There has been a lot of talk these days about the Common Core and what that is. I was alerted by HSLDA that a short documentary was recently completed and is free to view online to help bring some light to the topic. The video is a little less than 40 minutes and offers a lot of information as well as some insight added from those who helped develop and fund them.

I found this short documentary informative. Whether you agree with the new standards or disagree I thought it was well written and put together. I highly recommend that as many people as possible view this so that we can all be informed and act on the information we’ve obtained.

Here is a link to the Common Core Standards which are made public for anyone to view.

There were 4 main problems that stood out to me. There were other topics addresses, but these four were what caught my attention.

1. This seems to be an attempt to industrialize education when there is so much more to factor in than just standards and trying to get all children to achieve the same goal. These are little people we are teaching. They all learn differently, at different rates and with different cultural filters. These need to be taken into consideration by state and county and even each community.
2.  These standards are government mandated. Why is the government even involved in creating a nationwide standard and then offering money to the states that adopt them? Doesn’t money alter perceptions and incentivize something that maybe should be looked at more critically? Why is there money being given in the first place if this is something that is going to improve public education?
3.  By 2011 – 45% of states had adopted the standards and by 2013 65% of the public had never heard of the common core. This is a big problem in my book. If this is going to affect all of the children in public schools, then parents should know about this. Shouldn’t they have a say? How do they not even know what is going to change in their own schools for their own children!
4. How do we know these are better? They may improve some areas and some schools standards, but it also lower others. Apparently, these standards state that each child who graduates highschool will be college ready… but this does not mean it will be enough to get into selective universities. In fact, SAT and ACT testing has been simplified to match the common core standards.

Our constitution is based on people governing themselves. The common core is or the people, but is it by the people? The Common Core, to me, seems to be a way for the government to systematize education making it easier to manage, but not necessarily better for the children.
I do think this is worth taking the 40 minutes to watch, and I’d love to know your thoughs and opinions. I will end with my favorite quote of the whole moving from Ze’ev Wurman, who was a 2010 Member of CA Academic Content Standards Commission and Former US Dept of Education Official.

“Is it the government’s right to teach the child what the government thinks the child should know or is it my child and I should have some say in it?”