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Saturday, July 25, 2015

Ann Cronin: Hillary: A Presidential Candidate In Need Of An Education

Hillary is alienating educators with her allegiance to the Big Testers and political leaders who fund Education-as-a-Profit-making-Venture Corporations.
Betsy Combier

Ann Cronin



Hillary Clinton


Hillary: A Presidential Candidate In Need Of An Education
JULY 20, 2015 ~ 2 COMMENTS

LINK
What does Hillary think about what is going on now in k-12 education?

Watch this video and find out:

http://www.c-span.org/video/standalone/?c4534445

What I would like to ask Hillary after watching the video is:

1. What do you mean by the Common Core being a “wonderful direction”? Do you know what the 42 Common Core English Language Arts Standards are and in what ways they help or hinder students becoming thoughtful readers, effective writers, and deep and broad thinkers?

I am very familiar with those 42 Common Core English Language Arts Standards and know that they are detrimental to producing thoughtful readers, effective writers, and deep and broad thinkers. I doubt that Hillary has read those standards and, even if she has, has no idea about the developmental needs of students and the best ways to teach them.

Of course, standards can be a good idea, but only if the standards themselves are worthy ones. It is also a good idea to eat three meals a day but not if those meals are comprised of a lot of sugar and very little protein and vitamins. The Common Core English Language Arts Standards are sugary fluff and will make neither the students nor the country strong. .

2. What do you mean when you say that the Common Core was “not politicized”?

The Common Core standards were approved by governors before they were even written and before the governors knew what they would contain because accepting them was the only way that states could be relieved of the sanctions the federal government would impose on them for not meeting the impossible goals of NCLB and be allowed to apply for Race to the Top money. It was all totally political. It was all about the federal money. It was political bribery.

3. Why do you imagine that the Common Core and the aligned detesting will prevent a ” two tiered educational system” when, in reality, the Common Core and the aligned testing will create those two tiers?

One tier is the children of privilege who either go to elite private schools which do not adhere in any way to the Common Core and which do not test their students with Common Core aligned tests or go to suburban schools which do not limit education to the Common Core and do not emphasize test prep because the income level of their students insures good test scores.

The other tier is the children in urban schools whose education is largely test prep about the limited and damaging content of the Common Core.

Tier one students develop skills for their future; tier two students learn how to take tests that do not assess the quality of their thinking, collaborating, reading, or writing.

4. What do you mean when you said that we should go “back to basics”? What are your “basics” and why are we going “back”?

Basics for the present and the future are: exploration, collaboration, effective written and oral communication, creativity, cultural awareness, curiosity, questioning, imagination, accessing and analyzing information, problem solving, innovation, civic engagement, and initiative. The Common Core addresses none of these, and the Common Core aligned tests assess none of them either.

5. Why do you say that we should “look to teachers” for the direction of education?

You praise the Common Core, yet when the Common Core English Language Arts Standards and the Common Core Early Childhood Standards were created, not one single teacher was involved. The standards were created by employees of testing companies. The Common Core Standards are not good education. They are a compilation of items which can be measured on standardized tests and teach students to write essays which can be nonsensical but receive high marks from the testing company computers which grade them.

6. Hillary, please can we talk?

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