Connecticut Teacher Does Not Want Common Core; Weingarten Refuses to Validate the Sentiment
On January 17, 2014, veteran Connecticut teacher Elizabeth Natale wrote in theCourant about her disillusion with the pressures of corporate reform upon her West Hartford, middle-school classroom.
In her article, Natale makes it clear that the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) are part of that disillusion– not only the CCSS assessments– but CCSS itself:
When I started teaching, I learned that dealing with demanding college presidents and cantankerous newspaper editors was nothing. While those jobs allowed me time to drink tea and read the newspaper, teaching deprived me of an opportunity to use the restroom. And when I did, I was often the Pied Piper, followed by children intent on speaking with me through the bathroom door.
I loved it!
Unfortunately, government attempts to improve education are stripping the joy out of teaching and doing nothing to help children. The Common Core standards require teachers to march lockstep in arming students with “21st-century skills.” In English, emphasis on technology and nonfiction reading makes it more important for students to prepare an electronic presentation on how to make a paper airplane than to learn about moral dilemmas from Natalie Babbitt’s beloved novel “Tuck Everlasting.” [Emphasis added.]
Natale is clear in her position that CCSS is part of a package of reforms that needs to