INDIAN RIVER COUNTY – “Common Core” – In Indian River County, the two words inflame a small part of the population the same way that the two words, “Viva Castro”, upset a majority of the population of Miami-Dade County.
At Tuesday night’s Indian River County school board meeting, a portion of the local citizenry was there and livid that the Common Core curriculum is taking hold.
That curriculum is aimed at raising the standard of Florida K-12 education to a national standard so that students who graduate from high school can read, write and do arithmetic well enough to get a job or go on to college.
For the anti-Common Core people, the sticking point is the words “national standard,” as in “federal government,” which many see as synonymous with “socialist state,” at best, or “communist, totalitarian regime,” at worst.
A parent accused the school district of purposely covering up a meeting on the topic by only sending notices home with students, rather than putting the information on the Internet and in local media outlets.
“It’s local suppression,” said the parent, mother to a 15-year-old student, who had the notice in his book bag.
Another anti-Common Core speaker demanded that the school board and superintendent: “Tell the state of Florida to restore control of educational standards.”
She had seen the Table of Contents of a history book and it alarmed her, she said, explaining: “People like Bill Gates were in it.”
Another speaker said that the geometry taught by the Common Core curriculum was based on a “Soviet math program from the 1950s that failed.”
“And no more cursive writing,” she lamented.
Yet another speaker warned that the teaching of literature would be cut by 50 percent with Common Core.
Speakers challenged school board members to respond to them.
“You all just sit there. We get no responses,” said one speaker. “The superintendent said she won’t debate the topic. You could express your dislike of Common Core, which is the indoctrination and dumbing-down of our children.”
“How could you be so avaricious as to feed at the federal trough?” she asked.
Then, she told Superintendent Dr. Fran Adams that she had “brought on this travesty” and should be fired.
School Board policy dictates that the board and superintendent not respond to public comments.
Instead, middle school language arts teacher Luke Flynt addressed the parents’ comments.
He told the anti-Common Core speakers that their information was “factually incorrect” and that their criticism of Common Core was more about “censorship” on their part than a concern for open exchange in a democracy.
As an example of what concerned him, he responded to the comment that 50 percent of literature was being cut from the curriculum.
“I’m a language arts teacher and I can tell you that’s not happening. That’s misinformation,” he said.
He urged the speakers: “Look at the Common Core standards themselves, rather than at a partisan website.”
The last public speaker talked about her daughter’s seventh grade civic assignment at Storm Grove Middle and how it was an example of how the curriculum was “a violation of my child’s privacy.”
“She was asked to say which party she affiliated with,” said the parent.
The superintendent said that while she and the school board did not respond to comments she felt she needed to clarify that the assignment had to do with understanding the political spectrum from conservative to liberal to independent – not declaring party loyalty. Students were asked to choose a position then describe it in terms of an animal, said Adams. That way they could see political affiliation in a simpler, clearer way.
One student, said Adams, described a party as being like a turtle — “slow with strong defenses.”
“I think it was an appropriate assignment,” said Adams, as more than a dozen people stood up and walked out of the meeting.
