Critical Questions about the Common Core
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Educators in the United States are once again headed for a very big trap. We are being seduced by the idea that a common set of standards and assessments to match will deliver equitable outcomes from our schools. This is the siren call that draws us into endless top-down reforms that never work, but never stop promising that the next time, we will get it right, and ALL students will achieve at high levels. But this time, maybe we can learn from the last big national experiment along these lines, No Child Left Behind.
We are entering another round in the endless quest for equity. A whole new set of Common Core standards, with assessments and curriculum to match, will fix everything that was wrong with NCLB. We will get new tests that will be "smarter" than those dumb old bubble tests. They will be so "smart," we will have to take them on computers! And the computers are even smarter, and can grade them for us! So we can give the tests more often, and that will allow us to track student progress more accurately than ever. And we can pay teachers more
Educators in the United States are once again headed for a very big trap. We are being seduced by the idea that a common set of standards and assessments to match will deliver equitable outcomes from our schools. This is the siren call that draws us into endless top-down reforms that never work, but never stop promising that the next time, we will get it right, and ALL students will achieve at high levels. But this time, maybe we can learn from the last big national experiment along these lines, No Child Left Behind.
We are entering another round in the endless quest for equity. A whole new set of Common Core standards, with assessments and curriculum to match, will fix everything that was wrong with NCLB. We will get new tests that will be "smarter" than those dumb old bubble tests. They will be so "smart," we will have to take them on computers! And the computers are even smarter, and can grade them for us! So we can give the tests more often, and that will allow us to track student progress more accurately than ever. And we can pay teachers more