Keep trying to understand us Mike – You’re not there yet
Anything you can do I can do better - Annie Get Your Gun - Betty Hutton and Howard Keel
Mike Petrilli of Fordham latest piece appears to be his attempt to tell the opponents of common core that he understands us. He concedes the point of federal involvement in the standards (which Fordham has done before). He admits that the standards aren’t “the best” and even acknowledges that there are a number of text book suppliers who are making a mess of them. But there is one glaring problem with his concession piece – he simultaneously agrees that states can set standards and claims that states are no good at setting standards.
The CC standards have been sold to the public (once CSSI et al were forced to actually contend with the public) as necessary because so many states had poor quality standards, even after NCLB forced them to review, clarify and improve their standards.
“I find that the pros far outweigh the cons, beginning with the original Fordham conclusion that the standards themselves, on their merits, are superior in content and rigor to those that three-quarters of the states were using in 2010.”
See, 3/4 of the states, though charged with developing high quality standards, were incompetent to do so, therefore we needed some smart group of outsiders to do it for us.
But then just a few paragraphs later he says the standards are basically the floor and that they are counting on states to augment the standards to improve them.
“Yes, they can absolutely be improved. That’s why we’re supportive of what states like Florida have done to augment the standards… Creating additional standards for high-achieving math students who are gunning for selective colleges and/or STEM careers makes a ton of sense.”
So states like Florida who had bad standards with NCLB and whose governor you wrote felt it important to join with the governor of Illinois to develop better standards together, is now deemed qualified enough to improve these jointly developed standards on their own. Which is it Mike? Are the states qualified to write their own standards or not?
If they are able to write their own and identify their own shortcomings, then why did we need a nationally developed set of standards in the first place?
Much of the rest of his article completely overlooks how the standards were eventually sold to the public.
“They are fewer and clearer.” If they are fewer because they left out pieces that states are Keep trying to understand us Mike – You’re not there yet | Missouri Education Watchdog:
