GUEST POST by Katherine Frazier (Idaho) —
Dear Boise School Board Trustees,
Common Core is intellectually unacceptable. This Common Core is the new name for an old idea, namely, centralized control of America's schools.
It is intellectually unacceptable because it is an old idea dressed up to look new. Are American parents fooled by this deceit? I think not. Are educators fooled by this deceit? I think not, but they are willing to be courted by money.
It is intellectually unacceptable because it was, in its present guise, designed by a motley crew that did not include educators—not even one mathematician—but did include another phony, Planned Parenthood.
It is intellectually unacceptable because it was presented and even accepted in an unfinished form. In the South of America we had a name for that; buying a pig in a poke.
It is intellectually unacceptable because the program, written by bureaucrats, is copyrighted. Exceptional students and exceptional teachers cannot escape its dreariness. My children were raised by educated parents who frequently brought out the Oxford Dictionary at the dinner table. How stifled they might have felt under the rule of Common Core. Inquiring children would probably risk becoming "common," floating on the current of mediocrity.
It is intellectually unacceptable because it cannot—will not—employ the term "excellent."
There are many other reasons that Common Core should have been rejected at its first reading, but the Boise School District trustees can halt this dreadful idea before it takes root and ruins the very institution they are committed to serve.
Our schools can be noble, not common.
Sincerely,
Katherine Frazier
Dear Boise School Board Trustees,
Common Core is intellectually unacceptable. This Common Core is the new name for an old idea, namely, centralized control of America's schools.
It is intellectually unacceptable because it is an old idea dressed up to look new. Are American parents fooled by this deceit? I think not. Are educators fooled by this deceit? I think not, but they are willing to be courted by money.
It is intellectually unacceptable because it was, in its present guise, designed by a motley crew that did not include educators—not even one mathematician—but did include another phony, Planned Parenthood.
It is intellectually unacceptable because it was presented and even accepted in an unfinished form. In the South of America we had a name for that; buying a pig in a poke.
It is intellectually unacceptable because the program, written by bureaucrats, is copyrighted. Exceptional students and exceptional teachers cannot escape its dreariness. My children were raised by educated parents who frequently brought out the Oxford Dictionary at the dinner table. How stifled they might have felt under the rule of Common Core. Inquiring children would probably risk becoming "common," floating on the current of mediocrity.
It is intellectually unacceptable because it cannot—will not—employ the term "excellent."
There are many other reasons that Common Core should have been rejected at its first reading, but the Boise School District trustees can halt this dreadful idea before it takes root and ruins the very institution they are committed to serve.
Our schools can be noble, not common.
Sincerely,
Katherine Frazier
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