Local Tea Party is tying Common Core Standards to Agenda 21 conspiracy

[Klukie]

I live in Pennsylvania and our state has adopted the Common Core Standards. Our school district is in the process of realigning curriculum to meet the expectations of the CC. A local tea party group is preparing to hold a meeting to discuss the CC and it's relation to Agenda 21. I was wondering if any educators out there have any thoughts on this matter.

[ZRT2209]

1. Glenn Beck has them all riled up over this

[Klukie]

2. I kind of figured he was involved when I looked up Agenda 21

[femmocrat]

3. I also live in PA and never heard of Agenda 21 until reading this post.

Sounds like right wing, bat-shit paranoia to me. People love being whipped into a frenzy, don't they?

[Viking12]

4. Yes, Murciélago Guano Loco

[MadHound]

5. Good, at least somebody in your neighborhood is standing up to CC

Sorry, I don't believe in Agenda 21 or any of that nonsense, but as a teacher I find CC, along with RTTT and other such education initiatives over the past thirteen years to be counter productive, and actually destructive to public education. Common Core is simply another tool that is going to be used to further tear down public education.

The sad thing is, while liberals hated No Child Left Behind, in part because it was a Bush administration program, some are now embracing RTTT and CC because, while equally destructive to public education, they were proposed by the Obama administration.

Which leaves the RW whackos, teachers, and a relative few liberals to defend public education from these ongoing assaults.

[Klukie]

6. Thanks for responding to this

Can you tell me what you don't like about CC. I have a 2nd and a 4th grader and I am trying to understand all of the changes.

[HiPointDem]

7. Read some education blogs.

http://dianeravitch.net/category/common-core/


The tea party disliking common core doesn't mean common core is good.

jeb bush likes common core.

it's an education deform thing.

[Simian20]

8. Ravitch declared her opposition to Common Core in February

She opposes the Common Core (CCSS) on state autonomy reasons, and that so far it's not working out well.
Just because the right argues some points we do too doesn't make it wrong. Don't many of us support Rep. Barr for government surveillance or Rand Paul for his opposition to rampant military encroachment abroad?
"Why I Cannot Support the Common Core Standards"
http://dianeravitch.net/2013/02/26/why-i-cannot-support-the-common-core-standards/
On state autonomy grounds. The Congress passed a law ESEA, 1965, which included a position against authority for a national curriculum.

"I have long advocated for voluntary national standards, believing that it would be helpful to states and districts to have general guidelines about what students should know and be able to do as they progress through school.

"Such standards, I believe, should be voluntary, not imposed by the federal government; before implemented widely, they should be thoroughly tested to see how they work in real classrooms; and they should be free of any mandates that tell teachers how to teach because there are many ways to be a good teacher, not just one. I envision standards not as a demand for compliance by teachers, but as an aspiration defining what states and districts are expected to do. They should serve as a promise that schools will provide all students the opportunity and resources to learn reading and mathematics, the sciences, the arts, history, literature, civics, geography, and physical education, taught by well-qualified teachers, in schools led by experienced and competent educators."

She then talks about how the Common Core is untested:
"After much deliberation, I have come to the conclusion that I can’t wait five or ten years to find out whether test scores go up or down, whether or not schools improve, and whether the kids now far behind are worse off than they are today.

"I have come to the conclusion that the Common Core standards effort is fundamentally flawed by the process with which they have been foisted upon the nation.

"The Common Core standards have been adopted in 46 states and the District of Columbia without any field test. They are being imposed on the children of this nation despite the fact that no one has any idea how they will affect students, teachers, or schools. We are a nation of guinea pigs, almost all trying an unknown new program at the same time."