The Whole Concept of "Common Core" is Nuts

Somewhere along the line, "reformers" with no background in education looked to itty-bitty countries in Europe and other nations with homogeneous populations having a national curriculum and figured this would be a great idea to have here.

Of course it is a rotten idea. Local control, one of the factors important to the success of public education in this country, would be subverted--again--by Washington.

Students were not supposed to be asked if they had ever been to a funeral because that gets at “individual experience and opinion” and does not “move students closer to understanding” the address. The address is the greatest funeral oration of the modern age; to ban funerals from discussion is boneheaded.

The example forbids asking questions about the causes of the Civil War because they “go outside the text.” The example, said Chafee, thinks the address is “about equality and self-government, and not about picking sides.”

Background knowledge is essential for learning. Every teacher knows this. However, the reformers never ask teachers about anything.