General

A New Jersey Teacher Explains Why Schools Need the Common Core

June 1, 2015

Laura Waters

Allison Sussman, via Save Our Schools-NJ Facebook page:

Are any of you commenting above teachers? I and all of my many teacher friends and colleagues, as well as most other high school educators I speak to in the state, REALLY LIKE the Common Core standards. The English/Language Arts standards are extremely thorough and well written. (I can’t speak as well to the others. I do not teach those subjects, so I have not used them.) The college and career readiness standards are great. They are SO much better than the very poorly written NJ standards which were in place prior to these…

Smart parents have no understanding of what Common Core is because politicians and the media have thrown talking points at you for so long that you have no idea what is going on. It is not your fault. And teachers have mostly been too quiet…probably because they are afraid after how badly they have been burned by Christie’s administration over the last five years. This has gone on for far too long, though, PLEASE go online and start reading the standards. They are not the enemy. The test is.

And no one is going to be happy when Christie commissions a panel (probably composed of corrupt businessmen) to create new standards for our state. We’ll spend a ton of money to produce something that is nowhere near as good as what we currently have. Then, school districts will have to spend a ton of money rewriting curriculum (which we just rewrote to line up with the Common Core) to align with the new standards. Then districts will have to retrain teachers to teach for the new standards. Then the state will spend billions of dollars commissioning and implementing a new standardized test to go with the new standards. Then we will continue the devastating spiral that is destroying the public education system in our state forever. Stop the madness! Parents, teachers, and other concerned community members need to come together so that everyone actually understands what is going on. Right now the politicians and media are doing a terrific job of dividing us, allowing us to be too easily conquered.

Laura Waters

3 Comments

Julia, June 1, 2015 @ 8:43 pm Reply

Shame on you, Laura!

You actually doctored what she wrote to take out her critique of PARCC!

How incredibly intellectually dishonest of you!

Here is Alison Sussman's full comment:

“Are any of you commenting above teachers? I and all of my many teacher friends and colleagues, as well as most other high school educators I speak to in the state, REALLY LIKE the Common Core standards. The English/Language Arts standards are extremely thorough and well written. (I can't speak as well to the others. I do not teach those subjects, so I have not used them.) The college and career readiness standards are great. They are SO much better than the very poorly written NJ standards which were in place prior to these.

COMMON CORE IS NOT PARCC. Christie is pulling out of Common Core because people THINK Common Core is PARCC. It is NOT. PARCC is a test produced and implemented by Pearson (who I am guessing has given money to Christie's campaign and has made billions off of this test). While the test may shrink some next year, it will not go away. Too much money (some of which is probably pretty dirty) is involved. The Christie administration has done a WONDERFUL job with PROPAGANDA. They have everyone brainwashed to believe that the standards and test are synonymous. Now he can say, “I am pulling out of Common Core” and make voters happy because they think it is the same thing as the test or is permanently linked to it. It is not. We can (and should) have the standards. We do not have to (and should not) have the PARCC test. Smart and engaged teachers want the Common Core to stay. We just want to get rid of the PARCC testing.

Smart parents have no understanding of what Common Core is because politicians and the media have thrown talking points at you for so long that you have no idea what is going on. It is not your fault. And teachers have mostly been too quiet…probably because they are afraid after how badly they have been burned by Christie's administration over the last five years. This has gone on for far too long, though, PLEASE go online and start reading the standards. They are not the enemy. The test is. And no one is going to be happy when Christie commissions a panel (probably composed of corrupt businessmen) to create new standards for our state.

We'll spend a ton of money to produce something that is nowhere near as good as what we currently have. Then, school districts will have to spend a ton of money rewriting curriculum (which we just rewrote to line up with the Common Core) to align with the new standards. Then districts will have to retrain teachers to teach for the new standards. Then the state will spend billions of dollars commissioning and implementing a new standardized test to go with the new standards. Then we will continue the devastating spiral that is destroying the public education system in our state forever. Stop the madness! Parents, teachers, and other concerned community members need to come together so that everyone actually understands what is going on. Right now the politicians and media are doing a terrific job of dividing us, allowing us to be too easily conquered.
Dan Masi, June 2, 2015 @ 2:17 am Reply

Doctoring up text? Let me try.

On Wednesday, May 20th, Laura Waters blogged:

“New Jersey, where education reform disputes… all things PARCC.”

“Readers know where I stand: common standards and annual aligned assessments are…a conspiracy among privateers and union-bashers.”

“The advent of standardized testing turned integrated schools into segregated ones”

“PARCC won't…reveal to families and teacher and schools meaningful measures of proficiency… that's honest and transparent.”

Say, that WAS easy!
NJ Left Behind, June 2, 2015 @ 1:33 pm Reply

Hi,Julia. I left out some of her anti-PARCC comments, true, but that's because the point of the post was her discussion of Common Core, not PARCC. I included an ellipsis to let readers know I had edited the text and linked back to her full comments. No foul here.