Rotton to the Core

 Being a father of seven children and going to college while trying to support a family has given me much insight on a few factors that I feel is a need for a parent to instill on their children. One of these factors is education. I feel that education is very important in all facts of life. I push my children to do their best in all things ranging from sports to church to work to social involvement to education, if they need help I do my best to help them understand or figure out where the problem is and learn. As a father I feel this is one of my duties to want the best for my children and have them be the best that they can be when leaving my home and going out in the world on their own. With this being said I get very frustrated when my children are not being pushed to their limits in the public education system. This year alone two of my children in high school are being forced (due to being a required class) to take classes and learn information that they learned last year in advanced placement classes. This year my children are not able to continue to progress in their math or English studies due to the next level of advanced placement classes are not offered due to that they are not requirements of the Common Core program.

There is a hot debate going on in the Education Department of The United States about the common core program. Depending if you are one who feels a one size fits all education is whats needed in our school system or an individual who feels education should be more individualized and formed by local school boards would decide on what side of the debate you would fall on.

Common Core State Standards(CCSS) is not for everyone.

Common core is a nationalized education K-12 program. With any type of national program, power is centralized and local power is relinquished. The standards were developed by three private organizations: the National Governors Association(NGA), the Council of Chief State School Officers(CCSSO) and by a private group Achieve Inc. According to Achieve, on their web site it states Achieve is proud to be the leading voice for the college- and career-ready agenda, and has helped transform the concept of "college and career readiness for all students" from a radical proposal into a national agenda. A national agenda. These national standards were created by three private organizations that were all three funded by Bill Gates. It has been said that the CCSS are state led standards. If you follow the money you will see that these standards were NOT state led but led by private interests for their own gain.

The new CCSS states that algebra is not to taught until the ninth grade. The only mathematician on the CCSSO/NGA Common Core Validation Committee was James Milgram, who refused to sign off on the proposed standards stating that they were too weak. In Milgrams testimony before the Texas legislature he stated "by the end of fifth grade the material being covered in arithmetic and
algebra in Core Standards is more than a year behind the early grade expectations in most high achieving countries. By the end of seventh grade Core Standards are roughly two years behind". This in not only coming from one professor but many have spoken out about the decline of mathematical standards. Jason Zimba a college professor in math and physics in Vermont states "that ending with the Common Core in high school could preclude students from attending elite colleges. In many cases, the Core is not aligned with the expectations at the collegiate level. “If you want to take calculus your freshman year in college, you will need to take more mathematics than is in the Common Core”. The CCSS states that it standards gets the students college ready. College readiness means incoming freshmen will have all college prerequisites accomplished before entering college. Most four year colleges require at least algebra 1, algebra 2 and geometry before entering college. With the CCSS students graduating high school will need to attend a junior college like a community college and take math classes just to be able to apply to a four year college. So in one aspect the CCSS is correct and will get students ready for college, a community college (2 year). After accomplishing a 2 year college students will be ready to apply to a four year college. This increases a college students from a four year term education to a six year education. Two more years that parents and students will have to pay and two more years lost for the same education we were getting before the the fall of our standards to the CCSS.

Even if you are familiar with the CCSS, very few know about the data that is being collected throughout the whole program. With each test that is given, every answer is logged away in a state educational database. This information is said to be used to help in the presentation of materials in the future for better material retention. It is also to be used to find out other avenues that that student can progress towards. There are many other ways that this information can be used to help the child throughout his/her education. With the way technology is leaping towards the future this seams to be the next step in bettering our education system. So whats wrong with this? Federal statute prohibits a national database of students. To get around this statute the federal government encourages through more federal educational funding, each state to build their own student database. Some of the requirements of this database is that it has to be identical to the federal database and all information and data can be shared with each states and federal database. In other words, the federal government doesn't have their own educational student database,as per federal statute, it just has total access to each states database and collect and use all information within the states database. There are over 400 data points that are collected on each person, these data points include voting status, health history, family income, are you sexually active, do you believe in god, is there any adult supervision at home when returning from school, how are you disciplined, this list goes on and on. This is starting to sound like the German government during WW11 when asking the children in school about their families and then acting against the families from what the children have said.

CCSS is not for everyone. I can see that for some states that have and low educational scores this might be a good thing for them. Each state will have a common academic schedule for each grade, each year. This will help those children who's families travel a lot around the country where they will not be behind or ahead of the subjects being taught in each grade level. What really bothers me is that through the CCSS while bringing to some an elevated education it brings those who excel, who can be leaders in the community to mediocrity. I have fought, worked hard, paid taxes to this country for my children to receive a good challenging education where they can be pushed to their limits and excel. With the decline of educational standards in the state of Utah over the last few years due to CCSS it looks like I will need to look into other avenues to educate my children above this dismal education plan.