Media literacy, the common core standards, and the menu fallacy
Beach and Baker, in Ed Week, argue that "core standards must embrace media literacy."http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/2011/06/22/36baker.h30.html?r=813299394#comments
The question that first needs to be asked is whether we should have common core standards at all. The idea of standards seems to be innocent and common-sense, but the current movement, from the beginning, has been a means to establish national tests, which are unnecessary (we already have plenty of tests that do the job very well; in fact, we have far more than we need), and expensive (MUCH more expensive than we originally thought).
Susan Ohanian has made this analogy: Proposing standards is like giving out menus to the starving. To extend the analogy, instead of providing food, we are debating what should be on the menu.
We can discuss standards only after we protect children from the effects of poverty (no child left unfed; better health care, access to reading material).
Here is a media and information-literacy activity for all of us.
Examine Arne Duncan's speeches, especially those in which he first announced the need for
