Honored as the “Top Teacher”
by ABC’s “Live with Kelly and Michael” show, Stacie Starr was speaking at an
education forum earlier this week when she dropped a bombshell.
The veteran teacher at Elyria High
School in Elyria, Ohio, told a stunned audience Monday she will resign at the
end of the school year because of the new federal Common Core system of
standards and assessments adopted by her state, reported
the local Chronicle-Telegram newspaper.
At the forum, which sought to help parents navigate the
complex standardized testing system, Starr was talking about how special
education has suffered under Common Core.
As she fought back tears, she disclosed she is leaving
traditional education and plans ‘to teach in a different way.”
“I can’t do it anymore, not in this ‘drill ‘em and kill ‘em’
atmosphere,” she said. “I don’t think anyone understands that in this
environment if your child cannot quickly grasp material, study like a robot and
pass all of these tests, they will not survive.”
Her announcement was met with gasps of disbelief, the paper
reported.
She explained that she has faith in her ninth-grade
students, but they are reading at sometimes a fourth- and fifth-grade level.
“Each and every day, I have to look in my students’ eyes and
tell them I can’t help them because the state has decided they have to prove
what they know,” she said, according to the Chronicle-Telegram.
Teaching is getting harder, she said, because “the rules
keep changing.”
Last month, a sixth-grade teacher in
upstate New York tearfully asked the local school board to be reassigned due to
her objections to teaching using Common Core, reported
WNYT-TV in Albany, New York.
“This is not developmentally appropriate for my students,
and I find it cruel and harmful to suggest that it is,” Jennifer Rickert told
the board.
“I do not believe in knowingly setting up my students for
failure,” she said. “I cannot remain silent for one more day.”
Rickert received a standing ovation by parents and teachers
in the audience.
On Monday, Louisiana
Gov. Bobby Jindal, a possible 2016 presidential candidate, began promoting a
42-page proposal to reform American education
at the national level that would repeal Common Core along with a general
rollback of federal authority. He wants to increase school-choice options for
parents and give educators greater administrative freedom.
‘I have to get out’
Meanwhile, another teacher told Starr at the Ohio education
forum she also is quitting.
“I’m like you. I feel like I have to get out,” said Jackie
Conrad, a third-grade teacher.
PJ
Media noted another veteran teacher in the
Elyria district, Dawn Neely, implored the school board to take control of the
“testing culture” in their local schools, the Chronicle-Telegram said in Feb. 5
story.
“I don’t know what to do. I am morally against what we are
doing, and I think history will judge us for what we do to fight for our kids,”
she told the Elyria school board. “Look through the test books, and you tell me
if you think they are developmentally appropriate. No one is advocating for our
district, and I am asking my district to be honest with the parents about what
we are doing to students.”
In response, the board president, Kathryn Karpus, said the
district can do nothing about it, because it’s bound by Ohio laws that mandate
the testing.
As WND
reported, Common Core also has been accused
of seizing control of education from local jurisdictions, politicizing
subjects, censoring conservative viewpoints, dumbing down subjects, imposing
one-size-fits-all standards and data mining of private information.
Mary Calamia, a licensed clinical social worker, said she
observed a significant increase in the number of students struggling with
anxiety and depression since Common Core’s implementation in New York state.
“What was so upsetting for [the children] was they couldn’t
do the work, they feel stupid, they were extremely anxious, [and] extremely
distressed about going to school,” she said.
In Georgia, as WND
reported, Meg Norris was forced out of her
teaching job in Hall County last year after she ran afoul of mandatory testing
for Common Core.
“We were one of the first counties in the nation to
implement Common Core, and at first the teachers felt like we were special, we
were all excited. I drank the Kool-Aid,” said Norris. “But after teaching
Common Core in my class for about 18 months, I started seeing a lot of
behaviors in my students that I hadn’t seen before. They started becoming
extremely frustrated and at that age, 12 years old, they can’t verbalize why
they couldn’t ‘get it.’”
Will Estrada, director of federal relations for the Home
School Legal Defense Association, has raised privacy concerns. He said the
assessments tied to Common Core collect more than 400 points of data on every
child.
“It’s their likes and dislikes, grade-point average all the
way through school, their home situation, health questions,” he said. “It’s an
incredibly invasive collection of information that they are trying to collect
in what they call P-20, or pre-K through workforce.”
http://www.wnd.com/2015/02/top-teacher-winner-quits-due-to-common-core/
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