We received the following comment on yesterday’s post about politicians who misrepresent and/or ignore the arguments against Common Core standards and want to decrease local control of schools. The mom gave permission to use her comments as a post. It should be noted Representative Cookson is her representative.

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I fired off this letter to Representative Cookson on the 29th of January. Haven’t heard a peep….

Good morning Steve,

My husband and I have been researching Common Core for months and have concluded that it is a disaster. As if all the other centralizing of education programs that preceded it weren’t backward enough, Common Core shines as the mother of all backward-leading educational nightmares. I understand that you have been in the ed realm for many years so it is even more curious to me that you are not helping lead the cause of eradicating the failure that is Common Core from our fine state. I’ve been keeping up with your stand on this through videos of anti-CC presentations that you have attended as well as through information coming from the many warriors against CC that I proudly work alongside. I also understand that the ed lobby in Missouri is gargantuan and it sickens me to see the voice of the “average” Missourian stifled by the slick greasing of the palms of our leaders by big money. On the issue of CC, most Missourians – Americans, for that matter – were flat out lied to on so many levels as it was shoved down our throats. Our Governor led the way down this backward path by accepting the federal stimulus money and the high stakes strings that are always attached to pimp money. Our children were sold out. Common Core leads us further BACKWARD and more rapidly than its most recent predecessor, NCLB. Teaching to test, teaching to test, teaching to test is not innovative it is backward. Expecting equality across the board by districts, states and the nation is backward. Heaving even MORE control over individuals’ kids’ education to nanny government is backward. Promoting evermore Socialistic (and it is!) ruin upon our decidedly free nation by indoctrinating future generations to be mere cogs in society’s wheel is backward.

I can promise you that not one of your voters sent you to Jeff City to accept this on our behalf. Nor did anyone send you there to throw your hands up in defeat. I also strongly disagree with your push to force summer school on kids. My bottom line is this: If schools are failing our most vulnerable kids already because of the ever-increasing dysfunctionality of the entire educational system, why assign them to further confinement within it? It makes no sense. It is backward.

I hope you will listen to the voices crying out for sane reform, true forward-leaning reform, transparency and LOCAL CONTROL over the education of our kids.

Sincerely,

Toni Becker



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This condescension does not only belong to certain Missouri politicians and bureaucrats. Here are North Carolina school board members scoffing (even before the speaker presented) at a citizen’s well-researched claims about Common Core concerns.

It makes you wonder why politicians and school board members are elected to represent the people when they clearly have no desire to listen to those whom they represent. These politicians and bureaucrats are oligarchs, not representatives.

Gretchen Logue