Common Core Sets Unrealistic and Unscientific Expectations
Important Notice: Watch for my poll on Common Core to be accessed on this blog starting Tuesday January 28. Please tell all your colleagues and parent friends to take the poll also.
The whole theory behind the Common Core State Standards (CCSS) is that if we set the academic bar higher, our students will achieve at a higher level. I guess the developers think that if you just put the material out there using great teachers that all students will learn it . . . automatically! This is the same theory that was used for the “No Child Left Behind Act”. That federal law said that by the year 2014 (ten years from the start date of 2004), all students nationwide would attain proficiency in English language arts and math. That's this year folks! Did that effort at raising the bar work?
Both No Child Left Behind and CCSS are based on a pseudo science theory many of us call The Lake Wobegon Effect. The Lake Wobegon effect is based on a mythical town in Minnesota called Lake Wobegon. This town was created by Garrison Keillor, for his PBS radio show called A Prairie Home Companion.
In his introduction to his stories about Lake Wobegon each week, Kiellor starts off by describing Lake Wobegon as the town where “All the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.” …... It's a joke! All three of those characterizations are impossible because they defy the laws of mathematical statistical distribution.
The same principle applies to the No Child Left Behind requirement that all children must be proficient in ELA and math by 2014. That's because as Diane Ravitch, an expert in standards (she served on the Board of the NAPE) explains in her new book