Rotten to the Core

I first heard about Common Core five years ago, but I knew very little about it until I saw an example of the type of test questions that fifth-grade students were expected to be able to answer. There were two math questions, which at first glance, I could not answer. I thought this odd as I have a master's degree in business administration, passed the national teachers exam with high scores and I am a member of the high IQ society, Mensa.

The Aug. 30 article in the Press shows clearly that the Common Core method of learning both math and English results in about half of the students scoring below proficient - this would equate to a D or an F. Since teachers got much better results before Common Core, it should be obvious that the problem is Common Core and not the teachers.

During the past several years, parents around the country have become not only frustrated and openly angry because of math problems, which before Common Core were easily solved, but are now absurdly laborious and at times indecipherable. Those working in the public school system at the federal level are trying to reassure parents that teaching their children this new way learning will be much better in the long run. I have become increasingly skeptical with each reassurance.

What is gained by taking a simple arithmetic problem and making it infuriatingly difficult? After giving it some thought, I have recently come to a very unpleasant conclusion. Specifically, that Common Core was never designed to help students learn math or anything else. Nor was it designed to standardize learning. I have come to the conclusion that it was specifically designed to convince parents that they are not smart enough to teach their own children.

Over the past couple of decades more and more parents have become disillusioned with public education and so have been looking for alternative methods of educating their children. Starting with private secular and religious schools, we now have an array of online schools from which to choose. Parents suddenly have an endless number of alternative methods of schooling their children and they are increasingly taking advantage of these new opportunities.

This trend has dire consequences for those in our federally controlled public education system. From administrators and bureaucrats to the political classes, the federal monopoly of education is quickly coming to an end. Although the vast majority of teachers are sincere and dedicated professionals who have spent their lives working to help the nation's children learn, there are also special interest groups that have put pressure on the public education system to be allowed to dictate and initiate changes in the curricula - groups with questionable motivations.

Over the past hundred years, as quickly as white hate groups were removed from the public education system, non-white, feminist and left-wing political groups began teaching their own brand of racial, gender and political hatred. As these new groups took power, they started teaching cross cultural classes that promoted their own racism, a new and vile form sexism, and hatred of America. Racial minorities, Feminists and Collectivists now teach that White people are guilty of past crimes and need to be punished because of their skin color - that men are innately bad and so boys must be "educated" to be more like girls, and that American Culture is evil and must be destroyed.

In light of this, we need not wonder why so many parents are looking for alternatives to the public education system. As opportunities for alternative education proliferate, today's new hate groups can see the writing on the wall. They have fought long and hard to gain control of the educational system in an effort to teach their own malicious views and so are not going to simply let their power slip away, and have therefore begun waging psychological warfare in an effort to keep control.

Since it is obvious that the technology driving these changes in education is too powerful to stop, as a last ditch effort to keep control, these groups have conjured up Common Core. To this end they have introduced a convoluted teaching structure to mask their real intentions; to convince parents that they are not qualified to be the guardians of their own children's education. The most glaring example are the absurdly convoluted Common Core math problems, which I am convinced are not directed at the students but rather are intended to intimidate parents into letting these groups keep control.

It is now possible for your children to escape their control by learning online, but if you cannot even help them with their elementary school arithmetic - these groups are demanding that you accept Common Core into your home via the Internet, so they can keep teaching your children to be ashamed of their skin color, their gender and their country.

Steve Novak is a member of the Idaho Writers League and the author of "Why Women Teachers are having Sex with Young Boys."