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Common Core Craziness

Common Core just keeps getting weirder. Today, we have two juxtaposed pieces of information. One that shows students being indoctrinated into praising Common Core, the other showing how clearly Common Core fails to educate children.

First, the indoctrination. A substitute teacher at Wake County Elementary School in North Carolina saw a group of 80 fifth graders reciting a poem at their “promotion ceremony” celebrating the close of the last school year. The poem, We Learned More with Common Core, was memorized and recited by students to praise the curriculum. Each stanza of the poem listed different things they had learned and ended with the title of the poem, such as Fractions, decimals, journal prompts galore / We learned more with Common Core.” 

Supporters of Common Core, of course, say too much is being made of the poem. June Atkinson, state superintendent of public instruction, said “It’s just students expressing what they’ve learned throughout the year. Is it a bad thing that they learned about decimals and fractions with the Common Core?” Of course not. My question is why they know they learned it through Common Core. I certainly don’t know what my curriculum was called, and was never made to learn a poem to praise it. With Common Core being a contentious issue in North Carolina, does it seem more likely that these children were being used as junior mouthpieces? If Common Core is so great, the results should speak for themselves.

What about that fantastic education Common Core supposedly offers? It turns out that teachers might not be so interested in children learning and getting correct answers. A video is making the rounds that shows a Common Core training session in which teachers are encouraged to accept wrong answers. The woman speaking states “even if they said three times four was eleven…we’re really more interested in the how.” If the child can explain how they got to the answer, even if they got the answer wrong.

Incorrect answers are acceptable if the student can explain why they got that answer? Are we going to accept this lowering of standards, this dumbing down of American children? How many stories like these are out there which we never hear? Let’s work together to stop Common Core before it’s too late.



Carola Dryden

To use children as a way to push an ideology is inexcusable, it is nothing less than brainwashing. The fact that we have come to the point where our children are being indoctrinated, be it Common Core or Obamacare or anything else, is quite frightening. I have read several articles of this type of indoctrination happening around the country. This reminds me of China and Mao-tse-Tung. I also see other things happening in this country that strongly reminds me of the Communist regime in Russia years ago. Why are people so blind that they can't see what they are leading this country into? We can't just blame Obama and his administration, it is in the school system, it is in the public sector, it is in the political parties. I used to scoff when I read blogs and people would call the Liberals and Progressives communists, I don't scoff now. Everyday I hear on the news or read on the internet what is happening in this country and I have to say, I have a great fear of what is happening to us and what we are loosing bit by bit every day.