The Cato Institute
"Is there good reason to believe that national standards will improve educational outcomes? Please join us for a discussion of the logic behind, and evidence on, national education standards, at this pivotal moment in the history of American education."
Common Core Standards:
What will your children, grandchildren, and future employees learn in school?
Pointe Viven - Jesse Bluma. All rights reserved.
You may be thinking that your state already spent a lot of time, energy, and money on this issue. That is true. In the 1990s many states went through this process and we are going through it again. America is made up of many states (or "countries" as thought of in the international arena). In the 1990s each state adopted different standards of what students should learn and know how to do. Many appreciate the aspect of fifty laboratories, fifty different cultures, and fifty states choosing their course. There are many that seek unity and uniformity. Recently governors and other education elites got together and formed the Common Core State Standards Initiative (http://www.corestandards.org/).
California, one of the world's largets economies, adopted the Common Core Standards (http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/grlevelcurriculum.asp). What does this really mean? Will there really be a difference? Is this just a new name for something that already exists?
The Common Core Standards are a blueprint. Each state has the freedom to choose their own curricula, those are the details of how to reach the Common Core Standards. Does this freedom really exist? Will it be taken away in the future? Are there back room deals with the Common Core and Obama's Race to the Top? This is something to watch.
We probably can all agree that having good standards and good curricula is important. Are the Common Core Standards good? Should we have these? Why should we support the Common Core? Will we have to spend billions more on new textbooks, workbooks, videos, etc.?
Whether we keep and support the Common Core or not it is important to keep in mind that learning, growth, and development is most dependent on home life. Parental aspirations for their children has a larger impact on student learning than feedback from teachers, study skills, homework, testing, and teacher education. When was the last time your political representative or favorite TV or radio host mentioned these numbers?
The foundations for Common Core trace back to the 1992 presidential election. Then president of the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), Marc Tucker, wrote to then First Lady Hillary Clinton. Tucker envisioned a national, comprehensive system. He stated, “It needs to be a system driven by client needs (not agency regulations or the needs of the organization providing the services), guided by clear standards that define the stages of the system for the people who progress through it, and regulated on the basis of outcomes that providers produce for their clients, not inputs into the system.” As the Bill Clinton presidency progressed, education laws were passed such as Goals2000, the School-to-Work Act, and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. These laws gave more power to federal officials over education in the U.S. through standardization of the curriculum, testing, and data collection.
Hillary Clinton supported and promoted Common Core—an education initiative developed in 2009. Common Core was implemented during the Barack Obama administration and supported by Clinton and others. She maintained her support for the standards throughout the Obama presidency. During the first debate of the 2016 presidential election, then presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called Common Core “the most important non-family enterprise”.
Hillary Clinton was either unaware of the public’s dislike for Common Core or was attempting to politically advance the standards and testing methods in-spite of the fact. However, the lack of support for Common Core was not lost on the Democrat National Committee. Wikileaks, an international organization that publishes private and significant information, released an email from Eric Walker, Deputy Communications Director at the DNC. In the email Walker stated,
“A) Common Core is a political third rail that we should not be touching at all. Get rid of it.
B) Most people want local control of education so having Cruz and Trump saying it on a DNC video is counterproductive. Would get rid of any references to that.
C) We wanted Christie in there bc he’s a trump surrogate / could be trump VP / most anti-teacher guy out there. He’s yelled at pretty much everyone, there HAS to be video of him yelling at teachers and looking like a bully
D) Need Cruz saying dept of ed should be abolished. If you can’t find it – use this from AFP summit: “The department of Education – which should be abolished”
The foundations for Common Core trace back to the 1992 presidential election. Then president of the National Center on Education and the Economy (NCEE), Marc Tucker, wrote to then First Lady Hillary Clinton. Tucker envisioned a national, comprehensive system. He stated, “It needs to be a system driven by client needs (not agency regulations or the needs of the organization providing the services), guided by clear standards that define the stages of the system for the people who progress through it, and regulated on the basis of outcomes that providers produce for their clients, not inputs into the system.” As the Bill Clinton presidency progressed, education laws were passed such as Goals2000, the School-to-Work Act, and the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. These laws gave more power to federal officials over education in the U.S. through standardization of the curriculum, testing, and data collection.
Hillary Clinton supported and promoted Common Core—an education initiative developed in 2009. Common Core was implemented during the Barack Obama administration and supported by Clinton and others. She maintained her support for the standards throughout the Obama presidency. During the first debate of the 2016 presidential election, then presidential candidate Hillary Clinton called Common Core “the most important non-family enterprise”.
Hillary Clinton was either unaware of the public’s dislike for Common Core or was attempting to politically advance the standards and testing methods in-spite of the fact. However, the lack of support for Common Core was not lost on the Democrat National Committee. Wikileaks, an international organization that publishes private and significant information, released an email from Eric Walker, Deputy Communications Director at the DNC. In the email Walker stated,
“A) Common Core is a political third rail that we should not be touching at all. Get rid of it.
B) Most people want local control of education so having Cruz and Trump saying it on a DNC video is counterproductive. Would get rid of any references to that.
C) We wanted Christie in there bc he’s a trump surrogate / could be trump VP / most anti-teacher guy out there. He’s yelled at pretty much everyone, there HAS to be video of him yelling at teachers and looking like a bully
D) Need Cruz saying dept of ed should be abolished. If you can’t find it – use this
Common Core Standards Resources
Common Core State Standards Initiative
http://www.corestandards.org/
California Common Core Standards
http://www.cde.ca.gov/ci/cr/cf/grlevelcurriculum.asp
CATO Center for Education
https://www.facebook.com/CatoCEF
Washington Post: What Are the Common Core Standards?
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/answer-sheet/national-standards/what-the-common-core-standards.html
U.S. Department of Education: Secretary Duncan on Common Core Standards and the Next Generation of Assessments
http://www.ed.gov/blog/2011/07/secretary-duncan-on-common-core-standards-and-the-next-generation-of-assessments/
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment