It's more the general idea of grade appropriate benchmarks. Having now had to study and read all the standards, there's nothing really in them that I have any issue with. it is the poor implementation and the one size fits all approach that Pearson insists on, and the limited manner of assessment that is the debacle. The standards can be used to measure speed of progress and tell us whether a kid is working above or below grade level and whether they need more support or more stimulative endeavors.
But again, I'm not completely married to the idea. More just detailing how I went from reflexively anti-everything about common core to open to the idea that there are bits and pieces along the way that could still be useful to educators as long as we extricate Pearson from the entirety of the process and start from the ground up with a different approach.
I think the unfortunate thing is that the past 5-10 years have seen education become one of those few things that "both sides agree on" thanks to folks like Arne Duncan, Michele Rhea, Corey Booker, and even President Obama. It's similar to tax cuts/increases where unless and until there is a complete overhaul on the entire American approach both sides are going to work together under similar misguided premises (tax increases always bad/public schools in America are failing because of teachers/standards issues), which isn't likely to happen then we need to figure out where and when to chip away at the edges.
But yes, bottom line is I would want a complete burn it to the ground and start over approach to our current education system and work toward the model you mentioned (among others). But being realistic and knowing that is not likely to happen any time soon, I think we need to figure out the best way to chip away.
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