When is enough going to be enough? On behalf of all the parents who send their children off to school every day with the expectation that their children are entitled to a quality education, I have had enough.
On behalf of all the school-age children who walk through the doors of their school every day ready to receive a quality education, I have had enough.
On behalf of all the teachers who walk into their classroom every day with the conviction of providing children with a quality education, I have had enough.
I have had enough of the manipulative policies and mandates devised by policymakers and corporations that forced the illegitimate implementation of Common Core and imposed high-stakes standardized testing.
I have had enough of the harvesting and selling of student data and the use of highstakes test scores for purposes for which they were never intended.
I have had enough of the hidden agendas of profit-seeking corporations who have created a multibillion-dollar system of profiting off student failure and who have bullied their way into classrooms, forcing their ideas of curriculum into instruction, thus taking away the teacher’s authority to make decisions about what is instructionally appropriate or relevant.
I have had enough of the damage that Common Core and high-stakes tests are inflicting on our students, cultivating within students anxiety and a fear of failure rather than igniting a passion for lifelong learning.
I have had enough of the damage that Common Core and high-stakes tests are inflicting on our teachers, stripping teachers of their instructional authority, and minimizing teacher competency and efficiency to a single set of data points that in actuality reveal nothing about a teacher’s ability to transform a student’s life.
I have had enough of the damage that Common Core and high-stakes tests are inflicting on our curriculum, overemphasizing test prep to the point where students cannot think outside of the bubble.
I have had enough of the damage that Common Core and high-stakes tests are inflicting on our schools, diverting the appropriation of millions of taxpayer dollars to testing infrastructure at the expense of educational staff, support services, extracurricular activities and programs in foreign languages, the arts and sciences.
I have had enough of the damage Common Core and high-stakes tests are inflicting on the quality of public education as a whole, transforming the idea of education as something that expands your horizons into something that is standardized, finite and measured by the content of a standardized test.
I stand in solidarity with countless parents across the nation who feel enough is enough. I stand in solidarity with countless parents across the nation who refuse to tolerate the manipulation of the public education system.
I stand in solidarity with countless parents across the nation who refuse to have their children sold out to the highest corporate bidder. I stand in solidarity with countless parents across the nation who support, trust and value our teachers. I stand in solidarity with countless parents across the nation who refuse to compromise the quality of their children’s education.
I have had enough. Have you? Jacklyn Brown Manalapan