This teacher laments the explosion of testing in school, which has reduced or eliminated time for play, recess, and activities. This is the brave new world of Common Core and PARCC:
H/she writes:
“The Common Core and PARCC will ruin education as we know it..And, of course, it is all part of the overall plan. My school starts PARCC this next school year. My 2.5 hour paper and pencil test (in only one subject).. will be replaced by three (3) two hour “tasks” in February. (My students will have to sit down at a computer THREE times at 2 hours each in February.) I’m not done yet….In May my students have to sit down at the computer for two (2) hour tests on the computer. My 2.5 hour paper and pencil test is now replaced by 10 hours of testing for only one subject. My students will also do the same amount of testing in three (3) other subjects. My students now will be completing 40 hours of testing on a computer in a given year. Oh, and my students are only 11 and 12 years old. They yearn to go outside and play kickball and basketball at recess. But, they have no recess. They only have 10 extra minutes after they finish lunch to play outside.
“I was blessed to teach in the what I now know were the “good ole days” of yesteryear. I dearly miss and mourn for those years. I was able to teach through fun and meaningful learning activities! We had TIME! (: As I go through my files over my almost 30 year career in the same subject and grade level, I don’t begin to get the material taught and covered as what I used to. I have thick files of learning activities that I never get to anymore. The curriculum director at our school has already said that he has no clue how he will get all that testing done for all of our kids. He said there is a 4 week window in February and April/May, so students will be gone at different times in my classroom. It will be a nightmare.
“It’s a shame that Pearson has to take away the childhood of our children, so they can earn their millions. I teach children. They are children. They love to run, play, draw, make faces, jump up and down, play tag, tease each other, hide, run around, make jokes, and enjoy being a child. With all of these hours of testing, I will not have time to teach anymore. The test preparation for a 2.5 hour test was bad enough, but this is totally ridiculous. Then, take the time to read over the Common Core and you will laugh to yourself. In Language Arts, they will be teaching adverbs to 3rd graders, with not much more emphasis on it after that. I think they know the Common Core will be the bullet that finally kills all public education in the U.S. The kids will not score well on this silly curriculum, which will be recorded on the teacher’s evaluation . . .and teachers will be let go. Yes, it’s all a part of the sad overall plan. It’s evident that the Common Core was created by people who knew very little about the developmental stages of our children. No one ever mentions Piaget anymore. It’s all so sad. But, Sasha and Alieah don’t have to follow these communist socialist education rules. Do they?”
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Communist socialist rules?
That last comment is a huge downer for an otherwise decent post wth?
Agree with titleonetexas teacher: – It is Totalitarianism! We would be better off if it were “Communist Socialism”!
Titleonetexasteacher & Madison in Dallas: Diane is reproducing a comment that appeared on this blog.
Please refer to the comment by “Sad Teacher” under the following posting—
Link: https://dianeravitch.net/2014/06/21/why-kentucky-dropped-the-parcc-test/
I think the phrase “communist socialist education rules” is both inaccurate and misleading. That said, I applaud the owner of this blog for giving us the raw comments as they were written. But I must also add that I usually agree with the commenter.
Let’s agree where we can, disagree where we must, but keep the dialogue going. I read all of y’all’s comments too; I don’t look for agreement or disagreement but for comments that provoke thought.
Respectfully, my dos centavitos worth…
😎
Thanks Krazy TA: I appreciate the centavos….I just wanted to mention it because so many people label us, the anti cc, as “tea baggers” that I worry that anything that sounds like criticism from a conservative might hinder their ability to see that this criticism comes from all types of people;)
I can see the point here– the government (federal) takes our money and then refuses to give it back to us in states and municipalities unless we kow-tow. I mean, where do the “federal dollars” come from? The people i local municipalities, through taxes.
Also, the tests will apparently cause most students to be labeled not college- or career-ready. Will the feds than funnel them into jobs that the feds believe are suited to these students’ lack of achievement (but they’ll call it ability)? Finally, the tests are profoundly anti-intellectual, and, as another poster pointed out, the kids of the top 1% won’t be taking them.
Cultural Revolution much?
