What happens when I do reserach on the common core....the rabbits warren of research...

Thus far we have focused on the literature and sites which expose the Common Core as an evil. In this post I will focus on the actual common core standards and some examples from classrooms which demonstrate the common core in practice. Because of the breadth and depth of the core we will look at 1st grade to get a sense of what it is and what it is not. 1st the core sets standards but doesn't dictate curriculum. This gives each state, town, school a lot of latitude to teach those things that are near and dear in that region! Doesn't sound much like government control does it?

Since the election of Ronald Reagan in 1980, and the appointment of William Bennett as Secretary of Education, monumental changes have driven the educational practice.  Bennett published "A Nation at Risk" in 1983.  This report of the National Commission on Excellence in Education, a Reagan created commission, largely indicted our entire educational system. It was based on a perception that our educational system was not able to compete with education offered in other countries. Here is a brief history of the department of Education.

In no small part because of this frenetic pace of experimentation and change brought on by this report teachers can expect yearly changes is what they are to teach, how they are to teach, what measures are used to determine if they succeed, and the philosophy driving their teaching.  I can think of no other profession which has been subjected to this constantly shifting philosophy. 

One of the teachers who came to my school after graduating from a premier college of education, believed that she knew better than those older teachers how to teach has succumbed to this pace of change and the frustrating impossibility of keeping up.  She is starting to sound like one of the older teachers.  I did not hesitate to point this out to her since she used to readily stand in judgment of the poor practices of those teachers whose skills were out of date.

As I began thinking about this I had questions.  It is what happens when you do research.  Sometimes it seems like your questions are leading you down a rabbit's warren. You must follow these leads to increase your scope of understanding.  Ideally this is what the common core leads students to do.  The whole goal is to create curiosity and encourage sound development of a students ability to question, seek answers, and determine what the best choice is.  It also helps students learn that answers will continually be refined as new information presents.  What could be bad about that!?

Indeed this is the reason I support the core.  For the years following Sputnik when we had emphasis on math and science (sound familiar?) a push was born to modernize public education which culminated in raising the Department to a cabinet level position, which ironically is where it began in 1867.    One of the things the Core fuels in those who fear it is that the core is a Government takeover of education.  What it really means is the federal government is offering incentives (or bribes if you prefer) to work toward the overarching goals (standards) set by the committee which foes claim were not even educators.  After checking that out I learned, as those who support the core rightly suggest,  that they were educators.

Yes, actually the majority of those who wrote these standards were members of faculties of university departments of education.  That means that they were most likely K-12 teachers at one time, but in any case they were deeply involved in the quality of education and preparing teachers to teach!
In the next post we look just at the standards themselves.