A Parable For The Common Core
Written by redqueeninla in Education
Once upon a time “Mary” grew older. Approaching the age of 16, it became legally permissible for her to drive a motor vehicle on the public, southern California roads. But she needed to pass two tests administered by the licensing agency, the state Department of Motor Vehicles, first.
Mary practiced hard to learn the rules of the road from a book. Because she was not yet of an age where practicing “behind the wheel” was deemed safe, all her learning was theoretical.
At age 15 ½ she took a written test to assess her knowledge, as distinct from her skill which would be tested later. The test was multiple choice and many of the options were silly so the answer was clear-enough, often. Though not always — some of the more important questions were tricky, with subtle differences distinguishing the choices. Passing would suggest, if not require, her to have learned the presented material.
Thus while not overwhelmingly rigorous, still the test did serve to winnow those who needed to study more from those who did not. And because of the inherent importance, danger and desirability of the subject matter, most kids took the whole exercise seriously regardless of the test and really applied themselves to learning.
There came a day when a politician, and a businessman, scrutinized the process.
The public decrier saw an opportunity to proclaim the test Insufficiently Rigorous for failing to prepare the child adequately for the responsibility ahead of her in life. It was suggested that others, elsewhere in the world might better prepare drivers than this state agency.
The solution imposed would be to double the questions on the test, and make them all very, very difficult. Indeed because there would be twice as many questions asked, with a newly imposed requirement to demonstrate statistical “spread” among answers, some questions would need to be drawn from material never presented to the student.
The academic justification for querying a subject not taught is that a rigorous learner must demonstrate ability to derive an answer from background knowledge de novo. So for example, a teen in southern California might be A Parable For The Common Core – redqueeninla:
