Common Core curriculum standards are not a Marxist conspiracy. But the more I learn about them, the less I'm impressed, and the more willing I am to let those who do smell conspiracy wage their campaigns against Common Core.
South Dakota is one of 45 states that have adopted these kinda-sorta-voluntary standards for labeling the teaching and testing that good teachers (that's most of us) are already doing. The labels don't really matter to our daily practice. They don't matter at all in my classroom; Common Core only addresses English and math, with science standards on the horizon. Common Core won't get around to French or any other foreign language, at least not before the next education reform fad replaces it.
Voters in Indiana took a hard look at Common Core standards and dealt them a mild rebuke last week by firing their state superintendent of public instruction, Tony Bennett. (Holy cow: Indianans get to vote on their state education chief? Can we change the South Dakota Constitution to do that with Secretary Schopp? Please?) Bennett has vigorously advocated Common Core. Indiana voters decided they prefer their schools to be headed by librarian and teachers' union activist Glenda Ritz.
Common Core wasn't the only thing that drove voters to oust Bennett. Ritz didn't campaign against Common Core as much as she campaigned against more testing based on Common Core (which only redistributes more of our education dollars to out-of-state testing corporations) and against test-based teacher evaluations and pay decisions (Indianans, like South Dakotans not named Daugaard, recognize that's bad policy). But Common Core hurt Bennett among even his conservative base. He said Common Core standards were better than Indiana's standards, when in fact Common Core dumbs down Indiana's standards. They may well dumb down South Dakota's curriculum standards as well, and that would not serve anyone's best interests.
Conservatives are starting to call Common Core "ObamaCore," a rhetorical effort to rally Obamaphobes to shout against another complicated policy issue. Common Core is not technically a federal program, but it's mingled closely enough with the requirements of the No Child Left Behind waivers that it might as well be.
Again, I think there's more crony capitalism than Leftist power grabbing behind Common Core. But I'll agree with Indiana voters and folks of any ideological bent that Common Core doesn't add much value to the daily classroom practice of the good teachers you pay for with your local tax dollars. Common Core mostly provides just one more distraction from looking kids in the eye and answering their questions.
So if you want to agitate against Common Core, as long as you don't go off the deep end, I'm fine with that.
I'm not necessarily a big fan of Common Core, but it can provide a starting place for talking about what's important to cover in subjects in grades. South Dakota has done this over the years, but not called it Common Core. In a lot of cases it's just common sense.
Having a good curriculum is an important party of education. It's good to review subject matter from time to time, and update it. Sometimes updating reflects the latest research, and sometimes it's just the latest fad, so people need to participate. This used to be done rather haphazardly, mainly through choosing one of several alternate textbook over several grades. That puts the publishers and edu-industry in control, rather than teachers and parents. Common Core was meant to have greater teacher and parent input into the key curriculum issues, with less input from the edu-industry. I'm not sure if that's working out as well as it should.
Greater standardization across the country isn't a bad idea, but it needs to lead to better education, but locking in mediocrity. Anyone who has dealt with the issue of mobility in schools will recognize that when students move from district-to-district there are serious issues that arise with deficits. Sometimes kids come in to a district and they are a grade level or two above or below other kids. That's a very difficult issue to deal with.
I agree, Donald, that in what seems to be an increasingly mobile society, standardization of curriculum standards can help kids transition more easily into new high schools. But I wonder if we could establish de facto national standards with less paperwork and rigamarole... not to mention the policy churn that renames and renumbers the standards every decade or so. On the whole, pretty much every good teacher in each field knows what kids ought to know. Teachers may make some different choices in fields like English (I emphasize novels; another teacher emphasizes poetry) , history (I might focus on Russian history; another teacher might focus on Greek history), and French (I focus on conversation and news articles; another teacher emphasizes composition and literature). But most teachers have a shared sense of the big things and can bring new kids up to speed. Do we really need to catalog all this practice into little boxes for Pierre?
I think the real question, Mr. H, is does Pierre need to catalog all of that practice into little boxes for you. From the news it seems that's what will happen again despite your beatdown of bonuses for good teachers. There is some federal thingy that is getting jammed down throats all over the state, what I read said. And this year, some waiver thing is going to get legislated a lot. I think that will be another box of referral for your union, but I am just guessing and don't care about it if it has no pay increases in it.
My feeling is states should take a look at the Common Core standards, adopt those that might improve education in the state and not adopt others that don't.
Ah, but then, Donald, we're right back where we started, aren't we, with states picking different standards for different reasons?
I used to believe that a common core of standards for education was a good thing. I'm not so sure anymore as it seems the these standards are used as a weapon against teachers and students instead of the certification of achievement. Attaching funding or waivers to No-Child makes the program a Trojan Horse for more federal management over education. I know so little about the details but I do not trust this big pony.