Dear Archbishop Listecki...

Anthony Esolen makes some points which, perhaps, the Archbishop hasn't had time to consider before he set his nasty little lapdog loose.

[Common Core's] whole approach to education is wrong; it is based upon a wrong understanding of the human person.  That is why it has no real place for the humanities, reducing them to occasions for scrambling up “skills,” rather than for opportunities to grow wise, to learn how to behold and cherish what is beautiful, and to build up the intellectual / moral virtues of reverence, gratitude, honesty, clarity, and humility.  It can no more be made Catholic, while remaining itself, than human sacrifice can be made Catholic, or cloning, or eugenics, or any other fundamental offense to the very being of man....

That is the elegant version of my observation that CC is, essentially, a Prussian/utilitarian scheme.  The little darlings are being prepared for Office Work, or Machinist Work, or Computer Work, rather than for Life.  Technical education is just fine--for some, it's perfect--but only after they have an understanding of Beauty, Truth, Charity, and Goodness.

...These days it is an easy and terribly painful thing to compare the work of our current educational carpenters with those of past generations.  You can find old textbooks.  Those alone should crush us with shame.  The third is that education is not in fact a techne like carpentry after all.  It is the formation of a human soul.  That, of course, is denied by the Common Core promoters.  But parents surely are not only competent to judge the formation of the souls of their children; they are by far the most competent, because they know those children far better than anyone else does, and they see most clearly the results of their schooling.  Finally, parents who are not teachers are free of the prejudices that come from any insular setting.  The age-segregated, community-isolated school, a new thing in the world, is something of an island.  The teachers see what goes on inside; but other people are in a better position to evaluate what kinds of people come out....

Hmmmm, Your Excellency??