REACTION TO COMMON CORE:  FEAR

We finally have an issue that in some aspects unites people on all parts of the spectrum to misunderstand and dislike:  the Common Core State Standards for education (CC), which has been developed out of the perceived failure of No Child Left Behind. As a parent and a teacher, I get growly when I see such fierce opposition to this mostly reasonable plan for educating our nation's children, by parents who fear for their children, and educators who fear for their jobs.  

Too many parents and politicians still maintain that CC is a government program, that Big Brother is reaching further into their freedom.  For the Fox News crowd, that thought alone is enough for them to go get their guns.  For others on the liberal side, it is the belief that billions of corporate dollars are taking over and ruling everything in our lives, including education; that private schools are an effort to produce more rich elites and corporate money-grubbing robots.  

Common Core is not a government program.  It is not an effort to  "brainwash our innocent children with government mandated socialist ideas" or to put corporate money into producing elites.  It is not enforced by black helicopters. 

Here is what Common Core is:   a recommended curriculum established and agreed upon by educators and state governors.  It is voluntary, and over 40 states have adopted it. Based on solid research by education experts, it is an effort to match expectations and child learning and development for each grade level in school, and ensure that a child in Alabama or Tennessee is offered the opportunity to learn the same things as a child in Philadelphia or Seattle.  If you are raising a sixth grader in Florida and then must move across the country to a new school system in Idaho, it should make it easier for her to adjust if students are studying the same things in both states.  Some school districts already exceed Common Core's recommendations, for others Common Core offers a challenge to improve. 

While many teachers support the curriculum goals of Common Core, the leadership of the teachers unions protest Common Core for other reasons, in particular the testing requirements.  They have been immersed in the problems raised by testing through all the years of No Child Left Behind.  Teachers are leaving the profession in droves because of it.  I sympathize. Teachers are blamed when a student doesn't do well, and they rarely get credit when their students excel. The least appealing aspect of Common Core is testing requirement.   Here is where I agree with the teachers in opposition: standardized testing is truly an unfair threat to them.   It instills fear and pressure on students and teachers, and yes, forces the teacher to teach to the test.  So much is lost when this becomes the focus.  We need to do a better job of believing in the teacher in the classroom -- the "sensible shoes on the ground".  Teachers should be free to design their own assessments, and these should not be "high stakes", meaning a teacher's job security should not rely on whether her students can pass a test. 

Other nations that have better public school systems than the United States don't rely on testing to this extent. They prepare their educators well, and trust them to do a good job in preparing their students for work or higher education when they graduate.  They offer constant support and professional development.  Their teachers usually sign on for life.

We should be able to do that here, too, if educators, parents, and policymakers can turn Common Core fear into something more reasonable.