There’s so much at stake in this election that I refuse to vote for the lessor of two evils. When I sat down to go over the California Statewide Direct Primary ballot information, my goal was to research every candidate to discover where they stood regarding President Obama’s Common Core Standards.
But first, I decided to see where the California Teacher’s Associations stood on this issue and was shocked when I discovered this page on the CTA Website about the Common Core Standards.
Just in case CTA takes the page down or edits it after this post appears on my Blog and/or my snail mail letter arrives, I’ve taken snapshots of it. I also wrote and sent snail mail letters to Dean E. Vogel, the president of CTA and a copy to Tom Torlakson, the California State Superintendent of Public Education, who’s up for reelection and just lost my vote. Visit the CTA page that supports Obama’s national (and unconstitutional) Common Core Standards (click on link in previous paragraph), scroll to the bottom and you’ll discover the embedded YouTube video that caused Torlakson to lose my vote. The rest of this post is the paper letter that I mailed the old fashioned way.
Dear Mr. Vogel, CTA President:
Regarding President Obama’s Common Core Standards:
From 1975 – 2005, I was a public school teacher in Rowland Unified School District, and I belonged to ARE/CTA for most of those thirty years. Often working 60 to 100 hours a week as a classroom teacher, there were times that I also walked the picket lines during contract negotiations and volunteered as an ARE Nogales High School rep.
Just because I’ve been retired from teaching since 2005 doesn’t mean I don’t keep up with current events in public education, and this morning I decided to see where CTA stood regarding President Obama’s Common Core Standards and was extremely disappointed to discover that CTA was selling its teachers out.
When I visited CTA’s Website and read the page about the Common Core State Standards, I thought that Bill Gates or Arne Duncan had offered so much money to CTA that the California Teachers Association decided to stab its own members in the back.
Do you have any idea what’s going on nationally regarding Obama’s Common Core Standards and the Machiavellian methods of Secretary of Education Arne Duncan as he promotes private sector (and often corrupt) non-union, for-profit Charter schools over public schools and encourages states to use the results of the Common Core Standardized test that students take to judge if public school teachers are bad or good—then fire teachers deemed bad and close public schools all based on the results of test scores.
I urge CTA to stop supporting President Obama’s Common Core Standards and return to supporting the standards that California started developing in 1999 taking the time to implement and adjust as needed with many stakeholders (teachers, parents and students) involved in the process.
In addition, I suggest you read Diane Ravitch’s “Reign of Error” and follow her Blog at http://dianeravitch.net/ to become educated about the travesty of President Obama’s Common Core Standards.
Note: Seeing the video of Tom Torlakson supporting the Common Core Standards on CTA’s website caused him to lose my vote for the office of California State Superintendent of Public Education. I refuse to vote for anyone from the GOP and will not vote for any Democratic candidates unless they clearly come out in support of public school teachers and against President Obama’s Common Core Standards. The public schools are not broken and the only reform needed is for the federal government to butt out of the public schools and to let public school teachers decide what needs reforming with the help of parents and students. That’s what they do in Finland, and that’s what we should do in the US—treat teachers with respect and trust!
In fact, because CTA publicly supports the national Common Core Standards, I can’t trust any candidate CTA endorses, and I may end up with no one to vote for. Why vote if the United States is being sold to a handful of greedy billionaire oligarchs and corporate CEO plutocrats.
cc: Tom Torlakson, California State Superintendent of Public Education
_______________________
Lloyd Lofthouse is a former U.S. Marine and Vietnam Veteran,
who taught in the public schools for thirty years (1975 – 2005).
His first novel was the award winning historical fiction My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. His second novel was the award winning thriller Running with the Enemy. His short story A Night at the “Well of Purity” was named a finalist of the 2007 Chicago Literary Awards. His wife is Anchee Min, the international, best-selling, award winning author of Red Azalea, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year (1992).
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