“Communist Socialist”?…which one as they are different economic organizing systems
This is well said and felt by all of us who went into the teaching field to teach children. Whatever happened to the constructivist paradigm and holistic learning? Like students, teachers are not machines. Individuality is not only lost for the children but also for the teachers. Teachers are designers and creators of instruction to meet the needs of all students. Instruction must be tweaked to each students’ needs and abilities. Teachers hone their craft over many years. Next, will we ask artists to conform to a certain model and tool in order to create. Shame on those who are not teachers, have taught little and who are making rules for the rest of us. It is a sad commentary on education. In our quest for the miracle pill, we are degrading the education of our greatest resource in society–our teachers, and cheating our children of the education they deserve and need in our complex world.
Excellent analogy Denise Mueller. Mournful but true.
i think you mean sasha and malia, children who go to private school? maybe correct post to include ALL children of people promoting education corporatization?
Agree with titleonetexasteacher about the last line in this post.
But it is important to notice that the “accountability year” seems to be radically truncated by high stakes testing in February.
The feds have invented a metric that leads to rating teachers “effective” if they produce a year’s worth of “growth” in students’ test scores, pretest to posttest. There is no formal definition of “a year.” I am guessing that these February tests are posttests, with comparisons either to tests earlier in the year, or tests given every February for year-to-year comparisons of “growth.”
In any case, it is not just the ridiculous length of the tests (a real threat to their validity), but also when they are being administered realtive to the start and end of the school year.
Unless this district has a really eccentric schedule for starting and ending a school year, testing in February makes students and teachers responsible for content that may not have been introduced or if so with little time for elaboration and connections required for understanding.
And why three 2 hour tasks in the shortest month of the year? Are they supposed to be learning something in between these tasks?
Agree Laura: my EOC was in March this year. The end of course was in June *sigh*
I have to say, it won’t matter (at the HS level, anyway) whether the tests are given in May, February, or the second Tuesday of each week in Deeptemper. The tests are not going to test on what the students have learned or what the curricula have focused on. In ELA at any rate, there is no way they can do so, given the restrictions on test topics!
2.5 hours for one test for young kids!!??? That is truly horrible. And that’s only the tip of the iceberg of the testing insanity.
You caught my concern, Joe.
2.3 hours for a test for 11-12 yer olds. That is abuse in and of itself.
I didn’t have that length of test until I got into college.
Except for ACT & SAT (yes, I did both, hungover as hell for the SAT) which were not part of any class.
In Texas, the 8 year olds take two consecutive days of “four” hour STAAR. It is insanity!
It is not about testing … It is about teaching thinking … What or how do I …? On assessment day, it is the students turn to show what they know and can do. We only test once a year.
Terri what state do you teach in? What subject? What grade level?
Tests don’t teach thinking. They don’t teach anything. And 10 hours of tests (as it is at my school) really doesn’t teach anything.
Terri…..”We only test once a year”…..should be corrected to …..”We only teach to the test ALL year”
Terri….”It is about teaching thinking”????? Ha! CCSS is called “dumbing down”. Kids who spend a while in the CCSS environment lose the ability for scientific thinking. They are unable to develop higher level thinking skills because they are drilled with “command and response” of scripted test material. Indoctrination of CCSS is like a human version of computer programming. It looks like “obedience training” for dogs and zoo animals.
Surely you must be a lobbyist for Pearson?
I am thinking that the “communist socialist education rules” was meant to be sarcastic?
The education Rheeform we are up against is unfettered plutocratic/capitalistic, pure and simple.
After all, Murdoch said education is a 500 million (or is it billion) a year industry begging to be shaken up (i.e. strip mined for corporate profit at the expense of children, teachers and taxpayers).
We should demand that all students have the right to same education as Obama’s daughters. Endless, punitive testing cannot be defended as FAPE.
Perhaps it should be a job requirement that the President send his kids to public schools in DC and that the “choice” of schools be made completely randomly.
That would act as a direct, very personal incentive for the President to give all DC public schools the resources they actually need to be excellent, safe learning environments for ALL students.
