Did Common Core Win the War?
Politico scored a coup this week by declaring that the war is over, and Common Core won it. One can only assume that Kim Hefling's piece "How Common Core Quietly Won the War" bumped equally hard-hitting pieces such as "The Earth -- Actually Flat After All" or "The Presidential Wisdom of Harold Stassen."
Hefling's main point is that Common Core is now everywhere, so it won. But this would be tantamount to saying that Kleenex has cornered 100 percent of the facial tissue market because all citizens wipe their noses on something that they call "Kleenex."
Sure, there's something called Common Core almost everywhere in education. But which Common Core Ish thing would we like to talk about?
State standards? Many states have changed the name and little else, but many states have further fiddled with the everyone-forgets-their-copyrighted standards, so that none particularly match any more.
Testing standards? A variety of Common Core based Big Standardized Tests are out there, and -- for now -- every state has to have one. But what those tests cover does not in any case correspond fully with the Common Core standards as originally written (for extreme instance, speaking and listening standards are not and likely never will be tested). And in many, if not most, school districts, curriculum and instruction are driven by the test, not the standards.
Curriculum standards? Most districts have "aligned" their curricula to the Common Core -- but that process looks a lot like taking what you already do anyway and assigning various standards to it until your paperwork looks good.
Textbook standards? One of the biggest effects of Common Core was the huge windfall for textbook publishers as schools rushed to get textbook programs with Did Common Core Win the War? | Peter Greene: