Glen Brown on standards.

Glen Brown commented on Standards:

Speaking of Standards, here are some observations about the Common Core State Standards Initiative:

• It was developed in the private sector with economic (and political) objectives: “Common Core State Standards will prepare all children to be successful in a competitive global economy”

• It was imposed by the National Governors Association Center for Best Practices; the Council of Chief State School Officers; and Achieve, Inc. without proper examination of consequences

• It is not a grassroots movement

• It is a proposed “Free Market” solution for problems in education

• Its chief advocates favor privatization of public education through charter schools, online learning and vouchers

• It is linked to federal funding

• It is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

• The Initiative will be a bonanza for the education entrepreneurs

• The Initiative assumes that national assessment and standards will raise achievement, despite the past failures of No Child Left Behind and Race to the Top

• It is an untested “same skills” or “one-size-fits-all” approach to curricula, with a focus on only those skills that can be “tested with pre-packaged tests”

• It assumes that test scores are related to “earning capacity, productivity or other measures of success in life”

• It ignores “non-cognitive” skills that are essential for “success in life”

• It emphasizes “abstract” concepts and arbitrary ratios (for example, the emphasis on teaching “non-fiction”)

• It assumes that informational texts will help students learn

• It is a no-choice method, without sufficient research and experienced teachers’ input

• It ignores the fact that students learn at different rates

• It ignores the fact that students have different learning styles

• It ignores the fact that effective classrooms often work in spontaneous and unpredictable situations

• It undermines the way children learn

• It de-emphasizes playtime for kindergarten children

• “Marginalized” students will fail

• It promises that prescribed standards will make students “college ready”

• It will create wasted hours of test preparation in classrooms

• It will create a punitive high-stakes testing methodology without adequate preparation and professional development for teachers

• It will set up students, teachers and schools for failure and blame; thus, it will promote the reform agenda for the privatization of public education