“Putting one’s kids in private schools” is the height of hypocrisy for a President who claims to be interested in improving the American education system (unless, of course, replacing public education with a totally private system is what education reform is all about 🙂
“Keeping the President’s kids safe” is simply an excuse: an admission that the President is not doing enough to keep ALL DC schools safe.
I agree that this much of testing probably isn’t appropriate. But a few things to consider:
1. This is field testing – every assessment that is worth it’s grain of salt has had some type of field testing done on it…most likely there will be less testing one the field testing is done.
2. Everyone who complains about PARCC/Common Core – is a pencil and paper multiple choice test really the best way to measure student learning and understanding? As a high school math teacher, I rarely had multiple choice questions – it took me longer to grade and in some ways may have taken the students longer, but it was a better measure of their knowledge
I will agree with one thing that should be done – the students should earn some type of rewards/incentive for going through the field testing, etc. Maybe gift cards? Maybe partner with local water parks, etc. for things that would be fun for kids to do?
Why would it be necessary to field test an entire country? Has the representative sample gone the way of the dinosaur?
2015 is not field-testing, at least not with SBAC.
The field testing should not be forced on students. Period. And the tests are STILL quite similar to the multiple choice tests you decry. Just because it’s on a computer doesn’t mean it’s better. And the kids have to click and drag all kinds of symbols around in order to answer the questions, requiring a lot of computer savvy and keyboarding skills that many children do not possess.
A lot of my students do not have computer access outside of school. They do not have computers at home and they do not visit public libraries. I might change my name to Threatened in the East.
I was also fortunate to teach before Hurricane BAB hit.
And I’m pretty sure if you mentioned Piaget to someone like Bill, Arne or Barack, they’d probably say “Oh, you mean Google’s Larry Page?
Last year was field testing for Smarter Balanced, not this year. Many districts are adding assessments now that field testing is done, so I don’t know what evidence suggests that there will probably be less testing later.
This teacher says it like no one else can. Gone are the days when memories of school included the smells and sounds of autumn air and crunching leaves under foot at recess. Gone is four square and tetherball and playing barbies with my friends under the giant pine. Gone are the theatrical productions, elaborate sculpting and painting and all of those fun activities that, honestly consume my memories of my early school years. Today’s kids get a 20 minute lunch and most of that is spent in line. Where is the parental outrage? Where are the teachers objecting? (Other than the retired and rare anonymous one). American education was not broken except as response to a broken society. This corporate/state take over of education is throwing the baby out with the bath water. Not sure if it is a mistaken response to perceived crisis or a manufactured crisis to hijack public education. The result is the same and I sure do not aspire to be like China.
Where is the parental outrage, indeed? I can only imagine the reaction were I as a classroom teacher to have a secret curriculum as these tests are secret.
Parents think they have no choice about their children taking the test. I mentioned to some of my parents how families in some states are opting out and they had never heard that option.
Let’s just jump right in here to the crux of the Common Core “State” Standards with an excerpt from the paper, “History of Education in Communist Countries,” by Hae Yoon Jeong, 2009, Korean Minjok Leadership Academy:
The communist revolutions in the 20th century had their goal at creating total revolutions and establishing a new society different from the capitalist society. This new society required people with new loyalties, new motivations, and new concepts of individual and group life. Education was acknowledged to have a strategic role in achieving this revolution and development. Specifically, education was used to produce ardent revolutionaries ready to rebel against the old society and establish a new order and also to bring up a new generation of dexterous laborers to take up the various tasks of development and modernization.
… Marxist-Leninist philosophy was the basis of the Communist education system. It emphasized the role of schools and youth organizations in educating students by indoctrination. For this the Communist societies paid a lot of attention to schooling. There had been great confidence that schools would be a major instrument for building the “New Communist Man.” Such a person would work diligently, would have a clear insight into the dynamics of social change, would understand and be skilled in modern technology, and follow the tenets of Marxism-Leninism.
http://www.renewamerica.com/columns/miller/131021
The original idea for Common Core originated as part of UN Agenda 21, with ideas they borrowed from International Baccalaureate (IB); a group that was founded in Geneva, Switzerland in 1968 as a non-profit educational foundation. IB World schools were also created here in the U.S. The International Baccalaureate is recognized today as a globally oriented program and a UNESCO partnership program emphasizing sustainability teaching to children and collectivist, socialist indoctrination. A network of their schools still exist in 147 countries including the U.S.
Bill Gates signed a “Cooperative Agreement” with the U.N. in Paris in 2004 to develop a world wide curriculum which could use Microsoft as a platform to disseminate the goals of UNESCO throughout the world. What do you think Common Core is?
No, I do not think calling the Common Core a communist socialist agenda is off the mark even if I will be maligned for taking that stance. So be it.
Big heavy duty capitalists like Gates, Murdoch, the Waltons, Eli Broad, Mike Dell, hedge fund billionaires, Michael Robertson (MP3 founder and union hater), Jeff Bezos, Carl Icahn, etc., support some kind of communist agenda. Excuse me while I laugh.
Joe, these folks will still live high on the proverbial hog.
No maligning here, Dawn. Excellent explanation.
I don’t know if common core is communist or socialist, but it sure isn’t a voluntary program. Mandating it through financial coersion is not the mark of freedom, enlightenment, or the embracement of a great idea.
Yes, I am beating this horse to death, but in the struggle to end the $tudent $ucce$$ Sweepstakes this is a Triple Crown Winner.
Look at the title of this posting and then ponder the ‘let the cat out of the bag’ words by Dr. Frederick Hess of the American Enterprise Institute, the very definition of an “education reform” insider and an articulate spokesman for the education status quo:
[start quote]
In truth, the idea that the Common Core might be a “game-changer” has little to do with the Common Core standards themselves, and everything to do with stuff attached to them, especially the adoption of common tests that make it possible to readily compare schools, programs, districts, and states (of course, the announcement that one state after another is opting out of the two testing consortia is hollowing out this promise).
But the Common Core will only make a dramatic difference if those test results are used to evaluate schools or hire, pay, or fire teachers; or if the effort serves to alter teacher preparation, revamp instructional materials, or compel teachers to change what students read and do. And, of course, advocates have made clear that this is exactly what they have in mind. When they refer to the “Common Core,” they don’t just mean the words on paper–what they really have in mind is this whole complex of changes.
[end quote]
Link: http://deutsch29.wordpress.com/2013/12/28/the-american-enterprise-institute-common-core-and-good-cop/
Or as Dr. Raj Chetty would say: Dr. Hess is the Michael Jordan of the ‘Did I rheeally say that?’ team.
😎
Joe, clearly you know very little about the goals of UNESCO and Bill Gates support for them. In 2004, he signed a “Cooperation Agreement” with UNESCO in which he pledged to disseminate and support the goals of UNESCO as an intergovernmental organization of the United Nations system. Bill is very much a proponent of a one world government because that is the only way that his goal of total “protection” of the environment, decreasing CO2 levels, through population reduction and control of resources can be accomplished.
Perhaps you are unaware of other huge “capitalists” who have in fact contributed to the advancement of socialist agendas in the past. If you study history, you will find that central bankers find it profitable to foment wars of all kinds and fund both sides. Labels such as capitalist or socialist or communist or fascist mean little to bankers.
http://www.thecuttingedgenews.com/index.php?article=11168
Who gave Hitler’s odious medical eugenic experimentation the wherewithal to commit unspeakable crimes against innocent twins? It was the Rockefeller Foundation, the philanthropic incarnation of Standard Oil. The foundation acted as a full partner with Carnegie in establishing eugenics across America and in Germany. In the quest to perfect the master race, millions of Depression-era dollars were transmitted by Rockefeller to Hitler’s most anti-Jewish doctors. In this quest, one specimen was desired above all: twins.
Rockefeller funded Hitler’s chief raceologist Otmar Verschuer and his insatiable twin experimentation programs. Twins, it was thought, held the secret to industrially multiplying the Aryan racial type, and quickly subtracting biological undesirables. Verschuer had an assistant, Josef Mengele. Rockefeller funding stopped during WWII. But by that time, Mengele had transferred into Auschwitz to continue twin research in a monstrous fashion. Ever the eugenicist, he sent precise clinical reports weekly to Verschuer.
