The School Board elections in Williamson County were fought on one primary issue: Common Core. A group of candidates who strongly opposed Common Core were supported by the Koch brothers-funded Americans for Prosperity and won a majority on the School Board.
Some of these individuals have expressed support for vouchers and for bringing charter schools to Williamson County. Those are two primary goals of AFP.
Alvey on Education offers a view of what’s happening from a Williamson County parent’s perspective. A recent post there discusses a pending resolution at the School Board level that would denounce Common Core. Of course, it seems increasingly likely that Common Core will die an early death in Tennessee. But, the post offers some insight into what is happening now in one of the best school systems in Tennessee.
The article concludes with a prediction:
So that’s why the board will vote to approve the anti-Common Core resolution. But don’t take my word for it, come see for yourself what is going to go down at the Oct. 16 board working session. Formal meeting on new board chair and vice-chair starts at 6pm. Expect lots of AFP t-shirts, and lots of crazy from 912ers. If you want to attend, and not get confused with those groups, put on a WCS or FSSD school shirt, or a Be Nice shirt, to show you’re a real local and not an import. Doors open at 5 pm, and you’ll want to get there earlier rather than later.
But the whole piece is worth a read to get some background on the players from inside and outside Williamson County seeking to disrupt what was once a quiet, and quite successful, suburban school system.
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If these school board members thing Charters and vouchers are a good idea they are sadly misinformed and they really need to understand that Charters will eventually put them out of a job as an elected School Board member. You CANNOT be against Common Core but support Charters and Vouchers. The two concepts are diabolically opposed to one another. It is like saying Sharia Law is compatible with the US Constitution. WAKE UP ladies. And again I MUST say AFP DID NOT win the election for these ladies and they ARE NOT in place to push AFP agenda. Maybe you should take some time to talk with them before you post stuff like this.
Karen Bracken,
The concern is that the anti-common core candidates(which is no longer in play as Dr Looney recived special permission from the state to exceed that standard) have expressed that they do support the vouchers/privatization of the schools.
Thank you for your coverage of the troubling turn our new school board members have taken in leading our district. I am dismayed that our new board members–men and women, both–were photographed attending the AFP conference in Texas just days after their election here, and to see the garish, divisive sight of the AFP “Anti-Common Core” bus from Arkansas parked here in Franklin and Brentwood. Anthony and I have been very pleased with the public elementary, middle, and high school that our boys are attending here in Williamson County, and have welcomed the increase in rigor over the past seven years, once Common Core math and language were adopted. Our superintendent, Mike Looney, works every day to ensure we exceed state standards, and we just obtained a waiver to do just that. I have listened to everything the new board members have had to say since the summer public meetings, and none of it has bode well for our high-performing schools.
Common Core represents the corporate takeover of our public schools, and the board did the right thing to oppose it. It takes away power from the local and state level, places into the hands of unelected “experts” and hands private corps like Pearson Publishing and Microsoft a virtual monopoly on a silver platter to write the books and software. These corporations stand to make billions.
The demolition of a math system that produced the greatest economy in history was done without any input from local educators or boards members, and there is no evidence at all that the new methods produce a better result. In fact, they represent the most ridiculous way to resolve a problem in some cases.
Finally, the national database they had planned to track every student in the nation into their adult careers was a abominable violation of privacy rights. They’ve been shocked at the loud and vocal pushback across the nation over their data mining dream of collecting that much information about each citizen in their hands. This tells you the mindset of the people who are pushing Common Core. They are out of touch with our values and out of touch with our Constitution.