In today’s world, we see this company or that company claiming they are the best in their industry. The spirit of competition makes companies strive for excellence in their respective fields to bring forth the customers to drive up their profits. But what happens to that “creative spirit” that drive to excel above the other companies when our schools are met with “Nationalized Standards?”
Lindsey Burke, Heritage.org has been featured in the Scholar’s Notebook, http://mnedreform.blogspot.com/ breaking down the differences between Our Schools with local and parental control vs. the Common Core Standards.
If all schools generate the “same” models of students, then who will be those who excel and can lead these companies to greatness in the future? Where will our inventors, our leaders in medicine, politics, government, and communities come? When nationalized education infiltrates our schools our local control is side stepped and we lose our voice to stop the collectivism and to help make our school shine with its wonderful features and all it has to offer those who are looking for a school to stand out amongst the crowd.
When there is no competition, there is no creativeness, no drive to improve what is already in place, no real learning. After all, if you know what the outcomes are going to be, then there is no trial and error, which is one of the best tools of learning. If you never fail, you never learn how to not do that again. You lose your creative edge, drive to better yourself. In a sense, we give up on ourselves because nothing more is expected of us.
When you compare apples to poison ivy, you have vast differences. Apples will nourish you, feed your body and mind. While poison ivy will make you itch, irritate your skin, and just make you feel miserable. This goes along with apples being the individualism with schools and being able to have a “say so” in your child’s education. Common Core or the collectivism is the poison ivy, bringing about frustration with everyone involved and having very little you can do about it. The spirit of individuality fades, and all we are left with is worker bees.
Minnesota Advocates and Champions for Children 
While Minnesota’s state math standards may have met the Race to the Top Grant. It will not meet the Common Core Standards when it comes to the college entrance tests like ACT/SAT which are being rewritten to align with Common Core. If our children don’t learn the Common Core way, they will not pass these tests. Leaving parents, local schools and states with our hands tied, no choice.
MN wrote their own college readiness program for math that sufficed for the Race to the Top funding. Each state had the option to write their own college readiness standards, and Virgina chose to write their own vs adopt Common Core. I am not saying there aren’t concerns, but each state was given the option of “individualism”