Who took Hitler off the horse and put his killing armies into trucks to wage Blitzkrieg or lightning war against Europe? It was General Motors which built the Blitz truck for the Blitzkrieg. As the Reich’s largest car and truck maker, GM became an indispensible partner in Hitler’s war. From the first weeks of the Third Reich, GM president Alfred Sloan committed the company and its German division, Opel, to motorizing a substantially horse-drawn Germany, preparing it for war. Prior to this, Germany had been a nation devoted to legendary automotive engineering but only one vehicle at a time built by craftsman. GM brought mass production to the Reich, converting it from a horse-drawn threat to a motorized powerhouse.
Sloan and GM knowingly prepared the Wehrmacht to wage war in Europe. Detroit even secretly moved massive stores of spare Blitz parts to the Polish border in the days just before the September 1, 1939 invasion to facilitate the Blitzkrieg.
Using a charade of interlocking boards and special executive committees, Sloan kept GM’s role secret as long as possible. Where Opel lacked parts or foreign currency, Detroit ordered other international subsidiaries to stealthily assist.
In addition to motorizing the military, Sloan launched massive re-employment programs to help revive the Nazi economy—this at a time when the company declined to put Depression-wracked Americans back to work. GM’s success led to the need for the Autobahn. GM’s chief executive in Germany James Mooney received the same medal Ford was awarded, for special service rendered to the Reich.
Who custom-designed and co-planned the Nazi solutions to Jewish existence? It was International Business Machines, inventor of the Hollerith punch card, precursor to the modern computer. IBM enjoyed a monopoly on information technology. Under the micromanagement of its president, Thomas Watson, and advertising itself as “a solutions company,” IBM in 1933 reached out to the new Hitler regime. It offered to organize and systemize any solution the Reich desired, including solutions to the Jewish problem.
With IBM as a partner, the Hitler regime was able to substantially automate and accelerate all six phases of the twelve-year Holocaust: identification, exclusion, confiscation, ghettoization, deportation, and even extermination.
I think where some people are coming from, is that “socialist” to me, conjures images of cooperative countries such as France where their educational system is quite different from “Test and Punish”
I wish that we were a socialist country. I would not fear losing my job because it teach poor kids.
Ok, Title 1, I do see your point.
I do not agree with your point. France is not in good shape. The youth there are suffering with 26% unemployment. They are part of the EU which means austerity for the people and looting of the real wealth of the country by the central bankers and speculators. There is nothing good about socialism. Where has it worked? Pie in the sky theory. There is no freedom there.
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/high-youth-unemployment-and-poverty-in-france-breed-hopelessness-a-872943.html
Beyond France’s ailing economy, there is another disastrous statistic at play. Some 23 percent of the country’s 18- to 24-year-olds live in poverty, according to a study by the National Institute for Youth and Community Education (INJEP). These are mainly high school or university dropouts who have little to no access to health care and limited chances of improving their situations.
Youth unemployment in France has been high for some time, but it has now climbed to 26 percent. For decades, regardless of their political affiliation, lawmakers have been promising to create a better situation for young people. But exactly the opposite has happened. Labor laws protect those who already enjoy steady jobs, while the economic crisis and recession have limited the number of new jobs created. Meanwhile, housing has become both scarcer and pricier.
Hey Dawn,
Have you looked into Prescott Bush’s involvement with the Nazis???
Of course, I am well aware of the Bush crime family’s activities for generations. I was just trying to point out that corporations that are supposedly loyal to capitalism are only interested in the bottom line. To find it “laughable” that Bill Gates would support communism or an organization like the United Nations that is loaded with communists shows a lack of historical knowledge. Central bankers have always been disloyal to everyone but themselves.
….the new documents, many of which were only declassified last year, show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis’ plans and policies, Prescott Bush worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler’s rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty.
Remarkably, little of Bush’s dealings with Germany has received public scrutiny, partly because of the secret status of the documentation involving him. But now the multi-billion dollar legal action for damages by two Holocaust survivors against the Bush family, and the imminent publication of three books on the subject are threatening to make Prescott Bush’s business history an uncomfortable issue for his grandson, George W, as he seeks re-election. http://www.theguardian.com/world/2004/sep/25/usa.secondworldwar
Have you ever checked into J.P. Morgan, Rockefeller and National City Bank support for the Bolsheviks in the former USSR? These bankers got together to support the communists for the purpose of propping up the next “evil empire” against which the West could launch a new Crusade. More war. More money invested in weapons. More money to be made by capitalists.
