Wake Up, Conservatives! Examining Conservative “Support” for Common Core

From The Center for Vision & Values, Grove City College

By R.B.A. Di Muccio

Most conservatives instinctively and correctly oppose Common Core. The issue becomes muddy when a few high-profile conservatives appear to be in favor of it. Such support provides a bottomless font of schadenfreude for Common Core’s mostly liberal supporters and gives them an effective wedge issue. Therefore, examining conservative “support” for national Common Core standards might be the single most important tactic in the fight against it.

Prima facie, this support is based on a simple premise: public education is failing, so we should establish minimal standards that all kids must meet. Bill Bennett, for example, has said, “we can all agree that there is a need for common standards of assessment in K-12 education. And we can all agree that there are common and shared truths.”

Okay, but the question that arises is: What are the “common and shared truths?” Let’s answer that in a moment.

Catholic Scholars Blast Common Core in Letter to U.S. Bishops

About 130 Catholic scholars around the country have signed a hard-hitting letter to U.S. Catholic bishops denouncing the Common Core State Standards as doing “a grave disservice to Catholic education” and urging the bishops  to ignore the standards or, in the more than 100 dioceses that have already adopted them, to give them up.

The letter was sent by Gerard V. Bradley, a law professor at the University of Notre Dame, to every Catholic bishop in the country, with 132 scholars from various disciplines and institutions signing on.

Read more at The Washington Post >>

Hillsdale College - "Story-Killers: How the Common Core Destroys Minds and Souls"

The Common Core Standards control the testing and curriculum of public schools and a large number of private schools in over forty states in the nation.  Sold to the public as a needed reform, the Common Core nationalizes absurdity, superficiality, and political bias in the American classroom.  As a result, the great stories of a great nation are at risk, along with the minds and souls of our children.

Terrence O. Moore is an assistant professor of history at Hillsdale College.  A former Marine with a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh, he served as a founding principal of a top K-12 classical school in Colorado and advises Hillsdale's Charter School Initiative, providing assistance with the formation of classical charter schools across the country.  Dr. Moore is the author of The Perfect Game and The Story Killers: A Common Sense Case Against the Common Core.

U.S. Bishops Acknowledge Common Core Concerns, Affirm Importance of Catholic Mission in Schools

I have always been baffled by the determination of some Catholic school administrators to align their curricula and standards with those of failing government schools.  They will cite the high degree of flow between the two systems.  However, in many inner-cities, parents work two and three jobs to ensure that their children have the advantage of a quality, Catholic education.  If Catholic school administrators would devote themselves to the school choice movement, to electing school choice advocates to their state legislatures, to building endowments and scholarship funds for their schools, and to new management models that keep tuition costs down, that traffic between school systems would all be in one direction.

Thanks to the work of The Cardinal Newman Society, among others, it is gratifying to see the American bishops beginning to recognize how insidious are the Common Core standards and the attempt to nationalize the American public school systems.

From Catholic Education Daily
By Kelly Conroy

“Catholic schools must consider standards that support the mission and purpose of the school as a Catholic institution,” states the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) Secretariat of Catholic Education in a recent document answering frequently asked questions (FAQ) about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS).

In the FAQ, the bishops acknowledge the “growing concerns about the effect of these standards on Catholic schools in our country.”

While the bishops recognize the right of government to assist in education, they assert that the Common Core was developed for a “public school audience” and is “of its nature incomplete as it pertains to Catholic schools.”

“As our world becomes increasingly secularized,” the FAQ says, “it will be a task of the Church through an appropriate education to help parents and families sift through the realities and difficulties of the culture and provide a solid foundation and basis for living as disciples of Jesus Christ.”

The bishops strongly affirm the role of parents as the “first educators of their children as a God-given responsibility.”  It follows that, “Parents possess the fundamental right to choose the formative tools that support their convictions and fulfill their duty as the first educators.”

The Church aids parents in forming their children by establishing Catholic schools—and local bishops “employ… the gifts and talents of parents and the professional educational community at all stages of establishing and operating Catholic schools at the local level.”

In response to concerns voiced by Catholic parents over the Common Core, The Cardinal Newman Society developed Catholic Is Our Core.  The project provides Catholic parents, educators and Church leaders with guidance and resources in exploring the Common Core and concerns about its potential impact on Catholic schools and students.  The Newman Society has encouraged all involved in the implementation of the Common Core to pause until the standards are thoroughly and rigorously evaluated.

