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Common Core Standards
This comment was written by a teacher in response to Sept. 25, 2009 US News & World Report blog written by staff writer Zach Miners, "All HS Students Should Have These Skills."
by Sue Monaco
Having a common set of "exit standards" for all high school students sounds like such a sensible idea -- but not every student leaving high school needs the same set of skills as every other. They would if they were all going to work at the exact same job at the exact same time. But is that what will happen? Do we really want it to?
Not every student will go on to college, or work for a large corporation. We need all types of workers; plumbers, lawyers, mathematicians, janitors, teachers, social workers, prison guards, neurosurgeons. Does anyone really think that the same skills are needed by all of those professions?
What about instilling a love of learning, a desire to pursue knowledge, creativity, the ability to persevere (self-discipline), the ability to think for oneself, civility, caring for others, idealism, stewardship of the planet? Skills that are essential for living in the 21st century. But these skills cannot be tested on any standardized test. And so, unfortunately, they are not valued by the proponents of uniform national standards.
Who will be served by instituting these standards? Not the students who will be force fed a one-size-fits-all curriculum. Not the students who are differently-abled or who learn differently, or who do not want to work for corporate America. Not the students whose test scores will rise, but not the quality and scope of their learning. Not the students who will drop out of high school rather than subject themselves to yet another test. Who will benefit from the push for standardized curricula? The corporations that write the tests, sell the workbooks, and publish the textbooks. But will our nation be better off?
We are being fed misinformation about how "poorly" our students are doing compared to other nations. We are also being misinformed as to the reasons they appear to do less well than other nations. When we lead other nations in numbers of children living in poverty and in numbers of teen births, and lag behind them in providing health care for expectant mothers and children it follows that we trail those nations in "test scores."
It is still crucial to remember that not everything that is tested is important. And not everything that is important can be tested.
— Sue Monaco
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2009-10-20
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