Common Core Won't Make Kids Smarter - Eagle Forum

 

Common Core Won't Make Kids Smarter - Eagle Forum  Phyllis Schlafly

If you care about kids, education and society, then fight Common Core. Here is an excellent article by Phyllis Schlafly regarding the state of Common Core. Tell your local bishop, such as Bishop Patrick J. McGrath in San Jose, this is an atrocity if it is inflicted on the diocesan schools.

Beware of Sophistical Education “Reformers” | Crisis Magazine

 

Beware of Sophistical Education “Reformers” | Crisis Magazine  by Steven Jonathan Rummelsburg.

This article is summarizes the philosophical harmful underpinnings of Common Core, standardized testing, charter schools and modern public and now much of private education in America.  It is worth printing out and keeping a copy to pass on.  From the article:

Like the proverbial frog in a pot of slowly heating water, most Americans are unaware of the depth of sophistry that governs our public schools. Generations of sophists have been trying to engineer a brave new world in all spheres of public life, the last place we should accept this is in our children’s classrooms.

Beware of Sophistical Education “Reformers” | Crisis Magazine  by Steven Jonathan Rummelsburg.

Obama Wants Education to be like China, China Wants Teachers to Learn From USA…Ironies! Stop Common Core

 

The Worlds Most Famous Teacher Blasts School Reform  By Valerie Strauss, The Washington Post, July 16, 2013

This is worth reading as a teacher that is recognized in both the USA and in China urges teachers not to adopt Common Core, which he refers to as another “new [school reform] flavor of the month.”

So why is the Diocese of San Jose adopting this? I thought Catholic education was about being better than this always chasing a new novelty. What is in it for them? Money? It just does not make sense.

Life Under Compulsion: The Dehumanities - Front Porch Republic

Anthony Esolen writes about the harm of Common Core.  Excellent article to share with your friends. Get a load of the writing sample he cites.  I pity those having to read such essays for a consideration to college entrance.

Life Under Compulsion: The Dehumanities - Front Porch Republic

If you were interested in what you have read, read this Esolen article next. http://www.frontporchrepublic.com/2012/12/life-under-compulsion-human-scale-tools-and-the-slavish-education-state/

Another article for food for thought that parents need in healthy portions in this day of technology where children are more like machines that need to be used efficiently.   Read it and ask do you really want your kids in a Common Core environment.

The folly of Common Core proponents' China envy | The Daily Caller

The Chinese produce the best of test takers, but are they innovative?  We can all agree they are great cheap manufacturers, but innovators?  I think not.  Why would we want to lose that edge with our children?  Why are Catholic Bishops jumping on this bandwagon?  Why specifically may we ask this of Bishop Patrick J. McGrath?  Why would anyone want to send their kids to a Catholic school that will leave the liberal arts behind for a kill and test on a selected group of facts and a substandard curriculum?  Teachers and professors are questioning this and refusing to sign on.

The folly of Common Core proponents' China envy | The Daily Caller 06/07/2013

Wow-Wow! Sparks Fly at First-Ever California Common Core Forum, in Thousand Oaks - venturacountyteaparty

 

Parents and Taxpayers in Thousand Oaks California showed up to a public meeting about Common Core.  The curriculum is copyrighted and can not be changed without permission.  Is this the case in the Diocese of San Jose? Is that why Pastors will not have any say about these schools?  Just how much will parents be informed regarding these standards?

Wow-Wow! Sparks Fly at First-Ever California Common Core Forum, in Thousand Oaks - venturacountyteaparty

For More Information, visit the Stop Common Core Website and view the informational videos.  http://stopcommoncore.com/youtube-channel-dvd/

So What Will They Say About You If You Oppose Common Core?

This article tries to explain why you should let a dumbed-down curriculum lacking in liberal arts be inflicted on children.

Conservative Reformers Must Challenge Movement Conservatives on Opposing Common Core | Dropout Nation: Coverage of the Reform of American Public Education Edited by RiShawn Biddle

More Warnings about Common Core

 

Yet Another Look at Common Core - Practical Leadership June 10, 2013 | Posted At: 04:01 AM | Author: Suzanne Tingley  http://blogs.scholastic.com/practical_leadership/2013/06/yet-another-look-at-common-core.html

The Haves and Have Nots created by the “expert” intellectuals continues to inflict pain on the pawn in the desk at institutions known as “schools”.

Here is a Letter to the Editor in the Indy Star talking about the failure of Common Core in the Indiana schools.  http://www.indystar.com/article/20130303/OPINION10/303030016/Common-Core-black-mark-Daniels-legacy

More About that “Agnostic” Common Core

 

Creative Minority Report: Don't Read to Your Children. It Makes Them Racist Homophobes and Stuff, Warns Academics

In the previous Noontime At the Well post, kicking literature out of the Curriculum was discussed.  It defeats the purpose of a value free mis-education process.  In the CMR piece we find Academics who come forward with their “expert” advice that states why literature meant to inspire children is harmful—because there are morals in the story and the characters as role models. Are the Catholic schools such as those in the Diocese of San Jose going to tell Catholic parents not to read unapproved stories to their children?

The Core Curriculum that Should be Taught: Catechism of the Catholic Church.

Repenting of the Failure of Parish-Based Catechesis: Time for An Old Idea By Barbara R. Nicolosi, Patheos Catholic, May 29, 2013

It's long past time for the Catholic Church in the United States to acknowledge and address the fact that in many, possibly most, dioceses, parish-based catechesis has been an abject failure. In the vaunted Year of Faith, it should sting all of our leaders and pastors that few of the ever-dwindling percentage of Catholics in the pews on a Sunday morning could pass a basic catechetical quiz.

