I remember when I first heard about the idea of having a national common core standards in K-12 education, it didn't seem like a bad idea. Why not set standards to insure a basic minimum so that we can be sure that every child is getting the education he or she deserves?
But, like many things, what might appear to be a good idea is not when you look under the hood. It's just another form of top-downism that should be opposed in principle as well as for the practical negative effects that it will have on teachers and students.
As the blog Rational Mathematics Education puts it:
It's a rigid, one-size fits all system that presumes to know now, for everyone, everywhere, what EVERY child "must" know in order to be successful in a rapidly-changing world in which the rate of change increases all the time. Such an approach is guaranteed to always be dramatically lagging behind the demands of reality, stifling creativity at every level imaginable, punishing those who dare to try to escape the centralization and conformity such an approach to anything inevitably brings.
It is another doomed attempt to bring about meaningful change through a top-down, punitive system that will be badly misunderstood by many – even if everything in it were good, which is far from the case – and resented by those who for good reasons or bad view it as a wrong-headed path. Much research indicates that such reforms are fated to fail badly because few at the ground level were given a real voice in the process. Despite the propaganda that this is a state-led reform effort, it is in fact a federal one, supported primarily by corporate interests who are playing this opportunity for all it's worth – new textbooks, new assessments, and new professional development all lining the pockets of the publishers and testing companies. And whether it succeeds or fails matters not – they will profit greatly on this and will be ready to profit further when the next wave of change comes, innocently declaring that not they, but "the states" were the ones who brought this about.
What makes any of us think in this severely politically divided period in our history, that we can get any kind of broad agreement on what good science is, what good history is, what good literature is? Why should we expect anything except a mediocre compromise on almost everything, and then to have that mediocrity forced upon teachers whose evaluations will be linked to how well their students have absorbed it?
The system needs to be student-centered, not some abstract standards centered. We are living in an informationally volatile world, and we need teachers who are nimble and creative, teachers who can adapt to a fast-changing landscape, and who know their kids' needs and who can creatively adapt their teaching to help kids to take the next step, whatever that next step is for them.
If you are serious about improving educational outcomes, empower families, students, and teachers, not bureaucrats. If you are serious about improving educational outcomes, stop measuring kids, and do everything you can to engage and motivate them. If you are serious about improving educational outcomes, train teachers well, treat them like professionals, and trust them to do their jobs. And if you are serious about improving educational outcomes, improve the lives of poor kids outside the classroom.
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