I hate to say “I told you so!”..but I told you so…. Ellery, I sounded the alarm almost a year and a half ago. In my campaign for Salisbury Representative for The Region 1 Board. I said that in one of my first actions, I would call for open forums on “The Common Core”. Also over a year and a half ago I requested the board to hold public forums on ” Common Core”. Please look at the story in today’s Republican American of which I have posted below,,,

Republican American:

A retired teacher’s request for a public meeting about the Common Core academic standards will be honored.

Ellery “Woods” Sinclair, who taught English at Housatonic Valley Regional High School, wrote to Region 1 Board of Education Chairman Andrea Downs in July asking that such a session be scheduled. In his letter, he wrote that he would like the meeting to address the effect the initiative has upon the school’s educational program.

“Now my concern is heightened, especially with regard to information that I have enclosed,” Sinclair stated. “I am appalled by the literature requirement: 50 percent of all elementary reading assignments be nonfiction and at the secondary level growing to 70 percent for grade 12. As a parent and especially as a former English teacher and department head, I find this requirement utterly outrageous. Why our English department is not in full revolt, I cannot comprehend.” Sinclair wrote that masterpieces by William Shakespeare and John Steinbeck should not being dropped in favor of informational texts.

Downs asked Assistant Superintendent Diane Goncalves to put together an informational meeting about Common Core. Goncalves said she would form a panel that will present a program about Common Core.

Sinclair ended his letter by saying, “I regret being strident, but someone must ring a bell lest our educational system has become inured to public concern.”