Things That Worry Me About Common Core
Paul Pastorek, the previous State Superintendent who was also a non-educator superintendent agreed to adopt the common core standards for Louisiana sight unseen. Maybe he did it because someone told him that this would "raise the bar" and increase "rigor" or maybe because the developer of common core, David Coleman, was on the Board of Michelle Rhee's Students First reform group. Overall I think it was adopted because it was the next big thing in education reform, and Jindal and Pastorek needed to approve it so Louisiana could promote its image as the most education reformed state in the nation.
The actual substance of Common Core was never important to Pastorek just as it is not really important to John White. That's why White fired or reassigned almost all the curriculum experts at the DOE and announced in recent education meetings that the Department was not going to tell teachers how to teach to the common core. Instead he was going to "empower" teachers to teach it any way they chose. Teachers will just need to
The actual substance of Common Core was never important to Pastorek just as it is not really important to John White. That's why White fired or reassigned almost all the curriculum experts at the DOE and announced in recent education meetings that the Department was not going to tell teachers how to teach to the common core. Instead he was going to "empower" teachers to teach it any way they chose. Teachers will just need to