Nena Arias | May 20, 2013
Common Core is the attempt of Barack Obama’s Department of Education to force all states and schools to adopt specified national education standards for each grade level that will dictate what all kids learn and don’t learn.
Common Core means federal left-wing bureaucrats will control school curriculum. Federal control will replace all curriculum decisions by state and local school boards, state legislatures, and parents. Obama even bypassed Congress by using $4 billion of Stimulus money to promote Common Core.
A very real danger is that Common Core is not only for public schools that must obey the fed’s dictates. Common Core will control the curriculum of charter schools, private schools, religious schools, and homeschooling.
The control mechanism is the tests. Kids must pass the tests in order to get a high school diploma, college admittance, or a GED. If they haven’t studied a curriculum based on Common Core, they won’t score well on the tests.
Furthermore, Common Core purposes to quantify everything about education. It provides for a national student-tracking system, which threatens the privacy of students and their families. Huge databases with sensitive information that is not related to education will be created. This includes, health care histories, income information, religious affiliations, voting status, and even blood types. The potential misuse of these databases is enormous and dangerous to a free people.
Although Common Core standards are presented as voluntary, the federal grants are the bait and have been tied to the curriculum so if the money is accepted, implementation is mandatory. The federal government wants to see that their work meets the standards is monitoring those who have already accepted the funds. Some who have already accepted the money were unaware of these ties to government money.
Government has no authority from God to be involved in education. Education of children is the sole responsibility of parents. So from the very beginning that “free” public education was instituted in the United States in the 19th Century it was to make people more loyal and productive servants of the state. The politicizing of education is nothing new. Common Core standards are only the latest manifestation of this. Uniformity in education under the control of a central government is the worst fate a country can fall into. Federal aid in funds that are tied to conditions means the liberty of the states and individuals is gone. This also means that school administrations and teachers respond less to parents and more to the source of their funding.
So the root of the problem is whether the family should control education, or whether the state should control education. Government schools have been on a track toward federalized bureaucracy for more than a century. One size does not fit all. It is clear that to the government school, the family is an undesirable competitor. Education cannot produce liberty as long as it is under the strict control of the state; it only produces slavery.
So how are we to respond to Common Core standards? We must produce a movement toward parental control of education and tax credits. The closer education moves toward family control, the better. Parents must have the option to choose the curricula they deem best for their children. Parents must also realize that they already have the ability to remove their children from the government school system. Certainly a tax credit that allows private schools and homeschoolers a generous tax deduction in the amount of the average cost per child in the public school system now would be very nice and our legislators should know about this through our insistence. However, parents should not wait for this to become a reality before acting. They must take complete control of their children’s education as is mandated. The time to act is now!