In an op-ed for the Huffington Post, education historian, Diane Ravitch, says “nonsense” to claims made by Common Core cheerleaders that the new standard are “absolutely necessary”.
If you listen to the promoters of the Common Core standards, you will hear them say that the Common Core is absolutely necessary to prepare students for careers and college.
They say, if we don’t have the Common Core, students won’t be college-ready or career-ready.
Major corporations have published full-page advertisements in the New York Times and paid for television commercials, warning that our economy will be in serious trouble unless every school and every district and every state adopts the Common Core standards.
A report from the Council on Foreign Relations last year (chaired by Joel Klein and Condoleeza Rice) warned that our national security was at risk unless we adopt the Common Core standards.
The Common Core standards, its boosters insist, are all that stand between us and economic and military catastrophe.
How does anyone know that the Common Core standards will prepare everyone for college and careers since they are now being adopted for the very first time?
How can anyone predict that they will do what their boosters claim?
There is no evidence for any of these claims.
All of this is simply nonsense.
Ravitch is spot on. She also addresses the other major concern with Common Core
“But the odd thing about these standards is that they seem to be written in stone. Who is in charge of revising them? No one knows.”
Someone obviously knows but they are not telling. Why the secrecy? Shouldn’t Michigan parents, teachers, and policy makers know who is in charge BEFORE going forward with the Common Core?
Several of my last posts have been abut the issue of ownership and change.
- Gov. Snyder why are PUBLIC standards PRIVATELY owned?
- Can States Change the Standards?
- John Austin and MDE disagree on whether MI can change standards