DES MOINES, Iowa – Cincinnati.com had a great article called “Homeschoolers take on Common Core reforms.” First they are concerned about the trickle down effect this may have in the future. (Full disclosure: my wife and I homeschool.)
Initially, Common Core will have little impact on home-schooled students.
But in a few years, when home-schooled teens walk side-by-side with public high school students into ACT and SAT college examination rooms, they may be at a distinct disadvantage for not having studied a Common Core curricula.
“Common Core standards drive curriculum, curriculum drives testing … Children will be taught to the test and it affects us home-schoolers because our children have to take those same college entrance exams as everybody else,” said (Lesley) Hodge as she joined thousands of area families at a recent home schooling convention in downtown Cincinnati.
“Everything will boil down to what (home-schoolers) provide on a test and then that will determine where they go to college and I believe that … (at) some point, some committee will say, ‘Well, your child shouldn’t have this career because your child is not qualified.’ “
But the following excerpt gets to the heart of the issue my mind – who knows what’s best for a child’s education? Educrats or parents?
But Tom Steffen, a home schooling father of seven children in Springfield Township, said the premise of imposing Common Core – not its specifics – is what most raises the ire of many home-schoolers.
“For home-schoolers, one of our foundational issues for education is freedom. If we are free, what do we need government bureaucracies telling us what to teach?” said Steffen, who also attended the home-schooler convention.
“Even though (Common Core) may not initially impact us, it concedes ground to the principal (sic) that federal or state level bureaucrats know better than we as parents do. So we’re obviously not going to be friendly to that,” he said.
Authored by Shane Vander Hart
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