It’s always interesting to see the political point of view
that is so often applied to educational policy.
It’s something that happens from both sides of the political
spectrum. This morning I’m sharing a
link (click
here) to an article that details some of the history and controversy over
the Common Core of State Standards that erupted during the June 12 meeting of
the SC Board of Education.
I don’t object to the use of the CCSS in our state and
district. I think these standards are
comprehensive and rigorous.
Implementation will be helpful in establishing local curriculum that
prepares our students for life after high school. I am cautious, however, about the type and level of
testing imposed to measure student progress in meeting the standards.
As I read the standards, I cannot understand some of the
controversy. Especially the speaker who
says the introduction of the CCSS “would
lead to desks that gather students’ emotional reactions to lessons, retinal
scanning and massive data-mining expeditions feeding a government
supercomputer.”
Our SC Superintendent likes to refer to the CCSS as a “one
size fits all solution.” I don’t quite
see it that way. The CCSS is a goal that
establishes a final skillset repertoire for each student in ELA and mathematics, but students, with the help of teachers, accomplish these goals using varying instructional activities. Teaching is all about assessing individual student knowledge and skill and building the capacity to meet the goals established by the standards.
The video of last week’s SC Board has not been posted at
this time, but here’s the link to videos (click here)
of the past meetings. I expect the video
to be posted this week, and I look forward to seeing the discussion.
Check out the CCSS for yourself (click here to review the English/language arts and mathematics standards).
