Teaching and Learning Over Testing
Posted: 01/10/2014 10:57 am
I'm often asked how I can be in favor of the Common Core State Standards while opposing the standardized-testing fixation in education and other failed market-based education strategies. The question is as revealing as the answer; unfortunately, the standards have come to be associated with testing rather than the deeper learning they were intended to promote.
If we believe that public education is an anchor of democracy, a propeller of our economy and the vehicle through which we help all children achieve their dreams, then we have to make public education about three things: helping our students build trusting relationships -- with both their peers and adults; equipping them with essential knowledge and the tools to critically think and problem solve; and perhaps most important, helping them develop persistence and grit -- the ability and means to deal with disappointment and lack of success.
At its heart, the Common Core is a set of standards designed to help make the transition from just knowing and memorizing information to having the skills and habits to apply knowledge, which is critically important in today's world.
Many distrust the motives of those promoting the Common Core because there's been a rush to test and measure educators and students on these standards before educators have had the time or tools to make these standards come alive in classrooms. Instead of being valued and trusted, educators are simply being told to just do it, and their criticisms are being ignored or disparaged. As a result of botched implementation in places like New York,