Twelfth Grader Schools School Board over Common Core National Standards

Earlier this month a Farragut High School senior, Ethan Young, explained to the Knox County, Tennessee, school board why he believes the local school district should dump Common Core national standards:

The president essentially bribed states into implementation via ‘Race to the Top,’ offering $4.35 billion taxpayer dollars to participating states, $500 million of which went to Tennessee…And much like No Child Left Behind, the program promises national testing and a one-size-fits-all education, because hey, it worked so well the first time.

Young went on to explain (rightly) that the “voluntary, state-led” standards were actually “contrived by an insular group of testing executives with only two academic content specialists” (beginning at 24 seconds). He added that far from being “rigorous,” Common Core standards are at best just different, crafted for “an industrial model school” (beginning at 1 minute). In reality, experts note that the Common Core standards are about in the middle of the pack compared to states’ previous content standards–yet they’re twice as expensive.

Thankfully, this young man is standing up for something better by standing up to the government schooling establishment.