The Common Core System
"The unexamined life is not worth living." ~Socrates
Yesterday morning, fellow ed activist Kevin Glynn shared an article titled, "Mineola teacher adds voice to Common Core discussions," in which third grade teacher, Janice Killelea, promotes and praises the Common Core Standards. Kevin writes,
The children in this school are on iPads 75% of the day. The teacher is paid to promote Common Core. The teacher also makes the claim these standards are helping the students to become college and career ready- without a shred of evidence ...If these paid shills continue to pop up, they should not be surprised if their paid for rhetoric is met with fact based resistance.
We can no longer sit back and be bobble head dolls while colleagues make bizarre claims to promote secret sauce that not only tastes bad, but might very well be bad for children and simply does not work.I thoroughly agree with Kevin. However, I also realize that my profession is not some monolith of consensus on Common Core or education reform. Ms. Killelea is perfectly free to support CC and fall in with the New York Educator Voice Fellowship and its parent, America Achieves, which is funded by all the usual suspects in the corporate education reform movement.
However, she really needs to be taken to task on a few points.
Some districts do spend too much time focused on test preparation, she said, and rules about the tests have been harmful to students with disabilities and those who do not speak English as their first language.
But, she said, she tries to point out that the tests, teacher evaluations and classroom curriculum are three separate parts of the whole Common Core system.
“I do respect the parents’ opinions,” Killelea said. “A lot of parents are concerned, but I think you can’t clump it all together.”Oh yes you can, Ms. Killelea. Please note the use of the very interesting term, "Common Core system." It has been The Common Core System | Clemsy's Corner:
