaching because they have a passion for teaching students in a particular subject matter. There is a need for high standards and expectations in education, but these standards should be set up by educators and should include parents who actually have experience with the child and not bureaucrats.

It is time to stop bullying America’s teachers. It is time to stop promoting certain political beliefs in our public schools. It is time to stop an education policy that has contempt for parents. It is time our country came together to eliminate Common Core.

(Some information courtesy theblaze.com, nationalreview.com)

(Photo courtesy politicspa.com)