Summary:
Written by the editors of Rethinking
Schools is an organization that publishes a magazine that balances
classroom practice and educational theory and also addressing key policy
issues. Writers include teachers,
parents, and researchers. This
organization states that the Common Core, already hailed as the next big thing,
is being rushed into every school district in the country. There are many positive claims made about the
common core. For example, it represents a tighter set of smarter standards
focused on developing critical learning skills instead of mastering fragmented
bits of knowledge, or it requires more progressive, student-centered teaching
with strong elements of collaborative and reflective learning. You may also know that many creative, heroic
teachers are seeking ways to use this latest reform to serve their students
well.
You would like to believe these claims and
efforts can trump the more political uses of the Common Core project. But the
organization seems to say you cannot. For starters, the misnamed “Common Core
State Standards” are not state standards. They are national standards, created
by Gates-funded consultants for the National Governors Association (NGA). States were coerced into adopting the Common
Core by requirements attached to the federal race to the top grants, later, the
No Child Left Behind waivers. This is one of the reason many conservative
groups opposed to any federal role in education policy oppose the Common
Core.
The
Common Core standards have never been fully implemented and tested in real
schools anywhere. Of the 135 members on
the official Common Core review panels, few were classroom teachers or current
administrators. Parents were entirely missing.
Teachers were brought in after the fact to tweak the standards. The
standards are tied to assessments that are still in development and that must
be given on computers. The new Common Core tests will be considerably harder
than current state assessments, leading to sharp drops in scores and
proficiency rates.
NCLB’s
test scores, being a failure over the last decade, reflected the inequality
that exists all around our schools. NCLB
used gaps to label schools as failures without providing the resources or
support needed to eliminate them. The tests showed that millions of students
were not meeting existing standards. Yet the Common Core draws the conclusion
the solution was to have more challenging test. In the organizations belief,
this is wrong. The engine for this
potential disaster will be the tests, in this case the “next generation” Common
Core tests being developed by two federal funded, mulit-state consortia at a
cost of hundreds of millions of dollars. If, as proposed, the Common Core’s
“college and career ready” performances level becomes the standard for high
school graduation, it will push more kids out of high school than it prepare
for college. Reports from the first wave of testing from the Common Core tests
are already confirming these fears in New York schools. Students reported
feeling overstressed and underprepared.
The
organization feels unless we dismantle and defeat this larger effort, Common
Core implementation will become another stage in the demise of public
education. There has been too little conversation and too little democracy in
the development of the Common Core. We
see consultants and corporate entrepreneurs where there should be parents and
teachers, and more high-stakes testing where there should be none. Until that
changes, it will be hard to distinguish the next big thing.
Opinion:
The
editors of Rethinking Schools makes a brilliant point in my
opinion. The fact that teachers and
administrators have little say so over the Common Core alerts a big red flag to
mind. That alone needs to change, after
all teachers are the one that are hands on with the students every day. How can
the state standards not need more of their opinion rather than a government
official? It’s kind of crazy if you ask me.
Also
how can the Common Core possible think that college ready tests are better for
students with a high percentage of drop rates already? Not every person is
alike, especially if there are already results of fears from the test in New
York schools. The percentage of drop rates will only increase. People have their own paths they choose to
take, and not everyone’s path may lead them to college. My boyfriend for
instance works on the tow boats. He started out right after high school. He makes $60,000 a year now. As he continues
he will making over $100,000 a year by the time I graduate college to become a
teacher where I will be making between $30,000 to $40,000. He got his job with
only a high school diploma. This proves college is not for everyone.
The Common Core needs to take in
these considerations. This is the future of not only the children’s sake, but
the country’s as well.
-Brittneii Flynt
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