Visualizing the Common Core Curriculum
Rian Dundon had to go back to high school for nine months last year. Mind you, he was already a working photojournalist. His assignment was to create a visual narrative for the Common Core, the educational initiative that has generated as much controversy as it has expectations.
There are so many buzzwords associated with the Common Core — career readiness, deeper learning, critical thinking — that it’s hard to know what it all even means. Adopted by over 40 states, the educational initiative that is now in its fifth year, aims to prepare students from kindergarten through high school for entry-level careers, training programs or college.
But, what does that actually look like? For some parents who are unable to engage with teachers directly in the classroom, either because of work or language barriers, it can be a pile of papers, a confused child struggling to decipher math problems, strange new tests, or maybe a website with some Frequently Asked Questions.
In California, the state with the largest public school system, the Silicon Valley Community Foundation partnered with New America Media last year to see if they could help these parents understand the initiative. Together, they awarded nine fellowships to local journalists, and Mr. Dundon was asked to translate the Common Core into a visual narrative.
Mr. Dundon’s project was also supported by the journalism nonprofitEconomic Hardship Reporting Project.
“The 21st century job force is Silicon Valley, so it seems particularly salient to look at Common Core in Silicon Valley and how it was succeeding or not,” Mr. Dundon said, “because if they can’t succeed here then they can’t succeed anywhere.”
When he began, the first thing he thought was: “How do you visualize something like academic policy?”
At first knowing “zero” about the Common Core, he chose to document three high schools in the area: Design Tech High School in Millbrae, which he called, “a new experimental charter school, kind of established under the design thinking principles of Stanford Design School,” Pescadero High School, a rural school, he said, with just under 100 students, and the William C. Overfelt High School in east San Jose, where, he said, “they’re doing a lot with a very little.”
With the help of the foundation, Mr. Dundon was able to gain access to schools; classrooms; education conferences, where policy makers and administrators talked about Common Core; and groups of teachers who Mr. Dundon described as, “equally confused about it.”
“There is a certain obtuseness to the language that’s used,” he said. “The thick packets that are handed out, trying to explain how you Visualizing the Common Core Curriculum - The New York Times: