Fight for the Soul of the Common Core Standards
Posted by Dana Bennis on Dec 18, 2012 - 06:15 AM
This is a guest blog post by Susan Sandler, who works at the Sandler Foundation and leads funding related to education policy as well as other areas. Previously, Susan spent 17 years working for racial justice in education as an organizational leader, policy advocate, researcher, professional development provider, school therapist, teacher, and activist. Susan is a member of the boards of directors for the Center for American Progress and El Puente.
Do the common core standards discourage teachers from making connections between academics and students’ lives? When I first read the guiding materials for the standards, that’s what I thought it was saying. I understood it to say that the proper way to teach students to read was to ask them to leave at the classroom door everything they experienced and lived, so it wouldn’t interfere with analyzing the text.
But then I gave the materials more of a “close reading,” and I realized that I had misunderstood. I was deeply concerned that many people would draw the same false conclusion that I had about the common core standards. So I co-authored an article(requires subscription to view full text) to help get the word out.
My co-author, Zaretta Hammond, and I explain that whenever we think and learn we are always accessing and building on what we already know, and the more powerfully we make those connections, the better we learn. And that means that everyone of
Do the common core standards discourage teachers from making connections between academics and students’ lives? When I first read the guiding materials for the standards, that’s what I thought it was saying. I understood it to say that the proper way to teach students to read was to ask them to leave at the classroom door everything they experienced and lived, so it wouldn’t interfere with analyzing the text.
But then I gave the materials more of a “close reading,” and I realized that I had misunderstood. I was deeply concerned that many people would draw the same false conclusion that I had about the common core standards. So I co-authored an article(requires subscription to view full text) to help get the word out.
My co-author, Zaretta Hammond, and I explain that whenever we think and learn we are always accessing and building on what we already know, and the more powerfully we make those connections, the better we learn. And that means that everyone of