Superintendent Dickerson,                    March 8, 2012

 The editorial appearing in the Times Record this date was appalling.  The statements attributed to your Lisa Miller cannot even be classified as sophomoric.  Consider such phrases as “This is a school about exploring who you are and what you want out of life and where freshmen are the bomb”.   Then she is quoted regarding “transition, passions, and workforce situations”…right out of the Karl Marx dictionary and D.C. bureaucrats.  Educanto Newspeak!

A number of weeks ago another one of your teachers was awarded a meritorious teaching award, I believe in math, and certainly was to be congratulated. Then it was noticed she was wearing sneakers, Levis that appeared to have holes up & down the legs and some sort of ill-fitting shirt.  Are we to construe that this is professionalism and said dress would stimulate students to achieve?  Achieve what?

Today readers were bombarded by a T.R. editorial regarding COMMON CORE STANDARDS…”designed to be robust and relevant to the real world”.   How trite.  
A number of states, as you should surely know, are opting out of COMMON CORE STANDARDS—Oklahoma, New Hampshire, So. Carolina, Minnesota, and Texas—either in part or all, why is this?  Five states have never even taken the bait.

NO CHILD LEFT BEHIND was/is tragic, COMMON CORE is much worse.  With Common Core the National Government controls everything that is taught to the child, and no parental input allowed. That alone is criminal.  Additionally, if the implementation of Common Core is brought to fruition it will force the cost of education (using the term education loosely) to skyrocket.  With Common Core the children will only be taught what the federal government wants the child to learn, which translates to a huge indoctrination program, long on indoctrination and political correctness, short on real academics.

Superintendent Dickerson, with a growing multicultural gulag, government schools, formerly known as public education, has deteriorated into nothing more or less than academic thievery.
With a program of this magnitude and expense, why hasn’t the whole community been informed and discussions held to determine the worth or lack of in this D.C. production and of huge importance, what is the relationship of Common Core with Global Partnership Schools?

Joe McCutchen
Fort Smith