COMMON CORE TOO TOUGH? Opinions Divided About Proposed Michigan Standards
|
||||||||||
| Printer Friendly Story View |
Common Core school standards under scrutiny.
Common Core school standards are too rigorous and will harm Michigan students, Diane Ravitch, former Secretary of Education under President George W. Bush told legislators and school leaders last week.
However, three major Michigan business leaders and two members of the State Board of Education said at a hearing in Lansing that adopting a nationally aligned set of career and college ready standards was good for Michigan students and businesses.
They also made clear that adopting CCSS does not mean that Michigan loses control over its own standards, according to a report on the hearing by Bob Kefgen of the Michigan Association of Secondary School Principals.
Former-member of the Common Core Validation Committee Dr. Sandra Stotsky said the standards were not rigorous enough and that they focused too heavily on informational reading.
Supporters of the standards faced both questions and extended editorial commentary from CCSS opponents Rep. Tom McMillin (R-Rochester Hills) and Margaret O'Brien (R-Portage) who focused on the process used to develop and implement the CCSS, wrote Kefgen, adding:
"Opponents were grilled for their contradictory testimony and asked why lawmakers should side with a handful of dissenters when there is overwhelming support for the standards among K-12 educators, colleges and universities, and the business community."
MASSP Board of Directors Region 7 representative Christina Feneley told committee members that the Common Core has driven significant improvement in her students' performance at Union City High School and answered committee members questions about her experience with the CCSS.
Region 10 representative Carrie Lawler provided valuable insight about the success of her district's CCSS pilot and how the Common Core showed far better results when compared to Michigan's previous standards.
Veteran teacher, administrator, curriculum designer and author Marion Brady is highly critical of the proposed standards:
"It's a bad idea. Ignore the fact that specific Common Core State Standards will open up enough cans of worms to keep subject-matter specialists arguing among themselves forever. Consider instead the merit of Standards from a general perspective:
"One: Standards shouldn't be attached to school subjects, but to the qualities of mind it's hoped the study of school subjects promotes. Subjects are mere tools, just as scalpels, acetylene torches, and transits are tools. Surgeons, welders, surveyors -- and teachers -- should be held accountable for the quality of what they produce, not how they produce it.
"Two: The world changes. The future is indiscernible. Clinging to a static strategy in a dynamic world may be comfortable, even comforting, but it's a Titanic-deck-chair exercise.
"Three: The Common Core Standards assume that what kids need to know is covered by one or another of the traditional core subjects. In fact, the unexplored intellectual terrain lying between and beyond those familiar fields of study is vast, expands by the hour, and will go in directions no one can predict.
"Four: So much orchestrated attention is being showered on the Common Core Standards, the main reason for poor student performance is being ignored -- a level of childhood poverty the consequences of which no amount of schooling can effectively counter.
"Five: The Common Core kills innovation. When it's the only game in town, it's the only game in town.
"Six: The Common Core Standards are a set-up for national standardized tests, tests that can't evaluate complex thought, can't avoid cultural bias, can't measure non-verbal learning, can't predict anything of consequence (and waste boatloads of money).
"Seven: The word 'standards' gets an approving nod from the public (and from most educators) because it means 'performance that meets a standard.' However, the word also means 'like everybody else,' and standardizing minds is what the Standards try to do. Common Core Standards fans sell the first meaning; the Standards deliver the second meaning. Standardized minds are about as far out of sync with deep-seated American values as it's possible to get.
"Eight: The Common Core Standards' stated aim -- 'success in college and careers' -- is at best pedestrian, at worst an affront. The young should be exploring the potentials of humanness."
The House will hold its fourth and final subcommittee hearing on Wednesday, August 28 at 10am. The subcommittee is expected to take some action on CCSS in early September, though what that action will look like has yet to be determined, Kefgen wrote.
Meanwhile, the Senate Education Committee and the Senate K-12 Appropriations Subcommittee have scheduled a joint hearing on the CCSS for Tuesday, August 27 at 2 p.m. This is the first and only meeting scheduled by the Senate on this topic. As of right now, the agenda calls for open public testimony with no scheduled speakers, though that could change as we move closer to the hearing.
| Printer Friendly Story View |
|
|
Dave Rogers |
|
|
|
Printer-Friendly Story View
0200 Nd: 04-21-2024 d 4 cpr 0
12/31/2020 P3v3-0200-Ad.cfm
SPONSORED LINKS
12/31/2020 drop ads P3v3-0200-Ad.cfm