Peter Greene, a teacher/writer who writes both a highly regarded blog Curmudgucation and regular column for Forbes.com, had this very good post back in 2021. When is the last time that you heard about Common Core being the downfall of our public schools? Probably when it was a way to gaslight issues to use public schools as a … Continue reading From Common Core To CRT To Woke Politics: Years Of Educational Reform Straw Men In North Carolina
Peter Greene, a teacher/writer who writes both a highly regarded blog Curmudgucation and regular column for Forbes.com, had this very good post back in 2021.
When is the last time that you heard about Common Core being the downfall of our public schools?
Probably when it was a way to gaslight issues to use public schools as a scapegoat.
It was not long ago that we had a state superintendent who used that very boogeyman to help his political career. Remember this?
Mark Johnson ran on a platform that year to rid the state of Common Core.
Remember this as well? The “Deep State” diversion.
Mark Johnson wasn’t the only one to hang a hat on this.
Then we had the rise of “Cancel Culture.”
Then there was the outrage over CRT – Critical Race Theory – which morphed into the bigger nebulous issue of “woke politics” being taught in our schools.
All of these affect perceptions of schools. If you go back to 1983 and the first Reagan administration, a report appeared that many agree started the craze in educational reform through the means of constructing straw man fallacies to control the public narrative on how schools are perceived.
Then came the rise of vouchers and charter schools.
Then we got No Child Left Behind which began a heavy diet of standardized tests.
Race to the Top did not help. No political party is immune from hurting public education.
As these “reforms” and calls to “rid” our schools of “extreme” ideas, curriculum has become more prescribed, more scripted, and more controlled by the very people who are crying for more reform. The screams to remove common core, defeat the deep state, stop cancel culture, stop a theory (that was developed decades ago and taught in law schools) from being “used” in public schools, and combat “woke politics” in the classrooms come as teachers are more than ever bound by mandates and policies.
No wonder we can’t fill positions in our schools.
