"Common Core" is EVIL

You read between the lines in this interview, and it is clear this principal has some fear in her voice. If she doesn't, she should. Common Core is the death knell of American public education. It's Bill Gates' baby, and anything Bill Gates wants you KNOW is bad. Everybody will do the same thing everywhere in the country at the same time, most of which will be developmentally inappropriate for kids in order to weed them out early so they can be tracked into low-wage jobs and denied higher education, and local control of schools will be done away with. Then the next thing on the agenda will be getting rid of teaching as a profession, the ultimate goal of CCCS. Teachers and principals can be replaced by teacher aides monitoring--babysitting--kids while they are parked in front of computers all day long with software by Microsoft and curriculum by Pearson. If people don't wake the hell up, in 15 years there will be no public education left, and probably no formal education at all for the 99 percent of the population when the billionaires finally squeeze every last dime from the public coffer. Think I am making it up? Read the work of Lois Weiner, who says pretty much what I am saying about the privatizers/neoliberals who want industrialized countries like the U.S. to be on the same economic level as third world countries. Neolibs see education not as a way to create productive, informed citizens, but as merely vocational training. There are few jobs requiring any education beyond middle school. Neoliberals/privatizers don't want to invest in education because it is a waste of money, so why should the U.S.? CCCS is absolutely EVIL.

By the way, she isn't being entirely honest here about the "scripted curriculum." Teachers have LESS freedom than ever before.

During the summer break, such as it is, teachers at my old district, and, for that matter, all around the country, are being sold this bill of goods--actually FORCED this bill of goods--so they can be stifled of any creativity in lesson planning. It's all coming from Washington, D.C., of course, by fake Democrats.

Teachers are being told what to teach and how to teach it. It is little different from scripted curriculum and is in fact nothing more than test prep. If those almighty test scores aren't up, teachers will be fired outright or placed on probationary status and ultimately fired anyway. For the first time in history, principals, typically people who DO have lifetime jobs no matter how bad they are, will have their heads on the chopping block as well. That might be a good thing, but the few good principals may be thrown out along with the lousy ones.

This is called "burn and churn." As long as there is a glut of teachers around the country, there will be more lambs to the slaughter.