Last September, The Motley Monk discussed some reasons why parents should be wary. In November, he pointed out why a number of Catholic school principals fear its potential impacts for curriculum. Also in November, The Motley Monk questioned whether the NCEA had embraced the secularist educational agenda of the Common Core irrespective of what those principals fear. The Motley Monk then followed-up with a post asking whether the NCEA’s President had put the proverbial “cart before the horse” by accepting money for staff development programs to implement the Common Core in Catholic schools from the Gates Foundation which is promoting the Common Core.
The Motley Monk is gratified that others are beginning to get the message and promote it.
- The Will Skillman Fellow in Education at The Heritage Foundation, Lindsey Burt, has written a commentary concerning the Common Core appearing in The Sunshine State News. Burke Believes Florida provides a perfect example of a state where national standards will hurt the educational system, not help it. So also with greater centralization. Burke would rather greater accountability to parents and taxpayers. More important insofar as Catholic schools are concerned, Burke believes that if the Common Core standards are fully implemented, school choice will end and the “public system will continue to receive a steady stream of dollars and students, no matter how poorly it performs.”
- Over at Commonweal’s blog, Paul Moses also writes of the threats to Catholic school identity posed by the Common Core:
The problem is that if the Gates Foundation and its allies take Catholic schools along the same path where they have led public education…that will fundamentally change Catholic schools and their Catholic identity, no matter how many cues about church teachings are inserted into lesson plans. Catholic identity goes much deeper than having tidbits of the Faith inserted into lesson plans….
The great strength of Catholic schools is their faith-based belief in human dignity. Studies have quantified how this philosophy of Christian personalism leads to higher levels of faculty engagement and concern not only for what students learn, but the kind of people they become.The nature of Catholic schools is “special” and shouldn’t be something given up too easily says Moses. Instead of treating students as persons with dignity, the standards “treat students like widgets” in an assembly line.
- Over at The Catholic Thing, David G. Bonagura, Jr.—a theology professor at St. Joseph’s Seminary in New York, says that “Catholic education ceases to exist” if Catholic schools adopt the Common Core. Yes, they will continue to have uniforms, religion classes, and charge tuition, but they will have surrendered their Catholic identity. Bonagura writes:
Catholic education begins on the premise that a loving, rational God created an ordered and purposed universe that points human beings back to Him….The good news is that a number of dioceses—hopefully, the beginning of a trend—are getting the message and saying “No” to the Common Core.
In studying creation and all its features, including human beings and their works, we discover truths that shed further light on the mystery of God, the ultimate Truth….
With a “pedagogical method” grounded in the liberal arts—in which there is progression of stages from grammar to logic to rhetoric—the Common Core will upend a curriculum that supports the school’s identity.
The bishop of the Diocese of Green Bay (WI) has proscribed the Common Core. Also in Wisconsin , Common Core will not be part of educating youth in the dioceses of LaCrosse and Madison. In Michigan, the Diocese of Gaylord will not implement the Common Core. The bishops and superintendents in these dioceses are aware of the threat to Catholic identify the Common Core presents. The Superintendent of Schools for the Diocese of Gaylord, Charles Taylor, put it best when he observed:
[O]ur Catholic identity and formation remains at the heart of who we are and what we do; in essence teaching our students to recognize and pursue that which is good, holy, true and beautiful.What the Common Core would require is that the teaching of religion be just one element of the curriculum, resulting in what Taylor calls the “dilution of Catholic culture and loss of identity that has been so lamented for nearly half a century.”
Hopefully, many other bishops and superintendents will “get it” and stop the “Common Core” train dead in its tracks before it makes a train wreck of Catholic schools.
To read The Motley Monk’s posts concerning the Common Core and Catholic schools, click on the following link:
http://www.richard-jacobs-blog.com/5/post/2013/11/a-follow-up-on-the-common-core-the-ncea-responds.htmlhttp://www.richard-jacobs-blog.com/5/post/2013/11/the-ncea-and-the-common-core-who-speaks-for-catholic-schools.htmlhttp://www.richard-jacobs-blog.com/5/post/2013/11/catholic-high-school-principals-are-wary-of-the-common-core.htmlhttp://the-american-catholic.com/2013/09/05/sending-your-children-to-a-catholic-school-caveat-emptor/
To read Lindsey Burke’s op ed, click on the following link:http://www.sunshinestatenews.com/story/empty-promise-common-core
To read Paul Moses’ article, click on the following link:
https://www.commonwealmagazine.org/blog/catholic-schools-and-common-core
To read David Bonagura’s commentary, click on the following link:
http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2013/common-core-is-not-catholic-education.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebookby
To read the Bishop of the Diocese of Green Bay’s statement, click on the following link:http://www.thecompassnews.org/2013/11/common-core-standards-reference-replacement-catholic-school-standards/
To read the Bishop of the Diocese of LaCrosse’s statement, click on the following link:
http://www.madisondiocese.org/Portals/0/Schools/Curriculum%20documents/Common%20Core%20Letter%20Nov2013.pdf
To read the Diocese of Madison’s statement, click on the following link:
http://host.madison.com/news/local/education/local_schools/diocese-of-madison-rejects-common-core/article_a49d7d15-0252-511d-806f-6274d6f70e0b.html
To read Superintendent of Schools for the Diocese of Gaylor’s letter, click on the following link:
http://www.dioceseofgaylord.org/inside/superintendent%27s-statement-on-the-common-core-769/
To read The Motley Monk’s daily blog, Omnibus, click on the following link:
http://www.richard-jacobs-blog.com/omnibus.html
- See more at: http://the-american-catholic.com/2013/12/14/the-common-core-a-train-wreck-coming-for-catholic-schools/#sthash.RINhUQmm.dpuf
http://the-american-catholic.com/2013/12/14/the-common-core-a-train-wreck-coming-for-catholic-schools/
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