Growing up in a military family, we moved a lot. And by “a lot,” I mean attending 12 different schools in 10 different districts from kindergarten through high school. We went through childhood knowing that any evening, Dad could walk in the front door to announce that he had just gotten orders again, and that we’d soon be moving to the other side of the country or even the planet.
So … pack up your stuff, say goodbye to friends, jump in the Buick station wagon or airplane and start all over in a new place, with new kids, new teachers, new neighbors. Until the next time Dad got orders.
I’m not complaining, mind you. No whining was allowed. Our family was tight-knit and supportive, we got to see a lot of the world and growing up like that you learn quickly to roll with the punches. Besides, it was the only life we knew. In our world, the people who had an exotic upbringing were those who had lived their entire lives in one place, in the same town as their parents and grandparents. How weird!
However, one of the harder adjustments to make was in the classroom. In fourth grade, for example, I went to three different schools. In one school they might be covering stuff in English that I had already learned back in third grade, while in math class I might be a whole grade behind, utterly unfamiliar with the terminology that the teacher was spouting.
That’s a big reason why the U.S. Department of Defense has become a strong proponent of the Common Core education standards, and why it has adopted the standards itself at the 181 schools it runs for children of American service personnel, most of which are overseas. (I graduated from a high school in Germany run by the Defense Department.) It’s not about using the Pentagon in some conspiracy by the Obama administration to federalize state and local schools, as some might suggest. It’s about trying to serve an estimated 2 million highly mobile students whose mothers or fathers are in uniform, trying to serve their country.
As the Defense Department explains it, “Consistent standards will allow (military) students to stay on track even when their families are moving between their respective states and/or overseas duty locations.”
It’s also a national defense issue. For example, Mission: Readiness, a group of 450 retired generals and admirals and civilian military leaders, issued a report in March urging Georgia leaders not to back down from their commitment to Common Core standards that the state had taken a leadership role in creating.
“More than a quarter of young Georgians do not graduate high school on time and even among those who graduate from high school, a quarter of those seeking to enlist in the Army cannot join because of low scores on the military’s entrance exam for math, literacy and problem solving,” the report states. “The Common Core state standards can help ensure that students are receiving a high-quality education consistently, from school to school and state to state, so that all students, no matter where they live, or how often they move, are prepared for success.”
That’s important. Take it from somebody who has been there. And there. And there ….
