This is a letter I wrote to the Nashua Telegraph. Their version was edited. Here is the original.
When President Obama touts “education reform” as one of his accomplishments, most people do not realize that he is referring to the new Common Core State Standards being implemented nationwide, including in New Hampshire.
Governor Lynch and the New Hampshire Board of Education brought this Trojan horse to our public schools.
Common Core was supposed to raise academic standards. However, they are not world class standards but a race to mediocrity.
Under Common Core, by the end of eighth grade students will be two years behind their international counterparts in math. High school graduates will achieve only a seventh-grade reading level.
Common Core districts must use their curriculum and assessments. Even the SAT may become aligned with Common Core. If an alternative curriculum is used, students may not be able to score well on these new tests. Therefore, homeschoolers and private schools could be affected.
Recognizing the dangers, Mitt Romney voiced his opposition to Common Core: “To financially reward states based on accepting the federal government’s idea of a curriculum is a mistake. … There may be a time when the federal government has an agenda it wants to promote.”
Ovide Lamontagne rightly criticized Common Core by saying, “The Obama administration is currently promoting a “Race to the Top” program that seeks to use federal dollars to bribe states into abandoning their local educational standards in favor of diluted “Common Core” national standards.”
We need to reject Common Core by electing a new president. Then we must join the other states that have already rejected Common Core. That is the only way states, local school boards, and parents will retain the ability to choose the curriculum and the standards for the education of the students in their community.
