Confronting Common Core

One thing that was patently clear as I sat in about the crowd of about 100 middle aged white-haired folk gathered at Roswell Baptist church this past Saturday is that they don’t have much respect for how Bill Gates spends his money.

The occasion was a discussion exposing the perceived threat of Common Core to Georgia’s educational sovereignty. No mention of academic achievement, no expressed anguish over the challenges teachers face with growing class size, no alarm over lagging graduation rates, no concern for college needed to provide remediation for incoming freshmen; just a lot of angst over the attack Common Core allegedly makes on competitive federalism and the James Madison concepts of freedoms as embodied in our constitution. It was  very entertaining morning hearing these well paid (can I say carpet baggers) experts share their personal difficulties with 8th grade algebra and understanding the proof associated with similar triangles and applying that knowledge to traditional scientific methods to problem solving. One of the experts even got the date that Russia launched Sputnik wrong.

Aside from the concerns expressed from the podium over science and math education teaching and student learning expectations, language arts under Common Core is another problem area for the concerned Women for ‘America of Georgia. They want a return to “classical literature.” (I don’t know if that includes the Bible or not)

The speakers wrapped up by assailing what they call the growing socialist federalism by the past administrations and the present one as well. Student privacy is also a big sore point for this group, but there was no mention of social media and how it compares to how data collection is used within Common Core to track learning and skills improvement.