Inside the Mammoth Backlash to Common Core

[Algernon Moncrieff]

Mother Jones: Inside the Mammoth Backlash to Common Core

COMMON CORE EMERGED from the ashes of No Child Left Behind, the Bush-era education reform law that tied federal funding for the nation's schools to new, mandatory standardized tests. It was a time of sometimes-chaotic trial and error among educational reformers, who feared American students were falling further behind their counterparts in Finland or (gulp) China. But many teachers and parents were frustrated by an approach that seemed to punish schools for problems beyond their control, and the lack of uniformity from state to state—even zip code to zip code—made it impossible to tell how well kids were actually performing.

Common Core set out to change that. This time, the overhaul would be initiated by the states, not Washington. It would create a set of key educational benchmarks—concepts and skills students should be learning, but not specific curricula. The jumble of jam-packed, state-specific tests ushered in by No Child Left Behind would be replaced by new tests, consistent across state lines, that measured not rote learning, but the critical-thinking skills that demonstrated a real understanding of concepts.

It didn't take long for some conservatives to conclude that the Obama administration, which helped to bankroll the standards' rollout, was planning to program a new generation of godless socialist worker drones. One Florida lawmaker alleged that Common Core will "attract every one of your children to become as homosexual as they possibly can." Glenn Beck, who wrote a book declaring the standards "slavery," rhapsodized about the "sci-fi, Gattaca kind of thing"—like a "wireless skin conductance sensor" and a "posture analysis seat"—that he claimed would find its way into schools in the name of Core-compliant data collection.

Common Core won't turn your kids gay (or Muslim, as one activist suggested to me). Still, it is an ambitious vision—not the Marxist pipe dream that tea partiers have decried, but the brainchild of corporate-bred reformers such as Bill Gates. And it could consolidate power over public education in the hands of a small cadre who, along with the for-profit textbook and testing companies that lobbied for its adoption, stand poised to cash in.

[enlightenment]

1. Where is the "common" in CC?

States seem have the autonomy to decide what parts of it they will adopt - and how they will adopt them - and how they will measure them via assessment.

Consistent is a pretty broad word and when you consider that there are two "state led" consortia creating two different assessments - and that the two groups do not include the same member states - how consistent can they be?

Education does not belong in the hands of businesses who have profit-driven agendas. Ever. But that's where it is and we are going to be dealing with the consequences for a very long time.

Nice article - thank you for posting it.

[Algernon Moncrieff]

2. You are very welcome!

And you are correct. For example, my state opted out of Common Core at the outset.