Michelle Malkin: School Choice and Common Core are Mortal Enemies

EndCommonCore_LogoA couple of weeks ago, conservative activist and author Michelle Malkin recounted the experiences of her and her husband in pursuing the best possible education for their children, and how Common Core is a force that acts in opposition to their goal.  Some key excerpts:

Every family in America deserves maximized, customized choices in education.  It is the ultimate key to closing that “income inequality” gap the politicos are always gabbling about.  Yet, the White House and Democrats beholden to public school unions and their money are the ones blocking the school choice door.

[snip]

Family participation is not an afterthought. It’s the engine that drives everything.  The dedicated parents, grandparents, foster parents, and legal guardians I’ve met in the charter school movement and homeschooling community see themselves as their children’s primary educational providers.  Not the U.S. Department of Education.  Not the White House.  Not GOP politicians cashing in on top-down “education reform.”

Derek Anderson is the principal of Ridgeview Classical Schools in Fort Collins, Colorado, where Malkin sends her two kids to school.  Malkin continues:

PARCC is the behemoth, federally funded testing consortium (the Partnership for Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers) that raked in $186 million through President Obama’s Race to the Top program to develop nationalized tests “aligned” to the top-down Common Core program.  [Principal Derek] Anderson and informed administrators, educators, and parents like him understand: “PARCC is truly the enforcement mechanism that will coerce schools into adopting the Common Core curriculum.  We cannot do this.  It is entirely against the mission and philosophy of our school.”  It is, in short, sabotage.  Anderson calls it an “almost existential dilemma.  Our mission and philosophy are irreconcilable with Common Core’s.”

Read the whole article, HERE.