When Being Uncommon is Good!

I want to preface this blog by saying I am not politically motivated to write what you will find here.  Just look back at my other blogs about my family, TV shows, or snow days and you will see I have never written anything political.  The intent here is to educate the reader on the Common Core and where Sumner Academy stands in the growing controversy.  More and more we are giving tours to prospective parents who are dismayed with the Common Core in their public schools.  I am not endorsing any political party or specific politicians.  These are just my thoughts.

There have been many opinions expressed on the Common Core issue in our nation’s public schools.  In a nutshell, the Common Core is an attempt to nationalize the K-12 curriculum in the United States.  Proponents say multiplication facts, for example, in one state should be taught at the same level in every other state.  Since the 1965 Elementary and Secondary Act, curriculum issues were the responsibility of the states.  The intent was to limit federal intervention in these matters.  The state’s testing and accountability period that began in the 90’s spawned some national efforts such as No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top.  These national efforts came with big funding attached to set goals.  During my last two years in public education, we were (in my opinion) spending an inordinate amount of time preparing our students to take tests rather than teaching the actual content.  We needed another two hours in our school day to accomplish both.

Independent schools such as Sumner Academy regularly review national standards in each of the subject area when setting and reviewing curriculum.  These standards are set by national organizations of teachers in those areas.  Here are a few websites which contain these standards:

http://www.csun.edu/science/ref/curriculum/reforms/nses/

http://www.socialstudies.org/standards

http://www.ncte.org/standards

http://www.nctm.org/standards/

The Common Core has adapted some these into a their guidelines.

What makes us uncommon is our independence.  Everything about Sumner Academy is centered on our mission, not state or national testing or Common Core curriculum guidelines.  Our mission is to help discover and cultivate each child’s unique abilities.  The Common Core is incongruent with the creative curriculum building and management we employ at Sumner Academy.  We know our students well and prescribe the best curriculum and teaching practices to cultivate their learning.  Our teachers are free from teaching test taking and able to incorporate more depth and breadth to our curriculum.  It is important for us to prepare our eighth graders for success in ninth grades at schools they historically attend.  Our students are highly successful on the standardized testing we conduct in the spring.  Area high schools clamor for our students who have shown to be at the top of their classes year in and year out.

Sumner Academy embraces being uncommon and has been successfully serving its students and families for forty years.  Tell a friend, neighbor, family member or co-worker about us being uncommon.  We would love to show them the campus and introduce them to some outstanding and uncommon faculty members!