I am having some cognitive dissonance when I watch Glen Beck
If you don’t want to watch it all Glen Beck has three problems with the Common Core
- Poor curriculum
- Loss of states’ rights
- Data mining
By the way the video is full of misrepresentations and I am not going to try and point them all out. I think he definitely misrepresents the curriculum of the CC and how it is “forced on homeschoolers.” I also have no problem with the alternate math methods he shows. But while I disagree with many of his points and feel that he is not pointing an accurate picture of the CC, I find myself equally against the CC but for these three reasons.
- Narrow curriculum
- Loss of district/school/community/students’ rights
- Conflict of interests of the powers behind it.
What I don’t like about any national curriculum is that it takes away the choice from teachers and students to study what they choose to study. I find it to be too sterile and prescriptive for what individual students need in their lives. I believe it is arrogant for anyone to determine here is what “every student needs to learn to be successful.” So really my first two items are the same complaint that education should be negotiated locally between the community and schools including room for individual student passions.
Strange Bedfellows http://blogs.r.ftdata.co.uk/beyond-brics/files/2012/06/bedfellows.jpg
I know that the CC is not the same as standardized testing, but since the testing will be driven by the CC and all school funding based off from agreeing to this I believe that it is impossible to separate the two. Funding is the real power that the federal government is using to manipulate states into agreeing to CC and the testing that goes with it. The fact that there are testing companies all mixed up in this is a major problem for me. I actually agree with Glenn Beck about the involvement of the Gates Foundation and the danger of data mining.
So while I don’t agree with the rhetoric of the #stopcommoncore movement on how terrible the CC curriculum is (I don’t think it is perfect either), I do find myself agreeing with them that I think CC is a continued part of the federal government standardizing schools and hindering passionate, personalized learning. So does that make us allies?
PS: For more detailed deconstruction of problems of the CC check out Paul Bogush’s blog.