Common Core: Giving Happy Lie to the "Reform Consensus"
by Frederick M. Hess • May 16, 2011 at 8:19 am
Cross-posted from Education Week
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ShareFor several years now, would-be reformers have gotten away with claiming that there's a goopy, groupthink "reform consensus." They depict the edu-debates as a simple-minded morality play between a "reform" phalanx and "adult interests." This line has been sold most assiduously by Democrat for Ed Reform-types and NCLB enthusiasts who think conservatives are supposed to quietly, cheerfully sign on to the grand schemes crafted by their betters.
These reformers imagine broad sentiment that anyone who's not a union toadie agrees to a whole host of "reformy" things, including the Common Core, sanctity of value-added measures, race-based accountability metrics, niftiness of turnarounds, magic of Race to the Top, and so on. To question any of these has been enough to raise questions about one's seriousness and judgment. The result has been bad for schooling, bad for reform, and bad for public debate.
The Common Core debate last week, like that over teacher collective bargaining, is giving lie to the notion that all would-be reformers sing from a shared hymnal. There are serious divides even among would-be reformers; it's just that they've been submerged during the NCLB era. There are deep disagreements about the role of