Why so many parents hate Common Core
updated 7:52 AM EST, Mon November 25, 2013
A teacher assists her students in Chicago. Illinois is one of 45 states that adopted Common Core educational standards.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Diane Ravitch: Education department should not pushCommon Core standards
- Ravitch: Just 31% of N.Y. students passed because standards unrealistic
- Ravitch: Teachers are not prepared to teach them; parents don't like them
- Field-testing should have been done, she says, not fast implementation
Editor's note: Diane Ravitch is research professor of education at New York University and a historian of education. She is the author of more than a dozen books about education, including the recent bestseller "Reign of Error: The Hoax of the Privatization Movement and The Danger to America's Public Schools."
(CNN) -- The U.S. Department of Education is legally prohibited from having any control over curriculum or instruction in the nation's public schools, but nonetheless Secretary of Education Arne Duncan is a zealous advocate of the new Common Core standards for students' proficiency in English and math.
First, he said their critics were members of extremist groups, and he recently assailed the parents who criticize them as "white suburban moms who — all of a sudden — their child isn't as brilliant as they thought they were, and their school isn't quite as good as they thought they were."
His remarks were prompted by the nearly unanimous outrage expressed by parents -- moms and dads -- at public forums in