Parents Cheer as Fourth Grader Tells School Board: ‘I Don’t Want to Deal with this’ Common Core ‘Nonsense’

Barbara Boland | December 17, 2014
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Ten-year-old Elizabeth Blaine waited over two hours to deliver her smack-down of the Common Core curriculum that left parents cheering: “I love to read, I love to write, I love to do math but I don’t love the PARCC.”

“Why? Because it stinks,” said the fourth grade New Jerseyan to the Montclair School Board.

The PARCC or “Partnership for the Assessment of Readiness for College and Careers” is a Common Core test, and the board was discussing a policy that enables parents to opt their children out of the test.

The PARCC test is full of ”very complicated and hard questions,” she said.

The test takes place on computers with technology they have not used yet. Students aren’t required to take a technology course, but they’ll be expected to type their answers during timed tests on computers. They’ve wasted hours trying to use the drag-and-drop math tools, and the technology is so clumsy that if they accidentally click out, they cannot return to the test.

“So the math test stinks. What’s next? Why the ELA test of course,” Elizabeth said.

Elizabeth said:

“One of the essay questions was identify a theme in ‘Just Like Home’ and a theme in ‘Life Doesn’t Frighten Me.’ Write an essay that explains how the theme of the story is shown through the characters and how the theme of the poem is shown through the speaker. Include specific details from the story and the poem to support your essay.

“This is crazy! I am one of the most gifted students in my grade, or so my mom says, and I have not even the slightest clue what this means.”

Elizabeth went on:  “I’m glad my mom and dad are letting me opt out, because I don’t want to deal with this nonsense,” as the room burst into applause.

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