There's a lot that can be said about the Common Core State Standards (CCSS). But I want to finish up with a few general thoughts about the controversy swirling around them.
- I am not trying here to be a wholesale supporter of the CCSS. I'm not saying they are the greatest thing since sliced bagels, and I am especially not saying they are a great thing for Christian education. So please don't go around saying, "Rod Kirby loves the Common Core."
- However, I also do not believe they are lies from the pit of hell as they have been portrayed in some circles. I believe they are good and helpful, even if there is room for improvement.
- I think the English Language Arts (ELA) section is especially useful. In recent educational history, reading and composition has almost become divorced from the text itself. Students have been asked to read Tom Sawyer and write an essay about how they would feel if they lived near a river - needing absolutely no knowledge of the book at all! The CCSS ELA standards push students back to the text. Students are expected to write about some aspect of character development in Twain's book, and justify their answer from the text itself. And they are pressed to dig into the reasons why Twain might have used some particular words rather than others. This is an element of "close reading" and actually fits well with a Christian perspective, where we want students to pay attention to the very words of Scripture, since God inspired the words and not just the ideas.
- The math standards have been mis-characterized. For example, I have heard it said derisively that the CCSS requires an "integrated math" curriculum in the high school (having Math 1/Math 2/Math 3 instead of Algebra 1/Geometry/Algebra 2). On the contrary, the standards explicitly state that they can be used in either approach, and address both approaches.
- This gets to what makes me most upset about the controversy. I consider myself to be generally a conservative. But what I hear coming from conservatives on this issue is an embarrassment. I hear half-truths, caricatures, and outright lies and slander from those who in other issues seek to uphold the truth. In a previous post I have dealt with the untruth that CCSS lessens or eliminates classic literature in favor of government manuals. Consider also this statement from the "Common Core Fails" website: "Under Common Core, teachers are mandated to uphold a strict classroom schedule" which results in practically eliminating electives. (http://commoncore.fwsites.org/less-electives-for-students/) As "proof," the site references a video, produced by a veteran teacher for beginning teachers, which encourages them to plan how they are going to use every minute of the day so they won't be wasting time. That sounds like an application of Paul's admonition to "redeem the time!" (Ephesians 5:16) There is nothing about the CCSS on that video, except for references to two CCSS math standards - things about teaching students to use place value, because the video shows a teacher teaching about place value in the context of using time well. There is absolutely nothing about CCSS "mandating" a strict schedule in order to eliminate electives. This is only one example among many which totally misrepresent the CCSS.
- Unfortunately, conservatives who argue this way come across as ignorant and unthinking, not knowing what they are talking about. (Someone pointed out the irony that, if these conservatives had learned the critical reading skills advocated by the CCSS, they would know that their criticisms were misguided!) Don't get me wrong - there are valid criticisms of specific points of CCSS, and they can be improved. But we should deal with those in a knowledgeable, well-reasoned manner, not by hurling invectives.
- Don't confuse the CCSS themselves with various implementations and regulations which grow up around them. The CCSS is not a curriculum, and they do not mandate a particular textbook. But there are some curricula and textbooks which are aligned with CCSS but which are awful, whether in their becoming nit-picky about endless testing, or in their use of wacko teaching methods. These are not the CCSS, however, so don't judge CCSS by some far-out curriculum which says it is based on CCSS. And I feel sympathy for public school teachers in particular, who have to deal with myriads of regulations, policies, testing regimens, and paperwork (or online documentation) in order to implement CCSS. But that bureaucracy is not part of CCSS itself - I suspect many public school hierarchies would find a way to turn the Ten Commandments (assuming they could use them) into a 2500-page manual for kindergarten classroom management policy.