Too many people on both sides of the political spectrum are giving Donald Trump, Jr. a rave review for his flawed speech last night at the RNC. He came off as an oxymoron when he claimed to have the solution for this nation’s education problems. What he was talking about when he claimed, “Growing up, my siblings and I we were truly fortunate to have choices and options that others don’t have. We want all Americans to have those same opportunities...” is the privatization of our nation’s education system. From the know nothing lips of his father trumpeting the first order of business being to replace the Common Core, the family has no clue about what the real issues in education are and why the Common Core is actually a positive inroad in getting some uniformity to the way students learn across most of our 50 states.
I imagine that Donald Trump and his namesake son have no idea why they are against the Common Core, other than it’s a Republican whipping boy and red meat for the base to dismantle anything that came from the Federal Government. What do I know about the education system and the Common Core? I am a High School English Teacher in the NYC Public School System. The Common Core makes for a curriculum that will be familiar to students who travel from one state to another where the Common Core is the law of those states. Imagine moving from one state to another without the Common Core and how disconcerting it will be for students to adapt to yet another education idea that has totally different rules of engagement to just interact with the curriculum.
The Common Core will get better over time as those exposed to its basic principles from early childhood grades spend their entire education years under the same guidelines to help them understand the process of learning. The rollout was not optimal, but the core elements of the system are truly some of the best ideas to interface with curriculum in all my years of teaching (13).
I have seen one idea after another been implemented for a few years and then disposed of to the heap of failed ideas because change takes time and a system must be given the chance to have the youngest learners learn through the entire gamut of what it has to offer (from first grade through high school). Don’t expect brilliant results from those who had to switch to the Common Core after elementary school, where they learned one way and had to change to a new system.
I happen to be blessed in teaching a class called Musical Poetry, which is in essence the History of Rock and Roll. The Common Core curriculum was developed by The Rock and Roll Forever Foundation under the supervision of none other than Little Steven (Van Zandt) who put it all together with his team @ teachrock.org — a website where I am even featured as one of his 11 Pilot Teachers for this program. As an example of the details of what the Common Core brings to the table with each lesson, here is a sample from the lesson on ‘The American Dream’, stating the Aim, Do Now, Common Core Standards and the Objectives of the lesson —
Aim:What is the American Dream and how did Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash personify its ideals?
Do Now: What do you think of when you hear the term ‘The American Dream’?
CCSS Reading 2: Determine central ideas or themes of a text and analyze their development; summarize the key supporting details and ideas.
CCSS Reading 4: Interpret words and phrases as they are used in a text, including determining technical, connotative, and figurative meanings, and analyze how specific word choices shape meaning or tone.
CCSS Reading 5: Analyze how two or more texts address similar themes or topics in order to build knowledge or to compare the approaches the authors take.
CCSS Writing 3: Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using effective technique, well-chosen details, and well-structured event sequences.
CCSS Writing 7: Conduct short as well as more sustained research projects based on focused questions, demonstrating understanding of the subject under investigation.
CCSS Speaking and Listening 1: Prepare for and participate effectively in a range of conversations and collaborations with diverse partners, building on others’ ideas and expressing their own clearly and persuasively.
CCSS Speaking and Listening 2: Integrate and evaluate information presented in diverse media and formats, including visually, quantitatively, and orally.
Objective: Upon completion of this lesson, students will –
Know (knowledge):
- How authors Horatio Alger, Jr. and John Steinbeck interpreted the American Dream through their fiction
- How Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash exemplified elements of the American Dream throughout their successful musical careers
- How Graceland became a geographical and allegorical symbol for Elvis Presley’s rags-to-riches story
Be able to (skills):
- Draw thematic comparisons between the works of Horatio Alger, Jr. and John Steinbeck
- Discuss the connection between the American Dream and Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash’s cultural impact
Common Core: Students will work in groups to develop a sophisticated understanding of the concept of the American Dream by interpreting evidence gathered by an investigation of literary texts, songs, videos, album covers, and essays connected to the lives of Elvis Presley and Johnny Cash (CCSS Reading 2; CCSS Reading 5; CCSS Speaking and Listening 1; Speaking and Listening 2)
I can’t imagine any reasonable, well-intentioned education reformer having a problem with the stated CC Standards or Objectives of this lesson. It should be noted that these ‘lessons’ from the website are not designed to be conducted in one day, but rather over the course of several days and, in some cases, even a week, depending on the various tasks involved in the body of the lessons.
As you can tell, this class is not a free pass for students to simply listen to music without any definable outcome. It has some of the richest curriculum in terms of digging deeper into the subject and examining the societal climate of the times that influenced the music of the period. For example, one of the opening lessons is taking a virtual road trip to Mississippi to understand the roots of Rock and Roll, which began with Black musicians singing the blues, whether during or after picking cotton. It describes the lives of sharecroppers and how, even though slavery was no longer permitted, Blacks were indentured to landowners due to the arrangements that continued to place them in a servitude that they could not escape from as the consequence of their existence.
For the Trump family to believe that they have the answers of how to improve education by decentralizing it, only to sell-out to corporate interests that wish to privatize public education is the most sinister of bait and switches possible. I imagine Donald Trump, Jr. already has the corporate elite ready to takeover and give the opportunity of private education to those that can afford it (think charter schools, run for profit with teachers that are not even teaching in their license area, and in some cases without Master’s Degrees, which I am OK with, as I have been teaching quite effectively without mine)!
The problem is the results of charter schools are based on cherry picking their students, leaving behind English Second Language Learners (or ENL — English New Language learners as they are now called) and children with special needs. I see it in the school I teach at where over 1/3 of the student population falls into that category. Statistically, their test results bring down the entire school’s performance ratings, in most cases, and that’s why, as with the goal to privatize the U.S. Postal Service (USPS), they will syphon off the profitable delivery regions to private companies and leave it up to the USPS to service the rest of the rural country that cannot be delivered to at a profit. That’s exactly what will happen with privatized education — those students with the greatest needs will be left behind and face a lifetime based on an inferior public education, as the funds that used to be available are diverted to private schools. Wake up America! The dream is about to become a nightmare under President Donald Trump and his family of privileged interlopers!