Discussion of Common Core: Personal Disclaimer

If you've read my other two posts on Common Core, or been anywhere else on my blog, this post will be no revelation. But I thought, if you were an advocate of Common Core and standards, it might be helpful for you to read that I realize Common Core, by it's very nature, can never provide the kind of education my kids receive at home. For better or worse, and time will certainly tell, our home education is NOT trying to duplicate the school experience.

Asking me which standards I have a problem with in the Common Core is the wrong question. Inviting me to suggest "better" standards is impossible.

I have no hidden suspicions that Common Core has a secret social agenda. I DO think it presents risks in the vastness of it's adoption. To argue that point, I need only suggest to an educator that we throw out Common Core and adopt Steffanie Casperson's approach nation-wide. "Well it's unproven, untested!" True. But as the standards of Common Core were written in June 2010 and adopted August 6 of the same year, I might respond with the same protest. "But if Steffanie's approach fails, we lose a generation." Exactly. That is the risk. If Common Core fails to deliver on it's promises (and here is one example of those promises I find especially humorous, for something claiming to be "just standards": "The standards are designed to be robust and relevant to the real world, reflecting the knowledge and skills that our young people need for success in college and careers. With American students fully prepared for the future, our communities will be best positioned to compete successfully in the global economy." from schools.utah.gov, italics added).... Anyway, if Common Core fails to fully prepare us for the future or position us for successful competition in the global economy, we've lost all the time it's taken to realize the failure. And not only has each traditionally public schooled child lost it for their elementary education, but practically our entire nation has lost it as well. THAT is the risk of the vast adoption.

So I find myself in opposition to Common Core adoption not for the evil that it is, but for the good it isn't. I see it at No Child Left Behind 2.0. I see it as another step down the failed path traditional public education is on. It's not an emergency, which is a good thing, as it was adopted before the public was involved in any meaningful discussion so our ability to do anything about it is almost non-existent. Common Core is practically a done deal, and from my view, simply another tally mark in the lengthy column of failed attempts to improve America's educational system. Though I suppose this tally mark will be a bit larger than some of the others.

This makes the discussion of Common Core a bit tricky. It's not just Common Core I oppose, but nearly all that represents our educational status quo. I am on a completely different page than almost ALL of anyone with a career in education. AND I have no experience. In fact, measured the way standardized education measures, I don't have an education myself, as I never went to college. (You can view my profile for a sense of the education I DID receive.) Of course, the educational philosophy we adhere to I am not making up as I go along. It is based on the views and experience of the experts I follow (see my influential books list) but I am not those experts. Were I an educator in the public systems today, I'd certainly be annoyed by a mere homeschooling mom questioning the establishment, their experts, and those who "teach for a living."

But question I do. I'm not advocating the country adopt Steffanie Casperson's approach. But what if we give Common Core a few years to prove itself in other states? We've been so concerned we'll be left out of the educational feast it promises that we've hardly stopped to wonder if the food is rancid. If Common Core is merely a set of free standards, why can't we allow schools to adopt or not as the parents in each district find it beneficial, or not. If Common Core is the miracle reform we're told it is (when it's not being questioned, at which time it retreats to being "just standards"), then won't all schools adopt it eventually on their own for the good they see the standards deliver?

As I wish the State School Board would be a bit more honest, or at least realistic, with what Common Core is and will do to education, I thought I needed a post about what I am: just a parent observing the evolution of public education and wondering why evolving one way is so much better than any other way. If we can't trust ourselves to find our own path in broad policies, how can we expect implementing those policies will teach individuals to find their own paths of progression? What would I do to education? Affect the change that would allow that path-finding by individuals. I see that as one of life's prime objectives, and so far, standardized public education is missing it entirely.