This has been a big game to these elite families who have been occupying places of power in our government and in our industries since its inception.
Ending public education is a game to them too. We can’t let them do it.
People need to stop calling anyone who has read the real history of this nation and its major players a conspiracy theorist. The only way we are going to stop their deadly “games” is if we expose them. Turn your TV off. Open a book. Read. Expose. If we all did a little more of that, these jackals wouldn’t be able to get away with this stuff. Wake up, America, we are under siege!
Mostly agree with what you have written Dawn. Zinn’s work, Blum’s work, etc. . . should be read by one and all. Anyone who thinks what is on the bbboooobbb tube is historical truth needs therapy.
And one can only hope that the lawsuits against the Bush dynasty will be in favor of the plaintiffs but I certainly won’t hold my breath as their tainted money and connections can go a long way in “influencing” events/decisions.
Howard Zinn’s propaganda is exactly what not to read. Try Anthony Sutton.
Why do you consider Zinn’s work to be propaganda?
Howard Zinn tells us he is a propagandist. “America’s future is linked to how we understand our past. For this reason, writing about history, for me, is never a neutral act. By writing, I hope to awaken a great consciousness of racial injustice, sexual bias, class inequality, and national hubris.” (A Power Governments Cannot Suppress, Zinn, 2007)
“I criticize America because I love her and because I want to see her to stand as the moral example of the world,” Martin Luther King, Jr. said. You will not hear Zinn say that.
His People’s History of the United States has done great harm to the minds of our young people. His slant on things breeds divisiveness and a call to revolution with no care for the result of what that might bring. Zinn does not emphasize the unique character of our U.S. Constitution that is the basis of our nation. He does not make a distinction between the shadow government, a clique of rogue bankers and businessmen, who have infiltrated and bought off our real government. He does not hold in esteem our founding fathers and their determination to create a truly just society by crafting documents that would guide the government of that society, the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
I understand his dissatisfaction with many government officials and actions but I do not agree with his solution. Foment revolution? No.
The reason that I suggested you read Anthony Sutton is because he is a man who wrote about the clique, naming the names of treasonous people who have worked against the best interests of the U.S., that has performed a silent coup on our government. That is what needs to be exposed. That is the real history of the United States.
Our country was once the shining city on the hill, an idea that held out hope for all people everywhere, that all men are created equal and can be afforded equal protection under the law. These are inalienable, God given rights that no man can take away. That is the idea that this country was founded on. That is the idea that we need to pass on to the next generation. National hubris can be a good thing when you are upholding a great truth and an idea that was put into practice with this experiment called the United States. People like Zinn make our young people feel ashamed of being American. There are many shameful things that some leaders have done in our name and those things should be admitted. But the idea that we just need to foment a revolution that might result in throwing over the very ideals this country was founded on is dangerous.
Any steps that we take to rectify our current sorry state of affairs must begin with the commitment to get back to our founding principles. Our young people need to be proud of our history. We were the shining city on the hill and we can be that city again.
Reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act to end the looting of our nation by unscrupulous bankers.
Impeach Obama who’s treasonous policies are bringing the U.S. to its’ knees.
Institute a national bank to distribute credit, at .close to 0%, for the rebuilding of our infrastructure and to put people back to work productively.
Creativity is every nation’s greatest treasure. Any policies that undermine that fact are counterproductive. i.e. the Common Core.
Our takes on Zinn are completely different then. I see him as a “patriot” willing to expose all the warts and lies of much of mainstream US history. There is no doubt from my readings that there has always been an undercurrent of folks who would just as soon see democracy replaced by their own plutocratic oligarchy. Zinn is not one of them!
I agree with you about Glass-Steagall. Almost all of the “neo-liberal” or “neo-conservative” (same difference) agenda has served only the wealthiest of this country, leaving far too many other wanting.
