School starts on Monday for our kids. We stopped by the school today and got a peek at their class lists, walked by or into their classrooms. I printed out a new car-circle sign. It was exciting, to see how excited they are to get back.
I’m going to be less involved with the PTA this year, and hopefully working again from home. And because we may move at some point this academic year (or not, because that is how I qualify every sentence I utter right now), I’m intent on paying laser-like attention to what the kids are learning this year, here, so that wherever we end up, they don’t fall too far behind.
A friend shared an article that Common Core Standards in public school education are unraveling–they’re expensive, teachers/administrators don’t quite know how to implement them, blah, blah, blah, blah. Both “Tea Party” members and “liberals” can be found to be against Common Core Standards. How dare the federal government tell states what to do? (States volunteered to follow them, but whatever.) And how dare schools be given unfunded mandates when they’re already so strapped for resources? (I’d happily pay more taxes to support improvements in public education. So would my highly tax-averse husband. Ask us. We have our checkbook ready.)
I find this profoundly disturbing. I can’t even pinpoint why, exactly, other than the fact that I found the concept of Common Core to be comforting, given how often our children might have to relocate from state to state and public school to public school.
I am not an educator, I don’t know enough about Common Core Standards and education policy to know whether or not they are the “right” way to improve our education system.
I just don’t want our children to be penalized because we have to move among states who adopt the standards and states who may ultimately not.
We could send the kids to private school. I’m sure that’s what those on the far right and even perhaps wealthy members of the far left would do. We could home school.
I just don’t like those options on principle. I don’t like opting out. Not every family has that option.
Diary of a Corporate Wife 
Good luck on this coming school year. Sounds like you really have your work cut out for you. If there is to be a relocation, Do you have any idea how much time will elapse between the first notice of it and the actual move?
Thank you, Mark. I think the longest amount of time that might elapse would be three months. Last time, we knew we were moving in early October, and my husband visited our new city, his new office, etc… We had our realtors picked out in late October/early November. Accepted an offer on our home in mid-November, had a 3-day house hunting trip the week after Thanksgiving, made an offer on our new home during that trip, and closed on the sale on December 31. We were packed, moved, and unpacked by about January 10. (There were delays with the last move due to the holiday travel as well as a surgery I had in December.) Really strange to think that was all just six years ago. Seems so distant.
Three months. That’s not a lot of time. You are amazing. If our day comes very soon, it will probably be easier for me than you with two older children, but I still shudder. I guess that I just dread a situation in which I’m new to a city, and do not know anyone. The better way to look at it, and I think you have done this, is as a great opportunity. I hope I will be able to do that if the time comes.