Common Core standards pose dilemmas for early childhood
This was written by Samuel J. Meisels, president of Erikson Institute, a graduate school in child development located in Chicago.
By Samuel J. Meisels
After a decade of concerns and criticisms about the lack of rigorous national standards in the No Child Left Behind Act, we now have a set of ambitious standards for use nationwide — the Common Core State Standards. Since their formulation two years ago, these standards have been adopted by 45 states, were made a precondition for funding in the Race to the Top competition, and have begun to influence the development of new curricula and assessments. But early childhood education — concerned with children from birth to the end of third grade — seems nearly an afterthought in the standards. Not only do they end (or begin) at kindergarten, ignoring more than half of the early childhood age range, they simply don’t fit what we know about young children’s learning and development.
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Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback today admitted that his staff overreacted in getting a student in trouble with her principal after she tweeted something negative about him — and he apologized.
Here’s the full apology, posted on his Facebook page:
“My staff over-reacted to this tweet, and for that I apologize. Freedom of speech is among our most treasured freedoms.
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