I get nervous when politicians who can’t look farther than their next election begin meddling with education. Short-sighted NC lawmakers now want to retreat on Common Core:
Raleigh, N.C. — North Carolina would begin walking away from the Common Core standards for math and English in public schools under proposed legislation that a student committee approved Thursday.
“Common Core is gone July 1 if this passes,” said Sen. Jerry Tillman, R-Randolph, one of the measure’s leading proponents.
The full General Assembly will take up the measure when it returns to session in mid-May.
Although the bill does delete legislative language referencing Common Core standards, it does not take them out of play right away. Rather, the measure would create an Academic Standards Review Commission to develop standards “tailored to the needs of North Carolina’s students.”
My dad’s job with IBM meant that my family and I moved from state to state every 3-5 years. This presented me with an uneven education as often I would appear in a classroom where subjects were being covered that I had already covered before. Or, in a more troublesome scenario, I would come into a subject that was completely foreign to me, having had no preparation for it simply because the last state I lived in ordered the subjects differently. I believe my math studies were particularly affected by this disjointed education.
Common Core fixes all of this. Our state is growing exponentially. Families are moving here from all over. We need to provide a consistent education so that these new North Carolina residents are prepared later in life. And certainly switching gears again so soon will drive away what’s left of our teacher ranks.
Again, there’s nothing more dangerous than politicians meddling with public education. Look out, folks.