What's in Store with Common Core
If you can put aside the high-stakes testing, which admittedly is not easy to do, and if you put aside the break-up of learning into micro-pieces, which I really cannot forgive, and if you can somehow forget the push for corporate take over and profit from education in the United States, there are some are some decent curriculum ideas imbedded in the national Common Core English Language standards. Unfortunately, even the better ideas, reading carefully, looking for underlying meaning in a passage, editing writing, and supporting arguments with evidence, are often laid-out and taught in ways that just do not make academic sense.
A good example is the New York City high school ELA guidelines created by Houghton Mifflin Harcourt and being circulated to schools by the New York City Department of Education High School ELA Scope & Sequence. The package starts off with pretty standard Common Core edu-speak - students will be "literate" and "informed," curriculum will be "rigorous" and "engaging."
"The New York City Department of Education strives to prepare all students to live rich, literate lives and to be active, informed citizens. In order to do so, students need access to rigorous, comprehensive and engaging English Language Arts curricula. Students should have the opportunity to read a variety of texts, make informed judgments that are grounded in evidence and communicate their thinking through oral, written, and artistic expressions."
I did a careful analysis of the 11th grade ELA curriculum because it is the same year most New York City high school students study United States history and must pass a state "Regents" exam in order to graduate. The New York State United States History Framework is organized chronologically with a series of unifying themes. The most themes important in 11th grade are Time, Continuity, and Change; Geography, What's in Store with Common Core | Alan Singer: