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

——————————————-

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.

The last of our essay contest winners, public school teacher Cami Isle, had laryngitis on Tuesday so her husband presented her essay at the rally on Tuesday night.

by Cami Isle

I am a mother and a teacher at a local charter school. I am an aunt and a friend. The children in my life deserve better education than these standards can provide. From the time that I found out about Common Core, a fire has been lit in my veins. I feel with the utmost sincerity that I must fight this with everything I have in me.

I have heard many, even in my own family, claim that these standards are a good thing – that they will help our children have higher educational standards so that they can be more competitive in the world. I have heard teacher friends defend Common Core as if I had attacked them personally. But, I have also heard many voice their concerns about the intrusiveness of the testing and data sharing. I have heard the frustration of students who can’t understand what is being taught using these new and untested methods. I have witnessed the light and excitement of learning being snuffed out of those young people because there is now so much testing pressure, they have no more class time for things like art or music.

I believe that change happens at a local level, by those who are closest to the issues at hand. Parents, teachers and principals have always been the foundation of a good education. And each state has had the ability to make changes based on the needs and desires of their residents. With CCSS and other federal over-reaches, that control has been stripped away, leaving parents with no way to advocate for their children. Worse, good teachers are robbed of their creativity and joy as they must follow strict guidelines and benchmarks instead of having the freedom to teach what their students are ready to learn.

The standards are only a part of my problem with Common Core. My blood boils to know that what was once protected information about students and their families is now available to private companies and government officials. Our children are being used as lab rats so that these companies can view them as “human capital”.

Teaching has never been, nor should it ever be, “efficient”. Children are individuals. They learn in unique ways, have unique interests, and progress at their own paces. There is no possible way to take such diverse individuals and make them fit a one-size-fits-all way of learning and doing things. That is the joy of teaching – to take such a beautifully different group of people and help each one fill his or her potential.

I will take it one step further. I not only oppose the Common Core State Standards, I have my own ideas for what could be done to improve education for our children – the future of this great Nation. I believe that we should have MORE choices, not less. From Charter Schools, private schools, home schools and regular public schools, each parent should be able to choose what fits their student the best. Compulsory education should be a thing of the past. We all know of many brilliant people throughout history for whom the public schools failed. With things going the way they are, the CCSS will effect all of those educational choices negatively.

I also think there should be MORE voices, not less. The censoring that has gone on in forums where Common Core is being discussed is ridiculous. We need to hear all ideas, not just the ones we agree with. It is only in truly listening to all points of view that the best solutions can be met.

— Cami Isle

Another of the 3 winners in our essay contest, Amy Mullins presented this essay at the rally on Tuesday night.

You Cannot Standardize the Human Spirit

by Amy Mullins

As a parent, a former educator, and a citizen of Utah, I am unequivocally in favor of excellence and rigor in Utah’s public school system.   Utah has a long history of providing high-quality education for our children.  I applaud efforts to continue and improve upon that tradition. But those efforts need to be concentrated at the local level and focused on the individual needs of children. Common Core, rebranded here as Utah Core, with its accompanying testing, its longitudinal data tracking, and its one-size-fits-all approach, misses the mark.

We are turning over our education system to committees and think tanks, publishing houses, and assessment companies.  Decisions about our students are being made in boardrooms instead of classrooms.  We are missing out on one of our greatest resources when we take teaching out of the hands of our teachers.  We are told teachers can select their own curriculum, but they have no control over the content of the assessments for which they are accountable. Do we judge a physician on the outcome of a single surgery? Or a lawyer on the verdict of a single case? Or our legislators on the passage of a single bill? Of course not! That is ridiculous! Yet our schools and teachers will be evaluated on the outcome of a single test.

As if demoralizing our teachers isn’t enough, this testing culture serves

is dehumanizing our children and stripping them of their individuality. We expect them to be automatons that think and learn alike. When we decree that all children of the same age must acquire the same skill set at the same time in the same manner, we lose sight of the unique child. We ignore the child with special needs who requires extra time and accommodations. We sacrifice the bright child who is ready to move farther and faster than the prescribed standards dictate.  When we let a computer adaptive test tell us if children have sufficiently met those standards, we are giving the power to the test makers at the expense of the test takers.

We cannot allow our children to be reduced to a score or a composite of data points. No standardized test can measure the curiosity, creativity, passion, ingenuity, or potential of the human spirit. No data from a computer can predict the intellect of an Einstein, the vision of a Walt Disney, the innovation of a Thomas Edison, or the passion of a Mozart.  No amount of testing, measuring, or tracking of my child is going to determine what he will achieve.

I am for excellence in education. But I do not believe it will be found in assessments or computer data banks.  Common Core is not the answer. True excellence is best accomplished in the hands of skilled teachers who are dedicated to their students,  in the minds of local leaders who know the needs of their districts, schools, and communities, in the hearts of parents who want the very best for their children, and in the souls of those unique, wonderful children who are the future of Utah.