Kids Are Not Standard

Common Core is the demise of education. Standardization is what it sounds like, standard, but children don't come standardized. When you peel the layers away from standardized testing and see it for what is, you realize education has become a commodity. Standardized testing is a billion dollar industry that operates in private. As a parent you can't even see the test your child is taking. Why? Because the test is PRIVATE INTELECTUAL PROPERTY!

Gone are the days of creative freedom in the classroom. Gone are the days of just plain PE in grammar school. Now PE is health too and you take a test about playing basketball instead of actually playing basketball. Gone are lunch periods where children can eat. What, you say? They still have lunch period, right? They have about 15 minutes to eat! My children often bring home half their lunch because they did not have time to eat! Gone are the days of hands on art projects, creative thinking, reading for fun, games, poetry, and music. Yes, you'll see buzzwords about these subjects around school, and your kids may have art, and they may bring home a project here and there, but the focus is the test! Test, test, test!

Chew on this for one brief moment. Wealthy students in private schools are not tested like this! The policymakers who signed the deal with the McGraw Hill et el to produce the PRIVATE SBAC tests have kids in private schools! Yes, money buys education in more ways than one. Public education has become a new market for money and our kids are for sale. Did you know your children's data is mined via the school to corporations? Did you know your Blue Ribbon School is not about merit per say, it's about business! The business of testing, and lots of money is being made!

There is a price on our children's heads and advertisers have a direct link into their young minds via school. This is not what public education is suppose to be. What happened? What happened to local towns controlling what students learn? Parental input, teacher creativity. Test proponents will argue standardized testing ensures everyone is learning the same thing. How about this, homogenized people don't make for strong and active communities. We're not robots!