Saturday, October 11, 2014

Common Core Intimidation

Teachers reprimanded for speaking out against Common Core
Louisiana Repub­li­can Gov. Bobby Jin­dal blasted reports Tues­day that teach­ers are being rep­ri­manded for speak­ing out against Com­mon Core stan­dards on social media. 
A teacher in Rapi­des Parish, in Alexan­dria, La., was “writ­ten up” for writ­ing a neg­a­tive post on Face­book about the con­tro­ver­sial stan­dards, accord­ing to Town Talk. This is a hot national debate,” the teacher told the paper. “Why can’t I com­ment? I did not say a word about any­thing locally.”
Jin­dal, who is suing the Obama admin­is­tra­tion for coerc­ing states into adopt­ing the stan­dards, said silenc­ing teach­ers is not help­ful to the debate. This is out­ra­geous. Teach­ers are now being chas­tised for speak­ing out against Com­mon Core,” he said. “Teach­ers have prob­lems with Com­mon Core, and we should be lis­ten­ing to them.”
Instead, gov­ern­ment bureau­crats and polit­i­cal elites are try­ing to quiet teach­ers who think Com­mon Core isn’t the right direc­tion for our state,” Jin­dal said.
The Town Talk reported on the “cli­mate of fear” for teach­ers in the cen­tral Louisiana school dis­trict.  One teacher said they feel like they are liv­ing “under a dic­ta­tor­ship,” and oth­ers worry they could lose their jobs for speak­ing out against the school administration.
Teach­ers in the parish are also not allowed to speak to the press “with­out going through the chain of command.”
Con­tro­versy sur­round­ing the Com­mon Core stan­dards has been brew­ing for months, as the cur­ricu­lum has been crit­i­cized for its unusual meth­ods of teach­ing math.
Jindal’s office has said sup­port for the stan­dards is “crum­bling” across the nation. Com­mon Core has been repealed in South Car­olina, Okla­homa, and Indi­ana, and an addi­tional 32 states have intro­duced leg­is­la­tion against the standards.

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