The Fordham Institute’s Misinformation About Missouri Standards & Common Core
Should “conservatives” align themselves with Arne Duncan’s educational reforms which include Common Core support?
The Fordham Institute is now framing itself as the organization giving voice to “Conservatives for Common Core“. Michael Brickman of Fordham was interviewed on a Warrenton, MO radio station, KWRE on Thursday. You can listen to the interview at the end of the article in two parts. Here is the gist of the interview:
- He describes Fordham as “right of center”, he is conservative and supports the Common Core
- Any conservative who doesn’t support them is “misinformed”
- He contends that Missouri had low standards and Common Core will create more honesty with parents as they will have a true measure of what students are learning
- He hopes Missouri goes “up” in its standards and not “down” via the process set forth in HB1490
- He is a big supporter for states’ rights and doesn’t believe this is an issue in which the Federal government is intrusive in state policy
- The arguments against Common Core are a distraction in education reform rights
- Data privacy is another issue that doesn’t have anything to do with CCSS. If CCSS disappears tomorrow, data gathering would still occur (he doesn’t mention the fact that if CCSS disappears, the common data sets will disappear also, making data gathering and comparison meaningless on a national level….he quickly turns the narrative back to “it’s just standards”…..but it’s not. The Common Core Standards are needed to set “the foundation for the broader system of the broader college and career ready agenda: course requirements, assessments, data and accountability systems“. From Achieve pdf about the standards circa 2010):
(click on graphic to enlarge)
- He focuses the discussion back to reading Shakespeare and learning content. (The radio station host has a daughter who is a teacher and he notes that schools increasingly have to have a level playing field and asks about that….)
- Brickman responds by saying that in many schools, self esteem is the goal vs student learning. Have students succeed first. (What he doesn’t expound on is this: who decides what The Fordham Institute’s Misinformation About Missouri Standards & Common Core | Missouri Education Watchdog: