"Getting Played" By Enemies of Public Education?
Today, Politico offers an analysis of conservative's organized opposition to theCommon Core which points out that the end game for many of these Koch-funded groups is total annihilation of public education, through the expansion of vouchers for private and parochial schools, and home schooling. The response on the part of some has been to suggest that those of us on the progressive side who have also been critical of Common Core have "been played." That somehow we have lent credence to this conservative movement, and therefore we are being manipulated or used.
But blaming progressive critics of Common Core for the rise of this conservative movement turns reality on its head. The people who have let down our public schools are those who are willing to embrace standardization and high stakes tests as some sort of "progressive" guarantor of equity. We have been down this path with No Child Left Behind, which was sold to us by an alliance of liberal and neo-conservative politicians. We were told children in poverty would get more attention and resources once standardized tests "shed light" on just how far behind they were. We got teacher 'evaluation' schemes built around faulty VAM metrics, leading to mass demoralization and too-many losses of strong educators, simultaneous with a hypocritical push to replace seasoned teachers with Teach for America novices. The result? Intense pressure to raise test scores, narrowed curriculum, and school closings by the hundreds - all with the mantle of approval by our "liberal" leaders. Who really got played here?
Then Common Core came along in 2009. Everyone was weary of NCLB, and ready for change. But some of us could read the writing on the wall. The fancy words about critical thinking and "moving
