David Coleman: “I’m Scared of Rewarding BS” « The Core Knowledge Blog:
David Coleman: “I’m Scared of Rewarding BS”
by Robert PondiscioSeptember 21st, 2012
Dana Goldstein’s profile of Common Core State Standards architect David Coleman is up at The Atlantic, and it’s a must-read. For better or for worse, she writes, his ideas are transforming American education as we know it. The money quote: “I’m scared of rewarding bullshit,” Coleman tells Goldstein. “I don’t think it’s costless at all.”
“By bullshit, Coleman means the sort of watered-down curriculum that has become the norm in many American classrooms. For nearly two centuries, the United States resisted the idea, generally accepted abroad, that all students should share a certain body of knowledge and develop a specific set of skills. The ethos of local control is so ingrained in the American school system—and rifts over culture-war land mines such as teaching evolutionary theory are so deep—that even when the country began to slip