The Art of Telling Lies

My husband and I were in his truck headed to Lowe's over the weekend to purchase supplies for an outdoor art project I'm working on, when a campaign ad came on the radio. Most days, ads like this become white noise in the background of my world (especially at this time of year), but this one was talking about how, "Thom Tillis is responsible for North Carolina classroom's having no textbooks." That was just one item on a list of things he was being blamed for, but it was the one thing I knew to be an outright lie. Now, I don't really care one way or another about Thom Tillis or his politics. I don't even know enough about the man to fill up a full sheet of paper, but I do know a thing or two about education issues in North Carolina, having taught here for six years, and after finding myself on the wrong end of the political cesspit that swirls around those issues, I've made it my business to become even more informed. Anyone can easily look up certain facts about problems with education in North Carolina, i.e. teachers highly underpaid (average salary rank = 40th, according to teacherportal.com), large class sizes, lack of textbooks in classrooms, etc. What people can't easily uncover is the seedy underbelly of just what's really going on, of which the Thom Tillis ad is a perfect example.

In an attempt to improve test scores an effort was made (or more accurately, another in a long line of unsuccessful attempts) to better "standardize" curriculum, so that classrooms across the state were learning the same things (and I say test scores because improving the actual quality of education in our classrooms is NOT a priority for our legislators, no matter what side of the table they sit on, and there are stacks of credible information to support that claim). The hype about the hope was standardization of curriculum would give equal access to learning across the board for all students, especially in regards to basic concepts and thinking skills.  Enter North Carolina's adoption of the National Common Core Program. Educators across the state were informed that "it was coming, get used to the idea, and oh, by the way, the current textbooks didn't fit with the curriculum, so they're out...and budgets aren't enough to replace said textbooks, so that's out, too!" We (teachers) went to workshops, had staff meetings, grade level meetings, dug through mountains of resources that "might work" in an attempt to scurry lesson plans that reflected our thorough use of Common Core objectives, which ought to be noted, North Carolina is in the process of dumping, as quickly and quietly as possible. Like "No Child Left Behind" (which sounds GREAT, in theory), National Common Core Curriculum is another in a long line of political gimmicks that have the power to make those playing politics look like rock stars, while destroying education in our Nation one poisoned scheme at a time. Why don't we have textbooks? Because Common Core told us to throw them away! Nobody can blame all of that on Thom Tillis, no matter how good they are at spinning lies, even if he voted for the adoption of the Common Core curriculum, himself. No man, or woman, is an island. Is he good for our state? That's debatable!

*Images at asutesra.wordpress.com (student) & opinion.latintimes.com (classroom cartoon).

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