Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Will Common Core kill early childhood education?

Mike Klonsky's SmallTalk Blog: Will Common Core kill early childhood education?:

Will Common Core kill early childhood education?

by Mike Klonsky

Here's my other problem with Common Core Standards -- besides the testing madness associated with it. In the hands of ed bureaucrats, corporate reformers and Pearson testing profiteers CCS could very well mean death to good early childhood education. Case in point -- New York City schools under the rule of Mayor Bloomberg.

Susan Edelman, writing in Monday's N.Y. Post ("Playtime’s over, kindergartners") reports:

The city has adopted national standards called the Common Core, which dramatically raise the bar on what kids in grades K through 12 should know. The jargon is new, too. Teachers rate each student’s performance as “novice,” “apprentice,” “practitioner” or “expert.” In a kindergarten class in Red Hook, Brooklyn, three children broke down and sobbed on separate days last week, another teacher told The Post.

When one girl cried, “I can’t do it,” classmates rubbed her back, telling her, “That’s OK.” “This is