Sandra Stotsky: Why Did Colorado Trade in a Silk Purse for a Sow’s Ear?
The Heartland Institute has a news article on their site that highlighted meetings related to the Common Core State Standards that took place in Colorado on December 6th – one with the Colorado State Board of Education and the other with a panel discussion convened by the Pioneer Institute. The money quote belongs to Sandra Stotsky, professor of education reform at the University of Arkansas. See the excerpt below:
Federal grants pushed 45 states to adopt both the Common Core math and English language arts standards, which lay out what children should know in every grade.One Common Core adoptee, Utah, formally withdrew from helping develop a set of tests related to the standards in August. Leaders in Indiana and South Carolina have also
Classic Literature–A Bipartisan Issue
Even the Huffington Post is noting the concern about the Common Core ELA Standards being light on classic literature for high school seniors. They write:
But the new guidelines are increasingly worrying English-lovers and English teachers, who feel they must replace literary greats like The Great Gatsby and Catcher in the Rye with Common Core-suggested “exemplars,” like the Environmental Protection Agency’s Recommended Levels of Insulation and the California Invasive Plant Council’s Invasive Plant Inventory.Jamie Highfill, an eighth-grade English teacher at Woodland Junior High School in Fayetteville, Ark., and 2011 Arkansas Teacher of the Year, told the Washington Post she’s already had to drop short stories and a favorite literary unit to make time for essays by Malcolm Gladwell from his social behavior book The Tipping Point.“I’m struggling with this, and my students are struggling,” Highfill told the Post. “With informational