This time last year, Oklahoma was
celebrating the passage of HB3399, which was the law to end Common Core once
and for all in our state. Well, it turns out that the same groups that chanted,
“Common Core is the law; we have no choice but to teach it” are not so gung ho
to follow the law now that it is the law not to
teach it. Unfortunately, one of the worst groups to thwart the LAW is the
Oklahoma State School Superintendents Association, for which overpaid
Superintendents are dancing all around the law with the help of our beautiful
new State School Superintendent. They
are doing everything possible to get Common Core back in, or keep it in by any
other means or name.
One of the most
egregious situations that is part of the fallout of Common Core is the loss of
so many great teachers. Their creativity, their skill, their stand for rights
of parents and children is not welcome here any longer. The ones who are
outspoken against Common Core and the obsessive data collection are at risk of
losing their jobs.
Linda Murphy,
former educational policy advisor to Gov. Keating, said this: Good teachers are being driven out of the
classrooms by administrators who push the “new think” experimental methods. We
must work to get rid of policies destroying our schools and remember the
importance of a human being who cares about the students and applies their
professional education and experience to helping them learn!
Those teachers
that have been awarded and acclaimed and applauded in the past are leaving the
field, either because they have been handcuffed into not doing their jobs the
way they see fit, or nudged, pushed or shoved out because they might dare
notify parents of their rights to opt out of a test, or let parents know that
data is being collected on their children.
A few days
ago we experienced another casualty, teacher Ginger Brown. Ginger was an
outstanding teacher in the Oklahoma City Public School District. With her
permission, I am sharing her story:
I would like to share a few words that sum up what I feel are the most
frightening words I’ve ever heard in light of everything we know and everything
that is occurring in education.
On Friday, I went to complete my end of the year check out with the
principal at Mark Twain Elementary. I thanked her for the opportunity to teach
there and expressed my gratitude for the experiences and learning I had gained
throughout the year.
Her reply, “I feel that you are unteachable.” In …a few words she told
me in no-uncertain terms, why she did not want me to return next year to teach
at Mark Twain Elementary.
This from a principal in a district (OKCPS) that takes every
opportunity to publicly cry out about teacher-shortages and inequitable
distribution of certified and high-quality teachers in low-income and minority
communities.
Regardless of my certifications, qualifications, highly effective
evaluations, and data-driven proof of student progress, accomplishment and
success, I am considered UNTEACHABLE.
I am a lifelong learner. I am extremely open to being taught new things
and to learning new things, but I also reserve the right to remain objective
and ask questions. Unteachable? No! Unable to reeducate? Exactly!
Schools are not teaching critical thinking to their students or their
staff. Schools are teaching absolute compliance and conformity in how and what
people should think.
Throw out what we know. Throw out what we know works. Instead, spend
countless hours and unjustifiable amounts of money to reeducate, retrain, and
remold all minds to conform to the progressive, humanist model of education.
Aside from those profiting financially from the federal takeover of
public education, the long yearned for goal by some, of the United States of
America as a socialist collective controlled by the humanist ideology is being
achieved.
Education is a powerful thing. The people in control of the nation’s
education, those with the power to directly influence and reeducate the minds
of anyone who passes through the door of any institution of education have the
power to alter the past, control the present, and direct the future of an
entire country and all within. Education cannot be controlled. Education cannot
be centralized. Education must not be allowed to conform to the views of one
entity, one ideology, one perspective, or one opinion.
The future of education in the United States of America is terrifying
when we are told we are, “unteachable”, and then removed from the process
entirely. Individual, objective thought is being systematically removed. This
will not end well.
We all have a stake in our nation’s education. As an educator, a
parent, and a citizen of the United States of America, I demand that our voices
be heard, not marginalized, not silenced, and not removed from the process when
we don’t agree. “Unteachable” is a word that should never come from the mouth
of any educator! Ever!
http://politichicks.com/2015/06/the-continual-fight-and-fallout-of-common-core-in-oklahoma/
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