Edgewood education dean Tim Slekar: Politicians using Common Core as a distraction
Tim Slekar, the dean of the School of Education at Edgewood College, has a message for politicians when it comes to the Common Core State Standards:
Do your job and let us educators do ours.
In an appearance on WKOW-TV's "Capitol City Sunday," Slekar took officials to task for making a political tactic out of the change in education standards while neglecting the basic issues of readiness for learning.
Slekar, who has commented on education issues for The Huffington Post and the education blog @ The Chalk Face, said the argument over educational standards is a distraction from issues of equity like health care and access to books.
"All of those issues are never discussed because we're too busy talking about Common Core standards, Wisconsin standards, national standards, world standards," Slekar said. "Standards by themselves have absolutely no causation or correlation to achievement because they're just statements.
"We need to get off of this discussion because it distracts us, and in fact I think it distracts us purposely, away from holding politicians accountable for what it is that they should be doing to provide for the opportunities that kids don't have when they enter school. What are you doing to prepare and to make sure that these kids are ready to learn? Because I'm telling you right now: Insisting on changing standards, rewriting standards in January does nothing to prepare a kid to be ready to learn."
In the midst of a close race for reelection, Gov. Scott Walker last month called for a special session of the Wisconsin Legislature in January to replace Common Core with standards decided by state residents. That shift in position for Walker was panned as an election-cycle maneuver.
The Common Core standards are largely decried by the tea party and have been a touchy subject for Republican governors.
The argument misses the point, Slekar said.
"It really shouldn't be your side versus my side," he said. "I'm not arguing against Common Core standards. I'm telling you that the reform movement based on standards, based on tests, based on curriculum, based on punishing kids and teachers doesn't do anything to guarantee that that child
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