Mother Crusader: Parent Fights Principal Who Uses Common Core To Deny A Teacher's Request For A Holocaust Speaker

Mother Crusader: Parent Fights Principal Who Uses Common Core To Deny A Teacher's Request For A Holocaust Speaker:

Parent Fights Principal Who Uses Common Core To Deny A Teacher's Request For A Holocaust Speaker

Below is a guest blog from a dear college friend of mine. I've known for quite some time that she is passionate about Holocaust education, both speaking to students herself and also arranging to bring Holocaust survivors into schools. And I've always known that she is one tough cookie.

I was shocked when a little more than a week ago she started posting on Facebook about a principal who denied a teacher's request to have a survivor speak to 8th graders, and used the Common Core as the rationale for his frighteningly bogus decision. I was not shocked that she decided to put up a fight. I immediately asked her to consider writing up her experience as a guest blog, and she graciously accepted.

I want to thank her for her steadfast resolve in bringing this rich curricular experience to students. Without people like her, who have sincere passion for such a vitally important topic, I fear strict adherence to the Common Core standards will deprive our nation's public school students of experiences that make them not just good test takers, but caring, compassionate citizens.

Here is her story.

Guest blog by Andye Daley

My name is Andye Daley. I am a mother, an educator, past vice president of The Holocaust Education Center of the Delaware Valley Board of Directors, and on the Board of Directors of Jewish Family Services of Delaware. I am also a strong believer in Holocaust Education. I feel it is vitally important as it pertains to teaching our young middle school and high school students.

I have been weighing out my feelings on the Common Core Standards for the past few 

Meet Andy Daley

months.  I thought perhaps the standards could be beneficial to our people, but now I have seen first hand how the implementation of the Common Core is slowly taking the humanities out of our schools.

Just last week I had to push back firmly on the misguided actions of a principal. An Appoquinimink district teacher asked me to see about getting a Holocaust survivor to speak to the 8th grade student body at her school as I had done the year before. I was very excited to help. Imagine my surprise to get an email an hour later saying I should hold off on securing the speaker because she got "shot dow