The bishops, too, emphasize the importance of cautiously evaluating the Common Core.  The FAQ states that the standards “should be neither adopted nor rejected without review, study, consultation, discussion and caution.”

The document dispels the misconception that Catholic schools are required to adopt the standards, while acknowledging that some schools have chosen to adopt or adapt all or part of the standards.

Following the principle of subsidiarity, the bishops place the responsibility to make decisions about the standards at the local diocesan level. Subsidiarity has also been a significant concern of teachers and especially parents, who note that as the primary educators of their children, they should be involved in decisions about the Common Core and the direction of Catholic schools.

Ultimately, the latest education trend should not be allowed to hinder schools from achieving the “aims of a true education,” according the FAQ.

“[T]he Church freely establishes schools that intentionally promote the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the purpose of forming Christian men and women to live well now so as to be able to live with God for all eternity,” the bishops state.


Catholic Education Daily is an online publication of The Cardinal Newman Society. Click here for email updates and free online membership with The Cardinal Newman Society.

"Story-Killers: How the Common Core Destroys Minds and Souls" by Hillsdale Professor Terrence O. Moore

The Common Core Standards control the testing and curriculum of public schools and a large number of private schools in over forty states in the nation. Sold to the public as a needed reform, the Common Core nationalizes absurdity, superficiality, and political bias in the American classroom. As a result, the great stories of a great nation are at risk, along with the minds and souls of our children.

Terrence O Moore is an assistant professor of history at Hillsdale College. A former Marine with a Ph.D. from the University of Edinburgh, he served as the founding principal of a top K-12 classical school in Colorado and advises Hillsdale's Charter School Initiative, providing assistance with the formation of classical charter schools across the country. Dr. Moore is the author of The Perfect Game and The Story-Killers: A Common Sense Case Against the Common Core.

Catholic Scholars Write to America's Bishops, Ask That Common Core Be Withdrawn from Catholic Schools

In what they describe as an "extraordinary step," 132 Catholic scholars have signed a letter opposing the implementation of Common Core in the nation's Catholic schools and calling for its withdrawal in more than 100 dioceses and archdioceses that have implemented the scheme.

The Common Core curriculum is opposed by these and many Catholic educators and parents because it lowers expectations, places emphasis on practical "skill sets" useful for business and industry, and fails to form the hearts and minds of children and the "child’s natural openness to truth and beauty, his moral goodness, and his longing for the infinite and happiness."

The letter, sent to each of America's bishops, follows:

Your Excellency:

We are Catholic scholars who have taught for years in America’s colleges and universities. Most of us have done so for decades. A few of us have completed our time in the classroom; we are professors “emeriti.” We have all tried throughout our careers to put our intellectual gifts at the service of Christ and His Church. Most of us are parents, too, who have seen to our children’s education, much of it in Catholic schools. We are all personally and professionally devoted to Catholic education in America.

Phyllis Schlafly: Common Core a Threat to Catholic Schools

Editor's note:  We are perplexed by Catholic school administrators who eagerly align  their pedagogy, curricula and standards to those of the public school establishment - an establishment that is mediocre at its best and utterly fails in America's inner-cities, where Catholic schools offer the poor a lifeline and hope for a better life.  These Catholic school administrators insist that their compliance is necessary due to the many transfers that occur between the government and parochial systems; but why would so many parents eschew "free" education for tuition payments were they satisfied with government-issue schooling? We suspect the real answer is that some bishops and diocesan education officials are willing to accept shackles in return for government shekels.

The valiant Phyllis Schlafly, President of Eagle Forum, has written the following letter to key leaders of the Catholic hierarchy about a government-corporate alliance to implement Common Core standards in public and private schools, including Catholic schools. It is reprinted here with permission of the author.

Your Excellency,

I write today to share with you our significant concerns about a troubling development in our Catholic schools and to seek your prayerful guidance about this issue.

Under the guise of reforming the nation’s failing public schools, President Obama’s Department of Education offered states $4.35 billion in stimulus funds in a grant competition called Race to the Top in 2010.  In order to compete for the funds, let alone receive them, states had to agree to adhere to the only set of national academic standards then under development by a private organization funded largely by Bill Gates.

Governors of cash-strapped states were only too eager for the opportunity to supplement their budgets regardless of the quality of the standards.  In fact, the standards were not even completed until after the grant applications were due.  As a further inducement to apply for the funds, states were offered waivers of the Bush era No Child Left Behind law and were also warned that failure to adopt the new standards could cost poor districts their Title 1 funds.  One must wonder why allegedly superior academic standards necessitated such underhanded tactics.

