Dale Hansen a “politically left” blogger at the Detroit News calls Common Core a “manufactured education crisis.”
There is always a new set of standards, or a new method of teaching, or a new model of instruction that will fix the education crisis. Unfortunately, as noted economist and mustache aficionado Friedrich Hayek said, “‘emergencies’ have always been the pretext on which the safeguards of individual liberty have been eroded.” This is especially true of education reform in Michigan where government has taken over school districts, changed tenure laws, created new state controlled districts, weakened unions, added teacher evaluation requirements, attempted to revive vouchers, and expanded charter schools all under the guise of a crisis in education.
But the reality is that there is no education crisis.
The only emergency in public education is the one drummed up by the corporations that offer their books, their methods, and their publicly-funded corporate schools as the solution…
Hansen comes at this from an entirely different perspective than many on the “right” but just like many of us he dislikes the “high stakes” testing, the loss of local control, and the loss of creativity.
This is perhaps the single greatest indictment of the standardized tests that the Common Core relies on. If, for the past half century, the U.S. has had average results on these tests while becoming the greatest country in the world, isn’t it possible that how we rank on some standardized test doesn’t actually mean much? Isn’t it possible that our failure to churn out the best test-takers in the world says more about societal issues than the education system? Isn’t it possible that teaching to the test drowns out the very creativity and innovation that makes America great?
The next hearing is August 14, 2013 at 10 AM in the House Office Building in Lansing, MI. Whatever your reasons or political leanings, we welcome you join the fight and tell lawmakers to Stop Common Core in Michigan
