Two years ago at a community conversation, a highly-educated and evidently highly-conservative parent asked me to assure him that I would not adhere to the Common Core State Standards because, he believed, it would require that I “teach history about homosexuals and blacks”, to which he was vehemently opposed. Flabbergasted, I breathed in and out before clarifying for him that the CCSS only cover English Language Arts and Mathematics. Through this conversation it became clear how much conversation was needed among educators and the community to really understand topics before we make evaluations of them.
Two weeks ago, it was confirmed that we still need this dialogue. Fairleigh Dickinson University released a survey showing that, more than four years after adoption, 52% of Americans claim to know “little or nothing” about the CCSS. Along these lines, 54% of those polled who disapprove of the CCSS had complete misconception about the content that was in them. Debates are raging on the Internet and in school districts about the Federal government’s overreach into education, confusing Common Core learning targets with high-stakes tests or curriculum, and of course conspiracies of what money is exchanged to make decisions for all children.
Dialogue to understand the standards themselves and the outcomes we expect remains missing from the debates. As a parent and educator, I can get behind someone teaching and expecting my child to think critically…or on some days just to think! When 60% of college freshmen students require remedial coursework and “87% of recent HS grads say they’d have worked harder if their school had set higher expectations for them” (thank you @EdTrust), it’s clear that higher standards for thinking might benefit a learning society. If you read the CCSS, it becomes apparent that thinking is central to how they’re written. Are they flawed? Sure, they’re man-made. Do they set targets for building thinkers? Yes, and this is what we need to talk about before we evaluate them on misinformation.
This week’s #MIpubED chat will be to learn about the CCSS from both educators and non-educators, with the hope of understanding differently than when we began. Please join us and bring a non-educator friend on Tuesday, March 10 at 8:30pm. If you need help getting on Twitter to understand what a Twitter chat is, email me at walt@sutterlearn.com or @sutterlearn for a personal coaching session so you can join the conversation!
Read the standards at http://www.corestandards.org