Example of Common Core third grade math problem from roundtheinkwell. Too hard for an eight-year-old?
Sorting the discontents
Listening to complaints, it can be difficult to sort out which are directed at Common Core’s substance, which are specifically related to the rollout (and presumably are one-time issues), and which could have been voiced by local educators against the state bureaucracy at most any time.
Common Core is a federal plan adopted by New York along with 44 other states several years ago. States who adopted the program received increased federal aid. (New York got $700 million in 2010.) Its goal is to increase student performance in math and English by adopting a rigorous nationwide curriculum. As with No Child Left Behind, standardized testing is a large component – even more so – and not only districts but teachers are assessed. The eponymous “common core” is the curriculum, the lesson plans, worksheets, quizzes and tests. All teachers use the same materials, issued by the state (mentioned in some of the recommendations above), which represents a much greater degree of state/federal involvement in the classroom than ever before. Some teachers feel this aspect in particular represents an attempt to “deprofessionalize” teaching by scripting their lesson plans, and betrays a lack of understanding of what teachers do by limiting their flexibility.
Other criticisms are specific to the rollout in New York State. They don’t represent a rejection of the curriculum’s goals or its desired means, but a criticism of implementation. For example, parental concern was high last year when test results showed huge declines. Educators said it was a result of unfamiliar, sometimes unclear, difficult material being tested before they could incorporate new standards into their teaching. (Several Saugerties educators said course materials that should have been available in summer to allow for preparation for the coming year weren’t in until Labor Day.)
A stated goal of federal education policy is to improve U.S. education in comparison to other nations, whose outcomes, like healthcare, always seem to rank much higher than ours. The rhetoric is always phrased in terms of training future employees capable of helping America stay competitive in the global economy.
“Of course, it’s not enough to train today’s workforce,” said President Obama in last week’s State of the Union. “We also have to prepare tomorrow’s workforce, by guaranteeing every child access to a world-class education.”
Superintendent Turner says the support is there for increasing standards. “No educator is against academic rigor – we’re fully in favor of increasing the rigor we expect of our students,” he said.
But he cautioned that such comparisons are not cut-and-dry. Some countries use tracking and only test a fraction of students bound for university while not testing other students who receive intensive vocational education, while America is testing everyone. Other countries have extremely demanding cultures beyond the school walls that put tremendous pressure on students to succeed, increasing teen suicide, which we should think twice about emulating. (And, indeed, it’s questionable a federal education policy has any power to affect a change in a nation’s pervasive culture about academics.) Economic concerns are important as well, as comparisons between well-off parts of the U.S. and similar parts of other countries show no difference, while U.S. overall scores are driven down by a much higher poverty rate than the cradle-to-the-grave countries that rank at the top of the list.
Other, sometimes conspiratorial sounding criticisms center on the role of companies like Pearson (course materials) and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has pumped more than $160 million into the program, according to the Washington Post. Companies are profiting from creating course materials, they say, and of course someone like Bill Gates would be interested in funding an education philosophy geared toward the single goal of making Americans productive employees in the new global economy (which calls to mind something very high-skilled and technical); after all, he’s the wealthiest businessperson of our time. With corporations playing an ever greater role in the political process, some feel even the association of people with large corporate interests with the Great American School System is a bridge too far.
