Dear Commons Community,
Charles Blow in his New York Times column today, reviews the recent outrage regarding the Common Core and testing. Only 31% of New York state students in grades 3-8 passed the 2013 math and reading tests, down from 65% in math and 55% in English in 2012 on different tests. And just under 30% of New York City students were proficient in math and 26% in reading – a drop by more than half of city students making the grade in each subject compared to 2012.
Blow makes the case that the Common Core is needed because our standards have become too lax compared to other countries. He also rightly states that many organizations including the U.S. Department of Education and the American Federation of Teachers support it.
The problem is not with the Common Core. The problem is the fact that its implementation was rushed. Teachers were not trained and curriculum materials not revised. As a result, our students and teachers were victimized by our education policy makers.
Furthermore, even if teachers are trained and materials are developed, if we continue to adopt strategies that simply teach to the test, the benefits of the Common Core will not be realized. In adopting the Common Core, we need imaginative, creative pedagogy, not drill and kill, the test is the only thing that matters approaches.
Charles Blow properly concludes:
“And we need a national standard for what the kind of education that we want our children to receive. Our educational system has become so tangled in experiments and exams and excuses that we’ve drifted away from the basis of what makes education great: learning to think critically and solve problems.
We have drifted away from the fundamentals of what makes a great teacher: the ability to light a fire in a child, to develop in him or her a level of intellectual curiosity, the grit to persevere and the capacity to expand. Great teachers help to activate a small thing that breeds great minds: thirst.
The Common Core is meant to help bolster those forms of learning and teaching.
The Common Core is for the common good, if only we can get our act together and properly implement it.”
Tony
