We Need More School Board Candidates Like This

By Shane Vander Hart

Glenna Jehn, a candidate for the Ft. Wayne (IN) Community School Board wrote an op/ed in the Ft. Wayne Journal Gazette entitled “State must reject federal takeover of schools.”

She writes:

As a FWCS school board candidate, I am listening with great interest to the presidential debates. When President Obama touts “education reform in 46 states” as one of his accomplishments, most people haven’t yet realized that Obama is referring to the new Common Core State Standards being implemented nationwide, including in Indiana.

Surprisingly, Gov. Mitch Daniels and Superintendent of Public Instruction Tony Bennett helped wheel this Trojan horse into our midst.

Originally, Common Core was supposed to raise academic standards and make what is taught in each grade level more uniform. Unfortunately, the special interests in Washington, D.C., could not resist a huge power grab. Funding incentives like the Race to the Top grants, which requires the adoption of the Common Core Standards in order to receive the funds, lead to school corporations like FWCS and states scrambling for the additional money and willingly embracing the new requirements.

Unfortunately, they never took time to consider what sort of standards they agreed to adopt; no longer in a Race to the Top and higher standards, we are in a race to mediocrity. We are voluntarily relinquishing Indiana’s superior, acclaimed standards for those that are inferior to our current standards in math and language arts.

Be sure to read the rest.  We need more school board candidates like Jehn.  Great piece!

Originally posted at Truth In American Education