Contest entrant Mike Porter submitted this essay on the constitutionality of Common Core.

During 2013, Common Core has been a subject of growing interest among families, teachers, school boards, and politicians throughout the country. As states adopted these “minimum standards” called Common Core, a growing number of citizens are organizing in opposition to its structure and function. Utah is among a super majority of states who have adopted these standards and are moving forward to its implementation in our schools. Being an active parent in my children’s education and an informed participant in my civic duties, I wish to join the resistance in opposition to our states association with this organization.

Proponents for Common Core say it’s a set of standards that define the expectation of what students are supposed to learn. With these expectations parents and teachers will be able to guide their children through the learning process and prepare them for college and careers. Common Core advocates claim these standards are only expected outcomes, which in no way limit the options in curriculum. They profess the curriculum choices are still left up to the school system to decide.

Critics argue in part that standards should not be decided upon by outside or unknown sources but by parents, schools, districts, and school boards. Antagonists say the expected outcomes and standardized tests will dictate the subject matter and curriculum, thus limiting their choice and discretion of what is taught and the method of instruction. They are doubtful a small panel will be able to meet the needs of a diverse population in an ever changing environment. And lastly, their research shows evidence of collusion and corruption with individuals and corporations while the government dangles money to encourage states to accept this concatenation.

Thomas Jefferson did not believe in entangling ourselves with foreign alliances for reasons of maintaining our sovereignty, nor did he wish us to inherit problems from other lands. I believe this has application in the area of education as well. Alliances such as this limit our sovereignty as a state and people with regards to how we choose to best educate our children. No one program can possibly meet the needs of this vast land without dumbing down the educational process. The George W. Bush initiated program “No Child Left Behind” did just that, just ask a teacher.

The tenth amendment declares all powers not enumerated in the constitution were left to the states and the people. The federal government has been involved in education for many years, redistributing the States money (our money) as they see fit with nothing to show for it but a further decline in the quality of our children’s education. The republican platform has asserted that the federal government has no authority to entangle itself in education. The states and its people need to assert their right and responsibility as the proprietor for the education of their children.

Whether Common Core is a federal program or a private conglomerate it does not matter, the principle is the same. When power is centralized, corruption and abuse of power is enabled, efficiency is diminished and the needs of the individual citizens suffer. The founders believed in the principle of separation of powers. They believed societies functioned best when governance was administered at the lowest possible level. If public education is a function of government which it is in our society, it is best administered at the community level closest to the children being educated. Programs, problems, and solutions are best managed in the capable hands of the professionals directly involved: Parents, teachers, school boards, and districts working together to educate the students they love and care about.

Competition is a vital element of our free-market, capitalistic society; it promotes innovation, improvement, efficiency, and corrective action. It encourages abundance and competitive prices to more groups and classes of people when it is allowed to flourish. Competition should be allowed to thrive in the education of our children. By creating a single set of standards-implemented by a few, competition is stifled and our children will suffer, and our society will be diminished for generations.

By Utah Teacher Susan Wilcox

We are being duped.

My trust of our district people led me to just go along with many things that I was not aware would be so controlling. At the end of the year, while we were cleaning out things and had little time to talk, they called us together to ask if they could spend the money on SRA courses that were excellent (in their opinion) – brought NO SAMPLES, and we agreed.

– In one short moment, we had changed from our own lesson plans to nationally written materials.

When we got them during the summer, there was no training yet for using them; they were piled on our shelves and one district person said to just pick them up and get going; the other said wait for training. (I’m not sure they even knew what they were doing.)

After being trained, I was excited at first with how well these were put together. Then I noticed the green agenda in there and political stuff that could be controversial, and just thought I was being “old fogie” in my thinking.

There were sideline comments about extinction of certain animals. It was the SRA Reading Mastery program, and the 2nd year we switched to another program by the same company.

It was more directly teaching reading skills. It didn’t have a lot of writing in it, but what it had I liked.

The problem is – I was between a rock and a hard place; we, as teachers, were directly responsible for their IEP goals, and these programs did NOT serve the IEP goals for each of my students. In my own training and part of my OWN resolve to help Special Education students, I determined to copy and read NIGHTLY their goals when preparing lessons. I don’t know WHAT could be more important (since parents sign this document and it is a legal paper of what this child NEEDS..) than following the individual needs of a student. I never felt there was any place or time to express these things within the district. They just plowed forward training us.

It was kind of exciting that a course would be followed when students transferred in the district, so they would have the same course going on. There were other selling points, but in the end there is no better course for a student than the inspired lessons of a loving eacher, who lives with that child for hours every day – even more hours than their parents see and work with them.

It is a sacred trust to me, and I was NOT happy to have that taken away. It is the reason good people choose to be teachers. We realize that PEOPLE are our most important resource, and we want to mold and train them to have the skills they need.

Our job is not to indoctrinate in ANY way. That is a parent’s privilege and borders on religion.

I felt SO outcast in the schools. Everyone is just worried about keeping their jobs and talk REALLY softly when expressing their feelings, when what they FEEL is what they should be loudly acclaiming.

Teachers have to express in private because they are afraid of losing their jobs. I will no longer hold back, because I don’t have and don’t WANT a job in the public sector again. I held out to help my husband get retired and pay off debt so we could free ourselves. I hope to be of value to the WONDERFUL teachers in our schools, who need our help.

Since I taught resource, I only listened in the faculty room to teachers who were very upset, but stayed calm to keep their jobs. They need those of us who are in a good situation to help to do exactly that.

I don’t like our unions because, at least in Utah, they have done nothing to help our teachers. They can’t speak up because the unions have no power to save their jobs and side with the district in defending them.

But I wish the district could record faculty room talk…they would find out that most of the teachers feel pressured, blamed for everything that goes wrong with parents, and end up being the beating stick in education, when we are actually the only ones saving those students between what they need and what is coming to them.

I was told to read a script to my resource students – SRA Reading course, and it did not serve the IEP’s of my students.

I did a much better job designing lessons for EACH student as I prayed over my stewardship as a teacher. I greatly resented being told my methods were not research-based, and therefore not acceptable.

I researched the files of my students, and I don’t know what better research a teacher could do but read the entire written history of each student, and follow through with a lesson plan for what they needed.

The direct instruction was very nicely designed. It was easy and saved time for all the ridiculous paperwork in Special Education. But I only taught half day and did paperwork the rest. I wanted to be more effective to my students.

Since music is being cut, my chances were better at business at home. I always did better at home – I got up to $6000 in grants to run a children’s orchestra over a period of 25 years from outside sources, but always felt like “WHY do I have to do this OUTSIDE the schools?” – They were my dream classes in orchestra.

The district held me back. I am not happy though that only kids who could pay a community school fee got my expertise. The schools should unleash teachers and their talents and stop all the accountability nonsense. They can use those programs on teachers who have not done well and evaluate them…to help them. These programs stops teachers from planning – and wearies their day. It takes their attention away from planning and doing a good job. I am very against the focus on teachers as though THEY were the problem.

I home schooled, half-and-half, with my own children. They were too smart for the wasted time in the public school.

This doesn’t feel like the America I once knew. The time to speak up strongly has come for me. I am not holding back. I read a lot and study the issues, but I know the feelings I have I can always trust in the situations I encounter. I go by those…they don’t fail me.

By Susan Wilcox

By Tiffany Mouritsen Hess

Knowing what I know now, I would never have allowed my daughter to stay in her third grade class. I would have brought her home. It was horrible. We were blessed the next year, when our daughter had Mrs. G, one of the most talented teachers I’ve ever met.

My daughter was cowering in her 4th grade classroom, unwilling to participate and frequently bursting into tears. Instead of becoming impatient and frustrated with her, Mrs. G sent a note home that read something like this, “______________ is having a difficult time beginning this school year. She needs a soft friend to come from home each day to give her a little courage.” So, my daughter took her favorite stuffed dog to school every day. The teacher’s constant kindness and soft way made her feel safe and I no longer had to drag her out of bed each day. Pretty soon she was loving school again and excelling in her studies.

There was a boy in the class that had been in many of my daughter’s other classes, a troublemaker and none too bright. He was loud, inappropriate and obstinate, but when I went to help in Mrs. G’s class one day, this troublemaker opened my door and greeted me with a friendly “hello” and a big smile. He followed directions.

