Blog

I grew up in a family that was transient due to my father’s profession and I attended five elementary schools, two middle schools, and one high school in multiple cities and three different states.  Because my parents knew the importance of a strong public education, they did their best to choose school districts that had strong schools. The districts that I attended were all different when it came to what I was expected to know when I arrived and what I was expected to know when I left.

I suffered from the differences in quality and expectations in public schools.  Even as a child, I recognized the differences vastly different expectations at each school, and this frustrated me; even then I felt that all students deserved to be taught and held accountable to the same set of skills. I can remember moving in 3rd grade from a school focused on students learning that particular state’s history to another school that expected me to know more about the branches of the federal government. That was a tough year for me, not only because I was a new student in a new state, but because I felt that I was being judged by a different set of rules than the other students. The CCSS are addressing the problems I faced.

My childhood educational experiences led me to become a teacher and now a middle school administrator. As a child, I was blessed with parents who had the ability and forethought to consider strength of schools when moving around the country.  As an adult, I can’t help but think about the number of transient students in this country that don’t have that luxury.  Our country and our states need to provide students with a strong, rigorous, and common set of achievable goals, while helping transient families achieve a strong public education. I can tell you from my experience that the Common Core State Standards are making that a reality.