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.

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. 

Alpine School District Board member Brian Halladay was one of 3 winners of our essay contest. Here is his essay:

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Imagine for a moment that you and your spouse recently returned from date night to find that your home had been robbed.

Among other things, two items were stolen: your journals and your social security numbers. They were then given to a group of well renowned psychologists, behavioral scientists, then the military. After being analyzed and copied, they were then given back to you.

A week after the items were returned, the police knock on your door. They found the identity of the robber….your babysitter. The very person you trusted to watch your children.

Wouldn’t you consider this a violation of privacy? Wouldn’t the theft of your journal be considered a crime? Yet, this is eerily similar to what our State School Board is allowing to happen in our schools. We have trusted them to protect our children while in school, and they have breached that trust.

Almost every student in the state of Utah will be taking the SAGE test in the next few months.

This test is designed by the American Institutes for Research (AIR), one of the world’s largest social and behavioral research centers. The data is being collected by AIR, with no guarantee of privacy then downloaded on the servers at the Utah State Office of Education.

To assume that our children’s data will be protected, when there is no guarantee of protection in their contract is like assuming that the NSA isn’t collecting your phone calls. It’s just not true.

We can’t allow this violation of our children’s private data. It’s up to us to protect the privacy of our children. As a parent, there is only one way to prevent this. Opt out of the SAGE test. Tell your principal and teacher this week. Write the governor and state school board. We can make a difference. It’s time.