A response from the editors of Rethinking Schools on the Common Core

Rethinking Schools summer issue has a great editorial on the Common Core, "The Trouble with the Common Core" and a forum on the new Teacher Performance Assessment (edTPA). The link http://www.rethinkingschools.org/index.shtml

A few great quotes from the editorial on the Common Core that relates to our ongoing conversations about high stakes testing, teacher evaluation, and ongoing discussion on the "narrative of public school failure." There is also a comparison of the Common Core to NCLB.

"By any measure, NCLB was a dismal failure in both raising academic performance and narrowing gaps in opportunity and outcomes. But by very publicly measuring the test results against benchmarks no real schools have ever met, NCLB did succeed in creating a narrative of failure that shaped a decade of attempts to 'fix' schools while blaming those who work in them...The disaggregated scores put the spotlight on longstanding gaps in outcomes and opportunity among student subgroups. But NCLB used these gaps to label schools as failures without providing the resources or support needed to eliminate them" (p. 5).

"Yet the conclusion drawn by sponsors of the Common Core was that the solution was 'more challenging' ones...Instead of targeting inequalities of race, class, and educational opportunity reflected in the scores, the Common Core project threatens to reproduce the narrative of public school failure that has led to a decade of bad policy in the name of reform...The same heavy-handed, top-down policies that forced adoption of the standards require use of the Common Core tests to evaluate educators. This inaccurate and unreliable practice will distort the assessments before they're even in place and make Common Core implementation part of the assault on the teaching profession instead of a renewal of it...If, as proposed, the Common Core's 'college and career ready' performance level becomes the standard for high school graduation, it will push more kids out of high school than it will prepare for college. This is not just cynical speculation. It is reasonable projection based on the history of the NCLB decade, the dismantling of public education in the nation's urban centers, and the appalling growth of inequality and concentrated poverty that remains the central problem in public education" (p. 5).

"Rethinking schools has always been skeptical of standards imposed from above. Too many standards projects have been efforts to move decisions about teaching and learning away from classrooms, educators, and school communities, only to put them in the hands of distant bureaucracies. Standards have been codified sanitized versions of history, politics, and culture that reinforce official myths while leaving out the voices, concerns, and realities of our students and communities...Unfortunately, there's been too little honest conversation and too little democracy in the development of the Common Core. We see consultants and corporate entrepreneurs where there should be parents and teachers, and more high-stakes testing where there should be none" (p. 6)