Educators: Common Core Standards Incompatible with Catholic Education
Administrators from Schools of Excellence on The Cardinal Newman Society’s Catholic Education Honor Roll recently told the Newman Society that Common Core State Standards pose a significant conflict to Catholic curricula, and found the standards severely wanting in crucial areas of faithful Catholic education such as intellectual and moral formation.
“Regardless of the standards employed, Catholic identity must be at the core of instruction and pedagogy, implemented by faithful administrators and teachers who understand the importance of their role in the formation of students,” Jamie Arthur, senior fellow and manager of the Society’s Catholic Education Honor Roll, pointed out.
The Newman Society has documented numerous concerns about the controversial Common Core State Standards through its Catholic is Our Core program, and just this week raised alarms that the National Catholic Education Association (NCEA) remains devoted to the Common Core standards, despite serious concerns about their impact on Catholic schools, following the announcement that its annual convention would be headlined by Common Core architect David Coleman.
The most common complaint that educators shared with the Newman Society is Common Core’s single-minded focus on career and college preparation.
“Education should be more than just a means to career-driven pursuits,” Derek Tremblay, headmaster of Mount Royal Academy in Sunapee, N.H., told the Newman Society. Students should be instructed in morality first and foremost, he said.
Moreover, this lopsided focus on job success results in a system that neglects to encourage individual student success, administrators noted.
Tremblay opined that this weakness in Common Core stems from “an ideological starting point that, to some extent,
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