Can We Rescue the Common Core Standards From the Testing Machine? - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher

Can We Rescue the Common Core Standards From the Testing Machine? - Living in Dialogue - Education Week Teacher:

Can We Rescue the Common Core Standards From the Testing Machine?

By Anthony Cody on November 19, 2013 3:11 PM

Guest post by Peter Greene.

A recent recurring refrain around and about the comments sections is the notion that the Common Core standards are, in and of themselves, quite fine, and if we could just uncouple them from the testing and implementation regimens, all will be well. The standards themselves are an improvement so let's build on that opportunity, and not stand in the way of fine new standards just because their ugly testing step-cousin is trying to sneak through the door with them.

The Common Core standards could really work - we just need to get rid of the high stakes tests...

 I can remember thinking like that. I can remember looking at the standards and thinking, "Many of these are actually fine." (I should note that I teach at the high school level, not elementary.) In fact, one of my earliest complaints about the CCSS was that they were one more example of folks telling us to do things that we already did. And I don't think there's a teacher alive who wouldn't relish the promise of freedom to pursue the standards in any way they deemed best.

"You know," I thought at one point. "If it were possible to just use these standards as a rough guide to follow as a thought best, and we got the government to stop testing, I could live with this."

 And that was the moment when I knew that, no, the Common Core standards were not pure of