I would say that Barbara Nicolosi  nails it in stating that our mainstream Catholic in the pew has been deprived of the opportunity to learn the true facts of the Catechism. We have read about the CORE Curriculum going into the Catholic schools about a body of “facts” that Bill and Melinda Gates would like to see in school, but it would be great if the Bishops would take a personal interest priority in seeing the Catholic in the pew develop a well formed conscience starting with the facts of the Catechism of the Catholic Church.  What we have now are dumb programs that leave no common tongue for Catholics to share.  The article is worth the reading time you will invest.

Between Lay Boards, Conformity to Public Education & Diminishing the Leadership Responsibility of the Parish Pastor-Why Are We Surprised that Catholic Schools Form Poor Role Models Like Melinda Gates?

 

Schools entrust religious mission to lay boards, trustees | National Catholic Reporter

The article above from the National Catholic Reporter, that quotes San Francisco Auxillary Bishop Robert McElroy, provides a clue as to why our Catholic schools are degrading today.  Progressive policies that seek to appease the public education system where curricula that coincides with public education and replacing knowledge of the faith with the activism of CCHD-Alinsky style community organizing social justice can only lead to the question why do we need dogma? 

Exhibit One: Melinda Gates

After all, it is about being a good person and always having a good intention.  You don’t need the faith to get to heaven. 

The parish priest who used to hire and fire the principal was the person who guaranteed that what was taught was faithful and worth parents making the sacrifice to send their kids to the local parish school.  Catholic education was about forming the person and guiding them in see what the gifts God gave them and seeking a direction in how they would be used within a Catholic mindset.  Now it is about getting to the next school and the right college.  Now with lay boards, how does a parent discern what the board feels the “order of grace is” and is it something they agree with. What certification process is the board following and who has the last say in the school’s mission  and evaluation of the outcome?  Is the parish suppose to see the school as a mission to be supported, but not scrutinized, not even by the pastor?  How do you force a board which is a democratic entity to change direction to a position lacking in popularity?  How do you get a school that has to stay solvent to accept larger families with deep cuts in tuition to accommodate the financial demand on such a family?  One could go on with all these questions, but, the point is made.

For a better discussion on the points made above and even more, the reader is directed to The State of the Catholic Schools in the US, a Catholic World Report article that is worth taking the time to read.  The CWR article quotes Bishop Robert Carlson who puts the bottom line in a succinct quote:

“The school must have a vibrant Catholic identity,” Archbishop Robert Carlson of St. Louis said in a March 2011 pastoral letter. “It must be clearly and unquestionably a Catholic school, and everything about the school’s academic and formation programs must be grounded in the teaching and practice of the Roman Catholic Church. Every person in a Catholic school—regardless of his or her faith tradition or social, economic, or ethnic background—should be growing in their understanding and appreciation for what the Catholic Church teaches.”  

The only way to ensure this is to keep the schools and the governing entity under the control of the local Bishop by ensuring that he can hire or fire the board and/or the principal directly or through the parish pastor he appoints.

Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University in Berkeley - JST Home

 

Jesuit School of Theology of Santa Clara University in Berkeley - JST Home

What a very long name.  It has been said there can be a lot in a name.  One can think that just may be  a possibility here…a Catholic graduate school residing in one diocese, yet claiming to be from another.  Interesting.  Now, as a parent, I must ask where is the Mandatum professed?  Which Bishop makes the call?

Too bad, that Catholic Education Failed Her: Thandie Newton: Embracing otherness, embracing myself

My niece shared this, but I wanted to post it to my page for comments. This woman, unfortunately even with some Catholic school education, apparently was never introduced to the idea that we were made for another, God. He made us each uniquely in His image and likeness. To think that the self He made for us must be shed away versus accepting both our weaknesses and strengths to do good with, especially in acting and the arts, is very sad. It is our experiences that we experience with mind, body and soul to come to know Him that gives us depth and the ability to relate with charity to each other human being, while recognizing our belonging by mere fact of our creation. To think otherwise is to seek out a unfillable void and the extinguishing of who we are truly made to be.

The Valley Catholic Online: Education Department continues strategy process for future of schools

Interesting article about the state of Catholic Schools in the Diocese of San Jose. Catholic education needs to be re-evaluated especially with regard to the different modalities providing a “Catholic” education.  One thing that should happen is that all parties should be brought to the table, i.e. diocesan schools, private Catholic schools, religious education for children in public schools and homeschool families.  That they all exist is a fact of life and a diocese should see them as a single responsibility, but different modes.  An understanding should be there as to why families choose the particular setting.
One other point to note from the article is the particular mention of Catholic identity.  My personal experience with various aspects of parish and my experiences in our local community has been that often people in the parish schools want to keep the Catholic identity on the light side and the schools choose to show off “PowerPoint” skills versus a curriculum with a firm basis in theology and Catechism.  For example, a Catholic school presentation by a star student will get their definitions from a dictionary versus the Catechism of the Catholic Church. (Marketers should take a note of this)!
And, of course, the eyebrow raises when the expert is from Notre Dame University and the event occurs at Santa Clara University…not your most stellar Catholic institutions.  I am grateful the clergy of the diocese are asking the necessary questions.
The Valley Catholic Online