As we speak around the state about Common Core we’ve noticed a common theme at many of our events: Teachers have serous concerns about the Common Core and how it will change their profession. Many are also worried that if they publicly voice those concerns they may face consequences in their school or jeopardize their job. That’s unfortunate. Teachers are the professionals working on the “front lines” with students every day, their voice is vital to the discussion.
Keith Kindred, a social studies teacher at East South Lyon High School, articulated his concerns with Common Core very well in December to Michigan NPR.
Schools have been under attack for years now, and the failure of No Child Left Behind has educators understandably skeptical about so-called “reform” efforts.
Moreover, the speed with which this is happening makes us very nervous. We’re being asked to make wholesale changes in curriculum and instruction methods without meaningful guidance from the state, and in an incredibly narrow time frame.
Does the blind leading the blind in a rush to carry out an incomplete policy of mysterious origins aimed toward vague and poorly defined goals sound like a good idea? Yeah, we’re anxious, – you should be too.
Most concerning is how little people know about where the Common Core came from and who’s behind it. It’s too complicated for me to fully address here, but I’ll give you a couple of tidbits.
Did you know, for example, that no public school educators were involved in the original construction of the Common Core standards? And when the group who was behind that effort – an interest group called Achieve, Incorporated that has close ties to Bill Gates – did seek input from educators, some of those educators refused to approve it until their concerns were addressed.
We support Kindred and are sympathetic to the difficult position Michigan teachers have been placed. Kindred said teachers are not opposed to the “spirit behind the Common Core” but like parents they are frustrated.
The truth is that politicians and other decision-makers don’t listen to teachers anymore. I think we’re kind of important in the whole education thing, but the public schools and education policy have become hopelessly politicized.
We couldn’t agree more. Lansing and school officials have become tone deaf to the concerns of teachers and parents. Teachers and parents not politicians and lobbyists should be the making the decisions for their students.