Maybe Common Core isn’t the problem. Maybe it’s us.

A couple days ago I wrote this post about my concerns regarding sending my daughter off to kindergarten this year.

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking since then.

I am not necessarily anti-Common Core.

I understand the need to develop problem solving strategies.

We all certainly encounter problem after problem after problem over the course of our lives.

I also understand that the standards are meant to ensure that students in weaker school districts are being taught the same thing as students in the stronger school districts.

According to the Core Standards website, http://www.corestandards.org/,

State education chiefs and governors in 48 states came together to develop the Common Core, a set of clear college- and career-ready standards for kindergarten through 12th grade in English language arts/literacy and mathematics. Today, 43 states have voluntarily adopted and are working to implement the standards, which are designed to ensure that students graduating from high school are prepared to take credit bearing introductory courses in two- or four-year college programs or enter the workforce.

Okay.

Here’s my issue.

A score on a test means nothing.

Twenty-five years ago, I took the SATs.

I know the SATs are a little different now, but back then, the test had a verbal and a math component.

The highest you could get on each was an 800, with a combined total possible score of 1600.

So the first time I took that test, my verbal score was a 500.

Not great.

My mother, concerned that I wouldn’t get into a decent college because of that 500, enrolled me in one of those increase your SAT score classes.

I took the course.

And then I retook the SATs.

And the second time around, I got a 490 on the verbal section.

My score got worse.

Now I’m not claiming to be Emily Bronte or Jane Austen.

But I’m a decent writer.

I can tell a good story.

Thank goodness I didn’t let that SAT score determine the course of my life.

Because according to that score, I should have stayed very far away from anything having to do with words.

That SAT score is a load of crap.

If you want to be prepared to succeed in college or in a job, you don’t need to get a certain score on a test.

You need to know how to work.

Hard.

You need to know that sometimes life isn’t fair.

You need to be held accountable for your actions.

Or lack of them.

Schools are pumping out a bunch of,

pardon my French,

pussies.

I have spent this whole summer looking at fucking pictures of my friends at their beach houses and on vacation in North Carolina and Cape Cod.

I have not been on a vacation in three years.

If I were in elementary school, do you know what would happen?

My mom would go in to school and complain.

And rather than someone telling her to suck it up,

the school would take action.

And tell everyone on Facebook that they are no longer allowed to post pictures of their vacations.

In fact, the school would tell everyone that they are no longer even allowed to go on vacation.

Anywhere.

Ever.

Unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way.

We blame the legislators for the decline of our public schools.

But I think a lot of it has to do with parents.

Parents who are unwilling to teach their children the realities of life.

Parents who don’t say no to their kids.

Parents who don’t hold their children accountable.

Parents who don’t want to deal with being parents.

Parents who don’t want to take a look at where they may be failing their kids.

It’s turned into a big, never-ending round of  the Blame Game.

If I am going to go on vacation again someday, I will need to work my ass off to find a way to afford it.

It’s that simple.

And I may never be able to afford a vacation again.

And that would suck.

But sometimes life sucks.

Life does not give you unlimited do-overs.

The middle school in our school district allows any student who scores below a 70 on any test to retake it.

Where in life can you redo every single test that you are faced with if you fail it the first time around?

I would love to move to that town.

And when did homework and class participation start counting as much toward a final grade as passing an actual test?

Wouldn’t that be nice in the real world?

So rather than hold our kids accountable and give them a dose of reality,  we send them to school, and the school sends them the message that everything is the same and that life is full of second and third and fourth chances.

And then when our kids don’t do well on a test, rather than teach them an invaluable lesson, parents charge into the school.

They demand a grade be changed.

Rather than demand from their children that their work habits change.

And now the report cards aren’t even an accurate depiction, in many cases, of our children’s achievement.

They’ve been watered down with lowered expectations and second chances and homework and class participation percentages.

The schools are no longer teaching kids how to deal with reality, but instead how to take a test.

All. Day. Long.

And rather than starting gradually, and introducing at developmentally appropriate levels and for developmentally appropriate amounts of time a curriculum that will teach children the skills they will need to succeed in life,

they turn five and,

BAM!

They are slammed with curriculum.

Kindergarten used to be a place to help children learn how to socialize and prepare for school.

It was preschool.

Now it’s full-on school.

And now we have to send our three-year-olds to preschool in order to prepare for what used to be preschool.

We are essentially stripping our children of large parts of their childhood, where they should have the opportunity to play and be creative and blow off steam because we don’t want to deal with the inconveniences of being parents later on down the road.

And this is why I am hesitant to send my daughter to elementary school.

Because I’m sending her into an artificial environment that is claiming to be preparing her for reality.

My concerns are much the same as they will be in eleven or twelve years when she gets her license.

It’s not so much her I’m worried about,

but all those other idiots on the road with her.

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