The Superintendant and the Common Core

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As we members of the Jackson County Historical Society headed out from our meeting a few weeks ago, a grandfather whom we have known and respected for a long while, stopped Ray with a question. He had been hearing a lot about Common Core on television and wanted  Ray to explain what it was all about. Before long, Ray, Mary Evelyn, and I were all involved in the conversation. I was relieved when our good friend John Richard joined in.

John Richard is the former mayor of Gainesboro, the current president of the Historical Society, and an elder at our church. I have written about him before. Ray served in full-time ministry in three different churches for twenty-two years, beginning when he was twenty-five. During those years, we have known many godly elders. The church we are part of now has two and we respect them both so very much. These men are servant leaders and we are blessed.

John Richard is also a former superintendent of the Jackson County schools. When he joined our conversation after the Historical Society meeting, he gave his reasons for why the Common Core is not good. It is his view that business is what is really behind Common Core and that its purpose is to produce workers, instead of educated human beings. John Richard wants children to be educated in what will be good for them as people. He wants them to have time in their day for art and music and things that matter.

It is not that business is evil. It is business that provides every paycheck that provides for a family. Ray once got his paycheck from churches, but without business there would have been no such paycheck. Some families depend on income earned through working for the government or for a non-profit, but behind those paychecks is business. Governments have money because some people are in business. That’s how non-profits have money, too.

Then, what is wrong with business getting involved in education? The problem comes when businesses see their employees as workers and not as human beings. I got into a conversation with a cashier while shopping for groceries the other day. I asked her if that grocery chain was a good place to work. She said, “It used to be.” I am guessing that she no longer feels treated like a valuable person.

I never saw myself as educating my children so they could be good cogs in a well-oiled economy. Our children are people with hearts, souls, and minds, as well as bodies who can do work.

When I think about what Solomon taught his son in Proverbs, I see lessons from many different areas of life: work, relationships with God and with people, morality. . . .

When a lawyer asked Jesus what to do to inherit eternal life, Jesus asked the lawyer what he saw written in the Law. The lawyer answered:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
and with all your soul, and with all your strength,
and with all your mind; and your neighbor as yourself.”
Luke 10:27

Jesus told the lawyer that he had answered correctly. Then Jesus said:

“Do this and you will live.”
Luke 10:28

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