Christel Swasey recently posted to her blog, “82 Teachers Talk Back to NEA, Debunk Common Core.” It links to an article the NEA posted entitled, “10 Things You Should Know About the Common Core“. The 82 responses Christel originally posted are now up to 185. I’m not going to copy paste all the comments but here are a few more recent ones I found encouraging. Almost all the comments are from teachers, but this first from a parent is spot on.
Vikki Rosich says:
Thank you to all of you teachers who have always been on the side of our kids! We parents appreciate you with a whole heart. Keep fighting Common Core from the inside out. We parents are trying to fight from the outside in. Eventually we will meet you in the middle!
shorttam says:
i am die-hard union, through and through. But THIS is exactly why unions are fading from the United States. Union leaders are incredibly out of touch with their rank and file members. They have been in leadership positions for so long, they have absolutely no clue what their members’ priorities and needs are. Sadly, NEA leaders are also so consumed with having a “seat at the table” that they are willing to sell not only their own souls, but the souls or their members and the students they serve as well. There is absolutely NO research that supports standards – any standards – as a method to increase student learning. There is absolutely NO research that supports the use of standardized testing – as a method to increase student learning. Our country is severely underfunding education and now spends millions and millions of those scarce resources on implementing standards and giving standardized tests. The premise that “standards” will equalize things for our student living in poverty is an incredibly laughable one. We’ve had “standards” for more than a decade. The inequities between students have INCREASED since the introduction of standards, and that is exactly what educated, logical people would expect to happen. I am disgusted with my union and an’t believe that now I not only have to fight anti-worker forces and anti-public education forces… but I also have to fight my union. NEA does NOT speak for me or any other teacher I know, on this issue and sadly, on many others too.
John Rockwell says:
Why is NEA endorsing something that is clearly NCLB all over again? CCSS cannot be separated from its testing arm. It might sound nice, but it will end the same way: we will be doing scripted teaching to a dumb test again, using standards and curriculum we didn’t want and didn’t create. The difference this time is that it will play into the national “debate” about the so-called failure of public schools and many good schools will be closed in place of selective charters. Those who don’t see this possible future clearly are bad students of history.
Sharon says:
SHAME ON YOU NEA!! I have not heard of a single teacher who supports the CC and I know a ton of teachers. You have just lost a lot of members with this article. I am a special educator of students with developmental disabilities. My students are assessed via New York StAte Alternate Assessment (NYSAA) which is now directly linked to the Common Core. The rigidity of the “extensions” our students must be assessed on are absolutely insane . How should we expect students with severe autism who have serious behavior and communication issues and IQs on the average of 40 to do things like add fractions or identify the “intention of the author” in a text…..etc etc. I could go on for days. Our students need to stop having their time wasted on such absurdities so that they may continue to work on the life skills they need to become more independent and self sufficient young men and women. Their teachers need to focus on how they will help their students achieve these goals. There is not a single teacher in my very large school in support of CC. Frankly they are all disgusted and dishearten and the climate has become downright depressing. Our students do not have the option to opt out, but you can be sure that my own child will.
StandingProud says:
“An NEA poll conducted in July by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research found that 75 percent of its members—teachers and education support professionals —supported the standards outright or supported “with reservations.”
Make up your data-mind. Is it “roughly two-thirds” or “75%”? And why did you leave out that only 26% of the 1200 surveyed ‘fully support’ CC$$.
WOW!!! You just turned 312 teachers into “MOST NEA MEMBERS”
After this Gates backed and funded fluff-piece of crap, that’s about all the members you will have left.
Oops. . . . looks like the union busting is working. . . from the top down
^^o^^
The un-common push-back against Common Core is building momentum. Paid-for corporate sponsorship, paid-for teachers union support, and government promotion has revealed what Common Core really is…Propaganda. Many parents are participating in school board, Town Hall, and State Board meetings, protests, marches, and letter writing against this Monster. Some of them for the first time in their lives.
Parents facing “The Obamacare of Education” for the first time are horrified. It’s even worse than Obamacare…there was no vote by traitorous ‘representatives’ to pass Common Core State Standards upon We The People of Louisiana: There was no vote at all. It was never presented to our ‘representatives’ to vote on, yes or no. There was no vote by the Parents or the public.
There is no evidentiary proof that it works, and conflicting evidence is emerging showing that it is DESIGNED to FAIL. With these failures, the State and Corporate Educrats will have the authority to ‘Privatize’ the educational system by state take-over via the Charter school initiative. Once Common Core is fully implemented and accepted into our scholastic culture, the real ‘Bait-and-Switch’ indoctrination of the State’s Children will begin in earnest, for there will be NO input from Parents, Teachers, or anyone in this or any state…ALL control will be from Socialists and their Crony Capitalists in Washington, D.C. You see, it appears that CCSS is a “living document”. This means that what you see being taught today will not even have an appearance of similarity once it is permanent.
I cannot argue the necessity of the highest standards in our schools, making our Children Extraordinary. Not Common. But I can, and will, fight Common Core. For the first time in my life, I made a web-site to carry the fight to the People. And the Parents. KillCommonCore.Com.
When I was young, I pictured the Fight for Freedom being brave young men, struggling through unimaginable hardship, filthy, bloodied, and wounded, loosing brothers all around, struggling on to victory with the strength of God, and the belief in their Cause, in far-away lands with foreign names.
I grew up blissfully ignorant of the continuing Fight for Freedom, basking in the liberty that those brave young men had given me, some of them even paying for my freedom with their very lives. I was Comfortable, and I busied myself with other distractions. To my everlasting shame, I took my Freedom for Granted.
Guns, grenades, and bombs were the Freedom Fighting weapons of my fore-fathers. Today, money, and the power of the pen, have become the weapons of choice by today’s enemies of Freedom. Little do these enemies of Liberty know, this kind of fighting will eventually lead to the same type of fighting our Fore-Fathers used. And it will be our children, and it will be their children, who will be fighting each other, with guns, grenades, and bombs. Even now, there is open talk on many forums about the ‘Second American Revolution’. I pray that it will be fought at the polls, not bullet for bullet.
Common Core is the Machine of the Enemies of Freedom. If Common Core lives, Freedom Dies.
The Fight for Freedom Never Stops.
http://www.killcommoncore.com
‘Those who expect to reap the benefits of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigue of supporting it.” –Thomas Paine