What is the
Common Core?
As a teacher, one thing that has been
dominating our professional development that last two years has been the Common
Core. For those not familiar with what
the Common Core is, it is a set of national standards for K-12 math and
language arts instruction.
It seems very non-threatening, and it
certainly hasn’t been presented to us as anything controversial. Even for someone like me, who believes in
local control of education, since our standards are already created by the
state, it seems like it wouldn’t be problematic for different states to be
consistent regarding what skills they are teaching in math and language arts.
So it surprised me to learn that there
is a movement to stop the Common Core.
There are a series of five videos on Youtube encouraging people to
oppose the plan. I have the first at the
bottom of this post so people can hear the other side and make up their own
minds.
I find some of the concerns a bit
overblown, while others seem quite reasonable.
The most serious concern, in my mind, is that what we are now receiving
with the Common Core is the camel’s nose in the tent that will lead to a host
of other national regulations on our schools, including a liberal rewriting of
history, permissive sex education, and social engineering with regard to gender
and sexuality.
That may seem conspiracy theorist, but
I believe it is quite realistic and demands vigilance. Opponents of Common Core claim that much of
the support behind it is from liberal social engineers who are unable to
nationalize their agenda in one major step and see the math and language arts
standards as a non-threatening first step to an incremental grand plan.
Whether or not that claim is true, and
whether or not Common Core grows beyond this initial stage, the controversy
should serve as a reminder to all of us that we must remain engaged in
education policy. As Abraham Lincoln
noted, the culture in the classroom today will be the culture of the nation in
a generation.
