I have mostly been ignoring the debate over Common Core education standards, pretty much because the opponents and proponents are all speaking in a language that is foreign to me. I don’t have kids so I have not been confronted by these issues. So I have left education blogging to DL’s expert, Pandora, and to Delaware’s best education bloggers, Kavips and Kilroy, as well as Mike Matthews anbd John Young and others focusing on specific school districts like Christina and Red Clay. It is fair to say that I myself have ignored the debate because it did not concern me. That thinking is wrong but it is what has happened.
And because of that, DL has gotten a reputation of being pro-Common Core or pro-Markell in this education debate, because we were less outspoken on the issue than Kavips or Kilroy or Nancy Willing. I don’t that is a fair characterization. A more fair one is that we have been ignorant. So, I have a few questions.
As a far away observer looking in on the debate, here is what I see: prominent liberals and Democratic party activists, as well as independent rabble rousers like Mike Matthews, oppose common core standards and testing. I understand the testing part. The common core part, less so. Why? Because I thought having national education standards and a national curriculum was a liberal / Democratic idea. Otherwise, why is there a Department of Education? Conservatives sure want to eliminate it, and they sure do not want national education standards or a curriculum.
So is it just that Common Core fails as a national standard? Or is it that we are now against national standards? Or maybe Common Core is so bad that it has bipartisan opposition?
Last week, Indiana became the first state to withdraw from the Common Core Initiative. From Ed Kilgore at the Washington Monthly:
As AP’s Bill Barrow notes in a good summary of where the initiative stands, there has long been bipartisan opposition to Common Core, with some conservatives calling it an impingement on local control of schools (even though it’s not a federal initiative), and anti-testing activists supported by some teachers unions on the left opposing it for very different reasons. But it’s conservatives who are now taking the lead, in state after state, to take down Common Core. So given the business community’s central role in supporting Common Core, and the heavy involvement of Republican governors in developing it, it’s inevitably going to be a big deal in intra-GOP politics, up to and including the 2016 presidential race. Some very familiar names on the national scene are already choosing up sides and going at it:
[Rand] Paul, a Republican senator from Kentucky, has joined seven colleagues, including Texas’ Cruz, to sponsor a measure that would bar federal financing of any Common Core component. Florida Sen. Marco Rubio isn’t among the eight, but he had already come out against the standards. So has Rick Santorum, a 2012 presidential candidate mulling another run.
On the other end of the spectrum is [Jeb] Bush, the former Florida governor and Rubio’s mentor. “This is a real-world, grown-up approach to a real crisis that we have, and it’s been mired in politics,” Bush said last week in Tennessee, where he joined Republican Gov. Bill Haslam at an event to promote Common Core.
This sure looks like a minefield for Jebbie if he does decide to run for president. But beyond that, governors from both parties probably won’t be too happy to see Common Core become a football in a presidential campaign. The standards, it seems, are being implemented just a year or two late to escape the political cauldron.
So on the conservative side, we have state rights nuts vs. the business faction of the party. The business faction supports Common Core, the state rights nuts oppose it. On the liberal side, you have centrists and pro-business Democrats like Jack Markell supporting it. And you have teachers and activists opposing it.
Let’s dive into that AP article to see why teachers oppose Common Core:
To a lesser extent, Democrats must deal with some teachers — their unions hold strong influence within the party — who are upset about implementation details. […]
Democrat Jack Markell, Delaware’s second-term governor, told the Associated Press that opponents [on the right] mistakenly equate a coalition from across the nation with a federal government initiative. Markell co-chaired NGA’s Common Core panel with Republican Sonny Perdue of Georgia.
Perdue, who left office in 2011, said Common Core actually began as a pushback against federal influence because of the No Child Left Behind law, the national education act signed by President George W. Bush. Perdue said it was “embarrassing” for governors of both parties that Congress and the White House pushed higher standards before state leaders.
Perdue attributes the outcry against Common Core to Obama’s backing: “There is enough paranoia coming out of Washington, I can understand how some people would believe these rumors of a ‘federal takeover,’ try as you might to persuade people otherwise. I almost think it was detrimental … for the president to endorse it.”
Evers, the Hoover Institute fellow who was also a top Education Department appointee during the Bush administration, says it’s unfair to reduce opponents’ concerns to partisanship. He notes insufficient training for teachers expected to use new teaching methods, and he criticizes specific components. For example, some math courses are recommended for later grade levels than in standards already adopted in leading states like Massachusetts and California.
Wow. The AP article doesn’t give us much more detail about the teacher concerns. So I turn to our audience and I hope our wonderful education bloggers can help me out. So I’ve got a few questions.
1. Do you oppose Common Core because you oppose any national uniform curriculum?
2. If you answered yes, then please join the Republican Party and petition for the abolishment of the Department of Education. If you answered no, then proceed to the next question.
3. Common Core has been criticized for insufficient training for teachers expected to use new teaching methods. Currently, does the initiative provide for any training, and if so, what training is provided for? How is that training, if provided, insufficient? What would you describe as sufficient training?
4. Common Core has been criticized for its specific curriculum components. Which curriculum components, if any, do you find objectionable or in need of modification? Do some components need to be removed entirely, or are there some components that are missing from the curriculum entirely? As an aside, I saw one math problem on Facebook and I can see how the new method of teaching kids to see math in their head is difficult to teachers and students alike. Personally, I think their is nothing wrong with dropping that and going with the tried and true addition and subtraction tables. But I digress.
5. I am sure there are some testing issues with Common Core, but I have not heard that addressed. So what are they? How can they be fixed?
6. If you want to scrap Common Core entirely, what is your preferred standard uniform curriculum? If you answer none, see question 2.