Another Reason For #SchoolChoice: 'Common Core Teaches Kids Gov't Must Be Obeyed'

Bill Smith, Ph.D., Education: The following Investment Business Daily editorial supports an additional reason for parents to have the freedom to choose where their child or children go to school. School Choice provides parents with the ability to relocate their child to a school that will provide a quality education without indoctrination.  Their children deserve a quality education that aligns with the fundamental principles which the parents wish to be shared with their children.

As detailed in the IBD editorial, for schools adopting common core standards, the curriculum / course material is or will eventually be permeated with biased content that advances the progressive / liberal agenda. Content which is not required for a quality education in the subject.

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Investment Business Daily editorial: Schools: Opposition is rising to new national education standards pushed on public schools. They have turned schools into re-education camps for liberalism, with political statements masquerading as English lessons.

If one had to include one speech by President Ronald Reagan as recommended reading in a national standardized curriculum it might be the one in which he stood in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and said, "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

One might pick Reagan's first inaugural address when he said, "Government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem." Or even his 1964 "A Time for Choosing" on behalf of Barry Goldwater that launched him to political prominence.

The speech chosen by Common Core for its English Standards, which recommends "exemplar texts" for reading, including addresses by a host of worthy historical figures — such as Patrick Henry, George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt and Martin Luther King — was Reagan's May 1988 speech to students at Moscow University.

It is a fine speech and in it he speaks of the fruits of liberty in the West and of the promise of the "Moscow Spring" but its softer tone does not speak of the "evil empire" that would soon come crashing down.

There is no stirring rhetoric on the evils of tyranny, or of the dangers of big government.

Could it be that recommending a Reagan speech that defines government as the problem rather than the solution might conflict with the subliminal messages in a worksheet that asks students to rewrite sentences to make them "less wordy." Sentences like, "The commands of government officials must be obeyed by all."

The worksheets, published by New Jersey-based Pearson Education, ask fifth-graders to edit such sentences as "(The president) makes sure the laws of the country are fair," and "The wants of an individual are less important than the well-being of the nation."

That last sentence sounds suspiciously like the old Marxist axiom "From each according to his abilities, to each according to his needs."

The Constitution, the Supreme Court and a system of checks and balances among the three branches of government ensure fairness under of our laws. The Constitution and the laws enacted by Congress are what should protect individuals. The president should see to it that that the laws are faithfully executed.

The Common Core State Standards (CCSS) Initiative was cooked by a group of the nation's governors and backed by the Obama White House in 2009 with the goal of setting a uniform standard for grades K-12 nationwide. Some 45 states, in many cases enticed by federal grants, have signed on. Testing in grades 3-8 and high school is scheduled to begin next year.

But opposition is growing by those who see it as an educational version of ObamaCare, tied to federal funding to ensure that kids learn what the national government wants them to, overriding local and parental control.

Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said last July that CCSS is being "used by the Obama administration to turn the Department of Education into what is effectively a national school board."

The Common Core English Standards are obviously OK with a fan of big government and wealth redistribution, President Obama, who told students at an OSU commencement speech on May 5, 2013: "Unfortunately, you've grown up hearing voices that incessantly warn of government as nothing more than some separate, sinister entity that's at the root of all our problems. Some of these same voices also do their best to gum up the works. They'll warn that tyranny is always lurking just around the corner. You should reject these voices."

President Obama and Common Core want to ensure future generations grow up hearing only their voices.

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