Craig Cheslog can recite a litany of reasons why the Common Core standards will be good for public education.
"They teach 21st century skills," he said. "They teach the ability to communicate, to adapt, to work in teams and solve problems, to analyze and conceptualize, to manage one's self, to create, innovate and criticize."
Goodbye, teacher lectures and rote memorization. Hello, student engagement and critical thinking. What took educators so long?
Cheslog concedes, however, not everyone has embraced the new teaching platform that is sweeping through California schools. He would know. He's the principal adviser to Tom Torlakson, state superintendent of public education, and spends a fair amount of time promoting -- and defending -- the new standards.
That's what he was doing last week in Walnut Creek at a meeting of the Democratic Club of Diablo Valley, where he was greeted by about two dozen nodding heads and several sets of furrowed brows.
"I suspect some of you are skeptical," he said before setting out to convert them.
He said Common Core focuses on concepts: how answers are found more than what they are. He said mastery of foundational skills will replace recitation of facts soon forgotten after tests.
He said the need for Common Core standards was best explained by education Professor Linda Darling-Hammond of Stanford University: Barnidge: Common Core is coming to public schools, whether your like it or not - ContraCostaTimes.com: