As a sometime warrior in the war of words over the Common Core State Standards , I have been neutral about the need for national standards, but highly critical of their current composition, seeing it as deeply flawed and ineffectual for its stated purposes. Nevertheless, I have come to realize that nothing I or anyone else may say will make the standards go away. They are firmly entrenched in all but four states, and even teachers who endured the No Child Left Behind Act are resigned to this new swing of the pendulum and changing their classroom practices.
I believe the best thing that standards critics can do right now is work to make them better. It is not too late to advocate for changes that would bring them closer to the expectations of college and the workplace and the personal needs, interests, and real lives of students. To stimulate others to take action, I am using this forum to identify the key problems I see in the English/language arts standards and suggest some ways to resolve them.
Problem #1: In specifying the knowledge and skills needed for “college and career readiness,” the standards authors went overboard, including everything from the most obvious items, such as integrating multimedia tools into spoken presentations, to the least useful, such as naming...
Already have an account? Please login.
No comments:
Post a Comment