A Scripps Howard News Service (4/3, Kambhampats) article gives a primer into the origins of and the controversy surrounding the Common Core Standards. The piece touches on how classroom instruction is different under the standards, the role of the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief State School Officers in creating them, and how they were a response to concerns “that a large number of high school graduates need remedial college help.” The piece notes that President Obama and Secretary of Education Arne Duncan “signaled to states that they should embrace these standards or similar if they hoped to win a grant through the Race to the Top program in 2009.” The piece explores states’ adoption and implementation of the standards and describes the growing backlash and controversy surrounding them.
ED Releases Report Touting Race To The Top’s Success
USA Today (3/26, Jackson) reports that Education Secretary Arne Duncan released a report on Tuesday saying that the Race to the Top program “benefits 22 million students and 1.5 million teachers in more than 40,000 schools.” Noting that ED’s report says that “eighteen states and Washington, DC, have received a total of $4.35 billion in grants,” USA Today quotes Duncan saying, “The most powerful ideas for improving education come not from Washington, but from educators and leaders in states throughout the country.”
Ravitch Explains Opposition To Common Core
The Washington Post (1/19, Strauss) “Answer Sheet” blog features an address by Diane Ravitch to the Modern Language Association about the Common Core standards, in which she explains “why so many educators and parents are now opposed to the standards and are reacting angrily to the testing that accompanies them.” She argues that NCLB and RTTT have “has produced a massive demoralization of educators; an unprecedented exodus of experienced educators ... the closure of many public schools,” and “the opening of thousands of privately managed charters,” which she says were often “low-quality for-profit charter schools” or “low-quality online charter schools.” She further claims that the agenda of the Common Core as well as that of NCLB and RTTT is not improved education, but is instead “cutting costs, standardizing education,” and “eliminating unions and pensions.”