With All Due Respect Sir!

I continually hear about the issue with funding in Public Schools, but use your imagination just for one minute to explore the idea of how much $$$ would be available if we were not paying testing vendors MILLIONS/BILLIONS for excessive and unnecessary high-stakes testing.

Now also imagine how much learning can be accomplished if test-prep gets thrown out the window?!

Imagine the child that does not get removed from class or specials SEVERAL times to take another test?!

Imagine the child that can learn and explore, taking their time and NOT feel rushed or anxious. On the other hand, now imagine that same exact child that must complete as many as possible in less than 2 minutes or you FAIL?!

Is funding what creates learning? Can we ONLY teach the "whole child" with "enough" money?

Please Sir, I beg you as a taxpaying citizen (which I learned....by the way taxpayer money makes up 78% of a public school's budget) to allow my child and their learning be a PRIORITY not more funding and certainly not your bogus A-F grade based on test scores.

My child is 8, she can not grasp abstract concepts like algebra or probability, her brain is not developed to do so. Her prefrontal cortex isn't even developed yet!!! Inferencing, complex informational text and ZILLIONS of benchmark assessments are NOT what makes her wheels spin and lights go off! Pounding her harder doesn't either. In fact, she shuts down. She certainly doesn't have enough life experience to form an argumentative opinion because that constitutes concrete knowledge and information first. She already turned her brain completely off 3 weeks ago as soon as she FAILED with a 60% that introductory assignment of associative/commutative properties and algebraic expressions. She hasn't even masted double or triple digit subtraction yet. Her mind is spinning trying to keep up with learning fractions, divisions, multiplication, algebra, probability, and triple digit subtraction all in the same day!!! School is EVERYTHING to my child, she's a natural learner and she wants to master skills and understand concepts desperately. She is a pleaser and a perfectionist.

http://www.projectlearnet.org/tutorials/concrete_vs_abstract_thinking.html

But don't worry.....please continue down this common core trail...I'd hate for you to lose your NCLB waiver or an additional $400,000 or whatever in additional federal funding.

Don't mind me I'll continue to pick my children up and dry their tears of frustration and confusion, we'll spend two hours on these idiotic CC math problems that should take and can be solved in 10 seconds or less, and I will continue to overcompensate and assure my child they will be just fine even though they got the highest F-AILING grade (2 out of 25) correct on the 4th grade microbiology, human physiology, or world geography test because I'd hate for your district to lose out on all that additional bribe money!!! Who needs college and career when your just praying your child can make it through 4th grade?! SERIOUSLY!!

Forget the human beings being abused and tortured, the teachers losing hair, sleep and begging for mercy attempting to teach this garbage.

Because I can assure you EVERY teacher could easily teach students important life lessons and ALL of the basics of reading, writing and arithmetic with something as simple as table salt, crayons/markers, paper, pencils and a cookie sheet.

With ALL due respect Sir, .............FUNDING is not the issue!!!