When the news got out that New York parents were coaching their children to not take the standardized tests, I was so uncomfortable. I wasn’t sure if when I was a student, I would have had the courage to put down the pencil and stick to it with a teacher standing there telling me to pick up the pencil. I felt like parents were asking their children to stand up for what we, as parents, are supposed to do. I understood the parents frustration, but none the less, it is the parent’s job to change things in the schools, not the children’s.
Yesterday, this video of a Texas student teaching his teacher how to teach was messaged to me. I watched it and again I thought the same thing. Our children are fighting a battle, that we as parents, are charged with fighting. I know there has been criticism of his behavior. Was he belligerent? Yes. I don’t know of any parent who would encourage their child to behave like this in the classroom. I also understand that his rant came from the frustration he and many, many other students are experiencing in the classroom. And in his youth, he probably didn’t know any other way to handle it.
We as parents have let our children down. It is our job to educate our children. Not the government’s.
We as parents have let our children down. It is our job to educate our children. Not the government’s.
I know there are many reasons that private schools out-perform public schools. I contend that one of those reasons, is that the parent says to the child, “I am paying for you to go to this school and you will do the work and you will get good grades.” Private school children are taught that education has value because it is money coming out of the family budget. Because the private schools depend on parents writing a check, the education is usually superior to the public school education. Parents would never allow the teaching of something in direct conflict with the founding principles of the school. Nor would the parents allow the school to use their children as experiments with unproven standards and teaching methods. I dare to say one of the reasons private school children get a superior education is because everyone is accountable to the parents.
Think of the public school education of our children as a contract. We contract with the government to educate our children. We pay our taxes in exchange for services. One of those services is education.Yet, the public school education is thought of as “free.” Is this because we don’t write a check directly to the school? If we paid the percentage of our taxes that go to education directly to our local school system, would we as parents demand more of our children? Would we demand more of the local school system? Would we allow them to teach curriculum that is contrary to the founding principles of this country? Would we allow them to use our children as experiments with unproven standards and teaching methods? As long as parents do not hold their tax dollars accountable, there is no accountability, on the part of the children or the government with whom we contract to provide an education. We have blindly handed over the responsibility of educating our children to bureaucrats.
It is time for us as parents to stand up and demand more from our schools and our children. The accountability rests with the parents. This is our battle, not the childrens.
So, with all that in mind, I would like to share “Stolen Education, Stolen Children, Stolen Future”, by KrisAnne Hall. She connects the dots of how for over 150 years we have been giving up our responsibility to educate our children to the government.
“This is an informational presentation I gave at a rally in Ft. Walton Beach, FL. Much of this information can be found in Charlotte Iserbyt’s book The Deliberate Dumbing Down of America. As shocking as it may be, it is all factual and verifiable. Please educate yourself on this vital issue.”
“As we are consumed by the media frenzy over the debt crisis, we must understand the real problem and therefore obtain the real solution. If we are to restore America, we must recognize what has brought us to where we are today. We cannot overcome the enemies if we do not know who they are. One of the greatest contributors to…Now we have Race to the Top, the established and printed purpose of this program, as stated in national education directives is to transfer loyalty from the family to the government. The teacher manuals state that we are to be teaching Constructivism where “students construct [their own] understanding of reality, and [realize] that objective reality is not knowable” (p.10)“
http://www.krisannehall.com/index.php/blog/65-education-blog
South Dakotans Against Common Core 
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