In What World Does the Common Core Make Sense?
By:  Paul Kimmel




"In what world does the Common Core AS IT IS make sense?" This includes thinking about much more than the standards themselves. Why would a group of businesspeople with no classroom experience seek to write a national set of standards? Who funded them and why? Why have billions of corporate dollars been spent promoting it? Why were the states bribed to adopt it sight unseen? What is Exxon's role in Common Core, that they are throwing their weight around? There are dozens of questions just like this that need to be answered. I think the ever-insightful Dr. Ravitch has provided the best explanation for all of this when she calls CCSS a "business plan."

They are "standards" in name only. My best definition of them goes like this: CCSS is a government-backed corporate monopoly on educational standards, materials, and testing. This doesn't apply just to the classroom, but to teacher education and evaluation, as well, as demonstrated here (http://nepc.colorado.edu/.../pearson-comes-teacher...). But more than this (and perhaps most importantly), it includes the data generated by all these tests, which will be owned and controlled by the same corporations, to use as they see fit. In order to approve of Common Core, you have to believe that this kind of monopoly is what American public schools need.

Posted on our Facebook page 4/20/14