The synthesis of all modern educational errors!
Not long after my arrival here in Atlanta, I was contacted by a colleague who works for the American Principles Project, founded by Dr. Robert P. George of Princeton. Amongst other things, they have worked tirelessly to take up arms against a sea of troubles inundating the shores of public education that goes by the name of the Common Core. I am honored that they invited me to give testimony in front of an educational committee before the Georgia House of Representatives this Wednesday in Milledgeville Georgia. I am to give testimony to support the fact that the Common Core is not the educational reform that will help put the disastrously misguided public educational system to rights.
Certainly there is much confusion about the Common Core, largely because what they assert and what they really portend are often two different things. In a disturbing meeting recently I heard someone of stature say “if someone is against the Common Core, it is because they don’t understand it.” This is a diametrically oppositional statement to the truth. The fact is this, if one is in support of the Common Core, it is because they don’t understand it.
On Wednesday, my testimony will include the following train of thought. I will begin by introducing myself to the committee and sharing my experiences in education that ought to lend weight to my testimony, especially the fact that last year I spent 24 days with a select group of educators from four school districts being trained in the development and implementation of the curriculum designed from the Common Core State Standards.
The fruit from the tree of Common Core will be bitter indeed!
I will follow with a statement of fact about the dismal state of public education today. I will introduce and expand upon three main points. First, I will discuss three stated ends of the public school educational program which are that of making good citizens, getting students ready for college, and preparing them to become active participants in the global economy of the 21st century. Second, I will try to demonstrate that The Common Core State Standards have no chance of achieving these ends no matter how well implemented. The simple fact is that they are just the next generation in a long line of failing pedagogies belonging to the scientifically reduced methods of mis-educating children. My third point will be that the only educational reform available to remedy our national plight is that system that recognizes the true nature of a human person as the tri-partite soul in need of habits of mind and character to become authentically educated.
I will close with a plea to abandon the Common Core STATE standards as a national agenda and I will offer the committee the benefit of my experience if they would like to reform education in Georgia in a way that may benefit the students and their families living here and ultimately improve the common good.
The millstone in Milledgeville.
That will conclude my testimony. I am hoping for positive results, but God doesn’t call us to succeed, he calls us to enthusiastic battle. The Common Core agenda leads to soul death. I shudder to ponder Christ’s words in Luke 17:2 “It would be better for him if a millstone were hung round his neck and he were cast into the sea, than that he should cause one of these little ones to sin.” Concerning the nationalized effort to make public education uniform by the deceitful title of Common Core STATE Standards, woe to those who stand idly by while such atrocities are committed on such a wide scale. I for one will speak out against the Common Core. I invite all to join me as we call for a recovery of what made the West great in the first place, an alignment of the well lived life with the Great Conversation. Please pray for me and the good folks at the American Principles Project!
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