Essay:Common Core

Common Core refers to an attempt by the federal government to impose its atheistic, leftist, and sub-standard education curriculum on elementary and high schools nationwide, in interference with the traditionally local control over education. Sometimes "Common Core" is called "Common Core Standards."

As one of many examples of how "Common Core" dumbs down education, it its math curriculum fails even to reach the level of pre-calculus, and removes proofs from the teaching of geometry.

While common core makes fairly detailed recommendations for mathematics teaching in grades K-8, it does not attempt to set curricula for high school, grades 9-12. Instead, it lists general "categories": Number/quantity, Algebra, Functions, Geometry, Modeling, and Probability/statistics. The document on the subject, here lists the sorts of things that could be expected to be covered in those categories: conics, vectors, matrices, functions in general, exponentials and logarithms, complex numbers, polynomials, and trig functions. These are the usual things that comprise pre-calculus.

The mathematics part of Common Core pays particular attention to the use of proofs in the teaching of geometry, and the need for a uniform presentation of proof concepts between junior-high level and high-school level teaching. See here for an excruciatingly detailed analysis of some proofs about parallelograms and triangles in sections G.CO.10 and G.CO.11 of the Common Core.

Also, see here: "The geometry standards in the CCSS deviate from the usual geometry standards in at least two respects, one big and one small. The small one is that, for the first time, special attention is paid to the need of a proof for the area formula for rectangles when the side lengths are fractions."

Common Core deprives parents and local authorities of their control over education, and instead transfers control to unaccountable organizations and bureaucrats at the national level.

In spring 2013, grassroots and Tea Party opposition has arisen in many locations nationwide to Common Core.

Many books recommended to students by Common Core Curriculum are filled with erotic pornography.

Reasons to oppose Common Core

There is a push by the National Education Association, the federal government and governors to spread Common Core. They don't have the best of intentions.

• A federal takeover of education: Education should remain a local concern. Common Core gives centralized power to the federal government.

• Aggressively promoted without responsibility: States were given Race to the Top grants to implement Common Core without field-testing nor proven standards.

• Developed by the same people who have made public education a mediocre mess.

• Dishonest use of the term standards: A stated goal that many students will never reach, such as reading and math proficiency, can be graded on as trying their best.

• Propaganda: More than ever, indoctrination to a set of liberal beliefs can be administered on a national level. Topics such as global warming, gay sex education, Islamic teaching can be pushed with federal mandates, without any parental control. A petition for minor changes will be a fruitless episode of preaching to bureaucrats for changes that may be tied up for years or disregarded entirely.

External Links

• Fifty Shades of the Common Core: how much porn is too much for high schoolers?
• ACLU to OH schools leader: Morrison’s 'Bluest Eye' not porn
• What are your kids reading in class?
• Dad wrongly arrested at school meeting after challenging Common Core
• Fourth graders taught about ‘pimps’ and ‘mobstaz’ in Louisiana
• Common Core Turns First Graders Into Advocates of Social Justice
• Common Core Exposed: Standards Set by Whether or Not “Obama Likes Them”
• Ridiculous math question of Common Core
• Common Core's twisted social work approach to learning
• Common Core’s Warped View of the Constitution
• Common Core assignment makes sixth-graders SCRAP Bill of Rights amendments
• Third-graders learn to protest against their school SEIU-style – courtesy of Common Core-aligned lesson