Been doing some digging on my old teacher and his past media attention, YUUUGE FINDS! He was heavily promoting Common Core after "winning" National Teacher of the Year 2013.
http://
eagnews.org/ever-wonder-why-so-many-teachers-of-the-year-support-common-core-heres-why/
The Teacher of the Year Program describes itself as nonpartisan and was created in 1952 to highlight exemplary teachers in the profession of teaching at both the state and national levels.
You may have already seen these glassy-eyed teachers on television commercials robotically professing their eternal love of the Common Core, using the same old tried-and-true, yet tired-and-through scripts smattered with the talking points “more rigorous,” “critical thinking,” and “college and career ready.”
But the Teachers of the Year have a dirty little Common Core secret. They are not exactly the non-partisan, objective teachers advocating for their profession to the public at large that they profess to be.
The Teacher of the Year program is actually a project of the Council of Chief State School Officers (CCSSO), which authored the Common Core Standards and holds their copyright. The Common Core chooses the Teacher of the Year. In the interest of full disclosure shouldn’t these Teachers of the Year disclose that they were spawned from the Common Core each time they star in pro-Common Core commercials, write pro-Common Core op-eds, and lobby legislatures across the country in support of the Common Core? They never do.
The Common Core group, Achieve, is using the Teachers of the Year Program to sell Common Core to the rest of us nonbelievers and cite examples of the teachers’ support on their website. “Many current and former Teachers of the Year support the Common Core State Standards and are stepping forward to highlight that support,” they proclaim. They also use the Teachers of the Year to support their erroneous claims that a majority of teachers support the Common Core.
Current National Teacher of the Year, Jeff Charbonneau of Washington, is on paid sabbatical from his teaching obligations at the high school where he worked so that he may travel the country as a spokes-bot for the Common Core.
Erin Sponaugle, West Virginia Teacher of the Year, fills the Mountain State’s papers with commentaries warning, “fear is driving much of the opposition to the Common Core.”
Yeah, Erin, we are fearful. We’re fearful of an intrusive, one-size-fits-all, homogenized education delivery system and the detrimental impact it will have on our children’s minds and our country’s exceptionalism.
I always assumed that the chosen Teacher of the Year was the best teacher in a state, identified by parents, students, and coworkers. Then, I believed, the whole community of educators, parents, and students voted this identified teacher as “above the rest” and worthy of a tiara of distinction, complete with a bouquet of roses, a sash, and tears running down their cheeks as they accepted the title “Teacher of the Year” – air kiss, pageant wave. That was until I got an email at school inviting me to “apply” to become a Teacher of the Year, here in Arizona.
Teachers must apply to become Teachers of the Year after either nominating themselves or having someone else do the honors. Teachers of the Year applicants must then complete an extensive written application, write multiple essays, and jump through political hoops in front of interview committees in order to be considered for their shiny titles and thousands of dollars in cash and prizes, just like the governors did, in 2010, when they sold out their states’ control over education in exchange for cash and prizes when adopting the Common Core. So perhaps this is why the Common Core chose the Teachers of the Year to shill for and lobby on behalf of the Cult of Common Core. They are a perfect fit.
