Reader Denis Ian wrote the following comment in relation to the ongoing strife about Common Core standards and testing:
Every new school year renews the resistance to the Common Core reform. And parents new to this experience find themselves slathered in information and fear. Once upon a time we were the tenderfoot class … now we should act as sweet sages.
Every day brings another avalanche of studies, statistics, findings, and stuff. More babble. More white noise. More jargon. More junk-speak. All on purpose.
The strategy is simple. Complicate the reform issue with fleshy gibberish and endless jabberwocky. Scare ordinary folks. Make the issues seem too, too deep and too, too heavy for folks busy enough with all that parenthood demands.
The greatest fear of the reform mob is parents.
Parents own infinite passion when it comes to their children. And if lots and lots of parents glue themselves together, well, this reform morphs into mighty. That’s not the sort of muscle educrats, politicians, and local board members want to confront. Remember that … they fear you.
And parents new to this resistance should remember this.
Don’t be seduced by every morsel of information that gets dressed in glitter-words. Don’t be intimidated by edu-blather or fat-words.
Stay simple and stay on the issues that matter: Resist federal control. Protect childhood. Refuse the testing trap. Reclaim your schools.
Remember: No children, no reform. Your cooperation is your trump-card. If you don’t play, the game ends.
A caveat to the old-timers in this resistance.
Embrace newcomers as you were once embraced. Soothe new and nervous parents with warm reassurances that they have saddled-up with a child-centric confederacy of warriors who protect children … theirs included. And then tutor them slowly … and warn them of nonsense-overload.
The reformists are deceivers. Their strategy is to dazzle us with nonsense-junk. To unbalance us and to blur the simple truths.
They want our schools. They want our children. They want to politicize and profitize education … and have you foot the bill … and have your children pay the price. No way.
Avoid the information over-load … and listen to your heart. That drum in your chest always speaks the truth. Follow that beat.
Denis Ian
Common Core has NO HEART!
What a great line. I wish I had thought of it.
I had a rewarding career in teaching because, for most of my career, I was able to keep my heart and mind in sync with regard to my practice. It was only after the arrival of NCLB that an out of sync chasm started. Harmful, endless standardized testing started to play too big a role in decisions. Luckily, I was able to retire before I was put in a vice grip by standardized testing. We need to return to a time when teacher input and judgment are invited and respected. Trained, experienced teachers have lots of useful insights and instincts that are being dismissed while we pander to Big Data and algorithms.
By the way, we need the mob parents, the sooner the better. It won’t come from ELL parents. They are fearful and grateful, and most don’t know how to protest or speak enough English. We need to stop harmful anti-democratic privatization, and work to create integrated, well funded public education.
At the News Site where I write, an link to the reports and information that Diane supplies in abundance, Rob Kall, the publisher, believes in the bottom up movement… that th only way we can end the rule of the power elite, is by grassroots efforts.
We, at the bottom —with the kids— the parents and teachers (who know what learning looks like, must not let this PLOY to hand the schools over to state legislatures.
We can do it.
We must do it.
Be sure you follow the NPE http://networkforpubliceducation.org/about-npe/
This power elite, these oligarchs (or as Diane Ravitch calls them ‘the billionaires boy’s club,’) are less than 100 people, who OWN more wealth than what was once reserved for nation-states.“THEY’ KNOW THE STARTING POINT IS THE CHiLDREN. Under our very noses, they are putting before the people, LEGISLATIVE BILLS that will END public education and allow charters to replace them… schools that have no transparency, are riddled by fraud, and use tax-payer money, although for the most part fail to educate most of the children, and do no better or worse than public schools.
When they take over our schools, they can tell our people what and whom to believe!
We need to take control our local legislatures,our Congress, and certainly we parents and teachers need to band together and stop the destruction of our schools.
‘gibberish and jabberwocky’, nice combo.
Amost every grant for education from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation still compliance with the Common Core as a requiremnt . Never wrong. Who does that remind you of?
Never wrong?? Myself!! (except when I don’t get things right but I blame that on NDL)
Can someone inform me as to the agenda/funding/backers of Kiddom? My Facebook page is bombarded with their posts promoting free tech and personalized education.
free = we steal you blind
personalized = we make mucho $$ off your student being “pesonalized”
There’s an old saying that goes “baffle em with bullshit”. The edudeformers have that down pat.