Colleges Not On Board With College Ready?
A report prepared by Lindsey Tepe of the New America Foundation laments that colleges are not more on board with Common Core and urges them to join the in crowd who are cheering it on.Common Core Goes to College: Building Better Connections Between High School and Higher Education, is an analysis of state and institution policies within higher education including: the admissions process, financial aid qualification, testing and course placement, developmental education and teacher preparation. The report references the Chicago Pedway, a project meant to connect two buildings in the city via an underground tunnel that was started under both buildings. There came a critical moment when the two tunnels were supposed to meet, but they did not. This story of a engineering embarrassment for a major city was meant as an analogy for what happened when common core was rolled out and the colleges it was meant to prepare everyone for were not immediately singing its praises. The report indicates that one of the tunnels needs to adjust in order to meet the other one and, spoiler alert, it is not the tunnel of the standards writers.
The major problem with the analogy is that the story talks about a project that was started with a plan developed by both building’s management where the biggest problem was some directional miscalculations. Such could never be said of Common Core and higher education. The only higher ed representatives at the development table for Common Core were colleges of education. And gee what a surprise the colleges of education are totally on board and have been teaching their latest graduates about common core and how to teach it. That’s why our newest teachers LOVE common core. Because it is all they know. The colleges that were part of the plan in building this supposed bridge between k-12 and higher ed did end up exactly where they were supposed to. Unfortunately, this bridge comes from the wrong building.
According to Inside Higher Ed, Debra Humphreys, vice president of public policy and public Colleges Not On Board With College Ready? | Missouri Education Watchdog: