It is, admittedly, a
hyperbolic title.
If you are looking for
answers to Iran’s nuclear development, the war in Afghanistan, or what exactly
happened to Malaysian Airlines Flight 370, you won’t find them here.
This post deals with
the growing controversy over
Common Core Standards, the voluminous and quite
frankly confusing bureaucratic boondoggle supported by the Obama administration
and Bill Gates, that allegedly will impose benchmarks equaling a national
standard of achievement in American schools.
Republicans, especially the Tea Party nut jobs, hate Common Core because
they fear the federal government is taking over classrooms and forcing teachers
to teach—gulp!—
liberal ideas.
However, there are Republicans, and Democrats
who liked the standards and even voted for them initially.
Now that people realize Common Core will cost
states billions to implement, everybody has become skittish.
Indiana this week became the first of 45 states
to opt out of the program.
It comes down to
this: supporters say Common Core
institutes consistency and academic rigor across the curriculum and across the
United States to guarantee that every teacher and student works from the same
educational playbook to meet the same standards. This is problematic because every state is
composed of its own constituency, a populace that has its own special needs and
requirements in all facets of life, including education. There are things best left up to the state to
decide, and other things that the federal government can mandate, and like the
education of the human mind, it is not always easy to form blanket statements
about what constitutes an educated person across our multicultural land. For instance, the students in the Los Angeles
Unified School District have different needs from students in the Aleutians
East Borough School District (approximately 700,000 students versus 275
students; southern California versus southwest Alaska).
More disturbing to me
is the lemming-like behavior of Catholic school departments of education across
the country who are rushing to embrace Common Core. Catholic schools have prided themselves in
offering a better education than their public counterparts. The curriculum was known for its rigor, and the
schools for graduating high-performing students who excel in college and in
life. You could argue that I am
presenting a biased view of the success of Catholic education, and you’d be
right, but I can back it up both from personal experience as a student and as a
teacher. There is also a wealth of
statistics to support my assertion, but I digress.
My point is that
Catholic schools should be running away from
endorsing Common Core. If anything,
parish schools should return to the rigorous teaching and learning that has
distinguished those institutions throughout their history. I always thought that was the selling point
for parents who must pay tuition on top of taxes that support public schools to
get their kids into the local Catholic K-12.
Sure parish schools are suffering a decline in enrollment due to the
poor economy and a financially stressed middle class, but the marketing key is
the kind of education Catholic schools have always offered—superior, disciplined,
successful, rigorous, and yes: Catholic! A Catholic school education will meet and exceed the Common Core standards if we remain true to our
traditions.
So why are Catholic
schools chasing the Common Core bandwagon?
Well, let’s be clear:
there is a
battle going on for control of the Catholic school train.
The New
York Times reported that 100 Catholic scholars besieged Catholic bishops to
reject Common Core standards.
Meanwhile,
the
Cardinal Newman Society, an organization founded in 1993 to “promote and
defend faithful Catholic education,” revealed that the National Catholic
Education Association (NCEA) accepted more than $100,000 from the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation to promote Common Core in Catholic schools.
There is not enough evidence nor have any
studies been done to indicate that these standards will insure a quality
education and student success for those who have jumped whole hog into the big
vat of Kool-Aid Gates and Obama are asking students, teachers, and parents to
drink.
To blindly follow means allowing
the federal government to dictate Catholic education.
Who stands to benefit
from Catholic schools adopting Common Core?
Well, Bill Gates and his technology interests will definitely benefit,
as textbook companies are now rushing to develop apps and programs that are
compatible with Windows 8 touchscreen operating systems.
According to the Cardinal Newman Society, “The
Common Core System of Courses is the first curriculum built for a digital
personalized learning environment that is 100 percent aligned to the new
standards for college and career readiness.”
There is no evidence yet that students graduating under these standards
will be better prepared for college or a career, but this
is evidence that these standards will be used to dictate school
curriculum and of course, standardized testing.
Standards must be measured—assessment equals standardized tests.
Teaching material found on the tests means aligning
curriculum with assessment.
So the
standards will, in fact, influence what is being taught in the classroom, as
well as how it is being taught, despite denials of such influence by the Obama
administration.
Textbook publishers such
as Pearson, Sadlier, Inc., and Riverside Publishing are all rushing to create
texts, workbooks, apps, programs and other resources to meet the demand of
schools clamoring for Common Core materials.
Unfunded mandates of over 10 billion dollars, as well as annual costs
going forward will be foisted on the individual states, according to at least
one news source.
The NCEA found out
that their full-throated endorsement of Common Core also comes with a philosophical
cost. The Cardinal Newman Society
reported in December that the NCEA had “to correct the first-grade unit plan by
removing three resources which celebrated families headed by same-sex or
divorced couples.” That is a double
revelation: one, it is shortsighted in
this day and age to remove such material from the classroom as many same-sex
and divorced couples are a vital part of parish congregations and school
families; and two, the NCEA now finds itself in bed with some questionable
partners who may have hijacked Catholic education.
How to save the nation,
or more specifically, Catholic education?
Catholic schools should stick to the kind of education offered for more
than a hundred years in their American institutions, one that graduates successful
men and women who have time and again demonstrated their ability to enrich the
fabric of our society. There is no substitute,
no computer program, no benchmark standard, no newfangled fad that can replace
such a tradition of teaching and learning excellence. Catholic schools should not be running after
public schools; they should continue to proudly lead the way in educating
students to be well-rounded, thoughtful citizens. Our children’s education is too important to surrender
to those professing “new ideas” composed of unsubstantiated promises with a
hefty financial, intellectual and moral price tag. Catholic education has never tread on common
ground and should not do so now. For the
good of our students, we must continue to aim higher.