The Rotten Core of the Common Core: Part Seven
John Dewey, the undisputed “Father of Progressive Education” who
began publishing his theories on politically-oriented educational reform in
various works such as The School and Society and Democracy and
Education over a century ago, may have finally achieved the ultimate
consequence of his philosophy: supposedly student-centered schools in which
education takes a back seat to social reform with government dictating what must
be taught, how it will be taught, and determining if it’s worthwhile teaching.
The disaster that is the test-fixated Common Core State Standards Initiative is rapidly evolving into the vehicle through which Dewey’s “progressive” principles are being implemented in America’s troubled schools.
The many flaws and misrepresentations in the mislabeled, pernicious Common Core State Standards Initiative, actually a federal initiative disguised as a state idea, have already been detailed in this space in six parts but news on those flaws and misrepresentations keeps pouring in:
–Ethan Young, a well-dressed, articulate senior at Farragut High School in Knox County, TN., is one student fighting back. Young pleaded at a school board meeting that the national Common Core education guidelines, which he called “a mistrust of teachers,” be dropped because, “If everything I learned in high school was a measurable objective: I haven’t learned anything.” (American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten might just agree with the Tennessee teen. An avid supporter of Common Core, Weingarten has nevertheless characterized its rollout as even more disastrous than Obamacare.)
–North Dakota’s Superintendent of Public Schools claimed that, “after meticulous review” and “local leaders always have and always will determine the textbooks being used to teach your child.” However, the fact the sex-filled, Common Core-recommended novel Dreaming in Cuban is being taught to North Dakota 10th graders calls into question who is really making the education decisions in the Roughrider State. (One of the novel’s less-explicit excerpts: “Hugo and Felicia stripped in their room, dissolving easily into one another, and made love against the whitewashed walls. Hugo bit Felicia’s breast and left purplish bands of bruises on her upper thighs.”)
–TownHall.com reports that ”New Common Core teaching materials instruct second graders that land owners are intrinsically evil, that business owners are inherently greedy, and Saul Alinsky radicals are the saviors of the everyman.” The article explains, “In addition to reading a glowing biography of the Marxist labor leader [Cesar Chavez], students will be asked to evaluate the “scales of fairness” between wealthy landowners, and lowly [non-union] workers.” The teachers’ guide directs teachers to say, “Fairness and equality exist when the scales are balanced” and ask students whether both sides, as presented in the plan, are equal. (The correct answer is “no” according to the guide.)
–A mother of a New York kindergarten student found offensive materials on the Student Services Page of the Engage NY Common Core materials site and reported it to NYSED. . . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=35213.)
The disaster that is the test-fixated Common Core State Standards Initiative is rapidly evolving into the vehicle through which Dewey’s “progressive” principles are being implemented in America’s troubled schools.
The many flaws and misrepresentations in the mislabeled, pernicious Common Core State Standards Initiative, actually a federal initiative disguised as a state idea, have already been detailed in this space in six parts but news on those flaws and misrepresentations keeps pouring in:
–Ethan Young, a well-dressed, articulate senior at Farragut High School in Knox County, TN., is one student fighting back. Young pleaded at a school board meeting that the national Common Core education guidelines, which he called “a mistrust of teachers,” be dropped because, “If everything I learned in high school was a measurable objective: I haven’t learned anything.” (American Federation of Teachers president Randi Weingarten might just agree with the Tennessee teen. An avid supporter of Common Core, Weingarten has nevertheless characterized its rollout as even more disastrous than Obamacare.)
–North Dakota’s Superintendent of Public Schools claimed that, “after meticulous review” and “local leaders always have and always will determine the textbooks being used to teach your child.” However, the fact the sex-filled, Common Core-recommended novel Dreaming in Cuban is being taught to North Dakota 10th graders calls into question who is really making the education decisions in the Roughrider State. (One of the novel’s less-explicit excerpts: “Hugo and Felicia stripped in their room, dissolving easily into one another, and made love against the whitewashed walls. Hugo bit Felicia’s breast and left purplish bands of bruises on her upper thighs.”)
–TownHall.com reports that ”New Common Core teaching materials instruct second graders that land owners are intrinsically evil, that business owners are inherently greedy, and Saul Alinsky radicals are the saviors of the everyman.” The article explains, “In addition to reading a glowing biography of the Marxist labor leader [Cesar Chavez], students will be asked to evaluate the “scales of fairness” between wealthy landowners, and lowly [non-union] workers.” The teachers’ guide directs teachers to say, “Fairness and equality exist when the scales are balanced” and ask students whether both sides, as presented in the plan, are equal. (The correct answer is “no” according to the guide.)
–A mother of a New York kindergarten student found offensive materials on the Student Services Page of the Engage NY Common Core materials site and reported it to NYSED. . . . (Read more at http://www.genelalor.com/blog1/?p=35213.)
No comments:
Post a Comment