The new national standards for Mathematics and English Language Arts, called Common Core, were adopted by forty-five states giving an appearance of national unanimity.  This facade crumbles once you know the standards were approved not by the people of these 45 states or their elected representatives but by governors and state boards of education officials.  Neither the state legislatures nor the voters ever knew about this radical change in their children’s education until this spring (more than two years after they were adopted).

As the standards began to be implemented during the 2012-2013 school year parents noticed disturbing changes in homework, textbooks, and tests.  Suddenly, Euclidian geometry was displaced, children were instructed to add in columns from left to right, and “conceptual” math replaced fundamentals.  In language arts, “close reading” strategies forced students to read texts “in a vacuum” or without the encumbrance of what was deemed “privileged information.” Furthermore, classical literature was dramatically reduced in favor of reading “informational texts” like computer manuals.  The stated goal of the new standards, in both Math and English, is to make students “college and career ready” by focusing on “21st century skills.”

Although Common Core was designed specifically to address public school failings, the standards are impacting Catholic schools as well.  Many Catholic schools have decided to adopt the Common Core in a misguided attempt to remain “competitive.”  This rationale makes little sense as Catholic schools have long enjoyed a superior academic record to the public schools. This is due not only to a faith-filled learning environment and the dedication of good teachers but because they have had the freedom to employ time-honored teaching methods only sporadically seen in the public schools. With a tradition that includes Cardinal Newman, St. Anselm, and Thomas Aquinas why would we ever consider adopting the latest public school fad in education?

Catholic educators who propose to “adapt” the Common Core to the Catholic model forget the purpose of Catholic education.  The mission of the Catholic school is to prepare students for eternal life with God while its secondary goal is to prepare them for temporal work.  They accomplish this by pursuing Truth and by seeking to acquire Knowledge for its own sake.  In contrast, the goal of Common Core is the narrow training of students to become mere functionaries educated solely for earthly success.  Catholic educators should be leery of any standards that create automatons rather than humane individuals.

In the United States, Christians in general and the Catholic Church in particular have been under siege over the past five years.  In light of the HHS mandate, the IRS targeting of faith organizations, the active promotion of gay marriage, and other federal efforts designed to dismantle moral society we cannot remain complacent as this administration takes aim at our children.  Just a few weeks ago the president condemned Catholic education in Ireland calling it “divisive.”  Evil is dangerously palatable when hidden in the stew of “good intentions,” and the Church should be particularly cautious about accepting anything at face value from this federal government.  Clear Church teaching on the principle of subsidiarity demands that we guard jealously the local control of our children’s education.

Thus far, only math and language arts standards have been introduced.  We shudder to think of the challenges to the faith that will be posed when the standards for social studies, history, science, and health are released. Because it is impossible to totally remove personal bias and opinion from the development of any set of standards, and because we understand that standards drive curriculum, we must be especially vigilant in examining new standards before they are implemented by our schools.

In addition to a long list of academic worries with Common Core we have additional privacy concerns related to the onerous data collection requirements that are part of the system. The idea behind the federal data collection mandate is to track students from pre-school through their careers so as to determine whether the standards are succeeding in making students “career ready.” While the initial goal may be laudable, there are serious concerns about maintaining the privacy of minors. The federal government has proposed gathering over 400 personally identifiable data points on each student, and whereas that information could have previously been considered “safe,” the federal government’s changes to FERPA in January, 2012 now make it possible for school officials to share private data without parental consent. Once unscrupulous school officials realize they can sell private data to the highest bidder all privacy will be in jeopardy.

The threat posed by Common Core to the Catholic schools comes as they struggle to compete against public charter schools, home schooling, and other innovative models of education. Sadly, Catholic Schools can no longer count on welcoming the children of the parish as many parishioners no longer feel obligated to send their children to parochial schools. As our Catholic schools search for ways to attract new students, they would do well to reject the servile training model of the public schools rather than seeking to imitate it.

My humble request is that you investigate the dangers of Common Core to Catholic education.  Please consider the concerns of a growing number of parents around the country.  More than a dozen state legislatures have now taken some action to review, defund, or repeal Common Core now that parents and legislators have learned the details of this program.  In April, Indiana became the first state to suspend Common Core led by the efforts of two Catholic school mothers.  Your sheep ask for the protection of their shepherd. Your sheep are asking to be fed. The laity needs to hear from the bishops on this very important issue.