Last night in a local store, I ran into an English teacher that works in Alpine School District. I asked him what he thought of Common Core and he was very much against it, but wouldn’t make a public statement about it, even anonymously. I got home and had received this email from a teacher in Jordan School District which is alarming and another indication of why teachers are afraid to speak out against Common Core.
“I recently attended a common core day of cheer leading for the sixth grade teachers in my district. Money was used to pay for subs so that we could all hear for a day why the common core was so wonderful. We were told that students would no longer be graded on completion of assignments or an average of assignment and test scores over a grading period. Instead grading will be based on mastery of a subject. How do we determine mastery? The district has provided bench mark tests in language arts. We were told that these are not mandatory BUT that if we did not use them they would become mandatory. I find it scary that students will now be graded only on tests written by the core. The final assessment was a research paper on modern revolutions. Interesting how now in the sixth grade learning can be skewed to a political point of view that may or may not be historically accurate. I find the curriculum scary and the measurement of learning terrifying. I know though that any questions I asked contrary to the core were met with anger and frustration. It was NOT allowed and dismissed to ask a question that was not common core friendly. I along with other teachers are afraid to speak out publicly against the core for fear of losing our jobs. I work in the Jordan school district.”
If the teacher who wrote this will please contact me with his/her name and phone number I will keep your identity confidential. I really want to speak with you.
I strongly oppose Common Core. Get it out of our school system.
Anything that does not come from the local level should be thrown out. Who know the needs better than those whose children are being taught. This is more of the “Big Brother” attitude which says that we know better than you what your children need. And we will furnish what they need.
I too am an employee of JSD, although I am not a Teacher. We all need to take courage and speak out against common core for the sake of our children. Not to speak is to speak! God bless all who will stand against these kind of intrusions in our lives!
This is so sickening. I have a child at a charter in Davis District. This child has some challenges that were swept under the rug for years by our previous district and now they are glaring at us. Child has IEP with goals and/or accomodations for some of these issues but kept telling us that she didn’t finish this or that assignment. However her grades showed as A’s. We contacted the school and asked if she was being graded on effort or what was expected. We were assured that she was being graded the same as all the other kids. Dialogue continued and the teacher finally admitted that she doesn’t make our child complete all assignments, they are considered done once she has achieved mastery and then extra credit is pushed instead. We’ve now asked how is mastery determined, why are you not letting child finish in order to work on strengthening deficit areas and why are you giving full credit for incomplete work. No response – it’s been almost a month.
I noticed in our private online school that if our girls could not get the answer correct after a few tries they were told that they would move them forward anyway. Then they (teachers) would tell them they could do extra credit to make up for it. I noticed the extra credit would be something like listening to a speech like” It takes a village” by Hillary Clinton or something similar to it. These are people who believe very differently than we do.
This is the ideology that they have been forcing on our children in public schools for a long time. It is one of the reasons we have not had our children in the system. But now has been put into our private school because of a large company buying into it.I felt they were not as concerned with teaching and challenging my girls as they were about pushing the extra credit. It is as if they do not want to pursue excellence in our children instead they want them to except they cannot do more. It takes away their belief that they can be high achievers.
What better way to create a society of followers than to destroy their idea of being a high achiever or be the best they can be. If we stop challenging our children we stop their progression. Also we stop the progression of a free society.