Common Core advocates: their despicably low opinion of our students

On January 13, 2015, a symposium on Common Core was held in the Legislature Building. The participants were Professors James Milgram and Sandra Stotsky, both widely known and respected experts on eduction standards, who have actually participated in the development and validation of not only Common Core but also other standards before and since. The other side was represented by Steve Canavero of the Nevada Department of Education and Allan Grossman from the Washoe County School District.

The symposium made news for many reasons, among them the many new facts about the nature of Common Core as an education standard and the way it was foisted off on the States. One more reason this symposium made the news is the press release issued by Dale Erquiaga of the NDE in which he accused the organizers of "resorting to intimidation tactics before and during the meeting to silence teacher voices." Never mind that one of their panelists **is** ... a teacher...!

The video recording of the events is on-line, you can see for yourself what actually happened. Until you view the video yourself, here is a quote from one attendee (and heard from many others):

"I was in the meeting from beginning to end and I am frankly shocked by Erquiaga's comments. They do not reflect at all either the meeting or the decorum. Insisting that the format agreed to beforehand was followed was entirely appropriate and the moderator simply followed standard protocol. I for one fully support the efforts of the the "Citizens for Sound Academic Standards" in their efforts to allow the public to hear the pros and cons of the "Common Core" curriculum."
Assemblyman Ira Hansen (January 14, 2015)

However, the issue of Common Core in particular and education standards in general is much greater than a petulant dispute over the pre-arranged rules of debate. Specifically, the issue is, how does a school ensure that its students get a good education?

In all debates about education standards, much is made of the tragic fact that Nevada manages to be at the bottom of national education rankings, even after five years of having adopted and maybe a year or two after having implemented Common Core. It actually does not matter whether the rankings came before, during or after implementation, because, as Dr. Milgram pointed out in this symposium, Common Core is hardly different from standards previously found to be disastrous; if anything, Common Core will be even worse.

What is ignored, and I don't know why, is an extremely important point. 

We are supposed to be a union of 50 states, each one an "experiment in democracy." Each one free to choose its own path, and each one free to observe the others to see what works, how it works and why it works, in real life, not in theoretical research projects. Each one free to adopt or modify whatever they think will respond to their needs. After some disappointments, the State of Massachusetts created and adopted standards that shot it to the top of education rankings. Indeed by some measures they were on par with the rest and best of the world. Not their private schools, their PUBLIC schools. In the face of such success, why would anyone -- certainly anyone supposedly concerned with the dismal state and uncompetitiveness of American education that the proponents of Common Core claim to be -- NOT propose something that has been proven to be successful, and instead push an abomination such as Common Core? Why would they wring their hands that if we repeal Common Core, we have nothing to fall back to?

Think for a moment what that says about their evaluation of the people of their own states, think about what a despicably low opinion they have of their own people. Oh sure, it worked in Massachusetts, but it won't work anywhere else. WHY? Is Massachusetts populated by geniuses, and all other states by morons? 

Is it reasonable to assume that somehow the country was tilted and all the people with any intelligence rolled into Massachusetts, leaving none in the other states?

No, the reasonable assumption is that such a comi-tragic event happened to the "elites" who brought us Common Core and are now forcing it on our kids.

The most reasonable course of action is to dump the extremely expensive, extremely intrusive and totally unproven education and testing program that Common Core is, and go with a free, thoroughly vetted program with a track record of great success that are the Massachusetts standards. As Professors Milgram and Stotsky assured us in this symposium, the truly higher standards can be put in place immediately. Nevada does have experienced teachers, they don't need to be retrained at huge expense to do their jobs. It is an insult to these teachers, their education and their professionalism that the establishment is now forcing them to be retrained from educators to classroom monitors in the "child-centered" blind-leading-the-blind Common Core way of pedagogy. THAT is what teachers deserve an apology for.