Faces of Common Core

This video called "Faces of Common Core" just popped up in my newsfeed on Facebook.  It's only five minutes long.  I watched it...and my heart broke.

Is Common Core unconstitutional?  Absolutely.  Is our children's privacy being violated?  For sure.  Neither of those are seemingly compelling enough reasons for people to get involved and put a stop to this nonsense. How about those little faces then?  Does seeing a child transform right before our eyes from a child excited about school, shining from the inside out, into a child who is so burdened by frustration and failure that he or she is broken inside do anything to you?

With Common Core left in place, flash forward a decade.  Have those first graders who are already overwhelmed, already frustrated, and already feel like failures magically grown into eleventh graders with a solid grasp on their educations, only experiencing the sort of frustration that normal feel feel over the course of normal daily living, and feeling successful?  Go forward another decade, then two, three, and four.  What do those once tiny lives look like then? Setting aside all compassion for the children right now who are feeling overwhelmed and are learning that they are stupid failures, let's look for a moment at everyone's "skin in the game", regardless of whether or not you have children in the public school system:  Remember, these are the people who will be running and shaping society then.

What kind of person do you want teaching your grandchildren?  What kind of person do you want tending to your sick loved ones?  What kind of person do you want making policy decisions with lasting repercussions for the whole of society?  What kind of person do you want flying your airplanes and driving your taxis? What kind of person do you want growing your food or preparing it?  What kind of person do you want ministering to your soul?  What kind of people do we need to fill all of the roles we need filled in our modern society?  What kind of people do we need in order to continue making advancements in the way we live and how we live?  Broken people who believe that they are failures will never embrace their God-given destinies.  They will never be able to encourage someone else.  They will never take the risks that are necessary for transformative growth.

We must care about people.  We must care about what is happening in the daily lives of children all over the country, in places parents parents have entrusted our most precious resources.  When we are confronted with evil, and in my mind evil is what is transforming those faces from joy and hope to frustration and despair, we must act.  Get connected with other people who are fighting Common Core on social media.  Spend an hour or two to bring yourself fully up to speed on what isn't being said about Common Core by proponents. Find out if there is any legislation against Common Core in your state legislature, and start making phone calls and writing letters.  Attend your local school board meetings.

Do everything you can possibly do, so that either Common Core is scrapped and children are saved from that madness, or you can look yourself, your children, and your grandchildren in the eye and tell them honestly that you did everything you could do to spare them from it.