MLK’s niece urges Alabama lawmakers to repeal Common Core ‘indoctrination’

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May 26, 2015

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. — Conservative activist Alveda King, a Birmingham native and niece of civil rights icon Martin Luther King, Jr., sent Alabama lawmakers a letter last week asking them to come up with “more creative solutions than what is offered in the one size fits all Common Core curriculum.”

The letter, distributed through conservative group Eagle Forum, asserts that Common Core will “do more harm than good; hurting most those least able to pull themselves up out of the current educational environment of muck and more.”

“All children need to and deserve to access their full God-given potential,” King wrote. “By design, Common Core treats every child as a statistic to be measured by standardized tests.”

Citing a statement by the Chicago Teachers Union in opposition to Common Core, King takes issue with the use of testing data to, “[sort] students in Alabama based on the color of their skin or their parents income and the setting of lower achievement goals for African Americans than Caucasians has been widely reported. If teachers are told to expect less from minorities, they are likely to get less.”

“Additional concerns regarding Common Core are the lack of access to parents and local communities in contributing to what children are taught and how they are tested,” King continued. “Please ask yourself this: ‘Will our students be indoctrinated against the values of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness enshrined in our Constitution?’ These American values remain part of the sustaining success of our nation. Yet, there is a not so subtle erosion of these values. By design, Common Core will only add to this decline. If Common Core is fully implemented, parents and our local communities will have little to no control over what is taught to our children through nationally prescribed Common Core assessments and the curriculum that has been developed to match those assessments.”

“As public Servants,” King concluded, “you have the power to really assist children, their families and the communities you represent; please regain control over education in Alabama by passing the Alabama Ahead Act (SB101, HB424) ASAP. You can enable students to rise to new heights instead of holding them down to the lowest common denominator.”

A bill to repeal the Common Core Curriculum standards was approved by a Senate committee earlier this session, and was originally planned for a vote by the full Senate Tuesday, but was pulled from the schedule.