Beauprez targets Common Core, one school agrees
The Common Core is now in the campaign spotlight.
The curriculum has changed how teachers educate students in all subject fields.
It’s been adopted by most schools, but gubernatorial candidate Bob Beauprez said it’s not an effective teaching tool.
He feels it’s an issue of choice.
“Giving parents more of the choice on where and how their children get educated,” said Bob Beauprez, candidate for Colorado governor.
The Republican is a strong opponent of the Common Core – high-level academic goals that detail what a student should know at the end of each grade.
It’s a teaching curriculum which the nation’s schools were told to adopt.
One school that didn’t is Monument Academy.
“We embrace local control and we want to make decisions for our students at Monument Academy, what’s best for them,” said Lis Richard, Monument Academy’s principal.
She said while the Common Core started with good intentions, it didn’t end up that way.
Monument Academy never embraced it. The school board voted to avoid it, favoring their teaching models instead.
“The very people that were asked to sit on the panel that formed the standards, the group was small, and those people if you listen to them now, will tell you it was a very behind-closed doors process, and they don’t have good stories to tell,” Richards said.
Beauprez believes the problem can be solved easily.
“One signature can get us out of it, right now,” he said. “That signature is the governor. The governor refuses to sign.”
Gov. John Hickenlooper’s campaign spokesman, Eddie Stern, released the following statement: “Colorado has a tradition of doing things differently than they do in D.C., and our education standards are no exception. Before there was Common Core, Colorado legislators put party politics aside and worked together to pass legislation that created Colorado’s own standards. K-12 and Higher Ed educators came together to craft the Colorado Academic Standards, which are the academic standards used in the state today, though curriculum is still up to teachers and districts. Eight of the 10 standards we use today are the original Colorado Academic Standards and two were updated to align with the common core state standards for rigor while still including Colorado priorities. The Congressman should stop putting down the bipartisan hard work that Coloradans have done on this issue.”
Regardless of the politics, Richard is convinced her strategy is better. She cites her students, who regularly place in the top 8 percent of students statewide.
She feels Common Core just hasn’t panned out.
“The methodology is awkward for students, it’s awkward. English is very insufficient for what students need to be taught. They’ve taken out key classic literature,” she said.