After school I stayed to visit and I just had to ask about this boy. What are you doing to help this boy? He is a different boy altogether. Tears came into this wonderful teacher’s eyes and she told me this, “I forgive all mistakes made the previous day. Every student gets a fresh start every single day.” Mrs. G’s students knew that every day was a chance to do better.

Kids wake up ALL THE TIME. Some do well in school from the beginning. It takes some until college before they understand the importance of education.

Data collection does not forgive. It does not give you the benefit of  the doubt or give you a fresh start and a chance to excel each day. Instead, data collection makes certain that all your mistakes follow you forever.

High stakes tests and data collection do not benefit students. They do not benefit parents or tax payers. They don’t allow talented teachers the time or the freedom to excel. So, why do we have them? Why are we allowing them in our schools? Where is the pressure coming from? Education has become a multi-billion dollar business for the sake of  business. Please, if you don’t understand that tests and data collection are a huge part of Common Core, do your homework. This is here. It’s not good for our children and needs to be stopped.

Tiffany Mouritsen Hess
Kaysville

Essay Contest Entrant Loni Stott writes on Common Core’s harm to children

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It’s impossible to condense my many oppositions to Common Core in under 3 minutes, because there are so many. Therefore, I’m going to focus on the harm I have seen caused to my children and other people’s children because of Common Core.

I have watched the education system change from my older children to my younger children and I don’t like it. I worked in a school for 2 years and I saw the emotional toll this new Common Core was having on kids and how it made them hate learning. Not to mention all the indoctrination/agenda pushing in the curriculum.

That’s what started my research into Common Core and I didn’t like what I found. I didn’t want that for my kids.

I decided to home school. I never thought I would ever have to do that. I gave my daughter, that would be going into 8th grade, an assessment test just so I would know where to start her in the old Saxon math books. I found out she couldn’t even do basic division. That was alarming as I had been told she was doing great in math and there were no worries.

I showed her a couple of math problems the traditional way and she got it right away. She said she was so confused trying to do it the Common Core way and that left her feeling inept. She is doing great now. My younger daughter is also doing great in math and if the old math was still taught she would be a grade ahead in math. While I was working in the school I saw the destruction CC was causing to some kids. They felt stupid and felt like failures. It was heartbreaking. I would show them traditional math and they were always surprised at how easy and understandable it was. But of course we were encouraged not to show kids the traditional form of math. Why take so many steps to solve a problem when it isn’t necessary? If you add a bunch of unnecessary steps it gives the child more opportunities to mess up and get the wrong answer. Why confuse them? Math also has an answer. By telling kids they aren’t wrong or there is no wrong answer, it is also setting that child up for failure.

Now let’s move on to my son. He didn’t want to be homeschooled and therefore I went to the school and told them I wanted to circumvent the CC so he could stay in school. I didn’t want him learning CC math or English. He had already wasted 1 full year of math because it was stuff he already knew, not to mention some of the pornographic reading material that is being assigned for children to read.

So when I went to talk to the counselor about how to do this he said we could go the “honors track”.

“Honors track? What is that?” I asked.

He proceeded to tell me it’s basically the old traditional math track that kids had been on before CC.

“Wait!” I thought to myself, “If Common Core is so much more rigorous, why is the old math called honors?”

My oldest son took the old math track and was taking college level calculus as a junior in high school. My younger son will not be able to do that because he wasted a year in math when CC was implemented.

I think the testing is abusive. They’re set up to make kids feel like failures in my opinion. I don’t like the data mining of children, and the tacking of their every move. What happen to privacy.

This is supposed to be America. Kids are not the same, they are not Common. They are unique and should be allowed to spread their wings. I know I have 5 and no two are alike. They learn different, they respond to different situations differently. But that doesn’t mean one is any more special than any other one. Einstein said:”Everybody is a Genius. But If You Judge a Fish by Its Ability to Climb a Tree, It Will Live Its Whole Life Believing that It is Stupid.”

Our kids deserve better. America deserves better. We need to take back education and put it in the hands of parents and local teachers that know what is best for their children. How does someone from WA know what my child here in UT needs or what values I want them taught. They don’t. I reject Common Core and I hope you all will too.