Chinese-American Mom Says Common Core Is Just Like Education in Communist China

http://youtu.be/WAIetn6sE00

Lily Tang Williams, a mother of three, testified before the Colorado State Board of Education that Common Core was similar to the education she received growing up in Mao’s Communist China.

“Common Core, in my eyes, is the same as the Communist core I once saw in China,” Williams said. “I grew up under Mao’s regime and we had the Communist-dominated education — nationalized testing, nationalized curriculum, and nationalized indoctrination.”

In a post at FreedomWorks, Williams wrote about her experience with the Chinese education system:

Our teachers had to comply with all the curriculum and testing requirements, or lose their jobs forever. Parents had no choice at all when it came to what we learned in school. The government used the Household Registration and Personnel File system to keep track of its citizens from birth to death.

“I came to this country for freedom and I cannot believe this is happening all over again in this country,” she said in the meeting. “I don’t know what happened to  America, the Shining City on the Hill for freedom.”

She said Americans should not compare their children (or their kids’ test scores) to those being educated under the Chinese system.

“I am telling you, Chinese children are not trained to be independent thinkers,” said Williams. “They are trained to be massive skilled workers for corporations. And they have no idea what happened in Tiananmen Square in 1989 where government ordered soldiers to shoot its own 1,000 students.”

Lily Williams in her Maoist Red Guard uniform

Williams said that while she understands that testing is necessary to improve education, top-down standards controlled by the federal government are not the answer: “Federal government holds the stick. International corporations hold the money.” She complained that students are offered this system of carrots and sticks by outside groups. Instead, she said, parents are supposed to control their children’s education.

“Individual rights. Individual liberty. That’s what I came to this country for,” Williams said. “Do you just want our kids to be test machines? Workers — cheap workers for corporations?” she asked the school board.

America is great. Don’t compare yourselves to China. That’s why lots of Chinese are trying to come here — to try to be free. And they all tell you, “Do not go after the Chinese Communist education.”

Williams said the Chinese system produces great test takers and great machine workers who are brainwashed and lack critical thinking skills. “I was brainwashed so bad it took me ten years in this country to get out of it,” she said.