The Common Core Debate Continues
The spirited discussion about Common Core, begun at my Education Week Teacher column, continues.
Paul Thomas wrote a thoughtful post titled Fatalism and Teacher Professionalism on the discussion and taking issue with my position I tried to leave a comment there, but my technological ineptness wouldn’t let me leave a response, so I emailed it to Paul and told him I’d publish it here (I assume he’ll put it up at his blog, too).
Here it is. All comments welcome:
Paul,
I appreciate your reflections here . However, I wouldn’t necessarily use the word “fatalism” to describe recognizing the inevitability of Common Core. I’d suggest that understanding the facts and figuring out the best way to deal with them to help teachers, our students, and their families, is, instead, “real life.”
In my nineteen year career as a community organizer for the Industrial Areas Foundation, I found that neither I nor the people I worked with needed to find more opportunities to fail. In my political judgment, trying to stop
Paul Thomas wrote a thoughtful post titled Fatalism and Teacher Professionalism on the discussion and taking issue with my position I tried to leave a comment there, but my technological ineptness wouldn’t let me leave a response, so I emailed it to Paul and told him I’d publish it here (I assume he’ll put it up at his blog, too).
Here it is. All comments welcome:
Paul,
I appreciate your reflections here . However, I wouldn’t necessarily use the word “fatalism” to describe recognizing the inevitability of Common Core. I’d suggest that understanding the facts and figuring out the best way to deal with them to help teachers, our students, and their families, is, instead, “real life.”
In my nineteen year career as a community organizer for the Industrial Areas Foundation, I found that neither I nor the people I worked with needed to find more opportunities to fail. In my political judgment, trying to stop