The article above and the editorial here in the Trib published August 17, 2013 that points out 100 Catholic dioceses have adopted Common Core are excellent The editorial also questions whether this adoption is the “demise of Catholic Schools” and “if that is the intention?”
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.
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.
This brought tears to my eyes. Why are we taking away the fundamental human search for the beauty and the truth that do not contradict. We were given five senses to experience the world before we ever engage in technology etc. Why are we making our children slaves to the technological world without first giving them the joy of the created world?
Read the excellent report and decide whether or not you want your child to be educated or part of a “human capital development data system. (page 21 of the report).
Update on the situation with St. Clare School From California Catholic Daily
From the article:
The diocese has now instructed all parochial schools in the diocese not to accept refugees from St. Clare School and other Drexel schools whose parents do not want their children to become guinea pigs in the new blended learning experiment, which also separates schools from their host parishes.
The article points out that the use of materials for suggested use will be used by teachers as it will make lesson planning easier and provide opportunities in some cases to slip in political material. In a Catholic setting, parents would have to be concerned whether the teacher is solid in their Catholic identity if this would be a valid point of concern over the discretion of “factual” material.
This is experimental and once again, the experts think that it is ok to use students as guinea pigs that will be prepared more to job training rather than for higher learning that Catholics aspired towards in their great universities where John Henry Newman’s Idea of a University Discourse 6 explains the purpose of a university: It educates the intellect to reason well in all matters, to reach out towards truth, and to grasp it.
Catholic institutions especially in needing to pursue the New Evangelization need to step back from the secular pedagogy and consider restoring the goal to “reason well in all matters” for all their students, poor or rich.
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 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
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?
For More Information, visit the Stop Common Core Website and view the informational videos. http://stopcommoncore.com/youtube-channel-dvd/
This article tries to explain why you should let a dumbed-down curriculum lacking in liberal arts be inflicted on children.
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
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?
By Claire Needell Hollander
My suspicion is that the Common Core enumerates skills and not books because as a country we still feel that real works of art are too divisive. It is more comfortable to remain agnostic, to permit our teens to remain an education-product consumer group, fed skills-building exercises that help adults to avoid the hard truths our children have no choice but to face.
The author points out Common Core is not about nourishing minds and intellects, rather it is about preparing robots to easily train for the skill set needed by “society”, I hope Bishops and parents will wake up!
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.
Time for parents, grandparents, priests, bishops and citizens to educate themselves about the big Gates Foundation program for education across America. It is not a classic liberal arts education for our K thru 12 students. It is based on “facts” as corporate America sees them. It is not grounded in forming minds and intellects towards making sound and wise decisions with a well-formed conscience. It is in fact a curriculum designed by a liberal foundation that pushes the idea of strict population control. The reader is directed to several excellent articles about the core curriculum in particular and the program in the Diocese of San Jose. Pray for our children and our Church to reassess the adoption of such a program.
Don’t Give to CCHD this weekend (Nov. 17-18, 2012). Choose your Charities Carefully!
With the struggle for religious freedom in this country, we have a responsibility to remain brilliantly Catholic. In the secular world and its laws, we have a problem doing this as faithful Catholics when the USCCB will not even do it for our Catholic 
institutions. The lawyering of of this sticky associations and the constant excusing and denial of what our eyes see add greatly to the confusion we Catholics have in seeing the big picture from the pews.
Frankly, our bishops need to stop hiding from us and have the honest dialogue with us. Their acting in committee with majority votes and operation of programs by national staff make the translation of what is actually happening in the bastions of community organizing impossible to address, but they do need to be addressed. They are accountable to us in the pew who contribute to such programs. We do not hand them a gun to shoot us with. We hand them a contribution to alleviate suffering. In my book, that is not a ticket to spend it on community organizing for labor and socialism that is building a welfare state instead of an opportunity state with a safety net.
Tell your friends in Silicon Valley that Measure D is a job killer. Documented studies show that it is detrimental to the people it is suppose to help because it causes jobs to dry up. As a mother with kids finishing college and who have finished college, I want my kids employed and realizing their dream of independence. I could use the rest and time to think about the future. They need internships and experience opportunities, but this measure exempts no one.
What are people like Bishop McGrath thinking when they endorse a job killer? Do they realize they are doing the opposite of the rosy picture they paint about single mothers and the minimum wage? Are they paying attention to what is going on in the economy? We need job opportunities, not another noose to cripple them. Spread the word. Visit the NO ON D website http://savesanjosejobs.com/ and spread the word. Remember to spread the word on YES on 32 while you are at it. You will be doing your part to save jobs in San Jose and the whole State of California.
Tom McClintock demonstrates how we should think things through with an attitude towards prudence and not feel good, follow your heart moments. We are responsible for the feel good ideas we support that lead to harmful consequences. That is our part in promoting the common good-the good that is common to all by virtue of our shared humanity.
