After four decades of eating apples, I learned how to eat my “red delicious” correctly; that is from the bottom-up. Eating an apple from the bottom-up eliminates waste because you eat the core (click here to see video) and, according to one of my students, the apple tastes better. The Common Core in education is similar: it comes from the bottom-up, it tries to eliminate the waste of ignorance and it is adaptable to each school district’s academic ‘tastes.’
From the highly publicized February 4th debate between a scientist and a creationist (Bill Nye and Ken Ham) to the newly released biennial National Science Foundation (NSF) report on the state of science in the United States and world, we are presented with weekly reminders of why we need the Common Core State Standards (CCSS): too many basic concepts and facts are not commonly known. “Many Americans,” according to the NSF report, “provide multiple incorrect answers to basic questions about scientific facts.” For example, when asked to provide a “true” or “false” answer to “Human beings, as we know them today, developed from earlier species of animals” only 48 percent of Americans responded “true.” When asked whether “The universe began with a huge explosion” less than 40 percent of Americans correctly answered “true” while nearly 70 percent of South Koreans did. The Common Core tries to address the ignorance of facts that appears to be spreading throughout society.
The origin of the Common Core is more aptly described as bottom-up rather than top-down. The nickname of Obamacore for the Common Core by its critics misrepresents it as a federal program. The reality regarding its origin is that researchers, educators and state representatives from throughout the country, including the National Governors Association and the Council of Chief of State School Officials, constructed CCSS. The Common Core is not a federal program either in its origin or in its practice.
The CCSS is made so that each school district can assign texts it deems appropriate for its students in their quest to achieve the standards. One of the best examples of local ‘tastes’ being used to achieve the CCSS has occurred in the Pueblo of Jemez school district in New Mexico. The Pueblo of Jemez is a Native community in north-central New Mexico that has created and instituted a curriculum “rooted” in the Jemez culture “and aligned to the common core.” CCSS mandates a set of skills and knowledge that students are expected to master each year but does not mandate what is taught in any school. For instance, while all third graders are required to “Refer to parts of stories, dramas, and poems when writing or speaking about a text…[and] describe how each successive part builds on earlier sections,” CCSS leaves the decision about any texts to be used to the local school districts. An explicit purpose of the Common Core is to develop student skills that help them with “college and career readiness” and not to indoctrinate.
I started out as a skeptic of the Common Core and have, through research and practice, become an advocate of CCSS. I began as a skeptic because I did not want my three young boys to suffer through another No Child Left Behind program. I became an advocate because CCSS requires that all American students learn important educational skills while providing the freedom to localities to choose the books they want to use for achieving the Common Core objectives. High standards applied to all and the freedom to choose how to reach those standards; that is as American as apple pie.
Chris is Professor of Political Science at Western Connecticut State University, a Fulbright Scholar, Director of the Kathwari Honors Program, and founding Director of the Center for Compassion, Creativity & Innovation. He is also the author of "The Compassionate Achiever: How Helping Others Fuels Success" (HarperOne, 2017).
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