“We were the shining city on the hill and we can be that city again.” That falsehood is what Zinn debunks. Here is an interesting take on “The Curse of American Exceptionalism”. Read and read the comments if you would:
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2014/07/17-1
American exceptionalism is a traditional belief – or theory – that the United States is qualitatively different from other nation states.[2] In this view, U.S. exceptionalism stems from its emergence from a revolution, becoming what political scientist Seymour Martin Lipset called “the first new nation”[2] and developing a uniquely American ideology, “Americanism”, based on liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, republicanism, populism and laissez-faire.[3] This ideology itself is often referred to as “American exceptionalism.”[3]
Although the term does not necessarily imply superiority, many neoconservative and other American conservative writers have promoted its use in that sense.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism
American exceptionalism does not mean superiority. It means what we tried to do here was never done anywhere else…ever. It is a unique experiment made possible by a revolution and a unique Constitution. The ideals stand even if the present reality is less than admirable.
Mr. Jon Atcheson, the author of your suggested reading, is also a propagandist and would probably admit to it if pushed. Do you really think in 1835 the U.S. was not exceptional?
“When de Tocqueville coined the term in 1835, we might have had some small claim to actually being exceptional.”
Jon Atcheson is devoted to spreading one of the biggest lies ever perpetrated on humanity……the specter of devastation brought on by anthropogenic global warming. He is the author of the eco-thriller, A Being Darkly Wise. The global warming hoax is being used, and this will accelerate soon, to enslave people by charging them for and therefore limiting the poor their “carbon footprint.” If that is not Anti-American, anti-entrepreneurial, and downright fascist, I don’t know what is. De Tocqueville would be appalled by this turn of events. So whatever other narrative Atcheson is pushing is suspect because obviously he wouldn’t be writing it if it didn’t support his ultimate goal.
Although I cannot disagree with any of the examples he gave in his article as the truth of today’s state of affairs in the U.S., I would disagree with the title of his article. These facts have nothing to do with American exceptionalism and certainly did not arise because of it.
How can he attribute the fact that we have the greatest disparity in income and the least number of vacation days and too much money spent on the defense budget to our our insistence on liberty, egalitarianism, individualism, republicanism, populism and laissez-faire?
My point is that our government is not the problem, in opposition to Reagan’s insistence that it is, but that the people who have connived their way into positions of power are the problem. A distinct lack of character and integrity is apparent in our White House, our congress and our judiciary chambers. That fact does not make me want to tear it all down. It makes me want to insist on a return to paper ballots, the establishment of term limits, and the prohibition of the revolving door that allows our legislators to serve in regulatory agencies and then become the CEO of a corporation that agency has the obligation to oversee.
Always check out the credentials of an author. Jon Atcheson is pushing lies.
Prepositional phrases are one of the 1st grade ELA Standards for first grade and Pearson includes a unit on Adverbs in the 1st grade Pearson Scott Foresman Common Core Reading Street series. It is so developmentally inappropriate. As for lack of play time, here is an article about how lack of play time is causing children to be unnecessarily labeled as being ADHD.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/answer-sheet/wp/2014/07/08/why-so-many-kids-can‘t-sit-still-in-school-today
But, Alabama teacher, s things stand now, only around10% of my incoming grade 9 students know what a propositional phrase or an adverb is, what one does, and how to identify one in a sentence. That makes teaching actual writing all but impossible (because there’s no common working vocabulary, for one thing). There has to be a happy medium somewhere!
Certainly students should know about Adverbs and Prepositional phrases before they reach ninth grade. I do not remember when I learned about Adverbs but I do remember learning about prepositions in 7th grade…everything a rabbit can do with a log. I had no trouble with prepositional phrases after that, even though I was in 7th grade before I learned about them. The problem with overloading first graders though is then, not only do they still not get Adverbs and Prepositional Phrases, they haven’t had time to really develop a basic understanding of even simpler things such as telling sentence, questions , exclamations, commands, Nouns, Action and Linking Verbs and Adjectives because there are so many things being crammed into the curriculum that they end up not being able to digest any of it. I teach my first graders grammar through writing, but when I try to push a concept that they are not ready for on them, they shut down completely and don’t even use what they have leaned and previously mastered in their writing.