Freeman, Annelise

CA

Krashen, S. (2014). THE COMMON CORE. (cover story). Knowledge Quest, 42(3), 36-45.

Summary: 

Krashen discusses his feelings on how the common core standards will be devastating for schools and libraries and that the real issue in our schools is not underperformance but poverty.  In the article he addresses what it will take to implement the new standards and how he believes that poverty in our schools is a larger issue affecting student performance than what standards are implemented.  


Evaluation: 

Krashen brings up some valid points in his article about poverty and also about the funding required to implement the CCSS standards.  Some of the points that resonate with me were the amount of technology required to implement the new testing and the student's level of access to this technology.  The testing, in reality, requires a higher level of technology than my site possesses but we are doing our best to cobble together the required number of computers for all of our students.  We are running into many issues that do not pop up when we use the few new Chromebooks we have vs. the 12 year old Dell desktops now running the defunct XP.  However, we have no money to outfit the entire school with new computers or Chromebooks and the wifi to use the Chromebooks has not been completely installed.  Students who come from poorer socio economic settings also do not have the keyboarding and word processing skills that are now required on the test, where in the past students were able to write, they are now required to type.  I do not necessarily agree completely with Krashen's argument but I do believe he brings up some valid points.