This is a misunderstanding of what CCSS is advocating. A little background in reading instruction first. Once students move beyond about the first grade, reading involves much more than just decoding the printed word and knowing what those words mean. It involves the process of comprehension - deriving meaning from the text, meaning which was intended by the author. That in turn involves knowing syntax, conventions about how text is laid out and organized, and other cues besides the text itself (such as pictures and graphs).
These elements of a text are interpreted differently, depending on what type of text is being read. For example, in a high school novel in literature class (for example, Moby Dick) there might occasionally be an illustration of something in the story. But that illustration generally does not add anything to what is said in the text - if there were no illustration, Melville's text would still stand alone. But in a science textbook, an illustration (for example, of the internal organs of a frog) is expected to communicate a lot more knowledge than what can be gained by the text alone. The illustration in a science textbook is essential to truly understanding the text.
Now, let's say that a high school student has been faithfully taught how to read, but only taught how to read literature. That student has learned that any illustrations in the book might be nice to look at, but are not important to understanding the book, and so they can be ignored. So when she comes to her science textbook, her tendency is to read that book the same way - glancing at the pictures, but not really taking time to study them. Same thing with graphs, formulas, etc.
In fact, the whole reading process is different for literature than for other (non-fiction) texts. When you read a novel, you tend to read whole sections (paragraphs, chapters) straight through at once so you ca follow the flow of the plot. If you get bogged down in every word, or re-read every sentence 3 or 4 times, you quickly lose the story itself.
But other texts must be read that way - students need to focus on individual words in their science book, they need to stop and study maps in their history text, they need to work through the examples in their math book. If they don't do these things - if they just read the math lesson one time straight through like they would a novel - they will not comprehend the text. (They will also get very bored - there really isn't much in the way of plot or character development in a geometry textbook.)
All this means that our students need to learn how to read books in addition to literature. They need to be taught how to interpret graphs, how to study formulas, how to look back in a book to find other times a concept has been taught. This is essential to reading comprehension.
And think about this - once our students go to college or are out in the workplace, almost all their reading will be non-fiction (unless they major in English). When I go to the doctor, I want to know that he is reading the New England Journal of Medicine and other similar journals. If all his reading is in the Harry Potter books, I'm finding another doctor!
Now let's return to the CCSS. They say that, by the time a student graduates from high school, the majority of his reading in all subjects combined should be in non-fiction works. And they say that all teachers - not just English teachers - need to be involved in teaching students how to read the texts for their subject area. CCSS does not say that the English class should spend 70% of the time on non-fiction. The English class should still focus on the great works of literature. (By the way, the CCSS does not mandate a particular reading list. They suggest a number of different works, but leave it up to local school boards and schools to select the literature they believe is best.)
Yes, some of their suggestions for non-English classes include some government instructional manuals. Remember, though, that these are not mandated. Even so, with the government becoming increasingly involved in our lives, the ability to try to decipher government manuals is more and more important, and it might be helpful for students to have some experience in doing so.
So does the Common Core emphasize reading government instructional manuals over the classics of literature? Absolutely not - this is a misunderstanding of something that is actually a strength of the CCSS.
Next time, I'll have some concluding thoughts on the current controversy over the Common Core.