Common Core-nucopia: Top Five Reasons that Common Core is (not so) Bad

My sister is an educated mother of three. She and her husband pay attention to their children's education - attend parent conferences, help with homework, monitor their children's screen time, and promote literacy in their household. They don't crawl up teachers asses and blame them for every misstep made. They are level headed and proactive - in other words exactly as parents should be and an educator's best case scenario for what they want going on at the home of their students. So when my sister called me one day and asked, "Hey Tina, should I be worried about this Common Core thing?" it threw me for a loop. My sister Lisa is like 90% of parents… ill informed. Let me be clear, its not her fault that she's ill informed. Its Common Core's fault. What a terrible job has been done to sell Common Core to the American public. Perhaps it is because Common Core passed quietly under the shadow of national health care. So while everyone was debating and getting up in arms over health care, the common core initiative went largely (and politically) ignored until it was already here. Now people are wondering, "what is it?" There is no simple answer to that question. Nor is there a simple answer to whether it is good or bad or whether parents should be worried or not. Perhaps it is best to look at what Common Core is replacing - a system that didn't prepare students for college and 21st century careers. Well let me back pedal - some students were prepared (or at least on the right track). If you live in states like Maryland, New Jersey, or Massachusetts then your kids are A-OK. But you sorry folks in Kansas, South Carolina, or West Virginia - well its no secret that your public schools are in the toilet. Common Core is set to fix that, right? Level the playing field, as they say...

So stripping away all the politics and corporate bullshit of big education (textbook companies that shall go unnamed) here are my top five reasons why Common Core is (not so) bad:

1. All states will eventually (in theory) be teaching the same literacy, science, and math standards - or at least using those standards to guide school districts in their composition of curriculum. This means that all states  will have to measure their success using one uniform assessment (PARCC). How not fair is that for states that still include intelligent design in their science curriculum? (Poor Alabama and Kentucky, they are screwed). 

2. Common Core says no to guided reading and yes to close reading. This means that students will eventually be asked to read difficult and complex texts (i.e. the classics) and make sense of it using their own brain (critical thinking skills) rather then relying on a teacher's PowerPoint slide show all about the social, cultural, and historical context of the author, text, etc. The idea is that close reading more accurately reflects and thus prepares students for collegiate studies. (Where are kids going to find the time to read all these old books)?

3. Common Core math embraces the idea that there are multiple approaches to solve a problem. Math courses will be about quality rather then quantity which means that some courses customarily offered at the middle school level for accelerated students might not be any longer. Those students will be forced to go further in depth into Algebra until they have a deeper understanding and can apply the principles of what they're learning to more complex problems. And geometry will have to wait. (Sorry grade mongers). 

4. Common Core will force school systems to look closely at student test scores on standards based tests rather then students' grades in particular courses. In theory a student with above average grades should be proficient or above on standards based tests. But this isn't always the case. (It gets pretty confusing to parents when their kid is consistently on the honor roll and then they are told their kid needs reading or math intervention). Could we be looking at a future without grades as we know them now? Could your child's future report card could just include the standard that was taught and whether or not they learned/mastered it? (Again, sorry grade mongers)

5. Students will have to suffer through tough writing assignments involving the research process. Good bye to "What I Did Over the Summer" essays and hello to "Write an Essay on how the American Dream influenced the work of (insert name of any author in the American literature canon)." (It is very difficult to cheat on these types of assignments since they are completely student generated and one "click of the google button on the internet machine" will find plagiarized phrases let alone essays).

So should we be worried about Common Core? Worry that (like all new ideas in education) we don't give it the time and resources to succeed. Worry that the politics that surround it make it a toxic cancer in our education system rather then the saving grace that it could be. Worry when you hear the people in charge constantly referring to your education system as a "business" and parents and students as "customers." Education is the acquisition of knowledge not placating strand groups. There is much to Common Core that needs fixed but there is much to it that is pretty cool. It really is a cornucopia of possibility in the digital age. Kids are hungry for it. They're like little sponges eager for that thirst for knowledge. It will be just fine - for the most part...