Opposition to Common Core Goes Way Back . . . to 1926!!!

I stumbled upon this gem.  It is the Congressional testimony of Dr. J. Gresham Machen of the Princeton Theological Seminary with regard to the proposed creation of a federal Department of Education.  This testimony was given way back in 1926, but some of his statements could very easily apply to today's Common Core State Standards.  (Interestingly, a cabinet-level Department of Education was not created until 1979.)

If you don't have the patience to read the entire testimony (which you should), I have extracted some highlights below:

"The department of education, according to that bill, is to promote uniformity in education. That uniformity in education under central control it seems to me is the worst fate into which any country can fall. That purpose I think is implicit also in the other form of the bill, and it is because that is the very purpose of the bill that I am opposed to it." (emphasis added)

"It is perfectly clear of course, that if any such principle of Federal aid in education is established, the individual liberty of the States is gone, because I think we can lay it down as a general rule, with which everyone who has examined the course of education recently will agree, that money given for education, no matter what people say, always has a string tied to it. That appears in gifts of money by private foundations, and it appears far more, of course, when the gift comes from the Federal Government, which has already been encroaching to such an extent upon the powers of the States. But this bill establishing a Federal department of education, which has in it the principle of Federal aid, is a step and a very decisive step in exactly the same direction, and it is for that reason that we think it is to be opposed." (emphasis added)

"It is to be opposed, we think, because it represents a tendency which is no new thing, but has been in the world for at least 2,300 years, which seems to be opposed to the whole principle of liberty for which our country stands. It is the notion that education is an affair essentially of the State; that the children of the State must be educated for the benefit of the State; that idiosyncrasies should be avoided, and the State should devise that method of education which will best promote the welfare of the State." (emphasis added)

"The principle of this bill, and the principle of all the advocates of it, is that standardization in education is a good thing. I do not think a person can read the literature of advocates of measures of this sort without seeing that that is taken almost without argument as a matter of course, that standardization in education is a good thing. Now, I am perfectly ready to admit that standardization in some spheres is a good thing. It is a good thing in the making of Ford cars; but just because it is a good thing in the making of Ford cars it is a bad thing in the making of human beings, for the reason that a Ford car is a machine and a human being is a person. But a great many educators today deny the distinction between the two, and that is the gist of the whole matter." (emphasis added)

"I do not believe that the personal, free, individual character of education can be preserved when you have a Federal department laying down standards of education which become more or less mandatory to the whole country." (emphasis added)

"I believe that in the sphere of the mind we should have absolutely unlimited competition."

Next Minooka 201 School Board Meeting

The next meeting of the Minooka CCSD 201 school board is Wednesday, February 26, 2014. The Committee of the Whole Meeting starts at 6:00 p.m. in the board room (the old library) at the Minooka Primary Center located at 305 Church Street in Minooka. The Committee of the Whole Meeting will be followed by the regular Board Meeting at 7 p.m. Both meetings are open to the public, and everyone is encouraged to attend. You can find the agenda for each of the meetings here.