If one more pundit, like Editor Rex Smith in his column "Test scores set schools' challenges," Aug. 17, credits Common Core as praise-worthy, I'm going to have an embolism. Why take the so-called reformers' propaganda at face value? The Common Core State Standards document is at the "core" of privatizing education, deprofessionalizing teachers and looting public school funding for corporate profits.
First, we had "A Compact for Learning" under President Clinton. Then came "No Child Left Behind" under President Bush. Now we have President Obama's "Race to the Top." It just gets worse and worse with each ill-conceived ideology formulated by people who have never taught. Centralized "reform" of education, whether from the federal or state level, is an abysmal failure.
Why did key members of the validation committee refuse to sign off on the Common Core document? Why do child development experts tell us that the standards are inappropriate for the primary grades? Why have children literally been tested to tears? Why are parents in open revolt against the Common Core?
Neither poverty nor parenting can be nullified in the classroom. That both can be is the foundational assumption of this "reform" movement and that is why it will crash and burn. When it does, be sure the teachers will be blamed.
Michael Lambert
Greenfield