Thursday, May 12, 2016

Complicated Politics to the Core

McGuinn, P. (2015). Complicated politics to the Core. Phi Delta Kappan, 97(1), 14-19. doi:10.1177/0031721715602229

CA, ET

This article discusses the growing opposition from teachers, educators and parents to the Common Core Standards implemented nationwide in 2014-2015. The author discusses issues including how Common Core was established, how it was implemented and the effect of the monetary incentives promised by the Obama administration in order to convince states to voluntarily adopt the standards of Common Core. As a result of the Obama administration endorsement, opponents view implementation as a “federal Initiative” and as unconstitutional. This author provided a detailed discussion of relevant topics such as culture wars, privacy, corporate concerns, and data mining related to test scores.  While Common Core has been widely criticized, the author noted that surveys show that “most people do not know much about common core and that much of what they know about it is incorrect.” (McGuinn, 2015).

Review/Research

The article did not address certain practical issues, such as how a student can opt-out of CC, how long it would take, or what curriculum they would follow instead of Common Core.  Further, the discussion of federal over-reach was vague.  The author suggests that Common Core was implemented too quickly, leaving teachers and students confused on what to teach, how to teach it, and how to study in order to comply with Common Core requirements. As quoted by the author, “most people do not know much about common core and that much of what they know about it is incorrect.” (McGuinn, 2015).

No comments:

Post a Comment