Peters parents get lesson in Common Core
Katherine Reitz of Peters Township is the mother of a fourth grader and a fifth grader. She was also a math major at Duke University, but she couldn’t help her children with their math homework.
“My daughter was in tears and very upset,” said Reitz, part of a group of 40 or so township residents who gathered Feb. 19 at St. David’s Episcopal Church in Venetia to learn more about the new Pennsylvania Common Core Standards.
“This is a very big thing that affects the education of all children,” she said.
Common core is a state-led effort coordinated by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices and the Council of Chief State School Officers to have a framework to prepare children for college and the workforce. The initiative sets state-specific standards in English-language arts and mathematics. Many school districts throughout the country and Pennsylvania are implementing, or have adopted Common Core, including the Peters Township School District.
Common Core, which has been adopted by 43 states, is a set of clear college and career-ready standards for kindergarten through the 12th grade, according to www.corestandards.org. The standards are designed to build upon critical thinking and how to best prepare students for success in college, a career, and life, the website said.
Peg Luksik, a state educator and former Republican gubernatorial candidate – and opponent of Common Core – was the event’s featured speaker. She said it’s impossible to have a common learning goal for all children because each child is an individual who learns at his own pace.
“There is no role for the federal government in education,” said Luksik, who has taught students from preschoolers to college age during her career as an educator. “The government got involved because they gave money.”
Luksik, the chairman of Founded on Truth, a Johnstown-based conservative organization founded on religious principles, is also a nationally recognized expert on the issues surrounding Common Core.
“The ability to learn is as unique as someone’s blood pressure,” she said. “Common Core is government-mandated learning.”
Luksik said because Common Core has one set of standards for students in various grades, gifted children tend to get left behind.
“You can set the proficient standard at whatever you want,” she said. “Children at the top get left behind because they meet the standard. This is lowering the level of success for students.”
In 2010, for example, 60 percent of all college students needed some sort of remedial math course, she said.
Luksik said no early childhood experts were involved in the creation of Common Core and there were no beta tests of the program.
“They were plopped right in the school,” she said.
“If the feds controlled the standards (of education), they control what is going on in the local classroom,” she added.
Organizers of the event handed out information encouraging attendees to educate themselves on Common Core and contact local politicians about their concerns. They also suggested that parents opt their children out of the Pennsylvania System of School Assessment and Keystone exams. This is the first year both tests are aligned with Common Core.