He stepped in it. Big Time. That’s what U.S.Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is realizing a few days after saying some of the pushback on Common Core was coming from “white suburban moms who — all of a sudden – their child isn’t as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn’t quite as good as they thought they were.”
His remarks have set social media ablaze and even spawned the founding of a new group, Mothers Against Duncan (M.A.D.). Yesterday Valerie Strauss, education columnist at the Washington Post listed an open letter from Ali Gordon, titled “White Suburban Mom Responds to Arne Duncan.
Gordon’s comments confirm a few things I had long thought:
1. Those who developed Common Core, have no idea of the problems it is creating in the lives of students and their parents.
2. The opposition to Common Core is broad and deep and defies political categories.
3. Don’t mess with a mother’s children.
One of Gordon’s last paragraphs’ is particularly poignant.
The rest of the country is watching what we ‘suburban moms’ do now, so thanks for the shout out. One more thing you should know about me — I’m incredibly stubborn. I assure you, I won’t back down. I will not stop advocating for my children. I will not let you, or Commissioner King experiment with my child’s education because Bill Gates has lots of money to throw away. He said himself it would take a decade to see if his “education stuff” works. My kids don’t have a decade to waste on your hunches or his money.
Well said. Although we have differences on politics, we both know Common Core is not good for our kids. Welcome to the fray, Ali.
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