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Health & Fitness

Common Core Standards, Another Waste of our Educational Resources? You Decide

Our board members need to remind our administrators to stay focused on our kids and not on their future paychecks and titles.

Last November I wrote a post about Common Core Standards, the Obama Administration’s next “No Child Left Behind”.

Here is a link to that post:http://www.ourfocusourkids.com/blog/2011/11/1/back-to-the-future.html

The Beaumont Unified School District is planning on going all in as soon as possible in hopes of getting into the state’s pilot program. I cautioned it was a large investment in a national and state mandated but unfunded program. The district’s position is that the initial investment will come from Measure Z funds but it is likely the ongoing cost of the program will be a drain on our general fund for years to come.

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It isn’t required that school districts make the investment now. They can choose to wait until the 2014-2015 school year but BUSD has already, or will soon, authorize the first purchases of new technology. I am sure this is a program that will be off the table Tuesday in the administration’s proposed budget cuts. I recently learned from an ex-school board member that government school administrators in small town school districts looking to make a name for themselves before moving on to better paychecks, need to be able to boast about being on the “leading edge”.

Our board members need to remind our administrators to stay focused on our kids and not on their future paychecks and titles. I suggest they read the following article: Common Core Math Standards Fail to Add Up.

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This article makes reference to a statement by one of the authors of the Common Core’s math standards that should make any school board member wake up and take notice before they rubber stamp the administration’s investment. Here’s the quote:

A recent Education Next article cites concerns from Professor William McCallum, one of the three authors of Common Core’s math standards, who has said that “overall standards wouldn’t be very high” and “not up to the standards of other nations.”

Unfortunately, our school board and administration don’t want to hear suggestions from parents, especially ones that question their mission. 

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