To the editor:

There have been many questions raised by recent discussions and editorials concerning the common core curriculum, which has appeared in many local school districts across the United States.
Unfortunately there have been few answers offered to help clear the air of the rhetorical fog. Upon further examination, “CC” shows itself to be more about socialization than education; about shaping the worldview of the next generation from a local focus to a global one. Here are a few quotes:
1934. Former Executive Secretary of the NEA (National Education Association) Willard Givens warned that “…all of us, including the ‘owners’, must be subjected to a large degree of social control…. [T]he major function of the school is the social orientation of the individual. It must seek to give him understanding of the transition to a new social order.”
1947. “The task before UNESCO… is to help the emergence of a single world culture with its own philosophy and background of ideas and with its own broad purpose.” Click on link: Julian Huxley, the first head of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) [The Global Roots of “Common Core” Education, Berit Kjos ~ May 18, 2013]
To accomplish this goal, a dialectic process is employed which unsettles the population via crisis; supported by contrived statistics “proving” that the educational sky is falling. As stated by Patrick Malley, the founding (and former) director of the Niles New Tech Academy, “He that controls the language controls the culture.” Come to think of it, was that Malley or Orwell?
Who are the architects of this new educational world? A June 7, 2013 article by Joy Pullmann entitled “Five People Wrote ‘State-Led’ Common Core,” states: “The ‘facilitators’ for the validation committee meeting were virtually impossible to deal with,” wrote James Milgram, a Stanford University professor who sat on the committee, in an email obtained by School Reform News. “The facilitators were emphatically trying to not let us act according to our charter, but simply sign or not sign a [final approval] letter when the charter said we had final say over the quality of the final [Common Core] and could revise or rewrite it if we deemed it necessary.”  This didn’t happen with Common Core.
True public education in a free society is about asking questions without fear of reprisal, removal, or reassignment by “Big Brother;” even if the questions come from the teachers themselves.  Remember, moms and dads, you are all homeschoolers; regardless of where your children happen to attend!

Jeff Whittaker
Niles