To Those Who Ran Against Common Core, Thank You!

In Honor of Kelly LorBeer, Kathy Harvey, Derek Hankerson.

To Those Who Ran Against Common Core, Thank You!

To those who ran against common core, I want to thank you. You put yourselves on the line for our kids, my kids and other people’s kids, and for that, I will be forever grateful. I sincerely hope that you will continue to seek leadership positions in our community because you proven yourself to be true leaders. We hear of people who say they “served” the community for many years, yet somehow the community becomes poorer while they become richer. It took courage to run against those in power and your courage and vision will be remembered. Be assured, if you require assistance for whatever reason, I and many others I know, will stand with you in solidarity. You have made many friends, earned a lot of respect but most importantly you changed a lot of minds. Allow me to explain how you’re running, against the new educational system, referred to as common core and for the rights of parents, has changed the landscape in our community.

One of the most obvious successes of your candidacy was to simply let people know that Florida is still under the common core standards. The official narrative from the Florida Department of Education was that the standards in our school this year were not common core, but were Florida’s own standards. Parents seeing their children’s pack packs filled with common core aligned textbooks were probably confused. You’re speaking out against common core made it clear that we are still in common core. A funny thing happens when a people are lied to, they tend to be critical of the object of that lie, which in this case is common core. This set the stage for an overall distrust of common core. It also prompted many to look into common core on their own, which could only lead to even more distrust. By opposing common core you were also alerting parents of its continued existence. This was an essential step in removing it and one which you accomplished by running for office

You also sent a powerful message and awakened a tremendous number of people, by what you did. The support you received, in the short time you had, was surprising. If you consider that your opponents had no opposition the last time they ran for reelection, your growing popularity should cause the incumbents to rethink their own stance on centralized education. Moreover, current events are validating your position. The day after the Primary Elections was held in Florida, Louisiana Governor, Bobby Jindal, filed a law suit against the Obama administration for using Race to the Top grants, to bribe states into accepting the common core standards and the other mandates. This is exactly what you were sayin during your campaigns. No one can deny that you bought up legitimate issues. Even the “Record” editorial staff who dismissed one of your concerns about the Race To the Top mandates as a “pet peeve”, must admit their ignorance. Because you brought up this issue in your campaigns, everyone now knows how we lost our parental right and who gave it away. This should be enough for sitting school board members to take this matter seriously and actually do something about it.

Another important accomplishment of your candidacy was that it kept the common core issue in the public forum. This took the myth of inevitability away from the common core standards and the mandates. If there are candidates running to remove it, it must be removable. That single change in the public’s perception will have a rippling effect that will become a tidal wave when the parents get the results of the common core assessments in 2015.

Your speaking out against common core must have prompted people to look into the standards and how they came to be in every Florida public school. They probably found what you and I found, that almost nothing the common core advocates are saying is true and that it is not the magic cure our education problems. Your campaigns must have helped make an impression. Almost everyone I spoke while campaigning, who had heard of common core, was either wary of it or opposed to it. No one defended it, and some, employed by the district, said they couldn’t talk about it. Many people said they looked into common core on their own and found what we did, that common core is actually turning the student against their parents and destroying their ability to think rationally. Others said they heard about the new standards and had connected them to the way their children are losing interest in school. Many, who understood education, referred to common core as a big experiment with the children as the guinea pigs. There were so many people who were aware of common core that there must be a reason. Since, no big foundations were blanketing the area with an all out anti common core media campaign (I wish), this animosity must have grown from little seeds of doubt about common core. I think you are the ones that planted those seeds.

The campaigning you and your volunteers did in person, making direct contact with people, showed that there are people, right here, who oppose common core. For a lot of people, in order to join any advocacy group there needs to be an actual local contact person. Social media is great for getting together, but there has to be a get-together. There already are Florida based stop common core groups, but our county should start one as soon as possible. Your names are publically linked with parental rights and against common core. You would be natural leaders in the ongoing stop common core movement, if you are called in that direction. 

There is one more result of your running against common core you should know about. I was at my polling place, and as voters were coming from their cars, I would tell them that I was campaigning for candidates who opposed common core. I would hand them the flyers and give them your names. I was getting an overwhelming positive response, with most thanking me for telling them who opposed common core. Late when the poles were about to close, young woman and her daughter, who looked to be about six or seven, came up the walk way. I handed the mom the stop common core flyers and told her about the candidates opposing common core.  She looked at the flyer and asked incredulously “You mean there is someone against the common core?”  I said “Yes, there are”, a look of relief seemed to wash over her, she then leaned down and said something to her daughter, who looked up at her mom and I with a great big smile. The woman thanked me, twice, and the two of them held hands and walked in to vote. Later I thought about the them, it struck me that I have been involved in common core so long that I had forgotten the moment that I realized that it was not just my imagination, that there really was something wrong happening in my children’s school. The gift that your running against common core may have given to that mother and her girl was the knowledge that she is not all alone, that there is a reason her girl is troubled, that it is not her fault, and that there is a glimmer of hope that her daughter will be happy once again. If even one of those questions were answered your running was not in vain.

I cannot imagine the sacrifices you made by running, the time the effort the money and even the risk. However you should know that you made a piece of history. Moreover, you are on the right side of history because the stop common core movement will not be stopped because parents will always protect their children. Common core hurts the children in so many ways. No matter what the proponents say or do the stop common core movement will grow because it is fueled by the tears of millions of children and the love of millions of parents. I am one parent who

thanks you, may God bless you!

Joe Ryan