Why Voters Should Vote for Me for District 3 of the Guilford County Board of Education (Part 2) and What I Will Do If I Am Elected (Part 2)- Just a Hint, I Am Not One To Give Up

It's time for my second installment of "Why Voters Should Vote for Me for District 3 of the Guilford County Board of Education."  This installment also includes another installment of "What I Will Do If I Am Elected."

Campaign season is picking up and I am spending a lot of time speaking on various panels and at forums.  One thing that I have heard at these events from other speakers is that as a School Board we will not have control over certain things related to education so we just have to live with the decisions that are made with respect to those things.  This "Give Up" and "Not Our Responsibility" attitude drives me crazy.  I want to make it clear that I am not naive on this topic.  Trust me, I understand that local school boards do not get to make all decisions that relate to the education system that the local school board is responsible for.  But, I also understand that local school boards do have the ability to lobby and to persuade those who are making the other decisions in order to make sure the right decisions are made. 

I want to provide an example of the point that I am trying to make.  One issue that I hear a lot about as not being a local issue is Common Core.  For those who may not know what Common Core is, it is the set of educational standards that have been adopted in many states, including North Carolina. Simply put, these standards govern how our teachers teach and what our students study because the students have to meet the standards in order to advance.  According to most research on the point that I have seen, these standards were developed in order to teach students the skills and knowledge that they needed to be successful in post-secondary education.  There are many issues with these standards including, among other things, (i) the fact that they require our school system to collect an incredible amount of data on our children that our school system really has no business having, (ii) the fact that the standards are designed with a "one size fits all" scheme when children all really learn in their own unique ways at their own unique paces so that they can move on to their own unique place in life which may or may not involve post-secondary education, (iii) the fact that the standards were designed at a national level with a very limited amount of input on the state level and pretty much no input on the local level. There are many many more issues with Common Core but Common Core but I will move on.  However, I will say that when taken all together, these issues show that Common Core has turned out to be a blight on our state and local educational system.  

As an aside, I read an article that highlights this Common Core standard for kindergarten:

“Compose and decompose numbers from 11 to 19 into ten ones and some further ones, e.g., by using objects or drawings, and record each composition or decomposition by a drawing or equation (such as 18 = 10 + 8); understand that these numbers are composed of ten ones and one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, or nine ones.”

I'm not quite sure I know what the means (though I can figure it out), so I can't fathom how my five year old who will be in kindergarten next year is supposed to understand what this means. Keep in mind also, this is for kindergarten.  If you want a good laugh, just read the FAQ put out by the North Carolina State Department of Instruction here.  Pay close attention to the question about "Opting Out," it shows what the North Carolina State Department of Instruction really thinks about parents.

Getting back to the point, how do we get rid of Common Core.  Well, as I said earlier, the Common Core standards were adopted on a state level, so it is not feasible to believe that a local school board, such as the Guilford County Board of Education, could just say "We are not going to follow Common Core anymore." But, that does not mean that the Guilford County Board of Education can't do anything about it. What could the Board do and what will it do if I am elected?  As a Board, we will make sure that our voice of opposition is heard to Common Core. We will exude all the influence we have with the General Assembly to get it to do all it can to get the State Board of Education to reverse its footing on Common Core.  I have no doubt that the members of the General Assembly will be with us on this front as they took steps last summer to get the ball rolling.  But, we will make sure the ball continues to roll and rolls right through the State Board of Education. We will form partnerships with our County Commissioners and other local school boards in this state and other county commissions to make our voice demanding change louder so that the State Board of Education will here us as one.  We will do what we can to encourage our parents to become vocal and demand that our kids get better than what Common Core provides. After all, how can our State Board of Education feel comfortable in locking the parents of our students out of the process.  I know I certainly will not allow that to happen on a local level if I am elected.

Hopefully we will have a new State Superintendent of Education who will partner with us and other local school boards to develop standards that work on our local levels.  If we aren't so lucky to have a new State Superintendent, with what I hope will be a strong coalition we will demand that the current State Superintendent reverse her position even if it means losing her membership in her precious trade group that owns the copyright over the common core standards.  

What won't we do if I get elected? We will not sit here and say it is an issue decided on the State level and agree that we just have to live with it.  Again, simply put, that tact is not good enough for my kids and it is not good enough for any of the other kids in Guilford County Schools. 

This is getting long so I will take it back to why you should vote for me. It's really easy. I do not take no for an answer easily. Giving up is not an option when it comes to our kids. Trust me, you will not see a give up attitude from me.  After all, when I got involved a couple of years ago with the Autism Insurance movement in North Carolina I was told I was wasting my time.  I was told change would never happen because Blue Cross wielded so much power and did not want it to happen.  I didn't give up and I, along with lots of other dedicated advocates in North Carolina, continued to fight for change. Fast forward to this summer when it appeared change was coming on the Autism Insurance front but that the change was not all good as some "autism groups" had agreed to language that was not good enough for our kids. Again, I was told that because those groups had agreed to the language that we were not going to get it to change. Again, I didn't take no for an answer. Instead, I worked with advocates and organized parents to make sure our voices were heard.  How did it turn out? Not perfectly, but we now have an Autism Insurance Bill signed into law in North Carolina and that bill is better than what the "autism groups" originally agreed to. How did we get the better bill? How do we By not giving up!