Tim Farley is home schooling his youngest child. He explained his reasoning in a letter, which was reprinted in nationally known educator Diane Ravitch's blog:
My wife and I have finally hit the breaking point. We can no longer sit by and watch the educational system that has been co opted by Bill Gates and his corporate cronies in the name of “education reform”, harm our youngest child. Jessica and I are the parents of four wonderful children (7th, 5th, 3rd grade, and kindergarten). Although we would like to homeschool all of our children, due to several factors, we will only be homeschooling our youngest, John Paul.
John Paul is a bright and energetic boy. He was born with a heart defect, and at two years old had open heart surgery. As traumatic as that experience was for my wife and me, it didn’t seem to have any long lasting impact on him. He is a little spitfire. At least he was. He no longer likes going to school. In fact he hates going to school. It is not his teacher, as one of our older children had the same teacher and had a fantastic experience. It is the developmentally inappropriate standards and the “rigorous” demands placed on 5 year old children that has changed. Kindergarten is supposed to be a time of exploratory learning and developing social skills. Unfortunately, it has become an assembly line environment of “drill and kill”. The inane assignments that lack any sort of creativity have crushed his love of school.
This is what is being pushed on children and teachers.
I have four children as well. 8th, 5th and 2nd with the youngest going into school in 2015. If Joplin does not move away from common core, I will have to home school as well.
ReplyDeleteI tend to wonder if Mr.Farley has ever spent time in his son's kindergarten class. I wonder if he has ever observed the common core in action in his son's class.
ReplyDeleteAfter seeing the method that common core utilizes with simple math, I quickly went from a common core supporter to a common core skeptic. It is ridiculous and does nothing to further education. By the way, I have a PhD in education, and I have seen nothing good with common core.
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