Common Core, Education Not Free...Part 3 of 3

Publisher's note:  This is the conclusion of this series exposing Common Core.  We invite you to not only review all three installments in this series, we also urge you to learn more about this crucial issue and get very involved.  Like so many things facing us, it is up to each of us to do whatever we can to stop this scourge on our children.

Thais Alvarez:  Today public school students across Florida return to the classroom. They will be taught using a set of common core of standards. But do parents understand what is happening in their children’s public schools?  Have they ever heard of the Common Core State Standards initiative (CCSS)?

Considering that parents, as taxpayers, do, in fact, finance their children’s education (even though they are made to think it is “free”) they have a right and duty to know. One would think that parental involvement and decision making would not only be welcomed, but encouraged. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Public schools want to remove parents from the education process.

Within the past few years, the federal government set out to implement a federal form of education which violates the U.S. Constitution, a U.S. Supreme Court ruling, three federal laws related to education, including the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), the Florida State Constitution and Florida State statutes.

Federalizing or nationalizing education will strip parental involvement from their children’s education because local school boards, where parents have historically raised concerns, will no longer serve parents.  Parents would now have to address concerns at the federal level, and that is a daunting task at best.

A new study on Florida’s implementation of Common Core federal educational standards shows it will lower academic expectations considerably, as well as use the data mined from students and their families to build informational databases which can be used for marketing.  Worse, the taxpayers’ dollars will be used to finance all of these endeavors.

Parents may now be asking if these new, CCSS, have already been implemented, or if they will be implemented in the future.  The answer is both.

Schools throughout Florida have already implemented the CCSS in grades K-2.  For grade 3 – 12, the CCSS will be implemented next year.  

Educational experts assert that the English Language Arts and the Math Standards, which have been revised and already implemented, will result in students graduating a few years behind, academically speaking, where they do now.

New textbooks, aligned with the CCSS, have been purchased, and students will begin using them this year.  There are parents all across the state protesting the adoption of these textbooks with the latest fighting being fought – and successfully won – in Brevard County.

The Florida Parent Teacher Association (PTAs) is onboard with the CCSS because it does not know what it entails. They receive, as a group, special considerations from local school boards.  Parents need to understand that PTAs are not objective in their opinion on CCSS.

Teachers, many of whom express opposition against the CCSS, are afraid to speak up and voice concerns because they fear retaliation and possibly loss of their jobs.  This is understandable. Additionally, close to 4,000 teachers have been trained, at taxpayer expense, on the CCSS and they are being misinformed through these training.

For this reason, even a teacher who does not object may not be able to fully appreciate what the CCSS will represent for the students they teach until it is too late.

Understanding Common Core Standards in less than 60 minutes; a presentation given at the August 2013 Miami-Dade Libertarian Party meeting:  Click to view video.

Abolut Thais Alvarez

Thais graduated from Florida International University with degrees in International Relations and Education. She obtained a J.D., and Master of Accounting, with honors, from Nova Southeastern. She served as the Executive Editor of the Law Review. After her admission to the Florida Bar, she obtained an LL.M. in Tax at Georgetown. She is an educator. Thais serves as the South Florida Leader for Florida Parents Against Common Core and as the a Director for Bear Witness Central.